‘Stunning admissions’: White House pressured FDA to cut corners on COVID vaccine approvals in order to push mandates
By Brenda Baletti, Ph.D. | The Defender | June 28, 2024
The Biden administration pressured the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to “change its procedures, cut corners, and lower agency standards,” to approve Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccines and authorize boosters, according to a congressional report released earlier this week.
The approval was key to facilitating the Biden administration’s rollout of the fall 2021 vaccine mandates, despite safety concerns about the shots, according to the report.
“During the pandemic, politics overruled science at the government institutions entrusted with protecting public health,” Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) said in a press release announcing the report.
“The FDA abandoned its congressional directive to protect citizens from false claims and undisclosed side effects, and instead ignored its own rules to pursue a policy of promoting the vaccine while downplaying potential harms,” he added.
As a result, according to the report, “countless Americans” suffer from vaccine side effects and the FDA has lost credibility with the public.
Following the report’s release a U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Subcommittee held a hearing Wednesday — “Follow the Science?: Oversight of the Biden Covid-19 Administrative State Response” — during which Dr. Philip Krause, former deputy director of the FDA’s Office of Vaccines Research and Review (OVRR) vaccine products provided evidence to support the report’s conclusions.
Krause testified that both he and OVRR Director Marion Gruber were relieved of their responsibilities overseeing the COVID-19 vaccines review process because the administration wanted to rush FDA approval on a faster timeline than their office could deliver and push forward the fall mandates, Vinay Prasad, M.D., MPH, reported.
The approval process was then pushed through by the director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research, Peter Marks, M.D., Ph.D., and then-Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock.
Documents obtained by Children’s Health Defense (CHD) through a Freedom of Information Act Request also showed that in early 2021, both Marks and Woodcock were aware of injuries linked to the vaccines.
Krause testified that the original timeline to complete the review process for Pfizer’s Biologics License Application (BLA) for its mRNA COVID-19 product was January 2022, but the team was already shooting to have the process completed earlier.
In early July 2021, “something had happened to completely change the opinion of Drs. Marks and Woodcock regarding the urgency of completing the BLA review,” Krause testified. “It was so important to them that they did not trust the experts who led the Office of Vaccines to do it, even with their help,” he said.
Krause told the committee that on July 19, he and Gruber were taken off the review process and Marks took it over himself.
He added:
“In this meeting, Drs. Woodcock and Marks expressed concern about the rising number of COVID cases in the US and globally, largely caused by the Delta variant and stated their opinion that, absent a license, states cannot require mandatory vaccination and that people hesitant to get an EUA authorized vaccine would be more inclined to get immunized if the product were licensed.”
Marks informed staff that the goal was to complete the review as rapidly as possible, Krause said. Pfizer’s Comirnaty COVID-19 vaccine was licensed on Aug. 23, 2021.
“As predicted by Drs. Woodcock and Marks, vaccine mandates followed immediately afterwards and were announced the same day for DoD [U.S. Department of Defense] and for New York State,” Krause said.
He said that the speed with which the mandates were implemented following authorization, “suggested that the rapid review of the vaccine was motivated more by a desire to mandate vaccines than by other public health considerations.”
Given that mandates are outside of the FDA’s purview, he added, the fact that Marks and Woodcock cited the need for mandates as a reason to speed the review “strongly implies that pressure to complete the review” more rapidly than planned came from outside of the FDA, he added.
When Krause and Gruber tried to implement a slower and more deliberative process, they were demoted, Prasad wrote.
As a result, they both left the agency at the end of 2021.
Prasad noted the mandates were issued only after the administration knew the vaccine couldn’t stop transmission and “as such, the mandates were unethical.”
“Krause’s testimony shows the Biden administration engaged in inappropriate political tampering with the FDA, and the FDA leaders — Woodcock and Marks — folded to political pressure,” he added.
Woodcock, now retired from the FDA, has since expressed regret about not doing more to respond to the concerns of the vaccine-injured, telling The New York Times she is “disappointed” in herself
Marks is still at the FDA, where Prasad said he “has been doing a bad job,” recently authorizing a product from Sarepta Therapeutics despite a failed study and a negative decision from reviewers.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., independent presidential candidate and CHD’s chairman on leave, tweeted that Marks also made commercials for the vaccine, claiming it was safe and effective in pregnancy and for children. “Had Pfizer said that, it would have been a crime,” Kennedy said.
In his testimony, Krause also made a series of comments confirming early knowledge of myocarditis — with rates as high as 1 in 5,000 for young men in early studies — and the protection conferred by natural immunity.
He also said that he did not take a booster shot.
Chief Nerd called Krause’s comments “stunning admissions” and posted a video clip on X.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Iran’s iron ore reserves estimated at over 5bn tons: Mine owner
Press TV – June 29, 2024
A mine owner in Iran says the country’s iron ore reserves are estimated at some 5 billion metric tons (mt), as he insists that official figures should be revised up to show the real state of iron mines in Iran and their potential for investment.
Mehrdad Akbarian, who also chairs Iran’s Association of Iron Ore Producers and Exporters (IROPEX), said on Saturday that figures announced by the Iranian government about unproven iron ore reserves, which is about 3.2 billion mt, do not properly represent a rough estimate of recoverable iron in the country.
“Unfortunately, the official figures do not match the realities on the ground,” Akbarian told the ILNA news agency.
“That comes as reserves can further expand with progress in technology, increased mining and investment in exploration,” he added.
The businessman said that the total iron ore mined in Iran since the industry was formed several decades ago has not exceeded 0.6 billion mt.
Akbarian insisted that increased supply of energy, including electricity and natural gas, to Iranian steel plants can lead to more activity in iron mines.
Iran has produced more steel in recent years mainly due to increased government support as part of a policy to diversify the economy away from oil exports.
Iranian steel exports have increased steadily since the US imposed sanctions on the country in 2018.
Iran is currently the 10th largest steel producer in the world with more than 30 million mt of annual output.
Increased production caused the country to move up to 7th in the global ranking of steel producers during some calendar months of last year.
The UN Smothers the Peoples with Compassion
By Thi Thuy Van Dinh and David Bell | Brownstone Institute | June 27, 2024
“We The Peoples of the United Nations determined (…) to promote social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom,”
United Nations Charter Preamble (1945)
The United Nations (UN) Secretariat will hold the next Summit of the Future in New York on 22-23 September 2024. It is a vast political program covering the noblest of causes including poverty reduction, human rights, environment, climate change, development, and the welfare and rights of children, youth, and women. World leaders are expected to endorse a declaratory Pact for the Future, and commit to act toward its realization.
It all looks wonderful. As in days of old, the rich, powerful, and entitled are coming to rescue us from ourselves and make us live better lives. Freedom, after all, is intrinsically unsafe.
This is the first in a series that will look at the plans of the UN system designing and implementing this new agenda, covering implications for global health, economic development, and human rights.
