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‘I Don’t Recall’: Fauci Unable to Answer Key Questions in Pandemic Probe

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 9, 2024

On the first day of a two-day closed-door interview before the U.S. House of Representatives Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Pandemic Monday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), frequently evaded questions about gain-of-function research and the government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Chairman Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio), in a statement following Monday’s interview, said, “Dr. Fauci’s testimony today uncovered drastic and systemic failures in America’s public health systems” and that Fauci “had no idea what was happening under his own jurisdiction at NIAID.”

According to The Hill, Fauci offered “his expertise on preparing for potential outbreaks in the future.” But according to The Washington Times, he “couldn’t remember many details about his advocacy of lockdowns, his flip-flopping on mask mandates and his decision to allow government funding of gain-of-function research in China that might have led to the pandemic.”

Fauci “claimed he ‘did not recall’ pertinent COVID-19 information or conversations more than 100 times,” and “profusely defended his previous congressional testimony where he stated the National Institutes of Health (NIH) did not fund gain-of-function research in Wuhan,” according to the subcommittee statement.

Fauci also “repeatedly played semantics with the definition of gain-of-function in an attempt to avoid conceding that NIH funded potentially dangerous research in China,” the subcommittee stated.

Responding to Monday’s testimony, Rutgers University molecular biologist Richard Ebright, Ph.D., a frequent critic of gain-of-function research, told The Defender :

“Fauci repeatedly and flagrantly violated U.S. government policies implemented to protect the public from lab-generated pandemics. He lied — brazenly — to Congress about his policy violations in three Senate hearings in 2021-2022. He lied — brazenly — to Congress about his policy violations again yesterday.”

Investigative journalist Paul D. Thacker, who has documented attempts by Fauci and other government officials, federal agencies and leading scientists to cover up the U.S. government’s role in funding gain-of-function research in China, told The Defender he was not surprised by Fauci’s stance.

“As I documented over two years ago, Anthony Fauci has lied about funding gain-of-function research in Wuhan. That’s fine. People in Washington lie all the time,” Thacker said.

“But when he lied during a congressional hearing, wagging his finger at Senator [Rand] Paul … I knew immediately he had broken the law. His lies about this pandemic have been documented in multiple media outlets and I hope he is eventually prosecuted,” he added.

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

“Fauci knew exactly what was going on at the Wuhan BSL4 [biosafety level 4] and the University of North Carolina BSL3 — he was paying for it,” Boyle said. “He has repeatedly perjured himself in testimony before Congress. This is just more of the same.” … Full article

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , | 1 Comment

The Embarrassing Pause In Arctic Sea Ice Loss Has Lasted 17 Years, Defying IPCC, NSIDC Predictions

By Kenneth Richard | No Tricks Zone | January 8, 2024

“[S]ince the dramatical decline of the ice extent in 2007, the summer Arctic sea ice area has not declined further.” – Astrup Jensen, 2023

Scientists have been using the year 2007 as the starting point for assessing Arctic sea ice trends for nearly a decade. A 2015 study published in Nature Climate Change reported a “near-zero trend” in summer sea ice over the 7 years from 2007-2013.

Image Source: Swart et al., 2015 (full paper)

Another 10 years have now passed and there is still no evidence of a further decline in sea ice.

This is interesting because since late 2007 scientists have predicted Arctic sea ice would decline rapidly as CO2 continued rising – from 385 ppm in 2007 to 422 ppm today. There were 20 models referenced by the IPCC (AR4) projecting a 40% loss of sea ice by 2050 due to an allegedly enhance greenhouse effect associated with anthropogenic CO2 emissions.

But a new study reveals there’s been no declining trend in summer sea ice area over the last 17 years, and “no apparent correlation” between CO2 and sea ice trends.

“The Arctic Sea ice extent is measured by satellites and varies by day, month and year, and the yearly minimum ice extent will occur in a day of September month every year. The ice extent is much lower now (2023) than in 1978, when the satellite measurements began. However, it has not been a gradual decline. A major decline happened during the years 1997 – 2007. Before that the decline was minimal and after that period, there was no significant downward trend.”

“These data show that there is no apparent correlation between the variable extent of the Arctic and the Antarctic Sea ice and the gradually increasing CO2-concentrations in the atmosphere as proposed by NSIDC, IPCC and others, also for these areas of cold climate.”

