Moscow does not recognize Washington’s attempt to illegally claim over a million square kilometers of maritime territory, including in the Arctic and the Bering Sea, the Russian Foreign Ministry has said.
Russian representatives informed the Council of the International Seabed Authority of this on Monday. The council is currently meeting in Kingston, Jamaica and operates under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS).
The US is “unilaterally trying to reduce the area of the seabed under the Authority, and hence the entire international community,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
The US Department of State announced its “extended continental shelf” project in December 2023, claiming jurisdiction of approximately one million square kilometers beyond its territorial waters. The UNCLOS allows maritime claims of up to 200 nautical miles (370 km) from the shore in the world’s oceans.
“These unilateral steps by the US do not conform to the rules and procedures established by international law,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, noting that it “blocked Washington’s latest attempt to use the 1982 Convention exclusively to advance its own interests.”
UNCLOS allows the possibility for expanding a country’s exclusive economic zone (EEZ) if it can prove that the continental shelf extends past the 200-mile limit, but countries have to submit a petition through the proper channels, as Russia did in 2015.
Moscow accused Washington of “focusing on its rights and completely ignoring its obligations” when it comes to international law. Even though it was involved in crafting the UNCLOS, the US has never ratified it.
According to the Russian Foreign Ministry, the note in which Moscow refused to recognize the US continental shelf claims has already been delivered to Washington “through bilateral channels.”
Maps published by the State Department show the US claiming territory in six areas, including in the Arctic and the Bering Sea along the maritime boundary with Russia. The Arctic claim goes 350-680 nautical miles beyond the 200-mile line, while the Bering Sea claim goes approximately 340 nautical miles east.
Washington also wants to appropriate portions of the seabed north of the Mariana Islands in the Pacific Ocean, as well as off the west coast of California.
In the Atlantic, the US has claimed a wide swath of seabed beyond its 200-mile line, as well as two sections of the Gulf of Mexico along the boundary with Mexico and Cuba.
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Illegal Occupation | Russia, United States |
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German Osteopath, Health and Science Lead, and Steering Committee Member of the World Council for Health (WCH), Christof Plothe stated that Human Rights, as defined by the UN, are universal, inalienable, and indivisible, ensuring equality and non-discrimination. They are inherent to every human being and cannot be granted or revoked by any state or government. And yet, Human Rights were ignored and trampled on during the Covid-19 event.
Christof Plothe raised 36 critical questions that must be urgently addressed to ensure that the abuse of human rights that took place in response to Covid-19 never happens again:
- Why were we not told that the Covid 19 virus was patented by Moderna in 2018?
- Why did Moderna produce 100,000 Covid-19 vaccine doses in 2019 before the pandemic started?
- Why, against all scientific evidence, were lockdowns and masks used?
- Why were we not told that the ‘vaccine’ does not remain in the arm, but accumulates all over the body?
- Why was PCR testing recommended when it is not designed for diagnostic purposes?
- Why were the definitions of ‘vaccine’, and ‘herd immunity’ changed prior to the Covid-19 outbreak?
- Why was a pandemic declared when the case fatality rate was akin to ’flu?
- Why were tests on genotoxicity, teratogenicity, and carcinogenicity not carried out, and yet we were told the ‘vaccine’ was safe?
- Why was there no proper follow-up of all people injected when using a new gene therapy product?
- Why were doctors and the public not reminded regularly about the need to report adverse reactions to these new and experimental genetic ‘vaccines’?
- Why was a ‘vaccine’ recommended during an ongoing pandemic, which is contraindicated in vaccinology?
- Why was a ‘vaccine’ recommended for those who had superior natural immunity?
- Why was a novel gene therapy launched after three months, instead of the required ten years?
- Why were we not told that, in the Pfizer trial, more people died in the vaccinated group than in the control group?
- Why were we told that Covid injections were ‘safe and effective’ when the evidence did not substantiate this?
- Why were – and are – opposing voices from science and practicing medicine discredited, punished, and jailed?
- Why were doctors, for the first time in history, discouraged from treating a disease, and told to wait for a vaccine?
- Why was early treatment discouraged, whilst we know it is the most important tool to address any infectious disease?
- Why were effective and very safe medicines like hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin discredited and even prohibited?
- Why did the producers of the novel gene therapies not want their data to be published for 75 years?
- Why were Covid injections, masks and lockdowns recommended for children when it was known that they were not severely affected and did not spread Covid?
- Why were the Covid injections recommended in pregnancy, when over 80% of babies were lost in trials when women were vaccinated in the first trimester?
- Why was emergency approval guaranteed when over 2,000 people died within the first three months after vaccination roll-out?
- Why is there no scientific outcry after over 3,500 papers have been published demonstrating side effects of the Covid-19 injections?
- Why are conflicts of interest tolerated among medical authorities, with the FDA, EMA, and WHO being 80-90% funded by industry?
- Why was there no adequate education of doctors, patients, and the public, and thus no possibility of informed consent?
- Why and how were the media captured so that they pushed only one agenda worldwide?
- Why were and are effective treatment protocols, which have existed since 2020, banned and declared illegal?
- Why are we not told about the unnecessary deaths that were attributed to Covid but actually caused by iatrogenic measures (e.g. Midazolam, ventilation) carried out in early 2020?
- Why was the fundamental role of Vitamin D status, diet, and the microbiome not communicated, when these measures could have prevented almost 100% of Covid deaths?
- Why was and is a certain medical procedure forced upon people against their will, whilst the Nuremberg Declaration clearly opposes this?
- Why is gain of function research, like that relating to Covid-19, not banned worldwide?
- Why is an mRNA product still being used, when we know that mRNA is being incorporated into the human genome, and resulting in the production of other, unknown, proteins?
- Why has the failed mRNA concept not been stopped, when we know it increases the likelihood of the recipient getting Covid-19, thus demonstrating negative efficacy?
- Why do these products continue to be recommended, when at least 17 million people are believed to have died due to the injections?
- Why is there no investigation into excess deaths, and increases in rates of cancer and heart problems, etc., which started in 2021, not in 2020?
It is absolutely clear that the WHO must not be allowed to continue with its plans to amend the International Health Regulations or finalise their ‘Pandemic Treaty’ without responding to these questions.
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | Covid-19, COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights |
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Now one animal trial will do the trick to “prove” efficacy?
You can’t prove efficacy with an animal trial. You can’t prove safety with an animal trial. The anthrax vaccine studies PROVED that even when a vaccine seemed to work in animals, it was unclear what the right dose was and equally unclear how antibody levels related to protection, because they didn’t. Maybe because no one knew which antibody to measure?
Surrogate markers for approval of vaccines (or anything else) became a total joke when FDA began ignoring the requirement that “correlates of protection” were a essential before you could use antibodies, T cells, animals or anything besides humans to assess a vaccine. This means that you have to prove the surrogate marker or animal model actually duplicates the human response, since usually they don’t.
FDA officials ditched this absolutely necessary standard (imho illegally) and now want to a) cover their tracks, and b) foist more untested and possibly deadly injections on us going forward.
Who needs them? They are simply a Potemkin Village of a regulatory agency at this point. Thankfully ICAN is watching.
With public faith in FDA continuing to decline, the agency published draft guidance stating that a single animal study could be sufficient to demonstrate a vaccine’s effectiveness. ICAN’s attorneys submitted a comment in opposition to this draft guidance which comes shortly after FDA approved a COVID-19 booster based on trials performed solely in mice.
Back in 2007, an FDA advisory committee met to re-review the safety, effectiveness, and dosing of phenylephrine (Sudafed PE), a drug which has been on the market for nearly 50 years. At the 2007 meeting, the committee considered its efficacy data “borderline” but nonetheless voted 11-1 in favor of its efficacy, although it did vote in favor of additional studies being done.
