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Russian Airborne Forces Ex-Commander: NATO Counteroffensive Plan Bad, New Ukraine Strategy Worse

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 14.12.2023

The Russian Armed Forces have shifted to the offensive in the special military operation zone and are making progress along the entire contact line, President Vladimir Putin said during his annual press conference.

Russia’s 617,000-strong military contingent is presently improving its positions along the almost 2,000 kilometer-long contact line, President Putin told attendees at his annual press conference. What’s behind the development?

The failure of the Ukrainian counteroffensive has exposed the ineffectiveness of NATO’s strategic planning and outdated doctrines, says retired Colonel General Georgy Shpak, ex-commander of the Russian Airborne Forces.

“[NATO] placed its bet on Ukraine making it carry out a counteroffensive,” Shpak told Sputnik. “They organized and planned it. But the counteroffensive failed, because the [Russian military] foresaw [their steps], built good defenses worthy of the Russian army and withstood numerous attacks.”

“Now we have moved on to the second stage of this operation: to disable as much [Ukrainian] equipment and personnel as possible. This second stage is essentially coming to an end, because the Ukrainian army is exhausted, they lack manpower, their reserves are depleted, their money has run out, almost all of their equipment has been knocked out. This is the result of the work of American and British [military] advisers,” the retired colonel general continued.

NATO war planners failed to calculate the effects of many key factors, according to the military expert.

“They did not take into account current modern conditions, the huge number of [Russian] aerial vehicles that are designed for reconnaissance, observation, adjustment, and strikes. They didn’t take this into account. They hoped that if they struck in several directions, our defenses would crack, but we held the line.”

Shpak was also highly sceptical of NATO’s 2024 strategy for Ukraine, which envisages digging in and building up forces for a possible new offensive.

“I would say that it is even worse than their counter-offensive,” the general said. “Not a single defensive structure can withstand strikes of modern powerful weapons. Furthermore, it’s impossible to build reinforced concrete fortifications which are over 1,000 kilometers long and 20-30 meters deep, with enormous coverage. This is all nonsense. It’s impossible to build something like that. There will still be gaps here and there, failures here and there.”

“This is all theory. For me, as a military man, it’s just like a children’s fairy tale, not a thought-out plan. They have abruptly shifted from a counteroffensive to an all-out defense. I believe this will lead to their defeat,” Shpak added.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 1 Comment

Why is the Government Paying Farmers to Stop Farming?

Inside the UK’s “food security” report

By Kit Knightly | OffGuardian | December 14, 2023

On November 29th, the British Parliament’s cross-party Environmental Audit Committee published a new report on “Environmental change and food security”.

The timing of the report is more than interesting, considering the UN’s COP28 summit published its own “Declaration on Sustainable Agriculture, Resilient Food Systems and Climate Action” (which the UK signed) just two days later. But I’m sure that’s just a coincidence.

The report claims – amongst many other things – that we…

need to adapt our food and farming system to become more resilient to the effects of climate change and biodiversity loss.

This is actually an inversion of the usual argument. The standard line is that we should change our eating habits to prevent climate change (the report still claims this too), but now we are being told that we must change our eating habits or climate change will cause us to starve to death.

Just like the push to change climate into a public health crisis, inverting this argument is about creating a sense of threat, about scaring people. It’s always about scaring people.

But, you’ll be pleased to know, while the reason we need to change may have altered, what we actually have to do remains the same: Eat less meat. A lot less meat.

The report repeats, countless times, the Climate Change Committee’s recommendation that the UK “reduces its meat and dairy consumption by 20% by 2030, and by 35% by 2050”

In a blatant rhetorical trick, it tries to make this figure into some kind of compromise by pointing out that some of their witnesses (eg. noted lunatic George Monbiot) advocated eating zero meat or animal products of any kind.

The report is full of this kind of manipulative language.

For example, on page 48, the authors claim that “the Government does not believe it has a role to tell people what to eat”, but then proceed to quote testimony from “experts” who tell them they have a responsibility to tell people what to eat (even though they really don’t want to).

Sue Pritchard argues people aren’t informed or sensible enough to make these decisions, while Professor Tim Lang essentially argues what we eat is chosen for us anyway:

Everyone thinks they choose their diet. We don’t, actually; we choose it by race, by class, by family, by gender, by culture, by when we were brought up, by the power of advertisers and their expenditure. Nearly £1 billion is spent on advertising food in Britain and it is overwhelmingly the ultraprocessed foods that get that advertising. There is very little advertising, let alone national guidance, for eating more appropriately.

“It’s OK to tell people what to do because choice is an illusion”. Beautiful.

The whole report is basically 90 pages of this kind of sophistic nonsense. If you’ve got a strong stomach and a lot of free time, you can read it all here.

We’re just going to focus on the “recommendations” at the end.

There’s this one…

The Government must show its leadership by upholding standards for the environmental impacts of food production in its trading relationships with other countries.

… which, loosely translated, means charging more import taxes on foods that aren’t “environmentally responsible” (or some other buzzphrase). This would mirror legislation in the EU, where the “Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism” has been in place since earlier this year.

Of course, the unwritten consequence of this would be higher prices for ordinary consumers. Oops.

Then there’s this one…

The Government’s plans for a strong food curriculum in schools should include science-based education about the environmental impacts of food production, including food waste.

Which doesn’t need to be translated. It’s about indoctrinating – sorry, educating – children.

Or this one, promoting diet-related propaganda:

We recommend… that the Government should publish national guidance on sustainable diets

And there’s this one, which is my favourite [emphasis very much added]:

The Government does not want to tell people what to eat BUT from its plans to encourage people to eat more healthily it clearly understands its role in helping people make better choices.

Other recommendations call for more “Highly Protected Marine Areas (HPMAs)” to limit fishing in some areas of the sea as well as lowering maximum yield limits.

Still more suggest “sustainability ratings” being made a mandatory part of food labeling, and it’s not hard to see how rating all food purchases on a “sustainability” scale can be parlayed into social credit systems or the like.

Another includes a demand to “designate food security a public good”, like education, infrastructure, and national defense (which I imagine would grant some more powers under some act or other).

It goes on and on.

So, for anyone keeping score at home, the report recommends…

  • Using taxpayer money to create and distribute anti-meat propaganda
  • Educating children that eating meat is wrong
  • Publishing “government recommended diets”
  • Controlling where people fish and what they are allowed to catch
  • Using taxes to raise the prices of foods that are “bad for the environment”

Don’t worry though, “the Government does not believe it has a role to tell people what to eat”. Honest.

The truth is it goes well beyond simply telling people what to do. Perhaps the most concerning issue in the report is the much-praised “Environmental Land Management” schemes, described as:

a critical lever in incentivising a shift towards achieving food security in the context of environmental change

Here’s how they work…

Environmental Land Management schemes pay farmers to do certain things with their land… including to improve the environment”

You’ll notice it says “including” to improve the environment, not only to improve the environment. They never say what else is included, or what it might be in aid of.

