The Torturers’ Poor Memories
By Andrew P. Napolitano | Ron Paul Institute | February 29, 2024
As the pre-trial hearings in the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and others who are charged with masterminding the 9/11 attacks proceed at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, the government continues to stumble with its own witnesses. In hearings last week, government lawyers tried to demonstrate that statements the defendants made to CIA and FBI agents were voluntary.
When the government’s principal torturer, a now retired psychologist, had difficulty recalling that during a torture session he threatened one of his victims by offering to slit the throat of the victim’s young son and that he had recounted that threat under oath in previous testimony, it became apparent to all in the courtroom and to those of us who monitor these awful proceedings that the government was encountering a strange and unexpected difficulty in defending the behavior of its torturers.
Here is the backstory.
Mohammed and others were violently tortured at various so-called CIA black sites outside the U.S. for about three years. They were raped, hanged by their wrists for weeks inside large refrigerators, beaten with fists and wooden boards, and waterboarded whereby water was forced into their nasal cavities so as to create the perception of suffocation and drowning. Many of the records of all this were destroyed by CIA officials, a crime for which no one has been prosecuted.
During these horrific events, the torturer in chief, who was conducting his grisly business in Thailand, called a CIA lawyer in Langley, Virginia, and obtained permission to threaten his victim with slitting the throat of the victim’s young son. The torturer admitted this in testimony he gave in court at Gitmo in 2020.
Why was the torture conducted in Thailand? Because CIA lawyers had erroneously told their bosses that the U.S. Constitution and federal law do not apply in foreign lands.
This has never been American law. The common law of England and in America has always been that when government personnel leave the country for the purpose of doing something that is clearly unlawful in the country they have left, they can be held accountable for their criminal behavior when they return. The U.S. Supreme Court made this clear in one of its five major rulings against the George W. Bush administration over its behavior at Gitmo.
Bush’s own White House counsel advised the president that because Gitmo is physically located in Cuba, the Constitution doesn’t apply, federal laws don’t apply and federal courts lack jurisdiction. All of this erroneous advice was tailored to tell Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney who, according to former CIA personnel, had a particular fondness for torture, just what they wanted to hear.
This terrible legal advice became the stated legal basis for the torture regime and the proposed but never implemented kangaroo courts at Gitmo, until the FBI entered the scene and put a stop to the torture and the Supreme Court entered the picture and required real trials.
However, in protecting the rights of these defendants — the Constitution protects all persons who have contact with the government, not just citizens — the courts have overlooked the right to a speedy trial. It is this salient failure that was manifested last week when the chief torturer “forgot” that he had already admitted under oath to threatening to slit the throat of his victim’s young son.
The lack of a speedy trial and the government’s cavalier attitude about it also were made known last week when the lead FBI investigator involved in the post-torture interrogations at Gitmo asserted 199 times in one day under oath that she could not recall what she saw and heard 20 years ago during interrogations in which she participated.
Here is the government’s problem: When the government plans to use the defendant’s own words as evidence against him and the defense counters that the words were extracted under or due to torture, the government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty — the highest standard of proof in American law, the same standard for proof of guilt in criminal cases — that the words were uttered voluntarily.
The court is addressing two categories of words — those articulated during torture, and those articulated afterward. Defense and government psychiatrists agree that victims of prolonged torture will say what they think the questioner wants to hear long after the torture has ended, just as victims during torture will say what they think the torturer wants to hear.
Yet, when the torturers have forgotten what they heard or said, when they have intentionally or negligently destroyed records of the torture, they have made it nearly impossible for the government to prove voluntariness beyond a reasonable doubt.
Evidence extracted during or from torture is inadmissible in all American courts, civilian and military. Torture is criminal under federal law and all 50 states’ laws, no matter its purpose or its location. Government lawyers are not permitted to whitewash torture without confronting serious ethical consequences.
The Bush/Cheney torture regime and its Devil’s Island at Gitmo are among the darkest events perpetrated by a modern American presidency. Far from preserving, protecting and defending the Constitution — as Bush and Cheney both swore to do — by destroying the free will and personhood of their victims, they have undermined the values upon which the Constitution is based.
Those values are articulated in the Declaration of Independence and in the Constitution’s Ninth Amendment. Taken together they reflect the unanimous public understanding of the revolutionary generation — those who fought the war for independence and those who crafted the founding documents — that our rights are natural to our humanity, they are indefeasible, and they are permanent. And the sole purpose of the rule of law is to protect our rights.
Why do we repose the safekeeping of our rights into the hands of those who destroy them?
To learn more about Judge Andrew Napolitano, visit https://JudgeNap.com.
COPYRIGHT 2024 ANDREW P. NAPOLITANO
Jordan’s hyped aid airdrop over Gaza helps Israel more than Palestinians
By Shabbir Rizvi | Press TV | March 3, 2024
Throughout last week, Jordan’s air force, with the approval of the Israeli regime, delivered aid via airdrop to people in the besieged Gaza Strip. The move was widely hailed as heroic.
Overseen by Jordan’s King Abdullah II, the aid was dropped in large pallets of items, which included goods like ready-to-eat meals, medical supplies, and feminine care items.
These pallets were delivered through several airplane drops, causing a rush of Palestinians to flee throughout the Gaza Strip to gain access to the boxes. The airdrop itself was also used as a media opportunity for the king, who was filmed dropping parcels while awkwardly posing for cameras.
Though some aid was received by hungry and desperate Gazans, many parcels simply went missing, particularly in north Gaza where acute food shortages have caused death by starvation.
Parcels, despite being waterproof, were purportedly dropped into the Mediterranean Sea far beyond reach or even fell into the Gaza envelope – which can effectively only be accessed by Zionist settlers and military.
For the parcels dropping into the sea within reach, rowboats had to be deployed to gather the precious aid. If Gazans go beyond a specific point in the sea, they are targeted by Zionist naval forces, which have been given shoot-to-kill orders.
Unfortunately, some of these parcels will never be received by any needy Palestinian.
Other pallets landed in locations where the Zionist regime is enacting a full entry block for Palestinians. Even if the aid drop landed in an accessible street or rooftop, the occupation army would murder anyone who went to it, as they have demonstrated with what is now known as “The Flour Massacre.”
The massacre occurred when Zionist forces opened fire on Palestinians accessing designated aid trucks full of food for hungry Gazans. Over a hundred were murdered and many more were injured.
The massacre has been met with global condemnation of the Zionist regime, which has deflected and denied accusations of opening fire despite documented footage of Israeli troops doing exactly that.
Airdrops are a last resort for dispersing aid. They are ineffective, uncoordinated, and ultimately unable to predict exactly where the aid will land. Consider this with the fact that if Zionist troops are willing to open fire on designated aid trucks, traveling to a parachuted pallet is even more dangerous.
Many have criticized King Abdullah II for using these aid drops as a self-serving and self-promotional opportunity, particularly because in contrast to Palestinian aid, the Jordanian regime has not restricted any economic activity with Israel.
In fact, it has surged. Though Jordan is not part of the Abraham Accords, it is in practice a state that has normalized economic and some political ties with the Tel Aviv regime.
So much so that despite the carnage in Gaza since October 7, Jordanian exports to the regime have increased, with no signs of boycott or sanctions to condemn what’s unfolding in the besieged strip.
Jordan and Israel have been the beneficiaries of economic cooperation brokered by Arab regimes such as the UAE, which signed the Abraham Accords. For example, Jordan and Israel have partnered in an unpopular (in Jordan) energy deal meant to further a process of normalization between them.
There is also the shocking export of fruits and vegetables from Jordan to the occupied territories.
Media source Arabi Post revealed that Jordan was the second highest exporter of most fruits and vegetables to the Israeli-occupied territories from October 7 2023 to February 11, 2024, second only to Turkey.
These two countries constitute 55 percent of the total fruits and vegetables that the Israeli regime imported globally. Even more insultingly, Jordan is the final leg of the land corridor set up by some traitorous Arab states to circumvent the blockade enacted by Yemen in solidarity with Gaza.
The reality is stark. While Gazans have to rush to airdropped pallets as they starve, often while dodging Israeli sniper and tank fire, Zionist settlers get Jordanian commodities delivered right to their markets for easy consumption.
The Jordanian government is in one of the best positions to halt the Zionist economy. It shares a massive border with the occupied territories, controls a chunk of imports Israel receives from the east, and produces commodities for the occupation entity.
Yet, Jordan instead works hand in hand with the Zionist regime to coordinate airdrops that are ineffective for Gazans, who are facing genocide, all the while working against resistance factions by hosting US military bases and allowing its roads to deliver products to the Zionist entity.
It cannot be overstated that we must separate the Jordanian regime from the Jordanian people.
Jordanians have rallied for Gaza from Amman to the occupied Palestine border, calling an end to the occupation and their government’s normalization with the Zionist entity.
Furthermore, they are protesting their government’s trade routes with the occupying entity – even forming human chains to block the land corridor created to sustain Israel.
Finally, we must reckon with the most obvious reality: King Abdullah II and the Jordanian Air Force could not have had their photo shoot opportunity without the blessing of the US and the Israeli regime, which ultimately means that these aid drops play into the very hands of the Zionist regime.
By allowing for ineffective aid drops, Israel, who is facing allegations of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), can simply say they are not committing genocide because they allow countries to help aid starving Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the same aid that is dropped is either impossible to reach, or Palestinians must risk their lives under gunfire and starvation to obtain it.
It is a mix of political and media manipulation meant to obscure the reality on the ground: access to aid is systematically prevented as Gazans are being starved and hospitals are being shut down.
Jordan is ideally placed to put an end to Israeli bloodthirst, but it seems the King has prioritized flashy videos and normalization over the fate of the Palestinian people and the region.
Shabbir Rizvi is a Chicago-based political analyst with a focus on US internal security and foreign policy.
A Third of U.K. Met Office Temperature Stations May Be Wrong by Up to 5°C, FOI Reveals
BY CHRIS MORRISON | THE DAILY SCEPTIC | MARCH 1, 2024
Nearly one in three (29.2%) U.K. Met Office temperature measuring stations have an internationally-defined margin of error of up to 5°C. Another 48.7% of the total 380 stations could produce errors up to 2°C, meaning nearly eight out of ten stations (77.9%) are producing ‘junk’ or ‘near junk’ readings of surface air temperatures. Arguably, on no scientific basis should these figures be used for the Met Office’s constant promotion of the collectivist Net Zero project. Nevertheless, the state-funded operation frequently uses them to report and often catastrophise rises in temperature of as little as 0.01°C.
