Mocking their army, Israel commentators call out fake ‘Hamas surrender images’
MEMO | December 11, 2023
Israeli observers and journalists accused the occupation army spokesman, Daniel Hagari, of lying by fabricating pictures and videos showing alleged members of the Al-Qassam Brigades’ Elite Forces surrendering.
Most highlighted that many of those shown in the pictures were elderly men in their 60s and not young fighters in their prime who would normally make Elite Forces.
Ori Goldberg, researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre- Herzliya, said in a series of posts on X yesterday: “After reports of terrorists who turned themselves in, it turned out that these were groups of men who were arrested and taken from compounds where hundreds of Gazans were seeking refuge, together” to escape the bombing by the occupation army.
According to Goldberg: “To win a guerrilla war, you need clear goals and clear political guidance. Otherwise, the war breaks down into endless incidents and explosions and operations and assaults and does not come together for a decision. The IDF can fight for 18 years in Gaza, as in Lebanon, and the war will not end until the political echelon calls for its end. There are no clear goals and no clear guidance.”
In one video, an older gentleman can be seen following the instructions of an Israeli occupation soldier who is directing him where to go and where to place the weapon he is holding. The man had been stripped to his underwear. Commenting on a picture, military reporter at MAKO website, Hai Levy, said: “You can consider him an elite fighter if you’d consider me a frog.”
Others questioned how the men were stripped to their underwear before their weapons were taken from them.
While others said these images brought “shame” to Israel as they were so obviously fake.
US-made munitions used in illegal white phosphorous attack on Lebanon
The Cradle | December 11, 2023
The Israeli army used US-manufactured white phosphorous shells in a brutal attack on south Lebanon in October, the Washington Post reported on 11 December, citing an analysis of shell fragments found in the southern Lebanese village of Al-Dhahira.
A Washington Post journalist came across the remnants of three 155-millimeter artillery shells near the border. Production codes found on the shells indicate that they were made by ammunition depots in Louisiana and Arkansas in 1989 and 1992.
Residents told the journalist that the shells in question “incinerated at least four homes.”
Nine people were injured in the white phosphorous attack, which took place on 16 October, including three who were hospitalized.
Photos and videos verified by Amnesty International show the white phosphorus falling on Al-Dhahira on 16 October.
“Israeli forces continued to shell the town with white phosphorus munitions for hours,” trapping residents in their homes until 7:00 AM the next day, locals told the Washington Post, adding that they now refer to that evening as the “black night.”
Israel has used white phosphorous on southern Lebanon over 60 times since the war began in October, according to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED).
“The Israeli army fired artillery shells containing white phosphorus, an incendiary weapon, in military operations along Lebanon’s southern border between 10 and 16 October 2023,” Amnesty International said on 31 October, adding that the 16 October attack must be immediately investigated as a war crime.
Israel claimed its use of the banned munitions was in line with international law, given that they used them to create “smokescreens” and not for targeting, according to an army statement.
However, the 16 October white phosphorous attack took place at night, when “smoke would have little practical use … and [when] there were no Israeli troops on the Lebanese side of the border to mask with smokescreens,” Washington Post said.
“Residents speculated that the phosphorus was meant to displace them from the village and to clear the way for future Israeli military activity in the area,” it added.
White phosphorous burns at extremely high temperatures and can stick to the skin, posing a potentially lethal threat. Residents of Al-Dhahira reported that remnants of the banned weapon would combust upon contact in the days following the attack.
Israel also used white phosphorous in its current war on Gaza, as well as in previous wars in both Gaza and Lebanon.
Crossfire has intensified recently on the Lebanese border. Hezbollah has stepped up its attacks on Israeli military sites and widened its range of targets in response to intense and violent air strikes on southern Lebanese villages and in response to Israeli massacres in the Gaza Strip.
Recent Israeli strikes on Lebanon have resulted in several civilian casualties.
