Truss declares herself a ‘huge Zionist’
Samizdat | October 4, 2022
British Prime Minister Liz Truss described herself as a “huge Zionist” and “huge supporter of Israel” during a meeting with with a pro-Israeli Tory parliamentary group on Sunday.
Truss was a guest of honor at the Conservative Friends of Israel (CFI) event during the annual Tory Party conference in Birmingham, which she was attending for the first time in her new capacity. Talking to a crowd on the sidelines of the event, she declared her unwavering commitment to the Israeli cause, according to footage of her remarks published on social media.
“As you know I am a huge Zionist, I am a huge supporter of Israel, and I know that we can take the UK-Israel relationship from strength to strength,” she told the cheering attendees.
The CFI itself focused on part of her speech, in which she referred to “threats from authoritarian regimes who don’t believe in freedom and democracy,” against which “two free democracies, the UK and Israel, need to stand shoulder to shoulder.”
Truss’ position on Israel is well known, and she promoted it during her campaign to become the new Conservative leader and prime minister. Among the policy changes that she pledged to effect in office was to review the relocation of her nation’s embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Former US President Donald Trump did the same thing during his tenure in the White House.
The British PM made the same promise last month, during a meeting with her Israeli counterpart Yair Lapid on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly meeting in New York. Pro-Palestinian groups and the Palestinian leadership have condemned the idea.
Perfidious Putin!
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 4, 2022
Russian President Vladimir Putin has certainly been a naughty boy! The always unreliable and unofficial government-originating disinformation source The Hill is reporting that Moscow has spent the equivalent of $300,000,000 in an effort to “influence” world politics in its favor. The story relies on and follows a New York Times special report which again seeks to revive the claim that the Kremlin has been interfering effectively in American elections. Is it a coincidence that all the Russian bashing is surfacing right now before US elections at a time when the President Joe Biden Administration is agonizing over what it describes as sometimes “foreign supported” domestic extremists? I don’t think so.
The Hill report establishes the framework, claiming that “Russia has provided at least $300 million to political parties and political leaders since 2014 in a covert attempt to influence foreign politics, the US State Department alleges. Multiple news outlets reported that a cable released by the State Department reveals that Russia has likely spent at least hundreds of millions more on parties and officials who are sympathetic to Russia… According to the Associated Press… Russia used front organizations to send money to preferred causes or politicians. The organizations include think tanks in Europe and state-owned entities in Central America, Asia, the Middle East and North Africa. State Department spokesman Ned Price said in a press briefing on Tuesday that Russia’s election meddling is an ‘assault on sovereignty… It is an effort to chip away at the ability of people around the world to choose the government that they see best fit to represent them, to represent their interests, to represent their values.’”
And why is Russia behaving as it allegedly does? According to another State Department source who spoke to The Hill the Joe Biden Administration’s concern is not regarding any single country but the entire world as “we continue to face challenges against democratic societies.” Oddly enough, that Russia should be disinclined to waste its money and other resources on such a quixotic objective never appears to have occurred to the Department of State or to the editors at The Hill.
Typically, the State Department has shared information with select media but has refused to publicly release any parts of the cable which allegedly provide the intelligence-based evidence supporting the claims of Russian meddling. The Hill, perhaps inadvertently, reveals what the whole story really is about when it concludes its piece with “Intelligence assessments have determined that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election in spreading disinformation online that was designed to help then-candidate Donald Trump over his opponent, Hillary Clinton. Russia also tried to help Trump in his reelection battle against President Biden in 2020.” So yes, it’s all about Moscow helping Trump against the Democratic candidates. Interestingly, however, most non-Democratic Party aligned sources have come to agree that it was the Democrats who were trying to damage Trump in 2016 through use of a fabricated dossier that sought to impugn his character and portray him as a Russian stooge. Far worse, they also used the national security apparatus to “get Trump.”
The Times adds more detail and serves inter alia as a puff piece for the Biden Administration’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Russia. It is based clearly on information provided by unnamed government sources and is largely devoid of any actual evidence, though it does cite some names of Russians to provide authenticity. This is a common trick used in the media and government, particularly by intelligence agencies, to make fabricated material look genuine. One giveaway that the reporting should be considered suspect occurs in the very first paragraph where it states that “Russia has covertly given at least $300 million to political parties, officials and politicians in more than two dozen countries since 2014, and plans to transfer hundreds of millions more, with the goal of exerting political influence and swaying elections.” If the New York Times is privy to Russian top-level planning, even via leaked information from the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other government sources, it would be surprising to learn that the US has that capability. If the National Security Agency (NSA) has secretly broken Russian secure communications to obtain such information, it would be a major security breach and a violation of the Espionage Act of 1918 for any American news outlet to suggest that, indicating pari passu that the report is bogus.
