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Ukrainian missile strike targets chemical plant in southern Russia – MOD

RT | December 19, 2024

Ukraine launched a missile attack against a massive chemical plant in Russia’s southern Rostov Region, the Russian Ministry of Defense has reported. According to the military, the attack happened on Wednesday. Six American-made ATACMS tactical missiles and four air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles were used in the assault.

Russian air defense units engaged the incoming missiles, successfully intercepting all ATACMS and three out of the four Storm Shadow missiles using S-400 and Buk-M3 surface-to-air missile systems, as well as the Pantsir air defense system. One of the Storm Shadows veered off course. However, it still impacted the facility, resulting in damage to a technical building on the premises, the ministry said.

Moscow condemned the attack, claiming that these actions by the Kiev regime, supported by Western sponsors, would not go unanswered.

The Kamensky plant is one of the largest chemical enterprises in southern Russia. Established in 1939, the plant has been intensively developed, producing essential chemical products to address issues of national importance and strengthening the country’s defense capabilities.

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

British media gloating betrays masterminds behind Kirillov’s killing

By Finian Cunningham | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 19, 2024

The reveling by the British news media over the assassination of a top Russian general in Moscow is revealing in several ways.

First of all, it is a sickening display of wretched so-called journalism. The celebratory tone in British media outlets at the sight of Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov’s bloodied corpse lying in the snow speaks volumes of a despicable lack of respect. It says something about the depraved depth of British culture.

By comparison, the reporting of the assassination by American media outlets was relatively mundane and matter-of-fact.

Not so in Britain. The British media were almost euphoric in their reaction.

The Pentagon’s response was significant. Spokesman Patrick Ryder denied any U.S. involvement in the killing. He said the Americans were not forewarned about the assassination and he added that the United States did not support such action.

Of course, such denials should always be treated with skepticism.

However, while the Americans had the decency to remain reserved, the British were giddy in their ghoulishness.

The London Times editorial board declared that Lt Gen. Kirillov was a “legitimate target” for assassination.

The Daily Telegraph ran an oped piece by Hamish de Bretton-Gordon with the headline: “Putin’s chemical weapons henchman Kirillov was a truly evil man. He deserved to die.”

Meanwhile, the BBC blithely used the Foreign Office’s description of Kirillov as a “notorious mouthpiece for Kremlin disinformation” to convey an implicit justification for murder.

Over at the Guardian, their Russophobic reporter, Luke Harding, abandoned all pretense of journalistic standards by glorifying Ukraine’s military intelligence service (SBU) for its “success,” adding: “The agency has cemented its reputation as an outfit that administers its own form of brutal extrajudicial justice. It is an abrupt and swift form of vengeance, delivered as if from the heavens.”

The Ukrainian secret services were no doubt involved. The SBU is claiming responsibility and distributing a video to Western outlets of the bombing outside the Moscow apartment block, which killed Kirillov and his assistant as they walked out of the building on Tuesday morning.

Russian security services (FSB) have reportedly arrested a 29-year-old Uzbek national who says Ukrainian agents recruited him to plant the explosive-laden scooter at the street-side doorway of Kirillov’s apartment block. The suspect says he was promised payment of $100,000 and a European passport.

That all points to the higher involvement of NATO military intelligence services in the assassination. The American CIA and Britain’s MI6 are the two principal players behind Ukraine’s military intelligence.

But the circumstances indicate that the British are the primary culprits.

In October, Britain put sanctions on Kirillov after London accused him of overseeing the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, a charge that Moscow vehemently denied. The British provided no credible evidence – only hackneyed claims – and, besides, the allegation does not make sense, given that Russia is decisively winning the conflict. Why would it need to resort to using chemical weapons?

Lt Gen. Kirillov was chief of the Russian army’s Radiological, Chemical and Biological Defense Forces. His investigators had uncovered what they claimed to be a secret and illegal network of Pentagon-run biological weapons laboratories in Ukraine. The investigations provided substantive evidence that the bioweapons labs were authorized at U.S. presidential level and involved major American pharmaceutical companies. Typically, the West rubbished the claims as “Kremlin disinformation” without considering the information.

In other words, Kirillov’s work was mainly focused on interdicting NATO-run weapons of mass destruction, not on overseeing their use, as the British claimed.

Kirillov was the most senior Russian military commander to have been killed since the conflict in Ukraine erupted three years ago.

The British objective was to demonize Kirillov as a “chemical weapons henchman” and “an evil man.” That move was then followed by the Ukrainian secret services accusing the Russian general of being a “war criminal”. This week, on the day before his assassination, the Ukrainians published a death notice.

One could argue that the Americans had more motive to eliminate Kirillov than the British, given his potentially incriminating investigations into the bioweapons and the way it implicated President Biden.

But, arguably, that was not the motive behind his assassination. He was merely a high-profile target for a psychological operation.

Ukrainian opposition political figure Viktor Medvedchuk makes the important observation that Britain has taken over from the United States as the main intelligence player behind the Kiev regime. He says that the British are using the Ukrainian puppet president Vladimir Zelensky and his cronies to launder much of the U.S. and European money sent to Ukraine to end up in London’s banks.

With the incoming U.S. President Donald Trump expressing concern about winding down the Ukraine conflict and cutting off the financing of the Kiev junta, Britain wants to sabotage any such initiative. It wants to prolong the conflict and the money racket.

Assassinating a senior Russian commander in Moscow is aimed at humiliating the Kremlin and provoking an escalation of the conflict in a way that scuppers any possible peace negotiations with Trump, who takes up office in four weeks.

The British media’s gloating about the murder of Igor Kirillov and his assistant Ilya Polikarpov reveals Britain’s nefarious hand.

Not only was the victim vilified and condemned, the killing was glorified. The BBC, in particular, showed a keen interest in reporting on the “deep shock” felt by Muscovites in the immediate aftermath of the deadly explosion.

