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HOUSING AID AND LOANS FOR NON-CITIZENS: WHO’S PROTECTING THE MIDDLE CLASS?

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | August 29, 2024

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics, Video | | Leave a comment

The Militarisation of Scandinavia & the Coming Wars

How a Region of Peace Became an American Frontline

By Glenn Diesen | September 6, 2024

The militarisation of Scandinavia will drastically undermine the security of the region and invite new conflicts as Russia will be compelled to respond to what could become an existential threat. Norway has decided to host at least 12 US military bases on its soil, while Finland and Sweden follow suit by transferring sovereign control over parts of their territory after they recently became NATO members. Infrastructure will be built to bring US troops faster to Russian borders, while the Baltic Sea and the Arctic will be converted into NATO seas.

Scandinavia as a Key Region for Russian Security

Ever since Kievan Rus disintegrated in the 13th century and the Russians lost their presence on the Dnieper River, a key security challenge for Russia has been its lack of reliable access to the world seas. Furthermore, economic development is also dependent on reliable access to the seas as they are the arteries of international trade. Similarly, hegemonic powers have always been required to dominate the seas, while Russia can be contained, weakened and defeated by restricting its access.

Sweden was initially such a great power. In the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries, Sweden sought to restrict the access of Russia in the Baltic Sea, while also attempting to encroach upon its Arctic port in Arkhangelsk. During the “The Time of Trouble” that involved the Swedish occupation of Russia, approximately 1/3 of Russia’s entire population died. The conflict ended with the Treaty of Stolbova in 1617, which involved territorial concessions that cut off Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea. This lasted until the time of Peter the Great, who eventually defeated Sweden in the Great Northern War in 1721. The war ended Sweden’s era as a great power, while Russia became a great power due to its access to the Baltic Sea.

The dominant maritime powers, Britain and then the US, pursued similar attempts to limit Russia’s access to the world’s oceans for the next three centuries. During the Crimean War (1853-56), European diplomats had been explicit that the objective had been to push Russia back into Asia and exclude it from European affairs.[1] This explains Russia’s fierce response to the Western-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014 as Russia responded by seizing Crimea in fear of losing its strategic Black Sea Fleet in Sevastopol to NATO. The US sabotage of the Minsk agreement (2015-2022) and the Istanbul peace agreement (2022) was similarly motivated by the goal of arming Ukraine to take back Crimea and make Sevastopol a NATO naval base.

The militarisation and vassalisation of Scandinavia are important to challenge Russia’s access to the two other seas on Russia’s Western borders – the Baltic Sea and the Arctic. Former NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen optimistically announced that NATO expansion in Scandinavia would enable NATO to block Russia’s access to the Baltic Sea in a conflict: “After the accession of Finland and Sweden to NATO, the Baltic Sea will now be a NATO sea… if we wish, we can block all entry and exit to Russia through St. Petersburg”.[2] Poland and the Baltic States have also begun to casually refer to the Baltic Sea as a “NATO sea”. The Financial Times argues that “Denmark could block Russian oil tankers from reaching markets” as part of sanctions.[3] A NATO Colonel also argued that the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad would come under much greater pressure and become a “problem” for Russia: “The ascension of Finland and the upcoming ascension of Sweden will totally change the setup in the Baltic Sea region. Russia will experience Kaliningrad being surrounded”.[4]

Sweden’s NATO membership now threatens to reverse the outcome of the Great Northern War in 1721, which by implication would diminish the basic foundations of Russian security. The Battle of Poltova is recognised to have been the largest and most decisive battle of the Great Northern War that resulted in Sweden’s defeat. The videos emerging of Swedish casualties in the recent Russian missile strike on Poltova is very symbolic of the militarisation of Scandinavia.

America’s attack on Nord Stream demonstrated how control over the Baltic Sea is important to cut Russian-German economic connectivity. The US has attempted to blame the Ukrainians for the attack, suggesting that “the CIA warned Zelensky’s office to stop the operation”.[5] The admission of knowing about the attack before it happened is nonetheless interesting as the US and NATO blamed Russia for the attack and used it as a reason to intensify the naval control over the Baltic Sea and escalate the Ukraine War. This is an admission that the US lied to their own public and the world, and used the lie to escalate their wider war on Russia. The attack also demonstrates that the Americans will treat the Europeans as proxies just like they used the Ukrainians, while the Europeans would not stand up for their interests but silently accept an ally destroying their own vital energy infrastructure. The revelation also demonstrated that the people we generously refer to as journalists will not ask any critical questions or discuss objective reality if it challenges the war narrative.

Finland was perhaps the greatest success story of neutrality, yet it was converted into NATO’s longest frontline against Russia. There was no threat to Finland, yet expansion was framed as being a blow to Putin as an objective on its own. Foreign military deployments will predictably soon emerge in the north of Finland to threaten Russia’s Northern Fleet in Arkhangelsk. The pretext will most likely be the concern that Russia will want to seize part of Lapland in the north of Finland. It will make no sense whatsoever, but obedient media will drum up the required fear.

The militarisation of Norway has followed a gradual incrementalism. Initially, US troops were stationed in Norway on a rotating basis, which enabled the government to claim they were not permanently deployed. In 2021, Norway and the US agreed on a few military bases but called them “dedicated areas” as Norway officially does not allow foreign bases on its soil. The US has full control and jurisdiction over these territories and the US media refers to them as military bases that will enable the US to confront Russia in the Arctic, but the Norwegian political-media elites must still refer to them as “dedicated areas” and dismiss that they have any offensive purposes. The frog is slowly boiling, believing it has identical interests to its masters in Washington.

Ignoring the Security Competition when Interpreting the Ukraine War

As Scandinavia is converted from a region of peace to a US frontline, one would expect more debate about this historical shift. Yet, the political-media elites have already reached the consensus that expanding NATO enhances our security due to greater military force and deterrence. More weapons rarely result in more peace, although this is the logic of hegemonic peace that this generation of politicians has committed themselves to.

The point of departure in security politics is the security competition. If increasing the security of country A decreases the security of country B, then country B will likely be compelled to enhance its security in a manner that reduces security for country A. The security competition can be mitigated by deterring the adversary without provoking a response, which is ideally organised through an inclusive security architecture.

Scandinavia’s ability to be a region of peace relied on mastering the deterrence/reassurance balance. Finland and Sweden were neutral states and were an important part of the belt of neutral states from the north to the south of Europe during the Cold War, which contributed to reducing tensions. Norway was a NATO member but imposed restrictions on itself by not hosting foreign military bases on its soil and limiting the military activities of allies in the Arctic region. It was common sense that security derived from deterring the Soviets without provoking them, this common sense is now long gone.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is cited as the main reason why Finland and Sweden had to abandon their neutrality and join NATO. This logic makes sense when ignoring security competition as Russia’s actions then occur in a vacuum. Acceptable discussions about the Ukraine War are limited by the premise that Russia’s invasion was “unprovoked”, and any efforts to widen the debate by addressing NATO’s role can be shut down with accusations of “legitimising” Russia’s invasion.

