The Dubious Ethics of ‘Nudging’ the Public to Comply With Covid Restrictions
By Dr. Gary Sidley | The Daily Sceptic | August 22, 2021
A middle-aged woman, walking along a pavement in the afternoon sunshine, sees a young family approaching and instantly becomes stricken with terror at the prospect of contracting a deadly infection. A man in a queue in a garage kiosk leans into the face of another and screams, “You selfish idiot! Hundreds of people will die because you don’t wear a mask.” The aggressor is oblivious to the fact that his victim suffers a history of asthma and anxiety problems. A neighbour puts on a face covering and plastic gloves before wheeling her dustbin to the end of her drive. These are three recent examples of many similar events I’ve observed or read. What could be the main reason for such extraordinary behaviour? Has the emergence of the SARS-COV-2 virus magically re-wired our brains, transforming many of us into vindictive germaphobes?
No, of course not. These extreme human reactions are, I believe, primarily the result of the Government’s deployment of covert psychological ‘nudges’, introduced as a means of increasing people’s compliance with the Covid restrictions.
In an article in the Critic, I discussed the remit of the Government’s behavioural scientists in the Scientific Pandemic Insights Group on Behaviours (SPI-B), a subgroup of SAGE which offers advice to the Government about how to maximise the impact of its Covid communications strategy. The methods of influence recommended by the SPI-B are drawn from a range of ‘nudges’ described in the Institute of Government document, MINDSPACE: Influencing behaviour through public policy, several of which primarily act on the subconscious of their targets – the British people – achieving a covert influence on their behaviour. The three ‘nudges’ to have evoked the most controversy, among both psychological practitioners and the general public, are: the strategic use of fear (inflating perceived threat levels); shame (conflating compliance with virtue); and peer pressure (portraying non-compliers as a deviant minority) – or ‘affect’, ‘ego’ and ‘norms’, to use the language of behavioural science. (Specific examples of how each of these covert strategies have been used throughout the Covid crisis are described here).
The British Psychological Society (BPS) is the leading professional body for psychologists in the U.K. According to their website, a central role of the BPS is: “To promote excellence and ethical practice in the science, education and application of the discipline.” In light of this remit, I – together with 46 other psychologists and therapists – wrote a letter to the BPS on January 6th, 2021, expressing our ethical concerns about the use of covert psychological strategies as a means of securing compliance with Covid restrictions. In particular, our alarm centred on three areas: the recommendation of ‘nudges’ that exploit heightened emotional discomfort as a means of securing compliance; implementing potent covert psychological strategies without any effort to gain the informed consent of the British public; and harnessing these interventions for the purpose of achieving adherence to contentious and unevidenced restrictions that infringe basic human rights.
Responses from the BPS to our initial letter were slow and circuitous. However, on July 1st we received an email from Dr. Roger Paxton, the Chair of the Ethics Committee, which clarified the BPS’s position: in the Committee’s view, there is nothing ethically questionable about deploying covert psychological strategies on the British people as a means of increasing compliance with public health restrictions.
An in-depth inspection of Dr. Paxton’s defence of the BPS reveals that it is evasive, disingenuous and wholly unconvincing.
First, he quibbles about the use of the word “covert”, arguing that the compliance techniques under scrutiny are more appropriately described as “indirect”. Behavioural-science documents routinely refer to the psychological strategies underpinning Government communication campaigns as evoking responses from people that are “unconscious”, “subconscious” or “automatic”. The crucial point is that the human targets of these ‘nudges’ are often unaware that the intention of the SPI-B psychologists is to scare, shame them and socially pressure them to conform. The MINDSPACE publication – co-authored by Professor David Halpern, an SPI-B and SAGE member – seems to concur: “Citizens may not fully realise that their behaviour is being changed… Clearly, this opens Government up to charges of manipulation… [as] it may offer little opportunity for citizens to opt-out.” (p. 66)
Second, Dr. Paxton rejects the idea that it would be ethical to offer citizens an opportunity to opt-out by asserting that the application of covert psychological strategies to shape people’s behaviour falls outside the realm of individual consent. The BPS appears to be claiming that an appeal to some nebulous, ideologically-driven concept of social decision-making exempts psychologists from the fundamental requirement to seek a person’s informed agreement before delivering an intervention. So according to the BPS – the formal guardians of ethical practice in the U.K. – the Covid communications strategy, aimed at achieving mass behavioural change, was intended to influence some anonymous collective rather than the actions of as many individuals as possible.