Also, “Paying farmers to do certain things” ? That’s very vague, isn’t it?

What exactly are these “certain things” ?

Well, there’s a short list included but it doesn’t get much less vague. It mentions:

  • “undertaking certain environmentally beneficial actions”
  • “activities that support local nature recovery and meet local environmental priorities”
  • and “long-term projects that support landscape and ecosystem recovery.”

All of which can be fairly accurately summed up as “not farming”.

Yes, the British government is actively paying farmers not to farm, and – in truly Orwellian fashion – are doing it in the name of “promoting food security”. (You can read about similar schemes in the US and UK here.)

It goes beyond “telling people what to eat”, into the realm of making sure they don’t eat at all.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | 1 Comment

Canada Reports 300% Increase in ‘Unspecified Causes’ of Death, Sparking Calls for Investigation

By Mike Capuzzo | The Defender | December 13, 2023

As life expectancy plummets in Canada, a new government report claims “unspecified causes” have become the fifth leading cause of death in the country after cancer, heart disease, COVID-19 and accidents.

According to the Statistics Canada report, “unspecified causes” in 2022 passed strokes, aneurysms, chronic bronchitis, emphysema, asthma, diabetes, influenza and pneumonia, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, Alzheimer’s and suicide as causes of death.

Statistics Canada, also known as StatCan, released the report on Nov. 27 in The Daily, the agency’s online news bulletin.

The report generated a slew of nearly identical headlines — provided by Canada’s national news service — in Canada’s leading newspapers along the lines of this one in the Toronto Sun : “Life expectancy for Canadians fell for third straight year in 2022, StatCan says,” followed by the subhead: “More people died of COVID-19 in 2022 than in any other year since the pandemic began, report says.”

Andre Picard, health columnist at The Globe and Mail in Toronto, Canada’s newspaper of record, called the life expectancy drop — to 81.3 years in 2022 from 82.3 years in 2019 — “a big deal.”

“It’s only the second time this sharp a drop has happened in Canada in the past century,” Picard said. “In fact, life expectancy has been climbing steadily for decades: 71 in 1960, 75 in 1980, 79 in 2000 and 82.3 in 2019.”

COVID-19 deaths in Canada decreased to 14,466 in 2021 from 16,313 in 2020, the report shows. Canada is on track for about 7,000 COVID-19 deaths in 2023, Picard said.

COVID-19 deaths can’t account for Canada’s 7.3 % increase in total deaths in 2022 compared with 2021 — or for the country’s 17% increase in total deaths over the historic norm of 2019, or the historic drop in life expectancy in Canada and worldwide, Picard said.

Like many mainstream journalists and public health officials in the U.S. examining the U.S. drop in life expectancy, Picard blamed chronic diseases, drug overdoses, opioid deaths, smoking, unhealthy diets and “indifference” for the decline in Canada. “There are virtually no mitigation measures like masking any more, and vaccination rates have fallen sharply,” he wrote.

But Drs. Pierre Kory and Peter McCullough told The Defender they believe the most important and startling fact contained in the report is the 300% increase from 2019 to 2022 in “unspecified causes” of death in Canada.

McCullough, a highly published cardiologist who developed a widely used early treatment protocol for COVID-19, said the dramatic rise in deaths from “unspecified causes” in Canada represents a seismic and disturbing shift in Western medicine.

“Prior to the pandemic, death in Western countries was well understood,” McCullough said, with 40% due to known cardiovascular, 40% due to terminal neoplastic disease (cancer) and 20% due to other known causes such as homicide, suicide, drug overdoses and accidents.”

He added:

“Since the roll-out of the COVID-19 vaccines, we have witnessed unprecedented deaths without antecedent disease. A large autopsy series published by Hulscher et al, found that 73.9% of the deaths after COVID-19 vaccination were due to problems caused by the shots.”

McCullough cited the hundreds of studies examining post-vaccine, spike-protein-related injuries and deaths and the millions of deaths and injuries reported by citizens in the U.S. and Europe to their governments following mRNA vaccination.

“All deaths should be categorized according to the doses and dates of COVID-19 vaccination,” McCullough said. “Unless proven otherwise, ‘unspecified death’ should be attributed to a fatal COVID-19 vaccine injury syndrome,” McCullough said.

Kory, the former University of Wisconsin professor of medicine and president of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance, told The Defender the evidence is overwhelming that the COVID-19 mRNA shots caused more deaths and injuries across the Western world than any prior drug or vaccine in history.

“The answer as to why ‘unspecified causes’ are now a leading cause of death is plain and simple,” Kory said. “That cause is the one medical intervention that the world’s governments and media have championed since the start [of the pandemic]. … The mRNA platform technology is and has been a colossal failure in both efficacy and safety.”

Kory and journalist Mary Beth Pfeiffer on Tuesday published an opinion piece in The Hill calling on governments and public health officials to study and address the problem of a global historic rise in mortality thus far not recognized by officials and not reported by mainstream journalists.

On Dec. 13, the essay was trending as the first or second most popular story on The Hill’s website, which claims 32.5 million monthly unique visitors.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Robert Califf on Nov. 30 published an extraordinary thread of posts on X (formerly Twitter) calling for a society-wide “all hands on deck” approach to solve the problem of the “catastrophic” decline in U.S. life expectancy.

“JAMA Internal Medicine published earlier this month that our overall life expectancy has dropped to 76 years, and remarkably, that male life expectancy in the U.S. has dropped to 73 years,” Califf wrote.

But Kory said the FDA commissioner’s post, “which hit on smoking, diet, chronic illness and healthcare, ignored the obvious: People are dying in abnormally high numbers even now and long since COVID waned. Yet public health agencies and medical societies are silent.”

The FDA and mainstream media are ignoring the fact that life insurers have been “sounding the alarm over these unexpected or, ‘excess,’ deaths, which claimed 158,000 more Americans in the first nine months of 2023 than in the same period in 2019,” Kory wrote.

“That exceeds America’s combined losses [wounded?] from every war since Vietnam. Congress should urgently work with insurance experts to investigate this troubling trend.”

Amy Kelly, COO of DailyClout and the program director of the Pfizer Documents Analysis Project, said that for an autopsy to reach a proper diagnosis of an mRNA-vaccine-caused death, “histopathological examination of tissues from all over the body is necessary. Most of the time, even if an autopsy is performed, the histopathological examination of tissues is not.”

She cited an interview with Dr. Arne Burkhardt, who describes the types of testing the coroners must perform but seldom do.

