Deception « Aletho News

Feeling Better, Getting Worse: How Psychiatric Drugs Create the Illusion They Cure

An Essay on Short-Term Improvement, Long-Term Dependence, and the Evidence Patients Never See

Lies are Unbekoming | April 9, 2026

Of 18,426 patients enrolled in 71 antidepressant trials — 67,319 pages of clinical data, a stack seven metres high, obtained from drug regulators and read for the first time by Peter Gøtzsche’s research group — 12 percent more dropped out while taking the drug than while taking placebo.¹

The psychiatrists’ position is that these drugs do more good than harm. The patients, through their behaviour, delivered the opposite verdict. They preferred the sugar pill.

Nobody who takes a psychiatric drug and reports feeling better is lying. The experience is real. But what produced it, what it is made of, and what it costs — none of this is what the patient was told. Six mechanisms account for almost everything people attribute to their medication. None of them require the drug to be treating a disease.

The Prescription

A person in distress sits across from a doctor. Fifteen minutes later they leave with a diagnosis and a prescription. They are told they have a chemical imbalance that the drug will correct. They may be told depression runs in families — that there is a genetic predisposition, a biological vulnerability they inherited. They are told to give it a few weeks.

The chemical imbalance theory has been abandoned by every serious researcher in the field.² No gene or set of genes for depression has ever been identified despite decades of searching and billions in funding. As Peter Breggin observed, there is no substantial scientific evidence that depression is genetic in origin — and telling patients otherwise leaves them convinced they are stuck with an innate defect, dependent on experts, and resigned to lifelong medication.⁴⁵ The drug was approved on the basis of trials lasting five to six weeks.³ Long-term effects have never been properly studied.⁴ And the condition being treated has a spontaneous remission rate so high that the head of the NIMH’s depression section once observed that most depressive episodes “will run their course and terminate with virtually complete recovery without specific intervention.”⁵

The patient knows none of this. They go home, swallow the pill, and wait.

The First Weeks: Time Heals What the Pill Takes Credit For

Depression, before pharmacology claimed it, was understood to be self-limiting. NIMH psychopharmacologist Jonathan Cole wrote in 1964: “Depression is, on the whole, one of the psychiatric conditions with the best prognosis for eventual recovery with or without treatment. Most depressions are self-limited.”⁶ His colleague Nathan Kline: “In the treatment of depression, one always has as an ally the fact that most depressions terminate in spontaneous remissions. This means that in many cases regardless of what one does the patient eventually will begin to get better.”⁷

Cole and Kline were not dissidents. They were among the most prominent figures in American psychopharmacology.

A study tracking eighty-four patients through untreated depressive episodes found that 23 percent recovered within one month, 67 percent within six months, and 85 percent within a year.⁸ Mark Posternak, the researcher, noted that his results confirmed Kraepelin’s century-old observation that untreated depression typically clears within six to eight months. Dean Schuyler, who headed the NIMH’s depression section, recognised the problem as early as 1974: spontaneous recovery rates were so high that it was difficult to “judge the efficacy of a drug, a treatment or psychotherapy in depressed patients.”⁹

Antidepressants take four to six weeks to produce their claimed effect. Spontaneous recovery begins immediately and continues at roughly 2 percent per week.¹⁰ A person who starts a drug during a depressive episode is beginning treatment at the moment when natural recovery is already underway. A month later, they feel better. The drug gets the credit. The calendar does not.

The Side Effects That Sell the Cure

In the NIMH’s review of all antidepressant studies, well-controlled trials showed 61 percent of drug-treated patients improved versus 46 percent on placebo — a net benefit of 15 percent.¹¹ Irving Kirsch, reviewing FDA data on Prozac, Effexor, Serzone, and Paxil, found the drug-placebo difference on the Hamilton Rating Scale was 1.8 points. The UK’s National Institute for Clinical Excellence had established 3 points as the minimum for clinical significance.¹² The best Danish meta-analysis found a difference of 2 points, and the smallest effect that can actually be perceived on this scale is 5 to 6 points.¹³

That is the margin on which billions of prescriptions rest.

Breggin identified why even this margin exists. He called it the “enhanced placebo effect.” A patient on a sugar pill senses, consciously or not, that nothing powerful has entered their system. An antidepressant produces noticeable physical effects — dry mouth, nausea, drowsiness, sexual dysfunction, weight change. The patient feels these and concludes, reasonably, that they are taking potent medicine. The side effects convince the patient the drug is real. This conviction amplifies the placebo response.¹⁴

Investigators tested this in at least seven studies comparing tricyclic antidepressants to “active” placebos — chemicals that produce unpleasant side effects like dry mouth but have no antidepressant properties. In six of the seven, there was no difference in outcomes.¹⁵ When both pills cause side effects, neither is superior. A Cochrane review confirmed the finding.¹⁶

The entire marginal advantage of antidepressants over placebo may be an artefact of broken blinding. Patients and clinicians can guess who is on the drug and who is on the sugar pill, because the drug has obvious physical effects. This knowledge contaminates every rating, every assessment, every reported outcome.

The NIH-funded St. John’s wort trial demonstrated this by accident. Because St. John’s wort causes side effects similar to an antidepressant, this trial was genuinely blinded — neither patients nor clinicians could tell who was taking what. Results: 24 percent of the herbal group had a full response, 25 percent of the Zoloft group, 32 percent of the placebo group. Zoloft did not outperform placebo. The investigators concluded that the herb was ineffective and neglected to mention that their own drug had failed the same test.¹⁷

The Flattening

Psychiatric drugs produce their effects the same way in patients, healthy volunteers, and laboratory animals. Gøtzsche, drawing on clinical trial data, lists what these effects actually are: numbing of feelings, emotional blunting, drowsiness, reduced concern about oneself and others, diminished capacity for sexual function and romantic attachment.¹⁸

These are not side effects. They are the effects. The drug does not selectively remove depression while leaving everything else intact. It reduces the brain’s capacity to generate emotional intensity across the board. A person who was in anguish may interpret this flattening as recovery. A clinician observing calmer behaviour will rate the patient as improved. Both are observing something real. Neither is observing the treatment of a disease.

Breggin made the point precisely: antidepressants reduce emotional responsiveness generally, which is why they are prescribed not only for depression but for anxiety, panic attacks, obsessive-compulsive behaviour, bulimia, chronic pain, and aggression. They are not treating different diseases through different mechanisms. They are producing the same blunting effect across all of them.¹⁹

The rating scales used to measure “improvement” cooperate with this illusion. The Hamilton Depression Rating Scale — the standard instrument — scores items like sleep quality, appetite, and psychomotor behaviour. A sedated patient who sleeps more and eats more registers as improved. Breggin observed that psychiatric improvement standards are often behavioural (”sleeps better,” “gaining weight”) rather than psychological (”feels better about life,” “actively building a better future”).²⁰ A tranquillised patient and a recovered patient score identically.

Patient self-ratings tell a different story. In Greenberg and Fisher’s meta-analysis of newer antidepressants, patient self-ratings showed virtually no benefit beyond placebo.²¹ The doctors see improvement. The patients, asked directly, do not.

In Denmark, researchers surveyed patients on antidepressants. Half agreed the drugs altered their personality and that they had less control over their thoughts and feelings. The psychiatrists who received these results refused to believe what their own patients told them, called the patients ignorant, and recommended “psychoeducation.”²² The patients’ relatives, independently surveyed, agreed with the patients.

Breggin described a further mechanism operating in some patients: mild organic brain syndrome. Antidepressants, through their general toxicity, can produce a delirium characterised by memory difficulties, confusion, impaired judgment, and mood instability. A patient in this state may experience artificial euphoria or generalised apathy and be evaluated as “improved” — because depression requires a relatively intact brain to sustain itself. Damage the brain sufficiently and the depression lifts, not because the distress has been addressed, but because the capacity to experience it has been impaired.²³ A Yale study found this drug-induced delirium appeared two to four weeks after starting treatment — the exact interval when “therapeutic response” is expected — in more than one-third of patients over age forty.²⁴

The Attempt to Stop

Months pass. Perhaps years. The patient decides to stop. They feel well. They are tired of the side effects. They may have read something that unsettled them.

Within days: headaches, dizziness, nausea, insomnia, agitation, anxiety, confusion, fatigue, flu-like symptoms, electric shock sensations. As many as 50 percent of patients who stop antidepressants experience these withdrawal effects.²⁵

The symptoms vanish when the drug is restarted. The trap closes.

Patient and doctor both conclude that the return of distress proves the drug was treating a real condition. The depression has “come back.” The drug is “needed.” But the symptoms are not relapse. They are withdrawal. The brain, having adapted to the presence of a chemical that altered its neurotransmitter activity, protests the chemical’s removal.

