In a twisted interpretation and in line with the preestablished propaganda narrative, the Western media unanimously declared Israel’s aggression against Iran as “retaliation.”
From CNN to Fox News to Axios to the New York Times to the Washington Post – all major Western media outlets rallied behind the Tel Aviv regime as it added fuel to the already raging flames.
In the early hours of Saturday, the regime jets carried out a fresh act of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran, attacking several sites in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam provinces with missiles.
Although most of the missiles were intercepted and the military damage was minor, the regime’s move represented a serious escalation as four servicemen on Iranian soil were martyred in the attacks.
The motive for the attack was face-saving after a barrage of Iranian ballistic attacks pounded Israeli military and intelligence sites earlier this month that again laid bare the inefficacy of much-hyped Israeli air defense systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow.
Iran’s ‘Operation True Promise II’ was carried out as a response to the cowardly assassinations of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian military commander Abbas Nilforoushan by the Israeli regime.
Iran’s military action was in full accordance with its inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, and a direct response to the regime’s repeated acts of aggression, including the violation of Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Manipulative headlines used by major US television networks and newspapers
The same applied to ‘Operation True Promise I’ in April when Iran retaliated after the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
These facts, however, were deliberately disregarded by most of the Western media outlets while reporting on Saturday’s aggression against Iran, offering the audience a decontextualized interpretation of the Israeli regime as a victim “retaliating” against the Iranian attack.
Manipulative headlines
A cursory look at Western media, of which a sample of about 20 are selected here, it is noticeable that they all shaped the headline in the same suggestive way, using the same terminology.
The term “retaliation” has been used by all these outlets for the Israeli act of aggression against Iran, while also employing other terms such as “reprisal”, “response” and “payback,” while ignoring the full sequence of events that have shaped this region in the past year.
The list of media outlets that employed such terminology includes major US networks CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News, together covering over three-quarters of the American audience.
It also includes six of America’s most circulated newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and New York Post.
Among them, Fox News went the farthest in its pro-Zionist bias, stating in its headline that Israeli “retaliatory” strikes against Iran followed a “missile barrage targeting Israelis,” although only military targets were precisely targeted and there were no settler casualties.
The Washington Post stated that the Israeli attacks add to the “cycle of tit-for-tat strikes” between the two sides, without specifying who started that cycle by provocatively targeting the other side.
Most other media outlets in the story summary and the text itself treated the Iranian retaliatory ballistic attack as the “cause” and did not mention what preceded it.
In this way, media analysts say, the deception of the majority of the American public has been completely achieved and there has been no progress since the times when by similar propaganda methods they turned the majority of the population for military aggressions in the West Asia region.
Other US media that resorted to the same distortions by describing Israeli aggression as “retaliatory” are the news agency Associated Press (AP), National Public Radio (NPR), the state propaganda broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), news websites Al-Monitor and Axios, etc.
Among the international media, the same terminology in the headlines was also used by the French pan-European television network EuroNews, the newspaper Le Monde, the British television news channel Sky News, the Saudi television network Al Arabiya, Emirati news website The National, and of course, the Israeli media.
Congruently, the headline of the five mentioned major American television networks for the Iranian retaliatory attack from the beginning of the month was again almost uniform, “Iran launches missile attack on Israel,” without mentioning that it was retaliatory in nature.
Headlines in Western media seek to manufacture consent for Israeli terrorism
These identical headlines with unanimous manipulation of the context are by no means a coincidence, according to media analysts, but a reflection of centralized propaganda emanating from the top of the American regime and projected further onto the media and client states.
Such statements and the aforementioned media headlines are the result of unquestioningly following the official American narrative that the Israeli regime is a “victim” and that their aggressions on all surrounding countries are “the right of self-defense.”
Social media users took to X to call out the hypocrisy of Western media outlets.
“This is ridiculous pro-Israel propaganda in the media. Israel’s attack on Iran was not “retaliatory”; Iran’s response to Israel was retaliatory,” wrote journalist Ben Norton.
“Israel started this by first bombing Iran’s consulate in Syria, then launching an attack inside Tehran, then killing an IRGC general.”
Peter Daou, a political analyst, said these distortions are how the propaganda works.
“You’ll notice mainstream US media outlets using the word “retaliatory” in describing Israel’s attack on Iran. That’s how state propaganda works,” he wrote.
If bullshit was fungible, both Israel and Ukraine would be rolling in dough and not need another dime of foreign aid. The nonsense spilling out of Tel Aviv and Kiev is legendary and much of the Western public is slurping it up like a ravenous dog eating a bowl of rabbit stew.
Let’s start with Israel. The Zionists used more than 100 aircraft to send an estimated 200 air-launched ballistic missiles into Iran. Israeli aircraft did not dare to fly inside Iran. And what happened? Iran, with Russian help, shot down the majority of the Israeli missiles. Iran showed no signs of panic or anger in the aftermath of the attack — not what one would expect if Israel’s assault had been a smashing success.
Compare for yourself. The first video show’s Iran’s October 1 attack on Israel. The second video shows what happened in the skies over Tehran.
It is true that some of the Israeli missiles got through and killed four Iranian soldiers. Yet, check out this headline in today’s Jerusalem Post:
The Zionist spin patrol is working overtime to paint lipstick on their pig operation. The Zionists convinced themselves that Iran’s strike on October 1 was meaningless, notwithstanding clear video — and later satellite imagery — of damage from Iran’s missile barrage. Now, when confronted with evidence of Iranian air defense knocking Israeli missiles from the sky, they simply pretend it did not happen.
Here is a typical response from an ardent Zionist upon reports that Israel’s attack was underway:
The Israeli attack has begun and apparently they had no problem getting past the Iran air defenses. Early reports are about attacks hitting around Tehran which suggests they are going after command and control and possibly military leadership. Too early to know what is happening but by morning the real war will be underway. So far they have not hit the oil which is a surprise as that would finally sink Kamala which Netanyahu wants to do. The oil markets may think this is all OK and oil prices will remain around where they are but this is just chapter one. Before this is over the nukes and oil will get destroyed by Israel. The nukes will be next up as there is no time to lose for Israel to stop any chance of Iran fining some way to use a nuke against Israel.
So, what was Mr. Big Predictor’s reaction as dawn broke in Tehran?
It seems this was a staged attack with the intent to send a message and not to do grave damage. Arab nations were told ahead of time and passed that along to Tehran. We will need to wait a few hours to see what really happened, but it now seems clear this was not the all out attack Israel is capable of and it is instead a tit-for-tat strike to keep the US onside for now until Trump takes over. Israel needs Thaad and supplies of arms for now, so it may be that Netanyahu decided to play ball with DC to get what it needs and not use weapons it currently needs in Lebanon. The oil market will get this wrong and not realize what is yet to happen next time.
What sane folks need to understand is that no amount of evidence will shake the Zionists from their delusional fantasies. It is akin to those Americans who still insist that we could have won in Vietnam. We just didn’t try hard enough.
While Israel is doing its victory dance over its totally awesome, amazing, incredible air strike in Iran, Hezbollah, which was supposedly decapitated and rendered impotent, is stepping up its missile and rocket attacks in Israel. Here is a list of Hezbollah’s operations in the last 24-hours.