Amidst all the hype and posturing regarding the negotiations on pandemic texts at the recent 77th World Health Assembly (WHA) in Geneva (Switzerland), perhaps the most consequential resolution before the WHA slipped through, approved, but virtually unnoticed. The Resolution WHA77.14 on Climate Change and Health was approved without debate, opening the door for the World Health Organization (WHO) ─ a UN specialized agency ─ to claim a broad swath of normal human activity as a potential threat to health, and therefore coming under the purview of the WHO’s detached business-class bureaucrats.
It was highlighted by a Strategic Roundtable on “Climate change and health: a global vision for joint action,” where speakers, moderated by the Lancet’s Editor-in-Chief Richard Horton, included WHO Director-General (DG) Tedros Ghebreyesus, former US Vice President Al Gore (by video message), and CEO of the 28th Climate Conference of States Parties Adnan Amin.
The Resolution was proposed by a coalition of 16 countries (Barbados, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Fiji, Georgia, Kenya, Moldova, Monaco, Netherlands, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Slovenia, United Arab Emirates, and the UK) and passed without changes, mandating the DG to: i) develop a “results-based, needs-oriented and capabilities-driven global WHO plan of action on climate change and health,” ii) serve as a global leader in the field of climate change and health by establishing a WHO Roadmap to Net Zero by 2030, and iii) report back to future WHA sessions.
United Nations System’s “Newspeak” on Climate Change
There is little surprise in this. It is another predictable move on the global climate chessboard. In the last decade, activities and documents from the UN system have increasingly included climate change as a “newspeak” to signal full compliance with the official narrative.
The head of the UN system, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, is known for pushing the narrative further. In 2019, he posed in water for a picture for Time Magazine’s coverage on “Our sinking planet.” Last summer, he announced that “the era of global warming has ended…the era of global boiling has arrived.”
On 2024 World Environment Day (5th June), he doubled down on his rhetoric: “In the case of climate, we are not the dinosaurs. We are the meteor. We are not only in danger. We are the danger.” We are, it appears, a poison on our planet.
Satellite entities have wildly added their creativity and imagination: UNEP hammering on the “triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature and biodiversity loss,” UNICEF reporting on the “climate changed-child,” UNWOMEN discovering the “interconnection between climate change and gender inequality,” OHCHR claiming that “climate change threatens the effective enjoyment of a range of human rights including those to life, water and sanitation, food, health, housing, self-determination, culture and development,” and UNESCO fully committed “to addressing the impact of climate change on culture, and to enhancing the potential of culture for global climate action.”
Nomination of First Ever WHO Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health
As for WHO, DG Tedros Ghebreyesus has also demonstrated his mastery of dogmatic claims. Climate change, he insists, constitutes “one of the biggest health threats” and “the climate crisis is a health crisis.” His mandate has therefore been broadened from specific environmental issues including air pollution from particulates and chemicals to the whole climate change spectrum. In 2023, the WHO estimated that “between 2030 and 2050, climate change is expected to cause approximately 250,000 additional deaths per year, from undernutrition, malaria, diarrhoea and heat stress alone.”
Strangely, however, deaths attributable to cold weather, estimated at 4.6 million globally per year, were not weighed in balance. Nor are inevitable deaths from undernutrition related to a lack of accessible energy for agriculture and transport. Accounting for a reduction in such deaths would significantly reduce projected mortality and perhaps demonstrate an overall advantage. For instance, rising CO2 has increased plant growth and contributed to the world’s ability to feed 8 billion people, an achievement once considered impossible and is obviously highly critical to maintaining health.
The WHO’s leaders have become bolder. In June 2023, in a minor lapse of equity, inclusion, and transparency criteria, the DG appointed Dr Vanessa Kerry as “the first ever” Special Envoy for Climate Change and Health for being “a renowned global health expert and medical doctor and CEO of Seed Global Health.” The press release overlooked any connection with her father, former US Secretary of State John Kerry ─ a key US Democratic politician, well-known personality at UN climate forums, and first-ever US Presidential Envoy for Climate (January 2021-March 2024). Her nomination, apparently, was purely meritocratic.
It is estimated that $27.6 million is required to create the reports implementing the 2024 Resolution. Now, $20 million will come from WHO’s biennial 2024-25 budget, and the gap of $7.6 million will be raised through WHO’s continued “discussions with Member States, development agencies and philanthropic organizations.” People who will, perhaps, benefit from the WHO pushing the products they have invested in, such as heavily processed substitutes to (climate-harming) natural foods.
Misleading Resolution WHA77.14 on the “Link between Health, Environment and Climate Change”
All of this appears to follow conventional political and diplomatic playbooks. It comes unstuck if one applies a critical look at how Resolution WHA77.14 was built.
It referred to Resolution WHA61.19 (adopted in 2008) on climate change and health, Resolution WHA68.8 (adopted in 2005) addressing the health impact of air pollution, and Resolution WHA76.17 (adopted in 2023) on the impact of chemicals, waste, and pollution on human health as follows.
Recalling resolution WHA61.19 (2008) on climate change and health and welcoming the work carried out so far by WHO in pursuit of it;
Recalling also resolution WHA68.8 (2015) on addressing the health impact of air pollution and resolution WHA76.17 (2023) on the impact of chemicals, waste and pollution on human health, which recognize the link between health, environment and climate change;
Resolution WHA61.19 was adopted based on a WHO report “Climate change and health.” This report stated that “There is now a strong, global scientific consensus that warming of the climate system is unequivocal, and is caused by human activity, primarily the burning of fossil fuels which releases greenhouse gases into the atmosphere” (para. 1) and that “WHO has, for several years, stressed that the health risks posed by climate change are significant, distributed throughout the globe, and difficult to reverse” (para. 2). These affirmations were made without assessment of levels of evidence (strong, moderate, weak), of the extent to which (modifiable) human activity is involved, or of the actual positive versus negative impacts of higher temperatures (and atmospheric CO2).
Contrary to the statements by Resolution WHA77.14, neither Resolution WHA68.8 nor Resolution WHA76.17 mentioned climate change in the context of pollutants. Excluding rare natural phenomena, particulate and chemical air pollution do result from human activities, including indoor air pollution (e.g. cookstoves) and transport and industrial waste. Hence, these past Resolutions recognized a link between these pollutants and human health, which is common sense. They did not recognize a link between health, environment, and climate change.
Nevertheless, we can probably relax and wait. The WHO’s upcoming reports can be expected to claim a link. They have $27 million to spend on that.
The Climate Agenda Versus “We the Peoples”
It is easy for wealthy self-proclaimed philanthropists and international and governmental bureaucrats to call for phasing out fossil fuels. Living on tax-paid salaries in secure jobs, in economies made rich through the availability of cheap energy, they are able to renew their commitment annually at the Conference of States Parties (COP) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, ignoring the reality that their very ability to be there is due to fossil fuels. The most recent venues ─ Dubai, Sharm-El-Sheik, and Glasgow ─ all built their prosperity on this same energy base.
Being obsessed with the man-made climate narrative, the UN system pushes poor countries to adopt green energies for lighting and cooking, rather than developing the large-scale energy infrastructure that still forms the backbone of wealthier societies.
