Pakistan Elections: The People’s Verdict

February 12th, 2024 by Aqib Sattar

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

As the Chinese proverb goes, “May you live in interesting time”.

It really feels as if the Chinese were speaking about the contemporary predicament of Pakistan.

Pakistan has just undergone arguably the most exhilarating elections in the country’s history.

What made these elections the most gripping was the fact that the country’s most popular politician not only was not permitted to contest in the elections but also has been the victim of vengeful campaign by the elites that he opposed. We are, of course, referring to the former Prime Minister Imran Khan. 

As has been asserted by politicians of all ideological stripes, the elections seemed to be marred from the beginning. Once state interventions including shutting down of mobile and internet services across the country, it was well understood that these elections would be far from being free and fair. A fundamental feature of today’s politics in Pakistan is popular distrust of the traditional kleptocratic, dynastic political parties —principally the House of Shareef and the House of Zardari. In addition, such mistrust extends to the mainstream corporate media as well. Countries of the Global South, including Pakistan, are constantly lectured by the mantra of being more democratic.

However, the problem arises when such nations make the wrong choices in their democratic dispensation. Such is the explanatory framework that helps us understand what has been happening in Pakistan over the past several decades. The democracy that Pakistanis have experienced has been severely constrained by the very limited political choices. Elementary freedoms have been suppressed irrespective whether it’s been civilian or military rule. 

The context of these elections has been the incredibly harsh repression, including the imprisonment of workers and politicians associated with Khan’s political party, the PTI (Pakistan Therik-e-Insaf) as well as of Khan himself.

Nevertheless, the PTI’s robust performance in these elections has surprised most political analysts. One significant attribute contributing to the outstanding performance of PTI has been its popularity among the overwhelming majority of the youths.

What this indicates is that there is a great degree of trust in a political party that has broken the duopoly of the two most powerful political parties. However, PTI’s success has been foiled to facilitate the false victories of the traditional political elites.

The elections were delayed in the first place and now that they have been held, the elections results have also been delayed to assist the favored candidates to win. In particular, the leader of PML(N), former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, had clearly lost to the deeply respected PTI candidate, Doctor Yasim Rashid. But the undemocratic forces had somehow changed the election result so that Mr. Sharif became victorious. 

The public’s verdict must be respected by all without qualifications or limitations. The state should not falter or fail the people at this critical juncture. The delay of election results has made the situation more precarious.  The people have spoken. The undemocratic forces must back off gracefully for once. The state cannot afford more experiments. Not accepting the people’s will exacerbate the existing political instability in the country. Political stability in a healthy democratic setup is the only guarantor of successfully tackling the myriad social and economic malaise afflicting the country. 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Aqib Sattar is a post graduate student of Media and Politics in Virginia, USA.

Featured image is from IRF

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

As expected, Tucker Carlson is getting a lot of flak for conducting his interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin. He’s not merely being accused of “spreading Russian propaganda” (he’s long been accustomed to that, as well as the mainstream propaganda machine’s obsession with all sorts of deranged “Russia, Russia, Russia” conspiracy theories), but there’s an actual push in the European Union to sanction Carlson. It seems journalists doing journalism is considered “heresy” by most other mainstream “journalists”. The Guardian’s Adam Gabbatt is unhappy that the interview was “neither a talk show nor a real conversation”, so he went on to parrot every propaganda trope in the book. Al Jazeera’s Mansur Mirovalev insists that Putin is “obsessed”, concluding his remarks by quoting a certain Valentin, the Kiev regime’s drone operator who allegedly complained that both Putin and Carlson are “conspiracy theorists” and that “Ukraine is real and it will prevail“.

In a piece published by Politico, a German-owned publication infamous for attempts to whitewash Nazism, Sergey Goryashko claimed that Putin supposedly “lied”. Among several propaganda claims he used to, as he says, “debunk” Putin’s points was that the Neo-Nazi junta frontman Volodymyr Zelensky “only signed a decree banning negotiations specifically with Putin, not Russia as a country”.

Such ludicrous claims aren’t only false, but are even childish. Pushed by the United States, United Kingdom and NATO, the Kiev regime certainly broke the March 2022 peace deal that could have ended the special military operation (SMO) in less than a month. What’s more, it even publicly promotes its so-called “10-point peace plan” that boils down to Russia’s unconditional capitulation, a fantasy that the political West wholeheartedly supports and even promotes through some sort of absurd unilateral “peace talks”. In doing so, the Neo-Nazi junta effectively codified the impossibility of a peaceful settlement.

So much for Putin “lying”. However, that’s only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to frenzied attacks by the mainstream propaganda machine. In a piece for The New Yorker, Masha Gessen, the infamous “woke” ideologue obsessed with Putin, called the interview “boring”. She (although Gessen insists her pronouns are “they/them”, a request I earnestly refuse to comply with) obviously loathes historical facts, so the trouble she has with going through the entire interview, a problem most likely exacerbated by her two-second attention span (tends to happen to a lot of people staring at reels all day), perfectly explains her rather poor judgment of Putin’s points. Then came the “fact-checkers” such as Charlie Hancock of the Amsterdam-based Moscow Times who essentially repeated several of Goryashko’s long-debunked claims and added a few of his own. After all, what would the mainstream propaganda machine ever do without “fact-checkers“?

Of course, Hancock wasn’t the only one. The UK’s state-run BBC also published its own version, “fact-checking Putin’s nonsense history“. It would seem Masha Gessen isn’t the only one who skipped history classes in primary school, as the BBC’s Ido Vock quoted several self-styled “experts” and “pundits” to supposedly “debunk Putin’s rambling”, as he called it, clearly implying that he was also bored by the interview, which further indicates just how much he actually knows about the topic he covered for the UK’s state-run news agency. And of course, there’s also the Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), claiming that Carlson’s Putin interview supposedly serves as a “propaganda platform”, which is quite rich coming from a literal CIA front formed to spread Washington DC’s state-sponsored propaganda. The Economist insists that “Russia’s president is not a man to be trusted, still less to emulate or admire”, because, luckily, they “know Putin’s real message” better than he himself does.

Newsweek’s Brendan Cole quoted Oleksandra Matviichuk, the Kiev regime’s “human rights activist”, who also slammed Carlson. Comically enough, Cole insists that Matviichuk’s opinion “matters” because she’s a Nobel Peace Prize winner. Is it even necessary to explain just how politicized that vaunted “peace prize” is when laureates include people like Barrack Obama and Al Gore? The Obama administration came to power criticizing the previous government run by George W. Bush for its aggression across the Middle East. Obama promised to end these wars, which is why he got the once-prestigious award in the first place. However, as soon as Bush left the White House, Obama expanded his aggression from two countries (Iraq and Afghanistan) to another five (Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia and Pakistan), seven in total. Worse yet, during Obama’s presidency (2009-2017), Washington DC launched ten times more airstrikes than under Bush, killing millions of innocent civilians in the process.

While the DNC-dominated media always try to whitewash Obama by shifting blame solely on Bush, it should be noted that the former personally authorized at least 6,000 drone strikes (approximately 2 per day during 8 years of his presidency), although the actual number may be orders of magnitude higher. So much for Obama’s contribution to “peace”. As for Al Gore, his active role in the Clinton administration’s war crimes and aggression on Serbia/former Yugoslavia requires an entirely separate analysis. However, as previously mentioned, this isn’t the end of the mainstream propaganda machine’s attempts to denigrate Putin’s interview with Carlson. The Associated Press (AP) insists that Russia’s president “missed the bigger picture”, so they felt the urge to “fill the gaps” with five points, composed largely of debunked propaganda tropes. And yet, these were expanded to nine in another piece by Politico, signed by Eva Hartog and, once again, Sergey Goryashko.

The key takeaway is that the mainstream propaganda machine is in meltdown over the interview, seen by hundreds of millions (if not billions at this point) on TV and across numerous Internet platforms. The political West is genuinely terrified of Putin’s global popularity, so the goal is to try and tarnish his reputation by twisting his remarks or simply telling outright lies about him. And while the interview may seem lengthy (by today’s standards), Putin simply had to get a lot of propaganda out of the way, as NATO and its Neo-Nazi puppets have been falsifying historical facts about Ukraine quite intensively, particularly in recent times, all in an attempt to show that the country supposedly has “nothing to do with Russia“. In that sense, websites such as Wikipedia have experienced an unprecedented number of edits with the goal of promoting these historically baseless claims. Putin is certainly aware of that, which is why he had to explain the complex history of the Ukrainian conflict.

Putin’s intellect and encyclopedic knowledge of history, law, intelligence and several other key fields are a massive boost to Russia’s already world-class diplomacy. This stands in stark contrast to the US and its current administration. Could anyone imagine Joe Biden giving an unscripted, two-hour-long interview to a foreign journalist, much less one conducted with near-scholarly precision? Regardless of whether one adores or loathes President Putin, the fact is that the increasingly unpopular and impotent leaders of the political West are simply no match for him, which is why we never see any of them giving remotely similar interviews to journalists of Tucker Carlson’s caliber. And while he might be among the most prominent journalists to ever interview Putin, Russia’s president is well-known for hours-long discussions with hundreds (if not thousands) of journalists from all over the world, without any papers, cliff notes or scripted questions. He simply doesn’t need them.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

In 2021, 66 year old pilot Lelon Albert Lewis crashed a small airplane hours after receiving Moderna mRNA Vaccine. Here is his story:

Click here to watch the video

April 3, 2021 – Lelon Albert Lewis Obituary

April 3, 2021 Plane Crash – Lelon Albert Lewis: Magnus Fusion 212, N434MA; fatal accident in Conifer, Jefferson County, Colorado

On April 3, 2021, about 1735 central daylight time, a Magnus Fusion 212 airplane, N434MA, was substantially damaged when it was involved in an accident near Conifer, Colorado. The sport pilot was fatally injured.

A review of air traffic control (ATC) information revealed the airplane departed about 1658 from Colorado Air and Space Port Airport (FCO), Denver, Colorado. The airplane flew southwest and the last ATC information was recorded about 1729 as the airplane flew near Deckers, Colorado about 800 ft above ground level (agl). The airplane continued west toward rising terrain and an emergency locator beacon (ELT) transmission was recorded about 1735.

A witness near Wigwam Trail in the Pike National Forest observed the airplane flying slowly on a northwest heading and subsequently turned left to enter a canyon at less than 500 ft agl. After entry into the canyon, the airplane turned sharply to the right and the witness lost sight of the airplane. The airplane impacted into steep, forested terrain with a nose low attitude and low forward speed.

The aircraft was equipped with a parachute recovery system. Examination of the system on-site revealed that it was not deployed. The airplane will be further examined at a recovery location.

*

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Colorado  (CBS4) – The pilot killed in a plane crash over the weekend has been identified. Lelon Albert Lewis, 66, was the only person on board the plane when it crashed in a rugged area northwest of Deckers on Saturday.

The plane was first reported missing on Saturday. Eventually, the downed plane’s location was discovered from aircraft overhead on Sunday.

With assistance from the Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, search and rescue personnel with the Alpine Rescue team hiked into the site in the Lost Creek Wilderness and found the single occupant of the plane, identified on Monday afternoon as Lewis, dead.

It’s unclear what caused the crash but the plane, a single-engine Magnus Fusion 212, was a Hungarian-made sport plane engineered for aerobatics. The Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating the crash.

VAERS REPORT (1167407):

My Take… 

66 year old pilot, Lelon Albert Lewis, crashed a small plane in Colorado a few hours after receiving his 2nd Moderna COVID-19 mRNA vaccine.

The plane took a sharp turn before the crash, and the parachute recovery system was not deployed. It is highly probable that the pilot collapsed and lost consciousness, which then led to the plane crash.

The fact that there is a VAERS report suggests that the family believed he probably had a reaction to his 2nd Moderna COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine, which led to the plane crash and his death.

This case is unique, in that it is the only plane crash recorded in VAERS after COVID-19 Vaccination, however, same day deaths post jab are actually a shockingly common occurrence.

There are at least 1150 deaths documented in VAERS that occurred on the same day they took the COVID-19 Vaccine.

US Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough explains this to Jimmy Dore (Jan. 2024):

Click here to watch the video.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.

Featured image source


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

All breadline massacres are equal, Orwell might have written, whilst adding tongue in cheek that some breadline massacres are more equal than others. Such a thought comes to mind after February 4, 2024, when a Ukrainian armed forces projectile killed 28 residents in the city of Lysychansk, Lugansk region, and wounded several dozen. The civilian victims were standing in line in front of a local bakery, intending to buy bread.

Those with a memory that goes back longer than fifteen minutes (unfortunately neither the majority nor even a significant minority nowadays) may recall that a similar incident took place in Sarajevo, during the war in Bosnia, on May 27, 1992. The victims of that incident were also waiting in line to buy bread when a projectile landed nearby and killed several dozens of them.

There is a huge difference in the way the self-styled “international community” reacted to these two similar and equally lethal events.

The status and identity of the victims and of the suspected perpetrators may have shaped that unequal response. In Lysychansk the victims were residents of Donbass, former citizens of Ukraine who in a referendum voted overwhelmingly to join Russia.

From the standpoint of the Kiev regime and its foreign sponsors that act of disobedience made them fair game for retribution. The fact that since 2014 they have been indiscriminate targets of bombardment by the Armed Forces of Ukraine, which so far has cost at least 14,000 civilian lives, does not count as an extenuating circumstance in their favour.

The perceived human worth and political status of the preferred Sarajevo victims in May of 1992 is defined by the fact that technically they were the cannon fodder of the Sarajevo regime, the side in the Bosnian civil war that was supported by NATO and the collective West, exactly as today the same actors are supporting, and systematically exculpating, the Kiev regime.

In consequence, and in complete contrast to the treatment of Lysychansk victims in 2024, the Sarajevo 1992 victims were copiously mourned by the collective West’s politicians and media machine, whilst the designated perpetrators were indignantly vilified. Threats were made to exact harsh retribution on the perpetrators, even before any investigation to establish the facts has been conducted. Those threats were promptly carried out by inducing the UN Security Council to pass Resolution 757, inflicting punishment on the neighbouring Federal Republic of Yugoslavia by imposing a total trade embargo, followed by what the New York Times called “the most sweeping sanctions in history.” Yugoslavia was selected for such punishment because of its support for the Bosnian Serbs, who were accused, although firm evidence was not presented, of maliciously firing the mortar shell which resulted in the fatalities.

The killings in Lysychansk, by marked contrast, have passed virtually without comment in the Western media. No indignation was displayed and the sparse mention of the tragedy was peppered with qualifiers such as “alleged,” inserted to put in doubt the incident’s veracity. No urgent sessions of the UN Security Council were convened to assess what had happened in Lysychansk nor were furious calls heard to impose punitive sanctions either on the direct perpetrators or their foreign sponsors, on the latter for having supplied the lethal devices that caused the death of civilians in that particular breadline. This time, Russia did not even bother to try to convene a Security Council session, obviously realising there was no point following the recent downing of its airplane that was transporting Ukrainian prisoners of war to be exchanged, after its request for a Security Council meeting was flatly denied by the French rotating president of that body.

Nor is the 2024 Lysychansk massacre likely to have any other repercussions comparable to what followed the similar incident which took place in Sarajevo in 1992. To this day there is no conclusive proof of  where the mortar shell that struck the Sarajevo breadline originated, but circumstantial evidence strongly suggests that it may have been staged by Sarajevo authorities to provide a rationale for punishing their adversaries. Nevertheless, the massacre was featured in the Hague Tribunal indictment of Bosnian Serb President Radovan Karadžić. The embarrassing inadequacy of the evidence subsequently presented by the Prosecution caused that charge to be quietly passed over in the final verdict. There is no indication that the International Court of Justice, also in the Hague, is entertaining the thought of similarly calling the political and military leadership in Kiev to account for committing a strikingly analogous crime in Lysychansk, or even of undertaking a pro forma investigation to sort out what happened.

In reacting selectively to lethal wartime incidents the collective West has displayed a hypocrisy breath-taking in scope as it shamelessly and publicly adheres to double standards motivated entirely by utilitarian considerations and political favouritism. Even-handed respect for human life or international humanitarian law does not seem to play any role. Western policy and the stance of the media have followed exactly the analytical paradigm elaborated by Edward Herman and David Peterson in their seminal study The Politics of Genocide for the classification of atrocities and the distinction between worthy and unworthy victims“:

“When we ourselves commit mass-atrocity crimes, the atrocities are Constructive, our victims are unworthy of our attention and indignation, and never suffer ‘genocide’ at our hands… But when the perpetrator of  mass-atrocity crimes is our enemy or a state targeted by us for destabilization and attack, the converse is true. Then the atrocities are Nefarious and their victims worthy of our focus, sympathy, public displays of solidarity, and calls for inquiry and punishment.“ [P. 103]

The characteristic of Constructive atrocities (and presumably the mass killing of civilians in Lysychansk and more broadly in the Donbass fits that description) is that “the victims were rarely acknowledged, the crimes against them rarely punished (with only low-level personnel brought to book in well-publicised cases like My Lai)“ [p. 19] because demonization of the real victims and atrocities management remain as important as ever and keeps the citizens of the imperial powers properly misinformed and supportive of bigtime atrocities.“ [P. 22]

“… [W]ith civilian killings largely kept off the official books,“ the authors continue, “and, even when acknowledged, treated tolerantly for these unworthy victims, such killings and bloodbaths … have been thoroughly normalised. “ [P. 37]

That, in sum, is the moral bookkeeping of the contemporary West.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Stephen Karganovic is president of “Srebrenica Historical Project,” an NGO registered in the Netherlands to investigate the factual matrix and background of events that took place in Srebrenica in July of 1995. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.  

Featured image source


Rethinking Srebrenica eBook : Karganovic, Stephen, Simic, Ljubisa: Amazon.co.uk: BooksRethinking Srebrenica

By Stephen Karganovic

Rethinking Srebrenica examines the forensic evidence of the alleged Srebrenica “massacre” possessed by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) in The Hague. Even though the ICTY created more than 3,500 autopsy reports, many of these autopsy reports were based on bone fragments, which do not represent complete bodies. An examination of the matching femur bones found reveals that there were only about 1,900 complete bodies that were exhumed. Of these, some 1,500 autopsy reports indicated a cause of death consistent with battlefield casualties. Only about 400 autopsy reports indicated execution as a cause of death, as revealed by ligatures and blindfolds. This forensic evidence does not warrant the conclusion of a genocide having taken place.

Karganovic examines the events that took place in Srebrenica in July 1995 in a wholistic manner instead of restricting it to a three-day event. The ten chapters cover:

1) Srebrenica: A Critical Overview;

2) Demilitarization of the UN Safe Zone of Srebrenica;

3) Genocide or Blowback?;

4) General Presentation and Interpretation of Srebrenica Forensic Data (Pattern of Injury Breakdown);

5) An Analysis of the Srebrenica Forensic Reports Prepared by the ICTY Prosecution Experts;

6) An Analysis of Muslim Column Losses Attributable to Minefields, Combat Activity, and Other Causes;

7) The Genocide Issue: Was there a Demonstrable Intent to Exterminate All Muslims?;

8) ICTY Radio Intercept Evidence;

9) The Balance Sheet; and

10) Srebrenica: Uses of the Narrative.

  • ASIN:‎ B0992RRJRK
  • Publisher: ‎Unwritten History, Inc.; 2 edition (July 8 2021)
  • Language: ‎English

Click here to purchase

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

June 2022 – Edmonton, Alberta, Canada – 39 year old nurse Terry (COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated) had a cardiac arrest while driving and drove herself to the hospital where she almost died.

  • “As I was driving, I suddenly felt a sharp pain from my neck to my shoulder…the pain became so unbearable and panic set in…I drove myself to the hospital just in time as it turned out , I was having a heart attack”

  • “I’m not yet 40, an active runner, cyclist, nurse, wife and mama. But that’s the thing. It could happen to ANYONE”
  • “I was diagnosed with SCAD – Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection”

My Take… 

This Edmonton nurse is in my medical circle. She is fully COVID-19 Vaccinated.

Why is this case important?

  1. COVID-19 mRNA Vaccinated women are being decimated by cardiac injuries and deaths. She has discovered this herself (although hasn’t connected the dots all the way to the mRNA jab):

  1. These cardiac arrests can happen while driving and they’re extremely dangerous.

  2. She had her artery dissection when she started running again (the dangers of exercising when you’re COVID-19 Vaccinated)

  1. She was diagnosed with SCAD – Spontaneous Coronary Artery Dissection that lead to a cardiac arrest. “A rare condition leading to a tear in the artery”. This is not a congenital condition – spontaneous means it happened out of the blue and could happen to anyone.

  2. COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines damage blood vessels, which has been proven in many published cases with autopsy. There are two types of blood vessel damage they can case:

    1. aneurysms
    2. dissections

Nov. 2022 (Takashi et al) – An autopsy case report of aortic dissection complicated with histiolymphocytic pericarditis and aortic inflammation after mRNA COVID-19 vaccination.

  • 90s year old Japanese man had his 3rd Pfizer dose.

  • He presented to doctor a week later for fatigue and dyspnea and was sent home with meds
  • He was found dead in the kitchen 4 days after the doctor visit.
  • Autopsy found: The ascending aorta had a 2.5 cm intimal tear at 4 cm above the aortic annulus. The aortic media was dissected, and the adventitia was perforated within the pericardial cavity
  • The aortic tear is shown below (the ascending aorta was dissected. The aortic intima was ruptured horizontally (white arrows))

Mar. 2022 (Chida et al) – Rupture of Vertebral Artery Dissecting Aneurysm after mRNA Anti-COVID-19 Vaccination: A Report of Two Cases.

  • mRNA jabs also damage blood vessels in the brain

  • Case 1: 60-year-old woman developed ruptured vertebral artery dissecting aneurysm (VADA), the day after her 1st Moderna mRNA
  • Case 2: 72-year-old woman developed ruptured vertebral artery dissecting aneurysm (VADA), 7 days after the first dose of the Pfizer mRNA
  • both cases survived and underwent stent-assisted coil embolization under general anesthesia

Conclusion 

COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine Induced sudden cardiac arrest doesn’t have to be just due to myocarditis, or pericarditis.

COVID-19 mRNA Vaccines damage blood vessels due to inappropriate spike protein expression in vessel walls, and resulting aberrant immune response and inflammation.

Damage to blood vessels can happen anywhere in the body, however, aortic dissection is probably the most dangerous.

An Overview of Aortic Dissection

Does Terry realize she is COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine injured and almost died due to a mRNA injury? She doesn’t. At least, not yet.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. William Makis is a Canadian physician with expertise in Radiology, Oncology and Immunology. Governor General’s Medal, University of Toronto Scholar. Author of 100+ peer-reviewed medical publications.


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Joseph Biden and Rishi Sunak are Netanyahu’s willing executioners, as accessories to mass murder of an innocent civilian population of 2.3 million in Gaza: a strip of land previously under a 16- year blockade of essential goods, medicines and services by the Likud regime of extreme revisionist Zionist, Binyamin Netanyahu, the American-born, political architect of Israel. 

Each month, both the US House of Representatives and the UK Conservative government, vote to continue arming and abetting the out-of-control, Likud coalition regime, it being intent on revenge genocide of a people already the victims of the wholesale theft of their lands and assets.

As the world watches, democracy dies; as does the rule of law and the convention of freedom of movement of civilians and goods in a world now under threat from violence and nuclear war.

We are now, all of us, but minutes away from such a cataclysmic, global event.

Meanwhile, the children of Gaza and their mothers, scream out in hunger, malnutrition and sickness, before their eventual death from an Israeli missile fired from an American  F-16/32 warplane of the IAF. A warplane free to roam the skies at will, bombing, murdering, killing men, women and children, with no opposition or restriction.  

For Gaza has no planes, no food nor any humanity. Just a hate-filled, lethal, occupying attack force, there to raze, destroy, bomb, shoot, maim and kill anyone who lives – man, woman or child. 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Hans Stehling is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Video: Excess Deaths After COVID-19 Vaccination

February 12th, 2024 by Prof Denis Rancourt

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Our thanks to Dr. William Makis of COVID Intel for bringing this to our attention.

 

Click here to watch the video.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from NaturalNews.com


The Worldwide Corona Crisis, Global Coup d’Etat Against Humanity

by Michel Chossudovsky

Michel Chossudovsky reviews in detail how this insidious project “destroys people’s lives”. He provides a comprehensive analysis of everything you need to know about the “pandemic” — from the medical dimensions to the economic and social repercussions, political underpinnings, and mental and psychological impacts.

“My objective as an author is to inform people worldwide and refute the official narrative which has been used as a justification to destabilize the economic and social fabric of entire countries, followed by the imposition of the “deadly” COVID-19 “vaccine”. This crisis affects humanity in its entirety: almost 8 billion people. We stand in solidarity with our fellow human beings and our children worldwide. Truth is a powerful instrument.”

Reviews

This is an in-depth resource of great interest if it is the wider perspective you are motivated to understand a little better, the author is very knowledgeable about geopolitics and this comes out in the way Covid is contextualized. —Dr. Mike Yeadon

In this war against humanity in which we find ourselves, in this singular, irregular and massive assault against liberty and the goodness of people, Chossudovsky’s book is a rock upon which to sustain our fight. –Dr. Emanuel Garcia

In fifteen concise science-based chapters, Michel traces the false covid pandemic, explaining how a PCR test, producing up to 97% proven false positives, combined with a relentless 24/7 fear campaign, was able to create a worldwide panic-laden “plandemic”; that this plandemic would never have been possible without the infamous DNA-modifying Polymerase Chain Reaction test – which to this day is being pushed on a majority of innocent people who have no clue. His conclusions are evidenced by renown scientists. —Peter Koenig 

Professor Chossudovsky exposes the truth that “there is no causal relationship between the virus and economic variables.” In other words, it was not COVID-19 but, rather, the deliberate implementation of the illogical, scientifically baseless lockdowns that caused the shutdown of the global economy. –David Skripac

A reading of  Chossudovsky’s book provides a comprehensive lesson in how there is a global coup d’état under way called “The Great Reset” that if not resisted and defeated by freedom loving people everywhere will result in a dystopian future not yet imagined. Pass on this free gift from Professor Chossudovsky before it’s too late.  You will not find so much valuable information and analysis in one place. –Edward Curtin

ISBN: 978-0-9879389-3-0,  Year: 2022,  PDF Ebook,  Pages: 164, 15 Chapters

Price: $11.50 FREE COPY! Click here (docsend) and download.

We encourage you to support the eBook project by making a donation through Global Research’s DonorBox “Worldwide Corona Crisis” Campaign Page

Come Visit Beautiful Gaza!

February 12th, 2024 by Abby Zimet

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Putting a grotesquely duplicitous spin on already shady propaganda, Israel has released a sick faux tourist ad awash in glossy AI images inviting vacationers to come enjoy Gaza’s “stunning beaches and charming boardwalks,” swank hotels and vibrant night life – only to abruptly pivot and darkly note this would be Gaza, if not for Hamas. WTF. So blame Hamas for blockades, checkpoints, apartheid and collective punishment in a now-razed concentration camp? Hey Israel, you must mean, “This would be Gaza without Zionism.”

Israel’s latest offense against probity comes as a relentlessly rapacious Netanyahu continues burrowing into “the black hole of the messianic right,” rejecting the latest ceasefire proposal and raving, “We are on the way to an absolute victory” despite having destroyed less than a third of Hamas’ operations while killing, injuring or burying in rubble at least 100,000 Gazan civilians, most women and children. Now he’s reportedly planning to “evacuate” over 1.4 million hungry, thirsty, homeless, multiply-displaced, traumatized and increasingly ill Gazans packed into Rafah – a move beleaguered aid workers say would “exponentially increase what is already a humanitarian nightmare.” Panic is said to be growing among Palestinians trapped in Rafah’s tent cities with “nowhere left to flee”; says one, “We are waiting to be martyred.” For many, their anguish is exacerbated by the fact that Israel has continued their carnage despite the Hague ruling finding them complicit in genocide. “I don’t know who can help us,” says Fahmi Al-Rubai. “If (the ICJ) fails, we have no one but God.”

Still, Israel’s savagery – the devastation, civilian deaths, unending images of mangled children – has left them “in a losing battle for hearts and minds.” Most of the world wants a ceasefire, and many thousands have marched to demand it. Despite or thanks to Biden’s complicity, so do a majority of U.S. voters; activists remain camped outside Antony Blinken’s house, live-streaming each morning: “Wakey, wakey war criminal – how many kids did you kill while you were sleeping?” Faced with such rage, Israel’s hasbara, or propaganda machine, is flailing. Historically, it’s tended to praise Israel – moral army, blooming desert, civilized society – and paint Palestinians as the barbaric enemy. Since Oct. 7, the message has become: “All Palestinians are Hamas, Hamas commits atrocities, we must defend ourselves.” In an animated ad, Hamas are wolves attacking Goldilocks’ house; at Christmas, a child tells Santa, “Bad people came into our house.” But “bad” and “good” gets murky when you’re murdering, disfiguring, traumatizing children. In a classic deflection, enter the new “good” guys in, “Come Visit Beautiful Gaza!”

In their reality-free new ad, Israel has transformed itself from genocidal assailant into humanitarian savior. See what Gaza could be! See what evil Hamas has wrought for its people! See how we can help you “Free Gaza From Hamas”! The 30-second ad slickly moves from A1-generated images of laughing children on beaches, opulent spreads of “the best in Middle Eastern food” and “a culture rich in tradition” to ominous scenes of war-scarred landscapes, armed Hamas militants, sinister tunnels. Isn’t it terrible, the narrative suggests, what Hamas has done to once-stunning beaches and once-charming boardwalks? None of this is our fault, of course; we just want Gazans to enjoy their 5-star tropical paradise again (albeit maybe from Egypt)! The stunning lie turns the moral, political, economic and military tables to make Palestinian suffering the result of Palestinian crimes. In this fairytale, there is no Occupation, apartheid, blockade, open air prison. No ethnic cleansing, mass detention, ceaseless military raids. No denial of water, food, health care, safety, dignity – all at Zionist hands.

Flattening decades of bitter conflict between Israelis and Palestinians – and centuries of regional war – into a dazzling, deepfake, multi-hued fable, the ad seeks to assuage global censure by rewriting history: “This is what Gaza could have been like without Hamas.” In its shiny new narrative, Israel was minding its own lofty business Oct. 7, Gaza was a free, thriving state – no Occupation here – Hamas suddenly decided to attack, ruining all those nice beaches, and now kindhearted Zionists want to fix them for the good of all. The chutzpah astonishes; so does the fact that Israeli leaders seem to think we’re stupid and forgetful enough to buy it. Retired diplomat Charles Freeman quotes Lincoln’s “you can’t fool all of the people all of the time” adage to suggest that Netanyahu, like all authoritarian leaders, has been lulled by his own hubris and isolation into believing his own bullshit. “I think Israel has inhaled its own propaganda,” he says. “It has lost touch with the external realities that people outside its circle see” – and fiercely, righteously condemn.

Weirdly, they’re now seeing Israel’s delusional version on Hulu, which critics have excoriated for circulating what they call gross, vile, disgusting, inflammatory, dehumanizing and factually incorrect Zionist propaganda. “Why do you have ads promoting genocide?” asked one. “Do you often take money from governments that have killed 11,000 children in 4 months?” “Shame on Hulu,” wrote Khalil Sayegh, noting that despite years of siege and decades of occupation, Gaza remained “filled with life, beauty, and culture” until Oct. 7. “Israel, building settlements on land that doesn’t belong to it and engaging in systemic apartheid (and) ethnic cleansing is a nation well-known for not spreading terror,” wrote another. “Thanks for clarifying this.” And still it goes on. On reports Israel has approved a ground operation in Rafah, Norway said, “We fear a bloodbath.” Video surfaced of Israeli soldiers shooting at horses with tank fire and Palestinian doctors shot by Israeli snipers, one critically, as they were treating patients. The body of a six-year-old girl was found, with her murdered family and medics who tried to reach her, days after she’d called the Red Cross in terror pleading, “Please come get me.” No, it’s not Hamas who have decimated beautiful Gaza.

[From Common Dreams: Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.]

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Abby Zimet has written CD’s Further column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, she moved to the Maine woods in the early 70s, where she spent a dozen years building a house, hauling water and writing before moving to Portland. Having come of political age during the Vietnam War, she has long been involved in women’s, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: [email protected]

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

When confronted with international appeals for humanitarian aid due to the ongoing crises in Gaza and Yemen, the United States and the United Kingdom have chosen instead to turn Yemen’s Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden into a combat zone, initiating an ariel bombing campaign against the war-torn country already suffering immensely from nine years of deadly conflict spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and backed by the U.S.

For weeks, U.S. and British naval vessels have been perched on the outskirts of Yemen’s territorial waters in the Red Sea, not only to protect ships carrying goods to Israel but to launch a series of airstrikes against Yemen, the poorest country in the world. In recent weeks, at least 320 airstrikes have been launched by warplanes that seem never to leave the skies over Yemen’s major cities. The latest strikes hit Friday morning, targeting Al-Jabana, Al-Taif, and Al-Kathib and followed renewed calls by U.S. officials for regional actors not to escalate conflict in the Middle East.

According to Yemeni citizens who spoke to MintPress, the U.S. bombing campaign, which has struck targets in crowded residential neighborhoods, is the last thing that Yemenis expected. Twenty-seven-year-odl Ibrahim al-Nahari lives with his family near Hodeida International Airport, which was targeted by US airstrikes on Monday afternoon. He said of the bombings: “I never expected we would be attacked because of our solidarity with hungry people in Gaza. Are these America’s morals?”

Last Monday, U.S. airstrikes targeted Yemen’s Al-Katnaib Coast Park, frequented by hundreds of visitors daily, and not only caused damage to nearby homes, hotels and shops but spread panic and fear among civilians. “We need food and medicine, not the ugly American bombs that we have tasted for nine years,” Al-Nahari told MintPress, waving a Palestinian flag at a massive demonstration in support of Gaza on Friday in central Hodeida.

Al-Nahari was among tens of thousands who took to the streets of Hodeida on Friday to condemn U.S.-British attacks on their country and renew their support for the Palestinian people. Massive protests featuring hundreds such as these have become a hallmark in Yemen’s northern provinces and beyond since Israel launched its attack on Gaza following Hamas’ surprise attack on October 7, 2023. In Al-Sabeen Square, south of the capital, Sanaa, officials estimate that an area of 100,000 square meters was packed with demonstrators standing shoulder to shoulder to express their outrage.

“We came here to prove that Palestine is the cause of the Yemeni people, and the world must know this,” Malik Almadani, a prominent writer and human rights activist, told MintPress. “We will not stop the demonstrations, and we will continue weekly. It is our sacred duty, rooted and deep in our souls,” he added. Almadani sees Palestine as a cause dear to Yemen’s people, not something that any authority in the country has the authority to negotiate on their behalf. He warned Western powers that any ground invasion of Yemen due to its support for Gaza would be a war against all of Yemen’s people, not against an institution, state, or party.

Red Sea Tensions Escalate

U.S. and British leaders have repeatedly stated that their bombing campaign in Yemen is intended to end Ansar Allah’s (known in the West as the Houthis) attacks on international shipping and naval vessels. They claim the strikes are necessary to limit the Houthis’ ability to launch further attacks. Yet, there is little to suggest the attacks are having their intended effect. Ansar Allah has maintained that U.S. and UK strikes have not achieved their military objectives and have done little more than incite terror in the hearts of Yemeni civilians. Indeed, nearly every bombing campaign has been met with renewed attacks by Ansar Allah against Israeli, British and U.S. interests in the region, often more extensive and brazen than the last.

This tit-for-tat is escalating too. This week alone saw at least 86 airstrikes against targets in Yemen, with populated regions of Hodeida hit particularly hard, including Al-Katheib, Ras Issa, Al-Zaidiyah, Al-Hawk, Al-Salif, and Al-Lahiya, which saw 28 separate strikes. Sanaa was targeted with 13 strikes, Taiz with 11, Al-Bayda with 7, Hajjah with seven raids, and Saad with over twenty. Despite the scale of the attacks, Yemeni officials maintain they’ve had little effect on the military capabilities of Ansar Allah.

“There have been casualties from U.S. and UK raids, and there is varying damage to some sites and camps. However, most of the military sites were already evacuated before the airstrikes began. Some of them had already been subjected to bombings in previous years,” Deputy Head of Moral Guidance for the Yemeni Army, Brigadier General Abdullah Bin Amer, told MintPress. “We can deal appropriately with these developments, benefiting from past experiences that began in 2015.”

By all accounts, the U.S.-led aerial campaign in Yemen is a violation of the tenets of just war, which dictates that nations must not only have a just cause for going to war but also resort to military force only after all other options have been exhausted. Despite White House claims to the contrary, the intervention in Yemen is clearly not a case of self-defense. The notion that Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, represents a military threat to International trade is absurd, especially as Ansar Allah officials have made it clear through both rhetoric and action that any nations not directly involved in supporting Israel’s genocide in Gaza have been able to pass through the Red Sea unmolested.

An Ineffectual Campaign

Despite the U.S. feckless bombing campaign and its specious justification, the leader of Ansar Allah, Abdul-Malik al-Houthi, has confirmed that operations in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait against Israel-linked ships will continue. In a televised speech on Tuesday, he said, “Our actions will escalate as long as the Israeli aggression and siege on the Palestinians continues. The correct solution is to bring food and medicine into Gaza, and continuing airstrikes will not benefit America, Britain, or Israel in any way.”

Al-Houthi blamed the actions of the White House for forcing Ansar Allah to target U.S. and British Naval ships near Yemen, saying, “The U.S. and UK’s involvement in Yemen will not protect Israeli ships, and for the first time since World War II, the Americans are exposing their battleships to being targeted.”

“The continued U.S. and UK aggression constitutes a violation of the sovereignty of an independent state, Muhammed AbdulSalam, the official spokesman for Ansar Allah, added, confirming that attacks will not prevent the Yemeni armed forces from continuing their support mission to Gaza, nor will the aggression be able to provide security for Israeli ships or those heading to the ports of occupied Palestine. “It is this American-British aggression that threatens international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas and the Gulf of Aden,” he added.

Origins of a Blockade

In a campaign they maintain is aimed at forcing Israel to allow food and medicine to be allowed into the besieged Gaza Strip, Ansar Allah’s forces have continued to target Israeli-owned, flagged or operated ships in the Red Sea and Arabian Seas, or those destined for Israeli ports. The latest such attack came last Tuesday when the Ansar Allah’s Naval Forces carried out two military operations in the Red Sea, the first against the American ship Star Nasia and another targeting the British ship the Morning Tide, according to the official spokesman for the Yemeni army, Yahya Saree.

Since November 19, when Ansar Allah’s maritime campaign began, the group has conducted at least 20 naval operations. More than 20 ships have been targeted, including three that were Israeli-owned, eight belonging to the U.S., four belonging to Britain, and ten that were en route to Israeli ports. Israel itself was not exempt; at least 200 drones and 50 ballistic and winged missiles have been launched against Israel from Yemen. These include sophisticated long-range ballistic missiles and drones such as the Toofan, a recently unveiled variant of the Zolfaghar mid-range ballistic missile, the Quds cruise missile, and the Samad drone. While relatively inexpensive to manufacture, these projectiles have challenged Western forces, who spend millions on sophisticated missiles to shoot them down, threatening to exhaust their stocks and incur a high financial cost in defense of Israeli interests.

It’s worth noting that Yemeni operations against American and British ships began in earnest only after Western forces started bombing Yemen. In its initial days, Ansar Allah’s campaign strictly targeted Israeli interests in support of Gaza, with Ansar Allah’s arsenal pointed at Israel’s Eliat Port. Washington responded by sending a massive naval flotilla to the Red Sea and with a slew of fiery statements by American officials. In the wake of this failed strategy of intimidation, the U.S. and Britain began launching missiles against Yemeni targets. It was only then that Ansar Allah began actively targeting U.S. and British naval assets.

Ansar Allah officials have reiterated their unwavering stance that the Red Sea is off-limits only to Israeli ships until Israel ensures the unfettered delivery of essential aid to Gaza. It remains open to international maritime shipping for countries not involved in supporting what the International Court of Justice has ruled in genocide in Gaza. Ansar Allah has also stated that operations will stop immediately as soon as medicine and food enter Gaza. Until this humanitarian goal is achieved, Ansar Allah officials maintain, the armed air, sea, and land forces will not only continue to target Israeli, American, and British ships but also escalate, even if it ultimately leads to a ground invasion of Yemen.

“The Cemetery of Invaders”

Asked about a possible U.S.-led ground invasion of Yemen, Brigadier General Bin Amer, who is also the author of the book “Yemen is the Cemetery of Invaders,” currently the most widely circulated book in Yemen, said, “The decision to invade a country like Yemen is certainly a difficult decision for any power. There are many factors and reasons that make those powers hesitate to make such a decision.”

Yemen’s terrain is the most rugged in the Middle East, posing a significant challenge to foreign invading forces. The country’s topography is characterized by steep mountains, deep valleys, and arid plateaus, creating a complex and challenging environment for foreigners, which complicates military operations and hinders the establishment of military infrastructure.

“Throughout history, Yemen has been the target of the ambitions of invaders, but the Yemeni people fiercely resisted all invasion campaigns and were able to defeat them and triumph over them in the end. The invaders on this land suffered great losses, and thus Yemen was nicknamed the cemetery of invaders.” General Bin Amer added.

According to Bin Amer, the Yemeni people do not accept occupation. They have a deep-rooted culture of independence. In addition, their battle today is a battle of principles and values ​​that have religious, moral, and humanitarian considerations, adding, “There is a popular consensus on this battle, and the Yemeni people, in addition to being natural fighters and an armed people, have an additional factor, which is leadership that expresses this. [This factor] certainly has its importance regarding organization and management under such exceptional circumstances.”

Both in the streets and among the highest echelons of Ansar Allah’s leaders, there is a feeling in Yemen that its military actions in support of Gaza have been validated by the International Court of Justice’s ruling ordering Israel to permit the entry of “humanitarian assistance to address the adverse conditions of life faced by Palestinians in Gaza.”

But the likelihood of a Western-led ground invasion is still being taken seriously. Ansar Allah has undertaken an unprecedented military mobilization on a massive scale, including holding military courses, conducting maneuvers, and bolstering stocks of military equipment.

A Doctrine of Resistance

Although Yemen has garnered headlines in recent months for its defiant stance towards Israel, its support for Palestinians long predates October 7. MintPress spoke to Yemeni historical researcher Dr. Hammoud Al-Ahnoumi about the nature of Yemeni support for Palestine

In the wake of the second Palestinian intifada and the events of September 11 following the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, an indigenous Yemeni tribal group in the northern country began openly voicing its opposition to what it saw as the unjust colonial ambitions of  Israel and the United States in the region. The group traces its roots to the Arab Hamdani tribe residing in northern Yemen and is a subdivision of the larger Banu Hamdan tribe.

Over the years, many northern Yemenis joined the group known now as Ansar Allah. It wasn’t until Ansar Allah’s power began to gain momentum that it was given the moniker “Houthis” by the West and dismissed as an Iranian proxy in a bid to demoralize the movement and alienate it from the local population. Yet Ansar Allah’s on the Palestinian issue cannot be understood without understanding its history and political formation.

The political doctrine of Ansar Allah has its roots in the eighth century, particularly in Imam Zayd (695–740 CE), the son of Ali ibn al-Hussain ibn Ali ibn Abi Talib. Imam Zayd initiated a revolution against the repressive Umayyad Caliphate that became a symbol of resistance to oppression that permeates Yemeni culture to this day.

Over the years, Yemenis internalized and embraced these ideals to such a degree that they became a central tenant in what would become known as the Shia Islamic sect of Zaydis. According to Zaydis, Imam Zayd became the second Imam (leader) after his grandfather, Imam Hussain ibn Ali, who was also killed in a struggle against an oppressive government in Karbala, southern Iraq, on the tenth of Muharram in 680 CE.

Loyalty, resistance to oppression and solidarity with the oppressed have become the main principle of their faith and how they see their duty to God, according to Dr. Al-Ahnoumi. For them, he explained to MintPress, standing in support of Palestine is compliance with their doctrine, which calls for resistance against oppressors and supporting the oppressed.

“Though they may coincide with Iranian Revolutionary ideals of resistance against tyrants and oppressors, and oppose [what they view as] American and Israeli arrogance and tyranny,” Ansar Allah act entirely independently, Dr. Al-Ahnoumi insisted.

A Tinderbox

The fact that Ansar Allah’s operation in the Red Sea has been reduced by Western power to a binary question of freedom of navigation and framed in an Iran-centric geopolitical context bodes poorly for the chances of a peaceful resolution to the conflict. To avoid another disastrous war in Yemen and a U.S. quagmire in the Middle East, western political leaders and media alike must come to terms with the reality that is the tinderbox in Yemen.

Zaid Al-Gharsi, Head of the Media Department at the Presidency of the Republic of Yemen, blames Western leaders and media for distorting Yemen’s position. He urged media outlets and activists on social media, particularly in Western countries, not to take the White House’s narrative, which frames its bombing campaign as self-defense and protection of global navigation, at face value. The reality, he told MintPress, is “that America is an aggressor and an occupier that came from across the oceans to dominate, plunder, and destroy.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist based in Sana’a. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.

Featured image source

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Israel’s reported ongoing destruction of all buildings along the border inside Gaza with the aim of creating a “buffer zone” is a war crime, the United Nations rights chief warned on Thursday.

In a statement, Volker Turk pointed to reports that the Israeli military is working inside the Gaza Strip to destroy all buildings within a kilometer of the border fence with Israel with the objective of creating a “buffer zone.”

“I stress to the Israeli authorities that Article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits destruction by the occupying power of property belonging to private persons, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations’,” he said.

Turk warned that the objective of creating a buffer zone for general security purposes did “not appear consistent with the narrow ‘military operations’ exception set out in international humanitarian law.”

He added that such

“extensive destruction of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly, amounts to a grave breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and a war crime.”

The war in Gaza followed Hamas’s attack in Israel on October 7, which resulted in the deaths of about 1,140 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel vowed to eliminate Hamas and launched relentless air strikes and a ground offensive that have killed at least 27,840 people, mostly women, adolescents and children, according to Gaza’s Hamas-run health ministry.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights said that since October his office had recorded “widespread destruction and demolition by the (Israeli military) of civilian and other infrastructure.”

This included “residential buildings, schools and universities in areas in which fighting is not or no longer taking place,” he said.

He said such demolitions had also been seen in Beit Hanoun and Gaza City in the north of the besieged Palestinian territory, and the Nuseirat camp in central Gaza, while numerous residential buildings had reportedly been demolished in Khan Younis in the south in recent weeks.

“Israel has not provided cogent reasons for such extensive destruction of civilian infrastructure,” Turk said.

“Such destruction of homes and other essential civilian infrastructure also entrenches the displacement of communities that were living in these areas prior to the escalation in hostilities,” he warned.

In fact, he said, they appeared “to be aimed at or (to have) the effect of rendering the return of civilians to these areas impossible.”

“I remind the authorities that forcible transfer of civilians may constitute a war crime.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Up to 775,992,000 bacteria-infected mosquitoes could be released in Maui every week for the next 20 years, according to Hawaii Unites, an environmental advocacy group that last month lost its bid to require the state to conduct an environmental impact statement before allowing the controversial project to proceed.

Hawaii Unites in May 2023 sued the state in the Circuit Court of the First Circuit in Hawaii. The group’s president and founder, Tina Lia, told The Defender:

“These biopesticide lab-altered mosquitoes are already being released in East Maui. Hawaii Unites has taken the state to court seeking a ruling to require an environmental impact statement for the project and comprehensive studies of the risks.”

She said Hawaii Unites describes itself as “a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization dedicated to the conservation and protection of our environment and natural resources,” with a focus on “protecting the health of Hawai‘i’s people, wildlife, and the ‘āina from the State of Hawaii’s biopesticide bacteria-infected mosquito experiment.”

According to the group’s lawsuit, the state did not perform a sufficient environmental impact study prior to the launch of the project. Last year, state residents submitted 291 pages of public comments, both for and against the project.

“The final environmental assessment for this project is insufficient under the Hawai‘i Environmental Policy Act,” Lia said. “[It] fails to describe mitigation measures or biosecurity protocols for the mosquitoes, and the discussion of alternatives is inadequate.”

According to Lia, the Birds, Not Mosquitoes partnership claims it plans to suppress southern house mosquitoes that transmit avian malaria to native birds by rendering male mosquitoes — which carry the Wolbachia bacterium that causes avian malaria — unable to reproduce.

The technology, Wolbachia incompatible insect technique (IIT), previously was endorsed by Gates Philanthropy Partners, an arm of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, although there does not appear to be a direct link between these organizations and the Hawaii ongoing project.

An expert who testified on behalf of Hawaii Unites warned that the project, far from mitigating mosquito-borne illness, may lead to bacterial spread, the invasion of lab-altered mosquitoes into unintended areas and other environmental consequences.

But the court disagreed, ruling that the final environmental assessment “was compiled in good faith and set forth sufficient information to enable the [Board of Land and Natural Resources] to consider fully the environmental factors involved and to make a reasoned decision after balancing the risks of harm to the environment against the benefits to be derived from the proposed action.”

Court Did Not Acknowledge ‘Serious Concerns’ of Expert Witness

According to the lawsuit, “documentation and studies from several sources, including government agencies, confirm that the experiment may not even work for its intended purpose and has the potential for significant environmental impacts.”

The lawsuit also noted that the IIT method has never been tried in Hawaii, while “the

specific experimental technique planned for use in East Maui has never been tried before anywhere in the world.”

According to the lawsuit, the regions of Maui where the release will take place include “the fragile ecosystems of East Maui’s Haleakalā National Park, Ko‘olau Forest Reserve, Hāna Forest Reserve, Hanawī Natural Area Reserve, Kīpahulu Forest Reserve, Makawao Forest Reserve, and Waikamoi Preserve,” as well as privately managed lands.

“At the highest frequency, this could result in over 807 billion mosquitoes released in one of the most unique and fragile ecosystems in the world,” the lawsuit stated. “Contrary to the assertions in the [final environmental assessment], the plan could actually pose serious risks to native birds, wildlife, the ‘āina, and public health.”

The State of Hawaii refuted these claims in its motion for summary judgment, filed Dec. 22, 2023.

Hawaii Unites on Jan. 9 filed a 70-page memorandum further detailing the group’s arguments, but First Circuit Court Judge John M. Tonaki granted summary judgment in favor of the state.

Lia told The Defender there are “several issues” with the ruling should the group decide to appeal Tonaki’s decision.

Lia said that there are significant differences between what was proposed in the final environmental assessment and what is currently being implemented in East Maui. For example, she said the group believes mosquitoes are being released solely by helicopter rather than drones, which is inconsistent with the release system described in the environmental assessment.

“This means that helicopters are flying closer to the tree canopy than the level stated in the FEA [final environmental assessment], increasing the potential for adverse impacts such as noise disturbances; nesting, breeding, and roosting disturbances; helicopter rotor wash; accidents and collisions; and wildland fires,” she said.

According to Lia, Tonaki disregarded the testimony of an expert witness, tropical disease and vector expert Dr. Lorrin Pang, head of Hawaii’s District Health Office for Maui, who testified as a private citizen on behalf of Hawaii Unites “about the state’s lack of study of the risks of the project.”

Lia said:

“The court failed to acknowledge Dr. Pang’s serious concerns about horizontal transmission of introduced bacteria, biopesticide wind drift of lab-altered mosquitoes into unintended areas, superinfection of mosquitoes with multiple bacteria strains, increased pathogen infection and disease-spreading capability in mosquitoes, and the experimental nature of the project — all issues that were insufficiently addressed or missing entirely from the FEA, and facts material to the lawsuit.”

Project Enjoys Powerful Backing

According to Lia, the U.S. Department of the Interior provided more than $30 million for the avian malaria phase of the state’s plan. The project also has secured more than $14 million from the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act enacted in 2021 and an additional $16 million through President Joe Biden’s 2023 Investing in America Agenda to Prevent the Imminent Extinction of Hawaiian Forest Birds.

“Grants, partnerships with mainland universities, and public and private funding are anticipated to incentivize the use of lab-altered mosquito technology in Hawai‘i well into the future,” she said.

Birds, Not Mosquitoes states that the project is funded through a mix of public and private donors, including anonymous donors, including the American Bird Conservancy, Hawaiʻi Department of Land and Natural Resources, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Park Service, The Nature Conservancy, and the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

Previous funders included “the Hawaiʻi Invasive Species Council and anonymous private donors.”

Another organization that partners in the project, the Kauai Forest Bird Recovery Project, lists Corteva Agriscience as one of its partners. Corteva Agriscience is a conglomerate formed via the merger of Dow AgroSciences and DuPont/Pioneer and owns many patents for the CRISPR gene-editing technology.

Notably though, the mosquitoes in use in the Hawaii project are not known to be genetically modified.

In a March 2022 interview with Gates Philanthropy Partners, Scott O’Neill, Ph.D., founder of the World Mosquito Program, praised the abilities of Wolbachia, the bacterium now in use in the Hawaii project, which he said is “safe for humans because it thrives in honeybees, butterflies, moths, and fruit flies,” as they are “part of our food chain.”

O’Neill added:

“What makes Wolbachia a medical miracle is the fact that when it is introduced into Aedes aegypti [mosquitoes], it effectively blocks the capacity of many of the viruses that make people sick from growing in the mosquito. And if the viruses can’t replicate, they can’t be transmitted to humans.

“Our team successfully introduced a strain of Wolbachia taken from fruit flies into Aedes aegypti more than a decade ago, and over the past 10 years, we have shown that when Wolbachia-carrying Aedes aegypti are released into the environment, they collapse dengue transmission in that location. We are also confident that it is effective against chikungunya, Zika, and many other arboviruses based on our laboratory research.”

‘Maui Is Ground Zero for These Mosquito Releases’

Lia said her group is concerned that the mosquitoes currently being released are experimental.

“The state has lied about the fact that foreign bacteria is being brought into Hawai‘i through the infection of these mosquitoes, and the mosquitoes themselves are foreign organisms that originate from outside the islands. The state has also lied about the documentation showing that up to 3,103 lab-altered female mosquitoes that bite, breed and spread disease are allowed to be released weekly on Maui,” Lia added.

“There are no biosecurity protocols for these imported mosquitoes and no mitigation plan in place if something goes wrong,” she said.

“Wolbachia bacterium is a life form, and there’s no way for this project to be self-contained. The bacteria can transmit horizontally in the environment to wild mosquitoes and other insect vectors of disease.”

“Mosquito populations on Maui might be overtaken and replaced by these lab-altered mosquitoes,” Lia said.

“What if it turns out that they are more capable of spreading disease?” Lia asked. “Southern house mosquitoes transmit human diseases including West Nile virus, encephalitis and elephantiasis, and they’re a potential vector of Zika virus.”

She added:

“Pathogen screenings for these mosquitoes are unknown, and that information is being withheld from the public. Lab-infected male mosquitoes can transmit viruses to biting females through mating. Biopesticide drift, the drift of lab-altered mosquitoes on the wind to unintended areas, could affect not only the efficacy but the safety of the project. Superinfection of mosquitoes with multiple strains of Wolbachia bacteria could also impact efficacy and safety.

“All of these mechanisms can interact with each other and cumulatively have substantial adverse effects. None of this has been studied by the Birds, Not Mosquitoes agencies releasing these mosquitoes … The scope and magnitude of this plan have potential significant impacts that could cause catastrophic effects on the health of our islands.”

According to Lia, Hawaii Unites has launched a campaign to raise $30,000 needed by the end of the month to file an appeal.

“If the Judge’s decision is not appealed, it will set a precedent for allowing inadequate environmental review of future proposed experimental projects that could have significant impacts to our fragile ecosystems,” Lia said.

Should an appeal go forward, Lia said her group expects “to obtain admissions from the state that proper studies have not been done to assess the risks of this project.”

“We further anticipate that documents, contracts, and communications requested from the state will reveal important details about this project that have been misrepresented to the public,” she added.

“Maui is ground zero for these mosquito releases, and our case in environmental court can set a strong precedent for stopping this agenda from moving forward here in Hawai‘i and from expanding globally,” Lia said. “This case, and our voices as a community, have a right to be heard.”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”

Featured image is from CHD

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

In an interview with Fox News on February 10, American doctor Marty Makary stated that US President Joe Biden is experiencing a “cognitive decline right in front of our eyes.” His revelation comes only days after three reputable polling companies found that former US President Donald Trump had a 4- or 5-point advantage over Biden.

Makary, a professor and surgeon at Johns Hopkins University, one of the world’s most renowned medical teaching institutions, began by saying that it is normal sometimes to confuse words and make speech errors but that in the case of Biden, there is “a significant progression.” 

“So, it’s not subtle,” he said. “At this point, it’s not really a medical diagnosis as much as it is obvious to even a lawyer who essentially made the diagnosis in this report of age-related dementia. So, that’s the concern. You’ve got cognitive decline right in front of our eyes. It’s very obvious how he’s performing today versus, say, five years ago, and it’s sad, really.”

On February 8, attorney Robert Hur published a report on the case of Biden’s improper storage of confidential documents. Hur, who headed the investigation process, ruled that Biden did not remember the dates and, therefore, was confused about the details, which is why he improperly kept the papers. Hur described the US president “as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” Therefore, the prosecutor decided not to open criminal proceedings against Biden.

In another case, Ronny Jackson, personal physician to former US presidents Barack Obama and Donald Trump, stated that Biden must pass a battery of mental health tests before he can run in the next presidential election.

During the Fox News program, the presenter highlighted this same concern. Based on the statement that Biden’s decline has been notable in the last five years, the journalist questioned what Biden’s next five years would be like.

With such dynamics, it is extremely unlikely that a sudden stabilisation will occur, and this is an obvious “age-related dementia,” Makary warned.

“If this were the CEO of a company, people would not buy the stock. A board would likely intervene, and people are concerned about the long-term trajectory of another four years,” he continued.

“To have somebody with a distinguished career in any industry, let alone government service, to be out on public sort of display in this state — it’s not going to get better, and for that reason alone, I might suggest that somebody, you know, pass it on to somebody else because this is not a good way to go down after a long career,” the doctor said, adding: “It’s certainly humiliating.”

Makary’s statements come following an NBC News poll which found that three-quarters of voters, which includes half of registered Democrats, were concerned about Biden’s mental and physical health, whilst 76% of US voters said they had major or moderate concerns that Biden may not have the necessary mental and physical abilities necessary to succeed in a second term. Meanwhile, less than half of voters had concerns about the physical and mental health of Trump, the frontrunner candidate for the Republicans.

Chris LaCivita, a strategist in Trump’s team, told the New York Times that Hurt’s report is “damning and defining,” which only became evident when Biden on February 8 proclaimed, “My memory is fine” but then immediately referred to Egyptian President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi as the president of Mexico, which was preceded by gaffes involving the leaders of France and Germany.

Despite Biden’s obvious cognitive decline and unpopularity, he faces no competition for the Democratic nomination, whilst Trump has won the Republican one in everything except officiality. Biden and Trump squaring off for the US Presidency on November 5 will make it the first rematch election in almost 70 years, and although the latter lost in 2020, Biden’s presidency has been defined by high inflation, an uncontrolled border with Mexico, and the disaster that has been the US-war on Russia via the Ukraine proxy.

The recent CNN/SSRSReuters/Ipsos, and NBC News polls have given Trump a 4- or 5-point advantage over Biden among registered voters in a hypothetical general election. What is especially alarming for the current US president is that he has the worst approval rating at this point for any elected president in their first term.

Democratic pollster Jeff Horwitt of Hart Research Associates said of the NBC survey: “It is hard to imagine a more difficult set of numbers before a re-election.”