Image Source: Astrup Jensen, 2023

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

The Definition of Insanity

AARP: “Keep getting boosters even though previous ones didn’t work.”

BY JOHN LEAKE | COURAGEOUS DISCOURSE | JANUARY 9, 2024

This morning someone sent me a link to Alex Berenson’s post about the AARP advising its nearly 38 million members to get another COVID-19 booster shot, even if they have already had five boosters.

This prompted me to visit AARP’s website, which features an entire category of content titled Scams & Fraud—that is, warnings to older people about all the predators out there who wish to manipulate and deceive them in order to steal their money.

Under the category Caregiving is posted an articled titled COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths Climb Ahead of Expected Winter Surge.

The article laments that nursing home residents and staff have lost interest in getting the latest booster, and suggests this is a likely explanation for why COVID-19 mortality in nursing homes has risen in recent months as we head into winter.

The author, Emily Paulin, does NOT mention the common experience of older people repeatedly falling ill with COVID-19 even after receiving multiple boosters. She also doesn’t mention a word about TREATING nursing home residents who fall ill with COVID-19. Four years after this mess began, an AARP writer about nursing home policy still has nothing to say about treating the illness.

Reading this article reminded me of a Joe Rogan podcast I watched yesterday in which his guest—an earnest and callow young man who says “like” every fourth word—asserts the following two propositions:

1). Most popular sports were conceived and developed to give men an advantage over women. For example, in basketball, “the way the ball moves” gives biological males an advantage.

2). Biological males who receive gender reassignment procedures to become women have NO advantage over women in sports.

The same kind of insanity is also evident among the foreign policy crowd that continues to advocate the war in Ukraine. No matter how many hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians are run into the meat grinder of Russian defensive positions in the eastern part of the country, these lunatics continue to insist that the Ukrainians KEEP DOING THIS until they get their desired result.

All of the above is further evidence of the mental illness underlying what I call the Holy Quadripartitus of Piffle:

1). COVID-19 vaccines are saving mankind. Anyone who questions the safety and efficacy of the vaccines is guilty of heresy.

2). The U.S. proxy war in Ukraine is a sacred mission and NO negotiated settlement with Russia shall be countenanced. Anyone who criticizes the Ukrainian and U.S. governments, and any attempt to understand the war from the Russian point of view, is guilty of heresy. Indeed, as Ukraine’s American, transgender military spokeswoman asserted back in September, journalists who question this article of faith should be hunted down and killed.

3). Human induced climate change will soon destroy the earth if trillions aren’t spent to overhaul our entire energy policy. Anyone who questions this proposition is guilty of heresy.

4). The concept of biological sex is a mere “construct.” Skilled surgeons and endocrinologists can transform a boy into a girl or vice versa. Anyone who questions this assertion is guilty of heresy.

For my part, I have lost all patience with people who subscribe to the Holy Quadripartitus of Piffle. In my view, they have become indistinguishable from sleep-deprived children. There is no sense in trying to have a conversation or reason with them. I can only hope that their insane assertions and conduct will ultimately be rejected by the great majority of adults in the United States and the rest of the world.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | 1 Comment

CDC study concludes most young children hospitalized for COVID were unvaccinated — after enrolling 7 times as many unvaxed kids in study

By Angelo DePalma, Ph.D. and Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D. | The Defender | January 9, 2024

A U.S. government-sponsored study published late last month in The Pediatric Infectious Disease Journal reported that most young children hospitalized for acute COVID-19 had not received an mRNA COVID-19 vaccination and were sicker to begin with than vaccinated children.

The authors’ conclusions are true on the surface, but their analysis ignored that more than 7 times as many unvaccinated as vaccinated children were enrolled in their study.

Only 4.5% of trial subjects completed primary COVID series

Investigators led by Laura Zambrano, Ph.D., a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention epidemiologist, recruited 597 children ages 8 months through under age 5 hospitalized for COVID-19 at 28 U.S. pediatric hospitals between Sept. 20, 2022, and May 31, 2023.

Unvaccinated subjects outnumbered subjects who had received at least one COVID-19 shot by 528 to 69, a more than 7-fold difference.

Children were grouped by demographic factors such as race, sex and geographic location, vaccination status (no vaccine, incomplete vaccine series or fully vaccinated) and underlying non-COVID-19 illnesses, or comorbidities.

