DONALD TRUMP AND THE TOLL OF VITRIOL
The HighWire | July 18, 2024
Nearly a decade of increasingly dangerous rhetoric and bias from corporate ‘journalists’ and those in power have prepared the grounds for violence. Who is to blame??
Secret Service under suspicion amid contradictions in Trump’s attempted assassination
By Uriel Araujo | July 19, 2024
Contradictions on Trump’s attempted assassination pile up, with serious security breaches and officials claiming an investigation is needed to determine whether it was a matter of incompetence or malice.
To begin with, according to the ABC News, “law enforcement officials investigating the assassination attempt on Donald Trump told lawmakers Wednesday that 20 minutes passed between the time U.S. Secret Service snipers first spotted the gunman on a rooftop and the time shots were fired at the former president.” How can one explain that?
Moreover, it is a well-established fact now that onlookers alerted the authorities about the presence of an armed man on a nearby roof. One witness reported that to the BBC shortly after the incident.
In addition, local officials in Pennsylvania are complaining that the Secret Service, in an attempt to deflect blame, is throwing them “under the bus”. According to one local police officer: “The Secret Service came out here more than a month ahead of time and met with all the local agencies. They tell us exactly what to do, exactly what they want and exactly how they want it. It’s all on them.”
More intriguingly, several witnesses describe a second shooter, and there seems to be plenty of cell phone footage indicating that – while the Secret Service insist there was only one. According to a Times of India story, “an audio forensic analysis conducted by experts from the National Center for Media Forensics at the University of Colorado in Denver suggests the possibility of a second shooter in the incident”. A CNN story in turn reports that “forensic analysis suggests that as many as three weapons were fired at the Trump rally.”
Stephen Bryen, security expert, takes the second shooter allegation seriously, and, in his Substack newsletter, he is calling for a “solid FBI investigation with Congressional oversight” on the matter. He adds that “there is a general consensus that security at the Trump Rally was poor”, and adds: “if the Secret Service actually approved all the security measures … we wonder, like millions of others no doubt, how could they overlook the rooftops.” Bryen is no fringe figure – he is a former Deputy Under Secretary of Defense, who writes for Newsweek, the Jewish Policy Center, and others.
Cory Mills, a member of the United States House of Representatives, takes the matter a bit further, saying an investigation on the Secret Service is needed to determine whether this was merely incompetence or rather malice, with an intent to neutralize Trump.
Cory Mills is a former military, and was a member of the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF) 20 in Iraq. He is also a defense contractor, who has earned a Master of Arts in international relations and conflict resolution from American Military University. Again, this is also no fringe figure, and his allegations raise eyebrows.
Given all the above, it is no wonder suspicions abound – the fact that Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle is very close to the Biden couple certainly doesn’t help. According to the New York Post, she “landed her role thanks largely to a close relationship with first lady Jill Biden.” In any other country, by the way, after such a scandal, the Secret Service director would have been fired already or would have resigned. One thing that hampers further scrutiny, however, is an American cultural trait, namely the distaste for “conspiracy theories” (which is rather ironic in a country where conspiracies abound). Here, some context is needed.
Most scholars concede that sometimes conspiracy theories (CT) are proven to be at least partly correct. A “true” or ideal CT is supposed to always be false – meaning that its narrative does not describe reality. However, what happens when new data changes the “official” story? For instance, nowadays it is known that in 1962 the US Department of Defense proposed a false flag operation (the Operation Northwoods), calling for CIA operatives to actually commit terrorist attacks against American civilians and military targets in American cities (with bombings and hijackings) and then using those to justify a Cuban invasion. Then President John F. Kennedy rejected the plan, but the proposal existed, and no one denies it.
It is thus not clear at all how a “correct” conspiracy theory (one which later happens to be proven true) differs from a false one. Was it a CT when critics argued that the US government had lied about the real motivations which led it to invade Iraq? Other authors define “conspiracy theories” in a more neutral manner as any hypotheses that try to explain an event by invoking a “conspiracy” – namely, a secret plan carried out by a group of people.