Gøtzsche coined a term for this: “abstinence depression.” A depression that occurs in a patient who is not currently depressed but whose drug is stopped too quickly. Its hallmark: symptoms appear rapidly after discontinuation and disappear within hours when the full dose is resumed. A real depressive episode does not respond to a pill within hours. The speed of response is the diagnostic marker that separates withdrawal from genuine relapse.²⁶

He demonstrated this with a cold turkey trial. Stable, well patients were secretly switched to placebo for 5 to 8 days. Twenty-five of 122 patients on sertraline or paroxetine met criteria for depression during that window. Gøtzsche calculated the expected number of genuine relapses in such a short period, based on known relapse rates from an adolescent depression study: 0.03. Effectively zero. Every one of the twenty-five “relapses” was a withdrawal reaction.²⁷

The profession does not call these symptoms “withdrawal.” It calls them “discontinuation syndrome.” Gary Greenberg described this renaming for what it is: in any other context, a malaise that appears when you stop a drug and disappears when you restart it is called dependence with withdrawal. Calling it “discontinuation syndrome” keeps antidepressants at a comfortable distance from alcohol, benzodiazepines, and opioids.²⁸

The clinical consequences are specific. Breggin described the vicious circle: a patient attempts to stop the drug and experiences withdrawal. The treating professionals mistake withdrawal for relapse. The drug is reinstated. The patient — who might have recovered fully without the medication — is now physiologically dependent on a chemical they were told was safe to stop at any time.²⁹ A study of twenty-two children withdrawn from the tricyclic Tofranil documented this pattern: staff attributed the children’s withdrawal symptoms to “mental illness,” to stress, to allergies, even to viral illness. Antidepressants were restarted in children who were “mistakenly diagnosed as relapsing during the withdrawal period.”³⁰

Gøtzsche reviewed the five most-used psychiatry textbooks in Denmark and found that their withdrawal guidance is wrong and frequently dangerous. Doctors taper too quickly and in linear fashion rather than the exponential taper the drugs’ pharmacology demands. None of the textbooks acknowledged that withdrawal symptoms and disease symptoms are often identical.³¹

The Long Decline

European psychiatrists began noticing the pattern in the 1960s. German physician H. P. Hoheisel reported in 1966 that antidepressant exposure appeared to be “shortening the intervals” between depressive episodes. A Yugoslavian doctor observed the drugs were causing “chronification” of the disease. Bulgarian psychiatrist Nikola Schipkowensky agreed: the tricyclics were inducing “a change to a more chronic course.”³²

Dutch physician J. D. Van Scheyen examined ninety-four depressed patients over five years. Long-term antidepressant medication, he found, “exerts a paradoxical effect on the recurrent nature of the vital depression” — the drugs increased the rate of recurrence and shortened the time between episodes.³³

In 1994, Italian psychiatrist Giovanni Fava forced the question into the open. The drugs, he argued, perturb neurotransmitter systems in ways that produce compensatory brain changes. When the drug is stopped, these changes operate unopposed, producing withdrawal and increasing vulnerability to relapse. The longer someone takes the drug, the worse this becomes. Antidepressants, Fava concluded, “may propel the illness to a more malignant and treatment unresponsive course.” He raised the possibility that the drugs cause “irreversible receptor modifications” that “sensitize” the brain to depression.³⁴

Ross Baldessarini of Harvard confirmed it: half of all patients withdrawn from antidepressants relapsed within fourteen months, and the longer a person had been on the drug, the higher the relapse rate upon withdrawal.³⁵

The profession’s response was not investigation. Donald Klein of Columbia University told Psychiatric News: “The industry is not interested, the NIMH is not interested, and the FDA is not interested. Nobody is interested.”³⁶

Instead, the history was rewritten. The pre-drug studies showing that depression was episodic and self-limiting were declared “flawed.” The 1999 APA Textbook of Psychiatry stated that it was previously believed “most patients would eventually recover from a major depressive episode. However, more extensive studies have disproved this assumption.” Depression was now “a highly recurrent and pernicious disorder.”³⁷

The drugs worsen the long-term course of the illness. Rather than withdraw the drugs, the profession rewrote the natural history of the illness to match the drug-damaged outcomes.

The long-term studies are unambiguous. British researchers found that never-medicated depressed patients experienced a 62 percent symptom reduction in six months; drug-treated patients, 33 percent.³⁸ A WHO study found that patients diagnosed and treated with psychiatric drugs fared worse — in both depressive symptoms and general health — over one year than those not exposed to the drugs.³⁹ In a five-year study of 9,508 depressed patients, those on antidepressants were symptomatic nineteen weeks per year, versus eleven weeks for those on no medication.⁴⁰ An NIMH study found the eighteen-month stay-well rate was highest for cognitive therapy (30 percent) and lowest for antidepressants (19 percent).⁴¹

The STAR*D trial — $35 million of NIMH money, over four thousand “real-world” patients — was announced with the claim that about 70 percent of those who stayed in the study “became symptom-free.” Ed Pigott and colleagues spent more than five years analysing the actual data. The real figure: 3 percent of patients who entered the trial remitted, stayed well, and remained in the study during the one-year follow-up. Confronted with the 3 percent number, investigator Maurizio Fava acknowledged it was accurate. The investigators had known all along.⁴²

The Patients Vote

Those 18,426 patients across Gøtzsche’s 71 trials voted with their feet. Twelve percent more chose to stop taking the drug than chose to stop taking placebo.¹ The finding is worse than it appears, because some of the patients randomised to placebo were suffering cold turkey withdrawal from drugs they had been taking before the trial. Even with this handicap, the placebo group was more willing to continue.

Gøtzsche’s team attempted to assess quality of life — the outcome that matters most to patients. The data was virtually non-existent. Out of 131 studies, three had published quality-of-life results. The data was not missing because it was not collected. It was missing because the results were unfavourable.⁴³

A Danish parliamentarian asked the Minister of Health whether it was reliable to conclude that antidepressants improved quality of life when only three of 131 studies had published data on the question. The minister referred the question to the drug agency, which replied that an effect on quality of life had been found in the studies where it was measured. Quality of life was measured in far more studies than those that published their findings.⁴⁴

What Was Not Disclosed

The feeling was real. It was produced by the natural passage of time and the body’s tendency toward spontaneous recovery. By the placebo effect of receiving treatment from an authority figure. By the enhanced placebo effect of a pill that produces noticeable physical sensations. By emotional blunting that reduced the capacity to feel distress along with the capacity to feel everything else. And in some patients, by a mild organic brain dysfunction that made the sustained experience of depression temporarily impossible.

When it came time to stop, the drug produced withdrawal symptoms indistinguishable from the original condition. Patient and doctor both interpreted this as proof that the disease had returned and the medication was needed for life. The dependence was renamed “discontinuation syndrome.”

For those who stayed on, the drug altered brain chemistry in ways that increased vulnerability to future episodes, shortened the intervals between them, and converted an episodic, self-limiting condition into a chronic one. This conversion was attributed not to the treatment but to a revised understanding of the disease. The textbooks were rewritten to match the drug-damaged outcomes.

At no point was the patient given accurate information. Not about the spontaneous remission rate. Not about the drug’s negligible advantage over placebo. Not about the blunting. Not about the withdrawal. Not about the long-term prognosis.

Three percent of STAR*D patients recovered and stayed well. The investigators announced 70 percent. Sixty-seven thousand pages of clinical trial data sat unread until one research group opened them and discovered that patients preferred placebo. Quality of life data was collected and buried. The profession was told the drugs were sensitising the brain to depression and responded that nobody was interested in investigating.

The patient was told they had a chemical imbalance. They were told the drug would correct it. They were told depression ran in their family and that they were genetically predisposed. They were told to give it a few weeks. Every element of that narrative has been contradicted by the profession’s own research.

The feeling was real. What produced it was not what they said.