1- On the afternoon of Friday, October 25, 2024, a gathering of zionist forces in the “Shoumera” settlement was targeted (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65037) with a guided missile, resulting in confirmed casualties.
3- At 06:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64867) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces around the town of Aita al-Shaab.
4- At 11:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64868) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the attacks and massacres committed by the zionist enemy, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the “Tel Nof” airbase south of “Tel Aviv,” hitting their targets accurately.
5- At 12:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64876) a rocket barrage targeted the “Mishar” base (the main intelligence headquarters for the northern region in Safad).
7- At 13:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64954) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the zionist enemy’s attacks and massacres, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched a qualitative rocket barrage at zionist forces gathered at the “Ayelet” base.
8- At 13:23, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64877) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces in the Al-Musharifa area in Ras Al-Naqoura.
20- At 18:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64985) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the zionist enemy’s attacks and massacres, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the “Naoura” base east of Afula, hitting their targets accurately.
Speaking of barely hanging on, Ukrainian forces are retreating all along the 900-mile front.
Selidovo has fallen.An unexpected dash of the Russian Army and we are already at NOVOUKRAINKA.
Information is coming from the field that our troops, after a big breakthrough, were able to firmly establish themselves in Shakhtyorskoye and continue to push the enemy out of the village.
The prospects for a Shakhtar breakthrough are impressive.
As far as we understand, the goal is to reach Razliv and take up positions on the Volchya River with access to the rear of the enemy garrison in Kurakhovo.
Plus pressure from two flanking directions: on the AFU group in Bogoyavlenka, thus enabling their expedient removal, and on Velikaya Novosyolka – leveling the main “joy” of the counter oink last year.
By the way, the direction of the conscious flight of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the Dnipropetrovsk region is also a so-so idea – the enemy has no sensible fortifications between Pavlograd and Pokrovsk. So the AFU will not be able to pull off the trick of drawing us to the prepared lines and then splitting up between Pavlograd and Konstantinovka.
Then there is the Ukrainian/CIA story claiming that North Korean troops are fighting on the front because Russia has lost so many men, it had to import new cannon fodder. I believe this story was ginned up by an increasingly desperate CIA in order to create a cover story for bringing South Korean pilots to Romania to fly F-16s. The “news” about the North Korean troops first appeared in the New York Times under David Sanger’s byline on October 8. Sanger has a long history of being a willing conduit for CIA “leaks.”
Now it has become clear why the North Korea issue is being actively stirred up during the SMO. South Korea is sending its soldiers and officers to fight in Ukraine. Let me remind you that South Korea is a passionate, evil six of the USA (slang for “lackey”- in Russia, 6 is the lowest numbered card in a deck of cards). They are not as smart as Japan, but not as dumb as the Ukraine. Most importantly, they are high-tech. . . .
Last week, the first 16 pilots from South Korea’s 19th Air Wing arrived at NATO’s Romanian air base near Mihail Kogalniceanu. Apparently, South Korea sent the first squadron of the air wing, the most prepared and combat-ready, to the war in full force. This means they are planning to throw them into battle immediately.
Currently, the F-16 fighters allocated to Ukraine are also in Romania – at the Fetești air base on the border with Moldova. As soon as the South Korean pilots go there, this will be an indicator of the imminent use of these aircraft in Ukraine. In addition to the F-16 pilots, pilots of South Korean T-50 combat training aircraft, which are used in the southern army as light attack aircraft, have arrived at the air base in the commune of Mikhail Kogalniceanu. It is assumed that these aircraft may be useful as hunters for “Geraniums” in the protection of the Odessa port.
Remains to be seen if the South Koreans will actually enter the fight. If they do, they will learn that Russia ain’t playing games and many of those pilots will likely die. I discussed this issue with Judge Napolitano. I am also posting a live podcast that Andrei Martyanov and I did with Nima as Israel’s attack was wrapping up Friday night my time.
Tech billionaire, philanthropist and WEF cheerleader Bill Gates has given Kamala Harris’s campaign a $50 mln boost using dark money super PAC Future Forward. The donation was intended to remain secret, but was uncovered by NYT this week.
What’s Future Forward?
Set up in 2018 by former Obama campaign staffers and coming out of left field in the final weeks of the 2020 race to fund a massive pro-Biden media blitz, Future Forward is a super political action committee funded mostly by Big Tech and venture capital firms, including Meta, Google, disgraced crypto financier Sam Bankman-Fried, Bain Capital and Bridgewater Associates.
The super PAC has raised a whopping $700 mln for the 2024 election cycle, rolling out $75 mln in pro-Harris ads last week.
What’s Behind Gates’ Electoral ‘Generosity’?
2024 is at least the second election cycle where Gates has used a dark money vehicle to support the Democratic Party’s candidate. In 2020, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation contributed nearly $70 mln to the New Venture Fund, a nonprofit belonging to DC consultancy Arabella Advisors, which bankrolls the Sixteen Thirty Fund, a goliath of undisclosed donations for Democratic politicians and liberal causes which raised nearly $390 mln four years ago. Publicly, Gates and his now former wife also gave $500,000 to Biden’s inaugural committee.
Mr. Gates has been an active supporter of Democratic candidates since at least 2008, contributing financially to and praising the campaigns of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
Gates’ ties to the Clintons are deeply rooted, with the billionaire becoming a top donor to the Clinton Foundation, and forging partnerships with the organization for global projects since at least 2013.
In a telling interview in 2016 in which he explained his preference for Clinton, Gates said “there have been questions about vaccines in general where some of the candidates have shown that they’re not as up to date about vaccines in general, and that’s got to be a concern.”
“Science in general, whether it’s GMOs or vaccines, there’s a lot of people out there who don’t give science the benefit of the doubt. In terms of experience, Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton have more experience in global health,” Gates said at the time.
How has Gates profited off the Dems’ agenda?
With Harris’ presidential bid expected to broadly continue the Biden/Clinton line on foreign and domestic policy, it makes sense for Gates to throw his influence behind the VP, given the perceived threat of the Trump brand of red-pill MAGA Republicans and their anti-vax, anti-tech, and anti-interventionist leanings.
“This election is different, with unprecedented significance for Americans and the most vulnerable people around the world,” Gates said this week after info about his $50 mln donation leaked out.
“I think it’s great to have somebody who’s younger, who can think about things like AI and how we shape that in the right way, and I certainly offer up my opinions to the politicians who are interested,” Gates said this summer after Biden dropped out and named Harris his successor.
The Gates Foundation’s fortunes got a big boost under Biden, with its endowment growing from $69 bln in 2020 to $75.2 bln in 2023.
Gates enjoyed a profits bonanza off mRNA coronavirus vaccines mandated by the Biden administration. In 2022, he sold off shares of BioNTech stocks he bought in 2019 as sales slowed. His foundation has also owned shares in Pfizer, CureVac and Vir Biotech going back to well before the pandemic.
The billionaire’s foundation supports the Global Virome Project – an ambitious initiative created in 2018 to predict pathogens that could trigger lethal pandemics, but accused of weaponizing viruses from a network of 150 biolabs worldwide.
Gates has also backed a broad array of World Economic Forum-affiliated initiatives, including projects to reduce emissions and create synthetic meat and dairy. In 2022, The Seattle Times revealed Gates’ secret lobbying to save Biden’s signature $2+ trln Build Back Better social and climate spending package.