And then there is the question of context. The United States has been routinely doing what is now being blamed on Russia ever since the conclusion of the Second World War. And it does it on a scale much larger than a paltry $300 million. The effort to bring about regime change in Ukraine alone cost something like $5 billion. Meddling in foreign elections and politics is, in fact, a major function of the CIA. It is called “covert action” or referred to in the trade as “CA.” Covert action is defined in the National Security Act of 1947 as “[a]n activity or activities of the United States Government to influence political, economic or military conditions abroad, where it is intended that the role of the United States Government will not be apparent or acknowledged publicly. 50 U.S.C. § 3093(e).”
Most CIA Stations and even the larger Bases overseas have covert action capabilities and their activity is frequently governed by the operating directives that are applied to every country where the Agency operates. In practice, covert action most often consists of recruiting, paying and directing journalists and other opinion-shapers to write stories and support narratives favorable to US interests. In some cases, depending on circumstances, the CA officers will either directly or indirectly fund groups and individuals who are opponents of the established government. If there is a major operation, like Ukraine, success comes when there is regime change.
And what is the value for money with CA operations? It is hard to say but the official intelligence budget for the US government is $84.1 billion with additional sums hidden in other government funding, to include the Pentagon and Homeland Security. The CIA gets a large chunk of that, and, as covert operations are costly, much of the money goes in support of those activities. So, we are talking about the US spending multiple billions of dollars in support of “actions” analogous to those that Putin is being accused of carrying out over the course of a decade in more than two dozen countries worldwide with $300 million! Good luck Vlad!
I might reasonably conclude by observing that the United States government effort to hoodwink the American public into believing a lot of nonsense about what is going on in the world might itself be described as a covert action. And it is particularly interesting in that it is self-funded by the US taxpayer. Never before in history has a free or at least somewhat free people funded its own destruction, but there is always a first for everything.
Pakistan’s Energy Crisis Worsens as Gov’t Fails to Finds Bidder to Supply Natural Gas Before 2028
Samizdat – 04.10.2022
Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has said that the European countries are purchasing most of the gas supplies available on the market, leaving Pakistan with no source of energy. Similar concerns about difficulties experienced by the ‘Global South’ in meeting their energy demands have been voiced by Indian Foreign Minister S. Jaishankar.
Islamabad has failed to find even a single bidder in response to a tender floated by Pakistan LNG Limited (PLL) for supplying liquefied natural gas (LNG) between 2023 and 2028, as per an official document.
As per tender documents, the PLL had in August invited bids for the supply of 72 units of LNG cargo starting in January next year. Under the terms of the tender, the government agency said it wanted to import 140,000 cubic meters of LNG every month for six years. The results of the bid were published on Monday.
A tender for procuring 10 cargoes of LNG floated by the Pakistani government in July had also failed to attract even a single bidder.
The latest development comes against the backdrop of an ongoing energy and economic crisis in the South Asian country, which is grappling with power shortages owing to a shortfall in energy supplies spurred by high prices and a surge in demand in the European countries.
Pakistan has also been facing the problem of depleting forex reserves and is awaiting the disbursement of $1.17 billion from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) after reaching a staff level agreement (SLA) in July.
Billions of dollars in aid are also awaited from other countries such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, the authorities have said.
S&P Global said last month that power shortages have been exacerbated by unprecedented flooding, as major grid stations have been endangered due to the climate disaster and connectivity options have been disrupted.
Before the floods struck in June-July, Pakistan was already reeling under high energy import bills, which had surged 91 percent to $4.98 billion on a year-on-year basis as of the end of the financial year in June, as per the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics.
A report by Institute of Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) has said that energy import bills could increase to more than $32 billion by 2030.
The global surge in energy prices has largely been blamed on Western sanctions against Russia in the wake of the eruption of Ukraine crisis, with many European countries looking for alternatives to Russian energy.
As the EU seeks to draw down its reliance on Russia, which has been EU’s primary supplier of gas, many EU countries have ramped up their imports from other countries such as Qatar, another major producer of natural gas.