NATO expansion caused the Ukraine War, and the response to this war was NATO expansion to Finland and Sweden. This twisted logic prevails as the narrative of an “unprovoked” invasion has become immune to facts. German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, explained that she had opposed offering Ukraine the Membership Action Plan to join NATO in 2008 as it would have been interpreted by Moscow as “a declaration of war”.[6] Wikileaks also revealed that Germans believed that pushing NATO expansionism could “break up the country”.[7] William Burns, the US Ambassador to Moscow and now the current Director of the CIA, warned that “Ukrainian entry into NATO is the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite”.[8] Burns warned of the consequences:

“Not only does Russia perceive encirclement, and efforts to undermine Russia’s influence in the region, but it also fears unpredictable and uncontrolled consequences which would seriously affect Russian security interests… Russia is particularly worried that the strong divisions in Ukraine over NATO membership, with much of the ethnic-Russian community against membership, could lead to a major split, involving violence or at worst, civil war. In that eventuality, Russia would have to decide whether to intervene; a decision Russia does not want to have to face”.[9]

Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO’s Secretary General in 2008, recognised that NATO should have respected Russia’s red lines and should therefore not have pledged membership to Ukraine and Georgia in 2008.[10] Former US Secretary of Defence and CIA Director Robert Gates also acknowledged the mistake as “Trying to bring Georgia and Ukraine into NATO was truly overreaching”.[11] Even the support for bringing Ukraine into NATO had dubious intensions. In late March 2008, one week before the NATO Summit in Bucharest where Ukraine was promised future membership, Tony Blair told American political leaders how they should manage Russia. Blair argued the strategy “should be to make Russia a ‘little desperate’ with our activities in areas bordering on what Russia considers its sphere of interest and along its actual borders. Russia had to be shown firmness and sown with seeds of confusion”.[12]

In September 2023, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg gleefully argued that Russia’s actions to prevent NATO expansion would now result in more NATO expansion.

“President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And [it] was a pre-condition for not invading Ukraine. Of course we didn’t sign that. The opposite happened. He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO… We rejected that. So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member”.[13]

Stoltenberg did not specify why he thought more NATO expansion would increase security if NATO expansion was the cause of the war. However, NATO also insists that Ukraine must become part of NATO as Russia would not dare to attack a NATO country, while NATO also argues that Russia must be stopped in Ukraine as Russia will thereafter attack NATO countries. Much like the recognition of security competition, the logic is also absent.

Blinded by Ideological Fundamentalism

Scandinavia’s recognition of security competition has suffered from what is referred to in the literature as “ideological fundamentalism”. Actors are seen as either good or bad based on political identities that have been assigned by ideology. Ideological fundamentalism reduces the ability to recognise that one’s own policies and actions may constitute a threat to others, because one’s own political identity is held to be indisputably positive and dissociated from any threatening behaviour. There is a lack of understanding for why Russia would feel threatened by NATO expansion even after Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen and the proxy war in Ukraine. NATO is merely a “defensive alliance”, even as it bombs countries that never threatened it. Ideological fundamentalism can best be explained by President Reagan’s reaction to how Able Archer, a NATO military exercise in 1983 that almost triggered a nuclear war. Convinced that the US was a force for good that was fighting an evil empire, he was bewildered that the Soviets did not see it the same way:

“Three years had taught me something surprising about the Russians: Many people at the top of the Soviet hierarchy were genuinely afraid of America and Americans… I’d always felt that from our deeds it must be clear to anyone that Americans were a moral people who starting at the birth of our nation had always used our power only as a force of good in the world”.[14]

Trapped in the tribal mindset of “us” versus “them”, the Scandinavians exaggerate what “we” have in common, and dismiss any commonality with “them”. It is assumed that the US shares the interests of Scandinavia, and is primarily building a military presence there to provide security. The US has a security strategy based on hegemony, which is dependent on weakening all emerging rivals. The US Security Strategy of 2002 explicitly linked national security to global dominance as the objective to “dissuade future military competition” should be achieved by advancing “the unparalleled strength of the United States armed forces, and their forward presence”.[15] While Scandinavia has an interest in maintaining peaceful borders with Russia, the US has defined its interests in destabilising Russian borders.[16] Peacetime alliances are reliant on perpetuating conflicts rather than solving them as conflict ensures loyalty from the protectorate and the containment of the adversary. In his famous work on how to advance and perpetuate US global hegemony, Brzezinski wrote the US must “prevent collusion and maintain security dependence among the vassals, to keep tributaries pliant and protected, and keep the barbarians from coming together”.[17]

A Lack of Political Imagination to Move Beyond Bloc Politics

The Scandinavians recognise that their security has been reliant on the US since the end of the Second World War, and they simply do not have the political imagination for other security arrangements. If it worked then, why should it not work now? As security competition is no longer a consideration, the Scandinavians conveniently neglect that NATO was a status quo actor during the Cold War, while after the Cold War it became a revisionist actor by expanding and attacking other countries in what NATO refers to as “out-of-area” operations.

The lack of alternatives to NATO enables the US to simply demand “alliance solidarity” as a code word for bloc discipline. Case in point, in the 2000s Norway was criticising the US missile defence system that threatened the nuclear balance as it could enable a US first strike. Wikileaks revealed that the US Ambassador reported that the US was pressuring the Norwegian government, political figures, journalists, and think tank researchers to overcome Norway’s firm opposition to missile defence, or at least “to a minimum counter Russian misstatements and distinguish Norway’s position from Russia’s to avoid damaging alliance solidarity”.[18] It was argued that “thanks to our high-level visitors”, Norway had begun to “quietly continue work in NATO on missile defence and to publicly criticise Russia for provocative statements” (Wikileaks, 2007b).[19] In the words of US Ambassador Whitney, Norway had to “adjust to current realities” since it would have a “hard time defending its position if the issue shifts to one of alliance solidarity”.[20] Following the Norwegian U-turn on missile defence, it was declared in the Norwegian Parliament that “it is important for the political cohesion of the alliance not to let the opposition, perhaps especially from Russia, hinder progress and feasible solutions”.[21]

The world is yet again undergoing dramatic change as it changes from a unipolar to a multipolar world order. The US will increasingly shift its focus and resources to Asia, which will change the trans-Atlantic relationship. The US will be able to offer less to the Europeans, but it will demand more loyalty in terms of economics and security. The Europeans will have to sever their economic ties to American rivals which will result in less prosperity and more dependence. The US will also expect the Europeans to militarise the economic competition with China, and NATO has already become the most obvious vehicle for this purpose. Instead of adjusting to multipolarity by diversifying their ties and pursuing opportunities from the rise of Asia, the Europeans are doing the opposite by subordinating themselves further to the US in the hope that it will increase the value of NATO.

Scandinavia was a region of peace as it attempted to mitigate the security competition. As Scandinavia surrenders its sovereignty to the US for protection against an imaginary threat, the region will be converted into a frontline that will unavoidably trigger new conflicts. The only certainty is that when Russia reacts to these provocations, we will all chant “unprovoked” in unison and make some obscure reference to democracy.

[1] J.W. Kipp and W.B. Lincoln, ‘Autocracy and Reform Bureaucratic Absolutism and Political Modernization in Nineteenth-Century Russia’, Russian History, vol.6, no.1, 1979, p.4.

[2] Lrt, ‘Putin’s plan includes Baltics, says former NATO chief’, Lrt, 19 July 2022.

[3] H. Foy, R. Milne and D. Sheppard, Denmark could block Russian oil tankers from reaching markets, Financial Times, 15 November 2023.