Again, the BPS stance is at odds with Professor Halpern’s position. In his 2019 book, Inside the Nudge Unit, he states: “If Governments… wish to use behavioural insights, they must seek and maintain the permission of the public. Ultimately, you – the public, the citizen – need to decide what the objectives, and limits, of nudging and empirical testing should be.” (p. 375)
Third, Dr. Paxton’s claim that the levels of fear throughout the Covid pandemic were proportionate to the viral threat is ill-informed and does not stand up to scrutiny. The minutes of the SPI-B meeting of March 22nd, 2020, demonstrate that its endorsement of a covert psychological strategy was a calculated decision to scare the British people, recommending that: “The perceived level of personal threat needs to be increased among those who are complacent… using hard-hitting emotional messaging.” In her book, A State of Fear, Laura Dodsworth interviewed members of SPI-B who confirmed that there had been a concerted effort to elevate the fear levels of the general public. One committee member, Educational Psychologist Dr. Gavin Morgan, admitted: “They went overboard with the scary message to get compliance.” Another SPI-B member – who wished to remain anonymous – was even more forthright: “The way we have used fear is dystopian… The use of fear has definitely been ethically questionable. It’s been like a weird experiment. Ultimately, it backfired because people became too scared.”
The mission to indiscriminately instil fear in the British public has been highly effective. An opinion poll prior to ‘Freedom Day’ suggested most people were worried about the prospect of lifting the remaining Covid restrictions. Even now, when all the vulnerable groups have been offered vaccination, many of our citizens remain tormented by ‘Covid Anxiety Syndrome’ – a disabling combination of fear and maladaptive coping strategies – with 20% of the population ‘markedly affected’. And this psychology-assisted fear inflation will be responsible for a substantial proportion of the extensive collateral damage associated with the restrictions, including excess non-Covid deaths and mental health problems.
Fourth, Dr. Paxton’s response makes no reference to the use of shame and scapegoating, and whether these are acceptable strategies for a civilised society to use. One can only assume that the BPS either views these tactics as acceptable, or that they seek to avoid acknowledging that psychologists have recommended practices that, in some respects, resemble the methods used by totalitarian regimes such as China, where the state inflicts pain on a subset of its population in an attempt to eliminate beliefs and behaviour they perceive to be deviant.
The dismissal of our ethical concerns by the BPS was predictable: a cursory glance at the scientists comprising the SPI-B shows that several of its members are also influential figures in the BPS; a major conflict of interest that renders the impartiality of their views highly questionable. What was surprising was the strident tone of Dr. Paxton’s rejoinder, as exemplified by his assertion that the psychologists’ role in the pandemic response demonstrated “social responsibility and the competent and responsible employment of psychological expertise”. I suspect the lady trembling on the pavement, the young man being verbally abused in the garage, and the neighbour donning mask and gloves to wheel out her dustbin – along with the many others in similar positions – might all beg to differ.
Dr. Gary Sidley is a retired NHS Consultant Clinical Psychologist.
Fury over Covid rules is FINALLY helping Aussies lose their long-held, unhealthy respect for authority
By Damian Wilson | RT | August 26, 2021
Having been forced to endure months of harsh lockdowns, my often-malleable compatriots Down Under are starting to fight back as they realise their government is clueless and they’ve been nuts to swallow the ‘zero Covid’ strategy.
By any measure, Australia has not enjoyed the coronavirus pandemic – and that has nothing to do with the number of deaths, because at less than 1,000 for a population of 25 million, it has, in the main, escaped lightly.
Where it has really suffered is in identifying exactly what level of threat Covid-19 poses to the population and then acting accordingly. Instead of being bold, brave, and positive in its handling of the situation, Australia has shown all the spine of a bluebottle jellyfish.
The collywobbles set in at the slightest whiff of Covid. Not deaths. Not hospitalisations. But simple cases of the virus send public health officials into a spin, locking down millions, deploying the military onto the streets, and imposing needless and draconian curfews. Blind panic best sums up the Australian government’s approach.
Then there are the stern warnings from state leaders that would be hilarious if they weren’t so serious – about enjoying sunset on the beach, removing a mask to drink beer, dodging errant footballs while watching a game, and most recently, a local council deciding to shoot 15 rescue dogs rather than allow volunteers from an animal shelter to travel for their collection in case they spread the virus.
That’s the level of insanity we’re looking at.
Meanwhile, it was humans on the receiving end at a so-called ‘freedom rally’ in Melbourne, where violence between protesters and police led to officers firing rounds of pepper balls – the most powerful non-lethal force at their disposal – into the anti-lockdown crowd.