Gates has also been a top backer of the Biden administration’s battle against media and online ‘misinformation’, with an explosiveMintPress investigation from 2021 revealing that his foundation had bankrolled some $319 mln in media, including CNN, the BBC, Le Monde, the Financial Times, Der Spiegel and others to ensure favorable coverage of his agenda and that of his allies.
North Korea has recently warned against the use of drones over its sovereign airspace to spread subversive propaganda.
CNN in its October 11, 2024 article, “North Korea accuses South of flying drones over Pyongyang,” reported, “North Korea accused South Korea of flying propaganda-filled drones over Pyongyang and threatened “retaliation,” state media reported.”
The same article admits that “South Korean activists and North Korean defectors have sent balloons to the North, loaded with propaganda material criticizing leader Kim Jong Un, along with USB sticks filled with K-pop songs and South Korean television shows.”
What the article omitted is that this campaign is not an organic activity carried out by independent activists, but a campaign of subversion organized and funded by the US government.
A US State Department Provocation…
As early as 2014, the Western media promoted what was called, “Thumb Drives for Democracy,” a campaign organized by the New York-based Human Rights Foundation (HRF).
The Atlantic published an article in early 2014 titled, “We Hacked North Korea With Balloons and USB Drives,” by HRF founder Thor Halvorssen, which admits its balloons carry “subversive information” meant to undermine the North Korean government. It also admits that before HRF began its campaign, “the U.S. government provided support for these groups through the National Endowment for Democracy* and the State Department’s DRL [The Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs] programs.”
The balloons were just one part of a much wider campaign of subversion and ultimately regime change.
HRF also organizes the annual “Oslo Freedom Forum” (OFF) funded in part by the Freedom Fund, which includes the US State Department as a “key investor.” The OFF is a continuation of US State Department-funded training programs gathering agitators from around the globe, training, funding, and equipping them to then return to their respective nations and attempt to overthrow them.
The New York Times in its 2011 article, “U.S. Groups Helped Nurture Arab Uprisings,” admits the US government prepared years ahead of the so-called “Arab Spring,” backing the core organizations that ultimately carried it out across the Middle East and North Africa. The article explicitly states:
A number of the groups and individuals directly involved in the revolts and reforms sweeping the region received training and financing from groups like the International Republican Institute, the National Democratic Institute and Freedom House, a nonprofit human rights organization based in Washington, according to interviews in recent weeks and American diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks.
Clearly, HRF serves as an intermediary continuing US government-funded sedition around the globe in a way more difficult to trace directly back to the US government itself. Its objectives nonetheless remain to undermine, divide, destabilize, and overthrow nations targeted by the US State Department for regime change, including North Korea.
More Than Just Balloons…
Considering the aftermath of the admittedly US-engineered “Arab Spring” which included the full-scale destruction of Libya, a deeply divided Egypt, and a nearly destroyed Syria, North Korea’s concerns regarding similar US government-sponsored activities being aimed at it falls far short of an overreaction.
The CNN article reporting on North Korea’s recent warning notes that previous South Korean governments prohibited the use of balloons to spread subversive information across North Korea, recognizing the role it plays in damaging relations and raising tensions. This decision has since been reversed by a client regime more obedient to Washington.
This years-long campaign of subversion aimed at North Korea eventually prompted North Korea itself to respond with its own balloons laden with garbage. The collective Western media depicted this action out of context, omitting the US government-sponsored program targeting North Korea for over a decade, or that the ultimate goal of the campaign is “Arab Spring-style” regime change.
In 2023, when a Chinese weather balloon flew off course across the continental United States, headlines were undulated with hysteria and hostility toward China. The US Department of Defense, without providing evidence, identified it as a “high-altitude surveillance balloon,” implying it was spying on American territory. F-22 fighter jets were eventually deployed, launching air-to-air missiles at the balloon, destroying it off the eastern US coast.
Clearly, the US government itself desires other nations to respect its airspace, considering the unauthorized flight of any object, including balloons, as a potential danger to both national security and public safety. Yet, it is funding a program admittedly designed to subvert the government of a sovereign nation by flying balloons and now most likely drones into its airspace, obviously endangering both national security and public safety.
South Koreans may be convinced that the greatest obstacle to peace on the Korean Peninsula lies across the northern border, but the US has repeatedly demonstrated that it itself obstructs peace for the Korean people, and deliberately so. Continued tensions allows the US to perpetually justify the presence of its military on the Peninsula – not to defend South Korea from North Korea – but to encircle and threaten South Korea’s largest trade partner – China.
While Washington has appointed itself underwriter of stability on the Korean Peninsula, peace cannot be achieved as long as this deliberate obstruction to it remains stubbornly entrenched upon it.
Even Gallup admits the US is suffering from a crisis in confidence in their institutions, and the least trusted of all is “the media”.
For some reason, telling readers that they are selfish, small minded people who are screwing up the world isn’t resonating with the Rednecks. In 2020 40% of US Citizens thought the media was trustworthy, but now only 31% do, an all time record low. This is the same media that told us elections were secure, vaccines were safe and effective and Joe Biden was sharp as a tack right up until the day everyone discovered he had dementia.
The Pullitzer-prize-guys fell for every bureaucratic lie they could — Hunter Bidens laptop was Russian disinfo, ivermectin was horse-dewormer, and an unarmed mob with a horned hat and flags staged an insurrection against the largest military power in the world.
There’s a price to pay for lying and the media have barely begun to pay it.
Obviously they need to censor blogs and social media
The big question is why do 31% still trust the media?
Possibly their paypacket depends on believing the program. And welfare is so much easier to take with a dose of Media entitlement-sauce.
It’s a long term decline
The full graph shows just how different things used to be. Once upon a time, 70% of the people believed the media.
Imagine a tool so effective, with such a brand, that 70% of voters believed it. Such a tool would be a magnet for the rich and powerful to control for other purposes, and so it has come to pass…
The media are impartial professionals, of course, but for some reason the audience are biased:
Over half of Democrats like what they hear, but only 1 in 8 Republicans do.
Trump’s Fake News meme in 2016 hit a nerve with Republicans and it stuck. The hate campaign against him only proves his point to Republican voters.
Since the media are supposed to be the watchdogs, the graph is almost a proxy for the decline of The West.
The US Federal Communications Commission (FCC) has grounds to hear a complaint against CBS for deceptively editing an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris, a Republican-appointed commissioner has said.
Earlier this month, the broadcaster aired two different answers by Harris to the same question, one in a preview and the other in the actual ‘60 Minutes’ show, prompting accusations of misleading editing to make the sitting vice-president sound more coherent than she actually was.
The Center for American Rights (CAR) filed a complaint to the FCC on Wednesday, accusing the network of “deliberate news distortion,” which would be an actionable offense under the regulator’s rules.
“What this claim is alleging is that an act of distortion took place,” Commissioner Nathan Simington told Fox News Digital on Friday. The FCC has “certainly contemplated the possibility of distortionary reporting taking place via splicing,” he explained, noting that in a previous proceeding the commissioners “gave the example of substituting a yes answer to one question or a no answer to an entirely different question.”
Simington reminded the audience that the FCC can’t regulate what can be said or written, given that the US has the First Amendment to the Constitution that protects freedom of speech and the press. However, CBS could still find itself in trouble for “abuse of public trust,” he said.