What is important to note is that these three polls were conducted before Makary’s revelation. Given that Biden’s cognitive decline is very evident, it will only progressively worsen as the presidential election approaches and will thus only bolster Trump’s popularity.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The Publicis Groupe, one of the world’s largest PR firms, recently agreed to pay a $350 million settlement over claims that its false and misleading marketing of opioids contributed to the lethal opioid epidemic in the U.S.

Accusations against Publicis Health, Purdue’s PR firm, included creating the marketing materials that convinced doctors to overprescribe OxyContin, placing illegal advertisements for OxyContin in the electronic medical records of patients, creating training materials for sales reps on how to combat doctor’s objections to the drugs, developing strategies to counter opioid guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and creating marketing strategies to “humanize” the OxyContin brand and counter negative press about addiction risks

The $350 million settlement will be divided among 50 states, with the highest settlement amounts being allocated to California, Florida and Texas. Publicis does not admit wrongdoing or liability as part of the settlement

Publicis, which is now paying its way out of legal trouble over the false marketing, is a funder of censorship. Publicis provided seed money to launch NewsGuard, and is officially partnered with NewsGuard “to fight the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines”

Publicis is also a partner of the World Economic Forum, which is leading the call for a “Great Reset.” In fact, Publicis appears to be coordinating the global effort to suppress information that runs counter to the technocratic narrative about COVID-19, its origin, prevention and treatment

*

The Publicis Groupe — one of the world’s largest PR firms1 that represents major companies within the technology, pharmaceutical and banking industries — recently agreed to pay a $350 million settlement over claims that its false and misleading marketing contributed to the opioid epidemic.

Previous court cases demonstrated how Purdue Pharma, maker of OxyContin, systematically misled doctors about the drug’s addictiveness to drive up sales, resulting in an avalanche of opioid addiction and subsequent deaths.

Accusations against Publicis Health, Purdue’s PR firm, included creating the marketing materials that convinced doctors to overprescribe the drug, placing illegal advertisements for OxyContin in the electronic medical records of patients, creating training materials for Purdue sales reps on how to combat doctors’ objections to the drugs, developing strategies to counter opioid guidelines issued by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and creating marketing strategies to “humanize” the OxyContin brand and counter negative press about addiction risks.

While $350 million may sound like a lot of money, it’s really a drop in the bucket when you consider the damage the opioid epidemic has inflicted, and the fact that the money is being divvied up among 50 states. As reported by CNBC:2

“New York will receive nearly $19.2 million from the total agreement, according to the state’s consent order with Publicis Health. The highest settlement amounts were allocated to California, Florida and Texas, which respectively received $34.4 million, $24.1 million and $21.6 million.”

Throughout, Publicis has insisted it did nothing wrong; it merely provided a service to its customer. Publicis also does not admit wrongdoing or liability as part of the settlement.

Publicis Is Part of the Censorship Network 

Publicis, which is now paying its way out of legal trouble over false marketing, is also funding the censorship of truth. Talk about putting its money where its mouth is. As detailed in “New Thought Police NewsGuard Is Owned by Big Pharma,” Publicis was the lead investor among a group of 18 that helped make NewsGuard a reality. Publicis is also officially partnered with NewsGuard “to fight the ‘infodemic’ of misinformation about COVID-19 and its vaccines.”3

Like Publicis, NewsGuard’s primary role is to deceive the public about what is true and what is not. It set itself up as the self-appointed global arbiter of what information is “trustworthy,” based on nine, self-described “credibility and transparency” factors — all of which are entirely subjective.

Using these arbitrary “trustworthiness” criteria, NewsGuard effectively helps suppress dissenting viewpoints by guiding people toward industry- and government-backed narratives and away from everything else, no matter how valid the information may be.

Case in point: In April 2020, NewsGuard declared my site was “fake news” because we reported that SARS-CoV-2 may have been leaked from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. According to NewsGuard, there was “no evidence that the Wuhan Institute of Virology was the source of the outbreak, and genomic evidence has found that the virus is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus.”

NewsGuard’s position was in direct conflict with published scientific evidence then, and it’s even more so now. In a January 25, 2024, article4 in the City Journal, science writer, editor and author Nicholas Wade details new evidence5 obtained by U.S. Right to Know (USRTK) that further strengthens the theory that SARS-CoV-2 was indeed made in a lab.6 For more details on this, check out the featured video.

Snopes Is Not an Impartial Fact Checker Either

While we’re on the topic of fact checks proven wrong, Snopes.com is another “fact checking” site that repeatedly claimed the COVID lab leak theory was complete bunk. Curiously, in late February 2023, Snopes fact checker David Emery suddenly tried to backtrack, claiming that “Snopes didn’t say the lab leak theory couldn’t be true,” and challenged people to present an instance where Snopes had made that claim.7

david emery tweet

As noted by Matt Orfalea at Censored News:8

“The arrogant ignorance of this Snopes fact-checker is truly something to behold … Not only did Snopes say the lab leak theory couldn’t be true, but Snopes did so repeatedly in at least nine separate ‘fact-check’ articles by four other Snopes ‘fact-checkers,’9 including the founder of Snopes! And at least one of the ‘fact-checks’ was shared by Emery himself on Twitter.”

Orfalea goes through them one by one in his article. As previously detailed, Snopes is NOT a fact checker to be taken seriously. While some still believe Snopes will provide unbiased feedback on widely circulated stories, the truth is, it too simply regurgitates industry talking points without critical analyses of any kind.

How BrandGuard Can Bankrupt Alt Media

Getting back to NewsGuard, as bad as it may be to receive a poor NewsGuard rating, that’s not the end of your troubles if you’re in the alternative media space, because NewsGuard also has a tool called BrandGuard that sends out “exclusion lists” to advertisers. If you’re on that list, it means you’re a reputational liability to the advertiser.

By getting advertisers to pull its ads from “problematic” media outlets, NewsGuard is directly contributing to the elimination of alternative media, as few can afford to keep going without the revenue stream that advertisers provide.

The scope of this alternative media suppression is greater than most realize, and that’s again in no small measure thanks to Publicis, which has integrated BrandGuard into its fleet of online advertising subsidiaries. As reported by investigative journalist Lee Fang:10

“The question of conflicts arises because Publicis represents a range of corporate and government clients, including Pfizer – whose COVID vaccine has been questioned by some news outlets that have received low scores …

NewsGuard has faced mounting criticism that rather than serving as a neutral public service against online propaganda, it instead acts as an opaque proxy for its government and corporate clients to stifle views that simply run counter to their own interests.

The criticism finds support in internal documents, such as the NewsGuard proposal to Twitter, which this reporter obtained during Twitter Files reporting last year, as well as in government records and discussions with independent media sites targeted by the startup.”

Consortium News Sues NewsGuard

One media site targeted by NewsGuard is Consortium News, founded by Polk Award-winning investigative journalist Robert Parry in 1995. In 2023, NewsGuard tagged Consortium News with a cautionary label, advising readers, advertisers and news aggregation portals to “proceed with caution” because the site had “published false claims about the Ukraine-Russia war.”

In response, Consortium News sued NewsGuard for First Amendment violations and defamation.11In an amended complaint, Consortium News attorney Bruce Afran also added the accusation that NewsGuard is suppressing foreign policy dissent at the behest of the U.S. military. As reported by Fang:12

“… NewsGuard … Consortium claims, is hardly a disinterested fact-checker because of federal influence over it. NewsGuard attached the label after pressing Consortium for retractions or corrections to six articles published on the site.

Those news articles dealt with widely reported claims about neo-Nazi elements in the Ukrainian military and U.S. influence over the country – issues substantiated by other credible media outlets.

After Consortium editors refused to remove the reporting and offered a detailed rebuttal, the entire site received a misinformation label, encompassing over 20,000 articles and videos published by the outlet since it was founded in 1995.

The left-wing news site believes the label was part of a pay-for-censorship scheme. It notes that Consortium News was targeted after NewsGuard received a $749,387 Defense Department contract in 2021 to identify ‘false narratives’ relating to the war between Ukraine and Russia, as well as other forms of foreign influence …

‘There’s a great danger in being maligned this way,’ Afran continued. ‘The government cannot evade the Constitution by hiring a private party.’”

Publicis Is Part of the Great Reset Cabal

Publicis is also a partner of the World Economic Forum, which is leading the call for a Great Reset. In fact, as detailed in “The Web of Players Trying to Silence Truth,” Publicis appears to be coordinating the global effort to suppress information that runs counter to the technocratic narrative about COVID-19, its origin, prevention and treatment — suppression and censorship that has been repeatedly aimed at this website specifically.

Publicis is part of an enormous network that includes international drug companies, fact checkers and “credibility raters” like NewsGuard, Google and other search engines, Microsoft, antivirus software companies like Trend Micro, public libraries, schools, the banking industry, the U.S. State Department and Department of Defense, the World Health Organization and the World Economic Forum.

Mind you, this is not a comprehensive review of links. It’s merely a sampling of entities to give you an idea of the breadth of connections, which when taken together explain how certain views — such as information about COVID-19 and vaccines — can be so effectively erased.

To understand the power that PR companies such as Publicis wield, you also need to realize that PR has, by and large, replaced the free press. In decades past, pro-industry advertising stood in stark contrast to the free press, which would frequently expose problems with products and industries, thereby serving as a counterbalance to industry propaganda.

Today, the only counterbalance we have to PR, government propaganda and the mainstream press, is alternative media, which NewsGuard is now undermining.

Publicis Is an Arm of Notoriously Untruthful Industries

What Publicis and NewsGuard call “misinformation” is simply information that contradicts the propaganda being put out by the drug industry. History tells us companies driven by profit interest make poor truth tellers, as negative information will clearly have a detrimental impact on their bottom line. So, they lie and obfuscate for as long as they can get away with it. It’s that simple.

Public relations firms like Publicis are mere arms of these notoriously untruthful industries. They do their bidding because that’s what they’re paid to do. To think that Big Pharma and paid propagandists are looking out for anyone but themselves is dangerously naïve.

It’s ironic in the extreme to hear Publicis talk about the need to protect the public from misinformation that might put their health at risk, all while having played a crucial role in one of the deadliest health care schemes involving lies and deceit — the promotion of opioids as nonaddictive.

According to The Great Reset plan, we’re in for unprecedented changes — changes few if any would willingly agree to. That’s why dissenters must be silenced. The plan can easily get pushed off-track if the public doesn’t go along, and that’s precisely what can save us.

We must expose the machinations that allow this agenda to be pushed forward. Part of that exposure is looking at the role of big PR companies like Publicis, which helps influence the public mind so that the technocrats can maintain their lies until it’s too late to do anything about it.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Notes

1 World Economic Forum, Publicis Groupe

2 CNBC February 1, 2024

3 Twitter Publicis Health Media April 28, 2021

4 City Journal January 25, 2024

5 USRTK US Geological Survey letter December 5, 2023

6 USRTK January 18, 2024

7, 8 Censored News February 4, 2024

9 Lab Leak Fact Check Articles by Snopes

10, 12 LeeFang.com November 15, 2023

11 Consortium News October 23, 2023

What Is the Democrats’ Playbook? Paul Craig Roberts

February 12th, 2024 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

I raised this question in a column or an interview as polls revealed declining public confidence even among Democrats that Biden was fit to serve a second term. I suggested that one possibility would be that a deal would be worked whereby Biden would be moved aside, Kamala would become President, choose Hillary as her Vice President and then resign, having been promised a cabinet or judicial appointment. This would place in the White House a candidate that Democrats and the presstitutes claim won the 2016 election before Putin allegedly  stole the election for Trump by hacking Hillary’s email.

Evidence that something of this sort might be in the works emerges from the way Biden’s Justice (sic) Department cleared Biden of charges of possession of classified documents more serious than those for which President Trump is being prosecuted. Biden was vice president with no power to declassify documents. Moreover, unlike Trump’s documents, which were stored in a secured room in a house in which US Secret Agents were present, Biden’s were scattered about in various insecure locations, including in the trunk of his Corvette in a garage.

Special Counsel Robert Hur cleared Biden from prosecution by finding that Biden was not mentally competent to stand trial. So how is Biden mentally competent to be President of the United States and to have the nuclear briefcase in his hands?

This is the Democrats’ dilemma. If Biden is judged capable of continuing as President, Robert Hur’s report comes across as more double standards in which a Democrat president is cleared of charges while a Republican is prosecuted for the same offense.

The Democrats might bank on the presstitutes obfuscating the matter, but even insouciant Americans are likely to notice. The rest of the world will conclude that Putin was correct when he said he doubted the president was the one really in charge.

As Kamala is not a viable candidate, she in turn would have to be moved aside. Her resignation would follow her choice of Hillary Clinton as her vice president. Under the 25th Amendment, when a vice president ascends to the presidency, the vacant office of vice president is filled by the president nominating a candidate, who is then confirmed by the House and Senate. As the Senate is under Democrat control, and as the House Republicans are filled with Rinos who would confirm Hillary, it is an easily done deal.

Trump himself might prefer the rematch in order to demonstrate a second victory over Hillary, one that the Democrats and media whores can’t again assign to Putin.

Anyhow, this is my take for now. I will stick with it unless counter-evidence emerges.  

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image source

Genocide in Numbers – This Is What Israel Has Done to Gaza

February 12th, 2024 by Palestine Chronicle

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The Government Media Office in Gaza published an update about the scale of destruction by the Israeli army in the besieged Gaza Strip, starting on October 7.

The count is not final, due to the fact that over 7,000 Palestinians remain missing, and are presumed dead – either under the rubble of their homes, or scattered in the streets in areas that civil defense workers cannot reach. 

The numbers, stats and estimates below cover the period between October 7, 2023, and February 11, 2024. 

Genocide in Numbers

  • 128 days of the war.
  • 2,438 massacres.
  • 35,176 martyred and missing.
  • 28,176 martyrs whose bodies have reached the hospitals.
  • 12,300 child martyrs.
  • 8,400 women martyrs.
  • 340 medical worker martyrs.
  • 46 civil defense martyrs.
  • 124 journalist martyrs.
  • 7,000 missing; 70% of them are children and women.
  • 67,784 wounded.
  • 11,000 wounded in need of travel for life-saving and critical treatment.
  • 10,000 cancer patients at risk of death.
  • 700,000 Gazans infected with infectious diseases as a result of displacement.
  • 8,000 cases of viral hepatitis infection due to displacement.
  • 60,000 pregnant women are at risk due to lack of access to health care.
  • 350,000 chronic patients are at risk due to lack of administration of medications.
  • 99 arrests of health workers.
  • 10 arrests of journalists whose names are known.
  • 2 million displaced in the Gaza Strip.
  • 142 government headquarters destroyed by the occupation.
  • 100 schools and universities completely destroyed by the occupation.
  • 295 schools and universities partially destroyed by the occupation.
  • 184 mosques completely destroyed by the occupation.
  • 266 mosques partially destroyed by the occupation.
  • 3 churches targeted and destroyed by the occupation.
  • 70,000 residential units completely destroyed by the occupation.
  • 290,000 residential units partially destroyed by the occupation.
  • 66,000 tons of explosives dropped by the occupation on Gaza.
  • 30 hospitals taken out of service by the occupation.
  • 53 health centers taken out of service by the occupation.
  • 150 health centers partially destroyed by the occupation.
  • 123 ambulances completely destroyed by the occupation.
  • 200 archaeological and heritage sites destroyed by the occupation.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image: Palestinians line up to fetch some water in a refugee camp in Gaza. (Photo: Mahmoud Ajjour, The Palestine Chronicle)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Leaks from within CNN reveal that for months its executives have been actively imposing an editorial line designed to reinforce Israel’s framing of events in Gaza, to the point of obscuring atrocities by the Israeli military.

The dictates, say insiders, have resulted in senior staff refusing to accept assignments to the region “because they do not believe they will be free to tell the whole story”. Others suspect they are being kept away by editors who fear they will fight the restrictions.

Internal memos insist that stories be approved by the station’s Jerusalem bureau, where staff are widely seen as partisans who slant reports in Israel’s favour. Palestinian perspectives are tightly restricted.

“Ultimately, CNN’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice,” one staffer told an investigation by the Guardian newspaper.

According to staff accounts, CNN’s pro-Israel directives come from the very top – Mark Thompson, a TV executive who was hired from the BBC. Thompson, the Guardian article notes, was remembered by BBC staff for “bowing to Israeli government pressure on a number of occasions” – presumably one of the qualifications that won him the job heading CNN.

It was he who notoriously championed in 2009 the BBC’s controversial decision for the first time not to air the annual fundraising appeal of the Disasters Emergency Committee, which is a group of major British charities, because the monies were going to Gaza after Israeli bombing had devastated it.

Alongside the unhappiness at CNN, there is reported to be disquiet at the BBC. Staff, including senior presenters, held a meeting last month with Director General Tim Davie, one of Thompson’s successors, to accuse the corporation of anti-Palestinian bias.

They expressed concerns about the “dehumanising” language used to describe Palestinians killed in Gaza and the BBC’s failure to cover important stories reported by Al Jazeera and other networks.

A source told the Deadline website that the group of dissenters was surprised by Davie’s candour. He is said to have admitted that the pro-Israel lobby “was more organised than Palestinian supporters in its dealings with the BBC”.

Skewed Agendas

None of this should come as a surprise.

Middle East Eye has highlighted the clearly skewed priorities of western news agendas since Hamas broke out of Gaza on 7 October – some 17 years after Israel began imposing a military siege that had already left the enclave barely habitable.

In the carnage that day caused by Hamas’ attack – as well as Israel’s indiscriminate violent response – some 1,139 people in Israel were killed.

As MEE has noted previously, the entire western press corps, not just CNN and the BBC, has failed in its basic duty to present a balanced picture of what has been going on over the past four months.

It has also failed to treat Israeli claims with the scepticism they deserve, especially since Israel has a long track record of being caught out in lies and deceptions.

Paradoxically, given its exposure of concerns at CNN, many of the accusations of journalistic failure levelled at CNN and the BBC could be directed at the Guardian newspaper too – or any other establishment media organisation.

Following Hamas’ 7 October break-out, Israel unleashed a devastating assault on Gaza’s population – so far leaving tens of thousands of Palestinians dead or missing under rubble.

Yet all western media misleadingly continue to frame Israel’s rampage in Gaza – including the collective punishment inflicted on civilians by denying them food and water – variously as “retaliation”, “a war with Hamas”, and “an operation to eliminate Hamas”.

Western media have also largely avoided characterising as “ethnic cleansing” the Israeli military’s order for Palestinians to leave their homes. As a result, 1.7 million have been trapped in a small area in southern Gaza where they face relentless bombing.

Similarly, there has been almost no mention of a long-held plan by Israel – which it now appears close to realising – to drive Gaza’s population into the Sinai desert, in neighbouring Egypt.

And the same media outlets have refused to connect the all-too-obvious dots that Israel – in destroying most of Gaza’s homes, forcibly shutting almost all of its medical facilities and cutting off food and water, while also demanding international defunding of Unrwa, the United Nations’ main aid agency to Gaza – is pursuing an openly genocidal policy.

Israel is making Gaza unlivable, just as Giora Eiland, adviser to the Israeli defence minister, vowed Israel would do at the outset of its assault: “Gaza will become an area where people cannot live.”

When the media do refer to genocide, it is strictly in the context of the International Court of Justice’s decision to put Israel on trial for the “crime of crimes”. Even then, the establishment media have largely minimised the significance of the World Court’s ruling, or even spun it as a victory for Israel.

Astonishingly, the ICJ’s panel of 17 justices has proven to be far more courageous than western media journalists.

Feeble Whistleblowers

It is notable that, although the Guardian refers to a “backlash” at CNN, the only meaningful evidence for that backlash is a group of journalists airing their grievances anonymously to the Guardian.

The self-professed “fearless truth-tellers” at CNN and the BBC have, by their own admission, exposed themselves as too cowed to report truthfully about Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

It is not journalists and on-the-ground reporting that is shaping the news coverage, they complain. It is well-paid media executives, looking over their shoulders at corporate advertisers, government officials and a pro-Israel lobby tightly networked into both.

The journalists cited by the Guardian are too afraid even to go on the record with their criticisms. They are the very feeblest kind of whistleblowers.

They lack even the minimal courage shown by the 800 US and European officials who signed a statement condemning their governments for sidelining expert advice and risking complicity in “one of the worst human catastrophes of this century”.

Where are the western journalists demanding that Israel stop its campaign of assassinations of Palestinian journalists? Or that Israel end a media siege that prevents foreign correspondents from reaching a genocide zone unless they are embedded with Israeli soldiers?

Why are journalists not raising these matters in public, or putting the Israeli government officials they so regularly host on air on the spot by demanding an explanation?

There is also a fundamental misunderstanding demonstrated by the comments CNN staffers have made to the Guardian. One observed: “There’s a lot of internal strife and dissent. Some people are looking to get out.”

Another noted of the Jerusalem bureau’s role that “critical changes – from the introduction of imprecise language to an ignorance of crucial stories – ensure that nearly every report, no matter how damning, relieves Israel of wrongdoing”.

But while CNN may be the worst of a rotten bunch, the simple truth is that there are no establishment media destinations where these disillusioned journalists are going to find that they can speak freely about Israel’s crimes, let alone about its overarching genocidal goals.

Should they really try to act as truth-tellers, they are most likely to share the fate of Antoinette Lattouf, a journalist fired by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation for reposting a report by Human Rights Watch on Israeli atrocities.

Lattouf had been the focus of a pro-Israel lobby campaign demanding her dismissal after she investigated the veracity of a video purportingto show protest crowds in Sydney chanting “Gas the Jews”.

As usual, the story was unquestioningly reported by much of the western media. Last week, a lengthy New South Wales police investigation concluded that the audio track had been faked.

Left in the Dark

One of the main criticisms of CNN’s coverage under Thompson is that he has insisted on a pro-Israel framing. One management memo states: “We must continue always to remind our audiences of the immediate cause of this current conflict, namely the Hamas attack and mass murder and kidnap of civilians”.

According to the insiders, CNN has used Hamas’ 7 October attack “to implicitly justify Israeli actions, and that other context or history was often unwelcome or marginalised”.

As one staffer observed: “Every action by Israel – dropping massive bombs that wipe out entire streets, its obliteration of whole families – the coverage ends up massaged to create a ‘they had it coming’ narrative.”

But as MEE has detailed previously, it is not just CNN that has been determined to impose a bogus balance that usefully allows it to equivocate over genocide.

For months on end, the BBC and other outlets have revisited the historic horrors of 7 October, all too often at the expense of broadcasting the current horrors of Israel’s slaughter in Gaza.

The discovery, for example, of a mass grave last week in northern Gaza, the victims handcuffed and with signs that they had been tortured before execution, has been buried by the western media.

As Kenneth Roth, head of Human Rights Watch, wondered in a tweet: “Why isn’t this a bigger story?” Who can doubt it most certainly would have been, were the bodies Ukrainian and were Russia, not Israel, in the frame?

There is a pattern of omitting evidence that contradicts Israel’s official narrative, and one that began with the events of 7 October – supposedly the vital, immediate context CNN executives claim needs constantly emphasising as the “cause of this current conflict”.

Astonishingly, for weeks western outlets have refused to report on Israeli media investigations that have re-evaluated the events of October 7 and upended official Israeli claims.

Western audiences have been left completely in the dark.

Since 7 October, Israel and the western media have promoted the story that Hamas burned Israelis alive – apparent savagery that quickly became the chief justification for Israel’s genocidal bombing and starving of Gaza’s population. But Israeli media investigations stronglyindicate that it was not Hamas but Israel itself that incinerated many of its citizens with tank shells and Hellfire missiles fired by Apache helicopters.

Those reports reveal that Israeli commanders, blindsided by the Hamas attack, invoked the military’s notorious “Hannibal directive”, which requires Israeli soldiers to stop Israelis being taken hostage, even if it results in their being killed.

This “mass Hannibal”, as one Israeli commander called it, has been set out in great detail by veteran military correspondents at the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth.

Similarly, none of the western media have seen fit to report that the Israeli military’s own ethics adviser, Professor Asa Kasher of Tel Aviv University, has called the Israeli military’s actions that day “horrifying” and in urgent need of investigation by a state commission of inquiry.

He told Israel’s Haaretz newspaper that he suspected the invocation of the Hannibal directive against Israeli civilians, rather than captured Israeli soldiers, was against Israeli law.

Career Suicide

The problem is not just that the western media have acted as one in blanking out persuasive evidence of the crimes Israel committed on 7 October. They have also, again as one, been credulously ascribing particularly barbarous crimes to Hamas on the most tenuous of evidence – unsubstantiated claims that Israel has then been using to justify its genocidal rampage.

That started in the immediate wake of 7 October with allegations that Hamas had variously beheaded babies, hung them from washing lines and roasted them in ovens. These claims were even echoed by the White House.

There is still zero evidence for any of them.

CNN staff are upset that Hadas Gold, one of its reporters in Jerusalem – part of the unit vetting all copy about Gaza – uncritically recycled lies from the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

She described Hamas’ denials about the beheaded babies as unbelievable “when we literally have video of these guys, of these militants, of these terrorists doing exactly what they say they’re not doing to civilians and to children”.

In fact, no one had seen such videos, least of all CNN. She was simply repeating the falsehoods she was being told by Israeli officials and passing them off as incontrovertible facts. But this abandonment of the most basic of journalistic principles is not restricted to CNN. Most of the western media hurried to accuse Hamas of murdering and beheading babies. 

Caution can safely be thrown to the wind when it comes to claims against Hamas, when no western journalists would ever dare to so recklessly promote evidence-free claims against Israel. They do not need a memo from management to understand that it would be career suicide.

Which is why academic research into coverage of Israel and Palestine always reaches the same conclusion: that media bias against Palestinians is off the charts.

For instance, a study of the BBC’s first month of coverage of Israel’s attack on Gaza found a complete inconsistency in the language used. 

The terms “murder”, “murderous”, “mass murder”, “brutal murder” and “merciless murder” were used constantly to describe, and remind viewers of, the deaths of Israelis on the single day of 7 October. Those terms were not used once in covering the many weeks of Israel’s slaughter of Palestinians.

As ever, the media implicitly confers a legitimacy and legality on Israeli violence, even when it is committing genocide, that Palestinian violence is automatically denied.

Blackout of Hamas

This problem very much infects not just the popular press but the so-called serious, “liberal” media too. 

The Guardian has followed the New York Times in not only failing to report on the horrors Israel unleashed on its own citizens on 7 October. Both have also actively promoted the evidence-free claim against Hamas that it carried out “systematic” rape that day, using sexual violence as a weapon of war. 

The New York Times breathed credibility into this claim in a widely shared feature story in late December. The family of the supposed primary rape victim cited by the New York Times immediately accused the paper of advancing a falsehood and of manipulating them. There were other major discrepancies and inconsistencies in the report.

After mounting internal protests among staff over the poorly evidenced story, the paper has indefinitely postponed an episode of its flagship “The Daily” podcast that was supposed to expand on the Times’ original story. 

The Intercept set out the New York Times’ dilemma: either “run a version that hews closely to the previously published story and risk republishing serious mistakes, or publish a heavily toned-down version, raising questions about whether the paper still stands by the original report”. 

Even so, despite these evident weaknesses, the Guardian regurgitated the Times’ story precisely – based on the same discredited Israeli sources.

What makes these misrepresentations of the factual record so easy is the media’s exclusive reliance on, and reflexive trust of, Israeli sources.

The Guardian’s investigation of CNN, again paradoxically, cites concerns from staff that management has insisted on a blackout of Hamas statements, arguing that anything it says is “inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda” and therefore “not newsworthy”.

One staffer noted: “CNN viewers are being prevented from hearing from a central player in this story… It is not journalism to say we won’t talk to someone because we don’t like what they do.”

But this is standard media practice when it comes to Hamas. The BBC and other outlets indicate their inherent ideological bias in appending their governments’ self-serving designation of Hamas as “a terrorist organisation”. They would never dare describe Israel – quite accurately – as “on trial for genocide by the International Court of Justice”.

As former UK ambassador Craig Murray noted, the BBC led their news with an eight-minute segment recycling unevidenced Israeli allegations of involvement by UN refugee agency staff in Gaza with Hamas. The BBC’s reporting effectively rationalised the UK government’s decision to defund Unrwa, even in the face of an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe there. 

It was Channel 4, in an all-too-rare moment of true journalism, that later showed that the documents sent by Israel to the UK and other governments provided no evidence to back up its claims. 

It is precisely the anti-journalistic decision to ignore Hamas’ views, as well as sidelining wider Palestinian perspectives, that gives Israel and its lobby groups free rein to spread their own inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda. 

All too often, Hamas is pre-judged as guilty, whatever it is accused of. This vilification process even extends to those showing solidarity with Gaza’s suffering, including millions who have marched in western cities. They have been repeatedly labelled and vilified as Hamas supporters.

The Real Pressures

The Guardian offers various explanations for why CNN has failed so dismally to cover properly the slaughter in Gaza. All have an element of truth about them. 

CNN is indeed afraid of antagonising the US government and challenging a critical part of its foreign policy agenda. 

There are undoubted commercial pressures from advertisers. The Israel lobby can be confident its threats will be taken seriously when journalists face being accused of antisemitism for stepping out of line.  And all of these pressures are compounded by the difficulties its journalists face in accessing Gaza. 

But what the Guardian does not want its readers to notice is that all of these pressures apply not just to CNN but to every other corporate media outfit, including the Guardian itself. Which is why the failures are across the board, not confined to one or two broadcasters. 

And those pressures are not just current ones. They are there all the time. Which is why the state-corporate media have refused to treat with any seriousness the arguments of leading Israeli and international human rights organisations that Israel is an apartheid, racist state, and one that systematically oppresses Palestinians. 

But even these explanations fail to tell the whole story. The deeper truth is that western commercial media is no more separate from the corporate interests of its advertisers than a state broadcaster like the BBC is from the key interests of the state that funds it. They are integrally tied together.

The large corporations and billionaires that own the media are heavily invested in the arms and fossil fuel industries that require the West’s continuing colonial-style, military dominance of the planet and its resources.

Israel has long been the lynchpin of western establishments’ control of the oil-rich Middle East, and a testbed for weapons, new technology, surveillance and missile interception systems. 

Although it is rarely mentioned, it is western bombs currently devastating Gaza, and it is western-financed technology that protects Israel from retaliation. Without endless western support, Israel would never have been established on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland. And, without unstinting backing, it would long ago have been forced to make peace with its neighbours.

It is with this context – and only this context – that the media’s consistent, predictable and reflexive coverage of the region can be explained. Israel is invariably given the benefit of the doubt, even when its crimes are unmistakable, while the Palestinians are assumed to be committing savagery, even when the evidence is flimsy or non-existent. 

The reality is that the western media can never truly report the nature and extent of Israel’s decades of criminality. Because to do so would be to expose their long-standing complicity in those crimes.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from MEE

Absence of Evidence: Israel’s Case Against UNRWA

February 12th, 2024 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Statistics are often given lanky legs that take their user far. But how they are used, and how they are received, is striking. The current figure of 27,500 dead is a blighting, grotesque fact. But as they are Palestinians, the issue is less significant to certain parties than, say, 140 Israeli hostages being held in Gaza.

As with much in the noisy clatter of Middle Eastern violence, the value attributed to numbers alters in the shade of ideology and self-interest. Massacres become acts of self-defence; acts of self-defence become unconscionable inflictions of murder. It also follows that an organisation of 30,000 employees, working in the field of humanitarianism, aid and salvation, can be plastered as terrorist sponsors for having 12 individuals in their service allegedly involved in a murderous assault on Israel on October 7, 2023. Despite the relative smallness of this figure, the entire organisation itself becomes a target.

What, then, of the evidence? The state of Israel was initially adamant that 12 such individuals in UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East) had participated in the October 7 attacks by Hamas, sharing the details on January 29 with several media outlets. The accusations were made via a thin dossier amounting to no more than six pages. Little by way of evidence was supplied, though Israel was content to make further claims that almost 10% of the agency’s staff had ties to Hamas. As UN Crisis Group expert Daniel Forti writes, “Thus far, Israel has not provided evidence in writing to the UN to substantiate its allegations.”

For a gaggle of Western states and donors, that hardly mattered. The mere mention of the Satanic Twelve had made their way into public and political consciousness, and something had to be done about it. Funding to the aid body was swiftly suspended by the United States, Germany, the European Union, Sweden, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. The organisation was smeared and threatened with functional incapacity and prospective oblivion, an outcome that would also, inevitably, doom Palestinians. Unchallenged accusations that the agency had long been a Hamas front – an article of faith among Israeli nationalists – were bandied about with abandon.

The United Nations, for its part, was unusually fleet footed in responding to the dossier. Contracts were terminated. Inquiries were announced, along with promises of stern self-examination, purging and cleansing.  On February 5, the UN Secretary General António Guterres announced that an independent panel had been created with the specific purpose of assessing “whether the agency is doing everything within its power to ensure neutrality and to respond to allegations of serious breaches when they are made.”  The panel will be chaired by former French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who will work alongside a Scandinavian complement of the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr. Michelsen Institute in Norway and the Danish Institute for Human Rights.

With the setting up of such heavy machinery, the picture started getting foggier. Then a smiting report from the British news outlet Channel 4 took issue with the scanty material supplied in the document. As the network’s Lindsey Hilsum stated, “We got hold of Israel’s dossier against UNRWA – why did the donors including the UK withdraw funding on such flimsy unproven allegations before an investigation?”

Channel 4 goes on to reveal that the dossier “contains no evidence to support Israel’s explosive new claim other than stating, ‘From intelligence information, documents, and identity cards seized during the course of the fighting, it is now possible to flag around 190 Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihadi terrorist operatives who serve as UNRWA employees. More than 10 UNRWA staffers took part in the events of October 7.”

Even the usually less than critical CNN network reported that it had “not seen the intelligence that underlies the summary of allegations”, going on to mention that the summary did “not provide evidence to support its claims.”

When Ophir Falk, an advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, was asked by CNN anchor Anna Coren to provide evidence of the claims, he refused to do so. When asked why the alleged culprits had not been arrested, he merely replied that “the first step is for them to be fired”.

Outlets such as The New York Times and Wall Street Journal were less than concerned by the gaping lacunae and skimpiness of Israel’s case. Instead, the latter could even go so far as to claim that the dossier provided “the most detailed look yet at the widespread links between the UNRWA employees and militants.” The ABC World News Tonight was clumsy enough to suggest that the UN had “not denied the claims”, implying a veneer of veracity.

Now, other countries are finding absence of evidence from the Israeli side more than awkward. Australia’s Foreign Minister, Penny Wong, had to also admit that she had not been furnished with much in the way of evidence. “We have spoken to the Israelis and we have asked for further evidence,” she told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s 7.30. When asked why she did not ask UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini about the subject, she simply reiterated the point that she had asked the Israelis directly and was not aware if Lazzarini had evidence. “He may, I don’t know what he has.”

With trademark oiliness, Wong countered that the allegations were what mattered. “I think it is clear from UNRWA’s own actions that they regard these allegations as serious.” They had done so by “terminating the employment of a number of employees and putting in place an inquiry – in fact, there are two inquiries.” Effectively, the agency was to be punished for its own enterprising efforts to investigate the claims, leaving the accusers free to level whatever charges they saw fit.

In the meantime, Lazzarini has been scrambling to fill the funding void, making visits to the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Kuwait. The dying and starvation in Gaza continue with the prospect of even more horror as Israel’s armed forces prepare their offensive on Rafah. A fine thing, then, to see donor countries for UNRWA, some of whom continue funding Israel’s military efforts, to moralise about terrorists and the agency.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He currently lectures at RMIT University. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). Email: [email protected] 

Featured image: Philippe Lazzarini, Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) holds press conference in Jerusalem on October 27, 2023 [Mostafa Alkharouf/Anadolu Agency]

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

In our complex world, understanding global events is crucial. We hunger for truth about Amazon rainforests, Tibet and China, Niger in Africa, Antarctica, Guyana, and the ongoing tensions between Russia and Europe in Ukraine, as well as the conflict between Hamas and Israel supported by the United States. To make informed decisions, we must carefully analyze the facts.

History teaches us that truth can be suppressed under regimes like Stalinist Russia, Hitlerite Germany, or the Iraq war waged on false intelligence. Manipulated narratives, elegant lies, and misinformation have led to devastating consequences, from gulags and wars to concentration camps. Yet, brave individuals—Socrates, Abraham Lincoln, Gandhi, George Orwell, and Martin Luther King Jr.—stood by the truth, regardless of the odds.

Today, Julian Assange stands alongside these names. His work challenges power structures, revealing uncomfortable truths hidden by the United States Government.

We are now reaching a critical stage in Julian Assange’s fight against U.S. extradition with appeal hearings taking place at the U.K. High Court on February 20 and 21.

The new UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Alice Jill Edwards on Tuesday called on the U.K. to halt the extradition, stating that if it goes forward, Assange would be at risk of treatment amounting to torture or other forms of ill-treatment or punishment.

Amnesty International in a petition it organizes says that “USA must drop charges against Julian Assange. He fully deserves to be released; he already paid a heavy price for what he did”.

To put as much pressure on the court as possible, we would also urge all of you to support these events before the hearings:

  • February 14: The Geneva Press Club, alongside RSF Switzerland, hosting an online and in-person talk with Stella Assange. Stella will be available for interviews after the event.
  • February 15: The Freedom of the Press Foundation online event on Assange. Speakers include Cindy Cohn, executive director of the Electronic Frontier Foundation; Carrie DeCell, senior staff attorney at the Knight First Amendment Institute; Trevor Timm, executive director of Freedom of the Press Foundation; and Ben Wizner, director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

And here is this useful thread from Stella laying out the legal arguments in the case.

Let us champion honest information, for it is our shield against propaganda and our path to a more just world.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dimitris Eleas is a New York City–based writer, independent researcher, and political activist. 

David Andersson is a citizen journalist, writer, activist, and Author of THE WHITE-WEST: A LOOK IN THE MIRROR

Featured image is from Elekhh (Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0)

Eyewitness in Gaza

February 12th, 2024 by Andy Hedgecock

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Rishi Sunak’s immediate response to military atrocities that have now killed 28,000 people, more than 11,000 of them children, was to tell Israel: “We want you to win.”

In October, Keir Starmer informed the Labour conference that Israel had “the right” to withhold water and power from Gaza. Interviewers on C4 and BBC failed to challenge the bellicose assertions of Israel’s British ambassador, Tzipi Hotovely. The journalists-turned-courtiers of the mainstream media are spinning acts of genocide against Gazans in terms of “Israel’s right to self-defence.” Meanwhile, the slaughter, privation and suffering continues.

Comma Press provide an effective antidote to the poison of corporate-controlled journalism in the form of an authentic voice from the front line of oppression. Don’t Look Left is a diary of devastation by Atef Abu Saif, a writer and minister for culture in the Palestinian Authority. Atef’s despatches — delivered to Comma’s Ra Page in English as WhatsApp texts and voice-memos — open with the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza on October 7 and cover 84 days of grief and courage. It’s harrowing, but life-affirming: Atef’s family and friends exhibit a breathtaking determination to retain their humanity and survive.

I would urge Alice Wairimu Nderitu, the UN special adviser on genocide who offered no criticism of Israel following the first wave of atrocities, to read Atef’s eyewitness accounts.

Inevitably, Atef reports body counts, woundings, grieving families and lives ruined by amputation or loss of sight — that’s where compassion must be directed in times of atrocity. But genocide exploits tools other than death and mutilation: the annihilation of a people requires the destruction of hope, the erasure of identity and the denial of opportunity to think of anything beyond survival.

Atef sees a pattern in the Israeli air strikes: the chosen targets are places reflecting the Gazans’ sense of self-worth, pride in their culture and belief in progress. For example, he describes an attack on the Karmel Tower, an exciting development that generated considerable investment and housed several media centres. Thriving bookstores, new housing complexes and mosques are reduced to rubble. For Atef, the message encoded in the cacophony of bombs and heaps of rubble is that any effort to make Gaza look anything but “poor and ugly” is doomed to futility.

But there is always hope, and resistance takes many forms. Twelve days into the attacks, Atef glimpses a girl in a hospital corridor, “amid all the chaos and the crowds,” quietly doing her school homework.

At the start of February, Israel accused people working for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) of involvement in terrorism. This led 16 countries to suspend funds to UNRWA. It is apparent from Atef’s diary that this catastrophic decision, led by the US, will intensify suffering in Gaza. Children are educated in UNRWA schools, displaced families shelter in UNRWA welfare centres, children queue at UNRWA water stations; and the agency is even involved in rubbish collection.

Atef’s writing is precise and vivid. The facts are horrendous — 600 people died in the attacks of October 22-23 — but the terrors of displacement go beyond the numbers. There are the smells of ash, burning metal and bodies rotting in the rubble; there are the screeches, flashes and explosions of Israeli ordnance; there are splintered doors, shattered windows and twisted aluminium; and there are heartbreaking scenes in which the people of Gaza wrestle with grief, fear and a growing sense of disconnection from reality.

A father wanders streets and alleys shouting to his dead children: “Wake up kids.”His lamentations are all but unbearable. Following an explosion, Atef is unable to retrieve the bodies of his sister-in-law’s family for eight days, and then locates a nephew’s body at the top of a building 70 metres away.

Hospitals, protected by international law, are destroyed; bakeries where children queue for bread and falafel are wiped out. On the fifth day of the conflict, Atef grabs a sandwich in the souk of Nuseirat Camp; later, he notes those queuing for food on the 15th day will have died in a targeted attack.

I’m happy to report that Atef and his 15-year-old son, Yasser, have survived their trek from the rubble of their family home to reach Port Said. But, as the author notes, his thoughts remain in Gaza. His diary entry for Day 20, when the death toll stood at 7,000, posed a question we should understand as a call to action: “How many of us need to die before the world is awakened from its slumber?”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The 2023-2024 Gaza Massacre has continued now for nearly 4 months while the World looks on. The Zionist-subverted and US lackey Australian Labor Government  has fervently assisted Apartheid Israel diplomatically, with  key arms supplies, intelligence, weapons targeting and now with cessation of support for UNRWA – racist Labor is complicit in the US-Israeli massacre of  Palestinian children. Zionist-subverted Australian Mainstream media are complicit by lying for Apartheid Israel.

Set out below is a quantitative view of the Gaza Genocide from truthful reportage (notably from some prize-winning Western journalists) but which is overwhelmingly ignored by Zionist-subverted Mainstream Western and Australian media:

(1) Apartheid Israel allowed the 7 October (10/7) event to happen (like the US re 9/11).

(2) The 10/7 Breakout by lightly armed Palestinians from the Gaza Concentration Camp was to get hundreds of Israeli hostages to trade for 10,000 Palestinians in Israeli military prisons and indeed for 5.6 million highly abusively confined  Occupied Palestinians.

(3) The IDF response with high explosive tank shelling and helicopter missiles was responsible for a substantial proportion of the 1,200 Israelis killed – if deaths were proportional to firepower then most of the Israeli deaths on 7-8 October were due to the IDF.

(4) 97.5% (1,170) of the Israelis killed (1,200) were adults involved militarily in the 56 year Occupation because of Israeli compulsory military service. 2.5% (30) were children).

(5) 84.2% (1,010) of the Israeli dead were present serving Israeli military responsible for violently maintaining the 56-year Occupation and hermetically sealing the bombed and blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp.

(6) The Israeli-complicit 10/7 carnage (like the US-complicit 9/11 carnage from massive intelligence failure as adverted by both former US president Donald Trump and former US Vice President Al Gore) provided the “excuse” for disproportionate violence with genocidal intent.

(7). As of mid-January 2024, after 100 days  of the Gaza Massacre 100,000 Palestinians were killed, missing or wounded, and 31,497 Palestinians had been killed  including  12,345 children, 6,471 women and 245 health workers. 1,500 Palestinian fighters were killed in Israel on 7-8 October for a total of 33,000 Palestinians killed.

(8) In the present Gaza Massacre there is an Occupied/Occupier Reprisals Death Ratio of 33,000/1,200 = 27.5 (55 if the IDF killed 50% of the Israeli victims) versus the 10 ordered by Nazi leader Hitler in 1944 (and effected in the Ardeatine Massacre), and 30,000,000/3,000 = 10,000 in the post-9/11 US War on Terror (this including  avoidable deaths from war-imposed deprivation in 20 countries violated by the US Alliance).

(9) International Law expert Professor Francesca Albanese states that under International Law subjugated Occupied people (the Occupied Palestinians) have the right to defend themselves but the war criminal Occupiers (the genocidally racist Israelis) in an occupied territory do not.

(10) US, UK and Australian Mainstream media reportage is overwhelmingly dominated by lying Israeli propaganda. Thus a Google Search for “Hamas massacre” yields 500,000 results whereas that for “IDF massacre” yields 1,400 results.  

(11) Most of 2.3 million Gazans (nearly half of them children, nearly three quarters women and children) are living in tents, denied requisite water, food, sanitation, medicine and medical care, and facing an existential catastrophe due to deprivation and disease.

(12) The forced displacement of Gazans to the south is a Third major mass population expulsion after the 1948 Nakba (800,000 expelled) and the 1967 Naksa (400,000 expelled), with a feared  Fourth mass population expulsion of 2.3 million Palestinians into the Egyptian Sinai desert. Genocidally racist, settler-colonialist Apartheid Israel wants all the land of Palestine (plus neighbouring lands) but not the Indigenous inhabitants.

The civilized World is utterly horrified but must translate that horror into urgent action as summarized below:

(1) Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS).

(2) Dump the US dollar.

(3) UNSC, UNGA and other action over genocidal Israeli violation of the South Africa-requested ICJ ruling on the Gaza Genocide.

(4) Young-impelled decent Third Parties (e.g. Greens) to urgently replace war criminal and climate criminal Western duopolies (e.g. the US Republican/ Democrat, UK Conservative/Labour and Australian Coalition/Labor political duopolies).

(5) Decent voter backlash in the US, UK, and US Alliance e.g. Australians voting for either the unforgivable, Apartheid Israel-supporting  Australian Labor Government or the even worse Coalition are complicit in genocidal Apartheid Israeli crimes.

(6) Unexceptional and immediate granting of  equal rights and all Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR)-specified  human rights for 15 million sorely oppressed Palestinians.

(7) In relation to the present horrifying, Israel-imposed Gaza circumstances the Indigenous Palestinians should at the very least be immediately given the rights accorded  in law to pets and livestock in the West.

(8) If Palestinians are to continue to be denied life without foreign occupation the World should immediately insist on occupation by a decent non-Invader country (e.g. Switzerland, Ireland, Fiji).

(9) Immediate ceasefire with war criminal Apartheid Israel out of Gaza and the Occupied Palestinian Territories immediately to permit entry of life-saving security, humanitarian aid, health workers, reconstruction teams, and forensic teams to examine all the dead (Israel was a world leader in illegal organ trading).  

(10) Action now – if the US Alliance-, UK- and Australia-backed  US and Apartheid Israel continue to get away with mass murder of children in Gaza then  we are all existentially threatened.

For details and documentation  (including the censoring and sacking of decent, truth-telling  Australian journalists) see Gideon Polya, “Lying Australian Media & Labor Government Complicit In US-Israeli Massacre Of Palestinian Children”, Countercurrents, 7 February 2023: see this. Please inform everyone you can – the mendacious Mainstream presstitutes certainly won’t.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (2003). He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (2007, 2021), “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (1998, 2008, 2022), “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020), and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2020), and contributed to Soren Korsgaard (editor) “The Most Dangerous Book Ever Published – Dangerous Deception Exposed!” (2020). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child, see this.  

Featured image source

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***


First, much credit is due to both Tucker Carlson and Vladimir Putin for having agreed to speak to each other – or rather President Putin speaking to Tucker, as it was a lesson in Russian history and Russian culture and Russian soul, that President Putin gave not only to Tucker, but to the rest of the western world, most of whom have no clue what Russia is, and what makes Russia tick.

Tucker shared his reflections straight after his interview with Putin…

“You’d have to be crazy to think that Russia will give up Crimea.”

“You’d have to be an idiot to think that Russia is an expansionist power; it’s already huge and doesn’t need more territory.”

“You’d have to be an idiot to think that Russia could roll tanks into Vienna; there’s no evidence of such intentions.”

“We are ruled by lunatics”— referring to the US leadership’s desire for regime change in Russia.

Here is the full interview.

*

After this widely anticipated interview, announced, and awaited with high expectations, Tucker Carlson has been widely demonized by western media and politicians. “How dare you talking to our prime enemy!” was the common tenor.

Unelected EU Commissioner, Madame Von der Leyen, talked about “sanctioning” Tucker Carlson, by banning him from entering the EU. It is more than ridiculous and will never happen. The sheer propaganda moment in such a statement shows how desperate the EU is – to follow in the boots steps of America – for the EU as well as the Washington Masters, are falling apart rapidly.

In the US, voices could be heard to call for taking Tucker’s US nationality away, to ban him from re-entering the US. And these voices were even louder than those decrying the Biden Administration-made immigrant scandal at the Texas border – that many are afraid could work itself from destabilizing American society into an outright civil war.

This is the state of affairs in a – not crazy, but defunct – world. How to get out of it?

Tucker Carlson has tried an opening to the East, to Russia; preparing for a geopolitical olive-branch, bringing back conscience in the ranks of American politicians. Will it work? It remains to be seen.

For all those who still believe in the mainstream’s vilification of Vladmir Putin, but are ever-more doubtful and would like to know the truth, President Putin tells an extraordinary story of reality about Russia, the country’s history, all the way back to the 8th century, laying out very clearly that not only eastern but also western Ukraine – Kiev – is historically a part of Russia.

If comparing this Russia knowledge of history with the Zionist claim over Palestine – you know who is telling the truth and who is lying through their teeth, just for grandeur, dominance, and power – all to achieve a Greater Israel – stamped out of nowhere – to present themselves to the world as “the Chosen People”.

Fortunately, eventually Light will prevail over Darkness and the Zionists will not achieve their wicked objectives. Unfortunately, though, with the pathologically sick support of western leaders, their defeat could take years – and the death toll during this period could become astronomical.

And who says or believes that Greater Israel would be the endgame?

From what can be seen today, and also read into President Putin’s interview statements,  the West, the combination of the dying empire, US of A, and the puppet Europe with her unelected leadership, and the individual EU countries with World Economic Forum (WEF)-implants as Young Global Leaders (YGL), speak tyrants – those who were privileged to absolve Klaus Schwab’s Academy of dictatorship and fascist-teaching – Trudeau, Macron, Von der Leyen, Scholz, Rutte et al – are hell-bent to go to war with Iran for her riches and because Iran, a close ally of Russia and China, is a disturbance for the west.

Iran is a powerhouse for the new BRICS. A western attack on Iran would be as suicidal as an assault on Russia and China. Russia assumes currently the leadership of the BRICS. Under Vladimir Putin, it will be a strong leadership.

Nothing of this was put in words by President Putin – but it is as much of what he did not say and one can read implicitly between the lines – as what he did say, that makes President Putin a formidable diplomat and indeed leading Statesman. The west has none of his kind. This interview may become an extraordinary milestone of history.

Despite being showered with western insults and sanctions for years non-stop, President Putin used not one word of insult against western leaders.

To the contrary, when asked by Tucker, how Putin’s counterparts reacted to his approaches, conversations, or suggestions for negotiations, on Ukraine, for example, Putin said he would not comment, and the good journalist, who Tucker Carlson is, might better ask directly at the source.

It is also clear, Russia does not have, never had at least during the last 300-plus years – any ambitions for expansion. Russia’s territory of some 17.1 million square kilometers (km2), of which about 16.4 million km2 land area, representing about 11% of the earth’s total landmass – and the riches of natural resources it harbors – are so huge, there is no need for more, as President Putin had already pointed out on many earlier occasions.

There is no reason at all for any recently-joined-NATO Scandinavian countries to be afraid of a Russian invasion. The ugly truth is, the leadership (sic) of these countries know it, but they play along with the US-EU-NATO Russia-Russia-Russia demonization.

Do they think, it is good for them?

Or have they been coerced, or even threatened to play along?

What do they get for the lies they spread and fear they plant in their people? For the crime they commit?

When President Putin spoke about the western so-called “invasion” of Ukraine on 22 February 2022, he made clear that the war started already in 2014, when on 21 February 2014, almost to the day eight years before, the democratically elected and Russia-friendly President Yanukovich was ousted by a coup and had to flee Ukraine.

NATO Secretary Stoltenberg recently said the same – the war started already in 2014.

The great diplomat, President Putin, did not say that this coup was inspired and planned way ahead by the US with the help of the European Union (remember Victoria Nuland’s infamous “f*ck Europe”?), but it was obvious to most listeners and, of course, also to the interviewer, Tucker Carlson.

President Putin was visibly and deeply disappointed and disturbed, when he found out that the September 2014 Minsk Agreement, and the “Second Minsk” in march 2015, both sponsored by France and Germany, under which Ukraine essentially had to disarm, become neutral and de-nazify her society, were never meant to be adhered to.

In December 2022, then Chancellor Angela Merkel told Die Zeit, “The 2014 Minsk agreement was an attempt to give Ukraine time; it [Ukraine] also used this time to become stronger, as you can see today.” This was a Bombshell, not just for Vladimir Putin, for most of the “innocent” – still believing – world.

*

The 2-hour-7-min interview is maybe best summarized by Scott Ritter who spoke to Sputnik on “X “ (6 minute-video) – providing a brilliant summary of the interview (9 February 2024):

Mr. Ritter lauded both President Putin and Tucker Carlson for their courage and in many ways audacity – and especially professionalism – to sit together and talk about Ukraine. Though, as we know by now – the interview was much more than an exchange of views, questions , and answers about Ukraine. The interview was more a lesson to the world on the Russian – Ukrainian joint past and – without mentioning it in words – western interference in a clearly internal affair.

Scott Ritter referred to the interview as a tour de force, where the Russian President was introducing an American audience to the nuances of Russian history and the complexity of the Russian soul. Because if you do not understand the basics of Russian history and how Russia functions, then you are on a journey without a map. So, Scott Ritter. He believes this may be the real value of the interview, creating a map.

According to Scott Ritter, Mr. Putin created a map for not only Tucker Carlson to understand, but the entire western world to start grasping, what makes Russia’s heart and soul.

President Putin attempted again to make the West understand what Russia is all about – namely not aggression and expansion, but seeking harmony and peace, while defending eastern Ukraine – especially the Donbass area from Kiev’s Nazi aggressions. He knows exactly what he is talking about.

The Stepan Bandera Nazi Nazi forces were fighting alongside Hitler’s Nazi army against the Soviet Union – causing countless deaths and misery.

Mr. Putin clearly referred in this interview to a MUST de-Nazification of Ukraine – and he also pointed to the other three main objectives of Russia’s intervention, making Ukraine a neutral state, no NATO in Ukraine, and foremost defending the Russian communities especially in Eastern Ukraine, from Kiev’s Nazi aggressions.

Tucker Carlson opened the door into modern-day Russia, into understanding President Putin, into the History of Russia and into the Russian soul.

President Putin’s tireless effort in seeking harmony and cooperation, may be one of the key points shining through in the interview.

Mr. Putin knows, of course, that so far, the west has no interest whatsoever in seeking cooperation and harmonious cohabitation with Russia. To the contrary – the west wants to weaken Russia – hence, the senseless war funded by trillions of dollars or euros of US and EU taxpayers’ money – to dominate Russia and usurp her natural resources.

Despite this recognition, Vladimir Putin’s sending out positive signal and vibes, one day may bear fruit. That is the sense of peace seeking, of cooperation and friendship – that is a major objective of the Tao philosophy.

*

According to RT (Russia Today) of 10 February 2024, the two-hour interview gathered more than 46 million views on Carlson’s “X” account (formerly Twitter) and just under a million views on YouTube in the first hours since its release on Friday, 9 February.

In a previous post on “X” earlier this week, Carlson accused Western media outlets of lying to “their readers and viewers” by promoting Kiev’s stance while ignoring Russia’s.

“That’s wrong. Americans have the right to know all they can about a war they are implicated in,” he said.

Speaking to Russia’s Izvestia newspaper on Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: 

“This is phenomenal. Their reaction reveals the mendacity of their approaches so much that, frankly speaking, you can’t believe it.”

According to Ms. Zakharova,

“they’ve had a hysterical fit – the White House, the Department of State, all the mainstream media are shouting at the top of their lungs one thing only: don’t watch [President Putin’s interview], and that an American journalist shouldn’t conduct the interview.”

She added that such behavior takes the wind out of Washington’s sails in its attempts to present itself as a beacon of morality, human rights, democracy, [if there ever was ‘democracy’- PK comment] and freedom of speech.

Ms. Zakharova is more than right. This applies equally to the spineless EU. Let’s stay tuned for further fallouts from this interview – hopefully turning from negative to positive.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He lectures at universities in the US, Europe and South America. He writes regularly for online journals and is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.  

Featured image source

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

While US Secretary of State Blinken is on a mission to the Middle East with the declared aim of preventing the war from spreading in the region and obtaining a ceasefire in Gaza, heavy bombers from the United States attack Yemen, Iraq, and Syria, aiming at Iran, and Israel attacks Rafah, which has become a huge production camp, where Israeli soldiers also shot wounded civilians waiting outside a hospital.

In this situation, the initiative “Let’s mobilize against genocide” was born. Anyone who wants to contribute to this Campaign, based on the reasons set out here, can do so by subscribing to the channel: Telegram.

Let’s Mobilize Against Genocide 

We representatives of civil society in Italy – a country whose Constitution repudiates war as an instrument of attack on the freedom of other peoples and as a means of resolving international disputes – support the complaint, accompanied by extensive documentation of the evidence, presented by the Republic of South Africa at the United Nations International Court of Justice against the State of Israel for the crime of genocide against the Palestinian people.

We express our appreciation for the fact that this initiative was promoted by South Africa. This country went through the experience of apartheid, similar to what the Palestinian people are going through, from which South Africa emerged thanks to the long and hard struggle of Nelson Mandela, who is the historical emblem.

We underline the importance that South Africa’s initiative not only for the Palestinian people but for people around the world.

It constitutes a concrete act, based on the principles set out in the United Nations Charter, to save future generations from the scourge of war and guarantee fundamental human rights to all the world’s peoples. 

We reiterate the need to support the role of the United Nations International Court of Justice to guarantee legal certainty and the consequent defense of any people who are victims of a war of aggression or deprived of their fundamental rights. 

In the absence of all this, we are aware that,  the “right of force” will prevail with consequences that can be catastrophic for the entire world in the era of nuclear weapons.

We therefore call on all components of civil society to support South Africa’s initiative at the United Nations International Court of Justice.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published in Italian on Il Manifesto.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

Featured image source

Elections in Pakistan. Victory of Imran Khan’s PTI Party

By Junaid S. Ahmad, February 10, 2024

The elections in Pakistan today were much freer and fairer than I had expected. Hence, the preliminary results simply reflected the obvious for most of us: former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party, PTI (the movement for justice) – facing ruthless repression over the past year – have swept the elections in every single province of the country.

Fluoride on Trial: A Chemical Too Big to Fail. Global Research News Hour

By Michael Welch and Derrick Broze, February 10, 2024

For almost a century, it was understood that fluoride could dramatically improve the dental health of millions of people everywhere. Virtually everyone is now familiar with this principle.

If the US Can’t Stop Israel, Maybe the International Criminal Court Can?

By Steven Sahiounie, February 12, 2024

Palestinians sheltering in Rafah, the last remaining ‘safe-place’ in Gaza, are awaiting extermination at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the IDF orders to ‘evacuate’ over 1 million people.