Under a freedom of information request, the Daily Sceptic has obtained a full list of the Met Office’s U.K. weather stations, along with an individual class rating defined by the World Meteorological Office. These CIMO ratings range from pristine class 1 and near pristine class 2, to an ‘anything goes’ or ‘junk’ class 5. The CIMO ratings penalise sites that are near any artificial heat sources such as buildings and concrete surfaces. According to the WMO, a class 5 site is one where nearby obstacles “create an inappropriate environment for a meteorological measurement that is intended to be representative of a wide area”. Even the Met Office refers to sites next to buildings and vegetation as “undesirable”. It seems class 5 sites can be placed anywhere, and they come with a WMO warning of “additional estimated uncertainties added by siting up to 5°C”; class 4 notes “uncertainties” up to 2°C, while class 3 states 1°C. Only 13.7%, or 52 of the Met Office’s temperature and humidity stations come with no such ‘uncertainty’ warnings attached.
The above graph shows the percentage totals of each class. Class 1 and 2, identified in green, account for just 6.3% and 7.4% of the total respectively. Class 3 identified as orange comes in at 8.4%. The graph shows the huge majorities enjoyed by the darkening shades of red showing classes 4 and 5. It is possible that the margins of error identified for classes 3, 4 and 5 could be a minus amount – if for instance the measuring device was sited in a frost hollow – but the vast majority are certain to be pushed upwards by heat corruptions.
Last year, the investigative journalist Paul Homewood sought FOI information from the Met Office about the Welsh weather station Porthmadog, which often appears in ‘hottest of the day’ listings. He was informed that the site was listed as class 4 and “this is an acceptable rating for a temperature sensor”. Hence, continued the Met Office, “we will continue to quote from this site”. In short, observes Homewood, the Met Office is happy to use a class 4 site for climatological purposes, “even though that class is next to junk status”. It is bad enough that the Met Office is using this site, but it is even worse that they know about the issues but still plan to carry on doing so, Homewood continued. “How many other weather stations are of such poor quality?” he asked.
Now we know.
Using these figures with a precision to one hundredth of a degree centigrade, the Met Office declared that 2023 was the second hottest in the U.K., coming in just 0.06°C lower than the all-time record. Cue, of course, all the Thermogeddon headlines in mainstream media. In 2022, the Met Office said that five sites in the U.K. on July 19th went past 40°C, with a record of 40.3°C at RAF Coningsby. Kew Gardens is termed a class 2 site, although it is very close to one of the largest tropical glasshouses in the world. St James’s Park and Northolt airport are class 5 sites, Heathrow is class 4, while RAF Coningsby is class 3. At the time, the Met Office declared that the records set a “milestone in U.K. climate history”. A national record was also set on July 18th at Hawarden Airport in Wales (class 4) and on July 19th at Charterhall in Scotland (class 4).
Always alive to a popular headline catastrophising the weather, the Met Office declared a warmest St. Valentine’s night English record this year of 11.5°C at class 4-rated St. Mary’s airport on the Isles of Scilly. Earlier in the year, the Met Office declared the highest January temperature in Scotland at 19.6°C at Kinlochewe, a class 4 site. Interestingly the previous, much promoted, U.K. record was set on July 31th 2019 at the Cambridge Botanic Gardens, a class 5 site. Even more interesting is that in the Homewood FOI disclosures, the Met Office stated that class 5 data “will be flagged and not quoted in national records”.
The Met Office is between a rock and a hard place with these surface temperature measurements. Many of its long-standing stations have been encroached by urbanisation and corruptions seem to have become endemic across the entire system. In the past, this didn’t matter as much since margin of error allowances could be accepted along with less accurate local and national weather forecasting. Measuring surface temperatures across countries and then the planet is always going to be difficult, but a more accurate reading would be obtained by only using data from WMO classes 1 and 2. However, national and global temperatures have become politicised by the global warming scare and the proposed Net Zero solution. Alarmists often state that climate ‘tipping’ points will be reached with very small increases in temperature measured in tenths of a degree.
Using data from just classes 1 and 2 would likely crash the claimed rises in national and global temperatures. Something similar would likely occur if the Met Office moved the majority of its stations to more suitable spots. A number of scientists have tried to measure the urban heat bias in temperature records with estimates suggesting a general problem of warming corruption around the 20-30% mark. Last October, two scientists working out of the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH), produced a paper noting: “The bottom line is that an estimated 22% of the U.S. warming trend, 1895 to 2023, is due to localised UHI [urban heat island] effects.”
Under our FOI request, it can now be seen that the problems with corrupted U.K. weather stations are similar to those discovered in the United States by meteorologist Anthony Watts. In work compiled over a decade, Watts found that 96% of temperature stations used by the U.S. weather service NOAA were “corrupted” by the localised effects of urbanisation. Sites in close proximity to asphalt, machinery and other heat-producing or heat-accentuating objects, “violates NOAA’s own published standards, and strongly undermines the legitimacy and magnitude of the official consensus on long-term climate warming trends in the United States”, he observed.
Both the U.K. and U.S. temperature datasets are important constituents of global totals compiled by a number of weather operations including the Met Office and NASA. The Met Office runs HadCRUT, where over the last 10 years two retrospective revisions have added about 30% extra warming to recent global temperatures. This had the effect of removing all traces of a pause around 2000-2014. Meanwhile, Professor Ole Humlum has noted that the GISS database run by NASA increased its surface air temperature between 1910 to 2000 from 0.47°C to 0.67°C, a boost of 49% over this period. “Frequent and large corrections in a database unavoidably signal a fundamental uncertainty about the correct values,” commented Humlum.
Pristine temperature data is available. In 2005, NOAA set up a 114 nationwide network of stations called the U.S. Climate Reference Network (USCRN). It was designed to remove all urban heat distortions, aiming for “superior accuracy and continuity in places that land use will not likely impact during the next five decades”.
The graph above shows nothing more than very minor, gentle warming since 2005, slight warming that might be expected in the small and continuing natural rebound from the depths of the pre-industrial Little Ice Age. A reliable source of global data is to be found in the UAH satellite record, which shows less overall warming since 1979 than the surface datasets. Both these datasets are rarely mentioned. In fact one of the compilers of the satellite data, along with the UAH paper on urban heat, is Dr. Roy Spencer. In 2022 he was kicked off Google AdSense for publishing “unreliable and harmful claims”. The move demonetised Dr. Spencer’s widely consulted monthly satellite temperature update page by removing all Google-supplied advertising. Google is on record as stating that it will ban all sites that are sceptical of “well established scientific consensus”.
Chris Morrison is the Daily Sceptic’s Environment Editor.
Hezbollah detains Dutch armed group in Beirut suburb
The Cradle | March 2, 2024
Hezbollah security personnel arrested six Dutch nationals in the southern suburbs of Beirut last Wednesday, Al-Akhbar reported on 2 March.
The men were found in possession of military-grade weapons, ammunition, and equipment.
The Dutch government claimed the six men were part of a special group sent to evacuate its nationals if the war between Hezbollah and Israel expanded.
Hezbollah handed over the men to the Lebanese Intelligence Directorate, where they were interrogated and kept in detention until early Friday morning.
Sources speaking with Al-Akhbar said the six men claimed to be members of the Dutch military, simulating an evacuation attempt from inside the southern suburb. Contact with them was lost after they entered the southern suburb and were stopped by Hezbollah security personnel. Two employees of the Dutch embassy residing in the southern suburb allegedly participated in the failed simulation.
However, journalist Hasan Illaik of the Lebanese news outlet Al-Mahatta reported that the embassy employees were not Dutch nationals and that the “Dutch ambassador to Lebanon quickly arrived at the ministry to pressure their release, under the pretext that they had not committed any crime. This is, of course, untrue given that this is a major violation of the law and that it was a significant security threat.”
Illaik added that, “even more suspiciously, the armed group claimed to have carried out the operation without consulting their own embassy. It was also discovered that they launched their operation from Kaslik,” a coastal town north of Beirut, “rather than from the embassy or a place affiliated with the embassy.”
Neither the Lebanese military nor the Dutch government provided an official statement or explanation for the incident.
Al-Akhbar reported as well on 2 March that Hezbollah’s security service arrested a Spanish national in the Al-Kafaat area in the southern Beirut suburbs several days ago. The man was filming with his phone on the street, claiming he was lost and needed to send his location to friends to pick him up.
However, during the interrogation, it was discovered that his phone contained an advanced program preventing access to the stored data.
High-level officials from the Spanish embassy then intervened to win his release. It was later discovered that the man possessed a diplomatic passport.
The arrests of the Dutch and Spanish nationals came as part of a program of additional measures initiated by Hezbollah security officials in response to increased efforts by Israeli and other foreign intelligence agencies to collect information needed to assassinate Hezbollah cadres.
Israel assassinated prominent Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri in an airstrike in the southern Beirut suburb of Dahiya in December and prominent Hezbollah commander Ali Hussein Burji in January in south Lebanon.
Since the outbreak of the war with Israel on 8 October, the embassies of several western countries, including Britain and Canada, have brought in special forces, ammunition, and advanced equipment under the pretext of evacuating their diplomats and nationals if the situation deteriorates.
Al-Akhbar reported in November that mysterious foreign military cargo flights, potentially carrying equipment for use against Hezbollah, were landing at the Beirut and Hamat airports.
Between the 14 and 20 November, nine planes from various NATO countries were recorded landing at Beirut and Hamat airports, including several flying from Tel Aviv, according to Intelsky, a website monitoring aircraft movement in the region.
US, UK accused of hindering investigation into UN chief’s plane crash in 1961
UN secretary general Dag Hammarskjöld, who died in a plane crash in Africa in 1961 en route to talks with Katangan rebels. (Photo by REX)
Press TV – March 2, 2024
Scholars have accused the United States and the United Kingdom of impeding a United Nations investigation into the 1961 airplane accident that resulted in the death of UN chief Dag Hammarskjöld.
Hammarskjöld, a Swedish national, was killed in a plane crash, which was allegedly taken down intentionally on September 18, 1961, while en route to mediate a ceasefire between UN peacekeepers in the Congo and separatists from the breakaway Congolese region of Katanga.
During a conference in London, attendees were briefed by Stephen Mathias, the UN assistant secretary general for legal affairs, on the latest developments in the investigation, which aims to obtain archived documentation from member states.
The attendees expressed concerns that both the US and UK were delaying the transfer of potentially crucial information.
