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So what’s the REAL point of “Just Stop Oil” protests?

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | July 19, 2023

It seems every day lately there is a new “shocking viral video” of “desperate drivers losing patience with Just Stop Oil”, or some similar phrasing.

Something like this…

No sporting event has been spared the orange dust and hi-viz vest of Just Stop Oil, and wherever they go they are either cheered on for their antics, or the subject of vigilante justice… which likewise gets a cheer.

But are these videos and protests organic? And if not, what is the point of these clashes?

First of all, let’s agree the protests themselves are pointless, even on  their own terms.

Not only do none of the people being inconvenienced by the blocked traffic or disrupted sporting events have any power at all to “just stop oil”, but slowing down traffic actually increases emissions whilst the destruction and disruption will certainly turn many people against the movement.

But that doesn’t actually matter anyhow because the entire movement is FAKE.

Yup, stop the presses guys, news incoming is that Just Stop Oil are not actually a guerilla band of desperate anti-petrol hippies!

Turns out they have branding and funding and social media managers.

Turns out they are a product being marketed as much as anything else, and they are backed by the Climate Emergency Fund, a US-based NGO.

Shocking, right.

Ok,  before any of you get apoplectic, it’s perfectly possible some (or all) of the JSO people out there actually wearing their hi-viz and chanting their slogans genuinely believe they’re doing the right thing.

But it’s just as possible they’re all being paid to be there.

Yes, just like charity collectors or seat fillers, paid protesters exist.

Hell, it’s possible the “ordinary people” doing the violence are paid too and the many of the “viral videos” are entirely staged.

Staged or not, paid or not, the violent videos will certainly encourage real violence eventually. And even if they don’t spawn more physical violence, they provide endless ammunition for violent disagreement.

Yes, you guessed it, it’s another fake binary.

A dialectic construction to control the conversation. Making the question on the public mind not “is climate change a problem?”, but “is protesting hydrocarbon production this way right?” or “is violence against protesters acceptable?”.

And, of course, no matter how you answer those questions you’re providing support for one establishment narrative or another.

See, if you support the protesters, you’re agreeing we should be using any means necessary to reduce CO2 emissions etc. You agree that the problem these people are reacting to requires a solution. That way lies carbon taxes and a laundry list of restrictive policies that contol and impoverish people in the name of “saving the planet”.

But, on the other hand, if you’re anti-protesters you’re going to be gaslit into supporting “new anti-protest legislature” to “stop environmentalists disrupting daily life” or “prevent outbreaks of violence” or something.

This anti-protest legislation will be used to stamp-out REAL protests when they inevitably occur in response to Great Reset policies down the line.

See how it works? It’s a win-win for the establishment.

That’s the nature and purpose of the false binary. Violent disagreement across a very narrow band of opinion, and no matter which side you take you’re partaking in a constructed reality that directs your behaviour and responses into endorsing a New Normal policy.

This is almost literally everything that’s been in the news since Covid sputtered out, and the solution is always the same: Keep objective and refuse to take a side.

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | 1 Comment

Poland files legal complaints against “authoritarian” EU climate policies

By Alicja Ptak | Notes from Poland | July 18, 2023

The Polish government has submitted four complaints against EU climate policies, calling them “authoritarian” and pledging that it “will not allow Brussels’ diktat”.

Three new cases filed to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) relate to a ban on the registration of new internal combustion vehicles after 2035, an increase in the EU’s greenhouse gas reduction target, and a reduction of free emission allowances under the EU Emissions Trading System (ETS).

They follow another complaint filed last week against EU rules on land use, land use change and forestry (LULUCF), which Poland says infringes the competences of member states.

“Does the [European] Union want to decide in an authoritarian manner what kind of vehicles Poles will drive and whether energy prices will rise in Poland?” tweeted climate minister Anna Moskwa on Monday. “The Polish government will not allow Brussels’ diktat.”

This morning, the minister added in an interview with Polskie Radio that the government would also file a fifth complaint this week concerning 35,000 tonnes of rubbish that it says has illegally entered the country from Germany.

Poland’s current national-conservative government has regularly criticised the EU’s climate and environmental policies. Ruling party leader Jarosław Kaczyński has called them “madness and theories without evidence” and “green communism”.

“At every EU council, we have been against and voted as a government against every single document in the Fit for 55 package,” said Moskwa, referring to the EU’s programme to reduce emissions by at least 55% by 2030.

“It is no secret that we were against the whole package, we are against increasing climate ambition and the way [these efforts] are carried and forced [upon member countries],” added the minister.

A recent EU-funded study found Poland to be the bloc’s least green country. It still relies on coal to produce around 70% of its electricity, by far the highest figure in the EU. Poland is Europe’s second-largest producer of brown coal after Germany and the largest producer of hard coal.

In March, Poland was the only member state to oppose the introduction of a ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars from 2035. In an interview today, Moskwa argued that unanimity should have been required for this decision as its impact is heavily dependent on member countries’ energy mix.

“In our case, [banning combustion engines] is absolutely contrary to climate policy, because it will lead to an increase in coal consumption in the short term if we want to increase electricity production [to power electric vehicles],” she said.

Asked about the other complaints, Moskwa said Poland was challenging most of them on the same grounds as the ban on the sale of combustion cars.

“The argument in most of these complaints is the same, mainly concerning the legal basis and unanimity, the impact on the energy mix,” she said.

One of the EU policies opposed by Poland is changes to ETS stipulating that sectors already covered by the system will be obliged to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 62% by 2030 compared to 2005 levels. The reform also envisages a gradual phase-out of free emission allowances between 2026 and 2034.

Another regulation concerns the provisions on the new EU Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM), which will cover commodities such as iron, steel, cement, aluminium, fertilisers, electricity and hydrogen.

Importers of these commodities will have to pay the difference between the emission fee in the country of production and the price of emission allowances in the EU ETS. CBAM will be phased in between 2026 and 2034, as free emission allowances in the ETS are phased out.

