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Harvard psychiatrist: Americans should be able to walk into a pharmacy & buy antidepressants over the counter

Maryanne Demasi, reports | April 15, 2024

In a recent STAT article, Roy Perlis, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, argued that antidepressants, known as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), should be made available at US pharmacies without a prescription.

Perlis called on the drug manufacturers to “engage with the FDA and invest the necessary resources” to make it possible because SSRIs have “repeatedly been shown to be safe and effective for treating major depression and anxiety disorders.”

It comes off the back of a recent FDA ruling that allows the purchase of the oral contraceptive Opill (norgestrel) over-the-counter, without a prescription at drug stores, convenience stores and grocery stores, as well as online.

Roy Perlis, Department of Psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, and a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School.

Perlis, who treats patients at Massachusetts General Hospital, failed to declare his ties to the pharmaceutical industry in the article, sparking anger among academics online.

While his concerns about patients’ limited access to doctors and treatment services are valid, doing “everything possible” to make antidepressants more easily available is not the answer.

Antidepressants are among the most prescribed treatments in the world. In fact, many experts have argued they are over-prescribed.

In February 2024, the journal Pediatrics published new research that revealed monthly antidepressant prescriptions to adolescents and young adults jumped more than 66% between January 2016 and December 2022.

And following pandemic lockdowns in March 2020, prescriptions rose 63% faster due to soaring rates of depression, anxiety, trauma, and suicidality – so limited access to antidepressants is not the problem.

Perlis acknowledges that antidepressants can increase the risk of suicide in people under the age of 25, but he also claims there’s “clear evidence” the risk of suicidality is reduced in older people.

However, SSRI-induced suicidality is not limited to young people. In 2007 the FDA updated the black box label on SSRI packaging, warning doctors to monitor suicidality in patients of all ages after commencing the medications:

All patients being treated with antidepressants for any indication should be monitored appropriately and observed closely for clinical worsening, suicidality, and unusual changes in behavior, especially during the initial few months of a course of drug therapy, or at times of dose changes, either increases or decreases.

Large trials are rare in the field of antidepressant research. Most of them have been industry funded and the few that exist are short term, typically 4-6 weeks, and inadequate for assessing suicidality and clinically meaningful outcomes.

In some instances, when researchers have gained access to regulatory documents, they’ve found that vital data on suicides were excluded from the journal publications.

In the two major Prozac trials in children, for example, Gøtzsche and Healy analysed clinical study reports and found the authors made numerous data errors, including omitting two suicide attempts from the journal publication. The journal editors have refused to retract or correct the studies.

Perlis also says there is low potential for misuse and abuse of antidepressants, but he overlooks the fact that SSRIs can lead to dependency. People often experience ‘discontinuation syndrome’ upon ceasing SSRIs because they are habit-forming and can cause abstinence symptoms.

In fact, about half of people on SSRIs have difficulty stopping them, and in rare cases, their withdrawal symptoms can lead to suicide, violence, and homicide – some patients report that withdrawal is worse than their original depression.

Many doctors still mistake the symptoms of antidepressant withdrawal for a relapse of depression, which conceals the scale of the problem.

Fortunately, SSRI withdrawal is being taken more seriously by the establishment following the recent publication of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines, which provides guidance to healthcare practitioners on how to stop these medications safely in patients.

If SSRIs become available without prescription, who will counsel patients about tapering off their medications? Cutting out doctors from the patient:doctor relationship will only harm patients and deny them of the ability to obtain informed consent about their therapy.

Another significant problem is that few patients – and doctors for that matter – are aware that SSRIs have potential to cause severe, sometimes irreversible, sexual dysfunction that persists even after discontinuing the medication.

The condition, called Post-SSRI Sexual Dysfunction (PSSD), has been described by sufferers as ‘chemical castration.’ The problem is under-recognised and largely under-reported, but drug regulators are starting to pay attention.

In June 2019, the European Medicines Agency updated the ‘Special Warnings and Precautions’ section on the package inset label to warn that sexual dysfunction can persist even after treatment stops.

And in 2021, Health Canada also did a review of the evidence and “found rare cases of long-lasting sexual symptoms persisting after stopping SSRI or SNRI treatment” and updated the product label for Canadians.

Perlis says that people with depression may be uncomfortable talking about their symptoms, or simply unable to schedule and keep appointments because of work or family obligations.

But cognitive behavioural therapy has been shown to reduce repeated self-harm and repeated suicide attempts, unlike SSRIs. Sure, taking a pill is easy, but dealing with the short and long-term harms of SSRIs, may ultimately be worse.

Perlis says people should be able to access antidepressants without prescription because they’re capable of “self-diagnosing” their own depression, in the same way many over-the counter products are used to treat symptoms when people diagnose their own conditions.

“Think yeast infections, acid reflux, or respiratory infections,” explained Perlis.

But this is misguided because it undermines the role of the doctor-patient relationship.

Not only will it lead to the medicalisation of negative emotions, but clinical depression requires careful assessment by a doctor to exclude other serious conditions.

Self-diagnosis means that one might assume they have depression and completely miss an underlying medical syndrome – for example, low mood and anxiety, can manifest in other conditions like hypertension, thyroid disorders, or heart disease.

Missing a diagnosis can be harmful, even fatal.

I’m not a medical doctor and I don’t give medical advice, but I am a medical researcher and I have spent the last decade reading the literature on antidepressants.

Encouraging people to diagnose their own depression and buy medication without a prescription – medication which has an unfavourable benefit:harm profile in most people and is difficult to stop taking – is a very bad idea.

April 17, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Childhood Innocence

On The Marxist Queering

Lies are Unbekoming | April 16, 2024

It can’t be overstated that Queer Theory thinks all children are sexual. The Queer Cult thinks society has constructed a myth of the “innocent child” to repress children’s sexuality so they can’t explore and experience it until they are already conditioned to be heterosexual or, at the very least, conditioned to fit into and stabilize a heterosexual society. – The Queering of the American Child

Innocence is in their way.

It’s the wall that must be breached.

It has gotten as far as it has because people do not say “No” anymore.

It has crept forward, millimeter by millimeter because, people wanted to “keep the peace.”