“While Belgium, Sweden and Zimbabwe demonstrated serious efforts, the US and UK responses were wholly inadequate and showed contempt for the UN inquiry,” said the organizers of Thursday’s conference, the Institute of Commonwealth Studies at the University of London and the Westminster United Nations Association.
“The most recent general assembly resolution to renew the investigation was co-sponsored by 142 UN member states out of 193 – but not by the US and the UK,” said Susan Williams, a researcher whose 2011 book “Who Killed Hammarskjöld” contributed to the reopening of the UN inquiry.
Paul Boateng, the former UK high commissioner to South Africa, said: “The work must continue because it is part of a wider struggle to support democracy, the international rule of law, and the UN, all under increasing threat.”
“There must be no stone unturned to get at the truth. The suspected murder of a UN secretary general is a crime too grave to be obliterated by time.”
The crash resulted in the death of 15 other passengers, and its first inquiry, which was carried out by Rhodesian authorities, concluded that the crash was the result of a pilot error, but the finding was controversial.
People who witnessed the crash on the ground had claimed that they saw another aircraft apart from the chief’s.
At that time, French and British intelligence officers were reported to be near Ndola, Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia), where the crash took place, while US intelligence officers were monitoring communications from Cyprus and reported hearing communications consistent with the UN plane coming under fire.
Hammarskjöld was killed amidst a contest for resources in Africa during the post-colonial era, during his last journey, he was en route to a clandestine gathering aimed at mediating an end to the civil conflict in the newly liberated Congo, a nation abundant in minerals and teetering on the edge of collapse.
In the year before, the eastern province of Katanga had declared independence in 1960. While being a major contributor to the country’s economy, this region is renowned for its vast ore deposits, including uranium ore used in the atomic bomb, which was dropped on Hiroshima.
German Military’s Crimean Bridge Strike Talk: ‘NATO Has Found Itself in Hot Water’
By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 02.03.2024
The situation around the leaked conversation between high-ranking German army officers has once again refuted NATO’s allegations about the alliance’s non-interference in the Ukrainian conflict, experts told Sputnik.
The Russian Foreign Ministry has demanded an “immediate explanation” from Berlin on the audio recording released earlier this week by Margarita Simonyan, editor-in-chief of RT and Rossiya Segodnya, Sputnik’s parent media group.
In it, German generals are heard discussing a potential attack on the Crimean Bridge with Taurus missiles.
Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stressed in a statement that attempts by German authorities “to dodge the question will be considered an admission of guilt.”
High-ranking German officers discussed launching strikes on “Russian civilian infrastructure either with the tacit official consent of Berlin or behind its back; both variants are the matter of serious concern,” military expert Robinson Farinazzo, a former Brazilian Navy officer, said in an interview with Sputnik.
“The authorities are either aware of everything or they knew nothing, which means it was the military’s conspiracy – something that should be punished accordingly, right down to an option of all those involved being brought to tribunal,” Farinazzo said.
“If Berlin was in the know, it can be likened to a declaration of war,” he insisted, urging Moscow and Berlin to use diplomatic channels to defuse tensions over this information “about aggressive intentions.”
According to the expert, “It’s hard to imagine what measures Moscow might take if it considers actions by the German officers a serious provocation.”
The former Brazilian naval officer also drew attention to German authorities keeping mum on the matter. Likewise, how the information comes amid disagreements among Western countries on additional military aid to the Kiev regime, including the possibility of providing Ukraine with the Taurus cruise missiles and sending NATO military units to the country.
In this vein, Farinazzo said he believes that further developments will depend on whether the US Congress will okay more supplies to Ukraine or not. Even if Congress gives the green light, this will only add to prolonging the conflict and will fail to change the situation on the battlefield in favor of Ukraine, per the expert.
“The West and high-ranking NATO officers have already realized the fact that Ukraine cannot win. A potential strike on the Crimean Bridge would be tangible from a psychological point of view, but it would hardly affect the course of the special military operation, since Russia instead can use railroad or sea transport,” Farinazzo said.
International relations expert Tito Livio Barcellos Pereira from the Pontifical Catholic University of Sao Paulo, for his part said that the conversation once again raises doubts about the veracity of previous claims by Western authorities that NATO countries are not involved in the Ukraine conflict.
“NATO countries, which previously argued that they were not directly involved in the conflict and only limit themselves to sending aid to Kiev, have found themselves in hot water. Their claims are becoming less credible, while Russia’s arguments are sounding more convincing,” the expert underscored.
He noted that “in this situation, the leaders of Western states will probably have to explain themselves before lawmakers and the entire society of their countries, as well as before other NATO members, which have a more restrained stance.”
In Pereira’s opinion, the situation could lead to an even greater escalation of tensions between Russia and NATO, especially given that the alliance “does not want to hear the arguments by Moscow, which has repeatedly warned against the alliance’s infrastructure getting closer to Russian borders.”
“The German military’s recorded conversation once again confirms that the alliance continues to be involved in a [proxy] war with Russia,” Pereira concludes, berating Kiev and the West for deliberately sabotaging all alternative peace initiatives put forward by the Global South.
Why the West can’t be trusted to observe its own ‘red lines’ in Ukraine
By Tarik Cyril Amar | RT | March 2, 2024
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz have disagreed publicly over how to support Ukraine – which has been ruthlessly deployed by the West as a geopolitical proxy – in its conflict with Russia. Macron used a special EU meeting he had convened, rumor has it directly inspired by Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky, to state, in effect, that sending Western combat troops into Ukraine was an option.
Of course, the West already has troops on the ground, including those flimsily camouflaged as volunteers and mercenaries, or otherwise participating in the conflict (for instance by planning and targeting), as a recent leak of US documents has confirmed. But an open intervention by ground forces would be a severe escalation, directly pitting Russia and NATO against each other, as Moscow has quickly pointed out, and making nuclear escalation a real possibility.
Russia has deliberately tolerated a certain degree of Western intervention, for its own pragmatic reasons: In essence, it seeks to win the war in Ukraine, while avoiding an open conflict with NATO. It is willing to pay the price of having to deal with some de facto Western military meddling, as long as it is confident it can defeat it on the Ukrainian battlefield. Indeed, the strategy has the added advantage that the West is bleeding its own resources, while the Russian military is receiving excellent hands-on training in how to neutralize Western hardware, including much-touted “miracle weapons.”
You do not have to believe Moscow’s words, but simply consult elementary logic to understand that there is an equally hard-headed limit to this kind of calculated tolerance. If the Russian leadership were to conclude that Western military forces in Ukraine were endangering its objectives (instead of merely making achieving them harder), it would raise the price for certain Western countries. (Selective treatment would be adopted to put under stress – quite possibly to breaking point – Western cohesion.)
Consider Germany, for instance: Berlin is by far Ukraine’s biggest bilateral financial supporter among EU states (at least in terms of commitments). Yet militarily, for now, Russia has been content with, in essence, shredding German Leopard tanks as they arrive on the battlefield. And, in a sense, punishing Germany’s meddling can safely be left to its own government: the country has already taken massive hits to its economy and international standing.
But if Berlin were to go even further, Moscow’s calculations would change. In that case, as little as German mass media allow German citizens to think about it, a “sobering” (to use a term from Russian doctrine) strike – initially probably non-nuclear – on German forces and territory is possible. The domestic consequences of such an attack are unpredictable. Germans might rally round the flag, or they might openly rebel against an already deeply unpopular government that has been sacrificing the national interest with unprecedented bluntness to Washington’s geopolitics.
If you think the above sounds a little far-fetched, I know of someone who clearly does not share your complacency: the German chancellor. Stung by Macron’s provocation, Scholz countered with telling alacrity. Within 24 hours after the surprise French move, he publicly ruled out the sending of “ground troops” by “European nations or NATO nations,” underlining that that this red line has always been agreed on.
In addition, the chancellor also chose exactly this moment to reaffirm that Germany will not deliver its Taurus cruise missiles to Kiev, as escalation that proponents have long demanded, including inside Germany. With, according to Scholz, the capability of striking Moscow, Berlin’s missiles in Ukrainian hands and Macron’s hypothetical ground forces have one thing in common: they come with a serious risk of spreading direct fighting beyond Ukraine, in particular to Western Europe and Germany.
In other words, the leaders of the two countries traditionally recognized as the core of the European Union have displayed profound disagreement on a key issue. Macron, it is true, often says more than he means or will care to remember. Scholz is an extreme opportunist, even by the standards of professional politics. In addition, clearly intentional indiscretions from the two men’s teams point to mutual and heartfelt antipathy, as Bloomberg has just reported. We could dismiss the spat between them as nothing but the result of incompatible political styles and personal animosity.
But that would be a grave mistake. In reality, their open discord is an important signal about the state of thinking, debate, and policy making within the EU, and, more broadly, NATO and the West. The real challenge is to decipher what this signal means.
Let’s start with something the two leaders will not openly admit but, it is virtually certain, share: The background to their quarrel is their fear that Ukraine and the West are not only losing the conflict, but more importantly in the information-streamlined West, that this defeat is about to become undeniably obvious. For instance, in the shape of further Russian advances, including strategic victories like the taking of Avdeevka and a partial or total collapse of Ukrainian defenses. Even the robustly bellicose Economist, for instance, is now admitting that Russia’s offensive is “heating up,” that the fall of Avdeevka has not made the Russian military pause, and that Ukrainians themselves are “becoming pessimistic.” Both Macron’s remarks and Scholz’s hasty disclaimer are indicators of a growing and well-founded pessimism, perhaps even incipient panic among Western elites.
Yet that does not tell us much about how these elites really intend to react to this losing game (assuming they know themselves, that is). In principle, there are two strategic options: raise the stakes (again) or cut your losses (finally). At this point, the “raise the stakes” faction is still dominating the policy debate. The negative response to Macron’s show-stealer move has overshadowed that the general trend of the NATO and EU strategy is still to add fresh resources to the fight, for instance by agreeing to source ammunition from outside the EU, a move long resisted by France. At least as far as the public is permitted to see, NATO and the EU are still run by sunk-cost-fallacy addicts: The more they have failed and lost already, the more they want to risk.
In reality, however, the option of deception and the temptation of self-deception (they easily blend into each other, an effect commonly known as “drinking your own Kool Aid” ) make things more complicated: Take, for instance, Russia’s evidence, in verbatim transcript detail, of high-ranking German military officers discussing – or was it “brainstorming” ? – how Ukraine could, after all, use Taurus missiles to attack the Kerch Strait Bridge that connects Crimea with the Russian mainland, while maintaining, in effect, plausible deniability. Scholz’s public statement that “German soldiers must at no point and in no place be linked” to Taurus attacks is proof that evading responsibility – or the impossibility to do so – are on his mind. As you would expect from a politician whose only strategy is finding the path of least resistance.