Dr. Robert Chandler, a Los Angeles orthopedic surgeon who taught at the University of Southern California medical school, identified “entire new disease categories” he calls “CoVax Diseases” in his study of Pfizer’s 450,000 pages of COVID-19 vaccine documents, documents the FDA was forced to release via a court order, Kelly said.

“It makes sense that the unspecified causes of death have increased so much,” Kelly said. “When a patient dies with either multiple diseases all at one time or with a previously unseen disease state, both of which happen with ‘CoVax Diseases’ Dr. Chandler has identified, I would imagine many doctors and/or coroners don’t know how to categorize those causes of death. That would lead to ‘cause unknown’ categorization of deaths.”

According to Naomi Wolf, author of “Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith and Resistance in a New Dark Age,” “In the preindustrial world, people died mysteriously. But in the modern Western world, there are no mystery deaths. Every death has a death certificate which by law must identify a cause of death.”

“A minor rise in unattributed deaths is a problem that needs investigation,” Wolf said. “A major rise, such as you’ve identified, does not indicate a mass mystery to doctors and coroners, but rather it is evidence of a problem with state record-keeping — some bureaucratic malfeasance at a grand scale.”

Mike Capuzzo is a reporter for The Defender. He is a former prize-winning reporter for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald, a science writer, and a regional magazine founding editor and publisher who has won more than 200 journalism awards as a writer, editor and publisher.

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.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Where are they now? White House Covid Task Force members cashed in on pandemic panic

Almost 4 years later, things are going swimmingly for the virus panic corps.

By Jordan Schachtel | The Dossier | December 13, 2023

The White House Coronavirus Task Force was spun up on January 29, 2020. Shortly thereafter, the federal government began to deploy countless billions of dollars to pharmaceutical companies with the ostensible hopes to mitigate a much-hyped incoming pandemic.

Now, almost four years later, our hindsight presents a much clearer picture to the fog of virus mania we experienced in realtime.

Instead of mobilizing an effective public-private response to the advertised problem, Operation Warp Speed and the Task Force served as a vehicle for further panic and the facilitating of taxpayer cash that ended up enriching the pharmaceutical industry. These taxpayer-funded, Covid-related slush funds ballooned to astronomical heights across two presidencies, delivering record profits to Pharma companies that took pains to bring themselves onsides with the people in charge in Washington, D.C.

Tragically, the government-backed mechanical (ventilators) and pharmaceutical (remdesivir, mRNA shots, etc) interventions didn’t work to remedy the respiratory illness problem. Instead, they added an additional layer of chaos on top of the virus mania that had captured the world.

Operation Warp Speed and the resulting Task Force operation was, by all objective accounts, a catastrophic blunder, but that didn’t stop many of its members from parlaying their roles on the high visibility government detail into successful post service gigs.

So we thought now would be a good time to take a look at some of the healthcare/pharma-related government officials responsible for some of those fateful decisions, and where they are today.

Mike Pence:

He was primarily responsible for staffing the Trump Administration’s Covid response team. Pence launched his presidential bid in June, but gave up by October. He is perhaps the only Task Force member who did not benefit from the operation, as his political career is effectively over.

Anthony Fauci:

The most notorious member of the Task Force, Fauci’s wealth increased multiple times over while serving as the Pharma kingmaker over at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). He recently took a no-show professorship at Georgetown University and is said to be working on a book.

Deborah Birx:

The second most infamous member of the Task Force, Birx, a protege of the Bill Gates network, has also cashed in on her time in the spotlight. She has since joined multiple pharmaceutical boards and wrote a book attempting to generate even more virus hysteria.

Moncef Slaoui

Technically not a member of the Task Force but the leader of Operation Warp Speed. Slaoui succeeded in delivering preferential treatment to Moderna, where he had a board seat and $10 million in stock options. Moderna stock would jump 20x from January of 2020 to late 2021. Slaoui left Operation Warp Speed in January 2021 to join a GSK-owned pharmaceutical company. He was later fired due to a sexual harassment claim.

Alex Azar

A former president at Eli Lily, he briefly chaired the White House Task Force. As the head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), Azar facilitated billions of dollars in funding to vaccine companies. Like his colleagues, Azar has since joined several pharmaceutical and healthcare boards.

Jerome Adams

After leaving the White House, the former Surgeon General became Purdue University’s “Executive Director of Health Equity Initiatives,” sporting a salary of half a million dollars a year for the gig. He also joined the boards of half a dozen healthcare and pharmaceutical companies. The hyper woke activist just penned a book casting himself as a “front line hero” in the fight against Covid-19.

Brett Giroir

The Trump Administration’s assistant secretary for health (succeeded by the transgender identifying admiral “Rachel” Levine) spun right through the revolving door with his colleagues. He now serves as CEO and a member of the board of a respiratory virus treatment company. He also wrote a book on “fighting Covid from the front lines to the White House.”

Stephen Hahn

Hahn served as the FDA commissioner and a member of the Task Force. Only six months after authorizing the Moderna mRNA shot, he went on to serve as the chief medical officer of Flagship Pioneering, the venture capital firm behind Moderna. He has since joined multiple ventures seeking to get products approved for FDA clearance.

Robert Redfield

The former CDC director who once declared masks as superior to vaccines has joined quite a few boards related to Pharma and healthcare.

Seema Verma

As CMS Director, this Task Force member issued the infamous memo leaning on healthcare systems to suspend non elective procedures. After her tenure in the Trump Administration, Verma joined the boards of several healthcare firms and became a Senior Vice President at Oracle Corporation.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | 1 Comment

Congress Extends Mass Surveillance Program

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | December 14, 2023

On Thursday, the US House of Representatives passed a funding bill for next year’s defense expenditures, which controversially incorporates a short-term extension of certain surveillance authority.

The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) received overwhelming bipartisan support in the House, passing with a vote of 310 to 118. This count far exceeded the two-thirds majority needed for approval. Following its passage, the bill is now headed to the White House, where it awaits President Joe Biden’s signature to become law.

The temporary extension in question belongs to the surveillance capabilities under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which was slated to expire at year’s end and have now been renewed through April 2024.

Utah GOP Senator Mike Lee led a robust effort to axe this extension, despite facing defeat.

Notably, a group of thirty-five senators, featuring Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, rallied behind him. However, the movement fell short of the forty-one votes needed to successfully exclude the provision.

A warrantless surveillance mechanism provided for by Section 702 targets non-Americans overseas, a point of sensitive debate because the provision has, despite failed promises from the likes of the FBI to stop, caused surveillance of US citizens.

Two improvement proposals for these mandates were put forth by Republican members but were subsequently withdrawn by House Speaker Mike Johnson amid significant intra-GOP conflicts over the issue.

