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Australian falsely charged with selling arms to North Korea wants compensation from Canberra

By Jenniffer Seewald | RT | December 7, 2024

A South Korea-born Australian became a worldwide sensation overnight when he was arrested for allegedly attempting to broker several deals with North Korea, a breach of UN sanctions. What made the coverage fly off the shelves was that 59-year-old Chan Han Choi was then charged with having assisted the North Korean weapons of mass destruction program. It was 2017 and the first time anyone was ever prosecuted under Australia’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Act, adopted in 1995. Though the WMD charges against Choi were later dropped, he spent three years in prison and filed for compensation from the Australian government, alleging human rights violations and other illegal actions that he says were committed by the authorities while he was in custody. The violations he reported include torture, ill-treatment, and medical neglect.

During the hearing, Chan Han Choi did not deny having connections to Pyongyang, explaining that he ran a business back when it was legal to sell North Korean products. He also claims that he was acting on behalf of Moon Jae-in, the then-South Korean presidential candidate (who would later become president) as he truly held Seoul’s genuine interests to heart. He insists he was thrown under a bus by South Korean intelligence services after he helped establish a secret communication channel between the candidate and North Korea, to help Moon win the race.

“Through an acquaintance living in Australia, I was connected to a member of Moon Jae-in’s presidential campaign in April 2017. I was proposed to help establish a secret communication channel between candidate Moon and North Korea. Moon’s proposal seemed aimed at protecting the nation’s genuine interests without foreign interference… However, after Moon Jae-in was elected president, he feared the potential fallout if it became known that someone with North Korean ties was involved in his campaign. To avoid impeachment risks, he made me a scapegoat,” Choi asserted during a video call, a sense of sadness and hurt in his voice at what happened.

He was arrested in Canberra in December 2017, several months after Moon Jae-in won the election and at the request of the South Korean government. According to Choi, the Australian Federal Police initially questioned the legitimacy of South Korea’s supposed request, but followed through with their inquiries to help conceal the truth.

“At the time of my arrest, South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) agents and consulate officials accompanied the Australian police, attempting to silence me to protect Moon. This political maneuver involved the NIS, the Blue House [presidential residence], and sitting lawmakers.” Choi explains, adding that after his arrest Australia “sent experts to the US for consultations” which led him to believe this was all “orchestrated as a collaborative effort among South Korea, Australia, and a major power.”

However, this wasn’t the first time Choi crossed paths with Seoul’s spy agency; he recalls the NIS attempting to recruit him back in 2010, offering money to work as a spy. He declined the offer but, ever since, has been monitored by the NIS as a person of interest. In 2017, he said his arrest had been used by the South Korean government for, among other things, “propaganda purposes.”

“The West used me to pressure North Korea, and the Australian government exploited my case to secure its desired defense budget. However, I was falsely accused of trading missiles and weapons of mass destruction, and the Australian government detained me for three years without evidence. Spending just one night in an Australian prison turned me into a global sensation,” Choi also recalled, shrugging.

An interesting aspect of the whole affair is that none of the business deals with North Korea were finalized, including a 2008 coal and pig-iron deal that, according to Chan Han Choi, involved a company affiliated with the NIS.

“In 2008, I was introduced by a sitting member of the National Assembly to a business that brokered the purchase of North Korean coal and pig iron through Dasan Network, a front company of the National Intelligence Service. The South Korean buyer’s ship arrived at Nampo Port in North Korea, but the goods were not shipped for political reasons, and we agreed to resume business whenever the opportunity arose,” he said, adding that the South Korean intelligence service used this occurrence to disguise it as a criminal case later in 2022.

Claiming to be a supporter of intra-Korean dialogue, Choi insists that Seoul’s operations against anyone who has ties to its northern neighbor demonstrates its “amateurish … political maneuvers during times of crisis” and that, while the “South Korean government’s understanding of North Korea is insufficient” it is also misleading its citizens, leaving them unaware of certain realities. He also pointed out that the consistent pressure exerted by Washington on South Korea and its regional allies to threaten North Korea is aimed at maintaining “tensions on the Korean Peninsula to uphold US hegemony” next door to China and to expand NATO’s reach in South East Asia.

“I cannot understand NATO-related activities in South Korea. With no security ties between South Korea, the European Union, or NATO, I see this as a US attempt to create a Southeast Asian NATO, using South Korean forces as proxies… Here’s something to ponder: Can Washington abandon its own security to defend Seoul? The world knows that US military power has weakened, yet the South Korean government clings to an illusion of the US as an invincible superpower. I wonder if the US intervened during the Tongyeong Island shelling incident,” he said, referring to a 2010 event when North Korean forces fired artillery shells and rockets at Yeonpyeong Island, hitting both military and civilian targets. Pyongyang then stated that it had fired in response to South Korean artillery firing into its territorial waters. Today, Choi urged, “South Korea must thoroughly analyze all Washington-led issues and act in line with its own national interests. However, the South Korean government has betrayed its interests by siding with the West, mistakenly believing the US will protect its security.”

After what he has gone through, Chan Han Choi, now 66, is seeking justice and to expose the duplicity and human rights violations of the Australian government. So far, Canberra has failed to respond to his letter and he believes that it is because responding to it would make the Australian authorities officially admit wrongdoing. But he has the determination to further bring the case to the US courts, as well as filing a complaint with the UN.

Read the full interview with Chan Han Choi here.

December 7, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

‘An Extraordinary Step’: White House Mulls ‘Preemptive’ Pardon for Fauci

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | December 6, 2024

Senior aides to President Joe Biden are “conducting a vigorous internal debate” on whether to grant preemptive pardons to Dr. Anthony Fauci and other current and former public officials whom they fear the incoming administration might target, Politico reported Wednesday.

CNN described the proposed pardons as “an extraordinary step” that would immunize people who have not been formally accused of a crime.

According to Politico, fears that current and former government officials may face inquiries or indictments “accelerated” after President-elect Donald Trump last week nominated Kash Patel to head the FBI. Patel has publicly stated he will pursue Trump’s critics.

Fauci, who according to Politico “became a lightning rod for criticism from the right during the Covid-19 pandemic,” did not respond to the outlet’s requests for comment.

Politico reported that White House counsel Ed Siskel is leading deliberations on the matter, and Chief of Staff Jeff Zients is also playing a key role in the discussions.

Zients, formerly the Biden administration’s COVID-19 “czar,” publicly promoted universal COVID-19 vaccination. In 2021, he spoke about “the winter of illness and death for the unvaccinated.”

Attorney Greg Glaser told The Defender, “The U.S. Constitution, Article II, Section 2, confirms the President’s power ‘to grant Reprieves and Pardons for Offenses against the United States.’”