[4] E. Zubriūtė, Kaliningrad is no longer our problem, but Russia’s’ – interview with NATO colonel, LRT, 13 November 2023.

[5] B. Pancevski, A Drunken Evening, a Rented Yacht: The Real Story of the Nord Stream Pipeline Sabotage, The Wall Street Jounral, 14 August 2024.

[6] A. Walsh, ‘Angela Merkel opens up on Ukraine, Putin and her legacy’, Deutsche Welle, 7 June 2022.

[7] Wikileaks, ‘Germany/Russia: Chancellery views on MAP for Ukraine and Georgia’, Wikileaks, 6 June 2008.

[8] W.J. Burns, The Back Channel: A Memoir of American Diplomacy and the Case for Its Renewal, New York, Random House, 2019, p.233.

[9] W.J. Burns, ‘Nyet means nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines’, Wikileaks, 1 February 2008.

[10] G.J. Dennekamp, De Hoop Scheffer: Poetin werd radicaler door NAVO’ [De Hoop Scheffer: Putin became more radical because of NATO], NOS, 7 January 2018.

[11] R.M. Gates, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, New York, Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group, 2014.

[12] Telegraph, ‘Tony Blair and John McCain talk about Israel/Palestine and Russia handling’, The Telegraph, 27 March 2008.

[13] J. Stoltenberg, ‘Opening remarks’, NATO, 7 September 2023.

[14] Reagan, R., 1990. An American Life: The Autobiography. Simon and Schuster, New York, p.74.

[15] NSS, ‘The National Security Strategy of the United States of America’, The White House, June 2002.

[16] RAND, ‘Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground’, RAND Corporation, 24 April 2019.

[17] Z. Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and its Geopolitical Imperatives, New York, Basic Books, 1997, p.40.

[18] Wikileaks, 2007. Norway: Missile defense public diplomacy and outreach, OSLO 000248, US Embassy, Oslo, 13 March

[19] Wikileaks, 2007. Positive movements in the missile defence debate in Norway but no breakthrough, OSLO 000614, US Embassy, Oslo, 8 June

[20] Wikileaks, 2008. Norway standing alone against missile defense, OSLO 000072, US Embassy, Oslo, 12 February.

[21] Stortinget, 2012. Norwegian Parliamentary meeting, Sak 2, 15 May 2012.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Economics, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Washington, Baghdad clinch deal on US troop withdrawal from Iraq: Report

Press TV – September 6, 2024

The US and Iraq have reached an agreement for the withdrawal of US-led coalition forces from Iraq, which would see hundreds of troops leave by September 2025 and the remainder by the end of 2026, according to a Western media report.

The Reuters news agency, quoting multiple unnamed sources within the governments of the US, Iraq, and other countries, said the withdrawal plan “has been broadly agreed but requires a final go-ahead from both capitals and an announcement date.”

“We have an agreement, it’s now just a question of when to announce it,” Reuters quoted a senior US official.

An official announcement was initially scheduled for weeks ago but was postponed due to regional escalation related to Israel’s genocidal onslaught on Gaza and to iron out some remaining details, the report quoted the sources as saying.

Farhad Alaaldin, foreign affairs adviser to the Iraqi prime minister, told the news agency that technical talks with Washington on the coalition drawdown had concluded.

“We are now on the brink of transitioning the relationship between Iraq and members of the international coalition to a new level, focusing on bilateral relations in military, security, economic, and cultural areas,” he said.

According to the agency, the US and Iraq are also seeking to establish a new advisory relationship that could see some US troops remain in Iraq after the drawdown.

The agreement comes six months after Baghdad initiated talks with Washington on the withdrawal of US forces stationed at Iraqi bases.

Those talks began after a wave of rocket and drone attacks on American forces in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for Washington’s support for the Israeli genocide in Gaza and its atrocities against the Iraqi people.

The Iraqi resistance groups have been pressing for an end to the presence of foreign forces in Iraq for more than a decade after a US-led coalition invaded the country in violation of international law based on false claims of it owning weapons of mass destruction.

There are nearly 2,500 American troops in Iraq and some 900 in Syria as part of what Washington claims to be a fighting force against Daesh.

The US has maintained its presence even after the Arab country and its allies, including Iran, vanquished the Takfiri terrorist group in late 2017.

In 2020, the Iraqi parliament voted for the expulsion of US forces. The vote came after Iran’s top anti-terror commander, martyr General Qassem Soleimani, and deputy PMU commander Abu Mahdi Al-Muhandis were assassinated in a cowardly drone strike ordered by then-US president Donald Trump outside of the Baghdad airport.

On January 8, 2020, Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) targeted the US-run Ain al-Asad air base in Iraq after launching a wave of attacks to retaliate for the assassination of the two top anti-terror commanders.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Wars for Israel | , , | 1 Comment

Is ‘Israel’ using small nuclear weapons in Gaza and South Lebanon?

Dr. Christopher Busby is part a mixed crew of investigative reporters and commentators from Lebanon and some film-makers investigating “Israel’s” use of enriched uranium in strikes on Gaza on Lebanon, and aim to follow up on the strange illnesses that are appearing on the battlefield.
By Robert Daly and Christopher Busby | Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024

The American Peace Information Council (APIC) and Green Audit (UK) are conducting an investigation of “Israel’s” possible use of small nuclear weapons in Gaza and South Lebanon. Dr. Christopher Busby—Scientific Secretary, European Committee on Radiation Risk; once Member, UK Committee Examining Radiation Risk from Internal Emitters; once Member, UK Ministry of Defence Depleted Uranium Oversight Board—presents the scientific and social background of the case below.

APIC and Green Audit ask people who drive ambulances down in the South, or live there, to come forward with engine air filters from ambulances driven in bombed areas, samples of long hair (at least 10 cm in length) if they live in bombed areas, and Geiger counter readings and soil samples from bomb craters. Please send these samples and evidence to Al Mayadeen who will forward them to us. One would think that the easiest way to obtain ambulance air filters would be from the Lebanese Red Cross, but its General Secretary, Mr. Georges Kitanneh, refuses to assist this investigation.

Dr. Robert Daly

‘Israel’ in Gaza: Red Mercury

Dr. Christopher Busby

In 2021, a scientific report in the prestigious journal Nature confirmed what I had been saying since 2006. “Israel” has, since its attacks on Lebanon in 2006 and those on Gaza in 2008 and 2014, used a new nuclear weapon, one which kills with a high temperature radiation flash and with neutrons. This weapon, which leaves an identification footprint, but no fission products like Caesium-137, we now know was also employed by the USA in Fallujah, Iraq in 2003, and previously in Kosovo also.

The residues, inhalable Uranium aerosol dust, together with the neutron damage to tissues, cause a range of serious and often fatal health effects that puzzle doctors and defy treatment. Without knowing what caused such effects, which often mimic other illnesses or result in fungal infections that kill, doctors are powerless to help and just watch the exposed individuals die.

In the cases of direct exposures to the flash, parts of the body, arms, legs, places that were not behind significant shielding are burned to blackened sticks. The aerosol Uranium dust is inhaled, destroys the lungs through fibrosis, is translocated to the lymphatic system, and later causes cancers, not only lymphomas and leukemias, but pretty much any cancer as a result of localisation of the Uranium particle in the organ, for example the breast, which has extensive lymphatic vessels. If the particle is coughed up and swallowed, it can end up immobilised in the colon and cause cancer there.