“I think everyone agrees that deliberately misleading the public is a bad idea,” the commissioner said, adding that if CBS did so, Americans should be upset, “because people go to the news in order to learn about things that they would never be able to learn about themselves. In other words, going to the news is an act of extending trust. Now, the thing about trust is that once it’s lost, it’s very difficult to regain.”
Simington is one of the two Republicans on the five-member FCC. He was appointed by President Donald Trump in 2020. Trump will face Harris in the November 5 election for the White House, after the Democrats pressured President Joe Biden to drop out of the race in July.
Trump accused ‘60 Minutes’ of perpetrating “the greatest fraud in broadcast history” by swapping Harris’ responses. FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel, a Democrat, responded by accusing the former president of attacking free speech and democracy itself.
“The FCC does not and will not revoke licenses for broadcast stations simply because a political candidate disagrees with or dislikes content or coverage,” she said last week.
The CAR complaint specifically names WCBS-TV in New York, which is owned and operated by CBS Corporation, rather than an affiliate who could assert plausible deniability. While Simington would not speculate about a possible probe, he said the FCC might levy a fine or place conditions on the network’s license renewal, if CBS is found to have deliberately distorted the Harris interview.
A day before the CAR complaint was filed, House Speaker Mike Johnson accused CBS of selectively and deceptively editing his own interview. The Louisiana Republican offered proof by posting raw footage recorded by his office, alongside what actually aired, on X.
President Biden has been derided for being a Potemkin president, a figurehead in a vast charade portraying him actually running the government. Biden was forced to withdraw from the presidential race after his disastrous debate performance against Donald Trump in June. But is a Potemkin presidency being followed by a Potemkin election?
Biden’s expulsion from the presidential race did not herald the arrival of truth. Most of the media still tolerates pervasive secrecy on prime issues of the 2024 campaign.
In bygone times, elections were about self-government. Nowadays, voters merely have a cameo role to sanctify the nearly boundless power of officialdom. Every year, the federal government slaps a “secret” label on trillions of pages of information – enough to fill 20 million filing cabinets. And since the government is automatically benevolent (if a Democrat is president), there is no need to trouble citizens with the grisly details of how they are being served.
At the same time Special Counsel Jack Smith is racing to fling all possible dirt at Trump before Election Day, each week we learn of new cover-ups designed to deceive Americans about how badly they have been misgoverned:
Biden administration has mostly succeeded in covering up the crime wave by illegal aliens ushered into the nation since 2021. Former Border Patrol Sector Chief Aaron Heitke testified to Congress last month that the Biden administration hid the adverse impact from deluging U.S. cities with illegal aliens, including those with terror ties.
The National Archives announced on Wednesday that it would delay until after the election the release of potentially damning records on Vice President Joe Biden’s dealings with his son and foreign wheelers-dealers – records that have been sought for more than a year by conservative lawyers and activists.
Biden’s Justice Department sought to bury all the tax charges against Hunter Biden but were thwarted thanks to courageous IRS whistleblowers. Hunter’s guilty plea last month to the tax charges confirms that the Justice Department’s offer a wrist-slap plea bargain to Hunter last year was a shameless obstruction of justice.
Biden’s FBI last year created “a new category of extremists that it seeks to track and counter: Donald Trump’s army of MAGA followers,” Newsweek reported. FBI whistleblowers have exposed the politicization of an agency that even secretly targeted traditional Catholics who prefer to hear mass in Latin. But the vast majority of FBI surveillance and entrapment abuses remain shrouded.
Team Biden is covering up both Trump assassination attempts. Biden appointees have stonewalled bipartisan congressional investigations into the abysmal Secret Service failures at Butler, Pennsylvania. The Justice Department has indefinitely delayed hearings for Ryan Routh, the 58-year-old guy caught waiting to shoot Trump on his Florida golf course. Delaying proceedings against Routh assures that Americans will not learn before the election whether the would-be assassin had ties to the CIA, Pentagon, State Department or other agencies that assisted Routh with his massively-publicized campaign to recruit foreign soldiers to fight for Ukraine.
The Biden administration continues covering up almost everything regarding its support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia. The best info Americans have received was thanks to a young military computer technician who leaked revelations that the Ukrainian military was in far worse shape than Team Biden claimed. Americans have been forced to pay hundreds of billions of dollars but are left in the dark regarding Biden administration machinations that risk pulling this nation into World War Three.
The House Oversight Committee this week subpoenaed DHS for its records on Tim Walz’s possible ties to the CCP after being contacted by a whistleblower. There is zero chance that the Biden administration will release any of those records before Election Day.
Political convenience is practically the sole determinant of what Americans are permitted to learn nowadays. After Biden dropped his re-election bid, the administration disclosed records showing that his son Hunter sought U.S. government handouts for Burisma when Joe Biden was Vice President. That scandal was buried until Joe Biden was no longer politically relevant.
Is censorship the biggest X factor for this election? Four years ago, the presidential election may have been swung by the coverup of the damning revelations in Hunter Biden’s laptop. The FBI and the CIA hustled to censor and defuse that story with false rebuttals in October 2020. According to multiple federal court rulings, federal agencies tampered with the 2020 election by censoring millions of comments by Americans who raised doubts about the trustworthiness of mail-in ballots and other election procedures. Federal judge Terry Doughty noted that “virtually all of the free speech suppressed was ‘conservative’ free speech.” A federal appeals court issued an injunction prohibiting federal officials from acting “to coerce or significantly encourage social-media companies to remove, delete, suppress, or reduce . . . posted social-media content containing protected free speech.”
But the Supreme Court refused to recognize that the censorship victims had any legal standing and canceled the injunction. Americans will likely have no idea how many muzzles and blindfolds were secretly attached by federal agencies and federal contractors before Election Day.
Don’t expect journalists to suddenly get hot to thwart those Biden cover-ups. When the media shrouded Biden’s mental debility, it directly endorsed de facto secret rule. How much effort has the New York Times or Washington Post or National Public Radio exerted to reveal who is actually exercising the supreme power nowadays? Exposing that issue could derail Kamala Harris’s presidential campaign so it is ignored. But Biden is as oblivious as ever. When asked by a reporter on Thursday about the situation in the Hurricane Helene storm zone, Biden replied that those states “are getting everything they need. They are very happy across the board.”
Earth to Uncle Joe?!?
But as long as Donald Trump is not elected next month, most of the Washington media doesn’t care who is in control. If the Wizard of Oz was a contemporary political campaign story, the media would overwhelmingly side with the guy behind the curtain. As long as the Wizard recited “Orange Man Bad,” the media would cover up all his abuses.
But “informed consent” is a mirage if the feds blindfold voters. As long as Team Biden keeps a lid on its worst outrages until Election Day, Democrats can snare four more year to abuse the Constitution, the law, and the American people. Unfortunately, self-government is not retroactive.
James Bovard is a contributing editor for The American Conservative. He is the author of ten books, including Public Policy Hooligan, Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, and Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty. His latest is Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty.
One year after Oct. 7 attacks, Netanyahu is on a winning streak.” So reads the title of a recent Axiosarticle describing the Israeli prime minister riding on an unbeatable wave of triumphs. These stunning military “successes,” its author Barak Ravid notes, include the bombing of Yemen, the assassinations of Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh and Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and the pager attack against Lebanon.