The muddled German response to this embarrassing intelligence fiasco (Why exactly was something so obviously sensitive discussed via hackable telecommunications instead of in a secure room, for instance?) only confirms that the Russian evidence is authentic. Instead of denying that the discussion took place, Germany has reacted – in typical authoritarian manner – by blocking social media accounts reporting it, and by trying to spin the conversation as nothing but a harmless thought experiment.
And yet, Scholz’s suspiciously elastic phrasing and the German officers’ discussion do not mean that such a course of naively transparent cheating will be adopted by Berlin. It may even have been a way of figuring out why that would not work.
Especially if this information is not entirely new, Russia’s choosing to publicize it now and perhaps even risking some (minor) intelligence disadvantage by revealing the extent of the German military’s penetration is, of course, also a signal to Germany’s leadership: Moscow will not play along with plausible deniability (a “don’t even try” message) and is deadly serious about this red line (a “we mean it” message). This as well may help focus minds in Berlin and make cheating less likely.
In any case, the evidence of German officers thinking about how to help attack Russia without leaving fingerprints does underline two things: Western public statements can easily be deliberate lies; and even when they are not, they are always open to radical revision. Indeed, Macron, too, alluded to that fact, pointing out that even if direct military intervention is not a consensus yet, it could become one in the future, just as other red lines have been crossed before.
In that light, Macron’s loose talk could be read as just another bluff – or, as they say in France, “strategic ambiguity” : a desperate attempt to strut so fiercely that Russia will not press its military advantage. If that was the French president’s intention, it has backfired spectacularly: Macron has provoked not only Germany but other, bigger Western players as well to clarify that they do not agree with him. Note to the Jupiterian self in the Élysée Palace: It’s not “ambiguous” when everyone who counts says “No way!”; it’s not very “strategic” either.
Yet it would be complacent to take solace from Macron’s current isolation. First, it is not complete: There are hardcore escalationists, such as the Estonian leader Kaja Kallas, in the EU and NATO who have praised him precisely because they want to drag everyone else into a direct clash with Russia. It is good that these especially zealous warmongers do not have the upper hand for now. But they have not been defeated or even appropriately marginalized either, and they will not give up.
Second, a strategy of escalation and threats can get out of hand. Consider the too-little-known fact that, in the July Crisis of 1914, just before World War I started, even the German emperor Wilhelm II had moments where he privately felt that it could still be avoided. That, however, was after he and his government had personally done their worst to bring the big war about. Lesson: If you take too many risks, at some point you may no longer be able to dial down the escalation you have promoted yourself.
Third, and most fundamentally, while rationally applied dishonesty is not unusual in international politics, for an international system to produce stability, it must first produce predictability. That, in turn, requires that even deception is kept within tacitly agreed limits and is, to a degree, predictable (because of its underlying rationality). The problem with the post-Cold War West is that it has chosen to forget and flaunt this basic rule of global order. Its addiction to unreliability is so severe that signals of escalation are inherently more credible than signals of de-escalation, as long as there is no principal, general, and clearly recognizable change of approach.
Put differently, Macron’s current isolation does not count for much because its due-diligence interpretation from Moscow’s perspective has to be that he merely went a little too far too soon. Neither Scholz’s nor other Western disavowals make a difference. What would make a difference is a united and clear signal by the West that it is now ready for genuine negotiations and a real compromise settlement. For now, the opposite remains true.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul.
Hysterectomy – On Stealing Womanhood
Lies are Unbekoming | February 25, 2024
This all started from one line in the interview I did with Carol Peterson.
Hormones – Lies are Unbekoming (substack.com)
“Most reasons for hysterectomies can be tied to progesterone deficiencies and most could be avoided with rational supplementation.”
I realised I didn’t know anything about hysterectomies, but I knew it was a major surgery, and here was Carol saying that most could be avoided.
I followed my curiosity and here we are with this article.
I cannot believe what I have discovered. It’s actually hard to put into words.
I think I will do more than just this article on the subject.
How is it possible that cutting out a woman’s uterus is the second most common surgery in the US?
About 600,000 women a year undergo hysterectomies in the U.S., the second most common surgery, surpassed only by cesareans. – Wittelsey 2011
Surely, they are all necessary:
Over 5,000 women whose doctors have recommended hysterectomy have received the names of second opinion physicians from the HERS Foundation, says Coffey. Only 2% of the 5,000 have gone on to have the surgery. – HERS
Surely, they wouldn’t do it for the money, would they?
“Some of us aren’t making a living, so out comes a uterus or two each month to pay for the rent,” admitted a Baltimore specialist in a 1975 New York Times interview.
How did Big Medicine reach the conclusion that a woman doesn’t need her uterus?
“Your uterus is nothing but a big, unresponsive blob.” — The Woman Doctor’s Medical Guide for Women by Barbara Edelstein, MD (1982)
The structural problem seems to be one of lying to women about the risks and aftermath:
According to Nora Coffey, founder and President of the non-profit HERS Foundation in Philadelphia, PA, too many doctors perform unnecessary hysterectomies, too many fail to tell women that there can be devastating after-effects from removal of the uterus or ovaries, and too many don’t offer alternative treatment for the problems that are, seemingly, so quickly solved with the knife.
One of the most significant points that jumped at me from the page was “loss of maternal feeling”:
Coffey says that HERS has also counseled over 9,000 hysterectomized women who are experiencing symptoms such as loss of maternal feeling, bone and joint pain, chronic fatigue, hot flashes, insomnia, loss of short-term memory, diminished emotional responses, loss of sexual desire and a host of other hysterectomy-related symptoms.
Of the millions of women that have had this done to them, how many have lost their maternal feeling towards their children. Women carry that maternal feeling into the world too. What happens to the world when maternal feeling is vanquished?
I now wonder how many women in power have had a hysterectomy. Is it more than the wider population? What are the consequences of this? Does it help with climbing the ladder? Does it impact empathy?
I think these are all fair questions because of the sheer scale of the issue.
At the end of each day of counseling, I knew there were a few more women out there who would avoid unnecessary surgeries because they received information from HERS. It was too little too late, however, for 621,000 other women in this country each year—more than 22 million hysterectomized women alive in America today? – The H Word (2008)
They remove the ovaries also about half the time by scaring woman with ovarian cancer:
In this country, half of the women who undergo a hysterectomy also have their ovaries removed. The reasoning given is to “save” the woman from the remote possibility of ovarian cancer.
However, Dr. Lauersen issues this warning to women concerning prophylactic excision of the ovaries: “Usually it is not necessary to remove the ovaries of a menstruating woman during hysterectomy. A doctor may say that he wants to remove the ovaries to prevent ovarian cancer, an insidious disease that does not have obvious symptoms. However, studies have indicated that it would take 7,500 oophorectomies (excision of the ovaries) in order to prevent one death from ovarian cancer. Ovarian cancer, which only accounts for 4% of all cancers in women, is more frequently discovered after menopause in women between 55 and 64 years old.”
Because fibroid growths are often called “tumors”, the lay patient may immediately fear that she has cancer. However, according to Dr. Lauersen, fewer than one half of one percent ever proceed to that stage.
The removal of ovaries is castration.
Castrated men were called Eunuchs.
We don’t have a word for castrated women. I think they, the butchers, prefer it that way.
I really don’t have words to describe this butchery.
We live in three dimensions. The physical, the mental and the spiritual.
We have been trained to diminish the spiritual, to our own detriment.
Somewhere deep in the bowels of Big Medicine, there is a spirit, and that spirit hates humanity, and very specifically it hates women.
There is no other conclusion I can reach anymore.
After reading this long stack, if you reach a different conclusion, let me know in the comments.
Carol Peterson pointed me to HERS to further my education, and it was there that I discovered Nora Coffey and her great book The H Word, that I’m reading now, co-authored with Rick Schweikert. I can definitely recommend it.
It turns out that Rick wrote a play…you will never guess what he called it…
What are the odds!!
The following statistics and Q&As are drawn from these three sources:
HYSTERECTOMY: THE SHOCKING TRUTH by Lee Rothberg (whale.to)
The Hysterectomy Epidemic: Where’s the Outrage? – Ms. Magazine (msmagazine.com)
Female Anatomy: The Functions of the Female Organs – HERS Foundation
Let these numbers wash over you as you start coming to terms with the scale of what has been done to women.
- About 600,000 women a year undergo hysterectomies in the U.S. This makes it the second most common surgery among women in the country, surpassed only by cesarean sections.
- 90 percent of hysterectomies are avoidable, according to Dr. Mitchell Levine, suggesting that the majority of these procedures could be managed with alternative treatments.
- 70 to 76 percent of hysterectomies do not meet the recommended criteria for necessity according to an expert panel and the American Congress of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG), indicating a high rate of potentially unnecessary surgeries.
- 210,000 women could avoid losing their ovaries annually if alternative treatments were pursued instead of hysterectomies, based on the 70 percent estimate of avoidable procedures.
- 15 to 30 percent of women who conserve their ovaries during hysterectomy lose ovarian function anyway, highlighting the risk of menopausal symptoms and hormonal imbalance even when ovaries are not removed.
- Women who have their ovaries removed face a higher risk of early death from any cause, primarily from heart disease and lung cancer, as found in a study of almost 30,000 women followed for 24 years.
- For every 24 women having bilateral oophorectomy, at least one will die prematurely as a result of the procedure, emphasizing the significant risk associated with the removal of both ovaries.
- Women who undergo hysterectomy report a range of adverse effects in significant percentages, including 79.6% experiencing loss of sexual desire and profound fatigue, and 79.1% noting personality changes.
- The HERS Foundation’s ongoing study reveals that 72.8% of respondents report loss of stamina post-hysterectomy, indicating the extensive impact on women’s overall well-being and quality of life.
- 35-40% of women whose ovaries are not removed during hysterectomy experience a loss of ovarian function, which equates to a form of castration and results in the cessation of hormone production critical to various aspects of health.
- Only about 10 percent of hysterectomies are performed for cancer, indicating that the vast majority are for benign conditions that might be managed with less invasive options.
- An expert panel found that up to 70% of hysterectomies recommended were inappropriate based on developed criteria, highlighting a substantial issue with surgical decision-making.