Only 4.5% of the subjects had completed their primary COVID-19 vaccination series and 7% had received at least one dose.

Cases varied widely in severity, with 174 (29.1% of all subjects) admitted to intensive care and 75 progressing to life-threatening illness.

Fifty-one (8.5% of all subjects) required life support via invasive mechanical ventilation, and three required extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a life-support treatment involving a heart-lung machine.

Based on results from both vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, infants 8 months to under age 2 were more vulnerable to serious outcomes than children ages 2 to 4 years.

For example, the youngest subjects had more life-threatening illnesses and the greatest need for high-level respiratory support involving vasoactive infusions — intravenous treatments to maintain normal blood pressure and heart rate. Yet they also had shorter hospital stays.

Investigators concluded that most children hospitalized for COVID-19, including most children with underlying medical conditions, were unvaccinated. On that basis, they called for “strategies to reduce barriers to vaccine access among young children.”

Researchers tested kids for COVID but not other respiratory infections

Zambrano et al. also compared the Pfizer mRNA shot to the Moderna product. They found that children who took the Moderna product were somewhat more likely to experience a serious outcome, however, the numbers from both groups were small and the authors did not subject them to statistical analysis.

Based on their analysis they also calculated and reported, in their “results” section, that mRNA COVID-19 vaccines were 40% effective in reducing serious outcomes. However, in their discussion (several sections later), they admitted that “vaccine coverage in this population was too low to evaluate vaccine effectiveness.”

There were two notable limitations to the Zambrano study. Even though the researchers recruited children who were only partially vaccinated the study’s design excluded children who had received any vaccination fewer than 14 days before hospital admission. Therefore no short-term post-vaccination adverse events were included.

Another limitation was that children were tested for COVID-19 but not for all possible respiratory infections, meaning “it is possible that RSV [respiratory syncytial virus], human metapneumovirus or other respiratory viral co-detections influenced disease severity.”

Media parroted authors’ conclusions

U.S. media (for example here and here) picked up on the Zambrano paper and repeated its conclusion that most hospitalized COVID-19 pediatric patients were unvaccinated — ignoring that the study included more than 7 times as many unvaccinated as vaccinated subjects.

A deeper dive into the data reveals the extent of this error and the discrepancies between what Zambrano et al. reported and what they saw.

Tables 1 and 2 illustrate what the authors got wrong.

These calculations say nothing about the relative outcomes for vaccinated and unvaccinated children because Zambrano et al. either did not perform the relevant calculation — number of cases in each group divided by the number of subjects — or chose not to report the results it generated.

Instead of presenting the number of subjects experiencing the indicated outcome as a percentage of vaccinated or unvaccinated groups, they reported them as a percentage of all subjects experiencing that outcome. Since there were 7 times as many unvaccinated as vaccinated subjects, this approach all but guaranteed the numbers among the unvaxed would be higher.

Here’s an analogy: In a hypothetical study comparing 10 coffee drinkers to 100 abstainers, five drinkers and 10 abstainers reported feeling nervous. Using Zambrano’s logic, 67% of people feeling nervous were abstainers, and just 33% drank coffee. This “proves,” according to Zambrano’s logic, that not drinking coffee doubles (67% vs. 33%) the risk of getting the jitters.

The correct way to view this data is that 10 in 100 abstainers, or 10%, felt jittery but 5 in 10 (50%) of coffee drinkers felt jittery, and that drinking coffee raises the risk of nervousness fivefold (50% vs. 10%).

Table 2 uses the same raw data as Table 1. But instead of reporting vaccinated and unvaccinated data as a percentage of all data, it first calculates the occurrence of these conditions or outcomes in each group and compares the inter-group differences.

Hospital stays were also on average one day shorter for the unvaccinated. The only area where unvaccinated children faired slightly worse was in underlying cardiac issues, but the authors did not address this small difference in their discussion.

Previous study used same tactic

A study preceding the Zambrano paper by three weeks used the same tactic to arrive at the same conclusion.

Tannis et al. compared many of the same outcomes as Zambrano in 6,337 unvaccinated and 281 vaccinated children ages 6 months to under 5 years.

All subjects had visited emergency departments for acute respiratory illness from July 2022 to September 2023.

By coincidence, Tannis also calculated vaccine effectiveness to be 40%.

Table 3 presents data from Tannis et al. with percentages reported by Tannis (Tannis %) and the actual values (Actual %).