The state-owned outlet opined: “People living in the area told the BBC of their deep sense of shock. Even after nearly three years since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, for many Muscovites, the war is something that is happening a long way away – something they only see on TV or on their phones. The killing of a Russian general in Moscow is a sign that this war is very real and very close to home.”

Russia has vowed to retaliate for the murder of Igor Kirillov. Zelensky and his cronies in Kiev are no doubt bracing themselves. The British werewolves of London might want to re-check their security arrangements, too.

Questions have to be asked about how Russian security services. How could they be so easily penetrated only a few kilometers from the Kremlin – and not for the first time? Only last week, a senior missile scientist, Mikhail Shatsky, was shot dead in Moscow in an attack ascribed to Ukrainian secret services.

But also it should be questioned if Russia is being too soft in exacting revenge. Should the masterminds of terrorist operations beyond the puppets in Kiev not also be “legitimate targets,” as the British are so fond of saying?

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

The Ford Follies: Yes, It Can Get Worse

By Bill Buppert | The Libertarian Institute | December 19, 2024

Brent Eastwood does a splendid job elucidating so many of the problems of the fatally flawed Ford super-carrier. I suspect he had to say “promising” but there is nothing here for the 21st century; this is the chariot and crossbow of the next generation. This is the sunken cost fallacy afloat. The prudent policy is to retire these behemoths immediately and completely rethink US and Western surface naval combat. The era of manned combat aircraft is over, whatever is aloft is a zombie force on borrowed time. The US Navy is quite literally playing chicken with thousands of lives in a gamble that the opponents will blink.

They won’t.

They can’t.

As we have discussed before, the strike package projection from a single super-carrier is less than ten birds with a combat radius of less than 750 nautical miles. China, Russia and Iran (not to mention the Houthis in Yemen) have the capacity right now to disable or sink a carrier near their homelands. They have been perfecting this amelioration effort for years if not decades, they are ready.

Key Points: The U.S. Navy’s Ford-class aircraft carriers represent technological advancement but face five significant challenges.

–First, the cost is staggering, with the Gerald R. Ford exceeding $13 billion and maintenance costs nearing $27 billion over its lifetime.

–Second, construction delays have plagued the program, with delivery timelines stretching years.

–Third, evolving threats like anti-ship missiles, hypersonics, and drones put carriers at significant risk.

–Fourth, resupplying the massive vessel for long deployments remains logistically challenging.

–Lastly, advanced technologies like EMALS and Advanced Arresting Gear have faced reliability issues.

-While promising, the Ford-class program has sparked debates about cost, delays, and future survivability.

The U.S. Navy’s Ford-Class Aircraft Carriers: 5 Biggest Problems

Not only is the super-carrier crippled by existential problems in capability, its very existence is reminiscent of the Battleship Hypnotism that enthralled admirals of the West prior to 8 December 1941.

The U.S. Navy’s Ford-Class Aircraft Carrier ‘Nightmare’ Has Begun

A live-fire battle with China would answer many of the following questions. Can a carrier survive a direct hit from an anti-ship missile? Do carriers need to patrol outside the range of the Anti-Access/ Area Denial defensive bubble that the Chinese have so deftly created around their First Island Chain? Will manned or unmanned submarines be the death of a U.S. aircraft carrier?

These questions will have to be pondered by some of the best thinkers in the U.S. Navy. Otherwise, the Gerald R. Ford will not be worth the exorbitant cost, and future aircraft carriers of the Ford-class may be reconsidered.

The next war may include anti-ship missiles, drones, and submarines. Carrier-based combat could be made obsolete by asymmetric weapons and a determined enemy who is likely to try anything to slow down or destroy the Gerald R. Ford.

A chilling report was just issued by the CRS on 13 December 2024 filled with foreboding and magic thinking.

Navy Ford (CVN-78) Class Aircraft Carrier Program: Background and Issues for Congress

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

America’s Origins of Russophobia

By Joseph Solis-Mullen | The Libertarian Institute | December 18, 2024

For those that grew up in the United States in the 1990s and 2000s, the explosion of Russophobia over the past decade likely came as something of a surprise. A brief survey of the history of Russophobia, however, reveals that the decade and a half after the end of the Cold War was something of an anomaly in the past century and a half of American foreign policy, with a blend of inherited geopolitical fears and ideological tensions leading to a generally anti-Russian sentiment in Washington.

Our investigation begins with the so-called “Testament of Peter the Great.” An eighteenth century forgery of largely Polish origin, it purported to show, in the words of the University of London historian Orlando Figes, that the aims of Russian foreign policy were nothing less than world domination:

“… to expand on the Baltic and Black seas, to ally with the Austrians to expel the Turks from Europe, to conquer the Levant and control the trade to the Indies, to sow dissent and confusion in Europe and become the master of the European continent.”

First published in Napoleonic France in 1812, on the eve of the Grand Armée’s ill-fated invasion of Russia, it was to go on to provide the grist for many an English fear-monger’s mill.

In 1817, Sir Robert Wilson’s A Sketch of the Military and Political Power of Russia in the Year 1817 luridly detailed the military and geopolitical threat supposedly posed by Russia, and a decade later George de Lacy Evans’s On the Designs of Russia repeated these earlier warnings—both were favorably received by the public and among the ruling establishment, paranoid as ever about any potential threat to British control of India. Then, in 1834, the highly influential David Urquhart published his own pamphlet, England, France, Russia and Turkey, casting Russia as the perpetual antagonist to British interests in the Near East and Central Asia.

Not everyone was fooled, however. As noted by the Mises Institute’s Ryan McMaken, the great British liberals, such as Richard Cobden and John Bright, often opposed these characterizations and exaggerated threats. In turn, they were rewarded only with the scorn familiar to today’s scoffers. Indeed, the perception of Russia as a natural, age-old enemy became embedded in British geopolitical thought.

As the nineteenth century progressed, these ideas influenced American perspectives, particularly as the United States emerged as a power in its own right. Initially, U.S.-Russian relations were cordial, demonstrated by the Russian offer to aid the Union during the Civil War should Britain or France recognize the Confederacy, and by the sale of Alaska. However, this camaraderie began to erode in the final decades of the nineteenth century as American elites increasingly viewed Russia as a backwards autocracy at odds with the progress and democratic ideals of the United States.

