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It has always been a ‘Religious War’: On Ben-Gvir and the adaptability of Zionism

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | January 17, 2023

In a self-congratulatory article published in the Atlantic in 2017, Yossi Klein Halevi describes Israeli behaviour at the just-conquered holy Muslim shrines in Occupied East Jerusalem in 1967 as “an astonishing moment of religious restraint”.

“The Jewish people had just returned to its holiest site, from which it had been denied access for centuries, only to effectively yield sovereignty at its moment of triumph,” Halevi wrote with a lingering sense of pride, as if the world owes Israel a ton of gratitude in the way it conducted itself during one of the most egregious acts of violence in the modern history of the Middle East.

Halevi’s pompous discourse on Israel’s heightened sense of morality – compared to, according to his own analysis, the lack of Arab appreciation of Israel’s overtures and refusal to engage in peace talks – is not in any way unique. His is the same language recycled umpteen times by all Zionists, even by those who advocated for a Jewish state before it was established on the ruins of destroyed and ethnically cleansed Palestine.

From its nascent beginnings, the Zionist discourse was purposely confusing – disarranging history when necessary, and fabricating it when convenient. Though the resultant narrative on Israel’s inception and continuation as an exclusively Jewish state may appear confounding to honest readers of history, for Israel’s supporters – and certainly for the Zionists themselves – Israel, as an idea, makes perfect sense.

When Israel’s new National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir raided Al-Aqsa Mosque on 3 January to re-introduce himself to Jewish extremists as the new face of Israeli politics, he was also taking the first steps in correcting, in his own perception, a historical injustice.

Like Halevi, and, in fact, most of Israel’s political classes, let alone mainstream intellectuals, Ben-Gvir believes in the significance of Jerusalem and its holy shrines to the very future of their Jewish state. However, despite the general agreement on the power of the religious narrative in Israel, there are also marked differences.

What Halevi was bragging about in his piece in the Atlantic is this: soon after soldiers raised the Israeli flag, garnished with the Star of David, atop the Dome of the Rock they were ordered to take it down. They did so, supposedly, at the behest of then-Defence Minister Moshe Dayan, quoted in the piece as saying to the army unit commander: “Do you want to set the Middle East on fire?”

Eventually, Israel conquered all of Jerusalem. Since then, it has also done everything in its power to ethnically cleanse the city’s Palestinian Muslim and Christian inhabitants to ensure an absolute Jewish majority. What is taking place in Sheikh Jarrah and other Palestinian neighbourhoods in Jerusalem is but a continuation of this old, sad episode.

However, the Haram Al-Sharif Compound – where Al-Aqsa Mosque, Dome of the Rock and other Muslim shrines are located – was nominally administered by the Islamic Waqf authorities. By doing so, Israel managed to enforce the inaccurate notion that religious freedom is still respected in Jerusalem even after Israel’s so-called ‘unification’ of the city, which will remain, according to Israel’s official discourse, the “united, eternal capital of the Jewish people”.

The reality on the ground, however, has been largely dictated by the Ben-Gvirs of Israel who, for decades, have laboured to erase the Muslim and Christian history, identity and, at times, even their ancient graveyards from the Occupied city. Al-Haram Al-Sharif is hardly a religious oasis for Muslims but the site of daily protests, whereby Israeli soldiers and Jewish extremists routinely storm the holy shrines, leaving behind broken bones, blood and tears.

Despite American support of Israel, the international community has never accepted Israel’s version of falsified history. Though the Jewish spiritual connection to the city is always acknowledged – in fact, it has been respected by Arabs and Muslims since Caliph Umar ibn Al-Khattab entered the city in 638 – Israel has been reminded by the United Nations, time and again, regarding the illegality of its Occupation and all related actions it carried out in the city since June of 1967.

But Ben-Gvir and his Otzma Yehudit Party, like all of Israel’s major political forces, care little for international law, authentic history or Palestinians’ rights. However, their main point of contention regarding the proper course of action in Al-Aqsa is mostly internal. There are those who want to speed up the process of fully claiming Al-Aqsa as a Jewish site, and those who believe that such a move is untimely and, for now, unstrategic.

The former group, however, is winning the debate. Long marginalised at the periphery of Israeli politics, Israel’s religious parties are now inching closer to the centre, which is affecting Israel’s priorities on how best to defeat the Palestinians.

Typical analyses attribute the rise of Israel’s religious constituencies to the desperation of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who is arguably using the likes of Ben-Gvir, Bezalel Smotrich and Aryeh Deri to stay in office. However, this assessment does not tell the whole story, as the power of religious parties has long preceded Netanyahu’s political and legal woes. The Zionist discourse has, itself, been shifting towards religious Zionism; this can be easily observed in the growing religious sentiment in Israel’s judicial system, among the rank and file of the army, in the Knesset (Parliament) and, more recently, in the government itself.

These ideological shifts have even led some to argue that Ben-Gvir and his supporters are angling for a ‘religious war’. But is Ben-Gvir the one introducing religious war to the Zionist discourse?

In truth, early Zionists have never tried to mask the religious identity of their colonial project. “Zionism aims at establishing for the Jewish people a publicly and legally assured home in Palestine,” the Basel Program, adopted by the First Zionist Congress in 1897, stated. Little has changed since then. Israel is “the national state, not of all its citizens, but only of the Jewish people,” Netanyahu said in March 2019.

So, if Israel’s founding ideology, political discourse, Jewish Nation State Law, every war, illegal settlement, bypass road and even the very Israeli flag and national anthem were all directly linked or appealed to religion and religious sentiments, then it is safe to argue that Israel has been engaged in a religious war against Palestinians since its inception.

