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It’s Time to Say ‘No’ to US Blockade on Lebanon

By Marwa Haidar | Al-Manar | July 8, 2021

US officials have repeatedly made it clear that it will prevent Lebanon from receiving crude oil from Iran, tightening the noose on the Middle Eastern country which has been facing the harshest economic crisis in decades.

A year ago, in July 2020, former US Secretary of State Mile Pompeo said taking oil from Iran would be “unacceptable.”

“It would be sanctioned product for sure, and we’ll do everything we can to make sure that Iran cannot continue to sell crude oil anywhere, including to Hezbollah in the region…,” the ex-diplomat said in remarks on July 8, 2020.

Pompeo’s remarks were in response to Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah who said at time that the Lebanese Resistance group was in discussion with the government about Iran supplying refined oil products to Lebanon in exchange for Lebanese pounds to ease pressure on the plummeting currency.

This year, and amid the increasingly severe fuel shortages that brought long queues at service stations in recent months, Sayyed Nasrallah renewed the Iranian offer to sell Lebanon oil in exchange for Lebanon pound.

Responding to Sayyed Nasrallah, US Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea said that importing fuel oil from Iran “is not a practical solution.”

“What Iran is looking for is a sort of dependent state that it can use to carry out its agenda. There are much better solutions than turning to Iran,” the US envoy said in remarks earlier last month.

Nearly a month after renewing the Iranian offer, it seems that no Lebanese official “has the courage” to press for importing fuel supplies from the Islamic Republic, with many parties and figures fearing Washington’s sanctions.

In his latest speech last week, Sayyed Nasrallah Lashed out at the US over tightening the blockade on Lebanon by preventing Lebanon from approving deals with any Eastern country, including China and Iran.

His eminence said that the US ambassador “sheds crocodile tears and deceives the Lebanese by providing some masks,” stressing that Washington has been the main supporter of the corrupts and money embezzlers in Lebanon.

Turning to Lebanese statesmen, Sayyed Nasrallah made it clear: that they have to make some sacrifices for their country and override the fear of the US sanctions.

The Hezbollah S.G. said that saving the country from the socioeconomic crisis deserves courageous decisions by several Lebanese figures and parties, hinting out that now it’s time to say ‘no’ to Washington.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | 6 Comments

In Germany, burning the Israeli flag is a problem, but killing Palestinians isn’t

By Motasem A Dalloul | MEMO | July 6, 2021

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll met with the German Ambassador, Susanne Wasum-Rainer, on Monday along with visiting German parliamentarians. Roll thanked the German guests for their country’s strong support for Israel during its major military offensive against the Palestinians in Gaza from 10-21 May.

Germany’s unlimited support and cooperation make it a special friend of Israel. Among EU members it is the second-biggest supplier of weapons to the occupation state. Between 2009 and 2020, 24 per cent of Israel’s arms imports came from Germany.

When Israel treats international law, human rights, democratic principles, and liberal beliefs with contempt, Germany automatically takes its side, even when the result is the killing of innocent children and women. During the latest Israeli offensive, Germany supported Israel’s “right to defend itself” although it was killing civilians and destroying civilian buildings and infrastructure. The fact that an occupying state has no right to claim “self-defence” against the people under occupation was ignored by the Germans.

On 12 May, a German government spokesman, Steffen Seibert, refused to condemn Israel’s killing of 14 Palestinian children. He referred to the legitimate Palestinian resistance as “terrorist attacks” and that the resistance groups had to stop their action against Israel so that “people do not die”.

Seibert ignored the Israeli warplanes pounding the besieged Gaza Strip. He ignored the Israeli tanks firing indiscriminately towards densely-populated areas across Gaza. He ignored weeks of Israeli harassment and attacks on Palestinians worshipping in Al-Aqsa Mosque throughout Ramadan, and the residents of Jerusalem facing attacks by illegal settlers, which prompted the resistance groups to act. He ignored all of that.

On the same day, the deputy spokesman of the German Foreign Ministry, Christofer Burger, angered journalists when he said that the Palestinians had no right to self-defence. His claim that this right is only guaranteed by international law to sovereign states and Palestinians are not a state was palpable nonsense. All people living under occupation, collectively and individually, have the right to defend themselves and resist military occupation. Israel’s occupation of Palestine is a military occupation.

On day ten of the Israeli offensive, when the occupation state had killed 66 children, 40 women, and 16 elderly people out of 266 Palestinians killed in total, German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas insisted that, “Germany stands with Israel and its right to defend itself.” He even visited Israel to prove that his country’s support was not limited to words. “I came to Israel to show solidarity and support Israel. Israel’s security and that of the Jewish residents here are not negotiable.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas in Berlin, Germany on June 23, 2021 [Abdulhamid Hoşbaş/Anadolu Agency]

German FM Heiko Maas, June 23, 2021 [Abdulhamid Hoşbaş/Anadolu Agency]

Two days earlier, German Chancellor Angela Merkel called the then Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and “sharply condemned the continued rocket attacks from Gaza on Israel and assured the prime minister of the German government’s solidarity.” She showed great interest in Israel’s security and safety of its people and condemned only the legitimate Palestinian resistance.

Germany’s verbal support for Israeli brutality and aggression against the Palestinians was backed up by officials who claimed that peaceful protests during which Palestinian flags were flown and anti-Israel slogans were chanted were “anti-Semitic”. Calls for Israel to be held accountable for its breaches of international law were described as “hate speech”.

According to Seibert, “Anyone who uses such protests to shout out their hatred of Jews is abusing the right to protest [in Germany].” He described the pro-Palestine protests which raised awareness about the ongoing Israeli crimes as “anti-Semitic rallies”, and stressed that they “will not be tolerated by our democracy.”

During a debate in the German parliament during the Israeli offensive on Gaza, Maas condemned the pro-Palestine demonstrations and called for a violent crackdown on them. “There shouldn’t be one centimetre of space for anti-Semitism on our streets. Never again.”

Germany has since banned the Hamas flag in the country in response to pro-Palestine demonstrations. “We do not want the flags of terrorist organisations to be waved on German soil,” Thorsten Frei, a lawmaker for Merkel’s CDU, told Die Welt. A ban, he added, would send “a clear signal to our Jewish citizens.”

President Frank-Walter Steinmeier told Israeli daily Haaretz that Germany believes that the International Criminal Court (ICC) has no jurisdiction to investigate Israeli war crimes in the occupied Palestinian territories because of the “absence of the Palestinian state”. Germany is not only unconcerned about Israeli crimes against the Palestinians, but also does not even want those crimes to be investigated. Palestine was, of course, granted the status of a “non-member observer state” by the UN in November 2012, a move described as “de facto recognition of the sovereign state of Palestine”.

Writing in Open Democracy, activist and sociologist Inna Michaeli said that Germans are against the entirely peaceful Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which seeks to end the Israeli occupation. Moreover, apparently, they do not like to hear anyone accusing Israel of killing children, despite this being “a description of horrendous reality — one in three Palestinians that Israel kills in Gaza are children.”

She asked rhetorically: “What should people chant when Israel is killing children? How can the victims express their rage and sorrow, how can they mourn their children who are killed again and again by Israel?”

Even the German mainstream media ignores Israeli brutality against the Palestinians. “Much of the mainstream media coverage of Nakba Day demonstrations did not even mention nor explain to the readers what the Nakba is, and its continuation in the form of ethnic cleansing and denial of Palestinians’ right to return,” Michaeli pointed out. “Berlin, with the largest Palestinian population in Europe, is home to people whose family members have been murdered by Israel in recent days. These protests are often framed as ‘anti’ Israel, but the fact that they are primarily ‘for’ Palestinian life is omitted.”

Omri Boehm is an Israeli philosophy lecturer in New York. “Whenever one attempts to raise this subject, one is immediately accused of anti-Semitism,” he noted. “It is impossible to simply state the facts. For example, that within Israel’s borders, three million Palestinians live under brutal military law without being recognised as Israeli citizens. The Germans do not want to see this.”