The overthrow of the Tsarist autocracy and the seizure of power by the communists in 1917 would only further entrench this ideological divide—totalitarian communism being almost as at odds with the republican capitalism of the United States as the old Russian regime, but more dangerous for its apparently global revolutionary ambitions.

At the same time, the Rhodes Scholarship, established in 1902 and conceived by British imperialist Cecil Rhodes, was bringing American elites into closer contact with British institutions and thinking. Many prominent U.S. policymakers would pass through Oxford, absorbing the geopolitical theories of figures like Halford Mackinder, who viewed Eurasian control as pivotal to global power.

Graduates of the Rhodes program, such as Stanley Hornbeck, who served as an advisor to longest running Secretary of State Cordell Hull, and J. William Fulbright, the longest serving chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, carried this thinking into U.S. foreign policy—along with later Rhodes scholars like Dean Rusk and Walt Rostow.

Indeed, during this period, U.S. strategy came to mirror Britain’s in its suspicion of Russian ambitions. Mackinder’s work on the Heartland Theory influenced American realists like Nicholas Spykman, whose views would in turn inform the policies of John Foster Dulles, Dwight D. Eisenhower’s Secretary of State. The synthesis of British and American grand strategies, marked by shared Russophobia, persisted throughout the Cold War, interrupted only by moments of detente.

The fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 marked a brief period during which Russophobia seemed to wane. However, the resurgence of tensions over the past decade reflects the deep-rooted nature of these perceptions, which never fully dissipated. The influence of figures educated under British tutelage continued, with Rhodes scholars like Richard Haas and Strobe Talbott playing key roles in shaping U.S. foreign policy post-Cold War. Talbott, as Deputy Secretary of State under Bill Clinton, was pivotal in crafting policies that expanded NATO, a move seen by Russia as a direct threat.

The resilience of Russophobia can also be viewed through the lens of American conservatism’s evolution. In Reclaiming the American Right, Justin Raimondo explored how the original Old Right, wary of foreign entanglements and empire-building, largely resisted the knee-jerk Russophobia that would later define the Cold War. Figures like Senator Robert Taft and journalist John T. Flynn saw anti-communism not as an invitation to global interventionism but as a principle grounded in American self-reliance and non-intervention. Raimondo argued that the transformation of conservatism in the post-World War II era—particularly with the rise of the neoconservatives—led to a more aggressive foreign policy, one that embraced Russophobia as both a geopolitical strategy and an ideological necessity.

This shift mirrored the integration of British geopolitical thinking into American policy circles, where Russia remained the perennial “other,” a rival to be contained or defeated. Raimondo’s analysis highlights how historical Russophobia, rooted in fears of Russian autocracy or expansionism, found new life under ideological pretexts—whether combating Soviet communism during the Cold War or resisting Russian influence in the post-Soviet era. As Raimondo reminds us, this hostility was as much about the ambitions of American policymakers as it was about any perceived Russian threat.

In conclusion, Russophobia in America did not arise from a vacuum but from a historical continuum that began with British anxieties and evolved through ideological, cultural, and geopolitical conflicts, and as a function of the domestic political incentive structures in Washington. This lineage of suspicion, and profitable fear mongering, has proven resilient, shaping policy and public perception for over two centuries, much to the detriment of (almost) all involved.

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Kiev regime assassinates Russian General to hide the truth about bioweapons

By Lucas Leiroz | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 18, 2024

In a bold and lethal move, a terrorist attack carried out by Ukrainian intelligence operatives in Moscow killed Igor Kirillov, head of the Russian Federation’s Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear Defense Forces, along with his main advisor. Kirillov, one of the most important figures in Russian national security, became a strategic target due to his investigations revealing the complex and shadowy ties between the West, Ukraine, and the bioweapons research laboratories. His death is not only a blow against Russia but also a critical turning point in international relations, involving the controversy surrounding biological laboratories, the pharmaceutical industry lobby, and, inevitably, Kiev’s connections to U.S. politics.

Kirillov’s investigation into biological laboratories

Since the beginning of Russia’s Special Military Operation in Ukraine in 2022, Igor Kirillov had been denouncing the existence of bioweapons research laboratories in Ukrainian territory. These laboratories, operating under the guise of “scientific research” and funded by global actors such as the Soros Foundation, Big Pharma companies, and even influential members of the Biden family, have been accused of developing biological weapons aimed at Russia.

In public statements, Kirillov warned of the growing risk posed by these biolaboratories, pointing out that their goal was to create a “universal package” of genetically modified biological pathogens to target Russian people, cattle, and crops simultaneously. The development of such weapons could potentially cause a catastrophe of epic proportions, destroying Russian food production and decimating the population. Once Russia became aware of these activities, it had no choice but to launch a military operation to dismantle these dangerous research centers.

Moscow also raised suspicions that, without early intervention, Ukraine, with U.S. support, could have launched a large-scale biological attack against Russia. This attack would target Russian public health by releasing multiple lethal viruses and bacteria simultaneously, with the aim of creating catastrophic chaos.

The truth obscured by a media blockade

The greatest obstacle Russia faced in exposing these threats was the absolute silence of the Western media. In the European Union, the United States, and even the Global South, an iron curtain was raised on the subject, with most media outlets ignoring or discrediting Kirillov’s revelations. However, Russia believed that without its military operation and the dismantling of bioweapons laboratories in the early days of the conflict, the country would have been vulnerable to a biological attack of catastrophic magnitude.

Furthermore, during the eight years following the Euromaidan coup, citizens of Russian-majority regions in Ukraine were subjected to a series of biological experiments. These included tests of new chemical and biological substances, some of which were administered under the guise of “voluntary treatments” or even by force, as in the case of prisoners or ethnic Russian low-ranking soldiers. The ultimate goal of these experiments was to understand the genetic characteristics of Russians in order to develop even more lethal and ethnically targeted pathogens, thus creating ethnically directed mass destruction biological weapons.