The Huffington Post reported that preemptive presidential pardons “are rare but not unprecedented.”

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender, “A blanket pardon by President Biden to Fauci would cover his gross violations [of] federal statutes that are too numerous to list” but “could not cover his crimes committed under the criminal laws of the 50 U.S. states.”

“Biden’s ‘get out of jail free’ card only applies to federal prison, not state prison,” Glaser said.

Joseph Sansone, Ph.D., who proposed legislation to ban COVID-19 and mRNA vaccines in Florida, told The Defender, “The use of preemptive pardons appears to be a violation of the Separation of Powers inherent in the U.S. Constitution.”

“The purpose of a pardon is to correct a judicial error or miscarriage of justice, not to preempt judicial action,” Sansone said. “Unless a coconspirator, no president could know the scope of the crimes being pardoned if the person has not been convicted or even charged.”

But according to Glaser, “A federal pardon by Biden cannot be overturned by President Trump or even reversed by Congress without a constitutional amendment to Article II, Section 2 or upon proof that Biden’s pardon was itself unlawful.”

Fauci pardon may help conceal ‘massive scale of criminal wrongdoing’

What would a preemptive pardon for Fauci cover? Criminal defense attorney Rick Jaffe told The Defender that if he were Fauci’s lawyer, he would seek a pardon that “covers all testimony provided to Congress since at least the start of the pandemic.”

The pardon could also include all actions relating to the U.S. government’s funding of gain-of-function research and all actions in which Fauci is alleged to be part of a conspiracy to mislead government officials and the public,” Jaffe said.

“I’d throw in immunity from any action by the federal government to terminate his pension or his royalty payments from pharma, because trying to do that will probably be very high on the new government’s list,” Jaffe added.

Journalist Paul Thacker, formerly a U.S. Senate investigator, told The Defender “Sen. Rand Paul has sent two separate referrals to the Department of Justice to prosecute Fauci” for “lying and/or misleading Congress. Fauci was also caught lying to Congress about his use of private email to avoid Freedom of Information Act requests, something that I have reported on, as has The New York Post,” Thacker said.

Brianne Dressen, a participant in AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials who was injured by the shot, later took part in a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study of vaccine-injured people “that got shot down and hidden.” Dressen told The Defender pardoning Fauci would silence vaccine injury victims. She said:

“The Biden administration silenced true stories of COVID vaccine injuries online at the same time that Fauci was flying COVID vaccine-injured to NIH headquarters to be studied. It’s no surprise Biden may close the loop to protect him.

“This pardon isn’t just about protecting him. Discovery alone would shine a light on things we still don’t know about that happened at the NIH, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

“How better to circumvent a process likely to reveal a massive scale of criminal wrongdoing — not just by Dr. Fauci but by layers and layers of his allies in both the government and the private sector — than by preemptively pardoning him?” asked Naomi Wolf, CEO of Daily Clout and author of “The Pfizer Papers: Pfizer’s Crimes Against Humanity.”

Fauci pardon would show public health decisions ‘beyond the reach of justice’

According to Politico, some congressional Democrats — “though not those seeking pardons themselves” — have engaged in “quiet lobbying” recently in an effort to convince Biden to issue the preemptive pardons.

Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) has come out in favor of Biden issuing preemptive pardons. In an interview with Boston Public Radio last week, Markey cited the precedent of former President Gerald Ford, who granted a preemptive pardon to Richard Nixon before any charges were filed against him following his impeachment.

However, the proposed preemptive pardons have “caused a stir” among other Democrats, “with some saying the move erodes Americans’ faith in the justice system,” the Huffington Post reported. According to Politico, some Democrats are concerned the pardons “could suggest impropriety, only fueling Trump’s criticisms.”

“I just haven’t heard a good case to be made for pardoning behavior that hasn’t yet been committed or hasn’t yet been defined,” Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) told USA Today. Referencing his term as Virginia’s governor, Kaine said he used pardon power “in individual cases to grant pardons to people who have been convicted.”

“The idea of just kind of general vague, pardon for unknown activities that haven’t been charged. That is so susceptible to abuse,” Kaine said.

According to CNN, “Attorneys across the political spectrum” have also “raised concerns about blanket pardons.”

“You would create the beginning of a tit for tat where, when any administration is over, you just pardon everybody,” Neil Eggleston, former White House counsel to President Barack Obama, told CNN.

According to The Washington Post, “The notion of sweeping preemptive pardons for offenses that have not yet been charged, and may never be, is largely untested.”

Jeffrey Crouch, J.D., Ph.D., an assistant professor of politics at American University and expert on presidential pardon powers, told USA Today that a president can grant a pardon as soon as a federal crime is committed, without waiting until someone is charged, tried or convicted.

Crouch said it is unclear whether beneficiaries of such pardons would be admitting guilt by accepting the pardon. Crouch said the Biden administration would be in “uncharted waters” and warned that preemptive pardons “could weaponize clemency” and stray far beyond the intended constitutional use of pardon power.

Sayer Ji, founder of GreenMedInfo, was named one of the “The Disinformation Dozen” by the Center for Countering Digital Hate in 2021 — a list subsequently used by the White House to pressure social media platforms to censor those individuals. He told The Defender preemptively pardoning Fauci would be an abuse of power.

He said:

“These were not mere administrative decisions, but profound exercises of authority that reached into the sanctum of personal liberty, that redefined the boundaries of state power and touched the very foundations of how citizens relate to their government.

“A preemptive pardon for Dr. Fauci would pierce the sacred covenant between those who govern and those who consent to be governed — a bond as old as democracy itself. Such an extraordinary shield … would signal that the architects of our most consequential public health decisions stand beyond the reach of justice.”

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.

December 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

Syrian Women Exploited in MI6 Propaganda Ops

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | December 5, 2024

The propaganda value of women in conflicts has long-been cynically exploited by Western intelligence services. A leaked CIA memorandum from March 2010 on covert means of increasing flagging support for NATO’s Afghanistan mission noted women “could serve as ideal messengers” in “humanizing” the military occupation. This was due to their “ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory”:

“Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories… could help to overcome pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the mission. Media events that feature testimonials by Afghan women would probably be most effective if broadcast on programs that have large and disproportionately female audiences.”

Throughout the US occupation of course, Afghanistan remained one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman, by some margin. Roughly a year after that CIA memo was authored, Gay Girl in Damascus, a blog purportedly written by Syrian-American lesbian Amina Arraf, garnered significant mainstream attention. Widely hailed for her “fearless” and “inspiring” eyewitness reporting, she was lauded as a symbol of the “progressive” revolution erupting in the country.