“Facts for Peace”: The Billionaire-backed Propaganda Campaign Attacking the Palestinian Cause

By Jessica Buxbaum, February 10, 2024

A week after Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, the social media page Facts For Peace was created with the message, “Get the facts on Hamas, Israel, and peace in the region.”

Prime Minister of Slovakia Links COVID-19 Vaccines to Cardiovascular Deaths

By Paul Anthony Taylor, February 10, 2024

A notable feature of the post-pandemic world has been the brazen way in which global political leaders have continued promoting COVID-19 vaccines as safe. A rare exception in this respect is Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, who, in a recent parliamentary speech, admitted that deaths from various cardiovascular events in his country have risen because of the vaccinations.

Biden’s War Funding Plan. He’s Getting Nervous… “U.S. Responsible for Escalation of the Conflict”. Philip Giraldi

By Philip Giraldi, February 10, 2024

Washington is a place where a clueless politician like former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi can, with a straight face and providing no evidence, claim that pro-Palestinian protesters in the United States are working for Russia and/or China. She has asked the FBI to investigate.

The Unexpected. What Is Our Achilles Heal? “Vast Realms of Consciousness Still Undreamed of”. Edward Curtin

By Edward Curtin, February 10, 2024

Despite calendars and clocks and all the mental gymnastics we use to control life and time, surprises are at the heart of existence. This may seem like a truism, but if so, it is one of those truths we often avoid in our desire for stability and the quelling of anxiety.

The Mythical “Russian invasion of Europe”: UK Fantasizes About Defeating Russia While Its Military Falls Apart

By Drago Bosnic, February 10, 2024

Without even taking into account the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin just dispelled all the nonsensical speculation about the mythical “Russian invasion of Europe” in his interview with Tucker Carlson, we will delve into the reasoning of the author and why his analysis is “slightly off”, to put it euphemistically.

The Putin Interview

February 12th, 2024 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Although his questions were on the sophomoric side, Tucker Carlson did a good thing by giving us a two hour view of how Putin thinks. The neoconservative warmongers and the shills for the armament industries are angry, because Putin did not present as they have portrayed him–an evil aggressor out to conquer Europe.

What comes across from Carlson’s interview with Putin is that Putin remains a captive, after all the betrayals and deceptions he has suffered, of his ideal of reaching an agreement with the West.  He discounts Washington’s insistence on its hegemony. The fact doesn’t fit with Putin’s idealistic approach to international relations. Putin still hopes for sanity and good will to emerge in the West. His idealism blocks him from proactive actions, which he regards as provocative. He is yet to accept that his tolerance of Western aggression encourages more aggression and thus continues to frustrate the emergence of the cooperative multipolar world that he envisions.

I don’t think we are going to get the mutual defense treaty between Russia, China, and Iran that would cause Washington’s neoconservatives to accept reality and to give up their goal of American hegemony.  

Watching the interview will help to free you from the propaganda that keeps you in The Matrix. 

My concern remains that Putin’s reasonableness will continue to be taken advantage of by Washington until the conflict Putin seeks to avoid becomes unavoidable. 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Paul Craig Roberts is a renowned author and academic, chairman of The Institute for Political Economy where this article was originally published. Dr. Roberts was previously associate editor and columnist for The Wall Street Journal. He was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan Administration. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Palestinians sheltering in Rafah, the last remaining ‘safe-place’ in Gaza, are awaiting extermination at the hands of the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the IDF orders to ‘evacuate’ over 1 million people.

In this case, the term evacuate means exterminate. There is nowhere to go. Some have wondered if they might be forced to walk to the north of Gaza, but that area is bombed to the ground by the IDF. Any remaining structures that could have been used to shelter have been demolished by the IDF engineering unit, after setting demolition explosives and bringing the buildings down to rubble.

The US, Egypt and Qatar worked on a draft proposal for a ceasefire in Gaza with Hamas representatives, but Netanyahu rejected the proposal without offering a counter-proposal. While leaders around the world, including the western democracies, have pressed US President Joe Biden to get a ceasefire approved with Israel for Gaza, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has come up empty handed after meeting with Netanyahu.

If the US can’t stop Israel, maybe the International Criminal Court (ICC) can? 

Karim A. A. Khan is the Prosecutor of the ICC, serving a nine-year term beginning in 2021. He was born in Edinburgh, Scotland of a Pakistani father and a British mother.  Khan is a Muslim, but has never lived under a brutal military occupation, or siege. Khan has been born, and lived his entire life in a free, western and democratic society. He has no experience living under the Israeli occupation of Palestine which denies all human rights to six million people.

On November 17, 2023, Khan issued a statement that five states: South Africa, Bangladesh, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Comoros, and Djibouti, had referred information concerning war crimes committed by Israel. South African Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor asked Khan why he was able to issue an arrest warrant for Russian President Putin, but not for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. 

On December 6, 2023, Khan issued a statement after a trip to Palestine and Israel. He made points concerning Israeli actions in Gaza, and Israeli settler extremism in the Occupied West Bank, but the statement was mere words, and the victims are waiting for real justice.

On January 24, 2024, French lawyer Gilles Devers, along with a legal army composed of human rights groups and more than 600 lawyers, presented evidence of genocide by Israel to Khan at the ICC. A 56-page lawsuit arrived at the prosecutor’s office last November demanding the opening of an investigation into crimes by the Israeli army in Gaza since Oct. 7, that have killed more than 25,000 people, mainly women and children.

The Jordan Bar Association, and the Arab Lawyers Union participated in the submission of the case to the ICC of crimes including genocide committed by Israel against the Palestinian people. The international team includes the Jordanian, Palestinian, Algerian, Tunisian, and Mauritanian Bar Associations, as well as the National Union of Algerian Judges.

Dr. Anis Qasim, an international law expert, called for the removal of Khan at the ICC, due to his obvious bias in favor of the Israeli occupation. Qasim explained that Khan has failed to take steps against Israel, even though the statements made by Israeli leaders were sufficient to convict them under the ICC, given the demonstration of criminal intent. 

Palestinian Centre for Human Rights, Al Mezan Center for Human Rights, and Al-Haq Organization all submitted information to Khan concerning Israeli war crimes. Khan did not meet with these key groups, or the Palestinian victims of the Israeli crimes.  However, Khan did meet with the families of Israeli victims of the October 7 attack. 

Al-Haq’s General Director Shawan Jabarin told Al Jazeera, “US officials, the administration, I can say they are helping and complicit in the war crimes taking place in Palestine. We’re killed by the American weapons.”

Experts fear that Khan will attempt to convict Hamas of war crimes connected to the October 7 attack, and let Israel off free of charges.

“Khan’s is aligned with the Western rejection of any investigation into Israel’s crimes. Recall that former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson reassured Israel about Khan’s nomination for the position of Prosecutor General, claiming he would “fix the International Criminal Court,” and that his country would oppose the court’s investigation into crimes committed in Palestine,” wrote Aicha el Basri.  

In the view of Khan, Hamas is a terrorist organization following Radical Islam. He equates Hamas with Al Qaeda and ISIS. Khan has stated that Hamas is not representative of Islam, because Islam is a loving religion. Experts would ask Khan, “Is Hamas a religious organization, or is it a resistance organization?” There is a huge difference, but Khan can’t see it, because he has never lived it.

Because Khan feels no solidarity with his fellow Muslims living under brutal siege and occupation in Palestine, he has no concept of resistance. Although Khan is a legal expert, he seemingly does not recognize the Geneva Convention, and the guarantee that all people under occupation have the right to armed struggle.

Hamas has stated they are not fighting to kill all Jews; they are fighting for the freedom of the Palestinian people. Hamas is a resistance group among many in the Middle East, all fighting for the same goal, to restore the human rights to about 6 million Palestinian people in Gaza and the Occupied West Bank.

Regardless of Khan’s religion, he is a British man first and foremost. He is well versed in defending Israel’s interest.  Most experts doubt that Khan will make any meaningful attempt to bring Israel to account for obvious war crimes that the UN, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have researched and documented. 

In the court of public opinion, Israel has already been convicted. In a recent poll, a majority of Americans have said that even though the Hamas attack was horrific, that it was justified because of the past history of the Israeli brutality against the Palestinian people. The protests against Israel have brought millions of people into the streets across the US, UK and all over Europe. The ICC may be part of a western democratic society, but Khan is far removed from the British people in the streets of London demanding a ceasefire and an end to the occupation of Palestine. Khan is running his court according to his own views and he is biased towards Israel, and where is the justice in that?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Mideast Discourse.

Steven Sahiounie is a two-time award-winning journalist. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from MD

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The social-democratic New Democratic Party (NDP) of British Columbia has been buffeted by a political storm that was unleashed by the comments of its post-secondary education minister, Selina Robinson. She publicly and brazenly asserted that, prior to the creation of Israel, Palestine had been nothing more than a ‘crappy piece of land’.

Despite Robinson’s attempts to backtrack and the party leadership’s efforts at damage control, the outrage that her deeply racist comments generated was so powerful and sustained that she has now been forced out of the cabinet.

On 5 February, Premier David Eby finally bowed to the inevitable and announced that following ‘discussions with Minister Robinson we have reached a challenging and necessary decision that Selina will be stepping down in her role as advanced education minister.’

To appreciate the importance of this development, it is first necessary to understand the role of Robinson in promoting anti-Palestinian racism and undermining Palestine solidarity. Her comments on 30 January were delivered at a gathering that was organised by the hardline Zionist body, B’nai B’rith Canada and they were posted on YouTube.

Robinson suggested that critics of Israel were ill informed on the supposed realities of what existed before the 1948 Nakba. As she put it, they ‘don’t understand that it was a crappy piece of land with nothing on it. You know, there were several hundred thousand people but other than that, it didn’t produce an economy.’

Terra Nullius

With these appalling comments, Robinson advanced the infamous notion of terra nullius, that was employed by colonising powers, including those in Canada, to claim that Indigenous populations were too primitive and economically undeveloped to retain possession of their land. The brazen crudity of these remarks immediately generated outrage in a number of communities. There were immediate and continuing calls for her to resign or be removed from her position in the government.

Laith Sarhan, a Vancouver-based Palestinian Canadian lawyer and activist, challenged Robinson’s false historical view and called for her to be removed from the provincial cabinet. This was echoed by, among others, Independent Jewish Voices Canada, Indigenous leaders, and federal NDP MP Matthew Green.

It was immediately apparent to Robinson and her government colleagues that she had gone too far and measures of damage control were set in motion. She declared that, 

‘I understand that this flippant comment has caused pain and that it diminishes the connection Palestinians also have to the land.’ 

However, she didn’t acknowledge the racist and thoroughly colonialist nature of her words, but instead suggested that she had chosen them incautiously:

 ‘I said awful things. It came out not the way I intended. I was sloppy with my storytelling,’ she said.

For his part, Premier David Eby offered the view that her ‘comments increase divisions in our province. They increase the feelings of alienation of groups of people, especially people of Palestinian descent and people who are concerned about the death and the destruction in Palestine that is happening right now.’

Eby added that, ‘She has apologized unequivocally, as she should. And she’s got some more work to do’, and he stressed that she will now be ‘reaching out to communities to repair the damage her remarks caused.’ Clearly Eby hoped that admitting serious failings, while stressing Robinson’s readiness to mend her ways, would be enough to weather the storm without the loss of his minister.

There were, however, some glaring problems with this display of concern and contrition. Robinson’s remarks carried a very clear and deliberate message that can’t be explained away as some careless turn of phrase. Moreover, what she had to say on 30 January was not an isolated incident.

As Robinson dealt with the reaction to her ugly views, another example of her pro-Israel approach was coming home to roost. The Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC and the Canadian Association of University Teachers released a letter on 1 February that also called on Eby to remove Robinson from his cabinet. This was over her intervention in the case of Natalie Knight, who had been an instructor at Langara College in Vancouver.

Last October, Knight addressed a rally in Vancouver in which she referred to ‘the amazing, brilliant offensive waged on Oct. 7’ by Hamas and other organisations, in which they broke out of Gaza. Langara launched an investigation into her conduct and she was placed on leave. However, this led to the conclusion that the words she had spoken ‘were not clearly outside the bounds of protected expression’ and she was reinstated.

At this point, Robinson used her ministerial position to intervene and ensure that Knight would lose her job. On 26 January, Langara announced that Knight was no longer employed by them, and this reversal took place one day after Robinson had taken to social media to declare that she was ‘disappointed that this instructor continues to have a public post-secondary platform to spew hatred and vitriol.’ She also made clear that she had met with the college leadership to drive home her views.

Michael Conlon, executive director of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC, responded to Robinson’s actions by noting that the ‘notion that a minister would intervene directly with a college and call for the termination of a tenured faculty member is highly inappropriate and unprecedented. We will assist the Langara Faculty Association in grieving this unjustified termination.

Popular Anger

From the record of Robinson’s social-media activity, her support for anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic perspectives became clear, as did her readiness to slander those taking to the streets to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. Thousands of people put their names to a letter to David Eby that asserted that a ‘member of your cabinet, Selina Robinson, has continually repeated Islamophobic stereotypes, vilified Muslims, Arabs and Palestinians. She has spread misinformation by aligning herself with the IDF and right-wing media like Fox News.’

On 4 February, it was reported that ‘representatives from more than a dozen B.C. mosques and Islamic associations have sent a letter to Premier David Eby calling for the minister of post-secondary education to be removed from her role. They also say no NDP MLA or candidate for the next election is welcome in their sacred spaces until the premier takes action against Selina Robinson.

With this growing level of popular anger at work, the effort to protect Robinson was clearly falling short. Having already issued dubious apologies, she now promised, rather desperately, to take ‘anti-Islamophobia training’, again assuring everyone that, ‘I am committed to making amends, learning from the pain I have caused and doing whatever I can to rebuild relationships.’ None of this was working, however, and later that day she no longer had a place at the cabinet table.

Robinson’s misfortunes lay in the jarring fashion in which she justified Israel’s colonial project, but she was by no means an entirely discordant note in the government of which she was a part. Last November, with the slaughter in Gaza underway, the BC NDP’s annual convention passed a resolution calling for a ceasefire but the motion was added to the agenda belatedly, in the face of a Palestine solidarity protest outside the building.

The emergency resolution was opposed by some who considered it inadequate and David Eby wouldn’t associate himself with the demand for a ceasefire, claiming that ‘he wants peace in the Middle East, but his responsibility as premier is to the people of B.C. and addressing the rise in hate seen here since the Oct. 7 attack.’ From all this, it isn’t hard to appreciate that the leadership of the BC government was ready to tolerate someone like Robinson until she provoked a level of outrage that made her a liability.

Robinson’s political downfall is a welcome development at a critical time for the Palestinian struggle and the movement of solidarity with it. Canada has seen the weaponisation of anti-Semitism and an ongoing effort to intimidate those who speak out or take to the streets against Israel’s brutality.

Since the genocidal assault on Gaza got underway, the movement of solidarity with Palestine has grown in strength and confidence. In the face of efforts to criminalise it, it has continued to mobilise and defy attempts to stifle it. It is an indication of the new power and resilience of this movement that anti-Palestinian racism could be challenged so effectively and that Selina Robinson held accountable as she so richly deserved to be.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

John Clarke became an organiser with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty when it was formed in 1990 and has been involved in mobilising poor communities under attack ever since. 

Featured image: Selina Robinson. Photo: Province of British Columbia / Flickr / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

Buried Under the Genocide Debate: Desecrated Graves

February 12th, 2024 by Barbara Nimri Aziz

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

It’s hard to imagine this happening in modern times. Even an assault on a single grave is a criminal act in a civilized (sic) country. The very idea is reviled everywhere. So what about Israel’s ongoing assaults on Palestinian cemeteries across Gaza?

The terror received passing reference, first in a fleeting video on Twitter, then in an international news outlet. For a day. That CNN report exposed how widespread was Israel’s upturning and ravaging graves.

Yet, while it may have generated some shock, outrage was surprisingly muted. Moving images – red-stained shrouds clutched by sobbing boys; rows of silent, bent mothers: wandering, stunned orphans: all compete for our rationed sympathy. Dying and grieving display feelings, if not hope. They’re more compelling. Long-dead bodies, their shrouds obscenely shredded, and bones scattered irreverently in pits are best left to archeologists. We wring our hands in moral indignation about genocide and starvation while we swallow our shame watching whole neighborhoods fleeing by foot to they-not-know where.

Is it not enough to order families – old, young, infirmed, pregnant – from their homes, driving them into a road carrying a handful of belongings? Is it not enough to destroy hospitals so that the screaming wounded, often without family nearby, die unnecessarily in corridors or endure amputations without anesthesia? Is it not enough to assassinate anyone daring to disobey orders to shelter among ruins of a bombed hospital or school, or among the raw rubble of their home – any home? Is it not enough to assassinate journalists who dare report realities from the field, to strike United Nations staff whose mission is caring for the needy? Is it not enough to delay essential food delivery to hundreds of thousands? Is it not enough to roundup men, strip them and whisk them away for torture and execution? Is it not enough to level two major Gaza universities, completely obliterating them? Is it not enough to shame decent Jews across the world – orthodox, reformed or non-observant – who watch as this abhorrence is carried out in the name of their Jewish state? Apparently not.

We now have marauding Israeli forces going after the dead, even the dead!

It’s surely impossible for people of conscience to overlook this, as grievous as watching Palestinians turned out of their homes, their contents tossed hither and thither as they are bulldozed, their fields of carefully nurtured olive trees uprooted. Bones and shrouded remains of recently deceased are left exposed, then run over by Israeli tanks and bulldozers.

Cement vaults and hastily dug graves of newly buried are treated equally unfeelingly. (Although given what we are seeing day-to-day, Israelis may actually delight in these actions.) Whatever the pretense for this final assault on a people, these misdeeds expose a distinct degree of incivility. These violations are unarguably intended to deepen the pain of those who dare to survive this calamity. Such crimes are bound to heighten hostility towards their perpetrators.

Israelis don’t need a journalist or theologian to remind them of the sanctity of burial sites. Their behavior is especially poignant given how, in 2005, with the handover of Jewish settlements in Gaza to Palestinian refugees, departing settlers insisted that their loved ones be unearthed for transport to Israel with them. That’s a sign of the care Jews give their ancestors. Muslims and Christians are hardly different—cemeteries are for us more than a resting place of the dead. They mark a family history; they represent love; they signify respect for one’s grandparents, for all ancestors. Israeli sociologists and policy makers and those operating those bulldozers know how, after the annual Eid Al-Fitr, every Muslim family revisit graves of their ancestors. That day is a cherished, cheerful time when children and adults gather among the graves to enjoy a meal, chatting and playing near the spirits of protected loved ones. Christian neighbors join Muslim families at cemeteries on that hallowed Eid.

I recall a heartbreaking sight in a video clip from Iraq almost twenty years ago. Decimated by a decade of embargo, the invasion and sedition aggravated by occupying US troops, internal (sectarian) strife erupted, causing widespread terror. An elderly Iraqi man looking into the camera of a journalist wept agonizingly: “Look, look at what we have become!” I wonder: might some Jewish people staring at those graves smashed and desecrated so savagely, feel similarly?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Barbara Nimri Aziz whose anthropological research has focused on the peoples of the Himalayas is the author of the newly published “Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”, available on Amazon

She is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author


“Yogmaya and Durga Devi: Rebel Women of Nepal”

By Barbara Nimri Aziz

A century ago Yogmaya and Durga Devi, two women champions of justice, emerged from a remote corner of rural Nepal to offer solutions to their nation’s social and political ills. Then they were forgotten.

Years after their demise, in 1980 veteran anthropologist Barbara Nimri Aziz first uncovered their suppressed histories in her comprehensive and accessible biographies. Revelations from her decade of research led to the resurrection of these women and their entry into contemporary Nepali consciousness.

This book captures the daring political campaigns of these rebel women; at the same time it asks us to acknowledge their impact on contemporary feminist thinking. Like many revolutionaries who were vilified in their lifetimes, we learn about the true nature of these leaders’ intelligence, sacrifices, and vision during an era of social and economic oppression in this part of Asia.

After Nepal moved from absolute monarchy to a fledgling democracy and history re-evaluated these pioneers, Dr. Aziz explores their legacies in this book.

Psychologically provocative and astonishingly moving, “Yogmaya and Durga Devi” is a seminal contribution to women’s history.

Click here to order.

Mobilitiamoci contro il Genocidio

February 10th, 2024 by Manlio Dinucci

Articolo e trasmissione a cura di Manlio Dinucci.

Mentre il Segretario di Stato USA Blinken è in missione in Medio Oriente allo scopo dichiarato di impedire l’allargamento della guerra nella regione e ottenere un cessate-il-fuoco a Gaza, bombardieri pesanti provenienti dagli Stati Uniti attaccano lo Yemen, l’Iraq e la Siria, mirando all’Iran, e Israele attacca Rafah, divenuto un enorme campo profughi, dove cecchini israeliani sparano anche ai civili feriti in attesa fuori da un ospedale.

In tale situazione nasce l’iniziativa “Mobilitiamoci contro il genocidio”. Chiunque voglia contribuire a questa Campagna, sulla base delle motivazioni qui esposte, lo può fare iscrivendosi al canale Telegram https://t.me/Mobilitiamocicontroilgenocidio.

MOBILITIAMOCI CONTRO IL GENOCIDIO!

Noi esponenti della società civile dell’Italia – Paese la cui Costituzione ripudia la guerra come strumento di offesa alla libertà degli altri popoli e come mezzo di risoluzione delle controversie internazionali – sosteniamo la denuncia, corredata da un’ampia documentazione delle prove, presentata dalla Repubblica del Sudafrica alla Corte Internazionale di Giustizia delle Nazioni Unite contro lo Stato d’Israele per il reato di genocidio nei confronti del popolo palestinese.

Esprimiamo il nostro apprezzamento per il fatto che tale iniziativa sia stata promossa dal Sudafrica, Paese che ha vissuto l’esperienza dell’apartheid, analoga a quella che sta vivendo il popolo palestinese, dalla quale il Sudafrica è uscito grazie alla lunga e dura lotta di cui Nelson Mandela è l’emblema storico.

Sottolineiamo l’importanza che l’iniziativa del Sudafrica riveste non solo per il popolo palestinese, ma per i popoli di tutto il mondo. Essa costituisce un atto concreto, in base ai principi enunciati nella Carta delle Nazioni Unite, per salvare le future generazioni dal flagello della guerra, per garantire i fondamentali diritti umani a tutti i popoli del mondo.

Ribadiamo la necessità di sostenere il ruolo della Corte Internazionale di Giustizia delle Nazioni Unite per garantire la certezza del diritto e la conseguente difesa a qualunque popolo sia vittima di una guerra di aggressione, sia privato dei suoi fondamentali diritti.

Siamo consapevoli che, in mancanza di tutto questo, prevalga il “diritto della forza” con conseguenze che, nell’era delle armi nucleari, possono essere catastrofiche per il mondo intero. Chiamiamo quindi tutte le componenti della società civile a sostenere l’iniziativa del Sudafrica alla Corte Internazionale di Giustizia delle Nazioni Unite.

 

VIDEO :

https://www.byoblu.com/2024/02/09/mobilitiamoci-contro-il-genocidio/

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu below the author’s name or on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).

Visit and follow us on Instagram at @crg_globalresearch.

a

***

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

Global Research is a website whose focus is principally on truth and government accountability, and one of the most important divisions on this subject is on the question of the truth behind war. [1]

And while we have been speaking frequently in the past few years on the question of the War in Ukraine, the War in Yemen, and similar violence against Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Yugoslavia, etc, there is another important component that is somewhat disregarded. That piece has to do with the Weaponization of Space.

The United States Space Force was founded in 2019. It is a division of the U.S. Armed Forces, alongside the Navy, Army, Marines and Air Force, and would exist to provide access to space operations and consequently a new field on which to target enemies. This extra dimension seems seldom discussed in public media discussion. But it’s consequences could be fundamental in anyone concerned about war in 2023 and beyond. [2]

The Global Network against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space (GN) has been in existence since 1992. It was founded by the Florida Coalition for Peace & Justice (FCPJ); Citizens for Peace in Space (Colorado Springs); and New York-based Journalism professor Karl Grossman. Bruce Gagnon has served as its coordinator. The organization has been an effective educational tool to its members and the 170 organizations around the world with which it is affiliated. [3]

On this 31st annual general meeting held over ZOOM on the 15th of July presents a number of eloquent discussions encapsulating not only Ballistic Missile Defense systems (Star Wars) but also the development of NATO into the Asia-Pacific, Full Spectrum Dominance, and the evolution of propaganda in the era of social media and the internet. These discussions are the focus of this summertime edition of the Global Research News Hour.

Appearing in this discussion were GN Board Chair Dave Webb, Korean-American Juyeon Rhee, independent journalist Christian Sorenson, retired educator and organizer Lisa Savage, and Canadian peace activist and academic Tamara Lorincz.

Dave Webb is Professor Emeritus and  the Convener of the GN board of directors. He is a retired university engineering professor who switched to Peace and Conflict Studies. He was chair of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) in the UK and is chair of the Yorkshire Region CND and a patron of the UK group Scientists for Global Responsibility.

Juyeon Rhee has been a member of New York-based Nodutdol for Korean Community Development since 2000. She is also a board member at Korea Policy Institute, and also a steering committee member of Tongil Peace Foundation. She holds multiple memberships with overseas Korean organizations supporting peace and reunification work.

Christian Sorensen is a New England-based researcher and independent journalist in the US mainly focused on the corporations profiting from war. An Air Force veteran, he is the author of the book Understanding the War Industry.

Lisa Savage is a retired educator, organizer, and past candidate for the U.S. Senate in 2020. She lives in Solon, Maine and blogs at https://went2thebridge.substack.com

Tamara Lorincz is a PhD candidate in Global Governance at the Balsillie School for International Affairs at Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada. She’s a member of the Canadian Voice of Women for Peace and serves on the board of the GN.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW

Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am. 

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

  1. https://www.globalresearch.ca/global-research-donation-drive-message-thanks-plea-support/5824130
  2. https://www.spaceforce.mil/About-Us/About-Space-Force/
  3. https://space4peace.org/history-of-gn/

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

A week after Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel, the social media page Facts For Peace was created with the message, “Get the facts on Hamas, Israel, and peace in the region.”

A few days later, the page began advertising its content. “Here is Hamas’ Founding Charter in Their Own Words,” one sponsored post reads alongside video clips of Hamas leaders speaking and snapshots of the document. The page has spent more than $945,000 on Facebook ads since the war began nearly four months ago, and according to POLITICO, was the single largest pro-Israel advertiser between November 2 and December 1, spending over $450,000 on Meta ads. The ads have mainly reached male-identifying Facebook users under the age of 35 in California, Texas, New York, and Florida.

Labeled as a media/news company on Facebook, now Meta, the page’s posts and its supporters appear less concerned with accurate reporting and more involved in shaping public opinion.

In November, news website Semafor reported real-estate billionaire Barry Sternlicht launched Facts For Peace and sought $1 million in donations each from some of the world’s wealthiest individuals. “This is just one of several behind-the-scenes efforts by business tycoons — many, though not all of them Jewish — to support Israel since the attack by Hamas,” Samafor reported.

“Public opinion will surely shift as scenes, real or fabricated by Hamas, of civilian Palestinian suffering will surely erode [Israel’s] current empathy in the world community,” Sternlicht wrote in an email, seen by Semafor, soliciting contributions from Wall Street, Hollywood, and tech moguls. “We must get ahead of the narrative.”

Sternlicht wrote that he’s aiming to raise $50 million from the recipients and secure a matching donation from an unnamed Jewish charity. With the funds, Facts For Peace seeks to “define Hamas to the American people as a terrorist organization” and “not just the enemy of Israel but of the United States.”

According to Bloomberg and Forbes data, the recipients have a combined net worth of almost $500 billion and include media tycoon David Geffen, former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg, Apollo CEO Marc Rowan, investors Michael Milke, Nelson Peltz, and Bill Ackman, and tech tycoons Eric Schmidt and Michael Dell. Facts For Peace did not respond to MintPress News inquiries about its campaign objectives.

Paying for Propaganda

Following its debut ad on the Hamas charter, Facts For Peace has gone on to publish hundreds of sponsored posts, with some conflating support for Palestine with support for Hamas or calling for the destruction of Israel. Only one ad was taken down since Facts For Peace’s launch for violating the platform’s advertising standards by not adding a paid for by disclaimer.

One ad, which hasn’t been active since Jan. 22, 2024, depicts a pro-Palestine march with participants chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”

“Does this sound like peace and freedom? No,” the ad reads, followed by stating the protest ballad is a call for “genocide.” The ad then tells the viewer this slogan is sung at nearly every pro-Palestine rally and immediately jumps into saying, “Hamas wants to destroy and take over the entire area where Israelis and Palestinians live.”

The ad then ends with, “Anyone who says these words…is calling for a world without Israel.”

In another advertised video, a man approaches pedestrians in New York City, asking them to sign “a quick petition to help Hamas free Palestine.” He then reads off the petition’s“terms and conditions,” which include, “You agree that every Jew, Christian, and non-Muslim in the world must be slaughtered,” “You believe Iran should use Palestinians as puppets to spread radical jihad and destroy the west,” and “You want a terrorist group that beheads babies and rapes girls to replace the only democracy in the Middle East.”

A similar video shows a man approaching pedestrians in Washington, D.C., asking them to sign the same petition. In this video, the “terms and conditions” outlined include agreeing “Hamas should keep enforcing anti-West values like murdering gay Palestinians,” and “You want Hamas to win the war so they can spread their death cult to the U.S. and massacre all non-Muslims.”

As a reminder, those demonstrating in support of Palestine are generally not siding with Hamas, and using the slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” isn’t genocidal but rather expressing freedom from oppression across the historical land of Palestine.

While pro-Palestine activists have been condemned for this phrase, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu did not receive similar backlash when he called to take over the “area from the river to the sea.”

“Every area that we evacuate, we receive terrible terror against us. It happened in South Lebanon, in Gaza, and also in Judea and Samaria [the occupied West Bank], which we did it,” Netanyahu said earlier this month. “And therefore, I clarify that in any other arrangement, in the future, the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea.”

Another now-inactive ad encourages viewers to take a quiz to determine “Who do you really support in the Middle East Conflict?” The ad then directs to a Facts For Peace online quiz asking questions related to democracy, human rights, and equality. If you answer positively, your results say, “your views are more in line with Israel’s.”

Facts for Peace quiz

“It seems that Facts for Peace is another transparent effort to wrap up genocide propaganda in lies and push the public conversation in counterproductive directions,” rapper and activist Lowkey said.

Currently, the page is running two ads on Instagram. On January 28, Facts For Peace launched an ad with the caption, “The International Court of Justice [ICJ]  just confirmed Israel’s right to self-defense.” In this video, Facts For Peace said because the ICJ didn’t call for an immediate ceasefire “establishes Israel’s military actions are a defensive response to the Oct 7 attacks.”

The page is also running an ad featuring a video interview with Abbey Onn, an American-Israeli who had five members of her family kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. The video was produced by Middle East Intel, yet the only record of this organization is a black-and-white webpage containing only its name in large font. Another website, Israel Palestine Chronicles, features the same design as Middle East Intel but links to accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube as well as noting that it is paid for by Facts For Peace LLC. These websites mirror Facts For Peace’s own website, which also dons a black-and-white theme and links to its social media pages.

Facts For Peace’s mission falls in line with the United States’ vast Israel lobby. American journalist and executive director of the Institute for Public Accuracy, Norman Solomon, explained the lobby’s current tactics since Israel’s war began.

“The Israel lobby extends far beyond literal lobbyists on Capitol Hill,” Solomon told MintPress.

Israel-can-do-no-wrong defenders have been in ongoing damage-control mode since October, and part of that effort is focused on smearing principled supporters of human rights like Congresswomen Rashida Tlaib and Cori Bush.”

Facts For Peace appears part of these damage-control efforts with its own media blitz. “The lobby’s influence is inclusive of, and perhaps mainly composed of, ferocious media offensives – now denying that Israel is engaged in the mass murder of civilians in Gaza and slandering the movement that demands an immediate and permanent ceasefire,” Solomon said.

Despite Facts For Peace’s continuous ad expenditure, Solomon doubts, however, that the campaign can make a real impact on public opinion, telling MintPress:

Its website is rudimentary and appears to be going through the motions. Not major players in the manipulative game of smearing people who advocate for human rights of Palestinian people.”

Who Is Behind Facts for Peace?

Facts For Peace’s website offers little transparency beyond giving a contact email address and social media links and stating it’s paid for by Facts For Peace LLC. Yet who manages the campaign isn’t listed. Facts For Peace was incorporated in New York on September 15, 2022, and was originally called Fulfill the Promise LLC. It changed its name to Change the Narrative Coalition LLC on October 13 before finally landing on Facts For Peace on October 16.

According to Semafor, Facts For Peace hired Josh Vlasto, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Chuck Schumer and ex-New York governor Andrew Cuomo, to advise it. The number listed on Facts For Peace’s Meta Ad Library account is the same one for Vlasto’s public relations firm, Bamberger & Vlasto. The firm is run by Vlasto and Richard Bamberger, both former Cuomo aides who reportedly assisted Cuomo in his smear attempts against former aide Lindsey Boylan, who accused Cuomo of sexual harassment.

MintPress could not reach Vlasto’s firm for comment. However, Vlasto has already shared Facts For Peace’s content on his X profile. According to The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, Facts for Peace, Israel Palestine Chronicles, and Bamberger & Vlasto, websites all share the same IP addresses, suggesting they are hosted on the same server.

Semafor also reported that Sternlicht discussed Facts For Peace with CNN owner David Zaslav and that Endeavor CEO Ari Emanuel agreed to coordinate the endeavor. However, neither Saslav nor Emanuel responded to MintPress inquiries on their involvement.

Facts For Peace’s known head, Sternlicht, has previously funded Birthright, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), and the American Jewish Committee (AJC) through his foundation and according to the foundation’s 2022 tax filing, available on ProPublic’s Nonprofit Explorer database, it gave $20,000 to the American Jewish Committee’s “to support [its] pro-Israel media campaign.”

Lowkey stressed Sternlicht’s funding ventures should be cause for concern, telling MintPress that:

Sternlicht has a history of funding projects aimed at radicalizing young people and converting them to settler-colonists. Birthright offers free trips to occupied Palestine and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to young Jews around the world.”

The ADL notoriously spied on thousands of Arab students and pro-Palestine and anti-apartheid activists, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and even sold that information to South African intelligence agents in the 1980s.

Another notable person linked to Facts For Peace is ex-Google CEO Schmidt, who co-founded the Israeli tech company Team8 in 2015 with Nadav Zafrir, former head of Israeli military intelligence Unit 8200, which is infamous for surveilling Palestinians. Schmidt has met with Netanyahu over the years, and during their last meeting in Sept. 2023, Schmidt agreed to join Netanyahu’s advisory forum on artificial intelligence.

According to a MintPress investigation, at least 99 former agents of Unit 8200 are currently employed in significant roles at Google, including as Head of Strategy.

Other Facts For Peace’s email recipients have also expressed support for Israel as of late. Wall Street executives Ackman and Rowan criticized universities’ handling of pro-Palestinian demonstrations — calling to withhold their donations.

Facts For Peace’s ads are often stuffed with prominent voices like comedian Mikey Greenblatt, actors Nathaniel Buzolic and Zach Sage Fox, and Mosab Hassan Yousef, a Palestinian who worked undercover for the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security service and has strongly opposed calls for a ceasefire.

Despite this Rolodex of high-profile support, netizens have questioned the campaign and its agenda in a Reddit forum.

One user responded:

answer: It’s a Zionist propaganda group manufactured to try and counter, belittle, and discredit the organic anti Zionist sentiments on social media.

Edit: their increased presence is fueled by monetary investments by pro Zionist individuals and groups that dislike the fact that younger individuals are anti Zionist.

Jewish ≠ Zionist

Jewish ≠ Israeli

Anti Zionist ≠ Anti Semitic

Public opinion polls indicate that support for Israel is waning, with a November 2023 Reuters/Ipsos survey noting that around 68% of respondents in the U.S. agreed with the statement that “Israel should call a ceasefire and try to negotiate.” And with Israel charging forward with its unrelenting war on Gaza — killing more than 26,000 Palestinians so far in the assault — amid growing international pressure, sponsored social media ads may not be enough to return Israeli favor in the world’s eyes.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Jessica Buxbaum is a Jerusalem-based journalist for MintPress News covering Palestine, Israel, and Syria. Her work has been featured in Middle East Eye, The New Arab and Gulf News.

Featured image is from MPN

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

A notable feature of the post-pandemic world has been the brazen way in which global political leaders have continued promoting COVID-19 vaccines as safe. A rare exception in this respect is Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico, who, in a recent parliamentary speech, admitted that deaths from various cardiovascular events in his country have risen because of the vaccinations. Describing COVID-19 vaccines as “experimental” and “unnecessary,” Fico has bravely committed his government to telling Slovak people the truth about what actually happened during the pandemic.

The Slovak Prime Minister’s speech came only weeks after announcing that his political party would not support strengthening the powers of the World Health Organization (WHO) in managing the fight against future pandemics. Explaining this decision, Fico stated that “such nonsense could only have been invented by greedy pharmaceutical companies, which began to perceive the resistance of certain governments against mandatory vaccination.” Subsequent to his announcement, the WHO admitted that the plans for its controversial global pandemic agreement are at risk of falling apart. Aided by proposed amendments to the International Health Regulations of 2005, the ratification of this agreement would essentially transform the WHO into a global health dictatorship.

Who Actually Organized the COVID-19 Circus?

Fico’s parliamentary speech addresses a number of key issues, such as how many expired vaccines Slovakia has left and how much money has been wasted on them. He also openly refers to the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and secret text messages that she reportedly exchanged with Pfizer Chairman and CEO Albert Bourla. A multi-billion euro vaccine deal was subsequently completed with Pfizer, the largest such purchase in the European Commission’s entire history. “We will simply never know the truth of what role the pharmaceutical companies played,” suggests Fico, “and who actually organized the whole circus around COVID-19.”

Fico believes that the Slovak people need answers to important questions such as why people were vaccinated with various experimental vaccines, and why all sorts of drugs were used on them. An Office of the Government Plenipotentiary has therefore been created to deal with these issues. This Plenipotentiary has been empowered in terms of obtaining information from various Slovak institutions.

Fico says he is “absolutely convinced” that this investigation will lead to results and that his government will ultimately be able to tell Slovak citizens what actually happened during the pandemic. Meantime he alleges that previous governments in his country are responsible for 21,000 excess deaths since 2020 and openly accuses them of making “a huge amount of money on the unnecessary purchase of various medical equipment and vaccines.”

Will the Slovak investigation uncover at least some of the truth about the COVID-19 circus? And if it does, will it succeed in making it public? Time will tell, but investigations carried out in other countries have thus far left many questions unanswered. The total cost of the ongoing UK inquiry is eventually expected to run to more than half-a-billion pounds ($630 million), for example, but is already turning into a whitewash. In his laudable attempt to find out what really happened during the pandemic, Prime Minister Fico is likely going to have a fight on his hands.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Dr. Rath Health Foundation.

Executive Director of the Dr. Rath Health Foundation and one of the coauthors of our explosive book, “The Nazi Roots of the ‘Brussels EU’”, Paul is also our expert on the Codex Alimentarius Commission and has had eye-witness experience, as an official observer delegate, at its meetings. You can find Paul on Twitter at @paulanthtaylor

He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from DRHF

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name.

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

“It really raises the question. Do you want your NTP (National Toxicology Program) which is supposed to be all about science – independent science – do you want these political bodies to have sort of a veto power over them? And that’s what we see happening with fluoride. This veto power from political bodies over the scientists at the NTP!”Michael Connett, Attorney for Fluoride Action Network, from this week’s interview.

LISTEN TO THE SHOW


Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

For almost a century, it was understood that fluoride could dramatically improve the dental health of millions of people everywhere. Virtually everyone is now familiar with this principle. [1]

“Look Ma! No cavities!” [2]

Consequently, communities throughout the United States and Canada began actually inserting fluoride in the form of  Silicofluorides into our drinking water. [3]

Over 70 percent of communities in America and almost 40 percent in Canada have fluoride added to their tap water. Meanwhile, throughout Europe, the vast majority of water is not fluoridated. Are North American teeth that much more improved than European teeth? [4][5][6]

No.

Far more disturbing is the scientific research coming out for decades now signalling that fluoridated, like lead and arsenic, could be toxic. Studies show it’s use in water has apparently resulted in dental fluorosis, skeletal weakness, thyroid issues, and irritable bowel syndrome. In particular, studies have come out linking fluoridated water with lowering children’s IQs! [7][8]

Now, for the first time ever, citizens’ groups, armed with studies and research, took the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to a Federal Court over their failure to respect a petition calling for the agency to ban the use of an industrial chemical if it presents an unreasonable risk to human health. The lawsuit was submitted in 2017. [9]

It is only now, almost seven years later, that the court hearings are going into its second phase after a delay. [10]

What is behind the delays in a case ultimately determining the fate of millions of citizens? Is there an outside factor beyond “science” weighing in with their huge thumbs on the scales of human health regulation? And where the hell is mainstream media in all of this? These are some of the many factors weighing in on this week’s episode of the Global Research News Hour.

In our first half hour, we have a conversation with Dr. Robert Dickson (Dr. Bob) about the use and history of artificial water fluoridation in Canada, the health impacts studies, and about some of the ways forward for people seeking to free themselves from virtually “compulsive” consumption of the substance.

In our second half hour, the amazing journalist Derrick Broze hosts a discussion with Michael Connett, the lead attorney representing the plaintiffs in the federal court lawsuit on fluoride in water. He discusses the background, and the core principles involved. His arguments will astonish you!

Dr. Robert C Dickson is the founder of Safe Water Calgary, and the chair of Fluoride Free Canada. He has a degree in Physical Education and an MD from the University of Calgary, and certification in Paramedics from SAIT in Calgary. Dr. Dickson co-led the anti-fluoridation program in Calgary from 1999 which resulted in water fluoridation being halted in 2011, and continues to actively volunteer with the issue of artificial water fluoridation. His site is www.fluoridefreecanada.ca

Michael Connett is the lead attorney for Food & Water Watch, Fluoride Action Network, Moms Against Fluoridation and other advocacy groups and individuals currently suing the EPA  in a bid to force the agency to prohibit water fluoridation in the U.S. due to fluoride’s toxic effects on children’s developing brains.

Derrick Broze is a freelance investigative journalist, documentary film maker, author, public speaker and, in 2019, a candidate for Mayor of his town Houston. Derrick is the author of 5 books and writer of 5 documentaries. He is currently a staff writer for The Last American Vagabond, co-host of Free Thinker Radio on 90.1 Houston, and the founder of The Conscious Resistance Network & The Houston Free Thinkers.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 421)

LISTEN TO THE SHOW


Click to download the audio (MP3 format)

The Global Research News Hour airs every Friday at 1pm CT on CKUW 95.9FM out of the University of Winnipeg. The programme is also podcast at globalresearch.ca .

Other stations airing the show:

CIXX 106.9 FM, broadcasting from Fanshawe College in London, Ontario. It airs Sundays at 6am.

WZBC 90.3 FM in Newton Massachusetts is Boston College Radio and broadcasts to the greater Boston area. The Global Research News Hour airs during Truth and Justice Radio which starts Sunday at 6am.

Campus and community radio CFMH 107.3fm in  Saint John, N.B. airs the Global Research News Hour Fridays at 7pm.

CJMP 90.1 FM, Powell River Community Radio, airs the Global Research News Hour every Saturday at 8am.

Caper Radio CJBU 107.3FM in Sydney, Cape Breton, Nova Scotia airs the Global Research News Hour starting Wednesday afternoon from 3-4pm.

Cowichan Valley Community Radio CICV 98.7 FM serving the Cowichan Lake area of Vancouver Island, BC airs the program Thursdays at 9am pacific time.

Notes:

  1. https://www.nidcr.nih.gov/health-info/fluoride/the-story-of-fluoridation
  2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v72NHYp8KD4
  3. https://www.britannica.com/technology/fluoridation-of-water
  4. https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/statistics/2020stats.htm
  5. https://www.cdc.gov/fluoridation/statistics/2020stats.htm
  6. https://fluoridealert.org/content/water_europe/
  7. https://www.fluoridefreecanada.ca/history
  8. https://www.fluoridefreecanada.ca/new-science
  9. https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/fluoride-epa-day-1-landmark-trial/
  10. ibid

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Washington is a place where a clueless politician like former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi can, with a straight face and providing no evidence, claim that pro-Palestinian protesters in the United States are working for Russia and/or China. She has asked the FBI to investigate. But in spite of that and for a change there was also some good news coming out of the Federal Capital though it was far outweighed by the bad things that the US government does almost reflexively, clearly with little regard for possible consequences.

The good news is that Ukraine and Israel, incorrectly described by the New York Times as America’s “allies,” might not soon be getting their expected fat checks and planeloads of military equipment from Washington, which will no doubt hamper their plans to weaken Russia while also killing Palestinians.

The GOP controlled House presented a unilateral standalone bill giving $17.6 billion to Israel but ignoring other alleged national security obligations being advanced by the White House. The bill was submitted “under suspension,” which is a procedural tactic that fast-tracks an item for a vote but requires a two-thirds majority to pass. It failed 250-180 in the voting last Tuesday. The House bill went down when the Democrats were able to muster enough votes to block its passage in support of White House objections, even though a formidable percentage of the House normally votes to support anything and everything related to Israel. The “no” voters argued that the GOP bill was an attempt to “undermine the possibility of a comprehensive bipartisan funding package that addresses America’s national security challenges in the Middle East, Ukraine, the Indo-Pacific region and throughout the world.”

If the bill had passed and eventually reached Biden’s desk for signature, a possibility that the White House had dismissed as a “cynical political maneuver,” he would have refused to sign it in spite of his often expressed great love for Israel. Over last weekend, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre issued a statement declaring that

“The security of Israel should be sacred, not a political game. We strongly oppose this ploy which does nothing to secure the border, does nothing to help the people of Ukraine defend themselves against Putin’s aggression, and denies humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians, the majority of them women and children, which the Israelis supported by opening the access route.”

It should be noted that Jean-Pierre is lying. It is the White House, not the GOP bill, which “denies humanitarian assistance” to the Gazans by supporting Israeli total control over the importation of relief supplies and food. According to the UN, 95% of emergency supplies are being blocked or interfered with by Israel, which continues to bomb civilians throughout the strip. In response to that reality, the White House has issued a national security memorandum that will require that countries receiving US military aid not impede the delivery of humanitarian assistance even during wartime, though the Thursday memorandum does not specifically mention it as applying to Israel, only to “allies and partners.” The aid recipients must also confirm in writing that they “will use any such defense articles in accordance with international humanitarian law.”

In a bid to counter the Republican efforts and advance his own agenda, President Joe Biden and whoever pulls his strings came up with their own war funding plan, which came apart and “crumbled” in a close 49 to 50 vote due to lack of sufficient support in the Senate on Wednesday night. The Democrats had the brilliant idea of tying in their offering of $14.1 billion in aid to Israel to the $60 billion to be given to Ukraine to get them through the next year plus $4 billion for Taiwan.

Also included was $10 billion in humanitarian aid, but as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency program for Palestine (UNRWA) was predictably blocked from receiving any of it, the $1.4 billion allocated to Gaza would likely not actually have been delivered in any case in spite of Biden’s promotion of the “humanitarian” aspect of the legislation. If the bill had passed, one would not have been surprised to see the bulk of the humanitarian aid winding up in Israel to compensate it for its perpetual victimhood, this time allegedly meted out by Hamas!

The White House’s reasoning behind the initiative was that by wrapping all the commitments together in an omnibus Senate bill, Congress wouldn’t dare withhold money from Israel and the other aid packages could slide through the process without any serious opposition. But the Republicans were able to muster enough “no” votes from congressmen concerned about where the money was coming from to pay for the aid to block the Senate bill. A third “national security” spending bill is nevertheless now in the works, having passed through the Senate on Thursday night by a filibuster proof 67 to 32 vote. It includes the money for Ukraine and Israel as well as for Taiwan and for “humanitarian” programs, but it still has to pass through further tweaking in the Senate to satisfy Republican concerns about immigration and the border, followed by a second vote in the Senate before it then goes on to the House of Representatives for final approval before landing on the presidential desk. So at this point nobody gets anything, which is a perfect solution when one is fighting three or four technically illegal wars, one involving genocide, in which money provided to Israel plausibly involves the United States in supporting a crime against humanity.

On the same previous day as the vote in the House on the Israel aid, the GOP, unfortunately, also failed in its bid to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas by a vote of 216-214. Four Republicans voted against together with all the Democrats on grounds that impeaching a cabinet secretary over policy disagreements sets a bad precedent. Mayorkas’ record regarding relatively free entry of waves of literally millions of illegal immigrants from Mexico is well known, but the presumption is that he is carrying out policies under instructions from the president. The border has become known as such an easy way to enter the US that charter flights to Mexico from places like India and Africa are regularly being run to bring in the new illegals. Interestingly the failed Senate bill relating to Israel and Ukraine funding also included as a sweetener some guidelines regarding changes regarding border and migrant “security” issues, though Republicans observed that the language was such that Mayorkas would continue to have a free hand in setting policy and enforcement, meaning that there would likely be no change from the current laissez faire. Mayorkas defended himself against attacks in a Senate hearing by Republican Senator Josh Hawley, who was, ironically, challenging the secretary over a pro-Palestinian employee at Homeland Security, by characteristically citing his Jewish ancestry-bestowed victimhood and the so-called holocaust. He said angrily

“Perhaps he does not know that I am the child of a Holocaust survivor. Perhaps he does not know that my mother lost almost all her family at the hands of the Nazis. And so I find his adversarial tone to be entirely misplaced. I find it to be disrespectful of me and my heritage. And I do not expect an apology.”

So the utterly incompetent Mayorkas survived, But the worst news of the week has to relate to the continuing warfare going on and also escalating in the Middle East. The region has been simmering ever since Israel launched its devastating attack on the mostly civilian population of Gaza in early October. The bombing and shooting of civilians has continued in spite of a judgment by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) that Israel was engaging in actions that could be characterized as genocide. The United States, which is continuing to arm and fund Israel, could be seen, in legal terms, as an accessory to genocide given the terms of the court ruling. Israel, for its part, was warned that it must cease and desist from targeting and killing civilians, blocking food and other relief supplies to encourage both famine and disease, and destroying critical infrastructure like water treatment plants and hospitals.

The United States is responsible for escalating the conflict through its total support of Israel and its attack on the Houthis as well as the current strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq. Hypocritically the White House is at the same time boasting that it is not expanding the war because it has not yet struck Iran, as the Israelis are stridently seeking. To retaliate against a drone attack that killed three US soldiers at a base straddling the Jordan-Syria border, the United States attacked more than 85 targets in Syria, Iraq and Yemen simultaneously, killing at least forty civilians in Syria as well as a high level Iraqi militia commander in Baghdad. The multi-million-dollar cruise missiles and smart bombs being used by the Navy and Air Force are reportedly expensive and already hard to replace. And why is the White House bombing so many targets in Iraq and Syria when only one US base which may have actually been in completely illegally in Syria was hit? The one site that launched the device that struck the base was reportedly among the targets, but the effectiveness of the retaliation is unknown, meaning that the US is engaged in collective punishment and killing innocent tribesman living in the deserts in western Iraq and eastern Syria as well as in the Iraqi capital Baghdad. This is itself an escalation and more will surely follow, inevitably creating new enemies who will be motivated to seek revenge against Americans at the remaining bases. The smart policy would be to shut down the illegal bases in both Syria and Iraq, as has been demanded by the local governments and people, but that would mean not being able to steal more Syrian oil. This escalation was not the right response, but no one expects Biden and his crew to be smart.

In fact, the local militia fighters wasted no time and struck back immediately, killing six US-supported Kurdish fighters by way of a drone strike on a US base in eastern Syria. The men were killed in an attack on the US facility located at al-Omar oilfield in Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor province. A further 18 militiamen were wounded. Additional attacks on US bases in Syria and Iraq are likely to increase, not decrease in the coming weeks, with no end in sight. If anyone can explain why the United States continues to shoot itself in the foot both worldwide and at home it would certainly be interesting to hear a whole new series of lies to justify bad policies and performance. In 2015 distinguished journalist Robert Fisk asked what is “The difference between America and Israel?” He answered “There isn’t one. Netanyahu knows he can get away with anything in America – with the same confidence that he can support his army when they slaughter hundreds of children in Gaza.” He has now observed that the 2016 election was between a “Liberal American Zionist fascist,” and a “Conservative American Zionist fascist,” with the latter winning in 2016, and the former in 2020. And now we’re likely back to the latter in 2024.

Joe Biden is clearly getting nervous. In an impromptu speech on Thursday responding to disparaging comments made by the special counsel investigating his mishandling of classified documents, he denied suffering from memory problems. Unfortunately, in his comments he described Egypt’s President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi as the leader of Mexico. But he also delivered a scathing comment on Netanyahu that has resonated, saying “I’m of the view, as you know, that the conduct of the response in Gaza, in the Gaza Strip, has been over the top. I’ve been pushing really hard, really hard, to get humanitarian assistance into Gaza. There are a lot of innocent people who are starving. There are a lot of innocent people who are in trouble and dying. And it’s got to stop.” Israel is currently bombing the Rafah area in Gaza, which is packed with refugees as Israel had previously declared it to be a “safe” zone. During Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s recent visit to Israel, he reportedly told Netanyahu that that Washington wouldn’t support any “unplanned” ground operation in Rafah. The Israeli Prime Minister angrily rejected the advice and Israel escalated attacks anyway.

One has to wonder if Joe Biden is up to improving his re-electoral prospects in the nine months remaining until the election by abandoning his hitherto sordid defense of Israel’s crimes. And, if he does so, what will he do when Bibi and the Israel Lobby begin pushing back real hard on him, as they inevitably will?

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on The Unz Review.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is [email protected].

Featured image is from TUR

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

On February 6, The Telegraph, one of the oldest publications in the United Kingdom, ran a story about the supposed “inability of Russia to deal with Europe, without the United States”.

According to the author, Andrew Lilico, even if Washington DC pulled out of the old continent, “Putin would be crazy to start something”.

Without even taking into account the fact that Russian President Vladimir Putin just dispelled all the nonsensical speculation about the mythical “Russian invasion of Europe” in his interview with Tucker Carlson, we will delve into the reasoning of the author and why his analysis is “slightly off”, to put it euphemistically. First of all, the author seems to lack a basic understanding of the actual size of global economies, as well as the fact that industrial capacity, particularly a robust defense industry, is key to military power.

Lilico claims that the Russian economy is “fairly small, only around 85% of the size of Italy’s” and that “its population of about 140 million is less than that of Germany plus France combined”. Using the nominal GDP to measure economic power can be described as either functional illiteracy or propagandistic tendencies. The idea that Italian and Russian economies are not only comparable, but that the former is 15% larger, is simply ludicrous. Otherwise, instead of Moscow, Rome would’ve been the one with the world’s largest arsenal of thermonuclear weapons. In addition, the claim that Russia’s population is “only about 140 million” is false, as the latest data shows that the Eurasian giant has over 147 million people, which also includes the Crimean Peninsula, but excludes the four former Ukrainian regions that joined it on September 30, 2022.

Those additional areas push Russia’s population well over 150 million, meaning that the claim that it has a smaller population than France and Germany combined is also false. Lilico then goes on to parrot debunked propaganda tropes about Moscow’s supposed “inability to defeat Ukraine – a country that when Russia invaded was the world’s 53rd largest economy, below New Zealand and Peru”. Once again, the author’s premise is based on the deeply flawed nominal GDP data, while he completely ignores the fact that the Kiev regime is an extremely militarized entity. Data on its armed forces shows that if the Neo-Nazi junta was officially in NATO, it would’ve been among its top 3 members in terms of conventional military power. And yet, its casualty ratio against the Russian military is around 10:1 in Moscow’s favor.

If such an atrocious performance of the Neo-Nazi junta’s forces against the Russian military is a “defeat” for the Kremlin, it really makes you wonder what a “victory” would look like. However, Lilico still insists that Kiev is winning. What’s more, he further claims that even if the US leaves, the EU and the UK could “easily defeat Russia”. Interestingly, at one point, even the author himself implies that “having a higher GDP does not imply being more militarily powerful”. And while this is certainly true, Lilico’s admission is simply an attempt to justify his flawed logic on why Italy has a supposedly “larger economy”, but only a fraction of Russia’s military might. The author then tries to analyze how a potential conflict would play out precisely on this false premise of Moscow’s “fairly small economy”, which, in reality, is the fifth largest in the world.

Lilico then goes on to parrot other ludicrous claims, such as the idea that “an authoritarian state might be able to conscript more of its population to fight, but it might also have what we might term a ‘morale’ disadvantage – its forces might become unable or unwilling to fight at a lower loss rate than would be the case for forces fighting for what they regard as a more noble cause”. This premise shows the author’s complete lack of understanding of Russia and its military traditions that have been largely preserved, unlike in the political West, where service in the military is increasingly unpopular. Even Lilico himself admits that Western societies have become “sufficiently self-hating or decadent that they do not regard their own cause as noble enough to fight for”, meaning they wouldn’t have a “higher morale”.

This inaccurately postulated analysis then becomes even worse, as the author claims that “the Russian economy is about 10% of the size of the EU’s”, although the actual number is around 28%. Once again, based on this false premise, Lilico pushes another one. Namely, he claims that, based on the percentage of military spending in both the EU and Russia, the latter “would need to mobilize more than 40% more troops” than the former. Thus, to match 1.4 million EU troops, Russia would supposedly need around two million soldiers (or three million if it decided to invade). Thinking that a modern conflict is about the number of troops shows just how little understanding of military power and doctrine the author has. The very idea that Moscow would send millions of people to invade Europe is beyond ridiculous.

If Russia ever had to deal with the EU military, it would need zero invasion troops. And the reason is quite simple. Russian long-range strike systems completely negate the need to send any ground troops to any European country. Its cruise missiles (particularly the “Kalibr” family) would devastate EU airbases long before any large fighter jet squadrons could be mustered to launch strikes within Russia. Moscow’s ballistic and hypersonic missiles would neutralize any large formations of EU ground forces, while its massive (and rapidly expanding) fleet of strike drones would pick off any leftover units. The EU’s military-industrial capacity would also be targeted from thousands of kilometers away, as Russia has the world’s second-largest fleet of strategic bomber/missile carriers that would easily launch hundreds of cruise missiles.

In other words, the Kremlin wouldn’t wage war in the way Lilico imagines. It’s not WWI or WWII, where millions of soldiers are needed to inflict a strategic defeat on an enemy. It’s important to note that Russia could accomplish all this through conventional means only and some of the top former American generals already confirmed this, explaining that the entire NATO would be unable to match this without resorting to thermonuclear war. And yet, even in that case, Moscow would have an advantage, as it possesses an unrivaled strategic arsenal, composed of monstrosities such as the RS-28 “Sarmat”. However, Lilico ignores all of this and concludes his analysis with a claim that Russia is supposedly “losing hundreds of billions of dollars” due to Western sanctions and that this allegedly “undercuts” Russian military power.