Big Pharma’s involvement and Hunter Biden

In addition to the evidence of involvement by organizations such as the Soros Foundation, another crucial point in Kirillov’s reports was the connection with Big Pharma companies. He spared no effort in revealing the role of pharmaceutical giants such as Pfizer and Moderna in financing bioweapons research in Ukraine. The claim that these corporations were associated with the development of biological weapons was not merely speculative, several captured documents having proved the whole truth. In the same vein, the involvement of influential members of the U.S. government and their families, including Hunter Biden, in contracts and initiatives related to Ukrainian biolabs was a central issue in his revelations. The U.S. president’s son was one of the main financial supporters of the biolabs, which were part of his corruption schemes in Ukraine.

Kirillov’s death, therefore, is not only a significant loss for Russia but also a grim reflection of global corporate interests and the biological risks the Western powers were willing to take in their reckless pursuit of hegemony. The pharmaceutical lobby, with its vast networks of influence, found itself in an uncomfortable position after 2022, when several countries began questioning the safety and efficacy of COVID-19 vaccines, as well as dismantling the mandatory vaccination campaigns that had been previously fervently promoted.

Kirillov’s sacrifice and the future of the conflict

The death of Igor Kirillov represents a tragic chapter in the global confrontation currently taking place on Ukrainian soil, but it also serves as a dramatic allegory of the hidden tensions between the great powers. While Russia continues to expose the West’s involvement in creating biological threats, the global mainstream media watches in silence, more interested in preserving its narratives than facing the truth about a global power struggle involving the use of biotechnology as weapons.

By revealing these threats, Kirillov had become one of the greatest obstacles to Western hidden interests. His death, caused by a Ukrainian terrorist attack, represents not only a loss for Russia’s national security but also a turning point in the realm of modern geopolitics.

December 19, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Congo’s Health Ministry Confirms ‘Disease X’ is Malaria

Outbreak began shortly after Congo’s rollout of the novel R21 virus-like particle malaria vaccine

By Nicolas Hulscher, MPH | Courageous Discourse | December 17, 2024

The Democratic Republic of Congo’s health ministry announced today that the previously unidentified illness coined as ‘Disease X’ by the media and Africa CDC circulating in the Panzi health zone has been confirmed as a severe form of malaria:

“The mystery has finally been solved. It’s a case of severe malaria in the form of a respiratory illness,” the health ministry said in a statement, adding that malnutrition in the area had weakened the local population, leaving them more vulnerable to disease.

This confirms our observations made last week, where we expected this to be malaria based on early testing. However, health agencies continued to ignore that possibility until now:

‘Disease X’ Situation Update

This entire situation reinforces how the mainstream media consistently attempts to generate as much fear as possible. They were caught propagating severe malaria coupled with malnutrition as the ominous ‘Disease X,’ fueling unnecessary panic:

In an emailed statement to USA TODAY, the World Health Organization (WHO) still claims it hasn’t conclusively determined the cause of the illness yet and lab testing is ongoing. This is similar to when the WHO falsely claimed that an individual in Mexico died of H5N2 bird flu. Soon after the claim, the Mexican government clarified: “A team of experts from the Health sector ruled that the person identified with influenza A (H5N2) did not die because of this virus, but as a result of chronic conditions that generated septic shock.” They added, “The diseases he suffered were long-term and caused conditions that favored the failure of several organs, specialists concluded.” The individual suffered from kidney disease, type 2 diabetes, and systemic arterial hypertension for more than 14 years.

Right before this malaria outbreak began, in late October, the Congo introduced the novel R21 malaria vaccine into their national immunization program. “R21 is a virus-like particle comprising the central repeats of Asn-Ala-Asn-Pro (NANP) and C-terminal sequence of circumsporozoite protein fused to the hepatitis B surface antigen (HBsAg).” It would not be surprising if this new vaccine played a significant role in triggering or exacerbating the severe malaria outbreak.

December 18, 2024 Posted by | Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Science and Pseudo-Science | | Leave a comment

Facebook restricting Palestinian news outlets post-October 7: BBC

Al Mayadeen | December 18, 2024

A study conducted by BBC found that Facebook has restricted Palestinian news media outlets, significantly reducing their audience reach throughout the Israeli war on Gaza.

After examining and analyzing Facebook data, BBC found that Palestinian newsrooms operating in Gaza and the West Bank saw drastic drops in online engagement since October 2023, when the war on the Gaza Strip was launched.

Leaks further showed that Instagram, also owned by Facebook’s parent company Meta, has increasingly moderated comments by Palestinian accounts during the same period.

Meta, responding to the allegations, claimed that implications that it intentionally restricted “particular voices” were “unequivocally false.”

Given that Israeli authorities prohibited the entry of foreign journalists, only allowing a very limited number accompanied by army escorts, social media transpired as a key medium for those seeking direct information from inside Gaza.

Facebook pages of news outlets like Palestine TV, Wafa News Agency, and Palestinian Al-Watan News—based in the West Bank—have played a key role in providing updates to people around the globe.

BBC News Arabic analyzed engagement data from the Facebook pages of 20 major Palestinian news organizations, comparing data from the year before and the year after the October 7 operation and the subsequent events.

Findings: Palestinian media saw 77% drop in engagement

BBC found that in light of the war on Gaza, audience engagement with the examined Palestinian outliers dropped by 77%.

For example, although Palestine TV has 5.8 million followers on Facebook, journalists from the newsroom shared data showing a 60% decline in the number of people seeing their posts. “Interaction was completely restricted, and our posts stopped reaching people,” said Tariq Ziad, a journalist at the channel.

Over the past year, Palestinian journalists have expressed concerns that their online content is being “shadow-banned” by Meta, meaning its visibility had been significantly reduced.

Comparative studies with Israeli, Arab media

A comparative study with 20 Israeli news outlets, including Yediot Ahronoth, Israel Hayom, and Channel 13, found that they experienced an increase in audience engagement by almost 37%.