There seems to be no shame vis-a-vis 2.3 billion people on earth that, according to the WHO, must still rely on dirty and dangerous cooking fuels such as cow dung, charcoal, and wood ─ negatively impacting women and children’s health through particulate air pollution. Increasing the cost of fossil fuels directly increases further deforestation and resultant desertification (and regional climate change) in areas such as East Africa. It feels good, apparently, for the activists of climate COPs and Extinction Rebellion to force African women to walk further each day for firewood, denuding landscapes and their meager savings.
There seems to be no shame either when Western bilateral and multilateral largesse to low-income countries comes on the condition that they pass a “climate check,” or must be spent on developing “green” but unreliable solar and wind generation which barely supplement the base energy supplies of most donor countries. We happily burn Nigerian oil, but our virtue requires Nigerians to do better. After looting wealth through colonialism, this is rubbing noses in the dirt of the poverty left behind.
One can confidently predict that the rhetoric will continue, and more “soft laws” ─ UN declarations, strategies, plans-of-action, and agendas ─ will complement the existing “hard laws” of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and its Protocols. At the WHO, more funding will come to extend the growing industry of climate change and health, diverting financial and human resources from far greater, but less boutique, health burdens.
A plan of action will be put before a future WHA to agree to a binding document seeking to harden the 2024 Resolution into requirements. Highly questionable assumptions that pandemics and malaria, and even tuberculosis, are worsened because of climate change will be drawn to support the global plan, complementing the coming Pandemic Agreement and the massive surveillance system set up by the freshly adopted IHR Amendments to ensure pandemic lockdowns.
Malaria, tuberculosis, and diseases of undernutrition and poor hygiene are primarily diseases of poverty. People in wealthy countries live longer primarily because of improvements in sanitation, living conditions, and nutrition. These improvements were achieved by using energy for transport, to build infrastructure, and to massively improve the efficiency of agricultural production. Locking future generations in low-income countries into poverty will not improve their health and well-being.
This increasingly charade-like global health circus will, in the end, destabilize the world and harm us all. To address complex issues, the world needs rational and honest debates, rather than games played by a self-entitled few. The WHO is demonstrating that it is no longer the organization to lead us to better health. It is on us to regain control of our own future.
Saudi Arabia warns of ‘dire consequences’ of Israel’s new settlement plans in West Bank
Press TV – June 29, 2024
Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry has warned of the “dire consequences” of Israel’s plan to expand illegal settlement in the occupied West Bank.
In a statement on Saturday, the ministry slammed the Israeli regime’s decision to legitimize five new outposts in the West Bank.
Saudi Arabia opposes the “ongoing Israeli violations of international law and international legitimacy resolutions,” it added.
“These violations undermine opportunities for peace and contribute to fueling conflicts and destabilizing regional and international security and stability,” the statement read.
On Thursday, Israel’s extremist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich announced that the Security Cabinet authorized one outpost for every country that unilaterally recognized Palestine as a state in the last month.
Last month, Spain, Ireland and Norway formally recognized the Palestinian state, joining over 140 UN member states that have recognized its statehood over the past four decades.
Slovenia and Malta have also indicated they plan to formally recognize the state of Palestine.
The five settlement outposts are Evyatar, Givat Assaf, Sde Efraim, Heletz, and Adorayim.
The Organization of Islamic Cooperation in a statement on Saturday condemned Israel’s new settlement expansion plan in the West Bank.
It said all actions and decisions taken by Israel as the occupying power to perpetuate its colonial regime in the occupied Palestinian territory are null and void under international law and the relevant UN Security Council resolutions, especially UN Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016).
No slow down in US shipments of 2,000lb bombs to Israel
The Cradle | June 29, 2024
The US has sent Israel over 27,000 bombs since the start of its horrific aerial assault on Gaza in October, Reuters reported on 29 June, including 14,000 highly destructive 2,000-lb bombs that US officials have acknowledged as “inappropriate” for Israel to use.
Reuters stated that the US military had transferred at least 14,000 of the MK-84 2,000-lb bombs, 6,500 500-lb bombs, 3,000 Hellfire precision-guided air-to-ground missiles, 1,000 bunker-buster bombs, 2,600 air-dropped small-diameter bombs, and other munitions, according to US officials who were not authorized to speak publicly.
A recent US shipment of bombs to Israel was allegedly delayed due to the inclusion of 2,000-lb bombs within it. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu released a video harshly criticizing the White House for the delay.
A US official told Axios the White House’s “main concern from day one was the Israeli use of the 2,000-lb bombs in Gaza, which the administration thought was inappropriate.”
In October, Israel dropped a 2,000-lb bomb in the center of the crowded Jabaliya refugee camp, killing some 120 people.
However, Reuters notes that the totals suggest “no significant drop-off in U.S. military support for its ally,” despite the recent White House “decision to pause a shipment of powerful bombs.”
Experts told Reuters the size and contents of the shipments are sufficient for Israel to replenish weapons it has used in its eight-month bombing campaign, which has ruined much of Gaza, turning vast swathes into a “moonscape.”
In late April, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor estimated that Israel had dropped approximately 70,000 tons of bombs on Gaza since the start of the war, an amount far surpassing the US and allied bombing of Dresden, Hamburg, and London combined during World War II.
Israeli leaders say that major combat operations in Gaza are winding down and that they are now shifting troops and resources to fight against the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah, on the northern front.
While the US provides detailed descriptions and quantities of military aid sent to Ukraine to fight Russia, the White House has revealed few details about the full extent of US weapons and munitions sent to Israel, Reuters added.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has led the effort to supply bombs to Israel that have slaughtered over 37,000 Palestinians, the majority women and children.
In January, 19 Democratic lawmakers called Blinken’s decision to unilaterally approve two emergency weapons sales to Israel without congressional approval “highly unusual.”
Israel Lobby Cash Dominates and Perverts American Elections
Where is the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 when you really need it?
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • JUNE 28, 2024
Once upon a time the United States of America was a constitutional republic that was by design constructed with checks and balances to limit corruption and constrain the ability of any branch of government to initiate certain potentially harmful actions, like going to war, which required approval by both Congress and the Executive Branch. Of course, that was 261 years ago and things change over time. Today’s America, what claims to be both a democracy and the issuer plus enforcer of international rules and norms, is arguably one of the most corrupt as well as most disliked countries on earth, with a political system that is exceptionally vulnerable to those who have deep pockets and a willingness to spend freely to obtain favors from the professional politicians and bureaucrats who now proliferate throughout the system.
If one measures the consequences arising from all the corruption, there is no better example than the heavily lopsided relationship with Israel, which has been produced through the infusion of hundreds of billions of dollars coming primarily from Jewish billionaire and corporate sources. Casino magnate Sheldon Adelson famously gifted Donald Trump with $100 million and in return received what he demanded, i.e. a United States decision to move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and a recognition that Jerusalem would be recognized as the country’s capital, which was illegal under international law. Additionally, Trump’s team headed by Israeli apologist Ambassador David Friedman, brought about the recognition of the Jewish state’s annexation of the occupied formerly Syrian Golan Heights, also an illegal concession, and the de facto granting of a free hand to Israel for dealing with the Palestinians as it sees fit, which is playing out currently. Trump also was in the business of canceling a nuclear monitoring agreement with Iran, which was very much in the US interest, and the assassination senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard commander Qassim Soleimani, a war crime.