References

Sharma, T., et al. “Drop-out rates in placebo-controlled trials of antidepressant drugs.” Int J Risk Saf Med 30 (2019): 217–232. Discussed in Gøtzsche, P.C. “Is psychiatry a crime?” (2024), p. 21.
Moncrieff, J., et al. “The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence.” Molecular Psychiatry (2022). See also Lacasse, J.R., Leo, J. “Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature.” PLoS Med (2005).
Breggin, P.R. Toxic Psychiatry. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991, pp. 160–163.
Deshauer, D., et al. “Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors for unipolar depression.” Canadian Medical Association Journal 178 (2008): 1293–1301.
Schuyler, D. The Depressive Spectrum. New York: Jason Aronson, 1974. Cited in Whitaker, R. Anatomy of an Epidemic. New York: Broadway Paperbacks, 2010, p. 150.
Cole, J. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 150.
Kline, N. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 150.
Posternak, M.A., et al. “The naturalistic course of unipolar major depression in the absence of somatic therapy.” J Nerv Ment Dis 194 (2006): 324–329. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, pp. 163–164.
Schuyler, D. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 150.
Posternak, J Nerv Ment Dis (2006).
NIMH review of antidepressant studies. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 151.
Kirsch, I., et al. “Initial severity and antidepressant benefits.” PLoS Medicine 5 (2008): e45. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, pp. 152–153.
Jakobsen, J.C., et al. “Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors versus placebo.” BMC Psychiatry 17 (2017): 58. Leucht, S., et al. “What does the HAMD mean?” J Affect Disord 148 (2013): 243–248. Cited in Gøtzsche, “Is psychiatry a crime?” p. 19.
Breggin, P.R. Toxic Psychiatry, pp. 159–160.
Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 151.
Moncrieff, J., Wessely, S., Hardy, R. “Active placebos versus antidepressants for depression.” Cochrane Database Syst Rev (2004): CD003012.
Hypericum Depression Trial Study Group. “Effect of Hypericum perforatum in major depressive disorder.” JAMA 287 (2002): 1807–1814. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 153.
Gøtzsche, P.C. “Is psychiatry a crime?” (2024), p. 9.
Breggin, P.R. Toxic Psychiatry, pp. 163–164.
Ibid., pp. 160–161. Fisher, S. and Greenberg, R. The Limits of Biological Treatments for Psychological Distress. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1989.
Greenberg, R., et al. Meta-analysis of newer antidepressant drugs. Cited in Breggin, P.R. Talking Back to Prozac. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, pp. 89–92.
Kessing, L., et al. “Depressive and bipolar disorders: patients’ attitudes and beliefs towards depression and antidepressants.” Psychological Medicine 35 (2005): 1205–1213. Cited in Gøtzsche, “Is psychiatry a crime?” p. 21.
Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry, pp. 164–166.
Davies, R., et al. “Confusional Episodes and Antidepressant Medication.” American Journal of Psychiatry (July 1971). Cited in Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry, pp. 165–166.
Greenberg, G. Manufacturing Depression. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2010, pp. 281–282.
Gøtzsche, “Is psychiatry a crime?” pp. 104–105.
Rosenbaum, J.F., et al. “Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor discontinuation syndrome.” Biol Psychiatry 44 (1998): 77–87. Analysis in Gøtzsche, “Is psychiatry a crime?” pp. 104–105. Expected relapse rate calculated from Lewinsohn, P.M., et al. J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatr 33 (1994): 809–818.
Greenberg, Manufacturing Depression, pp. 281–282.
Breggin, P.R. Toxic Psychiatry, pp. 169–171.
Law, W., III, et al. American Journal of Psychiatry (May 1981). Cited in Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry, pp. 169–170.
Gøtzsche, “Is psychiatry a crime?” pp. 104–105. See also Gøtzsche, P.C. Mental Health Survival Kit and Withdrawal from Psychiatric Drugs. Ann Arbor: L H Press, 2022.
Hoheisel, Schipkowensky, and others cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, pp. 155–156.
Van Scheyen, J.D. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 156.
Fava, G. “Do antidepressant and antianxiety drugs increase chronicity in affective disorders?” Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 61 (1994): 125–131. Fava, G. “Holding on: depression, sensitization by antidepressant drugs, and the prodigal experts.” Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 64 (1995): 57–61. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, pp. 157–159.
Viguera, A. “Discontinuing antidepressant treatment in major depression.” Harvard Review of Psychiatry 5 (1998): 293–305. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 156.
“Editorial sparks debate on effects of psychoactive drugs.” Psychiatric News, May 20, 1994. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 159.
Hales, R., ed. Textbook of Psychiatry. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1999, p. 525. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, pp. 159–160.
Ronalds, C., et al. “Outcome of anxiety and depressive disorders in primary care.” British Journal of Psychiatry 171 (1997): 427–433. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 162.
Goldberg, D., et al. “The effect of detection and treatment on the outcome of major depression in primary care.” British Journal of General Practice 48 (1998): 1840–1844. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 168.
Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, pp. 168–169.
Shea, M.T., et al. “Course of depressive symptoms over follow-up.” Archives of General Psychiatry 49 (1992): 782–787. Cited in Whitaker, Anatomy of an Epidemic, p. 156.
Pigott, H.E., et al. “Efficacy and effectiveness of antidepressants.” Psychother Psychosom 79 (2010): 267–279. Gøtzsche, “Is psychiatry a crime?” pp. 27–28.
Paludan-Müller, A.S., et al. “Extensive selective reporting of quality of life in clinical study reports and publications of placebo-controlled trials of antidepressants.” Int J Risk Saf Med 32 (2021): 87–99. Discussed in Gøtzsche, “Is psychiatry a crime?” pp. 21–22.
Gøtzsche, “Is psychiatry a crime?” p. 22.
Breggin, P.R. Talking Back to Prozac. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1994, pp. 73–74. See also Breggin, Toxic Psychiatry, pp. 109–141 (chapter on genetics of psychiatric disorders).

April 11, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | SSRIs | Comments Off on Feeling Better, Getting Worse: How Psychiatric Drugs Create the Illusion They Cure

‘Nobody Told Me’: Former Mental Health Patient Calls Out Dangerous Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs

By Jill Erzen | The Defender | April 1, 2026

The mental health system is failing children by treating everyday struggles as “chronic illness requiring lifelong pharmaceutical treatment,” former psychiatric patient Laura Delano told lawmakers this week.

“What we are calling a mental health crisis is, in large part, a crisis of overmedicalization,” she said at a March 26 roundtable held by the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform’s Subcommittee on Health Care and Financial Services.

Delano said many challenges people face are “rooted in nutrition, sleep, stress, trauma, substance use, relationships, vocation, environment, economics, meaning, faith and purpose.” Yet the system often reduces those issues to medical diagnoses, she said.

Drawing on her own 14 years in the mental health system, Delano told lawmakers her experience reflects a broader trend.

Now the founder of Inner Compass Initiative and author of “Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance,” Delano said more Americans are seeking mental healthcare than ever, but outcomes — including suicide rates among young people — continue to worsen.

‘Two meds became three, four, five. My life unraveled’

Delano said she began treatment at 13. She was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and told she would need medication for life.

“You’re told this is an incurable illness. You’ll have this for the rest of your life. It’s manageable with medications, but you will never not have it,” she said. “And that’s the story that many, many people are being told about these conditions, which is simply not true.”

Over time, her diagnoses expanded and her prescriptions multiplied.

“Two meds became three, four, five,” she said. “My life unraveled.”

She said she gained weight, developed chronic health issues and became “increasingly anxious and suicidal.”

“Eventually, I couldn’t work or take care of myself,” she said.

Delano told lawmakers her experience points to a lack of informed consent.

“Nobody told me” that many psychiatric drugs were approved based on trials lasting “on average 6 to 12 weeks,” or that the long-term effects of taking multiple drugs together have “never been properly established.”

She said she wasn’t warned that medications could cause “serious physical health problems,” impair sexual function or, in some cases, increase suicidal thoughts.

When she tried to stop taking the drugs, she said she experienced withdrawal symptoms, but was told it was a relapse.

“Nobody told me that what I experienced … was withdrawal,” she said. “Instead, I was told that my worsening state meant my illness was so severe that it was now resistant to any treatment.”

At 25, Delano said she believed there was no hope. She attempted suicide.

‘This is the next opiate crisis, and I think it’s bigger’

Delano’s testimony comes as mental health outcomes worsen, even as diagnoses and prescriptions keep rising.

From 2007 to 2021, the suicide rate among people ages 10-24 increased by 62%. In 2023, over 49,000 Americans died by suicide — the highest number on record, and about 20,000 more than in 2000.

Among adolescents in 2024, 2.6 million reported serious suicidal thoughts, 1.2 million made a plan, and 700,000 attempted suicide.

At the same time, diagnoses have surged. Today, about 23.4% of U.S. adults — roughly 61.5 million people — experienced mental illness. This includes more than 36% of young adults.

Medication use has climbed alongside those numbers.

Since 2006, the use of SSRIs in children has more than doubled. A December 2025 report found that 6.1 million U.S. children ages 17 and under are taking at least one psychiatric drug.

“This is the next opiate crisis, and I think it’s bigger,” Delano said.

Doctors are increasingly medicalizing ‘normal human unhappiness’

Other experts at the roundtable raised similar concerns about diagnosis and treatment.

Dr. Sally Satel, a psychiatrist and senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said clinicians often blur the line between clinical depression and life challenges.

“I can’t tell you how many people … once got a diagnosis [of depression], but their diagnosis is really demoralization,” she said.

“Do we need medications for that?” Satel asked. In some cases, what patients need to hear is, “Your life is difficult. You’re actually having a rational response to a difficult life,” she said.

Satel also said psychiatrists do not prescribe most psychiatric medications.

Primary care providers and midlevel practitioners write many of the prescriptions, she said. “That’s definitely … a problem.”

“We are overdiagnosing,” she added. “We’re turning … normal human unhappiness into … diagnoses that we then prescribe medications for that probably won’t work.”

‘Doubling down on what we’re doing … is not going to get us anywhere’

Dr. David Hyman, a physician and legal scholar, drew a similar distinction.

“Sadness and depression are two different things,” he said. Treatment — and not necessarily with medication — should focus on the latter, he added.

He also warned against a system that increasingly defaults to prescribing. “Doubling down on what we’re doing, which isn’t working, is not going to get us anywhere better than where we are,” he said.

Hyman challenged how psychiatric drugs are evaluated over time.

While medications must show safety and efficacy to gain approval, he said, there is no consistent system to study the long-term effects or what happens when patients stop taking them.

“There’s not a mechanism or systematic reevaluation of things after they’ve been approved,” he said.

Tapering can take ‘not just months, but years’

Delano said that gap is especially clear when patients try to taper off medications.

Asked how often patients receive full information about their diagnosis and medications, she said: “From what I’ve seen, never.”

“It took 13 years to realize I needed to get out,” Delano said. But getting off the drugs is “incredibly difficult.”

“We have a system set up that makes it incredibly easy to start these drugs that were really only ever studied for … short-term use,” she said. “Yet, most people stay on them long term for years and have zero safe off-ramps.”

Without clear guidance, people often stop too quickly, feel worse and assume they need the drugs indefinitely, she said.

Delano called for updated drug labels, public education and clinical guidelines for gradual tapering.

She stressed that these medications can create physical dependence. “Not addiction, it’s different than addiction,” she said. It’s a biological effect that can make stopping difficult.

“It sounds so unfathomable that a capsule … might require chipping away … over not just months, but years,” she said. Yet for some patients, that level of gradual tapering is necessary, she added.

Now 16 years off psychiatric medications, Delano said her experience drives her work.

“It’s urgent that we better understand what is happening in people’s brains and bodies from using these medications long term and from trying to get off them,” she said.

Watch an excerpt from the subcommittee hearing here:

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

April 11, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | United States | Comments Off on ‘Nobody Told Me’: Former Mental Health Patient Calls Out Dangerous Side Effects of Psychiatric Drugs

Brussels cannot say where its own pipeline inspectors are as Hungary’s oil lifeline remains shut

Will they magically reappear after the election?