Downstream results in exposed populations include genetic effects, unexplained infant mortality, congenital malformations, miscarriages, sex ratio perturbations at birth, and fertility loss, all of which were found in epidemiological studies I helped carry out in Fallujah from 2010-2011.

This is not science fiction or arm-waving. I have acted as an expert witness in two successful legal cases, one in England and one in Australia, where the judge and coroner court concluded that the particles caused colon cancer. I am helping a US DU veteran at the moment in his case against the military. He has a pituitary tumour (the small gland is located behind the nose where the particles lodge).

I began this investigation in 2006 when an article appeared in a Lebanese newspaper reporting that an Israeli bomb crater in Khiam was radioactive. A Dr. Ali Khobeisi had taken a Geiger counter to the crater and found a 20-times background radiation level in the crater relative to nearby. By 2006, I had become something of an alternative authority on Depleted Uranium weapons (DU). I had given evidence to the US Congressional Committee on Veterans Affairs on the effects of DU and Gulf War syndrome, I had visited Iraq and also Kosovo, and I was a member of the UK government Depleted Uranium Oversight Board (DUOB); I had written articles, including for the United Nations, I had given evidence to the Royal Society.

Dr Ali Khobeisi (right) taking Geiger counter readings at a bomb crater in Khiam, Lebanon 2006

I asked a colleague to go to Lebanon and get samples from the crater, and also an ambulance air filter. When they were analysed, using two separate methods, they showed the presence not of Depleted Uranium, but of Enriched Uranium (EU). Now this is impossible, unless the weapon was made from EU or created EU from neutron irradiation of U-234 and U-238.

Ambulance that provided air filter for 2006 investigation

To follow the explanation of the problem, you need some science. Natural Uranium, as mined, has three isotopes, U-238 U-234 and U-235. Most of this Uranium by mass is U-238 (99.7%). The 0.3% of U-235 is important for nuclear bombs and nuclear energy and is extracted in various ways to make EU. What is left behind is less radioactive U-238, and this is what is termed Depleted Uranium (DU).

When U-238 decays, it changes into Thorium-234, which rapidly changes into Protoactinium-234 and this turns into Uranium-234. Then you get a long list of progeny, but these do not concern us. All this happens quite quickly, and the process releases some gamma rays which make DU a gamma radiation hazard, contrary to the statements of the military that DU is not a handling hazard. It is. But this is not important in this story.

The main issue here is this. Was the enriched Uranium in the Lebanon bomb a real finding? Could it have been a laboratory error? The answer is No. We used two different laboratories and two different Uranium analysis methods, ICPMS and alpha spectrometry.

What we found was picked up by the reporter Robert Fisk, who put the story into The Independent in October 2006: The Mystery of “Israel’s” Secret Uranium Bomb.

Until we found EU, I had focused on the health effects of DU. Everyone did. But in 2006 I was contacted by an eminent Italian nuclear physicist, Emilio Del Guidice. I met him in London, where he told me that the source of the EU was a new weapon which used Hydrogen or heavy hydrogen, Deuterium dissolved in Uranium and when this warhead, as small as a baseball, was fired at a solid object, the hydrogen suffered Cold Fusion to form Helium with the emission of a powerful gamma ray which cause the U238 to convert to an unstable U-239 which decayed to U-235 and a neutron.

I am not a nuclear physicist, though I have my own ideas about this explanation but at that time I accepted that he knew what he was talking about. At least it explained the source of the enrichment.

In 2008 I was approached by some doctors in Egypt who wondered if the Israelis were bombing Gaza with DU. With some difficulty, I obtained samples from Gaza, again soil samples and an air filter, and analysis showed the presence of EU. In 2010, as part of our study of the congenital malformations in Fallujah, we analysed the hair of the mothers for 52 elements to try and identify the cause of the birth defects. We found EU in the mothers’ hair.

Further support for the existence of an EU-containing or EU-producing weapon came from a study of a Kosovo war Veteran whose mysterious illnesses were investigated thoroughly by some doctors in Liverpool and Manchester. The man’s kidneys contained Enriched Uranium.

Emilio del Guidice had not stood still in this Sherlock Holmes investigation. Together with reporters from Italian TV (Rai News) he had visited the father of Cold Fusion, Prof Martin Fleischmann, whom I had also previously worked with when I was at the University of Kent in 1980. Fleishmann added to the intriguing scientific puzzle, but was unwilling to get involved. It seemed that scientists looking at cold fusion were dying under suspicious circumstances. Fleischmann himself had seemingly been poisoned with something that caused multi-site cancer and passed away on August 3, 2012. A cold fusion colleague developed the same multi-site cancer and didn’t survive.

Del Guidice and the Rai News producer following up the story wrote a book: The Secret of the Three Bullets, published in 2014. It is still in print and contains their side of the story. I am in the book under various names. But a few months before its publication, del Guidice unexpectedly died when alone in his house. I am told that the Rai News co-author editor of the book, Maurizio Torrealta has gone into hiding after having been posted three real bullets in an envelope.

Fast forward to 2021. The Nature paper gave the results of analyses of 65 samples of soil, sand, cement, and building materials from Gaza. Using gamma spectrometry (where you use the whole sample and look at the identifiable peaks from U-235 and Th-234 = U238) the authors identified some significantly high levels of Enriched Uranium in all the samples, but mostly in the soil samples. The levels of enrichment had become greater than those that we found in our earlier studies. The natural isotope mass ratio in nature (U238/U235) is 138. In Lebanon we found 116. In Gaza 108. The 2021 paper found about 85. Since this was before the recent bombing, this contamination must date to the 2014 Israeli bombing. What should we expect to find now?

In March of this year, I wrote to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the official UN watchdogs for the use of nuclear weapons. My colleague from Fallujah, Dr. Mohamad Al-Darraji also sent my letter under his name. Nothing happened. No reply. He was to organise a Press Conference in Vienna to draw attention to the use of this weapon in Fallujah, and the cover up of the residual high levels of radiation by the Iraqi Ministry of Science. I made a video to be presented at this conference (it is online). But he couldn’t get a venue.

I followed the letter up with a second version in July, demanding that the IAEA respond. I wrote a paper about the issue and submitted it to two journals, putting the pre-print online. It was rejected on the basis that the reviewers didn’t believe the Nature analysis results. Eventually, Al-Darraji got a reply from the IAEA (naturally, I didn’t). The IAEA didn’t believe the Nature results. Nothing to investigate. No problem.

The UK Green Party House of Lords member, Baroness Jenny Jones (who I know) asked a question in UK Parliament. The government said they didn’t have anything to say about it. About the high level of Enriched Uranium in Gaza.

So that’s it. What can we do? “Israel” and the USA (at least) have developed what is almost certainly a mini-neutron bomb. “Israel” is using it in Gaza. And may be using it in Lebanon (again). In fact, there is evidence for the development of such a bomb having been tested as long ago as October 1962, in the final US atmospheric test in the Dominic series in the Pacific. This was the test named “Housatonic” which achieved 9.96Mt yield but reportedly had zero fallout. That means it had no fission primer in the first stage, a necessary requirement for all the hydrogen bombs before it.