It has hollowed out all that was sacred because people didn’t want “to hurt it’s feelings.”

Well, it is here now, and it wants your child’s innocence.

What are you going to do about it?

CHILDHOOD INNOCENCE

From The Queering of the American Child

Beneath all of this, and as a final impediment to Queer Theory, is developmental psychology, particularly childhood developmental psychology. This field has long recognized that growing up is a developmental process containing certain milestones that takes place within boundaries usually defined as “age-appropriate.” Sex, sexuality, and even romantic or many emotionally involved relationships are not developmentally appropriate for children and can do lasting psychological damage if introduced irresponsibly. Learning to categorize the world at first concretely—man, woman, boy, girl —before moving to more complicated and nuanced understandings of ambiguities and differences is developmentally crucial to developing brains. All of this stands firmly in the way of Queer Theory and its ambitions to queer the child.

Queer Theory colonized and captured developmental psychology by attacking the notion of a normal and innocent child. The Queer Theory literature will not let one escape the idea that the ruling class in society (people who own “normalcy” as Bourgeoisie private property) uses the concepts of “normal child” and “childhood innocence” to keep children from exploring their true queer nature. In this view, the normal and innocent child is a justification for pushing all children through a “cisheterosexual” developmental track.

There is perhaps no better paper to turn to than Hannah Dyer’s Queer futurity and childhood innocence: Beyond the injury of development to summarize Queer Theory’s view of the “normal and innocent child” progressing through a “normal” developmental track. What the weird title of the paper indicates is that believing in and protecting childhood innocence limits the full range of the child’s future life in terms of how queer (recall: politically radical) he might be. That is, growing up normal and safeguarded by developmental appropriateness as outlined in rigorous child developmental psychology is characterized as a kind of injury to the child! In brief, believing in age-appropriate approaches backed through child developmental psychology allegedly injures kids who might otherwise have grown up to be Queer Activists by exposing them to a “normal” childhood that threatens to “straighten” them, against their best interests.

Borrowing from Foucault’s idea that the scientific disciplines serve as a regulatory “regime of truth” that perpetuates the status quo, Queer Activists like Dyer argue that psychologists are deeply “implicated in the harming of gay kids.” 185  Queer Theory takes developmental psychology to task “for their catastrophic support for beliefs that queer childhood was not viable or healthy.” 186  In this view, psychologists have served as a strong arm for the normal society , taking “queer children” and “straighten[ing] out their futures.” 187  Allowing young children to understand the world in terms of simple, unambiguous, concrete, natural, normal, and real categories crucial to their healthy development, categories like man, woman, boy, girl , is, from the demented view of Queer Theory, an act of “straightening” kids and stealing from them the possibility of a queer future, thus oppressing them.

According to Queer Activists, what used to be called “gender identity disorder” harmed “queer” children because “as a diagnostic classification [it] assumed the ability to detect impulses not yet organized as queer identity and realign them with heterosexuality.” 188  That is, “gender identity disorder” was a way to “fix” children rather than allow them to be “who they really are.” And allowing children to be “who they really are” requires ditching old paradigms in favor of “embracing [children’s] queer curiosity and patterns of growth.” 189  Queer developmental psychology must “address the child as always already queer.” 190 

The idea that developmental psychology should abandon traditional theories and practices in favor of queer possibilities rests on the idea that society scripts children’s futures. Queer Theory claims that the soul is the prison of the body , and society convinces children’s souls to materialize certain futures on their bodies. That is, Queer Theory argues that disciplines like psychology serve to discipline kids that are stepping out of line, convincing them to get back on a predetermined developmental track, ultimately growing up and performing as a straight man or a straight woman. In this view, society treats all kids as “proto-heterosexuals” needing continuous developmental conditioning.

Before Queer Theory colonized the discipline, developmental psychologists worked to help children understand that “It Gets Better.” 191  They worked with children to help them constructively navigate their issues. An “it gets better” approach treats a child’s disorders as disorders that can be addressed while stressing that things will improve in time. Queer Theory could not tolerate that message because that message doesn’t address the here and now as defined on the cult’s terms. Queer Activists think that telling kids “it gets better” only stabilizes a definable future within the current sociopolitical order. “It gets better” postpones feelings to the “mythical adulthood,” requiring children to tolerate the intolerably oppressive social fabric they are drowning in.

A queer conception of child development is meant to “rupture conventional schemas of ‘growing-up,’” as it undoes “anticipated congruency” and “the enforcement of strict borders between childhood and adulthood.” Queer Cult Psychology “find[s] pleasure” in tearing down traditional theories of childhood developmental stages and replacing them with queer possibilities. That this is likely to induce crises for the children, as we saw, is considered a queer opportunity. That it will lead to psychological damage and personality disorders is viewed as an oppressive myth used to uphold the “normal” status quo of a cisheteronormative society.

For Queer Activists, the key societal construct that justifies the traditional and alienating [as Marx would use it!] developmental track is “childhood innocence.” The Queer Theory literature is unambiguous in this claim. Queer Activists believe that “childhood innocence” is a political construct that normal people use to keep children from learning about their true queer sexuality and desire. The “innocent child” is nothing more than a myth normal people tell society to control what children are exposed to. “Childhood innocence” keeps children away from forbidden knowledge—away from taking a bite of the apple . Queer Activists believe they must “queer the rhetoric of innocence that constrains all children and help to refuse attempts to calculate the child’s future before it has the opportunity to explore desire.”