When pro-Palestine protesters burned an Israeli flag in Germany, Interior Minister Horst Seehofer described the act as “anti-Semitic” and said that Germany would crack down hard on anyone found to be spreading “anti-Semitic hatred” because “We will not tolerate Israeli flags burning on German soil.”

Commenting on this, Michaeli said: “Israeli flags matter, Palestinian lives do not. When people, politicians, and the media, care more about the burning of national flags than the burning of homes and neighbourhoods and the killing of entire families, they should really have a hard look at themselves.”

German support for Israel goes back to the early 1950s when reparations were paid to the state as the “heir” to the Holocaust victims who had no known surviving family. Billions of German marks and euros have been handed over in the intervening decades, helping to build Israel as a state. The fact that this is largely to the detriment of the people of occupied Palestine has, shamefully, been lost on successive German governments. Those parliamentarians who met Israeli officials earlier this week need to be educated about international laws and conventions, and the reality of Israel’s brutal military occupation which they and their colleagues in Berlin endorse so willingly.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | 3 Comments

Where the Abraham Accords are (and aren’t) going

Israel has improved its relationship with the UAE, but what about other Gulf countries?

By Giorgio Cafiero and Kristian Coates Ulrichsen | Responsible Statecraft | July 7, 2021

On June 29, Israel’s Foreign Minister Yair Lapid arrived in the United Arab Emirates, marking the first official trip by any chief Israeli diplomat to the Gulf country. Former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had wanted to visit Abu Dhabi while in office, so the timing of the visit so soon after the new Netanyahu-less government was sworn in was notable.

While Lapid was in the UAE, Israel inaugurated an embassy in Abu Dhabi and a consulate in Dubai, representing an important milestone in Emirati-Israeli relations nine months after the Abraham Accords were signed in Washington last September.

Lapid’s trip highlighted how the bilateral relationship has overcome challenges posed by the recent 11-day Gaza-Israel war. Although Emirati officialdom publicly condemned Israel’s conduct in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and called on both Hamas and Israel to halt attacks (which notably did not single out Israel) in May, the UAE is not cooling its relations with Israel. To the contrary, Abu Dhabi is keen to find ways to build on the Abraham Accords and enhance its ties with the Israelis notwithstanding the unresolved question of Palestine.

While with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan, the UAE’s Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Lapid signed an economic and commercial cooperation agreement. The two also co-authored a highly optimistic article in Abu Dhabi’s The National newspaper where they outlined their outlook for the Emirati-Israeli relationship as well as for “peace” across the greater region: “Peace isn’t an agreement you sign – it’s a way of life. The ceremonies we held this week aren’t the end of the road. They are just the beginning.” (Technically, the UAE-Israel accord is not a “peace” agreement because the UAE, which gained its independence in 1971, has never been at war with Israel.)

Beyond the rhetoric and the symbolism, what are this relationship’s substantive elements and what does this partnership truly mean in practice nine months after the accord’s signing?

Bilateral trade since September 2020 has reached around $675 million. The two countries have signed a long list of trade and cooperation agreements. Media, education, and tourism are all promising sectors that are starting to take off. It is significant that amid the global pandemic, which greatly harmed the UAE and all other Gulf Cooperation Council states’ tourism sectors, 200,000 Israeli tourists visited the UAE with most flying to Dubai.

Technology may be the area where the Emiratis have the highest hopes for this relationship. The potential benefits of formalized ties with the region’s most technologically innovative and advanced country are clear to the UAE. This is particularly true with respect to cybersecurity and to the potential acquisition of offensive cyber-capabilities by the UAE. As Sheikh Abdullah stated, the Emiratis are pleased that the Israelis will participate in Expo2020, an event to be held later this year in Dubai that will bring 192 countries together through technology, innovation, science, and art.

Nonetheless, the Emirati-Israeli trade relationship has thus far not lived up to its expectations. There has also been a degree of disappointment among those who were expecting the partnership to take off much faster following then-President Donald Trump’s announcement of the Abraham Accords.

Some anticipated deals have not taken place. For example, there was the suspension of the 50 percent sale of Beitar Jerusalem (a Jerusalem-based professional football club with an anti-Arab image) to a member of Abu Dhabi’s royal family in Abu Dhabi, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Nahyan. In addition, an Israeli energy firm that planned to sell its share of a gas field to Mubadala Petroleum (a subsidiary of the UAE’s sovereign wealth fund, Mubadala Investment Company) missed a deadline for completing the agreement, although, according to the UAE’s side, the deal remains set to proceed. Time will tell how many and how soon major government-to-government and private sector transactions will indeed take place.

Abraham Accords, the Gulf, and Africa

Despite the political risks for any Arab state that normalizes relations with Israel, the UAE has vocally stood by the Abraham Accords, which, in the words of its ambassador to Washington, Yousef al-Otaiba, “move the region beyond a troubled legacy of hostility and strife to a more hopeful destiny of peace and prosperity.” But Abu Dhabi at this point does not appear to be leading any trend within the Gulf region toward the formalization of relations with Israel.

In Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia, the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative remains popular and the only viable means of reaching a fair and lasting settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. This is true at the highest levels of government and among these countries’ general publics. But Tel Aviv almost certainly will not under any foreseeable circumstances agree to the API’s terms, which require Israel to return to the 1949-1967 borders and permit the Palestinians to have an independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital in exchange for opening diplomatic relations. Therefore, among GCC states, the UAE, along with Bahrain, will probably stand alone on the normalization question for some time.

As the GCC state with the most pro-Palestinian stance, Kuwait is most strongly opposed to normalization and unlikely to change its position. Oman maintains pragmatic, albeit unofficial, relations with Israel as highlighted by Lapid’s phone call with Oman’s foreign minister Badr al Busaidi on June 24, plus Netanyahu and other Israeli prime ministers’ visits to Muscat since the 1990s. But Oman remains committed to the API, as affirmed by Muscat’s chief diplomat at an Atlantic Council event held on February 11.

Qatar has a special role to play in Gaza that would be jeopardized by “abandoning” the Palestinians in exchange for normalization with Israel. Through Al Jazeera, which focuses heavily on the plight of Palestinians, and the tendency of Qatari diplomats to advocate on behalf of Palestinians in international forums, Doha’s regional and global image has much to do with its ability to take firm positions on certain international issues that contribute to the image of a pro-human rights foreign policy.

Finally, Saudi Arabia, due to its special role across the wider Islamic world, its authorship of the API, and its own internal dynamics that are fundamentally different than the smaller GCC states, will likely continue seeing normalization of relations with Israel as too risky, at least so long as King Salman remains on the throne.

Within this context, Israel will likely have its next diplomatic openings in the Islamic world not in the Persian Gulf, but instead in impoverished parts of sub-Saharan Africa where countries such as Niger, Mali, and Mauritania could have their economic interests advanced by joining the Abraham Accords. It will be important to see what actions Abu Dhabi might take to incentivize these African countries, many of which are major recipients of Emirati aid, to formalize ties with Israel. Enhanced Emirati assistance in exchange for normalization with Israel was already evident in Sudan’s decision to normalize ties with Israel, and the UAE may take a similar approach with these and other predominantly Muslim and poor African states.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , | 1 Comment

The progressive civil war over Syria and Assad exposes an astonishing lack of intellectual curiosity by some on the American Left

By Scott Ritter | RT | July 7, 2021

Truth and politics are often mutually exclusive concepts when dealing with the progressive American Left. This unfortunate fact is being driven home in spades in an ongoing spat between two lefty online personalities.