- 512,000 women undergoing hysterectomy last year had their ovaries removed during the surgery, whether the ovaries were healthy or not, potentially subjecting these women to unnecessary risks.
- Women who had their ovaries removed had a seven-times greater incidence of heart disease, showing the critical role of ovarian hormones in cardiovascular health.
- The HERS Foundation has counseled over 5,000 women whose doctors recommended hysterectomy, with only 2% going on to have the surgery after receiving second opinions or learning about alternatives.
- Women report a total loss of sexual feeling after hysterectomy in a significant number of cases, affecting their quality of life and personal relationships.
- Hysterectomized women have protruding bellies and little or no waist due to the unnatural shifting of bones and organs inside the pelvis after the surgery.
- Over 9,000 hysterectomized women report experiencing symptoms such as loss of maternal feeling and personality change, as documented by the HERS Foundation.
- Women who undergo hysterectomy are at risk for urinary incontinence and chronic constipation due to weakening of the pelvic floor and loss of feeling from the severing of pelvic nerves.
- A landmark Nurses Health Study concluded that women who had their ovaries removed faced a higher risk of early death, primarily from heart disease and lung cancer, compared to those who did not.
Next, I have created 30 Q&As that again take us from beginner to advanced on the subject, but I have also taken chapter 4 of The H Word and spliced it throughout the Q&A. It’s a very important chapter and you will see why shortly.
- What is a hysterectomy? A hysterectomy is a surgical procedure that involves the removal of the uterus. This operation can be performed for various medical reasons, including but not limited to uterine fibroids, endometriosis, uterine prolapse, chronic pelvic pain, abnormal bleeding, or cancer. The procedure effectively ends menstruation and the ability to become pregnant.
- What is an oophorectomy? An oophorectomy is the surgical removal of one or both ovaries. When both ovaries are removed, it’s called bilateral oophorectomy. This procedure can lead to immediate menopause if both ovaries are removed before a woman naturally enters menopause, significantly impacting her hormonal balance and potentially increasing her risk for certain health issues, such as osteoporosis and cardiovascular disease.
- Why are hysterectomies performed? Hysterectomies are performed for various reasons, often as a last resort for conditions that have not responded to other treatments. Common reasons include uterine fibroids that cause pain or bleeding, uterine prolapse, cancer of the uterus, cervix, or ovaries, endometriosis, abnormal vaginal bleeding, chronic pelvic pain, and adenomyosis. Each condition affects the quality of life and may necessitate the removal of the uterus for relief or cure.
- What are the potential risks associated with hysterectomy? The risks associated with hysterectomy include those common to major surgeries, such as infection, blood clots, hemorrhage, and adverse reactions to anesthesia. Specific to hysterectomy, risks can include damage to surrounding organs, chronic pain, hormonal imbalances when the ovaries are removed, and long-term effects such as increased risk of cardiovascular diseases and osteoporosis. Emotional and psychological effects, including depression and a sense of loss, may also occur.
- How does the removal of ovaries (oophorectomy) affect a woman’s body? The removal of ovaries leads to a sudden drop in the production of hormones such as estrogen and progesterone, leading to what is known as surgical menopause. This abrupt change can cause severe menopausal symptoms, including hot flashes, mood swings, vaginal dryness, decreased libido, and increased risk for osteoporosis and heart disease due to the loss of estrogen’s protective effects.
- What emotional or psychological effects can result from a hysterectomy? Beyond the physical impact, a hysterectomy can have significant emotional and psychological effects. Many women report feelings of loss or sadness after the procedure, particularly if they had not completed their families or if the surgery was done as part of cancer treatment. There may also be changes in self-image and sexual identity, as well as anxiety and depression due to hormonal changes, especially if the ovaries are removed.
- How can a hysterectomy impact a woman’s sexual function and libido? A hysterectomy can impact sexual function and libido in several ways. The removal of the uterus may change the nature of orgasm due to the absence of uterine contractions. If the ovaries are removed, the resulting drop in hormones can lead to decreased libido, vaginal dryness, and discomfort during sex. However, for some women, relief from chronic pain or heavy bleeding after hysterectomy improves their sexual health and quality of life.
- What is estrogen replacement therapy (ERT), and why might it be used after a hysterectomy? Estrogen Replacement Therapy (ERT) is a treatment used to alleviate menopausal symptoms by replacing estrogen, which is no longer produced by the ovaries after oophorectomy or natural menopause. After a hysterectomy, particularly when the ovaries are removed, ERT can help manage symptoms such as hot flashes, vaginal dryness, mood swings, and prevent osteoporosis by compensating for the loss of natural estrogen.
- Can you explain the role of testosterone in women’s health post-hysterectomy? Testosterone plays a crucial role in women’s health, contributing to muscle strength, bone density, and sexual desire. After a hysterectomy, especially with oophorectomy, women may experience a drop in testosterone levels, leading to decreased libido, fatigue, and loss of muscle mass. Testosterone therapy, albeit less common than estrogen therapy, may be considered for some women to address these issues.
- What are some alternative treatments to hysterectomy for conditions like fibroids and endometriosis? Alternative treatments to hysterectomy for managing conditions like fibroids and endometriosis include medication to manage symptoms, hormone therapy to shrink fibroids or control endometriosis, minimally invasive procedures like uterine artery embolization for fibroids, and laparoscopic surgery to remove endometriosis lesions or fibroids while preserving the uterus.
Nurses and doctors’ wives. Seattle, Washington—Rick Schweikert
When Nora told me that women sometimes send HERS photos of themselves before and after hysterectomy, I didn’t think too much about it. Until, at the premiere of un becoming in New York, a woman with tears in her eyes thanked me, saying, “You’re probably going to think I’m crazy, but can I show you a picture of me before the surgery?” And then after the next show it happened again. A woman who was married to a doctor said, “This is me before the surgery.” We spoke with women all over the country who carry around photos to remind themselves of who they were before a doctor removed their female organs.
The biggest difference I notice in the photos is their eyes.
As one woman explained, she showed me her photo to prove that before the surgery she was strong, vibrant, healthy, and happy,
“When I still had that glint in my eyes.”
The main protagonist in un becoming is an artist named Emma Douglas. She’s a painter who refers to her work as her life’s breath. She’s married to an anesthesiologist named Sam Morgan.
Sam’s best friend happens to be Dr. James Ridge, the gynecologist who recommends “exploratory” surgery to Emma. Halley Ridge, Dr. Ridge’s wife, was hysterectomized by her husband’s colleague, but the audience doesn’t discover that until the end of the play. In the end, Halley helps Emma avoid the surgery.
un becoming places accountability for hysterectomy on the shoulders of those who are most responsible. The villain of the play is a gynecologist, and the hero is a hysterectomized woman his wife. This scenario had never been portrayed in any stage pr duction before. When actors first picked up the script, they some times found the story hard to believe, as was the case with one u the members of the Seattle cast. But it’s unfortunately a common story.
What follows is an excerpt from one of the thousands of emails we’ve received from women whose lives mirror the story of un becoming:
Hi there,
My name is… I am from… My doctor who I loved and never questioned, suggested a hysterectomy. He didn’t think me being only 30 years old was an issue since I was married and had…children. He explained that I would take an estrogen pill each day, and basically I would be good as gold. ( Not his words) that is how he made it seem. NO SIDE AFFECTS WERE EVER MENTIONED! I was told it would be no different than my c section surgeries as far as the pain was concerned. My mother had a hysterectomy…..and told me that it would take a year before I felt better, however she had no idea what she would live the rest of her life like either. I…am having joint pain in my hands, knees, elbows and back. Before the hysterectomy I was fine, due to the pain I can no longer roller skate with my children, dance around the house and I fear that I am going to have to close my business. The list of side effects since the hysterectomy is too long…to put in this e-mail.
This morning out of desperation…I found your site. I am beside myself thinking I am only going to get worse. I am an artist and yesterday I couldn’t hold the paint brush to paint at my easel, typing this e-mail is painful. What can I do? Do you have any info that might help me?
Is there anyone else going through this?
Thank you for your time.
Sincerely;
(name and other identities omitted for confidentiality)
There have been a few books, such as Mary Daly’s GYN/ ECOLOGY, that accurately portray the life-altering effects of hysterectomy. But most books on the subject ultimately twist the truth around to benefit the self-serving interests of its author, the publisher, or the university or pharmaceutical company that sponsored the author’s research. un becoming is the story of hysterectomy told through the eyes of women—not the medical industrial establishment that targets them. The story is fictional, but two of the women who joined the protest in Seattle reminded us that the imaginary plot and characters are based on common experiences.
- How does the HERS Foundation assist women considering or affected by hysterectomy? The HERS Foundation provides education, advocacy, and support to women facing hysterectomy. They offer comprehensive information on the effects of hysterectomy, alternative treatments, and the importance of informed consent. By empowering women with knowledge, HERS aims to help them make informed decisions about their health care and advocate for less invasive treatments when appropriate.
- What long-term health risks are associated with hysterectomy and oophorectomy? Long-term health risks associated with hysterectomy and oophorectomy include an increased risk of cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, hormonal imbalance, and early menopause symptoms if the ovaries are removed. There’s also a potential risk for urinary incontinence, bowel dysfunction, and changes in sexual function.
- How does a hysterectomy affect a woman’s cardiovascular health? A hysterectomy, especially when accompanied by oophorectomy, can affect a woman’s cardiovascular health by increasing the risk of heart disease. Estrogen has a protective effect on heart health, and its sudden decrease can lead to higher cholesterol levels, increased blood pressure, and a greater risk of developing cardiovascular diseases.
- What are the uterine functions beyond childbearing? Beyond childbearing, the uterus plays a role in sexual health and pleasure, with uterine contractions contributing to orgasmic experiences for some women. It also supports pelvic anatomy, maintaining the proper position of surrounding organs and structures. Additionally, the uterus is involved in hormonal regulation and may have protective effects against certain diseases.
- What common misconceptions exist about the effects of hysterectomy on women’s health? Common misconceptions include the belief that the uterus is only necessary for childbearing and that its removal doesn’t impact hormonal balance or sexual function. Many are unaware of the potential for long-term health consequences, such as increased risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis, as well as the emotional and psychological impact.
- How do societal views on female reproductive organs influence decisions about hysterectomy? Societal views often reduce female reproductive organs to their roles in childbearing, overlooking their importance to overall health, hormonal balance, and sexual function. This can contribute to a cavalier attitude towards hysterectomy and oophorectomy, underestimating the procedures’ impacts on women’s lives and health.