Moskwa argues that Poland is pursuing a “very consistent energy transition” focused on creating incentives rather than restrictions. She cited government subsidies for clean energy sources such as the “My Electricity” and “Clean Air” programmes, which have led to a boom in solar micro-installations and heat pumps.

Data from the European Environment Agency published last month showed that Poland recorded the EU’s largest overall fall in emissions in 2022. However, in proportional terms, Poland’s decline was, though above the EU average, not among the highest in the bloc.

Alicja Ptak is senior editor at Notes from Poland and a multimedia journalist. She previously worked for Reuters.

Copyright © 2023 Notes From Poland

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | , | 1 Comment

House Judiciary Letter to Pfizer CEO Bourla: Turn over Your Content Moderation Contacts and Documents

Representative Jordan Puts Pfizer on Tight Timeline to Produce Evidence of Collusion with Executive Branch and Social Media

By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse | July 20, 2023

The noose is tightening around Pfizer’s European veterinarian CEO Albert Bourla. He has not faced a single hard question on the Hill but finally has received a request from House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-OH) to produce documents and contacts on how the pharmaceutical giant colluded with the Executive Branch and social media companies (Twitter, Gettr, Facebook, Telegram, Instagram etc.) by weaponizing “misinformation” in order to push mRNA vaccines.

Jordan J, House Judiciary Letter to Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla July 18, 2023

I imagine a Pfizer strategy that was anchored to the Trusted News Initiative dating back to December 2020 will emerge.

  1. Overstate the lethality of COVID-19
  2. Suppress any hope of early treatment
  3. Downplay the role of natural immunity
  4. Flood the zone with “safe and effective messaging” on COVID-19 vaccines
  5. All should take the shots over and over every six months with no exceptions, no matter how many times COVID-19 was contracted or how severe the side effects
  6. Squash any “vaccine hesitancy” arising from reports of vaccine injuries, disabilities and death

For sure Jordan is interested in former FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb and his influence peddling with Twitter to mute messaging on natural immunity as he was pushing mRNA as a Board member of Pfizer on national television.

Expect Pfizer will distract and delay on this request which has a deadline on August 1, 2023.

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | 2 Comments

‘Grandstanding’? Biden Suspends U.S. Funding for Coronavirus Research at Wuhan Lab

By Monica Dutcher | The Defender | July 19, 2023

The Biden administration has suspended federal funding to the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) after the lab failed to provide documents about safety and security measures, according to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) memo (unavailable on the agency’s website) obtained by Bloomberg News.

The funding cut follows reports of leaked emails and Slack conversations in which Dr. Anthony Fauci admitted the National Institutes of Health (NIH) funded dangerous gain-of-function research at the WIV, though he had previously denied this in Senate testimony.

The leaked correspondence also revealed that Fauci colluded with the authors of “The proximal origin of SARS-CoV-2” (“Proximal Origin”), a scientific article that concluded SARS-CoV-2 was “not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.”

An HHS spokesperson told CNN the suspension of funding “aims to ensure that WIV does not receive another dollar of federal funding. … The move was undertaken due to WIV’s failure to provide documentation on WIV’s research requested by NIH related to concerns that WIV violated NIH’s biosafety protocols.”

Cardiologist Dr. Peter McCullough told The Defender, “The Biden administration appears to be grandstanding and is not sincere about shutting down dangerous bat coronavirus research.”

For example, in November 2021, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), which operates under the NIH, released a grant to Peter Daszak, Ph.D., and the EcoHealth Alliance to conduct bat coronavirus research in conjunction with Duke University in Singapore.

“Daszak is part of a bio-pharmaceutical complex and aspires to develop a portfolio of bat coronavirus strains as potential biological threats paired with countermeasures including vaccines, monoclonal antibodies and therapeutics,” McCullough said. “The biological threat and defense industry funded by U.S. agencies is very dangerous and putting the world at risk for another pandemic.”

Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright, Ph.D., a longtime critic of gain-of-function research, said the Biden administration’s decision “is a step forward toward acknowledging that COVID-19 likely originated from U.S.-funded gain-of-function research at WIV and toward taking steps toward preventing a future lab-generated pandemic.”

However, he said, the step is still “insufficient.”

“EcoHealth Alliance, WIV’s collaborator and contractor and funding cut-out for the reckless research that likely caused COVID-19, receives more than $58 million in U.S. government grants and contracts,” Ebright said. “But the Biden administration did not suspend EcoHealth from receiving government funding or recommend EcoHealth for disbarment from receiving government funding.”

Ebright also criticized the Biden administration for failing to hold Fauci and Dr. Francis Collins accountable for funding gain-of-function research at WIV in violation of a federal moratorium (2014-2106) and in violation of the requirement for HHS-level risk-benefit assessment in 2017-2019 — and then “lying about it.”

According to Ebright, Biden “did not move forward, even an inch, toward banning gain-of-function research and strengthening U.S. government oversight of biosafety [and] biosecurity.”

Fauci’s NIAID was NIH’s top issuer of grants to Wuhan lab

According to Bloomberg News, the WIV received more than $1.4 million in federal awards, including through subgrants from the NIH, since 2014. This included $826,277 to the WIV for controversial bat coronavirus research by the NIAID, which until December 2022, was led by Fauci.

NIH records showed an FBI “inquiry” into this work and concern on the part of NIAID about gain-of-function research at the WIV in 2016.

NIAID gave nine China-related grants to EcoHealth Alliance to research coronavirus emergence in bats and was the NIH’s top issuer of grants to the Wuhan lab.

NIH records also include an email from the vice director of the WIV asking an NIH official for help finding disinfectants for the decontamination of airtight suits and indoor surfaces.

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., a bioweapons expert and professor of international law at the University of Illinois who drafted the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, told The Defender :

“The Wuhan BSL4 [biosafety level-4 lab] is China’s Fort Detrick. No agency of the United States government should have been funding any activity there for any reason.