By Thomas Brooke | Remix News | April 10, 2026

With just days until Hungary’s parliamentary election, questions are mounting over whether the European Union’s apparent inaction on a stalled oil pipeline investigation is politically motivated to avoid strengthening Viktor Orbán.

The controversy centers on the Druzhba, or “Friendship,” pipeline, which has not delivered Russian oil to Hungary since the end of January. Ukrainian authorities insisted that the halt was caused by Russian attacks damaging the infrastructure, but initially refused to grant access to inspection teams from both Hungary and the European Union.

The European Commission eventually announced its intention to deploy a team to the region to inspect the pipeline, in part due to Hungary’s refusal to sign off on any further financial assistance to Kyiv until the matter was resolved. However, no updates on the inspection have been forthcoming, and Brussels itself now appears unable to account for the status — or even the whereabouts — of its own delegation.

Speaking at a press conference on Tuesday, European Commission spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen confirmed that a small EU expert team had been deployed to Ukraine following correspondence between Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. However, she admitted she could provide no update on the mission’s progress.

“I cannot provide any new information on developments since that exchange of letters,” Itkonen said, adding that she had no details about the team’s itinerary or current location.

“At the time of sending the letter, they were in Ukraine. At that time, we indicated to Volodymyr Zelensky that we were ready and willing to launch such a fact-finding mission, but at present, I have no information about the team’s whereabouts or where exactly they might be,” she added.

The lack of clarity has persisted for weeks. The European Commission first announced on March 12 that it was ready to dispatch a fact-finding mission to assess damage to the pipeline and determine repair timelines and costs. Yet, according to sources in Brussels and Kyiv, EU experts have still not been granted permission to inspect the affected section.

Reports from Ukrainian media at the end of March suggested the team was prepared to travel but remained blocked by authorities who had yet to approve access.

The episode has drawn criticism from Hungarian officials, who say the situation is wholly unacceptable. Máté Kocsis, leader of the Fidesz parliamentary group, mocked the situation, saying it was “absurd” that the EU could not say where its own delegation was, adding sarcastically, “A delegation simply disappeared. This happens to anyone in Ukraine,” as cited by Magyar Nemzet.

The pipeline dispute has become a central issue in Hungary’s election campaign. Orbán’s government argues that Kyiv is deliberately withholding oil supplies to damage Hungary’s economy ahead of the vote, while also accusing Brussels of failing to intervene.

Hungarian Foreign Minister Péter Szijjártó has gone further, describing the shutdown as “a purely political decision,” and accusing Ukraine of refusing to engage in talks to resolve the situation. A planned trilateral meeting with Slovak and Ukrainian officials collapsed after Kyiv declined to attend, despite Hungarian efforts to organize negotiations in recent weeks.

The Hungarian government has also alleged broader coordination between European and Ukrainian actors aimed at harming the current administration’s chances in Sunday’s election. Viktor Orbán has accused Brussels of seeking to install its own “puppet” in the shape of opposition leader Péter Magyar. Governing Fidesz claims that Magyar will be subservient to Brussels on major issues, including further military and financial assistance to Kyiv and the controversial EU Migration Pact.

As the election approaches, the unresolved pipeline issue — and the EU’s lack of visible progress in investigating it — has intensified scrutiny of Brussels’ intentions. Whether the radio silence is bureaucratic inertia or a calculated effort to depose the government, the impact it is having on the election is undeniable.

April 11, 2026 Posted by aletho | Civil Liberties, Deception, Economics | European Union, Hungary, Ukraine | Comments Off on Brussels cannot say where its own pipeline inspectors are as Hungary’s oil lifeline remains shut

The Black Cube Files: How Former Mossad Operatives Flipped a Nation

Inside the Israeli intelligence operation that shook Slovenia

José Niño Unfiltered | April 8, 2026

10 days before a national election, with secretly recorded videos of government officials circulating online and former Israeli intelligence operatives confirmed to have visited opposition party headquarters, Slovenia abruptly reversed its decision to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice.

The official explanation pointed to national security concerns. Slovenian officials warned that joining could “jeopardize Slovenia’s national security,” citing the uncomfortable reality that many of the country’s cyber defense systems are of Israeli origin. They noted that Israeli authorities play a crucial role in facilitating Slovenian humanitarian operations in Gaza and in evacuating Slovenian nationals from the Middle East.

Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon expressed regret, calling the internal debate “quite emotional and exhausting.” When asked about external pressure, Fajon acknowledged, “It is clear that these pressures exist, we are all subjected to them by superpowers, and ultimately this must be taken into account when deciding.”

What Fajon did not say, but what Slovenian intelligence would confirm days later, was that operatives from Black Cube, a private intelligence firm founded by former Israeli military intelligence officers and advised by former Mossad chiefs, had been operating on Slovenian soil for months. They had visited the headquarters of the opposition party. They had lured government officials into staged meetings using a fictitious British investment fund. They had secretly recorded them.

Almost nobody in the English-speaking world covered it.

In the annals of intelligence operations that never quite make the headlines, few stories rival what unfolded in Slovenia between December 2025 and March 2026. A small European nation of two million people found itself at the center of geopolitical intrigue involving former Israeli military intelligence officers, fictitious investment funds, secretly recorded politicians, and a last-minute reversal that may have saved Slovenia from whatever consequences Israel had in store.

A Relationship Built on Trade and Transformed by War

Israel and Slovenia established diplomatic relations on April 28, 1992, shortly after Slovenia declared independence from Yugoslavia. For decades the relationship remained cordial if unremarkable, built on a bilateral investment protection agreement signed in 1998 and a double taxation treaty signed in 2007, along with occasional state visits. Israeli President Shimon Peres visited Ljubljana in 2010. Slovenia designated Hezbollah a terrorist organization in November 2020, treating the group in its entirety as a “criminal and terrorist organization posing a threat to peace and security” — notably declining to distinguish between Hezbollah’s military and political wings as most EU countries had done.

The relationship strengthened under conservative Prime Minister Janez Janša, who governed from 2020 to 2022. Janša cultivated close personal ties with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and ordered the Israeli flag raised over his party headquarters during a moment of crisis. In December 2020, Janša traveled to Israel and met with representatives of five Israeli companies, including the controversial spyware firm NSO Group, according to Slovenian investigative outlet Oštro. The Slovenian government confirmed the meeting but stated no deals were concluded.

In August 2021, Slovenia’s Government Information Security Office signed a cybersecurity cooperation memorandum with the Israeli National Cyber Directorate. The country purchased Spike missiles from Rafael and received armored vehicle components from Elbit Systems in contracts stretching back to the 1990s.

Then came October 2023 and the war in Gaza.

The Golob Pivot

When center-left Robert Golob unseated Janša in 2022, Slovenia’s posture toward Israel began shifting. After the Gaza war erupted, the transformation became dramatic.

Slovenia became the first European nation to join the ICJ advisory opinion proceedings on Israel’s control of occupied territories in January 2024, submitting written comments while other EU states held back. On June 4, 2024, Slovenia officially recognized the State of Palestine. In July 2025, the country declared Israeli ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich persona non grata, becoming the first EU member state to do so. On July 31, 2025, Slovenia announced a comprehensive arms embargo covering import, export, and transit of all weapons to and from Israel, again the first EU member state to take such action.

In September 2025, Slovenia banned Netanyahu himself from entering the country, the first EU nation to do so, citing the ICC arrest warrant. By early 2026, Slovenia was preparing to join South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the ICJ. Foreign Minister Tanja Fajon expressed strong support.

Then everything changed.

The Black Cube Files

Black Cube, officially BC Strategy Ltd, describes itself as “the world’s leading intelligence firm” staffed by “veterans of elite Israeli Intelligence Units.” Founded in 2010 by Dan Zorella, a former IDF Military Intelligence officer, and Dr. Avi Yanus, a former IDF strategic planning officer, the firm operates in over 75 countries and employs more than 100 investigators fluent in 30 languages.

The firm’s advisory board reads like a who’s who of Israeli intelligence. Meir Dagan, the former Mossad chief who ran the agency from 2002 to 2011, served as Black Cube’s honorary president until his death in 2016 and was heavily involved in the firm from its earliest stages. Other advisory board members include Efraim Halevy, another former Mossad head, and Major General Giora Eiland, former head of the Israeli National Security Council.

Black Cube became globally infamous through the Harvey Weinstein scandal. The film producer hired the firm, reportedly on a referral from former Israeli PM Ehud Barak, to suppress sexual harassment allegations. Black Cube agents tracked journalists investigating Weinstein, including Ronan Farrow of The New Yorker and Jodi Kantor of The New York Times. They targeted accusers, particularly Rose McGowan, using an operative who posed as a women’s rights supporter. The explicit contract goal, as Farrow documented in his Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting, was to “completely stop the publication of a new negative article in a leading NY newspaper.”

The firm also saw five employees convicted in Romania — two lower-level operatives arrested in 2016 and three company founders including Zorella and Yanus in 2022 — for targeting the country’s chief anticorruption prosecutor, Laura Codruța Kövesi, through hacking and harassment. Black Cube conducted operations targeting researchers at Citizen Lab who were investigating NSO Group’s Pegasus spyware. The firm was also hired to find compromising material on architects of the Obama-era Iran nuclear deal, including former officials Colin Kahl and Ben Rhodes, according to NBC News.

And then Black Cube turned its attention to Slovenia.

Spies in Ljubljana

Between December 10 and 11, 2025, three Black Cube representatives arrived in Slovenia. According to the Slovenian government and ABC News, the three operatives were Dan Zorella, the firm’s co-founder, Liron Tzur, and Giora Eiland, the former head of Israel’s National Security Council who sits on Black Cube’s advisory board. Flight records and intelligence data confirmed they visited Trstenjakova Street No. 8 in Ljubljana, where Janša’s Slovenian Democratic Party maintains its headquarters.