On September 12, 2023, the same FDA committee, possibly attempting to bolster its image as a tough regulatory watchdog, voted unanimously to label phenylephrine “ineffective” as a nasal decongestant. The committee noted “significant methodological and statistical issues with the design and conduct of the original studies submitted to and evaluated by the Panel… All but one evaluated extremely small sample sizes, none adequately controlled for bias … and none performed appropriate sample size calculations,” and observed, “After a thorough review of all the available evidence, it is also possible that there may have been bias and/or data integrity issues at [at] least one study center … where five of the seven positive oral PE studies were conducted.”
If FDA follows the panel’s advice, the drug will be pulled from the market, despite the long-standing indications of its inefficacy, most of which were known in 2007. It’s too bad the committee didn’t perform this “thorough review” at any point prior to the last 50 years, before Americans wasted billions of dollars on an ineffective treatment (nearly $2 billion in 2022 alone) that apparently only exposed them to potential harm without benefit.
Ironically, on September 11, 2023, just one day before the committee met to clamp down on this “ineffective drug” with shoddy clinical trials, FDA issued draft guidance stating that, under certain circumstances, a manufacturer can show evidence of effectiveness for a biological product with a single clinical investigation conducted in animals, giving the example of “[w]hen the product is a preventive vaccine, and there is a well-established model of infection for a relevant infectious disease, and use of the vaccine in the animal model demonstrates prevention of disease.” Notably, this occurred shortly after FDA authorized the newest Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines, which are as Dr. Paul Offit notes, “new product[s],” even though Pfizer tested this brand-new shot only in mice — not humans.
Thus, on December 18, 2023, ICAN, through its attorneys, filed a formal comment in opposition to the draft guidance. In it, ICAN points out that, despite urging by ICAN in its November 2020 petition, FDA refused to amend the Phase III trials of the COVID-19 vaccines to ensure they met the required standard of “substantial evidence” of effectiveness. As a result, we now have generations of new vaccines being approved based on those original ineffective products.
Now, FDA is doubling down on its malfeasance by authorizing COVID-19 vaccines without human trials while simultaneously creating guidance to excuse its lack of oversight. As ICAN’s comment notes:
[I]t is apparent that FDA is tailoring guidance based on the vaccine manufacturers’ clinical trials instead of requiring that these trials comply with what any reasonable licensing agency should and would require. FDA has seemingly forgotten that its function is to regulate the pharmaceutical industry, not rubber stamp it. The Draft Guidance does not provide oversight, and even worse lends illegitimacy to the FDA when there is clearly insufficient evidence to support authorization or licensure. This is especially troubling for products that will be injected into healthy humans including babies, children, and pregnant women.
Rest assured that ICAN’s legal team will continue to serve as a watchdog for FDA and ensure it is held accountable for improperly wielding its regulatory authority and fulfilling its responsibilities.
To support future legal action like this, click here to donate!
You can read more about ICAN’s work serving as watchdog for our federal health agencies at the links below:
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Science and Pseudo-Science | FDA, United States |
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Over 9,000 Palestinian women have been killed since the start of Israel’s war against the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. Mothers have been the largest civilian population group killed by the occupation state, at an average of 37 per day since 7 October.
These statistics, from the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza and the Red Crescent Society respectively, only convey part of the suffering experienced by 2.3 million Palestinians in the Strip. There is not a single section of Palestinian society that has not paid a heavy price in the war, although women and children have borne the brunt of it, constituting over 70 per cent of all victims of the ongoing Israeli genocide.
While these women and their children have been killed at the hands of Israeli soldiers, it is true to say that they were murdered using weapons supplied by the US and Israel’s other Western allies. Now, however, we are told that the world is finally turning against Israel.
The West’s nod of approval to Tel Aviv to carry on with its daily massacres may soon turn into a collective snub.
This claim was expressed best by the 23 March cover of the Economist magazine. It showed a tattered Israeli flag, attached to a stick, and planted in an arid, dusty land. It was accompanied by the headline “Israel Alone”.
The image, undoubtedly expressive, was meant to serve as a sign of the times. Its profundity becomes even more obvious if compared with another cover from the same publication soon after the Israeli military conquered Arab territories in the war of June 1967, known to Palestinians as the Naksa. “They did it,” trumpeted the headline back then. In the background stood an Israeli tank to illustrate the West-funded triumph.
Between the two headlines much in the world and in the Middle East has changed. To claim that Israel now stands alone, though, is not entirely accurate, at least not yet.
Although many of Israel’s traditional allies in the West are now openly disowning its behaviour in Gaza, weapons from various Western and non-Western countries continue to flow, feeding the war machine as it, in turn, continues to harvest more Palestinian lives. This compels us to ask if Israel really does stand alone when its airports and seaports are busier than ever receiving massive shipments of weapons from all corners of the globe. The answer is simple: not in the least.
Almost every time a Western country announces that it has suspended arms exports to Israel, a news headline appears shortly afterwards indicating the opposite. This has happened repeatedly.
Last year, for example, Italy declared that it was blocking all arms sales to Israel, giving false hope that some Western countries were finally experiencing some kind of moral awakening. Alas, on 14 March, Reuters quoted Italian Defence Minister Guido Crosetto as saying that shipments of weapons to Israel are continuing, based on the flimsy logic that previously-signed deals would have to be “honoured”.
Another country that is also “honouring” its previous commitments is Canada, which announced on 19 March that, following a parliamentary motion, it had suspended arms exports to Israel. The celebrations of those advocating an end to the genocide in Gaza were just getting started when, a day later, Ottawa reversed the decision by announcing that it too will honour its commitments.
This demonstrates that some Western countries continue to preach to the rest of us with their unsolicited wisdom about human rights, women’s rights and democracy, but actually have no genuine respect for any of these values.
Canada and Italy are not the largest military supporters of Israel, however; the US and Germany are. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, in the decade between 2013 and 2022, Israel received 68 per cent of its weapons from the US and 28 per cent from Germany.
The Germans remain unperturbed, even though five per cent of the total population of Gaza have been killed, wounded or are missing due to the Israeli war.
Yet, the American support for Israel is far greater, although the Biden administration is still sending messages to its constituency, the majority of whom want the war to stop, that the US president is doing his best to put pressure on Israel to end it.
Although only two approved military sales to Israel have been announced publicly since 7 October, the two shipments represent just two per cent of the total US arms sent to Israel. This was revealed by the Washington Post on 6 March at a time when US media reported a widening rift between US President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“That’s an extraordinary number of sales over the course of a pretty short amount of time,” a former senior Biden administration official told the Post. Jeremy Konyndyk reached the obvious conclusion that the “Israeli campaign would not be sustainable without this level of US support.”
For decades, US military support for Israel has been the highest of any in the world. As from 2016, this unconditional support increased exponentially during the Obama Administration to amount to $3.8 billion per year.
Immediately after 7 October, however, the weapons shipments to Israel reached unprecedented levels. They included 2,000-pound bombs known as 5,000 MK-84 munitions. Israel has used these bombs to kill hundreds of innocent Palestinians.
Washington claims frequently to be looking into Israel’s use of US weapons. According to the Washington Post, though, Biden knew too well that, “Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets.”
In some ways, Israel does “stand alone”, but only because its behaviour is rejected by most countries and peoples around the world. However, it is hardly alone when its war crimes are being executed with Western arms and support.
For the Israeli offensive in Gaza to end, therefore, those who continue to sustain the ongoing bloodbath must end their supply of arms and ammunition. Then Israel must be held to account for its crimes, as must all of the arms suppliers, for they are complicit in genocide.
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Canada, Germany, Israel, Italy, Palestine, United States, Zionism |
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Over the past two years, Moscow has collected evidence of Western involvement in training and arming jihadi terrorists to weaponize them on the Ukrainian battlefield and Russia’s rear.
The Crocus City Hall terror attack has raised questions about the West’s repeated use of jihadist elements, starting from arming Mujahideen in Afghanistan during the Cold War era to most recent reports of Islamists fighting on the side of the Kiev regime.
Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) stated on February 13, 2023, that it obtained intelligence indicating that the US military was actively recruiting militants from jihadist groups affiliated with ISIS and al-Qaeda to carry out terrorist attacks in Russia and the CIS countries. According to the SVR, particular attention is paid to attracting people from the Russian North Caucasus and Central Asia to cooperate.
The Russian intelligence service revealed that in January 2023, 60 terrorists with experience of participating in hostilities in the Middle East were recruited by the West, adding that they were undergoing training at the American base in Al-Tanf, Syria, to conduct terrorist and subversive attacks.
The SVR noted at the time that the militants would be dispatched in small groups to the territory of Russia and the CIS countries in cooperation with underground cells of international terrorist groups, including Hizb ut-Tahrir, Jamaat Ansarullah and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.
“We see the final loss of any moral principles in the US security forces,” the SVR summarized in its official statement, lambasting Washington’s obsession with inflicting a strategic defeat on Russia by any means possible. “Such actions put Washington on a par with the largest international terrorist groups.”
Intel data confirming the plans described by the SVR started to emerge later in the year. Russian Security Service (FSB) Director Alexander Bortnikov stated at the October 2023 meeting of heads of Russian security agencies and special services that ISIS and other terrorist groups were fighting against Russia as part of the Ichkerian and Crimean Tatar mercenary units in Ukraine. ISIS is also part of sabotage and reconnaissance groups sent to Russian territory to carry out attacks and terrorist attacks, Bortnikov emphasized.
The FSB director pointed out that Western governments were “actively facilitating the movement of militants into the Ukrainian conflict zone.” As of October 2023, the FSB had registered the participation of employees of 13 Western private military companies (PMCs) and members of nine foreign paramilitary proxy forces in the Ukraine conflict on the side of the Kiev regime.
According to Bortnikov, the US and its NATO allies have turned Ukraine into nothing short of a terrorist hotbed.
The FSB chief likewise drew special attention to the US and British intelligence services’ efforts to create a “belt of instability” in Afghanistan near the southern borders of the CIS, where al-Qaeda and the ISIS groups are becoming stronger. To that end, the Western intelligence services were recruiting militants from international terrorist organizations operating in Iraq, Syria, and a number of other Asian and African countries, and transferring them to northern Afghanistan.
“We note the increased role of al-Qaeda, which, in alliance with the IS branch Vilayat Khorasan, takes an active part in the preparation, indoctrination and logistical support of controlled groups,” Bortnikov stressed last October.
Islamic Terror Groups Flocking to Ukraine
From the very beginning of the Russian special operation in Ukraine, reports started to emerge in international media outlets and blogs, shedding light on jihadists of all stripes flocking to the combat zone in Ukraine.
In early March 2022, the BBC quoted Syria-based terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) explicitly expressing solidarity with the Kiev regime. High-profile HTS member al-Shamali al-Hurr took to Telegram to cheer Ukrainian victories by sharing footage and graphic images of damaged Russian military hardware and dead soldiers.
In April 2022, reports emerged claiming that the White Helmets, a Western-backed so-called “humanitarian” Syrian group, had arrived in Ukraine. Prior to this, the group, officially known as the Syrian Civil Defense, pledged to provide “tutorials” to the Ukrainian forces. The group was accused by Syrians of being connected to al-Qaeda offshoots operating in the Middle Eastern country and staging chemical attacks.
What’s more, initial training and financial support to the White Helmets was provided by the Mayday Rescue Foundation, a non-governmental organization established by ex-British Army officer James Le Mesurier. Le Mesurier’s group was instrumental in the West’s long-standing effort to topple the government of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, according to Grayzone investigative journalists’ account of events in 2016.
The SVR announced in May 2022, citing obtained evidence, that about 60 ISIS terrorists were released from prisons controlled by the US-backed Syrian Kurds a month earlier with the aim of dispatching them to Ukraine as sabotage units. The SVR highlighted that the US Al-Tanf base in Syria’s Homs province was turned into a terrorist hub where militants were trained to be deployed to Ukraine.
“Priority is given to natives of the states of Transcaucasia and Central Asia. The training ‘course’ in Al-Tanf includes training in the use of available types of anti-tank missile systems, reconnaissance and strike drones MQ-1C, advanced communications and surveillance equipment,” the SVR stated.
On October 22, 2022, Al-Monitor reported that it had learned that members of Ajnad al-Kavkaz, a Chechen-led Islamist group, left the Syrian province of Idlib and headed to Ukraine to fight against the Russian military.
Who Masterminded the Crocus City Hall Attack?
The Crocus City Hall terror attack was carried out by the hands of radical Islamists, but it is necessary to find the masterminds and those who benefitted from the hideous crime, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated on Monday.
“The horrific crime committed on March 22 in the capital of Russia is an act of intimidation … and the question immediately arises: who benefits?” Putin said. “This atrocity can only be an element in a whole series of attempts by those who have been fighting our country since 2014 with the hands of the neo-Nazi Kiev regime.”
In the wake of the attack four alleged perpetrators – Dalerdzhon Mirzoyev, Shamsidina Fariduni, Saidakrami Rachabalizoda and Muhammadsobir Fayzov – were caught in the Russian Bryansk region on the way to the Ukrainian border. According to the FSB, the jihadists had connections in Ukraine and sought to hide in the Eastern European country after committing the crime. The fifth suspect, Dilovar Islomov, was detained on March 25.
“We also need to answer the question of why the terrorists tried to leave for Ukraine after committing the crime and who was waiting for them there,” Putin underlined during the conversation with Russian authorities on security measures taken after the terrorist attack.
The Russian president specifically referred to the Biden administration’s effort to divert public attention from Ukraine’s possible involvement immediately after the tragedy.
“We see how the US is taking to various channels to convince its satellites and other countries that according to the data from its intelligence, there is allegedly no Ukrainian trace in the Moscow terrorist attack (…) We already know by whose hands this atrocity against Russia and its people had been carried out. Now we want to know who the mastermind is,” the Russian president emphasized.
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular | al-Qaeda, ISIS, Middle East, Russia, Ukraine, United States |
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Ranked second only to Osama bin Laden, the US’s most notorious declared enemy during the so-called War on Terror was Jordanian jihadist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the founder of Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI).
But a closer examination of Zarqawi’s life and his impact on events in Iraq shows that he was likely a product and tool of US intelligence.
Neoconservative strategists within the administration of George W. Bush utilized Zarqawi as a pawn to justify the illegal US invasion of Iraq in 2003 to the American public.
Moreover, he was instrumental in fomenting internal discord within Iraqi resistance groups opposing the US occupation, ultimately instigating a sectarian civil war between Iraq’s Sunni and Shia communities.
Israel’s plan unfolds in Iraq
This deliberate strategy of tension in Iraq advanced Tel Aviv’s goal of perpetuating the country’s vulnerabilities, dividing populations along sectarian lines, and weakening its army’s ability to challenge Israel in the region.
It has long been known that the CIA created Al-Qaeda as part of its covert war on the Soviet Red Army in Afghanistan in the 1980s and supported Al-Qaeda elements in various wars, including in Bosnia, Kosovo, and Chechnya in the 1990s.
Additionally, evidence points to CIA support for Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups during the clandestine war in Syria launched in 2011 amid the so-called Arab Spring.
Despite this history, western journalists, analysts, and historians still take at face value that Zarqawi and AQI were sworn enemies of the US.
Without understanding Zarqawi’s role as a US intelligence asset, it is impossible to understand the destructive role the US (and Israel) played in the bloodshed inflicted on Iraq, not only during the initial 2003 invasion but in launching the subsequent sectarian strife as well.
It is also essential to understand the importance of current Iraqi efforts to expel US forces and rid the country of US influence moving forward.
Who was Zarqawi?
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was born Ahmed Fadhil Nazar al-Khalaylah but later changed his name to reflect his birthplace, Zarqa, an industrial area near Amman, Jordan. In and out of prison in his youth, he would become radicalized during his time behind bars.