The significance of this appears to have been overlooked, but, astonishingly, you can find details on Wikipedia. The UK government put all that stuff under the Official Secrets Act and when I was representing the Test Veterans in the Royal Courts of Justice from 2010 to 2016, I was refused access to these details. The new bomb was successfully detonated just before the Kennedy Kruschev test ban, and just before Kennedy was assassinated. Could there be a link?

I have joined a mixed crew of investigative reporters and commentators from Lebanon and some film-makers to seek out the solution to this conundrum. We aim to follow up on the strange illnesses that are appearing on the battlefield. We aim to look for Enriched Uranium and also neutron activation products like Cobalt-60, Tritium and Carbon-14. In a new development, the laboratories that I used to examine the earlier samples have all suddenly closed their doors. One of them was shut down altogether after the first Gaza analysis. One of them was threatened. But we can do a lot with what we have.

What we want is for people to obtain Geiger Counters to check out the impact sites soon after the explosion, and if it is radioactive to get us samples of dust and dirt. We want women’s hair samples, especially long hair, cut from the nape of the neck, from women who were near or lived in areas that were bombed. You can buy a simple Geiger Counter now for about 60 euros. You can even get a low-resolution portable gamma spectrometer for about 350 euros.

We would like anyone with comments or information to contact us. This is a big deal.

The weapon will certainly be used in future exchanges, and will make local nuclear war possible, since the scary scenarios involving fallout may not materialise. I have named the device Red Mercury because that is what it probably is (remember the red mercury story: written off officially by science (haha) as a fraud, as a phony). Red Mercury was Stalin’s code for Enriched Uranium. Clearly, from the Dominic Housatonic test, the USA also developed the weapon. Since it kills without leaving fission products, it is invisible to the global nuclear explosion detection systems and the IAEA watchdogs.

But there is no doubt the IAEA know about it. Their latest report on Uranium in the Environment completely ignores Enriched Uranium. When I asked one of the report authors why, I was told they were short of money. They only had enough to look at Depleted Uranium. Can you believe this stuff?

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | 1 Comment

France arrests nurse who volunteered in Gaza

Imane Maarifi
MEMO | September 6, 2024

France yesterday arrested then released nurse Imane Maarifi who spent 15 days volunteering as a medic in the Gaza Strip.

Lawyer Rafik Chekkat, founder of the Islamophobia platform, said Maarifi was arrested in the morning at her home and taken into custody.

He criticised the arrest and said it took place at a time when French soldiers who fought in Gaza “enjoy total impunity.”

Thomas Portes, a lawmaker from the La France Insoumise, or France Unbowed (LFI) party, wrote that Maarifi has been released from custody.

“The search of the home in front of the family leaves no doubt about the desire to intimidate the voices that are raised to support the Palestinian people and demand an immediate ceasefire,” he wrote on X.

Maarifi attended pro-Palestinian rallies in France to share her testimony about the crippling situation in Gaza.

She has also expressed her demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a boycott of companies supporting Israel.

Maarifi spent 15 days volunteering as a medic at the European hospital in Khan Yunis.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli army kills US citizen during demonstration in Beita, Nablus

International Solidarity Movement | September 6, 2024

During the weekly demonstration in Beita, Palestine, on the morning of September 6th, 2024, the Israeli army shot and killed an International Solidarity Movement (ISM) volunteer. The demonstration, which primarily involved men and children praying, was met with force from the Israeli army stationed on a hill. Initially, the army fired a large amount of tear gas and then began using live ammunition. The volunteer, who we consider a martyr in the struggle, was the 18th demonstrator to be killed in Beita since 2020. She was an American citizen of Turkish descent.

The Israeli forces intentionally fired two live rounds. One hit a Palestinian man in the leg, injuring him. The other round was fired at international volunteers who were observing the demonstration, striking a human rights activist in the head. The volunteer died shortly after being transported to a local hospital in Nablus.

Fellow ISM volunteer Mariam Dag (a pseudonymn) was on the scene, and witnessed the fatal injury of her comrade. She said:

“We were peacefully demonstrating alongside Palestinians against the colonisation of their land, and the illegal settlement of Evyatar. The situation escalated when the Israeli army began to fire tear gas and live ammunition, forcing us to retreat. We were standing on the road, about 200 meters from the soldiers, with a sniper clearly visible on the roof. Our fellow volunteer was standing a bit further back, near an olive tree with some other activists. Despite this, the army intentionally shot her in the head.

This is just another example of the decades of impunity granted to the Israeli government and army, bolstered by the support of the US and European governments, who are complicit in enabling genocide in Gaza. Palestinians have suffered far too long under the weight of colonization. We will continue to stand in solidarity and honor the martyrs until Palestine is free.”

E.N, who is a friend of the slain activist and fellow volunteer with the ISM said:

“I don’t know how to say this. There’s no easy way. I wish I could [say] something eloquent, but I can’t through my sobbing tears…. my friend, comrade and travel partner to Palestine, was just shot in the head and murdered by the Israeli Occupation Forces. May she rest in power. She is now one of many martyrs in this struggle.”

Beita, is a village in the West Bank where just weeks ago Amado Sison, another American volunteer, was struck by live ammunition in the back of the leg. Beita has a long history of resistance against Israeli occupation and has been a focal point of violence directed towards Palestinian residents by Israeli forces. Located near several illegal Israeli settlements, the village holds regular demonstrations. Due to escalating aggression by the Israeli forces, residents are currently refraining from marching or chanting, instead gathering together on the land and praying.

In recent years, Beita has seen ongoing demonstrations, particularly against the construction of new illegal Israeli outposts on the lands of the village. For example Evyatar outpost, on Sabih Mountain, has been established on Palestinian land. In June, the Israeli security cabinet approved the ‘legalization’ of Evyatar, causing the people of Beita to strengthen their popular resistance.

Residents of Beita recently restarted weekly Friday demonstrations to resist the further theft of their land. While protests had nearly ceased since October 7th 2023, due to escalating violence from Israeli occupation forces, there was a renewed push on July 5th 2024, when dozens of Palestinians, accompanied by international and Israeli activists, marched from the adjacent mountain, through the valley, and towards the outpost.

In recent months, international activists have experienced a sharp increase in violence from Israeli forces and the occupation must be held accountable for this. The woman martyred today was an activist with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led organization that provides protective presence and solidarity in the West Bank. The ISM was founded in 2002, and has maintained a steady presence in Palestine ever since, supporting the Palestinian popular struggle against the occupation.

Our comrade is added to the 17 Palestinian protesters already slain in Beita:

Palestinians martyred at demonstrations in Beita:
– Mohammed Hamayyel, 15 (March 11, 2020)
– Islam Dwikat, 22 (April 9, 2020)
– Karam Amin Dwikat, 17 (October 15, 2023)
– Issa Sliman Barham, 40 (May 14, 2021)
– Tareq Ommar Snobar, 27 (May 16, 2021)
– Zakaria Maher Hamayyel, 25 (May 28, 2021)
– Mohammed Said Hamayyel, 15 (June 11, 2021)
– Ahmad Zahi Bani Shamsa, 15 (June 16, 2021)
– Shadi Ommar Sharafa, 41 (July 27, 2021)
– Imad Ali Dwikat, 38 (August 6, 2021)
– Mohammed Ali Khbeissa, 27 (September 24, 2021)
– Jamil Jamal Abu Ayyash, 32 (December 1, 2021)
– Fawaz Ahmad Hamayyel, 47 (April 13, 2022)
– Immad Jareh Bani Shamsa, 16 (October 9, 2023)
– Mohammed Ibrahim Adili, 13 (November 23, 2023)
– Maath Ashraf Bani Shamsa, 17 (February 9, 2024)
– Ameed Ghaleb Said al-Jaroub, 34 (March 22, 2024, died of a bullet wound injury to the head sustained on August 21, 2023)

At this time, the family is not granting any interviews. Please contact ISM for media requests.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

‘Israel’ withholding IOF October 7 testimonies from US investigators

Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024

“Israel” refused to allow US investigators to gather testimonies from the occupation’s military forces (IOF) regarding October 7 in fear of being tried for war crimes, Israeli newspaper Hapeles reported Thursday, adding that investigators collected eyewitness accounts from settlers who experienced the event.