The Queer Cult does not believe that children are innocent. Queer Activists believe children are full of queer sexuality and desire, claiming that society just suppresses and restricts those instincts to protect a normal child and their normal future . What they lack is initiation . In this view, all children are capable of reason and consent—capable of true human agency, as someone like Paulo Freire would define it. Queer Activists, like Dyer, claim that making childhood sexuality taboo “hurt[s] children’s curiosity and imagination” in an effort to protect a child’s “assumed proto-heterosexuality.” 192  The Queer Cult isn’t interested in labeling things as too taboo for children. The Queer Cult is invested in fully ramping up the taboo while “understanding the possibility for children and youth to recruit amounts of bodily pleasure.” 193 

Queer theories of childhood are often brave in the ways that they wade into such taboo territory in order to show how what is considered perverse is often a mode of securing heteronormativity. Queer theory can be helped in its desires to prove that children are capable of possessing complexity and sexuality by exploring work done in the fields of early childhood studies and sociological studies of childhood. This is because these fields and their associated methods of inquiry prioritize the child’s possession of knowledge and agentic relation to the world. (Dyer, 2016)

It can’t be overstated that Queer Theory thinks all children are sexual. The Queer Cult thinks society has constructed a myth of the “innocent child” to repress children’s sexuality so they can’t explore and experience it until they are already conditioned to be heterosexual or, at the very least, conditioned to fit into and stabilize a heterosexual society. In this sense, society uses the language of childhood sexual trauma to “foreclose careful consideration of the child’s agentic relationship to perverse and queer sexuality.” 194  Defining children as innocent prevents all children from being exposed to queer forms of sexuality and desire before their future is settled. The “innocent child” has but one path to choose from—cisheterosexuality—as all other queer possibilities are deemed “developmentally inappropriate.”

BULLDOZING THE WALL

Hannah Dyer’s Queer futurity and childhood innocence isn’t an outlier in the Queer Theory literature. Queer Activists consider childhood “an arguable crucible or ground zero of all sexual politics.” 195  They think this way because they believe children are pawns that normal people use to protect their dominant interests. In this view, who gets to decide what “a child,” “childhood,” and “innocence” mean determines the future of society. If normal people get to define these concepts, then the future will be normal. If Queer Activists get to define these concepts, then the future will be queer . “Queer futurity” is a vision of a future that isn’t limited by current societal norms and expectations, particularly those related to sex and sexuality. Hannah Dyer and other Queer Activists make clear that any hope for queer futurity is lost in the concept of “the innocent child,” so “the innocent child” is a barrier they know they must destroy. Or, as Queer Activist Lee Edelman says in his book No Future: Queer Theory and the Death Drive :

Fuck the social order and the Child in whose name we’re collectively terrorized; fuck Annie; fuck the waif from Les Mis ; fuck the poor, innocent kid on the Net; fuck Laws both with capital Ls and with small; fuck the whole network of Symbolic relations and the future that serves as its prop. 196  (Edelman, 2004, p. 29)

Queer Activists queered developmental psychology because the discipline was a significant barrier to Queer Cult initiation. In the past, psychologists considered children innocent and incapable of grasping the concepts of sexuality and desire. This was a huge problem for Queer Activists who believed that children must explore sexuality , gender, and desire before the clock of “normalcy” strikes midnight. Twenty years ago, it would have been considered child abuse to discuss sexuality and desire with little kids. Likewise, “affirming” a child’s mental health disorder would have been considered psychologically abusive. Queer Pedagogy would have been stopped dead in its tracks. Today, all of this is considered developmentally appropriate.

Developmental psychology was the great wall that prevented Queer Activists from presenting, discussing, and encouraging developmentally inappropriate ideas, concepts, and themes with kids. The discipline was bulldozed by Queer Activists who endlessly declared that “childhood innocence” creates an unjust distinction between appropriate and inappropriate discussions and content. Queer Theory dissolves distinctions, melding opposites together and creating a new whole understood on its own terms. In this case, Queer Activists claimed that what is considered appropriate or inappropriate is arbitrarily defined by those in power for their own benefit. So, nothing is appropriate or inappropriate—everything is contextual and subjective. But, because Queer Activists claim to know the truth about how the world works, they think they are the only ones who can determine the correct context of any given situation. Ketanji Brown Jackson felt she couldn’t define the word “woman” during her U.S. Supreme Court confirmation hearing because Queer Activists have bullied everyone into thinking that question must be deferred to them. Queer Activists think they are the only ones capable of answering questions related to sex, “gender,” and sexuality. Their insight is considered sacred , and they say talking to kids about sex, sexuality, and desire is not only appropriate but necessary.

The Queer Cult uses Queer Pedagogy to coerce children to bite the apple and learn about the secrets of queer sex, sexuality, and desire. Queer Pedagogy exists to take innocent children and initiate them into the revealed knowledge of the Queer Cult. This initiation process intentionally places kids into an identity crisis. Now, a parent can’t take their child to a developmental psychologist to address sex and “gender” confusion because the psychologist serves only to affirm the initiation . The only thing waiting for a child with “gender dysphoria” on the other side of the referral is Queer Cult Psychology.

Queer Activists, following Eve Kosofsky Sedwick’s seminal work Epistemology of the Closet, fundamentally believe that innocence/initiation is a binary that must be overcome. Like the binaries of “appropriate” vs. “inappropriate” and “man” vs. “woman,” innocence vs. initiation must be dissolved, revealing a new, higher truth: namely, that innocence is a social construct normal people use to initiate children into cisheterosexuality. In this view, innocence is initiation and initiation is innocence. Queer Activists think the two concepts are the same if one can only view them from the more elevated state of queer consciousness.

“The closet” is where the magic happens—where innocence and initiation become one and the same. Queer Activists use Queer Pedagogy to force kids into the closet where they develop their queer consciousness and transcend their innocence through initiation into the Queer Cult. The closet, where you keep secrets from others like your parents, is where children are initiated, learning that they aren’t so innocent after all—they’re queer .

Some parents are demanding their day in court after learning that the “inclusive” education their children are receiving is queer . When that day arrives, they are met by the expert testimony of a Queer Cult psychologist who is all too thrilled to tell them that their “innocent” child isn’t so innocent after all. “If you scratch a child,” they might say, “you will find a queer.” 197 

April 17, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Timeless or most popular | Leave a comment

Israel obstructs UN investigation into alleged rape on 7 October, prevents interviews of victims

MEMO | April 16, 2024

United Nations’ investigators have criticised Israel for actively preventing them from speaking to victims and witnesses of the 7 October attacks into Israeli-held territory by Hamas, amid growing scepticism of Israel’s account of the events.