Kentucky GOP Rep. Thomas Massie expressed his dissatisfaction with the inclusion of the FISA extension in bill.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Another U.S. Spy for Cuba

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 13, 2023

U.S. spies for Cuba are in the news. Last week, U.S. officials announced the arrest of Victor Manuel Rocha, 73, a former U.S. ambassador, on charges of having spied for Cuba since the 1970s. Meanwhile, Ana Montes, a former analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency, was recently released from federal prison after serving a 20-year sentence for spying for Cuba. In the context of reporting on these two people, the media is also bringing up the case of Walter and Gwendolyn Myers, a husband and wife who worked for the State Department, who pleaded guilty in 2009 to spying for Cuba for 30 years.

Former US Ambassador Victor Manuel Rocha

As a Wall Street Journal story last month stated, these spies were not driven by money to spy for Cuba. The article stated that they were instead driven by “ideology.” My hunch is that these four people themselves would say that they were driven to spy for Cuba by conscience.

Ever since the Cuban revolution in 1959, Cuba has been considered to be an official enemy of the United States and, specifically, of the U.S. national-security establishment (i.e., the Pentagon, CIA, and NSA), which is the driving force of U.S. foreign policy within the U.S government. 

Prior to the Cuban revolution, the Cuban government had been controlled by U.S. officials ever since the Spanish-American War of 1898. In essence, Cuba had been a U.S. colony up until the time of the 1959 revolution.

Prior to the revolution, Cuba was ruled by a brutal rightwing dictator named Fulgencio Batista, who was a loyal agent of the U.S. government. Many Cubans resented Batista, not only because of his brutal dictatorship, and not only because he was a loyal lackey of U.S. officials, but also because he had become a partner of the Mafia, the world’s premier criminal organization, which ran casinos in Havana and shared its profits with Batista under the table. One of Batista’s policies that many Cubans resented was the state-sponsored kidnapping of underaged girls in the countryside who Batista’s goons would deliver to the Mafia’s high rollers in the casinos as a sexual perk. In fact, it was that policy that set off the Cuban revolution.

Once the revolution was won, the new regime, headed by Fidel Castro, took Cuba in a different direction. Castro refused to become a lackey of the U.S. government and insisted that Cuba would henceforth be an independent nation. He also later made it clear that he was committed to socialism and communism and, in fact, was determined to establish friendly relations with the Soviet Union and the communist world (something that President Kennedy was also determined to do, as he outlined in his famous Peace Speech in June 1963). 

Owing to these actions, Cuba was deemed to be a grave threat to U.S. “national security” (just as Kennedy was).

But there is something important to recognize about all this: Cuba never committed any act of aggression against the United States or even threatened to do so. Instead, it has always been the United States that has been the aggressor against Cuba.

For example, there were repeated assassination attempts by the U.S. government against Cuban leader Fidel Castro. Given that Castro had never initiated any aggressive action against the United States, these were nothing more than attempts at legalized murder. In fact, President Lyndon Johnson even candidly pointed out that the CIA was running a “damned Murder Inc.” in the Caribbean.

There was also Operation Mongoose, which entailed U.S. acts of sabotage and terrorism inside Cuba. 

And, of course, there has been the ongoing brutal U.S. economic embargo against Cuba, which has targeted the Cuban people with death and economic suffering in the hopes that they would rise up in another revolution, one that would replace Cuba’s recalcitrant communist regime with another U.S.-approved rightwing stooge.

Therefore, since the U.S. government has always been the aggressor against Cuba — with assassinations, terrorism, sabotage, and its deadly embargo — and since Cuba has never aggressed against the United States — it stands to reason that any information that these four U.S. spies for Cuba delivered to Cuba almost certainly involved secret information that was designed to help Cuba protect itself and its citizens from the acts of aggression by the Pentagon and the CIA.

At Montez’s sentencing, federal Judge Ricardo Urbina, stated that she had put the United States “as a whole” at risk by spying for Cuba. It would be difficult to understand how she had done that, given that it has always been the United States that has been the aggressor against Cuba, not the other way around. More likely, Montez, along with those other three U.S. spies for Cuba, provided information that assisted the Cubans to protect themselves from U.S. attempts at murder, sabotage, terrorism, and the infliction of death and suffering from the U.S. embargo. U.S. officials say that they betrayed the United States and, therefore, need to be severely punished for helping the Cuban people protect themselves from Pentagon-CIA aggression.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Subjugation - Torture | , , | Leave a comment

Sons of Salah Al-Din: Shuja’iyya is not just a neighbourhood, it’s a legacy

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | December 14, 2023

Shortly before Palestinian fighters killed and wounded many Israeli soldiers in the Shuja’iyya neighbourhood, east of Gaza City, on Tuesday, that very group of soldiers had a meeting on the outskirts of the town.

A video, which circulated widely on social media, showed one of the officers – later killed – vowing to avenge other Israeli soldiers who were killed in that very neighbourhood in the 2014 Israeli war on Gaza.

The Shuja’iyya battle in 2014 is believed to have been the most decisive battle between invading Israeli forces and Palestinian resistance in Israel’s so-called ‘Operation Protective Edge’.

Back then, Israel admitted to the killing of 16 soldiers.

Shortly after that speech, the officers who vowed to avenge the dead soldiers of nearly ten years were themselves the victims of resistance ambushes.

Al-Qassam Brigades said that the number of Israeli soldiers who have died in three successive ambushes led by the resistance, exceeds the number of casualties declared by Israel by far.

‘Difficult event’

Yesterday morning, the Israeli army said that eight soldiers, mostly officers, were killed in an ambush in Shuja’iyya. They include Col. Itzhak Ben Basat, a Golani Brigade’s commander, and Lt. Col. Tomer Greenberg – the soldier who was speaking in the video.

Later, the Israeli army stated that more dead and scores of wounded were also evacuated from Shuja’iyya.

Israeli Chief of Staff Herzl Halevi has described what has taken place in Shuja’iyya as “a difficult event”. Later on, an Israeli army spokesman said that they are investigating that “difficult event”.

But investigating may suggest that those soldiers were killed by chance, or through some kind of a miscalculation on the part of the Israeli army.

This is unlikely to be the case. According to the Israeli military, cited in Al Jazeera, the Israeli army has been fighting the “deadly Shuja’iyya Brigade” for one and a half weeks, a battle that seems nearly impossible to win.

It is impossible to win because the fighting is taking place in areas that have been completely destroyed, and repeatedly so, by Israeli air strikes. No one knows where the fighters come from and where they disappear.

The Israeli military has itself reached the conclusion that the battle of Shuja’iyya cannot be won from the air, meaning through air strikes.

But it does not seem to be winnable from the ground either, as a constant stream of news and videos continue to emerge from the Shuja’iyya area, of Israeli soldiers being sniped, tanks blown up and fierce battles, whose outcomes are almost always determined by Palestinian fighters.