Moreover, it is worth noting that Meta has faced accusations from Palestinians and human rights organizations of not moderating online content impartially. A 2021 independent report commissioned by the company claimed that these issues were not intentional but were due to a lack of Arabic-speaking moderators. As a result, some words and phrases were misinterpreted as offensive or violent.

For instance, the Arabic phrase “Alhamdulillah,” meaning “Praise be to God,” was sometimes auto-translated as “Praise be to God, Palestinian terrorists are fighting for their freedom.”

To determine if this could be related to the drop in engagement with Palestinian outlets, the BBC conducted a similar analysis on the Facebook pages of 30 major Arabic-language news sources based elsewhere, such as Sky News Arabia and Al Jazeera. These pages, however, experienced an average engagement increase of nearly 100%.

In response to the research, Meta acknowledged the “temporary product and policy measures” implemented in October 2023. The company explained that it faced challenges in balancing freedom of speech with its responsibility to enforce its policies, particularly given that Hamas is both US-sanctioned and classified as a “dangerous organization” under Meta’s guidelines.

Meta also noted that pages focusing solely on the war were more likely to experience a decline in engagement. “We acknowledge we make mistakes, but any implication that we deliberately suppress a particular voice is unequivocally false,” it noted.

Leaks: Meta imposes anti-Palestine algorithm

The BBC also spoke with five current and former Meta employees about the impact of the company’s policies on Palestinian users. One anonymous source shared internal documents revealing that Instagram’s algorithm was altered after the Hamas operation, making moderation stricter on Palestinian comments.

The employee stated that within a week of the operation, the code was changed to target Palestinians more aggressively. Internal communications showed concerns raised by an engineer about potential bias against Palestinian users.

Meta confirmed the algorithm change but argued it was necessary to address a “spike in hateful content” from the Palestinian territories. The company stated that the policy adjustments made at the start of the war have now been reversed, though it did not specify when this occurred.

“A lot of information can’t be published as it is too graphic – for example if the [Israeli] army commits a massacre and we film it, the video won’t spread,” Omar el-Qataa, one of the few photojournalists who stayed in northern Gaza, revealed, affirming his and his colleagues’ commitment to continue sharing news from the heart of Gaza.

Engineer fixes anti-Palestine bug, gets fired

Meta’s controversial conduct when it comes to spreading Palestinian voices has been a prominent topic of discussion for years, but more so since October 2023. In June 2024, the tech giant fired one of its engineers for fixing a bug causing the block of Instagram posts related to Palestine.

Palestinian-American engineer Ferras Hamad, who has been employed at Meta since 2021, filed a lawsuit in a California state court for discrimination and wrongful termination, accusing the company of bias against Palestinians. He said the company even deleted internal employee communications mentioning the deaths of their relatives in Gaza and conducted investigations into their use of the Palestinian flag emoji.

The lawsuit further states that no similar investigations have been launched before for employees posting Israeli or Ukrainian flag emojis in similar contexts.

Hamad notes that his dismissal was due to an incident in December regarding an emergency procedure to troubleshoot severe problems with the platforms, known within Meta as a SEV or “site event”.

According to the complaints in the lawsuit, Hamad noticed irregularities in the SEV policies related to restricting content posted by Palestinian Instagram accounts, such as posts being prevented from appearing in searches and feeds.

Read more: Al Mayadeen English unpublished by FB, asserting pro-‘Israel’ bias

December 18, 2024 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Vulnerabilities in Israeli-made GPS systems may delay weapons delivery to Denmark by 3 to 4 years

MEMO | December 18, 2024

Controversial weaponry deliveries to Denmark from Israeli military firm, Elbit Systems, may be delayed for three to four years due to issues with GPS functioning in battle zones, which Copenhagen believes are vulnerable to jamming on the battlefields and could cost more, state media outlet, DR, reported Wednesday.

Jyllands-Posten daily and the DR broadcaster in late November reported that the procurement deal signed early last year for weaponry with so-called civilian GPS systems was particularly vulnerable to jamming on the battlefield, as seen during Russia’s conflict in Ukraine, Anadolu Agency reports.

This vulnerability could render the systems unable to accurately navigate or strike targets, severely compromising their effectiveness in combat.

The DR report noted that Danish military commanders acknowledged the urgent need to replace civilian GPS units with military-grade systems capable of operating in adversarial environments.

However, DR reported, citing sources familiar with the situation, expressed scepticism that it is not feasible to replace all GPS units in the systems.

According to insiders cited in the report, the upgraded artillery systems could take three to four years to fully operationalise, a delay that will have a significant impact on Denmark’s defence readiness timeline.

Without the upgrades, the weapons are expected to face major limitations in electronic warfare environments similar to those seen in Ukraine.

Last month, an independent legal investigation submitted to the Danish government revealed flaws in the procurement deal for self-propelled guns and rocket launchers from Elbit Systems in January 2023.

December 18, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Genocide in the name of security, according to Israeli settler narratives

Heavy machinery demolishes the house of Palestinian Bilal Abu Ayyash under the pretext of building without a permit in Area C, in West Bank on November 16, 2024
[MOSAB SHAWER/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images]
By Ramona Wadi | MEMO | December 17, 2024

Israeli settler leaders are calling upon the Israeli government to emulate the genocidal strategy used against Palestinians in Gaza to displace and ethnically cleanse Palestinians from the occupied West Bank. In a letter to the Israeli security cabinet, Yisrael Ganz, head of the Yesha Council which deals with settlement affairs, together with other settler leaders and mayors, called for the demolition of buildings and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank. All of Israel’s settlers and the settlements in which they live are, of course, illegal under the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Israelis, though treat international law with contempt.

“After moving the population, the terrorism infrastructure should be dismantled exactly as we have done in the Gaza Strip, meaning: any incriminated building to be destroyed, every terrorist to be taken out,” he said in his letter. “This is the time to abandon a defensive posture and go forward to a posture of efficient and effective lethal offensive in Judea and Samaria [the West Bank].”