In June 2011, Amina’s cousin announced on the blog Amina had been kidnapped by three armed men in the Syrian capital. In response, numerous Facebook pages were set up calling for Amina’s release and ‘liked’ by tens of thousands, #FreeAmina trended widely on Twitter, journalists and rights groups begged Western governments to demand her release, and the US State Department announced it was investigating Amina’s disappearance.

Six days later, it was revealed ‘Amina’ was in fact Tom MacMaster, a middle-aged American man living in Scotland, who had penned extensive lesbian literotica fantasies under that alter ego. While corporate news outlets quickly forgot all about the hoax they’d so comprehensively fallen for, their appetite for dubious human interest stories emanating from the crisis wasn’t diminished.

‘Huge Global Coverage’

In July 2019, an image of two young Syrian girls trapped in rubble in opposition-occupied Idlib attempting to haul their sister to safety as she dangled off the precipice of a dilapidated building, their father looking on in horror above, spread far and wide on social media.

The photo, snapped by a photographer for Syrian news service SY24, went viral the world over. Unbeknownst to viewers though, SY24 was created and funded by Global Strategy Network, a prominent British intelligence cutout founded by Richard Barrett, former MI6 counter-terrorism director. In leaked submissions to the British Foreign Office, Global Strategy boasted of how its propaganda “campaigns” broadcast via SY24 generated “huge global coverage,” having been seen by “many hundreds of millions of people,” and “attracting comment as far as the UN Security Council.”

SY24 content was produced by a network of ‘stringers’ in Syria that Global Strategy trained and provided with equipment, including “cameras and video editing software.” The firm drew particular attention to a team of female journalists it had tutored, “who provide about 40 percent of all SY content,” and were part of “a broad ‘network of networks’” enabling the company “to drive stories into the mainstream.”

Global Strategy also established a dedicated centre for training female journalists to produce content for SY24 in Idlib, “accessing stories that male journalists cannot,” which were then shared on social media. It boasted that almost half of SY24’s followers were women, “a remarkably high ratio for Syria-focused platforms.”

Carefully cultivating an entirely misleading image of an inclusive, credible ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition was of paramount importance to British inelligence. It helped whitewash the barbarous nature of the various ‘rebel’ factions London was backing in the region, while simultaneously engendering support among Western citizens for regime change.

In order to engage the “international community” to this end, Global Strategy, in conjunction with ARK – a shadowy “conflict transformation and stabilization consultancy” headed by veteran MI6 officer Alistair Harris – planned “communication surges” around “key dates” such as International Women’s Day.

In a particularly elaborate example of such a “surge”, the pair collaborated on “Back to School”, a campaign in which young Syrians returned to education. Idlib City Council, opposition commanders, and other elements on the ground concurrently engaged in a “unified” communications blitz, using “shared slogans, hashtags and branding.” Rebel fighters were sent to “clear roads” and “enable children and teachers to get to schools,” all the while filmed by the pair’s voluminous local journalist network, footage of which was then “disseminated online and on broadcast channels.”

Ensuring “female teachers” received sizeable coverage in the Western media was a key objective of the campaign. Furthermore, in many leaked files, ARK boasted of the huge network of journalists it had trained and funded in Syria, who would cover such PR stunts, secretly orchestrated by the organisation. Their reports in turn fed to the firm’s “well-established contacts” at major news outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, New York Times, and Reuters, “further amplifying their effect.”

‘Thrust by Tragedy’

Other documents make clear ARK well-understood the immense difficulties of promoting the role of women internally and externally during the crisis. One file on “[incorporating] the role of women in the moderate opposition” notes Syrian women in rebel-occupied areas faced “an almost overwhelming variety of problems,” and “the space for women to participate in public life has contracted significantly as the conflict has progressed.”

As a result, ARK was “extremely aware of the risks of promoting women’s participation beyond currently accepted social norms… given the potential to hinder message resonance or result in a backlash against female participation.” It therefore proposed to “subtly reframe the narrative of women… increasing the amount of coverage of their initiatives and opinions as the context allows.”

One means of “subtle reframing” was Moubader (which translates to “person who takes initiative”), a media asset created by ARK in 2015, comprising a “high-quality hard copy monthly magazine with widespread distribution across opposition-held areas of Syria,” with a website and Facebook page boasting almost 200,000 likes. Moubader was established by ARK to achieve “behavioural change” in readers. “Given the importance of broadcast television as a trusted source” in Syria, ARK also sought British intelligence funding to develop a Moubader TV programme, to “leverage stories and values to maximum effect and reach an even wider audience.”

Documents submitted to the Foreign Office by another intelligence cutout, Albany, similarly noted women’s access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity had “been debilitated” during the crisis, which issues such as early marriage, child military recruitment, and “transactional sex” exacerbated. The UN defines the latter as “non-commercial sexual relationships motivated by an implicit assumption that sex will be exchanged for material support or other benefits.”

Still, Albany considered so many Syrian women having been “thrust by tragedy into head of household and breadwinner positions” over the course of the crisis as a golden opportunity to propagandize them and, in turn, their families, while promoting the ‘inclusive’ nature of the opposition, by creating and partnering with female civil society organizations and journalists.

ARK likewise believed women to be a “critical audience”, given the number of Syrian households with female heads –“up to 70 percent”. So, the organisation sought to ensure they were well-represented in all its domestic and international “broadcast products”, as well as on social media.

‘Female Participation’

Unsurprisingly, the files do not acknowledge the increasingly hostile environment for women in Syria directly resulted from foreign efforts to destabilise and depose its government. ISIS and al-Nusra were and remain rightly notorious for their monstrous treatment of women in the areas they occupied, which included widespread rape, sexual violence and abduction.

However, many armed opposition groups backed by Britain and other foreign powers imposed stringent restrictions on women in the areas they occupied, requiring them to wear hijabs and abayas, doling out extreme punishments for failing to comply, imposing discriminatory measures prohibiting them from moving freely, working, attending school, and more.

There are indications British intelligence was in close quarters with such activities. For instance, in December 2017 BBC documentary Jihadis You Pay For alleged Foreign Office cash distributed on its behalf via contrator Adam Smith International in Syria ended up in the pockets of Free Syrian Police (FSP) officers who not only stood by while women were stoned to death, but closed surrounding roads to facilitate their murder.

Free Syrian Police go unarmed to help their community - BBC News

The ‘Free Syria Police’ at work

FSP, an unarmed shadow civilian police force operating in opposition-controlled areas, was created, funded and trained under the auspices of the British intelligence-funded Access to Justice and Community Security (AJACS) program. In a perverse irony, leaked Adam Smith International files relating to the project indicate it too sought to exploit women for propaganda purposes, applying a gender policy “to encourage female participation in justice and policing.” The company boasted of how, of the 1,868 police officers it trained under the scheme, six – 0.32 percent ­­– were female.