It was one sign that patience with being treated like sheep might finally have snapped among parts of the Australian public. And it’s about time. I had begun to wonder what happened to the rebellious larrikins, the famed Aussie battlers, the brave Diggers, the pioneering ‘new Australians’ who just a generation or so ago left homes and family in Italy, Greece, Vietnam and beyond to pursue their dreams in the Lucky Country.
It seemed that a subservience to the ruling class, an unhealthy respect for authority, had overwhelmed my homeland.
The whole penal colony fable is a bit exaggerated, and of course there have been generations of intermingling since the 18th century, when Australia’s first white arrivals were drawn from the ranks of Great Britain’s sheep thieves and petty criminals. The violence and harsh conditions that welcomed those newcomers to the shores of Botany Bay, however, instilled a deep loathing and mistrust of their governing class, and it is often argued that Australia’s success was built on that resentment, driving its people to prove themselves to the authorities at home – and back in Mother England – that they could more than hold their own on the world stage. That inferiority complex was the driving force that has seen us excel in literature, in music, and particularly in sport.
But it also makes the Aussies a malleable bunch at times. Authority can make us go all weak at the knees. Public awareness campaigns that might struggle for lift-off elsewhere prove wildly successful in obedient Oz.
There’s no doubt this has been employed effectively in the past. There were the anti-litter ‘Keep Australia Beautiful’, keep-fit ‘Life. Be in it’, and skin cancer prevention ‘Slip! Slop! Slap!’ campaigns of my childhood. There was the mandatory wearing of bike helmets that came into force in the early 1990s, the plain packaging for cigarettes that appeared in 2012, and even the strict limits on gun ownership under the National Firearms Agreement that followed the Port Arthur massacre which left 35 people dead in 1996.
We have long been suckers for any message whose central premise is: follow this prescriptive guidance and you will be totally free to enjoy the great outdoors (without dying from cancer, obesity, bike accident or gunshot). That explains why the heavy-handed Covid rules have faced such little resistance.
The problem public health officials are facing now, however, is that the message is no longer working. Aussies were told the ‘zero Covid’ strategy that their government was pursuing was the envy of the world. That closing all international borders and keeping everyone at home was the pathway to freedom. Just do as we say and everything will be bonzer.
But they lied. With the Delta variant on the loose, lockdowns, curfews, restrictions on movement and the rest of the usual draconian measures are coming into play once more. But the government has overplayed its hand, and a sceptical public is starting to think, “These galahs haven’t got a bloody clue!” And they’re right.
So we see unrest on the streets of Brisbane, Sydney, Perth, and Melbourne because patience has finally snapped. I say let it rip! I look forward to continuing protests, rule-breaking, tough questions, and political accountability. I look forward to heads rolling, humiliating inquiries, and heartfelt apologies from the bungling clowns in charge.
I might have to wait a few months, but hey, that’s okay… because like my fellow compatriots, I’m not going anywhere.
Damian Wilson is a UK journalist, ex-Fleet Street editor, financial industry consultant and political communications special advisor in the UK and EU.
Washington school introduced invasive ankle bracelets for COVID tracing
Parents push back
By Ken Macon | Reclaim The Net | August 25, 2021
A public high school in the state of Washington was making student athletes, both vaccinated and unvaccinated, wear ankle monitors for the purposes of social distancing and contact tracing.
The story was brought to the spotlight by the mother of a 15-year-old girl in Eatonville High School’s volleyball team.
Speaking to The Post Millennial, the mother said that her daughter sent her a text about being asked to wear the ankle monitor. After being unable to reach her daughter again, presumably because she was playing, the mother called the school, but no one answered her questions. So she decided to go to the school where she spoke with the coach who told her that a meeting about an ankle monitoring program for students was held last week.
The device was manufactured by a tech firm called Triax. The company’s website states that the device’s purpose is to help in “maintaining social distancing guidelines” as well as “real-time insight into whether these guidelines are being observed.” The site mentions construction and manufacturing businesses as potential customers, not schools.
The device achieves its social distancing goal through “a visual and audible alarm, so individuals know when to adjust their current distance to a proper social distance.”
The device also has a feature for “passive collection of worker interactions for contact tracing should an individual test positive.”
The coach, Gavin Kralik, told the mother that if an unvaccinated student tested positive, they would have to quarantine for 14 days. The quarantine policy would not apply for vaccinated students.
The ankle monitoring policy was not included in the school district’s back-to-school documents. Additionally, the mother was not informed about the meeting, where, apparently, she would have been provided with the option to opt-out of the program.