As part of a collaboration between Tel Aviv and Washington to file indictments against high-ranking Hamas officials in the US courts for the October 7 operation, the Israeli police’s Lahav 433 crime unit allowed the collection of testimonies as evidence against the Palestinian Resistance, according to Haredi.

However, Motti Levy, the state attorney and head of Lahav, did not share any of the testimonies gathered from the approximately 700 soldiers interviewed.

The testimony collections were part of an Israeli investigation. However, the testimonies were not provided to the US due to fears that they would be used as evidence to prosecute IOF soldiers in the US and the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Hague, Haredi reported.

Israeli deputy legal advisor to the government, Gil Limon, traveled to the US two months ago to meet with Levy as part of the investigation.

The state attorney was criticized by the occupation’s police on Wednesday for failing to file charges against Hamas leaders in “Israel” like the US, according to the KAN public broadcaster.

US charges Hamas leaders over Operation Al-Aqsa Flood

The US Justice Department took an unsurprising action on Wednesday by charging prominent Palestinian Resistance figures, notably new Hamas Political Bureau chief, Yahya Sinwar, with a hefty array of charges—conspiracy to support a “foreign terrorist organization that resulted in death, conspiracy to murder US nationals, and conspiracy to finance terrorism.”

The DOJ has also added Iran and Hezbollah to the list for allegedly providing Hamas with cash, rockets, and other military supplies.

“Israel” has committed atrocities in Gaza, and the ICC is anticipated to file arrest warrants for its leaders for genocide in the Strip.

The complaint was initially filed under seal in February to allow time for the US to attempt to apprehend then-Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and other defendants. However, it was unsealed on Tuesday following Haniyeh’s “death” in July and other regional developments that reduced the necessity for confidentiality, according to the Justice Department.

It is worth noting that “Israel” assassinated Haniyeh by an airstrike on his residence in Tehran.

“The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in a video statement. “These actions will not be our last.”

The charges also target other Hamas leaders, including Marwan Issa, the deputy head of Hamas’ armed wing in Gaza, Khaled Mashaal, a former leader of Hamas and Haniyeh’s deputy currently residing in Doha, Mohammad Deif, the military leader of Hamas, and Ali Baraka, who manages Hamas’ external relations from Lebanon.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran rejects US accusations of electoral interference

Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani rejected the US accusations against Iran, alongside other countries, of launching a campaign to interfere with the results of the upcoming presidential elections.

“Once again, we reject these unfounded accusations, which serve domestic political purposes in the United States,” he said in response to US Attorney General Merrick Garland’s allegations.

The diplomat asserted that US officials cannot reform their own deeply rooted structural, political, and social problems by deflecting responsibility onto others.

Kanaani added that the US accusations divert attention from its own record of disruptive and illegal actions against other countries.

In a joint statement with the FBI and several other US intelligence agencies, Iran was accused of conducting cyberattacks targeting the presidential campaigns of Republican candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic counterpart Kamala Harris.

Iran rejects allegations about supplying Russia with arms

The US has made several attempts to politically attack Iran this week.

Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani strongly rejected on Thursday claims made by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France regarding alleged Iranian arms sales and transfers to Russia.

In a letter addressed to the UN Security Council, Iravani stated that the US and its allies “cannot hide the fact that the shipment of advanced Western weaponry, particularly by the United States, has prolonged the war in Ukraine and caused harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

Iravani pointed out that the representatives of France and the UK made false allegations under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), while the US representative not only reiterated those claims but also accused Iran of supporting terrorism. He emphasized that “these baseless and misleading accusations are categorically rejected.”

“It is laughable that three countries, which are directly involved in the Ukraine war and actively fueling the conflict, would brazenly accuse the Islamic Republic of intervening in the war,” Iravani said, reaffirming Tehran’s commitment to adhering to international humanitarian law.

These remarks come in response to a recent Bloomberg report, which, citing unnamed sources, claimed that European officials expect Iran to soon deliver Iranian-made ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.

Iran has consistently denied accusations of providing military support to Russia in the Ukraine war, stressing that such claims were part of a “broader effort to incite hostility against the Islamic Republic.”

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | 2 Comments

Hunter Biden’s Guilty Plea: Penance or Plot to Clear Harris of Blot of Biden Family Corruption?

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 06.09.2024

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter has pleaded guilty to all nine counts against him in a sprawling, $1.4 million tax evasion case highlighting his history of indulgence in drugs and hookers.

The surprise resolution of the case came just days before opening statements in his trial were set to begin. If it had proceeded, the trial would have likely run through the remainder of Joe Biden’s presidency, and proven politically damaging for the Biden’s successor – Vice President Kamala Harris, just two months out from the November 5 election.

Hunter Biden faces up to 17 years in jail and fines of up to $1.2 million in the tax case, although observers expect leniency for the 54-year-old businessman – whose business allegedly included an elaborate influence-peddling scheme involving the selling of access to his powerful father for cash. Sentencing in the tax case is set for December 16.

The guilty plea adds to Biden’s conviction in a Delaware court in June on three felony counts related to a 2018 handgun purchase, for which he could get up to 25 years in jail. The judge in the case did not set a sentencing date.

Hunter Biden has followed his father like a corruption ball and chain since 2020 when, just weeks from the November election, the New York Post began the publication of a series of stories based on information from his recovered lost laptop about his alleged pay-to-play dealings. The stories threatened to derail the Biden campaign, were it not for social media companies’ move to censor them as ‘Russian disinformation’ – claims which tech execs including Mark Zuckerberg later confirmed were bogus.

The Harris campaign has already made a push to carefully distance itself from Biden on some issues, from capital gains taxes to the Border wall, and may now hope that Biden’s tax charges guilty plea will conclude the Hunter Biden saga, or at least leave him out of the spotlight until safely after the election.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Corruption | | 1 Comment

American universities rolling out BANS on anti-Israel protests; any criticism of Zionism to be considered “hate speech”

By Ethan Huff | News Target | September 4, 2024

Following the lead of New York University (NYU), American colleges and universities are imposing new rules to ban all criticism of Israel as “hate speech” and “antisemitism.”

At least 17 schools, including NYU, have already altered their policies to punish students and faculty for disagreeing with Israel’s war on Gaza. Some are prohibiting all Israel-related protests while others are going so far as to ban entire student organizations on campus.

In more extreme cases, schools are prohibiting students and faculty from protesting even online while others are expanding their conduct codes to basically keep quiet about Zionism or else face a school tribunal, of sorts, for punishment.