The Zionists, whether ‘political Zionists’ like Theodore Hertzl or ‘Spiritual Zionists’ like Ahad Ha’am’ – and now Netanyahu and Ben-Gvir – have all used the Jewish religion to achieve the same end, colonising all historic Palestine and ethnically cleansing its native population. Sadly, a major part of this sinister mission has been achieved, though Palestinians continue to resist with the same ferocity of their ancestors.

The historic truth is that Ben-Gvir’s behaviour is only a natural outcome of Zionist thinking, formulated over a century ago. Indeed, for Zionists – religious, secular or, even atheists – the war has always been or, more accurately, had to be, a religious one.

January 17, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , | 2 Comments

Kurdish delegation visits Damascus as SDF loses faith in Washington

The Cradle | January 17, 2023

Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar reported on 17 January that a Kurdish delegation representing the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) visited Syria’s capital Damascus today, to engage in dialogue with the Syrian government in light of the potential Syrian-Turkish rapprochement.

According to the report, the SDF “welcomed” Damascus’ insistence that the rapprochement not officially begin until Turkiye guarantees its intention to withdraw from Syria. Quoting the head of the Kurdish Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) foreign relations office, Badran Jia Kurd, who led the delegation, it has a priority “to develop Syrian-Syrian dialogue as an ideal path to a political solution.”

At the same time, however, in continuation of its attempt to foil any chance of Syrian-Turkish reconciliation, Washington is now trying to, in a sense, reform and restructure the Kurdish organization to make it more acceptable to Ankara.

A 12 January report released by Al-Akhbar stated that in an attempt to do this, the US has asked the SDF to disassociate from Turkiye’s sworn foe, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and clear Raqqa and Deir Ezzor of Kurdish militants so that they could be overseen by ‘local councils’ made up of Arabs.

It is worth noting that the Kurds have expressed reluctance over this US project and have said that despite being willing to negotiate, they cannot accept to make such large concessions.

Proceeding with this plan, the US is currently recruiting Arab fighters to eventually incorporate into the SDF, thereby working to make it somewhat more acceptable to Turkiye. These Arab fighters are being recruited into the Raqqa Revolutionary Brigade (Liwa Thuwwar al-Raqqa), the revived version of a former extremist faction which was allied to Jabhat al-Nusra in 2012, and then fought ISIS alongside the SDF from 2015 to 2018 under US sponsorship before a dispute saw them break apart.

Having been inactive for a few years, Al-Akhbar reported on 20 December 2022 that Washington has brought this group into action once again, giving it the capacity to recruit fighters, and promised its members monthly salaries. Later reports claimed that the US has already begun making payments to the Raqqa Brigade, which it hopes can remerge with the SDF at some point.

Today, Al-Akhbar reports that the Raqqa Brigade is coordinating with the Syrian National Alliance (SNA), a New York-based opposition group made up of Syrian exiles, which is supposed to make up the brigade’s political wing.

However, as Washington scrambles to forge together alliances in an attempt to keep Turkiye and the SDF away from Damascus and closer to each other, the Kurds have expressed wariness over these efforts.

“This vision cannot be viewed positively, given the difficulty of persuading Turkiye to end hostility towards the Kurds in general … the most appropriate solution for the region lies with Damascus,” Kurdish sources close to the SDF have said.

In other news, the armed opposition’s leading faction, the extremist, former Al-Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has continued to voice its complete rejection of Ankara’s diplomatic turnaround and is currently mobilizing heavy reinforcements.

January 17, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment

The Trouble with Western Tanks in Ukraine

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – 17.01.2023 

Western nations have begun pledging a variety of Western armored vehicles to Ukraine including infantry fighting vehicles and even main battle tanks. Until now, the majority of armored vehicles sent to Ukraine had been Soviet-era weapons Ukrainian forces were familiar with both in terms of operating and repairing them.

However, following Ukraine’s Kherson and Kharkov offensives, much of this equipment has been destroyed, leaving the West little choice but to begin sending Western systems or leave Ukrainian forces in the field with only small arms.

While Western leaders and the media claim that Western armored vehicles represent a significant increase in Ukrainian capabilities, the reality is quite the opposite. Far from giving Ukraine an advantage on the battlefield, Ukrainian forces will struggle merely to get the vehicles on the battlefield and keep them there. Additionally, recent conflicts elsewhere in the world have proven Western armored vehicles including main battle tanks are neither “invincible,” nor “game-changing.”

Thus, if Ukraine’s hundreds of Soviet-era tanks, infantry fighting vehicles, and armored personnel carriers failed to achieve favorable outcomes for Kiev, it is unlikely replacing these systems with Western hardware will make any difference.

Logistics, Training, and Maintenance 

In order to get Ukrainians into Western armored vehicles they will have to be trained in their basic operation, in using them effectively on a modern battlefield together with other tanks and weapon systems, and keeping them on the battlefield (maintenance). Entry-level tankers can take up to half a year to acquire these skills – time Ukraine doesn’t have, meaning that unless Western operators will be manning them posing as Ukrainians, heavily abbreviated courses will be given instead, producing subpar operators compared to the training and effectiveness Ukrainian tank crews had on the battlefield using their own equipment at the beginning of Russia’s special military operation.

Another aspect of most Western main battle tanks is that unlike Soviet and Russian main battle tanks which feature autoloaders for their main guns, Leopard 2, Challenger 2, and M1 Abrams require a crew member to manually load their main guns. So, while Soviet-era and Russian tanks have three crew members, a driver, a gunner, and a commander, Western main battle tanks require a fourth, the loader. This means that for every 3 Western main battle tanks sent to Ukraine, four Ukrainian tank crews will be required to man them – more trained tankers spread across fewer tanks.