In an interview Tuesday on The Ari Hoffman Show, the mother expressed her concern that the program would result in the discrimination of unvaccinated students, because, unlike the vaccinated students, they would have to go into isolation for 14 days.
The Eatonville School District Superintendent Gary Neal insisted that the purpose of the device was not discrimination.
Neal told The Post Millennial : “We received grant funding (known as ESSER III) that specifically included provisions to support higher-risk athletic programs, and we used some of those funds to pay for athletic proximity monitors. We are using these monitors for high contact and moderate indoor contact sports. The monitors are for both staff (coaches) and students on the field, regardless if they are vaccinated or unvaccinated. If a student or coach tests positive, we will have immediate information regarding athletes’ and coaches’ contacts, so we can more tightly determine who might need to quarantine.”
But the School Board Director Matt Marshall had a different message, saying that the school district has “shelved the devices until proper procedures including community input and board approval process occur.”
“I will fight any requirements that segregate students based on vaccination status,” he added. “I am confident the rest of my colleagues will do the same.”
NHS plans Covid-19 vaccination for 12-year-olds that would NOT require parental permission – reports
RT | August 26, 2021
The UK National Health Service (NHS) has reportedly made plans to vaccinate children as young as 12 without the need for their parents’ permission – a plan that government advisers have not yet supported.
Under the NHS’ plan, children between the ages of 12 and 15 would start being vaccinated in less than two weeks’ time after returning to school following the summer holidays, according to The Telegraph, which obtained emails sent by the NHS’ regional offices. The newspaper also reported on Thursday that the children “would not need parental consent” to get vaccinated.
Though Pfizer’s Covid-19 vaccine has been approved in the UK for children aged 12 and over, the Department of Health said on Wednesday that a decision on the vaccination of young children had not yet been made.
Government advisers on the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) have been reviewing whether to approve widespread vaccination of children, but had earlier said only children with certain health conditions would receive jabs.
Earlier this month, England’s deputy chief medical officer, Jonathan Van-Tam, expressed his support for the vaccination of under 18s, claiming to be “very much in favour” of 16- and 17-year-olds getting jabbed.
Vam-Tam also said that it was “more likely rather than less likely” that the number of children between the ages of 12 and 15 who were eligible to get vaccinated would soon expand.
News of the NHS’ plan angered many people on social media who pointed out that the risk vs reward conclusion for vaccinating young children was still uncertain.
Reform Party leader Richard Tice called the plan “shocking” while pub entrepreneur Hugh Osmond called it “grotesque.” Conservative academic Adrian Hilton – a former adviser to Cabinet Office Minister Michael Gove – pointed out that “12-year-olds cannot consent to a medical procedure.”
Other Brits protested that “the government does not own my child” and threatened to pull their children out of public schooling.
Some supported the idea, with one Welsh social media user stating that she agreed 12- to 15-year-olds “can consent” and are “mature enough to make that call,” but thought it should be “done near to medical care like mine was, not in school.”
In the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) advises all Americans aged 12 and over to get vaccinated against Covid-19. Roughly 600,000 children between the ages of 12 and 15 were vaccinated in less than a week after Pfizer’s vaccine was approved for under 16s in May.
Many European Union countries have also started vaccinating children, with the EU approving Pfizer for 12- to 15-year-olds in May and Moderna in July.
YouTube censors Gavin Newsom critic, Errol Webber
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | August 26, 2021
California Governor Gavin Newsom, who is currently facing recall in his state and could realistically lose, is still popular among at least one “demographic” – YouTube censors, whether they’re automated or human.
At least that transpires now that Oscar winning filmmaker Errol Webber is facing what reports say is “double censors” because he’s really not fond of the Democrat’s track record in office.
Webber won his Oscar for “Music by Prudence” that deals with a singer with disabilities in Zimbabwe. Back in California, though, Webber decided to flex his apparently stellar documentary-making muscle by taking on a project under the title, “100 Reasons to Recall Gavin Newsom” that looks into all the things that Newsom did wrong during his three years in office, reports say.
This is where things came to a screeching halt, at least on YouTube, where the video got blocked and placed under a total of two warning labels.
In one screenshot shared by Webber, YouTube declared the Newsom era-exposing documentary as something that “may not be appropriate for some users” (true enough – especially when it comes to his hard-core political supporters, but why would YouTube care to appease those?).
Plus, YouTube sent Webber an email informing him that his content was not appropriate for all age groups.
So YouTube was “thinking of the children,” not “of the Democrats” here.
In any case, users can still see the video but only if they wish to proceed by clicking a button on an ominously back screen complete with a prominent exclamation mark seemingly demoting danger ahead.