One should also be cautious as to avoid equating a mere CT (about anything) and a conspiratorial way of understanding society and history in general. The latter (conspiracism), implicitly holds that nothing ever happens by chance but rather everything (especially tragedies) happens by design. Conspiracies do exist but not everything is a conspiracy. On the other hand, in the face of a major politically charged event, when various contradictions pile up, it would be naïve to readily dismiss everything as a “coincidence” (I would describe it as a “coincidence theory”).
With Biden’s undeniable senility getting worse, it is becoming increasingly clear he is not fit to run for the presidency again – he can barely participate in a debate or give interviews. Given this, the question then, as I wrote, is how can he govern, or rather how come has he been governing thus? In other words, who has been doing all the governing? Some talk about a “ triumvirate”, referring to Biden’s close advisers Bruce Reed, Mike Donilon, and Steve Ricchetti – the matter is far from being clear, though. One can only imagine the amount of palace intrigue going on amid this “emperor clothes” scenario.
With the ongoing political crisis, any investigation on the Secret Service will be either weaponized by Republicans against Democrats or covered up by the latter, amid a major narrative war and claims about “conspiracy theories”. The crisis is thus also an epistemic one, so to speak.
This state of affairs can only further undermine the legitimacy of American institutions, with serious consequences for the country’s stability. With a suspicious murder attempt on a presidential candidate and an embarrassingly senile incumbent president, the rest of the world holds their breath while the politics within the Atlantic superpower has just gone mad.
Ministry of Truth: Japan’s Communications Ministry Proposes Disinformation Law
By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | July 19, 2024
Only recently, the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), an influential Washington think tank, outlined how the US and Japan could bolster their cooperation in “combating misinformation.”
In a report, CSIS noted almost in passing that Japan has in general fallen behind in this activity, but also that the group’s representatives had meetings with officials in Tokyo.
Coincidentally or not, news out of Japan this week says that the country’s Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry is looking at introducing new “anti-disinformation measures.” And, a draft report notes that here, “efforts are not sufficient” while transparency and accountability (ostensibly on the part of internet companies) have not been “adequate.”
That would suggest yet another “Ministry of Truth” and “disinformation law” are in the making somewhere in the world, these taking shape as a draft report details possible measures that social media companies would have to adhere to, going forward.
The report, which notably comes from the Interior Ministry (also in charge of Communications), speaks about the necessity of companies behind social platforms setting up “counter-disinformation systems” themselves, that would deal with what is deemed to be “disinformation” by deleting this content, but also, stepping up “screening of advertisers.”
And once again, time seems to be of the essence, because the report states that the reaction would have to be “prompt.”
The next step is for the draft to become subject to some form of public debate, after which the local press says it will become “official;” and the following step will be making it into law.
The situation reads almost like Japan wasn’t aware it had a “misinformation” problem of a magnitude that requires new and stringent rules, but is now just realizing that, and is almost mimicking the tone and language that’s been present around the topic for years already, in many parts of the world.
Thus, there are some vague and broad “definitions” – the content to be promptly dealt with is that which “contains obvious errors, infringes on the rights of others or is illegal (including disinformation).”
The Japanese plan states that once “a request” comes from a governmental agency, “the operators should make a prompt decision and provide notification as to whether they will delete the information or not.”
What about freedom of expression? The report’s authors seem to think this will do the trick: “The draft also requests that the administrative agency disclose information such as the contents of the request.”
One target is repeat offenders accused of peddling “illegal disinformation,” who will have their content deleted and accounts suspended.
US Missiles in Germany Again: Why Is Berlin Betraying Its National Interests?
By Dmitry Babich – Sputnik – 19.07.2024
The decision of Washington to start in 2026 the deployment in Germany of US missiles aimed at Russia was not even discussed in Berlin. The public was forced to face a fait accompli. This is a clear degradation of Germany’s standing vis-a-vis the US, compared to the ’80s. Then, a similar deployment was met with protests of West Germany’s citizens.
The governments of both the US and Germany confirmed that in 2026, the American side will begin deploying long-range missiles in Germany. This dangerous move, reminiscent of the worst years of the Cold War, is officially explained by the need to contain “resurgent Russia.”