Indiana University, for instance, changed its “expressive activity” policy to ban all protests within 25 feet of university buildings and demonstrations that block “any building, facility, driveway, parking lot or parking ramp.”

The University of South Florida is banning all protests after 5 p.m., as well as during the entire final two weeks of every semester. If USF students want to set up a tent or canopy on campus, they will now be required to first get approval – and under no circumstances can anything be left out overnight without prior authorization.

(Related: Some teachers and preachers of prophecy, including Amir Tsarfati, want to justify genocide by claiming that the mass killing of Palestinians is God’s will for Israel.)

Zuckerberg, a true Zionist lapdog

At Vanderbilt University, all demonstrations that “require individuals to sleep or gather overnight” are now strictly prohibited. All on-campus displays from now on must also be during daylight hours only, and for no longer than three consecutive days at a time.

The University of California (UC) system says that encampments are no longer allowed on any of its 10 campuses. Protesters are also strictly prohibited from wearing masks or otherwise disguising their identity now that the people doing it are protesting Israel rather than destroying property in solidary with George Floyd.

The California State University (CSU) has implemented the same new rules as the UC system at its 23 statewide campuses.

At Rutgers University in New Jersey, the entire chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) is prohibited from the campus until July 2025, which is the same thing George Washington University did except that GWU also kicked out Jewish Voices for Peace, an anti-Zionist Jewish organization.

At Columbia University, SJP is permanently banned from having an Instagram account. The school is so involved in making this new rule stick that it convinced Meta to send a notice to its SJP chapter informing members that their group’s account “doesn’t follow our Community Guidelines.”

The list goes on and on as the Zionist contingent in America makes its moves trying to silence all of their critics. They are really playing their hand now and showing just how many schools, government agencies, corporations and other institutions are under their thumb, hence the systematic abolition of free speech we are witnessing.

It turns out that one of the first entities to start doing all this was Facebook (Meta), which has been working on trying to silence anti-Zionist speech on its platform since at least 2020 when Mark Zuckerberg issued new speech codes banning all Holocaust denial and other content that depicts “Jewish people running the world or controlling major institutions such as media networks, the economy or the government.”

“The idea of banning content that promotes stereotypes of Jewish global control came up a year ago, in a meeting with several Jewish groups convened by Facebook, and was pushed primarily by the World Jewish Congress,” The Jewish Daily Forward reported at the time.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | 2 Comments

Israel Rules Washington

Political Parties compete in what they will do for the Jewish State

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • September 4, 2024

If there is anyone out there who seriously doubts that it is Israel that is in the driver’s seat when it comes to its relationship with the United States, last week’s filing of criminal charges directed against Hamas’s leadership should be a wake-up call. The seven-count criminal complaint was filed in a federal court in New York City on September 2nd. It includes charges such as conspiracy to bomb a public space, conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization resulting in deaths, use of weapons of mass destruction, conspiring to and also murdering US nationals and conspiracy to finance terrorism. The document also claims that Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah have been providing financial support, weapons, to include rockets, as well as military supplies to Hamas for use in their attacks on Israel. The document’s legitimacy, though one hesitates to use the word, is based on the assumption that the US has a mandate to go after terrorists and their supporters, even to kill them, anywhere in the world when and if it considers it appropriate to do so.

To spread the good news of the new development, the malignant dwarf United States Attorney General Merrick Garland even emerged from his closet where he has been hiding since he traveled to Ukraine to threaten Russia in September 2023. He produced a video statement that revealed his thinking re the latest attempt to regulate the behavior of the rest of the world using American courts. Garland said, without presenting any evidence, that Hamas had been guilty of “financing and directing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the security of the United States… [while also seeking] to destroy the state of Israel and murder civilians in support of that aim.” Garland also described the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas, in which 43 American-Israelis allegedly died, in graphic terms that have since been exposed as nearly all Israeli propaganda lies. He claimed, the group had “murdered entire families” as “the deadliest massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. They murdered the elderly and they murdered young children. They weaponized sexual violence against women, including rape and genital mutilation. The charges unsealed today are just one part of our effort to target every aspect of Hamas’ operations. These actions will not be our last.” In reality, of course, many if not most of those who died were killed by friendly fire when Israel staged its counter-attack, using helicopter gunships and tanks to kill anyone on the ground indiscriminately. Nevertheless, the mainstream media continues to repeat the false narrative surrounding October 7th, that Hamas killed 1,200 Israelis. And the tales of torture and rape apply mostly to the activity of Israeli soldiers vis-à-vis Palestinian prisoners. Many released hostages have actually confirmed that they were treated well by Hamas.

To please Israel, the US originally declared Hamas to be a “foreign terrorist organization” in 1997. The going after Hamas at this time is undoubtedly a gift to Israel as well as to American Jewish political megadonors, who provide a majority of Democratic Party political funding as well as an increasing share of what will go to Donald Trump’s Republicans. Filing charges is nevertheless largely theatrical in nature as Garland’s FBI would have a hard time finding and arresting six men identified as the group’s leadership, three of whom are dead. It includes its current leader Yahya Sinwar, whose whereabouts are unknown as he is hiding in a tunnel somewhere. Other Hamas leaders charged include former leader Ismail Haniyeh; Marwan Issa, the deputy leader of the organization’s armed wing; Khaled Mashaal, who leads the group outside Gaza and the West Bank; along with Mohammed Deif and Ali Baraka. Haniyeh, Issa and Deif have all been reported killed in the past few months in attacks by Israel. As the men named who still are alive are unlikely to be arrested by the US, one has to wonder if the filing at this time is quite possibly intended to set the stage for a federal government bid to seek, arrest and punish Americans who support the group and its activities to free its land from the Zionist invaders as “terrorism supporters.” It could also be used to attack supporters of the Palestinian cause more generically.

If terror is what it is all about and the US is enforcing its “rules based international order” to encompass all terrorists anywhere, it is ironic, of course, that Israel is not being targeted as well as Hamas. It is Israel that assassinates foreign officials, bombs countries that it is not at war with, and is openly carrying out a series of war crimes that amount to a genocide in Gaza that may already have killed nearly 200,000 Palestinians. Meanwhile, Hamas is acting legally under international law in using force to overturn the completely illegal Jewish occupation of what was once Palestine. The United States clearly has no interest in doing what it takes, i.e. stopping the flow of money and weapons to Israel, to prevent the completion of an openly embraced Israeli government plan to deport or kill all or nearly all Palestinians remaining in a huge “cleansing operation” in what was once their country. As Caitlin Johnstone has observed the United States government and those of many Europeans appear unwilling to react and seem in practice to believe the Talmudic assertion that Palestinians and non-Jews in general are not quite human.

The media reporting the new development is, inevitably, taking pains to support the government initiative by describing how the US action is in response to the brutal attack on Israel engineered by Hamas on October 7th. Curiously, the US government and media keep using the same tired rhetoric to demonize the Palestinians while only rarely mentioning or condemning what preceded that event or expressing any sympathy for the oppressed and largely unarmed men, women, and children trapped in a constantly tightening ring of death in Gaza.