According to Chris Sidoti, former human rights commissioner of Australia and one of the three members of the UN’s Commission of Inquiry into abuses committed in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories, “we have not only seen a lack of cooperation [from the Israeli government], but active obstruction of our efforts to receive evidence from Israeli witnesses and victims to the events that occurred in southern Israel”.

Over the past six months, Israel has repeatedly alleged that Hamas militants and fighters committed numerous atrocities against Israeli civilians in settlements and areas surrounding the besieged Gaza Strip on 7 October last year, as part of the Resistance group’s Operation Al-Aqsa Flood.

One of the key acts Israel accuses the fighters of committing was the rape and sexual assault of numerous Israeli women. Those claims have increasingly been disputed and questioned over the months, however, with even Israeli police reportedly being unable to find victims – either dead or alive – of the Hamas’s alleged sexual crimes.

Now, the UN probe into Israel’s allegations is itself growing frustrated with what it acknowledges is the government’s active attempts to obstruct the investigation.

Stressing that the investigation has found it difficult to collect evidence from large numbers of witnesses, Sidoti revealed that some of the digital evidence investigators began collecting early on 7 October has since “disappeared from the internet”, in what could be potential government interference.

“I use this opportunity to appeal again both to the government of Israel to cooperate, and to victims and witnesses to the events in southern Israel to contact the Commission of Inquiry so that we can hear what they have experienced”, he stated. “If it [the evidence] had not been collected on that day, it would not have been able to be collected.”

Navi Pillay, a former UN rights chief and former South African High Court judge who is currently chairing the three-person Commission, also criticised Tel Aviv’s obstruction today, stating that “I deplore the fact that people inside Israel who wish to speak to us are being denied that opportunity, because we cannot get access into Israel.”

In response to the briefing today, Israel’s mission to the UN insisted to the AFP news agency that UN representatives have been to Israel to meet with victims and survivors of the attacks, while claiming that the victims “know too well that they will never get any justice or the dignified treatment they deserve from the Commission of Inquiry and its members, who have a track record of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel statements”.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

US Will Try to Rally Other Nations to Sanction Iran Over Israel Attack

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | April 16, 2024

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen will attempt to convince the international community to increase economic penalties on Iran as punishment for the drone and missile barrage Tehran launched at Israel. Iran’s attack followed Israel’s assassination of several high-ranking officials when Tel Aviv bombed Tehran’s consulate in Damascus.

On Tuesday, Axios reported that the Treasury is preparing new sanctions to levy on Iran and will use an International Monetary Fund (IMF) meeting later this week to try to convince other countries to join. “All options to disrupt terrorist financing of Iran continue to be on the table,” she said.

The sanctions would be a response to Iran’s drone and missile attack on Israel. The Iranian attack was a response to Israel’s bombing of the Iranian consulate in Syria, which killed 16 people, including seven IRGC officials.

“Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity,” Yellen is set to say during her opening remarks at the IMF conference. “The attack by Iran and its proxies underscores the importance of Treasury’s work to use our economic tools to counter Iran’s malign activity.”

According to Axios, Washington hopes the sanctions will show Tel Aviv that there is a way to punish Tehran without a direct attack on Iran. The war government in Tel Aviv says it will respond to the Iranian attack “clearly and forcefully.”

However, the Washington Post notes that the White House has few options for sanctioning Tehran as the Iranian economy is already one of the most heavily sanctioned. The Post explains that one of Washington’s few options for expanding sanctions on Iran is to blacklist Chinese firms purchasing Iranian crude oil.

Pursuing that path may create more problems for the White House as it will likely upset Beijing and drive up oil prices. The Biden administration is seeking to prevent an increase in gas prices in an election year and has previously asked Ukraine not to attack Russian energy infrastructure.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why US Scheme to Kill Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 is Dead in the Water

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 16.04.2024

The US is trying to upend Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project and do whatever it takes to ensure it is “dead in the water.” Will Washington succeed in killing Russia’s bold energy endeavor?

The US plans to use sanctions to asphyxiate the Arctic LNG-2 gas liquefaction project by the Russian company Novatek, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Geoffrey Pyatt.

In particular, Washington is trying to prevent Moscow from receiving specialized ice-class tankers needed for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG). As a result, the South Korean shipbuilder Hanwha Ocean, assigned with building six gas carriers for the project, has ceased cooperation with the customer.

Washington’s actions go well beyond international law or free market rules, according to Stanislav Mitrakhovich, leading expert of the National Energy Security Foundation and the Financial University under the Government of the Russian Federation.

“The Americans simply use their clout in the world, that is, their financial, political, and technological influence, to force the whole world to act in the way they want,” Mitrakhovich clarified.

When it comes to Russia’s energy trade, the US has a long history of trying to squeeze the nation out of the European market under various pretexts. Eventually, Washington managed to force the EU into severing energy ties with Russia (to Europe’s detriment) after the beginning of the special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022.

In September 2022, the Nord Stream pipelines carrying natural gas from Russia to Europe were destroyed by “unknown perpetrators”, believed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh to be American and Norwegian operatives acting on Team Biden’s orders.

Thus, it was hardly surprising that the US emerged as the largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) to Europe (EU-27 and the UK) in 2022 and 2023, as per the US Energy Information Administration (EIA). Nonetheless, Russia remained Europe’s third-largest LNG supplier. According to some estimates, EU imports of Russian LNG have soared by 40% since February 2022.

Arctic LNG-2 is Russia’s third LNG project. According to expectations, once the endeavor is completed, it would encompass three liquefaction trains producing a total of 19.8 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG and up to 1.6 MTPA of stable gas condensate (SGC). Apparently, that does not fit into the US energy market expansion plans.

West No Longer Trustworthy

Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly stated that Western restrictions against Russia violate the principles of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and are unfair methods of competition.

According to Mitrakhovich, the US and its allies have demonstrated that they cannot be trusted neither as guarantors of the global economy, nor as standard-bearers, or responsible partners.

“It’s hard to trust the West as a banker because they can seize those assets. It is difficult to trust the West as a technological partner because it can say: ‘I will no longer provide technologies, despite existing contracts.’ The West cannot be trusted as a country that honors contracts; on the contrary, the West has shown in every possible way over the past couple of years that contracts mean little to them, thereby violating the basic principle of Roman law that contracts must be respected,” he pointed out.