The heavily pro-Israel policies have not developed in the US because of some actual affinity between the two nations but rather because of great dollops of Jewish money liberally applied to politicians and journalists to create a myth of an actual beneficial alliance between the two to produce a narrative that the US public would be inclined to accept. In this massive coordinated effort by what is euphemistically referred to as the Israel Lobby there is no more active entity than the basically illegal American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its conjoined AIPAC-Political Action Committee, which delivers the cash and also the intimidation of political candidates who do not embrace the Jewish state with enthusiasm. Such dissidents are marked for removal through the surfacing of opposing prospective candidates who are particularly well-funded and sure to receive exceptionally favorable press. In the current round of primaries just concluded, AIPAC-Pac has boasted that it has achieved 100% success as “an AIPAC-endorsed candidate has won in every district (224 races) where an endorsee was on the ballot. All 90 AIPAC-backed Democrats who have had their primary races in 2024 have won. These Democrats are strong pro-Israel voices. 134 AIPAC-backed Republicans have [also]won their elections. Being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.”
How does it work? As international lawyer John Whitbeck has described the process “the primary reasons why virtually all members of the US Congress prioritize the desires of the Israeli government over the interests of the American people are money and fear — and particularly the fear of all the money that Israel-Firsters will devote to ending your political career, most notably through primary elections, if you manifest anything less than unconditional support and/or abject subservience to Israel.” In the most recent primary in New York state, AIPAC boasts over having devoted a record $15 million, a record amount spent on a primary election, to delivering exemplary punishment to end the political career of Representative Jamaal Bowman, a rare progressive in Congress who has been an outspoken critic of Israeli apartheid and genocide. Among other damnation of Bowman’s record, he was inevitably accused of “antisemitism.” Only a single such example every few years has proven to be enough to keep virtually all members of Congress in line. One might ask former Congressmen like Cynthia McKinney and others in a long line who felt the wrath of AIPAC and its sister organizations. That would include now deceased Senators William Fulbright, Charles Percy and James Abourezk and Congressmen Paul Findley, Pete McCloskey and Jim Traficant.
It has recently been revealed that nearly all congressional candidates are routinely and openly approached by AIPAC representatives who ask in advance their views on Israel. If they are cooperative, sometimes requiring a written statement of intent, they are given a pass and can count on financial support and favorable media. If they are not, they are marked for removal. And one can even sympathize with members of Congress who are self-defined careerists in politics, as, again per Whitbeck, “what is the point, when all around you are groveling flat-out- prone in subservience to Israel, in raising your head on a matter of principle? Your head will simply be cut off, and nothing will change for the better as a result of your sacrifice. There is really no rational choice but to faithfully follow the orders of your ‘AIPAC babysitter.’” The “babysitter” is an AIPAC endorsed staffer placed in nearly every congressional office to monitor and report on Israel issues, a development which has recently been revealed by Congressman Tom Massie while being interviewed by Tucker Carlson.
So how do we limit the ability of Israel to corrupt America’s political system to such an extent that many now believe that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu controls US foreign policy while his domestic lobby creatures at the same time influence as well many other aspects of how the government operates at state and national levels? And why do I refer to the actions of AIPAC and other groups as illegal? Israel is able to act with impunity because of the undeniable powerful influence of its domestic US lobby coupled with its skill at being able to hide what it is up to. The Lobby also has a free hand because the federal government does not enforce its own laws when it comes to the illegally nuclear armed Jewish state. AIPAC, not to mention groups like the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), are actually acting as directed agents of the Israeli government and therefore subject to the terms of the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938 which requires organizations that take foreign direction regarding their activities to open up their books and records to scrutiny. It also requires some transparency vis-à-vis their contacts and relationships with the Israeli Embassy and the country’s Foreign Ministry and intelligence and security agencies.
The Act is usually referred to as FARA and was originally intended to monitor groups acting on behalf of the German and Italian governments prior to World War 2. It has since been used to limit the activity of Russian and other entities that have operated in the US but has never been applied against Israel, in itself yet another indication of the power of the Israel Lobby and its ability to suppress any exposure of its activities. Journalist and lawyer Isaiah Kenen had founded the American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs (AZCPA) as a lobbying division of the American Zionist Council in 1953 but it soon separated from AZC and became AIPAC in 1954. Kenen, an actual lobbyist for the Israeli government, had earlier worked for the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. AIPAC is today generally considered the most powerful and wealthiest Israeli lobby in the United States. President John F. Kennedy and his brother Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy understood the threat that it represented and sought to compel both AZC and AIPAC to register under FARA but JFK was assassinated shortly thereafter, which have led many to believe that the killing was a Mossad job. Registration under FARA would have inter alia blocked any funding of US political parties and politicians by those groups acting in support of Israeli interests. It would with one stroke take away much of Israel’s ability to corrupt America’s political system in its favor.
In comments to my articles I am often asked what can we ordinary Americans do to bring the Israeli influencers in this country under control. Well, after recognizing that there is a problem, a partial answer is there by enforcing FARA. One needs to put pressure on individual congressmen and the White House through the media to register AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups. Corrupting money is the key to their power and if the spigot of cash is shut off to the politicians and parties their influence will be greatly diminished. And don’t be surprised if there will be many politicians who are privately ashamed at what has been going on who will suddenly become supporters of control over the Jewish groups. The Lobby has been bad for America and not even particularly good for Israel as “sacrosanct” US support for Israel, as Joe Biden puts it, has freed folks like Netanyahu to engage in very dangerous enterprises for his own country as in Gaza and also against its neighbors and for so-called allies like the US. Time to put an end to the status quo.
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.
Five people killed in Ukrainian drone strike on Russian region – governor
RT | June 29, 2024
Five people have been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on a settlement in Russia’s Kursk Region, local governor Aleksey Smirnov has said.
A quadcopter UAV dropped an explosive device on a residential building in the village of Gorodische, near the border with Ukraine overnight, Smirnov wrote on Telegram on Saturday.
“To our great sorrow, five people were killed as a result of the discharge, including two small children,” he said. Two more members of the same family were hospitalized in critical condition, he added.
On Saturday, Russia’s Defense Ministry said at least six attempts by “the Kiev regime to carry out terrorist attacks on Russian territory with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles” were intercepted overnight.
Russian air defenses destroyed two drones in Tver Region, one in Bryansk Region, one in Belgorod Region and two in Crimea, the statement read.
READ MORE: Civilians killed on Sevastopol beach were ‘occupiers’ – top Zelensky aide
The Russian regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, all of which border Ukraine, have been the targets of Ukrainian missile, mortar and drone attacks almost on a daily basis since the outbreak of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. The strikes have targeted energy infrastructure and residential areas, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries, as well as the destruction of property.
Robert Hur Emerges as the Clear Winner in the Presidential Debate
By Jonathan Turley | June 28, 2024
The presidential debate last night was chilling to watch as President Joe Biden clearly struggled to retain his focus and, at points, seemed hopelessly confused. The winner was clear: Special Counsel Robert Hur. For months, Democrats in Congress and the media have attacked Hur for his report that the president came across as an “elderly man with a poor memory.” Hur concluded that prosecuting Biden would be difficult because a jury would view him as a sympathetic figure of a man with declining mental capabilities. That was evident last night and the question is whether a man who was too diminished to be a criminal defendant can still be a president for four more years.
Hur laid out evidence that President Biden had unlawfully retained and mishandled classified evidence for decades. However, he also concluded that “at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory.” He found that “it would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him—by then a former president well into his eighties—of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
What has followed is the usual pile-on in the media with legal analysts, press, and pundits denouncing Hur for his findings.
Hur likely does not anticipate any apologies even as commentators on CNN and MSNBC admit that there are now unavoidable questions of Biden’s ability to be the nominee.
Democrats have repeatedly insisted that Hur did not find Biden diminished and that he actually was impressed by his memory and mental acuity. Hur contradicted that in his own testimony before Congress.
Indeed, the denial campaign took on a bizarre character, particularly when Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D., Wash.) insisted that Hur “exonerated” Biden. Hur pushed back: “I need to go back and make sure that I take note of a word that you used, ‘exoneration.’ That is not a word that is used in my report and that is not a part of my task as a prosecutor.”
Jayapal shot back, “You exonerated him.”
Hur responded, “I did not exonerate him. That word does not appear in the report.”
The debate also further undermines the ridiculous effort of the Biden Administration to continue to withhold the audiotape of the Hur interview as privileged (despite saying that the transcript is not privileged).
The debate showed not only what Hur saw but why the Justice Department is making a clearly laughable privilege claim to delay any release of the audiotape until after the election.
‘Epic Waste of $500 Million’: Scientists Slam HHS Funding for ‘Next-Gen’ COVID Oral and Nasal Vaccine Trials
By John-Michael Dumais | The Defender | June 24, 2024
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has announced up to $500 million in funding for clinical trials of three next-generation COVID-19 vaccine candidates, including two nasal sprays and an oral pill.
The initiative, part of the $5 billion Project NextGen, aims to develop innovative vaccines that are easier to administer and provide improved protection against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
The funding, awarded through the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) under HHS’ Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR), will support Phase 2b clinical trials for Vaxart‘s oral pill vaccine (up to $453 million) and CyanVac’s (up to $40 million) and Castlevax’s ($34 million) intranasal vaccines.
Each company’s phase 2b trials will recruit 10,000 volunteers to compare the safety and efficacy of the investigational vaccine against the existing mRNA vaccines.
ASPR Assistant Secretary Dawn O’Connell said in a news release that the new vaccines “may … be easier to administer through intranasal or oral delivery.” The announcement suggests the delivery methods have the “potential to improve vaccine access.”
However, the new delivery methods also raise unique concerns, especially the nasal vaccines, which use modified viruses as vectors.
Vaccine researcher Jessica Rose, Ph.D., told The Defender that she’s concerned about vaccine shedding and the possibility of pharmaceutical companies aerosolizing their products and administering them “without public knowledge as part of a ‘vaccination’ run.”
Brian Hooker, Ph.D., Children’s Health Defense chief scientific officer, echoed Rose’s concern about potential vaccine shedding, calling it a “nightmare like other live-virus vaccine formulations.”
Hooker told The Defender that because COVID-19 mutates rapidly, “immunity will still wane precipitously” for the new vaccine candidates, just as it did with the existing mRNA vaccines.
The new vaccines are “just more ‘me too’ technologies that are late to the party for COVID-19,” he said.
UGA spins off nasal vax biotech firm
University of Georgia (UGA) vaccine development spinoff CyanVac (an affiliate of Blue Lake Biotechnology) is set to begin phase 2b clinical trials for a new nasal COVID-19 vaccine, CVXGA. The study will be conducted through BARDA’s clinical studies network.
CyanVac founder Dr. Biao He, chair of veterinary medicine at UGA, leads the team behind CVXGA. He served on a White House panel in July 2022 advising on the future of COVID-19 vaccines, where he specifically promoted nasal vaccines.
CVXGA is a Parainfluenza virus 5 (PIV5)-based vaccine that encodes the spike protein of SARS-CoV-2.
Formally known as simian virus 5, PIV5 is often referred to as canine parainfluenza virus in the veterinary field, where it is a contributing factor to kennel cough in dogs. PIV5-based vaccines have been used to prevent kennel cough, reportedly without any safety concerns.
“PIV5 is a novel intranasal vaccine vector that has been shown to replicate safely in humans in clinical trials and stimulates all three pillars of immunity — cellular, mucosal, and humoral — with minimal uncomfortable side effects,” Dr. He said in the company’s press release.
Rose cautioned that some studies (here, here and here) have associated PIV5 with human diseases such as Creutzfeldt‐Jakob disease and multiple sclerosis, but noted that later research was unable to confirm PIV5 as the cause. “More research needs to be done before this is used as a viral vector in humans,” she said.
Currently, there are no licensed vaccines for humans that contain PIV5. However, besides the CVGXA COVID-19 vaccine, PIV5 is under development for vaccines targeting various human and animal infectious diseases, including Lyme disease, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), influenza, rabies, tuberculosis and MERS-CoV.
Castlevax promises ‘game-changing’ spike protein vax
BARDA provided Castlevax, in collaboration with the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, $34 million for its phase 2b trial of its intranasal vaccine candidate CVAX-01 beginning in Q4 2024.
The company is projected to receive as much as $338 million from BARDA for its COVID-19 “booster” vaccine.
Castlevax calls its vaccine “a next-generation COVID-19 vaccine with game-changing potential” with a design that “holds spike protein firmly in pre-fusion conformation, leading to more efficient induction of neutralizing antibodies.” It promises to “deliver reduced rates of breakthrough infections.”
Its vaccine, NDV-HXP-S, uses a recombinant Newcastle disease virus (NDV) that expresses the spike protein. The spike protein has been modified to contain six mutations by the HexaPro (HXP) technology developed at a University of Texas (UT), Austin laboratory.
HXP promises to make the spike protein more stable compared to older mRNA vaccines, which only contain two mutations. “Human antibodies recognize and respond to Hexapro better since the spike protein is less prone to shifting shapes,” according to a UT lab researcher.
The vaccine is grown in chicken eggs, a method commonly used to produce flu vaccines.
Castlevax boasts of having “multiple COVID-19 products in Phase 2 through Emergency Use Authorization, while we’re simultaneously developing a bivalent mucosal RSV+HMPV [human metapneumovirus] vaccine and a mucosal Norovirus vaccine.”
Promises and dangers of nasal vaccines
Hooker noted that nasal vaccines can be effective. “Mucosal immunity provides defenses at the mucous membrane level through a type of antibody called secretory IgA [immunoglobin A] along with humoral IgG and IgM antibodies,” he said.
But he cautioned that due to the observed rapid mutation in SARS-CoV-2 variants, “Long-term efficacy will be nil” for these vaccines.
Live virus nasal vaccines have been used for flu for years, he said, suggesting these latest entries are “looking for entry into the ‘annual’ COVID-19 vaccination market opportunity.”
Rose pointed out that EcoHealth Alliance’s 2018 DEFUSE proposal to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) included a plan to aerosolize bat vaccines and deliver them at the mouths of caves in China.
“They hired an aerosol tech company to find the best way to administer their products,” she said.
When she saw this part of the proposal, Rose speculated the technique could readily be used to vaccinate people without their consent. “Given that everything they’ve done so far has been from questionable to illegal, I really have to wonder.”
Hooker added that the three BARDA-funded projects use live-virus vaccines that are “notoriously bad for pregnant women.”
Oral pill targets epithelial cells
Vaxart will receive up to $453 million from BARDA to develop an oral pill vaccine, which is also just entering phase 2b clinical trials.
“Vaccine delivery has relied primarily on injection for more than 150 years,” said Steven Lo, Vaxart’s CEO in the press release. “This funding from BARDA will assist us in determining whether we can bring a transformational, next-generation approach to global vaccination.”
Vaxart’s pill, VXA-CoV2-1, uses an adenovirus vector to infect epithelial cells in the lower small intestine. The vaccine delivers the genetic material to create the spike protein. The company boasts that a special coating allows the oral pill to survive the low pH in the stomach.
Adenovirus vaccines reportedly cannot make you sick, and cannot replicate or be integrated into the host body’s DNA.
Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) and AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccines also used adenovirus vectors.
The use of J&J’s vaccine was paused in April 2021 due to reports of thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), a severe blood clotting disorder. In July 2021, the FDA warned about the risk of Guillain-Barré syndrome with the J&J vaccine after approximately 100 cases were reported among 12.8 million vaccine recipients. With existing doses of the J&J vaccine having expired in May 2023, the vaccine is no longer in use.
AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine also caused blood clots, resulting in temporary pauses in its use in several countries. With declining demand, it was also removed from the market in May 2023.
Trials set ‘a horribly low bar’
The two nasal and one oral vaccine candidates are all entering phase 2b trials where their safety and efficacy will be compared to the available FDA-approved mRNA vaccines.
Hooker said that this sets “a horribly low bar for comparison given that the ‘control’ group is now subjected to the vaccine that has the worst safety profile in history.”
He underscored that the mRNA vaccines offer “extremely limited and sometimes negative efficacy, and no utility in terms of prevention of transmission,” and argued that using them as comparators for the candidate vaccines would be next to useless.
“Basically, almost anything short of a vial of arsenic would perform comparably,” he said.
“Given the low morbidity/mortality of the currently circulating COVID-19 strains, this is an epic waste of $500 million,” he said. “Their ROI [return on investment] will essentially be a bunch of sick people with vaccine injuries.”
Rose said that long-term efficacy cannot be guaranteed “based on failure of maintained efficacy in COVID-19 product prototypes. This is precisely why they keep pushing ‘boosters.’”
Hooker also questioned the review and approval process for the new vaccines. He said:
“As far as independence, safeguards and transparency, those are now gone. Not because of this particular clinical trial entry, but because of the shamfest that FDA was and still is with the EUA [emergency use authorization] and approvals granted during the plandemic.
“All the tricks that they (Dr. Peter Marks and company) pulled like trying to prevent the release of clinical trial documents, approving without human trials, the joke that is CICP [Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program], etc., really spell death for any integrity in the approvals process.”
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
If the war expands, will western facilities become the new target banks?
The Cradle | June 28, 2024
Israel’s brutal, nine-month military assault on Gaza has full support from several western-allied states, not only in supplying the occupation army’s war machine with a broad range of armaments and ammunition but also through direct military participation. The United States and Britain, for example, have provided vital reconnaissance and intelligence data and have sent their special forces to assist Israel in military operations.
An 8 June New York Times report revealed that US forces assisted the Israelis in retrieving four Israeli captives from Gaza’s Nuseirat refugee camp, killing at least 274 Palestinian civilians and three additional captives and leaving over 698 wounded. According to the paper’s Israeli sources, the US and UK provided intelligence from the air and cyberspace that Israel could not obtain on its own.
On 29 May, the Declassified UK media project reported that London authorized an unprecedented 60 Israel-bound flights using cargo planes that took off from the UK’s RAF Akrotiri air base in Cyprus, a facility covertly used by the US Air Force to move weapons to Israel.
The British government has not revealed the content of the air cargo transported – and maintains that no “lethal aid” is included. London instead claims that RAF flights to the occupation state are used to support its “diplomatic engagement” with Tel Aviv and repatriate British subjects – an odd use of military aircraft when Israel’s Ben Gurion Airport is still operational for regular passenger travel.
London has vigorously invoked its D-Notice since just after the war’s onset, a military and security directive aimed at preventing media outlets from publishing information that could harm national security, specifically relating to British airborne Special Forces (SAS) operations in Gaza. No further information has been revealed since the directive was issued on 28 October 2023.
How western intel penetrates West Asia
But all those concealment efforts were cracked open during Israel’s disproportionate military operation to secure the release of captives during the recent Nuseirat camp fiasco. Trending videos appeared of an Israeli helicopter landing next to the recently-installed $320 million US’ aid pier’ and of ‘aid trucks’ carrying special ops teams that were flanked by armored vehicles during the operation.
Media then reported that dozens of US and UK drones assisted in the Nuseirat camp assault, ostensibly by providing reconnaissance services to the Israeli military.
These incidents highlight not only direct western military participation in the war on Gaza but also the brazen exploitation of diplomatic cover or humanitarian work to prepare and carry out military actions that have led to mass civilian casualties and war crimes, as described by many United Nations institutions.
The question now is whether western facilities and troops will come under target as the war expands, potentially to Lebanon, given the evident collusion of western states in Israel’s aggressions – especially those in flagrant violation of international norms and law.
Although the use of embassies and civilian institutions – in the modern sense – as bases for intelligence gathering and launching special missions is not a new practice and dates back to at least the nineteenth century, current developments in technology and computing have enabled these facilities to act as spying and eavesdropping centers, monitoring and storing information for an entire country.
What was previously impossible has become reality through wireless communication and the Internet. Signal intelligence formerly gained by planting eavesdropping and listening devices can now be accessed via the common smartphone – with data funneled to these centers inside sovereign states.
Aerial view of the US embassy complex, northern Beirut.
‘Second-biggest US Embassy in the world’
Spawling approximately 174 thousand square meters, around 13 kilometers from the Lebanese capital of Beirut, lies the second largest embassy in West Asia – and the world. The new US Embassy in Beirut is surpassed in size only by its counterpart in Baghdad’s “Green Zone.”