Vaccinated children were also 68.3% more likely to harbor HCoV, an endemic coronavirus, than the unvaccinated. Similar to SARS-CoV-2 (the COVID-19 virus), HCoV can cause serious illness in immunocompromised individuals and the elderly.

Angelo DePalma, Ph.D., is a science reporter/editor for The Defender.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., holds a master’s degree in computer science and a doctorate in biomedical and health informatics. He practices data science by asking questions of databases that can reveal population-based adverse outcomes of medical interventions.

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.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , | 1 Comment

Parents in Scotland to face 7 years in jail for refusing to appease children’s gender identity

BY THOMAS BROOKE | REMIX NEWS | JANUARY 10, 2024

Parents in Scotland could soon be sentenced to seven years in prison if they refuse to allow their children to change their gender under plans proposed by the Scottish government.

A public consultation was launched on Tuesday on legislation designed to end conversion practices for both sexual orientation and gender identity and includes widespread measures to criminalize parents who refuse to engage in their children’s desire to not just undergo gender transitions but to identify as another gender by, for example, dressing as the opposite gender.

The consultation proposed by Equalities Minister Emma Roddick would criminalize “coercive” behavior by parents that intends to “change or suppress” a child’s gender identity and consequently causes “harm” to the child.

“Coercive” behavior is broadly defined in the plans and ranges from “violent, threatening, or intimidating” behavior towards the victim to “controlling the victim’s day-to-day activities” or “pressuring the victim to act in a particular way.”

It states the behavior needs to be sustained but subsequently explains that such behavior need only happen “on at least two occasions” to meet this criteria.

Harm is also defined loosely as either “physical or psychological,” and the latter must be shown to have caused the child “fear, alarm, and distress.”

The draft legislation includes a defense if the parent can prove their actions were objectively reasonable.

For Women Scotland, a campaign seeking to protect women’s and children’s rights in the country, expressed their concerns about the draft legislation.

“We have grave concerns that these plans will criminalize loving parents, who could face years in jail simply for refusing to sign up to the gender ideology cult,” spokesperson Marion Calder said.

“They will also hand activists and social workers unprecedented powers to meddle in family life, while having a chilling impact on therapists and counselors.

“If the SNP and Greens insist on pushing this through, it is likely to go the same way as the toxic self-ID and named person laws and be blocked in the courts,” she added.

The left-wing Scottish National Party (SNP) has come under fire for pushing through several controversial progressive policies relating to transgender issues, the most recent being last year’s decision to remove the requirement for a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria in order to apply for a gender recognition certificate to legally change one’s gender.

The reforms also slashed the time an applicant must live in their preferred gender before legally changing it from two years to three months and lowered the minimum age at which a person can apply for a gender recognition certificate from 18 to 16 years.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | 2 Comments

‘We want normalization with Israel after Gaza war:’ Saudi official

The Cradle | January 10, 2024

The Saudi Ambassador to the UK, Prince Khalid bin Bandar Al Saud, told the BBC on 9 January that Saudi Arabia wants to continue normalization plans with Israel after their brutal aggression on the Palestinian people in Gaza ends. 

“Saudi Arabia wants to normalize its relations with Israel after the war in Gaza,” the Saudi ambassador told the British public service broadcaster, noting that “the two countries were about to reach an agreement before the 7 October war.”

Bandar made sure to note that normalization with Israel will only be possible if Palestine is granted its own state. 

“Saudi Arabia still believes in establishing relations with Israel despite the unfortunate figures of the dead in Gaza,” he added, continuing: “But this cannot be at the expense of the Palestinian people, and it requires thinking about the issue of integrating Hamas into the future Palestinian state.”

The death toll in Gaza from Israeli aggressions is at least 23,210, with at least 59,167 Palestinians who have been wounded. 

Israeli media has reported that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is holding “secret talks” with the White House regarding the resumption of normalization discussions with Saudi Arabia. 

“A message was conveyed that Israel will not take steps that conflict with the vision of the US and that it will be prepared to discuss what was requested by Saudi Arabia relating to the Palestinian issue,” Hebrew news outlet Channel 12 reported on 9 January, adding that Saudi Arabia is “very interested” in reaching the normalization deal with Israel that will grant the kingdom the long-sought “megadeal” from the US. 