Before these newly trained Ukrainian tankers can crew their Western armored vehicles, they have to be moved onto the battlefield. Western infantry fighting vehicles like the US Bradley and the German Mauder are heavier than their Soviet and Russian counterparts. So are the Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 tanks pledged by the UK and Poland. The US M1 Abrams is heavier still.

This presents a challenge to moving the vehicles by truck or rail just to reach the battlefield. The second option, rail, is complicated even further by the fact that much of Ukraine’s rolling stock is moved by electric traction which has been severely inhibited by Russia’s systematic targeting and destruction of the Ukrainian power grid. There is also the matter of sustaining these armored vehicles on the battlefield as they operate. They will consume much larger amounts of fuel than Ukraine’s previous armored vehicles, meaning more fuel will be required and much more often.

Heavier vehicles place more wear and tear on mechanical components including the vehicles’ transmissions, suspension, road wheels, and tracks. Increased maintenance required by newly trained, inexperienced crews will prevent the vehicles from being operated to their maximum potential. More problematic still is that Western armored vehicles – both infantry fighting vehicles and especially Western main battle tanks – possess complex optics and computerized fire control systems. It takes months just to train technicians to diagnose these systems, and a year or more to train and gain experience in actually repairing them.

What is much more likely is Ukrainian armor crews will be forced to regularly send broken vehicles to the border with Poland to be repaired. Depending on where fighting is taking place this can be up to 1,000 km away from the front line. It is then another 1,000 km back to the front. Ukrainian maintenance facilities manned by Western technicians cannot be established in Ukraine itself because Russia possesses the means to target and destroy them with long-range precision weapons like cruise missiles and drones.

This means Western armored vehicles may spend more time either in transit or being repaired than actually fighting on the battlefield.

Because NATO armored vehicles use different types of ammunition than Ukraine has been using with its own armor vehicles, it will need to be shipped in constantly to the front to keep these vehicles firing on the battlefield. While many NATO main battle tanks fire 120mm rounds from smoothbore main guns, the British Challenger 2 fires unique ammunition from its 120mm rifled main gun. This means that two supply chains will need to be established for Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 tanks. The same applies for basic spare parts for mechanical repairs Ukrainian crews may be capable of performing in the field.

Western Main Battle Tanks are Far From Invincible 

Pundits argue that despite the many challenges facing Ukraine in employing Bradley and  Marauder infantry fighting vehicles along with Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 main battle tanks, the capabilities of these vehicles will give Ukrainian forces a decisive advantage on the battlefield over Russian forces. However, the performance of these armored vehicles in recent conflicts indicates the exact opposite.

The Leopard 2 main battle tank is widely used across NATO, including by Turkey. Turkey deployed Leopard 2 tanks during several incursions into northern Syria against irregular Kurdish and “Islamic State” forces. Their performance was described in a 2019 National Interest article ominously titled, “Turkey’s Leopard 2 Tanks Are Getting Crushed in Syria,” which noted:

… evidence emerged that numerous Leopard 2s had been destroyed in intense fighting over ISIS-held Al-Bab—a fight that Turkish military leaders described as a “trauma,” according to Der Spiegel. A document published online listed ISIS as apparently having destroyed ten of the supposedly invincible Leopard 2s; five reportedly by antitank missiles, two by mines or IEDs, one to rocket or mortar fire, and the others to more ambiguous causes.

The article links to photographs of the destroyed Leopard 2 tanks, sometimes side by side Turkish infantry fighting vehicles and with at least two with their turrets completely blown off the hulls of the tanks, illustrating just how vulnerable any main battle tank is, Russian or Western, to modern anti-tank weapons. The National Interest lists AT-7 Metis and AT-5 Konkurs antitank missiles, both produced by the Soviet Union and now the Russian Federation, as the culprits in at least 5 of the destroyed Leopard 2 tanks.

While the most widely produced Western main battle tank is the M1 Abrams, because of its fuel-hungry turbine engine and exceptionally heavy weight, it is impractical to send in large numbers to Ukraine. The Leopard, produced in large numbers and used widely across NATO with its diesel engine makes it the most likely candidate to replace the bulk of Ukraine’s tank force, but considering its performance against even irregular forces on the battlefield, this leaves only bleak prospects for Ukraine.

The British Challenger 2 has fared no better on the battlefield. The myth that it has is owed to cover-ups and deliberate war propaganda as exposed by a 2007 Telegraph article titled, “MoD kept failure of best tank quiet,” which noted:

The Ministry of Defence had claimed that an attack last month that breached a tank’s armour was the first of its kind in four years of war in Iraq. But another Challenger 2 was pierced by a powerful rocket-propelled grenade in August last year during an attack that blew off part of a soldier’s foot and injured several others.

The article pointed out that the weapon that likely damaged the Challenger 2 was the Russian-made RPG-29. It notes:

The RPG-29 is a much more powerful weapon than the common type regularly used by insurgents to attack British troops. It is specifically designed to penetrate tank armour, although this is the first occasion on which it has managed to damage a Challenger.

And what of other Western main battle tanks which share similar design and doctrinal philosophies? Have they performed any better? It is a question worth considering both to assess the combat potential of Western armored vehicles in general and to get ahead of additional transfers to Ukraine that might include these other vehicles.

The M1 Abrams, like the Challenger 2, has a legendary reputation. However, the US itself had multiple M1 Abrams knocked out in Iraq from 2003 onward. A CBS New article from 2003 titled, “U.S. Tank Hit, 2 GIs Dead In Iraq,” noted that the knocked out M1 Abrams was damaged by either a bomb or an improvised explosive device.

