Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Who’s the ‘Real’ Peter Marks?

New Website Exposes Failure of Former FDA Vaccine Czar to Protect Americans From COVID Vaccine Dangers

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 6, 2025

A former top U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) vaccine official ignored evidence that COVID-19 vaccines caused serious injuries, and dismissed the pleas of people injured by the vaccines, all while reassuring the public the shots were safe, documents published today on TheRealPeterMarks.com website reveal.

The website hosts public statements by Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., recordings of his calls with vaccine-injured individuals, transcripts and previously unreleased FDA records.

Informed Consent Action Network (ICAN), React19 and Follow the Silenced — organizations that advocate for the vaccine-injured — obtained the documents through Freedom of Information Act requests and other legal work.

Dr. Danice Hertz, a retired gastroenterologist injured by the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, said she hopes the website reveals the side of Marks that the media ignores. Hertz said:

“We want to set the record straight about Marks. The media is misinformed about him and has falsely represented him as a hero. In my opinion, he is far from a hero. He is a dishonest, corrupt man whose allegiance has been to the vaccine manufacturers and not to the safety of the people.”

Website contradicts claims Marks makes in latest media blitz

On March 28, Marks resigned as director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research (CBER) under pressure from his new boss, U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

He has since made several appearances on mainstream media, defending his record and attacking Kennedy.

React19 co-chair Dr. Joel Wallskog, a Wisconsin orthopedic surgeon injured by the COVID-19 vaccines, accused Marks of lying during media interviews.

“He is a liar and fearful of the truth getting out,” Wallskog said. “The best defense is a good offense.”

Wallskog and Brianne Dressen, a vaccine-injury victim and co-chair of React19, said the media failed to ask the former FDA executive key questions.

Wallskog said he wants to know why Marks “refused” to give Kennedy the vaccine injury data he requested. Dressen said she wants to ask Marks “about the countless lives negatively impacted by the COVID vaccines.”

“We brought the truth front and center to Marks, and he refused to see it,” Dressen said. “His decisions not to disclose highly reported injuries had devastating impacts on the medical community’s ability to recognize and treat injuries.” As a result, she said, “countless lives” were lost and people were “permanently harmed.”

Dressen said Marks’ “real tagline is ‘profits over people.’”

In an April 13 interview on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Marks told host Margaret Brennan, “You’re talking to the person who came up with Operation Warp Speed.”

Operation Warp Speed was the government’s public-private partnership responsible for facilitating and accelerating the development, manufacture and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines.

As the person responsible for that operation, Marks would have been privy to warning signs on the possible dangers of the new COVID-19 vaccine.

Documents on TheRealPeterMarks.com site reveal that Marks knew about adverse events following vaccinations as early as October 2020 — less than two months before the Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna vaccines received emergency use authorization (EUA).

Dressen said she was “astonished” that Marks ignored those warning signs and instead promoted the government’s “safe and effective” narrative.

“He knew very well that there were serious problems with the COVID vaccines,” Dressen said. “What astonished me was how he can say it with such resolve.”

Marks approved COVID vaccines, boosters for kids despite knowledge of risks

The documents posted on TheRealPeterMarks.com show that Marks ignored reports and studies on COVID-19 vaccine injuries sustained by children, and that he claimed such reports were “sensationalized.”

For example:

Dressen called out Marks for his handling of a prominent case of childhood vaccine injury involving Maddie de Garay, a 16-year-old who was seriously injured by the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine in January 2021.

In June 2021, Marks accepted Pfizer’s finding that de Garay’s injuries were unrelated to the vaccine.

Marks received further updates about de Garay’s condition over the next few months, including statements by de Garay’s mother at an October 2021 meeting of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.

But in March 2022, Marks said de Garay’s injuries were not vaccine-related and he denied her parents’ request for a meeting. “They took Pfizer’s word for it, then internally gaslit her,” Dressen said.

‘Marks was continually moving the goalpost’ on vaccine risks

Transcripts of Marks’ meetings with vaccine-injury victims showed that he repeatedly rejected safety concerns, or safety signals, related to the COVID-19 shots.

“Marks was continually moving the goalpost — it didn’t matter how we communicated the data, didn’t matter how many hoops we jumped through,” Dressen said.