“This is a classic Nixonian limited hangout by the Biden administration. COVID-19 is an offensive biological warfare weapon with gain-of-function properties that leaked out of the Wuhan BSL4 that was developed in cooperation with the University of North Carolina BSL3.”

“That project should have never been funded by NIAID, NIH, and USAID [U.S. Agency for International Development] in the first place,” Boyle said, adding that “there should be no cooperation” between U.S. government agencies, scientific and educational institutions, companies and nationals with “Chinese biowarriors at the Wuhan BSL4.”

Such alliances would only serve to provide China “with even more deadly instruments of biological warfare than COVID-19,” such as a “gain-of-function/MERS [Middle East Respiratory Syndrome] bioweapon with an over 33% lethality rate.”

Children’s Health Defense founder and Chairman on Leave Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has written a book on the U.S. government’s role in funding and concealing evidence of gain-of-function research at the WIV. “The Wuhan Cover-Up: How US Health Officials Conspired with the Chinese Military to Hide the Origins of COVID-19,” is now available for pre-order.

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.

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Hamas slams US House resolution calling Israel “not racist state”

Palestine Information Center – July 19, 2023

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM – The Hamas Movement has strongly denounced the US House of Representatives for passing a resolution claiming that the Israeli occupation state is “not a racist or apartheid state.”

In a statement on Wednesday, Hamas condemned the resolution as a flagrant US bias in favor of the occupation state and a step intended to encourage it to persist in its crimes and violations against the Palestinian people, especially its ethnic cleansing policy.

“This US resolution has ignored the black history of the Zionist occupation, which is filled with dozens of massacres, and turned a blind eye to the crimes that were committed recently by settler gangs under military protection in Huwara town and dozens of Palestinian villages, which were exposed to arson attacks and organized destruction of homes, vehicles and farms,” Hamas underscored.

Hamas described the recent settler crimes in the West Bank as “an example of the racist practices and the ethnic cleansing policy that are pursued by the occupation state against the Palestinian people.”

“Many Israeli officials have voiced fascist positions, such as the recent remarks of the criminal minister, Smotrich, in which he gave the Palestinians the choice between living in the so-called state of Israel as second-class citizens or being banished or killed,” the Movement said.

“Such a US resolution will not change the reality of the criminal and racist Zionist occupation entity, which relies on ethnic cleansing, displacing the rightful owners of the land and replacing them with intruders,” it added.

The US House of Representatives overwhelmingly passed a resolution calling Israel “not a racist or apartheid state,” on Tuesday

The measure passed, in a 412-to-nine vote, a few hours after president Joe Biden met with Israeli president Isaac Herzog at the White House.

The legislation comes in response to remarks last Saturday from Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in which she called Israel a “racist state.”

Later, the congresswoman apologized following pressures, while stressing that Israel’s “extreme right-wing government has engaged in discriminatory and outright racist policies.”

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , | Leave a comment

Spending Bill Proposals Include Provisions To Limit Elements of The Censorship Industrial Complex

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 20, 2023

There is currently an unprecedented legal battle raging in the US between several state attorneys general, a judge who is siding with them, versus a court of appeals that is reluctant; and there’s the activities of the White House that prompted it all.

It’s the case of serious accusations leveled at the Biden administration and major social platforms of colluding to suppress free speech; and even though the developments in the lawsuit so far give some reason for optimism, those in Congress who are vocal about the need to separate the state and “the Church of Big Tech,” as it were, are not resting easy.

Whether or not the First Amendment case results in a resounding victory for the anti-censorship side in the battle, some Republicans are trying to make sure that there is actual legislation in place, rather than only a possible precedent set by a court ruling, to protect speech.

Currently, this is happening in the form of two House spending bills (here and here) that concern the likes of the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) – but not exclusively – which basically seek to “defund state-driven censorship,” i.e., these federal agencies’ collusion efforts with Big Tech, the extent of which is shockingly documented in the Twitter Files.

One proposal is to ban the DHS and a group known as the Global Engagement Center from banding together to police online speech.

It comes as Congress is considering the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that is approved every year. A provision would now prevent the Department of Defense (DoD) from bankrolling organizations like NewsGuard, the Global Disinformation Index, and Graphika Technologies.

The wording of the bill is stark: if passed, the Pentagon (DoD) would be banned from giving money to groups that, “advise the censorship or blacklisting of news sources based on subjective criteria or political biases” – doing so under the guise of combating “misinformation,” “foreign propaganda,” and/or performing “fact checking.”

Similar provisions can be found in the House bill drafts that cover the said agencies, but also the Executive Office of the President, the Justice Department, the FBI – and many more.

The Global Engagement Center, meanwhile, is singled out as effectively the kingpin in what the bills refer to as the “censorship industrial complex.”

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Kennedy: ‘As President, my support of Israel will be unconditional.’

By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | July 20, 2023

Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. took his expression of support for the government of Israel to the maximum level in a Wednesday Twitter post. After criticizing the administration of President Joe Biden for “threatening Israel with the ending of the special relationship between” Israel and the United States, Kennedy declared, “As President, my support of Israel will be unconditional.”

Looking through the wave of negative comments and quote tweets that quickly appeared in response to Kennedy’s post, it looks like Kennedy took in the tweet a position that could be destructive to the base that has developed for his campaign over the last few months.

Many individuals took Kennedy’s criticism of US intervention related to Ukraine and Russia as suggesting that he would pursue consistently as president a noninterventionist foreign policy. That hope is being dashed.

Kennedy has also made a central focus of his campaign skepticism toward activities of the US government that Kennedy has argued in many instances have harmed the American people while advancing the wealth and power of special interests. Many supporters who share this skepticism will find it hard to accept that meanwhile it is appropriate to give support unconditionally to a foreign government.

Kennedy’s endorsement of the special relationship between the US and Israel, as well as his commitment to providing unconditional support to the Middle East nation as president, follows his discussion of his great admiration for Israel in an interview earlier this week.

