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Western media headlines manufacturing consent for Israeli aggression against Iran

By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | October 27, 2024

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.

October 27, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Fake News, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | 1 Comment

The Kims Are Coming!

By Daniel McAdams | Ron Paul Institute | October 26, 2024

After a few cat and mouse days of Defense Secretary Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin’s denials, the Pentagon finally yesterday affirmed that there was evidence of a North Korean military presence in Russia. Asked what they were doing in Russia, Austin replied, “What exactly they are doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”

For days, South Korea (no conflict of interest there) and Ukraine (nor there) had been claiming that thousands of North Korean soldiers had swooped in to rescue a beaten and bloodied Russian army from certain defeat at the hands of Ukraine (which has lost nearly a million men at arms in the nearly three year war). As the Russian army accelerates its pace, burning through the last fortified towns in eastern Ukraine, the mainstream media continues – with a few reluctant but panicked exceptions – to push the “Russia is losing” narrative.

The added twist of thousands of “evil communists” from North Korea screaming across the Russian tundra (on horseback, no doubt) promises to add new plot lines to the drama concocted by the mainstream media and most of Washington, and indeed the usual suspects are biting furiously at the bait.

Take US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael Turner. He is so outraged that there might be members of the North Korean military in Russia that he actually sent a letter to President Biden calling for war. “If North Korean military forces join Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Fox News reported him to say, “the US should consider the possibility of direct military action.”

Against whom? We are already involved in a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine. We are already directly involved in Israel’s seven-front war against its neighbors and Iran. Who does Chairman Turner think we should attack if North Korean troops are present in Russia? Russia? North Korea? China? All of them?

North Korea and Russia have just signed a treaty whereby their two militaries will more closely collaborate and even come to each other’s aid if one is threatened. While such an agreement may give Turner and the other neocons the vapors, it is nothing different than the mutual defense treaty the US has with its NATO partners and with many others on a bipartisan basis.

Treaties for me but not for thee? Is that the name of the “rules-based international order” game?

The hypocrisy runs even deeper. It is well-known and widely reported that NATO countries are training Ukrainian troops not only in NATO countries but inside Ukraine itself. So it’s absolutely fine for the US and its NATO partners to insert troops inside Ukraine to train its military to kill more Russians and to even operate sophisticated weapons systems inside Ukraine that the Ukrainian military could never operate on its own, but if Russia strikes up a deal with North Korea where the two armies can train together inside Russia, it’s a “red line” (as Chairman Turner wrote) that demands that we start WWIII.

It seems we are not sending our best and brightest to Congress.

What we are witnessing is the birth of a new narrative after some 500 Ukraine narratives have already collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions. Remember the two years of “Russia is losing” narrative? Well just this week NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, said in an interview with the German Spiegel magazine that Russia would emerge from this conflict actually STRONGER than when it entered!

But of course they are losing…

So what to do? Just as the Hollywood writers do once a sit-com has run too many seasons and is playing itself out, plot-wise, insert a new character. Insert a new twist, to bamboozle the viewers and give them a new reason to keep watching the program. It’s funny but not funny, because the future of the world hangs in the balance. Just like the film “Idiocracy” has become a documentary in our absurd times, so has “Wag the Dog.” The military industrial complex with its Hollywood-like allies producing endless narratives to keep the gravy train rolling…

P.S. if anyone believes this whole insane and hysterical anti-North Korea narrative is not political…well I have a bridge in Brazoria, TX, to sell you…

This article first appeared as an exclusive for Ron Paul Institute subscribers. Subscribe for free here.

October 27, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , , , | 1 Comment

Joe Biden Allowed His Friend Bibi to Destroy His Presidency and Legacy

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 22, 2024

In 2020, amid lockdowns, Joe Biden prevailed in the election, running his campaign from his home. Biden was clearly experiencing significant cognitive decline, so the American people were presented with a carefully choreographed message that a vote for Biden was a return to normalcy.

Since Donald Trump descended the golden escalator, Americans have been subject to a non-stop barrage from establishment media and politicians wailing that we are in an existential battle for our country’s soul. We were told Russia hacked the election, Trump was Hitler, Democracy was on the ballot, and the sitting president was bowing to dictators around the world.

But Biden would save us: no more inflammatory rhetoric, no more prosecutions of the political opposition, and a more stable world.

While Biden was never going to return the US to a normal country in a normal time, he had the potential to significantly de-escalate America’s foreign entanglements. However, during his time in the Oval Office, 46 has done the opposite, starting wars and undermining international norms.

Upon taking office, Biden had two easy foreign policy victories he could have secured. Firstly, the current White House could have followed Trump’s deal with the Taliban and exited Afghanistan in a coordinated manner during May 2021.

Rather, the White House mishandled the situation, first by pushing back the exit from Afghanistan until September, the height of the Afghan fighting season. By then, the US-built government in Kabul had collapsed. This chaos culminated in an ISIS-K bombing at the Kabul airport that killed hundreds of desperate Afghans and 13 US soldiers.

Botching Iran Talks

The other easy win for the new president was returning to the Iran Nuclear Deal. Negotiated during the Barack Obama administration, the deal implemented additional safeguards on Iran’s civilian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.

Tehran was entirely in compliance with the deal in May of 2018 when Trump unilaterally pulled out of the agreement at Tel Aviv’s behest. Washington then placed crippling sanctions on Iran aimed at cutting the Islamic Republic’s oil output to a minimum.

Upon taking office, Biden could have easily negotiated with the moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to return to the deal and lift the sanctions. But, the Biden team was determined to demand Tehran agree to a “longer and stronger” agreement, and at the same time, looked the other way as Israel began attacking Iranian shipping and nuclear facilities.