For example, Marks was repeatedly informed about the prevalence of neurological injuries post-vaccination, including in emails and reports he received in February, March, April and August of 2021.

Marks claimed in a September 2021 email to Dressen that there were no safety signals for neurological injuries. He did not take action in response to several reports in late 2021 and early 2022 on the prevalence of such injuries.

“We spoon-fed their own data to them, showing exactly where the problem is, and still, Marks insisted they couldn’t see it,” Dressen said.

“We know through our work at React19 that neurological adverse events are the most common,” Wallskog said.

Other examples highlighted in the documents include:

  • During a call in late 2022, Dr. Narayan Nair, then-director of CBER’s Division of Pharmacovigilance, acknowledged a safety signal for neuropathy in young women. But in the same call, Marks said this signal has “not been possible to tease out.”
  • In April 2021, a peer-reviewed paper described the case of a vaccinated person who experienced small fiber neuropathy following COVID-19 vaccination. It identified a successful treatment.
  • An August 2021 analysis of VAERS data showed that compared to the annual average of other vaccinations, there were 17 times more reports of serious injuries and 42 times more deaths reported after COVID-19 vaccines.

Marks also repeatedly denied the existence of safety signals for multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS). In an email from September 2022, Dressen told Marks that MIS occurs at a higher rate than thrombotic thrombocytopenia syndrome, which was associated with the Johnson & Johnson (Janssen) COVID-19 vaccine and led to a pause in its administration.

However, in a call three days later, Marks said there was not enough data to “make a clear association” between MIS and the COVID-19 vaccines.

‘Stone-cold’ demeanor: Marks appeared indifferent to people injured by vaccines

In several instances, Marks expressed confusion as to why the vaccine-injured were having difficulty receiving medical care for their conditions. Yet he also reportedly appeared indifferent to the victims’ plights.

Dressen and Wallskog pointed to several instances when Marks appeared to act disrespectfully toward vaccine injury victims, notably blowing off an August 2021 meeting with vaccine-injured people and doctors.

Dressen said the meeting, scheduled three weeks in advance, was held the same day the Pfizer Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine received full FDA approval. “He was busy approving Comirnaty,” Dressen said.

Marks said in an email at the time he missed the meeting due to “urgent matters related to the ongoing pandemic.”

Marks later skipped a Nov. 2, 2021, COVID-19 vaccine injury roundtable hosted by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), even though Johnson invited the FDA to attend. Marks did not respond to other emails from vaccine injury victims and attorneys in 2021.

According to Dressen and Wallskog, during other meetings and calls, Marks appeared unmoved by the stories recounted by the vaccine-injured. Wallskog said he acted “cold and calculated.” Dressen claimed Marks had a “stone-cold” demeanor and he was visibly performing other work while the injured shared their stories.

Related articles in The Defender

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

May 7, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

UK keeps sending arms to Israel despite ban: Report

Press TV – May 7, 2025

A new report says Britain keeps exporting arms and equipment, including F-35 fighter jet parts, to Israel despite a government suspension in September 2024.

The report released by three campaign groups says parts for the jet, which has been critical for Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza, appear to have arrived in Israel as recently as March.

Investigation using Israeli customs data says 8,630 munitions items were sent from the UK to Israel since the suspensions.

The munitions fall under a category of import labelled “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles, and similar munitions of war and parts thereof.”

Most of the shipments cited in the report happened after the government’s arms suspension.

Britain had said it suspended its direct exports over concerns they might be used in serious violations of international humanitarian law.

Soon after the suspensions, Foreign Secretary David Lammy told parliament that “much of what we send is defensive in nature. It is not what we describe routinely as arms.”

“On the basis of the evidence in this report, it appears that Lammy has misled parliament and the public about arms shipments to Israel,” according to the report.

Nearly two dozen MPs have written to Lammy, calling on him to come before parliament to respond to the allegations.

They said that the public “deserves to know the full scale of the UK’s complicity in crimes against humanity.”

“We urge the government to disclose the details of all arms exports to Israel since October 2023 and to immediately halt all arms exports to Israel,” they wrote.

“This could not be more urgent given the risk that British-made weapons could be used to enact Netanyahu’s plan to annex Gaza and ethnically cleanse the Palestinian people.”