Copyright © 2023 by RonPaul Institute

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | 8 Comments

The Media and Ukraine War Coverage: Where Truth Takes a Holiday

By Connor O’Keeffe | Mises Wire | July 19, 2023

As Ukrainian forces continue their much-hyped counteroffensive to take back contested territories in the country’s eastern and southern regions, we’re faced with conflicting coverage of the campaign. Many reports say Ukraine’s forces are struggling to break through the minefields fortifying Russia’s lines. And many admit that even the sudden and dramatic Wagner Group mutiny did not appear to hand Ukraine much of an advantage on the front. Days ago, in a move that looks like damage control, Ukraine’s defense secretary even announced that Kyiv would no longer measure success in recaptured territory but would instead just aim to destroy as much Russian military infrastructure as possible.

Still, according to some Western journalists, this is all part of Ukraine’s plan. They’re just testing Russian resistance to find weak spots so they can better allocate resources during the next phase of the counteroffensive. And that’s when the big gains will take place. Maybe that’s true, but still, other coverage about Ukraine’s losses would have you think the counteroffensive has been a horrific disaster.

Much like the wider war, how you see this counteroffensive playing out depends almost entirely on where you get your news. That is not an accident. As citizens of the wealthiest country whose government controls the most military hardware in the world, it’s important to remember that all coverage of this war ought to be viewed with some baseline degree of skepticism. This is because numerous parties—in both governments and the media outlets themselves—are working hard to bend the American public’s perception of the war to their benefit.

That is, of course, nothing new. In 1941—the last time a European war threatened to go global—the British sent an intelligence officer named William Stephenson to the United States and tasked him with running an information operation to turn American public opinion away from noninterventionism.

The main approach Stephenson’s stories team used was secretly planting carefully crafted—and sometimes outright fake—stories in the biggest American newspapers and magazines. These stories were specifically designed to portray British forces as having more than enough courage to take on the Germans but lacking sufficient resources, regardless of how accurate that depiction was at any given time.

It was a specific tone that the United Kingdom’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) believed had the best chance of convincing the American public to support joining the fight. Since then, every group that the American political establishment wants to support militarily gets presented to the American people in a similar fashion—from the Mujahideen to the Syrian Kurds to the current Ukrainian regime.

Though we may not know about the prevalence of covert information operations for some time, a pair of stories published last month offer a window into some more overt efforts to shape our perception of the war in Ukraine. First, Thomas Gibbons-Neff, a Ukraine correspondent for the New York Times, wrote a viral story detailing how Ukrainian press officers and some Western journalists have tried to downplay, justify, or cover up the use of Nazi symbols by Ukrainian soldiers.

One specific passage tells of Western photojournalists asking their subjects to remove patches with Nazi emblems before taking photos. By doing so, these journalists crossed the line from documenting their subjects to staging them.

On the same day, former New York Times media columnist Ben Smith published an article reporting that many Western journalists have grown frustrated with how the Ukrainian government uses access and accreditation to shape war coverage. For example, the Ukrainian military threatened to revoke a photojournalist’s credentials after he took pictures of conscripted soldiers in a trench without the presence or permission of a military press officer.

In another example, an NBC News crew traveled to Crimea to interview residents about the war. After reporting that most people they talked to preferred that Crimea belonged to Russia, the Ukrainian government revoked NBC’s credentials and confined their in-country crew to a hotel.

Smith even brings up Thomas Gibbons-Neff from above, who had his access and credentials revoked after reporting on Ukraine’s use of banned cluster munitions. There’s no question that, at least to some extent, the continual threat of a loss of access affects everyone reporting over there in an official capacity.

This is not a new or unusual technique. The US government used similar tactics to help shape the narrative of its wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Most professional journalists struggle endlessly to find sources. So, by granting extensive access that can always be revoked, governments can run an effective carrot-and-stick ploy to control media coverage.

Our views of war are warped by design. Sure, the Russian regime is mounting a similar effort to control how the Russian people view the war, but it would be absurd to say that the Kremlin holds an influence over the American public that’s even comparable to the US or Ukrainian governments.

Despite what the media, the government, or your middle school civics teacher wants you to think, you don’t need to frantically keep up with the hourly developments in Eastern Europe to be a good citizen. But if you choose to follow this war, understand which parties have a hand in delivering whatever information you’re consuming because not everyone is trying to tell you the truth.

Connor O’Keeffe produces media and content at the Mises Institute. He has a masters in economics and a bachelors in geology.

Contact Connor O’Keeffe

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | 1 Comment

US presses Ukraine for decisive breakthrough despite stubborn Russian defences

By Ahmed Adel | July 20, 2023

US officials are concerned that Ukraine is not making enough progress in its much-heralded counteroffensive, The Washington Post reported on July 18, citing unnamed sources. According to the media outlet, the US is urging Kiev to commit to a decisive breakthrough as Ukrainian commanders are, supposedly, yet to employ the full-scale offensive tactics Western instructors taught them.

A US official explained on condition of anonymity to the newspaper that the West had trained Ukrainian forces in integrated offensive manoeuvres and provided them with mine clearance equipment. The source stressed that it was critical for Kiev’s troops to apply these capabilities to break through Russian defences quickly.

Western officials have reportedly criticised Ukraine’s armed forces for taking an attrition-based approach by firing artillery and missiles at command, transport, and logistics locations at the rear of Russian positions rather than using Western-style “combined arms” that involve large-scale attacks with tanks, armoured vehicles, infantry, artillery, and the air force.

Analysts at the Institute for the Study of War explained that Ukrainian commanders chose to adopt more discreet advances, involving groups of 15 to 50 soldiers to preserve the military contingent.

“Russian defensive operations in southern Ukraine follow a pattern in which one echelon of Russian forces slows and degrades attacking Ukrainian forces until a second echelon counterattacks from prepared defensive positions to roll back the Ukrainian advances,” the journal wrote.

In this way, Ukrainian forces are being methodically neutralised by the Russian military as they have turned the battlefield into a meatgrinder.