The same author recently went viral for an article that claimed that Israeli attacks against Hezbollah are “not intended to lead to war but are an attempt to reach ‘de-escalation through escalation.’” Users on social media mocked Ravid for this bizarre, Orwellian reasoning. But what almost everybody missed is that Barak Ravid is an Israeli spy – or at least he was until recently. Ravid is a former analyst with Israeli spying agency Unit 8200, and as recently as last year, was still a reservist with the Israeli Defense Forces group.
Unit 8200 is Israel’s largest and perhaps most controversial spying organization. It has been responsible for many high-profile espionage and terror operations, including the recent pager attack that injured thousands of Lebanese civilians. As this investigation will reveal, Ravid is far from the only Israeli ex-spook working at top U.S. media outlets, working hard to manufacture Western support for his country’s actions.
White House Insider
Ravid has quickly become one of the most influential individuals in the Capitol Hill press corps. In April, he won the prestigious White House Press Correspondents’ Award “for overall excellence in White House coverage”—one of the highest awards in American journalism. Judges were impressed by what they described as his “deep, almost intimate levels of sourcing in the U.S. and abroad” and picked out six articles as exemplary pieces of journalism.
Most of these stories consisted of simply printing anonymous White House or Israeli government sources, making them look good, and distancing President Biden from the horrors of the Israeli attack on Palestine. As such, there was functionally no difference between these and White House press releases. For example, one story the judges picked out was titled “Scoop: Biden tells Bibi 3-day fighting pause could help secure release of some hostages,” and presented the 46th President of the United States as a dedicated humanitarian hellbent on reducing suffering. Another described how “frustrated” Biden was becoming with Netanyahu and the Israeli government.
Protestors had called on reporters to snub the event in solidarity with their fallen counterparts in Gaza (which, at the time of writing, comes to at least 128 journalists). Not only was there no boycott of the event, but organizers gave their highest award to an Israeli intelligence official-turned-reporter who has earned a reputation as perhaps the most dutiful stenographer of power in Washington.
Ravid was personally presented with the award by President Biden, who embraced him like a brother. That a known (former) Israeli spy could hug Biden in such a manner speaks volumes about not only the intimate relationship between the United States and Israel but about the extent to which establishment media holds power to account.
Ravid has made a name for himself by uncritically printing flattering information given to him by either the U.S. or Israeli government and passing it off as a scoop. In April, he wrote that “President Biden laid out an ultimatum to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in their call on Thursday: If Israel doesn’t change course in Gaza, ‘we won’t be able to support you,’” and that he was “making his strongest push for an end to the fighting in Gaza in six months of war, and warning for the first time that U.S. policy on the war will depend on Israel’s adherence to his demands,” which included “an immediate ceasefire.” In July, he repeated anonymous sources that told him that Netanyahu and Israel are striving for “a diplomatic solution” – another highly dubious claim.
Other articles by Ravid following the same pattern include:
This relentless whitewashing of the Biden administration has drawn widespread mockery online.
“AXIOS EXCLUSIVE: After selling Netanyahu millions of dollars worth of weapons, Biden played —loudly — Taylor Swift’s ‘Bad Blood.’ ‘Everyone could hear it,’ a source close to Biden says,” tweeted X user David Grossman. “Continuing to hand over big piles of cash and weapons, but shaking my head so everyone knows i sort of disagree with it,” quipped comedian Hussein Kesvani, in response to Ravid’s latest article suggesting that Biden has become “increasingly distrustful” of the Israeli government.
Throughout this supposed split between the U.S. and Israel, the Biden administration has continued to voice enthusiastic support for Israeli offensives, block ceasefire resolutions and Palestinian statehood at the U.N., and has sent $18 billion worth of weapons to Israel in the past 12 months. Thus, no matter how questionable these Axios reports are, they serve a vital role for Washington, allowing the Biden administration to distance itself from what international bodies have labeled a genocide. Ravid’s function has been to manufacture consent for the government among elite liberal audiences who read Axios, allowing them to continue to believe that the U.S. is an honest broker for peace in West Asia rather than a key enabler of Israel.
Ravid does not hide his open disdain for Palestinians. In September, he retweeted a post that stated:
That’s the PaliNazi way… they pocket concessions without giving anything in return and then use those concessions as the baseline for the next round of negotiations. PaliNazis don’t know how to tell the truth.”
Less than one week later, he promoted Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant’s highly dubious claim that Israeli Defense Forces had found a picture of the children al-Qassam Brigades leader Mohammed Sinwar celebrating in front of a huge picture of planes hitting the World Trade Center. Gallant stated that they had found this picture – clearly trying to falsely associate Palestinians with 9/11 – in a tunnel “where the Sinwar brothers were hiding like rats.”
An Infamous Spy Agency
Founded in 1952, Unit 8200 is the Israeli military’s largest and most controversial division.
Responsible for covert operations, spying, surveillance and cyberwarfare, since October 7, 2023, the group has been at the forefront of the world’s attention. It is widelyidentified as the organization behind the infamous pager attack on Lebanon, which left at least nine dead and around 3,000 people injured. While many in Israel (and Ravid himself) hailed the operation as a success, it was condemned worldwide as an egregious act of terrorism, including by ex-CIA director Leon Panetta.
Unit 8200 has also constructed an artificial intelligence-powered kill list for Gaza, suggesting tens of thousands of individuals (including women and children) for assassination. This software was the primary targeting mechanism the IDF used in the early months of its attack on the densely populated strip.
Described as Israel’s Harvard, Unit 8200 is one of the most prestigious institutions in the country. The selection process is highly competitive; parents spend fortunes on science and math classes for their children, hoping they will be picked for service there, unlocking a lucrative career in Israel’s burgeoning hi-tech sector.
It also serves as the centerpiece of Israel’s futuristic repressive state apparatus. Using gigantic amounts of data compiled on Palestinians by tracking their every move through face recognition cameras monitoring their calls, messages, emails and personal data, Unit 8200 has created a dystopian dragnet that it uses to surveil, harass and suppress Palestinians.
Unit 8200 compiles dossiers on every Palestinian, including their medical history, sex lives and search histories, so that this information can be used for extortion or blackmail later. If, for example, an individual is cheating on their spouse, desperately needs a medical operation, or is secretly homosexual, this can be used as leverage to turn civilians into informants and spies for Israel. One former Unit 8200 operative said that as part of his training, he was assigned to memorize different Arabic words for “gay” so that he could listen out for them in conversations.
Unit 8200 operatives have gone on to create some of the world’s most downloaded apps and many of the most infamous spying programs, including Pegasus. Pegasus was used to surveil dozens of political leaders around the world, including France’s Emmanuel Macron, South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa, and Pakistan’s Imran Khan.
The Israeli government authorized the sale of Pegasus to the Central Intelligence Agency, as well as some of the most authoritarian governments on the planet. This included Saudi Arabia, who used the software to surveil Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi before he was assassinated by Saudi agents in Türkiye.
A recent MintPress Newsinvestigation found that a large proportion of the worldwide VPN market is owned and operated by an Israeli company headed and co-founded by a Unit 8200 alumnus.