On December 22, 2025, senior Black Cube figures reportedly met with Janša himself. The opposition leader later admitted to having “contacts with an adviser from the Israeli private intelligence agency Black Cube” but denied doing anything illegal.

Between January and March 2026, Black Cube operatives posing as representatives of a fictitious British investment fund called “Stockard Capital” lured Slovenian political figures into staged business meetings in Vienna and other locations, secretly recording them. Among the targets was former Justice Minister Dominika Švarc Pipan.

Roughly ten days before the election, an anonymous website called anti-corruption2026.com appeared online, publishing edited videos of government figures including officials from Golob’s Freedom Movement party. The content was described by analyst Lily Lynch as “more embarrassing than criminal.”

On March 16, 2026, Slovenian investigative journalist Borut Mekina of Mladina presented findings at a press conference with civil society researchers linking Black Cube to the secretly recorded videos and to Janša’s party. The following day, Prime Minister Golob accused “foreign services” of interfering in the election, calling it “the biggest scandal we have witnessed in Slovenia since independence.”

“Clear-Cut Interference”

On March 22, 2026, Slovenia held its parliamentary elections. Golob’s Freedom Movement party narrowly defeated Janša’s SDS despite the scandal.

French President Emmanuel Macron stated that Golob “was the victim of clear-cut interference” by “third countries” and misinformation, according to Euronews.

On March 26, 2026, SOVA, the Slovenian Intelligence and Security Agency, “unequivocally confirmed the activity of foreign influence” on the elections. Agency chief Joško Kadivnik presented material evidence linking the three Black Cube operatives to the SDS headquarters visit and demonstrating “counterintelligence operations against the Republic of Slovenia and foreign interference in Slovenian elections.”

The evidence was handed to prosecutors and police.

The Dependency Trap

The Slovenia episode illuminates a dynamic rarely discussed in Western capitals. Israeli defense and cybersecurity firms have quietly embedded themselves into the security infrastructure of allied nations, creating dependencies that carry geopolitical weight.

Slovenia procured Elbit Systems weapon stations and turrets for its Patria AMV armored vehicle program in 2007. It purchased Spike anti-tank missiles from Rafael in multiple transactions, including a $6.6 million deal for 50 Spike LR2 missiles in September 2022. It signed a cybersecurity memorandum with Israel’s National Cyber Directorate in 2021.

Yet despite declaring a full arms embargo in July 2025, a Haaretz investigation in August 2025 revealed that Slovenia purchased €828,000 in Israeli military equipment in 2024 and continued planning to acquire Spike missiles through EuroSpike, a joint venture between Rafael and German defense firms Rheinmetall and Diehl that manufactures the missiles in Germany.

Israel’s influence operations demonstrate that a country’s sovereignty is only as secure as its gatekeepers. A truly free nation must ensure that Israeli nationals and their intelligence assets are permanently barred from setting foot on its soil.

April 9, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception | Israel, Slovenia, Zionism | Comments Off on The Black Cube Files: How Former Mossad Operatives Flipped a Nation

Barak Ravid Launders Deception To Allow Trump To Back Off Of His Power Plant Threat – Again

The Dissident | April 6, 2026

The Trump administration is seemingly creating another deception, claiming that Iran wants to give concessions to the United States to yet again back off on its threat to target Iranian power plants and bridges if they do not agree to open the Strait of Hormuz.

For context, Trump took to Truth Social and in an unhinged message wrote , “Tuesday will be Power Plant Day, and Bridge Day, all wrapped up in one, in Iran. There will be nothing like it!!! Open the Fuckin’ Strait, you crazy bastards, or you’ll be living in Hell – JUST WATCH!” later adding that this planned war crime will take place, “Tuesday, 8:00 P.M. Eastern Time!”.

Iran, remained defiant and did not give in to Trump’s threats, with the Iranian IRCG saying , “We have consistently declared that any aggression against civilian targets will be met with extensive responses against enemy interests anywhere in the region” adding that “any repeated attacks on civilian facilities will trigger a second stage of the operation, which will be far more forceful, doubling the losses for the aggressors” stating, “We reiterate: if you commit further acts of aggression against civilian facilities, our responses will be even more crushing”.

Just in time for Trump to back off from his threat against Iran, Axios journalist Barak Ravid-who was previously with Israel’s Unit 8200 and repeatedly launders U.S. and Israeli national security state propaganda and controlled leaks as news report- put out an article claiming that “The U.S., Iran and a group of regional mediators are discussing the terms for a potential 45-day ceasefire that could lead to a permanent end to the war, according to four U.S., Israeli and regional sources with knowledge of the talks.”

According to Ravid’s “report” “this last-ditch effort is the only chance to prevent a dramatic escalation in the war that will include massive strikes on Iranian civilian infrastructure and a retaliation against energy and water facilities in the Gulf states” and that “the mediators are discussing with the parties the terms for [a] two-phased deal; the first phase would [be] a potential 45-day ceasefire during which a permanent end to the war would be negotiated.”

But this “report” seems to be yet another deception laundered to allow Trump to back off on his threats – knowing that they did not work in scaring Iran into opening the Strait of Hormuz, and fearing Iran’s retaliatory strikes if Trump follows through.

As even Barak Ravid’s report acknowledges, “the mediators are highly concerned that the Iranian retaliation for a U.S.-Israeli strike on the country’s energy infrastructure would be destructive for Gulf countries’ oil and water facilities.”

Not The First Time

The most conclusive evidence that Ravid’s report was a deception through a controlled leak is that he previously laundered a fake news report to allow Trump to get out of his initial threat against Iranian Nuclear power plants.

On March 21st, Trump first wrote on Truth Social, “If Iran doesn’t FULLY OPEN, WITHOUT THREAT, the Strait of Hormuz, within 48 HOURS from this exact point in time, the United States of America will hit and obliterate their various POWER PLANTS, STARTING WITH THE BIGGEST ONE FIRST!”.

Iran did not give in to Trump’s threats, with Iranian military spokesman Ebrahim Zolfaqari saying , “If Iran’s fuel and energy infrastructure is attacked by the enemy, all energy infrastructure, as well as information technology (IT) and water desalination facilities, belonging to the US and the regimes in the region will be targeted pursuant to previous warnings”.

“In case of the slightest attack on the electricity infrastructure of the Islamic Republic of Iran, the entire region will go dark”, Mehr news, an outlet affiliated with Iran’s IRGC, warned, giving a list of targets which included:

Saudi Arabia
– The Village (near Al-Khobar): gas power plant (4,000+ MW)
– Ras Tanura (Sharqiya Province): major oil and gas facility / power infrastructure

United Arab Emirates
– Barakah (Al Dhafra, Abu Dhabi): nuclear power plant (~5,600 MW)
– Jebel Ali (South Dubai): gas power and desalination complex (multi-GW capacity)
-Mohammed bin Rashid Solar Park (Dubai): large-scale solar power project

Qatar
– Ras Laffan (north Qatar): gas power plant (one of the largest in Qatar)
– Umm Al Houl (south of Doha): gas power + desalination plant (multi-GW capacity)

Kuwait
– Al-Zour South: oil and gas power plant
-Al-Zour North: combined-cycle power plant (multi-GW capacity)
– Shaqaya Energy Park (west Kuwait): solar and wind renewable energy complex

Realizing that Iran was not going to back down in the face of Trump’s threats and fearing Iran’s retaliatory strikes on Israel and the Gulf States – and it’s effect on the global economy – Trump came up with an excuse to postpone the strikes, taking again to Truth Social to say :

I AM PLEASED TO REPORT THAT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND THE COUNTRY OF IRAN, HAVE HAD, OVER THE LAST TWO DAYS, VERY GOOD AND PRODUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS REGARDING A COMPLETE AND TOTAL RESOLUTION OF OUR HOSTILITIES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. BASED ON THE TENOR AND TONE OF THESE IN DEPTH, DETAILED, AND CONSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATIONS, WHICH WILL CONTINUE THROUGHOUT THE WEEK, I HAVE INSTRUCTED THE DEPARTMENT OF WAR TO POSTPONE ANY AND ALL MILITARY STRIKES AGAINST IRANIAN POWER PLANTS AND ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURE FOR A FIVE DAY PERIOD, SUBJECT TO THE SUCCESS OF THE ONGOING MEETINGS AND DISCUSSIONS. THANK YOU FOR YOUR ATTENTION TO THIS MATTER!

Iran, however denied that the talks were taking place at all, with Iran’s Press TV reporting that, “Iran has received messages through some friendly countries over the past few days regarding the US request for negotiations to end the ongoing war” but that “Iran has responded appropriately and based on the Islamic Republic’s principled positions” which includes demands for “a guarantee that war would never take place again, US military bases are closed in the region, and compensations are paid for damages inflicted on Iranian military and civilian structures.”

This was confirmed by journalists Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain, who reported that an Iranian official, off the record, confirmed that “there aren’t any negotiations taking place. The Iranian side has simply communicated its conditions to them, and even that has been done indirectly”.

Trump doubled down on this deception, claiming that he was negotiating with a “a top person” in Iran – who he would not name.

Aiding Trump in laundering this deception was none other than Barak Ravid.

In an article for Axios, Ravid claimed, “U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner had been in touch with the speaker of the Iranian parliament, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf” and that, “the mediating countries were trying to convene a meeting in Islamabad — with Ghalibaf and other officials representing Tehran, and Witkoff, Kushner and possibly Vice President Vance representing the U.S. — possibly later this week.”

But Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf – Iran’s hardline speaker of parliament publicly rebuked the report, stating, “Iranian people demand complete and remorseful punishment of the aggressors. All Irainan officials stand firmly behind their supreme leader and people until this goal is achieved. No negotiations have been held with the US, and fakenews is used to manipulate the financial and oil markets and escape the quagmire in which the US and Israel are trapped.”

Iranian media noted that this deception was deployed because “Trump backed down from his threats after realizing that the country would target all power plants in West Asia, warning that any threat to Tehran would be met with a proportional and firm response.”

The most likely explanation behind the Axios report is that an increasingly desperate and mentally declining Trump believed sending an unhinged message on Truth Social would this time make Iran back down and open the Strait of Hormuz.

With Iran yet again remaining defiant against U.S. threats, Trump yet again feared Iran’s retaliatory response to American strikes on power plants and tapped Barak Ravid to deploy another deception that would allow him to postpone the threats yet again.

April 6, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, Middle East, United States, Zionism | Comments Off on Barak Ravid Launders Deception To Allow Trump To Back Off Of His Power Plant Threat – Again

REWRITING THE RISK? INSIDE THE GOVERNMENT’S VACCINE SAFETY MESSAGING

The HighWire with Del Bigtree | April 2, 2026

Jefferey examines newly surfaced internal communications suggesting that messaging around potential stroke risks following COVID-19 vaccination may have been altered at the highest levels of government, including the Joe Biden White House. Drawing on reported emails from federal health agencies, the segment explores how language describing a “moderately elevated” safety signal was revised to “slightly elevated,” raising serious questions about transparency, public health communication, and risk disclosure during the vaccine rollout.

The analysis also highlights how terminology shifts, from “potential risk” to “preliminary signal”, may have softened public perception of adverse events at a critical moment when booster doses were being distributed to tens of millions of Americans. With coordinated messaging efforts involving the CDC, FDA, and select media and expert networks, the discussion frames these developments as part of a broader strategy to manage public response rather than fully inform it.

Beyond stroke-related concerns, the conversation expands into other reported safety signals, including myocarditis and cardiovascular stress markers observed in certain populations following vaccination. Internal deliberations and delayed public warnings are presented as evidence of systemic gaps in adverse event reporting and physician awareness, potentially impacting early detection and response to emerging risks.

Framed within the larger debate over censorship, government accountability, and medical transparency, Jefferey raises critical questions about how public health decisions are communicated—and who ultimately controls that narrative. As scrutiny intensifies over pandemic-era policies, the discussion underscores the importance of open scientific dialogue, rigorous safety monitoring, and restoring trust in public health institutions moving forward.

April 6, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, United States | Comments Off on REWRITING THE RISK? INSIDE THE GOVERNMENT’S VACCINE SAFETY MESSAGING

Why the CIA conspiracy to invade Iran with Kurdish militias failed

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | April 5, 2026

At the beginning of the US-Israeli War on Iran, stories were circulated about the United States attempting to use Kurdish militia groups in order to wage a ground offensive against Iran. Yet the strategy never ended up getting off the ground. Understanding the context helps explain what happened

On February 22, just prior to the joint US-Israeli war of aggression against Iran, five Kurdish-Iranian militant factions held a conference declaring a historic unity agreement had been reached. As a result the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI), Kurdistan Free Life Party (PJAK), Kurdistan Freedom Party (PAK), Khabat Organization of Iranian Kurdistan, and a branch of the Komala Party of Iranian Kurdistan came together. They declared themselves the Coalition of Political Forces of Iranian Kurdistan (CPFIK), explicitly to fight against the Islamic Republic of Iran.

For long, Tehran had argued that these groups were being backed by the Western and Israeli intelligence agencies. However, journalists also adopting this analysis were often framed as being conspiracy theorists. That was, of course, until a few days into the US-Israeli war on Iran, when it emerged that the Trump administration was openly in talks with them, encouraging an invasion of Iran’s Western borders.

Then came the bombshell report from CNN, whose sources alleged that the CIA had been covertly working to arm these Kurdish-Iranian groups based in Iraq. So, at this stage, and shockingly so, there is no conspiracy to unravel as it has already been exposed.

What would such an invasion look like?

As has become evident, regime change in Iran is not going to be possible through a campaign from the air alone; the natural next step to achieving this was always going to be creating an insurgency inside the country, whilst invading from without also. In the US’s alleged strategic thinking, a Kurdish invasion would ideally work to foster a wider uprising inside the country, thus creating a general environment of chaos and division.

However, bringing about such a predicament was not going to come easy. In January, the Israeli Mossad attempted to foster an armed uprising that would trigger a civil war. Iran managed to put this bloody assault down with overwhelming force in just two or three days, a conflict which cost the lives of 3,117 people, including hundreds of policemen and security force members.

Initially, this uprising sought to use paid agents from criminal groups in the West of Iran and there was some evidence that Kurdish militia groups were used to clash with the Iranian security forces, but this was quickly quelled. In fact, in 2022, when the death of Mahsa Amini triggered nationwide protests, Western intelligence agencies jumped on the opportunity to use Kurdish separatist groups, but failed to achieve their desired objectives.

In Iraq, the US, and later the Israelis, also worked alongside Kurdish forces in order to secure the control of oil resources and successfully created the semi-autonomous Iraqi-Kurdistan region, complete with its own Kurdish government. The same came in north-eastern Syria, where the US helped set up what was known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), using them to fight back ISIS and claim control of not only Syria’s oil fields but the most fertile agricultural land in the country.

Unfortunately, Kurdish nationalism has always been promoted by the United States, and before it the British, dating back to the 1920’s, in a way that enables them to use the Kurdish minority populations of the region to do their bidding. Although these Kurdish nationalist groups, who seek to build separatist regions in Iraq, Syria, Iran and Turkiye, proudly believe that their groups are fighting for a noble cause, they almost always end up causing more harm to the Kurdish populations and those around them.

This is not to comment on the historical or moral validity of Kurdish nationalism and their struggle for statehood, instead it is a factual assessment. Take for instance the recently dissolved Kurdish autonomous region project in north eastern Syria, what the US-backed SDF called Rojava. In 2015, the United States armed and funded them to fight against ISIS, promising them a bright future in return for their sacrifices on the battlefield.

Eventually, the Kurdish-led SDF, which ruled over a majority Arab territory, managed to seize the area of Afrin, towards the north-west of Syria. Turkiye, which views almost every Kurdish group as a terrorist organisation and/or threat, decided in 2018 to launch “Operation Olive Branch”, crushing the SDF and seizing that territory for themselves, handing it over to their own proxy forces. What did the US military do to help them? You guessed it, they ran away and deserted their Kurdish allies.

In 2019, Turkiye then launched “Operation Peace Spring”, seizing a strip of north-eastern Syria from the SDF and using their Al-Qaeda linked proxy forces called the “Syrian National Army” (SNA) to hold on to that land. Again, the US deserted their Kurdish allies. Despite this, the SDF crawled right back to their US backers and refused to reach an agreement with the then government of Bashar al-Assad.

When Assad was overthrown in December of 2024, there came a significant threat to many Kurdish-Syrians and more specifically the longevity of the SDF’s rule in north-eastern Syria. Syria’s new ruler, Ahmed al-Sharaa (formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani while he led Al-Qaeda in Syria), decided to lead an offensive against the SDF to recapture the north-eastern portion of the country and place it under Damascus’s rule.

In January of 2026, after the US again deserted the Kurdish movement at the moment of truth, the SDF’s rule fell, and al-Sharaa took over north-eastern Syria. Why? Well, it’s very obvious: the US had only been using the Kurdish group as a proxy to withhold Syria’s oil and agricultural resources from it, until the government of Bashar al-Assad was toppled. Once regime change was accomplished, al-Sharaa was invited to the White House, and his Al-Qaeda and ISIS history was ignored.

See, the US never cared about the Kurds, nor did the Israelis, because both had covertly, and in some cases overtly, supported al-Qaeda linked groups in Syria also- playing both sides.

Although tragic, history shows us that it is very likely that Kurdish militant groups are used to do the West’s bidding, with promises of securing their own interests that never materialise. Therefore, it was always safe to assume that this would be attempted again. This time, however, the chance they had was extremely slim, and the consequences of such action even threatened the collapse of the Iraqi-Kurdistan project altogether.

The Kurdish groups in Iran cannot likely inspire a general uprising inside the country, this is for a number of reasons. The Kurdish population is considerable, numbering around 10 million of Iran’s 92 million strong population, yet they are not all hellbent on destroying the government, this is simply propaganda, most are normal people living their lives. These hostile Kurdish groups are based primarily in Iraq, in terms of their militant numbers, meaning that their forces inside Iran would have been overwhelmed from the jump.

Then there was the issue of the Iraq-Iran border, which had already been fortified and is where the Iranian military has deployed assets and soldiers to guard against an anticipated assault. But before they even reach the Iranian side, where they would have been greatly outnumbered, they would have to face off against Iraqi groups that are aligned with Iran. In total, these Iraqi groups – under the Popular Mobilisation Units (PMU) – constitute a force of around 250,000 fighters if fully mobilised.

In order for such an assault to succeed in creating an uprising in Iran, or inspire other armed factions from other minority groups in the country – like the Lors, Arabs or others – to begin taking action, they would need to at least see results.

Even if the Kurdish factions were to hypothetically seize some territory, Iran is such a massive country that the temporary loss of towns and villages wouldn’t be such an issue. That’s the best case scenario for these groups, assuming they get past the Iraqis – in addition to the Iranian Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC)’s drones and missiles – first. If anything, such an offensive would have been destined to trigger an enormous backlash against the Kurdish regional project, rather than do it any good.