Over the following two years, US and Iranian officials would engage in several rounds of indirect talks while Israel continued to attack Iranian shipping and conducted assassinations and other sabotage inside Iran. Under those conditions, a deal was never reached, and talks were abandoned last year.

Pushing Tehran from the table and the crippling economic sanctions on Iran had an important impact on Biden’s Ukraine policy.

After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Washington and its NATO partners engaged in a two-front strategy to use Ukrainian soldiers to bleed and “weaken” Russian invaders. The first was providing billions in weapons, training, and intelligence. The second was launching an economic war to cripple and isolate the Russian economy and bring the Kremlin’s war machine to a halt.

However, as the Iran Nuclear Deal is what ostensibly tied Tehran to Western economies, once the war broke out, the Islamic Republic saw no downside in strengthening its ties with Moscow. Additionally, as is the case with Iran, Russia’s main export is energy. The law of supply and demand says it would have been easier to push the Russian supply off the market if the US was not attempting to simultaneously remove the Iranian oil supply.

Genocide, War, Annexation

After a few years out of power, Netanyahu returned to his post as Prime Minister of Israel, leading a far-right-wing government in late 2022. That government included two extremist settlers in key positions who made clear a top priority was the annexation of the West Bank.

That government ushered in a brutal regime for the Palestinians, with 2023 killings in the West Bank before October 7 reaching a multi-year high.

Still, when Hamas broke the Israeli siege of Gaza on October 7, the White House pretended that Israel had been a normal democracy, not a declared Jewish state with apartheid oppression directed at the native Arab population.

The White House was a key amplifier of the atrocity propaganda put out by Tel Aviv following the Hamas attack. This gave Israel an unlimited blank check for killing in Gaza.

Netanyahu has cashed in that check for $23 billion in military aid from the US, Washington’s protection from UN resolutions at the Security Council, and the killings of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, thousands of Lebanese civilians, and hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank.

The killing has intentionally targeted civilians and civilian targets such as hospitals, schools, shelters, and aid convoys. After each Israeli war crime, the US State Department acts as an Israeli PR firm and insists the world must blame Hamas, not Israel.

What Happened to International Law?

So now President Biden has spent the final year of his presidency providing arms to Netanyahu so his government can commit war crimes every day. This is the same president who has insisted to every American that we must send nearly $200 billion to Ukraine to defend international law.

If Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, why can Israel invade Lebanon?

If Russia is violating international law to extend its border, why is Israel allowed to continue settlement expansion in the West Bank?

If Russia was wrong to detain American journalists in Russia, why has Israel been allowed to kill at least 170 Palestinian journalists, including Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen?

If Russia is wrong to attack civilian targets in Ukraine, why has Israel been allowed to destroy nearly every hospitalschool, and shelter in Gaza?

One could go on at some length citing the myriad hypocrisies intrinsic to Biden’s murderous foreign policy. When it comes to starving the people of Gaza, assassinations in Iran, bombing diplomatic facilities in Syria, and attacking UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon, it’s clear that Netanyahu wipes his ass with the international “rules-based order” that Joe Biden claims to love so much on a daily basis.

Currently, Americans care more about domestic issues, but history will evaluate Biden by his elective and catastrophic wars. The x-rays of Israeli bullets lodged into the brains of Palestine’s pre-teen children will define the legacy of Biden and his good pal Bibi during the coming decades.

October 23, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

EU President Likens Free Speech to Infectious Disease

Ursula von der Leyen advocates “pre-bunking” in the public forum to “vaccinate” people against “disinformation”

By John Leake | Courageous Discourse | October 23, 2024

EU President Ursula von der Leyen just joined the ranks of former Senator John Kerry and other globalist ghouls in declaring war on free speech by perversely proclaiming that the EU citizenry needs to be “vaccinated against disinformation.”

Like every censor in history, she characterizes her censorship program as a means of expunging erroneous information and ideas from public discourse. By using the word “disinformation,” she implies that she and her clique are already the sole possessors of the truth about everything, and that everyone who has and shares heterodox ideas is necessarily in error.

Her entire premise is FALSE for the following reasons:

1). Knowledge about the world is constantly evolving through constant inquiry, discussion, and dissemination. Knowledge is NOT a static thing. This is why countries with stifling censorship regimes have experienced intellectual, scientific, and artistic stagnation. Their rulers try to freeze the human mind in its state at their moment in history.

2). NO state, university, or ecclesiastical committee has ever been in possession of the full truth of any matter. Official orthodoxies have always been challenged by heterodox thinkers. Indeed, virtually every major advance in human insight has been performed by heterodox thinkers.

3). As John Milton observed in his 1644 pamphlet, Areopagitica, contending with error is an intrinsic part of learning and discovery. We literally learn by making mistakes and correcting them. If free speech is suppressed for the objective of preventing the propagation of erroneous thought—or “vaccinating against it”—it will become extremely difficult if not impossible for people to learn and discover.

4). Without a single exception in history, the people who hold power always advocate the orthodoxy that sustains and extends their power and that of their friends and supporters.

Ursula von der Leyen is the quintessence of this principle. As president of the EU, she conducted secret negotiations with Pfizer CEO to purchase a 20 billion Euros of Pfizer’s fraudulent and dangerous vaccine so that it could be inflicted on all the citizens of the European Union. She is currently under criminal investigation for her conduct in this affair that has come to be known as Pfizergate.

It takes a special kind of chutzpah for a powerful state official who is probably guilty of committing a major crime—a crime that has been systematically and ruthlessly concealed—to lecture the public about the need for censorship. The time has come for the citizens of Europe to rid themselves of Ursula von der Leyen and her clique of corrupt tyrants.