The M1 Abrams has been transferred to US allies including Saudi Arabia. A 2016 Defense One article titled, “Saudi Losses in Yemen War Exposed by US Tank Deal,” would explain:

The U.S. State Department and Pentagon Tuesday OKed a $1.2 billion sale of 153 Abrams tanks to Saudi Arabia Tuesday. But that’s not the real news.

Turns out: 20 of those tanks, made in America by General Dynamics Land Systems, are “battle damage replacements” for Saudi tanks lost in combat.

Even though the formal announcement of the sales does not say where the tanks were fighting, the Saudi military is believed to have lost some of its 400-plus Abrams tanks in Yemen, where it is fighting Iranian-backed Houthi separatists.

It is very clear that far from invincible, despite the massive weight and heavy fuel consumption of the M1 Abrams, even irregular forces are capable of facing off and defeating the US main battle tank.

Pundits have claimed that heavy losses of Saudi M1 Abrams are owed to the fact that exported M1 Abrams lack key features including special armor and fire control elements responsible for their poor performance. However, it is unlikely the US would ever transfer M1 Abrams to Ukraine with classified armor or highly sophisticated fire control systems for precisely the same reasons the US has not sent any of its modern unmanned aerial vehicles like the Gray Eagle. The capture of either of these weapon systems by Russian forces – a very common phenomenon amid the special military operation – would mean these advanced features would quickly be under examination by Russian engineers.

And finally, while Israeli Merkava main battle tanks are highly unlikely to end up in the hands of Ukrainian forces, the Merkava is considered one of the best main battle tanks on Earth. They too, however, have not only performed poorly against modern anti-tank weapons, but anti-tank weapons produced by the Russian Federation.

Haaretz in its 2006 article, “Hezbollah Anti-tank Fire Causing Most IDF Casualties in Lebanon,” would report:

The Hezbollah anti-tank teams use a new and particularly potent version of the Russian-made RPG, the RPG-29, that has been sold by Moscow to the Syrians and then transferred to the Shi’ite organization.

The RPG-29’s penetrating power comes from its tandem warhead, and on a number of occasions has managed to get through the massive armor of the Merkava tanks.

It should be noted that in each case, whether it was Turkish forces in northern Syria, Saudi forces in Yemen, US and British forces in Iraq, or Israeli forces pushing into southern Lebanon, each military operation consisted of well-trained tank crews supported by large-scale logistical lines and as part of well-organized combined arms combat including infantry, artillery, and air support.

What will happen when Ukrainian tank crews given abbreviated training attempt to employ Western main battle tanks on the battlefield, only without the proper logistical or combined arms support Turkey, the US and UK, Saudi Arabia, and Israel were capable of? And what will happen when these Ukrainian tank crews go up against Russian-made anti-tank weapons proven over the years to be highly effective against the very best Western main battle tanks now that these anti-tank weapons are in the hands of Russian troops themselves?

It was Russian forces destroying hundreds upon hundreds of Ukrainian armored vehicles over the course of the special military operation, exhausting both Ukraine’s initial inventories and then NATO’s inventories of Soviet-era equipment that has prompted the West to consider sending their own armor in the first place.

Effective Russian-made anti-tank weapons like the guided AT-7 Metis and AT-5 Konkurs but also the newer 9M133 Kornet missile along with RPG-29 and now RPG-30 rocket propelled grenades will surely produce the same destructive results experienced by Turkish, US, British, Saudi, and Israeli tank crews. But Ukrainian forces will also face hundreds of Russia’s own main battle tanks including modernized T-72 and T-80 tanks, as well as the newer T-90 Proryv. Russian military aviation also has a variety of weapons capable of precision strikes on armored vehicles and Russian artillery is more than capable of destroying main battle tanks even on the move using laser-guided Krasnopol artillery rounds.

In other words, Ukrainian tank crews will be less prepared and fighting under less-than-ideal conditions than their Western counterparts and fighting against a much larger arsenal of anti-tank weapons both in terms of quantity and quality. Just as other Western “wonder weapons” had supposedly “turned the tide” including the M777 155mm howitzer and the HIMARS GPS-guided multiple launch rocket system, Ukraine finds itself in need of yet another “wonder weapon” to induce yet another badly needed “turning of the tide.” Western main battle tanks will help Ukraine prolong the conflict, but ultimately Kiev and its Western sponsors will find themselves right back to where they started.

Brian Berletic is a Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer.

January 17, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | 7 Comments

EU sanctions goal is to crush Russian economy – Von der Leyen

RT | January 17, 20023

EU sanctions are aimed at plunging the Russian economy into a recession for years to come and depriving the country of crucial technologies, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in an address to the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos on Tuesday.

The European bloc has imposed nine rounds of sanctions against Russia since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, targeting many sectors of the economy, including energy, high-tech, aviation, banking, mining, automotive and other industries.

“We have put in place the strongest sanctions ever, which leave the Russian economy facing a decade of regression and its industry starved of any modern and critical technologies,” von der Leyen said.

The latest restrictions came into force in December and include new export controls and restrictions on dual-use goods and technology, along with products and technology that could be used in the defense and security sectors. The measures target key chemicals, nerve agents, night-vision and radio-navigation equipment, as well as electronics and IT components.

Brussels is now working on the next batch of penalties, which will reportedly target Russia’s nuclear industry and diamond trade. Other penalties which the EU is rushing to symbolically implement by February 24 include cutting more Russian banks off from the SWIFT global messaging system and banning more of the country’s media outlets.

Meanwhile, Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Tuesday that the country’s economy is performing “much better than what not only our opponents but even we ourselves predicted” and is on course for further stabilization.