In many cases, the richer EU nations have been offering better rates for sourcing energy than the developing countries.
Kiev Offers Biden Targeting Control, Seeks Longer Range Weapons
By Kyle Anzalone and Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | October 3, 2022
The Ukrainian government is prepared to give the Joe Biden administration virtual control over its selection of Russian targets. Kiev made the proposal in a bid to receive longer-range weapons from the White House, according to multiple sources speaking with CNN.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky will provide a full list of possible targets while allowing the White House to veto any of the potential sites. Kiev is hoping the increased transparency will pave the path to Biden authorizing more weapons transfers. Zelensky made the offer to Washington to alleviate concerns in the Biden administration that new weapons will be used to target Russian territory.
However, Kiev, Washington and Moscow currently have different views on what is Russian versus Ukrainian territory. After a 2014 coup in Ukraine that saw US-backed elements overthrow a democratically elected government, Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula. Last week, Moscow claimed four additional regions of Ukraine as its own.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to defend all of his country’s territory with the full arsenal at his disposal. The Kremlin stated that it considers its newly added regions as it would the rest of Russia. On Sunday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged the possibility that Putin could order a nuclear strike in Ukraine, defending these new regions. The Pentagon chief then vowed Washington would support Kiev’s “efforts” for “as long as it takes” to “take back all of the territories” within its “sovereign borders.”
Concurrently, Moscow claims there has been an increase in Ukrainian attacks within Russia proper, encouraged by NATO. During a recent press conference, Putin publicly noted, for the first time, attempted Ukrainian attacks on Russia’s nuclear power plants.
The US has provided Ukraine with 16 High Mobility Artillery Rocket Systems (HIMARS), and authorized sending over a dozen more to Kiev in an arms package last week. So far, the White House has only sent Ukraine with munitions for HIMARS that can travel 50 miles. Kiev is seeking Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) surface-to-surface missiles that can fly around 200 miles by the HIMARS. When the Biden administration began providing HIMARS to Ukraine, it was insisted that Kiev had provided “assurances” that these weapons would not be used to target Russian territory. In June, Antiwar.com contacted the State Department to ask if this condition applied to the Crimean Peninsula, a department spokesman replied “Crimea is Ukraine.”
The White House has made clear that they will not recognize the new Russian territories, and NATO has said they will escalate their support for the proxy war.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has previously said that if the West provides Kiev with longer-range weapons, then the Kremlin would expand its war goals in Ukraine. In July, Lavrov wrote an article claiming NATO was already on the battlefield coordinating attacks on Russian targets using the rocket systems. “NATO instructors and Multiple Launch Rocket Systems aimers are, apparently, already directing the actions of the Ukrainian Armed Forces and nationalist battalions on the ground,” Lavrov said.
In addition to the CIA presence on the ground in Ukraine, NATO commandos from Lithuania, Canada, Britain, and France are also present. Notably, there are several Donald Trump-aligned Republicans in the legislature, including Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) eager to “[go] for the kill” and overtly deploy American military advisors to Ukraine. Former US special operators are already on the ground near the contact line, training Kiev’s forces and developing battle plans.
Harry Kazianis wrote in Responsible Statecraft that in multiple war game simulations, Washington sending advanced weapons led to nuclear war.
I have fought more than thirty combat simulations in wargames under my own direction for a private defense contract… In every scenario I tested, the Biden Administration slowly gives Ukraine ever more advanced weapons like ATACMS, F-16s, and other platforms that Russia has consistently warned pose a direct military threat… In fact, in 28 of the thirty scenarios I have run since the war began, some sort of nuclear exchange occurs.
Kazianis does report that in some of the war games, diplomacy, rather than escalation prevailed, and nuclear conflict was averted.
The good news is there is a way out of this crisis — however imperfect it may be. In the two scenarios where nuclear war was averted, direct negotiations led to a ceasefire. The Biden Administration and its NATO allies should be testing Putin’s recent comments about a ceasefire to test his seriousness.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken, America’s top diplomat, has declared Washington’s goal is to see Russia suffer a “strategic defeat” in Ukraine. During the war, he spoke to Lavrov once and for only 25 minutes, they merely discussed a potential bilateral prisoner exchange. Likewise, UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has ruled out diplomacy until Moscow is “defeated.”