To be sure, there is increasing evidence that the Biden Administration has been exerting pressure on Germany—which remains an American vassal state—and the EU to step up its censorship regime. I will cover this strange development in a subsequent post.

October 23, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science | , | Leave a comment

US Government Behind Campaign Violating North Korean Airspace

By Brian Berletic – New Eastern Outlook – October 23, 2024

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.

October 23, 2024 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

The “Freedom From Fear” Ticket for Tyranny

By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | October 23, 2024

The Democratic Party is championing presidential candidate Kamala Harris as a born-again champion of freedom. Earlier this year, Democrats shifted their focus from democracy to freedom, convinced that the latter word would enthrall voters on Election Day. Providing “freedom from fear” has become one of their most frequent political promises this past century.

Politicians routinely portray freedom from fear as the apex of freedom, higher than the initial freedoms buttressed by the Bill of Rights. While presidents have defined “freedom from fear” differently, the common thread is that it requires unleashing government agents. Reviewing almost a century of bipartisan scams on freedom from fear provides good cause to doubt the latest geyser of promises.

“Freedom from fear” first entered the American political lexicon thanks to a January 1941 speech by President Franklin Roosevelt. In that State of the Union address, he promised citizens freedom of speech and freedom of worship—two cornerstones of the First Amendment—and added socialist-style “freedom from want” and “freedom from fear.” FDR’s revised freedoms did not include freedom to dissent, since he said the government would need to take care of the “few slackers or trouble makers in our midst.” Nor did FDR’s improved freedoms include the freedom not be rounded up for concentration camps, as FDR ordered for Japanese-Americans after Pearl Harbor. Three years later, FDR amended his definition of freedom by championing a Universal Conscription Act to entitle government to the forced labor of any citizen.

Richard Nixon, in his acceptance speech at the 1968 Republican National Convention, promised, “We shall re-establish freedom from fear in America so that America can take the lead in re-establishing freedom from fear in the world.” Nixon asserted, “The first civil right of every American is to be free from domestic violence, and that right must be guaranteed in this country.” But with the Nixon scorecard, government violence didn’t count. He perpetuated the war in Vietnam, resulting in another 20,000 American soldiers pointlessly dying. On the homefront, he created the Drug Enforcement Administration and appointed the nation’s first drug czar. The FBI perpetuated its COINTELPRO program, carrying out “a secret war against those citizens it considers threats to the established order,” as a 1976 Senate report noted.

President George H.W. Bush told the National Baptist Convention on September 8, 1989, “Today freedom from fear…means freedom from drugs.” To boost public fear, a DEA informant arranged for a knucklehead to sell crack cocaine to an undercover narc in Lafayette Park across from the White House. Bush invoked the sell a few days later to justify a national crackdown. He informed the American Legion, “Today I want to focus on one of those freedoms: freedom from fear—the fear of war abroad, the fear of drugs and crime at home. To win that freedom, to build a better and safer life, will require the bravery and sacrifice that Americans have shown before and must again.”

Foremost among the sacrifices that Bush demanded was that of traditional liberties. His administration vastly expanded federal power to arbitrarily seize Americans’ property and increased the role of the U.S. military for domestic law enforcement. In a 1992 speech dedicating a new DEA office building, Bush declared, “I am delighted to be here to salute the greatest freedom fighters any nation could have, people who provide freedom from violence and freedom from drugs and freedom from fear.” The DEA’s own crime sprees, corruption, and violence were not permitted to impede Bush’s rhetorical victory lap.

On May 12, 1994, President Bill Clinton declared, “Freedom from violence and freedom from fear are essential to maintaining not only personal freedom but a sense of community in this country.” Clinton banned so-called assault weapons and sought to ban thirty-five million semi-automatic firearms. Gun bans in response to high crime rates mean closing the barn door after the horse has escaped. Citizens would presumedly have nothing to fear after they were forced to abjectly depend on government officials for their own survival. During Clinton’s first term, public housing authorities began mass warrantless searches of apartments to confiscate guns and other banned items. Clinton slammed a federal court ruling blocking the unconstitutional raids. When he visited the Chicago housing projects, Clinton declared, “The most important freedom we have in this country is the freedom from fear. And if people aren’t free from fear, they are not free.” In Clinton’s view, public housing residents had no right to fear the federally-funded housing police storming into their apartments.

In February 1996, Clinton, seeking conservative support for his reelection campaign, endorsed forcing children to wear uniforms at public schools. Clinton justified the fashion dictate: “Every one of us has an obligation to work together, to give our children freedom from fear and the freedom to learn.” But, if mandatory uniforms were the key to ending violence, Postal Service employees would have a lower homicide rate.

Senator Bob Dole, the 1996 Republican presidential nominee, repeatedly promised voters “freedom from fear” via crackdowns on crime. How did Dole intend to provide “freedom from fear”? By proclaiming that “we must…untie the hands of the police.” Dole did not specify exactly how many no-knock raids would be necessary to restore domestic tranquility.

George W. Bush, like his father, alternated promises of “freedom from fear” with shameless fearmongeringPrior to election day 2004, the Bush administration continually issued terror attack warnings based on flimsy or no evidence. The New York Times derided the Bush administration in late October for having “turned the business of keeping Americans informed about the threat of terrorism into a politically scripted series of color-coded scare sessions.” Yet each time a terror alert was issued, the president’s approval rating rose temporarily by roughly three percent, according to a Cornell University study. The Cornell study found a “halo effect”: the more terrorists who wanted to attack America, the better job Bush was supposedly doing. People who saw terrorism as the biggest issue in the 2004 election voted for Bush by a 6-to-1 margin.