Subtracting from the massive size of the embassy and its cost of nearly a billion dollars, there are many questions about the need for such facilities and what they contain.
The computer-generated images published by the embassy show a complex featuring multi-story buildings with tall glass windows, entertainment areas, a swimming pool surrounded by greenery, and views of the Lebanese capital. According to the project website, the complex includes an office, representative housing for employees, community facilities, and associated support facilities.
In May 2023, the Intelligence Online website reported that the massive billion-dollar complex will include a data collection facility, preparing the site as the new regional headquarters for US intelligence. The report says that because of its proximity to Syria, “Lebanon is considered a safe and strategic location for the deployment of intelligence agents already in the region as well as new personnel, who are selected directly from Washington-based agencies.”
Construction of the new US embassy, 13 kilometers north of the Lebanese capital of Beirut.
Although it is not possible to obtain precise information about the design of this embassy, the excavations below surface level, the use of reinforced concrete in the structure, and its fortified location on top of a hill suggest that there is more to its operations, especially since several precedents of the US Beirut diplomatic mission being implicated in the work of intelligence services exist.
The 1983 bombing of the American Embassy revealed a high CIA death toll, with eight killed, including the CIA’s chief West Asia analyst and Near East director, Robert Ames, station chief Kenneth Haass, James Lewis, and most of the CIA’s Beirut employees.
The embassy was not only used as a CIA hub but also as a key regional intelligence base due to Lebanon’s proximity to both the sea and two British NATO bases in southern Cyprus, Dhekelia and Akrotiri, from which reinforcements or helicopter transfers can arrive rapidly onto Lebanese soil. A recent example, in 2020, is Washington’s smuggling of its agent Amer al-Fakhouri from the US embassy using an Osprey helicopter.
British Watchtowers on Lebanon’s borders
On 3 May, Lebanon announced the visit of an official delegation and a senior British intelligence officer the previous month to discuss the construction of new UK-built watchtowers. These are in addition to the more than three dozen watchtowers built by Britain during the Syrian war along the sensitive border between Lebanon and Syria.
According to leaks reported by Lebanon’s Al-Akhbar newspaper, the British delegation had asked the Lebanese army “to approve a plan to establish watchtowers along the border with occupied Palestine, similar to those existing on the eastern and northern borders with Syria.”
Following the low-profile visit, Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati disclosed: “Establishing the towers and taking measures along the border are Israel’s conditions for stopping the war with Lebanon.”
Last February, the Lebanese Foreign Ministry received an official Syrian protest note classifying the British watchtowers as a threat to Syrian national security on several levels. The main threat is the tower systems’ sensitive intelligence and espionage equipment, which “shines deep into Syrian territory and collects information about the Syrian interior.”
According to Al-Akhbar’s report, “the information output from this equipment reaches the hands of the British, and the Israeli enemy benefits from the output to target Syrian territory and carry out strikes deep inside Syria.” The Syrian memorandum also refers to “the presence of some British officers at the towers.”
A 30-foot British watchtower near the Lebanese-Syrian border
Security cameras monitor the surrounding area at a border point on Lebanon’s border with Syria (Photo by the Lebanese Army Command, Orientation Directorate)
The 38 British watchtowers that claim to assist Lebanese authorities in “combating smuggling” raise many questions instead, among them the reasoning behind the erection of such a large number of these structures. Why, too, do the towers contain thermal monitoring, eavesdropping, signal intelligence, and communications equipment – especially in light of the close relationship between Tel Aviv and London and the periodic presence of British officers in these towers under the pretext of training the Lebanese army?
A commanding officer of the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), interviewed at length by The Cradle in August 2021, contradicts London’s public claims about the towers, saying: “The aim of the towers today is to monitor the movements of Hezbollah and the Syrians.”
Dutch special forces in Dahiyeh
In March, Hezbollah captured several Dutch military forces operating covertly in Dahiyeh, the southern suburb of Beirut, which hosts several offices of the Lebanese Resistance. The detainees claimed they were operating under cover of the Dutch Embassy in Lebanon and were found with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of military equipment and advanced communications devices on their persons and in their vehicles.
During investigations, the Dutchmen claimed they had entered the southern suburb as part of a training exercise for evacuating Dutch citizens and diplomats in the event of a war. However, no Dutch nationals of the embassy resided in that area. It was also found that the servicemen had not communicated about their mission with the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Lebanese security services, or their country’s embassy.
That same month, a Spanish citizen was arrested for filming inside the same southern suburb of Beirut, only to discover later that he had a diplomatic passport and that his phone contained advanced software that prevented access to its data.
These events and a myriad of other examples show that some western governments continuously use western diplomatic and civilian facilities to gather intelligence or conduct special missions training in sovereign Lebanon.
These actions constitute a clear violation of the Vienna Convention on International Relations and the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, which prohibit embassy diplomats from carrying out espionage activities. These actions don’t only place civilian populations in danger but also the thousands of professional diplomats in the country, all diplomatic missions, and the civilian facilities used as cover for illicit operations. They also drag otherwise immune diplomatic facilities into the legal framework of “hostilities,” intentionally or accidentally.
This danger is reinforced by Israel’s repeated violations of diplomatic and international norms, which are either ignored or protected by western allied states. Israel’s unprecedented military strikes against Iran’s consulate building in Damascus in April, for instance, did not receive the deserved condemnation from most western capitals, which helped it avoid the requisite UN Security Council censure.
Since the basic value of international norms is the precedent and event on which this law is built, the possibility increases that such western-supported attacks will backfire wildly and lead to the retaliatory targeting of western facilities and embassies – all in the context of new legal precedents and customs created that no longer prohibit strikes on suspect non-military facilities.
It is yet unknown to what extent western governments can expect to maintain their double standards in the application of international law and customs, especially if the Gaza war they are materially supporting expands to Lebanon or other West Asian regions.
The Resistance Axis, which has, in the past nine months, normalized military strikes on Israel, missile attacks on Israel-destined shipping vessels, and weekly strikes on US and UK naval fleets, are but one escalation away – as in, a declared war on Lebanon – to create a new set of target banks that surpass their last ones.
Does that then include the US embassy in Baghdad, the largest in the region – and the world – hosting 10 thousand American employees and troops, or, closer to home, the second largest embassy in West Asia, the US embassy in Beirut?
It is difficult to imagine that such facilities will remain immune if western involvement remains apparent, which we already know to be a constant, daily flow of armaments to fuel Israel’s war machinery and provide Tel Aviv with military intelligence and target banks.
It will be even harder to protect diplomatic missions if they reveal themselves to essentially act as military command centers or intelligence hubs during the conduct of war. Targeting these facilities – which are already in breach of the Vienna Convention – can easily fall within the framework of self-defense and reciprocity as long as western states and Israel continue to normalize these illicit activities.
If the Gaza war established entirely new rules of engagement throughout the region, do Israel’s western allies expect to escape unscathed in an expanded war? How do they think they can arm military aggression against a country and yet remain safely in its capital city?