Anyone following Aaron Maté (149K followers on Twitter); The Young Turks (TYT, with 440K followers as an institution, and as many followers each tracking the activity of co-hosts Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian); the comedian Jimmy Dore (274K followers); or any number of other Twitter personalities whose online paths have crossed with any of the above; knows these left-leaning social media stars have been engaged in a vicious feud. Full disclosure, I have appeared on both Maté’s podcast, Pushback, as well as The Young Turks radio show. At issue is Syria and, more pointedly, the contention by both Uygur and Kasparian that Maté is shilling for President Bashar Assad.

A tale of two narratives

The sheer drama and vitriol which has emerged as a result of this feud has been entertaining for those who get a kick out of leftwing internecine warfare. Maté’s use of Jimmy Dore’s popular online program The Jimmy Dore Show as a platform for promoting his arguments has torn the scab off old wounds created when Dore left The Young Turks and struck out on his own, appears to underpin at least some of Uygur and Kasparian’s anti-Maté invective. However, more interesting is the fact that, as Maté pointed out in a recent interview with The Hill, the progressive wing of the American Left has hit a brick wall over the issue of Syria. Criticism of Assad has run up against the lies used to sustain US military hegemony in the Middle East.

“I think,” Maté noted, “that that meltdown reflects just like a general hostility they [The Young Turks] have towards people who are upholding actual progressive values and upholding actual journalism standards.” While the smear campaign waged by Uygur and Kasparian has been as unconscionable as it has been factually wrong, the fact that there is controversy among the progressive wing of the American political Left should not surprise anyone.

As Maté observed, “[t]he reason why they slandered me at that time is because I was in Syria and Syria is a, you know, touchy subject for many people on the Left. It has been divisive.”

Syria is a touchy subject, especially for progressives who primarily focus on notions of human rights and democratic values. Maté has come under attack for taking a contrarian stance on two of the most hot-button issues surrounding Assad: allegations of chemical weapons use, and the suppression of political free will through the conduct of elections designed to keep the reins of political power in Syria firmly in his hands. (It should be pointed out that Maté is joined by other outstanding progressive journalists, including Eva Bartlett, Vanessa Beeley, Rania Khalek, and many others whose informative work predates Maté’s on the issue of Syria.)

Chemical weapons, denial and disproval

If there is a case to be made that the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its own population, it has not yet been made by anyone. The most widely cited incident in terms of casualties (i.e., the primary discriminator for any argument seeking to label Assad a “mass murderer”) is that which occurred in the early morning hours of August 21, 2013, in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta. While the number of casualties involved remains unclear (estimates range from 281 to 1,729 people killed, with the higher figure largely agreed to be problematic), what is not up for dispute is the fact that, as the official UN report into the incident concluded, there was “clear and convincing evidence” that Sarin gas was used in the Ghouta incident.

While the UN was precluded by mandate from allocating responsibility for the attack, the US government, together with other organizations such as Human Rights Watch, aggressively asserted that the Syrian government was solely to blame. These claims, however, were not backed up by the science on the ground. A detailed forensic analysis of the rocket used in the Ghouta attack – an improvised 330mm-to-350mm rocket equipped with a large receptacle on its nose to hold chemicals—by Richard Lloyd, a former United Nations weapons inspector, and Theodore Postol, a professor of science, technology and national security policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, undermined the claims made by the US government assigning culpability for the attack. Not only were the weapons used not included in the arsenal of chemical weapons declared by the Syrian government to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) which oversaw the dismantling of Syria’s chemical weapons capability between 2013-2014, but the short range of the weapon made its being fired from government-held territory impossible.

Seymor Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist, published an article in the London Review of Books in December 2013 which outlined a case for Turkish complicity in helping arm the rebels with Sarin nerve agent. Hersh’s claims were vindicated by Turkish media reports, quoting Turkish members of parliament, who outlined the factual case sustaining Hersh’s key point that the Turkish government was behind the Ghouta attack. New analysis of the Ghouta attack reinforces the findings of Lloyd and Postol, assigning a 96% probability that the Sarin attack of August 21, 2013, was carried out by anti-Assad rebels. Moreover, this finding is supported by video evidence, authenticated on June 21, 2021, which shows the rebels firing the Sarin-filled rockets on the day in question. Long story short – the Sarin attack used by President Assad’s opponents as evidence of his status as a mass murderer was not the work of the Syrian government.

Allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government are numerous, as is the mountain of evidence which shows these claims to be as false as the ones made regarding the Ghouta attack. Central to the ongoing TYT-Maté dispute is the Douma incident of April 7, 2018, where once again the Syrian government was accused of employing chemical weapons against civilians, killing scores. The US government used the allegations as justification to launch air strikes against the Syrian government. The US case for military action, always weak, was further undermined by reporting from Maté that exposed the lies of the OPCW in bending to US pressure to falsify evidence in order to sustain the justification for US airstrikes.

The attention Maté received as a result of his outstanding reporting on Douma considerably raised his profile – he was invited to testify at an Arria-Formula Meeting at the UN Security Council in September 2020 on the Douma controversy. But it also opened him up to attacks by TYT, with co-host Kasparian deriding Maté as “the guy who denies that Syrian children were killed with chemical attacks.”

What Kasparian and her co-host Uygur get wrong is the fact that Maté does not deny anything, he simply reports the facts, which sustain the truth about the Douma attack – that it was a false-flag incident perpetrated by the Syrian rebels. Similar to what transpired at Ghouta in August 2013 – which set up the Syrian government to be attacked by the US in retaliation.

Intellectual incuriosity

However, one of the big problems with Maté’s reporting for the progressive wing of the American Left is that, in order to embrace it, they would need to radically alter their view about the legitimacy of the Assad regime, something they are loath to do. The formulation which sustains the current policy position of the progressive Left on Assad is that he is a brutal dictator who has, and will again, use chemical weapons against those who oppose him. The simplicity of this line of argument is that, so long as one can sustain the narrative that Assad has used chemical weapons against his own people, delving into a fact-based discussion about whether or not he is a brutal dictator is avoided by the logic that any man who uses chemical weapons against his own people is, by definition, a brutal dictator.

The reporting done by Maté and others on the allegations of chemical weapons use by the Syrian government has, by proving these allegations wrong, undermined the foundational argument used to sustain the notion of Bashar Assad as a brutal dictator. Stripped of this core argument, Assad’s critics are now called upon to venture into uncharted waters (at least for them) and examine the personal biography of the man they detest, the circumstances surrounding his rise to power, and the nature of his political struggle against deeply entrenched special interest groups opposed to meaningful political reform.

They would also have to examine the complicated relationship between Turkey and the Muslim Brotherhood, and the role played by the Turkish government in promoting Muslim Brotherhood activities inside Syria. Any honest evaluation of Syria under Bashar Assad would also be compelled to look at the role of the drought that ravaged Syria between 2006-2011, collapsing the agricultural industry and forcing some 1.5 million rural Syrians to seek refuge in major urban centers such as Homs, Aleppo, and Damascus. The role played by Saudi Arabia in channeling reconstruction money into Syria would also need further examination, along with how this money was used to build mosques promoting Saudi-backed Salafist Islam that ran counter to the secular ideology of the Assad regime.

Lastly, the role played by the US, both in terms of destabilizing the entire region by invading Iraq in 2003, and the role that conflict had on radicalizing Islamic resistance inside Syria would have to be considered. As would the decision, following the Arab Spring of 2010-11, to begin providing training, money, weapons and other support to anti-Assad forces backed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and other regional powers.

The resulting civil conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people and displaced several million Syrians from their homes. The involvement of Iran, Hezbollah and Russia on the side of Syria, when combined with the false allegations of chemical weapons use by the Assad government, made it easy for the progressive wing of the American Left to condemn these interventions. However, that ignores the reality that, unlike every other foreign military presence inside Syria, these came at the invitation of the Syrian government and, as such, have a legitimacy under international law the others cannot claim. When the chemical weapons allegations are stripped away, the moral foundation for opposing Iranian, Hezbollah and Russian intervention collapses.