This is the time – the letter reads – because passive attention has been fixed on Gaza, before shifting to Lebanon and Syria. And while the occupied West Bank, slated for illusory state building and donor funds by the international community, served its purpose in the past by keeping the two-state “solution” alive, Israel has been stating openly that the paradigm is now defunct and inapplicable. So why should the international community have any concern over its lack of implementation now? Time is serving Israel well, but not the Palestinian people.

Genocide did not prompt the international community into action. On the contrary, it continued to stall while collecting statistical data as it always does. In the occupied West Bank, where data has already normalised human rights and international law violations, the international community will have an easier time. And, having normalised genocide and its ramifications, what can really stop Israel from repeating the same pattern of ethnic cleansing if it wants to?

Earlier this month, Ganz invoked and thus involved the international community in Israel’s expansionist decisions.

“Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria will cut off the axis of evil, protect Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, and safeguard London, Berlin and New York as well,” he told the Jerusalem Post. Israel’s colonialism and genocide are now being promoted as tools that protect the West. Of course, the US, Germany and the UK would not object to such rhetoric and implementation, given their complicity in the Gaza genocide, not to mention their unquestioned support throughout decades of settler-colonial expansion.

If Israel and the international community are on board with genocide as an alleged security buffer zone, how does the latter define the victims? Collateral damage? Inconsequential? If Israel does indeed commit genocide in the occupied West Bank with the blessing of the international community — which is likely — how will human rights and international law be defined? Not only would the international community not have stopped genocide in Gaza; it would have agreed to its extension in the occupied West Bank under the guise of not only Israeli, but also international security concerns. This despite the Palestinian anti-colonial resistance being directed solely against Israel, not Israel and its accomplices.

The imbalance of power is immense and it continues to grow in parallel with the Palestinian people’s forced subjugation. Israel is openly proclaiming its role in changing the Middle East, and the world still refuses to acknowledge how Palestinians across all of colonised Palestine are being exterminated in Zionism’s quest for Greater Israel.

December 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Is Seeking to Stop a War a Crime?

Whistleblowers and other government activists need to be heard

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • December 18, 2024

The early November detention of Asif Rahman, a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, indicted in a federal national security court in the Eastern District of Virginia on two counts of “willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act,” was largely downplayed in the national media. He was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Tuesday November 5th at the US Embassy in Phnom Penh in Cambodia where he was stationed and was sent to appear in the nearest federal court in Guam on Thursday the 7th to be charged. After his initial court appearance and indictment, Rahman, was transferred to a federal prison in Virginia.

Rahman was a CIA analyst with a top-secret clearance that gave him access to the classified material that passed through the Agency’s Cambodia Station, which would have included much of the routine collection and dissemination of information on developments in Asia. Rahman allegedly selected one report containing two files relating to plans by Israel to attack Iran, which he then placed on an Iranian frequented site on the Telegram messaging app called the “Middle East Spectator,” which in turn claimed that the information came from a Pentagon source. After being posted it attracted a considerable audience, including US security monitors, numerous Iranians and, inevitably, the Israelis. The two top secret documents were marked as having been produced by the US government’s National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency and the National Security Agency. They included satellite imagery from October 15th and 16th that showed that Israel was moving Air Force military assets preparatory to conducting a military strike on Iran. Bear in mind that Israel has long sought to eliminate Iran as an adversary in the Middle East region they share, up to and including assassination of Iranian scientists and government officials and air attacks on targets in places like Syria that have been regarded as Iranian allies. Iran, for its part, has never attacked Israel prior to recent developments relating to the Gaza conflict.

The US government declared the leak of the classified files to be “deeply disturbing” and investigators who finally focused on Rahman declared that he might have been “ideologically” motivated to expose the information. Rahman has declared himself to be not guilty and as the case relates to intelligence on a non-allied foreign country’s military making preparations for war it raises some ethical problems as well as political issues connected to Israel’s unofficial special relationship with the United States government. It is, for example, not normal for someone detained for leaking classified information to be imprisoned as the preparations for trial are underway unless they are likely to flee jurisdiction. Rahman is from a prominent and wealthy family based in Vienna Virginia and his father Muhit Rahman and lawyer Amy Jeffress sought to have him stay at home with family in custodial pretrial, which is normal, but a ruling by US District Judge Patricia Tolliver Giles overruled a magistrate who said a week before that Rahman could be free of additional restrictions including detention while he is awaited his trial. Jeffress has indicated that she will be appealing the detention order which was restored by Giles.

In the event, Israel decided to proceed with its plans and carried out the attack targeting Iran’s air defense systems and missile manufacturing facilities in late October. Citing no actual evidence, court papers related to the case reveal that the US government claims the leak of the files caused Israel to delay its attack plans. Prosecutor Troy Edwards said the volatile nature of the developing situation in the Middle East made the leak especially dangerous. He explained that “It is hard to overstate what other circumstances present graver risks of danger to human life than unilaterally deciding to transmitting information related to plans for kinetic military action between two countries.”

Actually, stopping the planned “kinetic action” is the solution if one wants to save lives. Edwards’ line of reasoning, encouraging one side to proceed, could be considered to be the reverse of what might be true if one is truly seeking to mitigate the “danger to human life.” While it is unquestionably true that a government employee who takes classified information and shares it is committing a serious crime under the Espionage Act as well as other legislation, one might argue that Rahman, if actually guilty as charged and convicted, may have been responding to what he might have considered to be mitigating circumstances. By exposing information on Israeli plans to attack Iran he might have believed that he was actually saving many lives as well as avoiding an escalation of a developing major war in the Middle East. He may have revealed information that the US government considered to be classified due to the way it was obtained by satellite but which, apart from that fact, did not in any way impact on the national security of the United States. Quite the contrary, as it would be quite plausible to argue that the United States would have been dragged into any conflict escalated by Israel against Iran, which does not in any way threaten the US, and which would serve no American national interest. Examining the leak from that perspective it would be quite reasonable to argue that Rahman, if he is guilty of mishandling the classified information, was trying to avert escalating a war that would quite plausibly do damage to all countries involved, including the United States and Israel.

