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It Was A ‘Vaccine Strategy’ From The Start

Ideological zealots wanted jabs in arms

Health Advisory & Recovery Team | March 11, 2023

Our recent “Null Hypothesis” article postulates and evidences a succinct summary of the happenings of the last three years: “The hypothesis that will likely stand the test of time goes like this: a nasty — if not particularly unusual — respiratory disease season was turned into a catastrophe by human misadventure, and this catastrophe was compounded by efforts to save face and justify the unjustifiable”.

In answering the question ‘what happened’, we did not attempt to tackle the obvious follow-up question (apart from a brief discussion about social contagion): ‘why did it happen’?

The sceptical community – living up to its decentralised worldview – is not short of opinions and theories, robustly debated. These are too numerous to cover in detail in this short piece: it suffices to say that they cover a wide spectrum ranging from calamitous ineptitude (and innumeracy) of politicians and civil servants, deceitful and underhand sales & marketing by nefarious global corporations, efforts by the elite to enrich themselves by impoverishing the middle classes and the digital enslavement of the masses, through to some more esoteric beliefs covering depopulation agendas, eugenics and long-in-the-planning Satanic plots… the list just goes on and on.

As many of the most ardent supporters of both pharmaceutical and non-pharmaceutical interventions (PIs and NPIs) begin to wake up to the collateral damage they helped bring about, it is instructive to stand back and observe tried-and-tested Biblical precedent being re-enacted. Few are not enjoying seeing the pantomime villain Matt Hancock being hoist by his own self-promoting petard via the Oakeshott WhatsApp trove. After all, who does not take some satisfaction from the fall of a petty tyrant?  But much like the goat that gets bestowed with the sins of the community in Leviticus (“the goat will carry on itself all their iniquities” ) before being cast out into the wilderness (thus avoiding a full and frank ‘lessons learned’ exercise), the demonisation of this preening ’cock (or monkey) does not necessarily get us much further in terms of identifying whodunnit — who was the organ grinder? After all, a self-promoting chancer whose self-confessed epidemiological education is based on a studious viewing of the film ‘Contagion’ is demonstrably not an evil Blofeld mastermind. Indeed, some sceptics have attempted to use the Telegraph’s Lockdown Files to scotch any discussion of conspiracy and underscore their belief that the disastrous events of 2020-2022 were ‘merely’ a cock-up.

But that simplistic take assumes that the former Secretary of State for Health was more than just a bumbling low-grade chaos agent intent on filling his boots via fast-track procurement channels. Loathsome though he might be, Hancock and his cronies are a symptom – not a cause – of the pit we find ourselves in. Why did he – and the Prime Minister at the time, Boris Johnson – get themselves into such a pickle such that they were not able to navigate a more rational – and less damaging – course through the crisis?

The answer is probably to be found somewhere within what one might term the ‘pandemic preparedness industry’ as outlined a few months ago in the Daily Sceptic :

“The response to the COVID-19 pandemic represented the triumph of a pseudo-scientific biosecurity agenda that emerged in 2005 and has been pushed ever since by a well-organised, well-funded and well-embedded network of ideologues. These fanatics promote and perpetuate the ideas underpinning the draconian new approach by publishing them in leading journals, planting them in public policy and law, pushing them in the media and smearing those who dissent, however eminent or well-qualified.

This avenue of investigation is, we believe, more likely to lead to the source of our misadventure than attempting to rationalise ‘scorched earth’ attempts at containment, suppression and eradication of a killer virus. There was only ever a warped logic to these actions, unless – one way or the other (perhaps for the ‘greater good’ or simply for old-fashioned crony capitalist ends) – you wanted to create a favourable backdrop for a new set of medical interventions that might otherwise have met with limited take-up or even downright opposition. CMO Chris Whitty advised government ministers in February 2020 (!) that covid was not deadly enough to justify fast-tracking vaccines. Put another way, earth could not have been scorched in this way if seasonal respiratory disease had not been given a name such that scariants could be ‘deployed’ to ‘frighten the pants off’ the general populace.

Whether the driving force behind these fanatics is saintly goodwill, pure greed, corruption – or even a Luciferian conspiracy for that matter – is beside the point: what is essential to understand is how a nasty seasonal respiratory disease season was weaponised to drive one of the greatest policy failures of all time. There does not necessarily need to be a single cartoon villain masterminding events to avoid multiple parties conspiring (“breathing together”) to create a great evil.

With this backdrop one does not even need to ferret around in the weeds to find out more. Last summer’s detailed POLITICO/WELT Special Report sheds plentiful quanta of light on the matter:

Four [supra-national] health organizations, working closely together, spent almost $10 billion on responding to Covid across the world. But they lacked the scrutiny of governments… While nations were still debating the seriousness of the pandemic, the groups identified potential vaccine makers and targeted investments in the development of tests, treatments and shots.

The four organizations had worked together in the past, and three of them shared a common history. The largest and most powerful was the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, one of the largest philanthropies in the world. Then there was Gavi, the global vaccine organization that Gates helped to found to inoculate people in low-income nations, and the Wellcome Trust, a British research foundation with a multibillion dollar endowment that had worked with the Gates Foundation in previous years. Finally, there was the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, or CEPI, the international vaccine research and development group that Gates and Wellcome both helped to create in 2017.

… The World Health Organisation (WHO) was crucial to the groups’ rise to power. All had longstanding ties to the global health body. The boards of both CEPI and Gavi have a specially designated WHO representative. There is also a revolving door between employment in the groups and work for the WHO: Former WHO employees now work at the Gates Foundation and CEPI; some, such as Chris Wolff, the deputy director of country partnerships at the Gates Foundation, occupy important positions. Much of the groups’ clout with the WHO stems simply from money.

… “They’re funded by their own capabilities and or endowments and trusts. But when they step into multilateral affairs, then who keeps watch over them?” a former senior U.S. official said. “I don’t know the answer to that. That’s quite provocative”.

Consider this small early 2020 cameo featuring senior executives from one of these four organisations:

“When it first became clear that this disease was appearing, Richard [Hatchett] and I sat down and said, we know what happened with the last swine flu pandemic, where wealthy countries bought up all the doses [of Pandemrix] that were … available for the developing world, we have to try to do something different about that…”.

Most normal people draw entirely different conclusions from the swine flu saga, not least the absolutely devastating tale of Pandemrix, a giant swindle involving misuse of taxpayer funds to purchase these doses in the first place, the substantial human damage that they then caused, a subsequent cover-up and then further cost to the taxpayer compensating those affected.

Contrast this with CEPI’s ‘mission’: “Vaccines are one of our most powerful tools in the fight to outsmart epidemics. The development of vaccines can help save lives, protect societies and restabilise economies”.

There you have it: the ‘saviour vaccine’, a sacred cow extolled with messianic zeal. It seems that one of the world’s greatest policy failures happens to neatly coincide with the stated aims of the Fantabulous Four. Food for thought given that there is no example of a vaccine ever defeating a sudden onset viral epidemic, let alone a ‘pandemic’ (there is also the question of whether viral pandemics are in any way even a hypothetical threat to modern societies — unless, of course, one incorrectly pins the blame for iatrogenic collateral damage on said virus).