In his closing remarks, the author claims that “Moscow cannot threaten the EU, let alone Britain”. Deep-seated in his “reality bubble”, Lilico believes that the UK is more of a threat to Russia than even the EU. In the meantime, London is going through one humiliation after another, as the very cornerstone of its military power projection capabilities, the Royal Navy, is in disarray. Its aircraft carriers are breaking down, while the destroyers are in no better condition. Although the data is certainly a state secret, given the horrible state of the most important branch of the UK’s military, it’s highly questionable whether London’s strategic arsenal is functioning as it should. Thus, it would be extremely unwise for the “Perfidious Albion” to keep poking the “Russian Bear”.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: The Australian-made DefendTex Drone40 kamikaze drones sent to Ukraine in 2022. (Photo: United States Marine Corps)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

In yet another instance of American attacks against Iran-backed organizations in the Levant, the  US Central Command (CENTCOM) confirmed in a statement on February 7 that it “conducted a unilateral strike in Iraq in response to the attacks on US service members, killing a Kata’ib Hezbollah commander responsible for directly planning and participating in attacks on US forces in the region.” The US drone strike targeted Abu Baqir al-Saadi, the influential commander of  Iran-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah militia, suspected of carrying out the attack on an American base in Jordan. Yesterday, Yehia Rasool, the spokesperson for the commander in chief of the Iraqi Armed Forces, described this American military action as a “blatant assassination”, adding that the US-led international coalition in the country has “become a factor of instability”, and that “the American forces jeopardize civil peace, violate Iraqi sovereignty, and disregard the safety and lives of our citizens.”

On February 3 Washington started airstriking the Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and other targets in Syria and Iraq, as a response to the January 28 drone attack in Jordan that killed three American personnel. According to Pentagon deputy press Secretary Sabrina Singh, the attack had the “footprints” of the Iran-backed Kata’ib Hezbollah militia.

The assassination of the aforementioned militia commander, largely seen as a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty (which it is), triggered wide condemnation and protests in Baghdad, thereby escalating US-Iraq tensions. As I wrote, since last month top Iraqi authorities including Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani have been reiterating their calls for US troops to leave the country. And now Baghdhad is seriously threatening to expel the American forces. Washington had already “left” the country but in a way paradoxically, as it seems, it never really left.

The past American occupation of Iraq, complete with “nation-building” efforts, is often described as a (failed) “neocolonial” endeavor. That occupation might have come to an end in 2011, after eight years, but the presence of US troops in that Levantine nation is still at the center of a major controversy. As I argued last year, an emboldened and empowered Islamic Republic of Iran emerged as the main winner of this US disaster in Iraq. Tehran in fact is arguably today’s main power in the Middle East – and not Washington. The Persian nation’s rising influence today is also felt in the wider West Asian region, as we have recently seen with regards to Pakistan-Iranian tensions over both countries having struck each other’s territory while targeting a terrorist group that operates on their shared border (the two nations have recently resumed their diplomatic relations).

Back to the series of attacks carried out by the United States in the Levant and also in the Red Sea, one can argue they are indeed part of an escalating US-Iran confrontation involving Iranian “proxies” or regional partners and the so-called axis of resistance. The rising tensions have much to do with Washington’ support for its Israeli ally: a large part of the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East today after all is about the escalation of the long going “fuel war” and of the so-called shadow war between Iran and the Jewish state. Today’s escalation is in any case mostly a spillover effect of the US-backed disastrous Israeli military campaign in Palestine, as I detailed elsewhere.

Since 2011, that is, for over a decade, Washington has been mostly “withdrawing” from the Middle East, a trend that became abundantly clear ten years later, when its troops left Afghanistan in 2021 – the latest developments however could all arguably be seen as signs that it is making a “come-back” in the area. In a way, from Washington’s perspective, the region keeps pulling it back in – to a large degree thanks to an Israel ally the US cannot quite control or curb.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said on February 4 that the strikes against Iranian allies were “the beginning, not the end.” The problem, from an American perspective, is that such a retaliatory campaign has no deterrence effect. With regards to the ongoing Red Sea crisis, in particular, the world has recently learned that for about three months Washington basically begged its Chinese rival to help by pressuring Iran into curbing the Houthi rebels – in a clear display of weakness. Beijing, in any case, simply has no reason, as I’ve explained, to exert too much pressure, the mess being largely a problem caused by American foreign policy mistakes.

According to a recent The Economist piece, one of the reasons American deterrence against Iran is not working pertains to the fact that Washington, in the larger Middle Eastern context, simply cannot decide whether it will “leave” or “stay” and basically does not seem  to know what to do in the region. The clearly overburdened Atlantic superpower could be described as being “stuck” in West Asia. As I wrote before, Washington, it appears, wishes to pivot away from the Middle East towards the Indo-Pacific and Eastern Europe plus part of Central Asia – even while its naval supremacy seems to be coming to an end.

The idea that the Middle East should no longer be a priority for Washington began with former president Barack Obama and kept evolving under Donald Trump, to then gain clearer contours under Joe Biden’s administration. The United States however do not wish to give up its role of “global policeman”, as the American Establishment sees it, and thus it is faced with a conundrum: according to Sedat Laçiner, a Turkish academic specialist on the Middle East, “given the geostrategic and cultural significance it embodies, it would not be an overstatement to assert that sustained global leadership is unattainable for any power that fails to exert dominance over the Middle East region in the long term”. Laçiner’s reasoning is that the North American superpower simply cannot “leave” the area, a center of oil and petrodollars. However it is not quite welcome “back” there, as the local actors are pursuing new relationships.

According to the aforementioned The Economist piece,

“in the Middle East America is torn between leaving and staying and cannot decide what to do with the forces it still has in the region.” Moreover, it desires “to pivot away from the region while simultaneously keeping troops in it”, thus maintaining a “military presence” that invites tensions but fails to “constrain” its Iranian rival. The world is a complex place with many points of tension, but an undecided declining superpower that refuses to show restraint certainly contributes a lot to bringing stability to the planet – including in the Middle East.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Uriel Araujo is a researcher with a focus on international and ethnic conflicts. 

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

 

 

 

Despite calendars and clocks and all the mental gymnastics we use to control life and time, surprises are at the heart of existence. This may seem like a truism, but if so, it is one of those truths we often avoid in our desire for stability and the quelling of anxiety. Our expectations, a form of knowledge based on the past, are efforts to avoid pain and the joy of the new. They are often scarecrows to frighten away reality, as Ortega y Gassett put it. Habits of mind meant to forget that life is an experiment yet to be tried or known; that tomorrow is always unknown country. That death is the greatest surprise of all.

The English psychoanalyst Adam Philips writes in Side Effects:

The fact of death has made us addicted to prophecy, and to its secular equivalent, predictability; and therefore to a strange relationship to time. The fact of conception could make us more wedded to randomness and accident [I would say mystery]. Surprise could replace mourning as our preferred depth-charge.

I was thinking of this recently when I awoke to read about an outstanding professional athlete who was injured at the top of his game the night before. A shock to be sure, disappointing and depressing, yet not unheard of in the world of sports. He ruptured his Achilles tendon. Now his rehabilitation will offer him a chance to embrace the challenge and meditate on the vagaries of life. Sometimes we discover in difficult circumstances that courage and determination are central to our characters, as I think is the case with this young man who has overcome other challenges.

Sports in themselves are not important.  They are fun to play and are big business, but who wins or loses the games doesn’t matter in any significant way. They are forgettable trifles, and as the word sport’s etymology tells us – desporter (Old French from Latin), to divert, amuse, carry away – they divert us from more serious matters. And while they can amuse and entertain us, they can also get us to muse about the nature of play and the significance of surprises along life’s way. How life itself is a play, in many meanings of the word.

Key to Freud’s genius, much of which he learned from the poets who understood that the free flow of words was a key to human liberation, was his invention of the therapeutic method of free association.

To freely associate is to open one’s mouth to hear yourself say the unexpected.

It is to step out of the cage of convention, to exit that play to play at catching a different form of consciousness. The possibility of freedom inherent in Freud’s idea is no doubt one reason why he has come under continual attack in recent decades. Nor is it an accident that we are living at a time when free speech is under assault by all shades of authoritarians who fear what people might say and whom they may associate with. Freedom is dangerous.  Individuals, not just in psychotherapy but in social life, need to talk freely but are often fearful to do so. They may surprise themselves privately and publicly, and that is why speech must be controlled by the authorities, those outside and the cop inside.

It is also why great artists are in short supply today and art is under assault, for great art threatens safety while always venturing into unknown territory. To think that a book is brilliant because The New York Times calls it a bestseller – which seems to be the case for most new books on library shelves these days – is as naïve as to consider that newspaper of record a bastion of good journalism.

It is hard when caged in cells controlled by authoritarians to encounter the unexpected. Formulaic writing of all sorts is widespread. It is part of a larger spell of total and instantaneous propaganda and a movement for elite social control under the guise of social improvement. What we euphemistically call mass communication is mass seduction, and the desire to be seduced is one old truth that still holds popular appeal.

Historically it has always been the poets, essayists, and novelists who have led the way into a freer world. While it is still true, to find their voices amid the cacophony of today’s co-mingling of repetitive political, show business, and advertising rants is difficult. They have been marginalized, as have journalists who counter the propaganda of the corporate mainstream media. All has become show, the business of creating perpetual distractions from what is important.

“The modern version of hell is purposelessness,” wrote the English novelist John Fowles in a brilliant essay accompanying photographs of individual trees in an oddly titled book about trees, The Tree. While ostensibly writing about trees, Fowles writes about the need to get lost, to literally wander through the green chaos of forests and the mental greenwood of our psyches without a planned route – purposeless. He writes about art and the art of life as analogous to wandering through a dense woodland and stumbling in wonder upon a hidden treasure, something akin to Tolstoy’s green stick that contains the secret to happiness, no matter how brief. He argues that it is because so much of the natural surround is useless that there is so much hostility toward it. Everything and everyone has become commodified, and only valued for their use value. Science, as opposed to art, seeks to categorize and control us and nature; to impose on our minds the idea that nature is outside us, separate, alien territory to enter only with a map and shield. The wild green man or woman, open to the flow of experience, to wandering, to the serendipitous, the unexpected is a dangerous outlaw. That the woods have long represented places of freedom to our ancestors in fact and in fiction is not just because life was more rural then but because the wild world hidden among trees corresponds to needs of the soul. Fowles compares trees, the woods, walking planless through them, as the best analogue of prose fiction:

All novels are also, in some way, exercises in attaining freedom – even when, at an extreme, they deny the possibility of its existence. Some such process of retreat from the normal world – however much the theme and surface is to be of the normal world – is inherent in any act of artistic creation, let alone that specific kind of writing that deals in imaginary situations and characters. And a part of that retreat must always be into a ‘wild,’ or ordinarily repressed and socially hidden, self: into a place always a complexity beyond daily reality, never fully comprehensible or explicable, always more potential than realized; yet where no one will ever penetrate as far as we have. It is our passage, our mystery alone, however miserable the account that is brought out for the world to see or hear or read at second-hand.

I would say it is also the best analogue of living. Sitting still too much is the real sin against the Holy Ghost, said Nietzsche, who was a great walker “on lonely mountains or near the sea where even the trails become thoughtful.” And he was not alone.  Thoreau, Rimbaud, D. H. Lawrence, Rousseau, Gandhi, et al. knew that only by getting off your ass and putting it behind you might you discover something new, an unexpected treasure only available to an outsider with no expectations, no plans, having relinquished control.

Speaking of control and planning, even with the best intentions, I am reminded of a lake with a little beach opposite woods up the hill from where we live and often walk. Since September 11, 2001 this town has been massively gentrified with mansions and upscale stores and venues. It has become a magnet for wealthy urbanites who have fled in fear from the New York/New Jersey area to this small town 130 miles north. Now the small rustic beach with its bumpy dirt parking lot and the road along the lake are being converted into a replica of all the imitative city greenways that have sprouted up across the country.  Huge numbers of trees have been felled, an expanded asphalt parking lot is being constructed, and the road converted from cars to walkers, leading from the town’s choice neighborhood on the hill. This construction project is symbolically creating a gated community without a fence. Anyone having to drive to the beach will have to come from the other direction to the parking lot, directing all car traffic through that poorer neighborhood and part of town. All this in the name of saving the lake and making life better for the locals.  But better primarily for wealthier residents, who now will have their own one way access to the area and much less traffic passing their way.

It is a good example of what Philip Slater wrote about in his 1970 book, The Pursuit of Loneliness: American Culture at the Breaking Point. Slater was writing about the rise of totalitarian tendencies in the U.S. as the U.S savagely bombed Vietnam and Cambodia [read Iraq, Gaza, Yemen, Syria, Russia, etc.], when the fear of the poor was widespread and wealth and power idolized, consumerism reigned supreme, and privatization was being carried out under the benevolent mask of an inchoate neo-liberalism that has since become a full-fledged monster.

And he was holding a mirror up to “the grim monotony of American facial expressions [read masks] – hard, surly, and bitter – and by the aura of deprivation that informs them.” Central to this was the fanatical acquisitiveness of his compatriots and the fading of stable local neighborhoods where different social classes could flourish together. “It is difficult to become reaccustomed to seeing people already weighted down with possessions acting as if every object they did not own were bread withheld from a hungry mouth,” he wrote, upon returning from overseas. Deep-rooted social problems were being avoided by being flushed away under the guise of superficial improvements – what he called “the toilet assumption”: “the notion that unwanted matter, unwanted difficulties and obstacles will disappear if they are removed from our immediate field of vision.” In the name of social control, the country was coming apart. As is true now, the prettification of social spaces was serving as an unintentional pursuit of loneliness where the wealthy sophisticates and the “deplorables” would occupy separate worlds and their separate symbols [read Trump and Biden] would engage them in heated pseudo-debates.

What is our Achilles’s Heal?

I suggest it is our rupture from nature symbolized in our efforts to control experience through planning. In Goethe’s Faust this is flipped so that Goethe’s ultimate salvation and happy ending is tied to his land reclamation project from the sea – engineering – and the conquest of nature. While such planning obviously has its place, it has become a modern paradigm that serves as a solution to so many of life’s problems [technological fixes] and a hedge against surprising discoveries. Only when one is willing to get lost, can one stumble upon Tolstoy’s green stick of happiness and discover truths that authoritarians try to deny us.

The poet’s truth, as always.

Terra Incognito

By D. H. Lawrence

There are vast realms of consciousness still undreamed of
vast ranges of experience, like the humming of unseen harps,
we know nothing of, within us.
Oh when man has escaped from the barbed-wire entanglement
of his own ideas and his own mechanical devices
there is a marvellous rich world of contact and sheer fluid beauty
and fearless face-to-face awareness of now-naked life
and me, and you, and other men and women
and grapes, and ghouls, and ghosts and green moonlight
and ruddy-orange limbs stirring the limbo
of the unknown air, and eyes so soft
softer than the space between the stars,
and all things, and nothing, and being and not-being
alternately palpitant,
when at last we escape the barbed-wire enclosure
of Know Thyself, knowing we can never know,
we can but touch, and wonder, and ponder, and make our effort
and dangle in a last fastidious fine delight
as the fuchsia does, dangling her reckless drop
of purple after so much putting forth
and slow mounting marvel of a little tree.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on the author’s website, Behind the Curtain.

Edward Curtin is a prominent author, researcher and sociologist based in Western Massachusetts. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).  

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The leader of the Ukrainian opposition, Viktor Medvedchuk, revealed that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky is preparing to flee the country after acquiring a luxury apartment in Dubai valued at almost $17 million. This is another example of how Zelensky continues to enjoy a high-end lifestyle despite his peoples immense suffering.

“A modest 600-square-metre apartment awaits Zelensky on an island with a warm sea. This is why hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are dying today,” the opposition leader warned in an article published on the website of the party The Other Ukraine.

Medvedchuk revealed that Zelensky acquired, through his frontmen, a luxurious apartment in Dubai in the Bvlgari Marina Lofts complex for $16.9 million.

“Zelensky apparently lost hope in the Americans and in the mansion in Florida that they promised him,” he noted.

The opposition leader indicated that the Ukrainian president “found a new homeland and luxury housing, while millions of his compatriots live as refugees and lost their homes.”

“Instead of helping the pensioners for whom he whines so much in the West, Zelensky diverts the money ‘honestly earned’ in the war to tax havens and does not plan to invest in Ukraine, in the economy, in the country’s defence,” he said.

As revealed by Medvedchuk, the Ukrainian president registers properties and companies abroad through Serhiy Shefir, his close friend, to whom he transferred all his assets in tax havens before the 2019 presidential elections. In November 2023, it emerged that Shefir and his brother Boris bought two yachts for a total value of $75 million, he said.

The opposition leader alleged that the luxury apartment in Dubai was registered in the name of Serhiy Shefir, and the deal was closed on December 22, according to the ‘Dubai Land Department,’ the government entity that registers real estate transactions.

“This rat dug another burrow to escape (…) What do you care about retirees, disabled people or public workers?” he emphasised. “Zelensky claims that Ukrainians fight for themselves, for their lives, but that is a crude lie.”

Medvedchuk acknowledged that Moscow provides all kinds of help to residents of the former Ukrainian territories that joined Russia in September 2022 following referendums.

“The president of Russia, Vladimir Putin, declared on numerous occasions that for the Russians, the Ukrainians were not enemies. That is why Zelensky’s power will be defeated and not the Ukrainian people. Today, Ukrainian soldiers die not for Ukraine that the regime sold to the West, but because of the corruption that enriches Zelensky and his entourage,” he added.

Although Zelensky is unlikely about to flee, the crux of the story is that Zelensky is spending millions upon millions on his lavish lifestyle while Ukrainians are suffering like no other people on the European continent and at a time when the West portrays the Ukrainian president as an anti-corruption crusader.

Zelensky became president in 2019 on the platform of fighting domestic corruption, which meant finding economic and administrative lapses and punishing those who benefitted. However, it is very evident that Zelensky has been benefitting from corruption.

Property purchases in Dubai are far from the only scandals in which Zelensky has been embroiled. He is regularly accused of owning properties overseas, and it is known his wife goes on lavish shopping trips on her travels, such as in New York and Paris.

While Zelensky and his family are living extravagantly, Ella Libanova, director of the Institute of Demography and Social Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, warned that male life expectancy in the war-torn country had decreased from 66-67 years to 57-58 years due to the conflict, meaning that only Chad (54), Nigeria (54), Lesotho (55) and the Central African Republic (55) had lower life expectancies. This reflects the nightmarish situation Ukraine has put itself in by continuing the war, a reality that Zelensky has mostly insulated himself from.

Worse, there are no immediate prospects for improving economic, societal, and demographic issues.

One example is that foreign direct investment in Ukraine has plummeted from $6.5 billion in 2021 to just $570 million in 2022, following Russia’s launch of the special military operation, whilst the National Bank of Ukraine has thus far refused to publish figures on foreign investments in 2023. Ukraine is struggling to find funds for its economy and the war effort, and given that corruption is even at the level of the presidency, it cannot be expected that many foreign companies will invest in the country.

Therefore, whether Zelensky flees to one of his overseas properties or not, he will continue to live lavishly, having extracted what he wanted from Ukraine, while ordinary Ukrainians will continue to suffer.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

A MintPress study of major U.S. media outlets’ coverage of the Yemeni Red Sea blockade has found an overwhelming bias in the press, which presented the event as an aggressive, hostile act of terrorism by Ansar Allah (a.k.a. the Houthis), who were presented as pawns of the Iranian government. While constantly putting forward pro-war talking points, the U.S. was portrayed as a good faith, neutral actor being “dragged” into another Middle Eastern conflict against its will.

Since November, Ansar Allah has been conducting a blockade of Israeli ships entering the Red Sea in an attempt to force Israel to stop its attack on the people of Gaza. The U.S. government, which has refused to act to stop a genocide, sprang into action to prevent damage to private property, leading an international coalition to bomb targets in Yemen.

The effect of the blockade has been substantial. With hundreds of vessels taking the detour around Africa, big businesses like Tesla and Volvo have announced they have suspended European production. Ikea has warned that it is running low on supplies, and the price of a standard shipping container between China and Europe has more than doubled. Ansar Allah, evidently, has been able to target a weak spot of global capitalism.

Western airstrikes on Yemen, however, according to Ansar Allah spokesperson Mohammed al-Bukhaiti, at least, said that they have had only a “very limited” impact so far. Al-Bukhaiti made these comments in a recent interview with MintPress News.

Click here to watch the video.

Biased Reporting

MintPress conducted a study of four leading American outlets: The New York Times, CNN, Fox News and NBC News. Together, these outlets often set the agenda for the rest of the media system and could be said to be a reasonable representation of the corporate media spectrum as a whole.

Using the search term “Yemen” in the Dow Jones Factiva global news database, the fifteen most recent relevant articles from each outlet were read and studied, giving a total sample of 60 articles. All articles were published in January 2024 or December 2023.

For full information and coding, see the attached viewable spreadsheet.

The study found the media wildly distorted reality, presenting a skewed picture that aided U.S. imperial ambitions. For one, every article in the study (60 out of 60) used the word “Houthis” rather than “Ansar Allah” to describe the movement which took part in the Yemeni Revolution of 2011 and rose up against the government in 2014, taking control of the capital Sanaa, becoming the new de facto government. Many in Yemen consider the term “Houthi” to be a derogatory term for an umbrella movement of people. As Mohammed Ali al-Houthi, Head of Yemen’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee, told MintPress:

‘Houthis’ is not a name we apply to ourselves. We refuse to be called Houthis. It is not from us. It is a name given to us by our enemies in an attempt to frame the broad masses in Yemeni society that belong to our project.”

Yet only two articles even mentioned the name “Ansar Allah” at all.

Since 2014, Ansar Allah has been in control of the vast majority of Yemen, despite a U.S.-backed Saudi coalition attempting to beat them back and restore the previous administration.

Many of the articles studied, however (22 of the 60 in total), did not present Ansar Allah as a governmental force but rather as a “tribal group” (the New York Times), a “ragtag but effective” rebel organization (CNN), or a “large clan” of “extremists” (NBC News). Fourteen articles went further, using the word “terrorist” in reference to Ansar Allah, usually in the context of the U.S. government or American officials calling them such.

Some, however, used it as a supposedly uncontroversial descriptor. One Fox article, for example, read: “For weeks, the Yemeni terrorist group’s actions have been disrupting maritime traffic, while the U.S. military has been responding with strikes.” And a CNN caption noted that U.S. forces “conducted strikes on 8 Houthi targets in Iranian-backed Houthi terrorist-controlled areas of Yemen on January 22.”

Ansar Allah is responding to an Israeli onslaught that has killed tens of thousands of civilians and displaced around 1.9 million Gazans. Yet Israel and its actions were almost never described as “terrorism,” despite arguably fitting the definition far better than the Yemeni movement. The sole exception to this was a comment from al-Houthi, whom CNN quoted as calling Israel a “terrorist state.” Neither the United States nor its actions were ever described using such language.

Eyes on Iran

Although the perpetrator of the attacks on shipping is unquestionably Ansar Allah, corporate media had another culprit in mind: Iran. Fifty-nine of the 60 articles studied reminded readers that the Yemeni group is supported by the Islamic Republic, thereby directly pointing the finger at Tehran.

It is indeed true that Iran supports Ansar Allah politically and militarily. When directly asked by MintPress if Tehran supplies it with weapons, al-Bukhaiti dodged the question, calling it a “marginal issue.” Why this facet of the story needed to be repeated literally hundreds of times is unclear. Often, the media studied would repeat it ad nauseam, to the point where a reader would be forgiven for thinking Ansar Allah’s official name was the “Iran-backed Houthis.” One CNN round-up used the phrase (or similar) seven times, a Fox News article six times, and an NBC News report five times.

Not only was the “Iran-backed” factoid used constantly, but it was also made a prominent part of how the issue was framed to the American public. The title of one Fox News report, for instance, read (emphasis added throughout): “U.S.-U.K. coalition strike Iran-backed Houthi targets in Yemen after spate of ship attacks in Red Sea,” its subheadline stated that: “Yemen’s Iranian-backed Houthi militants have stepped up attacks on commercial vessels in the Red Sea in recent weeks,” and its first sentence read: “The United States and Britain carried out a series of airstrikes on military locations belonging to Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen early Friday in response to the militant group’s ongoing attacks on vessels traveling through the Red Sea.”

Yemen Media Study chart

From a stylistic point of view, repeating the same phrase continuously is very poor form. It does, however, drive the point home, suggesting perhaps that this was an inorganic directive from above.

This is far from an unlikely event. We know, for example, that in October, new CNN CEO Mark Thompson sent out a memo to staff instructing them to always use the moniker “Hamas-controlled” when discussing the Gazan Health Ministry and their figures for deaths from Israeli bombardment. This was done with the clear intent to undermine the Palestinian side of the story.

Not only did the four outlets studied constantly remind readers that Ansar Allah is supported by Iran, but they also regularly framed the violence as orchestrated by Tehran and that Ansar Allah is little more than a group of mindless, unthinking pawns of Ayatollah Khamenei. As the New York Times wrote:

Investing in proxy forces — fellow Shiites in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen, and the Sunni Hamas in the Gaza Strip — allows Iran to cause trouble for its enemies, and to raise the prospect of causing more if attacked…The Houthi movement in Yemen launched an insurgency against the government two decades ago. What was once a ragtag rebel force gained power thanks at least in part to covert military aid from Iran, according to American and Middle Eastern officials and analysts.”

This “Iran is masterfully pulling all the strings” framing was present in 21 of the 60 articles.

The fearmongering about Iran did not stop there, however, with some outlets suggesting Tehran is building an international terror network or constructing an atomic bomb. The New York Times quoted one analyst who said:

Iran is really pushing it…It’s another reason they don’t want a war now: They want their centrifuges to run peacefully.” The Iranians do not have a nuclear weapon but could enrich enough uranium to weapons-grade in a few weeks, from the current 60 percent enrichment to 90 percent, he said. ”They’ve done 95 percent of the work.’”

The point of all this was to demonize Ansar Allah and ramp up tensions with Iran, leading to the inevitable calls for war. “The U.S. needs to strike Iran, and make it smart,” ran the (since changed) title of a Washington Post editorial. “The West may now have no option but to attack Iran,” wrote neoconservative Iran hawk John Bolton in the pages of The Daily Telegraph. Bolton, of course, is part of a group called United Against Nuclear Iran that, since its inception, has been attempting to convince the U.S. to bomb Iran. Earlier this year, MintPress News profiled the shady think tank.

While the media in the sample reminded us literally hundreds of times that Ansar Allah is Iran-backed, similar phrases such as “U.S.-backed Saudi Arabia” or “America-backed Israel” were never used, despite the fact that Washington props both those countries up, with diplomatic, military and economic support. The Biden administration has rushed more than $14 billion in military aid to Israel since October 7, sent a fleet of warships to the region, and blocked diplomatic efforts to stop Israel’s attack on Gaza.

Meanwhile, it is doubtful whether Saudi Arabia would exist in its current form without U.S. support. Militarily alone, the U.S. has sold tens of billions of dollars worth of weaponry to Riyadh, helping the petro-state to convert its oil profits into security. From 2014 to 2023, Saudi Arabia led a U.S.-backed coalition force attempting to remove Ansar Allah from power. This consisted primarily of a massive bombing campaign against civilian targets in Yemen, including farms, hospitals and sanitation infrastructure. The violence turned Yemen into what the United Nations regularly called the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” with around 400,000 people dying and tens of millions going hungry and lacking even basic healthcare.

Yemen Media Study chart 2

The U.S. backed Saudi Arabia the whole way, selling the government at least $28.4 billion worth of arms, according to a MintPress study. In 2021, the Biden administration announced it would only sell the kingdom “defensive” technology. However, this has included shipments of cruise missiles, attack helicopters, and support for gunships.

Both Saudi Arabia and Israel featured prominently in the articles studied. But only five of the 60 mentioned U.S. support for Saudi Arabia, and none at all for Israel. This context is extremely important for American audiences to know. Without their government’s political, military, economic and diplomatic support, none of this would be possible, and the current situation would be radically different. Only six articles mentioned U.S. support for the Saudi onslaught against Yemen – and none featured the fact prominently as they did with Iranian support for Ansar Allah.

Only one article in the sample suggested that Ansar Allah might not simply be an Iranian cat’s paw. The New York Times wrote that: “The Houthis are an important arm of Iran’s so-called ‘axis of resistance,’ which includes armed groups across the Middle East. But Yemeni analysts say they view the militia as a complex Yemeni group, rather than just an Iranian proxy.” This was the sum total of information given suggesting Ansar Allah is an independent actor.

A Humanitarian Blockade?

Yemen considers its actions in blocking Israeli traffic from the Red Sea as a humanitarian gesture, similar to the “right to protect” concept the U.S. frequently invokes to justify what it sees as humanitarian interventions across the world. As al-Houthi told MintPress:

First, our position is religious and humanitarian, and we see a tremendous injustice. We know the size and severity of these massacres committed against the people of Gaza. We have suffered from American-Saudi-Emirati terrorism in a coalition that has launched a war and imposed a blockade against us that is still ongoing. Therefore, we move from this standpoint and do not want the same crime to be repeated.”

Al-Bukhati said that Ansar Allah did not intend to kill anyone with their actions and that they would stop if Israel ceased its attack on Gaza, telling MintCast host Mnar Adley that:

We affirm to everyone that we only target ships associated with the Zionist entity [Israel], not with the intention of sinking or seizing them, but rather to divert them from their course in order to increase the economic cost on the Zionist entity [Israel] as a pressure tactic to stop the crimes of genocide in Gaza.”

However, this “humanitarian” framing of Yemen’s actions was not prominently used and was only introduced by identifying it as a Houthi claim. Many articles only alluded to the position of Ansar Allah. CNN wrote that “The Iran-backed Houthis have said they won’t stop their attacks on commercial shipping in the Red Sea until the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza ends.” Meanwhile, NBC News and Fox News frequently presented Ansar Allah’s actions as purely in support of their ally, Hamas, as the following two examples illustrate:

Yemen Media Study chart 3

“The Iran-backed militants, who say their actions are aimed at supporting Hamas, vowed retaliation and said the attacks had killed at least 5 fighters at multiple rebel-held sites” (NBC News).

“Houthi forces have taken credit for continued attacks on merchant vessels and threatened to expand their targets to include U.S. and British vessels — all in a campaign to support Hamas in its war against Israel” (Fox News).

Therefore, humanitarian action was refashioned into support for terrorism.

Other articles also suggested a wide range of reasons for the blockade, including to “expand a regional war” and “distract the [Yemeni] public” from their “failing…governance” (New York Times), to “attempt to gain legitimacy at home,” (CNN), and “revenge against the U.S. for supporting Saudi Arabia,” (NBC News). Many offered no explanation for the blockade whatsoever.

A War “Nobody Wants”

As al-Bukhaiti’s comments suggest, there would be a very easy way to end the blockade: get Israel to end its operations in Gaza. But only twice in 60 articles was this reality even mentioned; one noting that Omani and Qatari officials advised that “reaching a cease-fire in Gaza would remove the Houthis’ stated impetus for the attacks,” and once in the final sentence of an NBC News article quoting al-Bukhaiti himself saying exactly as much. However, due to the placement of the information and the fact that it came from an organization regularly described as an Iran-backed extremist terrorist group, that idea likely held little weight with readers. Instead, military solutions (i.e., bombing Yemen) were the overwhelming response offered by the corporate press in their reporting.

Despite this, the media consistently presented the United States as a neutral and honest actor in the Middle East, on the verge of being “sucked” into another war against its will. As the New York Times wrote, “President Biden and his aides have struggled to keep the war contained, fearful that a regional escalation could quickly draw in American forces.” There was a profound “reluctance,” the Times told readers, from Biden to strike Yemen, but he had been left with “no real choice” but to do so.

This framing follows the classic trope of the bumbling empire “stumbling” into war that media watchdog Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting has documented, where the United States is always “responding” to crises and is never the aggressor. “How America Could Stumble Into War With Iran,” wrote The Atlantic; “Trump could easily get us sucked into Afghanistan again,” Slate worried; “What It Would Take to Pull the US Into a War in Asia,” Quartz told readers.

None of the journalists writing about the U.S.’ frequent misfortune with war ever seem to contemplate why China, Brazil, Indonesia, or any other similarly large country do not get pulled into wars of their own volition as the United States does.

The four media outlets studied regularly presented the U.S. bombing one of the world’s poorest countries as a method of defending itself. CNN wrote that “Administration officials have repeatedly said that they see these actions as defensive rather than escalatory,” without comment. And Fox News ran with the extraordinary headline, “U.S. carries out ‘self-defense’ strike in Yemen against Iran-backed Houthi missiles” – a framing which could surely only fly in a deeply propagandized nation.

In reality, the United States’ military meddling in Yemen did not start this winter. Biden is the fourth successive U.S. president to bomb the country. In December, the White House confirmed that there are already American troops in Yemen, though what their precise focus is remains unclear.

How Propaganda Works

This sort of wildly skewed coverage does not happen by accident. Rather, it is the outcome of structural and ideological factors inherent within corporate media. The New York Times is committed to Zionism as an ideology, and its writers on the Middle East are not neutral actors but protagonists in the ongoing displacement of Palestinians. The newspaper owns property in West Jerusalem that was seized from the family of writer Ghada Kharmi during the 1948 ethnic cleansing. And while many Times writers are openly supportive of the Israeli project and have family members serving in the Israeli Defense Forces, staff who speak out against the ongoing genocide are promptly shown the door.

Fox News is no less complicit in the Israeli project. Its owner, Rupert Murdoch, is a major owner in Genie Energy, a company profiting from oil drilling in the illegally occupied Golan Heights region. Murdoch is famously hands-on as a boss and makes sure all of his media outlets follow his line on major issues. And on Israel, the Australian billionaire is explicit: “Israel is the greatest ally of democracy in a region beset with turmoil and radicalism,” he said in 2013. The network’s massive Evangelical Christian viewership would expect little else than strong support for the U.S.-Israeli position, either.

CNN, meanwhile, operates a strict, censorious, top-down approach to its Middle East coverage, with everything the outlet prints having to go through its notoriously pro-Israel Jerusalem bureau before publishing. Senior executives send out directives instructing staff to make sure that Hamas (not Israel) is always presented as responsible for the current violence while, at the same time, barring any reporting of Hamas’ viewpoint, which its senior director of news standards and practices told staff was “not newsworthy” and amounted to “inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda.”

Therefore, the results of this study, while shocking, should not be surprising, given this context. Through examining the coverage of Yemen in four leading U.S. outlets, it is clear that corporate media are failing to inform the public of many of the basic realities of who Ansar Allah is, why they are carrying out their campaign, and what it would take to end the hostilities, they are perpetuating this war, and therefore are every bit as responsible as the politicians and military commanders who keep the bloodshed going.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017 he published two books: Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.orgThe GuardianSalonThe GrayzoneJacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Featured image is from MPN

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The Biden administration claims that U.S. foreign policy works to uphold human rights and democracy while containing rising authoritarian powers such as Russia and China.

Biden administration officials routinely condemn the jailing of opposition figures in Russia like Alexey Navalny and by socialist governments like Nicaragua and Venezuela.

But the Biden administration has voiced no outcry over the arrest of Pakistan’s former Prime Minister Imran Khan, who just days ahead of parliamentary elections on February 8, was given a ten-year prison sentence for revealing state secrets about how the U.S. pushed for his removal from power.[1]

The document that Khan revealed showed that U.S. State Department officials had threatened Pakistani officials with consequences were Khan not removed from office, citing anger over Khan’s neutral stance on the Russia-Ukraine conflict.

Captain of Pakistan’s national cricket team throughout the 1980s and 1990s, Khan served as Pakistan’s Prime Minister from August 2018 until his ouster in April 2022.

In May 2023, he was arrested by paramilitary troops as part of a wave of repression directed against his Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Party along with independent journalists like Arshad Sharif, who was hounded out of Pakistan and assassinated in Kenya.[2]

According to a January report in Time magazine, thousands of PTI members have since been arrested and dozens of party leaders resigned following lengthy interrogations.

Khan’s name was even banned from Pakistani media, and the PTI Party was banned from using its trademark cricket logo on ballot paper, significantly hampering its chances among an electorate that is 40% illiterate.[3]

Arif Rafiq, a Pakistani specialist at the Middle East Institute, told The Intercept that

“Khan was convicted on flimsy charges following a trial where his defense was not even allowed to produce witnesses. He had previously survived an assassination attempt, had a journalist aligned with him murdered, and has seen thousands of his supporters imprisoned. While the Biden administration has said that human rights will be at the forefront of their foreign policy, they are now looking away as Pakistan moves toward becoming a full-fledged military dictatorship.” 

Over the last two decades, the U.S. government has provided billions of dollars of military aid to Pakistan, which has long been used as a base for clandestine operations into Afghanistan. This aid has helped to fortify the military’s power and fuel state repression.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a CIA offshoot spent $3.952,238 in Pakistan in 2021 supporting civil society groups. Part of the purpose of the funding was likely to assist in regime change efforts once it was clear that Khan was too independent.

Khan’s rise to power had resulted not only from his status as a cricket star but also his generous philanthropy. The World Socialist Website (WSWS) criticized him for embracing austerity measures recommended by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that resulted in the slashing of social spending and food subsidies and selling off of public sector enterprises wholesale.

Athiyan Silva and Kumaran Ira wrote that Khan “exploited social anger at the previous PML-N government to win the July [2018] election, making demagogic promises, including to create more jobs and provide relief for the poor, while criticizing the murderous U.S. drone attacks in the Federally Administered Tribal Area.”

Once in power, Khan “formed his government by picking ministers who have already worked under former military ruler General Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan Muslim League (Nawaz), and Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) governments, which imposed IMF austerity measures and collaborated with the U.S.-led NATO war in Afghanistan.”

Dropping his campaign rhetoric against U.S. drone murder, Khan met with U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo after his election and began tacking closer to Washington, though sustained commitment to developing Pakistan’s economy and industry via the multi-billion dollar China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, the “flagship project” of China’s Eurasian BRI (Belt and Road Initiative).[4]

Launched in 2015, the CPEC is a planned network of roads, railways and energy projects linking western China to Pakistan’s strategic Gwadar Port on the Indian Ocean, near the oil-rich Persian Gulf.

Source: globalvillagespace.com

Pompeo stated that it would be “unacceptable” for Pakistan to use U.S. financial aid to pay off infrastructure and industrial debts to China, which is a key reason why Khan became a target for regime change alongside his lack of support for U.S. policy toward Ukraine.

A group of men sitting at a table Description automatically generated

Imran Khan and Mike Pompeo in 2018: The friendship did not last. [Source: en.m.wikipedia.org]

In a March 2022 meeting, Donald Lu, the Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs, told the Pakistani ambassador to the U.S., Asad Majeed Khan, that Khan had to be removed as Prime Minister in a parliamentary vote of no confidence. Otherwise, Lu said, there would be consequences for Pakistan.[5]

Khan’s replacement, former Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, was a right-wing businessman from a corrupt, oligarchic family who promised a “paradise for investors” and reversed Khan’s opposition to the war in Ukraine.[6] In the fall, the Biden administration helped broker a bailout from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after Pakistan came to an agreement to purchase arms for use by the Ukrainian military in its war with Russia.

Just days before the meeting with Majeed, Lu had been questioned at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing over the neutrality of India, Sri Lanka and Pakistan in the Ukraine conflict.

In response to a question from Senator Chris Van Hollen (D-MD)[7] about a recent decision by Pakistan to abstain from a UN resolution condemning Russia’s role in Ukraine, Lu said,

“Prime Minister Khan has recently visited Moscow, and so I think we are trying to figure out how to engage specifically with the Prime Minister following that decision.”[8]

Lu subsequently told Majeed Khan that “people here and in Europe are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position [on Ukraine], if such a position is even possible. It does not seem such a neutral stand to us.”

Lu in turn said:

“I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead.”[9]

The day before the meeting, Khan had addressed a rally responding directly to European calls that Pakistan support Ukraine. “Are we your slaves?” Khan thundered to the crowd: “What do you think of us? That we are your slaves and that we will do whatever you ask of us?” he asked. “We are friends of Russia, and we are also friends of the United States. We are friends of China and Europe. We are not part of any alliance.”

Khan’s fiercely independent stance was intolerable for the U.S., which demands obedience like a Mafia godfather. And so Khan had to go, like Lumumba, Castro, Qaddafi, and so many others.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Jeremy Kuzmarov is Managing Editor of CovertAction Magazine. He is the author of five books on U.S. foreign policy, including Obama’s Unending Wars (Clarity Press, 2019), The Russians Are Coming, Again, with John Marciano (Monthly Review Press, 2018), and Warmonger. How Clinton’s Malign Foreign Policy Launched the U.S. Trajectory From Bush II to Biden (Clarity Press, 2023). He can be reached at: [email protected].

Notes

  1. Khan has now been sentenced to an additional 14 years in prison for allegedly accepting illicit gifts while he was in office and was barred from holding public office for ten years. His wife, Bushra Bibi, was also given a 14-year prison sentence. Khan questioned the fairness and impartiality of the trial during the hearing, asking the judge: “Why are you in a hurry to announce the verdict? I have not even recorded my final statement.” Mr. Khan then exited the courtroom, and the judge announced the sentence in his absence. 

  2. According to The Intercept, the Pakistani military has enshrined authoritarian powers for itself that drastically reduce civil liberties, criminalize criticism of the military, expand the institution’s already expansive role in the country’s economy, and give military leaders a permanent veto over political and civil affairs. 
  3. Charlie Campbell, “Pakistan Can Keep Imran Khan Out of Power, but It Can’t Keep His Popularity Down,” Time, January 17, 2024. Khan was the target of several assassination attempts and was shot and wounded in a political rally. In November, Imaan Mazari, a human rights lawyer on who represents families of those forcibly disappeared, works on issues of forced evictions and media freedom, was taken from her home by men in plainclothes and elite security forces at 3am without an arrest warrant after speaking at a rally against enforced disappearances. Mazari was charged under the broad Anti-Terrorism Act including sedition, rebellion against the state, and terror-financing. PTI leaders have only been able to contest the upcoming elections as independents and have been subjected to police raids and harassment.
  4. Athiyan Silva and Kumaran Ira, “Pakistani premier Imran Khan imposes austerity mini-budget,” World Socialist Website, October 2, 2018. 
  5. See Ryan Grim and Murtaza Hassain, “Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan,” The Intercept, August 9, 2023.
  6. Shehbaz Sharif was the younger brother of three-time Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, a protégé of the late U.S.-backed dictator General Zia-ul-Haq, who contributed to the Islamicization of Pakistan in the 1980s when he provided support under the CIA’s oversight for the anti-Soviet Afghan mujahadin. In 2017, Pakistan’s Supreme Court ordered Nawaz Sharif to step down as prime minister due to Panama Papers-related corruption revelations. 
  7. Interestingly, Senator Van Hollen, whose father was a foreign service officer and whose mother worked for the CIA and State Department, was born in Karachi, Pakistan. 
  8. Grim and Hassain, “Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan.” 
  9. Grim and Hassan, “Secret Pakistan Cable Documents U.S. Pressure to Remove Imran Khan.” 

Featured image is from breitbart.com

Hyper-imperialism – A Dangerous Threat to Humanity

February 10th, 2024 by Fiona Edwards

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Landmark new study from the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research and Global South Insights provides an illuminating analysis of the world situation today.

Hyper-Imperialism: A Dangerous, Decadent New Stage makes a compelling case that imperialism, integrated by United States, operates as a highly organised, unified, militarised bloc of countries in the global North which aims to dominate the countries of the global South, the majority of humanity.

Due to the relative economic decline of the US-led bloc compared to the global South, including China, the US is increasingly forced to rely on its continuing lead in military power as it attempt to maintain global dominance.

“The bottom line is that there is one world system that is managed dangerously by an imperialist bloc,” writes Vijay Prashad, director of the Tricontinental Institute. Indeed, the study comprehensively demolishes any notion that the United States is engaged in an “inter-imperialist rivalry” with Russia or China.

In the case of China the US regards the rise of this “socialist independent” country, an economic superpower with an economy now larger than the US’s in purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, as an existential threat to its global hegemony.

Hyper-Imperialism shows the US’s aggression towards Russia is because it is a “strongly sovereign seeking” country and therefore unwilling to subordinate itself to Washington. Russia and China, both powerful countries, have become closer in recent years. “The dual defeat of Russia and China” is identified as the principal goal of the US’s international strategy.

This US strategic agenda was strongly echoed in January 2024 in a speech by Britain’s Defence Secretary Grant Shapps who said:

“The era of the peace dividend is over … in five years’ time we could be looking at multiple theatres [of war] involving Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.”

There is a significant danger that should such a global confrontation take place, it could escalate into a nuclear war with the potential to destroy human civilisation.

The responsibility on the international anti-war movement to provide the clearest leadership in opposing this US-led war drive is obvious.

Hyper-Imperialism is an invaluable resource for the movement because it offers an extremely clear explanation of the dangerous world situation we face today, which can be drawn upon to strengthen the understanding and anti-imperialist orientation of the movement.

US Imperialism Is the Main Enemy

Hyper-imperialism presents a clear analysis that it is the US which poses the greatest threat to humanity, with its dominance of on the means of destruction.

The study cites ground-breaking research showing that the US’s military spending is more than twice the amount acknowledged by the US government — at a staggering $1.5 trillion in 2022.

The US has 902 overseas foreign military bases “heavily concentrated in bordering regions or buffer zones around China.”

The extent of the US’s military power extends further due to Washington’s control of the global North as “an integrated military, political, and economic bloc composed of 49 countries.” This means that the US controls, through Nato and other means, an astounding 74.3 per cent of all military spending globally.

The contrast between the US and China is also astonishing. The US spends 21 times more on its military per person than China does. China has one foreign military base compared to 902 US foreign military bases.

These facts entirely disprove the idea, adopted by some sections of the Western left, that both the US and China represent a “threat” to humanity and the world faces an “inter-imperialist rivalry.” The main threat to humanity clearly emanates from Washington not Beijing.

A Unified Imperialist Bloc

A central point made in Hyper-Imperialism is that the world is today is not defined by “inter-imperialist rivalry,” that the contradictions between imperialist countries now are “non-antagonist and secondary” with “Germany, Japan, France and all other imperialist powers” subordinating their interests on essential issues to those of the US.

The Nato-proxy war in Ukraine against Russia and Israeli offensive in Gaza are identified as key developments that have consolidated “an integrated, military focused imperialist bloc” which aims to “maintain a grip on the global South” and “dominate Eurasia” — a part of the world that has escaped the US’s control. It is also reflected in Europe’s increasing subordination to Washington’s new cold war offensive against China.

This reflects a fundamental change in the organisation of the global North. In previous global crises of the imperialist system, as shown in World War I and World War II, there was a violent clash between imperialist powers and the global South, including socialist forces, operated in that overall context.

Today the main contradiction is between a unified imperialist bloc led by the US against the global South as whole, including socialist states.

Of course contradictions within the imperialist global North camp continue to exist, and progressives should attempt to exploit these, but they are of a secondary character.

The Rise of the China and the Global South

The US’s increasing military aggression is a response to immense global shifts in recent decades, accelerated following the financial crash of 2008, which has seen the power of the global North eroded in many spheres, including economically, diplomatically and technologically.

Such developments strike against the core of the world order as it has existed for centuries. As Hyper-Imperialism strikingly puts it: “For the first time in over 600 years, there is now a credible economic and political alternative to the domination of world affairs by the Europeans and their descendant white-settler colonial states. First, is the socialist grouping led by China. Second, are the growing aspirations for national sovereignty, economic modernisation, and multilateralism, emerging from the global South.”

The emergence of China as the world’s largest and most dynamic economy, the rise of the global South and the growth of projects for South-South economic development are thoroughly analysed. The relative decline of the US and wider global North is also examined.

Hyper-Imperialism is clear to stress, however, that unlike the global North, the global South is not a unified bloc.

What is emerging is “new mood” in the global South that has seen the global South increasingly reject the US’s aggressive foreign policy agenda. This has been very evident in the US/Nato proxy war in Ukraine against Russia which the global South has refused to support, instead continuing to cooperate economically with Russia and advocating for a peaceful resolution of the conflict not escalation.

The global South has also strongly pushed for ceasefire in Gaza, isolating the US and Israel at the UN general assembly on multiple occasions. South Africa’s decision to take a case accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza to the International Court of Justice is another example of the independent mood in the global South.

The US is desperate to stop the rise of China and the increasing independence of the global South. Hyper-Imperialism warns that “there is a clear and present danger that imperialism will continue its militarist path and rely on its military dominance to offset its growing relative economic and political decline.”

The most important task for progressives today is to build the broadest possible movement against this US-led attack on humanity. Hyper-imperialism is a must-read for those who want to sharpen their understanding of the key threat facing the world.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from The Cradle

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

China’s embassy in Japan has lashed out over Wednesday’s leak of radioactive waste water from the tsunami-battered Fukushima nuclear power plant, rebuking its operator the Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) and the Japanese government.

“Japan’s repeated accidents in the process of treating Fukushima nuclear-contaminated water have fully exposed the chaos and disorder of Tepco’s internal management,” an embassy spokesman said on Thursday.

“The Japanese government’s supervision measures are lacking and ineffective, which once again proves that the nuclear-contaminated water treatment equipment lacks long-term reliability.”

The spokesman added that the incident “further highlights the need for the international community to engage in supervision”.

Echoing the sentiments in separate comments on Thursday afternoon, Wang Wenbin, a spokesman for China’s foreign ministry, said China was assessing the situation.”

Japan has a responsibility to share information about the incident in a timely, comprehensive, and transparent manner and provide a proper explanation,” he said.

About 5,500 litres of water is estimated to have leaked from a caesium absorption tower – a section of the plant used for treating contaminated water – on Wednesday morning after a valve was left open during cleaning work.

According to Tepco, the leaked water is a mix of contaminated water from the plant’s absorption system and filtered water used for cleaning. It is estimated to contain around 0.022 Terabecquerels (TBq) of radioactive substances.

Tepco said there was no risk to the public and the surrounding environment was unaffected by the leak, which was noticed by a contractor shortly before 9am local time and stopped 23 minutes later.

Click here to read the full article on SCMP.


Related articles:

TEPCO Plans Massive Release of Radioactive Plutonium into the Pacific Ocean: Fish Near Fukushima Contained Radioactive Cesium 180 Times Over Japan’s Limit

By Julia Conley and Prof Michel Chossudovsky, July 25, 2023

Japan Begins Secretly Releasing Irradiated Water From Fukushima Disaster Into the Ocean

By Zero Hedge, June 09, 2023

Fukushima: “An Ongoing Global Radiological Catastrophe”. “A Huge Coverup”. Dr. Helen Caldicott

By Dr. Helen Caldicott and Michael Welch, March 10, 2021

Read more about this topic from our archive.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles. 

Featured image is from The Millennium Report

Elections in Pakistan. Victory of Imran Khan’s PTI Party

February 10th, 2024 by Junaid S. Ahmad

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

The elections in Pakistan today were much freer and fairer than I had expected. Hence, the preliminary results simply reflected the obvious for most of us: former Prime Minister Imran Khan’s political party, PTI (the movement for justice) – facing ruthless repression over the past year – have swept the elections in every single province of the country.

Khan, surviving two assasination attempts and languishing in a supermax dungeon since last August, is more popular than ever. Among the youth, Gallup Pakistan surveys have consistently reported around 80-90 percent support for Khan and his party.

The tyranny of the generals in the military high command along with the kleptocratic and dynastic political parties entailed even the suppression of PTI’s symbol (a cricket bat) and virtually a ban, with horrific consequences if violated, on candidates running on a PTI ticket. Thus, all of these candidates ran as independents.

Of course, we have now become used to one criminal travesty after the next by Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus. So, we are cautious about any temporary victory for people’s democracy, triumphing over the Washington-backed totalitarian military and political elite. The latter are in full-blown panic mode, and are trying their best at tampering and rigging before announcing the final results.

The preliminary results, regardless of the fraudulent shenanigans of the national security state expected in the next few days, already represents a resounding defeat of the neo-colonial comprador oligarchy in Pakistan. One just needs to see how highly strung the spokesperson of the State Department was in addressing questions related to these elections.

There is one sign of both hope and danger. For the first time in Pakistan’s history, the normally unified and disciplined armed forces are now experiencing deep divisions. The majority of military officers and and 95 percent of soldiers are repulsed by the behavior of Wasington’s minions in the top brass. To the surprise of many of us, these divisions also exist within the intelligence agencies. We are witnessing in an unprecedented way a refusenik impulse within the military. Not to sound like the bogus alarmism we’re used to from Washington think tanks, it’s still worth remembering that Pakistan is a country of 240 million, nuclear-armed.

The Pakistani people badly need international solidarity at this point.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Prof. Junaid S. Ahmad teaches religion, law, and global politics and is the Director of the Center for Islam and Decoloniality, Islamabad, Pakistan. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

At a time of increasingly adverse weather conditions related to climate change, there is growing urgency of adopting protective policies towards small farmers and pastoralists. Unfortunately, it is in these difficult conditions that the Tanzanian government has been adopting policies which are further increasing the difficulties of small farmers and pastoral people.

According to a recent study by GRAIN, a Europe-based organization known for its commitment to protecting small farmer communities, there was an earlier wave of corporate based farming in the post-2008 years which was promoted by multinational companies and donors and led to several land conflicts and destruction of livelihood of small farmers. Several of these projects collapsed, leaving behind a trail of misery spread across many villages.

Despite this terrible experience behind them, now the Tanzanian authorities are repeating a somewhat similar phase of export-led, large farm based agriculture by aggressively turning thousands of hectares into block farms that produce export crops. One difference now is that this more recent change is linked more closely to China. As GRAIN states,

“With China looking to Tanzania as a new supply source of soybeans, the stage is set for another wave of land grabs, with dire consequences for small farmers.”

This report recommends that instead of wasting scarce public resources on “failed model of corporate agriculture” the Tanzanian government should instead focus on efforts to address the real needs of the country’s millions of small food producers.

Meanwhile, this country’s another important rural group of pastoralists, which too is highly vulnerable to climate change, has been increasingly threatened by projects which are often publicized as conservation projects but in reality are often more oriented towards the commercial aspects of safari tourism and related activities. The US-based Oakland Institute has been repeatedly drawing attention to the increasing problems of pastoralists, small cultivators and indigenous communities threatened by such projects in terms of displacements, curtailment of livelihood rights and harassment by park authorities and rangers.

Last year the Oakland Institute had released reports regarding several such communities of people facing increasing problems in some conservation and park project areas, including those linked to generous funding from the World Bank.

Now in more recent information releases, the Oakland Institute has stated that problems in some of these areas are intensifying further. In the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA), for example, in mid-January a new plan was announced to remove about 100,000 pastoralists. A big concern is that they are being asked to move away to areas where there is scarcity of water and grazing land. Moreover, already people are living here. Where will they go? So if this displacement takes place it is likely that a series of new land-conflicts can get imposed on two vulnerable rural groups who may be devastated by this. It may be recalled here that at the root of several conflicts in Africa are several land disputes triggered by wrong and distorted policies going back to colonial and neo-colonial legacies.

A little earlier rangers raided a village near Tarangire National Park, shooting several Maasai villagers, arresting 80 of them and seizing nearly 800 of their cattle. In the Ruaha Park area the harassment reported earlier has been increasing.

It is clear that such distorted tourism and conservation policies need to change, and instead new policies should seek to include people as partners in any such initiatives, utilizing the rich local biodiversity knowledge of indigenous and local people to take forward conservation, enhancing livelihoods instead of diminishing or threatening them.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include ‘India’s Quest for Sustainable Farming and Healthy Food’, ‘Man over Machine’ and ‘Protecting Earth for Children’. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

On January 26, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel. The results were welcomed by South Africa as well as Palestinian leaders, diaspora, and solidarity activists: in its ruling, the court ordered Israel to “take all measures within its power to prevent the commission of acts of genocide” and to allow humanitarian aid into the deliberately starved territory. The court also ordered Israel to prevent its forces from violating the 1948 Genocide Convention “with immediate effect.”

In all, the ICJ has found that Palestinians are a protected national group at risk of irreparable harm under the Genocide Convention. The court also found plausible risk that Israeli forces are committing or will commit genocide in Gaza.

Israeli representatives had been calling for the ICJ to simply throw out the case, arguing that South Africa has no legitimate quarrel with Israel at the world’s top court. By issuing provisional measures against genocide and moving forward with South Africa’s case, the ICJ has sided with South Africa, dealing a huge blow to Israel’s already tattered credibility on the world stage.

As Andrew Mitrovica writes in Al Jazeera:

Near unanimously [15-1], the court was convinced that South Africa made a plausible case demonstrating that Israel has displayed the intent to execute genocide. As a result, the court is required, by international law, to proceed with a full hearing and, ultimately, to render a verdict on the seminal question: Is Israel guilty of the crime of genocide in Gaza?

While the court stopped short of ordering a ceasefire, the ICJ’s provisional measures would amount to a ceasefire if implemented. Essentially, the court has called for a ceasefire by implication. As South Africa’s Foreign Minister Naledi Pandor said after the ruling, “I believe that in exercising the order, there would have to be a ceasefire. Without it, the order doesn’t actually work.”

It is worth noting that during a number of previous genocide cases at the ICJ, including Bosnia in the 1990s and Myanmar in 2019, the ICJ did not directly call for a ceasefire.

The ICJ’s ruling puts the lie to the dominant claims by Western media and government officials that Israel is simply defending itself against terrorism, and its actions in Gaza, however excessive, are nonetheless justified. In short, the global majority has rejected the West’s framing of the Israeli war on Gaza.

What will follow this historic ICJ ruling? Unless the US exerts leverage on Israel to rein in its genocidal military campaign against Palestinians, little will happen. While ICJ rulings are legally binding, Israel has never let international law moderate its violence, whether the massacre of civilians or the expansion of illegal settlements. And global institutions, dominated as they are by Western powers and especially the US, have never been especially interested in holding Israel accountable.

Even so, the ICJ ruling represents a historic victory for Palestinians and a rejection of Israeli and Western propaganda on the world stage.

For its part, Israel responded to the ICJ ruling with typical bellicosity, with Defence Minister Yoav Gallant (who was cited during the lawsuit for calling Palestinians “human animals”) claiming the world court is “antisemitic” and that “Israel does not need to be lectured on morality.”

The response by Western countries, meanwhile, has been to continue their unconditional support for Israel—despite the fact that, in the eyes of The Hague, many Western powers are now plausibly complicit in the genocide of Palestinians.

The US government responded to the ICJ ruling predictably: by dismissing the case without discussing its merits. A State Department spokesperson claimed that the Hague “did not make a finding about genocide… in its ruling,” which is untrue. At this stage of ICJ proceedings, the court is deciding whether or not South Africa presented a plausible case that Israel is committing genocide, which the overwhelming majority of judges did. The case will continue, although it could be years before a final verdict is reached.

In an interview with Owen Jones, geopolitical analyst Mouin Rabbani stated that Washington’s response to the ruling is “[like] saying someone on trial for murder has not been found guilty on the first day of the trial.”

The Canadian response has been similarly spineless.

Prior to the ruling, Trudeau had spoken dismissively of South Africa’s genocide case, telling reporters: “Our wholehearted support of the ICJ and its processes does not mean that we support the premise of the case brought forward by South Africa.”

On January 26, the day the ICJ ruled Israel is plausibly committing genocide in Gaza, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly once more reiterated Canada’s support for Israel. The statement repeats Trudeau’s earlier remarks while proclaiming that Canada “support[s] Israel’s right to exist and defend itself.”

Joly’s statement calls on Hamas to release the Israeli hostages taken on October 7, but makes no demands for Israel to cease its bombings of civilians, schools, hospitals, and UN shelters, or its targeted assassinations of journalists and artists, or the genocidal incitement of its leaders.

Currently over 26,000 Palestinians have been reported killed in Gaza, with almost 65,000 injured. Gazans suffer acute shortages of food, clean water, and medicine, while 85 percent of the enclave’s residents have been internally displaced. According to the UN, 60 percent of Gaza’s infrastructure has been damaged or destroyed.