The other labelled screen reads, (with another the big exclamation mark and a button that lets users “understand and proceed,” reading that, “the following content has been identified by the YouTube community as inappropriate and offensive to some audiences.”
One would be hard pressed to find a video on YouTube that doesn’t fall into this nebulous category of “offending” someone’s sensibilities; but for YouTube not all sensibilities are born equal.
The video showcasing Newsom’s term in office uses “authoritative” sources like CNN and AP to document all that’s gone wrong during the governor’s rule.
“I made sure that many of the sources for this video were left wing media, so if the fact checkers on YouTube and Facebook wanted to fact check me and discredit something they would be discrediting their own left wing media,” Webber said.
And despite the hurdles on its way, Webber’s content is still finding an audience on YouTube – until, that is, the giant fine-tweaks its censorship tools to downrank what it doesn’t like without necessarily removing it.
Here Come the Terrorists. Again
By Philip Giraldi | Strategic Culture Foundation | August 26, 2021
President Joe Biden is being praised in some circles because he finally ended the war in Afghanistan that in all likelihood should never have begun. President George W. Bush initiated the conflict on a series of lies about 9/11 and the Taliban role in that attack and what followed. After bringing about regime change, he decided to remake the country into a western style democracy. President Barack Obama subsequently allowed a “surge” which actually increased the militarization of the conflict and made things worse. The joint effort produced no free elections but delivered instead tens of thousands of deaths and a huge hole in the US Treasury. Bush and Obama were followed by President Donald Trump who actually promised to end the war but lacked the conviction and political support to do so, handing the problem over to Biden, who has bungled the end game but finally done the right thing by ending the fiasco. Biden also has been right to accede to a withdrawal of the last US combat troops from Iraq by year’s end, a move that will considerably ease tension with the Baghdad government, which has been calling for such a move since last January.
But America’s war on those parts of the world that resist following its self-defined leadership is not about to go away. An interesting recent article in the foreign policy establishment The Hill written by a former senior CIA operations and staff officer Douglas London sees an Orwellian unending war against major adversaries Russia and China. Derived from his own experience, he concludes that sustained and enhanced clandestine actions should now replace conventional military forces confrontation, which has been somewhat outdated as an option due to the development of relatively cheap missile technologies that have undermined classic conventional weapons. Some of the clandestine activity he appears to recommend would undoubtedly fall under cover of classic espionage “plausible denial,” i.e. that the White House could disavow any knowledge of what had occurred, but sabotage and cyber-attacks, particularly if implemented aggressively, would quickly be recognized for what they are and would invite commensurate or even disproportionate retaliation. This would amount to an all-out semi-covert war against powerful adversaries which could easily escalate into a shooting war.
The London article is an interesting insight into the thinking of those in both the Democratic and Republican parties who continue to argue that the United States is threatened by largely asymmetrical warfare being conducted by what are regarded as “autocratic” regimes in Moscow and Beijing as well as by non-governmental terrorist groups that is seeking to undermine confidence in US policymakers, the “democratic” government system and the stability of its other institutions.
That the White House is listening to at least some of the complaints coming from the neoconservatives and neoliberals calling for more “democracy promotion” and “regime change” would appear to be the case as there have been renewed calls for greater engagement in various fora, to include NATO leadership now urging the alliance to stand up to Russian “aggression.” The US has meanwhile also called on “friends” in the Middle East to block any attempts by China to establish “military bases” in that region, with the State Department arguing that “The current assessment is that China has a global strategy of pursuing military installations all over, including in the Middle East.” The United States, by one estimate, has nearly 1100 military bases worldwide while China has only one in Djibouti.
Admittedly this time, the US will have to go about its usual school bully behavior without much in the way of allies. The Europeans will not show up as they are disgusted with American vacillation and inability to anticipate obvious developments, as was the case in Afghanistan. Israel and Saudi Arabia will likely line up, or pretend to, while also continuing their collaboration with radical groups that Washington would prefer to avoid.
To be sure there are many in Washington who would be quite happy to continue the US naval build up in the South China Sea while also sending ships to the Black Sea to cruise defiantly off the Russian coast. And then there is also Iran and its ally Syria, both of which continue to be targets of opportunity for sabotage, covert action and the Israeli Air Force, which last week again attacked Syria after penetrating Lebanese air space. So there are always wars and rumors of wars available, which is precisely what the US military-industrial-congressional complex wants to sustain. And in so doing they know that they will have the mainstream media on board, which has the same objective.