It would not be an exaggeration to claim that the battle of Shuja’iyya is likely to be one of the main factors that will result in the defeat of the Israeli army in Gaza.

The Shuja’iyya legend, however, is hardly a new story, whose lifespan ranges from July 2014 to December 2023. So, what is the story of Shuja’iyya?

‘What’s in a name?’

Shuja’iyya is one of Gaza City’s largest neighbourhoods. It is located immediately to the east of the city and is divided into two areas, the southern area, known as Turkman, and the northern area, known as Jdeidah – the latter built during the Ayyubaid era – founded in the 12th century.

The etymology of the word Shuja’iyya is often misunderstood. The word indicates direct relation to the noun Shujaa’, meaning bravery. This explanation makes sense to many due to the obvious bravery of warriors emanating from this neighbourhood throughout the years.

But historical sources suggest that the name is attributed to Shuja Al-Din Othman Al-Kurdi, a famous warrior who died in a battle between the Ayyubaids and invading Crusader armies in 1239 AD.

Gate to Gaza

Shuja’iyya’s military significance has been apparent for hundreds of years, partly because of Tell Al-Muntar, a strategic hill which lies in Shuja’iyya and is considered the gate to Gaza. Those who control Al-Muntar Hill have visual and strategic access to the entirety of Gaza City.

This is precisely why Napoleon Bonaparte fought to control Al-Muntar, and ultimately camped along with his invading army in the vicinity of the hill.

Thousands of Allied soldiers, many years later, died near that very hill, which explains the World War I Graveyard in Gaza, one of many historical sites that tell of a much bigger story than Israel’s war and Tel Aviv’s declared objective of wanting to ‘eliminate Hamas’.

Even the very demographics of Shuja’iyya is rooted in a protracted story of invasions, bravery and the ultimate defeats of the conquerors. Shuja’iyya itself is named after a Kurdish warrior, and one of its neighbourhoods, Turkman, is named after the Turkman tribes, which joined Salah Ad-Din Al-Ayyubi – Saladin, in his quest to free Palestine from the Crusaders and their remnants.

In this very Shuja’iyya, triumphant armies cheered their victories, with their proud leaders mounting their Arabian horses on Tell Al-Muntar, gazing at Gaza City and its environs.

Also, in Shuja’iyya, Muslims, Jews and Christians once lived side by side. Invaders came and left, and, subsequently, demographics changed. It is now a home to nearly 100,000 Palestinians, living under an unprecedented military siege, and, as of 7 October, experiencing the most serious annihilation attempt ever tried by an invading army.

Secret of Shuja’iyya

Much is being said about Al-Qassam’s Shuja’iyya Brigades, one of the best trained and prepared Palestinian resistance groups.

Like the Al-Shati Brigades and the Jabaliya Brigades, the Shuja’iyya Brigades are mostly comprised of Nukhba forces, the elite units of Al-Qassam. This explains much about the fierce battles underway in the neighbourhood.

Another explanation is that Shuja’iyya has suffered most during previous revolts and uprisings, especially during the First Intifada of 1987, which cemented the culture of resistance among its residents.

But there is more to the story than the ongoing genocide in Gaza and the brutality of the Israeli army.

Shuja’iyya’s story is one that is rooted in history, connecting the peoples of that whole region – Arabs, Kurds, Turkmans, Muslims, Christians, and Jews – thus accentuating the significance of history in how Palestinians, collectively, perceive themselves and their valiant resistance.

When Israelis claim that the only ‘solution’ to Gaza is displacing the Palestinians, they do not seem to have much knowledge of that history. If they knew that those young fighters of Shuja’iyya are the descendants of the great armies that have defeated the Crusaders, fought the French and the British, they would have paused for a long time before thinking that Shuja’iyya will fall in a day, a week, or a thousand years.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

A Week Like No Other

Washington’s shameful behavior marks a new low for the Biden Administration

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • DECEMBER 14, 2023

The first week in December of this year was all about America’s apparent inextinguishable love for the state of Israel. After a short pause to exchange hostages for prisoners, the Israelis re-launched their drive to exterminate the Gazans and steal what remains of their land and property. President Joe Biden, ably assisted by his ever-present sidekick State Department honcho Antony Blinken, welcomed the Jewish state’s onslaught by pushing the pedal to the metal on aiding the loveable Bibi Netanyahu while at the same time suggesting that the twenty thousand dead Palestinians and counting just might be a tad too much. Of course, the suggestion was limited to demonstrating what a great humanitarian, who is up for reelection, now sits in the Oval Office and was not supported by any real consequences for Israel should it ignore the advice, which it did. Biden then demonstrated where his heart truly was by expediting through the State Department a new shipment of munitions, an apparent gesture that keeps on giving to help the war effort, with some reports suggesting that upwards of two hundred US military aircraft have already made deliveries of more than 15,000 bombs to help Bibi kill more Pals.

The decision to provide more weapons to Israel coincides with a recommendation from Jerusalem’s right wing deputy mayor that captured Palestinians, whom he described as subhuman, should be buried alive, which elicited no comment from the White House. The Administration explained the rush delivery of the tank cannon munitions circumventing established congressional review procedures by saying that Israel urgently required the materiel to defend itself and that complying with Israeli demands is “vital to US national interests.” A State Department press release described the unusual procedure as having been “determined and provided [with] detailed justification to Congress that an emergency exists that requires the immediate sale to the Government of Israel of the above defense articles and services in the national security interests of the United States, thereby waiving the Congressional review requirements under Section 36(b) of the Arms Export Control Act, as amended. The United States is committed to the security of Israel, and it is vital to US national interests to assist Israel to develop and maintain a strong and ready self-defense capability. This proposed sale is consistent with those objectives. Israel will use the enhanced capability as a deterrent to regional threats and to strengthen its homeland defense.”

As Hamas has no heavy weapons and it is not occupying or penetrating into Israeli territory, the explanation would appear to be more in the nature of another government “big” lie, somewhat similar to Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech before the UN in 2003 affirming that Iraq’s Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and was preparing to use them. And it also challenges those who believe the United States is making an honest effort to reduce casualties among civilians. Josh Paul, the former State Department official who resigned to protest the provision of American weapons for use against the people of Gaza, reacted to the news with “…this expedited provision of lethal arms to Israel should cause some serious consideration of whether the secretary’s repeated assertions that the US seeks to minimize civilian casualties in Israel’s operation in Gaza are sincere.”