January 17, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , | 3 Comments

Republicans deepen investigation into Democratic money laundering with Ukraine

By Ahmed Adel | January 17, 2023

The Republicans plan to investigate where the money that Washington allocates to Kiev really goes. The conservative political party suspects that the Biden administration and Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky are involved in money laundering and the sale of NATO weapons on the darknet, using the Russian special military operation as an excuse.

“Whether you support Ukrainian funding or not, the fundamental question is, we deserve, and the American people deserve to know how their money is being spent, especially when we’re talking about $120 billion dollars of it,” Freshman Republican Senator JD Vance said on January 11 on the show Tucker Carlson Tonight.

The Republicans currently occupy most key positions in the committees on Capitol Hill. At the moment, one of their most important decisions is launching an investigation into the financing of Kiev by the Biden administration.

After winning the elections for the House of Representatives in November 2022, the Republicans decided to launch an investigation. Congress has formed a committee to investigate how the financial resources of American taxpayers are spent in Ukraine. One of the major questions is whether weapons sent as military aid to Kiev actually ended up in the hands of terrorist and various other organisations.

Numerous media outlets have reported the fact that the weapons supplied to Ukraine do not always reach the front lines. There is even information that these weapons appeared on the darknet – an illegal internet network.

In addition, numerous publications reported that money was laundered through an office that dealt with cryptocurrencies. In other words, the money that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky received as military aid was poured into this company, which was used to buy cryptocurrencies.

Senator Vance said in his interview with Tucker Carlson that those opposed to an audit “don’t want to be forced to acknowledge a lot of the money we’ve sent to Ukraine hasn’t been well spent.”

“There are a lot of corrupt people probably getting rich off of it,” he added.

More importantly than the allegation of corruption, the Republicans want to investigate the role of Hunter Biden – the son of US President Joe Biden, who has deep ties with Ukraine’s energy sector.

After the Republicans regained control of the House of Representatives in the midterm elections, they promised in their first press conference to investigate Hunter. Back in 2014, Hunter joined the board of the Ukrainian gas company Burisma. This was at a time when Joe Biden was Vice President and the war in Donbass was on the cusp. Hunter earned more than $50,000 a month over a five-year period as a board member of Burisma.

The Republicans claim that his appointment may have posed a conflict of interest. In 2022, more than 30 Republicans called for a prosecutor to be given special counsel authority to carry out an investigation into alleged “tax fraud, money laundering, and foreign-lobbying violations”. The conservative party has been studying messages and financial transactions found on a laptop that belonged to Hunter.

With the Republicans having gained the majority in the House of Representatives, they now have the power to issue congressional subpoenas to foreign entities that did business with him. It seemingly appears that the money that the US has sent to Ukraine since the war began is lining the pockets of Ukrainian and American officials.

Most likely, Biden’s son, and even his inner circle, were involved in money laundering and corrupt actions. As for the investigation itself, the Republicans will drag it out until it is clear who the Democrats will run in the 2024 elections. Evidence of such corruption can destroy any Democratic candidate and therefore prevent Biden from running for a second term. Ultimately, weakening the Democratic Party in view of the next presidential election is the aim of the Republicans.

The US Senate has demanded that a Congress report indicate how much money the US authorities sent to Ukraine. According to Senator JD Vance, the $114 billion that the US sent was “impacted by the situation in Ukraine” and does not even include several additional transfers previously requested by the Biden administration.

None-the-less, the senator stressed to Tucker Carlson that the Biden Administration, by law, “is supposed to tell us exactly how that money is being spent. We are putting down a marker…”

He then demanded a response by February 7. And it is until then that we wait for the latest development in the Democratic Party’s alleged corruption and money laundering with Ukraine.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

January 17, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , | Leave a comment

THE DIGITAL ID SYSTEM MUST BE RESISTED!

Computing Forever | January 11, 2023

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January 17, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Video | | Leave a comment

Isn’t it Time For Adam Schiff to be Expelled From Congress?

By Ron Paul | January 16, 2023

With each new release of the “Twitter Files” we learn more and more about the deep corruption in Washington. We sensed during Covid that something was really wrong – for example the bizarre denial of natural immunity. But thanks to Elon Musk’s decision to open the books, our worst fears have been proven true. Each new release seems to show something even more criminal inside America’s rotten ruling class.

In the latest release, thanks to the excellent reporting of independent journalist Matt Taibbi, we see outgoing Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), continuously pressuring Twitter to validate his fantasies of “Russian bots” manipulating US politics.

The short version of what Taibbi reported comes from around the time then-Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) was about to release his Committee’s findings about the FBI misuse of the FISA Court to spy on the Trump presidential campaign. The FBI, it turns out, relied exclusively on the widely-discredited “Steele Dossier” – paid by the Hillary Clinton campaign – as justification to spy on the Trump campaign.

When pressure grew to release the Nunes findings, Twitter exploded with users demanding that Congress “release the memo.” That’s where then-ranking Member Schiff and his staff began relentlessly pressuring Twitter to show that the accounts demanding the release of the memo were actually Russian agents, out to help their supposed favorite, Donald Trump. Schiff was not alone. Fellow “Russiagate” hoaxers like Sen. Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) also pressured Twitter to find Russians behind the demand to release Nunes’ findings.

Over and over, Twitter – which was hardly sympathetic to Trump – told Schiff and his colleagues there was simply no evidence of Russian involvement. As much as some Twitter employees may have liked to report the opposite, to their credit they refused to participate in the scam.

Even after Twitter had informed Schiff and his fellow hoaxers that there was no Russian involvement, Sen. Blumenthal released a statement he knew was not true: “We find it reprehensible that Russian agents have so eagerly manipulated innocent Americans.” Again, this was right after he had been informed by Twitter employees – who were by-and-large strongly opposed to Trump – that there was just no evidence to back up such a statement.