As for the idea of this leading to Balkanisation, it is not something that appears to be possible in the foreseeable future. This is not to say that Tel Aviv and Washington won’t try. Yet, the Iranian opposition is so incredibly divided – territorially and ideologically – that the ability for groups to work together is also scarce.

Take for example the Iranians who support Israeli puppet Reza Pahlavi. These are hardline Persian Nationalists who believe that they are a superior ethnicity to Kurdish people, Afghans, Arabs and so on. Under the rule of the deposed Shah of Iran, whose son is now worshipped in a cult-like fashion by a small but vocal minority of Iranians [especially in the diaspora], the non-Persian groups inside the country were enormously undermined and discriminated against.

In fact, under the Islamic Republic, the minorities fare much better than they have under the Pahlavi monarchs and those Shahs that came before them. Their conditions are by no means perfect, and there are often complaints that the centre of Iran is prioritised by the government, which is where the majority of ethnic Persians are situated, yet there is simply no comparison between the way they are treated under the current Islamic rule and that of the previous leaderships.

In conclusion, the options for creating a Syria-style civil war in Iran were always much lower than was being claimed by some commentators, or had been presented by pro-war think tanks in Washington. As Iran is under attack, and atrocities are being carried out against civilians on a daily basis, this has worked to make the nation’s people rally behind the flag, rather than embark upon bloody sectarian revolts.

Another key factor to understand here is that the Islamic Republic is clearly holding its own against the world’s top military superpower and the region’s most advanced military. This in itself makes small militant groups more hesitant to take action. Having said this, the US and Israelis appear to be willing to sacrifice all their proxies in a bid to achieve regime change, or at least inflict a significant blow, this time around, so it is never an impossibility that some desperate action may still be ordered at some stage.

April 5, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, Wars for Israel | al-Qaeda, CIA, Iran, Iraq, ISIS, Israel, Syria, United States, Zionism | Comments Off on Why the CIA conspiracy to invade Iran with Kurdish militias failed

IRGC decries attack on US embassy in Riyadh, says executed by ‘Israel’

The US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (File photo by AFP)

Al Mayadeen | April 4, 2026

The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps’ (IRGC) has rejected accusations that it was responsible for an attack on the US Embassy in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, emphasizing instead that it was a false flag operation carried out by the Israeli entity.

In Statement No. 54 of Operation True Promise 4, the IRGC’s Public Relations Department condemned the attack on the embassy, which was reported by The Wall Street Journal, stressing that, recalling the Israeli occupation’s regional strategies, “this action was certainly carried out by Zionists.”

The IRGC confirmed that the Iranian Armed Forces’ target list has been clearly identified, adding that Iran had already informed neighboring countries of the necessary warnings to “prevent further escalation.”

The IRGC also warned that West Asia “must remain vigilant against provocations from the American–Zionist current,” which aims to destabilize and destroy the region.

A series of false flags

Iran has repeatedly stressed that its operations target US-Israeli military assets and affiliated infrastructure in the region and across the occupied territories in Palestine, quickly pointing out false flags and highlighting ongoing enemy attacks that seek to disturb regional harmony.

It has also delineated target lists for its tit-for-tat retaliations for attacks on its civilian infrastructure, including US assets in the region. The US embassy in Riyadh was not among them.

Only yesterday, the IRGC condemned the targeting of water desalination plants in Kuwait, asserting that the Israeli entity “is behind this cowardly act of aggression aimed at sowing discord.” On Monday, a Kuwaiti power and desalination plant was also struck, killing an Indian worker and causing significant material damage.

Kuwaiti authorities were quick to attribute the attack to Iran, but Tehran squarely denied involvement and blamed “Israel,” with the spokesperson for Iran’s Khatam al-Anbiya Central Headquarters describing the incident as “evidence of the enemy’s depravity and malice,” saying it forms part of broader efforts to inflame tensions and undermine regional stability.

Similarly, following a fire at Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura refinery in early March, an Iranian military source told Tasnim News Agency that the attack was “an Israeli false flag operation” aimed at distracting regional countries from “Israel’s” strikes on civilian sites inside Iran, stressing that “Aramco facilities have not been among the targets of Iranian attacks so far.”

April 4, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | Israel, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, United States, Zionism | Comments Off on IRGC decries attack on US embassy in Riyadh, says executed by ‘Israel’

His Majesty’s head-chopper: Syria’s MI6-backed president bows to King Charles

By Kit Klarenberg | The Grayzone | April 3, 2026

When Syria’s “interim” leader Ahmed al-Sharaa touched down in London on March 31, he was given a much warmer welcome than many once thought possible. As the longtime leader of Syria’s Al-Qaeda branch, the US had been offering a $10 million bounty for information on his location just 15 months prior. Yet here was Al-Sharaa, proudly posing for photo ops with King Charles and Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

British intelligence had been working towards this day for almost two decades. The path for al-Sharaa’s rule was cleared by MI6 after years of mentoring under Jonathan Powell, who now serves as National Security Advisor to Starmer. The time had come for Britain to formally anoint its Syrian puppet.

The ongoing US-Israeli war on Iran, and the Strait of Hormuz’s closure, were reportedly at the top of Starmer and al-Sharaa’s agenda. The British premier praised his counterpart’s supposed success in battling ISIS, while al-Sharaa thanked London for its assistance in pushing for sanctions on Syria’s ruined economy to be lifted. The pair have enjoyed warm relations since al-Sharaa’s seizure of power in December 2024, which Starmer publicly celebrated as a golden opportunity for London to “play a more present and consistent role throughout the region.”

Ever since, the British have systematically steered Damascus’ self-appointed government towards recognition and welcome by Western states. In May 2025, as al-Sharaa’s death squads massacred Alawites and other ethnic and religious minorities, US President Donald Trump received his Syrian counterpart in the oval office, where he gifted him a bottle of Trump-branded cologne. The BBC acknowledged this development would have been “unthinkable just months ago.”

Al-Sharaa took the next steps in January 2026, when he signed an unpopular US-brokered accord with Israel, which former Syrian President Bashar Assad had steadfastly refused to endorse for decades.

The impacts of the deal were immediately visible. As Al-Sharaa’s forces swept through Kurdish territory in north east Syria, the Kurds’ erstwhile Israeli backers refused to intervene, and US envoy Tom Barrack publicly declared that the American partnership with the Kurds had “expired.”

Within weeks, al-Sharaa’s forces wrested control of the country’s wheat and oil-producing areas, which had been under US-led occupation for years. Though Syria and Israel have yet to formally normalize relations, al-Sharaa describes relations between the countries as “good.” Today, Syria’s airspace and ground territory is routinely used by Israel and its Western sponsors to wage war on Iran.

Though the rapid transition took many by surprise, the campaign to re-establish Western control over Syria was actually set in motion years ago.

Starmer’s top advisor also groomed al-Sharaa for power

Among the most important vehicles for grooming the former Syrian Al Qaeda warlord known as Mohammed Jolani into the politician, Ahmad Al-Sharaa, was a supposed conflict resolution NGO known as Inter-Mediate. Founded by Jonathan Powell, a former advisor to PM Tony Blair who helped negotiate the Good Friday accords in Northern Ireland, works closely with the British Foreign Office and MI6.

Powell’s Inter Mediate cultivated al-Sharaa’s militant Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) faction for power for years before the December 2025 palace coup, and now boasts a dedicated office within the presidential palace in Damascus.

Coincidentally, Powell took up the post as Starmer’s advisor mere days before HTS declared themselves Syria’s government. As a confidant of Tony Blair, Powell was a key figure in the push for the criminal 2003 Anglo-American Iraq invasion, helping shape bogus intelligence claiming that Baghdad posed a biological and chemical weapons threat to justify the illegal intervention.

Despite his role in the destruction of Iraq, British media has reported that Powell “may have more influence over foreign policy than anyone in government after the Prime Minister himself.” Today, Powell is charged with “coordinating all UK foreign policy, security, defence, Europe, and international economic issues.”

Al-Sharaa was also personally welcomed by Hamish Falconer, an intelligence-aligned Member of Parliament who spent years collaborating with MI6 as the British foreign office’s Terrorism Response Team leader and once served as a hostage negotiator in talks with the Taliban.

Falconer is a close associate of Amil Khan, a British intelligence contractor who worked obsessively to generate sympathetic coverage of HTS while plotting to undermine this outlet due to our critical reporting on Syrian jihadists and their friends in the British government.

Hamish’s father, Charlie Falconer, was a longtime friend and former roommate of former Tony Blair. Following Blair’s May 1997 election victory, Falconer senior was elevated to the unelected House of Lords, then served in a series of high-ranking government posts throughout his pal’s tenure, often coordinating with Jonathan Powell.

While there, the elder Falconer applied “huge pressure” to Attorney General Lord Goldsmith to change his conclusion that invading Iraq was completely illegal. This intervention may have played a decisive role in enabling the illegal war of aggression. Today, it’s been reported that many on Downing Street are “growing increasingly wary about the influence of… smooth Blairites.”

According to one British outlet, top officials in London are purportedly asking, “at what point… does ‘experience’ and ‘guidance’ become ‘control’?” The same question must be asked of MI6’s longstanding links to al-Sharaa.

British intel set up al-Sharaa’s civil apparatus

It is uncertain when British contact with HTS began. But Robert Ford, who served as the US ambassador to Syria from 2011 to 2014, disclosed that in 2023 Inter-Mediate sought his personal assistance in rebranding HTS from “terrorists” into politicians. Ford met repeatedly with al-Sharaa, who reportedly expressed no remorse about the massacres and atrocities he perpetrated in Iraq. Al-Sharaa had served five years in the US military’s notorious Camp Bucca jail for his involvement with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia. He was released in 2011 – just in time for the Syrian dirty war.