Gunnar Beck, an expert on European law and former vice president of Identity and Democracy group in the European Parliament, notes that there was no public discussion of this dangerous development in Germany, specifically no discussion in the Bundestag. No details of the deal have been revealed.
“It’s a fait accompli,” Beck told Sputnik. “The German and the US governments have announced they were considering this… But all of the talk of an imminent Russian threat to Europe, in my view, is just a pretext for justifying further military and financial assistance to Ukraine. And, of course, it is a pretext for intimidating the European population and forcing them to accept even larger amounts of military spending.”
Beck notes the few dissenting voices still audible in Germany belong to the parties, which the European Union and especially the European Commission’s chairwoman Ursula von der Leyen try to marginalize:
“There are people on the right and on the far-left which have been criticizing [the deployment]. The German public, by and large, is not war loving. But, of course, there is a lot of propaganda emphasizing that any attack against Ukraine is an attack against Europe as a whole – it is the position of the EU and German government,” Beck told Sputnik.
The situation is reminiscent of the early 1980s, when the US deployed Pershing missiles in West Germany – presumably countering a possible aggression by the Soviet Union. The only difference is that this time Americans promise not to put nuclear warheads on SM-6 missiles, Tomahawks and even some “hypersonic weapons.” These missiles will be carrying conventional warheads that will still make Germany a target for a Russian retaliation starting from 2026.
Beck indicated that American and West German propaganda of that epoch used the same arguments as now. It was said the ability of NATO allies to protect themselves was the best guarantee for peace, etc., but in both cases it was misleading propaganda based on fears and not facts:
“Up to 1987 the propaganda in West Germany evoked the specter of millions of Soviet soldiers stationed in East Germany … that they would all flood into West Germany and occupy the country within three days,” Beck told Sputnik. “The kind of propaganda we are exposed to now is very reminiscent of this. We know today, and we have known for some time already that everything we were told in the 1980s was a great deal of nonsense. There was no evidence whatsoever of a consistently aggressive strategy by the Soviet Union.”
Indeed, Moscow acquiesced to the reunification of Germany in 1990 and withdrew its troops from East Germany in 1994 without a single shot fired. Unfortunately, it is often forgotten now that these concessions were part of the “Two plus four” agreement, whose terms Germany and three other signatories are breaching now.
It was signed on September 12, 1990, by the two (East Germany and West Germany) plus four (the Soviet Union, USA, the UK and France, former members of the anti-Hitler coalition).
Moscow then obliged itself not to prevent the reunification of Germany and to withdraw its troops by 1994 from the territory of the late German Democratic Republic. Both obligations were fulfilled. Now, here is how the obligations of Western powers were breached, in the words of Beck:
“No foreign weapons could be deployed in East Germany… And both German states then agreed that the united Germany would only deploy weapons on its territory if it is done in accordance with Germany’s constitution and the Charter of the United Nations. So, unless there is a UN Security Council resolution, it is a very debatable issue whether Germany can allow the deployment of new weapons that increase the risk of war.”
It should be noted that the German constitution prohibits the supplies of German weapons to the zones of armed conflict. However, Berlin is officially “pumping up” Volodymyr Zelensky’s regime with weapons worth tens of billions of euros.
Beck states the subsequent events showed the deceitful nature of the Western propaganda of the 1980s: Moscow indeed had no intention of invading Europe and withdrew from Germany at the first opportunity. Unfortunately, its goodwill was abused by Western allies.
Now, many Germans suspect a “remake” of the that deceitful intimidation: a poll conducted by Forsa Institute revealed 47% of Germans think the planned deployment of US weapons will only increase the possibility of a Russia-NATO conflict.
However, Beck notes this substantial part of German public opinion is not organized and its will has no chance of influencing the European Commission – or even the government of Germany.
UN’s top court says Israel’s presence in Palestinian territories ‘illegal’
Press TV – July 19, 2024
The United Nations’ top court has ruled that Israel’s presence in the 1967-occupied Palestinian territories is “unlawful” and must end.
On Friday, the International Court of Justice said “Israel’s continued presence in the occupied Palestinian territory is unlawful”, adding that the regime “is under an obligation” to end it “as rapidly as possible.”