The targeted killing of Palestinians is the next Israeli crime to be normalised

By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | October 3, 2022
For decades, the international community has sought to portray the occupied West Bank as being distinct from Gaza by focusing on the Palestinian Authority in terms of diplomacy, and showcasing Ramallah as an example of prosperity. Israel’s colonial violence in the occupied West Bank and the PA’s “sacred” security collaboration to oppress Palestinians don’t suit this narrative. Neither does it suit the PA’s financial backers to speak about how Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem are also active in legitimate anti-colonial resistance, against both the PA and Israel.
The truth is that while Palestinians’ experiences in Gaza differ from those of Palestinians under the PA in the occupied West Bank, colonial violence is a reality across the occupied Palestinian territories and Israel has the power to implement measures that can make both on a par in terms of violence, because it enjoys unparalleled international impunity.
Despite the efforts by Israel and the PA, particularly given Washington’s insistence that the latter should be strengthened to avoid the possibility of Hamas gaining ground politically, the Palestinian people have reclaimed their anti-colonial struggle from the manipulation of political factions. The refugee camps in particular have displayed unity in resistance which has prompted Israel to approve the use of drones during raids by the Israeli military, thus making targeted killings of Palestinians another violation to which the international community will soon be turning a blind eye.
According to Israeli media reports, drones will now be used “not only as cover and intelligence for forces during operations but also to carry out strikes should armed gunmen be identified as posing imminent threats to their troops.” The targeted killings of Palestinians are thus the next Israeli crimes to be normalised.
Both Israel and the PA have attempted to write off Palestinian refugees as irrelevant. For Israel, refugees represent an absolute demographic alteration if their legitimate right of return is ever implemented. During the Trump administration, Israel sought to change the definition of who constitutes a Palestinian refugee to the point of their elimination altogether. The PA, on the other hand, has written off Palestinian refugees and the right of return as symbolic references in its rhetoric, while removing their relevance to the formation of a Palestinian state by diluting the already compromised right of return, and has no apparent issue at all with Zionist colonialism.
Palestinian anti-colonial struggle has been moving towards its roots, recognising the strength within communities on the ground and uniting with a common objective. The emergence of new brigades which are not affiliated to political factions is also evidence of the changes which Palestinians are now displaying. Mistrust of the PA, largely due to its security services carrying out purges within the occupied West Bank for the benefit of Israel and PA leader Mahmoud Abbas, have prompted Palestinians to reclaim not only their narrative, but also their political expression.
Extending not only the use of drones, but also the targeted killings of Palestinians, should prompt us all to questions about Israel and its accomplices, including the PA. Just months ago, an Israeli sniper murdered Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, who posed no threat to the Israeli army at the time of her killing. The absence of on the ground contact in Israel’s new page of aggression against the Palestinians will take targeted killings like that of Akleh to a new level. In the past, such killings made headlines due to the involvement of Israel’s domestic security agency, Shin Bet. The Israeli plan to normalise such violence within the occupied Palestinian territories using the latest technology is upping the ante against Palestinian refugees, while extending the boundaries of what constitutes normalised and acceptable violence, as long as Palestinians are the victims.
We have to ask both the PA and the international community why they continue to speak of a “two-state solution” even while Israel is seeking to make the killing of Palestinians even easier. Why are they not talking about protecting Palestinians from, and their right to resist, Israel’s brutal military occupation?
Foreign Ministry spokesman: Reports about Iran delivering drones to Russia ‘baseless’
Press TV – October 3, 2022
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman has rejected Western media reports about Iran sending combat drones to Russia to be used in the Ukraine war as “baseless.”
Nasser Kan’ani made the remark on Monday in reaction to Western media reports and statements by Ukrainian officials that Russian army is using Iranian drones in its war with Ukraine.
“The Islamic Republic of Iran considers reports about delivering drones to Russia for use in the Ukraine war ‘baseless’ and does not confirm them,” he said.
“Since the beginning of the conflict, we have voiced our principled and clear policy of active neutrality and opposition to war, while stressing the need for the two sides to solve their problems through political means free from violence,” Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman said.
Kan’ani noted that during the past months and in numerous contacts and meetings with his Russian and Ukrainian counterparts, the Iranian foreign minister has highlighted the necessity of settling differences through peaceful means and via dialogue, and has declared Tehran’s readiness to help with this process.
On Monday, the Ukrainian military repeated allegations that Russia has used Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones to attack the Mykolaiv region recently and claimed that its Air Force has shot down five out of seven unmanned aerial vehicles.