Zarqawi traveled to Afghanistan to fight with the CIA-backed mujahideen against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the late 1980s. Upon his return to Jordan, he helped start a local Islamic militant group called Jund al-Sham and was imprisoned in 1992.
After his release from prison following a general amnesty, Zarqawi returned to Afghanistan in 1999. The Atlantic notes that he first met Osama bin Laden at this time, who suspected that Zarqawi’s group had been infiltrated by Jordanian intelligence while in prison, which accounted for his early release.
Zarqawi then fled Afghanistan to the pro-US Kurdistan region of northern Iraq and established a training camp for his fighters in the fateful year of 2001.
The missing link
Eager to implicate Iraq in the 9/11 attacks, it wasn’t long before the Bush administration officials soon used Zarqawi’s presence to shroud Washington’s geopolitical agendas there.
In February 2003, at the UN Security Council, US Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq proved Saddam was harboring a terrorist network, necessitating a US invasion.
According to the Council on Foreign Relations, “This assertion was later disproved, but it irreversibly thrust Zarqawi’s name into the international spotlight.”
Powell made the claim even though the Kurdish region of Iraq, where Zarqawi established his base, was effectively under US control. The US air force imposed a no-fly zone on the region after the 1991 Gulf War. Israel’s foreign intelligence agency, the Mossad, was also known to have a presence there, a reality that Iran actively acknowledges and remains vigilant about.
Curiously, despite Zarqawi’s base being nestled within the confines of Iraqi Kurdistan, the Bush administration opted for inaction when presented with a golden opportunity to neutralize him.
The Wall Street Journal reported that the Pentagon drew up detailed plans in June 2002 to strike Zarqawi’s training camp but that “the raid on Mr Zarqawi didn’t take place. Months passed with no approval of the plan from the White House.”
Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon’s chief spokesman, justified the inaction by claiming “the camp was of interest only because it was believed to be producing chemical weapons,” even though the threat of chemical and biological weapons falling into the hands of terrorists was supposedly the most important reason for toppling Saddam Hussein’s government.
In contrast, General John M. Keane, the US Army’s vice chief of staff at the time, explained that the intelligence on Zarqawi’s presence in the camp was “sound,” the risk of collateral damage was low, and that the camp was “one of the best targets we ever had.”
The Bush administration firmly refused to approve the strikes, despite US General Tommy Franks pointing to Zarqawi’s camp as among the “examples of the terrorist ‘harbors’ that President Bush had vowed to crush.”
As soon as Zarqawi’s presence in Iraq had accomplished its initial purpose of selling the war on Iraq to the US public, and after the March 2003 invasion was already underway, the White House finally approved targeting his camp with airstrikes. But by then, the Wall Street Journal adds, Zarqawi had already fled the area.
Singling out Shiites
Then, in January 2004, the key pillar of the Bush administration’s justification for war unraveled. David Kay, the weapons inspector tasked with finding Iraq’s WMDs, publicly declared, “I don’t think they exist,” after nine months of searching.
The Guardian reported that the failure to locate any WMDs was such a devastating blow to the rationale for invading Iraq that now “even Bush was rewriting the reasons for going to war.”
On 9 February, as the WMD embarrassment mounted, Secretary of State Powell again claimed that before the invasion, Zarqawi “was active in Iraq and doing things that should have been known to the Iraqis. And we’re still looking for those connections and to prove those connections.”
Two weeks before, US intelligence had conveniently made public a 17-page letter it claimed Zarqawi had written. Its author claimed responsibility for multiple terror attacks, argued that fighting Iraq’s Shia was more important than fighting the occupying US army, and vowed to spark a civil war between the country’s Sunni and Shia communities.
In subsequent months, US officials attributed a series of brutal bombings targeting Iraq’s Shia to Zarqawi without providing evidence of his involvement.
In March 2004, suicide attacks on Shia shrines in Karbala and the Kadhimiya district of Baghdad killed 200 worshippers commemorating Ashura. In April, car bombings in the Shia-majority city of Basra in southern Iraq killed at least 50.
Regarding the Karbala and Kadhimiya attacks, Al-Qaeda issued a statement through Al-Jazeera strongly denying any involvement, but Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) head Paul Bremer insisted Zarqawi was involved.
Zarqawi’s alleged attacks on Iraq’s Shia helped drive a wedge between the Sunni and Shia resistance to the US occupation and sowed the seeds of a future sectarian war.
This proved helpful to the US army, which was trying to prevent Sunni and Shia factions from joining forces in resistance to the occupation.
‘Dividing our enemies’
In April 2004, President Bush ordered a full-scale invasion to take control of Fallujah, a city in Anbar province that had become the epicenter of the Sunni resistance.
Vowing to “pacify” the city, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt launched the attack using helicopter gunships, unmanned surveillance drones, and F-15 warplanes.
The attack became controversial as the Marines killed many civilians, destroyed large numbers of homes and buildings, and displaced the majority of the city’s residents.
Eventually, due to widespread public pressure, President Bush was forced to call off the assault, and Fallujah became a ‘no-go’ zone for US forces.
The failure to maintain troops on the ground in Fallujah had US planners turning back to their Zarqawi card to weaken the Sunni resistance from within. In June, a senior Pentagon official claimed that “fresh information” had come to light showing Zarqawi “may be hiding in the Sunni stronghold city of Fallujah.”
The Pentagon official “cautioned, however, that the information is not specific enough to allow a military operation to be launched to try to find al-Zarqawi.”
The sudden appearance of Zarqawi and other Jihadists in Fallujah at this time was not an accident.
In a report written for the US Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) entitled “Dividing our enemies,” Thomas Henriksen explained that the US military used Zarqawi to exploit differences among its enemies in Fallujah and elsewhere.
He writes that the US military maintained the goal of “fomenting enemy-on-enemy deadly encounters” so that America’s “enemies eliminate each other,” adding that “When divisions were absent, American operators instigated them.”
The Fallujah Case Study
Henriksen then cites events in Fallujah in the fall of 2004 as “a case study” that “showcased the clever machinations required to set insurgents battling insurgents.”
He explained that the takfiri–Salafi views of Zarqawi and his fellow jihadis caused tension with local insurgents who were nationalists and embraced a Sufi religious outlook. Local insurgents also opposed Zarqawi’s tactics, which included kidnapping foreign journalists, killing civilians through indiscriminate bombings, and sabotaging the country’s oil and electricity infrastructure.
Henriksen further explained that US psychological operations, which took “advantage of and deepened the intra-insurgent forces” in Fallujah, led to “nightly gun battles not involving coalition forces.”
These divisions soon extended to the other Sunni resistance strongholds of Ramadi in Anbar province and the Adhamiya district of Baghdad.
The divisions instigated by US intelligence through Zarqawi in Fallujah paved the way for another US invasion of the restive city in November 2004, days after Bush secured re-election.
BBC journalist Mark Urban reported that 2,000 bodies were recovered after the battle, including hundreds of civilians.
Conveniently, “Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was not among the dead,” having slipped through the US cordon around the city before the assault began, Urban added.
Domestic consumption
US military intelligence later acknowledged using psychological operations to promote Zarqawi’s role in the Sunni insurgency fighting against the US occupation.
The Washington Post reported in April 2006 that “The US military is conducting a propaganda campaign to magnify the role of the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq,” which helped “the Bush administration tie the war to the organization responsible for the 11 September 2001 attacks.”
The Post quotes US Colonel Derek Harvey as explaining, “Our own focus on Zarqawi has enlarged his caricature, if you will – made him more important than he really is.”
As the Post reports further, the internal documents detailing the psychological operation campaign “explicitly list the ‘US Home Audience’ as one of the targets of a broader propaganda campaign.”