Israel occupied the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East al-Quds, areas Palestinians want for a future independent state, in a 1967 war.
The 83-page advisory opinion read out by court President Nawaf Salam outlined a wide list of policies that it said violated international law, including the building and expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank and east al-Quds.
“Israel is under obligation to cease immediately all new settlement activities and to evacuate all settlers from occupied Palestinian territory,” the court said, adding that the regime must “make reparation for damage caused to all natural and legal persons concerned.”
The ruling urged all states and international organizations, including the United Nations, “not to recognize as legal” the situation arising from the unlawful presence of Israel in occupied Palestinian territory.
According to the opinion, the UN and the Security Council “should consider the precise modalities and further action required to bring to an end as rapidly as possible” to the unlawful presence of Israel in the occupied territory.
In February, a record 52 countries presented arguments at the ICJ, known as the World Court, about the legal ramifications of Israel’s actions in the territories.
This case was initiated by a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution in December 2022, before Israel’s October genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
Erwin van Veen, a senior research fellow at the Clingendael think tank in The Hague, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying that if the court rules that Israel’s policies in the West Bank and east al-Quds breach international law, it would “isolate Israel further internationally, at least from a legal point of view.”
He noted that such a ruling would “worsen the case for occupation. It removes any kind of legal, political, philosophical underpinning of the Israeli expansion project.”
The case is separate from another ICJ case filed against Israel by South Africa.
South Africa filed a genocide case against Israel in December 2023 over its war on the Gaza Strip. According to South Africa’s application, Israel’s actions in Gaza were “genocidal in character because they are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnical group.”
The ICJ’s final ruling on the broader South African case may take months if not years to rule, but the court can order urgent measures while weighing its decision.
In January, the ICJ, whose orders are legally binding but lack direct enforcement mechanisms, issued an interim ruling, ordering the occupying regime to take all measures to prevent genocide in Gaza, but stopped short of ordering a ceasefire.
In May, the court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah after South Africa asked the ICJ to order a halt to the war in Gaza, and in the refugee-packed city in particular.
While Israel ignored the ruling, the Friday opinion could add political pressure over Israel’s nine-month-old war against Gaza.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
Since the start of the offensive, the Tel Aviv regime has killed at least 38,848 Palestinians and injured 89,459 more. Thousands more are also missing and presumed dead under rubble.
Palestinian Factions: The day after the war is a Palestinian internal affair
Palestinian Information Center – July 19, 2024
GAZ – The Palestinian national and Islamic factions said on Thursday evening that the day after the war on Gaza is a purely Palestinian national affair, and no external party will be allowed to interfere in the Palestinian internal affairs.
The factions stressed in a statement that the Rafah crossing is a Palestinian-Egyptian border crossing, and that the form of its management on the Palestinian side is determined by the Palestinian forces and definitely not the USA or Israel, or those who cooperate with them.
“The recent Knesset resolution which rejects the establishment of a Palestinian state takes us to the heart of the conflict with the occupier,” the statement added.
The factions called for establishing a widespread national movement aimed at “reclaiming the Palestine Liberation Organization that has been silenced for decades and for developing a national strategy and program for liberation.”
The factions’ statement comes in light of the news about a secret meeting held last week between the USA, Israel, and the Palestinian Authority, represented by its intelligence chief Majid Faraj, to discuss reopening the Rafah crossing under the control of Israel and the USA.
For 73 days, Israeli occupation forces have been occupying and closing the Gaza crossings, preventing the wounded and sick from traveling abroad for treatment or bringing in any humanitarian aid into the besieged Strip, turning a blind eye to warnings from humanitarian and relief organizations and international demands to reopen the crossings to avoid famine and to save the lives of thousands of citizens.
Hamas calls on PLO to withdraw recognition of Israel after Knesset rejects Palestinian statehood
Palestinian Information Center – July 18, 2024
DOHA – The Hamas Movement and the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) called on the leadership of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) to withdraw its recognition of Israel.
The announcement was made during a meeting between head of Hamas’s political bureau Ismail Haneyya and the PIJ Secretary-General Ziyad Al-Nakhaleh and his deputy Dr Mohammad Al-Hindi in Doha.