Israel’s Channel 12 also noted that “for the US, the agreement that was appropriate before 6 October may be more appropriate now, in light of the war [in Gaza], as one of the goals Hamas had was to thwart the agreement.” The Israeli news outlet added that if normalization is achieved between Riyadh and Tel Aviv, it may prevent the escalation of a regional war and provide Saudi Arabia with the funding to help rebuild Gaza.

Riyadh’s desire for normalization comes in stark contrast to the feelings of 96 percent of the kingdom’s population, who believe that Arab states should swiftly sever diplomatic relations with Israel, according to a recent poll conducted by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Oman seizes drones headed for ‘pro-UAE factions’ in Yemen

MEMO | January 10, 2024

The customs authorities in Oman intercepted a shipment of drones yesterday, which were concealed on a truck from the UAE heading for Yemen. The discovery was made at the Hafeet crossing on the border between the two Gulf states.

“The Directorate General of Customs seized a truck at the Hafeet crossing loaded with wireless drones coming by transit system from the United Arab Emirates heading to the Republic of Yemen,” said the customs authorities.

“Customs inspectors were able to discover the shipments that were hidden professionally in places specially prepared for smuggling them in the truck. The concerned authorities began investigating the case in order to complete the rest of the legal procedures against the suspects.”

According to the Sanaa-based Yemen Press Agency, citing informed sources, the drones were destined for UAE-backed factions in southern Yemen, most likely the separatist Southern Transitional Council (STC).

The outlet noted that some observers speculate that the US may be using the UAE-backed proxies to turn international public opinion against the Houthi-led Yemeni forces by targeting merchant ships. The latter have been targeting Israel-linked vessels, or those heading for the occupation state through the Red Sea, because of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

UAE-backed groups in Yemen plot ‘false-flag’ attacks in Red Sea: Sanaa

The Cradle | January 10, 2024

UAE-backed mercenary groups in Yemen are preparing to carry out false flag attacks against commercial vessels in order to implicate the Sanaa government and prompt further US militarization of the Red Sea, an official said on 9 January.

Fadl Abu Talib, a member of the political bureau of the Ansarallah resistance movement, said on Tuesday that “the UAE, through its mercenaries in Yemen, is making arrangements to target commercial ships that are not destined for the Zionist entity.”

Abu Dhabi and its proxy wish “to mix up the cards and give the Americans [the] justification for militarizing the Red Sea,” Abu Talib added. “But we tell it that its despicable behavior is exposed, as our operations in the Red and Arab seas have specific, clear objectives.”

Ansarallah and Yemen’s Armed Forces have carried out numerous naval operations against vessels linked to or bound for Israel. The attacks come in solidarity with the people of Gaza and the Palestinian resistance, and aim to prevent goods from reaching Israeli ports for as long as Gaza’s access to aid is hindered.

Sanaa has vowed that only Israeli-linked ships or those heading towards Israeli ports will be targeted, and nothing else. No deaths or injuries have resulted from Yemen’s attacks.

The US established a maritime task force last month in order to protect Israeli interests in the Red Sea. As part of the operations of this task force, on 31 December, US helicopters sank three Yemeni vessels and killed ten naval officers.

On 9 January, CENTCOM claimed that US and UK forces shot down 21 missiles and drones fired by Ansarallah towards Red Sea shipping lanes, calling it the 26th Yemeni attack. Sanaa has only confirmed 13 operations.

According to Arabic and Israeli media reports, officials in Yemen’s secessionist, UAE-backed Southern Transitional Council (STC) have expressed an interest in joining Washington’s task force and helping to protect Israeli shipping.

The STC has also reportedly discussed with Washington the possibility of mobilizing UAE-backed mercenary groups and STC-linked militias “against Israel’s opponents in Yemen,” Al-Akhbar newspaper reported last month.

“The STC in south Yemen wants to fight Houthi terrorism … If Israel recognizes our right to self-determination in southern Yemen, you will find an ally in the field against the Houthi threat,” Hebrew media cited a source close to STC leader Aidarous al-Zubaidi as saying.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, False Flag Terrorism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

US gives Spain ultimatum to ‘rectify its decision’ and join anti-Yemen alliance

The Cradle | January 10, 2024

Pentagon officials are pressuring Spain to “reconsider its refusal” to take part in the Red Sea Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG) and have set an 11 January deadline for Madrid to “join with a ship or, at least, with personnel stationed in the area,” according to informed sources who spoke with Spanish daily El Confidencial.