We are moving closer and closer to a nuclear showdown with Russia over Ukraine. For political gain the Democrats – and plenty of Republicans – have been pushing the “Russiagate” hoax and in so doing have fertilized the ground for the obsessive Russia hatred prevalent in the US today.

I do not believe it is an exaggeration to say that if US/Russia relations had not been poisoned by the lie of “Russiagate” for pure political gain, we would not be anywhere near our current state of near-direct conflict with the largest nuclear power on earth, Russia.

It is shocking that Schiff and his “Russiagate” allies would potentially sacrifice millions of dead Americans to defeat Trump and other political enemies.

Let’s not forget: Rep. Jim Trafficant was expelled from Congress for asking his staffers to wash his boat. Shouldn’t there be at least equal punishment for Senators and Members who are lying us into World War III?

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute

January 16, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | | 2 Comments

Bill introduced to criminalize vilification of ‘non-White’ people

RT | January 16, 2023

A bill introduced in Congress earlier this month would expand the definition of “hate crime” so wide it could potentially include content that is found to have “inspired” a racially-motivated crime.

Critics of the legislation sponsored by Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) have argued that it imperils Americans’ freedom of expression by holding the threat of criminal charges based on others’ behavior over their heads.

The “Leading Against White Supremacy Act of 2023” sets out two new offenses, the first being “white supremacy inspired hate crime” and the second being a related conspiracy charge.

To be guilty of the latter, one need only “publish material advancing white supremacy, white supremacist ideology, antagonism based on ‘replacement theory,’ or hate speech that vilifies or is otherwise directed against any non-white person or group” to social media. What happens after that determines whether a crime is committed.

If the offending content is “read, heard, or viewed by a person who engaged in the planning, development, preparation or perpetration of a white supremacy inspired hate crime” — apparently even if that person was a complete stranger who misinterpreted the message — the creator is guilty of conspiracy.

Alternately, as long as the content was posted where people “predisposed to engaging in any action in furtherance of a white supremacy inspired hate crime” might stumble upon it — or even people who might be “susceptible to being encouraged to engage in” such actions — the creator is guilty.

A contributor to the conservative RedState blog observed that the bill failed to define critical terms, including “replacement theory” and “hate speech” while apparently widening the definition of “conspiracy.”

“Replacement theory” takes its name from “The Great Replacement,” a far-right theory alleging white people are being deliberately supplanted in their societies by other races. The theory was referenced in the manifesto of Brenton Tarrant, who killed 51 people at two mosques in New Zealand in 2019.

Arguing that Jackson Lee’s bill would “be used to quash valid political criticism against any non-white person or group,” the RedState writer pointed out that “vilifying” a person does not even require making racist or even false statements about them — just unpleasant ones.

Several commenters on Twitter added that because the bill only protected nonwhite people from “hate speech,” it was technically racist itself and thus unconstitutional.

Jackson Lee’s bill is unlikely to pass in the GOP-controlled House, leading others to suggest it was simply a PR stunt. The bill currently has no co-sponsors.

January 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 2 Comments

$1,000,000 to forecast Vaccine Misinformation narratives

The Naked Emperor’s Newsletter | January 16, 2023

On 20 October 2022, the CDC published a grant opportunity to develop a public health tool to predict the virality of vaccine misinformation narratives. The application closed a few days ago.

The purpose of the $1,000,000 grant is “to conduct research to develop and pilot a predictive model and tool to aid…in identifying emerging vaccine misinformation about recommended vaccines, including COVID-19 vaccines, that is likely to spread and have a high potential for impacting vaccine confidence”. It will enable public health agencies to identify misinformation before it spreads or impacts people’s health decisions.

According to the proposal, evidence for the negative impact of misinformation continues to grow. Therefore, this proposal has the potential to impact the Healthy People 2030 scheme by ensuring people get vaccinated. Healthy People 2030 sounds and looks suspiciously like something from Agenda 2030 but equally this might just be someone jumping on the bandwagon. However, one of the developmental objectives is to “increase the proportion of immunization information systems that track adult immunizations across their lifespan” which sounds a lot like vaccine passports. Maybe not but unfortunately these things need keeping an eye on these days.

The CDC estimates that “COVID-19 misinformation and disinformation caused $50-$300 million per day in additional medical costs, monetized lives lost and morbidity, and economic costs”. Therefore, they want this new tool to increase vaccination rates and disseminate accurate scientific messages.

There are 3 phases to successfully complete the proposal:

  • Phase 1 – Develop a predictive model that identifies misinformation. To do this they will look at old data to find topics (such as vaccine safety and fertility), the types of people sharing this information and the relationship to societal concerns (e.g. personal liberty);
  • Phase 2 – Develop a tool that can be used to prioritise the response to misinformation.
  • Phase 3 – Pilot and evaluate the tool (that can be used at federal, state, local, tribal and territorial public health agency levels)

Now, I’m all for getting rid of misinformation. In an ideal world I just want to be reading facts, more facts with a few more facts sprinkled on top. However, this isn’t an ideal world and unfortunately, over the last few years, much of the misinformation has come from the CDC itself.

So a ‘Minority Report’ style system that will identify vaccine misinformation pre-crime and eliminate it before it can get out will only add to public distrust.

A Soviet-style public health propaganda set-up is not going to increase vaccine take-up. The only way to do that is to provide transparent data and allow hypotheses to formulate. These can quite easily be shut-down with accurate and open data.