This situation will not improve for Ukraine, especially following the acknowledgment by the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff that Kiev will have a “long,” “difficult,” and “bloody” fight against Russian forces, even if he did go on to sell an illusion that Ukraine can still win the war and that the offensive had not failed.

“It is far from a failure… I think that it’s way too early to make that kind of call,” US General Mark Milley said on July 18. “I think there’s a lot of fighting left to go and I’ll stay with what we said before: This is going to be long. It’s going [to] be hard. It’s going to be bloody.”

Although he sold Kiev, once again, an illusion, he did have to begrudgingly acknowledge that it would take years and billions of dollars for the Ukrainian Air Force to gain parity with their Russian competitors.

“Ten F-16s are $2 billion. So, the Russians have hundreds of fourth and fifth-generation airframes. If they [the Ukrainians] are going to try to match the Russians, one for one or even two to one, you are talking about a large number of aircraft,” Milley said during the press briefing.

“That’s going to take years to train the pilots, years to do the maintenance and sustainment, years to generate that degree of financial support to do that. You’re talking way more billions of dollars than has already been generated,” he added.

In this way, he contradicts himself since he believes Ukraine can still win the war even though this is impossible without air superiority, something he acknowledges will take years and much more resources than the West has already committed to. Ukraine and the European Union do not have the years needed because their economic crises are only deepening, while the former faces significant manpower and labour issues.

To overcome this issue, Milley suggests that instead of supplying Ukraine with expensive aircraft, there should be a focus on air defences and tackling sort of offensive combined arms manoeuvres, i.e., artillery and long- and short-range artillery. But this, again, is problematic since any air defence systems that Ukraine receives from the West are destroyed almost immediately by Russian strikes.

It is recalled that Lieutenant General Douglas Sims, operations director for the Pentagon’s joint staff, said on July 13, “Conditions right now for the employment of the F-16s… they’re probably not ideal.”

“The Russians still possess some air defence capability. They have [air-to-air] capability. The number of F-16s that would be provided may not be perfect for what’s going on right now,” he added.

The three-star general’s comment came the same week as the NATO summit in Vilnius, Lithuania, during which a so-called “fighter coalition” of 11 European countries met to discuss providing Kiev with the American-made fighter jet. There, the US-backed European coalition announced its plans to begin training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16s in August, with Dutch and Danish aviators leading instruction, first in Denmark and later Romania.

Ukraine’s long-awaited counteroffensive was an utter failure. All attempts to break through by the Ukrainian military have failed, resulting in heavy casualties. Even though the situation will not change, in fact, it will only worsen for Ukraine, Washington is still pushing the Kiev regime towards further conflict, which will only lead to the unnecessary death of thousands of more Slavs.

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

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 4 Comments

Two-Thirds of Americans Don’t Support Supply of Cluster Munitions to Ukraine – Poll

Sputnik – 20.07.2023

WASHINGTON – Two-thirds of Americans do not support sending cluster munitions to Ukraine, according to a joint poll conducted by The Economist and YouGov.

According to the survey, 42% of respondents oppose such a move, while only 33% support it. In addition, about half of respondents would like the United States to either maintain the same level of assistance to Kiev (29%) or increase it (23%). On the other hand, one-third of respondents said that the level of assistance to Ukraine should be reduced.

The poll found that Americans are more skeptical than in the past about the “good idea” of potential NATO membership for Ukraine; 42% of respondents supported such a prospect, which is 10% less than in April.

The survey was conducted on July 15-18 among a random sample of 1,500 US adults using interview-based methods, with a margin of error not exceeding 3 percentage points.

Earlier in July, Washington unveiled a new military assistance package for Ukraine that includes cluster munitions, claiming they will provide useful battlefield capabilities.

Yet these weapons are banned by the Convention on Cluster Munitions, which has been ratified by 123 countries, excluding the US and Ukraine. Russian officials stressed that US actually admitted committing a war crime by supplying Kiev with this type of ammo.

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Russia protects Crimean civilians by attacking ports in Odessa

By Lucas Leiroz | July 20, 2023

In the last few days, the armed forces of the Russian Federation have launched a series of massive attacks against the Ukrainian ports in Odessa, destroying several strategic targets. Western media are reporting the strikes as “terrorism” and trying to link them to the fact that Moscow recently suspended its participation in the Black Sea Grain Deal. However, these narratives are biased and ignore the fact that Kiev maintains several arms depots in the ports.

Russian attacks began on 18 July, hitting several Ukrainian port facilities in the Odessa region overnight. Among the targets hit were depots of weapons, ammunition and fuel used to supply Ukrainian troops and carry out terrorist attacks against Russian territory. The next day, a new wave of attacks was carried out. Russian forces have used cruise missiles launched from their Black Sea positions. Moscow’s officials said all targets were appropriately neutralized with high precision strikes. New raids are expected for the coming days.

Among the military objectives of this operation is the destruction of several maritime drone bases that were detected by Russian intelligence in the ports of Odessa. As well known, the recent attack on the Crimean Bridge, which resulted in the death of a couple and the injury of their orphaned daughter, was carried out using maritime drones. Evidence suggests that the vehicles used came from the ports of Odessa, which explains the reasons why Russia decided to launch several missiles at enemy naval facilities. Russian authorities had promised retaliation for the attack on the Bridge.

In addition to the retaliation for the incident on the Bridge, it must be remembered that there were lately many other drone incursions against Crimea. For example, on July 18 dozens of Ukrainian drones were neutralized by Russian forces with artillery and electronic warfare measures, avoiding the death of numerous civilians. Furthermore, on the 20th, Crimean government confirmed that a teenage girl died during a drone strike in the morning, which certainly will be retaliated soon.

Another important point is that these Ukrainian ports were being used by the enemy side to receive weapons from abroad and store them among grains. Intelligence data shows that Western weaponry was arriving in Odessa inside civilian ships. Therefore, obviously Kiev was misusing the humanitarian grain pact to gain military advantage. This was a decisive factor both for Russia to cancel its participation in the deal and to destroy the infrastructure of the ports.