As the US-led alliance struggles to make an impact against the pro-Palestine actions of the Yemeni armed forces, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Charles Brown, on Monday contacted his Spanish counterpart, Admiral Teodoro Lopez Calderon, to reiterate Washington’s “desire to work with all nations that share an interest in defending the principle of freedom of navigation and ensuring safe passage for global shipping.”

“Spain is a vital NATO ally and shares a long and strategic relationship with the US,” says the US navy readout of the phone call.

In parallel to this conversation, which was made public, a separate phone call took place between the US Secretary of the Navy, Carlos del Toro, and the Spanish ambassador in Washington, Santiago Cabanas, during which the Pentagon official “in much more direct language” pressed Madrid to take part in the naval coalition in support of Israel.

“[Del Toro] gave [Cabanas], at the end of the conversation, a kind of ultimatum: He wants to know, at the latest on Thursday the 11th, if Spain corrected its decision,” El Confidencial reports.

Spain has been the most vocal NATO member to reject being named part of this “coalition of the willing,” vetoing a vote at the EU that called for support of the coalition and making it clear that its forces committed to Operation Atalanta – a counter-piracy operation off the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean – would not join OPG.

The veto by the Spanish mission to Brussels was a direct order from Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, according to local reports.

This public pushback prompted US President Joe Biden to contact Sanchez in late December to discuss the crisis in Gaza and warn him about the “Houthi threat” in the Red Sea.

Nonetheless, Sanchez maintained his decision against joining OPG and also refused to join a statement that the US and its main European and Asian allies published on 3 January in which they issued a collective warning to Yemen. France did not subscribe to this text either.

While Madrid has not publicly explained their reasoning for refusing Washington’s demands, El Confidencial reports that authorities believe that, if Spain were to join OPG, this “would be … a way to relieve pressure on Israel and reduce the possibilities of reaching a definitive ceasefire in Gaza.”

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | 2 Comments

State Dept Shakedown: US Slaps ‘Ultimatum’ on Greece in Bid to ‘Extort’ More Ukraine Aid

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 10.01.2024

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Greece on January 6 as part of his latest diplomatic push over the spiraling Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The top US diplomat jumped at the opportunity to wring a promise from Athens to fork out more aid for Ukraine.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken presented Greece’s Prime Minister a humiliating “ultimatum” when he visited Athens recently, Greek media outlets claim.

Kyriakos Mitsotakis was reportedly given just a few days to decide on a shipment of new weapons systems to the regime in Kiev. Blinken had made a stopover in Greece during his shuttle diplomacy trip linked to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, driven by fears of greater regional spillover. But amid the growing difficulty of wrestling more aid packages to Kiev amid ‘Ukraine fatigue’ prompted the US top diplomat to stoop to “extortion,” wrote the outlets.

As it is, Greece, a NATO member and US ally, was one of the first to send military aid to Ukraine. “Greece has already given everything, it has breached national defense, especially on the islands, in order to support Ukraine with defense material,” wrote the publications.

“What exactly does Blinken want us to send to [Ukraine’s President] Zelensky, who is collapsing on all fronts?.. It goes without saying that if Mitsotakis succumbs to the blackmail, it will cause unimaginable damage to our national interests,” Greek media warned.

Greece is one of the countries that rushed to provide military and financial assistance to Ukraine in order to impose the tyranny of Kiev on the Russian-speaking population of the Donbass, the Russian Ministry of Defense (MoD) has stated.

Last year, Greek Defense Minister Nikos Panagiotopoulos boasted about the transfer of an “incredible amount” of weapons to the Zelensky regime. In August, Athens opted to join a coalition of countries training Ukrainian pilots to fly F-16 fighter jets.

Back in August, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated at an Athens press conference with Mitsotakis that the sides had also adopted a joint declaration in which Mitsotakis committed Greece to continuing military support for Ukraine. Moreover, Athens vowed to support Kiev’s aspirations to join NATO.

In response, Greece’s largest opposition party, the Coalition of the Radical Left – Progressive Alliance (SYRIZA) slammed the moves, saying that they amount to Greece’s “direct military involvement” in the Ukraine conflict.