Quite some “revolution”. As Human Rights Watch noted in 2014, prior to the outbreak of civil war, women and girls across Syria were “largely able to participate in public life, including work and school, and exercise freedom of movement, religion, and conscience.” While the country’s penal code and laws governing issues such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance contained some discriminatory provisions, the country’s constitution guaranteed gender equality.

December 6, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Fake News, Islamophobia, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Bankers plot ways to get paid carbon credits for emissions they might have emitted, but didn’t

By Jo Nova | December 5, 2024

What other industry gets paid for what they could have done, but didn’t?

The carbon market is the perfect scam-quasi-tax currency for our banker overlords. They were always trading reductions in an invisible gas, now they’re trading reductions from an imaginary increase that may never have occurred.

Carbon credits were always atmospheric nullities that “might theoretically change the weather”. Now they’re less…

It’s a nice gig if you can get it. This elastic game can expand to cover as much of the economy as feasible. The bankers payout is limited only by how much they can squeeze out of their political vassals. Homeowners will not get a “carbon credit” for turning a heater off that they might have left on, or for not-buying a second-hand Dodge Challenger Hellcat. This is a game only the uber rich money-changers can play. The Blob has effectively set up a secondary fiat currency in the world that has a Byzantine web of rules that they control but has no physical products for delivery.

As Steve Milloy says — Coming soon: Unending bank climate fraud

Bankers Find Way to Claim Credit for Avoided Emissions

By  and , Bloomberg

Bankers will soon be able to claim credit for emissions they say their financing has helped avoid, as the world’s largest voluntary carbon accounting framework for the finance industry works on broadening standards.

Under the approach, banks can assume a counterfactual scenario in which emissions remain elevated, and contrast that with the CO2 avoidance their loans or bonds enable, according to the Partnership for Carbon Accounting Financials.

Note the galactic size:

PCAF’s proposed standards are part of a larger package of changes and additions that will result in at least 90% of assets under management globally being covered by the carbon accounting system.

Why stop at 90%? When will it end?

The idea came from the Monster Banker Cartel, so we know it will benefit the bankers:

The Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero, the largest finance sector climate coalition, introduced the idea of a new metric last year to drive transition finance, calling it expected emissions reductions (EER). The basic principle is that finance firms compare the emissions associated with the entity or asset in a business-as-usual scenario with those achieved if that company implements a science-based transition plan, or if a polluting asset is eventually shut down. The so-called delta is the EER.

Of course, companies drop inefficient products in favor of better ones all the time, but now, they’ll be able to say they’ve reduced the emissions they expected to have, and thus earn some carbon credits that they can sell to some other sucker, or use to offset their charter jet flights to Azerbaijan.

This will work best for corporate behemoths who can afford to pay “climate lawyers” to fill in the forms, and “climate lobbyists” to bend all the rules to suit themselves. It’s another tool to make life harder for small businesses and customers but easier for the Big Guy.

Note there is another monster banker cartel called PCAF — in this case with assets of $92 Trillion.

PCAF was created by Dutch financial institutions during the 2015 Paris Climate summit to encourage banks and investors to play their part in delivering a transition to a low-carbon economy.

Since then, the number of financial institutions committed to or already applying its accounting methods has climbed to more than 550, with combined financial assets of $92.5 trillion, according to PCAF’s website.

It’s time for a monster round of Anti-Trust suits.

December 5, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | Leave a comment

Like a Phoenix: The Death and Rebirth of America

A Canadian Patriot Film | November 28, 2024

December 5, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, Video | | Leave a comment

Why Ukrainian Soldiers Are Deserting

By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | December 4, 2024

A November 29 article in the Los Angeles Times stated that the Ukrainian military is facing a big problem with desertions:

Desertion is starving the Ukrainian army of desperately needed manpower and crippling its battle plans at a crucial time in its war against Russia’s invasion, which could put Ukraine at a clear disadvantage in any future cease-fire talks… Tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops, tired and bereft, have walked away from combat and front-line positions to slide into anonymity, according to soldiers, lawyers and Ukrainian officials. Entire units have abandoned their posts, leaving defensive lines vulnerable and accelerating territorial losses, according to military commanders and soldiers. Some take medical leave and never return, haunted by the traumas of war and demoralized by bleak prospects for victory. Others clash with commanders and refuse to carry out orders, sometimes in the middle of firefights.

The explanation for the desertions turns on what Ukrainian soldiers have been fighting, killing, and dying for ever since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Ever since the start of the war, U.S. officials, the U.S. mainstream press, and Ukrainian officials have steadfastly maintained that the war is about “freedom.” They say that Russia engaged in an “unprovoked” attack on Ukraine with the aim of conquering and subjugating the country and enslaving the Ukrainian people. From there, we’ve been told, Russia’s aim is to head west, conquer Europe, cross the English Channel and take England, cross the Atlantic and conquer South America, Central America, and Mexico, and then, ultimately, invade and conquer the United States.

The scenario is essentially a replay of the old Cold War racket, where Americans were told that there was an international communist conspiracy to take over the world, one that was centered in Moscow, Russia — yes, that Russia — the same one that is now supposedly doing the same thing today except for the communist part.

The big problem is that the official narrative of why Russia invaded Ukraine was a lie from the get-go. The war between Russia and Ukraine has never been about freedom. It was always about NATO, the military alliance that played a central role in the old Cold War racket. Specifically, it was about the Ukrainian government’s wish to join this old Cold War dinosaur at the behest of the U.S. government.

Is joining NATO worth dying for? Not for me — and obviously not for the large number of Ukrainian soldiers who are now deserting.

For a while, the Ukrainian people bought into the lie that was being fed to them by their own government and by U.S. officials. In the early days of the war, Ukrainians were rushing to join the military to fight for their “freedom.” But over time, many Ukrainians have come to the realization that the war never had anything to do with freedom. It was always about the “right” of the Ukrainian government to join NATO, which is something that is very different from freedom.

There is another important aspect to this phenomenon: the central responsibility that the U.S. government has for this massive disaster. It was the U.S. government, especially the Pentagon, that led the way toward the expansion of NATO eastward, with the aim of ultimately absorbing Ukraine, which would enable the Pentagon to install its bases, tanks, troops, and nuclear missiles along Russia’s border. Throughout that move eastward, Russia continued beseeching U.S. officials to stop and instead to comply with their repeated promises to not expand NATO an inch eastward after the ostensible end of the Cold War.

But the Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA — i.e., the U.S. national-security establishment — insisted on breaking those repeated promises. Ending the Cold War was the last thing they wanted to do. It had been too big a cash cow for them. They were not about to let it go without a fight. They knew that by expanding eastward toward Russia, in violation of their repeated promises they had made to Russia not to do that, they could succeed in provoking Russia into invading Ukraine. It was an ingenious — and diabolical — strategy, one that got them what they wanted — a renewed Cold War plus a hot war in which the U.S. government is using the Ukrainian people as its sacrificial puppets — and getting Russia and the United States ever closer to the prospect of all-out nuclear war.

We also mustn’t ignore the role of the U.S. mainstream press has played in this deadly, destructive, or sordid affair. Whenever critics point out the U.S. scheme that successfully provoked Russia into invading Ukraine, the U.S. mainstream press dutifully describes the criticism as repeating “Russian talking points,” implying that the criticisms cannot possibly be true.

While Ukrainians are now deserting the military, U.S. officials are exhorting their Ukrainian counterparts to crack down on their people. According to that L.A. Times article, “The U.S. urges Ukraine to draft more troops, and allow for conscription of those as young as 18.” Undoubtedly, U.S. officials are advocating the adoption of such coercive measures in the name of “freedom.”

December 4, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment

The Pardoning of Hunter Biden’s Crimes in Ukraine

By Professor Glenn Diesen | December 3, 2024

Joe Biden promised not to pardon his son Hunter Biden, and was subsequently celebrated by the media for being principled and standing up for the rule of law. However, in a not-so-surprising move, Joe Biden reversed his position and issued a sweeping pardon with an incredible legal breadth. The pardon protects Hunter Biden from any crimes he may have committed over the past decade, since January 2014. This date is no accident, as it marks the beginning of the Biden family’s seedy and likely criminal activities in Ukraine.

Joe Biden was the Vice President when the West backed a coup in Ukraine in February 2014. The US sought to cement its control over Ukrainian resources for economic interests and as an instrument for political influence. Joe Biden involved his son to personally enrich himself and his family.

Three months after the coup, Hunter Biden and a close family friend of US Secretary of State, John Kerry, became board members of the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. The job paid $50.000 a month despite Hunter Biden having no experience or competencies in the gas industry or Ukraine. In 2017, the NATO think tank Atlantic Council and Burisma signed a cooperative agreement, with a focus on “energy security”.

Ukrainian General Prosecutor, Viktor Shokin, opened a corruption case against the Ukrainian energy company Burisma. Joe Biden subsequently intervened by having Ukraine’s General Prosecutor fired with the threat of withholding a $1 billion US loan guarantee. Shokin, complained that since 2014, “the most shocking thing is that all the [government] appointments were made in agreement with the United States”. Washington’s behaviour, according to Shokin, indicated that they “believed that Ukraine was their fiefdom”.

Vice President Joe Biden insisted that the decision was not related to Burisma or his son, as he falsely alleged that he has “never spoken to my son about his overseas business dealing”. However, Hunter Biden’s business partner in Burisma, Devon Archer, confirmed in July 2023 that Joe Biden was deeply involved in Hunter Biden’s business.

Scandals threatened Joe Biden’s campaign during the 2020 presidential election as the content of Hunter Biden’s communications was leaked. The criminal activities of Hunter Biden, which seemingly could implicate his father, could likely result in Trump winning the election.

The intelligence community intervened in the election as more than 50 former intelligence officials signed a letter, published in Politico, supporting the narrative that the Biden laptop scandal was a Russian disinformation campaign and did not prove the crime of the Biden family. Twitter and Facebook immediately censured the story, while tensions with Russia escalated.

One year later, in September 2021, Politico acknowledged the authenticity of the Hunter Biden emails and that Russia was not involved in any way. Mark Zuckerberg also admitted that Facebook had been pressured to censor Hunter Biden laptop story, which was direct election interference in favour of Joe Biden.

Joe Biden’s pardon of his son’s decade-long involvement in Ukraine implicitly entails pardoning Joe Biden himself. It is very unlikely that anyone will be held accountable for the Biden crimes in Ukraine, and there will be continued loss of trust in both the legal system and the media.

December 4, 2024 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Intercept exposes contradictions in Google’s Project Nimbus claims

Al Mayadeen | December 3, 2024

According to The Intercept, Google has defended its controversial cloud computing contract with the Israeli government, Project Nimbus, by stating it follows the company’s standard cloud computing terms of service, though internal documents reveal the agreement operates under an “adjusted” policy tailored by Google and “Israel,” the specifics of which remain unclear.

Despite widespread criticism, Google’s Project Nimbus—a $1.2 billion deal—provides the Israeli government and military with access to advanced cloud and AI technologies, and while Amazon has largely remained silent, Google continues to downplay the project’s military implications, despite Israeli statements highlighting its benefit to the “defense establishment.”

Google has sought to reassure critics concerned about its partnership with the Israeli government, which is under investigation by the International Criminal Court, by stating that the Project Nimbus contract adheres to the company’s standard cloud terms and regulations, which prohibit uses that violate legal rights or cause harm.

The Google Cloud terms of service, among other things, ban uses that “violate, or encourage the violation of, the legal rights of others,” any “invasive” purpose, or anything “that can cause death, serious harm, or injury to individuals or groups of individuals.”

However, critics argue that the terms of the contract remain non-negotiable and heavily favor the Israeli government.

A previously unpublished email from Google lawyer Edward du Boulay reveals concerns about the terms of the Project Nimbus contract, stating during the submission of Google’s bid that if the company wins the contract, it would have to accept a non-negotiable agreement with terms favorable to the Israeli government, including limited ability to sue “Israel” for breaches and unilateral rights for “Israel” to impose changes to the contract.

The Intercept’s analysis of Israeli government contract records reveals that the standard terms of service do not apply to Project Nimbus; instead, a modified set of terms has been implemented. The documents show that the Israeli occupation government has the authority to use the cloud services for any purpose, contradicting Google’s claims that Nimbus is not intended for sensitive or military uses.

December 3, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Soros, sanctions and propaganda: How the US secretly controls the ‘world’s largest investigative journalism organization’

RT | December 3, 2024

An investigation published on Monday by France’s Mediapart and its partners, including Drop Site News (US), Il Fatto Quotidiano (Italy), and Reporters United (Greece), has uncovered that the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP), the world’s largest investigative journalism network, is secretly controlled by the US government.

The report reveals that Washington has provided around half of the organization’s funding and has significant sway over its leadership and editorial direction, raising questions about the independence of the network’s reporting.

US govt funds more than half of OCCRP budget

Since its founding in 2008, the OCCRP has received at least $47 million from American government sources. This accounts for approximately half of the organization’s overall funding, making the US state the largest donor by far.

The OCCRP’s financial dependence on the US government has led to concerns about the potential influence of Washington on the organization’s editorial stance, particularly given the US government’s strategic interests.

According to Drew Sullivan, the OCCRP’s co-founder and publisher, the US government remains the organization’s largest donor, providing crucial financial support for its operations. In an interview with German state broadcaster NDR, Sullivan acknowledged, “I’m very grateful to the US government” for its support.

While OCCRP officials insist that government grants come with “impenetrable guardrails” to protect journalistic integrity, critics will argue that such substantial funding creates a structural dependence that could affect editorial independence.

Washington has veto power over OCCRP leadership

In addition to providing substantial funding, the US government also wields significant influence over the OCCRP’s leadership. Washington has the right to veto key personnel appointments within the organization, including the nomination of its publisher, Sullivan. Under agreements with the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and other government bodies, the OCCRP must submit resumes of potential hires for senior roles to the American government for approval.

USAID’s Shannon Maguire confirmed this in a statement, saying the agency has the “right to have its say” on personnel decisions. Sullivan himself admitted in an interview that the US can use this veto power, although he maintained that it has never been exercised. “If they veto somebody, we can say we don’t take the money,” he said. The power to dictate appointments, however, underscores the US government’s influence over the OCCRP’s leadership.

Soros provides significant funding

In addition to the US government, the OCCRP has also relied on funding from private donors, including the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the pressure group founded by Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros. While OSF’s contributions are significant, they have not raised the same concerns about influence as the US government’s donations, as far as the authors of the investigation are concerned.

Still, OSF’s role adds to the complex web of financial support that the OCCRP has received over the years.

OCCRP founded based on secret US govt grant

The OCCRP’s origins are tied directly to US government funding. In 2007, the US State Department’s Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) provided the initial $1.7 million to establish the network. This secret funding, funneled through the Journalism Development Group (JDG) controlled by Sullivan, was key to the creation of the OCCRP.

Sullivan’s relationship with USAID and the US government dates back to the early 2000s, when he worked on a USAID-funded initiative in Bosnia and Herzegovina to train local journalists. He later used his connections to secure funding from the US government to establish the OCCRP. The fact that such an influential journalistic network was born out of a covert US government grant raises concerns about the independence of its operations.

US govt funds investigations aimed at opponents such as Russia

One of the most striking revelations of the investigation is that the US government has directed the OCCRP to focus its investigations on specific countries, including Russia and Venezuela. The OCCRP received $2.2 million from the US to investigate Russian media in an effort dubbed ‘Balancing the Russian media sphere’.

Similarly, the organization was granted $2.3 million to investigate corruption in Cyprus and Malta, two locations where Russian business people have significant financial interests.

By funding investigations that target certain countries, the US government has influenced the scope of the OCCRP’s reporting, ensuring that its investigations align with American geopolitical interests. The OCCRP has worked on several high-profile international investigations, including ‘Cyprus Confidential’, which exposed Russian citizens allegedly using the island as a tax haven to bypass sanctions. These investigations are clearly in line with US foreign policy priorities.

OCCRP reports weaponized to justify US sanctions policy

The OCCRP’s investigative reports have also been used by the US government to justify its foreign policy, particularly sanctions. Through the Global Anti-Corruption Consortium (GACC), a program co-financed by the US State Department, OCCRP investigations have been directly linked to judicial actions and sanctions procedures.

The US government uses the OCCRP’s findings to push for greater sanctions on individuals and entities it frames as being associated with corruption, often targeting countries such as Russia and Venezuela.

Sullivan confirmed that the OCCRP works closely with governments, including the US, to apply the findings of its investigations in ways that support broader international policy goals. “We believe the GACC has proven to be highly successful,” Sullivan said. This program has been instrumental in lobbying for tougher anti-corruption and anti-money laundering legislation, he adds, often in countries that the US government sees as adversaries.

Propaganda tool designed to advise US foreign policy interests

The revelations of the OCCRP’s close ties to the US government will fuel criticism that the organization is not simply an independent journalistic entity, but rather a tool used by the US to promote its foreign policy interests. While the OCCRP maintains that it operates independently, its reliance on US funding and its role in advancing US political goals suggests that its reporting may be subject to external influence, particularly when it comes to issues that affect US geopolitical priorities.

As one director of a South American media outlet put it, “The OCCRP makes the US seem virtuous and allows them to set the agenda of what is defined as corruption.” While the OCCRP continues to investigate corruption in many parts of the world, its close financial relationship with the US government raises significant questions about the organization’s independence and the potential for its work to be used as a tool of American foreign policy.

In conclusion, the findings from Mediapart and its partners highlight the complex and often hidden relationship between the OCCRP and the US government. Despite its protestations, the scale of its financial dependence on the US government and the influence that Washington has over its operations will hardly be ignored.

December 3, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

Secrecy and the Divine Right to Deceive

By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | December 2, 2024

Secrecy and lying are two sides of the same political coin. The Supreme Court declared in 1936, “An informed public is the most potent of all restraints upon misgovernment.” Thus, conniving politicians have no choice but to drop an Iron Curtain around Washington.

Politicians guarantee that Americans are left clueless on the most controversial or dangerous federal policies. The government is creating trillions of pages of new secrets every year. The total is equivalent to “20 million four-drawer filing cabinets filled with double-spaced text on paper,” according to The Washington Post. If those cabinets were laid end to end, they would stretch almost to the moon. The feds have accumulated the equivalent of hundreds of pages of secrets for each American, blighting any hope for citizens to learn of their rulers’ rascality.

“All rulers in all ages have tried to impose a false view of the world upon their followers,” George Orwell wrote in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four. This is where government classification—i.e., secrecy—comes in handy. The more information government classifies, the easier it becomes for politicians to dupe the American people. In Washington, deniability is better than the truth.

Secrecy was usually not a grave peril to most Americans’ rights, liberties, and safety until the U.S. government began warring in the 1940s and on into this century.

Secrecy helped deliver a death warrant for tens of thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese. President Lyndon Johnson fabricated claims about an alleged North Vietnamese attack in the Gulf of Tonkin to sway Congress to give him unlimited authority to attack North Vietnam. Johnson assumed he was entitled to deceive Americans to vastly expand the war he decided to fight to boost his 1964 presidential election campaign. But other federal officials claimed a prerogative to blindfold the American people. When Assistant Defense Secretary Arthur Sylvester visited Saigon in 1965, he hectored American correspondents covering the Vietnam War: “Look, if you think any American official is going to tell you the truth, then you’re stupid. Did you hear that? Stupid!” Sylvester declared that he expected the American press to be “the handmaidens of government.” Most of the American media has followed orders regarding foreign reporting most of the time since then.

In March 1972, President Richard Nixon, as part of his “pledge to create an open Administration,” ordered radical changes in how Uncle Sam kept secrets. Nixon announced that the classification system “failed to meet the standards of an open and democratic society, allowing too many papers to be classified for too long a time. Classification has frequently served to conceal bureaucratic mistakes or to prevent embarrassment to officials and administrations.” He promised “to lift the veil of secrecy which now enshrouds” federal documents. Nixon’s campaign against secrecy faltered after the Watergate coverup destroyed his presidency.   

In 1978,  President Jimmy Carter created the Information Security Oversight Office to oversee classification but secrecy regime continued and grew. In 1989, former Solicitor General of the United States Dean Erwin Griswold complained that “there is massive overclassification and that the principal concern of the classifiers is not with national security, but with governmental embarrassment of one sort or another.” In 1991, former National Security Council official Rodney McDaniel estimated that “only 10% of classification was for legitimate protection of secrets.” In 1997, a federal commission headed by Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) lamented that “secrets in the federal government are whatever anyone with a stamp decides to stamp secret.”

In the weeks after the 9/11 attacks, the percentage of Americans who trusted the federal government doubled. The George W. Bush administration exploited the new credulity to boost the number of classified government documents almost tenfold. The New York Times reported in 2005 that federal agencies were “classifying documents at the rate of 125 a minute as they create new categories of semi-secrets bearing vague labels like ‘sensitive security information.’” William Leonard, former chief of the federal Information Security Oversight Office, complained of seeing information “classified that I’ve also seen published in third-grade textbooks.”

But secrecy again signed a death warrant for thousands of Americans. President George W. Bush persuaded Americans to support invading Iraq by blaming Saddam Hussein for the 9/11 attacks, among other pretexts. Bush could vilify Iraq thanks to a sweeping coverup of the role of the Saudi government in bankrolling and directly assisting the 9/11 hijackers.

According to the Barack Obama administration, even federal judges must bow to classification labels. “We don’t think there is a First Amendment right to classified documents,” Justice Department lawyer Catherine Dorsey told a federal judge in 2015. The New York Times’ James Risen spent almost a decade in the federal crosshairs after his 2006 book State of War exposed the NSA’s illegal warrantless wiretapping and other federal crimes. Robert Litt, general counsel for the Director of National Intelligence, compared journalism to drunk driving to justify punishing any journalist who published confidential information. But the Justice Department could not prove Risen’s disclosures harmed anything except federal credibility.

Secrecy leaves truth up to the discretion of today’s political appointees. Secrecy lets government officials fill in the blanks as they please. Government secrecy can blindfold people as effectively as federal marshals descending upon a newspaper’s printing presses with axes and sledgehammers. The more facts government suppresses, the more lies politicians can tell.

Will secrecy determine whether Americans are dragged into another world war in the coming months? The Joe Biden administration is encouraging the Ukraine government to become far more aggressive, if not reckless, in its attacks on Russia. But Americans are being treated the same as the downtrodden serfs whom Russian czars dragged into wars centuries ago. The Biden administration decided that Americans have no right to know the facts when their rulers swerve closer to Armageddon. Unfortunately, as in Saigon in 1965, most of the media is still shamefully “the handmaidens of government.”

December 2, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

When Is A Ceasefire Not A Ceasefire?

When it is set up by Washington and Israel is involved

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • November 30, 2024

We are possibly witnessing another stealthy move by Washington and Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to enhance the Israeli position in a Middle East at war while pretending to do something else. President Joe Biden and his cast of know-nothings have been bleating for months about their desire to arrange a “humanitarian” ceasefire in Gaza and Lebanon while also alternatively whining about the Jewish state’s “right to defend itself,” but somehow the arrangements proposed have never quite satisfied Netanyahu. Bibi has repeatedly declared that he will not accept any halt to the fighting, presumably until all the Palestinians are dead, but would accept some kind of suspension of the conflicts as long as he has the option to return to unleashing the mass murder whenever it suits him. He deceptively labels that “making sure that the bad guy ‘terrorists’ abide by the agreement.” In that context of everyone lying to everyone else, Genocide Joe has managed to drag his sorry ass over the finish line with a “whereas laced” US endorsed temporary peace formula for Lebanon that suits Bibi just fine. In fact, it suited him so well that he could not resist renewing his attacking the Lebanese last Thursday even before the ink was dry on the ceasefire documents.

The ceasefire, arranged largely by Amos Hochstein, an Israeli who served in the Israeli army and is now Biden’s roving negotiator, was agreed to on November 27th. Its written provisions include 60 days for Hezbollah to withdraw to the Litani River, 18 miles north of the border, while Israel withdraws from all of south Lebanon that it has occupied. The Lebanese army will occupy the area vacated by Hezbollah and will work with the UNIFIL soldiers to monitor the process and maintain the peace in what will be designated as a weapons free zone. Complicating the agreement, there is a side letter from the United States to Israel confirming American support for Israel to “act in self-defense,” a term that Israel can exploit to reintervene in Lebanon. In the letter, the US also commits itself to share with Israel intelligence on Iran providing any support for Hezbollah. Israel is to be permitted to act “in self-defense” if Hezbollah violates the ceasefire in the area south of the Litani and it is also allowed to conduct reconnaissance flights over Lebanon to monitor developments. As usual, Prime Minister Netanyahu claimed a “win,” stating that he had reached an understanding with the US that Israel would “maintain full military freedom of action” in southern Lebanon. “If Hezbollah violates the agreement and tries to arm itself, we will attack. If it tries to renew terrorist infrastructure near the border, we will attack. If it launches a rocket, if it digs a tunnel, if it brings in a truck with missiles, we will attack.” As 35,000 Hezbollah militants actually live in the disarmed zone and presumably will try to return home, Israel will always have an excuse to resume its offensive.

To be sure, Lebanon was happy to accept any reprieve from the destruction wrought by Israeli bombs and artillery rounds, even if Israeli ground forces had been less than successful. Lebanon’s war losses have been calculated to be upwards of $8.5 billion dollars, together with thousands of civilians killed and injured. That includes Israel’s destruction of 100,000 homes and substantial impacts on health, education, and agriculture, according to the World Bank. But there is nevertheless, of course, a lot of speculation as to why any agreement was reached at all given Netanyahu’s unrelenting demand that he have a free hand to punish his neighbors and Biden’s usual cowardice whenever he is confronted by the Israeli gauleiter. The most interesting theory regarding why Israel has agreed to the US drafted ceasefire with Lebanon is that the Israeli government has finally figured out that it is not exactly winning its two little wars even though it has killed tens of thousands, or possibly even hundreds of thousands, of Arabs.