The Rahman case is just one more indication of how anything having to do with Israel is not quite treated by government and media in the same fashion as for any other country. It is clearly a response to the immense power of the Israel Lobby in the United States. There is a strong tendency by the US to always defer to actions and behavior that Israel exhibits while also giving the Jewish state a pass when the results are awful or even genocidal as they are in Gaza. And there is a certain irony in how it all plays out going in the other direction. Israel, in fact, has a history of actively spying against the United States without any real consequences to make it pay a price for such behavior. The most devastating spy ever to steal American defense secrets was Jonathan Pollard, a Jewish civilian employee of the US Navy, who stole whole rooms full of classified information in the 1980s, including the beyond top secret National Security Agency‘s ten-volume manual on how the US gathers its signal intelligence, to include the technical details of how the US collected information on its actual enemies during the Cold War, revealing aspects of US intelligence gathering’s “sources and methods.” The defense information went to Israel where it was used in part to trade for visas from Moscow so Russian Jews could emigrate, certainly arguably a good cause, but paid for by damaging US security. Other US classified information went from Tel Aviv to China. Condemned to a life prison sentence, Pollard actually spent years in jail, where, in 1995, he became an Israeli citizen, but he was eventually released under parole in 2015 requiring him to stay in the United States. The parole requirement was canceled by President Donald Trump and Pollard immediately returned to Israel where he was celebrated as a hero. So much for Israel as America’s good friend and ally.

By another definition, Rahman, even if found guilty as charged over the sharing of classified documents, might easily be viewed as a whistleblower, revealing information that the United States government had collected on a foreign government that might lead to a war and many deaths. Rahman may have believed that the exposure of the war plans would make Israel pause and reconsider. And maybe it would also lead the United States to also reexamine its often touted “ironclad” support of everything that Israel does as excessively risky in a volatile part of the world where Washington has considerable real interests in terms of energy issues and national security.

If Rahman were to consider himself a whistleblower acting as he did as a matter of conscience, he would not be the first CIA officer to do so. John Kiriakou was an analyst and later a case officer and counterterrorism specialist for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) who worked in the Middle East, Pakistan and Greece. After leaving the Agency he became a senior investigator for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and later a consultant for ABC News, after which he became the operating manager of a political risk analysis consulting firm in Arlington Virginia. To John’s credit, he became the first US government official to confirm, during an interview with a reporter in December 2007, that waterboarding, which was simulated drowning, was routinely used to interrogate terrorist suspects, which he described as torture. One victim was reportedly waterboarded 183 times in a secret prison.

In Kiriakou’s case, as it was and still is illegal for the US government to torture people to extort a confession, the same Virginia court that is trying Rahman had to avoid allowing the potential war crimes issue to surface. So on April 5, 2012, Kiriakou was indicted, not for exposing torture, but rather for one count of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, three counts of violating the Espionage Act, and one count of “making false statements” for lying to the Agency’s Publications Review Board regarding a book that John was writing. Kiriakou pleaded not guilty and was released on bail. His time in court began on September 12th, 2012, at the District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. It was conducted as a closed hearing in line with the Classified Information Procedures Act. On October 22, 2012, Kiriakou agreed to a plea bargain of guilty to one count of passing classified information to the media, violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act and thereby avoiding a formal trial. All other charges were dropped. On January 25th, 2013, John Kiriakou was sentenced to 30 months in a federal prison. On February 3rd, 2015, Kiriakou was released to serve a final three months under house arrest at his home in Virginia. Following his release, Kiriakou said his case was not about leaking information but about exposing torture, continuing, “and I would do it all over again.”

Kiriakou, to his immense credit, never walked away from what he did, declaring firmly that the torture regime and the lies that supported it was wrong, both illegal and immoral. Was Asif Rahman a whistleblower like Kiriakou? The answer to that depends on one’s point of view as he might have been seeking to stop a war rather than start one. He may have thought that it was something that his conscience and sense of shared humanity obligated him to do without regard for the possible consequences to himself. We will see how he defends himself when he finally appears before the judges. It will possibly be a very interesting discussion about America’s values as a nation vis-à-vis the questionable behavior of the state of Israel, but instead of listening to what Rahman has to say, the public will likely be hearing something like this from those in government as echoed by the captive media: Michael Waltz, Trump’s foreign policy advisor nominee recently said “When [Secretary of State] Blinken touched down in Israel yesterday, I hope he apologized to Bibi for leaking their battle plans, and told the Israelis that they were right all along. Because the Ayatollah is in hiding right now, not because of Biden, but because of Bibi.” The sad reality is that Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has overwhelmed Joe Biden and will likely do the same to Donald Trump, has been allowed to become the prime architect of the shambles that the Middle East has become with no one but a handful of whistleblowers seeking to restore sanity.

Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.

December 18, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Syria’s de facto ruler says foreign extremists ‘deserve Syrian citizenship’

The Cradle | December 17, 2024

Abu Mohammad al-Julani, who now goes by his real name Ahmad al-Sharaa, the head of Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) and Syria’s new de facto ruler, has stated that foreign fighters who helped his organization topple the Syrian government may be allowed to receive Syrian citizenship.

Julani, the former Al-Qaeda commander and UN-designated terrorist, was asked during a press briefing in Damascus on 17 December about the status of foreign fighters who took part in the so-called Syrian revolution and who have now been present in Syria for many years,

Julani stated that foreign fighters who entered Syria for HTS to fight against the Syrian government were “part of the movement that led to the downfall of Assad and should be celebrated.”

As part of the US-backed covert war on the Syrian government, Islamic State of Iraq (later ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi dispatched Julani and a group of extremist fighters from Iraq to Syria in August 2011 to establish the Nusra Front, the official Al-Qaeda branch in Syria.