However, Western media has once again worked dishonestly and biasedly, ignoring Ukrainian crimes when reporting Russian attacks. The main narrative used by outlets is that Russia would be harming world food security by suspending the deal and subsequently destroying Ukrainian ports, which is obviously a lie.

“The attack threatens Ukrainian grain exports, which bolster the country’s economy and supply the global market. The strikes on Odessa follow Russia’s announcement that it will suspend the Black Sea Grain Initiative, a United Nations-negotiated deal to allow grain exports from Odessa that is set to expire Sunday. The strikes suggest a connection between that deal’s failure and an effort by Moscow to hurt Ukraine’s major export, even if doing so contributes to global grain shortages,” an article by an American newspaper reads.

The mainstream media’s words echo Ukrainian propaganda, which has used the same language, accusing Russia of practicing “terrorism” in Odessa, and threatening the food security of countries in Africa and Asia.

“Today’s Russian terrorists’ attack on Odessa proves that their target is not only Ukraine, and not only the lives of our people. About a million tons of food is stored in the ports that were attacked today. This is the volume that should have been delivered to consumer countries in Africa and Asia long ago. The port terminal that suffered the most from the Russian terror last night had 60,000 tons of agricultural products stored in it, which were intended to be shipped to China. That is, everyone is affected by this Russian terror. Everyone in the world should be interested in bringing Russia to justice for its terror”, Zelensky said on his Twitter account.

These lies can be easily refuted by analyzing information from the recent past. It is the Russian side, not the Ukrainian one, that has consistently sought to improve world food security through changes in the grain pact. Previously, Russia had already suspended its participation in the agreement since Ukrainians and Europeans were not complying with the humanitarian terms. Last November Moscow reported that most of its grains and fertilizers shipped to Africa and Asia were being illegally arrested in European ports because of sanctions. Russia did its best to make the deal work, but the counterpart was uncooperative. And the data on military use of the ports was a redline for Moscow to make a final decision on the matter.

Despite the biased tales spread by the media and neo-Nazi officials, it seems quite clear that the Russian attacks on Odessa are necessary measures to guarantee the security of Russia’s civilian population, mainly in Crimea, which has been a frequent target of terrorist drone raids. The Russians are just defending their own civilians with these high-precision strikes.

Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.

You can follow Lucas on Twitter and Telegram.

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

How anti-Muslim bigotry led to the wrongful conviction of Mohammed Hamoud

A full video of Mohammed Yousef Hammoud’s interview can be found at the end of this article.
By Esteban Carrillo Lopez | The Cradle | July 17, 2023

In 2000, Mohammed Yousef Hamoud – one of the most wanted ‘terrorists’ in the United States – was arrested while living in Charlotte, North Carolina, based on allegations that he sent a $3,500 check to the Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah, an allegation for which no actual evidence was presented.

Based on testimony from a single questionable witness, an American prosecutor accused Hamoud of leading a Hezbollah cell in Charlotte, and declared him to be one of the most dangerous ‘terrorists’ in the world.

The prosecutor, Ken Bell, who acknowledged that a successful prosecution of Hamoud would be the “case of a lifetime” for advancing his own career, successfully garnered a sentence of 155 years in prison for Hamoud. The jury voted to convict Hamoud amid the anti-Muslim bigotry and paranoia that swept through the United States following the September 11 attacks.

Years later, the sentence was reduced to 30 years, and Hamoud was finally released 3 years early and allowed to return to his family and friends in Lebanon.

Now 49, Hamoud was forced to spend more than half his life in prison without cause. But defying all odds, he obtained degrees in business management and psychology while also studying law to provide advice to his fellow inmates.

Below is an interview conducted by The Cradle with Mohammed Yousef Hamoud, after he was released from a US maximum security prison two months ago from serving a 27-year sentence on charges of providing “material support” to a terrorist organization. The interview took place at his brother’s home in the southern Lebanese town of Srebbine, originally Hamoud’s hometown.

The Cradle: As you were growing up in Lebanon, what were your political views?

Hamoud: Just like everyone growing up here, I was with the resistance and against occupation. I was pro-liberation and against poverty, and mainly the people with those views were Hezbollah, so I was supporting Hezbollah basically.

The Cradle: You said in a previous interview that you were the first Muslim to be convicted in the United States following the September 11 attacks. Do you feel this influenced the sentence that was issued against you?

Hamoud: Absolutely. I was the first Muslim after September 11 to go to trial. And I was the first Muslim in United States history to be tried under the law [passed in 1996] regarding providing material support [to a terrorist group]. Prior to me there was no blueprint on how to prosecute someone under that law. I was the first one, and the judge acknowledged those two things in his decision when he released me.

The Cradle: Of all the charges leveled against you, do you maintain your innocence against all of them?

Hamoud: No, actually. I did admit in court that from 1996 to 1998, I did sell cigarettes, and I did not pay the federal taxes during those years. And I did not fight those charges in court. I said am guilty of those, but as I said, the federal government acknowledged if it wasn’t for [the charges regarding] Hezbollah, I wouldn’t be there. The government was misinformed apparently, because [even though] the prosecutor had given a press conference announcing that he had arrested a Hezbollah cell in North Carolina, and I was its leader, years later, he did not find a single piece of evidence to show I sent money to Hezbollah.

But he wasn’t about to back off and lose his career because they spent millions of dollars [on prosecuting me]. So, they got this guy named Said Harb [to testify against me]. This guy had a lot of incentive to lie. He was facing decades of time in prison, and the government knew he was desperate to bring his family to the United States. He spent tens of thousands of dollars to bring his family and his dream was about to be fulfilled. So when they gave him that offer to testify against me, Said was the happiest person on earth, you know? So, he was granted his freedom, and he brought 12 members of his family to the United States using American taxpayers’ money.

The Cradle: Did you know Said Harb before he testified against you?

Hamoud: I did. He was one of the [Lebanese] guys who used to live in Charlotte, and from time to time, we used to meet and play soccer together, but he was not my good friend, which is how the government portrayed him. In fact, from 1999 to 2000, as he also admitted to the FBI, he said he was not associating with us. Said’s life went in a completely different direction than my life, and we barely saw each other. I was building my gas station and going to college, and he was doing whatever he was doing for his home, so from 1998 to 1999, we did not see each other much.

The Cradle: Do you feel that where you are from, and your religion, was a factor during your trial?

Hamoud: Definitely. At the time, most of the American people did not know the difference between Muslims. They did not know the difference between Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda. To them, my name is Mohammad, and I am from the Middle East [West Asia], so I’ve got to be a follower of Bin Laden.

And the prosecutor did a great job insinuating to the jury, although indirectly, that I was guilty. The way he structured security in the court, and the way he brought me from the jail to the court, no one could think of me as an innocent person. The government was spending millions of dollars in security. I was transported along with my brother in a motorcade, in an armored truck. The area around the court was like a battlefield. Marshalls [federal police] were everywhere.

To terrify the jury, they were taking them to a secret place, taking them secretly to the court, and giving them numbers. So, if you are a juror in the court, would you think that person is innocent if the government is doing all of this? They closed off downtown streets just because of my case. They put extra metal detectors in the courthouse just because of my case, just to scare and terrify the people and make them think that I was a really serious [dangerous] guy.

The Cradle: At one point you were considered one of the most wanted ‘terrorists’ in the United States.

Hamoud: Yes, that’s the way one of the magazines, Reader’s Digest, described me, as one of the world’s most dangerous terrorists. Before going through this ordeal, my impression of the American media was it was the most honest in the world. But I found out it’s fake, I mean some stuff they exaggerated so much just to portray me as a real terrorist who deserved to spend his entire life in prison.

The Cradle: While the media was writing this way about you, did they ever approach you and try to speak with you directly?

Hamoud: No, they were just reporting from the government’s perspective. The only one that approached me was Fox News, but the prison would not allow them to come. So my voice was never heard in the American media.

The Cradle: You said that the only piece of evidence they had against you was that you sent $1,300 to the office of Sayyed Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah, who is known as the spiritual mentor of Hezbollah. (Fadlallah was a spiritual mentor of millions of Shia around the world, not to Hezbollah members, who generally follow the guidance of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei). You say that money was for your family?

I did send that check in 1995, but at the time, it was not illegal to send money to Sayyed Fadlallah. But I was convicted for allegedly sending a check for $3,500 to Hezbollah in 1999. You would imagine a check in 1999 would be much easier to find. Because that guy who said I sent $3,500 to Hezbollah, he said I sent an official check. So here is the irony, why would they find a check in 1995 to Sayyid Fadlallah, but they would not find a $3,500 check in 1999? The answer is very simple, because that check did not exist. The government subpoenaed all my bank documents, all my credit cards, everything. They had thousands and thousands of documents and they could not find this check and yet I was convicted for that check.

Its very interesting what the judge in the 1st District appellate court said in that regard. He said Said Harb was the sole witness against me on that count, and Said Harb was described throughout the trial as a manipulator and a liar who would do anything for his own interest. Those are not my words, those are the words of Judge Gregory of the appellate court. Yes, I was given 155 years based on one person’s word. No evidence, no checks, nothing whatsoever.

The Cradle: So why do you think they targeted you?

Hamoud: That’s interesting. Look, I came from Lebanon during the war, and I never hid my feeling towards Hezbollah and the Islamic resistance in Lebanon. And as I mentioned earlier, I really did believe there was freedom in the United States. So I was more active in speaking about the resistance. I was born in Bourj al-Barajneh, and I grew up there, so all my friends and people I interacted with were from that area and were pro-resistance. But I spoke about it more than anyone else, and I ended up with those charges.

The Cradle: You were sentenced to 155 years in prison. When you heard that sentence, what went through your mind?

Hamoud: The first thing that came to my mind was my mother, because she really struggled so much and cried so much so that she could have me in a peaceful place [away from the war in Lebanon]. And now I was thinking, “Look what happened to me. I left the war, I left everything to live in peace, and now I’m going to spend the rest of my life in prison.” But God always gave me hope in my heart, and that kept me alive.

The Cradle: So, how old were you when you were sentenced?

Hamoud: I was arrested when I was 26, so I was sentenced when I was 28.

The Cradle: Today, you are 49, so you spent half of your life in prison. Where were you held?

Hamoud: I went through several prisons but spent most of the time at a prison called CMU (Communication Management Unit), which was built specifically for people who were convicted of things perceived as dealing with national security. CMU breaks basically every single rule that the United States claims to uphold. It has all the violations that no one would imagine a prison in the United States would have. There is no recreation yard. We were limited with phone calls, unlike other prisons that gave 500 minutes. We had only 2 calls a week. We had to preschedule them, and if for any reason the prison got locked down, we were not allowed to make them. Mainly there was nothing to do at that place except to sit down and wait for your time.

The Cradle: You are Shia Muslim, and they put you with Al-Qaeda members [who view the Shia as their enemies]. Did you ever protest this decision?

Hamoud: Of course. And that is the hypocrisy of the system. They would not put two rival gangs in the same prison, let alone in the same unit, because they know they’re going to harm each other. Yet they did not care about my safety, they did not care about my life. They put me with people who they know view killing Shia as permissible and sometimes as their duty. So, they [prison authorities] did not care. I protested that, I filed petitions complaining that they were putting my life in jeopardy with people that perceive me as an enemy. I was afraid if Hezbollah killed an ISIS leader, those people would retaliate and kill me. And what’s important too, one ISIS guy killed an older prisoner and tried to cut off his head. He tried to do what ISIS does on the TV, but the guards saw what was happening before he finished with the head and they took him.