In 2014, 43 Unit 8200 reservists penned a joint statement declaring that they were no longer willing to serve in the unit on account of its unethical practices, which included making no distinction between ordinary Palestinian citizens and terrorists. The letter also noted that their intelligence was passed on to powerful local politicians, who used it as they saw fit.
This public statement left Ravid bristling with anger at his co-workers. In the wake of the scandal, Ravid went on Israeli Army radio to attack the whistleblowers. Ravid said that to oppose the occupation of Palestine was to oppose Israel itself, as the occupation is a fundamental “part” of Israel. “If the problem is really the occupation,” he said, “then your taxes are also a problem — they fund the soldier at the checkpoint, the education system… and 8200 is a great spin.”
Leaving aside Ravid’s comments, the question arises: is it really acceptable that members from a group designed to infiltrate, surveil and target foreign populations, that has produced many of the planet’s most dangerous and invasive spying technology, and is widely to be behind sophisticated international terror attacks, are writing Americans’ news about Israel and Palestine? What would the reaction be if senior figures in U.S. media were outed as intelligence officers for Hezbollah, Hamas, or Russia’s F.S.B.?
News About Israel, Brought to You by Israel
Ravid is far from the only influential journalist in America with deep ties to the Israeli state, however. Shachar Peled spent three years as an officer in Unit 8200, leading a team of analysts in surveillance, intelligence and cyberwarfare. She also served as a technology analyst for the Israeli intelligence service, Shin Bet. In 2017, she was hired as a producer and writer by CNN and spent three years putting together segments for Fareed Zakaria and Christiane Amanpour’s shows. Google later hired her to become their Senior Media Specialist.
Another Unit 8200 agent who went on to work for CNN is Tal Heinrich. Heinrich spent three years as a Unit 8200 agent. Between 2014 and 2017, she was the field and news desk producer for CNN’s notoriously pro-Israel Jerusalem Bureau, where she was one of the principal journalists shaping America’s understanding of Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s bombardment of Gaza that killed more than 2,000 people and left hundreds of thousands displaced. Heinrich later left CNN and is now the official spokesperson of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
CNN’s penchant for hiring Israeli state figures continues to this day. Tamar Michaelis, for example, currently works for the network, producing much of its Israel/Palestine content. This is despite having previously served as an official IDF spokesperson in the Israeli Defense Forces.
The New York Times, meanwhile, hired Anat Schwartz, an ex-Israeli Air Force Intelligence officer with zero journalistic experience. Schwartz co-wrote the infamous and now discredited “Screams Without Words” expose, which claimed that Hamas fighters systematically sexually violated Israelis on October 7. Times staff themselves revolted over the lack of evidence and fact-checking in the piece.
Multiple New York Times employees, including star columnist David Brooks, have had children serving in the IDF; even as they report or offer opinions on the region, the Times never disclosed these glaring conflicts of interest to its readers. Nor has it disclosed that it purchased a Jerusalem house for its bureau chief that was stolen from the family of Palestinian intellectual Ghada Karmi in 1948.
MintPress News interviewed Karmi last year about her latest book and Israeli attempts to silence her. Former New York Times Magazine writer and current editor-in-chief of The Atlantic Jeffrey Goldberg (an American) dropped out of the University of Pennsylvania to volunteer as an IDF prison guard during the first Palestinian Intifada (uprising). In his memoirs, Goldberg revealed that, while serving in the IDF., he helped cover up the abuse of Palestinian prisoners.
Social media companies, too, are filled with former Unit 8200 agents. A 2022 MintPress study found no fewer than 99 former Unit 8200 operatives working for Google.
Facebook also employs dozens of ex-spooks from the controversial unit. This includes Emi Palmor, who sits on Meta’s oversight board. This 21-person panel ultimately decides the direction of Facebook, Instagram and Meta’s other offerings, adjudicating on what content to allow, promote, and what to suppress. Meta has been formally condemned for its systematic suppression of Palestinian voices across its platforms by Human Rights Watch, which documented over 1,000 instances of overt anti-Palestinian censorship in October and November 2023 alone. A measure of this bias is highlighted by the fact that, at one point, Instagram automatically inserted the word “terrorist” into the profiles of users who called themselves Palestinian.
Despite the widespread claims by U.S. politicians that it is a hotbed of anti-Israel and anti-Semitic racism, TikTok also employs many former Unit 8200 agents in key positions in its organization. For example, in 2021, it hired Asaf Hochman as its global head of product strategy and operations. Before joining TikTok, Hochman spent over five years as an Israeli spook. He now works for Meta.
Top Down Pro-Israel Censorship
When it comes to the Israeli attack on its neighbors, corporate media has consistently displayed a pro-Israel bias. The New York Times, for example, regularly refrains from identifying the perpetrator of violence when that perpetrator is the Israeli military and described the 1948 genocide of around 750,000 Palestinians as a mere “migration.” A study of the paper’s coverage found that words like “slaughter,” “massacre,” and “horrific” appear 22 times more frequently when discussing Israeli deaths than Palestinian ones, despite the gigantic disparity in the number of people killed on both sides.
Meanwhile, in a story about how Israeli soldiers shot 335 bullets at a car containing a Palestinian child and then shot the rescue workers who came to save her, CNN printed the headline “Five-year-old Palestinian girl found dead after being trapped in car with dead relatives” – a title that could be interpreted that her death was a tragic accident.
This sort of reporting does not happen by accident. In fact, it comes straight from the top. A leaked New York Timesmemo from November revealed that company management explicitly instructed its reporters not to use words such as “genocide,” “slaughter,” and “ethnic cleansing” when discussing Israel’s actions. Times’ staff must refrain from using words like “refugee camp,” “occupied territory,” or even “Palestine” in their reporting, making it almost impossible to convey some of the most basic facts to their audience.
CNN staff are under similar pressure. Last October, new C.E.O. Mark Thompson sent out a memo to all staff instructing them to make sure that Hamas (and not Israel) is presented as responsible for the violence, that they must always use the moniker “Hamas-controlled” when discussing the Gaza Health Ministry and their civilian death figures, and barring them from any reporting of Hamas’ viewpoint, which its senior director of news standards and practices told staff was “not newsworthy” and amounted to “inflammatory rhetoric and propaganda.”
Both the Times and CNN have fired multiple journalists over their opposition to Israeli actions or support for Palestinian liberation. In November, the Times’ Jazmine Hughes was forced out after she signed an open letter opposing genocide in Palestine. The newspaper terminated Hosam Salem’s contract the previous year after a pressure campaign from pro-Israel group Honest Reporting. And CNN anchor Marc Lamont Hill was abruptly fired in 2018 for calling for Palestinian liberation in a speech at the United Nations.
Large organizations like Axios, CNN and the New York Times obviously know who they are hiring. These are some of the most sought-after jobs in journalism, and hundreds of applicants are likely applying for each position. The fact that these organizations choose to select Israeli spies above everybody else raises serious questions about their journalistic credibility and their purpose.
Hiring agents from Unit 8200 to produce American news should be as unthinkable as employing Hamas or Hezbollah fighters as reporters. Yet former Israeli spooks are entrusted with informing the American public about their country’s ongoing offensives against Palestine, Lebanon, Yemen, Iran and Syria. What does this say about the credibility and biases of our media?