Putin’s Middle East Trip Deals a Blow to Washington
By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 11.12.2023
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s recent visit to the Middle East – and the 21-gun salute welcome he received there – shows the failure of Washington’s consistent attempts to ‘isolate’ and defeat Russia. The visit also points to the Middle East’s increasing shift away from, and sole reliance on, Washington. Ever since the beginning of the Gaza War on October 7, the Middle East has been keeping contact with China, rather than the US, its first priority. The reason for this is not simply the fact that the US is supporting, militarily and diplomatically, Israel against Palestine, but also because the Middle East is strategically realigning itself with the realities of what is increasingly – and undeniably – a multipolar world. To the extent that the Middle East, a region where the US remained the most dominant extra-regional force for many decades, has made this shift also reflects the ongoing demise of US dominance more generally in the world. To the extent that China and Russia are two major proponents of multipolarity, connect the dots of this anti-US but pro-China and pro-Russia shift.
Putin’s trip to the UAE and Saudi Arabia has many dimensions. One of these dimensions is bilateral. Between 2017-2022, the trade turnover between Russia and the UAE has grown by almost six times. In 2022, the overall trade increased by almost 68% amounting to US$9 billion. The UAE is Russia’s largest trading partner in the Gulf Region, accounting for 55% of Russia’s total trade with the Persian Gulf.
It, therefore, makes sense for Washington to pressure the UAE government to drastically limit their trade ties with Moscow. Earlier in September, several Western officials from the United Kingdom, EU and US visited the UAE to persuade the UAE to review its trade ties with Russia. Western officials have been assuming that, in the wake of the threats of the Israel-Gaza war spreading to other parts of the Middle East, the UAE would go back to its ultimate security guarantor: the US. This would, however, happen only if the UAE has good ties with the US. Good ties, under the present context of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, mean the UAE ending its trade ties with Russia, especially the ones that may have military implications.
The UAE has been resisting these pressures. In fact, its decision to welcome Putin himself means that the UAE is considering an alternative means of protecting itself in the wake of a wider war in the region. It is ensuring Russian (and Chinese support), and it is using this (possible) source of support to send a message to Washington, i.e., multiple options are possible in a multipolar world. The message is quite similar to the message that the Saudis have been giving to the Americans since the beginning of the Russia-Ukraine military conflict.
If the Americans have been doing their best to convince the Saudis to break out of the OPEC+ deal and increase the production of oil to help reduce its prices and consequently help control the inflation in the West, the Saudis have not submitted. In this context, Putin’s visit to Saudi Arabia sought to reinforce the ‘oil alliance’ – which is also a major dimension of Russia-Saudi bilateral ties – at a time when the burden of wars (supporting Ukraine plus Israel) on the West is increasing manifold. For Putin, an appropriate message to the Middle East in particular and the Global South in general is this: the West supports aggression against all states, regardless of whether it is Russia or Palestine, and it expects other states (e.g., the Middle East) to support that aggression.
Russia understands that the West is fighting two wars, and it does not have any narrative to justify them both simultaneously. As even the US-based Carnegie Endowment said in one of its recent reports, “Washington’s pro-Israel stance undermines the legitimacy of the West’s broader reasons for supporting Ukraine in the eyes of many in the Global South. The moral argument against Russia’s invasion of Ukraine now looks like empty words, particularly in Middle East nations”. In this sense, the timing of Putin’s visit was far from coincidental. It aimed to tap into the opportunity to wean powerful states in the Middle East, who are also keen to expand ties with the non-Western world via BRICS, away from the US as much as possible.
Therefore, the purpose of Putin’s visit, as some Western media analysed and sought to trivialise, was not simply to “discuss” the Gaza war. It was part of Moscow’s wider outreach to the Middle East at an appropriate time to reorient the Middle East’s strategic priorities. Soon after coming back, Putin hosted Iran’s president in Moscow to build on the success of his visit and deepen Russia’s foothold in the region, a region that allows Russia to fight the West in the economic field by, for instance, coordinating the production of oil.
Still, the Gaza war was discussed. But that discussion was underpinned by the strategic failure of Washington’s plans to create a new Middle East. The failure of the US in the Middle East becomes yet another opportunity for Moscow to present itself as a potential peace broker rather than, and unlike the US, a troublemaker. If it was simply a war of narratives, Russia (and China) are clearly winning it in the Middle East.
West’s ‘500-year dominance’ ending – Lavrov
RT | December 11, 2023
The 500-year-long dominance of the West is coming to an end, being replaced by “a new polycentric world,” Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Sunday in a video address to the Doha Forum.
The minister expressed regret that certain “circumstances” prevented him from coming to the Qatari capital in person and hearing the discussions at the annual high-profile event.
“But I assume that you were discussing the multipolar world, which is emerging after 500 years of domination of what we call the ‘collective West,’” Lavrov said.
This hegemony of the US and its allies had been “based on a diverse history, including ruthless exploitation of peoples and territories of other countries,” he said.
According to the minister, the West suggested that it could use the model of globalization, which it had been building for centuries, to maintain its dominance. “However, other countries, using exactly the principles and instruments of the Western globalization, managed to beat the West on its own turf, building the economies on the basis of national sovereignty, on the basis of balance of interests with other countries.”
New centers of economic growth and political influence have been emerging, “changing the balance of power in the world, and not to the West’s liking,” he said.
“In order to suppress this kind of development,” the US and its allies have in recent years “sacrificed” globalization in favor of the so-called ‘rules-based world order,’ Lavrov continued.
“The rules were never published, were never even announced by anyone to anyone, and they are being applied depending on what exactly the West needs at a particular moment of modern history,” he added.
The FM said that such an approach is most seen “in various conflicts, which the West ignites all over the world,” including the one in Ukraine. “Everything goes to keep the hegemony. Intervention in domestic affairs, sanctions against all the principles of competition, regime change, and of course direct military interventions, like we have seen in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and elsewhere.”
“Is there a single place where the US intervened with military force, where life has become better? I think you know the answer,” Lavrov told the forum participants.
According to the diplomat, new formats like BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, ASEAN, African Union, and others will become “the bricks of the new polycentric world.”
It should be recognized, including by those in the West, that “the objective course of history… is the evolution of a multipolar world,” Lavrov insisted.
US Ruling Class Fears Trump Would Withdraw from NATO
Sputnik – 11.12.2023
The New York Times – generally considered a mouthpiece for US militarism and ruling class interests – published an article Saturday agonizing over the possibility that former President Trump would withdraw from NATO in a second term.
The report, although rife with opinion and speculation, was published as a news item in the Saturday edition of the controversial newspaper.
“For 74 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been America’s most important military alliance,” read the article. The authors went on to suggest there is “enormous uncertainty and anxiety” throughout Europe and among “American supporters of the country’s traditional foreign-policy role” (which has resulted in the death of at least 4.5 million since 2001).
“There is great fear in Europe that a second Trump presidency would result in an actual pullout of the United States from NATO,” said James G. Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander. “That would be an enormous strategic and historic failure on the part of our nation.”
Despite NATO’s ostensible existence as an “alliance” between the United States and European countries Stavridis, like every other NATO supreme commander, is American.
Benjamin Norton, the founder and editor-in-chief of Geopolitical Economy Report, has derisively labeled the alliance as the “Nazi Arming and Training Organization” for their support of Nazi elements. Historically, the alliance elevated former German Nazis to key positions of power throughout the Cold War and supported terrorism, assassinations, psychological warfare, and false flag operations through a covert effort known as Operation Gladio.
The strategy was duplicated in Latin America where the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) utilized and provided safe haven for former Nazis like Klaus Barbie.
Despite ostensibly existing as an anticommunist alliance, NATO remained hostile to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continued expanding east in violation of the agreement with the country during the final days of the Cold War. Recently the US government-backed Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe laid bare the country’s intention to balkanize Russia in a conference advocating for “decolonization” even as the United States continues to support the “colonization” of the Gaza Strip.
Recently the consequences of US hegemony in Europe have been made clear as Germany endures a deep economic crisis brought about by the country’s participation in US-led sanctions on Russia.
Brewing truth: Climate doomsayers’ cooked up coffee crisis
By Vijay Jayaraj | American Thinker | December 7, 2023
Every day, people across the world wake up to news about climate change affecting their lives. With the seeming randomness of a roulette wheel, the doomsday clique of the climate world daily selects a fresh topic to sow seeds of anxiety among the populace.
Popular things easily recognized — even cherished — by people are continually identified as being at risk of being damaged or destroyed by climate change. Coffee, for example, is a commodity experiencing a surge in popularity, and there are no prizes for guessing what climate doomsayers are saying now.
Yes, coffee is now said to be under threat from man-made climate change. CNN, in a recent article, made this statement: “climate change poses a huge threat to the coffee business and to farmers.” Keeping with its customary approach of presenting climate change as a threat to all manner of things, CNN quotes the Inter-American Development Bank as warning that “rising temperatures will reduce the area suitable for growing coffee by up to 50%.”
Is this claim true? If so, plenty of people would be affected, because coffee is selling like hot cakes.
The brew is a staple in nearly 98% of households in Brazil. According to the 2023 National Coffee Data Trends Report, coffee consumption in the U.S. has hit a 20-year peak, with over 50% of consumers gravitating toward specialty coffee.
Even in my home country, India, there is a sudden deluge of boutique coffee shops. Some chains have opened as many as 50 branches within a span of five years, and that is not an easy task in a country of 1.3 billion tea-lovers. India is now the eighth largest producer of coffee beans.
More than 99% of global coffee production comprises the arabica and robusta species, which are just two of over 140 different species in the Coffea genus. Coffea, especially arabica, depends highly on soil fertility and temperature.
The purveyors of climate apocalypse are particularly interested in the temperature aspect, as it provides a legitimate pathway for indulging in climate scaremongering. Despite widespread concern about increasing warmth, satellite temperature data collected from 1979 to 2023 indicate that there has not been a significant rise in temperatures.
Despite widespread concern about increasing warmth, global satellite temperature data collected from 1979 to 2023 indicates that there has only been a modest rise of less than one-degree C in temperature.
Besides, it is widely acknowledged that warming since the Little Ice Age and increased atmospheric CO2 since the Industrial Revolution have boosted agricultural production and the general greening of ecosystems.
Scientists in Brazil have discovered that “carbon dioxide fertilization offsets negative impacts of climate change on arabica coffee yield.” They say that the CO2 fertilization effect will cause a net increase of the average Brazilian arabica coffee harvest by the years 2040–2070.
CO2 enrichment studies in Latin America show that elevated CO2 increased photosynthesis by 40% and increased the efficiency plants’ water use by approximately 60%. Higher CO2 eventually caused a 7–14% increase in plant height and a 12–14% increase in yield. Another study showed that there were significant increases in all leaf area and biomass markers in response to increased CO2.
The research indicates that we might already be reaping the rewards of increased productivity rates in both arabica and robusta coffee varieties thanks to the recent rise in atmospheric CO2. This reality is reflected in the plantations across the globe. Production in South America and Southeast Asia have shown increases in yield during the past two decades.
Brazil and Vietnam are the top two coffee bean producers. Both countries have seen remarkable increases in their yield, with Vietnam’s production climbing from 0.54 tons per acre in 2002 to 1.11 tons per acre in 2021. Meanwhile, Brazil’s yield has also shown significant growth, rising from 0.49 tons per acre in 2002 to 0.87 tons per acre in 2020.
Even if the temperatures were to increase dramatically, experts say that coffee cultivation would be possible in cooler regions at latitudes away from equator or at higher altitudes.
So sit back and drink that morning cup of Joe. Climate is not going to steal your coffee, and thank CO2 for keeping the plantations productive.
Vijay Jayaraj is a research associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a Master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, U.K.
Migrant-loving Western leaders are at war with their own people
By Tony Cox | RT | December 10, 2023
The ongoing ruling-class meltdown over the recent Dublin riots tells us a lot about the breadth and depth of the gulf fixed between Western governments and their citizens. It’s as if those in charge are outraged by the temerity of their subjects to cry out over the pain and death inflicted upon them by their supposed leaders.
Angry Irish citizens took to the streets, chanting “Enough is enough,” after suffering the latest consequence of mass migration: The November 23 stabbing attack in which three children and two adults were injured in central Dublin. Having failed to be heard by the policymakers who are destroying their quality of life, they burned buses, torched police cars, and clashed violently with officers.
The suspect hasn’t been identified or officially arrested. Unlike the Irish people, he’s being protected by their government, and he’s reportedly too incapacitated to be questioned by police because of injuries suffered during the stabbing spree. He has been described as a 49-year-old Algerian who was given Irish citizenship.
A media controversy erupted days after the attack when independent journalist John McGuirk reported – incorrectly – that the suspect was an Algerian migrant who had been living in Ireland, at taxpayer expense, since 2003. McGuirk referred to a man who faced a deportation order after an arrest years ago, but he was allowed to stay in the country and was later given an Irish passport. Earlier this year, he was arrested for illegal knife possession and damaging a car. He was let go by the court because of a mental health issue, according to media reports.
McGuirk was assailed by establishment mouthpiece media figures not for getting the story wrong, which wasn’t initially known, but for deciding not to withhold sensitive information from his readers. Pressed in a television interview by host Ciara Doherty on whether he “inflamed” a “hostile situation” by reporting details about the suspect’s background, he replied, “Your essential position is that you, as a journalist, sitting in that chair, should decide what information the people watching this program have, and if you decide they can’t handle it, you don’t give it to them.”
Police subsequently revealed that McGuirk had identified the wrong Algerian migrant. Although he wasn’t named in the article, the details of his background made it possible for online sleuths to identify him. Police are now protecting the man who was misidentified, according to media reports, while continuing to withhold information about the actual suspect.
McGuirk took down his erroneous article from the internet and issued a statement saying that the source who gave him false identification was a senior police official. He also cross-checked the information with a senior official in the Irish justice system before posting his story. His media outlet, Gript Media, is now investigating whether the false tip was a deliberate act of sabotage.
It would be easy to see why powerful figures in the Irish government would be pleased to have such a story misreported by an adversarial journalist. The discussion has turned to the spread of “misinformation” and the inciting of angry citizens rather than excessive immigration and poor public safety.
The situation is reminiscent of when WikiLeaks reported on emails showing that America’s Democratic National Committee had rigged the party’s 2016 presidential primaries in favor of its chosen candidate, Hillary Clinton. Rather than focusing on the scandal, legacy media outlets made the story about Clinton’s unproven claims that Russian hackers stole the emails and gave them to WikiLeaks.
The thing is, even if you knew that an adversary with ulterior motives had revealed that your spouse was cheating on you, wouldn’t you be more concerned about the infidelity than the source? The story in Ireland should be destructive immigration policies, not identifying the wrong Algerian migrant criminal.
Ironically, the distraction and misdirection in the Dublin story doesn’t really matter. The fact is that the dangerous migrant identified by McGuirk has been allowed to stay in Ireland by a government that doesn’t prioritize the safety of its own people. He didn’t perpetrate this particular assault, but he’s a criminal migrant, and if and when he commits another crime, it will be an unforced error inflicted on the Irish people by their government. The fact also remains that the real suspect is an Algerian migrant, meaning he came from a country more than 1,000 miles away that isn’t at war. If he was a legitimate refugee, Ireland wasn’t the nearest available safe haven – not by a long shot.
However, if Ireland’s leaders can help it, attention will be shifted away from the country’s migration crisis. Never mind the policies that endanger Irish citizens and diminish their quality of life. There won’t be a serious discussion, either, of why illegitimate asylum seekers and other migrants are allowed to stay in the country, even after they’ve committed crimes.
Rather than decrying the stabbing of children or confronting the policy questions raised by the rampage, Irish government officials and their media stenographers are focusing their ire on the citizens who violently demanded change, dismissing them as “emboldened racists.”
National police chief Drew Harris blamed the riots on a “complete lunatic hooligan factor driven by far-right ideology.” Justice Minister Helen McEntee pledged tougher police tactics to quell any such revolts by the “thugs and criminals” who were using the stabbing attack to “sow division.” Kenyan-born UK politician Lilian Seenoi-Barr blamed the unrest on a small far-right minority and called the rioters an “organized terrorist group of people who want to harm immigrants.”
Prime Minister Leo Varadkar insisted that people shouldn’t connect the stabbing spree to the mass migration that is transforming Ireland’s population. The PM said the rioters couldn’t possibly have been motivated by a desire to protect their way of life; rather, they were “filled with hate, they love violence, they love chaos, and they love causing pain to others.” He also called for enhancements to Ireland’s hate-speech legislation. “We will modernize our laws against incitement to hatred and hatred in general.”
To the extent the mob was whipped up, it was whipped up by reality – the reality created by the policies of the country’s tone-deaf leaders. The influx of migrants – many of them illegitimate asylum seekers from outside war zones – has swelled Ireland’s population to 5.15 million, up 31% in the past two decades. One in five residents of Ireland isn’t Irish-born. Many young people have given up on looking for homes because of the housing crisis and crushing inflation. Rates of murder and other crimes have risen sharply.
As for the notion that people are violently angry about their collapsing quality of life, recent polling shows that 75% of Irish people believe their country is taking in too many asylum seekers. An even larger majority, 76%, agreed that it was justifiable for people to be angry when migrants were moved into their communities. Presumably, most of those citizens aren’t inclined to torch trams or burn buses, but if even one in 100 of the people who oppose what’s being done to their country are angry enough to rise up, you have a mob nearly 40,000 strong.
Not all of the rioters were motivated by real grievances. Some, for instance, took the unrest as an opportunity to loot. In any case, a strong majority of the Irish people aren’t getting what they want from policymakers. Their message isn’t being heard when they burn things, just as it was ignored when they held peaceful protests. So, what comes next?
Irish leaders have responded by demonizing their critics and criminalizing dissent. For example, Irish MMA legend Conor McGregor is reportedly among the many people being investigated for alleged “incitement to hatred.” McGregor posted on social media that the stabbing suspect was a “grave danger among us in Ireland that should never be here in the first place.” Deputy Prime Minister Micheal Martin denounced the fighter’s accurate comment as “absolutely disgraceful,” to which McGregor responded by calling the politician “worthless and spineless.”
McGregor doubled down on his criticism last week, saying Irish officials were trying to use him as a “scapegoat.” He added, “The truth of the many failed policies of this government, however, will never stop being the reason we have innocent children in hospital on life support after being stabbed by a deranged criminal.” The fighter even hinted on Monday about running for president.
Contrast the reaction in Dublin with how the Western ruling class treated the Black Lives Matter riots in 2020. There were scenes of police kneeling with the protestors rather than calling them extremist hooligans. Rather than calling for everyone to hush up about the racial overtones of the triggering event – the death of a black criminal, George Floyd, after a white police officer kneeled on his neck – the story was made all about racism.
Even as cities burned and dozens of people were killed, many politicians agreed with the mob’s demands to “defund the police” and “reimagine policing.” The future US vice president, Kamala Harris, promoted a fundraising campaign to bail out rioters who had been arrested during the mayhem. Nike, Google, Apple, and other big names in Corporate America pledged massive donations to “racial justice” causes.
And while inflaming the Dublin rioters by linking the crime to migration has been deemed irresponsible, inflaming the BLM mob with falsehood may even have been a government strategy. A new documentary on Floyd’s death has claimed that the original autopsy found no indication that he had died from injury to his neck; however, he was infected with Covid-19 and had fatal levels of fentanyl in his blood. A day after the medical examiner met with FBI agents, the documentary said, the autopsy was altered to suggest that Floyd had been killed by police.
The cop who was found guilty of killing Floyd, Derek Chauvin, is still serving a long sentence in prison, where he was stabbed 22 times by another inmate last month. His attacker was a former FBI informant.
Western rulers seem to base their reaction to civil unrest and violent crimes on the ideology of the perpetrators. If it aligns with the political agenda, the message is amplified and treated sympathetically. If it exposes the folly of destructive policies, it must be crushed. The BLM riots provided an opportunity for race-baiters to further divide the people and promote “reforms” that favor criminals over law-abiding citizens and non-white people over whites. The Dublin riots screamed that the people had reached their breaking point with mass migration and leaders who refused to serve the interests of their citizens.
The same criteria were on display when an election fraud protest at the US Capitol escalated into a riot in January 2021. Rioters breached the Capitol to disrupt congressional certification of Joe Biden’s presidential election victory. Biden reacted by calling the riot the “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War.” More than 1,100 people have been arrested for their alleged roles in the riot. Many have received long prison sentences. One man who wasn’t even in Washington on the day of the riot – but who sent messages cheering on the breach from his Baltimore hotel room – was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
A similar approach is taken to other high-profile crimes. When a white gunman wounded four people at a Missouri Walmart last month, the FBI came out just two days later to report that the shooter may have been motivated by racist ideology. Never mind that two of his victims were white, and two were black.
And yet, more than eight months on from an incident in which a transgender shooter killed three children and three adults at a Christian elementary school in Tennessee, police are still refusing to release the “manifesto” written by the murderer. In fact, seven officers have been suspended on suspicion that they may have leaked part of the document online. In leaked pages of the manifesto, shooter Audrey Hale spoke of killing “all you little crackers” with “white privileges.” Similarly, it took seven months for police to reveal that the man who killed five people and wounded eight at a Kentucky bank wanted to inspire tougher gun control laws by killing “upper-class white people.”
The suppression of truth, the lying, and the situational outrage cannot be sustained forever. Leaders who cram down policies that destroy their countries and harm their citizens, whom they supposedly represent, cannot endlessly evade a real reckoning of their betrayals. The critics can no longer be completely silenced, no matter how aggressive the censorship efforts.
How sustainable is being at war with your own people? How long can a government defy the interests of its citizens and vilify those who complain? Short of replacing the native-born population quickly enough to avert accountability, the leaders will have to answer to their subjects at some point.
The same voices that call for tamping down the rhetoric and even suppressing the facts to avoid inflaming the mob in Dublin are only inciting more escalation by dismissing the rioters as extremist, racist thugs. People whose lives are being destroyed – at their own expense, as taxpayers, and by the traitorous leaders who have a moral duty to serve their interests – will eventually find a way to be heard.
Tony Cox is a US journalist who has written or edited for Bloomberg and several major daily newspapers.
Venezuela, Guyana to hold talks on disputed Essequibo region
RT | December 10, 2023
The presidents of Venezuela and Guyana – Nicolas Maduro and Mohamed Irfaan Ali, respectively – will sit down next week to discuss a long-standing territorial dispute that has recently intensified, the prime minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines has revealed. While Caracas has laid claim to the oil-rich Esequibo region since the late 19th century, President Maduro recently took steps toward gaining actual control over the area, which covers some 160,000 square kilometers.
Earlier this week, the Spanish daily El Pais reported that the Venezuelan government had deployed troops to the border with Guyana.
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines PM Ralph Gonsalves, who also serves as president pro tempore of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC), broke the news after speaking with Maduro on Saturday, saying the negotiations would take place on Thursday.
The Venezuelan government has confirmed the planned talks, saying they hoped to “preserve our aspiration to maintain Latin America and the Caribbean as a zone of peace.”
The Office of the President of Guyana, for its part, stressed that “Guyana’s land boundary is not up for discussion.”
Also on Saturday, Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva spoke with Maduro, calling for dialogue and warning against unilateral measures that could escalate the situation. The Brazilian head of state has also been invited to take part in Thursday’s talks as an observer.
Speaking on Tuesday, the Venezuelan president said Caracas wanted the “peaceful rescue of the Guayana Esequiba,” which “has been de facto occupied by the British Empire and its heirs and they have destroyed the area.” Maduro also unveiled a new map of Venezuela that incorporates the disputed territory, and appointed a new governor to the region.