The campaign to promote Zarqawi also proved helpful to President Bush during his re-election campaign in October 2004. When Democratic challenger John Kerry called the war in Iraq a diversion from the so-called War on Terror in Afghanistan, President Bush responded by claiming:
“The case of one terrorist shows how wrong [Kerry’s] thinking is. The terrorist leader we face in Iraq today, the one responsible for planting car bombs and beheading Americans, is a man named Zarqawi.”
Who killed Nick Berg?
Nick Berg, a US contractor in Iraq, was allegedly beheaded by Zarqawi. In May 2004, western news outlets published a video showing Berg, dressed in an orange Guantanamo-style jumpsuit, being beheaded by a group of masked men.
A masked man claiming to be Zarqawi stated in the video that Berg’s killing was in response to the US torture of detainees in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.
Berg was in Iraq trying to win reconstruction contracts and disappeared just days after he spent a month in US detention in Mosul, where he was interrogated multiple times by the FBI.
On 8 May, a month after his disappearance, the US military claimed they found his decapitated body on the side of a road near Baghdad.
But US claims that Zarqawi killed Berg are not credible. As the Sydney Morning Herald reported at the time, there is evidence the beheading video was staged and included footage from Berg’s FBI interrogation. It was uploaded to the internet not from Iraq but from London and remained online just long enough for CNN and Fox News to download it.
Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt also lied about Berg having been in US military custody, claiming instead he had only been held by the Iraqi police in Mosul.
But the video cemented in the minds of the American public that Zarqawi and Al-Qaeda were major terror threats.
Such was the impact in the US, that following the video’s release, the terms ‘Nick Berg’ and ‘Iraq war’ temporarily replaced pornography and celebrities Paris Hilton and Britney Spears as the internet’s main searches.
Sectarianism, a key US–Israeli goal
Large-scale sectarian war erupted following the February 2006 bombing of the Shia Al-Askari Shrine in the Sunni city of Samarra in central Iraq, although the full extent was mitigated thanks to religious guidance issued by the highest and most influential Shia authority in the land, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani.
Al-Qaeda did not take credit for the attack, but President Bush later claimed that “the bombing of the shrine was an Al-Qaeda plot, all intending to create sectarian violence.”
Zarqawi was finally killed in a US airstrike a few months later, on 7 June 2006. An Iraqi legislator, Wael Abdul-Latif, said Zarqawi had the phone numbers of senior Iraqi officials stored in his cell phone at the time of his death, further showing Zarqawi was being used by elements within the US-backed Iraqi government.
By the time of Zarqawi’s death, the neoconservative agenda to divide and weaken Iraq through instigating chaos and sectarian conflict had reached its pinnacle. This goal was further exacerbated by the emergence of a successor group to AQI – ISIS – which played an outsized role a few years later in destabilizing neighboring Syria, igniting sectarian tensions there, and providing the justification for the renewal of a US military mandate in Iraq.
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | al-Qaeda, CIA, Iraq, ISIS, Israel, Middle East, United States, Zionism |
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The leader of Yemen’s Ansarullah resistance movement has said the Saudi-led war on Yemen is part of a strategy pursued by the US and Britain to reshape the region in favor of Israel.
Abdul-Malik al-Houthi made the remarks in a televised address on Monday night marking the ninth anniversary of the Saudi-led war on Yemen.
“The Yemen war was part of a larger geopolitical strategy pursued by the United States, Britain, and Israel to reshape the region for the benefit of the Zionist regime,” he said.
He condemned the Saudi-led offensive as an unwarranted and deceitful conflict aimed at obliterating Yemen, seizing control, and subverting the people’s entitlement to liberty and autonomy.
Houthi went on to highlight the resilience of the Yemeni nation in overcoming the invading forces and their ongoing progress.
The Ansarullah chief noted that the Saudi-led aggression on Yemen has resulted in the death or injury of over 50,000 civilians, mostly women and children.
He reiterated that the Yemeni nation’s spirit remains unbroken, despite the extensive damage inflicted on the country’s essential infrastructure and high civilian toll.
Houthi also emphasized that the Yemeni Armed Forces will further develop their indigenous military capabilities and that authorities in the Sana’a-based National Salvation Government will strive to boost the economy.
He finally called upon certain countries to rectify their miscalculations and renounce their aggressive policies towards Yemen.
In March 2015, Saudi Arabia and its allies launched the war on Yemen to restore power to the impoverished country’s Western- and Riyadh-allied government.
The war has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of Yemenis and turned the entire country into the site of what the United Nations has described as the one of world’s worst humanitarian crises.
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Wars for Israel | Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, UK, United States, Yemen, Zionism |
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Declassified British Ministry of Defence (MOD) files reviewed by The Grayzone reveal that officials in London conspired to embroil US troops in a secret plan to occupy Yugoslavia and “topple” President Slobodan Milosevic during NATO’s 1999 war on the country. Though the crazed scheme was never implemented, details of the plot reveal precisely how British officials successfully shaped Washington into a blunt force instrument of their vanquished empire in years to come.
March 24 marks the 25th anniversary of Operation Allied Force, NATO’s 78-day-long bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. Still venerated in Western mainstream as a successful “humanitarian intervention” conducted to prevent an impending “genocide” of Kosovo’s Albanian population, the war was in fact a wantonly destructive, illegal assault on a sovereign, multiethnic country, based on lies and atrocity propaganda. Belgrade had in fact been engaged in a counterinsurgency battle against the CIA and MI6-backed Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), an Al Qaeda-linked extremist group.
The KLA—funded by the narcotics trade and organ harvesting—explicitly sought to maximize civilian casualties, in order to precipitate Western intervention. In May 2000, a British parliamentary committee concluded all purported abuses of Albanian citizens by Yugoslav authorities occurred after NATO’s bombing began, finding that the alliance’s intervention had actually encouraged Belgrade to aggressively neutralize the KLA. Meanwhile, in September 2001, a UN court in Pristina determined that Belgrade’s actions in Kosovo were not genocidal in nature, or intent.
These findings are largely overlooked today. A February Politico investigation into the West’s post-war pillage of Kosovo axiomatically asserted that NATO intervened in Yugoslavia “to halt an unfolding genocide against the ethnic-Albanian population.” Similarly forgotten is just how close leading NATO states came to invading Belgrade during that chaotic spring.
British proposals for US invasion of Yugoslavia
By April 29, 1999, NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia had entered its fifth week. On that date, Richard Hatfield, then-Policy Director of Britain’s Ministry of Defence, dispatched a “Strategic Planning Group discussion paper on Kosovo ground force options” to London’s military, security, and intelligence apparatus. In a document marked “Secret – UK eyes only,” Hatfield demanded an “immediate” decision on whether to formally invade Yugoslavia:
“If we are to influence US thinking on ground force options, we need to pass the paper to them very quickly… Our planning is ahead of the US, other allies and [NATO HQ]… We believe the US may be developing its initial thinking on ground force options this week. Our paper could exercise significant influence on their conclusions. The [Chiefs of Staff] therefore agreed we should pass it to the US privately (through military and policy channels) as quickly as possible.”
According to Hatfield, London had to “overcome” a “great deal of reluctance and scepticism” in Washington regarding a formal ground invasion, so “decisions need to be taken quickly if we are to launch an operation before Winter.” Evidently, a firm timeline for action had germinated in London. It was simultaneously vital to “make clear” to then-Prime Minister Tony Blair that “although we can influence planning for a possible ground campaign, we cannot expect the US or NATO to accept British views easily or unreservedly.”
Therefore, an “early agreement in principle to a ground campaign” was considered “more important than the details,” the document states. In other words, securing US commitment to putting boots on the ground trumped all basic technical concerns. After all, Blair’s invasion fantasy hinged entirely on Washington dispatching hundreds of thousands of US soldiers to Yugoslavia. London would by contrast deploy just 50,000—most of the available British Army at the time. This disparity was likely a key source of American “reluctance and scepticism.”