Regarding Israel’s own casualties, one assumes that the US Defense Department knows roughly or even in detail the numbers of dead and wounded that the Israel Occupation Force (IOF) is sustaining in its unconventional warfare in both Gaza and south Lebanon. Some credible analysts even have concluded that the Israeli military is under considerable pressure due to a high casualty rate in ground fighting involving its best soldiers, overreliance on reservists, and shortages of equipment and weapons in spite of the Biden airlifts occurring on an almost daily basis. There are reports that even the Pentagon is now running out of certain types of weapons, including artillery shells and smart bombs. A respite in the fighting against the still formidable Hezbollah enemy would be welcome both to the Israeli government and to the military planners particularly as the ceasefire is drafted to favor Israel, which can intervene in Lebanon at will just by alleging a Lebanese failure to enforce the agreement. Netanyahu may also be looking forward to the Trump factor in seven weeks. Donald Trump has always been a consequence free supporter of Israel and his cabinet is composed of hardcore Zionists. So, there is every reason for Netanyahu to believe that with Trump in power he will be able to manipulate circumstances involving both Gazans and Lebanese to enable a US supported move towards the large-scale attack on Iran that Bibi has wanted for decades.

“Victory” has also become elusive as fighting drags on well into its second year on all fronts and Israel’s “freeing of the hostages” has not only failed to materialize, it has resulted in the actual killing of some prisoners of Hamas by Israeli bombs and gunfire. Israel has failed to establish any of the “realities” it wanted to create by invading Lebanon: there is no buffer zone and instead a full IOF retreat, no Hezbollah disarmament, no Hezbollah withdrawal, and no Hezbollah removal from political power in Lebanon. Publicly, Israel got a decoupling between Gaza and Lebanon, but it also was punished with an international arrest warrant for multiple war crimes and genocide being issued against Israel’s Prime Minister and former Defense Minister. Even though the US has rallied around defense of Israel, the demands for isolating Israel worldwide due to its clearly demonstrated ongoing genocide will intensify.

The disruption and sinking of the Israeli economy due to the evacuation of the northern tier of the country under Hezbollah pressure, an increasing number of international boycotts, and the closure of many businesses, has been widely observed, as has also been the actual departure of many more educated Jewish Israelis holding US and European passports. There is considerable talk among antiwar Israeli Jews in the diaspora and even in liberal newspapers like Haaretz that Israel is in a very real sense self-destructing.

This all derives from the growing belief that the Israeli leadership has begun to realize that it does not have an effective military solution either to end the war in its favor nor to extend it to include the US as an ally in attacking Iran. If Netanyahu and his generals thought they could continue the carnage for another ninety days until the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, they almost certainly would have gone in that direction without any talk of ceasefire. Instead, leaked reports suggest that the generals themselves are complaining that the government of Netanyahu “has no plan” and have demanded a cutback due to heavy losses.

There are, to be sure, other theories to explain the surprise development of the so-called ceasefire, particularly as it so closely involves the United States and Israel, neither which can be trusted. The lull in the fighting certainly gives the IOF a break during which time it can regroup and re-equip with the help of Washington. And, as noted above, the concession to Israel that it can re-engage if it determines that Lebanon is not abiding by the ceasefire will be easy to manipulate as Israel is, if anything, a master of deception. So the agreement to down arms benefits Israel with Netanyahu, backed by the US, continuing to be able to call the shots on what comes next on the Hezbollah front.

So will the ceasefire hold or is it another gimmick by the US and Israel? In fact, as noted above, the uneasy truce between Israel and the militant group Hezbollah was violated by Israel on its second day in Lebanon on Thursday, by an airstrike that it inevitably claimed targeted militants violating terms of the cease-fire deal. The Israeli strike was the first of its kind since the US backed ceasefire went into effect before dawn on the day before. In spite of the clear violation, neither of the war’s combatants, Israel or Hezbollah, seemed keen to immediately return to full-scale fighting. The Israeli military said the incident, near the border in southern Lebanon, had targeted two militants entering a Hezbollah rocket facility that had been used to fire into Israel. Lebanon’s army, which is set to play a major role in enforcing the truce, also accused Israel of violating the ceasefire “several more times” on Thursday afternoon. The Israeli military claimed that its soldiers had in fact interdicted other militants attempting to enter into southern Lebanon. “With the same power we used to secure the agreement, we will now enforce it no less so,” Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, the Israeli military’s chief of staff, said in a subsequent video. It is no doubt precisely how Israel will behave in the future and how little the US, as a guarantor of the agreement together with France, will be tempted to intervene to maintain the peace contrary to Netanyahu’s wishes. That partisanship by Washington is precisely the problem and it suggests that the both the integrity and viability of the ceasefire might reasonably be questioned.

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

December 1, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

West covering up for Kiev on chemical weapons – Moscow

RT | December 1, 2024

Ukraine’s Western backers are concealing Kiev’s use of chemical weapons, Rodion Miroshnik, the Russian Foreign Ministry’s ambassador-at-large on the Kiev regime’s war crimes, told RT in an exclusive interview. He said Russia has documented proof of Kiev’s troops using toxins against Russian soldiers and civilians, but any attempts by Moscow to appeal to international watchdogs are stalled by the West.

“Ukraine has used various types of chemical weapons throughout the conflict, and this is documented and recorded by our relevant departments,” Miroshnik stated, adding that the findings have been repeatedly submitted to the Hague-based Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). He noted that the toxins Kiev uses are supplied by Western states, which also provide it with “so-called diplomatic cover,” hushing up its use of prohibited substances.

“[Kiev] sincerely believes that the West will in every possible way shield it from liability for the use of prohibited types of weapons. And, unfortunately, this is exactly what is happening within the framework of a number of international organizations, in particular, the OPCW,” the official stated, noting that Russia’s requests to probe incidents in which Kiev uses chemical weapons “are blocked with enviable regularity” and any data Moscow provides as evidence “is not considered” at all.

“Under pressure from the Americans, the British, this situation is simply hushed up, talked down, and [doesn’t] turn into a detailed investigation,” he stressed.

According to Miroshnik, as of this past summer, Russian experts had recorded more than 400 instances of prohibited chemical weapons being used by Kiev. They have also discovered a number of laboratories in Ukraine that produce chemical agents and toxic substances. The official noted that Kiev is “indiscriminate” when using prohibited types of weapons, targeting both Russian soldiers at the front and civilians via drone attacks.

Western support allows Kiev to keep using the banned toxins with impunity, Miroshnik claimed, “demonstrating that any red lines from the Ukrainian side can simply be crossed and nothing will happen to them for it.”

Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukraine of using chemical weapons on the battlefield and of hosting American biolabs on its territory. Earlier this fall, Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov, the head of Russia’s Radiological Chemical and Biological Defense Forces, warned that Kiev was preparing a false-flag chemical weapons attack with the aim of framing Russia.

He also accused Ukraine of deploying chemical weapons disguised as smoke bombs during its incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region, and said such munitions were used in the Russian town of Sudzha in August, with more than 20 people exposed to the toxins.

December 1, 2024 Posted by | Deception, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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