Following the money, therefore, it is not that much of a surprise what came next: while — as pointed out above — “nations were still debating the seriousness of the pandemic” (i.e. correctly monitoring the possibility of a slightly-more-serious-than-usual respiratory disease season), the Fantabulous Four were busy setting the scene with targeted investments to create fertile ground to fulfil their aims. Consider then:

  • Who might have benefitted from a social media campaign showing those faked ‘deaths in the street’ in China?
  • Who might have considered funding a social media ‘bot army’ to promote lockdowns, interventions that as per Neil Ferguson’s ‘seminal’ fear-mongering 16 March 2020 paper could only conceivably make any sort of logical sense if they were followed in short order by a ‘saviour vaccine’, as explicitly stated by Ferguson and co-authors in that paper (“these policies will need to be maintained until large stocks of vaccine are available” )?
  • Who might have benefitted from squashing an early ‘lab leak’ theory that might have implicated some of the Fantabulous Four and the justification for a fast-track vaccine roll-out?
  • Conversely, once said roll-out had been successfully funded and procured at eye-watering expense, who might have benefitted from re-floating the ‘lab leak’ theory to help justify future ‘pandemic preparedness’?
  • Who might benefit from tightly controlling media output and censorship (after all, “true content … might promote vaccine hesitancy”)? Who was writing this script?
  • WHO might wish to publish — in 2022 — detailed recommendations about how those in authority should respond to a ‘vaccine crisis’ (defined as any occurrence that ‘will most likely or has already eroded public trust in vaccines … and may create uncertainty’)?
  • Why only the vaccine ‘pillar’ of the WHO’s wish list, the ACT-A (Access to Covid Tools Accelerator), received the funding that was sought? And why did all others on that ACT-A list — most notably cheap therapeutics that might have saved many lives (while of course competing with lucrative vaccines) — remain well short of their funding targets?

This congruency of the categorical trinity — means, motive and opportunity — is difficult to explain away. It is true that much that happened from March 2020 was anarchic, uncontrolled, panicked and unscripted. But there was method to the madness, an ultimate aim to the chaos, namely to make way for a ‘saviour vaccine’ that would only be accepted if the intended recipients had had ‘the pants frightened off them’, i.e. were sufficiently afraid of the alternatives to risk such an unproven medical intervention.

It may conceivably be that many people involved in the Fantabulous Four believe that this collective action was necessary. But collective action – however well meaning – that is dictated by a group and imposed on everyone else is tyranny, pure and simple. It gets worse if authorities are sufficiently captured by this tyranny such that they deploy subversive psychological weaponry on their citizens and suppress any dissent.

These are grave misdeeds that led to great harm, both in terms of bad outcomes and collateral damage from unnecessary non-pharmaceutical interventions, but also from the utterly unnecessary coercion used to foist pharmaceutical interventions on those that did not need them.

Even if we presuppose that there are no evil Blofeld-types standing behind all of this, it is beyond doubt that a fanatical ideology has inspired an evil tyranny. As per the Daily Sceptic :

“This ideology is the enemy, and seeing it for what it is is the first step to defeating it”.

This process has begun.

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The Lancet heavily redact their response to our subject access request for internal correspondence relating to rejection of our letter about Pfizer study

What have they got to hide?

By Norman Fenton and Martin Neil | Where are the numbers? | March 14, 2023

There has been a remarkable development to the story previously reported here.

Following that fiasco, I submitted a subject access information request to Elsevier (who publish The Lancet ) asking for all internal correspondence between editors and reviewers relating to the submission (and ultimate rejection) of our letter.

After a lengthy delay I received the response today. First their cover letter:

Elsevier Response Cover Letter
133KB ∙ PDF File

Download

And the very lengthy response (but massively redacted – by them). Here:

Details Of Lancet Discussions
1.88MB ∙ PDF File

Download

It is remarkable that most of the details are redacted even though it clearly is not done solely for the legitimate protection of the names of third parties. It is clear that I was being discussed in a negative light as they were referring to me as ‘an ongoing issue’. It is also clear that they only reached out after I publicised their initial delayed rejection letter on twitter (they were getting a lot of heat as a result of that).

It is disturbing to realise how much effort was spent in an attempt to ensure that an obviously flawed study promoting the Pfizer vaccine was not challenged.

Despite most of it being redacted there are still some alarming unredacted highlights (imagine what the redacted stuff says about us!) First they seem to reluctantly concede that I have a legitimate academic appointment:

In the following they mention ‘helpful background on Fenton’. Did they try to dig up dirt on me on their own or did the 77th brigade furnish them with my dossier?

They are worried about the close proximity of vaccine misinformation sources!

Next, they accuse me and (most likely) Martin Neil of retweeting ‘anti-vaxx posts on Twitter’. I’d be interested to know precisely who they are referring to and what posts:

They also refer to ‘holding off further email’ suggesting their offer to consider the letter was not genuine:

I am not happy about the scale of the redactions in the Elsevier response. If the Lancet editors were not making disparaging comments about me and colleagues, then there should be no reason to redact them. What do they have to hide?

The redactions suggest Elsevier have not acted in good faith, and neither have they acted in the spirit of FOIA.

Hence, I have informed Elsevier that if they are unable to provide a proper and full response with most of these comments unredacted, I will have no choice but to report them to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO).

This is not the first disgraceful episode in the recent history of the Lancet where, under Richard Horton’s leadership, clearly flawed papers promoting the ‘official narrative’ on covid have been published. Remember LancetGate when they published a fraudulent study that effectively stopped the use of hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) to treat covid patients. At least that paper was eventually retracted. In this case, rather than even allow a proper response to a flawed study, they have instead attacked their critics, accusing them of being spreaders of misinformation and ‘anti-vaxxers’.

It is worth noting that (as shown here), The Lancet is by no means the only major academic journal routinely rejecting any articles/letters that in any way question the accuracy of studies claiming vaccine effectiveness or safety. It is now fair to conclude that not a single major peer-reviewed study claiming vaccine effectiveness and/or safety can be trusted to be valid.

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 1 Comment

MHRA stops publishing regular Covid vaccines Yellow Card reports (how very convenient)

By Kathy Gyngell | TCW Defending Freedom | March 14, 2023

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), on whom we have to rely for Covid-19 vaccines damage data, are masters of both doublespeak and normalisation, two key means of the global transformation imposed on us over the last three years.

They don’t disappoint with their latest and last of their regular Yellow Card updates published last week. If you have sharp eyes, you will spot in it a neutral-sounding subheading, ‘Update on publication status’. What it tells us is that since the Commission on Human Medicine (yet another quango who, would you believe, advise ‘ministers on the safety, efficacy and quality of medicinal products’ and whose many members you can find here) has advised that ‘given the end of the autumn 2022 booster campaign and the stable safety profile of the Covid-19 vaccines, the MHRA should transition to routine data publication and communication of safety concerns for Covid-19 vaccines. This report is therefore the last regular publication of the Summary of Yellow Card reporting for Covid-19 vaccines‘ (my emphasis). The ‘new interactive‘ will continue with monthly updates, but this is now in line with regular monitoring (whatever that entails) and many other drugs viewed as having an acceptable safety profile. In view of the new spring booster just launched for vulnerable people, who are receiving perhaps their 6th dose of a novel mRNA injection, and the seemingly tolerated (by the the MHRA) level of associated adverse events and deaths for the CVax then this still and wrongly gives the impression that there is ‘no cause for concern’.

How very convenient for all involved, since these embarrassing and counter-narrative Yellow Card reports of adverse events continue to mount. In the last four weeks reported there were another 776 reports, of which 75 per cent are deemed serious by the MHRA itself, and 23 more reports with ‘fatal outcomes’. That means death in plain English.

Exactly how is the phrase ‘given the stable safety profile of the Covid-19 vaccines’ to be interpreted other than doublespeak or a plain lie? How can it be seen except as a slap in the face for the nearly half-million vaccine-injured (75 per cent of whom are seriously injured and who may be only 10 per cent of the total) and a perverse denial of the published data? What a callous way of normalising death and injury.

For what we know is that despite the many, many more adverse events and deaths associated with the Covid vaccines than with the previously rushed-out swine flu vaccines, none of the Covid-19 vaccines has been similarly formally withdrawn. Nothing, but nothing, has been learnt from President Ford’s warp-speed attempt to vaccinate the entire US population in 1976. The Ford administration agreed to indemnify Big Pharma and, like Boris Johnson, Ford politicised the vaccine and was photographed being vaccinated. Although the predicted ‘pandemic’ never materialised, the vaccine side effects did – dozens of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare problem where the body’s immune system attacks the nerves, potentially leading to paralysis and death. Hundreds of compensation claims followed for years after.