The most memorable Bush campaign ad, released a few weeks before the election, opened in a thick forest, with shadows and hazy shots complementing the foreboding music. After vilifying Democratic candidate John Kerry, the ad showed a pack of wolves reclining in a clearing. The voiceover concluded, “And weakness attracts those who are waiting to do America harm” as the wolves began jumping up and running toward the camera. At the end of the ad, the president appeared and announced, “I’m George W. Bush and I approve this message.” One liberal cynic suggested that the ad’s message was that voters would be eaten by wolves if Kerry won. The Bush ad spurred protests by the equivalent of the Lobo Anti-Defamation League. Pat Wendland, the manager of Wolves Offered Life and Friendship, a Colorado wolf refuge, Colorado, complained, “The comparison to terrorists was insulting. We have worked for years, teaching people that Little Red Riding Hood lied.”

Bush’s campaign to terrify voters into granting him four more years to rule America and much of the world did not deter him from announcing a few months later in his State of the Union address, “We will pass along to our children all the freedoms we enjoy, and chief among them is freedom from fear.” This was back when the mainstream media was continuing to hail Bush as a visionary idealist, prior to the collapse of his credibility on the Iraq war, torture, and other debacles.

President Joe Biden milked “freedom from fear” in a Pennsylvania speech earlier this year on what he labeled “the third anniversary of the Insurrection at the United States Capitol.” Biden revealed plans to turn the November election into a referendum on Adolf Hitler, accusing Donald Trump of “echoing the same exact language used in Nazi Germany.” CNN reported that Biden campaign aides planned to go “full Hitler” on Trump. Biden spent half an hour fearmongering and then closed by promising “freedom from fear.” This was the famous Biden two-step—demagoguing to his heart’s content and then closing with a few schmaltzy uplift lines, entitling the media to re-christen him as an idealist.

Biden did not survive the Democrats’ version of the Night of the Long Knives and Vice President Kamala Harris has been designated the party’s presidential flagbearer. Harris painted with an even broader brush than most politicians. At a Juneteenth Concert this summer, she condemned Republicans for “a full-on attack” on “the freedom from fear of bigotry and hate.” Harris implied that politicians could wave a psychological magic wand to banish any bias in perpetuity. How can anyone have “freedom from fear of bigotry” unless politicians become entitled to perpetually control everyone’s thoughts?

In August, the Democratic National Convention whooped up freedom in ways that would qualify as “authentic frontier gibberish,” as the 1974 movie Blazing Saddles would say. A campaign video promised “freedom from control, freedom from extremism and fear.” So Americans won’t have true freedom until politicians forcibly suppress any idea they label as immoderate? The Democratic Party platform warned, “Reproductive freedom, freedom from hate, freedom from fear, the freedom to control our own destinies and more are all on the line in this election.” But the whole point of politics nowadays is to preempt individuals from controlling their own destinies. Regardless, a Time magazine headline hailed “How Kamala Harris Took ‘Freedom’ Back from the GOP.”

“Freedom from fear” is the ultimate political blank check. The more people government frightens, the more legitimate dictatorial policies become. Pledging “freedom from fear” entitles politicians to seize power over anything that frightens anyone. Giving politicians more power based on people’s fears is like giving firemen pay raises based on how many false alarms they report.

Politicians’ promises of “freedom from fear” imply that freedom properly understood is a risk-free, worry-free condition. It is the type of promise that a mother would make to a young child. Freedom is now supposedly something that exists only in the womb of government paternalism. “Freedom from fear” is to be achieved by trusting everything that politicians say and surrendering everything that politicians demand. New Mexico Governor Michelle Grisham epitomized that mindset when she proclaimed at the Democratic National Convention, “We need a president who can be Consoler-in-Chief. We need a president capable of holding us in a great big hug.” And continuing to hold us until we formally become psychological wards of the state?

“Freedom from fear” offers freedom from everything except the government. Anyone who sounds the alarm about excessive government power will automatically be guilty of subverting freedom from fear. Presumably, the fewer inviolable rights the citizen has, the better government will treat him. But as John Locke warned more than 300 years ago, “I have no reason to suppose, that he, who would take away my Liberty, would not when he had me in his Power, take away everything else.”

Why not simply offer voters “freedom from the Constitution”? “Freedom from fear” means security via mass delusions about the nature of political power. Painting the motto “freedom from fear” on shackles won’t make them easier to bear. Perhaps our ruling class should be honest and replace the Bill of Rights with a new motto: “Political buncombe will make you free.”

October 23, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | | 1 Comment

ECHR orders Russia to compensate ‘foreign agents’

RT | October 23, 2024

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has ordered Russia to pay out hundreds of thousands of euros in compensation to 107 organizations and individuals it has designated as ‘foreign agents’. Russia rejected the court’s jurisdiction after leaving the Council of Europe in 2022.

Russia’s foreign agent law, similar to the US Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) of 1938, was first adopted in 2012 and expanded in 2022. It requires anyone who receives support from abroad or is under the influence of entities from outside the country to register and be labeled as such. The designation does not ban persons or entities from operating in Russia, but introduces a range of restrictions. Those in violation of the law face fines of up to 5 million rubles and up to six years in prison.

Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin has explained that the law is necessary in order to protect the country’s sovereignty and “prevent outside interference in internal affairs.”

A number of these individuals and organizations have since filed a joint complaint with the ECHR, including Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe, the International Memorial and the Memorial Human Rights Center, journalist Yuri Dud, opposition activist Lyubov Sobol, who is also designated as an extremist, and political scientist Ekaterina Shulman.

In a ruling published on Tuesday, the ECHR claimed that the law violates the rights of NGOs, media organizations, and individuals by introducing “restrictions on their freedom of expression and association” and infringing on the individual applicants’ “right to respect for private life.” The court also claimed that those who received the designation have been “discriminated against and subjected to restrictions” that are not in line with the ECHR’s conventions.

“The Court held that Russia was to pay the applicants amounts ranging from 5,500 euros (EUR) to EUR 10,000 [$5,900-$10,700] in respect of non-pecuniary damage, and various other amounts in respect of pecuniary damage and costs and expenses, indicated in the appendix to the judgment,” the ECHR said in a press release outlining the ruling.

While Russia has yet to comment on the ECHR’s decision, the court’s jurisdiction was earlier rejected, with President Vladimir Putin signing a law nullifying all ECHR verdicts after March 15. The move came after Russia left the Council of Europe (COE) in 2022, accusing the body of taking a blatantly anti-Russian stance and turning into an “obedient instrument” of the West, while becoming immersed in “double standards.”

Last year, in light of the ECHR accepting complaints from individuals and entities declared ‘foreign agents’ by Moscow, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Vershinin described the court as a “mad printer rubber-stamping politically charged complaints against Russia,” while “censoring” any cases considered to be linked to Russian interests.

October 23, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | | Leave a comment

EU accuses Russia of ‘unprecedented’ referendum interference

RT | October 21, 2024

Brussels has accused Moscow of pressuring Moldova over its EU integration referendum and presidential election on Sunday.

A constitutional amendment which sets the goal of eventually joining the European Union is poised to pass by a razor-thin margin. Russia has called the vote unfree and described it as suspicious.

On Monday, EU spokesman Peter Stano said, “We noted that this vote took place under unprecedented interference and intimidation by Russia and its proxies aiming to destabilize the democratic processes.”

Early results reported by Moldovan election officials indicated a slight majority of votes cast against the constitutional amendment proposed by pro-Western President Maia Sandu, who is running for a second term in office. During counting overnight, the pro-integration vote pulled into the lead.

Sandu declared victory on the issue after 98.6% of the votes were counted, with preliminary results showing 50.27% of the vote cast in favor and 49.73% against. Moldovan citizens residing in Western nations, whose ballots were counted last, reportedly tipped the balance in favor of the initiative.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that the dynamics of the tally were “difficult to explain.”

“Any observers with basic understanding of political processes can attest to those anomalies with the vote count,” Peskov said. He added that considering Chisinau’s crackdown on the opposition, the reported outcome was significant.

Moscow previously claimed that the Moldovan government restricted the ability of citizens living in Russia to participate in the vote. Only two polling stations worked in the country, with 5,000 ballots available at each, while an estimated 500,000 Moldovan citizens live in Russia, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said earlier this month.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) praised Moldovan officials for the organization of the election, but acknowledged that it had issues with opposition representation. The conditions “did not provide the contestants with a level playing field,” Urszula Gacek, the head of the body’s observer mission, said on Monday.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen visited Moldova earlier this month to meet with Sandu and announce an EU plan to invest €1.8 billion ($1.95bn) in the country’s economy between 2025 and 2027. She urged Moldovans to vote for the president’s proposal.

October 21, 2024 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Is Genocide Denial a Sin?

By Kevin Barrett | October 20, 2024

Is “Holocaust denial” a sin? That’s what Trent Horn thinks.

And who is Trent Horn? Dr. E. Michael Jones, arguably America’s leading Catholic intellectual, explains:

Trent Horn is a guy who works for something called Catholic Answers. Catholic Answers got started in the 90s by a guy named Carl Keating, who basically was going to defend the Catholic Church against fundamentalists who would say that the church was the whore of Babylon—fever swamp stuff like that. And it was like shooting fish in a barrel. He made a lot of money. He retired. He got replaced by Chris Check, a guy I knew from the Rockford Institute and Chronicles Magazine, a guy I always liked.

And now the world has changed. And so Trent Horn (took over Catholic Answers)… Some people said he was trying to apply for a job with the Daily Wire. He wanted to get Candace Owens’ slot.

So he’s going to be the Catholic guy who’s going to take up the Jewish cause. Well, it didn’t work. This guy singlehandedly resurrected an idea that really needs to be taken up, which is basically: What exactly is the status of the Jews and the Catholics? What is exactly the Catholic position?

And he took it to the extreme where he said basically it’s a sin to deny the Holocaust. And then he’s got “quotes” from people like Pope Benedict, which don’t say what he said they said. The Pope would never say (that Holocaust denial is a sin). The Pope, responding to the Williamson affair when Bishop Williamson got attacked across the world, said that basically “this is not decent. Decent people don’t do this.” Well, no one ever said Catholicism was just reserved for people who are fit for polite company.

So Trent Horn’s trying to up the ante by saying Catholics commit a sin if they contest Jewish fables. Well, it’s not going to work. And it bombed. There were hundreds of people who wrote in after this “Holocaust Denial Is a Sin” video, including people who noticed, as I did, there was fraud, academic fraud, going on here.

He flashes this image for two seconds, supposedly a letter from Himmler talking about the extermination of the Jews. Wait a minute. I have a pause button, Trent. And I put it on there. It turns out the beginning of this is Latin. It’s the Lorem Ipsum text generator. And then plopped in the middle is some statement—I guess he doesn’t think that anybody can read German because he apparently can’t—that says “the extermination of the Jewish people.”

But the real quote that follows is in a completely different typeset. The real quote is “die Evakuierung des deutschen Volkes,” which means the evacuation of the German people.