What does increase vaccine hesitancy, is not having a truly independent body to analyse pharmaceutical data and then trying to bury that data for 75 years. Misinforming the public that they are going to die without a vaccine was the most harmful thing they could have done to trust in public health. Along with the suppression of adverse event signals, harms and deaths. However rare they may or may not be, by hiding just one of these causes the public to question what else is being hidden.

So I would like to claim the $1,000,000 to reduce vaccine misinformation with the following steps:

  • Firstly produce a product that actually does what it is supposed to do;
  • Conduct proper trials that look at short, medium and long term risks;
  • Create a truly independent body that not only analyses the data it’s provided with but tests the products themselves;
  • Remove propaganda such as ‘95% effective’ or ‘safe and effective’;
  • Don’t conduct studies on how to manipulate the population into taking vaccines;
  • Don’t force anybody to take a vaccine (by use of the psychological techniques above or through vaccine passports);
  • Don’t use fear to convince people they are going to die without being vaccinated;
  • Don’t supress safety-signals;
  • Don’t gaslight the vaccine injured or families with members killed by vaccines;
  • Remove the product from the market as soon as any safety signals, injuries or deaths occur. Explain clearly and openly what has been found and why the product has been removed;
  • Don’t label anybody concerned about big pharma corruption or vaccine safety a conspiracy theorist or worse.

There you go. You don’t need any fancy and expensive systems to get people vaccinated. Just follow the steps above. But unfortunately, if your product isn’t up to scratch, you won’t make any money. You can send my $1,000,000 cheque in the post. Thanks.

Did I miss any points? And is it too late anyway? Has the amount of public health misinformation eroded away all trust, never to be regained again?

January 16, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , | 2 Comments

Campaign funded by Pfizer and Moderna lobbyists sent Twitter weekly lists of tweets to censor

By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | January 16, 2023

The Public Good Projects (PGP), a nonprofit that has developed several projects to fight so-called Covid “misinformation,” received $1,275,000 from the Pfizer and Moderna lobbying group, Biotechnology Innovation Organization (BIO), to create a content moderation campaign that influenced ’s Covid misinformation rules. As part of this campaign, PGP sent Twitter lobbyists and content moderators weekly emails containing lists of tweets to censor.

Journalist Lee Fang published one of the weekly emails that Twitter received from PGP as part of the latest release of the Twitter Files — collections of internal Twitter communications that have exposed the censorship relationships Twitter had with government agencies and other powerful groups before  took over.

The email shows Todd O’Boyle, a senior manager on Twitter’s Public Policy team, sharing “this week’s misinfo report” from PGP. The February 24, 2022 email included a list of top trends the PGP had seen during the week and two attached lists. According to Fang, one of the lists contained tweets the PGP wanted Twitter to take down and the other list contained tweets that it wanted Twitter to verify.

Despite flagging two trends in this weekly misinfo report, the PGP admitted that articles related to the first trend “do not contain misinformation themselves but are using the news to further prove the CDC is untrustworthy.”

The PGP also acknowledged that the second trending article it flagged, which described a German health insurance company official suggesting that reports of healthcare visits for vaccine side effects may be severely undercounted, “is difficult to fact check because it does note that this data includes any side effect, not just serious side effects.”

Fang said many of the PGP’s emails to Twitter focused on independent news outlet ZeroHedge which was banned from Twitter in January 2020 and reinstated in June 2020.

Fang also noted that this campaign flagged a tweet from senior Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientist Stephanie Seneff that questioned vaccine passports on the basis that vaccinated and unvaccinated people have “roughly the same capacity to carry, shed and transmit the virus.”

Additionally, Fang shared a screenshot of a BIO tax form that revealed part of the funding ($883,000) it provided to PGP for this campaign.

The PGP campaign is called “Stronger” and, according to Fang, it worked with Twitter to craft the platform’s content moderation rules around Covid misinformation, helped Twitter create content moderation bots, and helped Twitter select which public health accounts got verification.

Stronger says its goal is to “stop the spread of misinformation” and its website contains a page that encourages people to flag misinformation to Twitter and other platforms.

This page also contains a form for users to submit alleged misinformation to Stronger.

“Paste the link to a post, account, or website below, and the Stronger team will report it to the appropriate platform,” the form states.

Previous campaigns from the Public Good Project have involved recruiting pro-vaccine keyboard warriors to mass report anti-vaccine social media posts.

Fang’s revelations are the latest of several examples of those affiliated with Pfizer pushing for the censorship of content that questions or criticizes Covid vaccines.

Pfizer board member Scott Gottlieb complained to Twitter in August 2021 that it was promoting an article from journalist Alex Berenson. A few days after this complaint, Berenson was banned from Twitter. Twitter also censored another tweet after it was flagged by Gottlieb in August 2021.

Meanwhile, Pfizer’s CEO has branded those who share what he deems to be misinformation about vaccines as “criminals.”

January 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | 1 Comment

‘Escort agencies booked solid for Davos forum’

RT | January 16, 2023

The Swiss escort agencies near Davos are already fully booked ahead of this year’s World Economic Forum, the elite gathering that brings together heads of state, corporate executives, and influential non-profiteers, Austrian outlet Exxpress reported on Sunday, citing a missive purportedly sent from one such agency.

In a message to unnamed hospitality staff and published by Express, escort agency Sensuallounge Escort urges readers to book their “fine selection of ladies and gentlemen” ahead of time to ensure “the best possible care and company during the World Economic Forum.”

Sensuallounge reportedly offers “services for all sexual orientations,” and the outlet claims one night with one of their employees costs €2,350 (just over $2,500). The service does not appear to accept cash as payment, offering clients the option of paying with a major credit card or via PayPal.

Explaining that the WEF’s annual get-together is high season for Swiss prostitutes, Exxpress revealed the agencies set up dedicated websites for the conference. Their roster seemingly fully booked, Sensuallounge’s site had already disappeared as of Monday.