The leaders of the two movements discussed the overall political and field developments related to the Israeli genocide war on the Gaza Strip.
They also hailed the heroic steadfastness of the Palestinian people in the face of the Israeli bloody massacres in the Gaza Strip.
“The leaderships viewed that, in light of the Knesset’s declared position rejecting the Palestinian people’s right to establish their independent state, the national forces are required today to take a unified stance to confront these attempts to erase the Palestinian cause,” they said in a joint statement.
The joint statement also called on the leadership of the PLO “to withdraw its recognition of the Zionist entity, reaffirming at the same time our people’s right to establish their independent state with Jerusalem as its capital, and the right of return for refugees.”
Earlier Wednesday, Israel’s Knesset voted overwhelmingly in favor of a resolution rejecting the establishment of a Palestinian state.
The resolution garnered support from 68 Knesset members, including those from Benny Gantz’s National Unity Party. Nine Knesset members from Arab parties opposed the proposal, and members of the Labor Party abstained from voting.
Yemen has ‘very large stock’ of UAV used in unprecedented Tel Aviv attack
The Cradle | July 19, 2024
The Yemeni drone that successfully targeted Tel Aviv early on 19 July was locally produced, according to a source who spoke with Al Mayadeen.
The Yafa drone, named after the Palestinian city of Jaffa over which Tel Aviv was built, was “locally manufactured and developed [during the war], after Arab countries intercepted Yemeni [drones] that were targeting Umm al-Rashrash (Eilat), after 7 October,” the Yemeni source told Al Mayadeen on Friday.
The Armed Forces of Yemen’s Sanaa government has a “very large” stock of this type of drone, the source added.
“This is not the last weapon … [This drone] covers a distance of more than 2,000 km, and is equipped with modern jamming and infiltration systems … [The operation] coincides with ongoing naval operations, in accordance with the objectives announced by the Yemeni army. The operations will not stop,” the source went on to say.
“The target bank in Jaffa [Tel Aviv] is diverse … it will never be safe again … the operation is considered an advanced military success.”
The Israeli army identified the drone as an Iranian-made Samad-3, which was modified to have extended range, Israeli media reported.
The Yemeni Armed Forces – which are aligned with the Ansarallah resistance movement – announced the drone attack that struck Tel Aviv early on 19 July. At least one Israeli was killed and several others injured in the attack, which failed to trigger alarms.
In the statement, Yemeni army spokesman Yahya Saree declared Tel Aviv an “unsafe zone and a primary target within our weapon range.” He revealed that Sanaa holds “a bank of targets in occupied Palestine, including sensitive military and security targets, and will, with Allah’s help, continue to strike these targets in response to the enemy’s massacres and daily crimes against our brothers in Gaza.”
The Yafa drone did not set off any alarms as it entered Israeli airspace from the south before hitting a building near the US consulate in Tel Aviv.
According to Israeli media, the army has blamed its failure in intercepting the drone on a “human error.” The air force is also examining why the drone did not trigger sirens after entering Israeli air space from the south.
Israeli Army Radio reported on Friday morning that a preliminary investigation from the army showed that air defense systems detected the drone, but it was not classified as an aerial threat. Therefore, no alarm was activated, and the target was not shot down.
The successful drone attack “shouldn’t have happened,” the Israeli Air Force said. The Israeli army said fighter jets would increase patrols over Tel Aviv’s skies.
Collapsing Empire: Yemen Defeats US Navy
By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | July 19, 2024
On July 12th, the Associated Press (AP) published an astonishing report, on the return of US Navy fighter pilots to Virginia after nine months of failing to thwart the righteous anti-genocide blockade of Red Sea shipping by Yemen’s Ansar Allah. The article was at pains to portray the pilots’ arrival Stateside as a heroic homecoming for courageous American flying aces. In reality, the Empire’s terminal weaknesses, and drastically ever-reducing power, were amply exposed.