London therefore drafted four separate scenarios for the war. This included invading Kosovo alone and “liberating” the province from Belgrade’s control. This option would limit “overspill into other areas of Serbia”, while guaranteeing “no permanent military presence elsewhere” in the country. Another proposal, dubbed “wider opposed,” would see NATO invade Yugoslavia outright, with the aim of “defeating the Serb armed forces and if necessary toppling Milosevic.” The latter forecast an “organised Serb resistance” at every level in response.
Another source of US “reluctance and scepticism,” no doubt, was the fact that every country bordering Yugoslavia—even NATO members and aspirants—were either on the record as having rejected, or being expected to reject, the use of their territory for ground invasion. For example, two of London’s war proposals depended “fundamentally on Greek agreement to use their port facilities and airspace.” Without Greece’s acquiescence, NATO “would have no choice but to mount a wider opposed operation from Hungary, Romania and/or Bulgaria, which would be even more difficult politically.”
Coupled with deep historic and cultural ties, the longstanding record of warm relations between Athens and Belgrade effectively ruled out both plans that were dependent on Greece. An invasion conducted via the latter countries, on the other hand, meant that “it would be impossible to constrain the scope of war with Serbia.” Meanwhile, Albania, which supported the KLA while serving as NATO’s effective headquarters throughout the bombing of Yugoslavia, and Macedonia, “where [NATO] troop levels [were] already causing problems,” were said to fear becoming formal belligerents in any conflict due to likely “Serb retaliation.”
Blair calls for ‘coalition of the willing’
Despite the apparent infeasibility of a ground invasion, British officials—Blair in particular—were completely determined to push ahead in Yugoslavia. Their bombing campaign was a failure. Limited to the skies, NATO jets relentlessly blitzed Serbian civilian, government, and industrial infrastructure, killing over a thousand innocent people—including children—and violently disrupting daily life for millions. But Yugoslav forces cunningly deployed decoy vehicles to divert the military alliance, while concealing their anti-KLA operations under adverse weather and deception tactics.
In public, NATO military apparatchiks, political pawns, and media minions exalted their stunning success and inevitable victory on the battlefield. But the declassified files show Ministry of Defence officials spent much of their time bemoaning the fact that their bombs were neither intimidating Milosevic, nor hindering the Yugoslav army’s war on the KLA. Belgrade’s forces were said to have consistently deceived NATO “very successfully” via extensive use of “camouflage, dummy targets, concealment and bunkers.”
British officials repeatedly expressed concern that the Yugoslav army could actually succeed in expelling the KLA from Kosovo entirely, allowing Milosevic to declare victory and dictate peace terms to NATO. Blair was reportedly determined to reject any such offer. Moreover, it was well-understood that NATO’s bombing had rallied citizens to support their leader. As one paper conceded, alliance airstrikes on Yugoslavia’s Interior Ministry “demonstrated to Belgrade citizens just how vulnerable their city is, but achieved little else.”
“Forewarned by a target list posted on CNN’s website last week, the Serbs had already moved out of the building. Kosovo has been swept clean in less than a week and in the US, a climbdown may be on the cards, as the costs and dangers of escalation hit home,” the April 4 missive asserted.
The following day, Blair dispatched a personal “note for the record” to senior British government, intelligence and military officials. He lambasted the bombing campaign’s lack of “vigour,” suggesting the British public “does not have the confidence we know what to do,” before concluding: “we appear not to have a grip.”
Blair then proposed the formation of a “coalition of the willing” to counteract opposition to escalation within NATO and “prosecute this to the end.” In an apparent fit of bloodlust, the Prime Minister proceeded to outline a series of demands:
“We must strengthen the targets. Media and communication are utterly essential. [Attacking] Oil, infrastructure, all the things Milosevic values… is clearly justified.”
“What is holding this back?” Blair fumed. “I have little doubt we are moving towards a situation where our aim will become removing Milosevic. We will not want to say so now, but autonomy for Kosovo inside Serbia is becoming absurd. And plainly Milosevic will threaten the stability of the region as long as he remains.”
The Ministry of Defence subsequently circulated a memo on “targeting,” which warranted “immediate attention,” that noted London had “offered the US three significant targets” identified by MI6: Belgrade’s iconic Hotel Jugoslavia; a Cold War-era Bunker; and the Yugoslav capital’s Central Post Office. While conceding that a strike on Hotel Jugoslavia would mean “some civilian casualties,” the memo insisted that their lives were “worth the cost.”
NATO subsequently hit Hotel Jugoslavia on May 7 and 8 in 1999, damaging its bars, boutiques, and dining halls while killing a refugee who sought shelter inside. The Washington Post promptly justified the strike by claiming it may have targeted a notorious Serbian paramilitary leader, who allegedly owned a casino housed within the hotel. Asked by the newspaper if he took the bombing personally, the fighter, known as “Arkan,” replied:
“When they hit civilians, I take it personally. You don’t change minds with Tomahawks. If they want to bring me to justice, why do they want to kill me? If they want to get Arkan, send ground troops so I can see their faces. I want to die in a fair fight. Bill Clinton is in deep you-know-what. He bombs what he can. He says ‘God bless America’ and the rest of the world dies.”
NATO bombing stokes Chinese and Russian fears
Later that April, as per Blair’s personal order to target “media,” NATO bombed the Belgrade headquarters of the Yugoslav TV network RTS. The strike killed 16 journalists and wounded 16 more, with many trapped under rubble for days. The Prime Minister personally defended the criminal assault, claiming the station was a core component of Milosevic’s “apparatus of dictatorship and power”.
The NATO-funded International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia later investigated the RTS bombing. It concluded that while the site wasn’t a military target, the action aimed to disrupt Belgrade’s communications network, and was therefore legitimate. Amnesty International branded the ruling a miscarriage of justice. Then-NATO General Wesley Clark, who oversaw the bombing campaign, admitted it was understood that the attack would only interrupt RTS broadcasts for a brief period. Indeed, RTS was back on-air after just three hours.
The RTS strike represented one of several egregious war crimes NATO committed throughout the Yugoslavia campaign with total impunity. Officially, the 78-day-long aerial onslaught destroyed just 14 Yugoslav tanks, while devastating 372 industrial facilities, leaving hundreds of thousands jobless. The military alliance allegedly took directions on what to target from US corporations, including Philip Morris. NATO’s deliberate obliteration of chemical plants polluted soil, air, and water across the Balkans with over 100 toxic substances. Not coincidentally, Serbia today is a world leader in cancer rates.
On the first night that Hotel Jugoslavia was bombed, NATO carried out a simultaneous strike against Beijing’s embassy in Belgrade, killing three journalists, wounding dozens sheltering inside, and outraging Chinese and Serb citizens alike. NATO declared that this was merely an accident, caused by erroneous CIA targeting data. While the declassified Ministry of Defence files conspicuously contain no reference to this highly controversial international incident, they do mention grave Chinese concerns over the wider campaign. Namely, that it would “constitute a precedent for intervention elsewhere.”
British officials sought to allay these fears not only in Beijing, but Moscow. Then-Russian premier Yevgeny Primakov learned NATO had launched its campaign against Yugoslavia while he was literally mid-air, en route to the US for an official meeting. He immediately ordered the pilot to return to Russia. Despite his protest, the Kremlin thereafter attempted to compel Milosevic to cease hostilities in Kosovo via diplomatic channels.
Once it became clear that Russia would not intervene on his side, Milosevic folded and pledged to withdraw all Yugoslav forces from Kosovo on June 3, 1999. In turn, NATO would occupy the province. That same month, a cable dispatched from the British Embassy in Moscow observed the bombing was widely viewed locally “as a blow to [the] UN Security Council and threat to Russian interests… setting an unacceptable precedent for action out of area, circumventing the Security Council if necessary”:
“[Moscow’s Ministry of Defense] has used NATO’s resort to force to argue Russia’s new military doctrine should take more serious account of a potential threat from NATO, with all that that means in terms of force levels, procurement and the future of arms control… The UK’s forward position on the use of force has not gone unnoticed… The Kosovo campaign has reinforced the perception here of an expanding NATO as a powerful tool for the imposition of US will in Europe.”