But still, it is important to have a plausible threatening enemy, and China is still somewhat over the horizon in that context. So, you turn to the one-size-fits-all option, which is “international terrorism,” preferably Islamic, to continue to empower the central government and fatten one’s friends in the national security industry. And it doesn’t hurt along the way to label some domestic opponents in the same fashion to guarantee one’s political supremacy for the foreseeable future. It’s a win-win.
So, the Biden Administration is either inadvertently or by design setting up the next chapter in its “America goes to war” narrative even as it has not yet figured out how to extricate the soldiers it has sent to assist in the evacuation of Kabul and who are now potential hostages at the airport surrounded by heavily armed Taliban.
But key figures in the Administration and elsewhere inside and outside the government are already looking beyond that, arguing that the new Afghan state will become a terrorist haven and those radicals will look to the United States for a target, as al-Qaeda reportedly did. Jamil Jaffer, founder and executive director of the National Security Institute at George Mason University argues that “There’s no question that the return of the Taliban opens up space in this new Islamic emirate for al Qaeda to return, rebuild a base, and for other groups associated or previously associated with al Qaeda, like ISIS, to return to the region. Jihadi fighters of all stripes will now once again make Afghanistan their home, as they did in the lead-up to 9/11.”
Indeed, some of those “experts” are seeing the twenty years spent in Afghanistan as a plus as it kept in check those extremists who might have been inclined to act in Europe and the US. That of course ignores the continued existence of many other unsettled parts of the world where terrorists of various kinds have been able to flourish successfully without feeling any need to bomb New York. Senators Lindsey Graham and Mark Warner have warned of a likely resurgence in terrorism, as have both General Mark Milley, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin. Graham laments that “The likelihood of an attack coming from Afghanistan now is through the roof.” The Department of Homeland Security has also done its bit, warning that possible Afghanistan-derived attacks from Islamic extremists on or near the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 event “could serve as a catalyst for acts of targeted violence.”
Anyway, you look at it, terrorism with be the national security flavor du jour over the next year or more. The only real question is, “Will it be domestic or foreign?” Either way the seemingly endless wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will be history but the search for new enemies will continue no matter who is president or which party dominates congress.
We will work with the Congress to provide $1bn to Iron Dome, US official says
MEMO | August 26, 2021
US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin yesterday pledged to work with Congress to provide $1 billion to Israel’s Iron Dome defence system, the Times of Israel reported.
“We are working closely with Congress to provide all the necessary information to respond positively to your request to provide $1 billion in emergency funding. And it’s going to save more innocent lives,” Austin told Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett.
Speaking to reporters following the meeting, Austin said: “The Department of Defense is also committed to maintaining Israel’s qualitative military edge, and to ensur[ing] that Israel can defend itself against threats from Iran, its proxies, and terrorist groups.”
“Iran must be held accountable for acts of aggression in the Middle East and on international waters,” referring to the attack on Mercer Street tanker off the Omani coast.
“US is committed to strengthening its strategic relationship with Israel,” he said, “the administration is committed to Israel’s security and its right to self-defense.”
When asked about the ten-year memorandum of understanding worth $3.8 billion in defence aid annually that was signed during the Obama administration, he said: “That is unwavering. It is steadfast.”
Withdrawal from Afghanistan to benefit Israel, says US official
MEMO | August 26, 2021
A US official has defended the withdrawal from Afghanistan by claiming that it will benefit Israel. Speaking at a briefing ahead of a meeting between the far-right Israeli Prime Minster Naftali Bennett and US President Joe Biden, the unnamed official said that Washington will be in a better position to direct resources and attention to its allies such as Israel, the Times of Israel has reported.
The newspaper claimed that Biden will use the meeting with Bennett to reinforce his commitment to the occupation state and other US allies in the region.
Washington is redirecting its resources towards the threat posed by China and Russia. However, US officials rejected a frequently reported claim by analysts that the Middle East is no longer a key priority for the US.
“Nothing could be further from the truth,” said a senior official. “If anything, in the Biden administration, we are not pursuing… unachievable goals.” This is believed to mean that Biden will not make demands on Israel.
“We’re not trying to transform the Middle East. We’re not trying to overthrow regimes. We are pursuing a very steady course, centred on achievable aims; alignment of ends and means; and, first and foremost, support for our partners and, of course, Israel being second to none,” the official added.
Despite early cautious optimism on the back of the Biden administration reversing some of the more controversial policies of former US President Donald Trump — Biden has reopened the Palestine Embassy in Washington, for example, and restored humanitarian aid to the Palestinians — there is a new realism within America over what is achievable. No new peace plan is expected to be unveiled, nor is there an expectation on Israel to return to the negotiation table with a view to ending its brutal military occupation of Palestine.