AP described the pilots as “feeling relieved…after months of shooting down Houthi-launched missiles and drones off Yemen’s coast in the most intense running sea battle the Navy has faced since World War II.” Accompanying photos depicted them embracing their wives, and children waving the Star Spangled Banner. One pilot, “clearing the emotion from his voice,” boasted that he “couldn’t be prouder of his team” – the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower aircraft carrier strike group – and “everything that the last nine months have entailed.”
The pilot looked ahead to spending time with his family, and trying to “make up for nine months of lost time.” The wife of a Navy lieutenant commander and pilot lamented that she “initially thought this deployment would be relatively easy” – “it was going to be, if you could call it, a fun deployment where he’s going to get lots of ports to visit.” As it was, the USS Eisenhower became embroiled in a brutal, unwinnable quagmire, and “plans continued to change.”
The drastic prolongation of her husband’s deployment “was exacerbated” due to knowing “people” – in other words, Ansar Allah – “[wanted] to harm the ship.” She was forced to consult “counselors provided by the Navy,” and was not alone. AP records “months of fighting and extensions placed extra stress on roughly 7,000 sailors and their families.” Pentagon officials are now investigating how to care for pilots and sailors “when they return home, including counseling and treatment for possible post-traumatic stress.”
It’s been a hellacious nine months for the US Navy in the Red Sea, courtesy of God’s Partisans [literal translation of Ansar Allah]. AP notes the Eisenhower and its accompanying ships have been bombarded relentlessly by Ansar Allah drones, and ballistic and cruise missiles. Frequently, these attacks have penetrated multiple layers of on-ship defenses, which is totally unprecedented in modern history. AP reports many sailors “have seen incoming Houthi-launched missiles seconds before they are destroyed by their ship’s defensive systems.”
Battling an enemy that can actually fight back has been a deeply ravaging experience for the US Navy. One pilot remarked, “most of the sailors…weren’t used to being fired on given the nation’s previous military engagements in recent decades.” He described the experience as “incredibly different”, “traumatizing for the group”, and “something that we don’t think about a lot.” A new experience it may be – but it’s one the US military will need to promptly and permanently adapt to.
Given the pace with which events move in this epoch, many may have forgotten the tubthumping fanfare that accompanied Operation Prosperity Guardian’s launch in December 2023. This followed a flurry of ineffectual, flaccid British and US airstrikes on Yemen. Officials in Washington bombastically announced that a multi-country coalition led by the US, comprising Bahrain, Britain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain would be dispatched to the Red Sea, to decisively end Ansar Allah’s blockade, and ensure “freedom of trade”.
Almost immediately though, the much-vaunted coalition came apart. France, Italy, and Spain all announced they wouldn’t actually be taking part. Despite this inauspicious debut, when footage emerged of a grand international naval flotilla dramatically slicing its way to the region, many prominent social media users shrieked that Yemenis were about to find out why Americans don’t enjoy universal healthcare. Fast forward to July this year, and the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) published a forensic report on the impact of AnsarAllah’s “attacks on international trade.”
It found that container shipping through the Red Sea, which typically accounts for approximately 10-15% of international maritime trade, had declined by approximately 90% since Operation Prosperity Guardian began. Due to Ansar Allah’s inexorable onslaught against corporations and countries supporting the Gaza genocide, many ships were forced to take alternative routes around Africa, adding approximately 11,000 extra nautical miles, up to two weeks further transit time, and approximately $1 million in additional fuel costs for each voyage:
“For many shipping companies, the combined costs of crew bonuses, war risk insurance (roughly 1000% more than pre-war costs), and Suez transit fees make the additional time and financial costs traveling around Africa less expensive by comparison…Threats to Red Sea transits are compounding ongoing stress to global maritime shipping…Insurance premiums for Red Sea transits have risen to 0.7-1.0% of a ship’s total value, compared to less than 0.1% prior to December 2023.”
The DIA calculates that “at least 65 countries’ interests have been affected” by Ansar Allah’s actions, and “at least 29 major energy and shipping companies have altered their routes to avoid Houthi attacks.” And this is while their anti-shipping aerial strikes have been subject to relentless bombardment by US missiles and pilots.