The fact of the matter is that the reporting by Maté and others deconstructed the lies about the Syrian government’s role in the chemical weapons attacks alleged by the US, OPCW and Syrian opposition and, simultaneously, exposed the dearth of intellectual curiosity on the part of Assad’s critics – especially among the ranks of the progressive Left. The antics of The Young Turks in attacking Maté, Dore, and anyone else (including myself) who dares seek a fact-based discussion about the true nature of Syria and its president only highlights how far many mainstream American progressives have fallen when it comes to Syria. Their claims to embrace fact and intellectual curiosity in the exploration of complex social, political, and economic issues fall flat when it comes to who rules Damascus.

Whether they can recover from this collapse of moral authority and lack of intellectual integrity is unknown. The answer hinges on their willingness to re-engage with a clean slate that allows all arguments to be heard and discussed free of the kind of rancor shown to Maté by The Young Turks. As of this writing, I wouldn’t hold my breath. But in the end, it does not matter – if the Syrian reality could survive US-backed jihadists, it will survive the fiction based, angst-driven antics of an American political elite that has become irrelevant and inconsequential in any universe except the one it currently occupies for its own edification and entertainment.

Scott Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer and author of ‘SCORPION KING: America’s Suicidal Embrace of Nuclear Weapons from FDR to Trump.’ He served in the Soviet Union as an inspector implementing the INF Treaty, in General Schwarzkopf’s staff during the Gulf War, and from 1991-1998 as a UN weapons inspector.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

China may be building new nuclear missile silos in its western desert… but only in response to American aggression

By Tom Fowdy | RT | July 7, 2021

US reports claiming Beijing is greatly strengthening its nuclear arsenal can’t be confirmed, but it wouldn’t be surprising, given Washington’s threats against Beijing and its military build-up in the region.

Much has been said recently about an exclusive report published in the Washington Post analysing satellite imagery that purports to show China building intercontinental ballistic missiles in its northwestern province of Gansu, claiming that China is gearing up its ‘second-strike capability’ and in turn strengthening its nuclear arsenal.

The report follows a running theme in US military circles that Beijing poses a growing “nuclear threat” to the United States, with Pentagon spokesman John Supple telling CNN: “Numerous Defense Department leaders have testified and publicly spoken about China’s growing nuclear capabilities, which we expect to double or more over the next decade.”

On the other hand, pro-China voices on Twitter were quick to dismiss the report’s findings and argue that the construction sites were, in fact, wind farms. While it’s difficult to verify these claims, of course, it’s likewise important to remember that, beyond US hysteria, China’s nuclear arsenal is tiny in comparison to America’s (currently some 250 to 350 warheads versus 3,800), and it operates according to a ‘no first use’ policy (Washington’s doesn’t).

It would be unsurprising if growing military tensions between the two states and a perceived fear of encirclement by the US and its allies was pushing China to strengthen its military hand. Although it would be ridiculous to accuse China of a ‘Cold War-style’ build-up, it makes logical sense for Beijing to ramp up its capabilities.

The original Cold War between the United States and the USSR was defined for most of its history by a dramatic increase in nuclear missile capabilities on both sides, which, at its peak in the 1980s, saw Moscow accumulate almost 40,000 warheads. This dramatic stockpiling created a constant fear of global nuclear annihilation and was pushed to the brink through episodes such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, yet, ultimately, the equilibrium of ‘mutually assured destruction’ ensured that conflict between the two superpowers never broke out.

This is not comparable to the current tensions between China and the United States. While Beijing has had nuclear weapons since 1964, it has been largely reserved on its objectives of maintaining a ‘basic deterrent’ of around 300 warheads – comparable to the numbers held by the UK and France.

Its nuclear goals are not as America’s are, to uphold military hegemony over the rest of the world, but to protect its national sovereignty and territorial integrity. That, of course, includes obvious red lines such as Taiwan, and this could be part of the reason it may be increasing its numbers and ‘flexing’ its approach as tensions with the United States rise.

Washington’s bellicose language towards Beijing, and its growing militarisation around China’s periphery, including expanding its relationship with Taiwan, is increasingly aggressive. As a report from a Washington foreign policy magazine put it: “The US military is encircling China with a chain of air bases and military ports.” Faced with such threats, what nation would not seek to up its defence capabilities?

The Washington Post report is correct to frame China’s potential activities as a reaction to these developments, and to call it a ‘second-strike’ capability, though the weapons’ use to deter a Taiwan contingency is not unimaginable.

The missile silos’ location in Gansu is strategically significant. First, the province is situated deep into China’s interior, towards Xinjiang. It’s an isolated desert region that is west of the core of China’s population and away from its industrial and urban sprawl. This reduces liability for those areas in times of conflict and makes the weapons easier to hide and disguise.

Second, the location makes it far more difficult for enemy fighters to reach and disable the silos. Could US fighter jets go thousands of kilometres inland into China to conduct pre-emptive strikes on military infrastructure and not be shot down? They have clearly been carefully placed to play to China’s geographical strengths.

Thirdly, Gansu, being near Xinjiang and Tibet, may have been chosen to cater to another opponent as well as the United States. Although we are talking here about what are apparently intercontinental ballistic missiles that can travel more than 9,000km (5,600 miles), allowing them to reach the American mainland, they could also reach greater continental Eurasia and the Indian Ocean, giving options against the US’ Indo-Pacific Strategy as a whole and Beijing’s geopolitical rival in New Delhi. This did not go unnoticed in the Indian media.

In this case, one might describe China’s potential nuclear build-up, if proven, as a deliberately ambiguous effort undertaken in reaction to the shifting military environment in the region and not an effort to pursue nuclear domination or hegemony, but to tilt the balance of power in its favour and strengthen its leverage in the surrounding regions.

Ultimately, if the United States is seeking to increasingly equip its allies, strong-arm them into anti-China coalitions, pursue a growing number of military exercises in and around the Indian and Pacific Oceans, and press on all of China’s insecurities, of course, Beijing is going to react, but it will do so, as it always does, in a more subtle and less overt way.

There will be no nuclear confrontation between the United States and China, and nor does Beijing anticipate one, but the route towards some form of arms build-up has been inevitable for a long time. Don’t expect China to showcase this or publicize its true capabilities, but rather to keep its opponents guessing – and on their toes.

Tom Fowdy is a British writer and analyst of politics and international relations with a primary focus on East Asia.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

A Country That Has Lost Its Way: U.S. Government and Corporations Combine to Strip Citizens of Their Rights

By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 8, 2021

The American people have increasingly become aware that government surveillance and corporate censorship have combined to keep people ignorant and controlled. What is taking place has generated some dark humor. A friend of mine, also a former CIA officer, wrote to me recently and said tongue-in-cheek that he retains a lot of respect for the Agency because it is the only major government national security entity that does not read our mail and emails. Those jobs are the responsibility of the NSA and FBI. I responded that I would imagine that CIA does in fact read quite a lot of mail where it operates overseas but it is probably done the old-fashioned way by recruiting an underpaid mail clerk as an agent.

The whole issue of the government spying illegally on its own citizens has again made the news with the claims by conservative commentator Tucker Carlson that NSA has been spying on him, presumably because he has connections that the government regards either as subversive or, in the new reckoning, as “extremists” who are potential “domestic terrorists.” Given the reasonable assumption that anyone who voted for Donald Trump might well fall under those categories, that means that something like half the U.S. population could be under suspicion.

Mass electronic surveillance of literally trillions of phone calls and messages worldwide without a warrant in violation of the Fourth Amendment restrictions on searches without probable cause or a proper warrant issued by a judge has been the regular NSA authorized procedure at least since 9/11 and there is no reason to assume that it is no longer the practice. It basically is initiated by the agency involved (normally NSA or FBI) going to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) Court or to some other appropriate judge to get a warrant on an individual where there is some probable cause. Probable cause can consist of “someone searching the web for suspicious stuff.” The Court then gives its approval, which it does in the case of FISA 99% of the time. When that individual is then surveilled, the names of his or her contacts are also added to the investigation. And it goes on from there, expanding and growing until it includes thousands of phone numbers and email addresses, individuals who are overwhelmingly innocent of any wrongdoing.