Former Labor shadow chancellor and MP John McDonnell and MP Zarah said the findings showed the government “has been lying to us about the arms it is supplying to Israel while it wages genocide in Gaza.”

“Far from ‘helmets and goggles’, the government has been sending thousands of arms and ammunition goods and [is] even still supplying components of the world’s most lethal fighter jets,” she said.

Emily Apple, media coordinator for the UK-based Campaign Against Arms Trade, said the report had shattered the claim that the UK arms export regime is transparent.

“Our arms export regime is not fit for purpose and this government is complicit in Israel’s horrific war crimes. Time and again, it has either refused to act or manufactured loopholes to prioritize arms trade profits over Palestinian lives. This has to stop,” Apple said.

May 7, 2025 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Trump bans federal funding of “dangerous” gain-of-function research

The executive order targets high-risk bioengineering, calling time on a scientific gamble that is likely to have sparked a global catastrophe.

By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | May 5, 2025

In a major policy shift, President Donald Trump has signed an executive order halting federal funding for “dangerous” gain-of-function (GoF) research.

The order defines such work as “scientific research on an infectious agent or toxin with the potential to cause disease by enhancing its pathogenicity or increasing its transmissibility.”

Sitting behind the Resolute desk, flanked by key health officials, Trump signed the order with his trademark black Sharpie.

“It’s a big deal,” he said in a subdued tone. “Could have been that we wouldn’t have had the problems we had… if we had this done earlier.”

The directive compels federal agencies to suspend funding for any project “reasonably determined to be dangerous.” It applies not only to domestic institutions, but also to research conducted in “countries of concern” such as China and Iran.

A reckoning led by dissenters

The announcement marked not only a change in policy, but a striking reversal in scientific leadership.

Standing beside Trump were three officials once ridiculed as outliers during the pandemic – Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., NIH Director Jay Bhattacharya, and FDA Commissioner Marty Makary.

Now elevated to senior roles, each has been outspoken in challenging the dominant narrative around Covid-19, including the origins of the virus and the ethics of risky research.

“It’s unbelievable to think the entire nightmare of Covid was totally preventable,” said Makary, referring to the mounting evidence of a lab origin and the suppression of early warnings.

“It’s crazy to think this entire nightmare was probably the result of some scientists messing with mother nature—with technology exported from the United States—that is, inserting a furin cleavage site,” said Makary. “So I hope this does some good in the world.”

Kennedy, long critical of gain-of-function research, was more blunt. “In all of the history of gain-of-function research, we cannot point to a single good thing that has come of it,” he said.

Speaking to reporters, Kennedy added, “We can’t allow this reckless experimentation to continue, especially when it’s been linked to catastrophic outcomes with no discernible benefit.”

For Kennedy, the NIH’s support of EcoHealth Alliance’s work at the Wuhan Institute of Virology wasn’t an isolated failure—it reflected a broader pattern of merging national security interests with poorly regulated academic ambition, which he wrote about in his latest book, The Wuhan Cover-Up.

Bhattacharya called the order a long-overdue correction.

“This is a historic day,” he said. “The conduct of this research does not protect us against pandemics, as some people might say. It doesn’t protect us against other nations.”

Bhattacharya warned that even well-intentioned experiments carry immense risk.

“There’s always a danger that in doing this research, it might leak out, just by accident even, and cause a pandemic. Any nation that engages in this research endangers their own population, as well as the world,” he warned.

Bhattacharya emphasised that most scientific work would continue unaffected. “The vast majority of science will go on under this as normal,” he explained, “but the fraction of this research that has the risk of causing a pandemic… we’re going to put in place a framework to make sure that the public has a say.”

“I’m really proud to be here with President Trump, who signed this order ending this research and for the first time, putting in place a real regulatory framework to make it go away forever,” Bhattacharya added.

Suppression of lab-leak evidence

The executive order also represents a deeper reckoning with how early concerns about a lab origin were dismissed.

Early in the pandemic, Trump publicly raised the possibility that Covid-19 may have leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, reportedly based on intelligence assessments.

But his suggestion was swiftly undermined—particularly by those within his own administration. Dr Anthony Fauci, then director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was quietly working to promote the natural origin theory.