The reason for the timing of the US charges is not immediately clear but it might be considered a move to obtain for Kamala Harris more support from the powerful and wealthy Israel Lobby. Certainly however, the recent discovery in Gaza of the body of an Israeli-American hostage and five others might have called for an “extra step” against evil Hamas, indicating that the US does not forgive or forget. One might suggest that the deaths of the six hostages might itself be a contrived event in that the claim that the victims were killed by pistol shots from Hamas was made through an Israeli army autopsy. Bear in mind that the Israelis lie about everything, so that might be a cover story or a form of false flag. Hamas has indeed claimed that if bullets were involved they were “made in Israel.” It is perhaps more likely that the six were killed in an Israeli bombing and their deaths are being manipulated by the Benjamin Netanyahu government for political reasons. Certainly, Israel has itself killed more than its share of the Jewish hostages, witness the three escaped hostages some months ago who were waving white flags and calling out in Hebrew but were nevertheless shot dead by the Israeli army.

Garland did indeed comment on the Israeli-American killed in the incident, Hersh Goldberg-Polin, saying “We are investigating Hersh’s murder, and each and every one of Hamas’ brutal murders of Americans, as an act of terrorism.” President Joe Biden also condemned Goldberg-Polin’s killing, too, saying it was “as tragic as it is reprehensible. Make no mistake, Hamas leaders will pay for these crimes.”

Assuming that the criminal case against Hamas is a Joe Biden-Kamala Harris contrivance to bring in votes and money, what will Donald Trump do to match it? Indications are that the Republican Jewish Caucus which is meeting in Las Vegas will declare the GOP to be the only “true” pro-Israel party, which will be combined with an endorsement of Netanyahu’s “total victory” policies and blaming the Democrats for the death of Israeli hostages. And there have already been reports circulating that Miriam Adelson, widow of late-casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson, has dangled $100 million in front of Trump to secure his promise to guarantee US support for Israel to annex all of Palestine, which would also include expelling most or maybe even all the Palestinians. So, that given, who should suddenly pop-up but ex-Trump personal lawyer David Friedman, who served as Ambassador to Israel under the Trumpster from 2017-2021. He has called for the US to fund the Israeli annexation of the West Bank in a book entitled One Jewish State: The Last, Best Hope to Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict that was released on September 2nd.

Friedman, who was a total yes-man for Israel while Ambassador, explains that Israel needs financial assistance “to assert and maintain its sovereignty over Judea and Samaria,” the biblical name for the illegally Israeli-occupied Palestinian West Bank. He suggests that the next Republican administration could redirect to Jerusalem $1 billion already budgeted and intended to provide aid to Palestinians. “The easiest bucket to tap into and reposition is that of the United States.” Friedman said the US should support the Israeli annexation “based first and foremost on biblical prophecies and values.” He added that he intends to discuss the proposal with Donald Trump.

So, there we go folks. There is only one political party in the United States and that is the party that takes direction from Israel. End of story for the Republic that we once upon a time lived in.

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

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | 2 Comments

‘How I Got Fired From The CIA’: Philip Giraldi Tells All

By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – September 6, 2024

Americans are by now familiar with a handful of whistleblowers who after spending years employed by the US intelligence community (IC) eventually saw enough to make them angry and throw away the safety of their future government careers by exposing state secrets to the public. Names like Snowden, Manning, Kiriakou or John Stockwell, William Binney and Thomas Drake (both of NSA whistleblower fame) are well-known, especially in independent and alternative media circles.

But lesser known are the names of those abruptly fired and dismissed from their posts as analysts or as officers for merely questioning and pushing back in real time against what they understood to be disastrous and criminal foreign action and policy. We suspect that this list of names, still largely unknown to the public or media, is much bigger than anyone knows. Such ex-employees of the CIA, NSA, DIA or other alphabet soup agencies typically have their security clearances revoked and are threatened with criminal prosecution should they ever reveal state secrets and classified information. The possibility of future employment even in the civilian world then comes under threat. This means most of them remain unknown.

Typically the American public only finds out about massive covert CIA operations or US war plans long after the fact. For example, the intelligence community knew that the Bush-Cheney White House was gearing up for a ‘shock and awe’ invasion of Iraq for at least many months before it happened. Or for another example, the truth about the CIA’s covert program to overthrow Syria’s Assad (called ‘Timber Sycamore’) finally leaked to The New York Times at least half a decade after it began. Intelligence planners under President Obama understood that the US was arming and training al-Qaeda linked Libyan rebels to overthrow and execute Gaddafi. And all the while, then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was getting briefed on these US-backed ‘rebels’ conducting extermination campaigns against ethnic minorities. Such horrific and suppressed truths only typically come out years or decades after they happen.

But again, what of those rare voices who dissent in real time and quietly suffer the full retribution of the national security deep state, far from the public eye? ZeroHedge was able to hear directly from one such rare dissenter in the Washington D.C. area this weekend. Former CIA operations officer Philip Giraldi spent over two decades in the agency, which took him around the world. We heard his fascinating and alarming story of “How I Got Fired From The CIA” during a closed-door session at the Ron Paul Institute‘s Liberty Platform conference held in Dulles, Virginia.

Below are ex-CIA Giraldi’s words recounting how his long career led up to a difficult show-down with CIA leadership, and what happened next, as transcribed directly by ZeroHedge [emphasis ours].

* * *

After graduate school and following time in the US Army as an intelligence officer, I joined the CIA. I was an operations officer, which means a spy. I was sent to a lot of nice places to live in, starting with Rome. And then I was in Hamburg and then I was in Istanbul, and then Barcelona. After Barcelona I left the agency for a while and came back as a contractor after 9/11, and I was there for another three years.

How I got in trouble with the agency was… after I came back as a contractor I was sent to Afghanistan – this was after we had overrun it. It didn’t take me long to figure out that we had replaced the Taliban by becoming worse than the Taliban.

And there was no evidence whatsoever coming from CIA analysts that [Osama] bin Laden [and the Afghan government] had actually been involved in 9/11, and so it was a bit of a contradictory assignment, and I became suspicious after that concerning the bogus things going on and what was developing inside the government.

So a couple years later I was back at CIA headquarters at Langley, Virginia and working with them on basic security issues. I had been a counterterrorism specialist and so I was working on different groups that they were considering to be ‘over horizon’ threats to the United States. This was a new concept, this threat. The tune that was being played in Washington was that ‘we are threatened’.

Anyway, while I was doing this I was also talking to a number of my friends who were classmates [from prior schooling and training early in his career] who were analysts and they at this point were very senior analysts in the agency. And the United States meanwhile was preparing to attack Iraq because Iraq was ‘a threat’.

And these friends of mine who were analysts saw all of the raw information that went into what the US government was seeing and they said, “you know this is all bullshit, this is all a lie – the intelligence that’s coming in is fake. And this fake intelligence is being used to justify starting another war.”

So anyway I got ‘converted’ and I started to be somewhat outspoken on the issue of why we should not be going into Iraq and we should leave this alone. And word of this got around [the agency].

So they called me in, they polygraphed me. They wanted to know who among all of my friends have similar views. I refused to cooperate and they said at that point, “well you failed your polygraph exam, we want to take away your security clearance.“

So this was after twenty-one years in the agency, they took away my clearance, and I was basically fired. So it’s kind of an interesting tale. I think it’s probably shaped my thinking ever since then. I’m automatically suspicious of people who talk about justifications for wars. I think I will continue for the rest of my life to be that way. Thank you.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | 1 Comment

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