While the WEF invited about 2,500 people as accredited delegates this year, over 30,000 more are expected to descend upon the ski resort for the dinners, parties, and, according to a growing body of journalism documenting the “dark side of Davos,” sex for pay that occurs outside the forum.

Sex workers also lurk in hotels and bars frequented by guests, according to a 2020 report from the Times UK, and women – even if they are accredited WEF attendees – are “routinely harassed” by the men who dominate the conclave. Indeed, the event began warning women that year not to go out alone after dark, “because if something happens with some big CEO, who is going to be believed? You or them?”

Prostitution at Davos has caused controversy in years past, though the bigger concern appears to be keeping the working class under control. The Swiss Army has been authorized to deploy as many as 5,000 troops if needed to provide security to the billionaires.

The theme for 2023’s conference, which runs from January 16-20, is “Cooperation in a Fragmented World.” Protesters were already onsite ahead of the event’s official start on Monday, denouncing attendees’ use of private jets to deliver climate-change platitudes.

January 16, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | 3 Comments

Nasrallah: The new Netanyahu government will hasten Israel’s demise

Speech of Hezbollah Secretary General, Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, on January 3, 2023, during the commemoration of the third anniversary of the assassination of Commanders Qassem Soleimani and Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis.

Source : video.moqawama.org
Translation: resistancenews.org

Transcript:

[…] I want to conclude on two points. The first point will be to address a message to the new Israeli government, and the second point concerns the presidential elections and the political situation in Lebanon.

First of all, this new government… Of course, we already have many years of experience with Netanyahu. If someone wants to scare us with Netanyahu, with the new (Israeli) Minister of War [Yoav Galant] or with anyone else, (he is wasting his time because) we have already dealt with them in the previous years. Yes, there is something new, namely that this government is a mixture of corrupt people – some of whom have been tried and sentenced to prison for corruption charges – and madmen and extremists, which is new. This level of transparency (in corruption and in fanaticism) is something new. So we are facing a government of corrupt, criminal and extremist fanatics. Of course, such a government does not scare us, and never such governments have been able to scare us in any way.

And more than that, we can even be optimistic about it, contrary to what most (analysts) say: when a new government is composed of corrupt and crazy people, with the grace of God, it will only accelerate the end of this temporary entity. These madmen, whom we have seen for a few days, and until this morning, (desecrate) the Al-Aqsa mosque in the early morning, their Minister of National Security (Ben Gvir), this administration, with the grace of God, will accelerate (the demise of Israel).

As you know, we have spoken many times about the internal dangers within the Israelis (themselves), the sharp divisions (of their society and elites), the lack of trust in the political and military leadership, and even in the religious authorities, the growing corruption, etc., up to the prevalent anxiety in Israel as to whether this entity will exceed 80 years of existence or not [never in history has a Jewish state exceeded 80 years], with the grace of God the Most High and Exalted, and by the grace of this new government composed of madmen, it will accelerate the end of this entity, through mistakes and stupid acts that could drag them to the bottom of the abyss. This is how we see things. In no way does the situation frighten us, on the contrary: we see a great hope in this evil (government). That’s the first point.

Second point, of course, these madmen and fanatics… Their first aim is internal, and concerns Palestine: the colonization of the West Bank, the question of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Bayt al-Maqdis (Jerusalem). What happened today (desecration of the Al-Aqsa mosque by the new Minister of National Security), and the Palestinian stances as well as the reactions of some Arab and Muslim States and groups in the world confirm that these people are pushing for a (very) dangerous situation. I would like tonight to add the voice of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon (Hezbollah) to that of all the Resistance organizations in Palestine and declare this: desecrating Al-Aqsa Mosque and the Muslim and Christian holy places in Palestine and Bayt al-Maqdis in particular, on the part of these Zionists, will not only explode the situation inside Palestine, but can put the whole region on fire (by triggering a massive counter-strike against Israel). Our peoples will not tolerate such aggression by these madmen against the Muslim and Christian holy places. We have said this before, and we confirm it again. And we declare to all the countries of the world, and (especially) to those who protect this usurping entity, that if you want to avoid a second war in the Middle East in addition to the war in Ukraine, you must keep a tight rein on these extremist and fanatical madmen.

As for the rules of engagement with this new government, as I said, we already have experience with Netanyahu, there is nothing new, but also, since there is a new government, we reaffirm to them that we are alert, vigilant and ready (for anything), and that we will not tolerate any change in the rules of engagement and the balance of deterrence (between Israel and) Lebanon, whatever it may be. Let no one get any ideas or illusions. In any case, they could see a few months ago that we were ready, during the dispute over the maritime border and oil and gas resources, to go as far as possible in the confrontation (up to an all-out war) against this enemy (Israel). And they knew with certainty that we were ready for that (and that we were not bluffing). That is why we will not tolerate any alteration of the rules of engagement (between Hezbollah and Israel), nor any violation of Lebanon’s security, its capabilities or its sovereignty.

See Nasrallah: If Lebanon is denied its oil and gas resources, we will shut down all Israeli platforms

Likewise, we stress the importance for the Lebanese government to pursue its efforts to launch the extraction of (Lebanese) oil and gas. Some feared that Netanyahu’s rise to power would end the border agreement between Lebanon and Israel, but he announced that he would abide by it. The signs from the companies involved (Total, etc.) give cause for optimism. So we are not at all worried on that side.

In truth, with this government, our eyes must rather be turned towards the interior of occupied Palestine, towards Al-Quds (Jerusalem), towards the West Bank, and towards the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the first place. […]

January 16, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 1 Comment

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