The story was repeated in the UK in 2009 when Professor Neil Ferguson of Imperial College London hyped a swine flu outbreak here. Based on Ferguson’s advice, the government said a ‘reasonable worst-case scenario’ was 65,000 deaths in the UK and ordered 90million doses of the swine flu vaccine from GlaxoSmithKline – more than enough to vaccinate the entire population, and more per head than any other country in Europe. The order was part-cancelled it when it was recognised that it was not a pandemic after all. (The Guardian reported: ‘GSK will not suffer from the cancellation – the deal involves a commitment by the Department of Health to buy some of its other products instead.’) Furthermore it was later acknowledged that one in every 55,000 unnecessary jabs had caused narcolepsy, many of the sufferers being children. Years later vaccine injury claims against the DoH are still being fought, with no compensation paid out.

But no lessons were learnt, and today the Big Pharma lobby is hugely more powerful with its tentacles  reaching into academe, public health and government quangos and agencies, most often under the guise of philanthropy and independent scientific research.

So let’s see what this ‘last regular publication’ reports.

The notable points for me are:

·         an inexorable rise of injuries and deaths now standing at 478,329 people impacted and 2,459 deaths.

·         6,697 children of whom 71 per cent are seriously impacted and more than ten dead

·         39,801 20 – 29yr olds, 73 per cent of whom are seriously impacted

Why aren’t people more angry about this? What are we doing sacrificing children on the altar of an experimental vaccine for which they had no need?

In the next week we will be publishing our own report on the devastating consequences of the vaccine for reproductive health.

MHRA Yellow Card reporting summary up to February 22, 2023

(Data published March 8, 2023) New interactive format

Adult & Child – Primary, Third Dose & Boosters (mono/bivalent)

Government data up to September 11, 2022 – UK-wide (latest)

·         1st doses received – 53.8 million people

·         2nd doses – 50.7m people

·         3rd doses – people having one or more booster – 40,622,659 (up to February 20)

All boosters = 67.26million doses

·         Pfizer – 33.1m (monovalent) & 11.5m (bivalent)

·         AstraZeneca – 60,900

·         Moderna – 13.3m (monovalent) & 9.3m (bivalent)

·         Novavax – 1,200

Additional all-brand doses given in last 4 weeks – 3,230 (Pfizer-mono) + 127,312 (Pfizer-bivalent) + zero (AZ) + 176 (Moderna-mono) + 4,335 (Moderna-bivalent) + 200 (Novavax) = 135,253 

TOTAL DOSES administered (approx.) = 171.8million doses including all booster programmes

Overall 1 in 112 people injected experience a Yellow Card Adverse Event, 1 in 151 reports are classified as SERIOUS*, 1 in 195 reports are fatal, which may be less than 10 per cent of actual figures according to MHRA.

Yellow Card Adverse Event Reports – 176,316 (Pfizer-mono) + 4,096 (Pfizer-bivalent) + 247,600 (AZ) + 42,833 (Moderna-mono) + 5,108 (Moderna-bivalent) + 57 (Novavax) + 2,319 (Unknown brand) = 478,329 people impacted (increase of 776 in 4 weeks)

Reports classified as SERIOUS* by MHRA = 74.4 per cent
124,617 (Pfizer-mono) + 3,126 (Pfizer-bivalent) + 191,644 (AZ) + 30,929 (Moderna-mono) + 3,685 (Moderna-bivalent) + 40 (Novavax) + 1670 (Unknown) = 355,711 

Over 45,857 of the above serious reports are of ‘Unknown Age’ = 9.6 per cent of all reports

Reports classified as Non-SERIOUS by MHRA = 25.1 per cent
50,832 (Pfizer-mono) + 940 (Pfizer-bivalent) + 54,592 (AZ) + 11,816 (Moderna-mono) + 1,381 (Moderna-bivalent) + 17 (Novavax) + 581 (Unknown) = 120,159

Reactions – 508,104 (Pfizer-mono) + 10,867 (Pfizer-bivalent) + 877,221 (AZ) + 140,373 (Moderna-mono) + 13,896 (Moderna-bivalent) + 178 (Novavax) + 7,217 (Unknown) = 1,557,856

Fatal – 867 (Pfizer-mono) + 30 (Pfizer-bivalent) + 1,364 (AZ) + 88 (Moderna-mono) + 42 (Moderna-bivalent) + 68 (Unknown) = 2,459 (0.5 per cent of reports) (increase of 23 reports with fatal outcome in 4 weeks)

Over 386 of the above fatalities are of ‘Unknown Age’ = 16 per cent of all fatalities

CHILDREN & YOUNG PEOPLE SPECIAL REPORT
Last available data set for Under 18s in Nov 2022

·         4,213,500 children (1st doses) – majority Pfizer

·         2,910,500 (2nd doses) – majority Pfizer

·         485,900 boosters

Yellow Card Adverse Events Reported – Below combined 0-19yrs – many categories retracted (^) ‘due to less than 5 reports in line with MHRA duty of confidentiality to patients and reporters’

0-19yr old reports classified as SERIOUS* by MHRA = 71.3 per cent
4,650 (Pfizer-mono) + 34 (Pfizer-bivalent) + 1,457 (AZ) + 517 (Moderna-mono) + >7 (Moderna-bivalent) + >32 (Unknown) = 6,697

0-19yr old reports classified as FATAL by MHRA
>10 (Pfizer-mono) + zero (Pfizer-bivalent) + <5 (AZ) + <5 (Moderna-mono) + <5 (Moderna-bivalent) + <5 (Unknown brand) = greater than 10 

20-29yr old reports classified as SERIOUS* by MHRA = 73.2 per cent
19,965 (Pfizer-mono) + 103 (Pfizer-bivalent) + 14,542 (AZ) + 4,973 (Moderna-mono) + 127 (Moderna-bivalent) + < 5 (Novavax) + 91 (Unknown) = 39,801

20-29yr old reports classified as FATAL by MHRA
15 (Pfizer-mono) + <5 (Pfizer-bivalent) + 28 (AZ) + zero (Moderna-mono) + zero (Moderna-bivalent) + zero (Novavax) + zero (Unknown brand) = greater than 43 

* MHRA definition of ‘serious’ – patient died, life threatening, hospitalisation, congenital abnormality, persistent or significant disability or capacity, deemed medically significant by MHRA medical dictionary or reporter

For full reports, see here.

Updated 10am, 14.3.23

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Bill Passed by House and Senate to Declassify COVID Origins Documents May Be Attempt to ‘Frame’ China

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | March 13, 2023

Lawmakers and media misrepresented a bill requiring the declassification of documents related to the origins of COVID-19, according to several experts who warned that contrary to what the public was told, the legislation limits the types of documents the government must declassify — raising questions about the bill’s real intent.

According to the sponsors of the COVID-19 Origin Act of 2023 — which sailed through the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives and is awaiting President Biden’s signature — the bill requires the government to declassify all documents pertaining to COVID-19.

But experts interviewed by The Defender said the bill requires the declassification only of documents related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in Wuhan, China — the epicenter of the “lab leak theory.”

They suggested the limitations may be intended to reduce the culpability of U.S. and private actors in the potential leak of — or development of — COVID-19, by placing full blame on China and the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Bill’s backers made ‘false claims’

Independent journalist Sam Husseini said Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), the Senate’s co-sponsor of the COVID-19 Origin Act, made “claims about the bill which are false.”

Hawley, on March 1, tweeted:

Speaking to Fox News March 2, Hawley made similar claims, saying, “My bill … will declassify all of the information the federal government has on COVID origins.”