Western Sanctions Catalyzed Russia’s Development

That said, Western sanctions have triggered Russia’s re-industrialization and import substation, Mitrakhovich noted.

The expert has no doubts that the work on Arctic LNG-2 will be continued despite Western pressure. It will take time and effort to launch the production of suitable ice-class gas tankers at Russia’s shipbuilding facilities instead of those stuck in South Korea, acknowledged Mitrakhovich, adding that Moscow has another technological partner in Asia.

“I would be glad to see Russian-Chinese cooperation in the field of shipbuilding,” the expert said, referring to vast untapped opportunities in the sphere.
In addition, there are several alternatives of how to proceed with the project without significant delays, Mitrakhovich continued:

“One option is to move the second and third lines of Arctic LNG-2 to the Murmansk region, near the locations where these lines are being technologically built. What is interesting about the transfer to the Murmansk region is that from there gas can be exported to world markets. For example, it can be exported to Asia without going through the ice barrier. In other words, regular tankers will be needed, instead of ice-class ones.”

Western Options are Limited

On top of that, the West’s capabilities of hindering Russia’s flagship LNG projects are limited, according to Sputnik’s interlocutor. Even though the EU Parliament has recently approved legal options to block Russian LNG imports to the Old Continent and the US has vowed to introduce new sanctions as well, other global players are continuing to boost energy cooperation with Moscow, the expert stressed.

“Thirty years ago, in 1994, when there was a US unipolar moment, the Americans could do almost anything in the world, and few people could withstand them,” Mitrakhovich noted. “Now the situation has changed. There are countries that are acting independently on the world arena. These are Russia, China and India. And they can use their technologies, expand mutual trade, and so on. Therefore, America will not be able to completely stifle the independence of these countries,” he pointed out.

Furthermore, Washington’s aggressive actions on the world stage are accelerating the pace of rapprochement between major Eurasian players, the expert highlighted.

“The Chinese see how unceremoniously the Americans are acting. And in fact, all these American attacks against Russia are being actively studied in China. I think this will ultimately push the Chinese to focus more on cooperation with Russia instead of that with America,” he said.

“I think that the [Russo-Chinese] project Power of Siberia-2 needs to be accelerated, because in the event of a mess in Taiwan the Americans could limit the supply of all sorts of commodities to China by sea. And if there is a pipe from Russia, [China wouldn’t suffer from a possible energy blockade]. Russia’s LNG exports could also be redirected to China (…) along the safe Northern Sea Route,”he said.

The West can throw sand in Russia’s gears, but it cannot stop the nation’s industrial and technological development based on its vast resources, expertise, and international links, the expert concluded.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

NATO member blames Israel for Iranian attack

RT | April 16, 2024

Iran’s first direct attack on Israel is the fault of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu first and foremost, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said.

In a televised address after a cabinet meeting in Ankara, Erdogan said it was unfair to look at last Saturday’s events in a vacuum.

“The one chiefly responsible for the tension that gripped our hearts on the evening of April 13 is Netanyahu and his bloody administration,” he said.

“Since October 7, the Israeli government has opted for provocative moves in order to spread the fire to the entire region. The Israeli government targeted the Iranian consulate in Damascus, violating international law and the Vienna Convention, and that was the last straw,” added Erdogan.

Tehran’s diplomatic mission was struck on April 1, killing seven high-ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force, including two generals. Israel never officially claimed responsibility for the strike, but has repeatedly bombed Syria, claiming preemptive self-defense from the Iranian presence there.

“We have seen the double-standard approach of Western countries,” Erdogan said, pointing out that only a handful of countries condemned Israel’s move, but rushed to denounce Iran’s response.

Tehran eventually launched scores of drones and missiles against targets inside Israel. The US, UK, France and Jordan helped the Israelis with air defense but some of the projectiles got through, causing unspecified damage.

Erdogan also blamed Israel for the current conflict in general, saying its forces have “indiscriminately” killed tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza, including people standing in line for humanitarian aid.

“For more than 132 days, Israel has been implementing genocidal policies,” the Turkish leader claimed.

Netanyahu declared war on Gaza-based Hamas after the Palestinian militant group raided nearby Israeli villages and military bases last October. Much of Gaza has since been reduced to rubble and its civilian population pushed to the edge of starvation. A recent report by UN Human Rights Council special rapporteur Francesca Albanese has accused Israel of intending to commit genocide in the enclave.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Navy Depletes $1Bln Worth of Weapons in Middle East in 6 Months – Secretary Del Toro

Sputnik – 16.04.2024

WASHINGTON – The US Navy needs to replace about $1 billion worth of munitions that it used to combat attacks on Red Sea shipping and defend Israel over the last six months, Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said in testimony to the Senate Appropriations Committee on Tuesday.

“Over the course of the last six months we have actually countered over 130 direct attacks on US Navy ships and merchant ships,” Del Toro said. “We currently are approaching $1 billion in munitions that we need to replenish at some point in time.”

Del Toro emphasized that it would be “critical” for Congress to pass a national security supplemental in order to replace the weapons, which include SM-2, SM-3 and SM-6 missiles.

The national security supplemental passed by the US Senate includes $2 billion in funds for the US Navy that would be used to replenish the weapons, he added.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Scholz has one trump card in talks with China, but he’ll never use it

By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | April 16, 2024

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is on a three-day visit to China. He is not traveling alone. A large delegation of German business representatives, including from flagship companies such as Mercedes, Siemens, and BMW, is coming along. Scholz’s agenda is ambitious: The chancellor wishes to talk about international trade and competition, climate politics, the tensions over Taiwan, the war in Ukraine and Beijing’s relationship with Russia. Since Iran has just made use of its clear right to self-defense and retaliated following Israel’s illegal attack on Tehran’s diplomatic premises in Damascus, Scholz felt compelled to make a statement about that as well.

Two of these topics tower above the others: matters of trade and the relationship between China and Russia. Regarding trade, the crucial issue is that the West in general – led by the US – has embarked on a policy of de facto economic warfare against China, while constantly threatening to escalate further.