On July 15th, mere days after Associated Press surveyed the smoldering wreckage of Operation Prosperity Guardian, AnsarAllah announced three separate operations in response to the Zionist entity’s massacre at the UN al-Mawasi Khan Yunis refugee camp. Undefeated and indefatigable, God’s Partisans are not backing down, and are going nowhere. The Resistance fights to win.
Should RFK, Jr., Have Accepted Secret Service Protection?
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | July 19, 2024
In the aftermath of the near-assassination of President Trump, President Biden finally granted independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.’s longtime request to be granted Secret Service protection. However, I can’t help but wonder whether Kennedy is now having second thoughts, not only given the Secret Service’s massive incompetence, at best, that led to the Trump shooting but also given the possibility, at worst, that there was criminal culpability on the part of the Secret Service, including by simply knowingly letting the shooting happen.
While the event will inevitably be blamed on incompetence by U.S. officials and the mainstream press, one thing is certain: While there is now no doubt that the John F. Kennedy assassination was orchestrated and covered up by the military and the CIA, given the military’s fraudulent autopsy on JFK’s body and the CIA’s production of a fraudulent copy of the Zapruder film on the weekend of the assassination, there is also no doubt that there were elements of the Secret Service involved in the assassination and cover-up. (For a detailed account of the autopsy fraud and the film fraud, see my books The Kennedy Autopsy and An Encounter with Evil: The Abraham Zapruder Story.)
Consider Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman. He was riding in the passenger seat of the presidential limousine when the first shot was fired at Kennedy. Kellerman’s duty as a Secret Service agent was to jump over the seat and cover Kennedy with his body. Instead, he sat there like a bump on a log, waiting for the fatal shot that hit Kennedy in the head.
Fifty-nine witnesses stated that the driver of the limousine, William Greer, made a complete stop or a near-stop after the first shot rang out, which obviously made it easier for the shooter to hit Kennedy in the head with the fatal shot. Yet, that stop or near-stop is not seen in the extant Zapruder film of the assassination.
As I detail in An Encounter with Evil, the official story has always been that the Zapruder film was shipped to Chicago on the Saturday after the Friday assassination, where LIFE magazine’s printing plant was located. This was after Dallas businessman Abraham Zapruder had sold the print rights to his film of the assassination to LIFE magazine.
In the late 2000s, that official narrative was burst asunder when one of the CIA’s most renowned photo intelligence analysts, Dino Brugioni, disclosed that two men who identified themselves as Secret Service agents secretly delivered the Zapruder film to him and his team at the CIA’s National Photographic Interpretation Center (NPIC) in Washington, D.C., on the Saturday night after the assassination on Friday. That meant that the film had secretly been diverted from Chicago to Washington. That would not have been difficult to do given that LIFE’s publisher, C.D. Jackson, was a CIA asset under the CIA’s Operation Mockingbird program.
Brugioni’s job was to make blow-ups of frames from the film that the two Secret Service agents selected and post them on “briefing boards.” As I detail in my book, when Brugioni was shown the extant Zapruder film in the late 2000s, he stated unequivocally that it was not the same film he had seen on that Saturday night.
On the following evening, a man who identified himself as a Secret Service agent delivered a 16mm copy of the Zapruder film to another NPIC team, stating that this copy was actually the original film that he had just brought from Hawkeyeworks, a top-secret CIA film facility located in the middle of Kodak’s research and development facility at its national headquarters in Rochester, New York.
How do we know that that that 16mm film was a copy and not the original? Because Zapruder’s film was an 8mm-wide film. There is no way to convert an 8mm film into a 16mm film except by making a copy of it.
Could they have produced a 16mm top-quality copy of an 8mm film at Hawkeyeworks? Brugiioni had visited Hawkeyeworks and had been told that they were capable of “doing anything” at that facility.
How would they have done that? As I detail in An Encounter with Evil, they would have done it with what was called an “aerial optical printer,” which could produce an altered copy that would come out looking like an original. Using that piece of equipment, they could produce an altered copy of the film that deleted all the frames that showed Secret Service agent Greer’s stop or near-stop of the limousine, which, again, had been seen by 59 eyewitnesses.