So, it is safe to assume that many of us are right at this moment eligible for being monitored electronically by the federal government. If one combines that with the Biden Administration’s June 1st announcement of a war on “domestic terrorism,” which it clearly considers to be a function of “white supremacists,” it is easy to see where all that is going. Biden pulled no punches, describing the threat from “white supremacy” as the “most lethal threat to the homeland today,” so that would mean that the government is doing all in its power to stamp it out, whatever it takes and whatever that means.

Surveilling ordinary Americans for what they might be thinking, which is what this comes down to, would be a George Orwellian 1984 tale for our times, updated from when Winston Smith was doing mandatory daily exercises in front of his television set. He slacked off a bit and the TV instantly admonished him. He then wondered whether it was possible that he and all the other residents of Airstrip One (once called Britain) are surveilled all the time. He concluded that they were.

So, if your television set suddenly speaks to you in the next few months, it might not be Alexa. The other development that has surfaced in the past couple of weeks is the increased corporate cooperation with what the government is saying and doing. Mainstream media has certainly done its share of obfuscation, including the current near total suppression of the story that a key witness who provided false testimony against journalist Julian Assange languishing in a British prison has turned out to be a pedophile, diagnosed sociopath and serial liar. But the major player is inevitably social media, which has enormous power in the United States and also elsewhere to shape opinions and propagate false information that serves the government agenda. The media has banned numerous groups, individuals, and links to sites from its pages, a barrier to free speech and freedom of expression. And it has, for example, enthusiastically cooperated fully with the essentially fraudulent government claims of Russian interference in the two most recent U.S. elections. It is censoring or denigrating material that is at variance with official policies, including, for example, Facebook’s pop-ups that appear whenever there is any article that contests the approved version of the response to the COVID virus.

Back in June, the Biden administration said it would also be working with some of the large high-technology and social media companies to “increase information sharing” to assist in combatting radicalization. Biden announced that his Justice Department would create ways for Americans to report radicalized friends and family to the government. One senior official put it this way: “We will work to improve public awareness of federal resources to address concerning or threatening behavior before violence occurs… If you see something, say something. This involves creating contexts in which those who are family members or friends or co-workers know that there are pathways and avenues to raise concerns and seek help for those who they have perceived to be radicalizing and potentially radicalizing towards violence.”

In other words, in plain English, the Biden Administration is calling on Americans to spy on friends, neighbors and family and reporting any “extremist” views to the authorities. Well, Facebook is now fully on board with more of the same, engaged in the “hot” war against the “white supremacists/extremists/domestic terrorists.” It has blocked or shut down many former contributors and also begun posting at least two versions of warnings to users. One targets individuals who might have personally been visiting an “extremist” site while the other encourages users to snitch on friends or family who might be enticed by such material. The personalized pop-up reads as follows: “[Name of Recipient], you many have been exposed to harmful extremist content recently – Violent groups try to manipulate your anger and disappointment. You can take action now to protect yourself and others.-Get support from experts-Spot the signs, understand the dangers of extremism and hear from people who escaped violent groups.”

The snitch on friends version reads: “Are you concerned that someone you know is becoming an extremist?-We care about preventing extremism on Facebook. Others in your situation have received confidential support. How you can help. Hear stories and get advice from people who escaped violent extremist groups-Get support.”

To be sure, one has to ask how Facebook knows that one has visited an “extremist” site since they have blocked such material. Are they somehow hacking into the personal accounts of their own users? The situation is dire, no doubt about it, but it has provoked a backlash, including this post: “Become the extremist Facebook warned you about!” One also has to wonder how Facebook will deal with individuals who complain about some other groups with a demonstrated history of promoting violence, including black lives matter, that are not white supremacist related. It will almost certainly do nothing, just like the federal government’s demonstrated “racially sensitive” supine response to a year of riot, burning, looting and homicide. In truth Americans are standing at the edge of a precipice with just one more “crisis” possibly coming that will tip everyone over the edge so we wind up with a totalitarian government which works hard to keep everyone safe by doing the opposite. We are almost there, and if you doubt it just go take a look at Facebook.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | 2 Comments

Aid to Syria should go through the recognized government NOT Al Qaeda

Syria Solidarity Movement | July 6, 2021

The United Nations Charter mandates “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state”.

Turkey and the USA are in violation of this commitment as they occupy sections of northern and eastern Syria. In northern Idlib province, Turkey is doing this in alliance with the Syrian version of Al Qaeda called Hayat Tahrir Al Sham (formerly Jabhat al Nusra).

In the northeast, the US has invaded and is occupying the area in alliance with local proxies and mercenaries. For public relations purposes, the puppets changed their name to “Syrian Democratic Forces” after US military officers said, “You have to change your brand.”

These occupations clearly violate Syrian territorial integrity and the UN Charter.

The USA, Turkey and their allies want the world to ignore their violations of Syrian sovereignty. On top of that, they want the world to authorize and approve international border crossings for travel to their occupied zones. The Bab al Hawa crossing is now the main crossing on the border of Turkey and Syria. On the Syrian side, the area is controlled by [al Qaeda affiliates in Syria] in collusion with Turkey.  With Syrian civilians as hostages, Al Qaeda receives 1000 truckloads of supplies and support monthly.

This crossing is a clear violation of Syria’s territorial integrity and that is why United Nations Security Council members should vote NO to further authorization of an illegal entry point.  Respecting Syrian sovereignty and the UN Charter, the aid should go through the Syrian government. If there is concern about aid being distributed fairly in Idlib, a neutral international organization such as the Red Crescent can monitor or supervise the distribution of food and supplies.

The countries which seek “regime change” in Syria use civilians as a pretext while imposing crushing economic sanctions on most Syrians. They are pouring support into the Al Qaeda zone while strangling the vast majority of Syrians who live in government zones. Under US “Caesar” sanctions, it is prohibited to support any Syrian government rebuilding of hospitals, schools, water pumping stations, electricity power stations or residential housing. Syrian civilians now lack food, medicines, electricity, [water, fuel and building materials] because of the actions of the invaders [and occupiers].

The UN Charter should be followed and enforced.

Syria Solidarity Movement calls for the removal of US and Turkish occupations of northern and eastern Syria. We call for the United Nations Security Council to NOT authorize or participate in the violation of Syrian territorial integrity at Bab al Hawa border crossing.  We call for the US and western nations to stop their violations of Syrian sovereignty and their complicity and support of Al Qaeda in Syria.

—————————

The Syria Solidarity Movement operates a modest humanitarian aid program to which all are welcome to provide US tax-deductible donations. For further information go to www.aidforsyrians.org.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , | 1 Comment

2020: A Propaganda Masterpiece | Perspectives on the Pandemic XVII

Perspectives on the Pandemic | July 1, 2021

Mark Crispin Miller, Professor of Media Studies, New York University June 10, 2021 Dumbo, New York

Interview by John Kirby

Editing by Francis Karogodins

Research by Evan Dominguez, Billy Clayton Miller

“Propaganda is the executive arm of the invisible government,” wrote Edward Bernays, the father of modern propaganda. In part one of Episode 17, Mark Crispin Miller, professor of Media Studies at New York University, discusses the propaganda onslaught that defined the year 2020, when what was dismissed one week is confirmed the next, and why questioning official narratives “necessarily means taking ‘conspiracy theory’ seriously.”

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Should people who have recovered from COVID take a vaccine?

By Marc Girardot | Trial Site News | July 6, 2021

Epidemiology1 , immunology2 and the clinical data3 all say a clear “No!”.

There is no good reason to vaccinate the recovered.

________________________________________________________________________

A British friend, recovered from COVID, decided to get vaccinated despite being naturally immune. This is the email he recently sent me:

“Marc I suffered a mild stroke on Wednesday 8 days after taking the Astrazeneca 2nd dose. Since I am a marathon runner I am a very ‘rare case’. I don’t smoke, have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, family history or come into any of the risk categories for blood clots…

You did warn me against taking the second dose and I wished I’d heeded your advice. I’ve taken a totally unnecessary risk with my life and I bitterly regret doing it.”

Contrary to most, Tony was informed; he had been told about the power of natural immunity, about the long—if not lifelong—duration of immunity, of the risk inherent to any medical procedure (Yes, vaccination is a medical procedure!), as well as of the rising levels of adverse events.  He admitted he hadn’t imagined it could happen to him…

Though it is hard to assess precisely the actual severity and breadth of vaccine-related adverse events, it is very clear that vaccination against COVID-19 isn’t as harmless4 as pharmaceutical companies, mainstream media, academia, health authorities and the medical community have been saying. And, in contrast to high risk individuals who are still susceptible, recovered people have no real benefit to balance the additional risks of vaccination.

2021 Adverse Events Reporting

VAERS US EUROVIGILANCE EUROPE       YELLOW CARDS             UK
Date 18/06/2021 04/06/2021 16/06/2021
Fully Vaccinated (Mn) 148.46 137.44 30.68
Deaths 6,136 4,572 1,356
Incidents 387,288 316,925 73,944
Death per 100,000 4.1 3.3 4.4

For over a year, mainstream media, health authorities as well as many “experts” have been downplaying the power of the immune system, dismissing natural immunity5 and proclaiming that immunity to COVID-19 was short-lived6.  Simultaneously, vaccines have been portrayed as the silver bullet to this crisis, an incidental procedure with no risk whatsoever. The data shows a different picture and many are coming forward7 8, to challenge the official narrative.  We will demonstrate that the official narrative is a dangerous fallacy.

The human immune system is one of the most sophisticated achievements of evolution. The survival of our species has depended on it for millenia.  Today, we still very much rely on it. For the record,  99% of people  infected with SARS-CoV-2 recover without treatment. Only 1% of SARS-CoV-2 patients, who did not receive early home-based treatment, end up hospitalized9. In other words, the immune system overwhelmingly protects. Even vaccines are entirely dependent on the immune system: vaccines essentially teach our immune systems what viral markers to be prepared for, they are not cures per se.  Without a functional immune system, there can be no effective vaccine10.

On the waning immunity fallacy

Once recovered, the immune response recedes, notably via a decrease in antibodies. It is not only natural; it is indispensable to restore the body to a normal, balanced state.  Just as a permanent state of fever is harmful, a high number of targetless antibodies or T-cells constantly circulating throughout the body could create serious complications, such as autoimmune diseases11. Taking an evolutionary perspective, only those whose antibody and T-cell count waned post-infection survived. So, a decreasing number of antibodies and T-cells is reassuring, even healthy.

Antibody Levels during infection and post infection

Redline= antibodies – Blue-line= Memory B cells | Credit: Nature

But this decrease in T-cells and antibodies doesn’t mean that immunity is lost . It means the immune system has adapted to the new situation, and is now just on sentinel mode: Memory B- and T-cells, circulating in the blood and resident12 in tissues, act as vigilant13 and effective sentinels for decades:

  • survivors of the Spanish Flu epidemic were tested for their immunity to the 1918 influenza virus 90 years later –14,15 and still demonstrated immunity;
  • people who had recovered from the 2003 SARS infection demonstrated robust T-Cell responses seventeen years later16.
  • the wide-spread prevalence of high cross-immunity17,18,19— gained from past common cold infections—further demonstrates the resilience of natural immunity for coronaviruses.

Indeed, all recent studies show that  specific anti-SARS-CoV-2 immunity remains effective20,21,22,23, possibly for a lifetime24. Our immune system is a modular platform, it can combine in an infinite number of ways to address a multitude of threats in a variety of contexts. As such it is neutral to the viral threats it faces. In other words, there is absolutely no reason to believe that those recovered from Covid-19 would lose their immunity over the years, or even the decades25 to come.

On the reinfection fallacy

You might have also heard of people becoming reinfected by SARS-CoV-2. Indeed, immunity, natural or vaccine-induced, isn’t the impenetrable shield described by many. Essentially harmless and asymptomatic reinfections do take place. That is, in fact, the very mechanism by which adaptive immunity is triggered.

However, symptomatic reinfections are very rare26,27. Like an army that adapts its response to the size and the progression of its enemy forces, adaptive immunity provides a specific, rapid and resource-optimized response. As such reinfections are mostly asymptomatic28 and recovered patients are protected from severe disease.

In fact, innocuous reinfections can play a positive public health role by acting as continuous immune updates29 for the population. They can help form a seamless and progressive adaptation to emerging variants and strains. And indeed a recent study showed that couples with children were more frequently asymptomatic than couples without, most likely because children act as natural and harmless immunisation vehicles. The most likely reason why high density countries mostly have very low death tolls is that they have asymptomatic reinfections that regularly and widely update the population’s immunity.

On the variant fallacy

As demonstrated by the low numbers of symptomatic reinfections mentioned above, and  also by multiple studies31,32, variants have thus far not escaped acquired immunity.  Just as Americans can speak and interact seamlessly in England, unhindered by a few word variants33, natural immunity is unhindered by variants, possibly more so than vaccine-induced immunity. There is ample evidence of the sophistication and breadth of the human immune system, and it is clear that a few minor gene changes in the virus cannot evade its arsenal .
Across the world34, multiple studies demonstrate high levels of pre-existing cross-reactive T-cells35 and antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. In other words, many were already largely immune via other coronaviruses. This is the most likely explanation for the unexpectedly high level of asymptomatic infections during the pandemic. More importantly, this demonstrates that even with large genetic differences, prior immunity to related coronaviruses is sufficient to avoid severe COVID-19. Therefore, it is quite evident that variants are of no concern to the recovered population.

On the vaccine better-than-natural-immunity fallacy

You might have heard people stating that vaccines provide better protection than natural immunity. That is an interesting way of bending reality. How can a vaccine be more effective at immunisation than the disease it is trying to mimic?

Theoretically, there are several reasons explaining why natural immunity is better than vaccine-induced immunity:

  • Fewer immune targets: mRNA/DNA vaccines present only a fraction of the virus genetic code (5-10%). For example, they don’t utilize the ORF1 highly immunogenic epitopes36. Therefore, the immune system recruits a smaller number of T-cells by tapping into a narrower repertoire and consequently mounts  a less effective response37. The logic: Imagine you lose a number of key players for a football tournament, you might still win, but it will be harder.
  • Longer immune trigger time: The smaller number of epitope targets also means that the alarm to the immune system will be delayed. This is a key driver of success in the COVID-19 battle. The wider the target repertoire, the faster the encounter between dendritic cells and identifiable antigens.
    The logic: Like a party you go to, you can start partying much faster when you have ten friends there than when you have only one. They are just easier to find.
  • Inappropriate delivery location: The intramuscular delivery of current vaccines unfortunately doesn’t mimic viral penetration and propagation at all. Coronaviruses don’t enter the body via muscles. They do so via the respiratory tract, often infecting cell-to-cell.  Contrary to muscle-delivered vaccines, natural immunity places a strong sentinel force of memory resident cells at the portals of entry38 and shuts the body entrance to the virus preemptively. From an evolutionary standpoint, this makes perfect sense.
    The logic: it’s much easier to stop an army coming through a narrow gorge than on the beaches of Normandy.