Iran has in the past rejected the claims about its plan to sell “hundreds” of the drones to Moscow and train Russian pilots on how to use them, saying the country will not assist either side of the war.
On July 11, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan claimed Washington had received “information” indicating that Iran was preparing to provide Russia with “up to several hundred UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles), including weapons-capable UAVs on an expedited timeline” for use in the ongoing war in Ukraine.
Late last month, Ukraine announced that it would withdraw accreditation of the Iranian ambassador and significantly reduce the number of diplomatic staff at the Iranian embassy in Kiev over what it called Tehran’s “unfriendly” decision to supply Russian forces with drones.
In response to Ukraine’s decision, Kan’ani said the decision was “based on unconfirmed reports and resulted from media hype by foreign sides,” stressing that Iran would take a “proportional action” in this regard.
Russia began a “special military operation” in Ukraine on February 24, saying it was aimed at “demilitarizing” the eastern Ukrainian region of Donbas, which is made up of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics.
Back in 2014, the two republics broke away from Ukraine, refusing to recognize a Western-backed Ukrainian government there that had overthrown a democratically-elected Russia-friendly administration.
Elon Musk suggests Ukraine peace plan
Samizdat | October 3, 2022
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk has proposed a plan to end the conflict in Ukraine. The billionaire suggested that new elections be held in the four regions that recently voted to join Russia, while Ukraine would commit to neutrality and relinquish its claim to Crimea.
Musk posted an outline of his plan on Twitter on Monday, suggesting that Russia “redo elections of annexed regions under UN supervision,” with Moscow withdrawing from these areas if voters choose.
Crimea would be declared “formally part of Russia, as it has been since 1783,” until Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev gifted the peninsula to the Ukrainian SSR in 1954.
Musk, whose text messages revealed him to be an occasional reader of RT, called Khrushchev’s decision a “mistake.”
The billionaire then suggested that Ukraine commit to neutrality – as Russia had requested long before it launched its military operation in February – and guarantee the supply of water to Crimea. Ukraine shut down the supply in 2014 after Crimeans overwhelmingly voted to rejoin the Russian Federation. Shortly after the launch of Russia’s operation in Ukraine, the supply was restored.
“This is highly likely to be the outcome in the end,” Musk commented on his suggestion, adding that it is “just a question of how many people die before then.”
The plan is unlikely to find fans in Kiev. Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has vowed not to negotiate with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin, and to seize the entirety of the territory Kiev claims as its own – including the Donbass republics and Crimea – by force. Furthermore, Zelensky sent an application for membership to the NATO alliance last week.
Residents of Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye would likely vote in overwhelming numbers to join Russia if the recent referendums in these territories were held again. All of these regions have a high percentage of Russian speakers and have historically voted for pro-Russian candidates while part of Ukraine.
However, Putin has already signed treaties to accede these territories into the Russian Federation, and has vowed to defend them with Russia’s full military capabilities.
At the time of writing, nearly 60% of respondents on Twitter backed Musk’s idea. That ratio is likely to change, however, as pro-Ukrainian Twitter users in the comments have called on ‘#NAFO’ trolls to swing the poll in their favor. In a follow-up post, Musk said that “the bot attack on this poll is strong!”
Tech platforms contemplate how to deal with Texas’ anti-censorship law
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | October 3, 2022
Tech companies are considering several options in response to the Texas social media law that prohibits them from political viewpoint-based censorship. The law was recently upheld by the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.
According to a report by The Washington Post, one of the options that has been suggested is a pop-up that says: “The content you are about to see contains graphic violence, white supremacist imagery and other objectionable material. If you don’t want to be exposed, click here.”
Another option, which is highly unlikely, is for the tech companies to shut down their services in Texas.
There is also the option of complying with the law and stopping all political censorship and go back to where the platforms were a decade ago – something the platforms are going to be reluctant to do.
Shutting down their services in Texas would be costly because Texas has the second largest population in the country. Also, it would be difficult for the tech companies to detect if a Texas resident is accessing their services from another state.
The pop-up option warning users they are about to view sensitive content would also not be legal because Texas officials could argue that the pop-ups are a form of censorship.
Assuming that the Supreme Court will strike down the law on First Amendment grounds is also considered risky.
The law applies to all platforms with more than 50 million users, meaning it will apply to smaller platforms like Yelp, Etsy, and Pinterest.
Some argue that the law will be tougher on smaller companies because they do not have the resources of large companies, yet they could be the subject of lawsuits that could be financially crippling.