Hawley later followed up his statements with a letter addressed to Chinese President Xi Jinping, informing him of the bill’s passage. This prompted a response from the Chinese government, according to The Gateway Pundit.

Another of the bill’s Senate co-sponsors, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.), said in a statement:

“The American people deserve transparency, free from censorship or spin. It’s time to declassify everything we know about COVID’s origins and the Wuhan Institute of Virology, now.”

Braun also tweeted:

Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio), who chairs the House Intelligence Committee, told the House:

“The American public deserves answers to every aspect of COVID-19 pandemic including how this virus was created, and specifically whether it was a natural occurrence or was the result of a lab related event.”

Statements like these led media outlets, including The Defender, to report that if passed, the will would trigger the release of all documents — not just those related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

Bill ‘dubiously named’

On his blog, Husseini said the COVID-19 Origin Act is “dubiously named” and instructs Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines only to:

“Declassify any and all information relating to potential links between the Wuhan Institute of Virology and the origin of the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), including (A) activities performed by the Wuhan Institute of Virology with or on behalf of the People’s Liberation Army [of China].”

“This means that information not related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology is not being requested and would almost certainly therefore remain classified,” Husseini wrote.

The bill also states:

“There is reason to believe the COVID-19 pandemic may have originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology …

“… the Director of National Intelligence should declassify and make available to the public as much information as possible about the origin of COVID-19 so the United States and like-minded countries can —

“(A) identify the origin of COVID-19 as expeditiously as possible, and

“(B) use that information to take all appropriate measures to prevent a similar pandemic from occurring again.”

The bill requires Haines to turn over the declassified evidence “no later than 90 days after the date of the enactment of this Act” and to submit to Congress an unclassified report containing all the documents requested in the bill, with “only such redactions as the Director determines necessary to protect sources and methods.”

Husseini noted that parts of the bill are unusually specific, focusing “on one strain of alleged evidence” by calling for Haines to turn over classified documents pertaining to “researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology who fell ill in autumn 2019.”

“Now, that could be very important,” Husseini wrote. “But why is this legislation limiting disclosures?”

A ‘classic Nixonian limited hangout’?

Husseini suggested some members of Congress may not have been fully aware that the bill they were voting for does not appear to, in fact, fully declassify all documents related to the origins of COVID-19.

“I have no idea if members of Congress have actually read the legislation and realize how limited it is,” wrote Husseini, who, in another post, called Hawley’s public rhetoric regarding the bill “false and misleading.”

Husseini told The Defender the bill may be acting as a “limited hangout” with the purpose of acknowledging the “lab leak theory” on the one hand, but via legislation that “makes us accept half of the truth.”

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender, “I’m afraid this [bill] is going to be a classic Nixonian limited hangout” that “does not call for the declassification of all those sources [that] should be declassified and/or released.”

Boyle said any information that is declassified “is going to be helpful,” but that the bill’s provision allowing redactions raises concern.

“Who knows what Avril Haines is going to knock out of this report,” he said.

Husseini noted that the bill also makes no provisions for providing information that several groups, including U.S. Right to Know and some media organizations, have requested — but not yet received — via Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) submissions. Husseini said this information “is not classified but is being withheld.”

Husseini cited Gary Ruskin, executive director and co-founder of U.S. Right to Know, who said:

“Much of the federal government’s information related to the origins of Covid-19 is not classified, or likely not classified. We just haven’t been able to access much of it yet via FOIA/FOIA litigation.

“The NIH’s [National Institutes of Health] conduct in stonewalling FOIAs is especially outrageous. It’s time for the Biden administration to tell NIH to comply with the FOIA.”

At a March 9 U.S. Department of State press conference, Ned Price, the agency’s spokesperson, appeared to stonewall Husseini when he asked why the government hasn’t responded to U.S. Right to Know’s FOIA requests related to government funding of bioweapons agents’ discovery research, including the funding of such research in China.

“We can respond in writing on a question that specific,” Price replied. When further pressed by Husseini, Price said, “I would ask that you be respectful of your colleagues.”

An attempt to blame the virus exclusively on China?

There has been a flurry of news reports in recent weeks originating from various branches of the U.S. government indicating broader acceptance of the “lab leak theory.”

The U.S. Department of Energy said it now believes COVID-19 most likely emerged from the Wuhan lab — a position subsequently adopted publicly by FBI Director Christopher Wray.

On March 8, the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic heard the testimony of experts who also accepted the “lab leak theory.”

“All this — the recent hearings, the Hawley legislation, the WSJ piece — seem part of a coordinated effort on the part of the ‘intelligence community’ to own the pandemic story and use it for their purposes,” Husseini wrote.

Boyle shared similar concerns with The Defender :

“I am concerned that this [bill] is only going to get a part of the truth. Certainly not the full truth of what really happened here with COVID-19, which we need to get at.

“My concern is that all that’s going to get out of this report … will implicate the Wuhan BSL4 [biosafety level 4 lab] in COVID-19. Well, that’s fine with me. But what about the American involvement here?

“And this was funded by Tony Fauci and Francis Collins at NIAID [National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases] and NIH. Those should be in this legislation too, if we really wanted to get to the bottom of what happened here.”

Boyle and Husseini told The Defender there are numerous government and private entities whose classified documents should be declassified.

Boyle said these include the University of North Carolina, the National Center for Toxicological Research, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute at Harvard Medical School, the U.S. Agency for International Development, EcoHealth Alliance and the Integrated Research Facility at Fort Detrick.

Husseini noted that state governments and private institutions also are likely to possess important information that the COVID-19 Origin Act does not cover. These include Scripps Research, Tulane University and the Wellcome Trust.”

The Wellcome Trust is headed by Jeremy Farrar, now chief scientist for the World Health Organization. “Farrar played a central role in disseminating the propaganda line that COVID could not have lab origins in early 2020,” Husseini said.

U.S. Right to Know sued the University of North Carolina, which is publicly owned, after it failed to respond to the watchdog group’s FOIA requests.

Husseini said the COVID-19 Origin Act “doesn’t even instruct the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] to declassify what it knows about other Chinese government institutions like the Chinese CDC [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention].”

Husseini told The Defender :

“Since [Fauci] retired, the system has seemingly skillfully tried to put the deranged stance of the last three years into the rearview mirror hoping people will forget the massive propaganda.”

Boyle told The Defender that “from this legislation, it does appear they’re trying to pin it all on China.”

Husseini, noting that “China may well have major culpability,” said this is not the same as full or exclusive culpability, which is what the U.S. government may now be attempting to establish.

Husseini wrote that “a general anti-China agenda, has taken primacy and is part of a dynamic which ‘ultimately lets’ U.S. institutions and ‘U.S. biowarfare off the hook.’”

He told The Defender :

“There are two pillars of the U.S. establishment here — one wants to polarize at some level with China and the other wants to ensure the U.S. government continues its discovery of bioweapons agents.

“For the establishment to be maintained, both those strains need to be maintained.”

According to Husseini, this may explain why the bill passed both houses with seemingly little debate. It passed the Senate with “unanimous consent,” and subsequently passed the House in a unanimous vote.

Husseini noted that Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), a member of the House Rules Committee, even put forth a rule “to ensure passage of Hawley’s bill.”

Husseini said Biden, who hasn’t yet said if he will sign the bill, has a few options he may be considering, telling The Defender :

“I see no sign of actual opposition from the Biden administration and I suspect this is all being done in coordination with the director of National Intelligence, as were the reports in the Wall Street Journal that drove this narrative.

“It’s possible Biden wants to appear reluctant on this and I suppose Biden could veto it and get an override so he could pose as being conciliatory to the Chinese or the like.”