So I can’t tell you how angry I was. It’s been a long time since I got that angry. And I said that my friend Chris should either take the video down or stop claiming that he’ speaking for Catholics, because this is not Catholic theology. And you’re putting burdens on Catholics that they do not need to bear.

Catholic Holocaust Denial: A Confession

If crypto-Jew Trent Horn gets his way, Catholics the world over will be filing into confessionals every Sunday to whisper to their priests:

“Forgive me father for I have sinned. I have doubted the existence of the gas chambers.”

“Why would you do that, my son?”

“It has been six months since my last confession, and during that time I have been studying the issue.”

“ّWhy would you ‘study’ such rubbish, my son?”

“I was curious, father.”

“Have you not heard the old saying, my son, that ‘curiosity killed the catamite’”?

“No, I never heard that one, father. (Pause.) What’s a catamite?”

“That, my son, is another of those things you shouldn’t be curious about.”

“But why shouldn’t I ask questions about the Holocaust, father?”

“Because it is an article of faith, my son. If a Catholic denies OR doubts any article of faith determined by the Catholic Church, they are a sinful heretic. To be a Catholic is to be believe everything that the Catholic Church teaches. To doubt or deny ANY dogma is to proclaim oneself a Protestant – even if one continues to attend Mass and, God forbid, receive Holy Communion.”

“But father, is the Holocaust really an article of faith?”

“Of course it is, my son. There is no convincing evidence that it ever happened. That means we must accept it on faith. As Tertullian writes in his De Carne Christi: ‘I believe it because it is absurd.’ That certainly applies to the Holocaust.”

“I’m confused, father. What must I believe about the Holocaust?”

“It’s quite simple, son. Holocaustianity is the new Christianity. Instead of Jesus, we worship the Jewish people and their sacred six million. Instead of the Crucifixion, we have the gas chambers. And instead of the Resurrection, we have the state of Israel. That is the new Holy Trinity.”

“Is there a creed I should recite?”

“Indeed there is, my son. It goes like this:

‘I believe in the Holy Jewish People, the only chosen sons of Yahweh, masters of all things visible and invisible.

‘I believe in the sacred six million.

‘I believe in the gas chambers.

‘I support the holy state of Israel.

‘I will bow down to Antichrist, the Jewish messiah, when he comes.

‘And above all, I condemn Hamas.’

“But father, what you’re saying doesn’t sound like what I learned in Sunday school.”

“That was the old church, son. Today’s church is different. It’s new and fresh and irreverent about everything except the Holocaust and above all it’s no longer antisemitic. By the way, have you considered having a sex change?”

The parishioner hastily leaves the confessional, exits the church, and finds himself in the middle of a Hollywood studio lot. The church he just left, he discovers, was a paper maché mock-up, and the priest and parishioners were actors. (Was that Trent Horn playing the priest?) Discombobulated, he tries to find an exit from the studio lot, but it just seems to go on and on forever…


Genocide Denial IS a Sin

The notion of denial involves willful refusal to face an obvious truth. It does not apply to those who ask questions about matters that are far from obvious, including: Were six million Jews really murdered in German concentration camps? How many, if any, died in gas chambers? Were the deaths of German concentration camp inmates part of a preconceived bureaucratic plan to kill all Jews within reach of the German government?

The Jewish father of Holocaust Studies, Raul Hilberg, denied that six million Jews died. The more plausible number, he said, was 5.1 million. Was he “in denial”? Should he have been imprisoned along with others who offer even lower figures? What number is the cutoff, below which one goes to jail or commits a sin?

Mainstream historians have all sorts of different views about the alleged gas chambers and who may have died in them. Should those who hold less than maximalist views be imprisoned, or condemned for sinfulness, alongside those who see no convincing evidence for gas chambers at all?

Mainstream historians also hold widely varying views on whether there was a preconceived bureaucratic plan to kill all Jews within reach of the German government. Should those who argue for a more ad hoc Holocaust be incarcerated (or deemed guilty of mortal sin) alongside those who think that most of the roughly half-million Jews who died in the camps were victims of starvation and deprivation, not gas or bullets?

There is a plausible case that the German government committed genocide against Jews and gypsies during World War II. But all sorts of reasonable positions on the details of that genocide, if indeed it was one, have been criminalized. Though it is a crime in several European countries to discuss those details, calling it a sin seems a bit of a stretch.

Is Denying the Palestinian Genocide a Sin?

The genocide that is currently taking place in Occupied Palestine is one of the most fully-documented events in human history. It is being broadcast on social media and independent media (despite Israel’s relentless slaughter of journalists) 24/7/365. No reasonable person can doubt that the state of Israel is deliberately slaughtering Palestinian civilians en masse in order to facilitate its theft of their land and resources.

As I recently wrote for the next issue of American Free Press:

According to official body counts, Israel has killed about 42,000 people in Gaza during the past year. More than two-thirds of the dead are women and children, and most of the rest are noncombatants.

But the official body count is unrealistically low. It only includes identified bodies killed directly by the Israeli military. Thousands of other bodies remain buried in rubble, while others are excavated but not identified. And then there tens of thousands more whom Israel kills through starvation or deprivation. The Lancet, a leading medical journal, has estimated the real number of deaths in Gaza as over 186,000. Dr. Gideon Polya, an expert on avoidable mortality, thinks the total is even higher:

On 5 September 2024 Professor Devi Sridhar (chair, global health, University of Edinburgh) reported: “Total deaths since the conflict began would be estimated at about 335,500 in total” or 30,500 per month and 366,000 per year. Of these “first year” deaths about 55,000 were violent (from “bullets and bombs”) and 311,000 from horrific imposed deprivation.