Fauci held enormous influence over public health messaging, the media, and scientific institutions. His behind-the-scenes efforts to discredit the lab-leak hypothesis and favour a zoonotic explanation triggered a near-immediate shift in the White House’s public stance.

The campaign to suppress alternative explanations also became visible in leading scientific journals.

In February 2020, The Lancet published a letter organised by Fauci-linked researchers, which labelled lab-origin theories as “conspiracy.” The intent was not to encourage scientific debate, but to squash it.

Weeks later, Nature Medicine released the now-infamous “Proximal Origin” paper, which declared the virus was “not a laboratory construct.” Private emails later revealed that the authors actually had serious doubts and suspected the virus looked engineered.

Together, the two papers helped shut down legitimate scrutiny and created a scientific firewall protecting US-funded research.

Fauci retired in 2022 and, in early 2025, was granted a sweeping pardon by President Biden.

In April this year, the Trump administration launched an official White House website.

It states rather unequivocally: “COVID-19 came from a lab in Wuhan, China. The Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), a lab controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), likely leaked the virus that caused the deadliest pandemic in human history.”

The site also alleges that top scientists and government officials in the US helped cover it up.

A turning point

This executive order signals a broader shift in how Trump’s government intends to confront the scientific and political failures of the pandemic era.

For years, unelected bureaucrats silenced dissent, buried contradictory evidence, and steered decisions behind closed doors. Questions about the virus’ origins were dismissed as conspiracy.

Whistleblowers were marginalised and dangerous research continued, shielded from oversight.

Now, with this order, the Trump administration is drawing a line.

By cutting off federal funding for high-risk virus manipulation and imposing new oversight, the order delivers what’s been missing from pandemic policy – that is, the political will to confront uncomfortable truths and a serious effort to prevent a future man-made pandemic.

May 7, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

War in Washington

By Karen Kwiatkowski | Lew Rockwell | May 3, 2025

The President values loyalty above all, and the war on leakers and whistleblowers is weapons hot, torpedo tubes flooded. The targets seem to be the “less loyal” among the current tribe of administration appointees and selected leftovers and hangers-on from the Biden regime. The shuffling of leaker-by accident NatSec Advisor Waltz over to the UN and the firing of his deputy Mr. Wong is what Trump voters wanted. Israel, maybe not so much.

This compelling Tucker Carlson interview with Dan Caldwell – one of three accused leakers in the administration let go a few weeks ago – reveals some things we ought to think about.  Caldwell, and others in the administration and the vast majority of Americans, don’t want stupid wars for even stupider reasons. Certain of Trump’s appointees, and a significant proportion of his loyal supporters, are realists on foreign policy, and this doesn’t sit well with the pro-war crowd infesting DC and inside the administration.

The recent jury trial of the federally prosecuted Uhuru activists sets the stage for understanding the long executive war against freedom of speech and association. Over 20 years ago under Bush 43  – advertised as non-interventionist at home and abroad – we saw “free speech zones” popularized and made par for the course. The charges against the Uhuru group were made up by the Biden administration and testify to not only elite requirements for our obedience in all things, but a direct contempt for an earlier Democratic Party that actually fought for freedom of speech and dissented against war.

The state demands loyalty. The loyalty construct is modeled by both major parties, all the way down to local Republican and Democratic committees, who operate in generally polite Bolshevik-mode. It is this very construct that we saw used under the Biden administration – where swearing that mostly peaceful cities burning is a national good, and under Trump – where criticizing a genocide conducted by an “ally” fueled and funded by the American taxpayer is verboten hate speech, illegal.

A Texas town is considering a non-binding resolution stating, among other things, that it no longer wishes for its State of Texas tax haul of $4.4 million being sent to Israel.  Read it for yourself, nothing in the resolution is false, and it represents – we may know for sure after the May 6th Town Council meeting – the wishes of the people of San Marcos.  Governor Abbott is beside himself.

DoJ’s charges against the Uhuru group had dwindled before the trial to only two: Failure to register as an agent of a foreign country, and conspiracy to fail to register as an agent of a foreign country.  AIPAC did not file an amicus brief, but they sure should have. There is a long history of AIPAC being accused of advocating for a foreign government in Washington, and in all 50 states.