Husseini said that “with the collapse of the completely fictional Daszak narrative in the late Spring and Summer of 2021 … a backup narrative has been put forward, especially through the Wall Street Journal,” whose report on the Department of Energy pivoting toward the “lab leak theory” was co-written by Michael Gordon, “who with Judy Miller perpetrated the Iraq weapons of mass destruction fraud on the U.S. public.”

He also blamed wide swaths of the independent media, particularly left-leaning outlets, for going along with establishment efforts to discredit the theory that COVID-19 emerged from the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

“Much of ‘the Left’ has basically done everything to kill lab origin — and effectively made it a right-wing issue,” Husseini said.

According to Husseini, those who long promoted the Chinese response to COVID-19 and who now are supporting the push to frame China, are pushing for a world “that combines the worst aspects of the U.S. — corrupt corporate capitalism — with the worst aspects of Chinese society: explicit authoritarianism.”

“The pandemic, it can hardly be ignored, helped isolate people from one another, helped restrict borders, was an excuse for massive civil liberties restrictions — all things useful to the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ agenda,” said Husseini. “This is another reason that intentional release should be seriously examined.”

Lab leak or lab origin?

Husseini said he prefers the term “lab origin theory” over “lab leak theory.”

“I see no good reason to make assumptions,” Husseini said. “‘Leak’ assumes a mistake. It could have been a mistake, but why presume it?”

Boyle adopted a similar view, although he noted that the language of the COVID-19 Origin Act does not mention either term.

“It does not refer to a lab leak,” he said. “It doesn’t say ‘leak’ at all. It says ‘originated at the Wuhan Institute of Virology.’ Obviously, there could be different interpretations of why it originated there. I still believe it was a leak, but this does leave open why it might have originated there.”

Boyle reiterated his longstanding belief that “COVID-19 is an offensive biological warfare weapon with gain-of-function properties” and called for the halting of gain-of-function research.

According to Boyle, who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, Congress’ reluctance to declassify documents that may implicate U.S. government entities in the origins of COVID-19 is reflective of the massive amounts of federal money spent on biological weapons research.

“They’re not doing that because the U.S. government agencies and scientists involved in the development of COVID-19 [have received] massive sums of money,” Boyle said. “We’ve been devoted to developing offensive biological warfare programs since after Sept. 11, 2001 … I’ve been speaking out about this publicly for years.”

Husseini told The Defender :

“Biowarfare is a deniable weapon, which makes disclosure of documents key. Another reason why the Hawley bill limiting disclosure may well signal a massive coverup in plain sight.”

In a pair of tweets Sunday, British Member of Parliament Andrew Bridgen said he received information from U.S. government sources indicating that the U.S. Department of Defense and the Fort Detrick research facility “were responsible for both the virus and the vaccines” and that “criminal proceedings” may follow.

Bridgen did not clarify which sources provided him with this information or who might face such criminal proceedings. At the March 8 Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic hearing, former director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Dr. Robert Redfield said COVID-19 was “engineered” and blamed gain-of-function research for “the greatest pandemic our world has seen.”

However, Redfield stopped short of explicitly calling for a full ban on such activities, calling instead for a moratorium.

Boyle told The Defender “all this gain-of-function so-called ‘research’ has to be terminated immediately with legislation by Congress … The only way to protect ourselves is to terminate it immediately. No moratorium.”

“There was a moratorium” during the Barack Obama presidency, said Boyle, “and Fauci undermined the moratorium by outsourcing the work through the EcoHealth Alliance to the Wuhan BSL4 [laboratory]. So, a moratorium is worthless. We have to terminate all gain-of-function research everywhere. It has to be prohibited, to be made criminal.”

The Defender reached out to the offices of Hawley and Braun, Turner and Bridgen for comment, but did not receive a response as of press time.

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

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

FTC faces ethics complaint after alleged retaliation against Twitter over censorship revelations

By Cindy Harper | Reclaim The Net | March 14, 2023

America First Legal (AFL) has filed federal ethics and Inspector General complaints and launched a probe into the Federal Trade Commission’s retaliation against Twitter owner Elon Musk and Twitter for exposing the Biden administration and federal agencies for pressuring Twitter to censor content.

Last week, the House’s Judiciary Committee’s Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government released a report detailing how the FTC has been harassing Musk and  over the past few months.

Read the FOIA request, IG investigative request, and Senate ethics request here, here, and here.

AFL filed a complaint with the Senate Select Committee on Ethics requesting an investigation into several Democratic senators, including  and Richard Blumenthal, for violating Senate Rule 43, which prohibits partisan communications in an unconcluded federal proceeding. AFL accuses these senators of encouraging the FTC to investigate Musk and Twitter, which further solidifies conservatives’ claims of the Biden administration weaponizing federal agencies.

AFL filed another complaint with the FTC’s Inspector General requesting an investigation into the agency’s chair Lina Khan and other officials for abusing power.

The organization also filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records that would reveal the reasons for the FTC’s abuse of power.

“The Biden Administration is steadfastly focused on weaponizing the federal government to advance its radical, left-wing political agenda,” said AFL’s general counsel Gene Hamilton. “Most Americans are now aware of politicization at the Department of Justice, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security. And now, the Biden Administration has turned to the Federal Trade Commission to exact harm on those who oppose their radical agenda–particularly regarding free speech on social media platforms. Weaponizing the FTC to retaliate against  and Twitter for exposing the truth about Deep State censorship is reprehensible, and we will not stand by idly.”

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Saudi Arabia sticks to Arab Initiative in drive for ties with Israel

MEMO | March 16, 2023

Saudi Arabia’s former intelligence chief has said that the Kingdom is sticking to the terms of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative in its drive to normalise relations with Israel.

“The terms are well-known,” Prince Turki Al-Faisal told France 24. “The creation of a sovereign Palestinian state with recognised borders and Jerusalem is its capital, and the return of Palestine refugees.” He pointed out that these were the conditions that Saudi Arabia added to the initiative before it was adopted by the Arab League 21 years ago.

The Arab Peace Initiative has been rejected by every Israeli government since then. Moreover, several Arab states have bypassed it and forged ties with the occupation state.

Replying to a question about the potential normalisation of ties with Israel without fulfilling these conditions, Al-Faisal confirmed: “What I have said was not my opinion, but it was declared by officials. I trust the officials when they say anything, and anything made by media is nonsense.”

According to the New Khalij news website, reports in America claim that Riyadh has proposed to Washington that it will make diplomatic ties with Israel in return for a US pledge to protect the Gulf region, support a peaceful nuclear programme in the Kingdom and approve major arms sales to the Royal Saudi Armed Forces.

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , | Leave a comment

Australian premiers spar over nuclear sub waste disposal

RT | March 16, 2023

The Australian political establishment is divided as to where the federal government should dispose of nuclear waste associated with the country’s expanded submarine deal with its AUKUS allies.

An accord was struck by the leadership of the countries which make up the trilateral AUKUS alliance – Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom – when they met in San Diego, California earlier this week, which rubber-stamped the sale of nuclear-powered submarines by Washington to Canberra.

In addition, Australia Prime Minister Anthony Albanese confirmed that his country would construct its own fleet of nuclear submarines, which will be delivered in the early 2040s. The terms of the agreement stipulate that the Australian government will be responsible for the disposal of nuclear waste from the vessels – but this appears to have opened a new political front for the country’s various state leaders.

“I think the waste can go where all the jobs are going,” said Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews via the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on Thursday, referencing the 8,000 jobs which are expected to be generated in South Australia during the construction of the military submarines. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable, is it?”

West Australian Premier Mark McGowan has also indicated that nuclear waste disposal sites are unwelcome in his state, joining Andrews in suggesting South Australia as the most appropriate location.

Susan Close, the acting South Australian premier who doubles as the region’s environment minister, responded to the suggestions by saying the decision on nuclear waste locations should be dictated by science and not by “state leaders trying to move nuclear waste that doesn’t yet exist across the border.”