While simply noting “concern” about the “humanitarian crisis” in Gaza, Joly’s language fills with vitriol once Palestinian attacks are mentioned:

Nothing can justify Hamas’ brutal attacks on October 7, including the appalling loss of life, and the heinous acts of violence perpetrated in those attacks, including sexual violence… Hamas must release all hostages, stop using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and lay down its arms.

Meanwhile, Israel’s response to the ICJ ruling did not stop at combative words. Shortly after the verdict, Israel released a statement accusing staff members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) of participating in the October 7 attacks.

It is reasonable to assume that these accusations, based on “confessions” drawn from interrogations, were extracted through torture. This did not stop UNRWA donors, including the US and Canada, from cutting funding for the agency.

UNRWA was founded in 1949 to provide relief for Palestinians dispossessed by the Nakba. Since then, it has served as a lifeline for millions of Palestinian refugees. The UN agency currently supports nearly six million refugees, mostly in Gaza and Jordan, across 58 camps. It also supports 706 schools, 140 primary health care facilities, and provides food and cash assistance to 1.8 Palestinians.

As analyst Mouin Rabbani outlines, Israel’s accusations are curiously timed:

My understanding is that Israel timed the release of a statement accusing twelve UNRWA staff of having been directly and personally involved in the Palestinian attacks on Israel of October 7. [The accusations seem] timed and released to coincide with the ICJ [verdict] in an effort to divert attention from it.

In Rabbani’s view, UNRWA “spectacularly mishandled this issue” by taking actions that could be seen as validating the accusations. These actions gave Israel’s Western sponsors the justification they needed to pull funding from the UN agency.

Israel has long sought to delegitimize UNRWA. Indeed, former foreign ministry official Noga Arbell has openly called for its dismantling.

“It will be impossible to win the war if we do not destroy UNRWA,” Arbell stated in parliament in early January. “This destruction must begin immediately.”

UNRWA has stated that if funds are not restored, the agency will need to end all services after February, a catastrophic prospect for millions of Palestinian refugees. Yet Canada doesn’t seem to care. Gaza was already facing a famine before the aid cuts. Millions of Palestinians are living on a knife’s edge, barely able to subsist amidst unimaginable conditions of bombardment, starvation, and genocidal brutality.

As NDP MP Heather McPherson asked in the House of Commons yesterday, “Why are Canada’s Liberals… abandon[ing] Palestinians in their greatest hour of need?”

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Owen Schalk is a writer from rural Manitoba. He is the author of Canada in Afghanistan: A story of military, diplomatic, political and media failure, 2003-2023.

Featured image: Health center operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) in the southern Gaza Strip. UNRWA was established by the General Assembly in 1949 and mandated to provide assistance and protection to some 5.6 million registered Palestine refugees. Photo by United Nations/Flickr.

A Prescription for Peace in Gaza

February 10th, 2024 by Yazeed Ibrahim

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Since Hamas’ October 7 attack triggered the most recent, brutal round of violence in Gaza, the discourse surrounding the conflict has remained stunningly stagnant. Both sides find themselves emboldened at home.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war cabinet continues to argue that its vicious military campaign is necessary to destroy Hamas and secure the release of over 100 Israeli hostages held in Gaza. Yet, it is becoming increasingly clear that neither goal will be achieved by force. Hamas and Palestinian factions, battered and divided, continue to call for a permanent cease-fire and the full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, the release of thousands of Palestinian detainees and prisoners, and an end to occupation—resulting in a Palestinian state. None of these goals appear to be achievable by force either. The international community, nearly unanimously, has been calling for a cease-fire which has been repeatedly rejected by Israel and its military and diplomatic backers in the White House.

While the discourse remains gridlocked, developments on the ground are not. Palestinian casualties, in the tens of thousands, are mounting daily. As physicians, we despair at the inability to recognize our common humanity as Gaza’s healthcare system has totally collapsed, food and medicine are scarce, and nearly half of all buildings have been completely or partially destroyed, leaving 90% of Gazans displaced on uninhabitable lands facing famine and outbreaks of infectious diseases.

Of further concern, the violence has spilled over into Lebanon, Syria, and Yemen. Three U.S. troops were killed and more were injured in a recent drone attack in Jordan. The conflict is positioned for further escalation, jeopardizing regional peace and threatening U.S. interests.

Physicians are frequently faced with difficult dilemmas, and we often advocate for plans to help treat conditions and alleviate suffering by weighing variables we can and cannot control. We believe there is a clear path to address the wants and needs of people in the region outside of war, not only resolving this round of violence but also setting the stage for lasting peace. The U.S. has tremendous leverage on all sides and enormous resources in the region, and we must bring them to bear now. We urge the Biden administration to utilize this leverage and present a clear framework to end the violence and suffering.

Our prescription for a framework leading to a peaceful resolution is:

1) An immediate cease-fire to stop the bloodshed on all sides and allow for desperately needed aid to enter Gaza while concurrently working with stakeholders and international partners to negotiate terms of a sustained peace agreement. Calls to limit civilian casualties, including limited pauses in fighting, have not been successful. Continued violence will only result in further suffering and complicate efforts to end the war.

2) An immediate exchange of hostages and detainee and prisoners. Both sides have negotiated such agreements with mediation provided by regional partners. In fact, CIA Director Bill Burns is already mediating constructive negotiations with the support of Qatar and Egypt. Several reports are indicating that both sides are closing in on a deal to release the hostages.

3) Advocating for Palestinians to govern Gaza and the West Bank. The Palestinian Authority, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, or a new technocratic Palestinian body can be tasked with governing the strip with power handed off from Hamas. Arab countries can play a role in providing security assurances in return for Israel withdrawing from Gaza and lifting the blockade to allow rebuilding of the strip.

4) Providing a clear and credible plan for resumption of peace talks on the basis of leading to a two-state solution in return for normalization of relations and security. Israel and the U.S. have made normalization between Israel and Arab countries a top priority. A two-state solution has been endorsed by the U.S. and nearly every country in the Middle East and is the clearest path for self-determination and an end of the occupation. The Biden administration can and should begin working toward the recognition of a Palestinian State and create the conditions necessary for Palestinians to self-govern free of military occupation.

While these ideas are not novel, we believe it is time for the Biden administration to publicly adopt and advance them. The inhumane status quo must not continue. The United States faces increasing isolation on the global stage in opposing a cease-fire and fueling the war with weapons. With the implementation of these steps, a path for lasting peace and prosperity in the region is possible.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Yazeed Ibrahim, D.O. is the co-president of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles (PSRLA).

Dr. Ira Helfand is a past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and serves as the co-president of the group’s global federation, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985.

Robert Dodge, a frequent Common Dreams contributor, writes as a family physician practicing in Ventura, California. He is the Co-Chair of the Security Committee of National Physicians for Social Responsibility, serves as the President of Physicians for Social Responsibility Los Angeles, and is a steering committee member of Back from the Brink.

David E. Drake, D.O. is a past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility National and a current PSR National Board member.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

I started my journey with the Centre for Employment Innovation on Monday, October 26, 2020 as the Research Coordinator for the Nova Scotia Works Diversity and Inclusion & Certification projects in Canada. It was an exciting, welcoming and also a difficult tenure trying to make sense of the wide variety of documents to be reviewed, understood and analyzed, coupled with the readings on data gathering methods and analysis for Developmental Evaluation for Social Impact course.

Introduction

Appreciative Inquiry stood out for me, because it is both a research philosophy and is used in data collection.

I learnt that Appreciative Inquiry is framework or approach that centers the contributions of community and stakeholders in self-determined change. It is used to identify challenges from a systems point-of-view and to look at the strengths of teams and communities using internal capacities.

For example, instead of an outside expert asking a community, ‘what is going wrong and what can I do to solve the problem?’ a developmental evaluator who uses the appreciative inquiry approach would ask the community:

What were the strengths?

What were the points of tensions, setbacks and weaknesses? What did we learn and what can we apply from the moments of strengths in the next course of action?’

This is evident in Michael Patton’s (2011) argument where he states that a developmental evaluator is embedded into the project and he or she is not just gathering data, analyzing it and writing a report but actively engaging communities and stakeholders (p.305). He further went on to explain that the co-creation process involves: conceptualizing the social innovation together along with generating inquiry questions, figuring out what data to collect and how to collect it and tracking changing conditions, what emerges and paying attention to new learnings (Patton, 2011, p.307).

This therefore means that appreciative inquiry requires a shift in thinking from seeing problems as a matter of individual deficit but recognizing that members of the eco-system have an instrumental role to play in social innovation and change. Change does not occur in a linear, predictable fashion neither does it happen when there is ‘ONE VOICE’ shaping, directing and determining the narrative. Change happens when the community involved, is able to see themselves as partners in the change making process rather than mere recipients of program benefits. All community members and stakeholders should be involved from conceptualizing, designing, collecting data, analyzing it and putting together the report like a group, putting the pieces of large puzzle to make sense of the big picture. 

This is directly related to my past work experiences where we are in the early phases of creating developmental evaluation for both projects. We were not at the stage where we are doing interviews and focus group discussions but we are at the stage where I have to collect data in real-time such as attending Zoom/Microsoft Teams meetings, email exchanges and listening out for important information in informal spaces such as lunch discussions or face to face meetings where we socially distance.

I have personally witnessed cases where discussions may go ‘off tangent’ from the original agenda item and then I will ask questions for clarity such as ‘could you share some more details on why is this so?’ and participants would give me broader political and historical context of about the origins of a problem- that is multiple, systemic barriers for African Nova Scotians and Peoples of African descent to find meaningful work and why this persists.

I would then observe the moments of tensions to the moments where the group decide on how to proceed whether through forging partnerships with social innovators who have similar goals or drawing on the expertise of local community people for support as the program develops. 

Learning by doing is key. I have applied what Patton (2011) calls ‘situational responsiveness as a developmental evaluator” (p.314). Situational responsiveness is simply knowing when to be an active voice, when to be interactive with the team and when to be reactive or allow conversations and directions for action to unfold organically. In other words, a developmental evaluator is not expected to be ‘dead silent or dominate the discussion’ in meetings or collecting any form of data in real-time.

Appreciative Inquiry also challenges me to understand that before I collect/gather data, I need to know what are the values underpinning the research, what data to collect, for what purpose and for whom?

This leads us into the course reading by Cobb and Donnelly (2015) where both state that the values that underpin a project are the same ones that inform the evaluation (p.6). I immediately connected this quote by reflecting on the work of the Centre for Employment Innovation (CEI). Although research and innovation is one of the four (4) pillars for our work, research and innovation do not stand alone but is combined with collaboration and engagement. We are doing research that is community-based, practitioner-based and one that also seeks to identify innovative or exemplary practices to make the development and delivery of employment services more diverse and inclusive. Having established these clear principles and purpose, it is better to determine what data collection methods are to be used. Surveys are popular quantitative data methods of collection used in research for our company and other institutions.

Quantitative data methods of collection like surveys are advantageous in terms of cost and time effectiveness and they answer question like how many or what percentage of a population is affected by the problem to be researched? (Ferris, 2011). However, the disadvantage with using quantitative methods of data collection like surveys is that, you need an experienced statistician to develop the data collection instrument in a way that the population to be surveyed represents the general population (representative sample) by using a confidence interval. For example, in a 2018 group research project entitled ‘The Socio-Demographic Factors that affect Voter Turnout in the 2011 General Elections in Jamaica’, the researchers including myself, surveyed 1,500 people using a confidence interval of 95%. It is not possible to survey all 2.9 million people living in Jamaica so the confidence interval was used to help the researchers come up a sample that represents the total population. Without doing this, when it comes on to interpreting and analyzing quantitative data, the data will be inaccurate and virtually useless.

Additionally, numbers alone cannot give a comprehensive picture on why a problem exists/persists and how is it affecting a community. This is not to say that quantitative methods of data collection are not important but it is dependent on the purpose of the research, the problem to be researched, research question/s and research values. 

This is where qualitative methods of data collection such as focus group discussions and in-depth interview become more useful. According to Curry (2015) in-depth interviews explore individual experiences and perceptions in rich detail while focus group discussions generate unique insights into shared experiences and norms. These are applicable to previous phases for the developmental evaluation reports for the Nova Scotia Works Diversity and Inclusion project and the new phase of the project that I worked on. In-depth interviews are helpful when a developmental evaluator/researcher wants to address sensitive topic by examining an in-depth, individual point of view and in the case of the project, sensitive topics would encompass discrimination, exclusion, feelings of alienation in the workplace or not finding work for long periods of time, racism and so on.

A major challenge using this data collection method is how to build trust with the participant so that there is no fear of reprisal. This is connected with the topic of ‘research ethics’ where you follow a set of principles or guidelines to ensure a participant is protected such as confidentiality, anonymity and informed consent but ethics in and of itself will not allow a participant who is a victim of institutionalized/ systemic oppression to speak up boldly. I learnt some ideas from breakout room session from the Developmental Evaluation for Social Impact course where a researcher has to abide by both ethics and come up with creative ways of asking interview questions to elicit rich insights or detail and that includes: being conversational in tone, relatability of the researcher to the participant but not being too involved, active and empathetic listening and asking very clear or simple questions. You can could ask questions that evoke images or tie questions to culturally relevant or sensitive themes. For example, Peoples of African descent are connected to a history and culture of orality or oral expressions so if you can tie questions to popular, community proverbial expressions , dance or song or any community custom, this would be a good way to engage and encourage more relaxed and authentic communication. 

On the other hand, focus group discussions are ways of getting a group perspective on an issue in great detail. Focus group discussions are ideal for including persons from diverse backgrounds and different generations to broaden the spectrum of looking at a problem and it will provide safe space especially for members of the community who are not literate or shy to speak up alone. The challenge with a focus group is observing and controlling the power dynamics- those who speak up boldly vs those who don’t, the perspective of men vs. perspective of women, old versus young and so on. It is critical that a fair and equal opportunity is given to different voices to share their experiences and perceptions and equally critical that a researcher pays keen attention to the moments of silence and when to step in to give another group member a chance to share. My big takeaway from this course on Developmental Evaluation for Social Impact comes from Dr. Paula Romanow towards the end of Thursday’s discussion where she says when doing qualitative data analysis, even if one person shares their experience or perception, it is still important. 

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Tina Renier is an independent researcher based in Jamaica. She is a volunteer at Just Peace Advocates and a regular contributor to Global Research. She received a Master of Arts in International Development Studies in Nova Scotia, Canada.

Featured image is from the author

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

New Year Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

First published on January 15, 2024

***

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” ― William Shakespeare, The Tempest

It’s A 21st Century Tempest:

Lets Ensure that the Devils Go Down to Where they Rightfully Belong” 

 

Below is a timely Report by Radio Canada (in French) referring to Davos24 with a title intent upon reassuring its readers:

 

TRANSLATION:

“‘The Great Reset’ is not a Conspiracy to Control the World.

“This initiative of the World Economic Forum to Rethink the Post-Epidemic Economy is the Object of an Important Disinformation Campaign”

M. Ch. Global Research, January 15, 2024

 ***

Introduction: Davos24. The WEF Agenda

As these lines go to print, some 3000 invited guests will flock to the 54th Annual Meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, from 15 to 19 January. Some 60+ heads of state and many “dignitaries” – most without dignity – wannabe leaders of one kind or another, corporate CEOs, are expected. 

It is a meeting of a globalist cartel of unelected “leaders”, who give themselves the right to attempt deciding the future of the world.

They include, of course, bankers and the financial elite – foremost BlackRock, also a key sponsor and financier of the WEF.

This globalist cabal will, like every year, clog the airports of Zurich, Geneva, and Basle, with their private jets.

Like military worldwide, they are way beyond the “climate change” fraud-agenda they impose on the common plebs.

Some of the heads of state invited by Klaus Schwab, the eternal Chairman and CEO of the WEF, might be considered de facto murderers. 

As Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who this year is making a physical appearance in Davos, is traveling with a high caliber security detail, his critiques are being murdered at home. As reported by RT (12 January 2024) and confirmed by the US State Department, Chilean-US journalist Gonzalo Lira was tortured to death in a Ukraine prison. See this

President Zelenskyy is also responsible for sending tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers to their death in an unwinnable war against Russia – for which Russia has offered multiple times peace negotiations, Zelenskyy refused on the order of NATO and western leaders.

Other WEF attendees, like, Isaac Herzog, President of Israel, stands behind the horrendous genocide Israel is inflicting on Palestine; Antony Blinken, US Secretary of State, sitting in for President Biden, as well as Ursula von der Leyen, (image left with Zelenskyy) unelected President European Council (EC) and member of the WEF’s Board of Trustees – might they also fall into the category of de facto murderers for their relentless encouraging Israel to continue the merciless genocide on Gaza, already expanded to the West Bank and Southern Lebanon; as well as cheering on Zelenskyy with countless billions of dollars and an arsenal of sophisticated American and European weaponry to continue the atrocious war in Ukraine? 

Bill Gates, the vaxx king and insect-food promoter, farm-killer and foremost and outspoken eugenist, as well as WHO’s DG, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, might they fit the criteria of “Triggering Depopulation” 

The WEF’s 2024 Motto: Rebuilding Trust

With this kind of noble ilk, Davos 2024 is off to a good start. 

Not for nothing, this year’s motto is “Rebuilding Trust”. Are you effing kidding? “Rebuilding trust”, that says it all. Something is changing. The WEF is realizing that more and more people – including high-level executives – have lost and are increasingly losing trust in this corrupt dystopian, rules-based, One-World wannabe Order.

Other indications that trust in the system is quickly losing ground around the world can be seen from a recent Telegraph article, according to which Defense Secretary Grant Shaps is planning recruiting women for military service, to make up for the ever diminishing mail recruits.

Young people no longer trust their governments, and less so their war policies. It is just a question of time, when women too decline to do war service for the government. Maybe the time is here already. See this.

One certain solution for peace and harmony in the world would be ALL people refusing serving in the military. No military around the world, and the system would fall flat.

The WEF could pack up, and Davos could regain its illustrious reputation of a swell tourist location in the eastern Alps of Switzerland.

The Globalist Dream 

Be sure, WEF and Co., your globalist dream of a One World Order and One World Government, and One Health Order (see below) will not happen. It is a joke.

Dear Mr. Schwab, how are you gonna “Rebuild Trust” with the same corrupt agenda and the same corrupt elitists? You have not changed one iota from the Great Reset’s and UN Agenda’s 2030 – primary goals of drastic population reduction, euthanizing large swaths of people, in whatever way possible, and full digitization of the remaining humanity, to the point where your Israeli Professor and Brother-in-Crime, Yuval Noah Hariri, asks in no uncertain terms:

What to do with the useless eaters, once robots and Artificial Intelligences (AI) will have taken over?

The answer is clear.

Be Sure, it has Nothing to do with Building Trust 

Indeed, things are a-changing. And perhaps in unpredictable ways. Since we are not living in a linear world and the vast majority of humanity does not want a digitized world with digitally-controlled, digitized humanoids. Take note – people are waking up.

Davos24: 100+ Behind Closed Doors Sessions

The WEF’s traditional and official agenda for Davos24, of Trade, Climate Change, AI / digitization does not inspire trust, especially not for the awakened ones. And many of the 3000-plus elite-guests are increasingly aware of the rapid awakening within the populace at large.

Indeed, a conscience shift is taking hold throughout the world. Maybe the elite come in these record numbers to Davos24, to see what the WEF has to offer as alternatives to maintain the status quo as long as possible. 

In addition to the official agenda, really the key of the WEF agenda, are the 100-plus secret close-door sessions for by-invitation-only guests.

In these sessions, the psychopaths, or Übermenschen hovering above humanity, led by Schwab, will discuss how to control, tyrannize, reduce, and robotize the world population – and the best and fastest way to deprive them of their hard-earned resources and how quickest transferring these resources to a small corporate and private elite. 

These secret topics, will most likely include methodologies on how to impose on society new fear factors – after the covid, lockdown and vaxx fraud is gradually but speedily coming to light and ebbing off. 

To get the maximum out of fear-mongering and mind manipulation of the population at large, the WEF might have invited experts from Tavistock, the British institute for social engineering of the collective and individual minds.

Special items of discussions may include, as priorities,

  • how to assure that the new US President – elections in November 2024, IF they take place – will play along, Biden-style;  
  • implementation of the yet to be defined new disease “X” which will be multiple times deadlier than covid;
  • how to manipulate the Pandemic Treaty and the new International Health Regulations (IHR) through the World Health Assembly (WHA) in May 2024, to make WHO effectively the tyrant and dictator of a One Health Order (OHO), leading up to a One World Government;
  • next dimensions of AI, robotization, digitization and the blanket imposition of Digital ID and how to link them to individual bank accounts, and / or Central Bank Digital Currency (CBDC) – imposition at once, or gradually, in the hope of halting a revolution; and

A Polygon Cyberattack May also be on the Agenda for 2024. 

After all, We the People, were recently warned by the Barack and Michelle Obama produced Netflix movie, Leave the World Behind – depicting a cyber-attack by an unknown enemy, attempting to leave the people in awe and fear of what might be coming.

Also it is worth noting that in 2021: 

“the WEF conducted a simulation of Cyber Attacks involving a scenario of Paralysis of the Power Supply, Communications, Transportation, The Internet

“Klaus Schwab intimated in no uncertain terms based on the simulation that a cyber-attack:  

“Could bring a complete halt to the power supply, transportation, hospital services, our society as a whole …

 The COVID-19 crisis would be seen in this respect as a small disturbance in comparison to a major cyberattack.” (emphasis added) 

NO FEAR, Please – is of the Order.

We, the People, must become cognizant of the fact that the Western world is run by A Money Driven Cult, a Death Cult, or a Diabolical Cult.

Hard to believe but true.

What we have been experiencing during the last several decades are attacks on human dignity, emotions, by warnings causing fear and obedience. These are typical rituals Cults must follow, to be successful in their diabolical actions.

If we pay no attention, especially do not fall for the fear-factor, and do not hate them for what they are doing, we are safe. They want us to hate them, because hatred emits the same low emotional vibes they use for their atrocities. If we emit similar signals, they have us under control.

Being indifferent to them, or even loving them, monsters they are – according to the maxim, they don’t know what they are doing – is a must for ascending from the darkness of their control into the light, where We the People, eventually become free, autonomous and sovereign beings, ready to create a new society, a new civilization. 

We must not ever succumb to their control, lest they drive us to the graveyard, or at best, to their slave-yard. NEVER must we allow that.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020).

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG). He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing. 

Featured image source

The Ghost of United Fruit Still Haunts Latin America

February 9th, 2024 by Andrew Laverdiere

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

Introduction 

Of all the campaign issues that conservatives like to be overheard talking about, illegal immigration is among the top 6 or 7th in importance behind boycotting Bud Light, 2nd Amendment issues, and trolling abortion fanatics.

Beyond AOC conducting a staged photo-op crying next to an empty parking lot in order to try and make President Trump look like a racist for separating children from parents, (a policy that was a carry-over from the Obama presidency oddly enough), Democrats tend to avoid discussing the absolute flood of undocumented refugees currently awaiting processing, mostly because they don’t want to upset their sugar daddy George Soros or make President Biden look bad.

For the 12 months ending Sept. 30, 2022, Customs and Border Protection Administration CBP stopped migrants more than 2,766,582 times, compared to 1.72 million times for fiscal 2021, the previous yearly high. The 2022 numbers were driven in part by sharp increases in the number of Venezuelans, Cubans and Nicaraguans making the trek north, according to CBP. The major source of immigration is listed as Brazil, Columbia, Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, and Venezuela with 1,535,492 so far attempting to enter this year and 2,217,141 last year (see this).

US-run color revolutions and coups, economic warfare, sanctions, narco-terrorism, Communist/Maoist terrorism, natural disasters, and severe poverty caused by policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank all make up the major reasons that people flee their countries of origin.

However, despite the utterly disgusting record of the United States throughout the 20th Century and the 23 years of this century in imposing grinding poverty, usurious debt payments, and virtual colonial economic conditions, too many Americans parrot the “illegal immigrant” line which is the favorite boogeyman scapegoat now that “Muslim terrorism/extremist” is not being repeated endlessly on cable news, or worse, state that “it’s not their concern” as one of my taxi customers stated recently when I described the topic of this article.

A surprising opinion given that there is group of 300 refugees being warehoused at an auditorium in Portland Maine from Algeria who are protesting their conditions and discussions are under way to bring refugees to my locality despite there being absolutely no means of supporting them. A brief glance at the latter half of the 20th century shows why such opinions are utterly immoral. After WW1, the US has conducted wars, coups, and other military operations of various kinds in the Western Hemisphere mostly using the cover of “fighting Communism.” Because of the complexity of Communist/Socialist/Maoist history, its strange relationship with the old British Empire, and how they fit into the perpetual conflict schemes of various geopoliticans and used to terrible effect on the lives of untold numbers of souls, that subject will be gone over at length in part 2.

For most of the 19th and 20th century up until the passing of statesman James G. Blaine, the assassination of President McKinley, and ascendancy of anglophile freak Teddy Roosevelt, the US policy of support for our “sister republics” via the Monroe Doctrine was subverted into a colonial policy.

One company in particular, exemplified exploitation and looting of Central America and the Caribbean, The United Fruit Company, often called “The Octopus” because of its dominance over entire countries from which the term “Banana Republic” came.

I thought that you should get to see both the approved and sanitized narrative that is generally shown on numerous websites and videos that describe its history and then the ugly reality which brand x historians won’t touch with a hundred foot pole.

Birth of the Octopus

1870: The Boston Fruit Company was established by sailor Lorenzo Dow Baker when he started purchasing bananas in Jamaica.

1899: Minor C. Keith’s company Tropical Trading and Transport Co. merges with rival Andrew W. Preston’s Boston Fruit Co. to form the United Fruit Company. It engaged in the production, transportation, and marketing of bananas, sugar, cocoa, abaca, and other tropical agricultural products. Preston brought to the partnership his plantations in the West Indies, a fleet of steamships, and his market in the U.S. Northeast. Keith brought his plantations and railroads in Central America and his market in the U.S. South and Southeast. Within weeks, UFCo acquires seven independent companies that have been operating in Honduras. Preston is made president and Keith is vice-president. Preston’s lawyer Bradley Palmer is made permanent member of the executive committee and director and from a business point of view, Palmer was United Fruit.

1910:  UFCo rival Samuel Zemurray conspires with the newly exiled General Manuel Bonilla and masterminds a coup d’état against Honduran President Dávila. On Christmas Eve, Samuel Zemurray, U.S. General Lee Christmas, and General Bonilla use Zemurray’s yacht “Hornet” with a gang of New Orleans mercenaries and attacks the ports of Trujillo and La Ceiba forcing President Dávila to step down. Bonilla becomes dictator and awards UFCo tax breaks and huge land grants.

1928: 25,000 banana workers in Columbia went on strike demanding a 6-day work week, payment with money rather than company coupons, compensation for work accidents, & increase in wages for workers earning less than 100 pesos per month. With the bottom line threatened, the strikers are branded Communists and UFCo gets the U.S. Government to threaten to invade, using the U.S. Marine Corps that were stationed off the shores of Ciénaga should the Colombian government not act to protect United Fruit’s interests. Dec. 6, 1928, Columbian troops gun down protesters outside of UFCo headquarters. The number killed is disputed, but a month later, the U.S. Ambassador to Bogotá, Jefferson Caffery, sent a dispatch informing Washington: “I have the honor to report…that the total number of strikers killed by the Colombian military exceeded one thousand.”

1929: After an unsuccessful price war against Samuel Zemurray’s Cuyamel Fruit Company which he had purchased in 1910, United Fruit decides to buy Zemurray out. He eventually becomes its biggest stockholder.

1930: UFCo. has absorbed more than twenty rival firms and is the largest employer in Central America. It owned or leased property in Honduras, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Panama, Colombia, Cuba, Jamaica, and numerous other Central American, South American, and West Indies countries.

1933: Members of UFCo’s board of directors vote to name Zemurray general director of the company.

1938: Zemurray becomes President of UFCo.

1947: United Fruit’s net worth is in excess of $250 million, and the company controlled nearly a half-mile of dock space in the Port of New Orleans for loading and unloading of its passengers, bananas and general freight.

June 1954 President Jacobo Arbenz of Guatemala became the first Latin American leader overthrown in a coup organized by the US government [SIC!]. On taking power, President Arbenz had proposed land reforms that were considered a threat to the interests of United Fruit Company despite the fact that only 15% of their land was being utilized. Arbenz was labelled a communist by Washington and the US company lobbied for his removal. BBC interview with President Jacobo Arbenz’s son.

1958: UFCo acquires the rights to explore petroleum and natural gas in Colombia, Panama, and Ecuador. During the 1950’s, UFCo. starts acquiring numerous companies such as A&W Root Beer and Foster Grants.

1959: Fidel Castro begins his agrarian reform and seizes the sugar plantations of United Fruit in Cuba.

United Brands (1970–1984)

Corporate raider Eli M. Black bought 733,000 shares of United Fruit in 1968, becoming the company’s largest shareholder. In June 1970, Black merged United Fruit with his own public company, AMK (owner of meat packer John Morrell), to create the United Brands Company.

1974: Central American governments began levying a large export tax on bananas. In September hurricane Fifi hit Central America, wiping out 70% of the company’s Honduran plantations and causing losses of more than $20 million. Rising feed costs puts Morrell $6 million in the hole. Black sells UFCo to Foster Grant for almost $70 million.

1975: Black commits suicide by jumping from his office in the Pan-Am building in New York. The investigations following his death reveal a multi-million-dollar bribery scandal in which Black and United Brands pay off Central American countries in exchange for reduced taxes.

Chiquita Brands International

After Black’s suicide, Cincinnati-based American Financial Group, one of billionaire Carl Lindner, Jr.‘s companies, bought into United Brands. In August 1984, Lindner took control of the company and renamed it Chiquita Brands International. The headquarters was moved from New York to Cincinnati in 1985.

2014 Chiquita Brands International conducts an all stock merger with the Irish Fruit Company Fyffes for $1.07 Billion and controls 29% of the global banana market. As of 2017 Fyffes is owned by the Japanese Sumitomo Corporation.

2019 The company’s main offices leave the United States and relocate to Switzerland.

“Chiquita Brands International operates in 70 countries and employs approximately 20,000 people as of 2018. The company sells a variety of fresh produce, including bananas, ready-made salads, and health foods. The company’s Fresh Express brand has approximately $1 billion of annual sales and a 40% market share in the United States.” Global corporate structure

Corporatism Writ Large in Mountains of Corpses

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.” –Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (retired).

When one brings up terms like corporatism, Mussolini or Hitler is referenced because of the overt relationship between financiers, industrial corporations and the government/ dictatorships. Long before any of that existed, there was the East India Company, a crown chartered company which plundered China and the Indian subcontinent for 300 years from 1600 to 1874 after which it was merged into the British Empire. In America, one finds around the Boston area, very old families that are given the descriptive moniker of blue bloods or Brahmins. See this.

Sociologist Harriet Martineau visited Boston in the 1830s and concluded its Brahmins were “perhaps as aristocratic, vain, and vulgar a city, as described by its own “first people,” as any in the world.”

Typically, these were merchant families who got filthy rich off of the slave and opium trade (or clipper trade). Among the American patrician families who have played key roles in both United Fruit and the British East India Company are the Forbes, Higginsons and Lees. Other old-line Episcopalian families involved with UFCo are the Peabodys of Morgan-Peabody, whose patriarch, J. Endicott Peabody, established Groton prep (the American Eton) to brainwash generations of U.S. policymakers in British Empire worship. In 1899, these and other Anglophile families arranged the merger of the Boston Fruit Co.’s “Great White Fleet” with International Railways of Central America (a railroad crisscrossing the region) to form the United Fruit Company. Sons of opium war Perkins Syndicate agent Joseph Coolidge, Thomas Jefferson Coolidge & Thomas Jefferson Coolidge II merged their Old Colony Trust Company with the First National Bank of Boston so that the boards of the Bank of Boston and the UFCo around 1929 were the same.

Also involved was the Swiss Iselin family through Central Trust Bank of New York, controller of railroads from New Orleans up to the midwest. The Bank of Boston will later play a part in helping organized crime take over Hollywood. In 1988 The Bank of Boston was caught laundering $2.5 million of drug money in connection with the infamous Columbian Medellin drug cartel connected BCCI bank, yet, got off with a $500,000 fine because of Attorney General William Weld, whose family also got filthy rich on the China Clipper Trade. See this.

For further information about this long ignored aspect of treason, please consult Anton Chaitkins ground breaking history research in “Treason In America.”

The other side of United Fruit came from Sicilians Joseph Macheca and his successor Charles Matranga, the mob bosses of New Orleans, the original organized crime organization in the US beginning in the Civil War era. See this.

Macheca was a protege of Anarcho-Revolutionary Guiseppi Mazzini, who in turn was an agent in the employ of Lord Palmerston, the 19th century architect of Britain’s opium wars. See this.

Macheca owned a small shipping company that shipped cargo from New Orleans to Central America starting in 1874. The Macheca Brothers firm eventually sold its shipping assets to United Fruit. His 1943 obituary lists Matranga as merely a retired stevedore for the United Fruit Company, and for Standard Fruit & Steamship Company but his funeral was attended by the business elite of New Orleans and the corporate board of UFCo.

The aforementioned Samuel Zemurray, also a mobster in New Orleans, had come to the U.S. as part of the same wave of immigration (sponsored by the Baron de Hirsch Foundation) that brought the Bronfmans, Jacobs, Fishers and others to this country. With Rothschild backing from London, they welded together a nationwide organized crime network during Prohibition, and then, in the mid-1930s, shifted their profitable business fronts from bootleg liquor to narcotics. According to past U.S. drug enforcement authorities, an estimated 25 percent of the cocaine that entered the United States annually was smuggled on United Brands’ ships.

To its “credit”, United Fruit in the last century has engineered two Marine invasions of Nicaragua, a war between Honduras and EI Salvador, an attempted Nicaraguan invasion of Costa Rica thirty years ago, and more than a dozen coups d’etat. In the bloodbath that followed the Company’s 1954 coup against the republican Arbenz forces in Guatemala, 35,000 people were murdered by death squads.

In 1929, the Justice Department demanded that Zemurray sell out to UF in order to stave off a war that the two companies had helped foment between Guatemala and Honduras. Another 40,000 to 50,000 have been killed by repressive rampages in EI Salvador and Honduras. When added to the deaths suffered under Anastasio Somoza García, Luis Somoza Debayle and Anastasio Somoza Debayle who ruled Nicaragua from 1933 to 1979, it is safe to estimate that United Fruit’s commitment to preserve “banana republics” and obliterate all potential for the development of sovereign nations modeled on America’s own founding principles has taken hundreds of thousands of lives during the last 100 years alone. This is the story of United Fruit: it is the anathema of everything the American republic ever stood for. It is the story of dope pushers, assassins, and mass murderers hired to keep Central America as a backward fiefdom of an Anglo-American “empire.” A deadly relationship of blue blood families setting policies, mobsters providing the muscle, and ruthless local dictators to keep the slaves in line.

True to its nickname El Pulpo or “The Octopus” one finds central figures like John Foster Dulles, who represented United Fruit while he was a law partner at Sullivan & Cromwell – he negotiated the crucial United Fruit deal with Guatemalan officials in the 1930s and was Secretary of State under Eisenhower; his brother Allen, who did legal work for the company and sat on its board of directors, was head of the Central Intelligence Agency under Eisenhower and Kennedy.

The law firm and both brothers were on the company payroll for 38 years; Henry Cabot Lodge (whose family ancestors were involved in the West Indies slave trade) who was America’s ambassador to the UN, was a large owner of United Fruit stock; Ed Whitman, the United Fruit PR man, was married to Ann Whitman, Dwight Eisenhower’s personal secretary. Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays was hired in 1941 as consultant.

His 1928 book “Propaganda” argued “The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country… It is the intelligent minorities which need to make use of propaganda continuously and systematically. In the active proselytizing minorities, in whom selfish interest and public interest coincide, lie the progress and development of America.” His method was used during the 1954 Guatemala coup by having reporters make up lurid stories of “communist terror” and that Arbenz was “going communist”. With such high powered American interests involved, to say that UFCo. was mixed up in the Bay Of Pigs incident, the Kennedy assassination, was involved in Israeli terrorist organizations, or promoted Malthusian depopulation schemes shouldn’t be a stretch.

In the late 1940s through Sam Zemurray and other employees, UFCo became engaged in a massive project to smuggle weapons to the Haganah and Irgun terrorist groups in Israel using puppet Central American governments. As one result of this project, the Israeli Mossad was created. Israel, in return was among the leading arms suppliers to UFCo’s puppet Central American dictatorships, particularly Anastasio Somoza. For the Haganah project, Sam Zemurray was co-opted by Edmund de Rothschild to the board of the Palestine Economic Commission (PEC) (see this) which would shortly evolve into the state sector of the Israeli economy. Co-sponsoring him for this high-level Zionist post was Sen. Herbert H. Lehman of the investment house, Lehman Bros., who headed the U.S. side of the PEC. Lehman Bros., which acquired its initial fortune running cotton and slaves past the Union blockade of Charleston and New Orleans, was the first bank brought onto UFCo’s board. (See this JSTOR Article)

Dr. Carlos Gutierrez of the post Somoza Government of National Reconstruction (GNR) gave an interview with Executive Intelligence Review about the recent history of Nicaragua in 1979

Q: Doctor Gutierrez, one of the facts we have been able to verify is that Zionism is in many ways supporting Somoza’s dictatorship. It’s well known that Israel supplies arms to Somoza. But that’s not all. United Brands formerly the famous United Fruit – is directed by a Zionist leader and it is known that Zionist networks involved in drug trafficking are intimately associated with Somoza and the National Guard. What can you tell us about that?

A: Well, the United Fruit problem has been reduced somewhat in Nicaragua. Many years ago we were a “banana country”; Nicaragua lived through a sorry experience. It was a country which produced bananas in fearful quantities. It produced tuberculosis in the same proportion. A member of the Group of Twelve made a documentary in the United States which includes 400 photographs showing the history of Nicaragua … with the whole process in which the United States has intervened since William Walker, a Filibuster from New Orleans who made himself president of Nicaragua [for 10 months in 1853- ed.], was recognized in less than 48 hours by the United States, and wanted to annex our territory to the slave states. In some of those photos, we see the homes – if you can call them homes – made of straw, of palm leaves, in the midst of water and mud, belonging to the banana workers.

Truly lamentable conditions of life. … And, on the other side, we see the mansions because they truly were mansions – lived in by the United Fruit executives. The production of bananas in Nicaragua fell as a result of the political ambitions of Somoza and the use of methods of exploiting current production without bothering to replant the banana trees. Naturally we still have plantations. Many, in fact, belong to Somoza and many of the fruit growing and fruit processing activities in Nicaragua are represented by U.S. companies or U.S.-owned companies associated with Somoza.

As far as Israel is concerned, we have simply this to say: it is unimaginable for a nation for which the word “genocide” was invented to be an accomplice in committing genocide. This is a tremendous incongruity and, believe me, I’m not saying that out of hatred, but out of anger. I, personally, and the Nicaraguans in general, cannot applaud the Nazi crimes against the Jewish people in any way. Like all humanity, we condemn them. For civilized man, it is impossible to accept things like that. But, at the same time that we condemn Hitler for his crimes against the Jews, we Nicaraguans have the painful obligation of condemning Israel for complicity in the genocide, in the massacre, of the people of Nicaragua. You know that there have been several proven cases of Israeli support for Somoza – not for Nicaragua, but for Somoza. It ranges from supplies of arms, munitions, rockets, mustard bombs to unconfirmed reports that the Israelis are testing certain arms in Nicaraguan territory.”  

When Somoza helped sponsor the 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Castro’s Cuba, it was launched from Nicaragua’s Swan Island on land owned outright by UFCo. along with a radio signal tower run by the CIA. Plans for the Bay of Pigs invasion became utterly fantastic: Cuban exiles trained in Guatemala under protection of Castillo Armas were to be transported to Cuba on two United Fruit Co. ships; hit teams trained at a camp provided by the New Orleans mafia were to infiltrate Cuba and assassinate Castro; agents of mobster Meyer Lansky’s casinos and drug rings in Cuba were to proclaim a “national liberation struggle;” and the U.S. Naval fleet was to invade in support of these “patriotic” forces. The entire operation failed miserably because of President Kennedy’s staunch opposition to playing along with the British Empire’s manipulated Cold War intrigue despite the fact that his father Joseph Kennedy had made his initial fortune selling bootleg whiskey from exclusive British liquor franchises to the same gangster elements involved with UFCo.

Historian Anton Chaitkin describes the European groupings that General Lemnitzer inherited upon being fired and joining NATO; “a covert apparatus of Mafia killers, Hitler Nazis, Mussolini Fascists, French colonial diehards, and white mercenaries fuming about the loss of Africa.”

The close connections between the United Fruit Co. and the networks named by New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison as being behind Kennedy’s assassination shortly afterward is graphically illustrated in the case of William Gaudet, publisher of the UFCo funded Latin American Report in the 1950s and early 1960s.

At the time of his employment by UFCo, Gaudet worked out of the International Trade Mart (ITM), a New Orleans branch of the Permindex Corp., established in 1958, nominally as an international trading company arranging trade expositions and managing real estate projects housing corporate management offices. The founder of Permindex was Major Louis Mortimer Bloomfield, a personal protege of British Special Operations Executive head Sir William Stephenson. Bloomfield, in addition to having a pivotal position within the FBI Division Five and the Office of Naval Intelligence, was a leading financial conduit for the Meyer Lansky – run International narcotics cartel. Among the leading shareholders in Permindex were mob attorney Roy M. Cohn; George Mantello, an attorney for the Italian Black Nobility House of Savoy; Ferencz Nagy, the former pro-Hitler President of wartime Hungary; and Tibor Rosenbaum, the 1960s director of Israeli Mossad operations in Western Europe (based out of his Meyer Lansky – connected Geneva bank). Permindex had been expelled in 1962 from both Italy and Switzerland, and had also been identified as responsible for trying to organize the assassination of French President de Gaulle. Sharing offices with Gaudet was Lee Harvey Oswald’s “Fair Play for Cuba Committee” and many others named by Garrison as being involved with Oswald in the Kennedy assassination. Among these were Clay Shaw, who headed ITM with Zemurray’s successor in the New Orleans mob, Carlos Marcelo.

Also involved was Edward Bannister, Southeastern Regional Director of Division Five (Counterintelligence) of the FBI, for which Bloomfield served as the chief recruiter and agent-handler at the time of the Kennedy assassination. Bannister was named by Garrison as being in charge of providing Oswald with a credible Communist cover. When Oswald traveled to Mexico on his notorious trip to visit the Soviet and Cuban Embassies there, UFCo agent William Gaudet’s signature appeared directly below his in the registry of the American Embassy during an unexplained side-trip. Curiously, the Warren Commission never looked at Gaudet’s connection to Oswald, nor at Garrison’s other evidence.

At least three Warren Commission members had close personal or family ties to United Fruit Co. primarily the Dulles brothers but also prominent persons like John J. McCloy “Chairman of the Establishment”. An honorary Rockefeller family member, McCloy was chairman of the board of David Rockefeller’s Chase Manhattan Bank, a director of the Rockefeller Foundation and United Fruit. His pedigree can be summed up by his attitude on the interning of Japanese-Americans in 1942: “If it is a question of safety of the country . . . why the Constitution is just a scrap of paper to me.” 

McCloy, along with Allen Dulles, Whitney Shephardson, John Foster Dulles, William Draper, and Averell Harriman schemed to purge the wartime and postwar intelligence services and postwar German occupation authority of any Franklin Roosevelt loyalists who were committed to eliminating all forms of colonialism. At the outbreak of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, John J. McCloy, ostensibly a private citizen but still serving as chairman of the President’s Arms Control and Disarmament Board, was abruptly recalled from a business trip in Europe and flown back to Washington. When first briefed on the existence of nuclear-capable missiles in Cuba, McCloy’s response was to call for immediate air strikes to take out the weapons.

Another top Wall Street oligarch, William F. Buckley, Sr., who worked with Standard Oil, Royal Dutch Shell, and Morgan-Lamont interests to stage multiple countercoup attempts against the Mexican Revolution until he was thrown out of the country in 1921 as a “pernicious foreigner” and his oil holdings confiscated. Buckley next moved to Venezuela, where he gained control over two-thirds of the country’s oil deposits as a junior partner of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil. Buckley, Sr. personally trained Nelson Rockefeller who worked with him at Standard’s Venezuelan subsidiary, Creole Petroleum, to carry out a series of revolving-door coups that used networks of Buckley, Sr.’s close associate Argentine dictator Juan Peron and Spanish corporatist dictator Francisco Franco. Creole Petroleum was later to provide cover for operations run by the Dulles brothers in the Caribbean, working with the United Fruit Company to orchestrate the 1953 Arbenz coup in Guatamala and the 1963 Bay of Pigs invasion. Coudert Brothers, the law firm for the Buckleys’ estimated $110 million oil empire, also had a fascist pedigree as the legal counsel to Vichy France. See this.

The Buckleys are associated with the Permindex networks. George De Mohrenschildt, a White Russian aristocrat who was assassinated before he could testify on his role as a “controller” of Lee Harvey Oswald, maintained close ties with the family. De Mohrenschildt worked for Nelson Rockefeller, then Coordinator for Inter-American Affairs, during World War II; later, he joined the Buckleys’ Pantepec oil firm in Venezuela which was integrated into Standard Oil’s Caribbean intelligence operations. When De Mohrenschildt left Pantepec, he developed several joint ventures with the Schlumberger Corporation, which is represented by the Buckleys’ law firm, Coudert Brothers. Schlumberger is not only a major part of the United Fruit/Creole Petroleum, private intelligence operation that virtually ran the Bay of Pigs, but Jean de Menil was on the board of Permindex, and his wife was an international sponsor of the Muslim Brotherhood terrorists. You might remember the central role Schlumberger played as Vice President Dick Cheney’s choice for looting Iraq while he was on the board of directors, a major stockholder and receiving $100,000 in deferred salary while his wife Lynne was a senior fellow of the American Enterprise Institute, a recipient of a “charity donation”.

An aside is necessary at this point because of the nature of discussing the Kennedy assassination and the problem of how the majority of historians replicate the methods of Sherlock Holmes when going through the minutia of what the main suspects were wearing, what did they eat for lunch that day, the spot they were standing on the day of November 21 at 3:32pm, and similar distractions. It should be obvious from what is discussed in the material that Kennedy was facing organizations that had no compunction about conducting high level assassinations when economic interests were threatened which was the ultimate theme that played out all during the administration’s existence. An excellent study is Battling Wall Street by Donald Gibson, a unique approach at exposing the fundamental battle between government “of, by, and for the people” and a government that serves selfish private interests before anything else. This has played out throughout our nation’s history whenever presidents have been murdered openly such as Presidents Garfield and McKinley or more secretly as in the case of Presidents Taylor or Harding and the result has been fundamental changes in national and economic policies. See this.

Cui bono? Who benefits? (See this and this)

Donald Gibson was interviewed by EIR editor Michelle Steinberg in May 5 2000. See this.

EIR: You go into this in the final chapter in “Assassination Cover-Up” — the Wall Street Journal, Time-Life, Luce, etc. Bitter opposition.

Gibson: When I was finishing the first book, and I was getting a sense that Kennedy was, in fact, in deep conflict with Wall Street and other interests, I then looked at the cover-up process. People involved in creating the Warren Commission were essentially agents of the same powers who opposed Kennedy. So, that really set me off again, in terms of a new round of investigation and research.

EIR: There’s always some opposition. What do you think was so unique about what Kennedy represented, that would have made the Establishment take such drastic steps?

Gibson: What bothered them about Kennedy—Kennedy was aggressively threatening almost all of the broad strategies that the upper class was in the process of adopting, and in fact, he and, especially if his brother had followed him, would have gotten in the way of everything from post-industrialism to globalization. JFK’s nationally oriented, pro-development, pro-growth policies, not only for the United States, but also for other countries, would have been at odds with two of the central thrusts of the last 25 years: that is, the post-industrial society and globalization.”

Gibson interestingly brings up the role of Lord Bertrand Russell and his creation in early 1964, of the “Who Killed Kennedy Committee” (see this and this) months before the Warren Commission issues its report and his friendship with Warren Commission critic Mark Lane and his 1966 book Rush to Judgment, the first of roughly 400 books that have been produced, in which Gibson pinpoints Russell’s role in leading what “became a vast industry of misdirection about the assassination.” Adding to the obfuscation was the 1975 Rockefeller Commission On CIA Domestic Activities that was headed by Nelson A. Rockefeller, (see this) which featured Lyman Lemnitzer, the former lunatic head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who was the most vocal for an invasion of Cuba and for suggesting in “Operation Northwoods” that the government use fake Cubans to carry out terrorist incidents in the US in order to terrify the public into supporting an invasion. You can read more about this in James Bamfords “Body of Secrets: Anatomy of the Ultra-Secret National Security Agency”.

Chief Investigator for the Warren Commission, David Belin, provided Sen. Richard Schweiker (D-Pa.) with CIA documents that implied a possible link between Castro and the Kennedy assassination based upon the statements of a Cuban defector. In leaking the documents to AP, Belin indicated that the Warren Commission had access to the same documents but had ignored them. Ironically, Belin, had just written an absolution of the Warren Commission’s “lone assassin” and magical “single bullet theory” for William F. Buckley’s National Review Magazine of Feb. 6, 1976.

UFCo.’s leading agronomist William C. Paddock became part of a group of neo-Malthusians calling for wartime style “triage measures” for Mexico and Central America in order to radically reduce populations. Paddock received training in plant biology at Cornell and began a career in tropical agronomy in the late 1940s. For the decade of the 1950s he lived in Central America, primarily Guatemala and Honduras, and took frequent trips to Mexico. In the 1960s, he established a private consulting firm in tropical agronomy, Paddock and Paddock, and devoted increasing portions of his time to work with his brother, Paul Paddock, in researching the issue of world population growth.

Paul Paddock (deceased in the early 1970s) was a career State Department officer serving in Mexico in the late 1930s. William served as the President of the Escuela Agricola Panamericana (Pan American Agricultural School), near Tegucigalpa, Honduras (see this). This school, founded by United Brands, has for decades been their flagship “research” center in the area, and is funded to this day by the United Brands Foundation. The Environmental Fund (see this), created in 1973 was to promote forced abortion and sterilization as opposed to the more mainstream family planning groups. Its statement of purpose described it as “an effort to stimulate thinking about the unthinkable.”

Zero Population Growth (now Population Connection PC Critique) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) were similar population reduction movements Paddock sat on the board of directors of and was a financier. His famous book Famine, 1975! America’s Decision: Who Will Survive? (1967) explicitly calls for coercive family planning, William Hardin, University of Chicago-trained biologist, issued a 1968 manifesto (see this) for the American Academy for the Advancement of Science which for the first time openly stated that the voluntary birth control programs were insufficient to halt world population growth and for the urgent need of “lifeboat economics”, and Paul Ehrlich’s 1968 book, The Population Bomb, popularized Paddock and Hardin’s work. It became a national bestseller across the United States. “Many apparently brutal and heartless decisions will have to be made,” Ehrlich wrote. This seminal work by Paddock, Hardin and Ehrlich took place during the same years, under the broad direction of a larger effort: the creation of the Club of Rome by the planning agencies of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO.

The Club of Rome, officially created in 1969 based on organizing efforts in which Zbigniew Brzezinski played a prominent role, immediately launched the umbrella concept within which triage and lifeboat ethics found their place: Limits to Growth. Similar themed policy papers such as Global 2000 (1977) which recommends reducing the world population by 2 billion people by the turn of the century, Henry Kissinger’s National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM200) completed in Dec. 1974 specified population reduction as the means of controlling resources, the 1974 Rockefeller led Bucharest Conference on Population from which the global warming lie was birthed, the “controlled disintegration” economic wrecking job of Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker, and other measures such as the genocidalist Pol-Pot regime in Cambodia all borrowed from Paddocks theories and made them real. (See this)

Out of the Fire and Into the Microwave

Once we reach the 1970’s, the UFCo. begins a new chapter with the 1970 takeover by Eli Black, the merger into United Brands, the mysterious “suicide” of Black 5 years later and the ascension of Max Fisher, at the time a junior “Zemurray” as head of both a small Israeli oil refining company (PAZ) and Detroit’s Purple Gang; one of the prohibition eras most violent Jewish extortion and booze smuggling operations in collaboration with the Bronfman family in Canada.

Fisher’s early career was shaped by his association with Purple Gang member Jack Rothberg, who helped him get started in the oil refinery business. If you have a strong enough stomach, you can browse the poorly coded worship website The Max Fischer Archives that has “Respected Leader” and “The Legacy of a World Citizen” at the top. (See this)

In February 1975, United Brands (UB) Chairman of the Board Eli Black walked out of a window on the 4th floor of the Pan-American building in New York City. Within two months of his mysterious death, Max Fisher (who had threatened the release of incriminating evidence on Black’s various bribery schemes) was appointed acting chairman of the company, and subsequently became its new Chairman of the Board.

By 1975, Fisher and two of his close associates, Carl Lindner of Cincinnati and Seymour Milstein of New York City, held a total of 48 percent of the stock of UB and its subsidiary companies. Fisher’s appointment was sponsored by two individuals: Sol Linowitz and Donald R. Gant, a Goldman Sachs partner and Henry Kissinger associate. The Carter administration’s special envoy for Panama Canal treaty negotiations, Linowitz was an international policy adviser to Maritime Fruit Company, the Israeli counterpart to United Brands, and sat on the board of Marine Midland Bank, which in 1979 merged with the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation, long the central clearinghouse bank for the Golden Triangle Far Eastern heroin trade since the Opium Wars. One of Fisher’s first actions as board chairman was to appoint Bert C. Reiss as Vice-President in charge of transportation. Reiss came from National Bulk Carriers Corporation (NBC), a firm involved in shipping and construction throughout Latin America.

NBC was owned by Daniel K. Ludwig, an associate of Meyer Lansky, who was responsible for the harbor-dredging project that led to the building of the scandal-ridden Paradise Island in the Bahamas. Once at UB, Reiss excluded all non-company cargo from United Brands ships and from its New Orleans port facilities, throwing a shroud of total secrecy around the company’s Caribbean/Central American shipping activities. Through his Paz holdings, Fisher next bought into a significant piece of the Israeli state sector, and gained half ownership in Zim Shipping Company, the largest line in the Middle East, one of who’s ships was exposed in 1978 by the Jerusalem Post as carrying millions of dollars worth of liquid hashish into New York. (See this)

Between 1959 and the late 1980s, Charles Keating was the business partner of Carl Lindner, the Cincinnati, Ohio-based financier who would be one of the central figures in the $200 billion Savings and Loan collapse and taxpayer bailout in 1989. In 1959, Lindner and Keating co-founded American Financial Corporation (AFC). Keating served as the mortgage and insurance company’s general counsel, and later as vice president. Between 1974 and 1976, Lindner and Keating engineered a series of stock purchases and mergers with some of the leading figures in the Lansky crime syndicate—who had followed the Bronfman family recipe, and gone from “rags, to rackets, to riches, to respectability.”

In 1975, Lindner’s AFC allied with Detroit financier Max Fisher; Detroit real estate developer Alfred Taubman (a Fisher associate); and Paul and Seymour Milstein, to grab a 50% controlling interest in the United Fruit/Brands Company. Drug Enforcement Administration officials had confirmed to Executive Intelligence Review, that United Fruit was a major force in the Latin American cocaine trade—a business that skyrocketed following the Lindner-Fisher, et al. takeover. At the same time that Lindner, Fisher et. al. were grabbing United Fruit, Lindner’s AFC simultaneously allied with a group of other Lansky-linked entities to establish a formidable pool of interlocking companies that would collectively form the core of the infamous 1980’s era of junk-bond raiders, featured in books like Predators Ball by Connie Bruck or the “Money Machine: How KKR Manufactured Power and Profits” by Sarah Bartlett.

As Lindner and Keating were forging their corporate alliances with Steinberg, Tisch, Fisher, Riklis, and Posner, two of the leading Anglo-American financial groups—JP Morgan and the banking and brokerage empire of Baron Edmund de Rothschild Banque Lambert de Bruxelles were sealing their own alliance. These top bankers transformed the relatively small investment bank/brokerage house of Drexel Harriman Ripley, during the 1970s, into Drexel Burnham Lambert. Baron Edmund de Rothschild personified the intersection of the overworld of high finance with the underworld. Between the 1950s and the 1970s, the Geneva-based Rothschild had bankrolled the careers of Max Fisher; pyramid swindler Bernie Cornfeld of Investors Overseas Services (IOS) infamy; pioneer drug-money launderer Robert Vesco; and hedge fund pirate George Soros.

The newly built Drexel Burnham dispatched hotshot bond trader Michael Milken to his newly established Beverly Hills, California office to begin the era of Junk Bonds and hostile takeovers. In 1979, Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker began driving interest rates up over 20%, gutting America’s productive agro-industrial sector.

You almost have to picture the strategic bombing campaign of WW2 to imagine the leveraged buyouts and looting of auto plants, steel companies, foundries, machine shops and similar heavy industries being destroyed systematically and former prosperous cities and towns transformed into drug infested hell holes. The passage of the Staggers Act in 1980, Garn-St Germain in 1982 along with other deregulation measures turned the once productive economy into a post-industrial wasteland that is dominated by the FIRE (Finance Insurance Real Estate) companies and the increasing amount of entertainment and drugs used to keep most of the population who’s living standards were becoming worse and worse, occupied and pacified. 

At age 96, Max Fisher died on March 3, 2005, at his home in the Detroit suburb of Franklin. His fortune was estimated at $775 million in Forbes magazine’s annual ranking of the nation’s 400 wealthiest individuals. The fawning picture of a successful businessman and generous philanthropist to important causes is what you find online in Wikipedia or other websites like The Jewish Historical Society of Michigan website. JHSM “Business and financial success was just part of Max Fisher’s global impact. He firmly believed that his success obligated him to give back to the causes he supported. Fisher became a giant in philanthropy. Education, Jewish and secular, was a priority for his generosity. He focused on Israel and the support available from American Jewry. He became Chairman of the United Jewish Appeal and then the United Israel Appeal. He chaired the board of the Jewish Agency for Israel for many years, serving as a shadow diplomat between the Israeli and U.S. governments. In 1977, President Carter invited Fisher to watch Israel’s prime minister and Egypt’s president sign the Camp David accords.”

Communists, the Invention of Imperialist Mass Murderers

Communist/Maoist movements. The perfect excuse for endless bloodshed. If anyone still remembers the Iran Contra scandal, who would have thought it a good idea to finance a guerilla war against “Godless Communists” with the proceeds of drug sales provided by Narco-terrorists which allow you to imprison large numbers of the poorest sections of society in privatized prisons that double as virtual slave labor camps?

Welcome to the Bizarro world of Cold War logic. The network of Cubans trained by the CIA for the Bay of Pigs invasion was under the supervision of Theodore G. Shackley, who became famous during the Iran-Contra scandal for being the head of the “secret team” charged with ferrying weapons to the Nicaraguan Contras in CIA airplanes, and returning the airplanes with cargos of cocaine from the Medellin Cartel. (See this) Apart from Shackley, the “team” was put together by his longstanding aide Thomas Cline and by Gen. Richard Secord. Among the leading Cuban operatives in the project were Rafael Quintero, Felix Rodriguez, and Luis Posada Carriles, former official of Venezuela’s DISIP (the intelligence and counter intelligence agency created in 1969).

In 1960, CIA director Allen Dulles put Shackley in charge of Operation 40, as the plan to invade Cuba was called, and to carry out sabotage and assassination operations with the collaboration of Meyer Lansky, Santos Trafficante, and others, who controlled smuggling and drug-trafficking in the Caribbean. Under Shackley’s supervision, the plan’s name was changed to Operation Mongoose, for which two bases were established, one in Miami and the other in Guatemala, the latter being referred to by Figueres above.