Recent research confirms this logic. One comparative study39 in Israel found the protection from severe disease to be 96·4% for Covid-19 recovered individuals but 94.4% for vaccinated ones, and concluded “Our results question the need to vaccinate previously-infected individuals.” Another reference comparative study40 by a team at New York University highlighted a faster, wider and more impactful humoral and cytotoxic reaction in recovered immunity versus vaccine-induced.

There is ample evidence that vaccinating people recovered from COVID-19 doesn’t bring any benefit. It quite possibly does the opposite, because of the risk of building tolerance to elements of the virus43 translating into reduced immune potency.

On the vaccine innocuity fallacy

Without denigrating the incredible contribution of vaccines to modern medicine and public health, one needs to acknowledge that vaccines are a medical procedure. As such, vaccines should never be considered lightly. They are neither neutral, nor trivial, all the more so when they are injected into billions of people.

By their very nature, vaccines tinker with the sophisticated balance of one’s immune system. That in itself demands respecting rigid safety protocols.  Though we have made considerable progress in our understanding of immunology, we are still very far from understanding its intricacies and subtleties, especially when it comes to novel mRNA and DNA technologies. Because of the risk of anaphylactic44 shock, auto-immune diseases, unforeseen interactions, design flaws, deficient quality protocols, over-dosage, and so on, vaccines have traditionally been strictly regulated.

History teaches us to be watchful45 with vaccines, from the botched inactivation of polio vaccines that ended infecting 40,000 kids46 with polio in 1955, to the 1976 swine flu vaccine47 which caused 450 to develop Guillain-Barré syndrome, to the more recent vaccine-induced outbreak of polio in Sudan48. The recent rejection49 by Brazilian health authorities of the Bharat’s Covaxin is a clear reminder of how rigorous and independent our health authorities need to be if vaccines are to promote, not hinder, public health.

Map of Vaccine Symptoms 

316,925 reports (date: 06/20/21)

credit: Wouter Aukema – source: CDC

After 6 months of vaccination and a year of research, a number of red flags should be alerting the would-be vaccinated and health authorities:

  1. Wandering nanoparticles:  The lipid nanoparticles, the carriers of the mRNA, were supposed to remain in the muscle, but ended up broadly distributed throughout the body50, notably in the ovaries51, the liver52 and possibly the bone marrow.
  2. Anaphylactic PEG: A number of concerns had been raised regarding the novel use of PEG adjuvant53. Notably, prior research had raised the risk of cardiac anaphylaxis at second injection54.
  3. Sensitive locations: ACE-2 receptors susceptible to binding to the spike protein are highly expressed in blood vessel lining cells of highly sensitive areas, such as the brain, the heart, the lungs, the liver and both male and female reproductive systems.
  4. Toxic circulating spikes: The spike proteins induced by mRNA/DNA vaccines have been shown to be pathogenic55,56,57,58 and highly inflammatory59, notably because of the similarity of a spike sequence to that of Staphylococcal Enterotoxin B60. It has also been found to be directly causing blood clots through platelet activation61,62. One researcher said, “Our findings show that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein causes lung injury even without the presence of an intact virus”.
  5. BBB disruption – A recent study highlights the risk of disruption of the blood-brain barrier63, a fundamental filter mechanism to protect the brain64,65. The spike protein has also been found to cross the BBB and create inflammation in the brain,.
  6. High adverse events: Even though most likely under-reported66, the overall number of serious adverse events versus other traditional vaccines remains very high. The 6,000+ deaths67 seen [in the US] in six months exceed all the vaccine-related deaths in 30 years. This is quite disquieting, and tends to confirm the aforementioned red flags..
  7. Children more at risk: The Covid-19 vaccines seem to be more harmful to children and teens, notably with a growing number of myocarditis68,69 events. The fact that vaccine doses are not adjusted for body weight is notably a cause for concern given the discovery of circulating nanoparticles and spike toxicity.

These are essentially just the short-term effects of these novel vaccines. There is no long-term clinical data regarding the implications of these vaccines, notably regarding autoreactive antibodies (antibodies that target one’s own body creating autoimmune diseases).

To conclude, we question why anyone healthy and recovered from COVID-19  would want or be advised to take any risk—even the most remote—in getting vaccinated given that:

  • those who have recovered from COVID-19 enjoy robust immunity,
  • natural immunity duration is decades-long, probably lifelong,
  • natural immunity effectiveness is better than vaccine-induced,
  • variants are not an immunological concern, presenting no risk of immune escape,
  • vaccines are medical interventions which should never be taken lightly, especially when still experimental,
  • there is no benefit for COVID-19 recovered and
  • COVID-19 vaccines are obviously not as safe as stated initially by the manufacturers.
  1. The 2021 seasonal peak in Europe started down on January 22 when only 0.13% of the population was fully vaccinated.
  2. “Comprehensive analysis of T cell immunodominance and immunoprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 epitopes in COVID-19 cases” by Alessandro Sette et al, Cell, February 2021
  3. “No point vaccinating those who’ve had COVID-19: Findings of Cleveland Clinic study” by Dr. Sanchari Sinha Dutta, June 2021
  4. “Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine is “likely” responsible for deaths of some elderly patients, Norwegian review finds” by Ingrid Torjesen, British Medical Journal, May 2021
  5. “Why COVID-19 Vaccines Offer Better Protection Than Infection” by Brian W. Simpson, John Hopkins School Of Public Health Expert Insights, May 2021
  6. “Study Finds People Have Short-Lived Immunity to Seasonal Coronaviruses” by Dr. Francis Collins, CDC’s Director Blog, September 2020
  7. “Are Covid Vaccines Riskier Than Advertised? There are concerning trends on blood clots and low platelets, not that the authorities will tell you” by Joseph A. Ladapo and Harvey A. Risch, The Wall Street Journal, June 2021
  8. “Why we petitioned the FDA to refrain from fully approving any covid-19 vaccine this year” by Peter Doshi et al, The British Medical Journal Opinion, June 2021
  9. “Phase 3 trial shows REGEN-COV™ (casirivimab with imdevimab) …” show 4.1% of at risk Placebo (non treated) patients are hospitalized, or 1% of the general population
  10. “Coronavirus vaccines may not work in some people. It’s because of their underlying conditions.” by Ariana E. Cha, The Washington Post, May 2021
  11. “Determinants and outcomes of accelerated arteriosclerosis: Major impact of circulating antibodies” by Alexandre Loupy, Circulation Research, June 2015
  12. “Peripheral and lung resident memory T cell responses against SARS-CoV-2” by Meritxell Genescà et al, Nature, May 2021
  13. “Tissue-Resident Memory T Cells and Fixed Immune Surveillance in Nonlymphoid Organs” by Francis R. Carbone, Journal of Immunology, July 2015
  14. “Flu survivors still immune after 90 years” by Ed Yong, National Geographic
  15.  “Neutralizing antibodies derived from the B cells of 1918 influenza pandemic survivors” by James E. Crowe Jr., Nature
  16. “SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity in cases of COVID-19 and SARS, and uninfected controls” by Le Bert et al, Nature, July 2020
  17. “Targets of T Cell Responses to SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus in Humans with COVID-19 Disease and Unexposed Individuals” by A.Sette et al, Cell, June 2020
  18. “A majority of uninfected adults show pre-existing antibody reactivity against SARS-CoV-2” by Pascal M. Lavoie et al, JCI Insight, March 2021
  19. “Cross-reactive antibody immunity against SARS-CoV-2 in children and adults” by Todd Bradley et al, Nature, May 2021
  20. “Robust SARS-CoV-2-specific T cell immunity is maintained at 6 months following primary infection” by Paul Moss, Nature Immunology, May 2021
  21. “Naturally enhanced neutralizing breadth against SARS-CoV-2 one year after infection” by Michel C. Nussenzweig, Nature, June 2021
  22. “A long-term perspective on immunity to COVID” by ” by A.Radbruch & H-D.Chang
  23. “SARS-CoV-2 natural antibody response persists up to 12 months in a nationwide study from the Faroe Islands” by Peter Garred et al, 2021
  24. “SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans” by Ali H. Ellebedy et al, Nature, May 2021
  25. “Immunity to the Coronavirus May Last Years, New Data Hint” by Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times, November 2020
  26. “Prior SARS-CoV-2 infection is associated with protection against symptomatic reinfection” by Christopher J.A. Duncan, Journal of Infection, December 2020
  27. “What we know about covid-19 reinfection so far” by Chris Stokel-Walker, British Medical Journal, January 2021
  28. “Antibody Status and Incidence of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Health Care Workers” by Thomas G. Ritter, et al, New England Journal of Medicine, December 2020
  29. “Development of potency, breadth and resilience to viral escape mutations in SARS-CoV-2 neutralizing antibodies” by Paul D. Bieniasz et al, March 2021
  30. Get article on
  31. “Comprehensive analysis of T cell immunodominance and immunoprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 epitopes in COVID-19 cases” by A.Tarke et al… – Cell – 16-02-2021
  32. “Landscape of epitopes targeted by T cells in 852 individuals recovered from COVID-19: Meta-analysis, immunoprevalence, and web platform” by Matthew R. McKay et al, Cell, May 2021
  33. “How Broad is Covid Immunity?” by M.Yeadon/M.Girardot, Panda, March 2021
  34. Countries: Canada, Ecuador, Gabon, Germany, India, Singapore, Sweden, UK, USA, Tanzania, Zambia
  35. “Cross-reactive CD4+ T cells enhance SARS-CoV-2 immune responses upon infection and vaccination” by Claudia Giesecke-Thiel, April 2021
  36. “Profiling SARS-CoV-2 HLA-I peptidome reveals T cell epitopes from out-of-frame ORFs” by Pardis C. Sabeti, Cell, June 2021
  37. “The landscape of antibody binding in SARS-CoV-2 infection” by Irene M. Ong et al, PLOS biology, June 2021
  38. “Adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19” by Alessandro Sette & Shane Crotty, Cell, January 2021 – page 866
  39. “Protection of previous SARS-CoV-2 infection is similar to that of BNT162b2 vaccine protection: A three-month nationwide experience from Israel” by Amit Hupper et al, April 2021
  40. “Discrete Immune Response Signature to SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccination Versus Infection” by Sergei Koralov, Cell, May 2021
  41. “We observe striking expansion of circulating plasmablasts in COVID-19 patients relative to healthy volunteers”
  42. “In COVID-19 (recovered) patients, we observed an expansion of cytotoxic populations and a dramatically elevated cytotoxic signature in NK cells, CD4 and CD8 T cells, and γδ T cells.”
  43. “Differential Effects of the Second SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine Dose on T Cell Immunity in Naïve and COVID-19 Recovered Individuals” by Jordi Ochando et al, Cell, March 2021
  44. “Suspicions grow that nanoparticles in Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine trigger rare allergic reactions” by Jop de Vrieze, Science,  December 2020
  45. “Historical Vaccine Safety Concerns”, CDC
  46. “The Cutter Incident: How America’s First Polio Vaccine Led to a Growing Vaccine Crisis” by Michael Fitzpatrick, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, 2006
  47. “The Public Health Legacy of the 1976 Swine Flu Outbreak” by Rebecca Kreston, 2013
  48. “UN says new polio outbreak in Sudan caused by oral vaccine” by Maria Cheng, Associated Press, September  2020
  49. “Anvisa denies certificate of good practice to Bharat Biotech, which produces Covaxin” by Enzô Machida and Murillo Ferrari, CNN, March 2021
  50. “Organ bio distribution study undertaken by the Japanese regulator”
  51. “Potential adverse effects of nanoparticles on the reproductive system”by Shao LQ, DovePress,  September 2018
  52. “Synthetic Lipid Nanoparticles Targeting Steroid Organs” by Bertrand Tavitian, The Journal of Nuclear Medicine, 2013
  53. “PEGylated liposomes: immunological responses” by Tatsuhiro Ishida et al, Science and Technology of Advanced Materials Vol 20, 20219
  54. “Pseudo-anaphylaxis to Polyethylene Glycol (PEG)-Coated Liposomes: Roles of Anti-PEG IgM and Complement Activation in a Porcine Model of Human Infusion Reactions” by János Szebeni et al, ACS Nano, 2019
  55. “Superantigenic character of an insert unique to SARS-CoV-2 spike supported by skewed TCR repertoire in patients with hyperinflammation” by Ivet Bahar et al, PNAS, October 2020
  56. “SARS-CoV-2 spike protein induces inflammation via TLR2-dependent activation of the NF-κB pathway” by Hasan Zaki et al, March 2021
  57. “SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Impairs Endothelial Function via Downregulation of ACE 2” by John Y-J. Shyy, Circulation Reseacrh, MArch 2021
  58. “Single intratracheal exposure to SARS-CoV-2 S1 spike protein induces acute lung injury in K18-hACE2 transgenic mice” by Pavel Solopov et al, The FASEB Journal, May 2021
  59. “SARS-CoV-2 spike protein interacts with and activates TLR4” by Fuping You et al, December 2020
  60. “Bacterial Toxins—Staphylococcal Enterotoxin” by Bettina C. Fries & Avanish K. Varshney
  61. “A prothrombotic thrombocytopenic disorder resembling heparin-induced thrombocytopenia following coronavirus-19 vaccination” by Sabine Eichinger et al, The New England Journal of Medicine,  April 2020
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  63. “The SARS-CoV-2 spike protein alters barrier function in 2D static and 3D microfluidic in-vitro models of the human blood–brain barrier” by Sergio H. Ramirez, Neurobiology of Disease, December 2020
  64. “The S1 protein of SARS-CoV-2 crosses the blood–brain barrier in mice” by William A. Banks et al, NAture Neuroscience, December 2020
  65. “Guillain-Barré syndrome following ChAdOx1-S/nCoV-19 vaccine” by Boby Varkey Maramattom et al, June 2021
  66. “Underreporting of Side Effects to VAERS” by Vincent Iannelli, Vaxopedia, September 2017
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  68. “The C.D.C. is investigating nearly 800 cases of rare heart problems following immunization.” by Apoorva Mandavilli, New York Times, June 11, 2021
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July 8, 2021 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | 2 Comments

French City Fair Drops Covid Measures In Victory For People Power!

By Richie Allen | July 7, 2021

On Friday last, the historic city of Tours in France opened its annual fair. It’s normally a very big deal. This year is even more special as the fair celebrates its centenary. However, organisers and traders were shocked on Friday, when hardly anyone turned up.

Attendees and staff were told that they would need a “sanitary pass” to attend. To get a pass, a visitor or worker needed to show proof of vaccination or take a PCR test at the entrance. Throughout Friday, the fair was a ghost town and only 4 per cent of the staff had shown up.

Panic ensued. Traders, having spent thousands of euros for their pitches started screaming bloody murder. Others started buying and selling products among themselves. It was grim. Punters were walking away in their thousands. No-one wanted anything to do with the PCR tests piled high at the entrances.

At the 11th hour, the city backed down and all restrictions were lifted. The traders had been bombarding the local authority all day with texts and emails, threatening retribution if the sanitary pass wasn’t kicked to the kerb.

The city blinked and the fair was mobbed over the rest of the weekend. The PCR tests are still rotting at the entrances. The people of Tours stood up.

Vive La France! That’s the way it’s done. That’s people power. The French never let you down. Let it be a lesson to the businesses of the UK and Ireland.

We are sick to the back teeth of this scamdemic. We want our lives back. We want to frequent shops, theaters, cafés, cinemas, bars and restaurants again. We’ll fill your tills.

Just remember, whether we have been jabbed or not is none of your business. Same goes for face muzzles. The ball is now firmly in your court. I can’t wait to see you again.

July 8, 2021 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism | , , | 4 Comments

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