So, what made the first week in December different than any other in which the White House looks the other way and gives Netanyahu whatever he wants while Israel kills and kills and kills? Well, there was also more going on than just the provision of thirteen thousand nine hundred eighty-one (13,981) 120mm M830A1 High Explosive Anti-Tank Multi-Purpose with Tracer (MPAT) tank cartridges, worth a paltry $106.5 million. There was also a bit of bother at the United Nations, where a motion came to a vote that would have demanded an immediate ceasefire in Gaza to permit negotiations to end the genocide that Israel is pursuing to end the Palestinian problem forever. The motion had been endorsed earlier in the week, by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who invoked a rarely used article of the UN Charter to urge the Security Council to “press to avert a humanitarian catastrophe” and pass a resolution for a “humanitarian cease-fire between Israel and Palestinian militants.” Guterres warned that the civilian death toll was approaching what he described as an “apocalyptic” level due to the bombing of infrastructure, starvation and disease. He called for the UN Security Council to stop the killing in Gaza as a basic responsibility under the UN Charter. Each day, UN officials on the ground in Gaza heroically struggled to feed, shelter, and protect the population from Israeli bombs and more than 100 UN staff have been killed, a higher death toll than for any other operation ever. The motion would have passed unanimously but for one little problem: the United States vetoed it, clearly acting under orders from Netanyahu, who later thanked Biden. The final vote was 13 to 1 with Britain abstaining and not voting. Blinken defended the move on the Sunday talk shows, saying that Israel’s effort to eliminate Hamas was a “legitimate goal.” He added that “When it comes to a cease-fire in this moment, with Hamas still alive, still intact, and again, with the stated intent of repeating October 7th again and again and again, that would simply perpetuate the problem.”

The US deputy representative to the UN Robert Wood, clearly acting under orders from the White House and State Department, explained his veto vote, saying that “… the resolution’s authors declined to condemn Hamas’ October 7th attack that killed 1,200 people, including women, children and elderly.” Wood added that the draft also “failed to acknowledge that Israel has the right to defend itself against terrorism.” Israeli Ambassador to the US Gilad Erdan thanked the White House “for standing firmly by our side.”

Frustrated by the US veto in the Security Council, on December 12th the UN General Assembly voted on the same resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire in the Israel/Gaza conflict. The result was an overwhelming Yes: 153; No: 10; Abstain: 23. The US was again a “no” vote, together with Israel and the usual “associated” south Pacific island territories and Austria, Papua New Guinea, the Czech Republic, Guatemala, Liberia and Paraguay . The vote took place at an “emergency special session” under a “Uniting for Peace” resolution introduced when the Security Council fails to act due to the veto of a permanent member, and there have been legal arguments made that such votes, like Security Council votes, can be construed as legally binding. Of course, that may be viewed as irrelevant, since Israel has rarely if ever complied with any UN resolution that it opposed, whether of the “binding” variety or not, and also since Israel’s effective control of the US government has guaranteed that its defiance will not produce any adverse consequences.

It was, reportedly, the forty-fifth time that Washington has used its veto to protect the state of Israel in the UN, which is why the Jewish state has never been held accountable for anything. Nor has the United States, which has started more wars against countries that did not actually threaten it than anyone else since the founding of the UN and, presumably, it could always use its veto to block such a motion against itself. The result is that the United Nations Security Council only exists to take action against countries that are not one of the permanent members of the Council or against Israel, which is protected by Washington.

One would think that all of the above would constitute a far above average week from hell, but there’s more, including yet another sustained attack on freedom of speech being mounted by politicians, the media and Jewish billionaires to block all and any criticism of Israel. The attacks started several months ago when students at a number of public and private universities began protesting over Israel’s deliberate targeting of civilians, leading to a death toll that is almost certainly currently approaching or exceeding 20,000 when all the corpses are dug up from the rubble of bombed buildings. Some politically ambitious scumbags like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis immediately declared that pro-Palestinian student groups were “antisemites” and banned them from Florida state universities while also declaring that no Palestinian refugees should be admitted to the US because they too were “Jew haters.”

As the anti-Palestinian narrative took shape in political, media and Zionist circles, it adopted a familiar line, which goes something like this: Israel is the Jewish state. If you criticize the Jewish state and/or Zionism you are therefore by definition an antisemite. Antisemitism is a “hate crime.” If you advocate or argue for any Palestinian group like Hamas, which the US government has labeled “terrorist,” you are providing “material assistance to terrorism” which is a crime for which you can be fined or imprisoned. Even if you merely criticize Jewish groups supporting Israel you are likewise an antisemite and have committed a “hate crime.” Neat, isn’t it? and the end result is that Israel, which is immune from the consequences of its actions internationally, also increasingly cannot be criticized at all without serious consequences for the critic. In other words, freedom of speech in the United States only exists, insofar as it does, if you are not disparaging Israel or even its friends due to their demonstrable behavior.

Some of those consequences were experienced recently by three presidents of prominent American universities, responding to a congressional grilling that was set up by allegations that colleges are hotbeds of antisemitism and are responsible for major increases in incidents targeting Jews. There is a certain irony in the allegations since Jews in America are the wealthiest, best educated, most politically powerful, most prestigiously employed and most protected by Homeland Security of all ethno-religious groups. And there is not much real evidence that Jews are in any way increasingly “victims” in the United States or in Europe. The antisemitic incidents that are “surging” are frequently based on criticisms of what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians and often consist of a Jewish college student being offended or annoyed by a poster or a speaker criticizing Israeli behavior. Instances of actual physical confrontation are few and far between and are immediately reported in the accommodating mainstream media to heighten the sense that Jews in America and even worldwide are threatened. Certain groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) are heavily into the promotion of the narrative of Jew hatred as it is in their bottom line to do so given their donor base which likes to hear exactly that. In other words, it is all largely a contrivance to obtain political and economic benefits as well as a free pass on bad behavior that might not otherwise be forthcoming.

The three university presidents, all of whom were women, represented Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT and all three were highly respected in their respective professions prior to their presidencies. They did not anticipate New York Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, a Jewish Harvard product, who was out to nail them and make the case that academia hates Jews and is encouraging antisemitism. Stefanik was backed up by Jewish oligarchs who have threatened to sharply cut donations to the respective universities that do not toe the line, doing what Jews are often accused of doing, i.e. using their money and the power that it buys to stop all discussion on subjects that they find troubling.

Stefanik and company were particularly incensed by student pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting “Intifada” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” She interpreted both expressions being calls for the destruction of Israel, which they are not. Intifada is “shaking off” in Arabic and is a call for liberating the Palestinian people and their land from the Israeli tyranny. The “river to sea” is somewhat similar, a call for a Palestinian state with actual sovereignty and neither is an explicit call for killing Israelis or Jews. They are generic cries for freedom. Stefanik curiously, though not surprisingly, did not mention the concurrent actual demands by senior Israeli government officials to displace or kill all Palestinians, something that they actually have the power to do and which might be regarded as a threat.