In 1965, Operation Mongoose was closed down, and Shackley and Cline were transferred to Laos. Ted Shackley was named assistant CIA station chief in Laos, and Cline his assistant.   

Accompanying them were various Cuban operatives they had trained. The same operation was repeated in Laos: training locals for terrorist operations and to link up with the drug-traffickers to finance their operations. Upon arrival in Laos, they established contact with Vang Pao, an opium trafficker, to whom they provided aerial support. See this.

Pao’s competitors mysteriously disappeared. In 1971, Shackley was transferred to America as chief of western hemisphere operations. In 1973 he returned to Southeast Asia as CIA station chief in Vietnam, where he carried out Operation Phoenix between 1974 and 1975, whose mission was to eliminate the entire administrative elite of Vietnam to prevent its functioning after the U.S. evacuation. During that period, he joined with Richard Armitage who was in charge of the financial operations of the Secret Team. Between 1976 and 1979, various corporations and subsidiaries were established to hide the operations of the Secret Team. In Switzerland three were created: Lake Resources, Inc.; The Stanford Technology Trading Group, Inc.; and the most notorious of all, Compagnie de Service Fiduciaire (CSF), founded by Willard Zucker, also director of the legal department of Investors Overseas Services (lOS) of Bernie Cornfeld and Robert Vesco.

CSF had a Central American subsidiary: CSF Investments, Ltd. In 1978, they went to Central America, beginning their operations, and in 1981, Lt. Col. Oliver North put the Secret Team in charge of support operations for the Nicaraguan Contras.

In that effort, the Cubans Rafael Quintero, Felix Rodriguez, and ex-DISIP commissioner Luis Posada Carriles actively participated.

Cuba: Tierra Del Mal

Since Cuba is central in much of the drama we’ve been discussing, a brief history might be needed. From the time of the landing of Christopher Columbus up until the Spanish American War, Cuba was a Spanish colony.

Freemasonry was abolished in 1824, but secret lodges sprang up nonetheless, to agitate for the island’s phony “independence,” often in collusion with U.S.-based Freemasons, among other things to ensure the continuation of the institutions of slavery and free trade.

In the 1850s, Mazzini’s Young America and Young Cuba movements fomented revolution on the island against Spain, while simultaneously organizing the invasion of mercenaries from New York—the “filibusters”—who hoped to seize control of the island, and annex it to the Union as a slave state. A bloody conflict that would last for 10 years. The career of Filibuster William Walker of New Orleans and the Knights of the Golden Circle which formed the core of what would become the Confederacy and then the Ku Klux Klan in his invasions of Mexico and Nicaragua can be seen as the prelude to the later depredations of United Fruit (see this).

Following the defeat of the Spanish by America in 1898, Cuba became a protectorate and in 1902 is granted independence with Guantanamo Bay base leased to the US. In 1906 with the collapse of the government, the US invaded to defend the sugar plantations and remained as an occupier until 1909. In 1912, the US invades to assist UFCo. in suppressing the Afro-Cuban revolt.

In 1917, the US invades again to defend the sugar plantation system from leftist rebels who were challenging the contested election of President Menocal and remained as an occupying force until 1933 when they gain independence again under President Roosevelt’s Good Neighbor policy. With the election of  Fulgencio Batista (son of a United Fruit employee) in 1944 and his military dictatorship in 1952, Cuba becomes the headquarters of organized crime, most notably, Meyer Lansky (chairman of the crime syndicate for 50 years), Morris “Moe” Dalitz the mob boss of Cleveland for the Purple Gang, owner of casinos in Las Vegas and Miami, and Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel.

Their business: gambling, narcotics, money laundering and sex tourism.

After Fidel Castro ousts Batista in 1959, the Cuban government passes a law to nationalize U.S. businesses in 1960: the Cuban Electricity Company, the telephone company (ITT), petrol refineries, and 36 sugar refineries with an approximate value of 800 million pesos. The mob similarly was forced off the island and Lansky set up operations in the Bahamas with the complicity of British authorities. The US places an embargo on sugar and restricts exports of anything except food and medicine.

After the abortive invasion at the Bay of Pigs in 1961, Castro calls on the Russians to assist in defending Cuba from the United States which leads into the Cuban Missile Crisis.

After 13 terrifying days of a naval blockade, the Russians pull their nuclear missiles out and the US pulls their nuclear weapons out of Turkey. Castro holds the title of Premier until 1976 when Cuba becomes a one party dictatorship with Castro as the sole leader until health concerns made him relinquish power in 2008. However, unlike the popular romantic story told by clueless Commies, Castro and Che didn’t lead a lone revolution in the mountains slowly gathering disgruntled Cubans to his cause until he emerged victorious. Like anything we’ve talked about, the story is far more complicated than is usually told and requires that you suspend your preconceived ideas.

Like Batista, Castro’s father worked a sugar plantation for UFCo. and then owned his own plantation in the Mayari province giving him a relatively decent middle class living standard. Fidel went to Jesuit run schools throughout his youth and upon his 1946 graduation from Colegio de Belén, in Havana Father Amando Llorente wrote “You could see this … That he was to do great things … That he is for great things, not for ordinary things.” [See Appendix A]

In 1947, while in college, Castro began being radicalized by an attempt of the recently formed Caribbean League to overthrow Rafael Trujillo the dictator of the Dominican Republic. The members of the league were ex-communists like Venezuela’s Carlos Andrés Pérez and Rómulo Betancourt; Costa Rica’s Pepe Figueres; Cuba’s Carlos Prío Socarrás; and Peru’s Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre. See this. Carlos Prío Socarrás in particular, while using the term Social Democrat, when elected president of Cuba in 1948 gave his full blessing for Meyer Lansky’s takeover and until his death was a board member of Permindex.

It’s estimated that he spent $5 million to finance terrorist operations against Batista and gave $250,000 to Castro’s guerrilla movement. The relationship didn’t last very long however since most of them broke with Castro after 1961. The Caribbean Legion was sponsored at the time by “State Department socialists” like Jay Lovestone, David Dubinsky, Serafino Romualdi, and Adolf Berle – all bankrolled by Nelson Rockefeller. UFCo./UB maintained Figueres as one of their chief assets in the region through the years.

For example, during his second presidential term in the early 1970s, Figueres arranged the amicable government purchase of UFCO holdings in Costa Rica, a deal by which Figueres profited handsomely through his son-in-law, Danilo Jimenez Nevia, who became a UB stockholder according to reliable Central American diplomatic sources. It should also be noted that indicted financier Robert Vesco was granted asylum and residence in Costa Rica during this period-by President Figueres personally, in exchange for Vesco putting money into Figueres’ farm, “La Lucha.” It was during this same period that Figueres also permitted the opening of a large, well-staffed Soviet embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica. Meanwhile Figueres told the New Republic magazine of April 23, 1977:

“I did everything possible to involve the United States and the CIA in Central American politics, in an era when the special democrats of the region were threatened by the communists on the one hand, and the military on the other.”

Of particular importance is Peru’s APRA and Víctor Raúl Haya de la Torre as the spreading of nominally communist leaning terrorist movements throughout central and south America that will be discussed later.

  In 1971, Robert Vesco fled the United States to escape embezzlement charges regarding IOS to set up shop in the Bahamas and Costa Rica. He had a new assignment: to direct the founding of a cocaine “cartel,” organizing the disparate operations of traffickers into an integrated, Americas-wide “industry,” operating under centralized production, transport, distribution, financing, and protection.

The results transformed the Western Hemisphere into the greatest drug production region in the world, a region bled by marauding narco-terrorist armies. Media stories that Vesco joined Colombia’s Carlos Lehder and Cuba’s Fidel Castro in the dope trade somewhere along the way, invert reality. In three central areas, Vesco played a critical role in creating the Medelin and associated Cali cartels, as institutions:

  • He picked up small-time Colombian thug and ex-convict, Lehder, providing him with the political protection and financial backing he required to set up the cocaine transport pipeline between Colombia and the United States;
  • He set up the cartel’s first sophisticated money laundering schemes; and
  • He brokered the provision of political and military protection for spreading drug plantations across the region, by Cuba-aligned terrorist forces-protection continued today by the members of the Sao Paulo Forum.

‘New instruments of chance’ When he first fled the United States, Vesco found assured protection in two Caribbean countries which had long served as operations bases for the Meyer Lansky mob and the “men above suspicion” which deployed it: the British Crown Colony and offshore banking center of the Bahamas (whose prime minister, Lynden Pindling, was in Lansky’s hip pocket), and Costa Rica. Vesco went first to the Bahamas, and then in 1972, moved to Costa Rica, where he lived until 1978, under the personal protection of President Jose “Pepe” Figueres. From the time he first seized power in 1948 in a farcical five-week “guerrilla war,” Figueres had run Costa Rica as a regional deployment center for the Caribbean Legion, a Social Democratic political machine linked to the Lansky mob and backed by the Rockefeller and J. Peter Grace interests.

The Legion, using exiled communist fighters from the Spanish Civil War, trained various guerrilla operations over the decades; its most famous operation was its sponsorship of Castro’s 1957 expedition back to Cuba on the Granma. Figueres sent a letter in 1972 to President Richard Nixon, reporting that Vesco “has been visiting Costa Rica with a view to helping us establish some new instruments of finance and economic development.” Figueres promoted Vesco’s financial schemes-which included plans to turn the Caribbean and Central America into a “Hongkong West” arguing that this was vital for regional “development.”

He wrote,

“I am impressed by his ideas, his group of business leaders, and the magnitude of the anticipated investments. He may provide the ingredient that has been lacking in our plans to create, in the middle of the Western Hemisphere, a showpiece of democratic development.”

When a new Costa Rican President took office in 1978, he expelled Vesco, who returned to the Bahamas, where he had already established operations. In 1977, Lehder had begun setting up drug transshipment headquarters on a small Bahamian island, Norman Cays, later owned in its entirety by Vesco and Lehder together. Lehder associates, turned government informants, later reported that Lehder considered Vesco a “financial genius,” and told them that Vesco was “schooling him in the use of offshore banks to launder money,” according to the book Kings of Cocaine, by Guy Gugliotta and Jeff Leon (1989). Lehder also bragged that it was Vesco who had introduced him to both Bahamian Prime Minister Pindling and Castro.

When heat from the United States ran him out of the Bahamas in 1981, Vesco began moving between the British colony of Antigua and Sandinista Nicaragua.

By 1983, however, he settled in Havana, Cuba. As an adjunct of the dope trade, Vesco provided the Castro regime aid in smuggling into Cuba high-technology goods banned by the U.S. embargo. On Aug. 4, 1985, Castro made Cuba’s protection of the cartel architect official. He told foreign reporters: “Is it just, that the country where people speak so much of human rights [the United States] … goes after someone said to have evaded paying taxes?” He announced that he had told Vesco, “If you want to live here, live here.”

From the outset of the Medellin cartel, Castro’s most critical role in the transformation of the Americas into a drug empire has not been through the extensive logistical support the cartel has provided on the island of Cuba nor the shipments allowed through Cuban territory. Rather it has been Cuban deployment of narco-terrorism, directing allied terrorist forces in other Ibero-American countries, both to defend the drug trade and to assault government and political forces seeking to suppress it.

Today, despite their protestations to the contrary, Cuba and its allies in the Sao Paulo Forum remain intensely involved in the drug trade. The best known exemplars of Cuban-allied narco-terrorism from the 1980s are Colombia’s M-19 and Nicaragua’s Sandinistas. Lehder’s alliance with the M-19 was publicly hailed by Lehder and M-19 leaders alike. The M19’s most devastating blow for the drug trade was the 1985 seizure and destruction of Colombia’s Justice Palace and the resulting murder of 12 members of the Supreme Court.

Likewise, the Nicaraguan Sandinistas, whose 1978-79 “revolution” was financed in part by Vesco partner Pepe Figueres, were in on the drug trade from the beginning. Vesco was a frequent visitor in Nicaragua throughout the 1980s; U.S. government sources identified Vesco as the boss of Federico Vaughn, the ex-vice minister of the interior filmed by DEA undercover agents in 1984 loading cocaine on a plane waiting at a Nicaraguan military air base. His 1995 arrest for fraud involving Castro’s brother Raul and Richard Nixon’s son Robert over a laboratory experiment to investigate an anti-cancer treatment put him in jail until he passed away in 2007, although his associate, “ex” CIA agent Frank Terpil claims he escaped to Sierra Leone in Africa. (See this and this)

The reason for Lansky’s and Vesco’s preference for using the Bahamas has to do with the 300-year criminal history which unites all the different strands of money laundering and the drug trade, revealing how the British orchestrate that trade. Its story could be repeated for each of the other exotic offshore British financial centers. In 1973, the Bahamas was granted nominal independence. Even though the country elects a prime minister, King Charles is the head of state of the islands, and the Kings Privy Council’s “say so” is final in all legal matters. The population is impoverished, while banking and tourism constitute a huge portion of the Bahamas’ fragile economy. The Bahamas has a dual function: It is both a drop spot and transshipment point for drugs, and a drug-money-laundering center. The Bahamas is an archipelago of 700 islands, of which the closest is 50 miles away from Florida.

Since only 40 of the 700 islands are populated, the others make perfect drop points for drugs. During the 1980s, according to U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration reports, up to 75% of the drugs that reached the United States from Ibero-America went through the Bahamas first. American authorities, fearful of the drug flow into the United States, forced the Bahamas to take measures to cut back the drug flow.

The June 7, 1996 London Financial Times reported, “It is guessed that no more than 10-15% of illegal drugs shipments to the U.S. now go through the islands.” That may be an underestimation, and the Financial Times admits that the drug flow is increasing, now that U.S. radars to monitor drug trafficking were taken down in Grand Bahamas, Exuma, and Great Inagua, in a cost-saving measure.

This is part of the Bahamas’ historic profile. During the American Revolutionary War (1775-83) and the War of 1812, when Britain invaded America, the British used their colony of the Bahamas as a base for naval assaults on the United States. Because of this, in 1776, the American revolutionaries occupied the Bahamas. After the Revolutionary War, Tory sympathizers fled to the Bahamas, and became part of the establishment. During the British-backed Confederate uprising of the American Civil War, the British used the Bahamas as a base to run ships through the North’s shipping blockade against the South. A successful blockade running voyage could earn $300,000.

During World War II, the pro-Nazi Edward VIII Duke of Windsor was exiled to the Bahamas, but was placed in the very important post of Bahamian governor general. During this time, the duke used Axel Wenner-Gren, the Swedish eugenicist and Nazi agent, to launder money to Mexico. During the 1960s, organized crime godfather Meyer Lansky built the Resorts International casino on Paradise Island (the location of Axel Wenner-Gren’s mansion) as an international money-laundering center. The money-laundering Canadian banks dominate the Bahamian banking scene, hiding behind Bahamian bank secrecy and lax Canadian banking laws to shelter drug money. In the Dec. 24, 1985 Montreal Gazette, in an article entitled, “How Canadian Banks Are Used to ‘Launder’ Narcotics Millions,” William Marsden wrote that drug money is “hauled to Canadian banks [in Nassau, Bahamas] in huge stacks of small bills sometimes millions of dollars at once stuffed into suitcases, duffle bags, paper bags and boxes by narcotics smugglers . . . Trusted drivers and security guards ensure that their cash gets into the banks safely. And once the money is deposited, laws that forbid Bahamian bankers to disclose bank records ensure that it’s safe from investigation by foreign narcotics and tax agents . . .”

Canadian banks, which handle 80% of banking business in the Bahamas, have become key instruments in ‘laundering’ illicit money-giving it a clean history-for smugglers hiding hundreds of millions of dollars from U.S. and Canadian narcotics agents. “By taking these huge cash deposits, which is not illegal, the Canadian banks are facilitating criminal activity . . .” In the past four years, Bank of Nova Scotia twice stonewalled U.S. investigations by refusing to hand over bank records of drug smugglers to a [U.S.] grand jury. The bank finally yielded after paying nearly $2 million in fines.” Under U.S. pressure, the Bahamian banking system has made changes in its money acceptance practices, but during the past decade, the volume of laundered drug money has gone up. See this.

The Caribbean British and Dutch money laundering centers

When we reach the 1980’s and beyond, we now enter the era of globalization and the economic hitman. President Nixon, under the direction of Milton Friedman, George Shultz, and Henry Kissinger brings an end to the gold-reserve fixed exchange rate system of the post WW2 Bretton Woods monetary system in 1973. With currencies fluctuating, it becomes child play for international financiers like George Soros to use vast amounts of money from British offshore money laundering centers to speculate against currencies in combination with pressures from the international lending agencies like the International Monetary Fund IMF and World Bank to make governments devalue their currency, privatize services and sell off national assets.

As John Perkins recalled in his expose “Confessions of An Economic Hitman”, the global debt-masters employ “economic hit men,” like himself, to trap targeted nations in bankruptcy, and then force them to turn over their national patrimony of raw material wealth and labor power. When a particular nationalist head of state resists, the debt-masters next bring in the “jackals,” the professional assassins, to arrange an airplane crash “accident,” or some other convenient “tragedy” to eliminate the misguided leader and serve notice on his successors that such behavior is not to be tolerated.

In the exceedingly rare case in which the jackals fail in their mission, pretexts are arranged and imperial wars of conquest like the 1989 invasion of Panama, and the 1991 and 2003 invasions of Iraq—take place. In the next chapters, we’ll go through the examples of each of the countries listed as sources for much of the immigration/migrants coming into the United States and the role that both the International Monetary Fund and Communist/Maoist linked narco-terrorism have played in the utter disaster of the human tidal wave hitting the United States, due solely to the apathy and disregard for the effects the policies of the United States has on other people.

However, with the mass imprisonment of the narco-terrorist gangs in Nicaragua, the explicit endorsement of Franklin Roosevelts New Deal by Mexico’s president Manuel Lopez Obrador and Daniel Ortega banning the Jesuits from Nicaragua, (see this and this) there are signs of life in addition to the growing number of nations deciding to participate in the international development oriented policies of the BRICS nations. (See this BRICS in Nicaragua)

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Canadian Patriot


Appendix 

For those not familiar, The Society of Jesus is a paramilitary order nominally inside the Catholic Church but traditionally operating outside papal control. For a 40 year period beginning in 1763 it was officially condemned by the Papacy. Throughout its history, since its founding as a branch of the inquisition, its hallmark has been a process of indoctrination or brainwashing and the creation, penetration, and deployment of religious cults and of particular note, assassins who swear an oath of loyalty to the order above the Pope or any temporal power. Their most notable feature is their practice of regicide (murder of a king). With funding from United Fruit/United Brands, the Loyala Center in New Orleans became a training center for thousands of labor leaders that showed up as leaders of terrorist gangs on both sides. According to Malachi Martin, Vatican reporter for William Buckley’s National Review “Q: Well I’ve noticed that the Theology of Liberation is very much talked about in certain orders – the Jesuits seem to be very active. M: Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans. But they go much further, I mean, they actually trained the Marxist guerrilla in their military tactics. And we have photographs of nuns in Guatemala shouldering machine-guns in the jungles, in the scrub. They have gone that far.” The influence of the order can be seen during a visit to Chile in 1972, where Castro met for 6 hours with a Jesuit group “Christians for Socialism” claiming an alliance of revolutionary Christians and Marxists could be strategic, a movement known as Liberation Theology of which we’ll hear about later.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

An association of five emerging economies popularly referred to as BRICS under Russia’s presidency (2024) has begun its work with the first meeting of of Sherpas/Sous-Sherpas, held January 30 – February 1, with participation of new countries – Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. The meeting wholeheartedly noted substantial contributions in shaping the 2024 agenda and comprehensive plan of activities scheduled to take place in the Russian Federation.

During its chairmanship of BRICS, Russia will do its best to find solutions to economic, policy and humanitarian issues, to strengthen common consensus and approaches with partner countries.

During the meeting, chaired by Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Russia’s Sherpa in BRICS, Sergey A. Ryabkov, the priorities of the association were outlined.

Representatives of Russian ministries and departments gave detailed briefings on key areas of cooperation. The importance of implementing a number of Russian initiatives was noted, in particular, the launch of an Integrated Early Response System to the risks of mass infectious diseases, the establishment of an Industrial Competence Center based on UNIDO, the BRICS Medical Association and a specialized journal, and strengthening cooperation in the field of transport and tourism.

As part of the implementation of the instructions of the leaders of the BRICS countries following the results of the XV summit of the association (Johannesburg, August 22-24, 2023), discussions continued on the modalities of the category of BRICS partner states, as well as increasing the role of national currencies and payment instruments in cross-border transactions of the “ten” countries.

All participants in the meeting confirmed their focus on further constructive work within the three “baskets” of the BRICS strategic partnership: in the field of politics and security, economics and finance, culture and humanitarian ties.

It was pointed out that it’s about time to tackle extraordinary challenges and to steer the association towards creating a more fairer and interactive world. A quick analysis shows that the present situation is engulfed with new conflicts and unprecedented threats that endanger further sustainable development. But in a conscientious  manner, BRICS is set to handle the collective tasks and priorities, the fragile situation in Ukraine, the human catastrophe emerging from the horrific Israeli war against Palestine and its impact on the Middle East and the Mediterranean.

At the same time, Ukraine appeared in the discussions. It was pointed out that Russia pays great attention and respects the initiatives put forward by the BRICS countries regarding a settlement in Ukraine. This includes the Brazilian initiative, the proposals of the People’s Republic of China, and the outstanding role of the Republic of South Africa in discussing and promoting approaches to a potential peace settlement.

In addition, BRICS is also targeting result-oriented work  and opportunities in the developing countries, especially those in the Global South. Its invaluable platforms are available to ensure cohesive and sustainable responses to the challenges, and for fostering cooperation and for renewed multidimensional partnerships, for instance, with Africa.

Despite dozens of applications to join, BRICS added only five new members on January 1, 2024. Unsurprisingly, Argentina turned down its invitation, citing sovereign right to make such as a final decision based on domestic problems and limited internal resources. At present, Algeria, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Honduras, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Kuwait, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestine, Senegal, Thailand, Venezuela and Vietnam are all awaiting an invitation to join BRICS after filing an official membership application.

Over those three days (Jan. 30 – Feb. 1) the meeting held ten working sessions, during which representatives of Russian ministries and departments, business and academic circles presented detailed briefings on key areas of cooperation in BRICS and the initiatives of the Russian chairmanship in the association. BRICS partners have assured to lend their support for the chairmanship plans and their readiness to vigorously work together this year.

Fruitful and constructive discussions took place on a number of pressing issues in the fields of trade and investment, transport and energy, technology and innovation, and sustainable development. They exchanged views on strengthening cooperation in the fields of education, healthcare and sports, and confirmed their focus on maintaining and deepening ties between business and experts.

This year members will work to implement the BRICS Economic Partnership Strategy until 2025, including by strengthening supply chains, developing the digital economy, supporting small and medium-sized businesses, stimulating tourist flows, and interaction in the field of transport. They are aimed at launching the BRICS Contact Group on Climate and Sustainable Development, initiated by the Russian side.

It noted the great potential for cooperation between the BRICS countries in the field of healthcare, and hope that this year the practical work of the Integrated Early Warning System for the risks of mass infectious diseases will be launched. The meeting plans to facilitate the connection of new countries to the BRICS Vaccine Research Center. There was also the proposal to create a Medical Association and a BRICS specialized journal. They welcome the start of the functioning of the Working Group on Nuclear Medicine.

Under Russia’s presidency, BRICS will also continue focusing on strengthening cooperation along anti-terrorism, anti-corruption and anti-drug lines, as well as in the field of international information security, and continue coordinating the approaches of the BRICS countries to resolving key foreign policy issues, including at such international platforms as the UN, G20, and WTO.

They also consider it important to increase humanitarian ties between our peoples, contacts between ordinary people, and expand opportunities for mutual enrichment of the countries included in the association.

The BRICS association sees a growing interest of friendly, like-minded states around the world in developing cooperation with BRICS. They are impressed by the basic principles on which interaction is based: compliance with international law, respect for each other’s interests and the right of each state to a sovereign choice of development path. Responding to the desire of a wide range of countries to strengthen ties with BRICS, the association has begun to develop modalities for the category of partner states of the association. It is envisaged also to actively use the outreach/BRICS plus dialogue mechanisms to interact with third countries to make significant contributions to achieving practical results in all areas of the strategic partnership.

Newcomers at BRICS

BRICS welcomed its newcomers including Ethiopia, Egypt, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia, based on the decision by BRICS leaders made in Johannesburg, officially became full-fledged members from January 2024. Egypt expects Russia’s BRICS chairmanship to address the challenges in the area of food and energy security, Egyptian Deputy Foreign Minister and head of the country’s delegation in BRICS, Ragui al-Etrebi said at the meeting.

“We are perfectly aware of the fact that gradual integration and new members completely joining the BRICS work is a serious challenge. However, we are convinced that under the skilled management, everything will be managed to successfully solve each of those challenges,” the official said.

He further touched other important issues such as finances, deepening of cooperation in such areas as investment and trade, industrial transformation, the use of ICT [information and communications technologies] for the interest of development, boosting maritime transport, logistics, as well as solution of problems of the lack of food and energy security.

Tehran expects the shift to payments in national currencies within BRICS to increase during Russia’s chairmanship, Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister on economic issues, the republic’s BRICS Sherpa Mehdi Safari said at the meeting. It was connected with ways to more actively use national and local currencies and payment tools in cross-border transactions in order to reduce the negative side effects of the current dollar-dominated global economic system.

The Iranian side plans to participate actively in BRICS events this year, the diplomat added.

“We are also ready to work on all necessary solutions and documents for the 16th BRICS summit in Kazan in October,” he noted. “As far as 2024 is concerned we hope that the economic and financial direction of cooperation, in particular, the issues of the banking sector, payment instruments, cancellation of cross-national currency and the use of national currencies will be solved.”

Lavrov’s Thoughts at BRICS meeting

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at a BRICS sherpa and sous-sherpa meeting on January 31, also outlined the agenda parameters – related to the objective processes underway and deep transformation of international architecture. This also connects the present-day notion of multilateralism and the popular slogan of inclusiveness intended change the global politics, security and the economy.

“Washington and its European satellites are spending vast amounts of money to contain Russia, in stark contrast to the Western capitals’ approach to the Global South, especially the African countries. There are cases where support for Ukraine is financed by suspending projects in Africa and the Middle East,” according to Lavrov.

Nevertheless, the Global Majority – the states of Eurasia, the Asia-Pacific region, the Middle East, Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean – gain a stronger foothold in the world system.  Most of these countries are increasingly asserting their national interests and identities and striving for genuine strategic independence in pragmatic pathways.

In principle, Russia’s BRICS chairmanship is “Strengthening Multilateralism for Equitable Global Development and Security” – and as BRICS is an association with mutual principles for the Global South and East.  Its basic principles are based on mutual respect, a sovereign choice of development path and the implementation of the fundamental principle of the UN Charter, that is, the sovereign equality of states.

Lavrov spoke about visible impact of the turbulent geopolitical situation, the key trends of forming a multi-polar world, emphasised the growing impact of the cultural and civilisational factor on world politics, and the importance of facilitating various cooperation mechanisms that would be resistant to the destructive actions of unfriendly countries. He also pointed to successful creation of the New Development Bank (NDB) and the BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Centre.

BRICS Vaccine R&D Center

In March 2022, BRICS made one more huge step forward, perhaps driven by the Covid-19 pandemic that spread across the world, to launch finally the BRICS Vaccine R&D Center strongly backed by China. Under the leadership of Russia, it first proposed cooperation on countering infectious diseases as a priority for BRICS. The final joint declaration of the 2015 BRICS summit in Ufa, Russia, contains instructions by the leaders to work consistently on managing the risk of disease outbreaks.

“We are concerned about growing and diversifying global threats posed by communicable and non-communicable diseases. It has a negative impact on economic and social development, especially in developing and in the least developed countries,” stated the 2015 BRICS declaration.

Among the group, China and India are ready stepping up to share information, and experiences with BRICS members, conduct joint research and develop drugs and vaccines based on respecting each other’s sovereignty and national conditions. Later during the rotating chairmanship of South Africa, it firmly re-proposed the creation of full-scale coordinating research and development center and planned to be located in Johannesburg, South Africa.

Nevertheless, there has not been any practical achievements in that direction. But as China took the helm of BRICS, effective from January 2022, experts and research analysts have since showed deep interests. Finally, March 22 marked the launch the BRICS Vaccine Research and Development Center, involving the heads of relevant agencies from the five countries. The initiative to establish the BRICS Vaccine R&D Center, as said earlier, was incorporated in the final declaration of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, South Africa (July 26-27, 2018).

It has brought together leading research institutions and companies in the member states – the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation (Brazil), the Anatoly Smorodintsev Research Institute of Influenza (Russia), the Indian Council of Medical Research (India), the Sinovac Life Sciences company (China) and South African Medical Research Council (South Africa).

The main objective is to share best practices and strengthen practical cooperation in research, development, production and distribution of vaccines to ensure their greater availability as BRICS countries account for 40% of the global population and the potential of research is at the highest level. It makes possible to swiftly respond to biological threats, coordinate efforts to control infectious diseases and ensure protection of the population.

China’s Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Wang Wenbin explained, during his regular media briefing on March 23, that the BRICS Vaccine R&D Center and workshop on vaccine cooperation would be a network of internet-based virtual centers, and the establishment of physical centers would only begin after comprehensive feasibility assessment.

The establishment of the BRICS Vaccine R&D Center demonstrated the determination of BRICS countries to focus on vaccine cooperation, deepen public health cooperation and promote public health, scientific and technological cooperation among BRICS countries. It was first Russia’s initiative to establish the BRICS Integrated Early Warning System for preventing mass infectious disease risks, but the Center was created during the Chinese chairmanship of the BRICS.

BRICS New Development Bank 

The New Development Bank (NDB), created by the BRICS countries, works proactively on financial issues concerning projects in member countries. The agreement on establishing the BRICS New Development Bank was reached on July 15, 2014 in Brazil’s Fortaleza. The bank’s starting capital was set at $100 bln. The Shanghai-headquartered bank has been set up to finance infrastructure projects and projects for sustainable development of BRICS and other developing countries.

Over the years, the bank has approved over 100 projects for a total of more than $33 billion in areas such as transportation, water supply, clean energy, digital and social infrastructure, and urban construction. In 2021, the NDB began expanding its membership and admitted Bangladesh, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay as its new member countries. It has the second representative office in South Africa.

As an association, it follows the same trends but on a global scale. BRICS represents a cooperation network for regional and subregional processes in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. BRICS association boasts an aggregate GDP, in terms of purchasing power parity, that has reached about one third of the global value and has exceeded that of the G7 countries. BRICS accounts for 30 percent of dry land and 45 percent of the world’s population, a substantial part of the global production of oil and other resources, and about 25 percent of global exports. In a nutshell, the association now has the ability to form a global agenda by consistently upholding the interests of the Global Majority.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Kester Kenn Klomegah, who worked previously with Inter Press Service (IPS), Weekly Blitz and InDepthNews, is now a regular contributor to Global Research. He researches Eurasia, Russia, Africa and BRICS. His focused interest areas include geopolitical changes, foreign relations and economic development questions relating to Africa. As a versatile researcher, he believes that everyone deserves equal access to quality and trustworthy media reports.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

What is most urgently needed in the context of the Gaza conflict today?

Firstly, of course we need ceasefire which is durable, not temporary.

Secondly, such conditions of durable safety should be created in which all people can return to their homes safely and this should be accompanied by a very large-scale rehabilitation and reconstruction effort, relating to homes as well as all essential infrastructure, an effort that should be completely free from corruption and should prioritize the real needs of people.

Thirdly, all hostages of Israel should be released and most Palestinian prisoners should also be released.

Fourthly, the various aggressions in the West Bank part of Palestine too should stop.

Last but not the least, all this should be done in conditions where there is minimal chance of re-eruption of hostilities, or else all achievements will be undone all too soon.

For this to be achieved, it is very important to have mutual trust on both sides and there should be almost complete transparency in the peace process. Hence the way ahead should be based on transparency, peace and trust (TPT).

TPT should move ahead with commitment to a two-state solution.

To move ahead forces of TPT on both sides should be strengthened, while those that stand for continuing, almost endless aggression should be weakened.

On the Israeli side it is very important to oust Prime Minister Netanyahu and those of his colleagues who are committed to a policy of extreme aggression and displacement of a large number of Palestinians. With this kind of agenda being pursued by the more powerful side any durable peace with justice is just not possible. Hence peace should be pursued along with transparent, democratic methods for the removal of Netanyahu and the most aggressive elements from all positions of power because of the various illegal and highly aggressive acts committed by them. There should be a very big international peace campaign for this, to help local democratic efforts. Once a government more committed to peace is in place, it should form a peace committee of those eminent citizens of Israel who have been most firmly committed to peaceful solutions in the past.  

Similarly on the side of the people of Gaza, local and international peace efforts should collaborate to create a committee of about 25 or so eminent citizens of Gaza known for their commitment to peace and for their well-established integrity. It is this committee which should negotiate for peace. This should also eventually become a permanent committee and regardless of who is elected in the next elections in Gaza, this committee should continue to have a leading continuing role as far as peace efforts in relation to Israel are concerned.

The UN should form a peace committee to bring together these two peace committees of Palestine and Israel and provide all support and strength to the peace efforts.

This entire process can be strengthened by a detailed and impartial investigation of the October 7 attack to probe the very high possibility that at least a section of the top Israeli authorities had advance knowledge of the attack but allowed it to go ahead, even left the border less secure on that particular day (with forces down to almost half their size and a cultural event close to the border given an extended permission in very insecure conditions) so that an attack on Israel could provide the justification for a much bigger and disproportionate assault to create an existential threat for the people of Gaza.

It will be impossible for the Netanyahu regime, with all its previous and known misdeeds and illegalities, to survive if it can be shown convincingly that the October 7 attack was allowed to happen despite knowledge of this (along with pre-existing knowledge of the facilitation of support for the Hamas by Netanyahu etc. for years). 

However even those academics who understand that two-state and justice-based peace solutions are almost impossible to achieve as long as Netanyahu is in command are reluctant to take up this issue, which has been raised by voices within Israel as well, because of their training and caution. 

At the same time, those who support Hamas to the extent of glorifying it are reluctant to take up this investigation further because once the entire truth about the October 7 attack and the earlier facilitation of support for Hamas by Netanyahu etc. is known, then it will be very difficult to justify any glorification of Hamas.

However it is important for all forces of peace-with justice solutions to realize that as long forces of aggression dominate on both sides, it is just not possible to achieve peace or make any progress on the TPT path. TPT can be taken forward only with greater unity of forces of peace-with-justice of Israel, Palestine and the rest of the world (with special emphasis on neighboring countries and western countries) with the help of the UN and the UNRWA. We should also never forget the wider reality that the entire world is close to an existential crisis caused by environmental factors and weapons of mass destruction and this region in particular is highly vulnerable to this crisis, for example to climate change. Hence to advance on the path of TPT (including two-state solution but adding further several more justice, peace and environmental issues) is of the greatest importance for Israel and Palestine. This is possible only with much greater support from the worldwide peace movement and the United Nations, with better understanding of what exactly is needed.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Bharat Dogra is Honorary Convener, Campaign to Save Earth Now. His recent books include Planet in Peril, Protecting Earth for Children, Earth without Borders, Man over Machine and A Day in 2071. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image: Jewish activists call for Gaza ceasefire in DC. October 18, 2023 (JVP Twitter)

Government Misleading Canadians on Canada-Israel Arms Trade, Aid to Gaza

February 9th, 2024 by Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Big Tech’s Effort to Silence Truth-tellers: Global Research Online Referral Campaign

***

Canadians for Justice and Peace in the Middle East (CJPME) is calling out the Canadian government for disseminating misleading information about Canada’s arms trade and humanitarian aid. Over the past week, Ministers have made irresponsible comments which obfuscate Canada’s role vis-à-vis the unfolding genocide in Gaza, including the false suggestion that Canada is not exporting weapons to Israel. First, CJPME notes that Canada continues to export military goods to Israel at record-high levels, despite comments otherwise from Minister Joly and others. Second, CJPME points out that Canada’s suspension of funding to the UN agency for Palestine refugees (UNRWA) contradicts Ministers’ statements expressing concern about the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

“Instead of explaining its poor arms trade policy decisions, this government is misleading Canadians into thinking that we aren’t exporting weapons to Israel. And instead of concretely addressing an unfolding genocide, Canadian ministers are cutting aid and claiming that their hands are tied. This is disgraceful,” said Thomas Woodley, President of CJPME. “Canada must end its obfuscating and take immediate action to end its complicity in Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” added Woodley.

CJPME rejects the false claim that Canada is not exporting weapons to Israel. International Development Minister Ahmed Hussen recently claimed “We haven’t exported arms to Israel in 30 years,” and Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly told a committee that “there [have] been no weapons sent under my watch,” while suggesting that Canada is exporting only “non-lethal” military goods. These attempts to downplay Canada’s exports are undermined by the reporting data, which shows that Canada has approved $114M in military goods to Israel since 2015, and has continued to approve military exports since October 7. CJPME points out that these ministers are defining “arms” and lethality in a very narrow and unconventional way — a way which ignores the role of weapons components and other military goods which continue to pose a human rights risk. CJPME has developed a Frequently Asked Questionsresource which explores these issues in more detail. “As Canadians increasingly demand that their government impose an arms embargo on Israel, politicians are trying to pretend that the arms trade doesn’t exist,” said Woodley.

CJPME is also concerned by statements from Minister Joly and Minister Hussen which suggest that Canada is concerned about humanitarian access to Gaza, despite their political decision to defund UNRWA without seeing any evidence to back up Israel’s accusations. Despite Canada’s announcement of additional aid funding to other organizations, CJPME has pointed out that the redirection of funding away from UNRWA threatens the collapse of humanitarian infrastructure and may violate the provisional orders of the International Court of Justice. “Canada cannot claim to be a champion of humanitarian access to Gaza when its irresponsible actions threaten to break the backbone of the aid operation itself,” said Woodley.

Finally, CJPME is unconvinced by statements from Immigration Minister Marc Miller that he is frustrated by the lack of progress on bringing the loved ones of Canadians out of Gaza. Miller implies that Canada has no agency in terms of acting in support of relatives of Canadians trapped in Gaza, and this is false. If indeed Miller and his Ministry have no negotiating power with the nations involved, then the government either needs to change the leadership within the Ministry, or change its international policy. CJPME also notes that Canada’s visa aid program is one of the most restrictive of its kind, with an arbitrary cap of 1,000 people, and requiring unprecedented levels of personal information of people who are trying to flee a war zone. CJPME reiterates its concerns that these restrictions appear to be based on the idea that Palestinians are an inherent security threat. “Canada cannot impose its own barriers on the visa process, and then claim to have its hands tied by others,” added Woodley.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Featured image is from Yves Engler

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

If committed activists needed an additional reason for why what they are doing is essential and just, then the ICJ’s ruling is a chilling reminder of what is at stake here. 

The moral and brave approach by South Africa to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), hoping for a ruling that would bring an end to the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza, was not matched by the court on Friday, January 26, 2024. 

I am not underestimating the significance of the court’s ruling. True, the court confirmed the right of South Africa to approach the ICJ and substantiated the facts it presented, including the assumption that Israel’s actions could be defined as genocide under the terms of the genocide convention.  

In the long run, the language and the definitions used by the ICJ in its first ruling will constitute a huge symbolic victory on the way to Palestine’s liberation. 

But this is not why South Africa approached the ICJ. South Africa wanted the court to stop the genocide. And therefore, from an operative point of view, the ICJ missed an opportunity to stop the genocide, mainly because it still treated Israel as a democracy and not a rogue state. 

Palestinians, and whoever supports any struggle against crimes committed by countries of the global north, ceased a long time ago to be impressed by symbolic actions. Actions against rogue states only are meaningful if they have an operative side to them.

The operative actions suggested by the ICJ are basically a demand from Israel to submit, in one month’s time, a report on measures taken to prevent genocide in Gaza. 

No wonder, the Israeli government has already hinted that such an assignment would not be high on its agenda and, most importantly, would not have any impact on its policies on the ground. 

Even if the ICJ would have demanded, as it should have, a ceasefire, it would have taken quite a while to implement it, given the Israeli intransigence. But the message to Israel would have been clear – and effective. 

License to Commit Genocide

The important thing to remember in any engagement with Israel is that what matters is not how the message is intended but how it is understood by Israeli policymakers. 

The Western solidarity with Israel, shown on October 7, 2023, was understood by its policymakers as a free license to commit genocide in Gaza. Similarly, opting for a report instead of action is understood in Israel as a slight slap on the hand, which gives Israel at least another 30 days to continue its genocidal policies.

If this is the case, what would be left of Gaza in a month? What would be the magnitude of the genocide in a month’s time, if not only the West but also the ICJ, refuses to call for an immediate ceasefire? I am afraid that there is no need to answer these terrible questions. 

More importantly, the crime has already been committed, it is not as if there is still time to stop it. Therefore, unless the ICJ believes that Israel’s actions be reversed and rectified, it sends a very confused message. It seems to hint that, although the actions may be a crime, if the carnage is limited, then this would be welcomed by the ICJ.

History of Failure in Palestine 

The ICJ seemed to lack courage when it refrained from demanding what many countries in the global south and a huge number of people in the global civil society were asking for in the last three months.

If this whole process ends with the usual conclusion that international law has no power to stop the destruction of Palestine and the Palestinians, this will have even a greater impact on the question of Palestine. 

In fact, this awareness could severely undermine the confidence, which is already very low, of the global south in the universality of intentional law.  

Ever since its final institutionalization after the Second World War, the international law failed to deal properly with colonialism as a crime and was never able to challenge settler colonial projects like Israel. 

It also became clear that imperialist policies pursued by the US and Britain, in clear violation of international law, are totally exempt from international law’s jurisdiction. Hence, the US was able to invade Iraq with a stark violation of international law and Britain now plans to send, without fear of reprisal, asylum seekers to Rwanda. 

In the case of Palestine, throughout 75 years of the ongoing Nakba, international law – through its official and informal representatives, practitioners and delegations – was completely ineffective. It did not stop the killing of one single Palestinian; it did not lead to the release of one single Palestinian political prisoner, nor did it prevent the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Indeed, the list of its failures is too long to be detailed here. 

But There Is Hope 

There is a new, important lesson that should shape our activity and inform our hopes for the future. 

We already learned that there is no hope for change within Israeli society, a lesson that was ignored by those involved in the so-called peace process. 

The failure to understand the DNA of the Zionist society allowed Israel, since its inception, to kill Palestinians incrementally and massively either directly, by shooting them, or indirectly, by denying them basic human conditions for living.  

This process, led by the US, was based on the formula that only after “peace” is restored, Israel would be obliged to change its ruthless policies on the ground. 

This false paradigm has totally collapsed, even if the Biden Administration attempts, these days, to resurrect it, along with the few Palestinians who, for some reason, still put their faith in the two-state solution.

And now comes the new, important lesson: not only can we not hope for a change within Israel, we cannot rely on international law to protect the Palestinians from genocide. 

This, however, does not mean that there is no hope in the future for liberation and decolonization. The Zionist project is in the process of imploding from within. 

Israel’s Jewish society is disintegrating, its economy is failing, and its international image is deteriorating. 

The Israeli army did not function in October and the government is in tatters and unable to provide basic services to its citizens. Under these circumstances, only wars and cynical Western interests will keep this project alive, but for how long? 

And yet, such a process of implosion in history can be long, brutal and violent as it transpires in front of our eyes these days.

And we are not just onlookers. The activists among us understand that we have to double and triple what we already know has to be done. 

We continue, outside of Palestine, to try and move the ‘B’ and ‘D’, in Boycott and Divestment, to ‘S’, as in Sanction.

This effort can be intensified by pushing in two directions. On one hand, we should exert more pressure on the governments of the global south to be more active, particularly in the Arab and Muslim worlds. On the other hand, we should find better ways to increase the electoral pressure on our representatives in the global north. 

There is no need to tell the Palestinian Resistance what to do to defend itself and its people. There is no need to tell the liberation movement how to strategize for the future. Wherever they are, Palestinians who are involved in the struggle will continue to persevere and be resilient. What they truly need is for any external effort to be more effective, realistic and bold. 

One can not but admire what the solidarity movement with Palestine has already achieved, especially in the last three months. 

However, if its loyal and committed activists needed an additional reason for why what they are doing is essential and just, then the ICJ’s ruling is a chilling reminder of what is at stake here.  

If there is hope to stop the genocide all over historical Palestine, it lies in the ability of the global civil society to take the lead. Because it is far too obvious that governments and international bodies are unwilling or unable to do so.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Ilan Pappé is a professor at the University of Exeter. He was formerly a senior lecturer in political science at the University of Haifa. He is the author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, The Modern Middle East, A History of Modern Palestine: One Land, Two Peoples, and Ten Myths about Israel. He is the co-editor, with Ramzy Baroud of ‘Our Vision for Liberation.’ Pappé is described as one of Israel’s ‘New Historians’ who, since the release of pertinent British and Israeli government documents in the early 1980s, have been rewriting the history of Israel’s creation in 1948. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.

Featured image: Ilan Pappe” ‘The ICJ missed an opportunity to stop the genocide in Gaza.’ (Image: Palestine Chronicle)

U.S. Chooses Genocide Over Diplomacy in the Middle East

February 9th, 2024 by Medea Benjamin

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

On February 7, 2024, a U.S. drone strike assassinated an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in the heart of Baghdad. This was a further U.S. escalation in a major new front in the U.S.-Israeli war on the Middle East, centered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but already also including ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Syria, and the U.S. and U.K.’s bombing of Yemen.

This latest U.S. attack followed the U.S. bombing of seven targets on February 2, three in Iraq and four in Syria, with 125 bombs and missiles, killing at least 39 people, which Iran called “a strategic mistake” that would bring “disastrous consequences” for the Middle East.

At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been touring the shrinking number of capitals in the region where leaders will still talk to him, playing the United States’ traditional role as a dishonest broker between Israel and its neighbors, in reality partnering with Israel to offer the Palestinians impossible, virtually suicidal terms for a ceasefire in Gaza.

What Israel and the United States have proposed, but not made public, appears to be a second temporary ceasefire, during which prisoners or hostages would be exchanged, possibly leading to the release of all the Israeli security prisoners held in Gaza, but in no way leading to the final end of the genocide. If the Palestinians in fact freed all their Israeli hostages as part of a prisoner swap, it would remove the only obstacle to a catastrophic escalation of the genocide.

When Hamas responded with a serious counter-proposal for a full ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, Biden dismissed it out of hand as “over the top,” and Netanyahu called it “bizarre” and “delusional.”

The position of the United States and Israel today is that ending a massacre that has already killed more than 27,700 people is not a serious option, even after the International Court of Justice has ruled it a plausible case of genocide under the Genocide Convention. Raphael Lemkin, the Polish holocaust survivor who coined the term genocide and drafted the Genocide Convention from his adopted home in New York City, must be turning in his grave in Mount Hebron Cemetery.

The United States’ support for Israel’s genocidal policies now goes way beyond Palestine, with the U.S. expansion of the war to Iraq, Syria and Yemen to punish other countries and forces in the region for intervening to defend or support the Palestinians. U.S. officials claimed the February 2 attacks were intended to stop Iraqi Resistance attacks on U.S. bases. But the leading Iraqi resistance force had already suspended attacks against U.S. targets on January 30th after they killed three U.S. troops, declaring a truce at the urging of the Iranian and Iraqi governments.

A senior Iraqi military officer told BBC Persian that at least one of the Iraqi military units the U.S. bombed on February 2nd had nothing to do with attacks on U.S. bases. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani negotiated an agreement a year ago to clearly differentiate between Popular Mobilization Force (PMF) units that were part of the “Axis of Resistance” fighting a low-grade war with U.S. occupation forces, and other PMF units that were not involved in attacks on U.S. bases.

Tragically, because the U.S. failed to coordinate its attacks with the Iraqi government, al-Sudani’s agreement failed to prevent the U.S. from attacking the wrong Iraqi forces. It is no wonder that some analysts have dubbed al-Sudani’s valiant efforts to prevent all-out war between U.S. forces and the Islamic Resistance in his country as “mission impossible.”

Following the elaborately staged but carelessly misdirected U.S. attacks, Resistance forces in Iraq began launching new strikes on U.S. bases, including a drone attack that killed six Kurdish troops at the largest U.S. base in Syria. So the predictable effect of the U.S. bombing was in fact to rebuff Iran and Iraq’s efforts to rein in resistance forces and to escalate a war that U.S. officials keep claiming they want to deter.

From experienced journalists and analysts to Middle Eastern governments, voices of caution are warning the United States in increasingly stark language of the dangers of its escalating bombing campaigns. “While the war rages in Gaza,” the BBC’s Orla Guerin wrote on February 4, “one false move could set the region alight.”

Three days later, Orla would be surrounded by protesters chanting “America is the greatest devil,” as she reported from the site of the U.S. drone assassination of Kataib Hezbollah leader Abu Baqir al-Saadi in Baghdad – which could prove to be exactly the false move she feared.

But what Americans should be asking their government is this: Why are there still 2,500 U.S. troops in Iraq? It is 21 years since the United States invaded Iraq and plunged the nation into seemingly endless violence, chaos and corruption; 12 years since Iraq forced U.S. occupation forces to withdraw from Iraq at the end of 2011; and 7 years since the defeat of ISIS, which served as justification for the United States to send forces back into Iraq in 2014, and then to obliterate most of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, in 2017.

Successive Iraqi governments and parliaments have asked the United States to withdraw its forces from Iraq, and previously scheduled talks are about to begin. But the Iraqis and Americans have issued contradictory statements about the goal of the negotiations. Prime Minister al-Sudani and most Iraqis hope they will bring about the immediate withdrawal of U.S. forces, while U.S. officials insist that U.S. troops may remain for another two to five years, kicking this explosive can further down the road despite the obvious dangers it poses to the lives of U.S. troops and to peace in the region.

Behind these contradictory statements, the real value of Iraqi bases to the U.S. military does not seem to be about ISIS at all but about Iran. Although the United States has more than 40,000 troops stationed in 14 countries across the Middle East, and another 20,000 on warships in the seas surrounding them, the bases it uses in Iraq are its closest bases and airfields to Tehran and much of Iran. If the Pentagon loses these forward operating bases in Iraq, the closest bases from which it can attack Tehran will be Camp Arifjan and five other bases in Kuwait, where 13,500 U.S. troops would be vulnerable to Iranian counter-attacks – unless, of course, the U.S. withdraws them, too.

Toward the end of the Cold War, historian Gabriel Kolko observed in his book Confronting the Third World that the United States’ “endemic incapacity to avoid entangling, costly commitments in areas of the world that are of intrinsically secondary importance to [its] priorities has caused U.S. foreign policy and resources to whipsaw virtually arbitrarily from one problem and region to the other. The result has been the United States’ increasing loss of control over its political priorities, budget, military strategy and tactics, and, ultimately, its original economic goals.”

After the end of the Cold War, instead of restoring realistic goals and priorities, the neocons who gained control of U.S. foreign policy fooled themselves into believing that U.S. military and economic power could finally triumph over the frustratingly diverse social and political evolution of hundreds of countries and cultures all over the world. In addition to wreaking pointless mass destruction on country after country, this has turned the United States into the global enemy of the principles of democracy and self-determination that most Americans believe in.

The horror Americans feel at the plight of people in Gaza and the U.S. role in it is a shocking new low in this disconnect between the humanity of ordinary Americans and the insatiable ambitions of their undemocratic leaders.

While working for an end to the U.S. government’s support for Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people, Americans should also be working for the long-overdue withdrawal of U.S. occupying forces from Iraq, Syria and elsewhere in the Middle East.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Medea Benjamin is the cofounder of CODEPINK for Peace, and the author of several books, including Inside Iran: The Real History and Politics of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Nicolas J. S. Davies is an independent journalist, a researcher for CODEPINK and the author of Blood on Our Hands: The American Invasion and Destruction of Iraq.

Medea Benjamin and Nicolas J. S. Davies are the authors of War in Ukraine: Making Sense of a Senseless Conflict, published by OR Books in November 2022. They are regular contributors to Global Research.

Featured image: Israeli airstrike on an apartment building in Rafah, the last refuge in southern Gaza. Photo credit: MENAFN 

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

Talks on Ukraine and Elon Musk: What Putin Spoke About in Interview with Carlson

By TASS, February 9, 2024

Moscow has never refused to hold talks on Ukraine and is confident that the conflict will sooner or later end in peace and relations between the two countries’ people will be restored, Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview with Tucker Carlson published on the US journalist’s website. The Russian leader also did not rule out that US national Evan Gershkovich, charged with espionage in Russia, might be released, and shared his opinion of celebrity entrepreneur Elon Musk.

TASS has gathered the key takeaways from the president’s interview.

On talks on Ukraine

Russia has never refused to engage in dialogue on Ukraine but after the Istanbul talks were suspended in March 2022, Moscow has no intention of taking the first step. “Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes?”

The conditions for resolving the issue, including the option of keeping the situation where it is now, need to be discussed. “It is a subject matter for the negotiations no one is willing to conduct or, to put it more accurately, they’re willing, but do not know how to do it. I know they want to. It is not just I see it, but I know they do want it, but they are struggling to understand how to do it.”

On why London disrupted Istanbul talks 

“Who knows. I don’t understand it myself. There was a general starting point. For some reason, everyone had the illusion that Russia could be defeated on the battlefield. Because of arrogance, because of a pure heart, but not because of a great mind.”

On future relations with Ukrainians

The West is wrong when it thinks that “the Russian people have been split by hostilities forever”: “Sooner or later it will result in an agreement.” “This probably sounds strange given the current situation but the relations between the two peoples will be rebuilt anyway. It will take a lot of time, but they will heal.”

On Ukraine’s borders

Ukraine is an artificial state in a sense, “shaped at Stalin’s will” particularly of Hungarian, Polish and Romanian lands. Putin said he had never discussed a possible return of the Hungarian lands, which had been handed over to Ukraine under Stalin, with Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orban. As for the Black Sea region, it “had no historical connection with Ukraine whatsoever.”

On responsibility for Ukrainian crisis

“I know one can say it is our mistake. It was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014, in Donbass. As I have already said, by means of weapons.” However, NATO’s expansion in breach of earlier promises is also something to remember. “Let us go back to the coup d’etat in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless, though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly.”

On ‘Russian threat’

Allegations of the “Russian threat” are aimed at intimidating common people: “We have no interest in Poland, Latvia or anywhere else. <…> It’s just threat mongering.”

On possible conversation with Biden

Putin has repeatedly warned US President Joe Biden that he is “making a huge mistake of historic proportions <…> by pushing Russia away.” Russia and the US currently maintain contact at the level of various government agencies with Moscow saying that Washington needs to stop supplying weapons to Kiev and “it will be over within a few weeks.”

On Gershkovich case

Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich was definitely engaged in espionage. Moscow is ready to release him if its “partners take reciprocal steps:” “We have done so many gestures of goodwill out of decency that I think we have run out of them.” Russian and US intelligence agencies are in talks. “I do not rule out that <…> Mr. Gershkovich may return to his motherland.” There are some people jailed in the West who, according to Moscow, “are not connected with special services,” including “a person (it may be alleged Russian national Vadim Krasikov convicted in Germany – TASS), who, “due to patriotic sentiments, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals.”

On Nord Stream pipelines

Russia has not presented the evidence it has with regard to the Nord Stream pipeline explosions because “in the war of propaganda, it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media and many European media.” “So it is possible to get involved in this work, but it is cost prohibitive, so to speak. <…> It is clear to the whole world what happened.”

On cooperation with China

Allegations that cooperation with China is dangerous for Russia are nothing but boogeyman stories. Europe maintains even closer cooperation with China. “Ask Europeans, are they afraid?”

On Russia in NATO

Moscow inquired into the possibility of joining NATO and invited Washington to build a common missile defense system together. US presidents supported the initiatives but their administrations rejected them. “And then they just told us to get lost. <…> We created hypersonic systems with intercontinental range, and we continue to develop them.”

Washington kept putting pressure on Moscow particularly because there were too many experts on confrontation with the Soviet Union in the US. “It is necessary to get rid of this. There should be new, fresh forces, people who look into the future and understand what is happening in the world.”

On US policies

Washington’s policy does not depend on who the country’s president is. “It is not about the personality of the leader. It is about the elites’ mindset.” Today, the United States is trying unsuccessfully to adapt to the changing world by using force but “the tools that the US uses don’t work.” The world will “change regardless of how the developments in Ukraine end.” The US position in the world will also change, and “the only question is how this will happen, painfully and quickly or gently and gradually.”

On technologies and Elon Musk

Humanity needs to make agreements on regulating the field of artificial intelligence, genetic research and other research activities that are “impossible to stop.”

“There are reports that Elon Musk has already had a chip implanted in the human brain. <…> I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk. He will do as he sees fit. Nevertheless, you’ll need to find some common ground with him. Search for ways to persuade him.”


Vladimir Putin answered questions from Tucker Carlson, a journalist and founder of Tucker Carlson Network.

Full transcript from the President of Russia website:

Tucker Carlson: Mr. President, thank you.

On February 22, 2022, you addressed your country in your nationwide address when the conflict in Ukraine started and you said that you were acting because you had come to the conclusion that the United States through NATO might initiate a quote, “surprise attack on our country”. And to American ears that sounds paranoid. Tell us why you believe the United States might strike Russia out of the blue. How did you conclude that?

Vladimir Putin: It’s not that the United States was going to launch a surprise strike on Russia, I didn’t say so. Are we having a talk show or serious conversation?

Tucker Carlson: That was a good quote. Thank you, it’s formidably serious!

Vladimir Putin: You were initially trained in history, as far as I know?

Tucker Carlson: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: So if you don’t mind I will take only 30 seconds or one minute of your time for giving you a little historical background.

Tucker Carlson: Please.

Vladimir Putin: Let’s look where our relationship with Ukraine started from. Where does Ukraine come from?

The Russian state started to exist as a centralized state in 862. This is considered to be the year of creation of the Russian state because this year the townspeople of Novgorod (a city in the North-West of the country) invited Rurik, a Varangian prince from Scandinavia, to reign. In 1862, Russia celebrated the 1000th anniversary of its statehood, and in Novgorod there is a memorial dedicated to the 1000th anniversary of the country.

In 882, Rurik’s successor Prince Oleg, who was, actually, playing the role of regent at Rurik’s young son because Rurik had died by that time, came to Kiev. He ousted two brothers who, apparently, had once been members of Rurik’s squad. So, Russia began to develop with two centers of power, Kiev and Novgorod.

The next, very significant date in the history of Russia, was 988. This was the Baptism of Russia, when Prince Vladimir, the great-grandson of Rurik, baptized Russia and adopted Orthodoxy, or Eastern Christianity. From this time the centralized Russian state began to strengthen. Why? Because of a single territory, integrated economic ties, one and the same language and, after the Baptism of Russia, the same faith and rule of the Prince. The centralized Russian state began to take shape.

Back in the Middle Ages, Prince Yaroslav the Wise introduced the order of succession to the throne, but after he passed away, it became complicated for various reasons. The throne was passed not directly from father to eldest son, but from the prince who had passed away to his brother, then to his sons in different lines. All this led to the fragmentation and the end of Rus as a single state. There was nothing special about it, the same was happening then in Europe. But the fragmented Russian state became an easy prey to the empire created earlier by Genghis Khan. His successors, namely, Batu Khan, came to Rus, plundered and ruined nearly all the cities. The southern part, including Kiev, by the way, and some other cities, simply lost independence, while northern cities preserved some of their sovereignty. They had to pay tribute to the Horde, but they managed to preserve some part of their sovereignty. And then a unified Russian state began to take shape with its centre in Moscow.