Bennett goes into today’s meeting having made a renewed pledge that there will be no independent Palestinian state under his watch. As a former settler leader who opposes the creation of such a state, Bennett said that there would be no resolution of the conflict with the Palestinians for the foreseeable future.
US relations with Iran and the so-called Abraham Accords, which saw four Arab countries (the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco and Sudan) normalise relations with the occupation state last year, are expected to be discussed during the Biden-Bennett meeting. Apparently, the US president will be looking to see how Israel feels about the US entering into a nuclear deal with Iran, and to find ways to expand the list of countries signed up to the accords.
America’s $800 Million Kabul Embassy To Be Abandoned – No Troops Will Guard It
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | August 25, 2021
The initial Biden plan for the complete US troop draw down from Afghanistan was to authorize a security force of some 600 Marines to guard the massive US embassy compound in Kabul. This was announced last Spring – of course long before the chaotic botched evacuation events of this month, which has seen all diplomats and military retreat to the confines of Hamid Karzai international airport.
Plans have drastically changed as on Wednesday during a Pentagon press briefing a military spokesman confirmed that the embassy will be completely abandoned.
“After the US military leaves Kabul on Aug. 31, no Americans will guard the $800 million dollar US embassy in Kabul,” Fox’s Pentagon corresponded Lucas Tomlinson reports.
As Forbes has recently reviewed, US taxpayers have sunk a whopping $1.5 billion to erect and maintain it soon after the post 9/11 American invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, though most estimates commonly put it at $800 million in value (minus maintenance, upkeep, and security costs).
The publication recently went through 10 U.S. investments in Afghanistan that didn’t pan out (a bit of an understatement):
U.S. Embassy: $1.5 billion for the U.S. Embassy (security, construction and maintenance) plus $157 million for operations since 2001. Embassy officials lowered the American flag this week as the embassy was totally evacuated.
Since last week embassy operations have relocated to the airport, though it seems there may be a minimal US security force still guarding it and perhaps destroying any final sensitive equipment so it’s not left to Taliban hands.
Military helicopters have been airlifting personnel from the embassy since the collapse of the US-backed Afghan national government, and as the Taliban approached and took control of the capital city.
At the same time recent reports have indicated both Russia and China plan to keep their embassies in Afghanistan operational, with last week both countries confirming their intent, also as China has signaled it plans to formally ‘recognize’ the Taliban as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.
Regulators knew in 2020 that Covid-19 Vaccines would cause blood clots, heart damage, harm to children, and death
DAILY EXPOSE – AUGUST 22, 2021
Every serious adverse reaction to the Covid-19 vaccines that medicine regulators in both the USA and United Kingdom have been forced to admit is occurring was predicted by the very same medicine regulators to occur before the Covid-19 vaccines were even rolled out.
The following video was released by the US Food and Drug Administration in October 2020 and the person presenting the slides within the video skips past a slide entitled ‘Draft working list of possible adverse event outcomes’ as fast as he possibly can.
Skip to the 2 hour, 33 minute mark and see for yourself…
You’ll have noticed the slide read as follows –
“FDA Safety Surveillance of COVID-19 Vaccines: DRAFT Working list of possible adverse event outcomes ***Subject to change***
-Guillain-Barré syndrome
-Acute disseminated encephalomyelitis
-Transverse myelitis
-Encephalitis /myelitis/encephalomyelitis/meningoencephalitis/meningitis/encephalopathy
-Convulsions/seizures
-Stroke
-Narcolepsy and cataplexy
-Anaphylaxis
-Acute myocardial infarction
-Myocarditis/pericarditis
-Autoimmune disease
-Deaths
-Preganacy and birth outcomes
-Other acute demyelinating diseases
-Non-anaphylactic allergic reactions
-Thrombocytopenia
-Disseminated intervascular coagulation
-Venous thromboembolism
-Arthritis and arthralgia/joint pain
-Kawasaki disease
-Multisymptom Inflammatory Syndrome in Children
-Vaccine enhanced disease”
All of the clotting and coagulation. All of the heart damage. All of the female reproductive issues. All of the people suffering heart attacks and strokes and people sadly dying. All of it was predicted by the medicine regulators before the jabs were even rolled out.
Even the multi-symptom inflammatory syndrome in children was predicted and it is a brand new disease where children have symptoms resembling toxic shock syndrome or Kawasaki disease, in which the coronary arteries enlarge or form aneurysms. Also common are heart inflammation with impaired heart function and low blood pressure, rash or red eyes, and gastrointestinal symptoms.