- What legal and ethical concerns arise from the high rate of unnecessary hysterectomies? The high rate of unnecessary hysterectomies raises legal and ethical concerns about informed consent, the adequacy of patient education regarding alternatives, and potential financial incentives driving surgical recommendations. It also highlights the need for greater advocacy and protection for patients’ rights to understand and choose less invasive options.
- How might the rate of hysterectomy surgeries be affected by the availability of alternative therapies? The availability of alternative therapies could significantly reduce the rate of hysterectomy surgeries by offering less invasive options for conditions traditionally treated with hysterectomy. Increased awareness and accessibility to treatments like hormone therapy, myomectomy, and endometrial ablation could empower women to choose alternatives that preserve their reproductive organs and minimize long-term risks.
- What advancements have been made in treatments for conditions like endometriosis without resorting to hysterectomy? Advances in the treatment of endometriosis include laparoscopic surgery to remove endometrial tissue while preserving the uterus, improved hormonal treatments to manage symptoms, and new medications targeting endometriosis’ pathophysiology. Research into non-hormonal treatments and immunotherapy offers hope for less invasive, more effective management strategies.
- How could patient education and advocacy change the future of gynecological health care? Patient education and advocacy can significantly impact gynecological health care by demanding a higher standard for informed consent, promoting awareness of less invasive treatments, and challenging the normalization of radical surgeries like hysterectomy. Empowered patients are more likely to seek second opinions, choose alternatives, and advocate for research into new treatments, leading to a shift towards more patient-centered care.
During the protests and talkbacks after the play, we met hundreds of hysterectomized women who were either nurses or the wives of doctors. And if that woman herself was an attorney or a nurse, audiences were shocked to hear that even that wasn’t enough to protect them. Nora often says, “The greatest number of hysterectomy scars are worn by the wives of doctors. Second is nurses.”
One of the women who joined us in Seattle was a writer who wrote a book about the before-and-after of hysterectomy. Her friend Fran (name changed for confidentiality) told her the story of how she ended up on an operating table. Fran was a registered nurse whose husband was a doctor: The surgeon who performed the “exploratory surgery” on her was the father of her daughter, close friend. All were in agreement that no organs were to be removed. She previously had one of her ovaries removed for an ordinary cyst, and she and her husband specifically made it clear that under no circumstances were the uterus or the remaining ovary to be removed. After the operation the surgeon emerged from the operating room, announcing that he had “excised the problem.” Fran’s husband, waiting for news about the surgery, was relieved…until the surgeon informed him that although he didn’t remove her uterus he did remove her remaining ovary, against their expressed wishes.
As medical professionals, Fran and her husband knew that ovarian function is critical to health and wellbeing. Uterine function and viability depends on ovarian function. By removing Fran’s remaining ovary, they knew that her hormone-responsive uterus would atrophy.
In order to keep her uterus viable, Fran was prescribed high levels of exogenous hormones—that is, hormones produced outside of her body. But while the endogenous hormones (produced naturally within her body) were beneficial to her, the exogenous hormones came with a host of dangers. The increased risk of cancer (breast, ovarian, uterine, and others), stroke, heart disease, dementia, and so on have been well-documented in studies and in literature. Because of the adverse effects of high doses of hormones, coupled with the devastating physical loss of ovarian function (the predictable aftereffects of castration), Fran was now unable to control her emotions. So she was prescribed potent anti- depressants and other anxiety-controlling drugs with unknown potential interactions.
The betrayal of trust by her profession filled her with rage and despair. Nora says the angriest women who contact HERS are nurses and the wives of doctors. She was both. Her rage consumed her.
When she and her husband attended a HERS conference in Dallas a few years later, she said her medical records showed there was nothing of significance wrong with the first ovary the doctor had removed, and the remaining ovary was also healthy when he removed it.
In the end, the couple sued the doctor. It was a fairly blatant case of a high-handed doctor mutilating a woman against her expressed wishes. But she lost the lawsuit. The jury favored the doctor’s word over hers and determined that the mutilating surgery had met the current “accepted standard of care.” As the surgeon’s defense attorney put it, her husband was a doctor and she was a nurse, so they should’ve known better.
Once the doctor became focused on Fran’s benign ovarian cyst—a natural variation that required no treatment—a cascade of devastating decisions and actions ensued. Menstruating women produce an ovarian cyst every month. It’s normal for the ovaries to develop physiologic (or functional) cysts when they ovulate mid-cycle, which wax and wane larger before menstruation and smaller after menstruation-usually a functional cyst develops on the right ovary one month, and on the left ovary the next month.
Other common, benign, ovarian cysts include dermoid, endometrioma (also called “chocolate” cysts), borderline, and teratoma. Dermoid cysts are rarely a cause for concern. They’re primordial cysts that usually contain hair, teeth, and often fat. Like endometrioma, dermoid cysts tend to grow bilaterally (on bot) ovaries), but they can also develop on only one ovary. They can occur on the outside of the ovary on a stalk that extends from the ovary (its blood supply), or they can occur inside the ovary, encapsulated. Women are often told that the ovary with the cyst must be removed, but this begins with the faulty premise that the development of these cysts requires action. In fact, except for borderline cysts, which have a small incidence of becoming cancerous, these cysts are benign-they don’t become malignant. Although they can become quite large, they may never cause a symptom. If they don’t bother you, there’s no reason to do anything about them.
The worst-case scenario is they can rupture, but cysts don’t rupture spontaneously—usually only through some kind of trauma to the abdomen, such as a forceful blow to the pelvis. If they do rupture, surgery is performed to irrigate the pelvis, which removes the contents of the cyst.
If the cyst is causing problems you can’t live with, a cystectomy (surgical removal of the cyst) can usually be performed without removing the ovary-if the surgeon has the skill to do so.
Ovaries are very resilient. They can be cut into pieces (called a wedge resection), the cyst removed, the pieces of the ovary sutured back together, and the ovary usually functions normally again.
If a cyst grows very large, some women feel pelvic pressure internally or they might experience urinary frequency. But usually they present no symptoms and are detected incidentally during a pelvic exam. Some women are especially prone to developing dermoid or endometrioma cysts, and after they’re removed they may develop them over and over again. This is a time when they’re especially vulnerable to hysterectomy, which is one reason to not go down the surgical path to begin with.
A Pap smear performed during a so-called well-woman visit is all too often an invitation to unnecessary treatment. The incidence of cancer in the female and the male sex organs is nearly identical, but men don’t have their sex organs routinely inspected.
And if doctors are hysterectomizing and castrating more than half a million healthy women each year, clearly the safe thing to do is to stay away from doctors and hospitals…even if you’re a nurse and your husband is a doctor.
- What role do the ovaries play in a woman’s body after menopause? After menopause, the ovaries continue to produce hormones, albeit at lower levels, including testosterone and a small amount of estrogen. These hormones play crucial roles in maintaining bone density, sexual desire, and overall well-being. The loss of ovarian function due to oophorectomy can therefore have significant health implications.
- What are the implications of “surgical menopause”? “Surgical menopause” refers to the abrupt onset of menopause symptoms following the removal of the ovaries. This sudden hormonal shift can lead to severe menopausal symptoms, increased risk for cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, and a decline in sexual function. Unlike natural menopause, the transition is immediate, and symptoms can be more intense.
- How does the removal of the uterus and ovaries relate to increased risks of diseases such as osteoporosis and heart disease? The removal of the uterus and especially the ovaries disrupts the body’s hormonal balance, leading to a decrease in estrogen levels. Estrogen plays a protective role in heart health and bone density; its loss accelerates the risk of cardiovascular disease and osteoporosis. The abrupt change due to surgery amplifies these risks compared to the gradual transition of natural menopause.
- What is the significance of informed consent in the context of hysterectomy? Informed consent is crucial in ensuring that women are fully aware of the potential risks, benefits, and long-term implications of a hysterectomy, as well as alternative treatments. It represents an ethical obligation for healthcare providers to ensure patients make truly informed decisions about their care, acknowledging the profound impact on their health and quality of life.
- How can the structural changes post-hysterectomy affect the pelvic anatomy and function? Post-hysterectomy structural changes can include pelvic organ prolapse, where the bladder, bowel, and vagina may shift or descend due to the loss of uterine support. This can lead to urinary incontinence, bowel dysfunction, and changes in sexual function. The severing of nerves and ligaments during surgery can also result in chronic pain and a decrease in sexual sensation.
- What impact does hysterectomy have on the skeletal structure, specifically the spine and rib cage? The removal of the uterus can lead to a shift in the pelvic bones and a change in the structural alignment of the spine and rib cage. As the pelvic support structure is altered, it can result in a compressed spine, decreased height, and a protruding abdomen. This skeletal impact can lead to chronic back pain and alterations in physical appearance.
- What are the common physical sensations lost or altered after hysterectomy? Women may experience a loss of sensation in the pelvic area, diminished sexual response, and changes in orgasmic capability following hysterectomy. The severing of nerves during the procedure can lead to numbness, tingling, or pain in the pelvic region, affecting sexual health and overall quality of life.
- How does hysterectomy affect a woman’s hormonal balance and overall endocrine function? Hysterectomy, especially with the removal of the ovaries, drastically affects a woman’s hormonal balance by eliminating the primary sources of estrogen and progesterone. This can lead to immediate menopause, with symptoms like hot flashes, mood swings, and increased risk for conditions related to hormonal deficiency, such as osteoporosis and heart disease.
- Discuss the relationship between hysterectomy and increased risks of mental health issues. The hormonal changes and physical alterations following hysterectomy can contribute to mental health challenges, including depression, anxiety, and a sense of loss or grief. The impact on sexual function and self-identity can further exacerbate these issues, highlighting the need for comprehensive pre- and post-operative counseling and support.
- What future research directions are suggested by current findings on the effects of hysterectomy and oophorectomy? Future research should focus on long-term outcomes of hysterectomy and oophorectomy, exploring alternative treatments that preserve the uterus and ovaries, and the development of targeted therapies to manage conditions like endometriosis and fibroids without radical surgery. Studies on the psychosocial impacts of these surgeries and the efficacy of hormone replacement therapy in mitigating long-term risks are also needed to guide patient-centered care.
Hospitals are dangerous places. We’re certainly not the first ones to say so. Nor was Robert S. Mendelsohn, an M.D. who was the President of the National Health Federation, the director of a hospital in Chicago, and a medical school professor:
I have always told my patients that they should avoid hospitals as they would avoid a war. Do your utmost to stay out of them and, if you find yourself in one, do everything possible to get out as soon as you can. After working in hospitals for most of my life, I can assure you that they are the dirtiest and most deadly places in town.
