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Who Are the US Candidates Refusing AIPAC Money?

By Robert Inlakesh | Palestine Chronicle | October 28, 2025

The litmus test for whether a politician is truly interested in representing the people who elect them to power is becoming their stance on Palestine, more specifically, Gaza.

As American public opinion continues to shift against Israel, the US political landscape is also undergoing a dramatic transformation. AIPAC, once viewed as an asset to aid in election races, is now becoming a liability, giving birth to a new generation of politicians who are demonstrating their sincerity through a refusal to be bought by the Israel Lobby.

While New York Mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani has perhaps received the most attention for his pro-Palestinian stances, he is in no way alone. In fact, he is joined by countless others who use their anti-genocide stances as a means of connecting with their voter bases.

All authoritative polling data suggests the majority of Democratic Party supporters currently hold a more favorable view of the Palestinians than Israel. According to a recent Gallup poll, 92 percent of all Democrats said they oppose the war in Gaza. Yet, the ability of candidates to reject funding from the Israel Lobby and freely speak their mind on the issue transcends a simple agreement with constituents on a single foreign policy issue.

Instead, refusing to take AIPAC money is rapidly becoming a prerequisite in order to be viewed as authentic, and it drives belief amongst the public that any given candidate will actually work to achieve key campaign promises. In other words, AIPAC equals corruption, and being pro-Palestinian equates to authenticity.

One of the most successful campaigns, coming from this new generation of politicians, is that of Graham Platner, who is a Democrat running for a seat in the US Senate for Maine. In his campaign ads, he promotes a “Mainers First” mentality, centering the working class and also explicitly opposing Washington’s support for the genocide in Gaza. He has publicly rejected funds from AIPAC, as opposed to Senator Susan Collins, who has taken at least $647,758 from the Israel Lobby.

Platner is a Marine Corps veteran who did four combat tours and also worked as an Oysterman. Despite countless attempts, from within the Democratic Party establishment and the Israel Lobby, to stir up controversies and undermine his campaign, the progressive candidate is still polling above his Democratic primary opponent and Maine Governor, Janet Mills.

Although the uptick in pro-Palestinian sentiment is more prominent amongst Democrats, there is also a notable shift amongst Republicans. Pew Research polling data shows that, while unfavorable views amongst Republicans overall stand at around 23 percent, amongst those aged 18-49, a whopping 50 percent said they viewed Israel unfavorably.

Harnessing the energy of the shift, the likes of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Rep. Thomas Massie, and Rep. Matt Gaetz have all explicitly come out in opposition to AIPAC. Their messaging around the issue is to assert that they are “America First”, as opposed to their Republican colleagues, whom they accuse of being “Israel First”. These representatives align themselves with popular conservative commentators like Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson, amongst others, who also carry the same rhetoric.

Ultimately, the idea of America First and slogans like Mainers First transcend partisan lines. The idea of prioritizing Americans above the interests of Israel has long been taboo, yet we saw this collapse during the Democratic primary campaign for the Mayor of New York.

When Zohran Mamdani was asked where he would first visit as Mayor, he answered calmly that “I would stay in New York City. My plans are to address New Yorkers across the five boroughs and focus on them.” Although he was then challenged repeatedly and asked to recognize Israel as a Jewish State, which he refused to do based upon opposition to systems of ethnic or religious hierarchy, the clip of his answer went viral, receiving broad agreement amongst both Democrats and Republicans.

Other politicians running for Congress, who are explicitly anti-AIPAC, include the following candidates:

Robb Ryerse for Arkansas’s Third District, who is seeking to unseat Steve Womack, funded to the tune of $142,030 by the Israel Lobby. In California, there is Chris Bennet running for the Sixth District, Mai Vang for the Seventh District, Saikat Chakrabarti for the Eleventh District, Chris Ahuja for the Thirty-Second District, as well as Angela Gonzales-Torres for the Thirty-Fourth District.

In Colorado, there is Melat Kiros for the First District, as well as John Padora for the Fourth District. Within Florida, there is also Bernard Taylor running for the Twenty-First District, Elijah Manley for the Twentieth District, Marialana Kinter for the Seventh District, and Oliver Larkin for the Twenty-Third District.

Running in Illinois, there is Robert Peters for the Second District, Junaid Ahmed for the Eighth District, Morgan Coghill for the Tenth District and Dylan Blaha for the Thirteenth District. Meanwhile, in Indiana, there is Jackson Franklin, who is running for Congressional District Five and, in Massachusetts, Jeromie Whalen is running for the First District.

Seeking to win Maryland’s Fourth District is Jakeya Johnson, while Donavan McKinney is running for Michigan’s Thirteenth District and Kyle Blomquist is competing for its First District. Crossing over to Missouri, there is a well-known progressive candidate, Cori Bush, for its First District and Hartzell Gray for Missouri’s Fourth District.

For New Hampshire’s First District, Heath Howard is in the running, while, in New Jersey, Katie Bansil is running for the Sixth District. Meanwhile, there is James Lally running for Nevada’s Third District, Aftyn Behn for Tennessee’s Seventh District and Zeefshan Hafeez for Texas’s Thirty-Third District.

Also contending for Washington’s Ninth District is Kshama Sawant, while Aaron Wojchiechowski is running for Wisconsin’s Fifth District and Brit Aguirre is contesting for West Virginia’s First District.

Meanwhile, Abdul El-Sayed is running for Senate in Michigan, and Karishma Manzur is a Senate Candidate in New Hampshire, both of whom reject AIPAC funding and oppose the ongoing genocide.

It is important to note that new projects, like AIPAC Tracker, are also now promoting candidates who refuse to take funding from the Israel Lobby and have set up a page whereby citizens can donate to these anti-AIPAC politicians. AIPAC Tracker has played a particularly important role in educating the public, through graphics, showing how much the Israel Lobby has given to individual politicians.

Despite the majority of the anti-AIPAC campaigns being led by progressive Democrats, it is clear that the infamy of the Israel Lobby is having a major impact on mainstream Democrats, too.

For example, earlier this month, AIPAC appeared to be experiencing an existential crisis following an announcement from prominent lawmaker, Seth Moulton, who declared he would not receive funds from the Lobby group and would even be returning their contributions.

In an official statement, Moulton claimed to be making his move due to AIPAC’s alignment with the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu, in particular. For such a right-leaning Democrat, on foreign affairs, to be publicly disavowing AIPAC, it signaled the toxicity of its brand more than anything.

Back in 2024, AIPAC claimed victory after it managed to unseat progressive Democratic Party Representative, Jamaal Bowman, over his pro-Palestinian stances, in the “most expensive House primary ever” in US history. At the time, AIPAC had spent at least $14.5 million on anti-Bowman ads through its PAC, United Democracy Project, alone.

Just over a year later, it appears as if the Israel Lobby had forked out tens of millions for what can be labeled, in hindsight, as a pyrrhic victory. Although the Zionist Lobby groups have injected unprecedented funding into continuing their purchase of American elected officials, their strategy appears to be collapsing.

Over time, more and more Americans from across the aisle are beginning to correlate support for Israel with political corruption. The litmus test for whether a politician is truly interested in representing the people who elect them to power is becoming their stance on Palestine, more specifically, Gaza.

The more Israel interferes in American domestic affairs, demands free speech crackdowns, unconstitutional legislation, billions in taxpayer dollars to fund their wars of aggression, unlawful deportations of Israel critics and drags the US into more conflict overseas, the more the American opposition to the Israel Lobby grows.

Recently, Illinois-based journalist Matthew Eadie uncovered that AIPAC is now employing new tactics to get around its own toxic brand, by “driving donations without any transparency” through Unique ID campaigns.

One series of “AIPAC secret campaigns” has been in support of Minority Leader of the US House, Hakeem Jeffries, nicknamed “AIPAC Shakur” by popular radio-show host, ‘Charlamagne tha god’, whereby certain links to donate were shared and will not pop up as direct AIPAC contributions, yet are still traceable by the Israel Lobby and directed by them.

Social media activists are not letting these tactics slip and are actively pointing out what they claim to be deceptive tactics, only fuelling more anger at the Lobby, in general. Yet, such tactics appear to prove desperation on AIPAC’s behalf, especially amidst growing calls for them to register as a foreign agent.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Damning Evidence Proves Keir Starmer Lied About UK Role in Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

21st Century News Wire | October 28, 2025

British journalist Matt Kennard reveals the criminal role of the British military as an accomplice to Israel’s brutal genocide of native Palestinian population in Gaza. Kennard reveals how the Royal Air Force (RAF) has flown hundreds, if not thousands, of surveillance flights over Gaza since October 7, 2023. It is believed that the British flights supplied the Israelis with targeting intelligence used to slaughter countless Palestinians—including thousands of unarmed men, women and children. Despite the exposure, the Starmer government refused to give any details about these flights which amount to war crimes.

Watch this incredibly damning video report from Double Down News:

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

What is the Israeli strategy in Gaza?

By Robert Inlakesh | Al-Mayadeen | October 28, 2025

In order to understand the Israeli-US agenda underlying the so-called “peace plan” set forth by US President Donald Trump, it is important to examine the objectives of the Zionist regime and then assess how these aims might be realized. Such an analysis helps reveal what the future may hold and whether the fragile ceasefire is likely to endure.

On October 19, the Gaza ceasefire appeared to have collapsed after the Zionist regime launched over 100 airstrikes, dropping at least 153 tonnes of explosives across the besieged coastal enclave, and killing around 44 civilians. Even Israeli media outlets reported that the ceasefire had broken down and that the war had re-started, before the situation calmed down by the next day.

Initially, the Israeli establishment claimed that two of its soldiers had been killed by Palestinian fighters in an ambush involving RPGs and automatic weapons, asserting that its subsequent attacks were merely a response to this incident—one that Hamas categorically denied any involvement in.

Yet, it wasn’t long until American, Palestinian and even Israeli reporters began to reveal the truth. In reality, while Israeli soldiers, alongside settlers contracted for demolition work, were violating the ceasefire by destroying Palestinian infrastructure, they accidentally drove over an unexploded ordnance. The consistency of reports from multiple sources lent credibility to this account, yet the Zionist military quickly imposed a publication ban on the incident, before later partially admitting to what had truly occurred.

This meant that the Israelis had, in essence, killed their own soldiers by violating the ceasefire and sending their forces to destroy infrastructure within what was effectively an active minefield, then blaming the Palestinians as a pretext to kill more civilians. Up until that point, the Israelis had already committed at least 80 ceasefire violations and killed more than 100 innocent people.

From day one of the ceasefire, the Israelis had also adopted a strategy of outsourcing the Gaza front’s combat operations to three ISIS-linked proxy militias – each stationed in different areas behind the Israeli imposed ‘Yellow Line’ – instead of engaging Hamas directly. The Zionist regime began pursuing a policy of using these proxy forces to carry out assassinations and ambushes against prominent figures and members of Gaza’s security apparatus.

The Israeli strategy, backed by the United States – according to anonymous sources who spoke to Axios – is to begin using reconstruction funds, to build structures behind the Yellow Line, which represents around 54-58% of Gaza’s territory where the occupation refuses to withdraw and works alongside its proxies to control the enclave. At the same time, the Israelis sought to strangle the civilian population living in areas under the Hamas-led civil authority, while offering them the alternative of living under the joint Israeli-collaborator occupation.

This strategy has already begun to crumble, as many of the families which the Zionist Entity sought to co-opt have sided with the resistance and rejected the collaborators in the midst. Meanwhile, the Palestinian Resistance continues to pursue these collaborator death squads and prosecutes them for their various crimes, including acts like murder and aid theft.

Like other similar strategies proposed by the Israeli regime and greenlit by their subservient American backers, this one is likely to fail under pressure and does not make logical sense given the realities on the ground and the fact that the Zionist proxies have no popular support.

So, then, what do the US-Israeli alliance have in store? It is quite simple, they are seeking to achieve some of their goals under the guise of a ceasefire, which they only partially respect by allowing in limited aid supplies and killing less people than they did prior to the so-called “peace deal”.

Similarly, in Southern Lebanon, the Israelis hatched a scheme after the ceasefire was imposed to seize control of more territory than they managed to capture during the war, all while committing daily ceasefire violations. carefully calibrated to stop short of triggering a return to an all-out war.

If they fail to achieve their aims through limited military measures and aggressive maneuvers dressed up as diplomacy, they will resort to full-scale force, because “peace” is not an option.

In order to understand this line of thinking, you first must conclude that the Israelis have pursued their policies up until this point as a means of collapsing the regional resistance against them, eliminating each and every threat posed to their rule.

To the Zionist regime, there is a perceived imperative to produce an “answer to the Gaza question”, a formulation that, in their view, amounts to the elimination of the people of Gaza: an ethnic cleansing campaign and genocide accompanied by the destruction of the entire territory’s infrastructure. This is not only the objective of the Israeli leadership, but a project implicating Israeli society as a whole, a national project of elimination.

October 7, 2023, represented a major blow to the Zionist project, one that collapsed the illusion of its military superiority and shook its ideology to the core. So, it has since pursued a project to teach its adversaries a lesson and to destroy the ability of regional actors to resist them. Gaza is a statement, rise up against us, and we will pulverize you.

To a certain extent, this strategy has so far succeeded to deter any Arab population from rising up. Immediately after October 7, the Jordanians and Egyptians, for example, had started to join mass demonstrations, attempted to breach the border, and clashed with regime forces. Yet the daily scenes of devastation in Gaza, along with the propaganda pushed by the Arab Regimes, crushed their pride, determination, and willingness to continue resisting, at least for now.

The regional resistance, however, remained undeterred, which is why the US-Israeli alliance now seeks to destroy it, or at least to weaken it so severely that it no longer poses a significant threat.

If the Israelis experience another October 7-style military defeat that includes the penetration of its defensive lines, this will represent a decisive, even mortal, blow to the project, and the Zionist regime is well aware of that.

What occurred on October 7 irrevocably transformed the regime and set in motion a series of irreversible changes. Senior Zionist leaders now view current events in stark binary terms: either the re-birth of “Israel” or its gradual demise. If the former is achieved, the regime would secure de-facto control over the region and bury its security issues; if it fails to eliminate Gaza, to break the Lebanese resistance, and to sufficiently weaken Iran, it will be one step away from a crushing defeat.

In the Zionist regime’s thinking, now is a historic opportunity to exterminate all those who resist it, eliminate Gaza entirely, and impose uncontested dominance over the region. Although it has so far failed to achieve these goals, it perceives any inability to secure a “total defeat” as an existential threat to its own survival. Therefore, if “Israel” does not accomplish during the ceasefire what it set out to do, it is likely to pursue those objectives through renewed military action, with Lebanon and Iran expected to become the principal fronts in the future.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Building European Security Without Russia ‘Unrealistic’, Warns Hungary’s Top Diplomat

Sputnik – 28.10.2025

Building the architecture of European security without Russia is unrealistic, Foreign Minister of Hungary Peter Szijjarto said on the sidelines of the 3rd International Conference on Eurasian Security in Minsk.

Szijjarto also said he hopes for success of the talks between Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and US President Donald Trump and hopes Washington will understand the position of Budapest, whose energy security is impossible without Russia.

“Our energy security is based on our honest and reliable energy cooperation with Russia. Our historical experience shows that this cooperation has always been reliable and effective. Therefore, we hope that our energy security will not be violated. We hope that the conversation between our Prime Minister and the President of the United States in the second half of next week will also be successful from this point of view,” Szijjarto told reporters on the sidelines of the 3rd Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security.

The Hungarian side “will talk in great detail about our energy supply situation and hopes that it will be treated with respect,” the minister said.

Hungary hopes that the Russian-US summit in Budapest will take place, the question is about timing of preparations, he added.

“We were looking forward to the phone call between [US] President [Donald] Trump and [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin announcing the possibility of a peace summit. We are happy to host it. We understand that neither side has abandoned this plan. The question is the timing and the content. Therefore, we hope that preparations will move forward and the summit will ultimately take place,” Szijjarto told reporters on the sidelines of the third Minsk International Conference on Eurasian Security.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

The Rubio Doctrine: Neocons Are Back!

By Ron Paul | October 27, 2025

According to several recent news reports, the two major Trump foreign policy shifts last week are the handiwork of Marco Rubio, the President’s Secretary of State and (acting) National Security Advisor. As with all neocon plans, they will be big on promises and small on delivery.

First up, according to Bloomberg it was Rubio who finally convinced President Trump to take “ownership” of the US proxy war on Russia, and for the first time place sanctions on Russia. Up to this point President Trump chose to portray himself as a mediator between Ukraine and Russia. But with this move against Russia’s oil sector he can no longer credibly claim that this is “Joe Biden’s war.”

The Trump move followed a confusing few weeks since the Trump/Putin Alaska summit in August. After that meeting Trump dropped the neocon position that a ceasefire in the Russia/Ukraine war must occur before any peace negotiations. It was a sign that Trump was looking more realistically at the war. He also said he did not think Ukraine would win, which is pretty obvious.

A surprise call to Putin the day before Ukrainian president Zelensky was to arrive in town just over a week ago reinforced that position and Zelensky left Washington empty-handed. He was seeking Tomahawk missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.

Then out of the blue President Trump last week announced through his Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent that the US would be sanctioning Russia’s two largest oil companies until Russia declares a ceasefire in the war before negotiations. That won’t happen, but what it does mean is that Rubio and the neocons have successfully gotten Trump to step on the escalation escalator. That is what they always do. It will be much harder to back down now.

At the same time the US Administration was jumping deeper into the Russia/Ukraine war, a long-time neocon dream was suddenly back in play. Although in Trump’s first term a “regime change” operation was attempted against Venezuela, it failed spectacularly. But the neocons have long dreamed of overthrowing the Venezuelan government – they almost got their way back in 2002 – and suddenly after several weeks of extrajudicial murder on the high seas in the name of fighting the drug war, President Trump announced that land strikes on Venezuela would begin soon.

He did mention that he might brief Congress on his plans for war on Venezuela, not that Congress can be bothered to care much one way or the other.

The neocon old guard that still dominates Washington foreign policy is taking a victory lap. South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham was on the Sunday shows beaming over the conversion of “no regime-change wars” President Trump to “regime change wars” President Trump.

The Saddam Hussein WMD factories of 2002 have become the Nicolas Maduro cocaine and fentanyl factories of 2025 and once again the neocon war lies are amplified by the US mainstream media and transmitted to the American people. A new disaster is in the making. The “global war on terror” has been rebranded the “hemispheric war on narco-terror” and the US military industrial complex is rubbing its hands in anticipation of a windfall.

After John Bolton’s disastrous stint in the first Trump Administration, promises were made that the second Trump Administration would be neocon-free. Instead, the neocons are back. Unless President Trump wakes up soon, the neocons will destroy his second term…and maybe the country.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Zelensky says he ‘doesn’t care’ if claim used to oust Odessa mayor is fake

RT | October 28, 2025

Ukraine’s Vladimir Zelensky has said he is unconcerned about whether the evidence used to oust former Odessa Mayor Gennady Trukhanov was fake.

Zelensky fired the mayor of the southern city earlier this month over accusations that he holds a Russian passport. The allegations have reportedly since been shown to contain false information, with the passport number that Ukrainian investigators claimed was Trukhanov’s actually belonging to a woman from Siberia who recently crossed the Russian border.

Zelensky defended his decision to journalists on Tuesday, admitting he did not question the evidence presented by investigators.

”How many passports he has, which are real, which are fake, who made them? Frankly speaking, I do not care,” Zelensky said, as quoted by Ukrinform. “Is it 100% true that he is a Russian citizen? [Investigators] tell me ‘yes’.”

Trukhanov was one of several people stripped of Ukrainian citizenship earlier this month under Zelensky’s decree targeting individuals accused of secretly holding Russian passports. His administration has since been replaced by one appointed directly by the central government.

Trukhanov has said the allegations against him are based on fabrications and that he is the victim of a political purge. In an interview following his removal, he compared his situation to the Stalin-era repressions, arguing that there is no viable path for appeal under Zelensky’s rule.

International media outlets have also criticized the move. The Spectator described it as “a step too far,” suggesting it served as a warning to other local leaders that dissent would not be tolerated.

Reports have pointed to growing friction between Zelensky and prominent mayors, including Kiev’s Vitaly Klitschko, who accused the Ukrainian leader of consolidating power and edging toward a dictatorship.

Zelensky’s presidential term expired last year, but he continues to govern under martial law, after declining to transfer authority to the speaker of parliament as required by the Ukrainian Constitution.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties | | Leave a comment

Senegal probes French colonial massacre with fresh excavations

Al Mayadeen | October 28, 2025

Archaeologists in Senegal have uncovered new evidence of a French colonial massacre dating back to 1944, as part of a government-led effort to uncover the truth behind the killings of West African soldiers by French forces following World War II.

The Thiaroye military cemetery, located near the capital Dakar, is currently the focus of an extensive archaeological excavation aimed at identifying the remains of soldiers allegedly executed by French colonial troops on December 1, 1944.

The incident occurred after nearly 1,600 soldiers, many of them recently freed from German captivity, were brought to a holding camp in Thiaroye and began protesting unpaid wages and unequal treatment.

French troops opened fire on the men, but the number of casualties and the precise circumstances have long been disputed. Official colonial-era accounts claimed 70 deaths, but Senegalese researchers say the number could be between 300 and 400.

Mass grave evidence emerges

During a recent visit to the cemetery, an AFP team observed disrupted earth, exposed burial containers, and ongoing digs around headstones. The cemetery, created in 1926 by colonial France, holds 202 marked graves, although it remains unclear who is buried in each plot, or whether some markers contain any remains at all.

Archaeologists have excavated seven graves from an initial group of 34, recovering full and partial skeletons. According to archaeologist Moustapha Sall, one of the skeletons was found with a bullet lodged near the heart. Others showed signs of trauma, including missing spines, ribs, and skulls. Some remains were discovered with iron chains around their legs.

“This means they suffered violence,” Sall said. “One hypothesis is that the graves were made after the initial burials, or that it was staged to make it appear they had been properly buried.”

Historical record challenged

Colonel Saliou Ngom, director of Senegal’s army archives and historical heritage, said the work aims to compensate for the historical gaps left by limited access to French colonial archives.

“Making the underground speak is our way of accessing truth,” Ngom said. He added that the October 16 report submitted to President Bassirou Diomaye Faye described the massacre as “premeditated” and “covered up.”

President Faye has since authorized the continuation of excavations at all sites suspected to contain mass graves. He has also reaffirmed Senegal’s commitment to preserving the memory of those killed.

Researchers plan to carry out DNA analysis to identify the origins of the remains, and ballistics experts will examine the materials recovered to establish the type of weapons used. Ground-penetrating radar is also being employed to explore deeper layers of the cemetery’s subsoil.

“The preliminary results do not answer all the questions,” Sall noted. “But they are a very important step in the search for historical truth.”

France acknowledges massacre

In November 2024, as the 80th anniversary of the massacre approached, French President Emmanuel Macron publicly acknowledged for the first time that French colonial troops had carried out a “massacre” in Thiaroye.

While the statement marked a significant shift in France’s official stance, Senegalese officials and historians say much more work remains to be done to fully document the scale of the atrocity and ensure proper recognition for those killed.

“We have been searching for the historical truth for 81 years,” Colonel Ngom said. “If the subsoil provides it, there is nothing more significant.”

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

French General Staff Gearing Up To Send 2,000 Troops To Ukraine – Russian Foreign Intel

Sputnik – 28.10.2025

French Foreign Legion assault troops, currently stationed in Poland, are preparing for redeployment to central Ukraine, Russia’s Foreign Intelligence Service (SVR) has revealed.

French Foreign Legion assault troops, stationed in Poland’s border regions, are gearing up to be redeployed to central Ukraine, the Russian Foreign Intelligence service (SVR) stated.

President Emmanuel Macron of France has been itching for military intervention in Ukraine, craving to be remembered as a military leader, the agency said.

“According to information received by the SVR, French President E. Macron is dreaming of a military intervention in Ukraine. Having failed as a politician and despairing of leading the country out of its protracted socio-economic crisis, he has not given up hope of going down in history as a military leader,” the SVR said in a statement.

The General Staff of the French armed forces, on the orders of Macron, is preparing to deploy a military contingent of up to 2,000 soldiers and officers to Ukraine to assist Kiev, the SVR added.

“The backbone of the formation will be French Foreign Legion assault troops, primarily from Latin American countries. The legionnaires are currently deployed in areas of Poland bordering Ukraine, undergoing intensive combat training and receiving weapons and military equipment. Their deployment to central Ukraine is planned for the near future,” the statement read.

France is rapidly creating hundreds of additional hospital beds to accommodate the wounded, the statement added.

“In the event of a leak of information about the planned intervention, Paris intends to state that it is merely a small group of instructors arriving in Ukraine to train mobilized soldiers of Ukrainian armed forces,” the SVR also said.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Inside the Trump Administration’s Venezeula Disagreements

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | October 28, 2025

In the waters of the Caribbean, a surprisingly large U.S. fleet sits with Venezuela in its sights. It includes over 10,000 troops, Aegis guided-missile destroyers, a nuclear-powered fast attack submarine, F-35B jet fighters, MQ-9 Reaper drones, P-8 Poseidon spy planes, assault ships, and a secretive special-operations ship.

The fleet is built for war on Venezuela or its drug cartels, but it is engineered to put enough pressure on Venezuela’s President Nicolás Maduro to push him from power. The justification for the war is stopping the flow of drugs into the United States by Venezuelan drug cartels; the justification for the coup is that Maduro is the head of those cartels.

But U.S. officials—often those in the best place to know—have disagreed with all three aspects of the military action: the significance of Venezuela’s drug cartels in the flow of drugs, and especially fentanyl, into United States; the role of Maduro in those cartels; and the use of the military to fight them. For their disagreement, many of those officials have left or been forced from their jobs.

U.S. President Donald Trump has insisted that military force is necessary to stop “narco-terrorists” who are smuggling a “deadly weapon poisoning Americans.” He has claimed that “every boat” the U.S. military strikes off the coast of Venezuela is “stacked up with bags of white powder that’s mostly fentanyl” and “kills 25,000 on average—some people say more.”

But current and former U.S. officials disagree. While most of the boats the U.S. military has sunk have been in the passageway between Venezuela and Trinidad and Tobago, U.S. officials say that that passage is neither used to transport fentanyl nor is it used to transport drugs to the United States. 80% of the drugs that flow through that passage is marijuana, and most of the rest is cocaine. And those drugs are headed, not to the United States, but to West Africa and Europe. Most of the fentanyl that finds its way into the U.S. comes from Mexico.

The military strikes on Venezuelan boats cannot be justified by the war on drugs and “are unlikely…to cut overdose deaths in the United States,” according to officials. “When I saw [an internal document on the strikes],” a senior U.S. national security official said, “I immediately thought, ‘This isn’t about terrorists. This is about Venezuela and regime change.’”

According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, 90% of the cocaine that transits into the United States enters through Mexico, not Venezuela. And Venezuela is not a source of fentanyl. The dissenting American officials are in agreement with international bodies. The  2025 UNODC World Drug Report assesses that Venezuela “has consolidated its status as a territory free from the cultivation of coca leaves, cannabis and similar crops.” The report says that “[o]nly 5% of Colombian drugs transit through Venezuela.” The European Union’s European Drug Report 2025 corroborates the United Nations report: it “does not mention Venezuela even once as a corridor for the international drug trade.”

U.S. intelligence also disagrees on the Trump administration’s claim that Maduro is at the head of the Venezuelan drug cartels. The Trump administration has insisted that “Maduro is the leader of the designated narco-terrorist organization Cartel de Los Soles.”

Again, though, U.S. officials disagree. A “sense of the community” memorandum dated April 7, 2025 that puts together the findings of the eighteen agencies in the U.S. intelligence community released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence directly contradicts the Trump administration’s claim that Maduro is the leader of Tren de Aragua (TDA) drug cartel.

The memorandum clearly states that “the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States.” It states that the intelligence community “has not observed the regime directing TDA.”

Making the American case against the Maduro government even less credible, the memorandum finds that “Venezuelan intelligence, military, and police services view TDA as a security threat and operate against it in ways that make it highly unlikely the two sides would cooperate in a strategic or consistent way.” The Venezuelan National Guard has arrested TDA members and “Venezuelan security forces have periodically engaged in armed confrontations with TDA.”

The contradiction was seen as a problem. Days after the memorandum’s release, Joe Kent, then acting chief of staff for Tulsi Gabbard, the director of national intelligence, told a senior intelligence analyst to do a “rethink” of the analysis and offer a new assessment. “We need to do some rewriting so this document is not used against the DNI [Director of National Intelligence] or POTUS [President of the United States],” Kent told intelligence officers.

The rewritten memo still contradicted the Trump administration’s claims about Maduro. One week later, Michael Collins, the acting chair of the National Intelligence Council, and Maria Langan-Riekhof, his deputy, were fired by Gabbard. Gabbard claims the firings were part of a campaign to stop leaks by “deep-state criminals” who are politicizing the intelligence community.

U.S. officials have objected not just to the White House’s claims about Venezuela as a narco-state and about Maduro’s role as head of the cartels, but also to the White House’s militarized answer to the problem. And the objection has come from the highest level of the U.S. military.

On October 16, Admiral Alvin Holsey, head of the U.S. Southern Command, the group that oversees all operations in Central and South America, including the current and any future military actions taken against Venezuela, announced that he was stepping down. The New York Times has reported that there were “real policy tensions concerning Venezuela” between the admiral and Pete Hegseth, the secretary of War. Current and former U.S. officials say that Holsey “had raised concerns about the mission and the attacks on the alleged drug boats.”

But there are also reports that there were questions about whether Holsey would be fired in the days before he announced his resignation. “Hegseth did not believe Holsey was moving quickly or aggressively enough to combat drug traffickers in the Caribbean.” The Washington Post reports that “Hegseth had grown disenchanted with Holsey and wanted him to step aside.” The disenchantment, according to “people familiar with the matter,” started “around the time that the Trump administration began ordering deadly strikes on alleged drug boats off the coast of Venezuela.”

At every level, Venezuela as a significant source of drug deaths in America, Maduro’s role as leader of Venezuela’s drug cartels, and the United State’s militarized solution to the problem, U.S. officials have disagreed with the Trump administration. Some of those officials have paid for doing their jobs with their jobs.

October 28, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment