West fueling Ukrainian financial woes – Moscow
RT | May 17, 2023
Western financial measures are leading Kiev into a sovereign debt crisis, with the burden expected to exceed Ukraine’s GDP by the end of the year, the Russian ambassador to the UN has warned.
“We will hear a lot today about the solidarity of the Western community with Ukraine, the readiness to support it ‘as long as it takes.’ However, it is necessary to understand that this support is taking Ukraine to the brink,” Vassily Nebenzia told the UN Security Council on Monday. “Its foreign debt surged to a record $132 billion, or 89% of GDP in 2022. It’s estimated that by the end of this year it will exceed 100%.”
The Russian envoy added that the “enormous funds allocated to Ukraine by the IMF, the EU, and the US are driving that country into a debt pit,” cautioning that “ordinary Ukrainians will have to repay the debts.”
Commenting on Kiev’s agreement with US financial company BlackRock to launch the Ukraine Development Fund, Nebenzia noted that the American firm will be in charge of managing the finances.
“What essentially is happening under the guise of attracting private investment for large-scale projects in key areas of the economy, is a transfer of state sovereignty to external corporate management of the world’s largest investment fund headquartered in New York,” the diplomat stated.
Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has pushed Western leaders to provide more and more cash to sustain the economy and military. He previously told the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund that the country would need $55 billion in 2023 to cover the estimated budget deficit and rebuild critical infrastructure amid the conflict with Russia.
Ukraine has already deferred payments until 2024 on more than $20 billion of debt held by international investors. It is set for foreign debt restructuring next year, with G7 creditors claiming they would only extend their grace period for Ukrainian debt if private creditors agree. The nation’s budgetary shortfall is estimated to surpass $43 billion in 2023 alone.
Russian ‘Kinzhal’ hypersonic missile destroys Kiev’s US-made ‘Patriot’ air defense system
By Drago Bosnic | May 17, 2023
For most of this month, the mainstream propaganda machine has been parroting the same story over and over again – a Russian 9-A-7660 “Kinzhal” air-launched hypersonic missile was shot down by a US-made “Patriot” SAM (surface-to-air missile) system. The “conclusive” evidence cited by the political West is laughable at best, but it was enough to convince those without specific knowledge of how weapons actually work, which includes most of the population. Moscow didn’t really comment on the claims. Or to be exact, not until the early hours of May 16, when the actual response came in a very “non-rhetorical” form.
Namely, the Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) launched a SEAD (suppression of enemy air defenses) mission over Kiev, with the operation including two “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles, which were used to neutralize at least one battery of the “Patriot” SAM system. While neither side commented on the variant of the destroyed US-made air defense system, video evidence shows that it was most likely one of the latest iterations, the PAC-3 MSE (Missile Segment Enhancement upgrade) that also includes the much-touted CRI (Cost Reduction Initiative) interceptors. The cost of a single CRI missile currently stands at close to $5,300,000, meaning that the 32 interceptors fired by the Kiev regime forces amounted to nearly $170,000,000.
Such a massive quantity of interceptors was still nowhere near enough to stop the Russian hypersonic weapons, although the Neo-Nazi junta announced that it shot down most of the missiles fired by the VKS, including the claim that it allegedly neutralized six “Kinzhals”, despite the fact that the Russian military used only two during this attack. Although Moscow didn’t publicly reveal this, the information is based on the comments from the Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu himself. In response to the Kiev regime’s reverie, Shoigu stated laconically:
“The figures given by the Ukrainians about the interception of Russian missiles are [usually] three times higher than the amount [of weapons] we actually use.”
Several military experts estimate that the VKS used a lot of decoys of various types to bait the air defenses in and around Kiev, which would explain the claims of the local authorities that the Russian strike was “exceptional in density”. The Neo-Nazi junta officials stated that the attack also included cruise missiles and drones. Local air defense forces allegedly shot down 18 missiles and nine drones, including six “Kinzhal” hypersonic missiles. The claims are widely ridiculed by military experts and numerous Telegram channels, with dozens of memes and practical jokes being posted by users and commenters.
Serhiy Popko, the head of the capital city’s military administration, stated: “The barrage was exceptional in its density, with the maximum number of missiles in the shortest time possible, but the vast majority of enemy targets in Kiev airspace were detected and destroyed.”
CNN, the flagship of the mainstream propaganda machine, immediately resorted to damage control to save the “Patriot’s” reputation, as it only arrived late last month and just recently entered service, claiming that “a US-made ‘Patriot’ air defense system was likely damaged, but not destroyed, as the result of a Russian missile barrage in and around Kiev early Tuesday morning local time”, citing a US official as its source. The report further claims that “the US is still assessing to what degree the system was damaged”, adding that “this will determine whether the system needs to be pulled back entirely or simply repaired on the spot by Ukrainian forces”. It also noted that “a US National Security Council spokesperson referred CNN to the Ukrainian government for comment”.
Such advice by the US government can only be interpreted by the fact that even Washington DC simply wants to avoid having to do anything with the Neo-Nazi junta’s ridiculous claims. The issue obviously lies in the fact that such laughable propaganda is not only completely unsubstantiated, but also makes the US itself look like a laughingstock of the world. This is particularly noticeable when looking at somewhat less propagandistic US media, such as The National Interest. Geoff LaMear, the author of one of the analyses recently published by the TNI, stated that “Patriot missiles won’t save Ukraine“, with the following assessment:
“‘Patriot’ systems are limited to pinpoint defense of major assets and are designed to operate in tandem with air defenses engaging targets at higher and lower altitudes. Without these additions, ‘Patriot’ will have too many threats to engage and the result will either be porous coverage that doesn’t protect its defended assets, or coverage that quickly subsides when ‘Patriot’ runs out of interceptors. Moreover, ‘Patriot’ systems are themselves vulnerable. Operating a ‘Patriot’ radar system gives away its location, making it an open target for Russian attacks. This means that ‘Patriot’ is not a one-stop-shop for defending Ukraine’s military assets or its people.”
Indeed, the “Patriot” is simply one segment of the US air defense/ABM (anti-ballistic missile) doctrine that also includes several other types of longer-range systems and interceptors. However, considering how lucrative air defense contracts are, the political West will surely continue suppressing any information about the destruction of its much-touted systems, while also parroting the ludicrous claims that Russian hypersonic weapons are being shot down by these same SAM systems. Such assertions come despite the fact that even top US officials repeatedly reiterated that there’s no viable defense against maneuvering hypersonic targets. This includes President Joe Biden himself, who stated last year that the “Kinzhal” cannot be intercepted.
Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst.
Neighboring countries ready to pay Zelensky to stop conflict – Seymour Hersh
RT | May 17, 2023
Poland is leading a group of European nations that are secretly urging Vladimir Zelensky to find a way to settle the conflict with Russia, veteran journalist Seymour Hersh has reported, citing a “knowledgeable” American official.