It would be ideal if we were all informed of these basic facts. But informing women about the irreversible aftermath of hysterectomy is bad for business, so we can’t wait for doctors to do it. Women don’t know better because doctors neglect to inform them. The vast majority of the women who call HERS cancel their surgeries after they learn about female anatomy and the function, of the female organs.
“My doctor told me I was endangering my children by not having a hysterectomy,” a woman told us during a talkback. “If I didn’t have the surgery, he said, I was going to die and I wouldn’t’ see my children grow up.”
“So what did you do?” I asked.
“Nora knows,” she said, “because she looked at my medical records with me, and there wasn’t anything wrong with me.”
“How long ago was that?”
“Fourteen years ago. My kids are in college, and I’m the picture of health.”
If we heard it once we heard it a thousand times – “I canceled my surgery,” women tell us, “and now I’m the picture of health. So why did my doctor tell me I needed a hysterectomy?”
The most frightening lines in un becoming found their way into the play because they’re the things women tell us over and over again about what their doctors told them. They’re repeated from coast-to-coast, from border-to-border, to women born a hundred years apart. While I was working on the first draft of un becoming, my friend’s mother yelled to him while he was on the phone with me, saying, “Tell Rick to put in his play what my doctor told me! Tell him my doctor said, ‘Don’t worry, I’m just taking out the crib, but I’m leaving the playpen.’
In other words, women aren’t able to bear children after hysterectomy, but their sexual partners will still have a vaginal pocket for intercourse, even though a loss of sexual feeling is an anatomical fact for hysterectomized women. So I did put it into the play…but only after I heard that same line a dozen or more times. We continue to hear it from women all over the country, including right there in the state of Washington. These one-liners from gynecologists trivialize women’s concerns about their sex organs as they sit half-naked on examination tables.
Women are told to eat nothing after midnight the night before the surgery and to get their things in order because they’ll be out of commission for a while as they “recover.” But recovery presumes they’ll be the same person after the surgery as they were before, which isn’t possible. What they’re not told is far more important than what they are told. It’s what isn’t being said that’s really at issue here.
One of the protestors who joined us in Seattle was an attorney. Her expertise was drafting language that could be defended in court. She was diagnosed with uterine cancer and consented to a hysterectomy, but not castration. It might seem foolish for a doctor to castrate a bright attorney, who not only modified the hospital’s consent form to reflect her wishes prior to the hysterectomy but also included specific language expressly stating that under no circumstances were her ovaries to be removed. And yet, like the nurse mentioned above, against her wishes a doctor removed her ovaries anyway.
She wanted to sue, but no attorney would take the case because most states have a “reasonable person” or “a reasonable physician” standard. The lawyers advised her that the courts would assume that once she entered the hospital, any reasonable physician would’ve chosen to castrate her while hysterectomizing her-even if it was contrary to her written wishes. If you enter a hospital in a reasonable-physician statute state, your wishes may mean nothing.
The courts will very likely support whatever the doctor deems reasonable.
The issue boils down to whether a woman has the right decide what will be done to her body. The Constitution of the United States guarantees personal sovereignty, and our government exists to protect it. When informed consent is missing from the decision making process, personal sovereignty is denied to women. Decisions about what women will and won’t allow to be done to their bodies should never be taken away from them, under any circumstances.
On the first day of the Seattle protest we turned our signs toward the Swedish Medical Center instead of the traffic, so the doctors and patients inside the building could see them. Massive cranes loomed overhead, a sign that business was booming.
That evening a reading of un becoming was hosted by the Women’s Studies Department at the University of Washington in a lecture hall on campus. Like the cast, a few people in the talk. back had a difficult time accepting that doctors knowingly harm women. It’s an unattractive side of human nature that most people are unwilling to attribute to doctors.
“So who’s to blame?” I asked them. As with most audiences, someone said, “I think women need to educate themselves.” But what does that have to do with whether or not doctors knowingly harm women? And who could possibly be more educated on these issues than a nurse and a doctor? A medical education didn’t save her. Isn’t that what we pay doctors for, to advise us on issues we don’t have time to go to medical school to learn?
Although it’s rare for a doctor to be prosecuted in a criminal court for harming patients, the Seattle Times reported the case of a King County gynecologist convicted of two counts of rape and two counts of “indecent liberties” against four Seattle women who testified against him. The last lines of the Times article read, “Momah remains charged with three counts of health-care fraud, which will be tried later. In addition, he faces civil suits from dozens of women who say he sexually abused them or botched surgeries.” Such cases are common, and for everyone we do hear about, how many more are there that we don’t hear about? Insurance fraud is a criminal offense that is punishable by imprisonment. The unconsented removal of women’s sex organs, though, is a civil offense that usually goes unpunished even in the most blatant cases. To find out why, follow the money. What’s a uterus worth? Not much. But what’s hysterectomy—the 20-30 minute surgery to remove the uterus—worth to hospitals and doctors?
Tens of billions of dollars each year. And what are the male sex organs worth? It’s worth searching for a man’s penis in the dirt and spending nine hours in the operating room reattaching it, as was the case when Lorena Bobbit severed John Wayne Bobbit’s penis after he raped her in 1993.19 Another woman who attended the protest and the play with her husband said they were both grateful to HERS for helping her remain intact. A doctor tried to badger her into letting him hysterectomize her. She sought other opinions, but one doctor after another supported the first doctor’s recommendation, until she found HERS.
Nora was interviewed by a local television station in Seattle, but the hospital administrators at Swedish were smarter than some hospitals we’d been to. They didn’t call the police, so we didn’t’ have flashing lights to draw attention to our protest.
We spoke with a woman who said she was afraid because she couldn’t keep up with the minimum payments she was required to make to Swedish to pay down the debt incurred when she was hysterectomized there without health insurance. Meanwhile, the Swedish website says not only can you make a donation to Swedish, “If you would prefer to pledge a fixed amount on a regular basis, call us and we can help you set up an automatic contribution plan.”
It’s an ugly game of round robin. Surgeons’ wives are hysterectomized, as well as the nurses who assist them in surgery. Indigent women are put on payment plans to pay for unnecessary hysterectomies, or taxpayers are sent the bill via Medicaid and Medicare. The public is encouraged to set up automatic contribution plans to pad the medical industry’s bottom line and help pay surgeons exorbitant payoffs for doing this grisly work. And then the courts protect the doctors and hospital administrators when suits are brought against them, because unwarranted surgery has become the standard of care. Health and wellbeing has almost nothing to do with it.
‘State-minus’: Biden’s Palestine solution
Three decades after the Oslo Lie, neither the US nor the EU are in any position to dangle the promise of a Palestinian state.
By Stasa Salacanin | The Cradle | February 29, 2024
Is it sadly ironic that the issue of Palestinian statehood – unresolved for over 75 years – has resurfaced only after Israel’s wholesale carpet-bombing of the Gaza Strip, killing over 30,000 civilians, injuring tens of thousands more, and destroying significant swathes of the territory’s infrastructure.
University of California (UCLA) historian James Gelvin states the case plainly:
“There would have been no serious discussion of a two-state solution without [the events of] 7 October. As a matter of fact, putting the Palestine issue back on the front burner of international and West Asian politics was one of the reasons Hamas launched its operation.”
As Gelvin explains it to The Cradle, Hamas has already scored several victories since its Al-Aqsa Flood operation: “The Palestine issue is back on the international agenda, it is negotiating the release of its captives as an equal partner to Israel,” and has demonstrated that it is “more effective in realizing Palestinian goals than its rival, Fatah.”
New ‘Biden Doctrine’
While the unprecedented, brutal Israeli military response has indeed illustrated the urgency for establishing a Palestinian safe haven, it is impossible to ignore that western state backers of the 1993 Oslo Accords – which laid out the essential framework for the establishment of a Palestinian state – have then so assiduously ignored and neglected that responsibility.
Even greater hypocrisy emerges from the fact that these western powers, led by Washington, have now decided to force the discussion of Palestinian statehood in the midst of Gaza’s carnage, with an Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, who is infamously opposed to it.
So, why is this debate possible now? Why was it ignored before 7 October – or even prior to Netanyahu’s return to the prime ministership?
After enormous public and international pressure, US President Joe Biden has, at least rhetorically, reopened the issue of Palestinian statehood. According to the New York Times, the Biden White House’s new doctrine would “involve some form of US recognition of a demilitarized Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip in return for strong Palestinian guarantees that their institutions could never threaten Israel.”
In addition, the US president’s plan also envisages Saudi–Israeli normalization and a tough military stance against Iran and its regional allies. However, many analysts have already raised questions about the viability of a plan that does not reflect current ground realities.
While Netanyahu rejects the very notion of a Palestinian state, the ‘Biden doctrine’ and its offering of some limited-sovereignty version of a demilitarized Palestinian state is nothing less than humiliating for Palestinians.
Dr Muhannad Ayyash, Professor of Sociology at Mount Royal University, observes that there is no fundamental change of approach by the US on this issue. In short, the Biden administration refuses to clarify what it means by a ‘Palestinian state.’ Its initiative appears mainly to advance a form of a two-state solution that would be palatable to Israel.
Ayyash points out that the key issues related to Palestinian statehood are left unanswered, including the issue of sovereignty, Jewish settlements, the status of East Jerusalem, a necessary West Bank/East Jerusalem connection with the Gaza Strip, the Palestinian right to return, and so forth.
As Israel has firmly insisted on retaining full security control over the entire territory west of Jordan – meaning, over all the territory likely to come under Palestinian (self-)rule – many experts fear that Israel would have the right to militarily enter those territories at will, without Palestinian consent, with the latter banned from assembling its own military force.
This version of ‘statehood’ is not remotely on par with that of other UN member-states, who are entitled, under the UN Charter, to exercise full sovereignty and defend their territorial integrity. Biden’s ‘solution’ of a Palestinian state with limited sovereignty is nothing more than the legalization of Israel’s perpetual occupation of Palestine.
A Palestinian ‘empty shell’
The revived debate on Palestinian statehood is also intricately connected to a big western public relations dilemma. The Atlanticists’ unconditional support for Israel’s illegal, disproportionate military assault against mostly female and child populations has deeply impacted their image and capacity to maneuver in West Asia and beyond.
This is especially true for Washington’s foreign policy objectives in the region, which are facing major, direct resistance on the ground in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.