A final decision on the location of the site is not expected for another 12 months, and the site that is eventually selected won’t be required for use until around 2055.

The AUKUS deal will see Australia become the seventh nation with nuclear-powered submarines in its military arsenal, and comes amid Western concerns about China’s military expansion in the Indo-Pacific region. Beijing has rebuked the AUKUS nuclear submarine agreement, saying it contradicts accepted norms of nuclear non-proliferation.

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Environmentalism, Militarism, Nuclear Power | , | Leave a comment

MQ-9 Drone Incident: Biden’s Dangerous Escalation

By Scott Ritter – Sputnik -16.03.2023

A US surveillance drone crashed off the coast of Crimea after an encounter with a Russian fighter aircraft. What does this incident say about the current state of the war in Ukraine and where Russia and the US might go from here.

In 2015, the United States established a permanent training facility in Yavoriv, western Ukraine, for the express purpose of training Ukrainian soldiers for combat against Russia.
At that time the conflict in Ukraine was an internal affair, pitting the Ukrainian Army against Ukrainians of ethnic-Russian background who had rebelled against a US-backed coup which, in February 2014, saw the constitutionally elected government of President Viktor Yanukovych replaced by a pro-American government.

This new Ukrainian government, hand-picked by the US, was deeply infused with radical ultra-nationalism linked to the ideology of Stepan Bandera and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, or OUN, which fought alongside Nazi Germany during the Second World War and whose members were responsible for the murder of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Many of the Ukrainians being trained by the US military were affiliated with the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion, an organization which many in the US Congress at the time found so odious that the passed an amendment to the defense authorization act prohibiting US taxpayer dollars from being used to train its members.

These restrictions aside, there can be no doubt that the purpose of the US training mission in Ukraine was to prepare the Ukrainian military to go to war against Russia. That the US training not only instructed the Ukrainians troops on modern combined arms maneuver warfare, but also sought to elevate the Ukrainians to the same standard used to train the forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), provided the first inkling that any future conflict between Ukraine and its disenfranchised ethnic Russian population that involved Russia would be far more than a simple confrontation between two regional neighbors, but a larger war between Russia and the US and NATO—the so-called “collective west”, using Ukraine as a proxy.

This reality was amplified further with the provision by the US and NATO of advanced anti-tank missile systems and other lethal military assistance.

Even before Russia initiated the Special Military Operation, in February 2022, the United States, the United Kingdom, and NATO began a program of intelligence sharing with the Ukrainian armed forces at the highest levels. Once the Russian troops moved across the border, the nature of this intelligence relationship shifted away from providing indications and warning of an impending attack, to the provision of operational and tactical intelligence about Russian military disposition, capabilities, and intent that was used by Ukraine to target Russian forces.

While the US and its NATO allies are understandably reticent about the nature of this intelligence, and the sources from which it is derived, over time it has become clear that every available intelligence collection platform is being used to gather relevant data about Russian military operations in support of the Special Military Operation.
It is also clear that this intelligence is used by joint operational planning cells comprised of US/NATO/Ukrainian forces to develop targets in real time, which are then transmitted to Ukrainian forces.

One of the more ubiquitous intelligence resources employed by the US in support of Ukraine is the MQ-9 Reaper. The MQ-9 is a large a large unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operated by the Air Force. It is remotely operated by a two-person team from a ground control station that is connected to the MQ-9 using satellite equipment. The team includes a qualified pilot who is responsible for flying the aircraft and an enlisted aircrew member who is charged with operating any onboard sensors or weapons the MQ-9 might be carrying.

The MQ-9 has a wingspan of 66 feet, is 36 feet long, 12 feet high, and weighs approximately 4,900 pounds. It is capable of flying at altitudes as high as 50,000 feet and has a range of some 1,400 miles. It can carry a wide variety of weapons and intelligence collection pods. Each MQ-9 costs about $32 million. The MQ-9 Reapers operating over the Black Sea are flown out of a Romanian Air Force base in Campia Turzii by members of the US Air Force’ Detachment 1, 31st Expeditionary Operations Group.

On March 14, 2023, an MQ-9 Reaper operating out of Campia Turzii was flying in international airspace over the Black Sea, west of Crimea. This was a standard flight profile for the MQ-9 Reaper, one that had the Russians concerned, given its proximity to sensitive Russian military installations.

Ukraine had a history of launching operations against Russian forces in Crimea using aerial and underwater drones, and the potential for intelligence collected by the MQ-9 Reaper being used in support of such attacks was very real. For this purpose, the Russian military had declared certain areas off the coast of Crimea as being off limits.

The US, however, does not recognize Russia’s claim to Crimea, or for that matter the four new territories of Kherson, Zaporozhye, Donetsk and Lugansk, that joined the federation following referendums held in September 2022 and, as such, does not recognize any claim regarding the establishment of no-fly zones by Russia in support of its ongoing military operations against Ukraine. The decision to fly the MQ-9 Reaper was made knowing Russia would object, or worse.

Indeed, Russia dispatched a pair of Su-27 fighter aircraft to intercept the MQ-9 Reaper. After making 19 passes at the Reaper, the Su-27’s conducted what can only be described as aggressive maneuvering designed to either compel the MQ-9 Reaper to depart the area, or else bring it down. After one particular incident, which may or may not have involved one or more Su-27 aircraft dumping fuel onto the Reaper, the MQ-9 lost control and crashed into international waters off the coast of Crimea.

It is believed that Russian forces dispatched from Crimea recovered most, if not all, the wreckage, including the top-secret intelligence pod that had been mounted under the left wing of the aircraft. If this is the case, critical US intelligence collection capabilities would have been compromised, allowing Russia to better protect itself from sensors like the one carried onboard the downed MQ-9 Reaper aircraft.

While the US State Department has declared that the US will continue to fly missions in international airspace, the Commander of US forces in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli has ordered all MQ-9 Reaper operations to be halted pending a review of the incident and a decision on how best to proceed.

The fact that the US is using the MQ-9 Reaper to fly in direct support of Ukrainian military forces make the aircraft a direct participant in the conflict, and as such a legitimate target for Russia. Russia’s decision not to shoot the MQ-9 down, but rather provide multiple opportunities for the US aircraft to disengage and leave the contested airspace, is indicative of Russia’s desire to avoid unnecessary escalation of the conflict, especially one that could have US and Russian forces engaged in direct combat.

One of the options that the US could consider would be to fly the MQ-9 with a US fighter escort. But this would be contested by Russia, leading to the possibility of a dogfight that could result in casualties on both sides, and the probability of escalation. At the end of the day, the US will probably seek to fly an MQ-9 Reaper on a course that comes close to, but does not violate, a declared Russian no-fly zone, after which MQ-9 Reaper flights along the Crimean coast will probably be discontinued.

There are other ways to collect the intelligence that the MQ-9 Reaper gathers which do not put US military assets at risk, and which do not provide the possibility of military escalation between the US and Russia.

Such a decision would be a sharp departure from the confrontational stance taken to date by the US when it comes to intelligence collection targeting Russia. However, the devolving military situation in Ukraine, with the Ukrainian military facing a decisive defeat in Bakhmut and in general, alters the risk-gain analysis that accompanies the decision to fly missions such as the one that resulted in the downed MQ-9 aircraft. With little chance of a Ukrainian victory in sight, the US will be looking for ways to deescalate, rather than escalate, its involvement in the Ukrainian conflict.

Whether or not the MQ-9 Reaper incident will result in a top-down review of incidents of this nature, for example prompting the Biden administration to reflect on the apparent hypocrisy of the US approach toward responding to the Chinese balloon “threat”, namely by shooting the balloon down, while condemning the more restrained approach taken by Russia in responding to a genuine military threat on its borders in an active warzone, is yet to be seen. Such an abut-face would be unlikely, given the current political climate, where Russophobia runs rampant.

The fact remains that as long as the US is engaged in the implementation of a wartime policy that seeks the strategic defeat of Russia, the possibility for rational, logic-based policy formulation and implementation on the part of the US is almost nil.

The shortest path for the normalization of US-Russian relations lays in a decisive victory being achieved by Russia over Ukraine and the collective west in the shortest time possible. Such an outcome would force the US and its NATO allies to reexamine their approach toward Russia based upon the new realities that would accrue from such an outcome.

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

The U.S. War of Aggression Against Iraq

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | March 16, 2023

The U.S. invasion of Iraq, whose 20th anniversary occurs this month, provides a perfect demonstration of why so many people around the world believe that the U.S. government suffers from a very grave case of hypocrisy. While U.S. officials decry Russia’s invasion of Ukraine with great vehemence, they somehow block out of their minds their own deadly and destructive invasion, war of aggression, and long-term occupation of Iraq.

Not only have U.S. officials not even offered an apology for what they did to the Iraqi people, they still expect the American people to thank the troops for what they did to the people of Iraq.

Let’s keep one important, undisputed fact in mind: Iraq never attacked or invaded the United States. It was the United States that was the invader and the aggressor. That’s why I use the term “war of aggression.” It is a term that was used at the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal to convict and condemn German officials who did the same thing to other countries in World War II that the U.S. did to Iraq.

That means that under international law, U.S. troops had no legal authority to kill even one Iraqi. Yet, they killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis. We are still expected to thank the troops for their “service” in killing an enormously large number of people they had no right to kill.

There is another important, undisputed fact to keep in mind: Congress never declared war on Iraq. Yet, our Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war before the president can legally wage war with his army against another nation. That makes the U.S. invasion, war of aggression, and occupation illegal under our own form of government.

Thus, the killing, maiming, injuring, or torturing of Iraqi citizens was illegal under our own form of government. Yet, we are still expected to thank the troops for their “service.”

U.S. officials have long claimed that their invasion of Iraq was based on an innocent mistake. They say that they honestly thought that Iraq possessed “weapons of mass destruction.”

But there is a serious flaw in that justification: The U.S. government had no legal authority to enforce WMD resolutions that had been enacted by the United Nations. Only the UN has the legal authority to enforce its own resolutions. It is undisputed that the UN never authorized an invasion of Iraq to enforce its WMD resolutions.

Equally important, the WMD claim was clearly a lie on the part of U.S. officials to garner American support for the invasion. After all, if it was truly an innocent mistake, once it became clear that there were no WMDs U.S. officials would have apologized for their deadly and destructive invasion and ordered the troops to return home. Instead, they keep the troops in Iraq, who continued killing, injuring, maiming, and torturing Iraqis.

Moreover, once it became clear that there were no WMDs, U.S. officials quickly shifted their justification for their invasion, war of aggression, and occupation to bringing “freedom” to the Iraqi people. That’s why they called their war of aggression “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” But under international law, a nation is prohibited from invading another nation for the purpose of bringing “freedom” to the invaded country. Moreover, at the risk of belaboring the obvious, all those hundreds of thousands of Iraqis they killed are not enjoying “freedom” because they are dead.

Moreover, notice something else of importance: There has never been an official U.S. investigation — not even by Congress — into whether the WMD claim was, in fact, an innocent mistake or an intentional, deliberate, and knowing lie. Even while U.S. officials cry out for war-crimes indictments of Russian officials for supposed war crimes in Ukraine, they steadfastly oppose any indictments or even criminal investigations of U.S. officials who ordered and presided over the U.S. invasion, war of aggression, and long-term occupation of Iraq.

It is always easy to point out the faults, failures, and misdeeds of foreign regimes. It is much more difficult to focus on the faults, failures, and misdeeds of one’s own regime. We should bear in mind that when U.S. officials point their accusatory finger at Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, North Korea, Venezuela, and other regimes, there are three more hypocritical fingers pointing back at them.

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Lula Is Lying: The NATO-Russian Proxy War Isn’t Being Fought “Over Small Things”

By Andrew Korybko | March 16, 2023

Brazilian President Lula proved that his recalibrated worldview in recent years is a lot more closely aligned with the US’ than ever after downplaying the causes of the NATO-Russian proxy war. According to him, “In the 21st century, it shouldn’t be possible that we have war over small things”, which he uttered after declaring that he won’t visit either Russia or Ukraine due to the special operation. This position serves as further proof that he endorses the US’ narrative about the conflict.

Lula previously condemned Russia in a joint statement with Biden during his trip to DC in early February, after which Brazil voted in support of a fiercely anti-Russian UN Resolution demanding Moscow’s full and immediate withdrawal without any preconditions from all the territory that Kiev claims as its own, which includes Crimea. Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzia reacted to the passing of that motion by describing it as pushing a “militaristic Russophobic line”.

Removing any ambiguity about his government’s stance, Lula then called Zelensky shortly afterwards to reaffirm that “Brazil defends Ukraine’s territorial integrity”. Despite these objectively existing and easily verifiable pieces of evidence documenting his political support of Russia’s nemeses in Kiev, an intense information warfare campaign has been waged by forces allied with the ruling party to gaslight its base into falsely thinking that Lula isn’t aligned with the US on this issue or others like Nicaragua.

Elite members of the Workers’ Party (PT) fear that the rank and file might revolt upon becoming aware that their leader is moving Brazil closer to the US-led West’s Golden Billion than the Sino-Russo Entente or even the Global South of which it’s a part amidst the impending trifurcation of International Relations. With a view towards preemptively averting the scenario of them publicly pressuring him en masse to change this grand strategic trajectory, they sought to manipulate their perceptions about Lula’s policies.

This explains the intense information warfare campaign that’s being waged against their minds at this pivotal point in the global systemic transition, which he himself is directly participating in upon downplaying the causes of the NATO-Russian proxy war in an attempt to justify his political support of Kiev. Lula wants his supporters to discount the evidence before their eyes and ears in favor of agreeing with the US’ narrative that Russia supposedly “invaded” Ukraine for purely “imperialistic” purposes.

If the PT’s base was aware of the military-strategic dynamics that forced Russia to commence its special operation as a last resort for defending the integrity of its national security red lines in Ukraine after NATO clandestinely crossed them there, then they’d be against his political support of Kiev. It would thus be self-evident to them that Lula is placing Brazil on a US-aligned grand strategic trajectory in the New Cold War, which could lead to them publicly pressuring him en masse to change his policy.

The following analyses explain the larger context within which the special operation is being waged:

* 15 March 2022: “Why Did U.S. Prioritize Containing Russia Over China?”

* 26 March 2022: “Russia Is Waging an Existential Struggle in Defense of Its Independence & Sovereignty”

* 24 December 2022: “Putin Explained Why He Had No Choice But To Protect The Russian Population In Ukraine”

* 22 February 2023: “Putin Reminded Everyone That Russia Is Using Force To End The War That The West Started”

* 22 February 2023: “Russia Would Be Torn To Pieces Exactly As Medvedev Predicted If It Ended Its Special Operation”

A summary of the abovementioned insight will now follow for the reader’s convenience.

In brief, the US spent the preceding eight years between its successful Color Revolution in early 2014 and the start of the special operation in 2022 turning Ukraine into an anti-Russian bastion, the purpose of which was to degrade that targeted Great Power’s strategic capabilities to defend itself from the US. This was to be done through a combination of Hybrid War means related to Kiev’s support of information warfare- and terrorist-driven separatism as well as conventional ones connected to NATO.

The first half of this policy aimed to destabilize Russia from within through the cultivation of forces that could advance its “Balkanization” while the second intended to eventually employ biological weapons, clandestine NATO bases, and “missile defense” infrastructure to place it in a position of blackmail. The US envisaged forcing Russia into a never-ending series of unilateral concessions that would ultimately result in its geostrategic neutralization and thus facilitate the successful “containment” of China.