Which is why we can be certain that vaccine enhanced disease also known as antibody-dependent enhancement is occurring and will occur, because the health regulators have predicted it will do so. This is precisely why Public Health England data shows that the double vaccinated have at least a 338% higher chance of death if infected with Covid-19.
The latest PHE report shows that up to the 15th August 2021 the fully vaccinated population had suffered a total of 679 deaths. This equates to 0.9% of all confirmed infections among the fully vaccinated population. Whereas the unvaccinated population had suffered just 390 deaths equating to just 0.2% of all confirmed infections.
The medicine regulators knew precisely what would happen to people once the Covid-19 injections were rolled out yet they allowed it to happen anyway. We wonder if Bill Gates being the primary funder of the UK’s Medicine Regulator the MHRA has anything to do with it? He only has major shares in both Pfizer and BioNTech so perhaps not?
Washington State Creeps Toward COVID Police State With Vaccine Mandates, ‘Tracking Monitors’ in Schools
21st Century Wire | August 26, 2021
It’s a race to the bottom of humanity and the competition just keeps getting scarier by the day. On the heels of what we thought was a clear One Horse Race in the ‘Zero COVID’ Sweepstakes, led by New Zealand, a new contender has emerged stateside – Washington, USA.
Washington Governor Jay Inslee, a self-avowed climate zealot, now adds pseudo-medical segregationist and authoritarian to his political resume with a raft of new COVID diktats including a vaccination mandate for all educators across his state.
State education workers will need to be ‘fully vaccinated’ by the hard deadline of October 18th.
Inslee called the vaccines being mandated “incredibly effective, amazingly effective… they are a medical miracle, they are a double miracle…”
Personal and religious beliefs will also not be tolerated:
Inslee topped up his orders by declaring the state’s indoor mask mandate expanded to require everyone to ‘mask up’ in indoor settings, regardless of vaccine status, set to take effect on Monday, August 30th.
You may have seen by now New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern gleefully advocating for COVID ‘ankle bracelets’ – she says “YEES!”:
The News Tribune reports that Eatonville High School in Washington has already implemented Ardern’s fanatical fantasy – requiring its student-athletes and coaches to wear tracking monitors during practices:
“We received grant funding (known as ESSER III) that specifically included provisions to support higher-risk athletic programs, and we used some of those funds to pay for athletic proximity monitors,” the statement reads. “We are using these monitors for high contact and moderate indoor contact sports. The monitors are for both staff (coaches) and students on the field, regardless if they are vaccinated or unvaccinated. If a student or coach tests positive, we will have immediate information regarding athletes’ and coaches’ contacts, so we can more tightly determine who might need to quarantine.”
A parent of two student-athletes at the high school, Jason Ostendorf, told The Times Tribune he had “no choice in the matter” but to sign the consent forms allowing the school to track his kids while they practiced their sports, adding:
“It’s just one more thing they’re doing to the kids through this whole covid thing,” he said. “The vaccine, now be tracked when you’re at practice. Where does this end? I feel like this is an experiment on our kids to see how much we can put them through before they start breaking.”
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In Memoriam
James Petras, In Memoriam
02.13.2026
Professor James Petras, 89, world-renowned sociologist, public intellectual, and scholar of Latin American politics and global economics, died peacefully on January 17, 2026, in Seattle, WA, surrounded by family.
A prolific scholar and activist, he devoted his life to challenging power, imperialism, and inequality. … continue
Blog Roll
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- Coal Power Back In Trend As Globe Tries To Keep Pace With Growing Demand For Power
- New Study: A 4°C Warmer Beaufort Sea Had ‘No Sea Ice’ 11,700 – 8200 Years Ago
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- German Gas Crisis…Chancellor Merz Allegedly Bans Gas Debate Ahead of Elections!
- Pollen Reconstructions Show The Last Glacial’s Warming Events Were Global, 10x Greater Than Modern
- Germany’s Natural Gas Storage Level Dwindles To Just 28%… Increasingly Critical
- New Study Rebuts The Assumption That Anthropogenic CO2 Molecules Have ‘Special’ Properties
- Climate Scientist Who Predicted End Of “Heavy Frost And Snow” Now Refuses Media Inquiries
- Polar Bear Numbers Rising And Health Improving In Areas With The Most Rapid Sea Ice Decline
- One Reason Only For Germany’s Heating Gas Crisis: Its Hardcore-Dumbass Energy Policy
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