Guyanese President Irfaan Ali, in turn, gave a televised address to the nation, accusing Venezuela of attempting to annex more than two thirds of his country.
“This is a direct threat to Guyana’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence, and a violation of fundamental principles of international law,” the leader stressed.
“The Guyana Defense Force is on high alert… Venezuela has clearly declared itself an outlaw nation,” Ali added.
The recent escalation followed Sunday’s referendum, in which 10.4 million Venezuelan voters backed Caracas’ claim to Guayana Esequiba.
The territorial dispute stems from the US’ decision in 1899 to assign the territory to what was then British Guiana – a move Venezuela never accepted as legitimate.
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Book Review
New paperback: Butchered by “Healthcare”
Lies are Unbekoming | October 20, 2026
Butchered by “Healthcare” is Robert Yoho’s plain-spoken account of how American medicine stopped being a profession and became an industry. 341 pages. Over a thousand references. Thirty-eight chapters.
“Screening Tests Are Useless”, on tests that find diseases that would never have hurt you. “The FDA Protects the Big Drug Companies”, on an agency funded by the companies it regulates. “The Journals’ Sins Are the Editors’ Sins”, on ghostwritten studies and captured peer review. “Opioids and ‘Pain Management’”, on how a generation was prescribed its way into addiction. “Prozac and Relatives” and “Antipsychotics Are Disastrous”, on what psychiatry does to adults and children. “Surgery: Money Before Patients”. “Failed Cancer Treatments”. “Futile CPR and Overprescribing”. “Billing Scams & Specialty Warfare”. “Hospitals Are Sharks”. Each with a Patient Tips section at the end on how to survive it.
If you have ever walked out of a doctor’s office with a prescription you didn’t ask for, or watched a parent put through a treatment that made them worse, this is the book you want on your shelf before the next appointment. … Full review
Butchered by “Healthcare” is available on Lulu now.
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Iran’s Next Strike May Not Explode. It Could Shut You Down /Col Doug Macgregor
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- Undersea Internet cables could be targeted in retaliation for attacks on Iran: IRGC deputy chief
- EU sending ‘biased’ observers to interfere in Serbian election – president
- White House envoy declares kinetic action against Yemen ‘fruitless’
- Ukraine deployed thousands of microdrones in Iraqi Kurdistan: Tasnim
- Iran calls for emergency UNSC meeting over Trump’s ‘brazen’ bomb talk, Israeli threats
- Iranian sources reveal details of Russia-China Hormuz proposal
- Plan for more US-Israel integration puts our military tech at risk
- If Americans Knew
- Americans at National Conservatism Conference held in Israel this year criticize Israel
- Christiane Amanpour exits CNN with a legacy shaped by the debate over Israel
- Israel’s war on Iran is the final move in a decades-old strategy
- Israel Denies Entry to French Journalist, U.S. Researcher Amid Rise in Entry Denials
- Gaza’s hospitals are running out of life-saving fuel – Daily Update
- Mysterious bot accounts reportedly spread fake ‘man on the street’ videos for Michigan Senate candidate
- Israeli Defense Minister Katz Says Over 60 Lebanon Villages Have Been Destroyed
- Why Is Israel Running TV Ads in Iowa Ahead of the Midterms?
- Hind Rajab’s Alleged Killer Is in the United States. HRF Demands His Arrest.
- US Officials Face Fresh Pressure After Another American ‘Brutalized’ by Israeli Settlers in West Bank
- No Tricks Zone
- E-Cars Reduce CO2 Emissions By Only 41% Compared To Internal Combustion Engine Vehicles
- Predictions Made By Renowned Climate Professor Over Past Decades Have Been Proven To Be Poor
- New Study Suggests Large Regions Of The Pacific Ocean Have Been Cooling For The Last 80 Years
- Germany’s Green Energy Debacle: High Energy Costs Force Kahla Porzellan to Close After 182 Years!
- New Study: 50 Years Of The Most Aggressive ‘Net Zero’ Policies Can Only Affect The Global Climate By 0.03°C
- US September “Heat” Was No Record…Many Records Set Decades Ago
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