Since Israel could not continue to prosecute this war without American aid, the battle for the American mind is as important as actions on the ground. And as the propaganda war wages, the lines between journalist and fighter blur. The fact that many of the top journalists supplying us with news about Israel/Palestine are literally former Israeli intelligence agents only underlines this.
It appears that you have misquoted FM Lavrov on page 88 of your new book.
Lavrov’s full quote was: “Those who mechanically repeat the points made in Bucharest and insist that ‘third countries’ have no right to express their position on the issue of NATO enlargement are playing with fire. I am convinced that they cannot be unaware of this.” “Statement by Sergey Lavrov, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation, at the Twenty-Eighth Meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council,” December 2, 2021, https://osce.org/files/f/documents/a/c/506840.pdf.
Here is your version from page 88 of War, to compare to the original above: “‘Third countries’ — meaning, the United States — ‘have no right to express their position on the issue of NATO enlargement and are playing with fire,’ Lavrov warned, ‘I am convinced that they cannot be aware of this.’”
You omitted everything before “third countries,” and failed to put brackets around his capital T, to indicate it was not truly the beginning of the sentence, importantly losing the context that he was discussing others: “Those who… repeat and insist that,” at the beginning. You also added “— meaning, the United States —” after “third countries,” when Lavrov clearly meant Russia, and added the word “and” after “enlargement” to make it at least make sense grammatically, if in no other way. But you did not put brackets around the and as though you are sure that was what he meant to say. Perhaps because you knew that he did not?
The sentence as reproduced in your book makes no sense at all in English without the addition of the word “and.”
And it makes no sense whatsoever in context: You would have us accept that the Russian foreign minister believes and said out loud that the United States of America is a “third country” which has “no right” to an opinion on the size of its own military alliance, only he does, and that the US is “playing with fire” by having an opinion, rather than by disregarding Russia’s — really?
In the late evening of October 5, seismic tremors of a magnitude of 4.6 on the Richter Scale were detected in Iran’s Semnan region. Although they could be felt even in the capital Tehran, over a hundred kilometers away from the epicenter, as earthquakes go this was not a major event: It was not terribly strong and caused no casualties. And yet it has attracted global attention. The reason is that we are not sure that it really was an earthquake.
Since the tremors shook the Iranian desert, speculation that this was, in reality, an underground nuclear test has not been dying down, in some traditional media and in social media everywhere. In Iran itself, according to the Tehran Times – an outward-facing English-language publication – ”seismologists and […] authorities” have denied a nuclear test. The newspaper added that “CIA Director William Burns also said there is no evidence that Iran has decided to build a nuclear weapon.” Considering that, from long and bitter experience, Iranians do not generally consider the CIA a source of truth, that is an intriguing, maybe tongue-in-check addition.
It is not hard to imagine plausible reasons why the leadership in Tehran could have an interest in staging a test that it knows leaves detectable traces while at the same time it’s officially denying that it has done so: it would, in essence, serve to warn enemies while allowing for a degree of politically flexible deniability. It would also, perhaps, create some strategic ambiguity – that is, uncertainty among opponents – if not about the event itself, then about what exactly the Iranian leadership is intending to do with it.
Yet it is at least equally realistic to assume that there really was no test. Those discussions of the Semnan tremors that are publicly available seem inconclusive to the non-expert at least, turning on points such as the exact nature of the seismic wave and the location of the epicenter. For now, the only certain conclusion seems to be that we don’t know: It may have been just an ordinary earthquake, but a nuclear test cannot be ruled out at this point.
Let’s take a step back: Instead of assessing arguments for one or the other version of what exactly happened at Semnan in Iran on October 5, let’s ask two simple questions: Why is it so important and what would it mean if a nuclear test did really occur?
In some regards, it is obvious why the tremors have reverberated globally: Iran is already embroiled in a de facto war with Israel that is on the verge of escalating further, from increasingly destructive missile attacks into an even larger regional and possibly global war. Beyond the longstanding hostility between the two countries, this escalation is underway for two reasons: First, Israel has already completed a year of committing genocide against the Palestinians and there is no end in sight, while it has also been assaulting multiple countries around it with terror attacks, indiscriminate bombings and, now in Lebanon, also a land invasion. Second, the West has sided with Israel. In a hypothetical world, one in which the West would not have trampled all over international law and elementary ethics and, instead, would have stopped Israel, the current escalation could not have occurred.
For these two reasons – Israel’s complete descent into mass killings and all-round aggression and the West’s helping it along – Iran’s regional “Axis of Resistance” has become the key, indeed the one and only international actor that is in the way of the Zionist regime. Given the way Western mainstream media propaganda vilifies this “axis” as “rogue” and “terrorist,” it is ironic that its members are the only ones at least trying to implement the UN 1948 Genocide Convention against the Israeli perpetrators, thus obeying a fundamental obligation of post-World War II international law. The true, monstrous rogue actors are the West and Israel.
Without the “Axis of Resistance” under Iran’s loose hegemony, the Palestinian resistance would be entirely alone. For Israel, this means that destroying or at least neutralizing Iran is the greatest possible strategic prize.
Without Tehran, the “axis” would not simply disappear. For that, its various elements – for instance, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Yemen’s Ansar Allah movement (‘Houthis’) are too autonomous, not mere proxies. But there is no doubt that they would be gravely, perhaps fatally weakened.
Against this background, Iran’s military capabilities are a crucial factor. While Tehran has a much less modern air force than Israel’s, Iran’s missile forces are formidable. Despite claims to the contrary, the recent, still-restrained attack of 180 projectiles has shown that Iran can overwhelm Israeli air defenses and the US assistance these get. If it ever were to launch an assault really meant to be devastating – by targeting Israel’s economic and political infrastructure – Israel would have to absorb damage as never before in its history. The fact that Israelis have the option of leaving makes this threat all the more powerful: Their country has deliberately sought to make Gaza uninhabitable. As a civilized country, Iran would not resort to the same genocidal cruelty. But it could make it much less comfortable or safe for Israelis to stay in Israel.
And that is where we get back to the question of why it would be so important if a nuclear test really took place in Iran on October 5: On one side, Israel has threatened to target the country’s many nuclear facilities, if not in the next round of strikes then in the one after that. Yet, since the more important ones are deep underground, that is technically difficult, as an American general formerly involved in pertinent planning has just confirmed to the New York Times. But, still, Israel has US support. Even if Washington has mumbled some objections to that particular Israeli insanity, this means very little because the US tends to lie and Israel tends to do what it wants anyhow and then drag the US along, unwillingly or very willingly, as the case may be.
On the other side, Iran has, of course, been developing its own nuclear program. While its leaders insist that it’s entirely non-military, if that were true, they would be idiots neglecting their duty to protect their country. And they are neither idiots nor neglecting their duty.
What adds a wrinkle of complication is that the possibility of Iran crossing the threshold to possessing nuclear weapons has been exaggerated again and again by Western politicians and media with an obvious intention to create a pretext for yet another Western war of aggression in the Middle East. Indeed, the Wall Street Journalhas just published another long article in that genre of “Look-how-close-they-are.” For those preferring more theoretical outlets, the prestigious journal Foreign Policy has just bluntly set out the ”case for destroying Iran’s nuclear program now.”