Blair reportedly walked away from his destruction of Yugoslavia with newfound confidence. According to veteran British journalist Andrew Marr, the Prime Minister realized “he had tried to bounce [Clinton] too obviously over Kosovo,” thus concluding that “American Presidents need tactful handling” to achieve desired results. Blair also “learned to cope with giving orders which resulted in much loss of life.” Directing Yugoslavia’s collapse furthermore “convinced him of his ability to lead in war, to take big gambles, and to get them right.”
It was this arrogant attitude that guided Blair into the quagmire of Iraq, and to further interventions which wreaked havoc on the globe.
Blair fulfills ‘Britain’s destiny’
With the Yugoslav army fully withdrawn from Kosovo, the province began to resemble post-World War II Germany, carved into Western occupation zones. As a November 1999 OSCE report documented in sickening detail, a very real genocide immediately commenced. KLA fighters proceeded to not only purge Kosovo’s Roma and Serb population, but also clear out their Albanian political and criminal rivals via intimidation, torture, and murder—all under the watchful eye of NATO and UN “peacekeepers.”
The Independent reported that month that the KLA’s post-war campaign of “murder and kidnap” in NATO-occupied Kosovo—officially described as an effort “to ensure public safety and order”—reduced Pristina’s Serb population from 40,000 to just 400. A local European human rights worker told the newspaper that over the prior six months, “every single Serb” they knew had “been intimidated—verbally in the street, on the telephone, [or] physically” by the Al Qaeda-tied KLA.
In December 2010, a British “peacekeeper” posted to Kosovo during this time attributed Pristina’s modern day status as “an impoverished, corrupt and ethnically polarised backwater” to NATO’s “unwillingness to control KLA gangsters.” He recalled how London under his watch consistently “emboldened the KLA to greater brutality.” Whenever he captured the terror group’s fighters on the streets, heavily armed and “intent on murder and intimidation,” his superiors ordered them freed:
“I witnessed… the KLA rampaging like a victorious mob intent on retribution,” he explained, adding that “systematic murder of Serbs, often shot in front of their families, was commonplace.” Given that “KLA thugs wielding AK47s, knuckledusters and knives terrified residents of Serbian apartment blocks, Many Serbs fled,” the former soldier noted.
“The Blair government’s spin machine wanted moral simplicity. The Serbs were the ‘bad guys’, so that must make Kosovo Albanians the ‘good guys’… Prostitution and drug and people trafficking increased as the KLA’s grip on Pristina tightened.”
However, KLA fighters were shielded from ICTY prosecution for their innumerable horrific crimes by direct NATO decree. Only today is justice being vaguely served, to almost total Western indifference. In many cases, American politicians continue to sing the praises of brutal KLA leaders. In 2010, then-Vice President Joe Biden referred to later-indicted war criminal Hashim Thaci as Pristina’s “George Washington.” Thaci’s 2018 autobiography proudly features fawning promotional quotes from the current Oval Office occupant on its sleeve.
Since 1945, British officials have been overwhelmingly preoccupied with maintaining the bigger, richer, more powerful US Empire’s global dominance, so as to surreptitiously guide it in direction of their choosing. Rarely is this sinister mission so candidly articulated as in the documents presented here. While Blair’s reverie of “toppling” Milosevic via US force was unrequited, Washington’s calamitous post-9/11 “Global War on Terror” was explicitly British-inspired.
Not long after planes hit the World Trade Center that fateful day, Blair dispatched a bust of Winston Churchill to the White House, evoking the wartime leader’s famed December 1941 address to Congress, which heralded Washington’s entry into World War II. At the same time, the British premier privately wrote to President George W. Bush, urging him to exploit “maximum” global sympathy produced by 9/11 to launch military interventions across West Asia. This wave of belligerence was foreshadowed during Blair’s 1997 election campaign:
“Century upon century it has been the destiny of Britain to lead other nations. That should not be a destiny that is part of our history. It should be part of our future… We are a leader of nations, or we are nothing.”
A British-steered global Pax Americana was forged in Yugoslavia 25 years ago, in an incendiary baptism of airstrikes and atrocity propaganda, which subsequently inflicted death, destruction, and misery throughout the Global South. Today, untold millions across the world grapple with the painful legacy of Blair’s determination to fulfill London’s “destiny.”
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Kosovo, NATO, UK, United States, Yugoslavia |
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A massive tragedy struck Moscow last week as five armed assailants stormed the Crocus Concert Hall and opened indiscriminate fire on concertgoers, murdering over 130 and wounding many more.
The horrific massacre at the glitzy commercial center, which prompted a massive manhunt, led to the arrest of one assailant at the scene of the crime and others in the Bryansk forest, about 340 km southwest of the Russian capital.
Almost immediately, Daesh (or as the West calls “ISIS”) claimed responsibility for the ghastly massacre, releasing body cam footage of the shooters opening fire on people at the popular concert hall.
Since then, many have raised questions about the terrorist group’s motivations and objectives of the attack – and rightfully so.
Daesh has historically been at the service of Western powers. For example, any time the US needs an excuse to justify military operations from Syria to Iraq – Daesh just happens to raise its ugly face and sow chaos and destabilization.
In fact, Daesh is still the main justification for why the US illegally occupies much of Syria and Iraq – despite Axis of Resistance forces led by the late anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani destroying the edifice of the terror group in the region.
Or when Iran faced foreign plots in the form of armed riots in 2022 – rioters that had received training and financial support from American agencies – Daesh took advantage of the chaos and killed over a dozen pilgrims in a cowardly attack on the Shah Cheragh shrine in southern Iran’s Shiraz city.
The timing of the attack came as local security agencies were busy containing the armed rioters, and was seemingly a final bid by foreign hostile powers to foment chaos and disorder in Iran.
Chaos and destabilization are key to the nefarious plots hatched by US imperialists to push their hegemonic agendas. Since the very beginning of the Cold War, the US has been notorious for using mercenary proxy forces in order to advance its imperialistic goals.
So what is Daesh doing in Moscow? Three events come to mind that suggest things aren’t exactly what they seem. In other words, there is more to it than meets the eye.
Let’s switch back to January 2024 – outgoing US Under Secretary of State Victoria Nuland said “Putin faces some nasty surprises on the battlefield this year.”
Nuland was referencing the $60 billion supplemental funding for Ukraine from US Congress – funding that has from the start never been kept track of. Billions of dollars worth of money go into weapons, logistics, and other “aid.” It is no secret that Ukraine has been using mercenaries – even Takfiris.
Daesh fighting in Ukraine is not even a new development. Reports of Daesh fighters fleeing Syria to fight in Ukraine could be recorded as far back as 2015. Fighters were trained under Daesh and then sent to Ukraine to fight Donbas separatists on behalf of the Kiev regime.
We have seen Daesh fighting on the same side as American interests at least twice in recent times – once in Syria against the democratically-elected Syrian government, and second in Ukraine, against Russia – a key US adversary. Also, let’s not forget Afghanistan where Daesh fought the Taliban alongside the US.
Nuland insists that Putin will face challenges on the “battlefield” but Ukrainian drone attacks and bombings throughout Moscow have already set a terroristic precedent for attacks on Russian soil.
A diversity of tactics by employing Takfiri terrorists is still carrying out the same violence by other, more shocking means.
Second, the US knew in advance of a terrorist attack – with the US embassy in Moscow cautioning Americans to avoid large gatherings days before the dastardly attack that claimed more than 130 lives.
In a message to Americans, the embassy stated: “The Embassy is monitoring reports that extremists are planning to attack large gatherings in Moscow, including concerts, in the near future, and US citizens should avoid large gatherings for the next 48 hours.”
Though the message was posted on March 7 and warned of an imminent attack within two days, it seems the US had some damning intelligence. To what degree this information was shared – if it was shared at all – remains unclear.