Julani’s organization carried out suicide bombing attacks in Damascus in December 2011 and January 2012 before announcing the existence of the group.

Thousands of Salafist religious extremists from dozens of countries, including Britain, Belgium, France, China, Chechnya, Tunisia, Afghanistan, and Saudi Arabia came to fight with Julani against Syria.

Julani later broke from Baghdadi, after he declared a merger between Nusra and the Islamic State of Iraq, and announced the establishment of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Nusra and ISIS began competing for the new foreign fighters who continued to flood into Syria from Turkiye.

The Nusra Front imposed fundamentalist Islamic rule on large areas of Syria under its control and committed numerous sectarian massacres, including the killing of 190 Alawites in villages in Latakia in August 2013.

“Christians to Beirut, Alawites to the grave” became a common slogan among fighters from Nusra and other armed factions fighting in Damascus.

Nusra later changed names several times and is now known as HTS.

Julani stated that the fighters in HTS have been in Syria for many years, and it should not be beyond the realm of possibility that they could be integrated into Syrian society because they believe in the same ideology and values as the Syrians.

He claimed that the number of foreign fighters in Syria has been exaggerated because no one has a clear record of how many there are.

After the Nusra Front captured Idlib Governorate in 2015, Julani’s foreign fighters occupied the homes of the Christians and other minorities who the group expelled.

During Tuesday’s press conference, Julani also stated that Syria would no longer be used as a base to attack Israel or any other nation.

Regarding a new constitution for Syria, Julani stated it will reflect the values, culture, and beliefs of the Syrian people. It will not be a constitution that is alien to the Syrian people, he added.

Syria’s minority Christians, Alawites, and Druze fear that Julani will impose a fundamentalist Islamic government on Syria that restricts their rights similar to that imposed by Nusra in areas of Syria in the past.

December 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘Profiting from mass immigration to Germany’ – Israeli-owned firm could earn €300 million housing migrants in Berlin

Remix News | December 18, 2024

An Israeli real estate firm based out of Luxembourg is set to profit massively from Germany’s migrant crisis. Currently, the Berlin Senate is preparing to approve a plan to pay the firm €157 million to accommodate 1,500 migrants in an office complex until 2035 in Berlin’s Westend.

The Aroundtown group is already earning €143 million for an accommodation in Lichtenberg in the east of Berlin. The Senate was set to decide on the building’s future on Dec. 11, but that decision has now been pushed back to January due to opposition from the Christian Democrats (CDU) and various citizens’ groups. If it eventually goes through, the company would earn €300 million over the next 10 years in total between the two different projects.

German news outlet NIUS has reviewed court documents related to the case. The building at Soorstrasse 80 is located in the middle-class Berlin Westend, and according NIUS, the Senate is ready to pay a “whopping” sum to house the migrants, far higher than what the actual real estate market in the area would normally be able to obtain.

“A state government that dreams of diversity and sustainability has no qualms about doing business with a real estate company based in Luxembourg that could not care less about the concerns of local residents,” writes NIUS.

Notably, Berlin is run by a Christian Democrat (CDU) mayor, Kai Wegner, who is notably extremely pro-migrant. His government has been actively looking for accommodations for migrants as the Berlin-Tegel reception center, which is housed in the former airport, is currently overflowing and facing massive problems.

The office space in Westend, which is 32,000 square meters of space, would earn the Israeli-owned firm an extraordinary sum of money.

According to the documents obtained by NIUS, the agreed to rent per square meter is €25.02 per square meter per month. Included in this sum is €8.80 per square meter for “conversion and refurbishment measures” because the real estate company is paying for converting the office tower into a migrant shelter.

However, the real estate portal ImmoScout24 states that the average rent in the area is €14.46 as of October 2024, which means the rent is nearly twice as high as market rates. In addition, of the 32,000 square meters in the space, only 23,000 square meters can actually be used, according to the State Office for Refugee Affairs.

However, the building management costs are also extremely high, equaling an additional €10 per square meter compared to the average of €2.79 for Berlin renters. That is three times as high as average. The Senate will pay €1.2 million per month based on these sums, which will be increased at a rate of 3 percent per year due to annual rent indexation.

In total, the real estate firm will earn €156.7 million over the course of 10 years, far higher than market prices.

To illustrate this point, at least one private investor wanted to purchase the building in the summer of 2024 for €45 million. However, the Israeli owners are going to be earning more than three times as much merely by renting out the office building. Afterward, they could theoretically sell the building and earn an enormous profit on top of the €156 million they already earned from German taxpayers.

The firm that owns the building is “Projekt Soorstraße 80-82 Berlin Grundstücks GmbH,” which is a company in the “opaque corporate network of the Tel Aviv-born investor Amir Dayan, who comes from one of the richest families in Israel,” according to the NIUS report.

“Since 2008, he has been buying up commercial properties on a large scale, especially in Germany. Dayan’s main company, TLG Immobilien AG, later merged with the real estate group Aroundtown – and so the office complex on Soorstrasse passed into the hands of the Luxembourg-based company.”

The report continues: “Aroundtown, in turn, was founded 20 years ago by the Israeli businessman Yakir Gabay. It is now one of the largest real estate companies in Europe. Gabay followed a similar principle to Dayan. In 2004, the now 58-year-old began investing in Berlin real estate. The group has its formal headquarters in the tax haven of Luxembourg, but its operational headquarters are in Berlin-Tegel at Wittestrasse 30. The subsidiary “Projekt Soorstrasse 80-82 Berlin Grundstücks ApS & Co. eGbR” is also based there.”

The company, which specialized in buying up “problem” properties others did not want, has faced serious losses in recent years, amounting to nearly €2.5 billion in 2024. Its stock price has declined dramatically from 8.70 euros down to 90 cents and currently, it is back up to approximately 3.18.

“In these difficult times, Aroundtown is apparently moving towards a new business model. While the industry is fighting for survival, it is profiting from mass immigration to Germany. The state as tenant promises guaranteed payments of millions,” writes NIUS.

December 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Leave a comment

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