Over 80 UK war planes deployed from Cyprus to Lebanon since 7 Oct: Report
The Cradle | June 28, 2024
The UK has sent over 80 military transport planes to the Lebanese capital of Beirut since the start of Israel’s war on Gaza nine months ago, Declassified UK reported on 28 June.
All the flights have gone from the UK’s massive Akrotiri airbase on the nearby island of Cyprus, long a staging post for UK bombing missions in West Asia.
Declassified UK notes that the number of UK military flights to Beirut has risen dramatically in recent months. The group tracked 25 flights in April and May and 14 so far in June.
Flights from the UK base take around 45 minutes to reach Beirut, which Israel has increasingly threatened to bomb in a possible full-scale war with the Lebanese resistance movement, Hezbollah.
The Ministry of Defense declined to disclose the number of UK military flights to Lebanon since the start of the war on 7 October or their purpose.
A defense source told Declassified UK that the flights “have been primarily for the purpose of facilitating senior military engagement” with the Lebanese army.
But it is widely assumed the planes are carrying weapons to Beirut to arm anti-Hezbollah militias. The US, UK, and Israel would presumably use these militias to attack Hezbollah from within the country in the case of an Israeli invasion from the south.
Declassified UK notes that nearly every Royal Air Force flight to Lebanon has been the Voyager KC mark 2, which can carry a payload of 45 tons and 291 personnel or provide air-to-air refueling. Another flight involved a vast C-17 cargo plane.
Israeli threats to invade Lebanon have accelerated in tandem with the increase in flights.
Israeli military leaders have increasingly warned of a Lebanon campaign to push Hezbollah away from the border and past the Litani River.
Last week, the Israeli army approved “operational plans for an offensive in Lebanon,” and the US pledged to support Israel with weapons if a full-scale war breaks out.
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah warned the resistance movement will use its massive rocket and missile arsenal to hit targets across Israel in a “total war” if Tel Aviv decides to launch an invasion.
Nasrallah also threatened Cyprus, noting its role as a US, UK, and Israeli staging ground.
“The Cypriot government must be warned that opening Cypriot airports and bases for the Israeli enemy to target Lebanon means that the Cypriot government has become part of the war and the resistance [Hezbollah] will deal with it as part of the war,” he said.
Nasrallah’s threat appeared to include the Akrotiri base, which lies in territory retained by the UK when Cyprus gained independence in 1960. The territory now hosts vast military and intelligence hubs for Britain and the US, Declassified UK notes.
These are the craziest ‘pro-Israel’ votes on the Hill today
BY BLAISE MALLEY | RESPONSIBLE STATECRAFT | JUNE 27, 2024
In the more than seven months since Israel’s war on Gaza began, the Biden administration has been almost entirely deferential to the war effort, providing Tel Aviv with $6.5 billion worth of weapons, offering rhetorical and diplomatic cover, and holding Hamas wholly responsible for the inability to strike a ceasefire deal.
To some members of Congress — mostly Republicans — this level of support for Israel does not go nearly far enough.
This week, the House of Representatives will be voting on the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Programs appropriations legislation. Among the 75 amendments to the bill that were made in order and will be voted on are a series of anti-Palestinian proposals that seek to eliminate any appearance of balance in the United States’ approach to the war.
Two of the amendments seek to “prohibit funds” appropriated in the bill from being spent on holding Israel accountable for any violations of U.S. law.
One, introduced by Rep. Brian Mast (R-Fla.) “Prohibits funds from enforcing Executive Order 14115,” which Biden announced in February of this year as a way to sanction individuals or groups who the administration deemed “undermining peace, security and stability” in the West Bank. The effort was widely seen as an effort to punish extreme Israeli settlers — as of March, nine Israelis have been sanctioned under the law — but in June the U.S. also sanctioned a Palestinian armed group.
The other, introduced by Reps. Andy Ogles (R-TN) and Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), would block “the use of funds from being used to administer or enforce National Security Memorandum 20.” NSM-20 is the memo issued by Biden in February that required the administration to receive written assurances that recipients of American military aid were complying with international law — in essence, ensuring that no one is using our weapons while committing atrocities, including blocking aid and medicine from getting to civilians.
The first report issued to Congress under this memorandum found that Israel had not violated the law in war conduct or in the distribution of international law. The directive would require the State Department to issue a new report each fiscal year.
Both Executive Order 14115 and NSM-20 call on Israel to do the bare minimum to comply with U.S. law, and critics, including in Congress, have argued that the administration has not gone nearly far enough in administering them.
How exactly Congress could “defund” either of these operations is not exactly clear, but both of these are likely intended as symbolic messages that the United States should not do anything that could in any way constrain Israel as it carries out its war.
Two other proposed amendments are aimed at ensuring that Americans are not aware of the scale of suffering in Gaza nor capable of alleviating it.
A bipartisan group of five representatives, led by Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) introduced an amendment that would prohibit “funds appropriated by this act to be made available for the State Department to cite statistics obtained from the Gaza Health Ministry.”
Given that the Health Ministry — which estimates that more than 37,000 Palestinians have died since October — is the only official source for casualties in the Strip, members seem to think the amendment will preclude the State Department from using the statistics. If so, officially, the U.S. would be ignoring the true scale of destruction in Gaza if this amendment is adopted.
Supporters of Israel have used the fact that Hamas runs the outfit as a way to undermine the death count for public perception, though the figures offered by the ministry have in the past been corroborated by international organizations and the Israeli government.
Meanwhile, the humanitarian pier — the Biden’s administration’s military plan for getting aid into Gaza — has been a failure. Operations have stopped and started intermittently due to the weather, the amount of aid entering Gaza through the pier is wholly inadequate, and even the supplies that have reached the Strip have not made their way to Gazans due to aid workers’ safety concerns. But aside from air drops, absent a ceasefire or the Biden administration putting real pressure on the Israelis, the pier remains the only way that Washington is currently sending assistance.
Nevertheless, Reps. Michael Waltz (R-Fla), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), and Zach Nunn (R-Iowa) have put forth an amendment to cut off funding for the project.
Taken together with an earlier ban on funding UNRWA, the largest provider of humanitarian assistance in Gaza, and an amendment to the NDAA that prohibited Washington from funding the reconstruction of the strip, it is clear that some in Congress want to play no role in helping Gazans who have suffered during this brutal war.
Debate over the State and Foreign Operations appropriations bill began on Wednesday evening before being adjourned, with votes on these and a number of other amendments carrying over into Thursday morning.
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From the Archives
Israel: Strategic Ally or Liability?
By Stephen Sniegoski | My Catbird Seat | June 12, 2010
The claim that Israel serves as a valuable ally for the United States is made by both pro-Zionists and much of the anti-war and anti-Zionist Left that is influenced by Noam Chomsky. As a result of the Gaza flotilla massacre, which has caused a world-wide uproar against Israel, the value of Israel to the United States is being publicly questioned in more mainstream foreign policy forums. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Why Hamas Really Attacked Israel on Oct. 7
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