The university presidents were pilloried by congress, the White House, the Israel Lobby and the media by refusing to label all criticisms of the Zionist project and Israeli behavior as unacceptable “free speech” and through their assertion that the meaning of political slogans often depends on the context. For something or someone to qualify as a source of harassment, which is forbidden at the colleges in question, there has to be a direct threat made to another person. When that is present, it is harassment. When it is not, it is protected speech on a university campus, even if it is critical of group behavior or even racist. That is as it should be.

And if you thought that the week’s nastiness ended there, you would be wrong. There was also some disgraceful action during the week from Congress which rejected a Senator Rand Paul motion to withdraw US troops from Syria by a vote of 13 votes in favor and 84 votes against. Ironically, on the same day December 7th, Pearl Harbor Day, US bombers committed a war crime in killing 36 Syrian villagers in retaliation for a series of attacks on US bases. American soldiers are in Syria illegally basically to bring down the legitimate government of Bashar al-Assad, though they claim it is to confront ISIS terrorists. They are also sitting on Syria’s oil producing region and stealing the oil. Both Syria and neighboring Iraq would like to see the “Yankees go home” but the Pentagon alleges that the attacks on the bases have been carried out by groups affiliated with Iran, Washington and Israel’s prime enemy in the region, so the White House has decided that killing Syrian farmers is justifiable reciprocity. Meanwhile, Israel is bombing Syrian airports in Damascus and Aleppo on a regular basis, arguing that they are being used by the Iranian military and Revolutionary Guards.

During the week the Congress also passed a motion which partly explains why US foreign policy in the Middle East region is so incoherent. Congress declared by way of a GOP drafted and backed resolution that antizionism is to be considered antisemitism by a vote of 311 to 14, drawing the support of all but one Republican. Ninety-two Democrats voted “present” — not taking a position for or against the measure — while 95 supported it, paving the way for more hate crime persecutions and increasing legal liabilities for critics of Israel. Antizionism is, of course, not antisemitism as Zionism is a political movement and Judaism is a religion. In fact, many religious Jews reject the idea of a Jewish state and many secular Jews are currently active and even prominent in the humanitarian protests against Israel’s massacre of the Gazans.

Finally, the week also saw presentations by Biden and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, both of whom explained their view of why Congress must pony up multiple billions of dollars for Ukraine. Biden warned explicitly and almost certainly incorrectly that “If Putin takes Ukraine, he won’t stop there. We’ll have something that we don’t seek and that we don’t have today: American troops fighting Russian troops.” Biden and Austin’s delusion centers on a presumption that Russia’s Vladimir Putin will move to reconstruct the Soviet Union by taking the Baltic states, which are NATO allies, after he gobbles up Ukraine. It is a scare tactic based on no evidence whatsoever and Russia does not even have the desire or ability to take all of Ukraine, let alone recreate the USSR, which its leadership clearly recognizes. Fortunately, few in Washington and Europe have been buying the bullshit and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, who made a surprise visit to Biden a few days later to plead for money, went home basically empty handed.

There probably is still more from that action packed week if I dig a bit deeper, but I am sure that readers get the point. It was a disastrous week for genuine United States’ interests and I don’t see anything that benefits the average American, quite the contrary. But this has been the pattern for a whole series of US administrations that have unfortunately done their best to destroy the United States as it once was along the lines of George W. Bush’s pledge to be the new sheriff in town ready and willing to engage in warfare against the whole world. Who will rid us of these monsters or are they too deeply entrenched in the system to be removed? That is the real question.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | 3 Comments

US teacher arrested after threatening to behead student over comments about Israel flag

MEMO | December 14, 2023

A teacher in the US State of Georgia has been arrested on multiple charges, including child cruelty after allegedly threatening to behead one of his 7th grade students over comments made about an Israeli flag.

According to local reports, 51-year-old Benjamin Reese, a teacher at Warner Robins Middle School in Houston County was arrested on Friday having been charged with Felony Terroristic Threats and Acts and Misdemeanor Cruelty to Children in the Third Degree. He was released on bail on Sunday, two days after his arrest.

Houston County School District officials released a statement to WGXA News saying Reese has not been on campus since Thursday, one day before his arrest: “All employees of the Houston County School District are required to follow the Code of Ethics for Educators. If there is a violation or accusation of a violation, we investigate and respond appropriately. While we are not able to discuss specific personnel matters, we can share that Mr. Reese has not been on the campus of Warner Robins Middle School since December 7, 2023. Safety and the well-being of our students and staff is our number one priority.”

A report by state news station 13WMAZ revealed that a female student told the social studies teacher that an Israeli flag he had displayed in his classroom offended her, to which he cursed at her and threatened to kill her.

The teacher reportedly was asked by the student, who was with two classmates, why he had the flag. Reese explained that he is Jewish and has relatives in the occupation state, to which the student responded that she found the flag offensive due to the large Palestinian civilian death toll in Gaza as a result of Israel’s bombing campaign.

After being labelled “anti-Semitic”, the police report says the students left his classroom only to be pursued by the teacher down the hallway where he continued to yell at them.

Several witnesses, including other teachers, said they heard Reese say: ‘I should cut your motherf**king head off!’ and other profanities.

Despite the severity of the incident, the news story has not made national news or has been covered by any major US news networks.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | 4 Comments

Is ICC still relevant? Not so, says Brazil’s Lula da Silva. And he is not alone

By Uriel Araujo | December 14, 2023

On December 4, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil (which has taken G20 presidency) said, after meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, that he will invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 Summit that will take place in Brazil. Previously, Lula da Silva had stated Putin should not worry about being arrested, should he visit Brazil, despite the county’s membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Brazilian leader later withdrew this promise but has maintained the invitation, thereby prompting a political controversy about the court in the Latin American country. On March 17, the Hague-based court issued a controversial arrest warrant for both Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights (of Russia) and for Putin, a ruling that has been praised by US President Joe Biden, among others.

Whenever people hear about the “International Crime Court”, they often assume it is some essential part of the fabric of international law. The court’s name, however, should not be taken at face value. It is true that about 124 countries are ratified state parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. It is also true, though, that 30 others have not yet ratified it, some of which have no intention of doing so. China, Russia, the US, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Turkey are not states parties – no Great Power in fact is a party to the ICC, unless one considers France, the UK and Germany as such. South Africa and the Philippines have already given formal notice of their intention to withdraw from the Statute, and so have Gambia and Burundi. Many other countries are considering doing so – which is not surprising at all.

Consider this: having been formed in 2002, with the exception of the Putin/Lvova-Belova warrant and the investigation on Rodrigo Duterte (former President of the Philippines), all other cases thus far launched by the court have been against Africans, including prominent regional leaders such as Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. It is no wonder then that over the last years the African Union has often accused the ICC of being biased against the continent. William Schabas (professor of international law at Middlesex Universit) summarized it: “Why prosecute post-election violence in Kenya… but not murder and torture of prisoners in Iraq or illegal settlements in the West Bank? Tony Blair, the former British prime minister and George W. Bush, the former American president… were never indicted by the ICC… in spite of the ample evidence available to justify legal proceedings against the two.”

