Killing scientists’ families is not a strategy but a moral collapse
Israel’s campaign of assassinations has moved beyond military targets — now it’s wiping out families of scientists in their homes, and calling it strategy.
Iranian nuclear scientist Seyyed Mostafa Sadati-Armaki and his family
By Nadezhda Romanenko | RT | June 24, 2025
The recent revelation that Iranian nuclear scientist Mostafa Sadati-Armaki was killed along with his entire family – his wife, two daughters, and son – in an Israeli airstrike should stop even hardened strategists in their tracks. This wasn’t just a precision strike. It was an execution of a household.
Sadati-Armaki was not a senior official. He was a mid-level scientist—an engineer working within Iran’s nuclear framework. That role may have made him a target in the logic of modern conflict. But nothing, not even that logic, can justify killing his children in their own home.
This wasn’t an isolated incident. On June 13, at least five other nuclear scientists were killed in Israeli strikes across Tehran: Fereydoon Abbasi, Mohammad Mehdi Tehranchi, Abdolhamid Minouchehr, Ahmadreza Zolfaghari Daryani, and Seyed Amir Hossein Feghhi. Their credentials tied them to Iran’s nuclear program. All had played some role, technical or administrative, in Iran’s nuclear development. None were combatants. Most were academics. Some had already retired from state positions.
Crucially, they weren’t alone. In multiple reported cases, family members died alongside them. Wives. Daughters. The daughter of a senior official.
These were not errant missiles landing in crowded urban spaces. These were targeted strikes on homes, in residential areas, at night, when families were together. This isn’t the fog of war. It is its deliberate weaponization. The children didn’t make enrichment policy. The spouses didn’t oversee uranium labs. But they died because of proximity—because they were related to someone deemed dangerous.
To call this “collateral damage” is cowardice. When decision-makers approve a strike on a home, knowing who sleeps inside, the outcome is no longer an accident. It is a choice.
Some argue that in an asymmetrical war, deterrence must be personal. But this is not deterrence—it’s liquidation. It suggests that no civilian life adjacent to state infrastructure is worth preserving. It sends the message that not even scientists’ families will be spared, as if moral limits are luxuries we can no longer afford.
This is not a defense of Iran’s nuclear posture. It is a defense of the basic principle that families—children—cannot be combatants. If we abandon that line, we are not winning anything. We are declaring that fear is stronger than law, that vengeance is smarter than diplomacy.
Killing scientists’ families doesn’t dismantle programs. It doesn’t prevent future threats. It only makes peace more remote and retaliation more likely. What we normalize now, others will imitate later.
This is not strength. It is strategic and moral collapse. And if this is where warfare is headed, then everyone—regardless of nationality—should be deeply, urgently afraid.
Why Israel’s Blitzkrieg Tactics Failed to Break Iran
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 24.06.2025
Following Israel’s latest strikes on Iran, which targeted not just military figures but entire families, Professor Seyed Mohammad Marandi sharply criticizes Tel Aviv’s actions and explained why they failed to achieve regime change.
Brutal Tactics
Marandi calls the assault a clear act of terror with echoes of Nazi-style tactics:
“Not only did they murder senior military officials in their Blitzkrieg attack, similar to the Nazi Germany attack, but they murdered families, neighbors, and in cases they murdered everyone in buildings,” Marandi tells Sputnik.
Dangerous Leadership
According to Marandi, Israel’s leadership is operating with no moral boundaries:
“The [Benjamin] Netanyahu regime is one of the most dangerous regimes in contemporary human history.”
And the issue runs deeper than one man: “They are ethno-supremacists and they consider others as inferior human beings.”
Iran Didn’t Break
Despite psychological warfare and direct threats, Iranian military leadership held firm:
“They reportedly called 20 Iranian generals, demanding surrender videos — or their families would be killed. NOT ONE complied.”
This, he says, revealed the strength of Iran’s armed forces: “It shows how dedicated they are.”
Failed Mission
Marandi concludes that Israel’s goals were not only brutal, but also unsuccessful. “They wanted to bring about regime change, but they failed utterly. This attack only exposed them to the world.”
“It was Netanyahu begging for a ceasefire.”
Moscow, beware: Germany just discovered the joys of illegal war
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | June 24, 2025
Forget the fog of war. Even in war, and sometimes especially in war, some things are exceedingly clear. Regarding the so-called ‘Hamas-Israel War’, for instance, it is obvious that in reality it is not a war at all but a genocide, namely the Gaza Genocide, carried out by Israel against the Palestinians whose unbroken resistance will be the stuff of legends, and of history too.
Likewise, in the case of Israel’s current assault on Iran – really, of course, a combined US-Israeli attack from the get-go – there is no room for doubt that it is criminal and a “blatant act of aggression,” as multiple experts in international law agree. That’s because in essence, Israel is not acting with a UN mandate – which it would not have received – or in self-defense.
The legal basis for this compelling assessment is not complex and there is no room for good-faith debate: Israel’s attack violates Article 2 (4) of the foundational UN Charter, which is recognized universally as jus cogens, that is, a binding norm: no pick and choose.
The few generally accepted, narrowly defined potential exceptions to this article’s comprehensive prohibition on the use of force, such as an erroneous incursion, certain operations at sea, or a rescue of nationals, clearly do not apply. The Israeli onslaught also does not have the blessing of the UN Security Council, and it cannot possibly count as lawful self-defense under Article 51.
So far, so simple. If anyone tries to make this look complicated by flagrantly misapplying and abusing the notion of a ‘preemptive strike’, you are dealing with Israeli or Israel-Lobby disinformation and propaganda. That too is anything but surprising.
Yet what is more puzzling than the above is the response of the governments, and often the mainstream media of the West, to this clearly criminal Israeli attack. After years of invoking international law to go after Russia, it turns out that the same leaders and talking heads will tie themselves into 5-D pretzels to let Israel get away with whatever Israel feels like doing on any given day.
This is not really news either, of course: Western ‘elites’, with Washington always in the lead, have behaved no better when serving as accomplices in Israel’s Gaza Genocide. But there is something peculiar and noteworthy about how exactly some important Western politicians and their media and ‘think tank’ experts spin the attack on Iran.
Take, for instance, Germany. Its chancellor Friedrich Merz has gone out of his way to loudly endorse the assault on Iran. He has even exposed himself to ridicule and some – if far too little – criticism by employing revoltingly indecent language. Calling Israel’s actions “dirty work” (it sounds even worse in the original German: “Drecksarbeit”) that must be done and for which we all should be grateful, Merz has revealed his double racism: As a German and a historian, I can only say that a German leader praising Jews for doing “our” dirty work is, to put it very mildly, extremely boorish. Defining the criminal killing of Iranians as that “dirty work” adds a very nasty “colonial” flavor reminiscent of say, Kaiser Wilhelm II gloating over massacring Chinese during the so-called Boxer Rebellion.
While Merz has been clumsy enough to couch his obnoxious ideas in equally obnoxious language, he has by no means been alone. All too many prestigious German publications, such as the staid Frankfurter Zeitung or the also important Merkur newspaper, have hurried to either simply agree with Merz or at least to excuse and relativize his vile statement. In addition, rather overworked all-purpose ‘experts’, such as the reliably conformist and rarara-russophobic Christian Mölling, have used their perma-perk in Germany’s streamlined talk shows to cynically diminish international law and help dress up Israel’s newest crime as so necessary that it trumps all law anyhow.
Mölling was self-unaware enough to openly argue that some countries (read: Israel) can’t afford the “luxury” of accepting “normative limits” and that international law, anyhow, might be “protecting the wrong ones” (read: Iran). It’s breathtakingly brazen and intellectually primitive, and also historically speaking, very German in the worst sense: If we or our friends (read: Israel) feel constrained by international law, then that’s a problem not for us or our friends but for international law.
And now, let’s take a step back and think for a moment like a German who was not a conformist intellectual mediocrity: Enlightenment giant Immanuel Kant. For those with ears to hear and brains to process, Kant has taught us that reason and ethics demand that the justifications for our actions ought to be generalizable in good conscience. In short, when we act, we should be able to show that we are acting according to a fair and reasonable rule.
Let’s generalize into such a rule, then, what German leader Friedrich Merz has just said and what all too many German mainstream representatives agree with: A country (here: Israel) that feels sufficiently afraid (as judged by that country) of another country (here: Iran) has a right (that trumps international law) to attack that other country without provocation and even during ongoing negotiations.
Interesting. Consider that German elites have been fanning war hysteria relentlessly. Not a day seems to go by without some German general, spy, or politician warning their fellow Germans that Russia is at least likely, really almost certain, to attack within the next five years or so. Evidence: zero.
Indeed? So, if we are all supposed to be so afraid of Russia in Germany, does that now mean that according to Merzian logic we may as well one day launch a preemptive strike on Moscow? After all, we could then say we felt threatened and our military and the intelligence services were telling us that the Russians were coming. And moreover, we’d probably claim that we, the Germans, were proudly doing the ‘Drecksarbeit’ for all of NATO (minus, most likely, the US). And isn’t doing the ‘Drecksarbeit’ now officially a good thing in Germany, again?
Absurd, you say? Yes, absolutely. Exactly as absurd as Israel’s pretexts for attacking Iran. And yet those have been officially endorsed by a German chancellor, including self-revealing dirty language. Let’s hope that Moscow does not take seriously what Merz says. Because if Moscow did take it seriously, then by Merzian logic, it should feel very threatened indeed by Berlin – and again by Merzian logic, who knows where that might lead.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
The Iran war is Trump’s unconditional surrender to Israel
Sidelining US intelligence, Trump and top principals rely on Israeli fabrications to promote war on Iran.
By Aaron Maté | June 21, 2025
[Note: this article has been updated following the US bombing of Iran]
Since his election in 2016, Donald Trump’s political opponents have portrayed him as a dangerous, unstable fabulist doing the bidding of a malign, nuclear-armed foreign power.
Having returned to the White House this year, Trump is proving his detractors correct on all counts but one: the location on the map. The rogue state that he’s colluding with — at great peril to the planet — is not Russia, as his most vocal detractors alleged, but Israel.
Israel’s June 13th attack on Iran sabotaged the then-ongoing talks on a new nuclear deal with the United States, and Trump has gone to unprecedented lengths to support its aggression. Trump undercut his own Secretary of State’s claim that Israel had undertaken “unilateral action” by acknowledging that “we knew everything” in advance of what he called a “very successful attack.” Administration officials then disclosed that Trump had previously authorized giving Israel intelligence support for the bombing. Trump then called on Tehran’s 9.8 million residents to evacuate, mused about killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, and declared that “we” – meaning Israel – “have complete and total control of the skies over Iran.”
After Iran rejected his demand for “unconditional surrender”, Trump imposed a new deadline of two weeks, only to break it three days later by ordering a US military attack on three Iranian nuclear energy sites, including the deeply buried mountain complex Fordo, which he quickly hailed as a “great success.” Just as with Trump’s diplomacy with Iran, his two-week deadline turns out to have been a ruse whose “goal was to create a situation when everyone wasn’t expecting it,” a senior administration official said.
To wage war on Iran, Trump and his allies have employed the traditional Iraq WMD playbook of ignoring or manipulating the available evidence to fear-monger about a foreign state marked for regime change. Unlike the Iraq war, where the fraudulent case for invading was mostly concocted in-house, Trump has outsourced the job to Israel, while not even pretending to care about public opinion or Congressional approval.
Back in March, the US intelligence community assessed that “Iran is not building a nuclear weapon” and “has not reauthorized the nuclear weapons program… suspended in 2003.” According to US officials who spoke to the New York Times, “[t]hat assessment has not changed.” Moreover, the US has found that “not only was Iran not actively pursuing a nuclear weapon, it was also up to three years away from being able to produce and deliver one,” CNN reports, citing four sources.
Whereas Dick Cheney and company went through the trouble of nudging subordinates to fabricate intelligence, including via torture, Trump does not care about seeking their imprimatur. “[M]y intelligence community is wrong,” Trump told reporters on Friday. White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt insisted that “Iran has all that it needs to achieve a nuclear weapon,” and, if authorized by Ayatollah Khamenei, “it would take a couple weeks to complete the production of that weapon.” In White House meetings, CIA chief John Ratcliffe has argued that Iran is close to a nuclear bomb and that claiming otherwise “would be similar to saying football players who have fought their way to the one-yard line don’t want to score a touchdown,” according to one US official who spoke to CBS News. (After the Iraq war, a “Slam dunk” basketball analogy is no longer available).
If Trump’s intelligence community is “wrong,” who does he think is right? As US officials told the New York Times, the claims from Trump and his circle “echoed material provided by Mossad,” Israel’s intelligence agency. And whereas some in the government, undoubtedly those close to Trump, “find the Israeli estimate credible”, others believe that “Israeli assessments have been colored by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s desire to gain American support for his military campaign against Iran.” Moreover, according to multiple officials, “[n]one of the new assessments on the timeline to get a bomb are based on newly collected intelligence,” but instead on “new analysis of existing work.” In other words, Trump is sidelining his own intelligence community to trust a “new analysis” that is based on no new information, just the manipulation of a foreign government.
Trump’s disdain for his own agencies is a particular slight to intelligence chief Tulsi Gabbard. “I don’t care what she said,” Trump said this week, referring to Gabbard’s presentation of the US intelligence consensus on Iran in March. “I think they [Iran] were very close to having it.”
Rather than defend the agencies she oversees – and the record she earned challenging previous US-driven regime change deceptions — Gabbard has bent the knee to Trump, and Israel by extension. In a social media post, Gabbard chided “the dishonest media” for taking her March testimony “out of context.” The US, Gabbard now claimed, “has intelligence that Iran is at the point that it can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks to months, if they decide to finalize the assembly.” Gabbard also shared video of that March testimony, without addressing the contradictory fact that it does not include any mention of her newfound claim that Iran has the capability to produce a nuclear bomb “within weeks to months.”
Gabbard is engaging in disingenuous wordplay. If Israel tells America that Iran “can produce a nuclear weapon within weeks”, then yes, American intelligence now “has” that intelligence. That doesn’t mean it is true, or that American intelligence believes it, which it does not. A US official familiar with the available record on Iran tells me that there is no US intelligence assessment concluding that Iran is “weeks” away from building a nuclear weapon. Gabbard is only saying, therefore, that the US intelligence community has received “intelligence” from Israel, without mentioning that the IC does not actually endorse it.
Moreover, pretend for a moment that the Israeli claim is correct. Gabbard’s caveat of “if they decide to finalize” is an acknowledgment that Iran has not decided to build a nuclear weapon. That’s because Iran has said it does not want one, and is willing to commit to that in a binding agreement — the one they were negotiating with the US until Trump and Israel sabotaged it, and not for the first time. In fact, as US intelligence officials have also predicted, Trump’s bombing now increases the likelihood that Iran will pursue the nuclear bomb that it has long foresworn. Iran claims to have moved enriched uranium stockpiles prior to the US bombing, which preserves its capacity to weaponize.
Trump and Israel insisted, in the president’s words, on “unconditional surrender”: capitulation to maximalist US-Israeli demands that Iran end its uranium enrichment program, which it is entitled to have under the Non-Proliferation Treaty; and that it limit its arsenal of missiles. In other words, Trump and Netanyahu demanded that Iran agree to abandon its sovereignty and right to self-defense just as it is under attack from US-backed Israeli aggression; and all while US-backed Israeli mass murder in Gaza and annexation of the West Bank continues unimpeded.
Iranian officials did not surrender. Trump, by contrast, cannot say the same. By enabling its bombing campaign, parroting its deceptions, and now going to war against Iran on its behalf, Trump has already offered an unconditional surrender to Israel — a betrayal that grows more dangerous by the day.
Europe bears ‘share of the blame’ for Israel’s attack on Iran – Russia
RT | June 24, 2025
European leaders pressured the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to issue a negative assessment of Iran and “bear a share of the blame” for Israel’s attack on the Islamic Republic, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said.
Israel attacked Iran shortly after the UN nuclear watchdog declared Tehran to be in breach of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), despite Iran’s claims its uranium enrichment program is peaceful. The US joined the Jewish state’s air campaign to strike Tehran’s nuclear sites shortly before Washington announced a ceasefire had been reached between Israel and Iran.
Speaking at the Primakov Forums meeting in Moscow on Tuesday, Lavrov accused European leaders of pressuring the IAEA’s director, General Rafael Grossi, into publishing an accusatory report on Iran.
“The Europeans have taken a purely neocolonial position… They were actively preparing Grossi so that he would put the most ambiguously negative formulations into his report,” the top diplomat said.
The UK, France, Germany, and later, the US ran with the IAEA assessment and pushed a resolution through the IAEA Board of Governors that condemned Iran for allegedly violating the NPT, he added.
“A few days later, Israel launched its attacks,” Lavrov said.
The Europeans bear a share of the blame for this happening and for the fact that such attacks were carried out.
This highlights that the West “exerts very serious influence on international organizations, and has even privatized them to an extent,” Lavrov said, adding that most such bodies are no longer “guided by the requirement of impartiality.”
Weeks before the escalation, Reuters cited anonymous diplomats as saying that Western powers were pressuring the IAEA to declare Tehran in breach of its NPT obligations, at the height of US-Iran nuclear talks.
Tehran has since accused Grossi of taking sides and turning a blind eye to Israel’s attacks on Iran’s nuclear energy facilities. Multiple IAEA resolutions state that any use of force against peaceful nuclear facilities is illegal under international law.
Moscow has condemned Israeli and US attacks against Iran as “illegitimate.” The recent ceasefire, announced by US President Donald Trump on Tuesday, “can and should be welcomed,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said. Moscow hopes that it “proves to be sustainable,” he added.
In significant policy shift, Trump says China can keep buying oil from Iran
Press TV – June 24, 2025
US President Donald Trump said on Tuesday that China can keep buying oil from Iran, marking a significant shift from his so-called maximum pressure campaign.
His remarks came hours after the Israeli regime was forced to halt its aggression against the Islamic Republic as Trump showed reluctance in further American involvement in the war.
Trump claimed in a social media post that he had worked out a “ceasefire” between Iran and Israel 12 days after Israel launched an unprovoked war on Iran, prompting a powerful Iranian response that inflicted heavy blows on the regime and its military infrastructure.
“China can now continue to purchase Oil from Iran,” Trump said in a post on his social media platform, Truth Social.
“Hopefully, they will be purchasing plenty from the US, also. It was my Great Honor to make this happen!” he added.
The development came more than a month after Trump warned China that it would face harsh penalties if it continued to buy oil from Iran.
The US president had signed a presidential memorandum on February 4 ordering a campaign of maximum pressure on Iran.
The US Treasury has imposed several rounds of sanctions on Chinese companies and tankers that it says have been involved in the Iranian oil trade.
China accounts for a bulk of oil purchases from Iran as estimates suggest that private refiners in the country receive an average of more than 1.5 million barrels per day of oil from Iranian suppliers.
Beijing has repeatedly indicated that it does not recognize unilateral sanctions imposed by the US on other countries.
Trump’s latest announcement on Iranian oil also comes amid concerns that his sanctions on Chinese imports of oil from Iran could push up international oil prices and lead to consumer dissatisfaction inside the US.
Trump used the Israeli war against Iran to order airstrikes on Iranian nuclear facilities early on Sunday. Iran responded by firing missiles at a key US air base in Qatar late on Monday.
Attack on Iran damaged US credibility – China
RT | June 24, 2025
The US has damaged its own credibility by attacking Iran’s nuclear sites, Chinese UN Ambassador Fu Cong has said, denouncing the strikes as a violation of international norms and the United Nations charter.
Earlier this month, Israel launched a series of aerial attacks on Iranian territory, claiming Tehran was close to building a nuclear weapon. The US later joined the campaign, bombing multiple nuclear facilities. On Tuesday, both Iran and Israel confirmed they had agreed to a ceasefire after nearly two weeks of hostilities.
Speaking at a UN Security Council meeting on Sunday, Fu said the US attack had not only harmed Iran but also “damaged” Washington’s credibility, “both as a country and as a participant in any international negotiations.”
The Chinese Foreign Ministry added that the strikes violated international law. Spokesman Guo Jiakun said on Monday that attacking nuclear facilities that were under the supervision of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) constituted “a serious violation of the United Nations Charter.”
Guo told reporters that Beijing was prepared to strengthen communication and coordination with all parties in order to “play a constructive role in restoring peace in the Middle East.”
The Israeli-US strikes have drawn widespread condemnation. Russian President Vladimir Putin has said there is “no justification” for what he called “unprovoked aggression” against Iran. During a meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi in Moscow on Monday, Putin described Israel’s actions as “illegitimate” and in violation of international law.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has also criticized the attacks. In a post on Sunday, he said that the “vast majority of countries” opposed the Israeli-US operation and accused President Donald Trump of pushing the US into another war. Medvedev added that Trump could “forget about the Nobel Peace Prize.”
NATO To Take ‘Quantum Leap’ in Military Spending, Pledging 5% of GDP Baseline
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | June 24, 2025
Each member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is expected to ink a pledge to raise military spending to 5% of GDP over the next ten years. This is more than double the current 2% goal. Responding to President Donald Trump’s demands for greater spending, member states will agree to the new baseline in the Netherlands during an alliance summit this week. On Monday, the eve before the summit, this proposal was referred to as a “quantum leap” by Secretary General Mark Rutte.
Under the compromise deal, by 2035, each member state will commit a minimum of 3.5% of their GDP to “core military needs,” along with 1.5% to be earmarked for cybersecurity, infrastructure, and other security components.
“The defense investment plan that allies will agree [to] in The Hague introduces a new baseline, five percent of GDP to be invested in defense,” Rutte told reporters.Despite alliance concerns over Madrid’s refusal to commit to the 5% spending figure, which would necessitate a military yearly budget of nearly $90 billion, Rutte emphasized Spain will not be allowed to “opt-out.” He said, “NATO does not have as an alliance opt-outs, side deals, etcetera, because we all have to chip in.”
Moreover, Rutte insists the new spending will go toward producing thousands of tanks and a five fold increase in the production of air defenses. The NATO chief declared, “Our focus is ensuring that we have all we need to deter and defend against any threat.” Rutte added the summit will see strong support for Ukraine and noted the “most significant and direct threat facing this alliance remains the Russian Federation.”
The alliance has poured hundreds of billions of dollars into a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine that has seen hundreds of thousands of casualties with Ukraine losing roughly 20% of its territory.
With the US taking the lead, by 2021, defying Russia’s core security concerns and provoking conflict, Ukraine was being treated as a de facto NATO member. Rutte’s predecessor, Jens Stoltenberg, admitted that, under his leadership in the lead up to the war, the Washington-led bloc refused to take potential membership for Kiev off the table in negotiations even though Moscow had made clear that would prevent an invasion.
The policy has not changed. “Last year in Washington, NATO allies agreed that for Ukraine there is an irreversible path of Ukraine to enter NATO. And that is still true today, and it will still be true on Thursday after this summit,” Rutte told reporters.
However, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky reportedly will be “largely sidelined” at the summit’s main event. With Biden gone and Trump now in office, Rutte said Europe will work to cover the difference in US spending on the Ukraine war. He added that Europe and Canada have spent $40 billion on the war thus far this year. Washington is still providing Kiev with military and other aid, along with targeting intelligence.
Rutte’s comments also took aim at Tehran, the NATO chief said his “greatest fear” is Iran gaining a nuclear weapon that would give it a “stranglehold” over Israel. Iran is a signatory of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and prior to Tel Aviv’s unprovoked war against the Islamic Republic, the consensus among US intelligence agencies was Tehran is not trying to build nuclear weapons. Israel – which is not a party to the NPT – has an undeclared nuclear arsenal estimated to contain as many as 300 warheads.
The US carried out an illegal act of war, bombing Iran’s internationally safeguarded nuclear energy facilities over the weekend. This is a blatant violation of the UN charter. Trump ordered the massive attack without congressional authorization as required per the US Constitution. When questioned about the legality of the strikes, Rutte proclaimed “I would not agree that [what the US did] is against international law.”
Trump is demanding a $1 trillion US military budget. While Rutte is currently focused on Moscow and fueling the Ukraine war, Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth recently boasted he is preparing the American military to defend the island of Taiwan, to “fight and win — decisively” a war with China.
NATO chief dodges question about why to fear a ‘Russian attack’
RT | June 24, 2025
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte has failed to explain why the bloc believes Russia could attack within five years, but nevertheless used the claim during a press conference on Monday to reiterate calls for increased military spending.
In recent months, a number of Western officials have repeatedly claimed that Russia may attack an Eastern European member state in the near future, using the rhetoric as a foundation for drastically raising defense spending. Moscow has vehemently denied harboring any hostile intent, and called such accusations “nonsense.”
While speaking at a pre-summit press conference in The Hague, Rutte was asked to disclose what NATO’s assessment of a Russian attack within five years was based on. The secretary general, however, avoided giving any specific intelligence or threat assessment, citing only general fears and urging an increase in the bloc-wide defense spending target to 5% of GDP.
Rutte said there was “great worry in many circles of NATO” and referred to “senior military leaders” and “intelligence community people” who have spoken about the possibility that “3, 5, 7 years from now, Russia will be able to successfully attack us, if we do not start investing more today.”
He emphasized that “huge extra defense spending over the next three to five years” was required to ensure NATO’s future readiness. According to Rutte, yearly increases would be needed to strengthen the bloc through new personnel and military equipment.
Russia has consistently rejected the idea that Moscow plans to invade NATO countries, with President Vladimir Putin calling the accusations “nonsense” and “shameless lies” designed to extract resources from the population and divert it towards military spending.
Speaking to military academy graduates on Monday, Putin stated that the West “came up with this horror story themselves and repeats it year after year,” using it to provoke a new arms race and justify what he called “global militarization.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has also slammed NATO’s “unbridled militarization” and suggested that the bloc would need to create a “monster” to push through the proposed 5% GDP defense spending benchmark.
“Let’s call things by their proper names,” he said. “This is an alliance created for confrontation. This is an alliance that brings aggression and confrontation. This is not an instrument of peace and stability.”
Dissatisfaction with the old elites is growing in Europe
By Sonja van den Ende | Strategic Culture Foundation | June 24, 2025
Lately, it has become increasingly evident that European citizens are growing weary of their political elites and the entrenched system of rotating figureheads who perpetuate the same policies year after year. The political establishment exhibits a rigid adherence to outdated approaches, and their arrogance – manifest in a belief that they operate above democratic accountability – is glaringly apparent in their mainstream media channels, which are themselves staffed by the same elite journalists who have dominated the airwaves for decades.
Whether it is their reckless plans to fund military escalations through EU citizens’ taxes – such as the proposed five percent increase in NATO spending, justified by the unfounded fear of a Russian invasion – or the diversion of public funds to arm Israel, a state which commits genocide against the citizens of Gaza and which has now escalated to bombing nuclear facilities in Iran alongside its perpetual war partner, the United States, the disconnect between rulers and ruled has never been clearer.
Recently, widespread outrage erupted among citizens (and even some alternative politicians) over statements by German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who declared that Israel and Ukraine were performing the Drecksarbeit (“dirty work”) for Germany and Europe. The remark was so brazen that even Germany’s state broadcaster, ZDF – part of the mainstream media apparatus – reacted with shock. Beyond confirming what many already suspected, this episode laid bare Germany’s geopolitical stance 80 years after the end of World War II.
“It would be good if this mullah regime came to an end,” Chancellor Merz asserted in an ARD interview, emphatically defending Israel’s military actions while insisting Iran must never acquire nuclear weapons. “Germany is also affected by the mullah regime.”
This rhetoric is emblematic of the German elite’s worldview. Merz is no outlier; his stance reflects the consensus within his party, the CDU – a so-called Altpartei with roots stretching back to the Nazi era. Many of its former members held high-ranking positions in the Third Reich, only to seamlessly reintegrate into postwar governance as if history had never happened. Merz’s own grandfather, the mayor of Brilon, was a card-carrying member of the NSDAP.
The Netherlands fares no better, currently mired in political chaos. Governments collapse with alarming frequency, yet power merely circulates among the same old parties, all aligned on fundamental policies – particularly in foreign affairs. Take the CDA, a party that dominated Dutch politics for decades. Its most famous figure, Joseph Luns, served as Foreign Minister across multiple cabinets from 1952 to 1971. Less known is his membership in the NSB – the Dutch Nazi party – in 1934. He was, like Mark Rutte, Secretary General of NATO, and incidentally the longest-serving Secretary General of NATO! But actually he was complicit in colonial crimes, including endorsing the 300-year exploitation of Indonesia, which only gained sovereignty in 1948.
Many Dutch citizens hoped for change when Geert Wilders’ far-right PVV ascended to power in 2024. Yet they were deceived once more: the PVV has proven to be little more than an extension of the neoliberal VVD, augmented by ultra-Zionist fanaticism and overt anti-Arab, anti-Islam vitriol. Historically, such a platform would have been labeled an apartheid party – akin to South Africa’s Dutch-derived Nasionale Party. The parallels are undeniable, though the targets have shifted: where Afrikaner nationalism oppressed Black South Africans, today’s Zionists, backed by Europe and the U.S., are exterminating Palestinians.
In their hatred of Islam, the PVV and its ilk fail to grasp that they are fueling the very refugee crises they claim to oppose. War breeds displacement, as Europe witnessed in 2015. Meanwhile, ostensibly left-wing parties like the Dutch PvdA-GL rely on Muslim migrants as a voting bloc, knowing they will never support the right. Thus, the cycle perpetuates itself – a self-reinforcing loop that must be broken.
The situation is equally dire elsewhere in Europe. In France, the ruling elite has resorted to banning opposition figures, even imprisoning them. Marine Le Pen, convicted of embezzling EU funds, received a four-year sentence (two suspended) and a five-year electoral ban. Though she avoids jail via ankle monitoring, the precedent is chillingly reminiscent of NSDAP tactics – a softer fascism, but fascism nonetheless.
Belgium mirrors this decay. After two years without a government, it banned the Flemish nationalist Vlaams Blok in 2004 for racism, only for the party to rebrand as Vlaams Belang. Now, its leader, Dries Van Langenhove, faces imprisonment. Meanwhile, the Baltics embrace open fascism: demolishing Soviet monuments, persecuting Russian speakers, and hosting marches glorifying locals who joined the Wehrmacht and SS.
These snapshots – from Western Europe to the Baltics – paint a disturbing portrait. The nations that founded NATO and the EU remain fascist at their core, cloaked in modernist rhetoric. What passes for left-wing politics in Europe today is, in reality, fascist leftism: a push for a genderless, LGBTQIA+-dominated society that paradoxically depends on Muslim immigration to marginalize the right. At its heart lies a new state atheism, with traditional Christianity supplanted by woke dogma and Russia cast as the arch-enemy precisely because it upholds the values Europe has abandoned.
The so-called right-wing and centrist parties, meanwhile, champion family and Judeo-Christian identity (never Islam), though many are merely Zionist proxies serving U.S.-Israeli interests. While they oppose the Ukraine war and advocate diplomacy with Russia, they misunderstand Moscow’s pluralism – its 25-million-strong Muslim community defies their binary worldview.
This is the vicious cycle dooming Europe: both political flanks, beholden to elites who rotate between corporate boardrooms and ministerial offices, are destroying the continent. Obsessed with maintaining a unipolar colonial order, they trail behind the U.S. into endless wars, oblivious that China, India, and Russia have already eclipsed them.
Europe, still occupied by U.S. bases, risks becoming another Ukraine – a vassal state. Its leaders, like Ursula von der Leyen, conflate democracy with fascism, having never fully reckoned with their Nazi past. But dissent is growing. Citizens are awakening to the totalitarian reality of an EU where they have no voice.
The time for change is overdue. Whether through a European Spring or a new Renaissance, the process has begun. Ironically, Russia’s Special Military Operation – however unintended – has accelerated this reckoning on both sides of the Atlantic.
Will Germany initiate compulsory military service?
Remix News | June 24, 2025
Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder has come out with an aggressive plan to prep Germany for war. Support for Ukraine, defense against Russia, and efforts to prevent terrorists from getting their hands on nuclear weapons are the priorities.
“Compulsory military and civilian service is the future,” said Bavarian Prime Minister Markus Söder, according to Magyar Nemzet. “It is not enough to simply send out questionnaires to young people asking if they would be willing to serve; more decisive steps are needed,” he added.
Germany suspended compulsory military service in 2011, but the service could be reactivated via a parliamentary ruling. The German government’s coalition agreement currently only allows for voluntary military service. However, Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has already indicated that a much more ambitious bill is in the works, which would allow for the introduction of compulsory military service if necessary.
In addition to the issue of conscription, Söder also urged the maximum deployment of the Bundeswehr —the German army — and again called for the development of a national missile defense system.
“This also requires technology – an Iron Dome system is absolutely necessary to protect not only Berlin, but all of Germany,” he said, emphasizing that urgent action, including more sanctions, is needed to deter Russia.
Söder also called for full support for Ukraine, including supplying the country with arms. Thorsten Frei, the head of the German Chancellery, warned on Monday that the threat to U.S. military bases in Germany had increased significantly after the U.S. air strikes on Iran.
“We stand with the United States and Israel,” Frei stated, adding that German security agencies are doing everything they can to protect American facilities.
Regarding the attacks on Iran, the politician highlighted: “The fact is that it was not only Israel that was in serious danger. If a terrorist regime were to obtain nuclear weapons, it would also pose a serious threat to world peace.”
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From the Archives
The lies about the 1967 war are still more powerful than the truth
By Alan Hart | June 4, 2012
In retrospect it can be seen that the 1967 war, the Six Days War, was the turning point in the relationship between the Zionist state of Israel and the Jews of the world (the majority of Jews who prefer to live not in Israel but as citizens of many other nations). Until the 1967 war, and with the exception of a minority of who were politically active, most non-Israeli Jews did not have – how can I put it? – a great empathy with Zionism’s child. Israel was there and, in the sub-consciousness, a refuge of last resort; but the Jewish nationalism it represented had not generated the overtly enthusiastic support of the Jews of the world. The Jews of Israel were in their chosen place and the Jews of the world were in their chosen places. There was not, so to speak, a great feeling of togetherness. At a point David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father and first prime minister, was so disillusioned by the indifference of world Jewry that he went public with his criticism – not enough Jews were coming to live in Israel.
So how and why did the 1967 war transform the relationship between the Jews of the world and Israel? … continue
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