Moscow has repeatedly condemned the supply of weapons to Ukraine by Western countries and accused the US-led West of trying to prolong the conflict. In early June 2023, Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov reiterated that the goals of the military operation would be achieved despite shipments of foreign weapons to Kiev, which would undoubtedly cause Ukraine “more suffering.”

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | 1 Comment

West got Ukraine ‘painfully wrong’ – EU state’s PM

RT | January 10, 2024

Funding and arming Ukraine is a “futile waste of human resources and money” that will serve only to fill Ukrainian cemeteries with “thousands of dead soldiers,” Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico wrote in an op-ed on Tuesday. Fico’s article was a rebuttal to his country’s president, who has urged him to send weapons to Kiev.

Following his party’s electoral victory in September, Fico immediately cut off Slovakia’s military aid to Ukraine and vowed to block Kiev’s accession to NATO. Slovak President Zuzana Caputova, however, has called for Ukraine to be given “the means needed to defend itself,” while pro-Western pundits in Slovakia have accused Fico of cozying up to the Kremlin.

“I will no longer be subject to stupid liberal and progressive demagoguery,” Fico wrote in Slovakia’s Pravda newspaper. “It is literally shocking to see how the West has repeatedly made mistakes in assessing the situation in Russia.”

Despite pumping Ukraine with tens of billions of dollars’ worth of weapons and sanctioning Moscow’s economy, “Russia completely controls the occupied territories militarily, Ukraine is not capable of any meaningful military counter-offensive, [and] it has become completely dependent on financial aid from the West with unforeseeable consequences for Ukrainians in the years to come,” he explained.

“The position of the Ukrainian president is shaken, while the Russian president increases and strengthens his political support,” Fico continued, pointing out that “neither the Russian economy nor the Russian currency collapsed, [and] anti-Russian sanctions have increased the internal self-sufficiency of this huge country.”

Should the West continue along the path desired by Caputova, “in two or three years we will still be where we are now,” Fico predicted. “The EU alone will be perhaps 50 billion euros lighter, and in Ukraine, cemeteries will be full with thousands more dead soldiers.”

Fico’s Slovak Social Democracy (SMER-SD) faction currently leads a three-party coalition government, while Caputova is the co-founder of the Progressive Slovakia party. Caputova’s role as president is largely ceremonial, and Fico claimed in his op-ed that she is “impatiently waiting” for the end of her term this year so that she can re-enter parliamentary politics.

Fico has labeled Caputova an “American agent” on several occasions. After consulting the American Embassy in Bratislava last summer, Caputova sued Fico over the remarks, Slovakia’s SITA news agency reported.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia | , , | 1 Comment

Wall Street Journal Sets Standard for Irresponsible Journalism in Ukraine

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | January 10, 2024

Recently, The Wall Street Journal joined the flood of American mainstream media outlets, including The New York Times, Politico and several others, in preparing the American public for a Russian victory.

After nearly two years, over $113 billion of U.S. taxpayers’ money spent at horrendous cost in life and limb has put Ukraine in a worse bargaining position than they were at the start of the war. As many as 50,000 Ukrainians are now amputees. And though statistics on Ukrainian casualties are a tightly sealed state secret, the most plausible sources suggest casualties and fatalities as staggering as 400,000-500,000. These numbers fit with internal Ukrainian communications that suggest that maintaining their numbers on the field would require replacing 20,000 soldiers a month. The same figure has been given in a New York Times article that quoted a former battalion commander who “estimated that Ukraine will need to enlist 20,000 soldiers a month through next year to sustain its army, both replacing the dead and wounded.” 20,000 over an approximately two year war puts the figure well over 400,000. Most recently, Yuriy Lutsenko, the former prosecutor general and ex-head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine, has said that 500,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed or seriously wounded. Interestingly, it is Moscow that provides the most conservative figures. Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu recently said that Ukraine has lost over 215,000 soldiers in 2023 with over 383,000 killed or wounded since the war began.

The 400,000-500,000 figure for Ukrainian soldiers lost to the battlefield by casualties and deaths also matches the 450,000-500,000 number that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky says the military has requested in a new mobilization. In another sign of a battle between Zelensky and Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces Valery Zaluzhny, after Zelensky assigned responsibility to the military for requesting the unpopular draft, Zaluzhny placed the responsibility back on the government, denying that the military had ever formally requested the mobilization or provided the number.