In September, Brazil’s aforementioned President Lula da Silva had already questioned the value of a Hague-based court that does not include the US, Russia, or China. In his reasoning, the ICC cannot be that relevant, considering the fact that major powers do not submit themselves to its jurisdiction. Similarly, Flavio Dino, then the Brazilian Minister of Justice, described the court as “unbalanced”, saying that “it makes no sense to have a court that is only to judge some and not others”, even adding that his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs could debate Brazil’s participation in the Statue.

As shown, Lula da Silva is not the only one who has doubts about the ICC and the controversies pertaining to the court have been around for a long time, way before its arrest warrant for Putin. Take the United States for instance. The US and the ICC have a peculiar record, to say the least. Back in 2002, President George W. Bush famously signed into law the so-called “Hague Invasion Act”, which in fact authorized the use of military force to liberate any American citizen being held by the ICC. More recently, it was described as a “kangaroo court” by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when President Donal Trump authorized sanctions against an ICC investigation into US war crimes in Afghanistan. Washington went so far as to threaten to arrest the court’s judges over the same issue.

However, in 2022, S.Res.546, a bipartisan, unanimous resolution by the US Senate (agreed to without amendment) came into being to support the ICC, which is quite remarkable, considering all the aforementioned record. It would seem the US is quite ready to applaud the Hague court, as long as it only persecutes its geopolitical rivals and never points its finger to any American war criminal – in this case Washington will literally threaten the court and its judges with arrest and invasion.

The ICC is predominantly funded by European states. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Spain (and also Japan) have long been among the court’s top 10 contributors. Moreover, it also receives contributions from private donors, such as large corporations. All of that throws some doubts on its credibility and impartiality as an international organ often accused (justifiably so) of having a pro-Western bias.

I wrote before about the dangerous trend of employing international lawfare as a geopolitical tool – as seen in Germany, where local courts have been invoking “universal jurisdiction” (over some crimes) to convict Syrian authorities accused of having committed torture in Syria. This development was applauded by many, including Wolfgang Kaleck, founder of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), who described it as a step towards bigger  things.

One could very well ask how big it can get. We know that torture and sexual abuse were and have been common place in CIA-operated bases overseas as well as in places such as Guantánamo Bay (Cuba), and Abu Ghraib (Iraq). We also know Biden admittedly authorized the infamous August 29 drone strike in Kabul that killed civilians only. His predecessor Donald Trump in turn ordered the illegal assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was on a peace mission. Even so, it is hard to imagine a top CIA official (or Biden and Trump themselves for that matter) being investigated by a German court – or by the ICC.

From a perspective informed by legal realism and political realism, one could reason that the very way a country’s judicial systems’ “universal jurisdiction” can be exercised is limited by certain conditions regarding political, economic, and military power. The same limitations apply to the ICC. To sum it up, it is about geopolitics as much as it is about international law. The ICC today is a reflection of the inequalities between countries in today’s architecture of international law.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Murder

By Craig Murray | December 13, 2023

Al Jazeera are leading their news with the execution of Palestinian civilians, including women and toddlers, inside the school in Jabalia where they were sheltering. They were all shot at point blank range, with no signs of a bomb or missile strike.

On the BBC, the Daily Politics show – which consists of discussion between senior British MPs – does not discuss Palestine at all, because the British political class supports the genocide, so for them there is nothing to discuss.

Also in Jabalia, the Israelis today destroyed the last remaining bakery.

It is worth stating why this is plainly a genocide in Gaza:

1) Deliberate destruction of the infrastructure which supports the civilian population, including water treatment, electricity, sewerage systems, bakeries and fishing boats;

2) Deliberate destruction of almost all medical facilities;

3) Deliberate destruction of educational facilities, from universities to primary schools;

4) Deliberate destruction of the infrastructure of civil society, including Supreme Court, Parliament, Ministries and Council buildings and deliberate destruction of administrative records;

5) Deliberate blocking of food aid inducing mass starvation;

6) Massive and indiscriminate bombardment. In wars the general percentage of children among those killed varies from 6 to 8%. In Ukraine it is 6%. In Gaza it is 42%. This is indiscriminate destruction of an ethnic group;

7) Mass executions of civilians;

8) Acts of dehumanisation of the Palestinians, including parading prisoners naked for public and media show and humiliation, beating and sexually abusing them;

9) Forced mass movement of population;

10) Deliberate targeting of religious and cultural heritage buildings;

11) Deliberate targeting of intellectual leadership, including journalists, doctors, poets, university lecturers and senior administrators;

12) Numerous declarations of open genocidal intent from the President and Prime Minister down through almost the entire fabric of both civilian and military establishment.

This is the official definition of Genocide in international law, from the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide:

Article II
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
(a) Killing members of the group;
(b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
(d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
(e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group

Yesterday I attended a session called by Palestine at the United Nations in Geneva. Over 120 states attended. While the formal session consisted of statements of national position with few surprises, I was able to discuss with a large number of delegates in the corridors why the Genocide Convention has not been activated triggering a reference to the International Court of Justice.

The answer is now clear to me. It is not that people are worried that a claim of genocide will not be successful at the International Court of Justice. It is that everybody is quite sure it will succeed. There is no respectable argument that this is not a genocide in the terms outlined above.

The problem is that once the ICJ has determined that this is a genocide, it follows that not only are Netanyahu and hundreds of senior Israeli officials and military personally liable, but it is absolutely plain that “Genocide Joe” Biden, Sunak and members of their administrations are also criminally liable for complicity, having provided military support for the genocide.

The International Criminal Court cannot ignore a judgment of genocide from the International Court of Justice and will have no choice but to issue arrest warrants.

A genocide is the worst of crimes. Just how appalling this one is has been shown to the world like never before, through the power of social media.

But to the global 1% whose interests rule the world, no number of dead Palestinians makes any real difference to their interests. On the other hand, the ramifications for the international system of wealth concentration, if western political elites start to be held accountable for their crimes, are uncertain and therefore carry more risk. This is particularly the concern of ruling classes of both Western and Arab states.

It may sound astonishing, but to the world’s diplomats the enormity of a genocide appears less troubling than the enormity of doing something about it.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | 5 Comments

Whistleblower nurse: Kaiser Permanente had computer systems programmed to push Covid agenda & lies

https://www.bitchute.com/video/jbt53sb8ojsQ/

CHILDREN’S HEALTH DEFENSE | December 12, 2023

“We have criminalized and disciplined all of the practitioners who were actually there to protect our patients and families. It’s a dangerous place. I would not take a family member to a hospital.”

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , | 1 Comment