Since the CIA could view Zapruder’s 8mm film at NPIC, there was no reason whatsoever to secretly take the film to Hawkeyeworks except to produce an altered, fraudulent copy of the film. (While the CIA worked closely with Kodak film experts at Hawkeyeworks, no evidence has ever surfaced that Kodak had any role in helping to produce the altered copy of the Zapruder film.)
Returning to Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, it’s worth mentioning that he was the agent in charge of the Secret Service team at Parkland Hospital that forcibly prevented the Dallas County Medical Examiner, Dr. Earl Rose, from conducting an autopsy on Kennedy’s body, as Texas law required. Brandishing guns and screaming, yelling, and issuing a stream of profanities, Kellerman and his team forced their way out of Parkland with JFK’s body and delivered it to new President Lyndon Johnson, who was patiently waiting for it in Air Force One at Dallas’s Love Field and who would later deliver JFK’s body into the hands of the military.
As I detail in The Kennedy Autopsy, the president’s body was secretly delivered to the Bethesda National Medical Center morgue at 6:35 p.m. in a cheap shipping casket, which was almost 1 and 1/2 hours before the official entry time of the body into the morgue in the heavy, ornate casket into which it had been placed in Dallas.
You’ll never guess who was in charge of the secret operation to get JFK’s body back into the Dallas casket after it had been secretly delivered to the Bethesda morgue at 6:35 pm in the cheap shipping casket. Yes, Secret Service agent Roy Kellerman, who obviously was a very busy man on November 22, 1963.
After the Assassination Records Review Board was brought into existence in 1992, the ARRB sent a notice to all federal agencies, including the Secret Service, specifically advising them that they were not to destroy any assassination-related records. With full knowledge of that directive, the Secret Service knowingly, intentionally, and deliberately destroyed its records of Kennedy’s trips in the month preceding the assassination. Those records were important in part because of an assassination plot in Chicago that was foiled, one that involved a “patsy” who was similar to Lee Harvey Oswald, a man named Thomas Vallee.
Given the manifest incompetence of the Secret Service with respect to the Trump shooting, at best, and given that elements of the Secret Service were criminally culpable in the Kennedy assassination, and given the Secret Service’s contemptible conduct with the ARRB, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., might today be wishing he had stuck with a private-sector security firm.
US not solution but obstacle in way of resolving international issues: Iran
Press TV – July 19, 2024
Iran’s interim foreign minister says the United States’ unilateral approach to international issues has proven to be a failure, stressing that Washington is not part of the solution, but an obstacle in the path of peace.
Speaking to reporters in New York on Friday, Ali Bagheri Kani criticized the US’s withdrawal from the 2015 Iran nuclear deal, officially known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), and its export of weapons to Israel amid the regime’s genocidal war on the Gaza Strip.
“The Americans’ claims that unilateralism can bring about peace, stability and security to the world have failed,” he said.
“Practically, the American’s approaches to the Iran nuclear negotiations, as well as the Palestine issue and the Zionist’s aggression against Gaza, demonstrated that they cannot be part of the solution, but they are themselves the main obstacle.”
The top diplomat also noted that the US is not qualified to be a “neutral mediator” as it disrupted the JCPOA’s implementation and is even “encouraging” Israel to commit more crimes in Gaza by providing the regime with lethal arms.
Bagheri Kani made the remarks after he attended two United Nations Security Council meetings focusing on the developments in Palestine and multilateralism.
He said that in the meetings, he had underlined the need for an immediate end to the Gaza genocide and highlighted the consequences if the regime committed a “strategic mistake” by invading Lebanon.
“The Zionists are killing and injuring 20 oppressed Palestinians almost every hour. Thus, the world should not remain silent and passive in the face of these continued crimes that are being normalized,” he added.
The interim foreign minister further hailed resistance as an effective element in the region, saying it plays a major role in creating regional stability and prevents the Zionists from escalating their offensive and massacre in the region.
Israel unleashed its brutal Gaza onslaught on October 7, 2023, after the Hamas resistance group carried out its historic operation against the occupying entity in retaliation for the regime’s intensified atrocities against the Palestinian people.
The Tel Aviv regime has so far killed at least 38,848 Palestinians, mostly women, and children, in Gaza, and injured 89,456 others in the besieged Gaza Strip.
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The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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