In September 2025, former-MI6 chief Richard Moore admitted Britain’s foreign spying agency had been courting HTS long before its seizure of Damascus. “Having forged a relationship with HTS a year or two before they toppled Bashar, we forged a path for the UK Government to return to the country within weeks” of the fall of Assad, Moore boasted.

British psychological warfare operations and ‘aid’ efforts greatly assisted HTS’ consolidation of power in areas of Syria it occupied. As The Grayzone revealed in the immediate aftermath of Assad’s fall, leaked documents show MI6 was well-aware that reports of the group’s split from Al Qaeda were a fantasy.

Nevertheless, British propaganda efforts portrayed dangerous, chaotic HTS-occupied territory as a “moderate” success story, in order to demonstrate “a credible alternative to the [Assad] regime,” per the leaks. Central to these psy-ops were British-created assets including the Free Syrian Police (FSP) and White Helmets.

Framed by Western media as providing vital humanitarian services to local populations, these ostensibly independent agencies enjoyed fawning coverage in mainstream media. In reality, the pair collaborated closely with extremist groups, including HTS, and were complicit in hideous atrocities.

Whether intentional or not, HTS was “significantly less likely to attack opposition entities… receiving support” from the British government, a UK intelligence contractor stated. The work of the White Helmets and FSP greatly enhanced the terrorist group’s credibility as a governance actor and service provider among Syrians. When HTS took power outright in northwest Syria, the FSP became the territory’s formal police force. Since Assad’s ouster, the White Helmets have been tapped by British intelligence assets to run the country’s emergency services.

Despite al-Sharaa’s refusal to repudiate his extremist past, British diplomats initiated a series of meeting with him and other HTS warlords from December 2024 onwards. The public encounters continued even as legacy media outlets acknowledged these summits were completely illegal, as HTS was a proscribed terror group under British law. Starmer did not formally lift this designation initially, but nonetheless led calls for the removal of sanctions on Syria by all Western countries.

In March 2025, the UK terminated the majority of its Syria sanctions, and the rest of the EU followed shortly. With the revocation of US sanctions in July, Syria had effectively been welcomed back into the fold of the so-called international community.

While London’s man in Damascus appears eager to please Starmer and his counterparts in Western capitals, his sectarian politics remain a source of domestic credibility. In January, al-Sharaa’s forces overran northeastern Syria, and freed many ISIS fighters from Kurdish-run prisons, where MI6 had long-managed covert propaganda operations to influence inhabitants. Many freed ISIS brides reportedly refused repatriation to their home countries, “because their husbands are with” al-Sharaa.

April 3, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | al-Qaeda, Iraq, ISIS, Israel, MI6, Middle East, Syria, UK, Zionism | Comments Off on His Majesty’s head-chopper: Syria’s MI6-backed president bows to King Charles

Greek shipping firms secretly transporting oil, weapons to Israel

The Cradle – April 3, 2026

Greek shipping companies have secretly transported oil, coal, and military cargo to Israel using deceptive maritime tactics, according to a report by the No Harbour for Genocide campaign reviewed exclusively by Middle East Eye (MEE) and published on 2 April.

The investigation found that at least 57 covert crude oil shipments reached Israeli ports between May 2024 and December 2025, during Israel’s genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

These deliveries, totaling roughly 47 million barrels, were routed via Turkiye with vessels disabling tracking systems and listing false destinations to bypass Ankara’s embargo.

Ships departing from the Turkish port of Ceyhan often reported destinations such as Port Said or Damietta in Egypt, before switching off their automatic identification systems, going dark in the Mediterranean, and later reappearing after docking in Israel, primarily in Ashkelon.

Satellite imagery reviewed by MEE confirmed their presence during these blackout periods.

The majority of these vessels were managed by Kyklades Maritime Corporation and Thenamaris Ships Management, linked to the Alafouzos and Martinos families.

Neither company reportedly responded to requests for comment, MEE said.

In 2025, at least 13 shipments carried military cargo, including ammunition and machine-gun components used by Elbit Systems, with Greek-managed ships involved in multiple deliveries.

Coal shipments were also documented. Between October 2023 and February 2026, eight covert deliveries totaling 751,000 tonnes were transported from South Africa using similar concealment tactics.

“Shipowners turn off their tracking systems, falsify destinations, and endanger seafarers, all to profit from it,” said Ana Sanchez of the campaign. “We know who they are, we know what they’re doing, and now so does everyone else.”

The report states that oil delivered through the Baku–Tbilisi–Ceyhan (BTC) Pipeline was refined into fuel for Israeli military use.

Turkish journalist and author Erman Cete, writing for The Cradle, says Israel’s war effort is sustained by a global energy network anchored in the BTC pipeline, which supplies a significant share of its crude oil needs.

He notes that this supply chain is reinforced by international legal agreements and major energy firms, with oil continuing to flow from multiple countries – including states that publicly criticize Tel Aviv – highlighting a broader system of sustained economic and political complicity.

April 3, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, War Crimes | Greece, Israel, Palestine, South Africa, Turkey | Comments Off on Greek shipping firms secretly transporting oil, weapons to Israel

Trump admits Iran hit USS Ford carrier: ‘We ran for our lives’

Al Mayadeen | March 28, 2026

US President Donald Trump revealed that Iranian forces carried out a coordinated assault on the USS Gerald R. Ford, stating that the world’s largest aircraft carrier came under a multi-directional attack in the Red Sea as Tehran intensifies its retaliation against the US-Israeli aggression launched on February 28.

Speaking at a Saudi investment forum in Miami on Friday, Trump described what unfolded as “a serious situation” for US naval forces, indicating that the scale and intensity of the operation rapidly overwhelmed expectations.

“It was one o’clock in the morning,” Trump said, recalling the moment the vessel came under attack “from 17 different angles.”

“We knew we were in trouble,” he added.

“They were here, they were there. We ran for our lives, it was over,” Trump said, relaying the account of a Navy commander who was aboard at the time.

Carrier forced to withdraw

The USS Gerald R. Ford, the centerpiece of US naval power projection, had been deployed to West Asia as part of Washington’s aggression against Iran. In the immediate aftermath of the reported confrontation, the carrier was forced out of the theater following a fire that erupted onboard on March 12, injuring crew members and leaving nearly 200 sailors affected by smoke inhalation, while damaging large sections of the vessel.

The warship withdrew first to the Greek island of Crete before docking in Croatia for urgent repairs, after nearly nine months of continuous deployment marked by mounting technical failures, including persistent system malfunctions that had already raised concerns about its operational reliability under sustained pressure.

Despite the sequence of events, the Pentagon insisted that the damage stemmed from a “non-combat-related” fire in a laundry area, attempting to frame the withdrawal as a routine technical issue rather than the result of battlefield impact.

Iran exposes vulnerability

Iranian officials have categorically rejected this narrative, arguing that it is a transparent attempt to obscure the consequences of Iran’s retaliatory operations, which have increasingly exposed the vulnerability of even the most advanced US military assets.

The Islamic Revolution Guard Corps ridiculed the US account, stating, “What kind of military giant is this that faces a crisis and is forced to leave the battlefield due to a fire occurring in its laundry room?”

Tehran has repeatedly warned that US aircraft carriers operating in regional waters would be treated as legitimate targets, stressing that their presence constitutes a direct threat to Iran’s sovereignty.

Within this context, Iranian officials and analysts view the carrier’s abrupt withdrawal as clear evidence that sustained missile and drone operations are imposing real constraints on US forces, undermining Washington’s ability to maintain control despite its overwhelming technological advantage.

Iran’s armed forces have also reported conducting successful drone and missile strikes against another US carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, reinforcing what Tehran presents as an expanding and effective deterrence posture capable of reshaping the military balance across the region.

March 28, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, Militarism, Wars for Israel | Iran, United States, USS Gerald R. Ford | Comments Off on Trump admits Iran hit USS Ford carrier: ‘We ran for our lives’

US Seeks Control Over Global Energy Infrastructure – Kremlin

teleSUR | March 27, 2026

The United States is aiming to take control of the Russian-owned Nord Stream pipelines that link Russia and Germany, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday, alleging Washington’s interest in the damaged infrastructure reflects a broader push to dominate global energy markets.

Peskov told reporters that the U.S. focus on the Baltic Sea pipelines was “evident,” adding that the assets — rendered inoperable after sabotage in September 2022 — remain the property of Russian state-owned Gazprom.

Foreign partners withdrew following the imposition of sanctions, which Moscow considers illegitimate, he said. “One of them is destroyed, it is deteriorating further each day due to the aggressiveness of the marine environment.”

His comments came hours after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told France Télévisions that Washington was seeking to dominate world energy markets, including the Nord Stream system. A 2024 Wall Street Journal report said U.S. investor Stephen P. Lynch had been exploring the purchase of Nord Stream 2, one branch of which remains intact.

Peskov also dismissed as “a lie” speculation that Russia was threatening to halt operations of the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) in the Black Sea to pressure the United States. He said Russia remains a reliable energy transit partner and accused Ukraine of carrying out drone attacks against CPC infrastructure, causing temporary suspensions.

“In practice, it is Kiev that has been and continues to engage in energy blackmail, which affects the interests of our companies,” Peskov underscored.

March 27, 2026 Posted by aletho | Deception, Economics, Militarism | Russia, Ukraine, United States | Comments Off on US Seeks Control Over Global Energy Infrastructure – Kremlin

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