The southern part of the Russian lands, including Kiev, began to gradually gravitate towards another ”magnet“ – the centre that was emerging in Europe. This was the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. It was even called the Lithuanian-Russian Duchy, because Russians were a significant part of its population. They spoke the Old Russian language and were Orthodox. But then there was a unification, the union of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and the Kingdom of Poland. A few years later, another union was signed, but this time already in the religious sphere. Some of the Orthodox priests became subordinate to the Pope. Thus, these lands became part of the Polish-Lithuanian state.

During decades, the Poles were engaged in the ”Polonization“ of this part of the population: they introduced their language there, tried to entrench the idea that this population was not exactly Russians, that because they lived on the fringe (u kraya) they were “Ukrainians”. Originally, the word ‘Ukrainian’ meant that a person was living on the outskirts of the state, near the fringe, or was engaged in border service. It didn’t mean any particular ethnic group.

So, the Poles were trying in every possible way to polonize this part of the Russian lands and actually treated it rather harshly, not to say cruelly. All that led to the fact that this part of the Russian lands began to struggle for their rights. They wrote letters to Warsaw demanding that their rights be observed and that people be commissioned here, including to Kiev…

Tucker Carlson: I beg your pardon, can you tell us what period… I am losing track of where in history we are?

Vladimir Putin: It was in the 13th century.

Now I will tell what happened later and give the dates so that there is no confusion. And in 1654, even a bit earlier, the people who were in control of the authority over that part of the Russian lands, addressed Warsaw, I repeat, demanding their rights be observed that they send to them rulers of Russian origin and Orthodox faith. When Warsaw did not answer them and in fact rejected their demands, they turned to Moscow so that Moscow took them away.

So that you don’t think that I am inventing things… I’ll give you these documents…

Tucker Carlson: It doesn’t sound like you are inventing it, but I am not sure why it’s relevant to what’s happened two years ago.

Vladimir Putin: But still, these are documents from the archives, copies. Here are letters from Bogdan Khmelnitsky, the man who then controlled the power in this part of the Russian lands that is now called Ukraine. He wrote to Warsaw demanding that their rights be upheld, and after being refused, he began to write letters to Moscow asking to take them under the strong hand of the Moscow Tsar. There are copies of these documents. I will leave them for your good memory. There is a translation into Russian, you can translate it into English later.

Russia would not agree to admit them straight away, assuming that the war with Poland would start. Nevertheless, in 1654, the Pan-Russian Assembly of top Clergy and Landowners headed by the Tsar (Zemsky Sobor), which was the representative body of power of the Old Russian state, decided to include a part of the Old Russian lands into the Moscow Kingdom.

As expected, the war with Poland began. It lasted 13 years, and then in 1654, a truce was concluded. And 32 years later, I think, a peace treaty with Poland, which they called ”eternal peace,“ was signed. And these lands, the whole left bank of the Dnieper, including Kiev, went to Russia, and the whole right bank of the Dnieper remained in Poland.

Under the rule of Catherine the Great, Russia reclaimed all of its historical lands, including in the south and west. This all lasted until the Revolution. Before World War I, Austrian General Staff relied on the ideas of Ukrainianization and started actively promoting the ideas of Ukraine and the Ukrainianization. Their motive was obvious. Just before World War I they wanted to weaken the potential enemy and secure themselves favourable conditions in the border area. So the idea which had emerged in Poland that people residing in that territory were allegedly not really Russians, but rather belonged to a special ethnic group, Ukrainians, started being propagated by the Austrian General Staff.

As far back as the 19th century, theorists calling for Ukrainian independence appeared. All those, however, claimed that Ukraine should have a very good relationship with Russia. They insisted on that. After the 1917 Revolution, the Bolsheviks sought to restore the statehood, and the Civil War began, including the hostilities with Poland. In 1921, peace with Poland was proclaimed, and under that treaty, the right bank of the Dnieper River once again was given back to Poland.

In 1939, after Poland cooperated with Hitler — it did collaborate with Hitler, you know —Hitler offered Poland peace and a treaty of friendship and alliance (we have all the relevant documents in the archives), demanding in return that Poland give back to Germany the so-called Danzig Corridor, which connected the bulk of Germany with East Prussia and Konigsberg. After World War I this territory was transferred to Poland, and instead of Danzig, a city of Gdansk emerged. Hitler asked them to give it amicably, but they refused. Still they collaborated with Hitler and engaged together in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia.

Tucker Carlson: May I ask… You are making the case that Ukraine, certain parts of Ukraine, Eastern Ukraine, in fact, has been Russia for hundreds of years, why wouldn’t you just take it when you became President 24 years ago? Your have nuclear weapons, they don’t. It’s actually your land. Why did you wait so long?

Vladimir Putin: I’ll tell you. I’m coming to that. This briefing is coming to an end. It might be boring, but it explains many things.

Tucker Carlson: It’s not boring.

Vladimir Putin: Good. Good. I am so gratified that you appreciate that. Thank you.

So before World War II, Poland collaborated with Hitler and although it did not yield to Hitler’s demands, it still participated in the partitioning of Czechoslovakia together with Hitler. As the Poles had not given the Danzig Corridor to Germany, and went too far, pushing Hitler to start World War II by attacking them. Why was it Poland against whom the war started on 1 September 1939? Poland turned out to be uncompromising, and Hitler had nothing to do but start implementing his plans with Poland.

By the way, the USSR — I have read some archive documents — behaved very honestly. It asked Poland’s permission to transit its troops through the Polish territory to help Czechoslovakia. But the then Polish foreign minister said that if the Soviet planes flew over Poland, they would be downed over the territory of Poland. But that doesn’t matter. What matters is that the war began, and Poland fell prey to the policies it had pursued against Czechoslovakia, as under the well-known Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, part of that territory, including western Ukraine, was to be given to Russia. Thus Russia, which was then named the USSR, regained its historical lands.

After the victory in the Great Patriotic War, as we call World War II, all those territories were ultimately enshrined as belonging to Russia, to the USSR. As for Poland, it received, apparently in compensation, the lands which had originally being German: the eastern parts of Germany (these are now western lands of Poland). Of course, Poland regained access to the Baltic sea, and Danzig, which was once again given its Polish name. So this was how this situation developed.

In 1922, when the USSR was being established, the Bolsheviks started building the USSR and established the Soviet Ukraine, which had never existed before.

Tucker Carlson: Right.

Vladimir Putin: Stalin insisted that those republics be included in the USSR as autonomous entities. For some inexplicable reason, Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, insisted that they be entitled to withdraw from the USSR. And, again for some unknown reasons, he transferred to that newly established Soviet Republic of Ukraine some of the lands together with people living there, even though those lands had never been called Ukraine; and yet they were made part of that Soviet Republic of Ukraine. Those lands included the Black Sea region, which was received under Catherine the Great and which had no historical connection with Ukraine whatsoever.

Even if we go as far back as 1654, when these lands returned to the Russian Empire, that territory was the size of three to four regions of modern Ukraine, with no Black Sea region. That was completely out of the question.

Tucker Carlson: In 1654?

Vladimir Putin: Exactly.

Tucker Carlson: You have, I see, encyclopedic knowledge of this region. But why didn’t you make this case for the first 22 years as president, that Ukraine wasn’t a real country?

Vladimir Putin: The Soviet Ukraine was given a great deal of territory that had never belonged to it, including the Black Sea region. At some point, when Russia received them as an outcome of the Russo-Turkish wars, they were called “New Russia” or Novorossiya. But that does not matter. What matters is that Lenin, the founder of the Soviet State, established Ukraine that way. For decades, the Ukrainian Soviet Republic developed as part of the USSR, and for unknown reasons again, the Bolsheviks were engaged in Ukrainianization. It was not merely because the Soviet leadership was composed to a great extent of those originating from Ukraine. Rather, it was explained by the general policy of indigenization pursued by the Soviet Union. Same things were done in other Soviet republics. This involved promoting national languages and national cultures, which is not bad in principle. That is how the Soviet Ukraine was created.

After World War II, Ukraine received, in addition to the lands that had belonged to Poland before the war, part of the lands that had previously belonged to Hungary and Romania (today known as Western Ukraine). So Romania and Hungary had some of their lands taken away and given to the Ukraine and they still remain part of Ukraine. So in this sense, we have every reason to affirm that Ukraine is an artificial state that was shaped at Stalin’s will.

Tucker Carlson: Do you believe Hungary has a right to take back its land from Ukraine? And that other nations have a right to go back to their 1654 borders?

Vladimir Putin: I am not sure whether they should go back to the 1654 borders, but given Stalin’s time, so-called Stalin’s regime — which as many claim saw numerous violations of human rights and violations of the rights of other states – one may say that they could claim back those lands of theirs, while having no right to do that, it is at least understandable…

Tucker Carlson: Have you told Viktor Orbán that he can have a part of Ukraine?

Vladimir Putin: Never. I have never told him. Not a single time. We have not even had any conversation on that, but I actually know for sure that Hungarians who live there wanted to get back to their historical land.

Moreover, I would like to share a very interesting story with you, I’ll digress, it’s a personal one. Somewhere in the early 80’s, I went on a road trip on a car from then-Leningrad (now St. Petersburg) across the Soviet Union through Kiev, made a stop in Kiev, and then went to Western Ukraine. I went to the town of Beregovoye, and all the names of towns and villages there were in Russian and in a language I didn’t understand – in Hungarian . In Russian and in Hungarian. Not in Ukrainian – in Russian and in Hungarian.

I was driving through some kind of a village and there were men sitting next to the houses and they were wearing black three-piece suits and black cylinder hats. I asked, ”Are they some kind of entertainers?“ I was told, ”No, they’re not entertainers. They’re Hungarians. ‘I said, ‘What are they doing here?’ — ‘What do you mean? This is their land, they live here.’ This was during the Soviet time, in the 1980’s. They preserve the Hungarian language, Hungarian names, and all their national costumes. They are Hungarians and they feel themselves to be Hungarians. And of course, when now there is an infringement….

Tucker Carlson: And there’s a lot of that though, I think. Many nations feel upset about — there are Transylvanians as well as you, others, you know — but many nations feel frustrated by their re-drawn borders after the wars of the 20th century, and wars going back a thousand years, the ones that you mention, but the fact is that you didn’t make this case in public until two years ago in February, and in the case that you made, which I read today, you explain a great length that you thought a physical threat from the West and NATO, including potentially a nuclear threat, and that’s what got you to move. Is that a fair characterization of what you said?

Vladimir Putin: I understand that my long speeches probably fall outside of the genre of an interview. That is why I asked you at the beginning: ”Are we going to have a serious talk or a show?“ You said — a serious talk. So bear with me please.

We are coming to the point where the Soviet Ukraine was established. Then, in 1991, the Soviet Union collapsed. And everything that Russia had generously bestowed on Ukraine was ”dragged away“ by the latter.

I’m coming to a very important point of today’s agenda. After all, the collapse of the Soviet Union was effectively initiated by the Russian leadership. I do not understand what the Russian leadership was guided by at the time, but I suspect there were several reasons to think everything would be fine.

First, I think that the then Russian leadership believed that the fundamentals of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine were: in fact, a common language — more than 90 percent of the population there spoke Russian; family ties — every third person there had some kind of family or friendship ties; common culture; common history; finally, common faith; co-existence within a single state for centuries; and deeply interconnected economies. All of these were so fundamental. All these elements together make our good relations inevitable.

The second point is a very important one. I want you as an American citizen and your viewers to hear about this as well. The former Russian leadership assumed that the Soviet Union had ceased to exist and therefore there were no longer any ideological dividing lines. Russia even agreed, voluntarily and proactively, to the collapse of the Soviet Union and believed that this would be understood by the so-called (now in scare quotes) ”civilized West“ as an invitation for cooperation and associateship. That is what Russia was expecting both from the United States and the so-called collective West as a whole.

There were smart people, including in Germany. Egon Bahr, a major politician of the Social Democratic Party, who insisted in his personal conversations with the Soviet leadership on the brink of the collapse of the Soviet Union that a new security system should be established in Europe. Help should be given to unify Germany, but a new system should also be established to include the United States, Canada, Russia, and other Central European countries. But NATO needs not to expand. That’s what he said: if NATO expands, everything would be just the same as during the Cold War, only closer to Russia’s borders. That’s all. He was a wise old man, but no one listened to him. In fact, he got angry once (we have a record of this conversation in our archives): ”If, he said, you don’t listen to me, I’m never setting my foot in Moscow once again.“ He was frustrated with the Soviet leadership. He was right, everything happened just as he had said.

Tucker Carlson: Well, of course, it did come true, and you’ve mentioned it many times. I think, it’s a fair point. And many in America thought that relations between Russia and United States would be fine after the collapse of the Soviet Union, at the core. But the opposite happened. But have never explained why you think that happened, except to say that the West fears a strong Russia. But we have a strong China that the West doesn’t seem to be very afraid of. What about Russia, what do you think convinced the policymakers to take it down?

Vladimir Putin: The West is afraid of a strong China more than it fears a strong Russia because Russia has 150 million people, and China has a 1.5 billion population, and its economy is growing by leaps and bounds — over five percent a year, it used to be even more. But that’s enough for China. As Bismark once put it, potentials are most important. China’s potential is enormous — it is the biggest economy in the world today in terms of purchasing power parity and the size of the economy. It has already overtaken the United States, quite a long time ago, and it is growing at a rapid clip.

Let’s not talk about who is afraid of whom, let’s not reason in such terms. And let’s get into the fact that after 1991, when Russia expected that it would be welcomed into the brotherly family of ”civilized nations,“ nothing like this happened. You tricked us (I don’t mean you personally when I say ”you“, of course, I’m talking about the United States), the promise was that NATO would not expand eastward, but it happened five times, there were five waves of expansion. We tolerated all that, we were trying to persuade them, we were saying: ”Please don’t, we are as bourgeois now as you are, we are a market economy, and there is no Communist Party power. Let’s negotiate.“ Moreover, I have also said this publicly before (let’s look at Yeltsin’s times now), there was a moment when a certain rift started growing between us. Before that, Yeltsin came to the United States, remember, he spoke in Congress and said the good words: ”God bless America“. Everything he said were signals — let us in.

Remember the developments in Yugoslavia, before that Yeltsin was lavished with praise, as soon as the developments in Yugoslavia started, he raised his voice in support of Serbs, and we couldn’t but raise our voices for Serbs in their defense. I understand that there were complex processes underway there, I do. But Russia could not help raising its voice in support of Serbs, because Serbs are also a special and close to us nation, with Orthodox culture and so on. It’s a nation that has suffered so much for generations. Well, regardless, what is important is that Yeltsin expressed his support. What did the United States do? In violation of international law and the UN Charter it started bombing Belgrade.

It was the United States that let the genie out of the bottle. Moreover, when Russia protested and expressed its resentment, what was said? The UN Charter and international law have become obsolete. Now everyone invokes international law, but at that time they started saying that everything was outdated, everything had to be changed.

Indeed, some things need to be changed as the balance of power has changed, it’s true, but not in this manner. Yeltsin was immediately dragged through the mud, accused of alcoholism, of understanding nothing, of knowing nothing. He understood everything, I assure you.

Well, I became President in 2000. I thought: okay, the Yugoslav issue is over, but we should try to restore relations. Let’s reopen the door that Russia had tried to go through. And moreover, I’ve said it publicly, I can reiterate. At a meeting here in the Kremlin with the outgoing President Bill Clinton, right here in the next room, I said to him, I asked him, ” Bill, do you think if Russia asked to join NATO, do you think it would happen?“ Suddenly he said: ”You know, it’s interesting, I think so.“ But in the evening, when we had dinner, he said, ”You know, I’ve talked to my team, no-no, it’s not possible now.“ You can ask him, I think he will watch our interview, he’ll confirm it. I wouldn’t have said anything like that if it hadn’t happened. Okay, well, it’s impossible now.

Tucker Carlson: Were you sincere? Would you have joined NATO?

Vladimir Putin: Look, I asked the question, ”Is it possible or not?“ And the answer I got was no. If I was insincere in my desire to find out what the leadership’s position was…

Tucker Carlson: But if he would say yes, would you have joined NATO?

Vladimir Putin: If he had said yes, the process of rapprochement would have commenced, and eventually it might have happened if we had seen some sincere wish on the side of our partners. But it didn’t happen. Well, no means no, okay, fine.

Tucker Carlson: Why do you think that is? Just to get to motive. I know, you’re clearly bitter about it. I understand. But why do you think the West rebuffed you then? Why the hostility? Why did the end of the Cold War not fix the relationship? What motivates this from your point of view?

Vladimir Putin: You said I was bitter about the answer. No, it’s not bitterness, it’s just a statement of fact. We’re not the bride and groom, bitterness, resentment, it’s not about those kinds of matters in such circumstances. We just realised we weren’t welcome there, that’s all. Okay, fine. But let’s build relations in another manner, let’s look for common ground elsewhere. Why we received such a negative response, you should ask your leader. I can only guess why: too big a country, with its own opinion and so on. And the United States – I have seen how issues are being resolved in NATO.

I will give you another example now, concerning Ukraine. The US leadership exerts pressure, and all NATO members obediently vote, even if they do not like something. Now, I’ll tell you what happened in this regard with Ukraine in 2008, although it’s being discussed, I’m not going to open a secret to you, say anything new. Nevertheless, after that, we tried to build relations in different ways. For example, the events in the Middle East, in Iraq, we were building relations with the United States in a very soft, prudent, cautious manner.

I repeatedly raised the issue that the United States should not support separatism or terrorism in the North Caucasus. But they continued to do it anyway. And political support, information support, financial support, even military support came from the United States and its satellites for terrorist groups in the Caucasus.

I once raised this issue with my colleague, also the President of the United States. He says, ”It’s impossible! Do you have proof?“ I said, ”Yes.“ I was prepared for this conversation and I gave him that proof. He looked at it and, you know what he said? I apologise, but that’s what happened, I’ll quote. He says, ”Well, I’m gonna kick their ass“. We waited and waited for some response – there was no reply.

I said to the FSB Director: ”Write to the CIA. What is the result of the conversation with the President?“ He wrote once, twice, and then we got a reply. We have the answer in the archive. The CIA replied: ”We have been working with the opposition in Russia. We believe that this is the right thing to do and we will keep on doing it.“ Just ridiculous. Well, okay. We realised that it was out of the question.

Tucker Carlson: Forces in opposition to you? Do you think the CIA is trying to overthrow your government?

Vladimir Putin: Of course, they meant in that particular case the separatists, the terrorists who fought with us in the Caucasus. That’s who they called the opposition. This is the second point.

The third moment, a very important one, is the moment when the US missile defense (ABM) system was created. The beginning. We persuaded for a long time not to do it in the United States. Moreover, after I was invited by Bush Jr.’s father, Bush Sr. to visit his place on the ocean, I had a very serious conversation with President Bush and his team. I proposed that the United States, Russia and Europe jointly create a missile defense system that, we believe, if created unilaterally, threatens our security, despite the fact that the United States officially said that it was being created against missile threats from Iran. That was the justification for the deployment of the missile defense system. I suggested working together – Russia, the United States, and Europe. They said it was very interesting. They asked me, ”Are you serious?“ I said, “Absolutely”.

Tucker Carlson: May I ask what year was this?

Vladimir Putin: I don’t remember. It is easy to find out on the Internet, when I was in the USA at the invitation of Bush Sr. It is even easier to learn from someone, I’m going to tell you about.

I was told it was very interesting. I said, ”Just imagine if we could tackle such a global, strategic security challenge together. The world would change. We’ll probably have disputes, probably economic and even political ones, but we could drastically change the situation in the world.“ He says, ”Yes.“ And asks: ”Are you serious?“. I said, ”Of course.“ ”We need to think about it,“ I’m told. I said, ”Go ahead, please.“

Then Secretary of Defense R.Gates, former Director of the CIA, and Secretary of State C.Rice came here, in this cabinet. Right here, at this table, they sat on this side. Me, the Foreign Minister, the Russian Defense Minister – on that side. They said to me, ”Yes, we have thought about it, we agree.“ I said, ”Thank God, great.“ – ”But with some exceptions.“

Tucker Carlson: So, twice you’ve described US presidents making decisions and then being undercut by their agency heads. So, it sounds like you’re describing a system that is not run by the people who are elected, in your telling.

Vladimir Putin: That’s right, that’s right. In the end they just told us to get lost. I am not going to tell you the details, because I think it is incorrect, after all, it was a confidential conversation. But our proposal was declined, that’s a fact.

It was right then when I said: ”Look, but then we will be forced to take counter measures. We will create such strike systems that will certainly overcome missile defense systems.“ The answer was: ”We are not doing this against you, and you do what you want, assuming that it is not against us, not against the United States“. I said, ”Okay.“

Very well, that’s the way it went. And we created hypersonic systems, with intercontinental range, and we continue to develop them. We are now ahead of everyone – the United States and other countries – in terms of the development of hypersonic strike systems, and we are improving them every day.

But it wasn’t us, we proposed to go the other way, and we were pushed back.

Now, about NATO’s expansion to the East. Well, we were promised, no NATO to the East, not an inch to the East, as we were told. And then what? They said, ”Well, it’s not enshrined on paper, so we’ll expand.“ So there were five waves of expansion, the Baltic States, the whole of Eastern Europe, and so on.

And now I come to the main thing: they have come to Ukraine ultimately. In 2008 at the summit in Bucharest they declared that the doors for Ukraine and Georgia to join NATO were open.

Now about how decisions are made there. Germany, France seemed to be against it as well as some other European countries. But then, as it turned out later, President Bush, and he is such a tough guy, a tough politician, as I was told later, ”He exerted pressure on us and we had to agree.“ It’s ridiculous, it’s like kindergarten. Where are the guarantees? What kindergarten is this, what kind of people are these, who are they? You see, they were pressed, they agreed. And then they say, ”Ukraine won’t be in NATO, you know.“ I say, ”I don’t know, I know you agreed in 2008, why won’t you agree in the future?“ ”Well, they pressed us then.“ I say, ”Why won’t they press you tomorrow? And you’ll agree again.“

Well, it’s nonsensical. Who’s there to talk to, I just don’t understand. We’re ready to talk. But with whom? Where are the guarantees? None.

So, they started to develop the territory of Ukraine. Whatever is there, I have told you the background, how this territory developed, what kind of relations there were with Russia. Every second or third person there has always had some ties with Russia. And during the elections in already independent, sovereign Ukraine, which gained its independence as a result of the Declaration of Independence, and, by the way, it says that Ukraine is a neutral state, and in 2008 suddenly the doors or gates to NATO were open to it. Oh, come on! This is not how we agreed. Now, all the presidents that have come to power in Ukraine, they’ve relied on an electorate with a good attitude to Russia in one way or another. This is the south-east of Ukraine, this is a large number of people. And it was very difficult to desuade this electorate, which had a positive attitude towards Russia.

Viktor Yanukovych came to power, and how: the first time he won after President Kuchma – they organised a third round, which is not provided for in the Constitution of Ukraine. This is a coup d’état. Just imagine, someone in the United States wouldn’t like the outcome…

Tucker Carlson: In 2014?

Vladimir Putin: Before that. No, this was before that. After President Kuchma, Viktor Yanukovich won the elections. However, his opponents did not recognize that victory, the US supported the opposition and the third round was scheduled. What is this? This is a coup. The US supported it and the winner of the third round came to power. Imagine if in the US, something was not to someone’s liking and the third round of election, which the US Constitution does not provide for, was organized, Nonetheless, it was done in Ukraine. Okay, Viktor Yushchenko who was considered a pro-Western politician, came to power. Fine, we have built relations with him as well. He came to Moscow with visits, we visited Kiev. I visited it too. We met in an informal setting. If he is pro-Western, so be it. It’s fine, let people do their job. The situation should develop inside the independent Ukraine itself. As a result of Kuchma’s leadership, things got worse and Viktor Yanukovich came to power after all.

Maybe he wasn’t the best President and politician. I don’t know, I don’t want to give assessments. However, the issue of the association with the EU came up. We have always been lenient to this: suit yourself. But when we read through that treaty of association it turned out to be a problem for us, since we had a free-trade zone and open customs borders with Ukraine which, under this association, had to open its borders for Europe, which could have led to flooding of our market.

We said, “No, this is not going to work. We shall close our borders with Ukraine then”. The customs borders, that is. Yanukovich started to calculate how much Ukraine was going to gain, how much to lose and said to his European partners: “I need more time to think before signing”. The moment he said that, the opposition began to take destructive steps which were supported by the West. It all came down to Maidan and a coup in Ukraine.

Tucker Carlson: So, he did more trade with Russia than with the EU? Ukraine did…

Vladimir Putin: Of course. It’s not even the matter of trade volume, although for the most part it is. It is the matter of cooperation ties which the entire Ukrainian economy was based on. The cooperation ties between the enterprises were very close since the times of the Soviet Union. One enterprise there used to produce components to be assembled both in Russia and Ukraine and vice versa. There used to be very close ties.

A coup d’etat was committed, although, I shall not delve into details now as I find doing it inappropriate, the US told us, “Calm Yanukovich down and we will calm the opposition. Let the situation unfold in the scenario of a political settlement”. We said, “Alright. Agreed. Let’s do it this way”. As the Americans requested us, Yanukovich did use neither the Armed Forces, nor the police, yet the armed opposition committed a coup in Kiev. What is that supposed to mean? “Who do you think you are?”, I wanted to ask the then US leadership.

Tucker Carlson: With the backing of whom?

Vladimir Putin: With the backing of CIA, of course. The organization you wanted to join back in the day, as I understand. Maybe we should thank God they didn’t let you in. Although, it is a serious organization. I understand. My former vis-à-vis, in the sense that I served in the First Main Directorate – Soviet Union’s intelligence service. They have always been our opponents. A job is a job.

Technically they did everything right, they achieved their goal of changing the government. However, from political standpoint, it was a colossal mistake. Surely, it was political leadership’s miscalculation. They should have seen what it would evolve into.

So, in 2008 the doors of NATO were opened for Ukraine. In 2014, there was a coup, they started persecuting those who did not accept the coup, and it was indeed a coup, they created a threat to Crimea which we had to take under our protection. They launched a war in Donbass in 2014 with the use of aircraft and artillery against civilians. This is when it started. There is a video of aircraft attacking Donetsk from above. They launched a large-scale military operation, then another one. When they failed, they started to prepare the next one. All this against the background of military development of this territory and opening of NATO’s doors.

How could we not express concern over what was happening? From our side, this would have been a culpable negligence – that’s what it would have been. It’s just that the US political leadership pushed us to the line we could not cross because doing so could have ruined Russia itself. Besides, we could not leave our brothers in faith and, in fact, a part of Russian people, in the face of this “war machine”.

Tucker Carlson: So, that was eight years before the current conflict started. What was the trigger for you? What was the moment where you decided you had to do this?

Vladimir Putin: Initially, it was the coup in Ukraine that provoked the conflict.

By the way, back then the representatives of three European countries – Germany, Poland and France – arrived. They were the guarantors of the signed agreement between the Government of Yanukovich and the opposition. They signed it as guarantors. Despite that, the opposition committed a coup and all these countries pretended that they didn’t remember that they were guarantors of peaceful settlement. They just threw it in the stove right away and nobody recalls that.

I don’t know if the US know anything about that agreement between the opposition and the authorities and its three guarantors who, instead of bringing this whole situation back in the political field, supported the coup. Although, it was meaningless, believe me, because President Yanukovich agreed to all conditions, he was ready to hold early election which he had no chance to win, frankly speaking, Everyone knew that. Then why the coup, why the victims? Why threatening Crimea? Why launching an operation in Donbass? This I do not understand. That is exactly what the miscalculation is. CIA did its job to complete the coup. I think one of the Deputy Secretaries of State said that it cost a large sum of money, almost 5 billion. But the political mistake was colossal! Why would they have to do that? All this could have been done legally, without victims, without military action, without losing Crimea. We would have never considered to even lift a finger, if it hadn’t been for the bloody developments on Maidan.

Because we agreed with the fact that after the collapse of the Soviet Union our borders should be along the borders of former Union’s republics. We agreed to that. But we never agreed to NATO’s expansion and moreover we never agreed that Ukraine would be in NATO. We did not agree to NATO bases there without any discussion with us. For decades we kept asking: don’t do this, don’t do that.

And what triggered the latest events? Firstly, the current Ukrainian leadership declared that it would not implement the Minsk Agreements, which had been signed, as you know, after the events of 2014, in Minsk, where the plan of peaceful settlement in Donbass was set forth. But no, the current Ukrainian leadership, Foreign Minister, all other officials and then President himself said that they don’t like anything about the Minsk Agreements. In other words, they were not going to implement it. A year or a year and a half ago, former leaders of Germany and France said openly to the whole world that they indeed signed the Minsk Agreements but they never intended to implement them. They simply led us by the nose.

Tucker Carlson: Was there anyone free to talk to? Did you call the US President, Secretary of State and say if you keep militarizing Ukraine with NATO forces, we are going to act?

Vladimir Putin: We talked about this all the time. We addressed the United States’ and European countries’ leadership to stop these developments immediately, to implement the Minsk Agreements. Frankly speaking, I didn’t know how we were going to do this but I was ready to implement them. These Agreements were complicated for Ukraine; they included lots of elements of those Donbass territories’ independence. That’s true. However, I was absolutely confident, and I am saying this to you now: I honestly believed that if we managed to convince the residents of Donbass – and we had to work hard to convince them to return to the Ukrainian statehood – then gradually the wounds would start to heal. When this part of territory reintegrated itself into common social environment, when the pensions and social benefits were paid again, all the pieces would gradually fall into place.

No, nobody wanted that, everybody wanted to resolve the issue by military force only. But we could not let that happen. And the situation got to the point, when the Ukrainian side announced: ”No, we will not do anything“. They also started preparing for military action. It was they who started the war in 2014. Our goal is to stop this war. And we did not start this war in 2022. This is an attempt to stop it.

Tucker Carlson: Do you think you have stopped it now? I mean have you achieved your aims?

Vladimir Putin: No, we haven’t achieved our aims yet, because one of them is denazification. This means the prohibition of all kinds of neo-Nazi movements. This is one of the problems that we discussed during the negotiation process, which ended in Istanbul early last year, and it was not our initiative, because we were told (by the Europeans, in particular) that ”it was necessary to create conditions for the final signing of the documents“. My counterparts in France and Germany said, ”How can you imagine them signing a treaty with a gun to their heads? The troops should be pulled back from Kiev. ‘I said, ‘All right.’ We withdrew the troops from Kiev.

As soon as we pulled back our troops from Kiev, our Ukrainian negotiators immediately threw all our agreements reached in Istanbul into the bin and got prepared for a longstanding armed confrontation with the help of the United States and its satellites in Europe. That is how the situation has developed. And that is how it looks now.

Tucker Carlson: What is denazification? What would that mean?

Vladimir Putin: That is what I want to talk about right now. It is a very important issue.

Denazification. After gaining independence, Ukraine began to search, as some Western analysts say, its identity. And it came up with nothing better than to build this identity upon some false heroes who collaborated with Hitler.

I have already said that in the early 19th century, when the theorists of independence and sovereignty of Ukraine appeared, they assumed that an independent Ukraine should have very good relations with Russia. But due to the historical development, these territories were part of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth – Poland, where Ukrainians were persecuted and treated quite brutally as well as were subject to cruel behavior. There were also attempts to destroy their identity.

All this remained in the memory of the people. When World War II broke out, part of this extremely nationalist elite collaborated with Hitler, believing that he would bring them freedom. The German troops, even the SS troops made Hitler’s collaborators do the dirtiest work of exterminating the Polish and Jewish population. Hence this brutal massacre of the Polish and Jewish population as well as the Russian population too. This was led by the persons who are well known – Bandera, Shukhevich. It was these people who were made national heroes – that is the problem. And we are constantly told that nationalism and neo-Nazism exist in other countries as well. Yes, there are seedlings, but we uproot them, and other countries fight against them. But Ukraine is not the case. These people have been made into national heroes in Ukraine. Monuments to these people have been erected, they are displayed on flags, their names are shouted by crowds that walk with torches, as it was in Nazi Germany. These were the people who exterminated Poles, Jews and Russians. It is necessary to stop this practice and prevent the dissemination of this concept.

I say that Ukrainians are part of the one Russian people. They say, ”No, we are a separate people.“ Okay, fine. If they consider themselves a separate people, they have the right to do so, but not on the basis of Nazism, the Nazi ideology.

Tucker Carlson: Would you be satisfied with the territory that you have now?

Vladimir Putin: I will finish answering the question. You just asked a question about neo-Nazism and denazification.

Look, the President of Ukraine visited Canada. This story is well known, but is silenced in the Western countries: The Canadian parliament introduced a man who, as the speaker of the parliament said, fought against the Russians during the World War II. Well, who fought against the Russians during World War II? Hitler and his accomplices. It turned out that this man served in the SS troops. He personally killed Russians, Poles, and Jews. The SS troops consisted of Ukrainian nationalists who did this dirty work. The President of Ukraine stood up with the entire Parliament of Canada and applauded this man. How can this be imagined? The President of Ukraine himself, by the way, is a Jew by nationality.

Tucker Carlson: Really, my question is: What do you do about it? I mean, Hitler has been dead for eighty years, Nazi Germany no longer exists, and it’s true. So, I think, what you are saying, you want to extinguish or at least control Ukrainian nationalism. But how do you do that?

Vladimir Putin: Listen to me. Your question is very subtle.

And can I tell you what I think? Do not take offense.

Tucker Carlson: Of course!

Vladimir Putin: This question appears to be subtle, it is quite pesky.

You say Hitler has been dead for so many years, 80 years. But his example lives on. People who exterminated Jews, Russians and Poles are alive. And the president, the current president of today’s Ukraine applauds him in the Canadian Parliament, gives a standing ovation! Can we say that we have completely uprooted this ideology if what we see is happening today? That is what denazification is in our understanding. We have to get rid of those people who maintain this concept and support this practice and try to preserve it – that is what denazification is. That is what we mean.

Tucker Carlson: Right. My question is almost specific, it was, of course, not a defense of Nazism. Otherwise, it was a practical question. You don’t control the entire country, you don’t seem like you want to. So, how do you eliminate that culture, or an ideology, or feelings, or a view of history, in a country that you don’t control? What do you do about that?

Vladimir Putin: You know, as strange as it may seem to you, during the negotiations in Istanbul we did agree that – we have it all in writing – neo-Nazism would not be cultivated in Ukraine, including that it would be prohibited at the legislative level.

Mr. Carlson, we agreed on that. This, it turns out, can be done during the negotiation process. And there is nothing humiliating for Ukraine as a modern civilized State. Is any state allowed to promote Nazism? It is not, is it? That is it.

Tucker Carlson: Will there be talks? And why haven’t there been talks about resolving the conflict in Ukraine? Peace talks.

Vladimir Putin: They have been. They reached a very high stage of coordination of positions in a complex process, but still they were almost finalized. But after we withdrew our troops from Kiev, as I have already said, the other side (Ukraine) threw away all these agreements and obeyed the instructions of Western countries, European countries and the United States to fight Russia to the bitter end.

Moreover, the President of Ukraine has legislated a ban on negotiating with Russia. He signed a decree forbidding everyone to negotiate with Russia. But how are we going to negotiate if he forbade himself and everyone to do this? We know that he is putting forward some ideas about this settlement. But in order to agree on something, we need to have a dialog. Is not that right?

Tucker Carlson: Well, but you would not be speaking to the Ukrainian president, you would be speaking to the American president. When was the last time you spoke to Joe Biden?

Vladimir Putin: I cannot remember when I talked to him. I do not remember, we can look it up.

Tucker Carlson: You do not remember?!

Vladimir Putin: No, why? Do I have to remember everything? I have my own things to do. We have domestic political affairs.

Tucker Carlson: But he is funding the war that you are fighting, so I think that would be memorable?

Vladimir Putin: Well, yes, he funds, but I talked to him before the Special Military Operation, of course. And I said to him then, by the way – I will not go into details, I never do – but I said to him then: ”I believe that you are making a huge mistake of historic proportions by supporting everything that is happening there, in Ukraine, by pushing Russia away.“ I told him, told him repeatedly, by the way. I think that would be correct if I stop here.

Tucker Carlson: What did he say?

Vladimir Putin: Ask him, please. It is easier for you, you are a citizen of the United States, go and ask him. It is not appropriate for me to comment on our conversation.

Tucker Carlson: But you haven’t spoken to him since before February of 2022?

Vladimir Putin: No, we haven’t spoken. Certain contacts are been maintained though. Speaking of which, do you remember what I told you about my proposal to work together on a missile defense system?

Tucker Carlson: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: You can ask all of them. All of them are safe and sound, thank God. The former President, Condoleezza is safe and sound, and, I think, Mr. Gates, and the current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, Mr. Burns, the then Ambassador to Russia, in my opinion, a very successful Ambassador. They were all witnesses to these conversations. Ask them.

Same here, if you are interested in what Mr. President Biden responded to me, ask him. At any rate, I talked to him about it.

Tucker Carlson: I am definitely interested. But from the other side it seems like it could devolve, evolve into something that brings the entire world into conflict, and could initiate a nuclear launch, and so why don’t you just call Biden and say “let’s work this out”?

Vladimir Putin: What’s there to work out? It’s very simple. I repeat, we have contacts through various agencies. I will tell you what we are saying on this matter and what we are conveying to the US leadership: ”If you really want to stop fighting, you need to stop supplying weapons. It will be over within a few weeks. That’s it. And then we can agree on some terms before you do that, stop.“

What’s easier? Why would I call him? What should I talk to him about? Or beg him for what? ”You’re going to deliver such and such weapons to Ukraine. Oh, I’m afraid, I’m afraid, please don’t.“ What is there to talk about?

Tucker Carlson: Do you think NATO was worried about this becoming a global war or nuclear conflict?

Vladimir Putin: At least that’s what they’re talking about. And they are trying to intimidate their own population with an imaginary Russian threat. This is an obvious fact. And thinking people, not philistines, but thinking people, analysts, those who are engaged in real politics, just smart people understand perfectly well that this is a fake. They are trying to fuel the Russian threat.

Tucker Carlson: The threat I think you were referring to is Russian invasion of Poland, Latvia – expansionist behavior. Can you imagine a scenario where you send Russian troops to Poland?

Vladimir Putin: Only in one case: if Poland attacks Russia. Why? Because we have no interest in Poland, Latvia or anywhere else. Why would we do that? We simply don’t have any interest. Its just threat mongering.

Tucker Carlson: Well, the argument, I know you know this, is that, well, he invaded Ukraine – he has territorial aims across the continent. And you are saying unequivocally, you don’t?

Vladimir Putin: It is absolutely out of the question. You just don’t have to be any kind of analyst, it goes against common sense to get involved in some kind of global war. And a global war will bring all of humanity to the brink of destruction. It’s obvious.

There are, certainly, means of deterrence. They have been scaring everyone with us all along: tomorrow Russia will use tactical nuclear weapons, tomorrow Russia will use that, no, the day after tomorrow. So what? These are just horror stories for people in the street in order to extort additional money from US taxpayers and European taxpayers in the confrontation with Russia in the Ukrainian theatre of war. The goal is to weaken Russia as much as possible.

Tucker Carlson: One of our senior United States senators from the State of New York, Chuck Schumer, said yesterday, I believe, that we have to continue to fund the Ukrainian effort or US soldiers, citizens could wind up fighting there. How do you assess that?

Vladimir Putin: This is a provocation, and a cheap provocation at that.

I do not understand why American soldiers should fight in Ukraine. There are mercenaries from the United States there. The biggest number of mercenaries comes from Poland, with mercenaries from the United States in second place, and mercenaries from Georgia in third place. Well, if somebody has the desire to send regular troops, that would certainly bring humanity on the brink of a very serious, global conflict. This is obvious.

Do the United States need this? What for? Thousands of miles away from your national territory! Don’t you have anything better to do?

You have issues on the border, issues with migration, issues with the national debt – more than 33 trillion dollars. You have nothing better to do, so you should fight in Ukraine? Wouldn’t it be better to negotiate with Russia? Make an agreement, already understanding the situation that is developing today, realizing that Russia will fight for its interests to the end. And, realizing this, actually return to common sense, start respecting our country and its interests and look for certain solutions. It seems to me that this is much smarter and more rational.

Tucker Carlson: Who blew up Nord Stream?

Vladimir Putin: You, for sure. (L a u g h i n g.)

Tucker Carlson: I was busy that day. I did not blow up Nord Stream.

Vladimir Putin: You personally may have an alibi, but the CIA has no such alibi.

Tucker Carlson: Do you have evidence that NATO or CIA did it?

Vladimir Putin: You know, I won’t get into details, but people always say in such cases: ”Look for someone who is interested“.

But in this case we should not only look for someone who is interested, but also for someone who has capabilities. Because there may be many people interested, but not all of them are capable of sinking to the bottom of the Baltic Sea and carrying out this explosion. These two components should be connected: who is interested and who is capable of doing it.

Tucker Carlson: But I am confused. I mean, that’s the biggest act of industrial terrorism ever and it’s the largest emission of CO₂ in history. Okay, so, if you had evidence and presumably, given your security services, your intel services, you would, that NATO, the US, CIA, the West did this, why wouldn’t you present it and win a propaganda victory?

Vladimir Putin: In the war of propaganda it is very difficult to defeat the United States because the United States controls all the world’s media and many European media. The ultimate beneficiary of the biggest European media are American financial institutions. Don’t you know that? So it is possible to get involved in this work, but it is cost prohibitive, so to speak. We can simply shine the spotlight on our sources of information, and we will not achieve results. It is clear to the whole world what happened, and even American analysts talk about it directly. It’s true.

Tucker Carlson: Yes. But here is a question you may be able to answer. You worked in Germany, famously. The Germans clearly know that their NATO partner did this, that they damaged their economy greatly – it may never recover. Why are they being silent about it? That is very confusing to me. Why wouldn’t the Germans say something about it?

Vladimir Putin: This also confuses me. But today’s German leadership is guided by the interests of the collective West rather than its national interests, otherwise it is difficult to explain the logic of their action or inaction. After all, it is not only about Nord Stream-1, which was blown up, and Nord Stream-2 was damaged, but one pipe is safe and sound, and gas can be supplied to Europe through it, but Germany does not open it. We are ready, please.

There is another route through Poland, called Yamal-Europe, which also allows for a large flow. Poland has closed it, but Poland pecks from the German hand, it receives money from pan-European funds, and Germany is the main donor to these pan-European funds. Germany feeds Poland to a certain extent. And they closed the route to Germany. Why? I don’t understand. Ukraine, to which the Germans supply weapons and give money.

Germany is the second sponsor after the United States in terms of financial aid to Ukraine. There are two gas routes through Ukraine. They simply closed one route, the Ukrainians. Open the second route and, please, get gas from Russia. They do not open it. Why don’t the Germans say: ”Look, guys, we give you money and weapons. Open up the valve, please, let the gas from Russia pass through for us.

We are buying liquefied gas at exorbitant prices in Europe, which brings the level of our competitiveness, and economy in general down to zero. Do you want us to give you money? Let us have a decent existence, make money for our economy, because this is where the money we give you comes from“. They refuse to do so. Why? Ask them. (Knocks on the table.) That is what it is like in their heads. Those are highly incompetent people.

Tucker Carlson: Well, maybe the world is breaking into two hemispheres. One with cheap energy, the other without it. And I want to ask you that, if we are now a multipolar world, obviously we are, can you describe the blocs of alliances? Who is in each side, do you think?

Vladimir Putin: Listen, you have said that the world is breaking into two hemispheres. A human brain is divided into two hemispheres: one is responsible for one type of activities, the other one is more about creativity and so on. But it is still one and the same head. The world should be a single whole, security should be shared, rather than meant for the ”golden billion“. That is the only scenario where the world could be stable, sustainable and predictable. Until then, while the head is split into two parts, it is an illness, a serious adverse condition. It is a period of a severe disease that the world is now going through.

But I think that, thanks to honest journalism — this work is akin to work of the doctors, this could somehow be remedied.

Tucker Carlson: Well, let’s just give one example — the US dollar, which has, kind of, united the world in a lot of ways, maybe not to your advantage, but certainly to ours. Is that going away as the reserve currency, the universally accepted currency? How have sanctions, do you think, changed the dollar’s place in the world?

Vladimir Putin: You know, to use the dollar as a tool of foreign policy struggle is one of the biggest strategic mistakes made by the US political leadership. The dollar is the cornerstone of the United States’ power. I think everyone understands very well that, no matter how many dollars are printed, they are quickly dispersed all over the world. Inflation in the United States is minimal. It is about 3 or 3.4 per cent, which is, I think, totally acceptable for the US. But they won’t stop printing. What does the debt of 33 trillion dollars tell us about? It is about the emission.

Nevertheless, it is the main weapon used by the United States to preserve its power across the world. As soon as the political leadership decided to use the US dollar as a tool of political struggle, a blow was dealt to this American power. I would not like to use any strong language, but it is a stupid thing to do, and a grave mistake.

Look at what is going on in the world. Even the United States’ allies are now downsizing their dollar reserves. Seeing this, everyone starts looking for ways to protect themselves. But the fact that the United States applies restrictive measures to certain countries, such as placing restrictions on transactions, freezing assets, etc., causes grave concern and sends a signal to the whole world.

What did we have here? Until 2022, about 80 per cent of Russia’s foreign trade transactions were made in US dollars and euros. US dollars accounted for approximately 50 per cent of our transactions with third countries, while currently it is down to 13 per cent. It was not us who banned the use of the US dollar, we had no such intention. It was the decision of the United States to restrict our transactions in US dollars. I think it is a complete foolishness from the point of view of the interests of the United States itself and its tax payers, as it damages the US economy, undermines the power of the United States across the world.

By the way, our transactions in Yuan accounted for about 3 per cent. Today, 34 per cent of our transactions are made in Rubles, and about as much, a little over 34 per cent, in Yuan.

Why did the United States do this? My only guess is self-conceit. They probably thought it would lead to a full collapse, but nothing collapsed. Moreover, other countries, including oil producers, are thinking of and already accepting payments for oil in yuan. Do you even realize what is going on or not? Does anyone in the United States realize this? What are you doing? You are cutting yourself off… all experts say this. Ask any intelligent and thinking person in the United States what the dollar means for the US? You are killing it with your own hands.

Tucker Carlson: I think that is a fair assessment. The question is what comes next? And maybe you trade one colonial power for another, much less sentimental and forgiving colonial power? Is the BRICS, for example, in danger of being completely dominated by the Chinese economy? In a way that is not good for their sovereignty. Do you worry about that?

Vladimir Putin: We have heard those boogeyman stories before. It is a boogeyman story. We are neighbours with China. You cannot choose neighbours, just as you cannot choose close relatives. We share a border of 1000 kilometers with them. This is number one.

Second, we have a centuries-long history of coexistence, we are used to it.

Third, China’s foreign policy philosophy is not aggressive, its idea is to always look for compromise, and we can see that.

The next point is as follows. We are always told the same boogeyman story, and here it goes again, though in a euphemistic form, but it is still the same bogeyman story: the cooperation with China keeps increasing. The pace at which China’s cooperation with Europe is growing is higher and greater than that of the growth of Chinese-Russian cooperation. Ask Europeans: aren’t they afraid? They might be, I do not know, but they are still trying to access China’s market at all costs, especially now that they are facing economic problems. Chinese businesses are also exploring the European market.

Do Chinese businesses have small presence in the United States? Yes, the political decisions are such that they are trying to limit their cooperation with China.

It is to your own detriment, Mr Tucker, that you are limiting cooperation with China, you are hurting yourself. It is a delicate matter, and there are no silver bullet solutions, just as it is with the dollar.

So, before introducing any illegitimate sanctions — illegitimate in terms of the Charter of the United Nations — one should think very carefully. For decision-makers, this appears to be a problem.

Tucker Carlson: So, you said a moment ago that the world would be a lot better if it were not broken into competing alliances, if there was cooperation globally. One of the reasons you don’t have that is because the current American administration is dead set against you. Do you think if there was a new administration after Joe Biden that you would be able to re-establish communication with the US government? Or does it not matter who the President is?

Vladimir Putin: I will tell you. But let me finish the previous thought. We, together with my colleague and friend President Xi Jinping, set a goal to reach 200 billion dollars of mutual trade with China this year. We have exceeded this level. According to our figures, our bilateral trade with China totals already 230 billion, and the Chinese statistics says it is 240 billion dollars.

One more important thing: our trade is well-balanced, mutually complementary in high-tech, energy, scientific research and development. It is very balanced.

As for BRICS, where Russia took over the presidency this year, the BRICS countries are, by and large, developing very rapidly.

Look, if memory serves me right, back in 1992, the share of the G7 countries in the world economy amounted to 47 per cent, whereas in 2022 it was down to, I think, a little over 30 per cent. The BRICS countries accounted for only 16 per cent in 1992, but now their share is greater than that of the G7. It has nothing to do with the events in Ukraine. This is due to the trends of global development and world economy that I mentioned just now, and this is inevitable. This will keep happening, it is like the rise of the sun — you cannot prevent the sun from rising, you have to adapt to it. How do the United States adapt? With the help of force: sanctions, pressure, bombings, and use of armed forces.

This is about self-conceit. Your political establishment does not understand that the world is changing (under objective circumstances), and in order to preserve your level — even if someone aspires, pardon me, to the level of dominance — you have to make the right decisions in a competent and timely manner.

Such brutal actions, including with regard to Russia and, say, other countries, are counterproductive. This is an obvious fact; it has already become evident.

You just asked me if another leader comes and changes something. It is not about the leader, it is not about the personality of a particular person. I had a very good relationship with, say, Bush. I know that in the United States he was portrayed as some kind of a country boy who does not understand much. I assure you that is not the case. I think he made a lot of mistakes with regard to Russia, too. I told you about 2008 and the decision in Bucharest to open the NATO’s doors to for Ukraine and so on. That happened during his presidency. He actually exercised pressure on the Europeans.

But in general, on a personal human level, I had a very good relationship with him. He was no worse than any other American, or Russian, or European politician. I assure you, he understood what he was doing as well as others. I had such personal relationships with Trump as well.

It is not about the personality of the leader, it is about the elites’ mindset. If the idea of domination at any cost, based also on forceful actions, dominates the American society, nothing will change, it will only get worse. But if, in the end, one comes to the awareness that the world has been changing due to objective circumstances, and that one should be able to adapt to them in time, using the advantages that the U.S. still has today, then, perhaps, something may change.

Look, China’s economy has become the first economy in the world in purchasing power parity; in terms of volume it overtook the US a long time ago. The USA comes second, then India (one and a half billion people), and then Japan, with Russia in the fifth place. Russia was the first economy in Europe last year, despite all the sanctions and restrictions. Is this normal, from your point of view: sanctions, restrictions, impossibility of payments in dollars, being cut off from SWIFT services, sanctions against our ships carrying oil, sanctions against airplanes, sanctions in everything, everywhere? The largest number of sanctions in the world which are applied – are applied against Russia. And we have become Europe’s first economy during this time.

The tools that the US uses don’t work. Well, one has to think about what to do. If this realization comes to the ruling elites, then yes, then the first person of the state will act in anticipation of what the voters and the people who make decisions at various levels expect from this person. Then maybe something will change.

Tucker Carlson: But you are describing two different systems. You say that the leader acts in the interests of the voters, but you also say that these decisions are not made by the leader – they are made by the ruling classes. You have run this country for so long, you have known all these American presidents. What are those power centers in the United States, do you think? And who actually makes the decisions?

Vladimir Putin: I don’t know. America is a complex country, conservative on the one hand, rapidly changing on the other. It’s not easy for us to sort it all out.

Who makes decisions in the elections – is it possible to understand this, when each state has its own legislation, each state regulates itself, someone can be excluded from the elections at the state level. It is a two-stage electoral system, it is very difficult for us to understand it.

Certainly there are two parties that are dominant, the Republicans and the Democrats, and within this party system, the centers that make decisions, that prepare decisions.

Then, look, why, in my opinion, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, such an erroneous, crude, completely unjustified policy of pressure was pursued against Russia? After all, this is a policy of pressure. NATO expansion, support for the separatists in the Caucasus, creation of a missile defense system – these are all elements of pressure. Pressure, pressure, pressure.

Then, dragging Ukraine into NATO is all about pressure, pressure, pressure. Why? I think, among other things, because excessive production capacities were created. During the confrontation with the Soviet Union, there were many centers created and specialists on the Soviet Union, who could not do anything else. It seemed to them, they convinced the political leadership: it is necessary to continue ”chiseling“ Russia, to try to break it up, to create on this territory several quasi-state entities and to subdue them in a divided form, to use their combined potential for the future struggle with China. This is a mistake, including the excessive potential of those who worked for the confrontation with the Soviet Union. It is necessary to get rid of this, there should be new, fresh forces, people who look into the future and understand what is happening in the world.

Look at how Indonesia is developing? 600 million people. Where can we get away from that? Nowhere, we just have to assume that Indonesia will enter (it is already in) the club of the world’s leading economies, no matter who likes or dislikes it.

Yes, we understand and are aware that in the United States, despite all the economic problems, the situation is still normal with the economy growing decently, the GDP is growing by 2.5 percent, if I am not mistaken.

But if we want to ensure the future, then we need to change our approach to what is changing. As I already said, the world would nevertheless change regardless of how the developments in Ukraine end. The world is changing. In the United States themselves, experts write that the United States are nonetheless gradually changing their position in the world, it is your experts who write that, I just read them. The only question is how this would happen – painfully and quickly or gently and gradually. And this is written by people who are not anti-American; they simply follow global development trends. That’s it.

And in order to assess them and change policies, we need people who think, look forward, can analyze and recommend certain decisions at the level of political leaders.

Tucker Carlson: I just have to ask. You have said clearly that NATO expansion eastward is a violation of the promise you were all made in the 1990s. It is a threat to your country. Right before you sent troops into Ukraine the Vice-President of the United States spoke at the Security Conference and encouraged the President of Ukraine to join NATO. Do you think that was an effort to provoke you into military action?

Vladimir Putin: I repeat once again, we have repeatedly, repeatedly proposed to seek a solution to the problems that arose in Ukraine after the 2014 coup d’etat through peaceful means. But no one listened to us. And moreover, the Ukrainian leaders who were under the complete US control, suddenly declared that they would not comply with the Minsk agreements, they disliked everything there, and continued military activity in that territory.

And in parallel, that territory was being exploited by NATO military structures under the guise of various personnel training and retraining centers. They essentially began to create bases there. That’s all.

Ukraine announced that the Russians were (a law was adopted) a non-titular nationality, while passing laws that limit the rights of non-titular nationalities in Ukraine. Ukraine, having received all these southeastern territories as a gift from the Russian people, suddenly announced that the Russians were a non-titular nationality in that territory. Is it normal? All this put together led to the decision to end the war that neo-Nazis started in Ukraine in 2014.

Tucker Carlson: Do you think Zelensky has the freedom to negotiate the settlement to this conflict?

Vladimir Putin: I don’t know the details, of course it’s difficult for me to judge, but I believe he has, in any case, he used to have. His father fought against the fascists, Nazis during World War II, I once talked to him about this. I said: “Volodya, what are you doing? Why are you supporting neo-Nazis in Ukraine today, while your father fought against fascism? He was a front-line soldier.” I will not tell you what he answered, this is a separate topic, and I think it’s incorrect for me to do so.

But as to the freedom of choice – why not? He came to power on the expectations of Ukrainian people that he would lead Ukraine to peace. He talked about this, it was thanks to this that he won the election overwhelmingly. But then, when he came to power, in my opinion, he realized two things: firstly, it is better not to clash with neo-Nazis and nationalists, because they are aggressive and very active, you can expect anything from them, and secondly, the US-led West supports them and will always support those who antagonize with Russia – it is beneficial and safe. So he took the relevant position, despite promising his people to end the war in Ukraine. He deceived his voters.

Tucker Carlson: But do you think at this point – as of February 2024 – he has the latitude, the freedom to speak with you or government directly, which would clearly help his country or the world? Can he do that, do you think?

Vladimir Putin: Why not? He considers himself head of state, he won the elections. Although we believe in Russia that the coup d’etat is the primary source of power for everything that happened after 2014, and in this sense, even today’s government is flawed. But he considers himself the president, and he is recognized by the United States, all of Europe and practically the rest of the world in such a capacity – why not? He can.

We negotiated with Ukraine in Istanbul, we agreed, he was aware of this. Moreover, the negotiation group leader, Mr. Arakhamia is his last name, I believe, still heads the faction of the ruling party, the party of the President in the Rada. He still heads the Presidential faction in the Rada, the country’s parliament, he still sits there. He even put his preliminary signature on the document I am telling you about. But then he publicly stated to the whole world: “We were ready to sign this document, but Mr. Johnson, then the Prime Minister of Great Britain, came and dissuaded us from doing this saying it was better to fight Russia. They would give everything needed for us to return what was lost during the clashes with Russia. And we agreed with this proposal.“ Look, his statement has been published. He said this publicly.

Can they return to this or not? The question is: do they want it or not?

Further on, President of Ukraine issued a decree prohibiting negotiations with us. Let him cancel that decree and that’s it. We have never refused negotiations indeed. We hear all the time: is Russia ready? Yes, we have not refused! It was them who publicly refused. Well, let him cancel his decree and enter into negotiations. We have never refused.

And the fact that they obeyed the demand or persuasion of Mr. Johnson, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain, seems ridiculous and very sad to me. Because, as Mr. Arakhamia put it: “We could have stopped these hostilities, this war a year and a half ago already. But the British persuaded us, and we refused this.” Where is Mr. Johnson now? And the war continues.

Tucker Carlson: That is a good question. Why did he do that?

Vladimir Putin: Hell knows. I don’t understand it myself. There was a general starting point. For some reason, everyone had the illusion that Russia could be defeated on the battlefield. Because of arrogance, because of a pure heart, but not because of a great mind.

Tucker Carlson: You have described the connection between Russia and Ukraine; you have described Russia itself, a couple of times as Orthodox – that is central to your understanding of Russia. What does that mean for you? You are a Cristian leader by your own description. So what effect does that have on you?

Vladimir Putin: You know, as I already mentioned, in 988 Prince Vladimir himself was baptized following the example of his grandmother, Princess Olga, and then he baptized his squad, and then gradually, over the course of several years, he baptized all the Rus. It was a lengthy process – from pagans to Christians, it took many years. But in the end, this Orthodoxy, Eastern Christianity, deeply rooted itself in the consciousness of the Russian people.

When Russia expanded and absorbed other nations who profess Islam, Buddhism and Judaism, Russia has always been very loyal to those people who profess other religions. This is her strength. This is absolutely clear.

And the fact is that the main postulates, main values are very similar, not to say the same, in all world religions I’ve just mentioned and which are the traditional religions of the Russian Federation, Russia. By the way, Russian authorities were always very careful about the culture and religion of those peoples who came into the Russian Empire. This, in my opinion, forms the basis of both security and stability of the Russian statehood – all the peoples inhabiting Russia basically consider it their Motherland.

If, say, people move over to you or to Europe from Latin America – an even clearer and more understandable example – people come, but yet they have come to you or to European countries from their historical homeland. And people who profess different religions in Russia consider Russia their Motherland, they have no other Motherland. We are together, this is one big family. And our traditional values are very similar. I’ve just mentioned one big family, but everyone has his/hers own family, and this is the basis of our society. And if we say that the Motherland and the family are specifically connected with each other, it is indeed the case, since it is impossible to ensure a normal future for our children and our families unless we ensure a normal, sustainable future for the entire country, for the Motherland. That is why patriotic sentiment is so strong in Russia.