By “horrific deprivation” Professor Sridhar is referring to Israel’s deliberate starvation of Gazans, its destruction of water and sewage infrastructure, and its obliteration of almost all of Gaza’s hospitals, clinics, and other medical facilities.

The USA and the West are indeed mired in what might be accurately called “genocide denial.” Most Americans and Westerners prefer to look the other way, deliberately averting their gaze from the sniper-murdered babies and whole families dying slowly beneath rubble created by American tax dollars.

That genocide denial is indeed a sin that puts them not only outside of all faith, but outside of all humanity.

(For the full article when it comes out, subscribe to American Free Press.)

October 20, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 4 Comments

Genocidal Jewish chaplains at UK universities

Press TV – October 20, 2024

The British Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, has announced a £7 million procurement process for anti-semitism training in schools, colleges and universities, where she claims there’s been a huge increase in anti-semitic incidents.

However, the statistics on which she’s relying have been provided by the Community Security Trust (CST), which has links to Israel’s overseas spy agency, Mossad.

The British government has announced that its response to the ongoing genocide in Palestine is that it will spend £7 million on tackling anti-semitism in education.

Meanwhile, the government has failed to earmark any money at all to tackle the epidemic of anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic racism whipped up by the Zionist movement.

َ£500,000 of the £7 million funding has been awarded to the University Jewish Chaplaincy, or UJC, for ‘welfare support’ for Jewish students in universities.

But what is the UJC, a kindly Jewish religious organization devoted to the welfare and spiritual needs of their students?

Unfortunately not, in fact, it’s a fully signed up Zionist organization with direct links to illegal settlements and to the genocidal occupation forces.

The UJC is a charity that is also a member of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council, JLC.

One of the directors of the UJC, Yuri Goldberg, was appointed a director of the JLC in August 2024.

Both groups are advocates of the genocidal ideology of Zionism, but perhaps the UJC is best known for its chaplain at Leeds University who was involved in the genocide in Gaza as a member of the occupation forces.

In October 2023 it emerged that he had been circulating videos of himself to Jewish students in Israeli occupation forces uniform, claiming: “No one could deny that Israel is dealing with this war with the utmost morality and good ethics”.

“What Israel is trying to do is destroy the evil, which is the most moral thing possible.”

It seems unlikely that this was conducive to the welfare of Jewish students at Leeds or elsewhere.

Zechariah Deutsch and his wife, Nava, the chaplaincy couple, had both trained for two years at Ohr Torah Stone’s Straus-Amiel Institute.

The Institute is located in Migdal Oz in the Gush Etzion settlement block in the West Bank. Ohr Torah Stone is an educational Zionist venture founded by Rabbi Shlomo Riskin in New York. He later became a settler colonist.

In November 2023, the president of Ohr Torah Stone, Riskin’s successor, Rabbi Kenneth Brander, visited the Zionist Northern Front. He was asked by the company commander to write a message to our enemies on one of the rockets used to retaliate to their attacks. In indelible black marker Brander wrote “To fulfill the mitzvah and mission of obliterating Amalek”.

Ohr Torah Stone is, in other words, a genocidal propaganda and indoctrination operation.

How the government imagines it will increase the welfare of Jewish students by giving money to genocidal Zionist extremists is unclear.

University Jewish Chaplaincy, links to illegal settlements and Israeli Occupation Forces

Leeds University is again the subject of outrage as the new chaplaincy couple are withdrawn from campus after shocking anti-Palestinian and Islamophobic posts were found on social media. The posts, mostly made by Sonia Pariente, included her view that Israeli lives were more valuable than those of Palestinians, referred to Palestinian women wearing black bags and to the Arabs of darkness.

“After October 7th I don’t differentiate between Hamas and so called Palestinians”, she wrote going on to say that “for the next 10 to 20 years, the Palestinian people will pay the bill that Hamas set today, and this bill will be paid in blood.”

Under pressure from pro-Palestine groups, the University Jewish Chaplaincy sacked them and removed their internet profile page.

The University Jewish Chaplaincy operates as a charity in the UK. It provides Jewish chaplains to universities up and down the country. Our investigations reveal that many have direct connections to illegal settlement and the occupation forces.

There are currently 17 individuals appointed in the UK, six couples and five individuals.

At Bristol, Asaf and Atara Forges are said to come from Israel, though both trained in the Straus Emil Institute of Ohr Torah Stone. This is the Gush Etzion settlement block run by an openly genocidal organization.

The Glasgow and Edinburgh chaplain, Eliran, trained at a yeshiva that is also run by Torah stone and included service in the occupation forces. His wife, Ayala Shabo, is from the illegal settlement of Efrat and attended Shalem College, in the occupied territory.

The chaplain at Nottingham, Uriya Dvir, attended two Yeshivas for a total of six years. Both were in illegal settlements. The Yeshivas combined Torah study and service in the occupation forces.

Rabbi Fishel Cohen at Birmingham is part of the genocidal Chabad cult, which believes it is justified to kill Palestinian children.

Unsurprisingly, the UJC is funded by a slew of hardline genocidal Zionists such as the convicted fraudster and founder of the Community Security Trust, Gerald Ronson, property developer David Dangoor, whose money is channeled via the Exilarch’s Foundation.

It also donates to the Islamophobic Henry Jackson society as does the Wolfson family, which owns the retailer ‘NEXT’.

The family has donated to Islamophobic think tanks, including Policy Exchange, and the Jerusalem Foundation which is directly involved in ethnic cleansing in Palestine.