That was the essence of Janet Yellen’s recent Beijing trip; the US Treasury Secretary arrived with a list of demands to curb what America denounced as Chinese “overcapacity” and dumping, and left with a blunt warning that “nothing was off the table” in terms of additional strikes against China’s economy.

Then there is the EU, which as usual, follows Washington’s lead. Under hardliners like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Vice President Margrethe Vestager, Brussels is ramping up anti-Chinese rhetoric and measures. Beijing has officially been declared a “partner for cooperation, an economic competitor, and a systemic rival.” With the EU Commission defining “economic security” clearly in opposition to China and launching probes targeting Chinese electric vehicles, wind turbines, and soon the procurement of medical devices, the accent clearly is on competitor and rival.

At the same time, however, German business leaders know that they cannot afford a policy of sustained conflict. A high-ranking Siemens executive has just gone public with a warning that “decoupling” from Chinese manufacturing would take “decades.” That, clearly, is just another way of saying it’s a very bad idea to even try.

Superficially, it may appear that there is an opportunity here for Scholz – an opportunist to a fault – to appear as a mediator or, at least, to deftly balance and weave between competing demands. The Global Times, a media outlet owned by the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, prefaced the chancellor’s visit with a generally welcoming article, depicting Scholz as, in essence, a dove among hawks, arguing that while Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock and Economic Minister Robert Habeck stand for confrontation, the chancellor is seeking to find a balanced approach.

Yet, even if he wanted to try to be smart and flexible, Scholz is hamstrung in multiple ways. He will struggle to be taken seriously because both Germany and its chancellor lack international standing, and Germany lacks leverage in its relationship with China.

Let’s look at the leverage deficit first: In economic terms, the Chinese-German relationship is substantial and complex. Many factors are important; multiple indicators are relevant, such as, for instance, foreign direct investment (which is currently dipping). But overall trade volumes suffice to show that Germany cannot speak to Beijing from a position of strength or even parity.

China, according to 2023 export data, is still Germany’s single biggest trading partner, as Bloomberg has noted. That is not unusual in today’s world: with the second-largest economy in the world (the largest in Purchasing Power Parity terms), China is the top trade partner for a total of 120 countries. China is also the largest (external) trade partner of the European Union as whole. However, from China’s perspective, Germany ranks only 8th among export destinations, less than the US, Japan, and even Vietnam.

None of the above means that the economic relationship with Berlin does not matter to Beijing, but it does mean that it matters even more for Berlin. Among rational actors, such a pattern of mutual dependency is a reason for cooperation. What it certainly is not is one-sided leverage for Germany. If anyone has the whip hand here, it’s China, which may have tried to “gently” signal this fact with Scholz’s intriguingly low-key, not to say humiliating reception on his arrival in the Chinese manufacturing metropolis Chongqing.

In fundamental terms, Germany, according to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is a country of not quite 84 million people (in China, Chongqing alone is home to over 30 million inhabitants) with projected GDP growth this year down to almost zero (0.5 percent). China has a population of over 1.4 billion, and its GDP is estimated to grow by 4.6 percent.

In sum, China’s economy has problems, such as its over-expanded real estate sector, which are inevitable and often obsessively exaggerated by Western “China doomers.” Germany’s economy is a problem.

The German chancellor can only play a weak hand, due to economics. There is only one way to play it well, and that would involve politics. Scholz could create some room for maneuver for Germany if he did what the Global Times article signaled Beijing would like to see from him: to show some autonomy, a little bit of distance between himself and the hardliners now dominating both Washington and Brussels.

Indeed, for the China hawks in the West, the mere possibility that the German chancellor might go off script is such a nightmare scenario it had to be exorcised in one of America’s two most authoritative journals on international politics. Foreign Policy dedicated a whole article to, in essence, asking if Scholz will chicken out and be too conciliatory toward Beijing. If the Global Times sent an invitation of the “an-offer-you-should-not-refuse” kind, Foreign Policy’s message was “don’t you dare.”

Scholz should dare. It would be only rational because it is really the only trump card he has. As Foreign Policy acknowledges, the EU’s hardball approach cannot work if Berlin is not on board. Without the EU toeing the line, Washington’s game would become much more challenging, too. That is power right there: the power to balance and play both sides.

Unfortunately, this is where we come up against Scholz’s very narrow limits. This is no Bismarck. Instead, we are dealing with a chancellor who can be called the most recklessly and – it must be said, spinelessly – subservient to the US in Germany’s post-WWII history. Scholz grinned when Biden announced, in essence, that the US would destroy the Nord Stream pipelines if it felt like it. When it happened, nothing happened: Germany took it and kept grinning.

Under Scholz, Berlin has become a perfect client of the US. Accordingly, there is no real daylight between Berlin and Brussels either; another ultra-Atlanticist German, Ursula von der Leyen, runs the European Commission. True, some observers speculate that Germany is slyly cutting corners, but that will amount to too little, in absolute terms, for Beijing.

The issue of dependency also brings us to the penultimate irony of Scholz’s visit: The German chancellor has let it be known that he intends to challenge Beijing on its policy toward Russia and thus the war in Ukraine. In essence, Scholz seems to believe it is his job – and within his rights – to urge China to loosen its ties with Russia as well as to support the West’s unrealistic proposals for ending the war in Ukraine without acknowledging that Russia is winning it.

There are two things wrong with this astonishingly tone-deaf attitude: First, obviously, neither Germany nor the EU are in a position to make such requests of Beijing. They have neither the arguments nor the power to back them up. In such cases, the wiser and more dignified course is to be quiet. Second, less obviously, who is Scholz to try to interfere in the partnership between Moscow and Beijing, a partnership marked by rationality and respect for both partners’ national interests? As long as Germany offers a spectacle of unquestioning and irrational obedience to Washington, no one will be interested in its advice on how to cooperate.

That was the penultimate irony. Here is the ultimate one: Scholz’s visit is, most fundamentally, an outcome of the fact that the West has not been able to cajole China. With respect to Germany in particular, it is true that, according to a recent poll, two thirds of German businesses active in China complain of unequal treatment. And yet they are there. And yet a German chancellor still arrives with a planeload of business leaders.