Tucker Carlson: Can I say, the one way in which religions are different is that Christianity is specifically a non-violent religion. Jesus says “Turn the other cheek, don’t kill”. How can a leader who has to kill, of any country, how can a leader be a Christian? How do you reconcile that to yourself?

Vladimir Putin: It is very easy: when it comes to protecting oneself and one’s family, one’s homeland. We won’t attack anyone.

When did the developments in Ukraine start? Since the coup d’etat and the hostilities in Donbass began, that’s when they started. And we are protecting our people, ourselves, our homeland and our future.

As for religion in general.

You know, it’s not about external manifestations, it’s not about going to church every day or banging your head on the floor. It is in the heart. And our culture is so human-oriented. Dostoevsky, who is very well known in the West as the genius of Russian culture, Russian literature, spoke a lot about this, about the Russian soul.

After all, Western society is more pragmatic. Russian people think more about the eternal, about moral values. I don’t know, maybe you won’t agree with me, but Western culture is more pragmatic after all.

I’m not saying this is bad, it makes it possible for today’s “golden billion” to achieve good success in production, even in science, and so on. There’s nothing wrong with that, I’m just saying that we kind of look the same, but our minds are built a little differently.

Tucker Carlson: So do you see the supernatural at work? As you look out across what’s happening in the world now, do you see God at work? Do you ever think to yourself: these are forces that are not human?

Vladimir Putin: No, to be honest, I don’t think so. My opinion is that the development of the world community is in accordance with the inherent laws, and those laws are what they are. It’s always been this way in the history of mankind. Some nations and countries rose, became stronger and more numerous, and then left the international stage, losing the status they had accustomed to. There is probably no need for me to give examples, but we could start with Genghis Khan and the Horde conquerors, the Golden Horde, and then end with the Roman Empire.

It seems that there has never been anything like the Roman Empire in the history of mankind. Nevertheless, the potential of the barbarians gradually grew, as did their population. In general, the barbarians were getting stronger and began to develop economically, as we would say today. This eventually led to the collapse of the Roman Empire and the regime imposed by the Romans. However, it took five centuries for the Roman Empire to fall apart. The difference with what is happening now is that all the processes of change are happening at a much faster pace than in Roman times.

Tucker Carlson: So when does the AI empire start do you think?

Vladimir Putin: (Laughing) You are asking increasingly more complicated questions. To answer them, you need to be an expert in big numbers, big data and AI.

Mankind is currently facing many threats. Due to genetic researches, it is now possible to create a superhuman, a specialized human being – a genetically engineered athlete, scientist, military man.

There are reports that Elon Musk has already had a chip implanted in the human brain in the USA.

Tucker Carlson: What do you think of that?

Vladimir Putin: Well, I think there’s no stopping Elon Musk, he will do as he sees fit. Nevertheless, you need to find some common ground with him, search for ways to persuade him. I think he’s a smart person, I truly believe he is. So you need to reach an agreement with him because this process needs to be formalized and subjected to certain rules.

Humanity has to consider what is going to happen due to the newest developments in genetics or in AI. One can make an approximate prediction of what will happen. Once mankind felt an existential threat coming from nuclear weapons, all nuclear nations began to come to terms with one another since they realized that negligent use of nuclear weaponry could drive humanity to extinction.

It is impossible to stop research in genetics or AI today, just as it was impossible to stop the use of gunpowder back in the day. But as soon as we realize that the threat comes from unbridled and uncontrolled development of AI, or genetics, or any other fields, the time will come to reach an international agreement on how to regulate these things.

Tucker Carlson: I appreciate all the time you’ve given us. I just want to ask you one last question and it’s about someone who is very famous in the United States, probably not here. Evan Gershkovich who is the Wall Street Journal reporter, he is 32 and he’s been in prison for almost a year. This is a huge story in the United States and I just want to ask you directly without getting into details of your version of what happened, if as a sign of your decency you’ll be willing to release him to us and we’ll bring him back to the United States?

Vladimir Putin: We have done so many gestures of goodwill out of decency that I think we have run out of them. We have never seen anyone reciprocate to us in a similar manner. However, in theory, we can say that we do not rule out that we can do that if our partners take reciprocal steps.

When I talk about the “partners”, I, first of all, refer to special services. Special services are in contact with one another, they are talking about the matter in question. There is no taboo to settle the issue. We are willing to solve it, but there are certain terms being discussed via special services channels. I believe an agreement can be reached.

Tucker Carlson: So, typically, I mean, this stuff has happened for, obviously, centuries. One country catches other spy within its borders and trades it for one of its own intel guys in other country. I think what makes it, and it’s not my business, but what makes it different is that this guy is obviously not a spy, he is a kid and maybe he was breaking a law in some way but he is not a superspy and everybody knows that and he has been held hostage and exchange, which is true, with respect, it’s true and everyone knows it’s true. So maybe he is in a different category, maybe it’s not fair to ask for somebody else in exchange for letting him out. Maybe it degrades Russia to do that.

Vladimir Putin: You know, you can give different interpretations to what constitutes a “spy”, but there are certain things provided by law. If a person gets secret information, and does that in a conspiratorial manner, then this is qualified as espionage. And that is exactly what he was doing. He was receiving classified, confidential information, and he did it covertly. Maybe he had been implicated in that, someone could have dragged him into that, maybe he did that out of carelessness, or on his own initiative. Considering the sheer facts, this is qualified as espionage. The fact has been proven, as he was caught red-handed when he was receiving this information. If it had been some far-fetched excuse, some fabrication, something not proven, it would have been a different story then. But he was caught red-handed when he was secretly getting confidential information. What is it, then?

Tucker Carlson: But are you suggesting he was working for the US government or NATO? Or he was just a reporter who was given material he wasn’t supposed to have? Those seem like very different, very different things.

Vladimir Putin: I don’t know who he was working for. But I would like to reiterate that getting classified information in secret is called espionage, and he was working for the U.S. special services, some other agencies. I don’t think that he was working for Monaco, as Monaco is hardly interested in getting that information. It is up to the special services to come to an agreement. Some groundwork has been laid. There are people who, in our view, are not connected with special services.

Let me tell you a story about a person serving a sentence in an allied country of the U.S. That person, due to patriotic sentiments, eliminated a bandit in one of the European capitals. During the events in the Caucasus, do you know what he [bandit] was doing? I don’t want to say that, but I will do it anyway. He was laying our soldiers, taken prisoner, on the road and then he drove his car over their heads. What kind of a person is that? Can he be even called a human? But there was a patriot who eliminated him in one of the European capitals. Whether he did that of his own volition or not, that is a different question.

Tucker Carlson: Evan Gershkovich, that’s a completely different, I mean, this is a thirty-two year old newspaper reporter.

Vladimir Putin: He committed something different.

Tucker Carlson: He is just a journalist

Vladimir Putin: He is not just a journalist, I reiterate, he is a journalist who was secretly getting confidential information.

Yes, it is different, but still, I am talking about other people who are essentially controlled by the U.S. authorities wherever they are serving a sentence. There is an ongoing dialogue between the special services. This has to be resolved in a calm, responsible and professional manner. They are keeping in touch, so let them do their work.

I do not rule out that the person you referred to, Mister Gershkovich, may return to his motherland. By the end of the day, it does not make any sense to keep him in prison in Russia. We want the U.S. special services to think about how they can contribute to achieving the goals our special services are pursuing. We are ready to talk. Moreover, the talks are underway, and there have been many successful examples of these talks crowned with success. Probably this is going to be crowned with success as well, but we have to come to an agreement.

Tucker Carlson: I hope you’ll let him out. Mister President, thank you!

Vladimir Putin: I also want him to return to his homeland at last. I am absolutely sincere. But let me say once again, the dialogue continues. The more public we render things of this nature, the more difficult it becomes to resolve them. Everything has to be done in a calm manner.

Tucker Carlson: I wonder if that’s true with the war though also, I mean, I guess I want to ask one more question which is, and maybe you don’t want to say so for strategic reasons, but are you worried that what’s happening in Ukraine could lead to something much larger and much more horrible and how motivated are you just to call the US government and say “let’s come to terms”?

Vladimir Putin: I already said that we did not refuse to talk. We are willing to negotiate. It is the Western side, and Ukraine is obviously a satellite state of the U.S. It is evident. I do not want you to take it as if I am looking for a strong word or an insult, but we both understand what is happening.

The financial support, 72 billion U.S. dollars, was provided. Germany ranks second, then other European countries come. Dozens of billions of U.S. dollars are go to Ukraine. There is a huge influx of weapons.

In this case you should tell the current Ukrainian leadership to stop and come to the negotiating table, rescind this absurd decree. We did not refuse.

Tucker Carlson: Well, sure, you have already said it — I didn’t think you meant it as an insult — because you have already said, correctly, it’s been reported that Ukraine was prevented from negotiating peace settlement by the former British prime-minister acting on behalf of the Biden administration. Of course, it’s our satellite, big countries control small countries, that’s not new. And that is why I asked about dealing directly with the Biden administration, which is making these decisions, not president Zelensky of Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin: Well, if the Zelensky administration in Ukraine refused to negotiate, I assume that they did it under the instruction from Washington. If Washington believes it to be the wrong decision, let it abandon it, let it find a delicate excuse so that no one is insulted, let it come up with a way out. It was not us who made this decision, it was them, so let them go back on it. That is it.

However, they made the wrong decision and now we have to look for a way out of this situation, to correct their mistakes. They did it so let them correct it themselves. We support this.

Tucker Carlson: So, I just want to make sure I am not misunderstanding what you are saying — and I don’t think that I am — I think you are saying you want a negotiated settlement to what’s happening in Ukraine.

Vladimir Putin: Right. And we made it, we prepared a huge document in Istanbul that was initialed by the head of the Ukrainian delegation. He affixed his signature to some of the provisions, not to all of it. He put his signature and then he himself said: “We were ready to sign it and the war would have been over long ago, eighteen months ago. However, Prime Minister Johnson came, talked us out of it and we missed that chance.” Well, you missed it, you made a mistake, let them get back to that, that is all. Why do we have to bother ourselves and correct somebody else’s mistakes?

I know one can say it is our mistake, it was us who intensified the situation and decided to put an end to the war that started in 2014 in Donbas, as I have already said, by means of weapons. Let me get back to further in history, I already told you this, we were just discussing it. Let us go back to 1991 when we were promised that NATO would not be expanded, to 2008 when the doors to NATO opened, to the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine declaring Ukraine a neutral state. Let us go back to the fact that NATO and US military bases started to appear on the territory of Ukraine creating threats for us. Let us go back to coup d’état in Ukraine in 2014. It is pointless though, isn’t it? We may go back and forth endlessly. But they stopped negotiations. Is it a mistake? Yes. Correct it. We are ready. What else is needed?

Tucker Carlson: Do you think it is too humiliating at this point for NATO to accept Russian control of what was two years ago Ukrainian territory?

Vladimir Putin: I said let them think how to do it with dignity. There are options if there is a will.

Up until now there has been the uproar and screaming about inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia on the battlefield. Now they are apparently coming to realize that it is difficult to achieve, if possible at all. In my opinion, it is impossible by definition, it is never going to happen. It seems to me that now those who are in power in the West have come to realize this as well. If so, if the realization has set in, they have to think what to do next. We are ready for this dialogue.

Tucker Carlson: Would you be willing to say, ”Congratulations, NATO, you won?“ And just keep the situation where it is now?

Vladimir Putin: You know, it is a subject matter for the negotiations no one is willing to conduct or, to put it more accurately, they are willing but do not know how to do it. I know they want. It is not just I see it but I know they do want it but they are struggling to understand how to do it. They have driven the situation to the point where we are at. It is not us who have done that, it is our partners, opponents who have done that. Well, now let them think how to reverse the situation. We are not against it.

It would be funny if it were not so sad. This endless mobilization in Ukraine, the hysteria, the domestic problems – sooner or later it all will result in an agreement. You know, this will probably sound strange given the current situation but the relations between the two peoples will be rebuilt anyway. It will take a lot of time but they will heal.

I will give you very unusual examples. There is a combat encounter on the battlefield, here is a specific example: Ukrainian soldiers got encircled (this is an example from real life), our soldiers were shouting to them: “There is no chance! Surrender yourselves! Come out and you will be alive!” Suddenly the Ukrainian soldiers were screaming from there in Russian, perfect Russian, saying: “Russians do not surrender!” and all of them perished. They still identify themselves as Russian.

What is happening is, to a certain extent, an element of a civil war. Everyone in the West thinks that the Russian people have been split by hostilities forever. No. They will be reunited. The unity is still there.

Why are the Ukranian authorities dismantling the Ukranian Orthodox Church? Because it brings together not only the territory, it brings together our souls. No one will be able to separate the soul.

Shall we end here or there is anything else?

Tucker Carlson: Thank you, Mr. President.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This Week’s Most Popular Articles

February 9th, 2024 by Global Research News

Brzezinski’s Barbaric Dream. The Israeli-Gaza Conflict Is the Beginning of a Broader War, “Spreading Towards Iran”: Dr. Paul C. Roberts

Carla Stea, February 3, 2024

Mask Wearer Versus Non-Mask Wearer. Why Most People Couldn’t See the Lies?

Mark Keenan, February 5, 2024

“Nuclear High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse”: The United States Has Zero National Security

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts, February 7, 2024

Onset Mania and Psychosis Post-Bivalent mRNA COVID-19 Booster Vaccination

Dr. William Makis, February 2, 2024

Ten Reasons to Throw Green Politics in the Bin

Mark Keenan, February 4, 2024

“Fake Justice” at The Hague: The ICJ “Appoints” Netanyahu to “Prevent” and “Punish” Those Responsible for “Genocidal Acts”

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 4, 2024

A “False Flag” Operation to Justify the Israel-U.S. Genocide Against the People of Palestine

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 9, 2024

Trudeau and Biden Advisors Pushed COVID-19 Vaccines and Vaccine Mandates While Their Loved Ones “Died Suddenly”

Dr. William Makis, February 5, 2024

British Journalist Who Attacked World #1 Tennis Player Novak Djokovic for Being Unvaccinated, Died Suddenly During Australian Open

Dr. William Makis, February 2, 2024

Israel’s Starvation Strategy

Mike Whitney, February 2, 2024

Pathologist Arne Burkhardt Revealing the Grave Dangers of MRNA Vaccines

Dr. Arne Burkhardt, February 6, 2024

The Hegemonic UN-WEF-NATO Triad: U.N. “Sustainable Development” (SDG 2030) = Endless Wars, Poverty and Famine Worldwide

Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 5, 2024

Texas Border Conflict: Programmed Civil War, Martial Law? Suspended November 2024 US Presidential Elections?

Peter Koenig, January 31, 2024

The Marriage Between Zionism and Imperialism

Marc Vandepitte, February 5, 2024

What Is a Jew, a Zionist, Zionist Propaganda, “Israelism”, Truth About the ICJ Ruling

Irwin Jerome, February 5, 2024

The Military Routinely Disperses Aluminum-Coated Fiberglass into the Air

By Dr. Joseph Mercola, February 08, 2024

In addition to the weather modification going on around the world, militaries around the world are also routinely dispersing tiny bits of aluminum-coated fiberglass and plastic — known as “chaff” — into the air column, to shield aircraft and ships from enemy radar. Not surprisingly, this has been done for decades, without clear evidence that it’s safe for humans and the environment.

Couples Who Take COVID mRNA Boosters Together Had Stroke and Cardiac Arrest

By Dr. William Makis, February 08, 2024

This tragic story of Jennifer and Rob is unique, because we have confirmation that Jennifer and Rob took the Moderna COVID-19 mRNA booster shots together. If they had a bad vaccine batch, a “hot lot”, both of them would have been developing internal damage.

Bankruptcy in Second Largest British Municipality Indicative of Broader European Crisis

By Abayomi Azikiwe, February 08, 2024

These developments in Birmingham are reflective of the vast socio-economic problems impacting the working class and poor in Britain. During 2023, a series of large-scale strikes by trade unions in the transportation, healthcare, education, civil service and other sectors of the labor force revealed the level of discontent among millions of the people around the country.

Media Propaganda: Accusations Directed against Yemen’s Alleged Intent to Destroy Marine Internet Cables

By Al Mayadeen, February 08, 2024

Blackdot has recently examined the claim that Yemen’s Ansar Allah plans to cut off 99% of the world’s internet following the circulation of the news on different social media platforms, and eventually refuted it and confirmed its falsity.

Political West Wants to Sanction Tucker Carlson Over Putin Interview

By Drago Bosnic, February 08, 2024

When Tucker Carlson was fired by Fox News back in April last year (for doing his job, mind you), it seemed as if the last vestiges of press freedom in the United States were destroyed. And that’s certainly true when it comes to corporate media.

Why Burn Books When You Can Bury Them? The White House Pressured Amazon to Target Dissenting Books

By Jonathan Turley, February 08, 2024

The House Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government on Monday revealed yet another facet of the Biden Administration’s sprawling censorship system that targeted dissenting books. It appears that, as with social media companies, it succeeded in getting the company not to promote disfavored books.

Biden Needs a Miraculous “Hail Mary” Pass to Win the 2024 Elections

By Steven Sahiounie, February 08, 2024

US President Joe Biden is facing the most difficult election campaign of his life. His opponent, former President Donald Trump is leading in the polls, and most analysts expect that Trump will win in November 2024 by a landslide against Biden.  

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

[This article was originally published in December 2023.]

As the Israeli attack on Gaza, Lebanon and Syria intensifies, the U.S. public watch on aghast. A new poll finds that Americans support a permanent ceasefire by a more than 2:1 ratio (including the vast majority of Democrats and a plurality of Republicans).

And yet, despite this, only 4% of elected members of the House support even a temporary ceasefire, and the United States continues to veto U.N. resolutions working towards ending the violence. Walter Hixson, a historian concentrating on U.S. foreign relations, told MintPress News:

Unfettered support for Israel and the lobby consistently puts the United States at odds with international human rights organizations and the vast majority of nations over Israel’s war crimes and blatant violations of international law. The current U.N. vote on a ceasefire in Gaza [which the U.S. vetoed] is just the latest example.”

Here, Hixson is referring to the pro-Israel lobby, a loose connection of influential groups that spend millions on pressure campaigns, outreach programs, and donations to American politicians, all with one goal in mind: making sure the United States supports the Israeli government’s policies full stop, including backing Israeli expansion, blocking Palestinian statehood and opposing a growing boycott divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) at home.

Internationally, Israel has lost virtually all its support. But it still has one major backer: the United States government. Part of this is undoubtedly down to the extraordinary lengths the lobby goes to secure backing, including showering U.S. politicians with millions of dollars in contributions. In this investigation, MintPress News breaks down the top ten currently serving politicians who have taken the most pro-Israel cash since 1990.

#1 Joe Biden, $4,346,264

The largest recipient of Israel lobby money is President Joe Biden. From the beginning of his political career, Biden, according to his biographer Branko Marcetic, “established himself as an implacable friend of Israel,” spending his Senate career “showering Israel with unquestioning support, even when its behavior elicited bipartisan outrage.” The future president was a key figure in securing record sums of U.S. aid to the Jewish state and helped block a 1998 peace proposal with Palestine.

The support for Israeli policies has continued into the present, with his administration insisting that there are “no red lines” that it could cross that would cause it to lose American support. In essence, Biden has given Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a carte blanche to break any rules, norms or laws he wishes to.

This has included ethnic cleansing and war crimes such as the bombing of schools, hospitals and places of worship using banned weapons like white phosphorous munitions. The arms Israel is using come supplied directly by the U.S. In November, the Biden administration rubber-stamped another $14.5 billion military aid package to Israel, ensuring the carnage would continue.

For his staunch support, Biden has received more than $4.3 million from pro-Israel groups since 1990.

#2 Robert Menéndez, $2,483,205

The New Jersey senator has received nearly $2.5 million in contributions and, in the wake of the Hamas attack on October 7, has been a key figure in drumming up support for Israel. Describing Operation Al-Aqsa Flood as “barbaric atrocities” that were an “affront to humankind itself,” Menéndez gave an impassioned speech on the Senate floor where he addressed Biden directly, stating:

Mr. President, in the face of unspeakable evil, we must not mince words. We must not waver in our resolve. Every single one of us in this chamber has a moral responsibility to speak out — unequivocally and unapologetically — as we stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel and her people. I’ve been staunchly devoted to this cause for 31 years in Congress.”

He went on to claim that Israel and the United States are intrinsically linked and were founded on the same principles.

Menéndez also courted controversy after he demanded that the U.S. help Israel “wipe Hamas from the face of the Earth,” even as Israel was leveling Gaza by carpet bombing it.

In October, he co-sponsored a Senate resolution “standing with Israel against terrorism” that passed unanimously, without dissent.

#3 Mitch Mcconnell, $1,953,160

The Senate Minority Leader is one of the most powerful politicians in America and has used his influence to attempt to force through legislation criminalizing BDS. He has described the peaceful tactic as “an economic form of anti-Semitism that targets Israel.”

McConnell is known to be very close to Prime Minister Netanyahu and supported a bill condemning the United Nations and calling on the U.S. to continue to veto any U.N. resolution critical of Israel. Last month, he strongly opposed steps taken towards applying basic U.S. and international law on weapons shipments to Israel.

Under current U.S. law, Washington is duty-bound to stop supplying arms to nations committing serious human rights violations. McConnell, however, said that applying these standards to Israel would be “ridiculous,” explaining that:

Our relationship with Israel is the closest national security relationship we have with any country in the world, and to condition, in effect, our assistance to Israel to their meeting our standards it seems to me is totally unnecessary… This is a democracy, a great ally of ours, and I do not think we need to condition the support that hopefully we will give to Israel very soon.”

McConnell has received nearly $2 million from pro-Israel groups.

#4 Chuck Schumer, $1,725,324

Next on the list is McConnell’s Democratic opponent, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who had taken over $1.7 million from Israel lobbying groups. In recent weeks, Schumer has taken the lead in steering the public conversation away from Israel’s crimes and towards a supposed rise in anti-Semitism across America. “To us, the Jewish people, the rise in anti-semitism is a crisis. A five-alarm fire that must be extinguished,” the New York Senator said, adding that “Jewish-Americans are feeling singled out, targeted and isolated. In many ways, we feel alone.”

The idea that anti-Semitic hate is exploding across the United States comes largely from a report published by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), which claims that anti-Semitic incidents have risen by 337% since October 7. Buried in the small print, however, is the fact that 45% of these “anti-Semitic” incidents the ADL has tallied are pro-Palestine, pro-peace marches calling for ceasefires, including ones led by Jewish groups like If Not Now or Jewish Voice for Peace. (MintPress recently published an investigation into the ADL’s fudged numbers and its history of working for Israel and spying on progressive American groups.)

Schumer, however, has deliberately tried to conflate opposition to Israel’s bombardment of its neighbors with anti-Jewish racism, writing:

Today, too many Americans are exploiting arguments against Israel and leaping toward a virulent antisemitism. The normalization and intensifying of this rise in hate is the danger many Jewish people fear most.”

He has even gone so far as to label Dave Zirin – a Jewish journalist who supports justice for Palestinians – as an anti-Semite.

As Senate Majority Leader, Schumer has used his influence to push through military aid packages to Israel, even as it carries out actions many have labeled war crimes, writing that:

One of the most important tasks we must finish is taking up and passing a funding bill to ensure we, as well as our friends and partners in Ukraine, Israel, and the Indo-Pacific region, have the necessary military capabilities to confront and deter our adversaries and competitors.”

He added that “Senators should be prepared to stay in Washington until we finish our work” and that they should expect to work “long days and nights, and potentially weekends in December,” until the deal was done.

#5 Steny Hoyer, $1,620,294

The former House Majority Leader is one of Israel’s most vocal supporters in the House of Representatives. Hoyer has demanded that “Congress must immediately and unconditionally fund Israel,” thereby giving the Netanyahu administration the green light to do whatever it pleases.

An ardent Zionist, the Maryland native explained that he believes it is:

…[T]he world’s duty that set aside a land, a land that Israel has occupied for millennia, and said: this is your place of security, this is your place of sovereignty, this is your place of safety.”

Steven Hoyer

Hoyer speaks at the Jewish Community Relations Council’s Stand with Israel event on October 13, 2023. Photo | House.gov

Earlier this month, Hoyer also voted in favor of a bill stating that anti-Zionism is inherently anti-Semitic, thereby declaring all criticism of Israel to be invalid and racist.

Hoyer has received more than $1.6 million in donations from pro-Israel lobbying groups.

#6 Ted Cruz, $1,299,194

Over his career, the Texas Republican has received $1.3 million from the Israel lobby. After October 7, Cruz sprang into action, announcing that it was “critical” that every American supports Israel “100 percent.” “Israel is going to be demonized by Democrats in the current corrupt corporate media. We need to make clear that Hamas is using human shields and Israel has a right to defend itself,” Cruz said, hitting many of the classic pro-Israel talking points.

Cruz also went above and beyond in his defense of Israeli crimes in a bizarre interview with Breaking Points’ Ryan Grim. When asked if he opposes Israeli officials suggesting a nuclear attack on Gaza, Cruz replied:

I condemn nothing that the Israeli government is doing. The Israeli government does not target civilians; they target military targets… There is no military on the face of the planet, including the U.S. military, that goes to the lengths that the Israeli military goes to avoid civilian casualties.”

When confronted with statements from the IDF directly refuting his point, noting that their focus is on damage, not precision, Cruz flipped his answer around, replying, “Yes, damage to Hamas, to terrorists.” And when Grim gave him more statements from senior IDF officials explicitly contradicting his previous statement, Cruz retorted, “That’s simply not true. They are targeting the terrorists,” thereby defending the IDF even from itself.

#7 Ron Wyden, $1,279,376

Senator Ron Wyden (D—OR) has long been one of Israel’s staunchest advocates in Washington, supporting President Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and opposing BDS in all its forms.

In 2017, he co-sponsored a bill that made it a federal crime, punishable by a maximum prison sentence of 20 years, for Americans to participate in or even encourage boycotts against Israel and illegal Israeli settlements.

On the settlements, he was one of the most vigorous opponents of UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which describes them as a “flagrant violation” of international law.

For his troubles, Wyden has received $1,279,376 from pro-Israel groups.

#8 Dick Durbin, $1,126,020

In some ways, Dick Durbin owes his political career to the Israel lobby. In 1982, the then-obscure college professor benefitted enormously from AIPAC money to defeat incumbent Paul Findley, a strong proponent of the Palestinian people.

The Illinois Democrat has called for immediate military aid to Israel and co-signed a Senate resolution reaffirming Washington’s support for Israel’s “right to self-defense” in the wake of October 7.

Despite this, he has angered some in the pro-Israel crowd by supporting President Obama’s initiatives to reduce tensions with Iran and has now come out in favor of a ceasefire in Gaza.

#9 Josh Gottheimer, $1,109,370

Despite only being in office since 2017, Gottheimer has already received more than $1.1 million from pro-Israel lobbying groups. The New Jersey Congressman has served as a pro-Israeli attack dog in Washington, co-sponsoring the bill equating opposition to Israeli government policy with anti-Semitism and introducing legislation to block and criminalize boycotting the state of Israel.

In the wake of October 7, Gottheimer has attempted to cancel a number of public figures. Earlier this month, for instance, he tried to pressure Rutgers University into calling off an event on Palestine featuring former CNN anchor Marc Lamont Hill and organizer and journalist Nick Estes, both of whom support Palestinian rights and statehood.

Gottheimer has even caused rifts within his own party, attacking the small, progressive wing of Democrats who have failed to toe the line on Israel and Hamas. “Last night, 15 of my Democratic colleagues voted AGAINST standing with our ally Israel and condemning Hamas terrorists who brutally murdered, raped, and kidnapped babies, children, men, women, and elderly, including Americans. They are despicable and do not speak for our party,” he wrote, making a number of highly incendiary and questionable assertions.

#10 Shontel Brown, $1,028,686

Perhaps no other political case reveals the power of the Israel lobby than Shontel Brown. In 2021, Nina Turner, a democratic socialist, national co-chair of Bernie Sanders’ 2020 election campaign, and an outspoken advocate for justice in Palestine, ran for election in Ohio’s 11th congressional district. Her opponent was the little-known but strongly pro-Israel Brown.

Brown received more pro-Israel money than any other politician nationwide during that two-year election cycle, helping her overcome a double-digit polling deficit to defeat Turner. Over $1 million was spent plastering Cleveland with attack ads against Turner. In her acceptance speech, Brown praised Israel and later thanked the Jewish community for “help[ing] me get over the finish line”

Since then, she has supported Israeli actions in Gaza and rejected the idea of Israel as an apartheid state, writing:

Let’s be clear: Israel is not an apartheid state. Any mischaracterizations otherwise attempt to delegitimize Israel, a robust democracy, and will only serve to fuel rising antisemitism. I will always advocate for a strong U.S.-Israel relationship founded on our shared values.”

A Dark Force in US Politics

The most well-known and likely most influential group in the loose coalition referred to as the Israel lobby is AIPAC. With a staff of around 400 people and annual revenues that frequently top over $100 million, the organization is a huge, conservative force in American politics, flooding the system with gigantic amounts of money. Worse still, the group does not disclose the sources of its funding.

AIPAC’s stated goal is:

To make America’s friendship with Israel so robust, so certain, so broadly based, and so dependable that even the deep divisions of American politics can never imperil that relationship and the ability of the Jewish state to defend itself.”

Yet Israel is widely recognized by international bodies such as the United Nations and human rights groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch as an apartheid state. It has near total control over the Gaza Strip, which, even before the latest attack, was an “unlivable” “open-air prison.” It is this state and these injustices that AIPAC and others seek U.S. support for.

American intransigence on Israel has helped make it a pariah nation, one that constantly has to veto U.N. resolutions and has lost its voting rights at UNESCO.

Not only does it give more money to Republicans than Democrats, but AIPAC also floods conservative Democrats’ coffers with funds, especially when they are up against progressive, pro-Palestine challengers.

In 2022, it spent $2.3 million in a (failed) bid to stop leftist Summer Lee from being elected to Congress. However, it fared better in North Carolina, where $2 million was given to Valeria Foushee over Nida Allam, the director of Sanders’ 2016 campaign. Meanwhile, $1.2 million in donations to Henry Cuellar might have been the deciding factor in an extremely close win over progressive activist Jessica Cisneros in Texas’ 28th congressional district. And a number of prominent Michigan Democrats have come forward claiming that AIPAC offered them $20 million each to primary Rashida Tlaib, the only Palestinian-American in Congress.

“Certainly the lobby can influence elections, but it doesn’t win them all,” Hixson, the author of “Architects of Repression: How Israel and Its Lobby Put Racism, Violence and Injustice at the Center of US Middle East Policy,” said, adding:

It targets the aforementioned House progressives every two years but can’t always dictate the outcome of localized elections. They do better with broader canvasses; hence, no one in the Senate other than Bernie takes them on. When it comes to Israel, most American politicians are craven hypocrites.”

Yet Sanders’ recent refusal to endorse a permanent ceasefire (a position held by virtually the entire world) has earned him AIPAC’s praise.

Is the Tail Wagging the Dog?

As such, AIPAC acts as a bulwark against progressive political change. In such a divisive political environment, few political issues unite Democrats and Republicans, as well as Israel and shutting down anti-establishment figures. As Hixson told MintPress:

Other than a handful of progressives (Bernie Sanders, Rashida Tlaib, Ilhan Omar, etc.), the U.S. Congress invariably gives the lobby everything it wants, namely massive regular funding for Israeli militarism and an endless series of resolutions condemning Israel’s international foes and domestic critics.”

The question that arises from this is why? Why does Israel always seem to receive full support from Washington? Is the lobby really that effective? Why do so many U.S. politicians go along with it? Mazin Qumsiyeh, a professor at Bethlehem University, characterized Washington as full of amoral careerists, telling MintPress that:

They [Senators and Congresspersons] do not buy the Zionist argument. It is strictly personal interest: money and good media coverage and avoiding blackmail, as the Zionists have their dirty secrets which they could expose if they step out of line.”

Yet Israel also serves a vital purpose for the American empire. The region is not only geographically strategic but home to the world’s largest resources of hydrocarbons. Washington has always made it a top priority to control the flow of oil around the world, and Israel helps them do this. Militarily, Israel serves as a conduit the U.S. can work through, farming out its dirty work to Tel Aviv. It, therefore, represents an unofficial and beneficial “51st state.” As Joe Biden said in 1986 and has regularly repeated, Israel is the best investment the U.S. makes. “Were there not an Israel, the United States of America would have to invent an Israel to protect our interests in the region,” he added.

Many other nations or industries have lobbied in Washington, D.C. But few have proven to be as organized or effective as the pro-Israel one. Nevertheless, public opinion, particularly among young people, has begun to drift away from it. The Overton Window is shifting; Professor Qumsiyeh told MintPress. “When I first went to the U.S. in 1979, the average citizen did not know anything about Palestine or knew only a negative, distorted picture driven by Hollywood and biased media. Things [have] changed,” he said.

Things have indeed changed. The streets of America have been filled with demonstrations against Israeli aggression. Millions of Americans have participated in Palestine solidarity protests, including hundreds of thousands in Washington, D.C. alone. Celebrities have spoken out against injustice. And social media is filled with posts showing sympathy for Gazans. There, too, Israel and pro-Israel groups have attempted to use their financial clout to influence the conversation, but to limited effect.

Fortunately for Israel, for now, at least, they can still rely on the unwavering support of senior American politicians, their pockets filled with AIPAC money, turning the other way as Israel carries out another genocide against Palestine.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Alan MacLeod is Senior Staff Writer for MintPress News. After completing his PhD in 2017, he published two books, Bad News From Venezuela: Twenty Years of Fake News and Misreporting and Propaganda in the Information Age: Still Manufacturing Consent, as well as a number of academic articles. He has also contributed to FAIR.orgThe GuardianSalonThe GrayzoneJacobin Magazine, and Common Dreams.

Featured image: President Joe Biden participates in a restricted bilateral meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the Hotel Kempinski in Tel Aviv, Israel, Wednesday, October 18, 2023. (Official White House Photo by Cameron Smith)

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Donation Drive: Global Research Is Committed to the “Unspoken Truth”

***

Israel’s military onslaught has devastated built and natural environments in Gaza.

Palestinians continue to suffer in Israel’s brutal assault on Gaza – thousands killed and tens of thousands of others wounded.

One of the most intense bombing campaigns since World War II will leave not just a legacy of grief for Gaza’s people, but one of lasting physical damage to the environment.

Sanitation and water treatment systems have been destroyed.

Thousands of Israeli and Western-supplied bombs pollute the air and ground.

The war is leaving a new layer of toxic chemicals in Gaza’s soil, adding to those left behind after the many wars Israel has waged before.

Can Gaza recover?

Presenter: Adrian Finighan

Guests:

Nada Majdalani – Palestinian director of EcoPeace Middle East, an organisation that brings together Jordanian, Palestinian, and Israeli environmentalists

Marwan Bardawil – Head of Gaza Programme Coordination Unit of the Palestinian Water Authority 

Hadeel Ikhmais – Director general of the Climate Change Section of the Palestinian Authority’s Environment Quality Authority

Click here to watch the video

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

***

The Criminalization of International Law. Part I

“Fake Justice” at The Hague: The ICJ “Appoints” Netanyahu to “Prevent” and “Punish” Those Responsible for “Genocidal Acts”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 04, 2024

 .

Part II

.

The Criminalization of International Law

 

A “False Flag” Operation to Justify

 

The Israel-U.S. Genocide against the People of Palestine

.

by

Michel Chossudovsky

Introduction

From the outset on October 7, 2023, “A Tissue of Lies” has served to justify the killings in the Gaza Strip of more than 30,000 civilians, of which 70% are women and children. The atrocities committed against the People of Palestine are beyond description. At the time of writing, at least 13,000 children have been killed:

That is one Palestinian child killed every 15 minutes… Thousands more are missing under the rubble, most of them are presumed dead.”

 

Military operations are invariably planned well in advance.

Had  Hamas’ “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” been a “surprise attack” as parroted by the media, Netanyahu’s “State of Readiness For War” could not have been spontaneously carried out (at short notice) on that same day, namely October 7, 2023. The “State of Readiness” etiquette (revealed on October 7) points to a carefully prepared plan. 

It is now well established that Israel’s Operation “State of Readiness for War” which consisted in “Wiping Gaza Off the Map” was carefully coordinated with U.S. military and intelligence. It is part of a broader joint Israel-U.S. military agenda.

Washington not only supports the Genocide, it oversees the International Court of Justice (ICJ).

Although South Africa’s legal initiative was directed against the State of Israel, the conduct of the genocide is a joint Israel-U.S. project, with U.S. military and intelligence operatives collaborating directly with their Israeli counterparts. 

This collaboration is also supported by an extensive flow of military aid. 

The Criminalization of International Law 

What is at stake is the criminalization of the international judicial process. The ICJ not only refused to propose a “Cease Fire”, which was part of South Africa’s demand, its January 26, 2024 Judgment failed to question the role of the Netanyahu coalition government, which was largely responsible for the planning prior to October 7 of a comprehensive military agenda directed against Palestine, with the support of Washington.

Although the Republic of South Africa’s ICJ accusation was directed against the State of Israel, it is now confirmed, amply documented that the Genocide against the People of Palestine was a joint Israel-U.S. operation.

In this regard, the ICJ President Joan Donoghue — former Legal Advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the Obama administration– is in conflict of interest. The latter indelibly raises the issue of her Recusal.  (See:  Recusals of Arbitrators and Judges in International Courts and Tribunals, Chiara Giorgetti).

While Article 2 of the ICJ Statute (p.212) “provides that the court should be comprised of independent judges”, the practice of recusal of a judge, specifically with regard to the President of the ICJ is almost impossible. Nonetheless, the issue of “conflict of interest” must be raised. Judge Joan Donoghue takes her instructions from Washington.

“Escalate the Genocide”

The ICJ has granted Israel –with the full endorsement of the Biden Administration– with a de facto “green light” (carte blanche) to continue and “escalate the genocide”.

The ICJ’s January 26, 2024 Judgment has set in motion a new wave of atrocities directed against the People of Palestine. 

On that same day (January 26), Netanyahu confirmed that the genocide was ongoing and would continue.

“We will not compromise on anything less than total victory. That means eliminating Hamas, …” 

While rhetorical condemnations against Israel prevail, what the peace movement fails to acknowledge is that no legal obstruction or hindrance  was formulated  by the World Court in its January 26, 2024 Judgment.

The Occupied West Bank, Jewish Settlements in Gaza

Criminal acts are now being committed in the occupied West Bank, coupled with an increase in the deployment of IDF forces. 

In Gaza, IDF commanders have ordered soldiers to “Setting fire to homes belonging to non-combatant civilians, for the mere purpose of punishment”. 

Moreover, barely a few days after the January 26, ICJ Judgment, plans were announced to establish a cohesive network of Jewish settlements in Gaza.

Israel’s Plan: Mass Starvation

The Biden administration responding to Netanyahu has ordered to cut  funding to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which is indelibly slated to result in famine and the total collapse of social services:

UNRWA provides food, shelter, health care, education … for the 5.7 million UNRWA-registered Palestinian refugees in East Jerusalem, the West Bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.  

The curtailment of UNRWA funding is an integral part of the Netanyahu government’s carefully designed project to trigger mass starvation throughout the Gaza Strip. 

“Gaza is experiencing mass starvation like no other in recent history. Before the outbreak of fighting in October, food security in Gaza was precarious, but very few children – less than 1% – suffered severe acute malnutrition, the most dangerous kind. Today, almost all Gazans, of any age, anywhere in the territory, are at risk.

There is no instance since the second world war in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed. And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.” 

These facts underpinned South Africa’s recent case against Israel at the international court of justice. The international genocide convention, article 2c, prohibits “deliberately inflicting [on a group] conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”. (Guardian)

Documentation of the Atrocities Committed against the People of Palestine

The atrocities are carefully documented in Sarah Abushaar’s courageous video production entitled 

Video

“How much persecution and human cruelty Palestinians have suffered for generations — for the inalienable right to life.

Since israel’s establishment through the ethnic cleansing and massacre of Palestinians from Palestine — persisting in its massacre, mass expulsion, abduction, torture and terror of indigenous Palestinians.

The theft of land, life and human rights.

Israel’s unconscionable slaughter of 13,000 children, extermination of 30,000 civilians, destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system as it wounds 60,000 and mass starvation of 2.3 million, part of what it’s been committing on Palestinian life for decades – continuing its ongoing genocide now on hyperdrive.

Palestinians massacred and held hostage in the hundreds of thousands, terrorized in the millions under illegal siege, violent occupation and vicious apartheid. A person’s stance on Palestine says everything about their moral compass.

You are either for or against genocide. For or against ethnic cleansing. For or against violent illegal occupation and vicious apartheid.

For or against systems of supremacy – the persecution of human life.. the denial of millions of people their life, freedom, and fundamental human rights.

There is no middle ground. It’s not complicated. In the same way the Holocaust is not complicated. Slavery or Apartheid are not complicated.

But they persisted because of those who didn’t see.

There’s a horrific persecution and oppression that has lasted for 8 decades.

An oppressor and an oppressed. It’s impossible for human beings of conscience or morals to know the truth on Palestine and to uphold this for human life.

It goes against all law, morality and our very humanity.

What we condemn in history and in every other context, what’s been committed on Palestinian life for decades…

As with all systems built on human persecution and oppression, this will not survive. All the inhumanity in the world in this, Palestine is fighting for all of our humanity and for all the world’s justice.”

“Secret Memorandum” to Commit Genocide

While earlier documents –which might reveal the detailed planning of Israel’s genocidal attack on the Gaza Strip, including those negotiated with the U.S.– remain classified, An official “secret” memorandum authored by Israel’s Ministry of Intelligence was made public on October 13, 2023.

The authenticity and purpose of this report remain to be confirmed. It was released a week after October 7, 2023. It nonetheless confirms the military actions which are currently being implemented against the People of Palestine. Was it intended to be in the public domain? 

What the intelligence document recommends is:

“The forcible and permanent transfer of the Gaza Strip’s 2.2 million Palestinian residents to Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula”,

The 10-page document, dated Oct. 13, 2023 assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip …

“It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. …”

The document has been translated into English in full here.

The Israel’s Intelligence Memorandum

“… assesses three options regarding the future of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip … It recommends a full population transfer as its preferred course of action. …”

Click here to access complete document (10 pages).

Was It A False Flag Operation? 

“As a former intelligence officer, I find it impossible to believe that Israel did not have multiple informants inside Gaza as well as electronic listening devices all along the border wall which would have picked up movements of groups and vehicles.

In other words, the whole thing might be a tissue of lies as is often the case. (Philip Giraldi, October 2023)

U.S. intelligence say they weren’t aware of an impending Hamas attack.

“One would have to be almost hopelessly naïve to buy the corporate state media line that the Hamas invasion was an Israeli “intelligence failure”. Mossad is one of, if not the, most powerful intelligence agencies on the planet.”

Israel’s plan to wage an all out war against Palestine had been envisaged prior to the launching by Hamas of  “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm”. 

This was not a failure of Israeli Intelligence, as conveyed by the media. Quite the opposite. 

Did Netanyahu and his vast military and intelligence apparatus (Mossad et al) have foreknowledge of the Al Aqsa Hamas attack. 

Revealed by the New York Times: 

“Israeli officials obtained Hamas’s battle plan for the Oct. 7 terrorist attack more than a year before it happened, documents, emails and interviews  …  The approximately 40-page document, which the Israeli authorities code-named “Jericho Wall,” outlined, point by point, exactly the kind of devastating invasion that led to the deaths of about 1,200 people. (emphasis added)

Screen Shot: New York Times

See also the analysis of Manlio Dinucci

According to the NYT, “Israeli officials dismissed it as aspirational and ignored specific warnings”. Nonsense. Israel’s intelligence apparatus was fully cognizant of what was going on, well in advance. It was part of their “False Flag” Agenda. 

Let us be under no illusions, Israel’s “false flag” operation is a complex military-intelligence undertaking, carefully planned, in liaison and  coordination with US intelligence and the Pentagon. Israel is a de facto member of NATO (with a special status) since 2004, involving active military and intelligence coordination as well as consultations pertaining to the occupied territories.

In this section we will provide evidence pertaining to the False Flag Operation waged by the Netanyahu government.

We will focus on the following topics: 

  1. The History of Israeli False Flags
  2. Corroborating Mea Culpa Statements by Netanyahu
  3. Testimonies by Members of Israel’s IDF 

1. The History of Israeli False Flags

Numerous Israeli False Flags have been carried out in the course of the last 25 years. They are on record: carefully documented. While they are of a criminal nature, resulting in the deaths of innocent Israelis, they have barely  been acknowledged by Western governments and the media. The historical record confirms that the intent of these false flags is to trigger Israeli deaths as a means to justify attacks against Palestinians. See below: 

“Green Light to Terror”

The late  Prof Tanya Reinhart confirmed the formulation in 1997 of a False Flag Agenda entitled “The Green Light to Terror” which consisted in promoting (engineering) suicide attacks against Israeli civilians, citing “the Bloodshed as a Justification” to wage war on Palestine: 

“…This is the “green light to terror” theme which the Military Intelligence (Ama”n) has been promoting since 1997, when its anti-Oslo line was consolidated. This theme was since repeated again and again by military circles, and eventually became the mantra of Israeli propaganda”

The 2001 “Justified Vengeance” Operation

Predicated on the implementation of A False Flag. 

The blueprint, titled “The Destruction of the Palestinian Authority and Disarmament of All Armed Forces”, was presented to the Israeli government by chief of staff Shaul Mofaz, on July 8 [2001].

The assault would be launched, at the government’s discretion, after a big suicide bomb attack in Israel, causing widespread deaths and injuries, citing the bloodshed as justification.” (Tanya Reinhart, December 22, 2001)

It is worth noting that “Operation Justified Vengeance”: a Secret Plan to Destroy the Palestinian Authority was confirmed by Janes Foreign Report:

“…Israel’s invasion plan — reportedly dubbed Justified Vengeance — would be launched immediately following the next high-casualty suicide bombing, would last about a month and is expected to result in the death of hundreds of Israelis and thousands of Palestinians. (emphasis added)

Israeli False Flags, which consist in deliberately triggering Israeli casualties as a means to justify a broader attack against Palestine are DÉJÀ VU

I should mention that the October 7, 2023 “False Flag” is more sophisticated than those outlined above.

Israeli Casualties

Israel’s False Flag Operation is a criminal endeavor engineered by the Netanyahu government (with the support of its intelligence apparatus) against innocent Israeli men, women and children. 

Official Israeli IDF sources confirm 1,200 Israeli deaths of combatants and civilians (including “friendly fire” by the IDF). Approximately  50% of the casualties are Israeli civilians. 

In contrast, the number of deaths of Palestinians (at the time of writing) is of the order of 30,000 of which at least 10,000 are children. 

For further details and a Historical Review See:

Video: “Justified Vengeance” and The History of Israeli “False Flags”(2001-2024): Palestine Portrayed as “The Aggressor”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 07, 2024

2. Corroborating Statements by Netanyahu: “Money to a Faction within Hamas” As Part of an Intelligence Op?

It is worth noting that Netanyahu has acknowledged that Money had been Transferred to a pro-Israeli Intelligence Faction within Hamas:

“Hamas was treated as a partner to the detriment of the Palestinian Authority to prevent Abbas from moving towards creating a Palestinian State. Hamas was promoted from a terrorist group to an organization with which Israel conducted negotiations through Egypt, and which was allowed to receive suitcases containing millions of dollars from Qatar through the Gaza crossings.” (Times of Israel, October 8, 2023 emphasis added)

“Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” he [Netanyahu] told a meeting of his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy – to isolate the Palestinians in Gaza from the Palestinians in the West Bank.”[Netanyahu] (Haaretz, October 9, 2023, emphasis added)

3. Testimonies by Members of Israel’s IDF

3.1  Efrat Fenigson, former IDF intelligence

“I served in the IDF 25 years ago, in the intelligence forces. There’s no way Israel did not know of what’s coming.

A cat moving alongside the fence is triggering all forces. So this??

What happened to the “strongest army in the world”?

How come border crossings were wide open?? Something is VERY WRONG HERE, something is very strange, this chain of events is very unusual and not typical for the Israeli defense system.

To me this suprise attack seems like a planned operation. On all fronts. 

If I was a conspiracy theorist I would say that this feels like the work of the Deep State.

It feels like the people of Israel and the people of Palestine have been sold, once again, to the higher powers that be. 

(Statement by Efrat Fenigson, former IDF intelligence,  October 7, 2023, emphasis added)

3.2 Commander of the Kerem Shalom Battalion

“Something here doesn’t add up to me!!! This is a mystery that I can’t find an answer to.

I happen to know how things work in Gaza and on the border.

I was the commander of the Kerem Shalom sector (Rafih), I was in charge of the Kissuf sector, I know the perimeter fence very well, I know how the army works there. I was in the Shatti refugee camp in Gaza, I was in charge of the Jibaliya refugee camp, I would make ambushes on the fence and deep in the area. I met Gazans, ate and breathed Gaza.

The obstacle is built so that even a fox cannot pass it:

Set alerts according to 3 levels of pressure. She must alert when she is cut. There are 24/7 forces that are responsible for arriving within a few minutes, if not seconds, to the point where there is an alert in the fence.

Every day do at least one penetration practice. Each subdivision has a standby squad whose role is to increase the force in an emergency situation. Observations scattered along the border cover every inch of it. The female observers are champions in identification. They don’t miss. They detect movement even before it even approaches the obstacle – day and night.

At problematic points (dead areas) they place a tank with observation and detection capabilities, and a terrifying firepower. In some cases snipers are deployed in the field.

Every day before dawn there is a “dawn alert” procedure. At this hour all the forces are awake (in this case also the hour when hundreds of terrorists entered Israel). The night shift alternates with the day shift. The commander of each force inspects the axis to make sure there were no infiltrations during the night. Trackers that move on the axis know how to recognize traces. They know who crossed the fence, how much and even when.

So how the hell does a Palestinian tractor move towards the fence without anyone reacting to it?

How did the tractor manage to sabotage the fence for a long hour and open access to Israel without anyone reacting to it?

How did all this happen under our noses? Where did an entire division go? Where did 3 brigades go? 

Who swallowed 9 battalions? What happened to 36 companies? Where did an entire regular infantry brigade go that usually outnumbers the elite?

Where were all the reserve battalions that augment the regular army? Where did thousands of soldiers go???

Someone here needs to provide explanations!!”

emphasis added

Statement of General Herzl Halevi, October 2023

Is Egypt Involved? Secret Bilateral Talks

The declared objective is to Wipe Gaza off the Map through mass killings and total destruction thereby creating conditions for the exclusion of Palestinians from their homeland: A ‘Second Nakba”.

The implementation of Netanyahu’s “War of Readiness” requires the support of Egypt with a view to triggering the exodus of Palestinians from Gaza to the Sinai, where the installation of extensive refugee camps is contemplated.

There is evidence of bilateral meetings between Cairo and Tel Aviv to that effect. The C Option Plan drafted by Israeli Intelligence (see above) states that “Egypt has an obligation under international law to allow the passage of the [Palestinian] population”. 

What is contemplated by the Israeli Ministry of Intelligence (Option C above) is: 

“the forced and permanent relocation of the entire Palestinian population of Gaza to Egypt’s Sinai desert peninsula” with tent refugee camps.” (See Manlio Dinucci)

The Plan includes a list of countries “which agree to absorb [The Palestinians ] as refugees”. 

Bilateral Israel-Egypt Intelligence Agreement?

In 2021-22, Egypt and Israel were involved in “secret bilateral talks” regarding “the extraction of natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip”.

The media reports point to “Egyptian Mediation”.

Were these negotiations  contingent upon Egypt playing a key role in establishing refugee camps in the Sinai, which would facilitate the mass deportation of Palestinians from Gaza.

It is worth noting that the Palestine Authority led by Mahmoud Abbas was also involved.

“Egypt succeeded in persuading Israel to start extracting natural gas off the coast of the Gaza Strip, after several months of secret bilateral talks.

This development … comes after years of Israeli objections to extract natural gas off the coast of Gaza on [alleged] security grounds, … 

British Gas (BG Group) has also been dealing with the Tel Aviv government.

What is significant is that the civilian arm of the Hamas Gaza government had been bypassed in regards to exploration and development rights over the gas fields:

The field, which lies about 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Gaza coast, was discovered in 2000 by British Gas (currently BG Group) and is estimated to contain more than 1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.

The official in the Egyptian intelligence service told Al-Monitor on condition of anonymity, “An Egyptian economic and security delegation discussed with the Israeli side for several months the issue of allowing the extraction of natural gas off the coast of Gaza. …Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022

Was the issue of refugee camps in the Sinai Desert discussed behind closed doors?

It is worth noting that the agreement  with Egypt was reached one year prior to the onslaught of Israel’s Genocidal Attack against Gaza.

Look at the proposed Timeline: “Beginning of 2024”

Following the completion of the Israel-Egypt consultations pertaining to economic and security issues, A Memorandum of Understanding was signed, which had the rubber-stamp of the Palestinian National Authority (PA):

“The Egyptian [intelligence] official explained that Israel required the start of practical measures to extract gas from the Gaza fields at the beginning of 2024, to ensure its own security. (Al-Monitor, October 22, 2022

 

May the Truth Prevail in Reversing the Course of History.

Those Western Politicians Who Unequivocally Endorse The Atrocities Directed against the People of Palestine are Complicit in the Conduct of Crimes against Humanit

In Solidarity with the People of Palestine.

Based on the Nuremberg Charter, what is required is a grass-roots campaign encouraging: 

Israeli, American and NATO Combatants to “Disobey Unlawful Orders” and “Abandon the Battlefield” both in Israel as well as in ALL U.S.-NATO War Theaters. 

Abandoning the Battlefield as a Means to Criminalizing War is based on Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter  which defines the responsibility of combatants “to refuse the orders of Government or a superior … “

For detail see: 

“Fake Justice” at The Hague: The ICJ “Appoints” Netanyahu to “Prevent” and “Punish” Those Responsible for “Genocidal Acts”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 04, 2024

Michel Chossudovsky, February 7, 2024

Zaluzhny apela a neonazistas para apoiá-lo contra Zelensky.

February 8th, 2024 by Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

As controvérsias em torno da rivalidade entre Vladimir Zelensky e Valery Zaluzhny continuam a aumentar. Segundo informações de uma fonte familiarizada com o tema, o general ucraniano está atualmente a criar uma espécie de “exército privado”, cooptando militantes neonazistas para trabalharem para ele.

O ex-analista da CIA, Larry Johnson , contou alguns detalhes sobre o caso durante uma entrevista recente. Segundo ele, o impasse entre o presidente e o general será resolvido através da coerção armada. Ou seja, o lado que obtiver maior apoio dos militares terá mais chances de vitória. Por esta razão, Zaluzhny está a usar a sua posição de líder militar para obter vantagem e preparar-se para um possível confronto contra as forças que permanecem leais a Zelensky.

A tática utilizada pelo general, segundo Johnson, consiste principalmente em cooptar militantes neonazistas. Zaluzhny não parece muito interessado em procurar apoio massivo por parte dos soldados das forças armadas regulares, uma vez que são tropas que tendem a permanecer obedientes ao atual governo. Então, ele está convidando os combatentes ligados aos batalhões ultranacionalistas para se juntarem a ele contra Zelensky.

Neste sentido, os membros das organizações neonazistas estão a ser poupados dos combates nas linhas da frente. Zaluzhny está enviando recrutas recentemente alistados e não treinados para a frente, ao mesmo tempo que salva militantes fascistas que poderiam ajudá-lo se surgir a necessidade de enfrentar Zelensky.

”O cara com a arma geralmente vence e da última vez que verifiquei Zaluzhny tem mais armas do que Zelensky (…) Não quero apresentar Zaluzhny como uma espécie de gênio militar ou realmente um homem de bom coração (…) [Ele é] um pouco canalha [que] abraça a ideologia neonazista (…) Ele tem sido muito cuidadoso para não inserir as tropas mais ideologicamente motivadas – as unidades Azov e Kraken – nas linhas de frente onde costumam morrer, porque ele quer preservá-los. Em vez disso, ele está enviando as tropas regulares pra servirem de bucha de canhão”, disse Larry.

As palavras de Larry são fundamentadas por algumas evidências recentes de tal processo. Por exemplo, em 2 de fevereiro, Andrey Stempitsky,, conhecido membro do grupo neonazista “Right Sector”, publicou uma foto com Zaluzhny nas redes sociais. Na imagem, ele entrega ao general uma carteira de identidade honorária que o certifica como “primeiro integrante” de uma brigada do Right Sector. Ao fundo da imagem é possível ver uma bandeira com uma foto do colaborador nazista ucraniano Stepan Bandera – considerado um “herói nacional” pelo regime.

Outros especialistas também interpretaram a postagem de Stempitsky como uma provocação contra Zelensky. Acredita-se que Zaluzhny esteja demonstrando força, deixando claro que conta com o apoio das tropas, podendo se voltar contra o governo e, se necessário, combatê-lo e derrotá-lo. E isto não é realmente “novo”, uma vez que sempre foi precisamente o papel dos grupos neonazistas na Ucrânia.

As organizações nacionalistas foram incorporadas nas forças do Ministério da Administração Interna em 2014 e desde então têm lutado constantemente pelos interesses da Junta Maidan. Os neonazistas foram os principais agressores contra o povo étnico russo em Donbass e também trabalharam em importantes batalhas contra as forças russas desde o início da operação militar especial. Contudo, deve ser enfatizado que o seu papel sempre foi maior do que o de meros soldados.

Na prática, os neonazistas são os verdadeiros “guarda-costas” do regime. Eles foram fortalecidos ao longo dos anos, a fim de ganhar força suficiente para proteger os interesses originais do Golpe do Maidan. Como são doutrinados no ódio anti-russo, são vistos como tropas mais leais ao Maidan do que as próprias forças armadas ucranianas. Por outras palavras, se o governo ucraniano eventualmente decidir negociar com a Rússia ou começar simplesmente a desobedecer aos patrocinadores ocidentais, espera-se que os neonazis tas derrubem o governo e restaurem o projeto original de Maidan.

Na situação atual, existe um cenário óbvio de desilusão ocidental com Zelensky. O Presidente ucraniano continua a lutar contra a Rússia e não desobedeceu a nenhuma ordem até agora, mas parece cada vez mais fraco, incapaz de liderar o país, não sendo mais útil para os interesses ocidentais na Ucrânia. Portanto, é natural que os neonazistas sejam mobilizados para proteger tais interesses.

Zaluzhny é uma das figuras públicas que mais se destacou na “corrida” para substituir Zelensky. O Ocidente espera que este processo seja concluído de forma pacífica, mas se for necessário enfrentar Zelensky através da violência, Zaluzhny terá o apoio dos militantes neonazistas – que estão mais preparados e bem armados do que o atual exército ucraniano”.

Obviamente, qualquer cenário de conflito interno será catastrófico para a Ucrânia. Com o país militarmente enfraquecido e à beira da derrota absoluta, estas fricções internas apenas prejudicam ainda mais Kiev no campo de batalha. Mas para as elites belicistas ocidentais, uma mudança na liderança ucraniana parece ser a última oportunidade para recuperar o apoio público à política de escalada da ajuda militar.

 

Lucas Leiroz de Almeida

 

 

Artigo em inglês : Zaluzhny calling on neo-Nazis to support him against Zelensky, InfoBrics, 7 de Fevereiro de 2024.

Imagem : InfoBrics

*

Lucas Leiroz, jornalista, pesquisador do Center for Geostrategic Studies, consultor geopolítico.

Você pode seguir Lucas Leiroz em: https://t.me/lucasleiroz e https://twitter.com/leiroz_lucas