The University Jewish Chaplaincy is a charity so these connections must raise questions about its ability to provide public benefit as required by law.

October 20, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

American Killed By Israeli Bombardment of Lebanon

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 6, 2024

Michigan man is one of more than one thousand people in southern Lebanon killed by Israel over the past two weeks. Israel has conducted massive bombardments of its northern neighbor, often using American weapons to perform the operations.

Kamel Ahmad Jawad was killed in southern Lebanon Tuesday morning, according to his family. He frequently made trips where he provided financial support and other assistance to the people of southern Lebanon.

Israel has ramped up its attacks in Lebanon over the past several weeks. Last month, Tel Aviv conducted multiple widespread terror attacks by planting explosives in small electric devices. Then, Israel killed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah after he accepted a ceasefire deal.

The assassination of Nasrallah kicked off a large-scale bombing campaign and a ground invasion of southern Lebanon. Israel has hit a number of civilian targets, often claiming some kind of Hezbollah assets were hidden in homes and other structures.

The State Department said it was “aware and alarmed” regarding Jawad’s death, but did not go on to condemn or threaten Tel Aviv for the murder.

Throughout the Joe Biden administration, there has been a distinct difference in reaction compared to when Americans are killed by Israel or if they are killed by a militant in a resistance group.

For example, the State Department regularly mentions the Americans who were killed and captured by Hamas on October 7 to justify the unlimited US support for Israel. However, when Israeli forces kill Americans, the White House allows Tel Aviv to investigate itself and accepts the often dubious results of the inquiry that absolves Israeli forces of any wrongdoing.

October 6, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , | 7 Comments

Reporters Without Borders’ Attack on Sputnik and RT Highlights NGO’s Status as ‘Media Wing of NATO’

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 30.09.2024

Reporters Without Borders has published a sensationalist report on Russian media’s work in the Balkans as part of a new project known as ‘The Propaganda Monitor’, accusing Sputnik and RT of spreading “disinformation” and demanding a crackdown by the EU. Balkan affairs expert Stevan Gajic tells Sputnik why such fearmongering doesn’t work on Serbs.

Reporters Without Borders’ (French acronym RSF) new ‘Propaganda Monitoring’ multimedia minisite promises to “promote reliable journalism” by exposing “the many faces and tactics behind propaganda worldwide, bolstering the public’s understanding of the information space and helping them navigate it more safely.”

Russian media, including Sputnik and RT, have become the self-anointed Paris-headquartered media watchdog’s first target, with RSF rolling out a series of articles on Russian media’s ability to find evade censorship, custom-tailor content, and in Serbia’s case, transmit so-called “Kremlin propaganda in the Balkans despite EU sanctions.”

RSF wants the European Union and its members to “hold Serbia accountable for hosting Vladimir Putin’s factory of lies,” spending much of its investigation complaining about Russian media’s refusal to answer its loaded questions, whining about its successes captivating local audiences, and crying about Serbia’s receptiveness to hosting Russian outlets.

“Reporters Without Borders cannot be regarded as a reliable source because every line in this report is soaked with biased language,” Belgrade-based Balkan affairs expert and Institute of European Studies research associate Stevan Gajic told Sputnik, commenting on RSF’s report.

“The motivation” behind RSF’s demands for a crackdown comes down to its status as “a media wing of NATO, a media wing of the collective West. This is a pure Freudian projection. They are accusing others of what they are doing themselves,” Gajic stressed.

“Where were Reporters Without Borders when Radio Television of Serbia was bombed in 1999 and when 16 TV staff were murdered in cold blood?” the observer asked, referencing the 78-day NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring of 1999. There is no credibility from people like this who did not act when they should have,” the observer recalled.

Narratives by RSF and others about Sputnik and RT being threats that need to be silenced have a clear end goal: “to nullify any kind of information coming from the other side to hush, to silence everybody who is not playing along NATO’s narrative. And this is especially a problem for NATO and for these puppet organizations, such as journalists with Reporters Without Borders, during times of war,” Gajic said.

As for RSF claims about RT’s spreading of “Kremlin narratives” in Serbia, Gajic emphasized that “pro-Russian sentiment amongst the Serbs has nothing to with the Kremlin, and everything to do with Washington and NATO.”

“Serbs are now more militantly pro-Russian because we were in a war against NATO and actually NATO was conducting and still is conducting hybrid aggression against us. I think that this speaks volumes about the falsehood of the presumptions and of the conclusions [made by RSF, ed.]. You can see how unrealistic and completely detached these people are from the reality, and how they are not really conducting deep research to see what is going on and how come,” Gajic said.

RSF’s conclusions are patently ridiculous, the observer suggested, highlighting the absurdity of “the presumption… that if it weren’t for RT and Sputnik, everybody, I guess in the Balkans and in Serbia and amongst the Serbs especially would be thrilled with the EU and NATO and so forth.”

“The new wave of the pro-Russian sentiment in Serbia was primarily created by the West. It was created by the West systematically targeting the Serbs for the last 30 years, since the moment of the breakdown of the bipolar global system” in place during the Cold War. Serbs became “the prime target,” a “Voodoo doll” for the West to “sting the Serbs in order for the Russians to feel pain,” according to Gajic.

“They were always demonstrating on us what they would like to do with Russia. That’s why many Serbs in the past said that all the wars we had with NATO and their proxies in the Balkans were actually just a preparation for a war that we are now seeing against Russia. That’s why I think the conclusion [of the RSF’s report, ed.] is false, because it comes from the presumption that if there were no ‘Russian propaganda’, quote-unquote, somehow people would feel different toward NATO.”

September 30, 2024 Posted by | Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | Leave a comment