The Wall Street Journal laid the psychological groundwork preparing the American public for defeat in Ukraine, despite the loss of Ukrainian lives and American dollars, with the line “Even if aid for Ukraine is renewed, it is essential to consider a realistic ending for the war.” It goes on to say that, though “Ukraine’s insistence on regaining all the territory Russia has seized since 2014 is understandable…events over the past year have made it clear that this goal can’t be achieved anytime soon.” The article concludes with the prescription that “Western leaders should explore” negotiations to end the fighting, calling it “a bitter pill” but “the only realistic path to a lasting peace in Europe.”

But it is in two short paragraphs near the end of the article that The Wall Street Journal does its readers a disservice by leaving out more information than it gives them, challenging the standards for responsible journalism.

The first of the two paragraphs state, “Recent reports, which Mr. Putin hasn’t denied, suggest that he is ready to agree to a cease-fire along the current battle lines. Although he is unwilling to retreat, these reports indicate that he had shelved his aim to dominate all of Ukraine.”

Though The Wall Street Journal is free to speculate that Vladimir Putin aimed to “dominate all of Ukraine,” it is also obliged to clarify that there is nothing on the documented historical record to indicate that Putin ever had dominating all of Ukraine as an objective. Scholar John Mearsheimer has pointed out, “There is no evidence in the public record that Putin was contemplating, much less intending to put an end to Ukraine as an independent state and make it part of greater Russia when he sent his troops into Ukraine on February 24th.” That has also never been one of Putin’s stated goals of the military operation. His list of goals has consistently been that Ukraine cannot join NATO, that NATO won’t turn Ukraine into a heavily armed anti-Russian country on its border, and that the rights of ethnic Russian Ukrainians be protected. Russia has clearly stated that it “support[s] Ukraine’s territorial integrity” if Ukraine returns to the promise of permanent neutrality upon which Russia first recognized Ukrainian independence in 1991.

In the next paragraph, the article insists that “there are good reasons to be skeptical” that Putin is serious about negotiating a peace that would abandon his ambition to dominate Ukraine. But, though the author has the right to be skeptical, he needs to set out what those “good reasons” are because, once again, they ignore the historical record.

An overwhelming host of people who were present at the Istanbul talks have testified to just how close Russia and Ukraine came to a negotiated peace in the early days of the war. But in questioning Putin’s seriousness about negotiating a peace, The Wall Street Journal ignores reporting that came out several days before its own reporting that former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine Oleksandr Chalyi, who was a member of the Ukrainian delegation in Istanbul, says that Putin was very serious about negotiating.

After reminding his audience at a debate in Geneva that he was actually there, Chalyi says that during the Istanbul talks “in March and April,” they “concluded [the] so called Istanbul Communique. And we were very close in the middle of April, in the end of April to finalize our war with some peaceful settlement.” Chalyi reports that Putin personally decided to accept the text of the Communique and that Putin “demonstrated a genuine effort to find a realistic compromise and achieve peace.”

The Journal article then goes to claim that Putin’s Ukraine ambitions are merely part of a larger “plan to reconstitute the Soviet empire.” As evidence, the writer cites Putin’s 2005 statement that the collapse of the Soviet Union was “the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century.”

Putin did say that. But like other quotations made by Putin, it is employed misleadingly by omitting its context. First of all, he did not call it “the greatest” catastrophe but “a major” disaster. But the catastrophe after the fall he is referring to is not the absence of the Soviet Union but, primarily, the economic hardship that followed in the wake of its break up. He bemoaned that “individual savings were depreciated” and oligarchs “served exclusively their own corporate interests.” He remembered that “mass poverty began to be seen as the norm.”

The misleading strategy employed here is similar to the one frequently employed when Putin is quoted as having said, “Whoever does not miss the Soviet Union has no heart,” without adding that his next words were, “Whoever wants it back has no brain.” The first part refers to the same events Putin bemoans in the statement quoted in the Journal article; the second part entirely changes the claimed meaning by restoring the first to its context.

The Wall Street Journal article seems to be part of a media psychological campaign to prepare Americans for a Russian victory in Ukraine despite the massive expense in American aid, American weapons, and Ukrainian lives. But it could better prepare them for the inevitable negotiations that it predicts by honestly preparing them with the truth about the causes of the war and about the demonstrated possibility of negotiations, an understanding of which will be necessary if those negotiations are to succeed.

January 10, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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