It is well within the US playbook to post a message of this nature before an attack to absolve themselves of any wrongdoing – but what did the embassy staff and their handlers knew in advance?
The knowledge of the imminent attack also raises other questions. The apprehended shooters revealed they were recruited by unknown people via Telegram, and offered a million rubles for the job.
This is not the modus operandi of Daesh – who typically send fighters on missions that would most certainly ensure they do not survive. However, this does have the markings of the US – which has previously tested Daesh recruitment methods via entrapment cases.
Furthermore, Russian intelligence confirmed years ago that the US has been training Daesh for attacks on Russian soil. So regardless of whether the assailants were Daesh or not, US influence is clearly in one way or another seen in this attack.
Even if Daesh wants to take credit for the attack, ultimately they are just tools in the hands of their American financiers who are seemingly only deployed when the US needs to cause commotion.
And of course, there is the final point – the timing of the attack, and the usage of Daesh itself – corresponds to the international critical lens on Israel.
The Tel Aviv regime has never been under more pressure and detested to such a degree. Its war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip and disregard for international law have exposed its illegitimate nature.
The public image of Israel has simply never been worse, and they would need something absolutely horrific – and something they can use to their own benefit politically – to get out of the mess.
So where does Daesh come in? One must recall the first few weeks of the Al Aqsa Storm operation – where Zionist media started a campaign falsely equating Hamas with Daesh (ISIS).
The campaign, circulated with the false slogan “Hamas is ISIS” painted Hamas resistance fighters as Takfiri terrorists in order to gain international support for the Zionist cause.
This backfired massively. Hamas and Daesh are well-known enemies, are not ideologically aligned, and do not consider themselves allies in the slightest matter.
This Zionist lie was so far-fetched that even Western media outlets such as Time magazine, Politico, and AP news agency published articles detailing how the two groups are not alike.
Now, as the Zionist image is in tatters, a Daesh attack works in its favor – as it always has.
Racist Zionist politicians and pundits scrambled to social media to warn the world of “Islamism” and to insist yet again that Daesh is the same as Hamas, warning that if they do not destroy Hamas the world would see these attacks in Europe and in the United States, carried out by Hamas (who have never conducted terrorist operations as all of their targets are military targets, and further Hamas operations are limited to only occupied Palestine).
The attack that killed over a hundred innocents is being used as Israeli propaganda to conduct their own war crimes against the Palestinian people.
At best, this is standard Zionist racism and propaganda. At worst, the Zionists themselves had a direct hand in this, at a bare minimum having some knowledge from US intelligence services.
The entire situation screams of foreign manipulation and shadowy Western actors. Daesh has been the Western tool for over a decade now to sow chaos and mayhem – and it seemingly continues to be a go-to tactic for CIA-Mossad operations.
Over a hundred lives were lost and thousands were changed forever. The world must mourn with Moscow and the Russian people over this horrific loss of life – but it must also remain vigilant and ask the right questions.
Who really benefits from chaos and destruction in Russia? Who really benefits from chaos and destruction in Somalia, Iraq and Syria, where Daesh also operates?
One thing is undeniable: wherever you find Daesh, you will always find the shadow of the US with it.
Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Islamophobia, War Crimes | ISIS, Israel, Ukraine, United States, Zionism |
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More than 30 years ago, Congress enacted the President John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of 1992. Enacted in the wake of Oliver Stone’s movie JFK, which posited that the Kennedy assassination was a regime-change operation on the part of the U.S. national-security establishment, the law mandated that all the assassination-related records of the Pentagon, the CIA, the Secret Service, the FBI, and other federal agencies be released to the public. Having succeeded in keeping their assassination-related records secret for almost 30 years, they didn’t like that at all.
Today — more than 60 years after the assassination — the CIA continues to keep thousands of its assassination-related records secret. Its justification? You guessed it: “national security,” the two most powerful and meaningless words in the American political lexicon. CIA officials maintain, with straight faces, that if those still-secret assassination-related records were released, the United States would fall into the ocean, be taken over by communists, or have its “national security” endangered in some other silly way.
How in the world can “national security” be threatened by the release of records that are more than 60 years old, regardless of what definition is placed on that nebulous term? Indeed, how can any American really believe this nonsense? They obviously take Americans for dupes.
It is a virtual certainty that those still-secret records contain circumstantial evidence that further confirms criminal culpability on the part of the CIA and the Pentagon in the assassination of President Kennedy. After all, the CIA knows that that is precisely what most everyone is thinking with respect to the continued secrecy of those records. Why would the CIA want to leave people thinking that? One reason: Because it’s better to have people thinking that those records contain incriminating evidence rather than knowing that they do.
What could the CIA be hiding with those still-secret records? The answer necessarily has to be speculative in nature, but my hunch is that some of the still-secret information deals with Mexico City, where the accused assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was supposed to have met with Cuban and Soviet officials.
In the immediate aftermath of the assassination, it is obvious that everything went wrong with the Mexico City part of the assassination plot. For example, there were audiotapes that supposedly contained Oswald’s voice and then suddenly there were no such audiotapes. There was a photograph of Oswald except that it was a photograph of someone else.
Why was Mexico City an important part of the assassination plot? As I detail in my newest book on the assassination, An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story, an essential part of the assassination plot was to frame a communist. This was the height of the Cold War, when most everyone hated and feared the Reds. By framing a communist, the national-security establishment could rest assured that Americans would be reluctant to come to Oswald’s defense or believe anything he said.
Mexico City played an important role in this endeavor. Oswald was ordered to travel to Mexico City, where he was to meet with both Cuban and Soviet officials. In that way, the plotters could definitely tie the future assassin to the Soviet and Cuban communists.
Why would Oswald obey such orders? Because he was an operative for U.S. intelligence. Intelligence operatives follow orders, especially when they’re told that they are part of an intelligence operation.
In fact, in one of its first meetings, Earl Warren, the head of the Warren Commission, told the commission that there was highly discomforting evidence that Oswald was, in fact, an intelligence operative. Once the CIA and the FBI, which, of course, would never lie about such a thing, assured the commission that such wasn’t the case, Warren ordered that the meeting be kept top-secret and never revealed to the American people.
When he was serving in the military, Oswald became fluent in the Russian language. That is not an easy thing to do. It takes language experts, which the U.S. government has. That’s the only way Oswald could have learned to speak fluent Russian while he was in the military.
There is also New Orleans, where Oswald had moved from Dallas prior to his trip to Mexico City. In New Orleans, Oswald spent a lot of effort building up his “pro-communist” persona, especially with the help of an anti-Castro group called the DRE.
Immediately after the assassination, the DRE sent out a press release informing the nation that Oswald was a communist. There is one big important thing about the DRE that the nation did not know and would not know for several decades. It was a CIA-funded and CIA-supervised group. Thus, it was actually the CIA that wanted the nation to know that the president had been killed by a Red.
As JFK researcher Jefferson Morley, who first discovered the CIA’s connection to the DRE, has also discovered, the CIA was secretly monitoring Oswald in the months leading up to the assassination, including secretly reading his mail. Why would the CIA be doing that? Because if one is going to frame a person in a very complex murder plot, one has to be certain that the person being framed doesn’t figure out what is going on.
Will the CIA succeed in keeping its assassination-related records secret forever? Given the overwhelming power that the national-security branch has within the federal governmental structure, it’s a virtual certainty that it will succeed. But what difference does it make? The evidence that was released by the JFK Records Act already proves beyond a reasonable doubt that the Kennedy assassination was a national-security state regime-change operation, especially with respect to the fraudulent autopsy that the military conducted on JFK’s body and the fraudulent copy of the Zapruder film that the CIA produced. (See my books The Kennedy Autopsy and An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story.) The CIA’s still-secret assassination-related records would only add more circumstantial evidence to what we already know.
March 26, 2024
Posted by aletho |
Book Review, Deception, Timeless or most popular | CIA, Russia, United States |
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