The sheer reactivity of the pro-Israel lobby – and their paid for, bribed up, and reputation-blackmailed politicians – to the slightest whiff of disfavor about a small, corrupt, thoroughly militarized state of 9 million people is breathtaking.  This is becoming far more obvious, to far more people, far sooner than ever before. It’s starting to look frantic, desperate even. More than that, if “Princess and the Pea” is a strategy, it’s a bad one, very different than years of the behind the scenes maneuvering, cultivating and quietly placing key people in key positions in order to promote Zionist interests in Washington and to shape and leverage a sector of American Christian evangelicalism. Has the Israel lobby miscalculated what is happening in the US? Has Israel itself miscalculated what it needs to do to survive as a country?

Trump’s personality, a lingering Western recession, the common-man’s dawning recognition that DOGE has barely scratched the surface of tax-funded waste and idiocy, and emergent anti-war patriotism – none of this helps Netanyahu, or his successor.

Israel’s apologists in Washington and elsewhere are acting like addicts being nudged towards a rehab facility.  The Zionist lobby here and in Israel is not just exhibiting narcissism and denial, but a growing tone-deafness.

Matt Walsh has some useful observations on America today.  He told Tucker:

I don’t understand why, how do we get to a point where the dominant conversation in this country is about what’s happening in other countries…. My sense is… When I go on Twitter, go on X, and no matter what the topic is, it seems, it’s like, you know, it used to be six degrees of Kevin Bacon or whatever. Yeah. Uh, now it’s two degrees of Israel. I was like, no matter the topic, it always comes back for a lot of people to Israel one way or another. And, um, that’s not how I see it. I don’t see Israel as the centerpiece of any of these debates.

I think Matt is articulating what many Americans wonder about.  And the reaction to this national “wondering” is revealing the depth of the dependency, and the real fear Zionists in Israel and in America have that the Zionist project is going to be returned to them alone, no longer an experiment of interest to the United States, no longer a maximal or even existent line item on the foreign affairs and Pentagon budget. Matt suggests that if a country cannot organically survive, without significant aid and assistance from another country, maybe it isn’t a legitimate country. Maybe it doesn’t deserve the help – maybe it should demonstrate how it would manage its affairs on its own earnings, its own identity and value system. He observed,

… when I say that a country that can’t survive without us shouldn’t exist or doesn’t exist. That’s not any kind of like moral judgment. It’s just, this the way of human civilization. You have to be able to you have to be able to stand on your own two feet to be, to even qualify as a country. Right. And I think the American taxpayers have been saddled for many years now with propping up country after country after country.

Rational people, and rational Americans can’t argue with that. In fact, this kind of thinking is fundamental to the so-called “American dream.” It is how we think, and incidentally, it is also antithetical to both socialism and progressivism.

It’s time to cut the apron strings of foreign and military aid. We can’t afford it and it doesn’t work as advertised. Trump is looking to cut overseas enterprises that are obviously corrupt, deceitful, immoral and have no cards left to play. He has stated this publicly, about Ukraine.

Trump’s thinking on this topic may evolve to give Israel the same liberation. Trump’s over-the-top support for Israel allows him to safely chide Netanyahu, surprise him with direct talks with Iran, slow roll tariff relief, and tell him that he needs to allow food and water into Gaza. Without a doubt, Trump has staffed the most pro-Israel government since Lyndon Baines Johnson. I am ready for a new and inverted Nixon to China meme, where only uber pro-Zionist Trump can set Israel free.

The people advising Trump are important to him, but they are even more important to Israel. Moving Waltz out to the hinterland of UN talking points is a skirmish in a larger battle being waged in DC over personnel and policies. The last time we had this intensity of Zionists battling for power over a US President and his foreign policy, we got a violent regime change.

May 7, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Wars for Israel | , , | 1 Comment

‘Absolute insanity’ – Hungary slams EU plan to halt Russian energy imports

RT | May 7, 2025

The European Commission’s plan to completely phase out Russian fuel imports violates the sovereignty of EU member states by depriving them of the right to choose their energy sources, according to Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.

Brussels has outlined plans to end the bloc’s energy reliance on Moscow by completely eliminating imports of oil, gas, and nuclear fuel in the coming years.

Hungary obtains over 80% of its gas from Russia via pipeline, with LNG playing a supplementary role. Budapest has continued to strengthen its energy ties with Moscow despite the sanctions introduced by the EU in the wake of the Ukraine conflict.

“The forced, artificially ideological-based exclusion of natural gas, crude oil, and nuclear fuel originating from Russia will lead to severe price increases in Europe, seriously harming the sovereignty of European countries, and cause major difficulties for European companies,” Szijjarto said in a video he shared on his Facebook page on Tuesday, adding that “what was announced is absolute insanity.”

“Everyone in Brussels has lost their common sense,” the foreign minister exclaimed, emphasizing that Budapest would not allow the European Commission (EC) to violate Hungary’s sovereignty and would “uphold the right to source energy from where it reliably arrives and where it arrives at a low cost.”

Earlier in the day, the EC published a “roadmap” outlining its ambitious strategy to end reliance on Russian energy by the end of 2027. The bloc’s executive branch said it would propose legislation in June requiring all member states to draft “national plans” to terminate their imports of Russian gas, nuclear fuel, and oil.

Slovakia’s Prime Minister Robert Fico also criticized the plan, calling the proposal “economic suicide.” He added that Slovakia would push for changes in the legislative process.

Brussels announced its intention to wean EU members off Russian energy shortly after the escalation of the Ukraine conflict in February 2022. Supplies of US liquefied natural gas (LNG) have since replaced much of the cheaper pipeline gas previously delivered by Russia.

Although Russian pipeline gas supplies to the EU have plummeted, the bloc has been increasing its imports of LNG from the sanction-hit nation. Last year, Russia still accounted for around 19% of the EU’s total gas and LNG supply, according to the EC.

May 7, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Kristi Noem’s Authoritarian Take on Travel

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | May 6, 2025

Speaking Tuesday before the Homeland Security Subcommittee of the United States House of Representatives Committee on Appropriations regarding the implementation of REAL ID mandates on travelers, Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem displayed succinctly in one sentence her disdain for the right of Americans to travel freely and her support instead for an authoritarian approach to travel.

“But we are telling people that this law will be enforced and it will allow us to know individuals in this country who they are and that they’re authorized to travel,” declared Noem regarding the starting the next day of REAL ID enforcement on travelers. Yet, the right to travel is a fundamental right long recognized by the US government and its courts. And the right to travel is the opposite of travel being allowed only when and to whom the government decides. Further, the right to travel includes the right to travel without showing your papers, updated in the age of mass surveillance to showing your REAL ID. An apparently peaceful person going about his business should be able to continue to do so without having to identify himself to any government agent or provide proof that the government has preapproved his movement from point A to point B. That’s freedom. The Noem approach, in contrast, is authoritarianism.

Adding to the outrageousness of this defense of REAL ID Noem offered is an assertion she made just before in her comments at the subcommittee hearing. Noem said that REAL ID would be imposed on travelers on Wednesday because after years — 17 years in fact — of delay of implementation “the Biden administration chose that it should go into place on May seventh and we intend to follow the law.” Hold on: Noem is really passing the buck to the Biden administration? President Donald Trump and his administration has spent a great amount of effort — via executive orders, regulation changes, and other actions — rescinding many decrees of the Biden administration. Trump and Noem could do the same regarding REAL ID. At a minimum, they could ensure four more years of delay as administration after administration has done before. Instead, they chose to move forward with imposing REAL ID on travelers. They cannot evade any of the responsibility on this. Trump and Noem are choosing to pursue the authoritarian course.

May 7, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Official Arab alignment with Israel to eliminate the resistance

By Majeb Zebda – Palestinian Information Center – May 4, 2025

The media warning issued by the Lebanese Higher Defence Council to Hamas, accusing it of undermining Lebanese national security, not only contradicts the facts that Israel is the one undermining Lebanese national security and violating Lebanese territory through killing, bombing and occupation without deterrence or accountability, but also paves the way for the disarmament of the Palestinian camps in Lebanon and suggests that they pose a threat to Lebanon’s security and territorial integrity. I will not rule out the possibility of the camp weapons issue being used to distort the image of the Palestinian resistance and to drag Hamas’s name into any future conflicts on the ground. This desire aligns with the vision of Mahmoud Abbas, who is hostile to the Palestinian resistance in general and Hamas in particular and plans to visit Lebanon to discuss the issue of weapons in the camps in the coming days.

On the other hand, the sudden Lebanese warning comes in response to the vision of the US and Israel’s arrangements for the future of the Arab region, which is being re-engineered politically and on the ground to allow for complete and undisputed Israeli domination. It also aligns with other Arab measures, including, for example, Jordan’s criminalisation of support for the Palestinian resistance and the new Syrian regime’s efforts, under American pressure, to tighten the noose on Palestinian resistance factions and prevent their activities inside Syria under the pretext of “arms control.”

This allows us to come to the conclusion that the Lebanese warning is just one scene among several others that together form the American-Israeli vision of the region. It is a bleak future for Arab dignity, in which Israel violates Arab lands and capabilities daily in a provocative and humiliating manner, while Arab regimes undertake the task of clipping the wings of the Palestinian resistance and cutting off its supply lines under the force of American pressure. The US will implement what these regimes fail to, and the American bombing of Yemen in defence of Israel, which has been ongoing for weeks, is a prime example of this.

Unfortunately, official Arab alignment with Israeli-American goals is pushing some to treat the Palestinian resistance with arrogance and condescension, describing it as the weakest link. Therefore, there is no high political price to pay for antagonising it and distorting its positive image, even though it has the legitimate and legal right to resist military occupation and defend its land, people and holy sites. This is a chance to recall the shameless insults and obscenities uttered by Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas against the Palestinian resistance, which is the opposite of the official Arab approach to the criminal occupation, which violates the dignity of Arabs, their skies and their land around the clock. Yet, no one dares to threaten it or issue warnings—even as a formality—of resisting its attacks, which have become a daily occurrence on our television screens.

Arab identification with Israel’s desire to eliminate the resistance will strongly clash with the resistance’s popular support and its deep roots in the hearts of the nation’s free people. The resistance, which has persevered for 18 months against the Israeli enemies and sacrificed its best leaders and fighters without being broken, is capable of regrouping and rebuilding what the occupation has destroyed. When it does so, many of those who align with Israel’s goals today may seek to cosy up to the resistance after their strength weakens and they fail to eliminate it and uproot it from the land of Palestine and its surroundings.

Translation by MEMO

May 7, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

As India and Pakistan edge toward full-scale war, Kashmir braces for the fallout

By Fatemeh Fazli | Press TV | May 7, 2025

Tensions between the two nuclear-armed South Asian neighbors have once again reached a boiling point, following India’s most extensive missile strikes yet into Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

The death toll continues to climb alarmingly, with some reports putting the figure at 26, with several others injured, marking one of the bloodiest military escalations in the region in recent memory.

Graphic images circulating on social media platforms depict scenes of chaos and commotion, with wounded civilians, including children, being rushed to overwhelmed hospitals in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and parts of Punjab.

In Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, residents recalled the terror that unfolded after a barrage of missiles pounded the city. One local said they scrambled to the hills surrounding the city as a deafening barrage of missiles lit up the night sky.

Codenamed Operation Sindoor, the Indian Army announced that it had struck nine sites, labeling them “terrorist infrastructure” scattered across Pakistan and Pakistan-administered Kashmir.

It claimed to have targeted the bases of Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, which is based in Pakistan and has been responsible for several terrorist incidents in India and Indian-administered Kashmir.

In response, the Pakistani military offered its own account, stating that Indian forces had launched 24 missiles at six separate locations, resulting in the deaths of at least 26 individuals.

The strikes were followed by intense cross-border shelling along the volatile de facto boundary, which has been the scene of minor and major skirmishes between the two sides for decades.

This dramatic escalation follows closely on the heels of a terrorist attack in Pahalgam, a serene hill resort in Indian-administered Kashmir, where more than two dozen tourists from India’s southern states were gunned down last month.

The attackers reportedly emerged from forest cover and targeted only male tourists, leaving women unharmed, a chilling crime that sent shockwaves across India and the world.

India was quick to blame Pakistan for orchestrating the attack. Islamabad, however, denied any involvement, insisting no credible evidence had been presented, a position that gained traction among observers worldwide even as the terrorist attack itself drew widespread condemnation.

This is not the first instance of such clashes souring relations between the estranged neighbors, and it likely won’t be the last. Their hostility and mistrust run deep, rooted in the painful legacy of the 1947 partition of British India, a wound that continues to fester.

In the decades since, India and Pakistan have fought multiple wars, waged proxy battles, and engaged in countless skirmishes, each confrontation widening the rift and reinforcing mutual suspicion, despite their intertwined histories, cultures, languages, and cuisines.

Yet, amid the hostility, ordinary people on both sides of the border have consistently voiced their opposition to war. They speak the same tongue, prepare the same meals, and see each other not as enemies but as long-lost kin separated by politics and pride.

In particular, the war-weary people of Kashmir, who have seen nothing but war and violence all these years, have paid the highest price for the hostility between the two South Asian countries.

There have been some genuine efforts at reconciliation in the past. Some governments in New Delhi and Islamabad did make attempts to thaw relations, most notably during the era of Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf even proposed a popular “four-point solution” to the long-festering Kashmir dispute. Vajpayee, in turn, championed a peace initiative grounded in empathy, as evident in his memorable April 2003 speech delivered in the heart of Srinagar, the summer capital of Kashmir.

But that fragile hope was shattered in November 2008 when coordinated terrorist attacks paralyzed Mumbai, India’s financial capital. Carried out by Lashkar-e-Taiba militants based in Pakistan, the attacks dealt a severe blow to the peace process.

Subsequent tragedies – the 2016 terrorist attack in the town of Uri in Kashmir that killed 18 Indian soldiers, and the 2019 suicide bombing in Pulwama that claimed the lives of 28 Indian military personnel – further deepened the divide, derailing any diplomatic momentum.

India blamed Pakistan on both occasions, even though Islamabad feigned ignorance. After the Uri attack, India responded with “surgical strikes” deep inside Pakistan.

These incidents unfolded under the government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, whose tenure has been marked by increased militarization of the Kashmir conflict.

In a controversial move in August 2019, Modi’s government revoked Article 370 of the Indian Constitution, stripping Jammu and Kashmir of its special autonomy.

While Indian officials have since claimed that peace and normalcy have returned to the region, the massacre of tourists in Pahalgam on April 22, killing at least 28, belies such assurances, including those from Home Minister Amit Shah.

In January, Shah asserted that the Modi administration had dismantled terrorism in the Kashmir valley and eradicated its underlying ecosystem. Just months prior, in September 2024, Modi himself promised that the BJP would turn Jammu and Kashmir into a “terror-free haven for tourists.”

But the events in Pahalgam shattered that illusion. The militants emerged from the forests and opened fire on unarmed tourists while no security personnel were anywhere in sight.

The attack set off ripples far beyond the valley. In the days that followed, Kashmiri students across India were harassed and scapegoated by right-wing groups demanding revenge for the slain tourists.

Ironically, the most vocal condemnation came from Kashmir itself. Locals filled the streets in protest. Even pro-independence groups denounced the attack, and a moment of silence for the victims was solemnly observed at the Jamia Masjid, the region’s largest mosque.

Now, with war drums beating once again, it is the people of Kashmir, caught in the crosshairs of two hostile nations, who stand to suffer most. The fragile peace in the region has been shattered and the economy will also be affected with a drop in tourists visiting Kashmir.

Reports suggest at least 10 civilians have already died in Indian-administered Kashmir due to cross-border shelling along the Line of Control since last night. It will only get worse.

With both India and Pakistan in possession of nuclear weapons, the specter of full-scale war between them is not just terrifying, it’s potentially apocalyptic.

The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons has issued a dire warning, saying it was “gravely concerned” about the rising tensions and cautioning that a nuclear exchange could result in “millions of immediate deaths in the region and have global consequences.”

As has been the case far too often, the true victims of this decades-old conflict remain the people of Kashmir, who are straddling both sides of a fragile, blood-soaked border.

Fatemeh Fazli is a PhD candidate in Indian Studies at the University of Tehran.

May 7, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , , | Leave a comment