This plot to restore its declining unipolar hegemony was to begin with Kiev’s NATO-supported reconquest of Donbass, which threatened to genocide that region’s indigenous Russian population and ethically cleanse the survivors. That sequence of events was foiled by the special operation that was launched after President Putin realized that the West had no interest in discussing his country’s security guarantee requests from December 2021 for politically resolving their security dilemma.

While the US prepared for the possibility of some kinetic response to its support of Kiev’s imminent reconquest of Donbass, American policymakers hadn’t calculated that President Putin would launch a preventive campaign across all of Ukraine to avert the impending scenario of Russia’s strategic neutralization simultaneously with the preemptive one to stop the Donbass genocide. Had it been otherwise, then they’d have retooled the West’s military-industrial complex well in advance.

This major miscalculation explains why the NATO chief admitted last month that his bloc is in a “race of logistics”/“war of attrition” with Russia, which wouldn’t be the case if it truly expected a protracted conflict of this scale, nor would Kiev’s forces be faring as badly as the Washington Post just revealed. President Putin regularly reminds everyone of the existential nature of this conflict, which places his decision to commence an interconnected preemptive-preventive campaign into context.

Returning to Lula’s latest remarks that inspired this analysis, there’s no doubt that he’s well aware of these military-strategic dynamics that forced President Putin’s hand, which thus means that he’s deliberately downplaying them in order to manipulate his base. He can’t claim ignorance after over a year of Russia explaining this at length, hence why it can now confidently be concluded that Lula politically aligned Brazil with the US in the most geostrategically significant conflict since World War II.

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Sunak grants £5 billion boost to the military despite growing issues of poverty and inflation

By Ahmed Adel | March 16, 2023

Britain’s updated defence and foreign policy strategy envisages an additional £5 billion for armaments and is a demonstration that London’s priority is confrontation with Russia and China. Although UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak promised this considerable appropriation for the military over two years, it is unlikely to appease British conservatives as the figure did not meet the demands of spending 3% GDP on defence.

Defence Secretary Ben Wallace wanted a larger military budget but officials are reportedly “delighted” with the settlement. This is unlikely the case behind closed doors.

Most of the £5 billion will be used to replenish ammunition stockpiles given to Ukraine and work on the AUKUS project to develop nuclear-powered submarines for Australia. Effectively, the main priority of London’s updated defence and foreign policy strategy is to oppose the main geopolitical threats to Anglo hegemony – Russia and China.

Speaking from San Diego on March 13, Sunak said: “It’s clear that the world has become more volatile, the threats to our security have increased. And that’s why we’re investing £5 billion more in our world-beating armed forces over the next two years and increasing our defence spending to 2.5% of GDP so we can continue to be a world leader when it comes to defence and keeping our country safe.”

Of course, this omits the obvious failures in Afghanistan and Ukraine, and the fact that neither Russia or China pose a threat to Britain. In fact, it is evident from the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan that the threat is the UK.

Russophobia guides the British political and media establishment, and has thus shaped British public opinion for more than 200 years. Therefore, in the context of Russia’s special military operation, the updated strategy does not represent anything new in terms of escalation. Rather, it just merely shows the British establishment’s continuous Russophobia.

The procurement of ammunition and atomic armament demonstrates that the Sunak government is continuing what Boris Johnson, and those before him, started. What is telling though is that a £5 billion boost is being allocated to the military, partially to replenish stocks given to Ukraine, just as the UK is experiencing the worst economic catastrophe of the 21st century, thus far.

According to the latest figures (2020/21), around one in five people in the UK (20%) were in poverty, or 13.4 million people. Of these, 7.9 million were working-age adults, 3.9 million were children and 1.7 million were pensioners. Therefore, one in four children in the UK are living in poverty (27%).

However, a report by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, an independent social change organization working to solve poverty in the UK, said in January 2023 that “living standards are likely to have fallen since the latest official data covering 2020/21.”

“Since the last official poverty data, the direct impact of the pandemic on society has lessened, but some of the changes it has brought about will be long lasting,” the report said, citing the war in Ukraine and the continuing effects of Brexit as examples of difficulties.

The report published that across the poorest fifth of British families, the JRF’s cost of living tracker in October 2022 found that around six in ten low-income households are not able to afford an unexpected expense, over half are in arrears, around a quarter use credit to pay essential bills, and over seven in ten families are going without essentials.

However, due to centuries of indoctrination, there is little condemnation from the British public that £5 billion is being used to replenish military stocks sent to Ukraine instead of dealing with an inflation that is currently forecast to peak at around 11%, which will be the highest rate in forty years, according to the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.

Although Russia is the main adversary for London, China is rapidly becoming its second. This is becoming increasingly apparent considering that the UK and US are not only each other’s main political and military ally, but are also in anti-China formations together, such as AUKUS.

Therefore, it should not be surprising either that the second part of the renewed strategy is arming Australia so that it becomes an Anglo stronghold in the South Pacific. This is all part of preparations to set the stage for a new big showdown with China, especially given that the situation related to Taiwan confirms that the current trajectory is towards military confrontation.

Either way, although the £5 billion is not as much as the British hawks wanted due to budgetary constraints, it still symbolises that the UK is committed to opposing Russia and advancing future hostilities with China.

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

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Russophobia | | 1 Comment

Vitamin D reduced dementia by 40%

Dr John Campbell | March 13, 2023

Mosquito net distribution in Uganda, donations to this project, https://www.buymeacoffee.com/awmedica…

More videos from this project, https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCzsL…

Vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia: Effects of sex, APOE, and baseline cognitive status https://alz-journals.onlinelibrary.wi…

Alberta, Canada Known association, vitamin D deficiency, incident dementia https://nutritionj.biomedcentral.com/…

Role of supplementation is unclear. Prospectively study Associations, vitamin D supplementation and incident dementia N = 12,388 dementia-free people (from the National Alzheimer’s Coordinating Center)

Methods Baseline exposure to vitamin D was considered D+ No exposure prior to dementia onset was considered D− MCI and depression were both more frequent in the D− group, compared to D+ People taking vitamin D had less MCI and less depression

Adjusted for age, sex, education, race, cognitive diagnosis, depression, and apolipoprotein E (APOE) ε4. Potential interactions between exposure and model covariates were explored. Results Across all formulations, vitamin D exposure was associated with significantly longer dementia-free survival, and lower dementia incidence rate than no exposure

Hazard ratio = 0.60 (95% confidence interval: 0.55–0.65) Vitamin D exposure was associated with 40% lower dementia incidence versus no exposure. Over 10 year follow up of 12,388 2,696 participants progressed to dementia

Among them the 2,696 2,017 (74.8%) had no exposure to vitamin D 679 (25.2%) had baseline exposure

Exposure to vitamin D was associated with significantly higher dementia-free survival 5-year survival for D− was 68.4% 5-year survival for D+ was 83.6%

The effect of vitamin D on incidence rate differed significantly, Vitamin D effects were significantly greater in females versus males

Vitamin D effects were significantly greater in normal cognition versus mild cognitive impairment.

Vitamin D effects were significantly greater in apolipoprotein E ε4 non-carriers versus carriers.

Vitamin D effects were less significantly apolipoprotein E ε4 carriers. (25% one copy, 3% two copies)

Vitamin D has potential for dementia prevention, especially in the high-risk strata.

Vitamin D deficiency, worldwide prevalence of up to 1 billion. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science…

Mechanism of action https://www.nature.com/articles/s4143…

Vitamin D is known to participate in the clearance of amyloid beta (Aβ) aggregates, one of the hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and may provide neuroprotection against Aβ-induced tau hyperphosphorylation (neurofibrillary tangles) Cholecalciferol may be more effective than ergocalciferol

March 16, 2023 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | Leave a comment