According to US intelligence, other EU countries that want to see an end to the fighting include Hungary, Germany, the Czech Republic, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, Hersh wrote in an article published on his Substack page on Wednesday.
“Hungary is a big player in this and so are Poland and Germany, and they are working to get Zelensky to come around,” the unnamed official claimed. Those countries have made it clear that “Zelensky can keep what he’s got if he works up a peace deal even if he’s got to be paid off, if it’s the only way to get a deal.”
By “keep what he’s got,” the source was referring to the Ukrainian president’s villa in Italy and interests in an offshore bank, Hersh clarified.
However, Zelensky has so far rejected the proposal, while other major European players – France and the UK – “are too beholden” to the Biden administration, which is continuing to back the Ukrainian leader, the official said.
One of the main reasons why Poland and the others want the conflict to end is because the burden of accommodating Ukrainian refugees has become too much for them, the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist wrote.
The problem for those countries “is how to get the US to stop supporting Zelensky,” Hersh’s source suggested.
He claimed that US intelligence is well aware that “Ukraine is running out of money and… that the next four or months are critical. And Eastern Europeans are talking about a deal.”
However, he added that “it’s not clear to the intelligence community what the president and his foreign policy aides in the White House know of the reality.”
The US is “still training Ukrainians how to fly our F-16s that will be shot down by Russia as soon as they get into the war zone. The mainstream press is dedicated to Biden and the war, and Biden is still talking about the Great Satan in Moscow while the Russian economy is doing great,” the official explained.
Russia has repeatedly stated that it’s ready to resolve the conflict at the negotiating table. However, it did not receive any proposals from Ukraine and its Western backers that it could consider reasonable.
Zelensky has been promoting his ten-point peace plan, which calls for Russian forces to withdraw to borders claimed by Ukraine, to pay reparations, and to submit to war-crime tribunals.
Moscow has rejected the plan as “unacceptable,” saying it ignores the reality on the ground and is actually a sign of Kiev’s unwillingness to solve the crisis through diplomatic means.
Her Father Got COVID and Died — But She Believes the CDC, NIH and Hospital Protocols Are What Really Killed Him
By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | May 16, 2023
Ralph Marxen Jr. had just turned 70 and was enjoying life with his wife of 49 years, Lynda, and his adult children and grandchildren. The Minnetonka, Minnesota, native was in good health and, according to his daughter, Nicole Riggs, walked long distances daily and wasn’t on any medications.
In August 2021, several members of Riggs’ household contracted COVID-19, including, presumably, her parents. A week later, while most family members were recovering, Marxen’s condition deteriorated leading him to be admitted to Abbott Northwestern Hospital in Minneapolis on Aug. 23, 2021.
Marxen would never leave the hospital — he died there on Sept. 7, 2021.
During his stay, Marxen, who had not received a COVID-19 vaccine, was administered more than 50 medications, including remdesivir, vancomycin, fentanyl and midazolam, and in the days prior to his death, he was placed on a ventilator.
At the time of his death, Marxen had “multiple organ system failure including renal failure, endocarditis, hyperkalemia, MRSA [methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus] pneumonia, MRSA bacteremia and sepsis,” Riggs said.
Riggs told The Defender the treatments she and her family requested for Marxen, including ivermectin, monoclonal antibodies and vitamins, were refused.
She said she did not believe her father’s refusal of the COVID-19 vaccines played a role in his illness — in fact, she argued that her father’s non-vaccinated status — and the COVID-19 protocols prescribed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH) — were factors in the treatment he received from the hospital and its medical staff.
‘Is this a hospital or a prison?’
“My dad went to the ER seeking help for dizziness and nausea,” Riggs said. “He was 70 years old and took no daily meds. He was unvaccinated and refused to take their unreliable PCR tests.”
In a separate interview with Minnesota’s Alpha News, Riggs said that two of her father’s friends had gotten vaccinated “and they both got vax-injured.” As a result, “He was adamant that he was not going to get the vaccine.”
“I think this played a part in him not getting good care,” Riggs told The Defender.
Riggs recounted the chain of events that led her father to end up in the hospital.
“In the middle of August 2021, my household of four, plus my parents, became ill with fever and fatigue, and a few of us had chest congestion,” Riggs said. “Myself, my husband and my two boys were spit-tested for COVID and were all told we were positive for COVID. We assumed my parents had the same.”
But after a week of being sick, she said they noticed that her father “didn’t seem to be bouncing back like the rest of us. He was having trouble walking to the bathroom because he was so weak and dehydrated.”
Due to his older age, his family “decided to call the ambulance and get him checked out,” Riggs said. Paramedics recommended Marxen go to the hospital for further evaluation, so he was admitted on Aug. 23, 2021, after an ER visit.
“From the beginning, the medical records indicate they wanted to get him on remdesivir even though they couldn’t get him to PCR test,” Riggs said.
“Within a day, a friend of the family who had been working with COVID patients for the past year told us to call the hospital and request that my dad be given monoclonal antibodies (a.k.a. Regeneron),” Riggs said. However, the nurse treating her father said he “had never heard of that before, and that was the end of that discussion.”
“That seemed strange to me, but I still trusted them at that time,” Riggs said.
The day after her father was admitted to the hospital, her mother also was admitted, after her oxygen levels dropped to the low 90s.
“My parents were soon hospital room neighbors,” Riggs said. “COVID medications were started, which we later learned was hospital protocol with remdesivir and dexamethasone.”
Despite being in neighboring rooms though, Riggs’ parents could not visit each other. “My mom wanted to go see my dad since he was in the room right next door, but she realized that her bed had an alarm that sounded when she tried to get up. She also learned that both of them were locked in their rooms as well,” Riggs said.
She added:
“My mom’s nurse thought ‘it wasn’t appropriate,’ and refused to let her go see my dad. They had to wait until that nurse was off her shift before the doctor would OK my mom to go into my dad’s room for a short visit.
“Is this a hospital or a prison?”
It wasn’t long before Riggs began to receive more disturbing updates about the treatment her parents were receiving in the hospital.
She told The Defender :
“My brother started a CaringBridge site to keep our whole family updated. It wasn’t long before I started to receive unsettling messages from people I knew and trust. One was from my dad’s old neurological chiropractor, saying ‘no remdesivir and no ventilator, that’s asking to die.’ He also sent me information on how to get a lawyer involved.
“It was then that I started to research and realize the dangers of the deadly hospital protocols put in place by the NIH and CDC, especially for those on Medicare, as the hospital is given a 20% bonus payment if certain steps are followed with those patients, starting with a positive COVID PCR test.”
According to Riggs, this was evident in her father’s medical records.
“One of the doctors actually wrote this in the medical records: ‘I don’t think it’s impossible to use remdesivir without a PCR positive,’” Riggs said, adding, “My dad initially refused a nasal PCR test because he knew they could be inaccurate and wanted to be treated by symptoms, not a PCR positive COVID test result.”
However, the hospital told Marxen and his family this was not possible. According to Riggs, the doctor said, “Certain treatments may not be available without PCR-proven COVID, and that if his condition worsened such that he required intubation, we would run the nasopharyngeal swab.”
“Basically, my dad was told he wouldn’t get access to ‘certain treatments’ until he submitted to their request to be PCR tested,” Riggs said. “And if he got bad enough, they would test him anyway.”
The hospital also told them if Marxen’s condition deteriorated enough that they needed to put him on a ventilator, they would do the test without his permission.
Her father finally “relented” and tested positive for COVID-19. That’s when the hospital administered remdesivir “and many other harmful drugs,” Riggs said, and denied their request for safer alternatives.
‘It all happened so fast’
From this point forward, “It all happened so fast,” Riggs said. Her father was transferred to progressive care on Aug. 26, 2021, and to the ICU the next day.
“My dad was denied visitation by anyone under the guise of ‘COVID isolation,’” Riggs said. “Even my mom, who was in the same hospital with COVID.”
Marxen’s condition quickly deteriorated. “My dad was told he needed to get on the ventilator so he could get relief and a feeding tube,” Riggs said. “By this time, my dad hadn’t slept in two days and hadn’t eaten in five days.”
“After two days in the ICU, he was freaking out, pulling off his mask and pulling out his IV,” Riggs said. “They got him ‘reoriented’ and brought in the doctor. If you knew my dad, you would know that this was totally out of character for him. He was the kindest, most loving man and father. He was one of my best friends.”
“Soon, he felt he had no other option but to be put on a ventilator,” Riggs said. “A decision he had to make scared and alone because we were kept from him … They had finally got him desperate enough to submit to getting on a ventilator.”
Marxen was intubated on Aug. 29, 2021, and placed on fentanyl and propofol, Riggs said, “even though, reading the records, they knew that wasn’t the solution, but they did it anyway.”
Riggs said she and her family again requested monoclonal antibodies be administered, “but were denied because it was too late in the progression of the disease to be a benefit.”
They also requested “vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, hydroxychloroquine, ivermectin,” but were denied “and told they refused to go off of protocol, ‘because the one time we did that, the patient died,’” Riggs added.
“My dad’s medical records indicate vitamin D was ‘deemed not appropriate during this admission,’” Riggs noted. “We asked them to take him off vancomycin because that can make you retain fluid and he was already doing that. They told us no, and that the drug was ‘the gold standard.’”
‘He was kept from everyone that truly loved him’
According to Riggs, she would call the hospital every day at 6 p.m. for updates, and her brother would do so daily at 6 a.m. This continued until Sept. 7, 2021, the day her father would be placed “off quarantine” and allowed to see family members again.
However, “on Sept. 7, we were told that the ‘infectious disease team’ said he needed another seven days of quarantine,” Riggs said. “This decision was not even made by his ICU doctor.”
Instead, Riggs and her family were told “the nurses would set up a Facetime for us for the evening of Sept. 7,” Riggs said. “After that call, I was crying and pacing in my house. My thoughts were, ‘Are we going to just leave him in there to die alone?’ I needed to actually do something.”
Riggs said she decided to request her father’s medical records from the hospital, “so I could see exactly what was going on there.” However, she was told the records could not be released “unless he signed the release form” — even though her father was sedated and on a ventilator “and it wasn’t possible for him to sign anything.”
In response, the hospital told Riggs that she “would need to provide his death certificate for the records if we hadn’t already set up power of attorney.”
“So, he had to die before I could access his records?” Riggs asked. “How did this nightmare become our reality?”
Within a few hours of this exchange, Riggs received a call that her father was “actively dying” and if they wanted to see him, they needed to do it soon, because he would pass away during that night.
“Now that he was dying, we were able to come see him — but hours before we couldn’t? This made zero sense to me,” Riggs said.
On arriving at the hospital, she and other family members “were required to wear space-like soft helmets, which made it impossible to even kiss my dad goodbye.”
According to Riggs, she and her family “gave the OK to remove him from the ventilator so we could pray scripture over him through his transition.”
“I thought removing him from the ventilator would cause him to pass away because he couldn’t live without it,” Riggs said. “But I can’t help but wonder if that’s really how it went down. His records show that he was given fentanyl at 5:10 p.m. and midazolam at 5:32 p.m. He passed away at 6:22 p.m.”
Riggs said the “official” cause of death was determined to be “respiratory failure with underlying COVID-19.”
When her father died, he had multi-system organ failure. Riggs said she did not believe her father died of COVID-19, but instead due to the CDC- and NIH-approved protocols.
“He was isolated and kept from everyone that truly loved him for 16 days,” Riggs said. “Then, under the guise of ‘palliative care,’ he was finished off with fentanyl and midazolam.”
According to Alpha News, the price tag from the hospital for the treatment her father received during those 16 days was $1.2 million.
A statement provided by Abbott Northwestern to Alpha News said the following:
“Allina Health respects the privacy of its patients and is unable to comment on specific patient care.
“We have great confidence in the exceptional care our medical teams provide to our patients, which is administered according to evidence-based practices by our talented and compassionate care teams.”
‘To honor my dad, I have put my grief into action’
Riggs said her father’s death had knock-on effects on her and her family.
“Now my mom, who survived remdesivir, can’t afford to keep their home,” Riggs said. “She had to sell almost all of their possessions accumulated over 50 years to move into one of the bedrooms of my two-bedroom home. Two of my boys … now share a bedroom in our living room.”
“She can hardly make the bed without being out of breath and she struggles mentally with what they endured and getting a grasp on her new life without my dad in it,” Riggs added.
Despite these challenges, Riggs said that “to honor my dad, I have put my grief into action,” getting involved in activism for victims of hospital protocol deaths.
Riggs is now the Minnesota chair of the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation, a national coalition that has documented cases involving COVID-19 care protocols at hospitals.
“I don’t want the families … to be isolated and alone in their pain of losing their loved one,” Riggs said, adding that she has launched weekly Zoom calls for Minnesota families and survivors of hospital protocols, and is also launching in-person meetups.
Riggs also recently attended the Halt Hospital Homicide rally, which she described as the “first national rally for hospital protocol deaths.”
She drew parallels with those who died of COVID-19 vaccine injuries. “The vax-injured are ignored and not believed, just like those of us who have had a family member die or get injured by the hospital protocols,” she said.
“My dad, Ralph, will go on in our memories as a wonderful husband of 50 years, dad, grandpa and great-grandpa, as well as a fun fisherman and the best homemade French fry maker around.”
Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D., based in Athens, Greece, is a senior reporter for The Defender and part of the rotation of hosts for CHD.TV’s “Good Morning CHD.”
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.
The DATA show that about 1 Million Americans have been killed by the mRNA Injections
And at least 20 Million around world
BY TIM ELLISON | MAY 14, 2023
Figure 1 below shows DATA1 from the CDC for the number of Deaths/Month and mRNA Injections/Month2 over the last 2 years.
Fig. 1. CDC DATA for the Death Rate and mRNA Injection Rate in the U.S. for the past 2 years.
Dr. TimE., Apostate is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
In Figure 1, the correlation between the two curves is readily apparent. In a previous posting I summarized the result of a statistical analysis I did showing that 75% to 90% of the variations in the U.S. All-Cause-Mortality-Rate can be attributed to variations in the mRNA-Injection-Rate with the Death Rate delayed by about 6 weeks with respect to the mRNA-Injection Rate3. Of course, there are additional deaths that such an analysis will not pick up (e.g., deaths happening not in the first two months after the injection, but over the next year or two or more).
The area under the peaks in the Death Rate, following peaks in the Injection Rate, come to 900,000 deaths. So, I’m just going to estimate at least 1 Million Americans have been killed by these injections, so far. Worldwide, there have been 20 times as many mRNA injections, so I estimate at least 20 million people have been killed by these injections, so far.
And I conjecture:
- No one will be accountable for these millions of deaths; and
- No one will be accountable for the 6 to 9 TRILLION of our dollars spent in the U.S. enriching the few and destroying the lives and businesses of the many, causing inflation, etc.; and
- No one (especially the Medical Industrial Complex) will be held accountable for reducing the life expectancy of people in the U.S. by over 2 years4 in just 2 years compared to other countries; rather they will congratulate themselves; and
- You’ll never hear about any of this on the Legacy MSM or Social Media due to the Censorship Industrial Complex [see Matt Taibbi’s Twitter Files]; and
- Etc., etc., etc.
Good News:
- The number of mRNA injections has fallen to a trickle, and
- According to the CDC a mere 17% of the population have the “Updated Booster Dose”;
- AND the schedule for the approximately 100 “vaccines” given to children is being neglected by more and more people who are waking up to the fact that health is NOT (positively) correlated with the number of health-destroying injections.
I will discuss these numbers more in a couple of subsequent posts.
- About the only “numbers” from the CDC that I think are DATA (numbers coming from measurements, not models, or just made-up), are the counting of death certificates (All-Cause-Mortality [https://gis.cdc.gov/grasp/fluview/mortality.html]) and number of mRNA-Doses given [https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccination-trends]. A lot of people make money from these injections, so I’d guess they are tracked closely.
- I refuse to call the mRNA-injections a “vaccine”, since it has been shown by the Cleveland Clinic that the more one is injected, the higher is their chance of getting CoVid. But of course, even this is meaningless — who cares whether you contract a disease with a >99.9% survival rate? The question the Cleveland Clinic should have asked is, “What is the All-Cause-Mortality-Rate as a function of the number of Injections?”. That is the only metric one should look at. The U.K. ONS data show that the mortality rate of those injected is about a factor of 2 higher than those not injected, regardless of age. I conjecture we would see a similar result in the U.S. if these data were made available. If the data showed otherwise, then I’m sure the data would be available.
- Why the CDC did not pick up on this obvious health signal, I have no idea (/s = sarcasm). Probably the same reason they don’t see anything in the VAERS system.
- See e.g. https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2023/03/25/1164819944/live-free-and-die-the-sad-state-of-u-s-life-expectancy
Is the United States Moving Its Capital to Jerusalem?
American Politicians flock to Israel while dismembering the US Constitution in deference to Jewish power
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MAY 16, 2023
It would seem that American politicians and media think that the entire world should rightly conform to the marching orders emanating from Washington, even though that pretense has become a bit shopworn after more than twenty years of pointless wars initiated and sustained by a series of clueless presidents and Congress. Increasingly, the international community is looking for a way out of the tight embrace offered by the White House, a growing sense that a multipolar world would be much better than “rule of law” dictated by any self-proclaimed superpower.
Recently there have been indications that rather than Washington being the center of the universe that title should rightly belong to Jerusalem as an extremist-led Israel has demonstrated its power over the self-anointed idiots who fancy themselves to be the “leaders” of the United States of America. Why do I think that? I truly believe that there have been several interactions lately involving US politicians and the Israelis that illustrate just how ignorant and self-absorbed America’s governing class actually is. The most egregious example of the “wag the dog” syndrome whereby Israel says “jump” and the fawning American government representatives beg to ask “How high?” comes from none other than the newly appointed Speaker of the House of Representatives Kevin McCarthy, who spoke before the Israeli Knesset on May 1st. McCarthy made it a point to flatter his Israeli hosts by emphasizing that traveling to Israel was his first foreign trip as speaker, underlining the value of the relationship, and observing that he was also only the second speaker invited to make the trip to the Jewish state to address the Knesset.
McCarthy was accompanied by the usual cast of congressional toadies who flock to Israel during every recess. The group was bipartisan and included the loathsome Steny Hoyer of Maryland who has made and even led the groveling entourage more than twenty times. The ambition-driven McCarthy, who has never been accused of having a great deal of brain power, delivered a predictable speech that produced the pro forma standing ovations from the audience, but I would call attention to one part of it in particular where he said the following: “This is the foundation of our special relationship: We are the only two countries in history that were conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that we are all equal. Our values are your values. Our heritage is your heritage. Our dreams are your dreams. America is grateful for our friendship with Israel. We are a better nation because of it. And we must never shy away from defending it… As long as I am speaker, America will continue to support fully funding for security assistance in Israel.”
Nearly every line in this part of the McCarthy speech is basically either an out-and-out lie or a twisting of reality to such an extent that it is incomprehensible. Palestine, by the way, was not mentioned by McCarthy, but how Israel can claim to be “conceived in liberty” with the “proposition that we are all equal” when it has been engaged in genocide and expulsion as well as government endorsed violence directed against its Christian and Muslim subject population? And if American and Israeli values are identical, can we expect in the US different laws based on religion. And our common “heritage?” Israeli Jews claim to be “chosen,” don’t they? And finally, how on earth does McCarthy claim that the United States is a better nation because of its ties to Israel? It is ridiculous and insulting, but it leads to the punchline that McCarthy is making an unconstitutional pledge to defend Israel, no matter what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of criminals do, presumably to include attacking Iran. McCarthy should be impeached. Or even better he should magically become a Palestinian and spend a couple of months under the Israeli occupation. He might change his tune.
McCarthy continued his exaltation of Israel campaign after his return to Washington. On May 9th, he blocked an effort by Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib to host a gathering at the Capitol Visitor Center that would have included least nine groups for an event entitled “Nakba 75 and the Palestinian People.” “Nakba” in the title of Tlaib’s canceled event is the Arabic word for “catastrophe,” which would have meant the speakers would be describing the founding of the state of Israel as a “catastrophe” for the Arab inhabitants of historic Palestine, which it was with hundreds of thousands left homeless, many winding up in refugee camps. McCarthy announced in a message that he was shutting down the event, tweeting that “This event in the US Capitol is canceled. Instead, I will host a bipartisan discussion to honor the 75th anniversary of the US-Israel relationship.” McCarthy’s announcement was in response to a letter from Anti-Defamation League (ADL) CEO Jonathan Greenblatt to him which said ADL had concerns that some of the organizers of the “Nakba” event “have a record of rhetoric that demonizes and delegitimizes Israel, as well as dangerous stereotypes about Israel’s supporters.” Apparently free speech relating to a historic event is not even allowed to congressmen in today’s Zionist-occupied America.
If more evidence of the slime that is at the heart of the American political class is needed, I would cite another event which took place in Jerusalem on April 27th as both shameful and a disgrace. And “no” I am not referring to the Israeli police and army shooting dead more Palestinian teenagers on and around that date before stealing their family homes and destroying their livelihoods. I am referring to Florida’s governor and presidential aspirant Ron DeSantis’s groveling performance in bowing to Jewish power and money during his own trip to Israel. His abhorrent crawling before his masters culminated in his signing a new state law that will inter alia exploit the “hate” mechanism to criminalize nearly all criticism or even skepticism regarding Israeli apartheid, of the co-called holocaust narrative, or of the behavior of Jewish groups and individuals.
At the signing, DeSantis boasted how “We are doing what we can do in Florida to enhance the ability to hold people accountable when that really crosses the line into threatening conduct. We are fighting back.” He also made clear that the legislation was as much about Israel as about Judaism, arguing that rejecting “Israel’s right to exist is antisemitism” and adding that the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement is “DOA” in his state. He also bizarrely described “Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons” as an “existential threat to the state of Israel and to the United States of America.”
Perhaps DeSantis should have checked with the CIA and even Mossad before commenting on Iran as both have confirmed that the Iranians do not currently have a nuclear weapons program. Unsurprisingly DeSantis claims that “Florida is the most Israel-friendly state in the country and as long as I’m Governor, we will continue to stand with the Jewish community.” In that he is no doubt correct. Twenty-six other states have penalized anyone seeking to either boycott Israel or promote doing so, sometimes to include denial of government jobs or benefits, but there is no doubt that Florida is currently number one in its deference to the Jewish state and its claimed interests.
The bill (HB 269/SB 994), which passed unanimously in both chambers of the Florida legislature, attempts to criminalize what it perceives as anti-Semitism. Even though its language avoids identifying Jews as the protected class, the clear intent of the document is to do just that. It accomplishes that by transforming what would have once been seen as trivial incidents into hate crimes, which are felonies. It includes “to litter a yard with a flier, harass people, disrupt schools or religious services, deface graves and certain buildings, or project images on someone else’s property” as possible actions rendered felonious based on racial or ethnic prejudice, making them hate crimes. It might mean, for example, that if someone laughs at another person’s clothes and if the attire is considered “ethnic or religious” that person can be arrested and charged with a third-degree felony as a hate crime. Or if a student in a college history class disputes the standard largely fabricated narrative relating to the founding of Israel, a Jewish student can feign distress and demand that the offender be arrested.
One of the bill’s co-sponsor’s State Representative Randy Fine, who was present at the signing in Jerusalem, explained how “There is no First Amendment right to conduct. If you graffiti a building, it is a crime now, but if your motivation is hate, it will be a third-degree felony and you will spend five years in prison. If you want to litter, it’s a crime right now, but if you litter and your motivation is a hate crime, it will be a third-degree felony and you will spend 5 years in jail.” After the bill passed the Senate, Fine tweeted that the bill was “the strongest antisemitism bill in the United States” adding “To Florida’s Nazi thugs, I have news: attack Jews on their property and you’re going to prison. Never again means never again.” Another co-sponsor Mike Caruso warned “If we do nothing, we are going to have 1933’s Nazi Germany all over again.”
DeSantis, who is seeking Jewish money and media support for his run at the presidency, turned in something of a repeat performance of his inaugural trip to Israel back in 2019. At that time, he boasted, like Kevin McCarthy, that his first foreign trip was to good friend and perpetual ally Israel. He took his entire gubernatorial cabinet with him to celebrate his election and theatrically signed an earlier bill (HB 741) in Jerusalem that sought to “criminalize ordinary political speech” by making religion as a “protected class” similar to “racism” to be included in “hate crime” legislation. The new designation specifically included attempts to “demonize Israel.”
The Florida bill also included the controversial International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of anti-Semitism, similar to that which is favored by the office of the US Department of State’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, maintaining that “anti-Semitism” is “a certain perception of Jewish people, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jewish people, rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism directed toward a person, his or her property, or toward Jewish community institutions or religious facilities.” Under the bill, the BDS movement was defined as a terrorist “hate” group no different than the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) or the Islamic State in Syria (ISIS), which at that time prompted some civil libertarians to question if criticism of the behavior of the Jewish state could be deliberately mischaracterized as being an “anti-Semitic hate crime” that should or might be construed as criticism of the Jewish people and their religion.
HB 741 amended Florida’s “hate crime” statute to include such “antisemitic” acts as:
- “Calling for, aiding, or justifying violence against Jews.
- “Alleging myths about a world Jewish conspiracy or that Jews control the media, economy, government, or other institutions.
- “Accusing Jewish people as a whole of being responsible for real or imaginary wrongdoing by a single Jewish person, group, or the state of Israel, or for acts of non-Jews.
- “Accusing the Jewish people of inventing or exaggerating the Holocaust.
- “Accusing Jewish citizens of countries other than Israel of being more loyal to Israel than their own nations.
- “Demonizing, applying a double standard to, or delegitimizing Israel.”
DeSantis has long nurtured political ambitions and, recognizing the power and wealth of those who are passionate about Israel, he harbors a particular “sensitivity” to Jewish and Israel issues as a means to help him move onwards and upwards. When he was a congressman, survivors from the Israeli attack on the USS Liberty that killed 34 American seamen who lived in his district in Florida report that they sought to meet with him to discuss the possibility of opening a new inquiry into the incident. Even though DeSantis is a former Navy officer, he refused to meet with them.
The power of international Jewry has been most observable in the largely successful attempts to silence criticism of Israel by making such activity describable as motivated by anti-Semitism. Former Israeli government minister Shulamit Aloni has even described the practice of labeling all critics as anti-Semites as “It’s a trick. We always use it… the suffering of the Jewish people” is routinely used to “justify everything we do to the Palestinians.” A number of European countries have also criminalized what is described as “holocaust denial” and in Germany and France have imprisoned those who violate the laws, even when that denial only consists of questioning some of the facts that are employed in the standard accepted narrative of the event. The most recent country to climb onto the “hate speech” express is Ireland, where new legislation is being considered by the country’s parliament. Interestingly, the debate over what one is allowed to say without criminally offending someone else has largely focused on transexuals and gender identity, but it has also been observed that the law would impact on supporters of the Palestinian cause who would perforce criticize Israel, the Jewish state. That might easily be construed as anti-Semitism and lead to heavy fines or even prison time. Interestingly, the bill even criminalizes the mere possession of material considered to be “hateful.”
In any event, the domestic war dedicated to stamping out what is referred to as anti-Semitism continues and grows in the United States, even when it is trivial, largely imaginary, or even fabricated by hate groups like the ADL headed by the hideous Jonathan Greenblatt. And if free speech and honest inquiry have to be sacrificed along the way, so be it. On May 10th the Biden Administration used its United Nations Security Council veto to block a report on Israel’s war crimes in targeting civilians while bombing Gaza, which has killed 25 Palestinians, mostly women and children. Unsurprisingly, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan responded to the development by declaring their unwavering support for “Israel’s right to defend itself.”
Clearly, for the vast majority of politicians in Washington and even at the states level, allegiance and subservience to Israel and its interests are more important than protecting constitutional rights or managing a sane and responsible foreign policy. One wonders whether Ron DeSantis, if elected president in 2024, just might hold his inauguration in Jerusalem, just as he did when he became governor. It would actually be something of a relief – at last the ultimate acknowledgement of who is really in charge back here in America.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Up to 4.5 Million Dead in ‘Post-9/11 War Zones’ – Study
By Will Porter | The Libertarian Institute | May 16, 2023
The far-reaching effects of America’s War on Terror may have contributed to the deaths of some 4.5 million people, according to new research by Brown University’s ‘Costs of War’ project. While many of the fatalities were the direct result of violent conflict, indirect causes such as economic collapse and food insecurity have taken a far greater toll.
Published on Monday, the study examines the long-term impact of the “post-9/11 wars” and the “devastating indirect toll” inflicted in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Yemen, Libya and Somalia – all nations subject to US military intervention since 2001.
“Some of these people were killed in the fighting, but far more, especially children, have been killed by the reverberating effects of war, such as the spread of disease,” the paper said. “These latter indirect deaths – estimated at 3.6-3.7 million – and related health problems have resulted from the post-9/11 wars’ destruction of economies, public services, and the environment.”
Though the researchers acknowledged that the true total figure remains unknown, the study reviews a wide range of factors contributing to mortality. Those include economic collapse and the resulting loss of livelihood for local residents, the destruction of health infrastructure and public services, environmental contamination, as well as other cultural effects of war that can lead to further violence down the line.
“While this research does not ascribe blame to any single warring party or factor, and neither does it suggest the full death count is quantifiable, a reasonable and conservative estimate suggests that at least 4.5 million people have died in the major post-9/11 war zones,” the study concluded.
It went on to stress that “body counts are complicated and controversial,” and that tallying deaths from indirect causes is even more difficult, suggesting its figures are merely a tentative estimate based on a variety of sources.
The researchers found staggering levels of child malnutrition in some of the affected countries, with Afghanistan and Yemen topping the list. In the wake of Washington’s two-decade military occupation, more than 3 million Afghan children are now experiencing wasting, a symptom of severe, potentially life-threatening malnutrition.
Last year, Doctors Without Borders warned of a “worrying increase” in Afghanistan’s malnutrition rates, citing “the suspension of international aid” as among the primary causes. A special representative for the United Nations, Dr. Ramiz Alakbarov, described the situation as “almost inconceivable,” adding that up to 95 percent of Afghans were “not eating enough food, with that percentage rising to almost 100 percent for female-headed households.”
UN emergency aid coordinator Martin Griffiths has also attributed the crisis in Afghanistan, in part, to international sanctions and the seizure of government bank accounts following the Taliban’s sudden rise to power in the summer of 2021.
The study found that more than 2 million children in Yemen were also suffering from wasting following eight years of brutal bombings by Saudi Arabia and its allies, which have all but crippled the country’s healthcare sector. Riyadh has received indispensable support from the United States throughout the conflict despite countless reports of attacks on civilians and infrastructure, including hospitals, clinics, homes, factories, farms and bridges. A UN estimate in late 2021 suggested some 377,000 people had been killed in Yemen since the war erupted in 2015, with 70 percent thought to be children under the age of 5.
The Costs of War authors said the study aimed to “convey the scale of the suffering” in the war-torn nations, stating the “urgent need to mitigate the damage” inflicted by US military interventions and their long-term and indirect consequences. They added that additional research is needed on the subject, voicing hopes such work could “prevent further loss of life,” as America’s post-9/11 wars “are ongoing for millions around the world who are living with and dying from their effects.”
Ukraine’s top spy admits killing Russian public figures
RT | May 16, 2023
Ukrainian military intelligence (GUR) chief General Kirill Budanov has claimed responsibility for assassinating “many” Russian public figures. The spy boss made the bombshell admission in an interview with Ukrainian blogger Sergey Ivanov on Tuesday.
Asked whether top Russian “propagandists,” such as prominent journalist Vladimir Solovyov or RT’s Editor-in-Chief Margarita Simonyan, are prime targets for his organization, Budanov responded that the GUR had already “gotten” multiple high profile targets.
“We have already gotten many, including public and media personalities,” Budanov said, without providing any names.
Pressed further by the blogger on the potential involvement of the GUR in the assassination of Darya Dugina, a journalist and the daughter of prominent Russian philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, or the recent car bombing of Russian author and political activist Zakhar Prilepin, the spy boss said he could “neither confirm nor deny” the involvement of his service.
Budanov’s remarks were condemned by Moscow, with Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stating that they were a clear admission of wrongdoing.
“Terrorists. Those who provide excuses for the Kiev regime and sponsor it are accomplices of terrorists,” Zakharova wrote on Telegram. “Will the UN not notice that again?”
The remarks are the latest in a string of bloodthirsty statements made by the GUR boss amid the ongoing conflict between Moscow and Kiev. Earlier this month, Budanov declared, “We’ve been killing Russians, and we will keep killing Russians anywhere on the face of this world until the complete victory of Ukraine.”
The pledge received an equally poor reception in Russia, with multiple top officials branding it an admission of engaging in state-level terrorism by Ukraine. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for instance, said Budanov’s statement was “unprecedented in its essence,” and it was “strange” to not hear any condemnation “from European capitals and from Washington.”
“It’s evident that the Kiev regime is behind the killings, not only sponsoring them but organizing, inciting, and carrying them out. De facto, we’re talking about a state sponsor of terrorism,” Peskov concluded, warning that Russia’s “special services know what to do after such statements.”
Iran claims successes in its air defense
By Alexandr Svaranc – New Eastern Outlook – 16.05.2023
Despite decades of sanctions imposed by foreign powers, the Islamic Republic of Iran has garnered tremendous experience surviving and thriving in isolation. Given Tehran’s political system, which is not so much a theocratic form of government as an independent course, is under attack by Iran’s adversaries, the Iranian authorities have prioritized the strengthening of their army and navy. In order to do this, a lot of attention is put on the development of key technologies, mainly in the defense industry, as well as the advancement of education and research.
For many foreign experts it was a revelation that it turns out that Iran has achieved a major breakthrough in the development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles. At the same time, the spoils of the Iranian UAVs on some “hot conflict” fields have allowed experts to also discover advanced Western technology. The Iranian capabilities, meantime, created a stir in a number of international newspapers, raising the question of how the Persians acquired these outlawed and sanctioned technologies from the West or Israel.
Some believe that the Iranians simply ordered products through the AliExpress channel to fictitious addresses, disassembled them, and had local engineers create new inventions (such as joining a water line to a gas line in the hopes of creating carbonated water). Others argue that Iranian replicas of Western technologies are the result of successful scientific, technological, and industrial espionage by Iranian foreign intelligence agencies, specifically the Ministry of Information, IRGC intelligence units, and the Ministry of Defense.
How can one, however, recognize such enemy intelligence triumphs when it also indicates counterintelligence support failures for sanctioned technology and products from NATO nations and their partner Israel? At the same time, their opponents cannot admit (whether out of envy or for other reasons) that Iran simply had to spend a lot of money over the years to build its own education and research, rather than encouraging corruption, as is the situation in other post-Soviet countries. However, the real condition of the arms of the Iranian army should be accepted as a fact.
The commander of the Iranian Army’s Air Defense Force, Brigadier General Alireza Sabahi-Fard recently stated in an interview with Al-Alam News Network, an Arabic news channel, that Iran now has absolute power in the region due to significant technological progress in the production of military equipment, particularly air defense weapons. Moreover, Iran relies 100 percent on its own high-tech production. Tehran now has more opportunities to export domestically produced weapons therefore.
Any army and every war place a high priority on an effective air defense. By assuming control of aerial combat, the army is able to conduct effective defensive and offensive operations during combat operations.
Iranian air defense forces are structurally a combination of the army and IRGC air defense units. Khatam-al Anbiya Central Headquarter of General Staff of Armed Forces is in charge of coordinating joint military operations within the Iranian forces. It should be mentioned that the Iranians build their own air defense systems and have previously tested several of them in live combat.
Iran’s air defense system includes: Radar systems (Nazir, Fath-14, the Matla ul-Fajr and Kashef, Meraj-4, etc.); medium-range SAMS (100-240 km) Bavar-373, Khordad-15, Talash, 3rd Khordad, Mersad-16 and short-range SAMS (up to 100 km) Ya Zahra-3 and Herz-9. In fact, the Bavar-373 is an enhanced version of the Russian S-300PMU-2 Favorit. Iran makes a variety of combat and reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), including the Karrar, Ababil, and Mojaher as well as upgraded ballistic Shahab, Sajil, and the Meskat medium-range cruise missiles.
In addition to using outdated but still functional U.S. systems left over from the Shah regime, trophy French equipment from the experience of the war with Iraq, Iran still has to combine its own production of air defense equipment with imports of relevant military equipment from Russia, China, and India. Some of Iran’s most recent innovations in this field involve modifying the equipment bought from China and Russia.
Air defense facilities cover the sky, administrative and political centers, troop concentrations, and critical facilities such as defense-industry enterprises, Natanz nuclear facility and the Bushehr Nuclear Power Plant.
Iran, despite its reliance on domestic production, cannot yet match the world leaders in the development and production of air defense systems, particularly Russia and the United States. Nonetheless, the Iranian military-industrial complex’s success is becoming noticeable in the Middle East. According to Russian experts such as Ruslan Pukhov, developing air defense systems is an expensive and time-consuming endeavor. The process of testing one type of equipment at army ranges to placing it on combat duty in the troops can often take up to ten years.
However, since the 1979 Islamic Revolution, Iran has had to deal with improving its own defense industry for more than four decades. We only possess a portion of the information available in public, since no one discloses all of their accomplishments and technological characteristics.
Furthermore, the current political and military environment and tensions with Israel, the NATO bloc, and the United States encourage Iran to accelerate its military development. For Iranian topography, the east, south, and west have always had a high level of military escalation. On Iran’s northern borders with Azerbaijan and Armenia, a new hotbed of military conflict developed in the post-Soviet era. Of course, this is about the unresolved Karabakh issue, the two conflicts that took place there from 1991 to 1994, 2016, and 2020, as well as the ongoing provocations across the line of contact.
Given the accomplishments of the domestic military-industrial complex, Iranian air defenses undoubtedly have a certain advantage over some nations in the region, including Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iraq, Syria, Qatar, the KSA, and even Turkey, which is a NATO member. Nonetheless Iranian missile and air defense systems are unlikely to be more advanced than those of Israel, let alone the United States, in terms of technology.
Turkey started paying more attention to import substitution and modernizing the country’s military-industrial complex throughout the years of President Recep Erdoğan’s rule. Ankara was able to supply the army and navy’s weaponry with 80% of its own manufacturing thanks to this strategy for boosting the country’s independence. The development and manufacture of Turkey’s Baykar Bayraktar Kızılelma reconnaissance and combat unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), Hisar surface-to-air missile and SIPER air defense missile, TCG Anadolu with unmanned combat aerial vehicles on board, Altay tank, BMC Kirpi, etc. are all being observed around the world.
The Turkish government holds regular events practically every day to showcase the aforementioned and additional products of the military-industrial complex, especially during current election campaigning days. Some of the military equipment on display in Turkey might still be purely for show, and it will take some time before testing and real breakthrough is made. Even so, Turkey is making an effort to keep up with Iran and its neighbors in terms of the military-industrial complex.
There is always hope for the army because of the generals’ faith in their own air defense systems and airspace control forces. However, public statements frequently don’t match reality (or don’t match it completely), which can further the goals of misleading the direct and potential enemy or fostering diplomacy during the negotiation process.
Anyway, Iran is expanding its military-technical cooperation with Russia, China, and India to produce air defense systems in all circumstances, keeping up with new advancements, and testing them not only on army ranges but also in combat theaters, where it takes part in varying degrees.
Hungary outraged by leaked Ukrainian plans to blow up vital oil pipeline
Hungary’s energy security would take a major hit if Ukraine went through with a plan to destroy a key Russian pipeline
MANDINER | May 15, 2023
Hungarian media is abuzz with angry reactions after a leak obtained by The Washington Post revealed that Ukraine was planning to blow up the Druzhba oil pipeline that transports crude from Russia to Hungary.
According to the leaked documents, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed at a February meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Yuliya Svyrydenko that Ukraine should blow up the pipeline in order to incapacitate the part of the Hungarian energy infrastructure reliant on Russian oil.
Government spokesman Zoltán Kovács reacted in a tweet with a short question: “How is it possible that Ukraine is plotting against a NATO country??”
Hungarian security analyst Péter Tarjányi said in a Facebook post that this would be a “very unfriendly, mistaken and stupid move.”
He added: “I understand that Ukraine does not like many Hungarian government actions and communications, but this does not justify such a plan or idea.”
Tarjányi then recalled that “on the one hand, Hungary has helped hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian refugees over the past 15 months, despite all the differences of opinion. We have to understand, our country sent aid, medicine AND!!! in the end voted for ALL sanctions against Russia.
He then pointed out that “in addition to this, and this is not a negligible FACT, Hungary is a NATO member, so such a plan makes no sense at all. This is a huge self-deception on the part of Ukraine, and Kyiv must explain itself very quickly. The main question is: Why did the Ukrainian president think that such a plan could be justified???? Why did he think he could risk NATO support by launching such an attack? I await further information on the matter.”
While the Russian invasion of Ukraine severely reduced Russian crude imports to the European Union, according to Eurostat data, last year Hungary imported 4.8 million tons of crude from Russia, 1.4 million more than in 2021.
The leak was part of a trove of military intelligence documents posted on a Discord server by 21-year-old Jack Teixeira, who served as an airman at a National Guard unit in Massachusetts. Teixeira was taken into custody over the leaks and faces substantial prison time if convicted.
Khrushchev Exposed the Hypocrisy of U.S. Interventionists
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | May 16, 2023
For American interventionists living today, all that one needs to know is that Russia invaded Ukraine. End of story. Black and white. Russia bad. Ukraine good. Support Ukraine with U.S. taxpayer-funded cash and armaments. America good.
If we go back to the Cuban Missile Crisis, we find that things are not so simple, especially for American interventionists, even if they don’t realize it.
The Soviets had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba that had the capability of hitting U.S. cities along the Eastern seaboard, including Washington, D.C., and New York City. The crisis lasted from October 16 through October 29, 1962.
President Kennedy demanded that the Soviets remove their nuclear missiles from Cuba and take them back to the Soviet Union. The Pentagon was exerting enormous pressure on Kennedy to immediately initiate a surprise bombing attack on the suspected missile sites, followed by a full-scale regime-change military invasion of the island. In other words, they were pressuring Kennedy to do to Cuba what Russia has done to Ukraine. In fact, the pressure they placed on Kennedy was so intense that Robert Kennedy, the president’s brother, secretly told Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin “If the situation continues much longer, the President is not sure that the military will not overthrow him and seize power.”
On October 27 — two days before the crisis was resolved — Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev wrote a letter to Kennedy stating the following:
But how are we, the Soviet Union, our Government, to assess your actions, which are expressed in the fact that you have surrounded the Soviet Union with military bases; surrounded our allies with military bases; placed military bases literally around our country; and stationed your missile armaments there? This is no secret. Responsible American personages openly declare that it is so. Your missiles are located in Britain, are located in Italy, and are aimed against us. Your missiles are located in Turkey.
You are disturbed over Cuba. You say that this disturbs you because it is 90 miles by sea from the coast of the United States of America. But Turkey adjoins us; our sentries patrol back and forth and see each other. Do you consider, then, that you have the right to demand security for your own country and the removal of the weapons you call offensive, but do not accord the same right to us? You have placed destructive missile weapons, which you call offensive, in Turkey, literally next to us. How then can recognition of our equal military capacities be reconciled with such unequal relations between our great states? This is irreconcilable.
Do you see the problem? Khrushchev was pointing out the hypocrisy of the U.S. position, a position that American interventionists today simply cannot recognize, owing to their blind allegiance to the U.S. national-security establishment.
The fact is that the Soviets had the legal authority to place their nuclear missiles in Cuba, just as Ukraine has the legal authority to join NATO. Cuba, like Ukraine, is a sovereign, independent country and, therefore, had the legal authority to permit the Soviets to install their missiles in Cuba, just as Ukraine has the legal authority to permit the U.S. and NATO to install their nuclear missiles in Ukraine.
But even though such legal authority exists, no one, including both Russians and Americans, likes to have nuclear missiles pointed at himself, especially from just a few miles away. This is the point that Kennedy was making when he stood fast during the Cuban Missile Crisis. With the full support of the Pentagon and the CIA, he was willing to risk all-out nuclear war to force the Soviets to remove those missiles, even though he knew that the Soviets had the legal authority to install them in Cuba. He, the Pentagon, and the CIA simply did not like the fact that those missiles were so close to the United States.
But that’s precisely how the Soviets felt as well, which is what Khrushchev was expressing in his letter to Kennedy. He was essentially saying, “Hey, you don’t like our missiles in Cuba because they are so close to your country. That’s exactly how we feel as well, not only about your missiles over here that are painted at us but also about all your military bases with which you have surrounded us. How come you can’t understand that?”
Well, Kennedy did come to understand that. That’s how he and Khrushchev were able to strike a deal, one that infuriated the U.S. national-security establishment as well as American interventionists.
The deal consisted of two major parts: First, Kennedy vowed that he would not permit the Pentagon and the CIA to again invade Cuba and, second, Kennedy agreed to withdraw U.S. nuclear missiles in Turkey that were pointed at Russia.
The Joint Chiefs of Staff were livid. They considered Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis to be the worst defeat in U.S history. They compared his actions during the crisis to Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler at Munich.
For their part, American interventionists were also furious over Kennedy’s resolution of the crisis. As far as they were concerned, the Pentagon and the CIA had the “right” to install their nuclear missiles wherever they want and the Soviets did not have the “right” to do the same. It’s a position that American interventionists still hold today.
Can you see why American interventionists hated Kennedy so much and why the Pentagon and the CIA ultimately concluded that he constituted a grave threat to “national security”?
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UAE tortured, killed journalist for opposing Israel normalization
The Cradle | October 31, 2026
UAE security officers detained, tortured, and killed Emirati poet and news editor Habib al-Sayegh in August 2019, shortly after he published a column opposing UAE normalization with Israel, according to a newly published book.
“Princes and Thieves,” a book by investigative journalist Matthew Cole published on 25 October, alleges that UAE security officers raided Sayegh’s Abu Dhabi home shortly after the publication of the column, hooded him in front of his wife and took him to a detention facility where he was tortured to death.
His interrogators reportedly pulled out several of his teeth with pliers and beat him repeatedly with a sharp metal object.
On 11 August 2019, Sayegh criticized the UAE’s plan to normalize relations with Israel as part of the Abraham Accords in his weekly column for Khaleej newspaper. The column was titled “Israel Is Our Real Enemy and A Dangerous Project.”
Sayegh described Israel as “a real and natural enemy” while questioning “who authorized the normalizers to speak on behalf of everyone?”
Nine days after the column was published, Emirati state media announced his death, without stating a cause. … continue
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