The true message of the poll is about how indispensable China is, talk of “derisking” this and “decoupling” that notwithstanding. In the not-too-distant future, a successor of Scholz may well find himself on a similar trip, but to Moscow. Namely, when two realities will have become so compelling that they must be acknowledged: Russia, too, cannot be cajoled by the West; and, for Germany as well as for Europe as a whole, Russia, too, remains indispensable.

Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian Special Services Behind Attempted Murder of Opposition Blogger Shariy – Source

Sputnik – 16.04.2024

Ukrainian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate attempted to assassinate Anatoly Shariy, a Ukrainian blogger and vocal Kiev regime critic, and pin the blame on Moscow, a Russian law enforcement source told Sputnik Tuesday.

“The circumstances of the organization of the attempted murder of popular Ukrainian blogger Anatoly Shariy, who lives in Spain, have been established. Once again, Ukraine’s special services are behind the terrorist action against a journalist undesirable to the Kiev regime,” the source said.

“According to the data received, the preparation of the assassination attempt on March 6, 2024, was carried out by the Main Intelligence Directorate … which, in close cooperation with the Security Service, developed a ‘false flag’ operation with the aim of physically eliminating the blogger, while placing responsibility for his murder on Russia. The operation was directly supervised by the head of the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, Kyrylo Budanov,” the source added.

Spanish law enforcement officials did not take the investigation into the circumstances of the assassination attempt seriously, the source said, adding that they did not go to inspect the scene of the assassination attempt and did not interview witnesses.

“On behalf of the Russian special services, Ukrainian agents recruited participants in the assassination attempt from among ethnic Ukrainians living in Spain and representatives of local criminals. As part of the operation, surveillance was carried out, traffic routes were identified, weapons were delivered and handed over to the criminals,” the source said.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

“Mobilisation has turned into a real nightmare for Ukrainians” – former PM Mykola Azarov

By Ahmed Adel | April 16, 2024

Former Ukrainian Prime Minister Mykola Azarov (2010-2014) has described the Kiev regime’s forcible conscription of civilians into the military as “a real nightmare for Ukrainians.” His comments come as the New York Times said that Ukrainian soldiers are being battered and exhausted by Russian forces.

“Territorial recruitment centres in Ukraine (…) began to use weapons against those who try to resist the anarchy and permissiveness they are perpetrating,” Azarov wrote on his Telegram channel.

As Azarov revealed, Anton Kudrich, an ordinary Ukrainian citizen, was driving to his village in the Transcarpathian region when recruitment officers stopped his car at a checkpoint and tried to conscript him. Even though Kudrich stated that he had the right to be exempt from military service according to the law “since his brother died in the war,” the officers ignored this and attempted to put him in their vehicle forcibly.

“Kudrich managed to escape, ran into the forest, but they opened fire on him. He was wounded in the arm and leg,” said the former Prime Minister of Ukraine, adding that the young man’s father is sure that the case will be hushed up since the Ukrainian authorities are covering for each other.

On April 11, the Verkhovna Rada (Parliament) of Ukraine adopted a law toughening the conditions for the mobilisation of military personnel. According to Ukrainian media, the clause stipulating the demobilisation of military personnel after 36 months of service was removed from the bill. The regulations give reservists a period of 60 days after mobilisation is decreed to appear before a military registration and enlistment office and update their personal data.

Likewise, the new law allows summons to be sent to electronic accounts and obliges male citizens aged 18 to 60 to carry military registration papers and present them at the request of military registration and enlistment officials, police officers, and border guards.

In another Telegram post, Azarov said that the Kiev regime is using former prisoners “to catch as much of the population as possible” since mobilisation has been “virtually exhausted,” in addition to civilians “fleeing the country in all possible ways.”

In Ukraine, the reserves are depleted, and at the front, the military is asking for rotation, which cannot be done due to a shortage in the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Thus, “while the Ukrainian authorities use force against their own people, fewer and fewer supporters remain in the country, and fewer and fewer volunteers appear in the ranks of the Ukrainian forces. This means that with such sentiments in society, Ukraine has a catastrophically small chance of holding out,” the former prime minister stressed.

It is recalled that Azarov has previously accused the Kiev regime of embezzling billions of dollars from the state budget through the procurement of overpriced and subpar equipment, such as ammunition and air defence weapons. In September 2023, Azarov revealed how the Kiev regime signed a contract for four air defence missiles, but only three were procured. Deepening the embezzling in this particular case, Azarov said that all four missiles were written off following a Russian attack, benefiting someone who allegedly used the funds to purchase a new apartment in Paris.

Azarov has been a consistent critic of the Kiev regime and continues to highlight the deeply ingrained corruption and authoritarianism, such as the forced and illegal conscription of civilians. However, he is no longer a rare voice, with more criticism of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and the conscription process emerging in the Verkhovna Rada.

“After voting in favour of the mobilisation bill, the Ukrainian people will become not an opponent, but a verdict for [Zelensky] and the Government’s deputies,” independent deputy Dmytro Razumkov wrote on his Telegram channel. “You cannot play with the life of Ukrainians.”

He asked deputies from the ruling Servant of the People party if they would be able to look into the eyes of the soldiers they visited at the front after they removed the clause on demobilisation and rotation of soldiers from the bill.

Alarmingly, much of the bill remains confidential, including the number of Ukrainians who will be mobilised. In recent months, Ukrainian generals and Zelensky have said that between 450,000 and 500,000 people are needed for conscription. This will be difficult to achieve, especially since an article published by The New York Times highlighted that Ukraine has faced a drastic reduction in its population. The military now has very few young men to conscript, while those fighting on the front lines are battered and exhausted.

According to the outlet, it is not clear how quickly Ukraine will recruit and train the additional troops it requires or whether they will be ready before the Russian offensive, which is expected between spring and summer. Despite this reality, the Kiev regime is still preparing for an offensive in 2025 instead of seeking to preserve the lives of thousands of Ukrainians by achieving a peace deal with Moscow.

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

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Iran’s strike on Israel was much more successful than it seems. Here’s why

By Abbas Juma | RT | April 16, 2024

On the night of April 14, Iran and its proxy forces launched a series of cruise missile and kamikaze drone strikes on Israeli territory. The attacks did not come as a surprise. Tehran had warned that it would respond to the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria, on April 1, which killed several high-ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), including two generals. The retaliatory strike was called Operation True Promise.

There is still much debate on whether Iran’s retaliatory strike was successful. Most military experts agree that there was nothing unusual about Tehran’s actions, except that this was Iran’s first direct attack on Israel. From a technical point of view, the strategy was simple and correct: Iran first suppressed the enemy’s air defense systems with drones and then launched hypersonic missiles which the Israelis and Americans were not able to intercept. Incidentally, in light of this, Ukraine’s statements about shooting down Russian Kinzhal hypersonic missiles sound ridiculous.

Do not jump to conclusions

Many experts were skeptical about Iran’s strike and hastened to say that the retaliation did not live up to expectations. Given the clip thinking of most commentators, this reaction is hardly surprising. Their reasoning resembles a Hollywood blockbuster stuffed with special effects, where the end of the world and its miraculous salvation fit into 90-120 minutes, with a love scene in the middle. In real life, things are different. As Sun Tzu wrote in ancient times, to fight 100 battles and win 100 battles is not the height of skill. The best way to win is not to fight at all. This is Iran’s strategy. Its strike against Israel was not so much a military response as a grandmaster’s move in a big chess game. And the game is not over yet.

After the attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria’s capital, Tehran found itself in a tough situation. It had to respond in a way that would look convincing and would achieve specific military goals, but would not start World War III.

To achieve the first point, Iran had to carry out a direct strike without resorting exclusively to proxy forces – and that is indeed how it acted. Regarding the second point, even though most of the missiles and drones were indeed shot down, some managed to penetrate Israeli air space and hit military targets. The Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, Mohammad Bagheri, said that the information center on the Israeli-Syrian border and Israel’s Nevatim air base were hit. And finally, as to the third point – war didn’t happen. This resembled the situation in 2020, when the Iranians hit US bases in Iraq in response to the assassination of General Soleimani.

However, it is still too early to speculate as to whether Iran’s attack was a success or not. The big question now is how Israel will respond.

What Iran has accomplished

It’s important to emphasize that Iran’s operation carried more political than military weight. In this sense, it was carried out subtly and was a success. Obviously, the Iranians did not want to start a war which would involve the US, even though that is what Netanyahu wanted. In other words, Israel didn’t manage to provoke Iran.

It is also obvious that the Islamic Republic possesses more powerful drones and missiles than those used in the attack on April 14. However, even the less advanced drones and missiles were able to penetrate Israeli air space and inflict economic damage, since Israel spent much more money on shooting down the missiles and drones than Iran spent on launching them.

Tehran has once again demonstrated that Israel is not invulnerable, and it is possible to attack it. As for the degree of inflicted damage, which some commentators were unsatisfied with, it largely depends on the type of missiles and drones used in the attack – and Iran has a lot of military equipment.

Finally, Iran’s main achievement is that it has managed to confuse Israel in the same way that it was confused after the October 7 Hamas attack. The country has to respond. But how? Should Israel strike Iranian proxy forces? This is possible, but Israel does it all the time without much result. Should it hit Iran directly? But that would start a war which no one is prepared for, including the US.

Conclusion

The ball is now in Israel’s court, and the country faces the same challenges that the Islamic Republic did after April 1. But will Israel be able to solve these challenges as efficiently?

It is noteworthy that IRGC Commander-in-Chief, Hossein Salami, said that from now on, if Israel attacks the interests of Iran and Iranian citizens, Tehran will strike it again.

This is an important statement. Essentially, the attack carried out by Iran on April 14 was not just a retaliatory strike, but established a new order. Iran demonstrated that it is ready to resort to new means of influence in a situation where words are not sufficient. It attacked Israel directly not in order to start a war, but to demonstrate what could happen if all other methods of pressure on Israel fail.

A new option has been put forward. Israel may be deprived of its most important advantage – absolute impunity, which until recently had been guaranteed by the US.

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US makes failed bid for Iran to allow ‘symbolic strike’ by Israel

The Cradle | April 16, 2024

An Iranian military security official has revealed exclusively to The Cradle that the US contacted the Islamic Republic, asking the nation to allow Israel “a symbolic strike to save face” following Iran’s retaliatory drone and missile barrage this weekend.

“Iran has received messages from mediators to let the regime do a symbolic strike to save face and asked Iran not to retaliate,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, revealed to The Cradle.

He added that Tehran “outright rejected” the proposal, delivered by mediators, and reiterated warnings that any Israeli attack on Iranian soil would be met with a decisive and immediate response.

The reply was delivered directly to the Swiss envoy in Tehran by officials from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) and not the foreign ministry. According to The Cradle’s source, the decision for the IRGC to reply directly was meant “to send a strong warning to the US.”

“Iran successfully embarrassed all of the integrated radar network and anti-missile systems of the US and the [Israeli] regime. The US even activated its parked satellites over the region to do maximum protection and failed miserably,” the Iranian military official added.

The revelations come as US defense officials have told western media that they expect a “limited response” from Israel against Iran, which will reportedly focus on targets outside of Iranian territory.

Nevertheless, US officials stressed that Tel Aviv had not briefed the Pentagon on a “final decision” as discussions within Israel’s fractured war cabinet continued.

“The US does not intend to take part in the military response,” they confirmed. However, they expect Israel to inform Washington about response plans in advance.

Israel has publicly vowed to respond to the Iranian operation this weekend, which saw the launch of hundreds of drones, ballistic and cruise missiles by the Islamic Republic in retaliation to the Israeli bombing of Iran’s consulate in Damascus.

“This launch of so many missiles, cruise missiles and drones into Israeli territory will be met with a response,” Israeli army chief of staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, said on Sunday, speaking from the Nevatim air force base in southern Israel, which was one of three military targets successfully hit by the Iranian barrage.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani told state TV on Monday night that Tehran’s response to any Israeli retaliation would come in “a matter of seconds, as Iran will not wait for another 12 days to respond.”

April 16, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

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