The revival of a two-state solution is, therefore, a “desperate act to salvage some of the credibility or legitimacy of these regimes (both Arab and Western governments),” argues Dr Mohammed Abu-Nimer, Professor and Abdulaziz Said Chair for Peace and Conflict Resolution at the American University in Washington, DC.
For decades, the US has capitulated to Israeli demands on pretty much everything Tel Aviv has ever asked for. In recent years, as Gelvin describes it, the US has mainly focused “on bribing various Arab governments – the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Sudan – to normalize relations with Israel” through the “Abraham Accords,” which, in effect, took the Palestine issue off the table.”
Meanwhile, Arab states managed regional expectations by continuing to pay lip service to Palestinian issues while scuttling any opportunities behind the scenes. With few Arab state allies left, Palestinians themselves had no cards left to leverage – until 7 October.
Now, Israel is doing all it can to negate that day’s gains. Says Ayyash:
“Netanyahu wants to dispense with all pretension about the establishment of the Palestinian state and use this moment to establish full Israeli Jewish sovereignty from the river to the sea, whereas the Biden administration prefers a quieter approach that pretends to care about the aspirations of the Palestinian people in order to maintain its close ties with Arab regimes across the region.”
The two-state solution, according to Professor Abu-Nimer, is, therefore, nothing other than a “fig leaf” to resuscitate the west’s crashing image and should not be viewed as a serious US initiative. The proposed plan is “a skeleton or an empty shell which lacks of any serious form of sovereignty.”
Nathan Brown, an American scholar of Middle Eastern law and politics at George Washington University, largely concurs:
“This is not a step toward statehood but only reviving some provisions of the Oslo Accords. Even at a maximum, it would produce what would have been called a ‘protectorate’ in the nineteenth century, not a state.”
A Palestinian state is not on the cards
Although the US and the EU could exercise immense leverage over Israel to revive the Oslo agreement and fast-track its provisions, they are doing nothing of the sort.
Today, there is a unique opportunity for Tel Aviv’s western allies to play this hand, given the utter collapse of Israel’s image worldwide and the mass public demand for the protection of Palestinians.
Instead, the Biden administration thinks that it can resurrect the two-state idea by mediating a grand regional deal – one that will deliver everything Israel wants, by dangling the promise of a rump Palestinian state.
The White House believes that the reward of normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia will offset for the Netanyahu government a reversal on the question of Palestinian statehood and withdrawal from the occupied Palestinian territories.
Gelvin dismisses the plan, saying it simply won’t work on so many levels. For starters, “if Netanyahu commits to a Palestinian state and withdrawal from the occupied territories, his government will collapse and he will go to jail.”
Don’t expect anything spectacular from the European Union either. Although EU High Representative for Foreign Relations Josep Borrell has said that a Palestinian state may need to be imposed from the outside without Israel’s agreement, realistically, the range and reach of European foreign policy is minimal or non-existent. According to Gelvin, “the EU has no more leverage against Israel than Costa Rica.”
Abu-Nimer likely speaks for the majority of regional observers – who have seen this game play out before: these top-down western statehood formulas do not work without genuine engagement with Palestinian political representation – in this case, Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations.
Thirty-one years after the Oslo Accords promised a Palestinian state, Israel is ethnically cleansing Gaza and swallowing up the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Almost five months after the start of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood, some of the leverage is back in Palestinian resistance hands, and they are unlikely to trade their gains for an unsovereign rump state which diplomats are privately calling a ‘state-minus.’
Hunter’s Associate: Biden Scion Planned Global Hedge Fund to Benefit Poppa Joe
Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 27.02.2024
As Hunter Biden braces for deposition in the US Congress on Wednesday, his former business associate has spilled the beans about the first family’s plan to build a global hedge fund.
US president Joe Biden’s son Hunter plotted to set up a shadowy fund to cash in on his influence — so says a former business partner.
Independent US media outlet Just the News has obtained a recent statement by Hunter Biden’s business associate Jason Galanis to the House impeachment inquiry.
He said Hunter and his business buddies planned to build a global hedge fund with Joe Biden as its “central asset.”
“The entire value-add of Hunter Biden to our business was his family name and his access to his father, Vice President Joe Biden,” Galanis told the House impeachment investigators. “Our objective was to build a diversified private equity platform, which would be anchored by a globally known Wall Street brand together with a globally known political name.”
Hunter Biden sought “strategic relationships to the venture” with tycoons from all over the world, including from post-Soviet space.
Just the News quoted emails from Hunter Biden’s infamous “laptop from hell” which allegedly confirm the ambitious plan.
“This is a global cooperation group that will assist each other in our respective regions in whatever manner possible,” Hunter’s other associate, Jeff Cooper, wrote in March 2014. The younger Biden proposed a list of billionaire investors for the new venture, including tycoons from China, Spain, Kazakhstan, Russia, South America, Africa and the Middle East.
One of Hunter’s partners, Chinese businessman Xuejun “Henry” Zhao, showed interest in the plan based on the prospect that Joe Biden would join the venture after his vice presidential term ended.
“Mr. Zhao was interested in this partnership because of the game-changing value add of the Biden family, including Joe Biden, who was to be a member of the Burnham-Harvest team post-vice presidency, providing political access in the United States and around the world,” Galanis said.
Galanis’s lawyer provided a draft email backing up the businessman’s testimony.
“Michael, please also remind Henry [Zhao] of our conversation about a board seat for a certain relation of mine,” Hunter reportedly wrote. “Devon [Archer] and I golfed with that relation earlier last week and we discussed this very idea again and as always he remains very very keen on the opportunity.”
According to Galanis, the “certain relation” was none other than Joe Biden. Even though the phrase was removed from the final email, it remained in Galanis’ records.
The group’s plan to assemble a “dream team” of international billionaires and create a global Biden business empire took a serious knock when Archer and Galanis were charged and convicted of a plot to steal $43 million in tribal bonds.
Hunter Biden avoided scrutiny despite “then-available documentation that we were partners, were involved in the decision making that involved illegal self-dealing, and all of us had financially benefited from these schemes,” Galanis claimed.
Galanis told House investigators that the illegal tribal bond scheme was part of a larger effort to create a financial platform for the Biden hedge fund.
“In an effort to build this financial platform, I engaged in unlawful conduct. Our companies were entrusted with $11 billion of union members’ pension fund money whose trust I betrayed,” Galanis stated. “I pleaded guilty. I have had eight years in federal custody to reflect on my actions and I am profoundly sorry for my role.”
Hunter Biden is expected to appear before the Oversight Committee on Wednesday and testify to the Republican-led impeachment hearing about his family’s business dealings and Joe Biden’s role in his son’s financial schemes.
Congressional investigators argue that Joe Biden was used by his son as a “brand” due to his vice presidential position. They say he not only knew about Hunter’s deals but participated in them, likely profiting. Biden has so far denied being aware of his son’s business operations.
House Republicans have been running their investigation into the Biden family’s apparent influence-peddling for several years.
According to US media, Hunter’s testimony will take place behind closed doors — even though he previously insisted on a public hearing — and will not be video-taped, although the transcript will be released to the public.
Featured Video
Israeli Military Medics Are Training On Dead Americans
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
On ‘conflict’, ‘peace’ and ‘genocide’: Time for new language on Palestine
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | June 12, 2021
On 25 May, famous US actor Mark Ruffalo tweeted an apology for suggesting that Israel is committing “genocide” in Gaza.
“I have reflected and wanted to apologise for posts during the recent Israel/Hamas fighting that suggested Israel is committing ‘genocide’,” Ruffalo wrote, adding: “It’s not accurate, it’s inflammatory, disrespectful and is being used to justify anti-Semitism, here and abroad. Now is the time to avoid hyperbole.”
But were Ruffalo’s earlier assessments, indeed, “not accurate, inflammatory and disrespectful”? And does equating Israel’s war on besieged, impoverished Gaza with genocide fit into the classification of “hyperbole”? … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Intelligence Agency Investigating CIA Whistleblower Allegations, Official Confirms
- AIPAC Favorite Ed Gallrein Wants to Bring Back the Draft
- A decade of lies: The US-funded biolab denial saga
- Mainstream US media complicit in selling Gaza genocide, sweeping new analysis finds
- US Overseas Biolabs Probe Aims to Rein in ‘Deep State’ Bureaucracy
- ‘Death to Arabs’: Settler mobs storm Jerusalem’s Muslim, Christian quarters for ‘Flag March’
- China’s position on Iran, Hormuz remains unchanged
- Israeli Military Medics Are Training On Dead Americans
- SCOTT RITTER: Russia Retaliation on Europe No Longer In Doubt
- Guatemala Admits U.S. Pressure Over Cuban Doctors
- If Americans Knew
- We Can’t Curb Nuclear Proliferation If We Don’t Acknowledge Israel’s Nukes
- 43,000 people in Gaza suffered life-changing injuries since October 2023: WHO
- Israel’s 7 October narrative under fresh scrutiny after army accused of deleting footage
- Ex-CENTCOM chief headlines lavish Israeli-American Council gala
- Israel’s 7 October rape hoax gets a 300-page reboot
- Chants of ‘death to Arabs,’ calls for destruction of Al-Aqsa Mosque in racist Jerusalem Day march
- What Fuels My Revolutionary Optimism This Nakba Day
- Gaza elders who survived the Nakba reflect on being displaced by Israel again, 78 years later
- Israel (with US assistance) perpetuates the Nakba; Palestinians remain resilient – Daily Update
- Microsoft fires head of Israeli subsidiary and other managers over surveillance of Palestinians
- No Tricks Zone
- German Expert: “No Climate Crisis” …”Warming Generally Better For Humanity”
- New Paleo Research: Modern ‘Climate Change’ Has Had No Apparent Impact On Precipitation Patterns
- 90% Subsidized… Bielefeld Germany’s €7 Million Hydrogen Garbage Truck Fleet Sits Idle
- New Study: Declining Trends In 1980-2023 Tropical Cyclone Frequency, Accumulated Energy
- 46 IPCC Scientists Break Rank, Publicly Challenge Long-Standing Dogmatic Climate Claims
- Another Study Links Warming To Cloud Forcing, Shortwave Radiation, Natural Atmospheric Circulation
- Wind Energy Is Toxic, Hazardous To Human Health, Scientific Review Shows
- Oversupply Of Volatile Solar Energy Leads To Record NEGATIVE Prices!
- New Study: Extreme Heat Records, Heatwaves, Extreme Cold Records Declining Across US Since 1899
- It’s The Cold, Stupid! Cold 20 Times More Lethal Than Heat, Multiple Studies Show
Aletho News 