So, whenever you hear – at least in the West – that Tehran is close to having nukes, keep in mind that you may well be looking at war propaganda. And yet, there also is a real possibility of Iran acquiring – or perhaps already having acquired – nuclear bombs. That is why it has been so tempting to interpret the seismic shock in the Semnan region as a well-timed nuclear test. If Iran already has built nuclear weapons, then a test could have been a signal, telling Israel and the West that it is now too late for preempting an Iranian breakthrough because it has already happened. That would imply not only that such an Israeli or Western attack is now futile, but also that it has become much riskier since Iran may already be able to retaliate, even with nuclear weapons.
The scenario outlined above remains speculative as an interpretation of the Semnan seismic tremors on October 5. But what is more important is the fact that even if it has not yet occurred, then it is likely to occur soon. One way or the other, notwithstanding an earlier Iranian religious injunction – fatwa – against weapons of mass destruction often cited in the West, Tehran is likely to become a nuclear-armed power in the near future. In that case, the fatwa will be altered or superseded. If and when that happens, the West and Israel will have only themselves to blame, for three reasons.
First, we have long known that the West uses the foggy notion of “rules” and a “rules-based order” to evade international law and a meaningful role for the United Nations. The rules-based order is a cheap sham for those who prefer that laws do not apply to them. What the Gaza genocide and Israel’s other recent crimes have made unmistakably clear is that the “rules-based order” includes a very special privilege for Israel and the West, namely that of committing crimes against humanity. In such a world, every self-respecting government that takes its elementary duty to defend country and people seriously must think in the-very-worst-case terms. In such a world, in short, you better have nukes.
Secondly, we have not only learned what exactly the “rules-based order” is capable of. We have also learned that the alternative norms and institutions of international law cannot stop the “rules-based” crowd once it has made up its mind: By the findings of the highest court of the UN, the International Court of Justice, also called the World Court, Israel stands as a plausible perpetrator of genocide even now; a full sentencing is likely to follow. Its prime minister and minister of defense have arrest-warrant applications pending at the International Criminal Court. And what is the result? Nothing. Neither Western governments nor Israel have given a damn about the law. Indeed, they are in open contempt and obstructing it shamelessly. Again, in such a world, you better arm yourself as well as you can.
Thirdly, Iran itself has, of course, been through a long-drawn-out attempt to find a compromise with the West and, de facto, Israel. The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – aka the Iran Nuclear Deal – was concluded in 2015. Its essence was simple: Tehran would give up on military uses of its nuclear power and, in return, the West would let go of sanctions and generally normalize its relations with Iran. In 2018, the US reneged because Donald Trump – then president, now recklessly hollering about striking Iran’s nuclear facilities – felt like it. The Biden administration then failed to repair the damage and, if anything, made things worse. And neither a future Trump nor a Harris presidency will make them any better.
In sum, in the West’s “rules-based order” the rules include that Israel and the West may commit genocide, and then some; international law and other laws have no countervailing power and have been discredited; and individual negotiations and compromises lead to being cheated.
Responsible leaders in Iran, and in other states, have to conclude that their countries must have nuclear weapons as well as the means to deliver them. And, in the case of Iran, this actually means enough to deter Israel and the US. The latter especially must, in the future, face the possibility – as it does already with North Korea – of Iranian nuclear retaliation on its own homeland if Washington either attacks Iran directly or helps Israel attack it. That is the stark logic of deterrence. It is sad that nothing else remains. But, by their outrageous violence and, literally, lawlessness, the West and Israel have left Iran – and others – no choice but to adopt this harsh logic to the full.
Tarik Cyril Amar is a historian from Germany working at Koç University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.
We are now a year into the Israel government’s military action devastating the people and infrastructure of Gaza and since expanded into escalating violence against countries including Lebanon and Iran. Yet, even today, United States Senate members are repeating flagrant lies produced in the war’s early days to trick Americans and others around the world into supporting Israel’s war.
On Monday, Republican US Senators introduced a resolution repeating some of these old lies that helped build support among Americans for Israel’s war — that “Hamas terrorists” killed “approximately 1,200 individuals” in their October 7, 2023 attack and that Hamas used “rape as a weapon of war.” Why repeat the lies? To support the resolution’s conclusions, including that the Senate wants to “ensure the forever survival of Israel.” Left unsaid in the resolution is that the way the US government continually acts to purportedly achieve this goal includes shoveling more and more money, weapons, and intelligence to Israel for Israel to use in whatever way it chooses. Indeed, the US government’s commitment seems unfazed no matter Israel’s level of barbarity and no matter how much Israel’s actions cause further geographic expansion of the war.
To the extent American politicians repeating these baseless claims regarding October 7 are doing so because they are ignorant about what happened, they would do well to watch a new documentary — Atrocity Inc. — featuring reporter Max Blumenthal. Blumenthal was there from the beginning calling no dice on the propaganda promoted by Israel and US politicians, along with American media, that has been used to gain public support for Israel’s aggressive actions. The widespread rape allegations are ridiculous fabrications and a significant portion of the death toll is from the willful killing of Israelis by agents of their own government, Blumenthal explains in the documentary. Blumenthal also debunks other outrageous lies, including claims related to the killing of, and even beheading of, babies on October 7.
Senators, and everyone else, can watch the documentary here.
Human trafficking is certainly one of the most monstrous mass criminal activities ever undertaken by other humans (although calling them “humans” is a bit of a stretch). And yet, there’s a special kind of this deeply repulsive crime that pushes it to diabolical proportions – child trafficking. Underage kids, particularly those who were abandoned, sold or have very poor/abusive family backgrounds, are by far the most vulnerable group. The depraved criminals who engage in such illicit activities specifically target unfortunate children and given there are millions of them all around the globe, particularly in war-torn areas, the “recruitment pool” is effectively endless. Unfortunately, the demand on the black market also seems to be constant and growing, making it a very lucrative and appealing prospect for criminals. … continue
This site is provided as a research and reference tool. Although we make every reasonable effort to ensure that the information and data provided at this site are useful, accurate, and current, we cannot guarantee that the information and data provided here will be error-free. By using this site, you assume all responsibility for and risk arising from your use of and reliance upon the contents of this site.
This site and the information available through it do not, and are not intended to constitute legal advice. Should you require legal advice, you should consult your own attorney.
Nothing within this site or linked to by this site constitutes investment advice or medical advice.
Materials accessible from or added to this site by third parties, such as comments posted, are strictly the responsibility of the third party who added such materials or made them accessible and we neither endorse nor undertake to control, monitor, edit or assume responsibility for any such third-party material.
The posting of stories, commentaries, reports, documents and links (embedded or otherwise) on this site does not in any way, shape or form, implied or otherwise, necessarily express or suggest endorsement or support of any of such posted material or parts therein.
The word “alleged” is deemed to occur before the word “fraud.” Since the rule of law still applies. To peasants, at least.
Fair Use
This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more info go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
DMCA Contact
This is information for anyone that wishes to challenge our “fair use” of copyrighted material.
If you are a legal copyright holder or a designated agent for such and you believe that content residing on or accessible through our website infringes a copyright and falls outside the boundaries of “Fair Use”, please send a notice of infringement by contacting atheonews@gmail.com.
We will respond and take necessary action immediately.
If notice is given of an alleged copyright violation we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material(s) in question.
All 3rd party material posted on this website is copyright the respective owners / authors. Aletho News makes no claim of copyright on such material.