The Cradle: How were you treated by prison authorities and the guards?

Hamoud: They claim they treat people the same and they don’t care about peoples’ charges, but in reality, of course, they are human, and they were told I was a terrorist, so they looked at me like a terrorist and some of them would try to not give me my rights. For example, I had a medical skin condition, and they did not treat me for three years, and so I feel I was tortured. I complained to officials all the way to Washington, and nobody cared.

The Cradle: How did the other prisoners treat you? Since you were being treated in the media as one of the world’s most dangerous men?

Hamoud: Well, thanks to the fabricated media in the United States, which portrayed me as a dangerous person that is well connected, that gave me respect from the prisoners because no one tried to mess with me, and they were scared of me. With the guards, it depended on the guards. Some of them gave me respect, knowing what my charges were, while some of them hated Muslims, and they would try to annoy me, feeling it was their duty.

The Cradle: You were released about two months ago. When did you find out you were going to be released?

Hamoud: When the judge granted a hearing after we filed for a compassionate release based on the disparity between my sentence and the sentences of defendants who had a similar situation to mine. I was optimistic that something good was going to come because usually, the judge always ruled against me, but for the judge to now grant me a hearing was something special, so I was waiting for it.

I was in the recreation yard working out when the case manager called me. When she told me I had to go to her office, I immediately knew I would get good news, and indeed it was. She told me to pack my stuff because I would be leaving. That was November 30, 2022. I then went to immigration detention for almost six months before finally coming home to Lebanon.

The Cradle: Do you think your release was politically motivated? Recently the US and Iran have been involved in nuclear talks and have discussed prisoner releases.

Hamoud: It has nothing to do with politics. The judge only reduced my sentence by three years because I have time for good conduct. It has nothing to do with politics, it was a judge’s opinion after all those years, he decided to do the right thing. If you look at the judge’s decision when he released me compared to the one he issued when he gave me 30 years, you would think he is speaking about two totally different people. When he ordered my release, he described me as a peaceful person, versus the last time I went to see him, he said I should spend more time in prison because I am still dangerous to US national security.

The Cradle: While you were in prison, were you approached with offers to reduce your sentence in exchange for something?

Hamoud: Before my trial, I was approached, but the prosecutor insisted I had to give him names of Hezbollah operatives in the United States. I told him I don’t know anyone. Either he did not believe me, or he did not want to believe me. My lawyer told me, “Look, he will never give you a settlement or a good plea deal unless you give him a name, because he wants to show the media that he got something.” I told my lawyer, “I left Lebanon when I was 18, do you really believe Hezbollah is going to trust me with information about the United States?” So, the prosecutor sent me a message through my attorney that if I don’t have anything for him, I will never see the streets again. And that was his word, and he tried hard to make that happen in the trial.

The Cradle: If today, someone you know tells you they want to emigrate to the United States, what would you tell them?

Hamoud: I would tell them, if you want to go there, don’t imagine you are living in freedom. Imagine yourself in a country that persecutes people. So, if you go there, just behave. Yes, you have the freedom to go with girls and party, but when it comes to politics and your religion, you’re going to be under surveillance just because of your belief, especially if you are Muslim.

The Cradle: During the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, how were you following it?

Hamoud: I was reading the newspaper and following events on CNN. Of course, it was a very hard time because all of my family live in Beirut, and Israel was bombing everywhere. So, I was in a very bad situation, trying to make phone calls, and the calls were very expensive, each minute cost a dollar, but I got through it.

The Cradle: What are your plans now?

Hamoud: I am working now on my memoir, which I’m almost finished with. Hopefully, I’ll be able to publish it soon in English. After that I’ll see, I haven’t decided what to do.

The Cradle: Are you with Hezbollah now?

Hamoud: I am still not a member of Hezbollah, but as I said, I do support Hezbollah. These are basically my people, you know. I would love to support Hezbollah with everything that I could because, as I said you know, I believe in their cause, I believe they are heroes. They liberated my country. If it wasn’t for them, we probably couldn’t have this interview because ISIS or Israel would be here [in Lebanon].

The Cradle: While you were in prison, how was your family? Did Hezbollah ever approach them since you were in jail for allegedly being connected to them?

Hamoud: As far as I know, Hezbollah declared from the first day that I was not a member, just like I did. When I first left Lebanon, Hezbollah did not know I was leaving. Because I felt embarrassed to leave Lebanon when people who were my age were going to support my country and defend my country. So I felt like I was betraying everything I believed in. But I was in a tough situation because, on the one hand, my mother was crying all the time and wanted me to be away from Lebanon, and on the other hand, I believed in my cause and that I should defend my country. In the end, I said I can go to the United States. I can support the poor and orphans, I can support my people instead of carrying arms.

The Cradle: So you believed you could support the cause by sending money home? Because this is common among emigrants.

Hamoud: I do not believe that Hezbollah needs my $100, because, according to the CIA, Hezbollah receives over $500 million dollars a year. So to me, I would just send it to my mom, and just tell her, to give it to people who are around you, who are poor or orphans, to anyone who needs it, but not to Hezbollah.

Finally, I would like to mention my attorney, because after all those years in prison, I saw two faces of the justice system. One face was presented by the prosecutor, Ken Bell, who did everything to make a name for himself at the expense of me and my family, despite claiming to be seeking justice, because, as a prosecutor, he’s supposed to seek justice, not just convictions. He didn’t care about everything he swore to uphold, he just cared about getting a conviction so he could destroy my life and make a name for himself.

And another face I saw presented in the United States justice system was of a person named Jim McLaughlin, who represented me through all those years and who helped me with everything I needed, and treated me very kindly. He volunteered to work on my case, and we keep in touch still. He is one of the great American people. So now, when I think about the United States, I like to think about Jim McLaughlin, not Ken Bell, the person who oppressed me and prosecuted me just because he could.

Watch the full interview here:

Interview transcribed by William Van Wagenen.

July 20, 2023 Posted by | Fake News, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment