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US assassination of Gen. Soleimani, PMU deputy chief ‘brazen attack’ on Iraq’s sovereignty: PM

Press TV – January 6, 2023

Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani has paid tribute to top Iranian anti-terror commander General Qassem Soleimani and his Iraqi trenchmate Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, who were killed in a US drone strike near Baghdad airport three years ago, stating that their targeted killings were actually “a brazen attack” on Iraq’s sovereignty.

“The crime of assassinating the ‘Commanders of Victory’ and their companions represented a flagrant violation of Iraq’s territorial integrity and national sovereignty. The targeted killings of the commanders, who had a leading role in elimination of the scourge of terrorism, is an utter disrespect to bilateral agreements [signed between Baghdad and Washington],” Sudani said at a Thursday ceremony in the capital Baghdad in commemoration of the two legendary commanders.

“We woke up on January 3, 2020 to hear the terrible news about assassination of Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the second-in-command of the Popular Mobilization Units (PMU), and Gen. Qassem Soleimani, who was on an official visit to Iraq,” he added.

The Iraqi prime minister went on to denounce the administration of former US president Donald Trump over its brazen attack on Iraq’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.

“The fight against dark terrorism requires power and resilience, and this came through the national spirit of all Iraqis and the fatwa (religious edict) issued by Iraq’s leading religious authority [Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani],” Sudani pointed out.

He highlighted that his government is working to build a solid foundation for Iraqi sovereignty, is independent in decision-making, forges relations on the basis of common interests, safeguards the sovereignty of the country’s soil and territorial waters, and spares no effort to repel any act of aggression against the Iraqi nation and its guests.

Moreover, Chairman of the Iraqi Supreme Judicial Council Faiq Zidane decried the assassination of Muhandis and Gen. Soleimani as “a vile and cowardly act.”

He underscored that the Iraqi Judiciary bears the responsibility to shed light on all circumstances surrounding the US assassination, calling on the country’s security institutions to provide judicial authorities with all necessary documents and findings in this regard.

‘Iraq judicial chief highlights arrest warrant for Trump’

Zidan went on to note that Iraq’s Supreme Judicial Council has issued an arrest warrant for former US president Donald Trump over the assassination of General Soleimani and the PMU deputy chief.

The council’s president said that Trump has confessed to his “crime” in relation to the assassination of the “Leaders of Victory.”

He called upon all Iraqi officials involved in investigations over the targeted killings to try their utmost, and identify all related architects, organizers and culprits.

Chairman of Hashd al-Sha’abi Falih al-Fayyadh also stated that Muhandis devoted his life for the protection of Iraq, and the ‘Commanders of Victory’ fought enemies when the country was behest with its worst problems.

General Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC), Muhandis, and their companions were assassinated in a US drone strike authorized by Trump near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020.

Two days after the attack, Iraqi lawmakers approved a bill that required the government to end the presence of all foreign military forces led by the US in the country.

Both commanders were highly revered across the Middle East because of their key role in fighting the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group in the region, particularly in Iraq and Syria.

On January 8, 2020, the IRGC targeted the US-run Ain al-Asad base in Iraq’s western province of Anbar with a wave of missile attacks in retaliation for the assassination of Gen. Soleimani.

According to the Pentagon, more than 100 American forces suffered “traumatic brain injuries” during the counterstrike on the base. The IRGC, however, says Washington uses the term to mask the number of the Americans who perished during the retaliation.

Iran has described the missile attack on Ain al-Assad as a “first slap”.

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

What foreign policy elites really think about you

If public opinion doesn’t match up with the Washington program then it must be wrong, misunderstood, or worse, irrelevant.

By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos | Responsible Statecraft | January 6, 2023

Tell us, Washington, how do you really feel about American public opinion?

For years now, Beltway establishmentarians have been trying desperately to countermand the idea that they are in fact, elites: out of touch, impervious to what regular Americans want and need, and slaves to conventional foreign policy doctrine and dogma.

But it is wartime again, and that’s when the masks slip. It began with the steady stream of Eliot Cohen and Anne Applebaum columns from the start of the Russian invasion, all demanding that Americans see the war in Ukraine as our fight, a struggle for democracy, the liberal world order. If Americans do not have the stomach for it, there is something wrong with us, a moral failing.

These ham-fisted approaches befit the neoconservatives who wield them, as they did the same in the Global War on Terror, and to a great extent, worked to keep the Iraq War going for almost a decade and the war in Afghanistan shambling on for a full 20 years.

In addition to the destruction of two countries, trillions of dollars, a massive refugee crisis, a new generation of U.S. veterans dependent on lifetime assistance, and countless dead and wounded, these “elites” are in great part responsible for the mistrust of Washington that has eaten away at the culture and politics here to the core.

Poll after poll show a plunging lack of faith in American institutions, including the once-vaunted military. That’s what going to war based on lies, distortions, and rhetorical bullying will do to an already strained and tribalized society. Add a financial collapse (2008) that Washington addressed with an unprecedented bank bailout, while homeowners and workers struggled to survive, and you have the basis for major populist movements — on the left, and the right.

The rise of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump were buoyed in part by a continuing skepticism of the ongoing wars and of the elites at the helm of U.S. foreign policy, which had become as self-serving and disconnected from American interests as they were.

You would have thought they had learned their lesson.

But the war in Ukraine has given them new purpose and in that vein, to both patronize and ignore the wants and needs of the American public. A new commentary by Gian Gentile and Raphael S. Cohen, deputy director of the Rand Corporation’s Army Research Division, and Air Force Strategy and Doctrine Program, respectively, says it all. Clearly written for Beltway practitioners and politicians, the takeaway from “The Myth of America’s Ukraine Fatigue” is clear: don’t mind the polls, or even American public opinion. Ukraine’s (and in effect, Washington’s) long war will go on no matter what the hoi polloi is thinking, or feeling.

In war, from a purely political perspective, it’s usually safer for politicians to stay the course.

Perhaps this is why democracies’ track records of playing the long game in armed conflicts is actually pretty good. From the ancient Athenians during the Peloponnesian War on through to the present day, democracies have not usually been the fickle, shrinking violets their detractors make them out to be. In the United States, the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan were all eventually deeply unpopular. Yet the United States fought for three years in Korea, almost nine years in Iraq (before going back in after the initial withdrawal), and almost 20 years in both Vietnam and Afghanistan. All these campaigns involved significantly more investment of American blood and treasure than the U.S. commitment to Ukraine has demanded thus far.

The authors are referring to a number of recent polls that would appear to show that Americans’ unconditional support for Ukraine against the Russian invasion has its limits and in some cases, may be flagging. To start, Cohen and Gentile say that isn’t true, that Americans support Ukrainian sovereignty and the fight for it. Absolutely. What the authors don’t say is that the polls indicate that Americans are also concerned about a protracted war that could lead to more death and a direct U.S. confrontation with the Russians. That they are less enthusiastic about supporting Ukraine “as long as it takes,” and have shown a growing interest in negotiations to end the war sooner than later, even if that ultimately means concessions for both sides.

Instead of recognizing the nuance and giving credit to Americans for understanding the implications of another long war (whether they are directly involved on the ground or not), the authors blame the media for hyping up what they believe is the negative messaging from the surveys. Furthermore, they suggest that — citing the cases of Vietnam and our recent wars — conflicts will go on (and rightly so!) no matter where public opinion is at.

“If past is precedent, and present trends continue, it could be years before any of the declines in the American public’s support actually result in a change of policy,” the authors contend. Cohen and Gentile (much like their counterparts in the Iraq and Afghanistan War eras, did) diminish those “amplifying the Ukraine fatigue narrative,” claiming they fit into neat little categories: 1) “America First” Republicans who’d rather focus on domestic issues 2) “knee-jerk” anti-war activists on the left, and 3) those who “may genuinely sympathize with Russian talking points” that Americans will tire of the war.

Meanwhile, “some Americans may really believe that they are paying more of a price for the conflict than they in fact are, but this is primarily based on perceptions—not facts.”

Right. That is exactly what Fred Kagan, the AEI neoconservative who helped to craft the Iraq War Surge plan said in this lengthy National Review piece in 2008, entitled “Why Iraq matters: Talking back to anti-war party talking points,” in which he deployed this fatuous bromide:

Americans have a right to be weary of this conflict and to desire to bring it to an end. But before we choose the easier and more comfortable wrong over the harder and more distasteful right, we should examine more closely the two core assumptions that underlie the current antiwar arguments: that we must lose this war because we cannot win it at any acceptable cost, and that it will be better to lose than to continue trying to win.

Which makes this all very ironic, since (Col.) Gian Gentile was one of the few brave souls in the active duty military who were openly speaking out against Fred Kagan’s “Surge” and the counterinsurgency craze that was rocking the Blob during that period. He was an arch critic of Washington’s hyper-message management and selective history machinations. It is head scratching that he would oversimplify the effects of public opinion on recent wars — and suggest its relative unimportance — while offering the thinnest of arguments for in essence, “staying the course.”

“The leaders of the free world need to remind their publics what is at stake in Ukraine—not just for European and global security, but for democracy at large,” Gentile exclaims in his recent piece with Cohen.

This, from an historian who in his 2013 book, “America’s Deadly Embrace of Counter-Insurgency,” not only took on what he called the “myths” of Iraq and Afghanistan, but the shibboleths of the U.S. counterinsurgency in Vietnam and the British military’s “success” in Malaya (1948-60) as well.

Gentile’s “Ukraine fatigue myth” article is elite thinking, which reads as a pep talk for Beltway insiders in the wake of recent polling. For the rest of us, it is a cogent reminder that the same people who did not want regular Americans to actually think about foreign policy during the Iraq War, are still out there, whether they want to call themselves “elites” or not.

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

January 6 Two Years On: What Dems Would Risk by Trying to Prosecute Trump After Nothingburger Probe

By Ilya Tsukanov – Samizdat – 06.01.2023

Friday marks the second anniversary of the January 6, 2021 riots at the Capitol by an enraged mob convinced the 2020 presidential election was “stolen” from Donald Trump. Democrats have milked the event for political purposes for two straight years, with President Biden characterizing it as the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.”

Two years since the 2021 unrest outside the Capitol complex, Democrats have failed to provide any rock-solid evidence of Donald Trump’s planning of an “insurrection” in Washington to try to remain in power; still, the governing party may just prove brazen enough to try to prosecute the former president, notwithstanding the tremendous political risks involved, observers have told Sputnik.

On December 22, the House January 6 Committee Investigating the Attack on the Capitol released its final report, charging Donald Trump with a “multi-part conspiracy” to overturn the 2020 election and “block the transfer of power,” and accusing him of orchestrating the spectacular riot at the seat of US legislative power.

Several days prior, the nine-member committee voted to refer Donald Trump and several of his allies to the Justice Department on criminal charges including insurrection, obstruction of an official proceeding, conspiracy to defraud the United States government, and making false statements to the United States government. If an investigation proceeds and Trump is tried, convicted, and locked up, he could spend the rest of his life in jail, and be permanently barred from ever running for office again.

Much Ado About Nothing?

Trump dismissed the probe’s conclusions and the criminal referral, accusing what he dubbed as the “Democratic Bureau of Investigation” of being out to get him, and comparing the year-and-a-half long, $9 million January 6 investigations to his failed twin impeachments.

“The criminal referrals that the January 6 Committee made regarding President Trump are an exercise in political persecution and wish fulfillment,” says Dr. Nicholas Waddy, a political analyst and associate professor of history at the State University of New York’s Alfred State College.

According to the academic, the January 6 probe failed to provide any solid evidence of criminal wrongdoing by Trump ahead of and during the Capitol riots. At the same time, Trump’s complaining about the 2020 election outcome is an expression of free speech, not criminal behavior, the professor believes.

“He did not encourage anyone to use violence or to violate the law. In fact, he specifically advised his supporters to march ‘peacefully and patriotically’ to the Capitol to lodge a protest against the election results. He did not by any means advise them to use violence or criminal means to overthrow the government,” Waddy said.

Even if one were to discount the former president’s election “fraud” claims, “Trump never did anything in reference to the 2020 election except criticize it and complain about it, and poor sportsmanship is not now, nor has it ever been, a violation of the law,” according to the academic.

Skeletons in Your Closet

Sergio Arellano, an advisory board member of Latinos for Trump, told Sputnik that the January 6 investigation has demonstrated itself to be the “political witch hunt” that Trump has repeatedly described it as, and said that the long-promised “smoking gun” evidence of criminal behavior by the former president and his allies never materialized in the year-and-a-half long probe.

Suggesting there were many politicians who truly deserve to be held criminally liable over allegations far more serious than those against Trump – such as Nancy Pelosi and her husband over their alleged insider trading, Hunter and Joe Biden over their suspected pay to play scandal, and Hillary Clinton over her deleted emails, Arellano lamented that Trump, “the one person who called out the politicians and their BS” and “exposed what really happens in politics,” has been targeted instead.

“We saw it with the ‘Dossier’ and we see it with the weaponization of federal law enforcement agencies who are against not only Donald Trump, but against conservatives in general,” Arellano said – referring to the “Steele Dossier” opposition research commissioned by the Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign, which would go on to serve as part of the basis of initial US intelligence probes into the Trump campaign’s suspected ties to Russia (claims which have long since been debunked).

Dr. Waddy believes that the Biden Justice Department may move forward with trying to prosecute Trump on the basis of the January 6 Committee’s conclusions, suggesting that for the governing party, the reasoning may be that the more ordinary Americans talk about Trump instead of the substantive issues affecting their lives, the better.

“For Democrats… the calculation may be as simple as this: They believe that Trump deserves to be prosecuted and convicted, and they believe that, the longer the nation is talking about Trump rather than the sever problems that afflict [the country] (inflation, crime, the border, etc.), the better it will be for Democrats. Democrats have already ridden Trump-hatred to something like ‘victory’ in three consecutive US elections. Why not, they will reason, try for number four?” Waddy said.

Republican political commentator Marc Little echoed Waddy’s sentiments on the case, accusing the January 6 Committee of having “lost all credibility… after recent records revealed internal email communications that place the January 6 debacle squarely on the doorstep of former Speaker Pelosi, who we know refused the protection of the National Guard. Secondly, former President Trump’s emails, formerly concealed, make clear his intentions were not to promote an ‘insurrection’ – a crime requiring intention, but rather just the opposite. His tweet encouraged peace.”

“There is no solid proof to date that shows President Trump as the chief architect and responsible party of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. Look no further than the ‘Twitter Files’ and its exposure of the abrasive, biased and reckless approach toward all conservatives,” Arellano said, referring to the recent media revelations on the chaotic internal debates at the social media company to justify banning Trump after January 6 even though he was not shown to have violated any rules.

Risky Business

Citing Democrats’ desire to see Trump “rot in a jail cell,” even if it means “grasping at straws” to try to prosecute him, Waddy pointed out that there are extreme political risks involved in doing so, even if prosecutors would have a difficult time arguing their case, given the dearth of evidence.

“The evidence that Trump broke the law will revolve around the fact that he allegedly did not take aggressive enough steps to prevent potential violence from threatening lawmakers on January 6, 2021. Prosecutors would have to argue that the events of that day were clearly foreseeable by Trump, and that he sought to achieve them. The problem is that the Capitol riot was foreseen by no one, including Democrats in Congress, who took few if any steps to increase security on what was bound to be a tense day,” Waddy explained. “Prosecutors might also argue that Trump contemplated taking extra-constitutional measures to prolong his term in office, although he did not actually follow through on any of the proposed actions.”

The professor believes the fact that the evidence against Trump is “spectacularly weak” is no guarantee that the justice system will clear him. “The DoJ is populated by Trump haters, and so are large portions of the court system, not to mention the potential pool of jurors in Washington, DC, the most deep blue jurisdiction in America. It is highly questionable whether the most hated man in America, and probably the world, can get a fair trial.”

“Nevertheless,” Waddy notes, prosecuting Trump would carry risks for both the Justice Department and the Democrats, particularly in the event of a trial ending in acquittal or an embarrassing mistrial. Furthermore, a trial would likely increase public sympathy for Trump, including among Republicans who have moved on, “turning him, in effect, into a ‘political prisoner’ and a martyr.”

If Trump is prosecuted and jailed, this would also “effectively reset” the GOP’s field of 2024 candidates, increasing the likelihood of a more electable Republican – like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, taking his place, the professor believes.

“DoJ prosecutors and Democratic Party officials will thus have to ask themselves: is trying to nail Trump to the wall via the justice system truly worth it?” the professor asks.

On the flip side, the president’s party may calculate that a trial would keep Trump occupied “and drag him through the mud – possibly even placing him in prison pending trial,” which would likely limit his effectiveness as a candidate in 2024, and justify the risks.

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Russophobia | | Leave a comment

Time to Get Real About Ukraine

By James Rickards | Daily Reckoning | January 4, 2023

The war in Ukraine remains the most important story in the world today.

Don’t believe the incessant U.S. government and media propaganda about Ukraine. Ukraine is not winning the war; they are losing badly.

But wait, hasn’t the news been talking up Ukrainian gains in recent months, while Russia is retreating and being badly beaten? That’s the mainstream, pro-Ukrainian narrative. Here’s the reality:

Most of the Ukrainian gains were against lightly defended positions that the Russians quickly abandoned because they were not worth fighting to defend.

Those Russian troops (really Donbas militias) were ordered to retreat to fortified Russian lines while Ukrainian forces rushing to fill the void were slaughtered by Russian artillery bombardments.

Most people think of war in terms of territory. If you lose territory, it must mean you’re losing the war. But it’s not always that simple.

The Russian Strategy

The Russians will willingly cede territory in order to fight again at a later time under more favorable circumstances. They’ll simply retake it when the terms favor them. They’re not primarily concerned about the territory per se. The primary Russian objective is to grind down and destroy the Ukrainian armed forces.

And if the Ukrainians want to keep hurling themselves against Russian positions in order to recapture land and score a propaganda coup, that’s fine with the Russians. They’ll just grind the attacking forces down with heavy artillery fire (artillery kills far more people in war than bullets or bombs).

And despite Ukrainian government claims, the best intelligence says Russia is presently enjoying an 8–10:1 casualty rate. In other words, Russia is inflicting eight–10 casualties on Ukraine for every casualty it’s suffering.

That kind of ratio isn’t sustainable for Ukraine.

Russia Prepares to Lower the Boom on Ukraine

Meanwhile, Russia has reinforced its positions with 300,000 or more fresh troops (about 30 divisions) who are rested and resupplied. That’s in addition to the number of troops already in Ukraine.

Evidence indicates they’re backed by at least 1,500 tanks, 5,000 armored fighting vehicles, 1,000 rocket artillery systems, hundreds of fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters plus thousands of tactical ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and drones.

At the same time, all indications are that Russia is changing its strategy.

The initial Russian invasion was ill-conceived and took place in a piecemeal fashion. Contrary to mainstream opinion, Putin never intended to conquer Kyiv and occupy Ukraine. The invasion force was far too small to accomplish those objectives.

Also contrary to mainstream opinion, Putin didn’t target Ukraine’s civilian population. He wanted to avoid civilian casualties to the greatest possible extent. Of course some civilian targets were hit, but that’s going to happen in war.

Putin instead believed that the “special military operation” would tell Kyiv and Washington that Russia was serious about enforcing its red lines in Ukraine, that it was willing to use force. But he thought his show of force would bring them to the negotiating table.

He badly miscalculated. Rather than bring Kyiv and Washington to the negotiating table, they resolved to aggressively defend Ukraine. Russia’s ill-prepared forces were pushed back and routed in many instances.

“Russia Means Business This Time”

But now Russia is taking the gloves off. It’s already launched heavy, sustained attacks on Ukrainian infrastructure, including the power grid and energy nodes. Its army is also regrouping and preparing for massive counteroffensives.

It won’t make the same mistakes it made during last February’s ill-planned attacks. Russia means business this time.

It’s not interested in bringing Ukraine to the negotiating table anymore. It’s focused instead on destroying Ukraine’s military forces and imposing a settlement on Kyiv.

A major winter offensive will begin soon, likely when the ground in southern Ukraine is fully frozen (muddy ground will bog down Russian forces). A successful counteroffensive will consolidate Russian control of Donbas (the heartland of Ukrainian industry and natural resources), give Russia control of Zaporizhzhya (the largest nuclear power plant in Europe) and possibly include the conquest of Odessa, the most important Ukrainian Black Sea port.

The cost on the rest of Ukraine from Kyiv to Lviv will be horrendous, including the near-complete degradation of its power-generating capacity, transportation lines and food supplies. U.S. and U.K. weapons supplies won’t mean much because they are too little, too late and the Ukrainians are scarcely trained to use them.

But these prospects make no impact at all on the anti-Russian warhawks, both Democrat and Republican, who are determined to prolong the war at all costs — even if it means fighting Russia to the last Ukrainian.

A Great Deal for the Military-Industrial Complex

It seems that every week or so the U.S. announces a new multibillion-dollar package of aid for Ukraine. These aid packages fall into two categories: Some are simple financial transfers to keep the oligarchs in Ukraine supplied with funds to keep their government going.

Others consist of weapons including drones, anti-missile batteries like the Patriot, long-range artillery and most recently an announcement that the U.S. may supply Ukraine with Bradley Fighting Vehicles, or BFVs.

The total of such Ukraine aid, including the $1.7 trillion budget boondoggle passed by the U.S. Congress two weeks ago, is now approaching $100 billion.

When it comes to weapons, there’s a lot less than meets the eye in terms of helping Ukraine. It appears that Ukraine is getting billions of dollars in equipment, but in fact, Ukraine is getting castoffs from U.S. inventories.

What’s really going on is the U.S. is dumping old or obsolete systems on Ukraine (the original BFV was built in 1981, over forty40 years ago) and then using the appropriations to order new weapons for itself.

Meanwhile, the U.S. will likely send Ukraine an older version of the Patriot air defense system — and only one battery at that, consisting of eight missile launchers. It’s not the game-changer many seem to think it is. The Russians will simply overwhelm the system with numbers, and then take it out. It probably won’t last long whenever it’s deployed, which could be several months from now.

The real winners of these weapons transfers will be U.S. defense contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin and Northrop Grumman, who are getting the money to build new advanced systems for the U.S.

The real losers will be the Ukrainian people, who will continue to die needlessly in the absence of a negotiated settlement that recognizes the reality on the ground.

How Much Western Military Aid Actually Makes It Into the Field?

To make this racket even more absurd, much of the equipment that does make it to Ukraine is quickly blown up by Russia.

Russia has very good intelligence on the whereabouts of these weapons systems once they reach Ukraine. Using global satellite imaging, laser guidance and a blend of drones and cruise missiles, Putin has had success preventing these weapons from reaching the battlefield or destroying them if they do.

But the U.S. has already spent so much money on Ukraine and committed itself so strongly to a complete Russian defeat, a Russian victory would represent another strategic defeat for the U.S., still smarting from the debacle in Afghanistan.

What remains of U.S. credibility is on the line.

Brinksmanship

What happens if Russia brings Ukraine to the verge of defeat? Will Biden and his strongly anti-Russian administration simply throw up their hands and concede victory to Russia? Based on their maximalist rhetoric and commitment to Ukrainian victory, that appears unlikely.

Biden has shown no signs of relenting and recently said he will supply Ukraine with weapons as long as it takes. On the other hand, Putin will also not back down and seems determined to secure the entire seacoast of Ukraine, including the critical port of Odessa.

The great danger could arise if the U.S. foolishly continues escalation to the bitter end in order to stave off a Ukrainian defeat. I’m not predicting it’ll happen, but things could escalate to the point where tactical nuclear weapons are employed out of desperation. From that point, it’s a short step toward the broader use of strategic nuclear weapons.

Again, I’m not specifically predicting that will happen. But it is a realistic possibility based on the logic of escalation, and we seem to be sleepwalking into a nuclear confrontation unless we wake up.

Will we?

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Prince Harry reveals how many people he killed in Afghanistan

“It’s a joy for me because I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think that I’m probably quite useful”

Press TV – January 6, 2023

The UK’s Prince Harry says he killed 25 people in Afghanistan when he was acting as an Apache helicopter pilot during the invasion of Afghanistan, noting that these killings do not “embarrass” him.

The Duke of Sussex acknowledged this in an autobiography that is set to be published in the UK on January 10. The Telegraph quoted extracts from the Spanish version of the autobiography it obtained after the book was mistakenly put on sale in bookshops on Thursday before being withdrawn.

Harry served as a forward air controller in Afghanistan’s Helmand province in 2007-8 and then as an Apache helicopter pilot in the British Army Air Corps deployed to Camp Bastion in the south of the country in 2012-13.

According to the soon-to-be-published book Spare, Harry undertook six missions as a pilot that led to him “taking human lives”.

The 38-year-old described killing the targets as removing “chess pieces”, noting that he was not ashamed of doing so.

“My number is 25. It’s not a number that fills me with satisfaction, but nor does it embarrass me,” he wrote.

He said he counted the number of people he killed by reviewing videos taken from the nose of his Apache helicopter.

The prince writes that he did not see the Taliban militants “as a person” because such a view would have made it impossible to kill them. The British Army, he writes, had “trained me to ‘other’ them, and they had trained me well.”

The prince also named his fondness for video games as one of the reasons behind his claimed effectiveness as an Apache gunner. “It’s a joy for me because I’m one of those people who loves playing PlayStation and Xbox, so with my thumbs I like to think that I’m probably quite useful,” he said.

Harry also named the 9/11 attacks as one of the main reasons that he did not feel guilt over his killings. He had the thought that those responsible and their sympathizers were “enemies of humanity”.

The US-led foreign forces invaded Afghanistan in 2001 with the claim of confronting Al-Qaeda. The military campaign killed at least 70,000 Afghan and Pakistani civilians, living Afghanistan in a state of turmoil ever since.

There have been security concerns because of Harry’s military service, which are likely to increase after he revealed the number of people he has killed during that time.

Elsewhere in the book, Harry accused his brother William of knocking him to the floor during a 2019 argument about Harry’s wife Meghan.

William “grabbed me by the collar, ripping my necklace, and… knocked me to the floor,” he writes, according to a report in the Guardian.

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Nuclear Ukraine?

Kiev is capable of building an atomic device, and its leaders often outline such thoughts

By Olga Sukharevskaya | RT | January 6, 2023

Last year, Western media and high-ranking politicians actively discussed the possibility of Russian troops using atomic weapons in Ukraine. There has even been speculation on the likelihood of a nuclear war breaking out. However, it could be said that the risk is probably a lot higher on the other side of the barricades.

Ukraine’s Atomic History

Ukraine was a nuclear state after the collapse of the USSR, when 1,700 active atomic warheads remained in the country. Its politicians of that time had the prudence to abandon this status. The weapons were taken to Russia under international control, and their means of delivery were destroyed. Ukraine’s missile silos, with the exception of one which is now a museum near Kiev, were blown up, while its strategic bombers capable of carrying nuclear weapons were either transferred to Russia or destroyed.

Despite this, there were still many nuclear specialists in Ukraine, as research into nuclear fission has been conducted in Kharkov since the 1930s. In addition, five nuclear power plants were built in Ukraine during the Soviet years: Zaporozhye, Rovno, Khmelnitsky, and South-Ukrainian, as well as the infamous Chernobyl, where an accident involving a power unit led to an explosion that spewed radioactive fallout throughout Europe.

In addition, uranium is extracted at a deposit in Ukraine’s Kirovograd Region and enriched at a plant in the city of Zheltye Vody. In the 2010s, there were plans with Russia’s Rosatom to build a plant in Ukraine that would produce fuel for nuclear power stations. However, these were abandoned after the Maidan coup in 2014, when the country adopted an adversarial stance towards Russia.

At present, three of Ukraine’s five original nuclear power plants remain under its control. Chernobyl, which continued to generate electricity even after the 1986 accident, was finally decommissioned in 2020, while Zaporozhye, the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, has been guarded by Russian troops since last year. It is currently being run by Rosatom but does not produce electricity, largely for safety reasons. This is due to regular rocket and artillery attacks by Ukrainian troops, which have damaged numerous pieces of auxiliary equipment.

Push to Reobtain Nuclear Weapons

It should be noted that not everyone in Ukraine was happy that the country gave up its nuclear weapons. Ukrainian politicians have often failed to hide the fact that their dream of reobtaining nuclear weapons is not so much connected with their country’s security, as the desire to dictate their will to the rest of the world. Radical Ukrainian nationalists were particularly dissatisfied with the abandonment of the country’s nuclear status, and many of their manifestos contain a clause calling for it to be restored.

For example, “the return of nuclear weapons” is specifically cited as a goal in paragraph 2 of the Military Doctrine section in the program statement of the Patriot of Ukraine organization, while paragraph 7 of its Foreign Policy section reads: “The ultimate goal of Ukrainian foreign policy is world domination.” Patriot of Ukraine was created in 2014 by the notorious Andrey Biletsky, who formed it based on the ideology of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and had dreamed of Ukraine possessing nuclear weapons as far back as 2007.

In 2009, the Ternopil Regional Council, which was then dominated by Oleg Tianibok’s neo-Nazi Svoboda Party (called the Social-National Party until 2004), demanded that Ukraine’s president, prime minister, and head of the Verkhovna Rada “terminate the Budapest Memorandum of 1994 and restore Ukraine’s nuclear status.”

Ukraine’s longing for an atomic bomb especially increased after February 2014. In an interview with USA Today in March of that year, Ukrainian MP Pavel Rizanenko called Ukraine’s accession to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons a “big mistake.” And that was not just the opinion of one MP. Just a few days later, representatives of the Batkivshchyna party, headed by ex-Prime Minister Yulia Timoshenko, and UDAR, headed by Kiev’s current mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, including the secretary of the parliamentary Committee on National Security and Defense, Sergey Kaplin, submitted a bill on withdrawing from the non-proliferation treaty. Kaplin claimed that Ukraine could create nuclear weapons in just two years because it already had almost everything necessary: The fissile materials, equipment (except centrifuges), technology, specialists, and even means of delivery. In September of the same year, Ukraine’s minister of defense, Valery Geletey, also expressed the desire to develop nuclear weapons.

In December 2018, the former representative of the Ukrainian mission to NATO, Major General Pyotr Garashchuk, announced the real possibility of Ukraine creating its own nuclear weapons. In 2019, Aleksandr Turchinov, who usurped power in Ukraine in February of 2014, called Ukraine’s renunciation of nuclear weapons a “historic mistake.” Following him, in April 2021, the Ukrainian ambassador to Germany, Andrey Melnik, stated that if the West did not help Ukraine in its confrontation with Russia, the country would launch a nuclear program and create an atomic bomb. And on February 19, 2022, before the start of Russia’s special military operation, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky announced at the Munich Security Conference that Ukraine has the right to abandon the Budapest Memorandum, which proclaimed the country’s nuclear-free status.

Perhaps the most striking statement by a Ukrainian politician was made by David Arakhamia, the head of the Ukrainian parliament’s ruling parliamentary faction, Servant of the People. “We could blackmail the whole world, and we would be given money to service (nuclear weapons), as is happening in many other countries now,” he said in mid-2021.

Range of Possibilities

Is Ukraine technically capable of creating an atomic bomb? Absolutely. Yes, enriching uranium-235 to the purity necessary to set off a chain reaction would cost a lot, primarily to create centrifuges for separating isotopes. However, though this may be the most effective way to separate isotopes, it’s not the only one. The first American bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were created without the use of this technology.

In addition, it should not be forgotten that there are not only uranium, but also plutonium bombs. Breeder reactors are used to synthesize this chemical element, most often using heavy-water reactor technology, and research reactors are capable of producing weapons-grade plutonium. There is presently a nuclear research installation at the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology, and a VVR-M reactor suitable for plutonium production at the Institute for Nuclear Research of Ukraine’s National Academy of Sciences in Kiev. Until March 2022, there was a US-built facility in Kharkov that could produce isotopes by irradiating the starting materials with a powerful neutron flux, which could also be used to develop fissile materials for a bomb.

In addition, Ukraine has the technical capability to create a nuclear weapon based on uranium-233, rather than uranium-235, which is usually used. A similar bomb was tested by the US in 1955 during Operation Teapot, and its power was comparable to that of the Fat Man bomb that destroyed the Japanese city of Nagasaki. To obtain uranium-233, it is enough to replace one of the fuel assemblies of a conventional nuclear power plant reactor with a thorium-232 cassette, a supply of which is located near Mariupol, a city that was fiercely defended by Ukrainian nationalists from the Azov regiment earlier this year.

There is another indirect sign that both uranium and plutonium versions of nuclear weapons have been secretly developed at the direction of the post-Maidan authorities. At the beginning of 2021, Ukraine completely banned the export of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) to Russia, as was required by an agreement on its supply by Rosatom. SNF, among other things, is a source of weapons-grade plutonium, which can be isolated from fuel cells that have been in a nuclear power plant reactor.

Nuclear Power on the Brink of Disaster

Just as dangerous is the nuclear power policy pursued by the Ukrainian government.

Ukraine inherited five nuclear power plants with 18 active reactors from the USSR. Three of them located at the Chernobyl NPP were decommissioned by 2000. Five of the six reactors at the Zaporozhye NPP, three of the four reactors at the Rovno NPP, one of the two reactors at the Khmelnitsky NPP, and all three reactors at the South Ukraine NPP have exceeded their original lifespans and received extensions of their operating lives for another 10 to 15 years. The license extensions have sometimes been granted with violations of existing regulations since, after 2015, Ukraine’s State Nuclear Regulatory Inspectorate stopped cooperating with Russian vendors and has not overhauled reactor vessels, which become brittle after prolonged exposure to neutron radiation. Back in 2015, independent experts noted the critical condition of Reactor 1 of the South Ukraine NPP, which, nevertheless, has had its service life extended until 2025.

Ukraine’s Union of Veterans of Nuclear Energy and Industry sent a warning letter to the government in April 2020, arguing that the country’s nuclear energy sector was faced with a “threatening situation,” which, according to the authors of the letter, could well result in “a new Chernobyl.”

The lack of accountability, which led to the 1986 disaster, does not stop at neglecting the technical condition of the reactors that are not being properly monitored and maintained by their developers. During Viktor President Yushchenko’s administration, the decision was made to replace some of the standard fuel rods in Ukrainian reactors with unlicensed fuel assemblies supplied by Westinghouse Electric Company. In 2012, that experiment led to an emergency shutdown of Reactor 3 of the South Ukraine NPP, after Westinghouse fuel assemblies were damaged due to the specific design features of the American counterfeits.

That fuel assemblies fabricated by Westinghouse tend to malfunction in Soviet-designed reactors was not a revelation. They have repeatedly caused emergencies at NPPs in Finland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia, but that did not deter the Ukrainian leadership. Not even losses of around $175 million caused by using non-standard assemblies persuaded Ukraine against conducting risky experiments with its nuclear assets.

The new ‘revolutionary’ government, which came to power in 2014, was quick to plunge into its own experiments with nuclear power together with Westinghouse, which was suffering from financial distress. For the company, which filed for bankruptcy in 2017, the Ukrainian market could have been a much-needed lifeline – however, it wasn’t to be, because it once again emerged that the counterfeit fuel assemblies were dangerous for VVER-type reactors. Emergencies at Ukrainian NPPs became a routine event, and yet Westinghouse assemblies accounted for 46% of all nuclear fuel used in Ukraine by the end of 2018.

These risky experiments went beyond using non-standard fuel assemblies. In the fall of 2014, Kiev sent direct orders to boost electricity production at the South Ukraine NPP by 5 to 7%. To achieve this, three VVER-1000 reactors were supposed to operate in “controlled runaway mode,” and a whole algorithm was developed by Ukrainian and British engineers. It was this type of experiment that resulted in the explosion at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in 1986. A potential disaster was only averted by an ‘Italian strike’ organized by the NPP personnel, who refused to fulfil outsiders’ orders. This might have been what former NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen meant when he said: “We have, upon Ukrainian request, sent a small team of civilian experts to Ukraine to assist the Ukrainians in improving security of their civilian nuclear plants.”

‘Revolutionary expedience’ was used as a pretext for a mass exodus of experienced nuclear engineers from Ukrainian NPPs. As Ukrainian MP Viktoria Voytsitska said in 2018, literally all categories of workers were thinking of leaving Ukrainian NPPs, from steam engine drivers and riggers to engineers who controlled reactors and other high-tech equipment.

Provocation for Nuclear Escalation

After Russian forces assumed control of the Zaporozhye NPP, it became a target for incessant Ukrainian shelling, sometimes with the use of Western-made multiple launch rocket systems, heavy artillery, and attack drones. The plant sustained significant damage and was forced to stop generating electricity due to the destruction of auxiliary equipment and the threat to the reactors themselves. At the same time, an IAEA mission “was unable” to establish who was firing on the nuclear site, where Russian soldiers were present.

As the Western media was busy whipping up hysteria over the potential use of tactical nuclear weapons by Russia in Ukraine, it transpired that Ukraine was allegedly plotting a provocation of exactly that nature. According to Russian intelligence services, in October 2022, the Eastern Mining and Enrichment Combine in the town of Zheltye Vody and the Kiev Institute for Nuclear Research were in the final stages of developing a dirty bomb on the orders of the Ukrainian government. A missile plant in Dnepropetrovsk built a mock-up of the Russian Iskander missile, which was supposed to carry a radioactive charge and be “shot down” over the Chernobyl exclusion zone. The goal was to accuse Russia of using nuclear weapons and push NATO to retaliate in kind. In other words, to start a nuclear war in Europe.

All these facts mean that present-day Ukraine is arguably a real threat to nuclear security not just in Europe, but on a global scale. It has everything it would take, from irresponsible people in charge of safety and security at nuclear sites, to the technical capabilities.

Olga Sukharevskaya is an ex-Ukrainian diplomat.

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

‘It is Immoral to Fund This’: GOP Rep Blasts Ukraine’s Zelensky for Rejecting Christmas Truce

By Ilya Tsukanov – Samizdat – 06.01.2023

On Thursday, in response to an appeal by Patriarch Kirill of the Russian Orthodox Church, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a ceasefire across the front in Ukraine starting at noon on Orthodox Christmas Eve and running through Christmas Day January 6-7.

Arizona Congressman Paul Gosar has slammed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky for rejecting Russia’s truce offering, and reiterated his position that continued US assistance to Ukraine is “immoral.”

“Unsurprisingly, Zelensky has rejected peace. It is immoral to fund this war,” Gosar tweeted.

Zelensky stated late Thursday that Ukrainian forces would not join their Russian counterparts in adhering to the 36-hour Orthodox Christmas ceasefire, and accused Moscow of seeking to use the truce as a “cover” to stop the Ukrainian military’s advance and to bring more troops and equipment to the Donbass.

Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhail Podolyak dismissed Patriarch Kirill’s ceasefire request as a “cynical trap and a piece of propaganda,” and suggested the Russian Orthodox Church is “not an authority for global Orthodoxy.”

President Biden also dismissed the truce, accusing Russia’s Putin of “trying to find some oxygen” and charging him with war crimes.

The vast majority of Orthodox Christians, including Russians, Ukrainians and Belarusians and their various denominations, celebrate Christmas on January 7, in accordance with the Julian calendar.

The United Nations said Thursday it would welcome an Orthodox Christmas truce, even if it would “not replace a just peace” in Ukraine.

Russian officials including President Putin have repeatedly floated peace talks with their Ukrainian counterparts going all the way back to late February and March of 2022, outlining a series of terms for peace including security for Donbass and Crimea, and Ukrainian neutrality in exchange for security guarantees. Media reported in September that Russia and Ukraine appear to have agreed on a tentative peace deal in April, but the deal was scuttled after now ex-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson flew to Kiev to sabotage an agreement. Since then, Ukraine has rejected all Russian overtures toward peace talks, and has been pumped up with tens of billions of dollars of NATO weapons assistance.

Representative Gosar has become a consistent critic of US support for Ukraine, voting against new aid packages and calling on Washington to address America’s domestic problems, such as the national debt, homelessness, and the crisis at the border with Mexico. The Arizona Republican is one of twenty House members of the GOP holding up the selection of a new House speaker, rejecting California Congressman Kevin McCarthy’s bid on charges that he would do the bidding of the “uniparty” establishment.

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

American Japs Imprisoned

Tales of the American Empire | January 5, 2023

A famous tale from World War II are the heroic deeds of the US Army’s 442nd Infantry Regiment that was manned by nearly all second-generation Japanese Americans. These men served a government that had arrested them and their families for the crime of being Japanese descendants, imprisoned them, and looted their property. The US government then drafted young men in these camps and demanded they fight in its foreign war. Approximately 300 men at various camps refused to join the military were sent to a harsh prison at Tule Lake California. Many stated they would serve if their families were freed, but were still treated as criminals. Hundreds of those who served in the US Army were killed and thousands wounded as the 442nd regiment was ordered to conduct dangerous attacks in Europe. The survivors of the 442nd were deemed heroes after the war, but those who refused to serve their captors showed greater courage.

______________________________

“A Time of Unreasoning Hatred”; Eric Niderost; Warfare History Network; https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/202…

“Executive Order 9066”; Wikipedia; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executi…

Related Tale: “FDR’s War to Unite the World”:    • Roosevelt’s War t…  

Related Tale: “The Genocide Called World War I”:    • The Genocide Call…  

Related Tale: “The Bloody 1944 Crusade in Europe”:    • The Bloody 1944 C…  

Related Tale: “Everyone Lost in World War II”:    • Everyone Lost in …  

“The Looting of Japanese-American Assets During World War II”; Thomas Muller; Winter Watch; December 17, 2021; https://www.winterwatch.net/2021/12/t…

January 6, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Germany’s digital minister meets with Elon Musk, says Musk “agreed” to EU’s censorship laws

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | January 5, 2023

Germany’s Minister for Digital and Transport Volker Wissing said that he is less worried about Twitter under Elon Musk’s leadership after meeting with the CEO in San Francisco.

“Thanks @elonmusk for a constructive conversation in San Francisco. My stance is clear: the platforms’ self-commitment against #disinformation must be strictly adhered to until the #DSA comes into force. Elon Musk agreed with me,” Wissing tweeted.

The DSA (Digital Services Act), expected to come into effect in February 2024, requires, among other things, platforms to remove “harmful” content immediately. The legislation aims to protect consumers from content considered harmful as well as illegal content.

In a December interview, Wissing, the General Secretary of the Free Democratic Party (FDP), expressed concerns about Musk’s leadership of Twitter and said that he was undecided on whether he would continue using the platform.

Since taking over in late October, Musk has made some changes that censorship-lovers some might deem controversial. He rolled back the COVID-19 misinformation policy and reinstated some previously banned accounts, including the account of former US President Donald Trump.

In a letter to the EU Commission, Sven Giegold, the State Secretary for the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs, raised concerns about abrupt changes at Twitter and the relaxation of censorship policies.

January 5, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Israel arrested 410 Palestinians for social media activity in 2022, report says

MEMO | January 5, 2023

Israeli occupation authorities arrested 410 Palestinians, including women, children, journalists, activists and community leaders, for expressing their opinion on social media, according to a report by the Palestine Centre for Prisoners Studies (PCPS).

The report, co-authored by the Commission of Detainees and Ex-Prisoners’ Affairs, the Palestinian Prisoners’ Society, Addameer Association for Prisoner Care and Human Rights and the Wadi Hilweh Centre highlighted Israel’s use of a new ‘Vigilance Unit’ to monitor Palestinian social media accounts and issue recommendations to the security authorities to arrest them on the pretext that their opinions and publications call for incitement and violence.

PCPS Director, Riyad Al-Ashqar, said the Israeli courts charged the detainees with “incitement” for simply expressing their opinion on social media, including posting a picture of a martyr or merely mentioning his/her name, or issuing an invitation to protect Al-Aqsa Mosque.

Palestinians have been sentenced to between several months and several years in jail by the occupation’s courts on charges of incitement, while some were being held under administrative detention without charge or trial.

Israeli authorities also forced detainees to sign pledges not to use social media platforms for several months, in addition to issuing financial fines and placing some under house arrest.

Al-Ashqar indicated that over the past few years, the number of Palestinians arrested for using social media platforms has increased from 145 arrests in 2018, to 184 in 2019, 220 in 2020, 390 in 2021, and 410 in 2022.

January 5, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , | Leave a comment

Beware doctors bearing drugs

By Liz Hodgkinson | TCW Defending Freedom | January 3, 2023

When people ask whether I have had ‘my’ booster and I tell them no and that I wouldn’t dream of it, invariably the next question is: Are you an anti-vaxxer? While asking this they often back away as if I have some deadly plague.

My answer – although these questioners don’t want to listen to it – is that of course I am in favour of medicines that work and which don’t do harm. But there is ever-mounting evidence that the mRNA vaccines do cause harm, as the tragic stories of severe vaccine damage on TCW attest.

And the jabs don’t even protect you against Covid! Most people I know who have had the vaccine – and some have had up to five jabs – have caught Covid, sometimes badly.

Just last week I was talking to somebody who said that she had refused all Covid vaccines but that her husband had gone along with every one of them. She told me they both caught Covid, and with equal severity. Her husband’s jabs did not protect him in the slightest. I doubt if this couple are an isolated example. Maybe I am just lucky but in spite of never taking a single precaution against Covid or flu, I have remained completely free from all respiratory infections for the past three years; perhaps longer.

Ever since I began studying health and medical treatments in the 1970s I have learned that modern medicine is littered with apparent remedies that either don’t work or which do serious harm.

Thalidomide was a dramatic example but since then there have been many other prescribed medicines that were enthusiastically welcomed and then later found to do more harm than good. I am thinking particularly of benzodiazepine tranquillisers such as Valium and Librium. When I was a young mother in the late 1960s and early 70s most of my contemporaries (although not me) were on them.

How they blessed these ‘mother’s little helpers’ as the pills enabled them to get through the days of screaming babies, abusive husbands, and mourning their lost careers or the careers they were never able to establish. They sailed through their lives in an eerie calm; all seemed fine until they tried to come off these prescription drugs. Then the fun started. Although marketed as non-dependent, these pills were highly addictive and those who took them found that withdrawal was by no means easy.

They reported that they had to wear sunglasses to watch television as suddenly everything was too bright, but even worse, all the pains and mental anguish they had kept hidden with the tranquillisers rose to the surface. The problems had not gone away but had been buried deep by the pills. In some cases the dependence had become so severe that patients had to be hospitalised or go into rehab.

The addictive potential of benzodiazepines was bad enough, but it paled into insignificance beside the effects of OxyContin, a morphine-based slow-release painkiller prescribed to millions of Americans. The full story of this dangerous drug, formulated by Purdue Pharma, a company owned by the Sackler family, is well documented in the book Empire of Pain by Patrick Radden Keefe. It was also aired on the Disney+ channel under the title Dopesick. 

Doctors were bribed to prescribe OxyContin by slick salespeople offering incentives such as a case of champagne or exotic holiday. The Sacklers tried to redeem themselves by funding art galleries and university departments, much as rich families in Renaissance Italy became patrons of the arts after robbing everybody blind.

What made the OxyContin story particularly dreadful was that many of the Sackler family were doctors. Profit was all and the Sacklers netted many billions from their aggressive promotion of what was basically heroin.

The point I am making here is that it is very difficult to trust medicines which yield profits beyond most people’s imagining. In my lifetime I have never known a medical treatment to be so intensively pushed as the highly lucrative Covid vaccine; not just by doctors and scientists, but by most branches of the media as well. Anything that is so relentlessly plugged should be arousing suspicion, but so far we dissidents are in the minority.

If I wanted to book a face-to-face GP appointment just now, it would probably be impossible and yet I have received endless texts to go for my vaccine. In vain do I reply that I am not interested. They simply don’t hear. Perhaps the reason for their sudden deafness is that they get paid extra for administering the jab: £12.58 per injection per patient, and this is on top of their salary of £81,000 a year on average. If a GP surgery administers 60 jabs in a day – easily done as they only take a minute – that adds up to a handy £754.80. In a five-day week this bonus comes to £3,774.

TCW has published some excellent explanatory articles about what is in the Covid vaccines and how they can wreak havoc throughout the body. Many of these have been written by my former husband Neville Hodgkinson; I take notice of what he says as he has studied vaccines for decades in his capacity as a national newspaper medical and science correspondent, in the days when journalists took pride in telling the truth.

History, and especially medical history, has shown us time and again that when enormous sums of money and profit are involved, we must be very much on our guard and treat extravagant claims and endless reassurances with the scepticism they deserve.

January 5, 2023 Posted by | Book Review, Corruption, Timeless or most popular | | Leave a comment

Sweden Did *Better* Than Its Neighbours

BY NOAH CARL | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | JANUARY 4, 2023

Sweden’s decision not to lockdown in the spring of 2020 was variously described as “deadly folly” (the Guardian), “a disaster” (Time magazine) and “the world’s cautionary tale” (the New York Times).

Yet Sweden confounded its critics. The country’s first wave receded around the same time as Britain’s, and over the succeeding months it crept down the list of countries by official Covid death rate – as others caught-up-with and then surpassed Sweden’s death toll.

The argument then became: “But Sweden did worse than its neighbours!” Critics would point out that although Sweden did okay compared to the rest of Europe, it did worse than the other Nordic countries.

This was a weak argument at the time, as I’ve noted before. But now its premise is actually false: Sweden did not do worse than the other Nordics.

As you may recall, back in November of 2021 the ONS published estimates of age-adjusted excess mortality for most of the countries in Europe. These showed that up to June of 2021, Sweden had negative excess mortality – fewer people died than usual. On the other hand, its excess mortality was less negative than that of the other Nordic countries.

The ONS has now published updated estimates of age-adjusted excess mortality, which run all the way up to July of 2022. And they show that Sweden’s excess mortality is lower than Finland’s, Denmark’s and Iceland’s; only Norway did better.

Between January 2020 and July 2022 (blue dots), Sweden’s age-standardised mortality rate was 4% lower than the five-year average. By contrast, Iceland’s was 3.9% lower, Denmark’s was 2.8% lower and Finland’s was 1.7% lower. This means that Sweden did better than three out of four other Nordics.

In the summer of 2020, Sweden’s state epidemiologist Anders Tegnell said, “Judge me in a year”. One year later, Sweden’s excess mortality was below the European average. We can now judge him again, more than two years later: Sweden’s excess mortality is the second lowest in Europe. On top of that, Sweden saw the second smallest increase in national debt of all European countries.

Tegnell got it right, and his critics got it wrong.

January 5, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

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