My son tends to dismiss the idea of watching any film from before about say, the year 1990. Terrible special effects, he informs me, and just too old. As for anything in black and white … no, just, no. Why watch old stuff, it’s rubbish. The fool.
In science there also seems to be a tendency to think that things are constantly moving forward, building on what has gone before. Old research and ideas, become obsolete, and fade from memory. There is no need to look back. We can learn little, or nothing, from things we did a hundred or more years ago.
True? Let me take you back to a land that seems far away and long, long ago. A place where the sun was used as a powerful ‘medicine’. Patients with tuberculosis (TB), or those with non-healing wounds, or mental illness, and many other things. They were wheeled into solariums to make the most of the sun’s rays. Many hospitals had great big windows to let in sunlight.
Years ago I read a fascinating book on this called ‘The healing sun’ which looked at how the sun was used to treat many illnesses. Often with impressive results. It certainly awakened my interest in the area. And, because I have an obsessive interest in heart disease, I focussed on nitric oxide (NO), which is synthesised when the skin is exposed to the sun. [This is not the only way NO is created in the body, but it is important].
Nitric oxide is a molecule that is now understood to be critical for cardiovascular health, although it was not known to have any role a hundred years ago. Until recently it was not known to exist inside the body. in fact, the idea that such a highly reactive compound could have a positive role to play was considered bonkers. Super-reactive – and damaging.
I would like to point out that sunlight does many more things than create nitric oxide and, of course, vitamin D. Mostly good. With so many potential benefits why did the era of ‘solar treatment’ fade into darkness? I think it is almost entirely due to the arrival of antibiotics. A whole bunch of terrible infections, which killed so many millions became treatable – virtually overnight. Sunlight was no longer required, or so it appeared. We had a new solution. Faster, and more effective.
And then came the slow, but inexorable, one-hundred-and-eighty-degree turn. The sun began to be viewed as dangerous. From ‘healing sun’ to ‘bringer of death’. Has this been a good move? In my opinion, absolutely not. Let me show you a graph from a long-term study done in Sweden. It looks at probability of death, in three groups.
Those who avoid sun exposure.
Those with moderate sun exposure.
Those who actively sought out the sun1.
Over a twenty-year time period, those who actively sought the sun were ten per cent less likely to die – of anything, than those who avoided it. This was an absolute, not a relative risk.
On the basis of this study, sunlight would be considered a miracle drug. Everyone in the world urged to take it, every day, without fail. The pharmaceutical company with a patent for any such medicine would become rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. You would never hear the last of it.
I make this somewhat bold statement because there is no medication, nothing else at all, that comes close to this level of overall health benefit, and life extension. Nothing … at all. Stopping smoking would be almost as good, providing about eight to ten years of added life. But that is not really the same thing.
That paper was published ten years ago. A more recent one, from 2020, had pretty much exactly the same thing to say about sunlight. The title says it all, really:
‘Insufficient Sun Exposure Has Become a Real Public Health Problem.’
‘This article aims to alert the medical community and public health authorities to accumulating evidence on health benefits from sun exposure, which suggests that insufficient sun exposure is a significant public health problem.
Studies in the past decade indicate that insufficient sun exposure may be responsible for340,000 deaths in the United States and 480,000 deaths in Europe per year, and an increased incidence of breast cancer, colorectal cancer, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, asthma, type 1 diabetes and myopia.’ 2
Eight hundred and twenty thousand deaths a year … seems a lot. Their figures, not mine.
My own view is that the big bright thing up in the sky … Well, it has been shining down on all life forms – all of them on land at least – for five hundred million years – give or take. And for most of our existence, humans have spent the majority of daylight hours outside. Thus, from an evolutionary perspective, it is probably not a great idea to avoid the ‘giver of life’, as I now like to call it. We may be missing out on something, or several somethings, which are rather important.
Over the years, there have been many studies demonstrating that sun exposure is really important for our health and wellbeing. But none of them had the slightest effect … on anything. Instead, we are increasingly told to cower away in terror. In Australia, land of ‘slip slap and slop’, they are now creating massive sunshades around schools, so that children who dare to go outside and play will be protected from the sun at all times. Hoorah. Good job.
My previous blog was about disruptive science. An area where there has been a drastic contraction over the last fifty years. Why? Well, one of the main reasons is that disruptive science seems to have little, to no, effect. ‘My mind is made up, do not confuse me with the facts.’ Why bother going against the mainstream view when it achieves the square root of bugger all.
The mainstream view in this area is that sun exposure causes skin cancer. Which means that any discussion on potential benefit is shut down immediately. Yes, there is some robust research to show that fair skinned people, living in hot and sunny lands, are more likely to develop skin cancer.
However, the evidence that there is an increased risk from malignant melanoma is far from clear. There are many different forms of skin ‘cancer(s)’, and most are very easily spotted and easily treatable, and removed. Whilst unpleasant, most of these are not remotely life threatening.
Australia has been banging the ‘anti-sun’ drum for decades. To great effect?
In 1982, 596 people died of malignant melanoma.
In 2023 1,527 people died of malignant melanoma
That represents a 2.6-fold increase. In case you were wondering.
The population of Australia went up by 1.8-fold during the same time period. Although I am informed by Google AI that ‘The age-standardised mortality rate for malignant melanoma in Australia has generally remained stable or decreased over the last twenty years.’ You think?
I think 2.6 is a bigger number than 1.8. Thirty per-cent bigger. Yes, I know you can play statistical games to create ‘age-standardized’ rates, whereby 1.8 becomes a larger number than 2.6. ‘Bibbity bobbity boo.’ Or. ‘War is peace, freedom is slavery…etc.’
Leaving such, reality distorting statistical manipulation aside, there are many other diseases that you can die of including, let me think: breast cancer, colorectal cancer, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, metabolic syndrome, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, autism, asthma, type 1 diabetes …etc.
If you protect against one thing, but in so doing, increase the risk of many others, you have just done significantly far more harm than good. To look at just one of the other potential forms of death that sun exposure could protect us from – colorectal cancer:
Gorham et al examined five studies on association of serum 25(OH)D (vitamin D) and colorectal cancer risk. A meta-analysis indicated a 104% higher risk associated with serum 25(OH)D <30 nmol/L compared to >82 nmol/. 3
Malignant melanoma kills around two thousand five hundred people a year in the UK.
Colorectal cancer kills around seventeen thousand people a year in the UK.
This ratio of around one, to eight, is pretty much the same in most other countries. So, dear reader, which of these forms of cancer should you be more interested in preventing?
Simple sum here – assuming ‘best/worst case’ scenarios in either direction:
Malignant melanoma kills 2,500 per year. If avoiding the sun prevented this completely, we could save 2,500 lives.
Colorectal cancer (CRC) kills 17,500 per year. If avoiding the sun increases the risk of death by 104%, we have caused 18,200 excess deaths.
Would the figures change as dramatically as this? Almost certainly not, nowhere near. My figures represent a thought experiment. However, here is what Google AI informs me about colo-rectal cancer:
‘There’s a significant and concerning rise in bowel cancer among young people in the UK, with rates in those under 50 increasing by around 50% since the mid-1990s.’ This is a trend seen around the world. As for Australia. ‘Yes, there’s a significant and concerning rise in bowel cancer among young Australians (under 50), with Australia having the world’s highest rates for this age group.’
Highest rates of CRC in the country where sun exposure is dreaded more than any other? Has anyone even suggested sun exposure, or the lack of it, may play a role? Nope, complete and utter silence on the matter. Can’t even be mentioned, it seems.
Moving on from bowel cancer, I feel the need to make the point that the most significant impact on dying, if you avoid the sun, appears to be on heart disease. This kills 175,000 people each year in the UK. Reduce that number by one and half per-cent you will have saved as many lives as can possibly die of malignant melanoma. Logic, where art though?
How can the concern about one disease trump all others so completely? Primarily, I believe, it is because dermatologists have managed to gain dominance in the world of sun exposure, with their very simple message. ‘Sunshine damages the skin and causes skin cancer, and so it must be avoided at all costs.’
Focussing on one thing to the exclusion of all else is a cognitive bias known as the focusing effect/illusion. For a dermatologist malignant melanoma is their number one issue/disease. Any suggestion that the sun may be good for us is ruthlessly stomped on. ‘Your ideas are killing people’ is the normal line of attack – believe me, I know this line of attack well.
And the public have been convinced. And the medical profession has become convinced – as has almost everyone in the entire world. Try telling the average person that sun exposure is extremely good for you, and they look at you as if you were mad, bad, and dangerous to know.
I don’t find this type of concrete, straight line, focussed thinking, strange anymore. Over the years I have stumbled across many areas of medicine where bad ideas have taken hold, and simply cannot be shifted. Indeed, they only seem to strengthen under attack.
I have been banging on about saturated fat for decades. The evidence that saturated fat is bad for you has always been weak, to non-existent, to totally contradictory. Yet, and yet, the idea continues to hold sway over most of the population. With little sign that it is losing its grip. One day, perhaps, I can dream.
Salt … if there is any good evidence on this, it suggests that salt is good for you. But the idea that salt is harmful is also immovable, and unchanging. Evidence that it reduces life expectancy, there is none. And I mean … none.
So, what does it take to change thinking. If I knew how to sweep aside wrong ideas, I would have managed it by now. Disruptive science? Disruptive evidence? It is actually out there, but no-one pays much attention to it. In general, it is first mocked, then attacked, then dismissed.
Somehow, somehow, we have to think in different ways. I was going to say better ways, but that sounds a little on the elitest side. ‘I think better than you.’ When it comes to sunshine, it really isn’t difficult to change the thinking, is it?
I cannot find any evidence, anywhere, that it is anything other than extremely good for us. Ergo, hiding away from the sun is bad for us. One of the worst things we can possibly do, and it is also one of the easiest, and most pleasurable things, to rectify. Go out and sunbathe. [Yes, of course, I have to add, but do not burn. As if everyone in the world is a complete idiot that cannot understand even the simplest idea.]
But, but, but … instead, we have all been – made to be – terrified of skin cancer. A condition which kills very few people each year. It seems impossible to move the thinking beyond this barrier … bonkers. And very harmful indeed.
In my next blog on disruptive science, I will look again at sunshine, from a different perspective, including the question. Does it actually increase the risk of malignant melanoma?
The Western-spun fake image of Finland as a peaceful nation reluctantly dragged into wartime alliances is a “deliberately constructed myth,” Bair Irincheev, historian and director of the Karelian Isthmus Military Museum, tells Sputnik.
Immediately after gaining independence in 1918, the Finnish leadership launched an attack on Soviet Russia with clear economic goals, notes Bair Irincheev.
The failed attempt to annex Eastern Karelia was “straightforward expansionism—an attempt to seize forest-rich territories.”
For Finland in those years, timber was veritable ‘green gold’, and “whatever was said about tribal brotherhood and similar things, the primary motives were economic,” the pundit states bluntly.
Programmed Partnership in Hitler’s War
Finland was already integrated into Hitler’s Operation Barbarossa before the Great Patriotic War, and its entry into the war in 1941 was “pre-planned,” says Irincheev.
Finland’s leadership believed Europe was being completely redrawn, and chose to pursue the idea of a ‘Greater Finland’ alongside the Nazis.
Under the official pretext of merely reclaiming lost territory, Finnish forces crossed the 1920 border and occupied parts of the Karelian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Leningrad Region, advancing almost to the Vologda Region, he recalls.
“No one forced Finland in 1941 to let German troops onto its soil for an offensive on Murmansk. That was a deliberate decision by Finland’s top leadership,” points out the pundit.
Siege of Leningrad & Shattered ‘Humane’ Myth
Everything Finland did during WWII as an unofficial ally of Nazi Germany “demolishes” the notion of a reluctant, defensive warring side, according to the history pundit.
When Finnish forces launched their offensive in the summer of 1941, they broke through Soviet defenses on the Karelian Isthmus, captured Vyborg, and halted at the main line of the Karelian fortified zone.
In doing so, the Finnish army “became an active participant in the blockade of Leningrad from the north,” underscores the historian, noting that it “had the technical capability to shell Kronstadt.”
The high – roughly 30% – mortality rate among Soviet prisoners of war and the Slavic civilian population interned by the Finns in concentration camps dispels the myth of a supposedly “benevolent” Finland, according to the historian.
After invading Russia together with Nazi Germany in 1941, Finland showed no mercy to the civilians in the Russian territories occupied by their troops.
Russians, regardless of their age and sex, were robbed of their possessions and herded into prison camps.
The exact number of Russian civilians who perished in Finnish prison camps during WWII is difficult to establish, because Finland never really kept track of the deaths – for Finnish invaders, Russian lives simply did not matter.
Historical Pattern Informing the Present
Finland’s relations with Russia today are effectively destroyed — and Finland itself bears responsibility for that, says the analyst.
The country portrays itself as having emerged victorious from every conflict: the 1939–1940 war, despite losing 10% of its territory and its second-largest city, and the 1941–1944 war as well.
“Finland’s current leadership appears to be revisiting the 1941 scenario, hoping for revenge and access to resources,” speculates the expert, adding that this logic underpins Finland’s NATO accession and its frenzied militarization.
We’re so pleased you found us. Or rather, that we found you, though you may not remember exactly how it happened. Perhaps you mentioned sadness that lasted more than two weeks. Perhaps you admitted to worry. Perhaps a teacher noticed your child had too much energy, or not enough, or the wrong kind at the wrong time. No matter. You’re here now. That’s what counts.
First, let us assure you: this is not your fault. You have a condition. A real, medical condition, confirmed by a checklist, validated by a billing code, and now officially part of your permanent record. You’re not weak. You’re not broken. You’re sick. Doesn’t that feel better already?
We know you may have once believed that your suffering had meaning. That grief was love’s receipt. That anxiety was wisdom trying to speak. That your child’s wildness was life itself looking for room to move. We’ve heard all of this before. We’ve noted it in your file. It falls under “Resistance to Treatment” and “Poor Insight,” both of which, interestingly, are also symptoms. But here’s what science has discovered: feelings that persist are symptoms. Experiences that disrupt are disorders. And the body’s ancient signaling system, the one that kept your ancestors alive long enough to produce you? A chemical error. Fortunately, we now have chemicals to fix the chemicals. You’re welcome.
What You’ve Gained
As a member of our industry, you now have access to:
A name for what’s wrong with you (selected from our current catalog)
Medications clinically proven to reduce the intensity of being alive
A support team who will monitor your progress toward feeling less
Periodic check-ins to adjust dosage based on how much of yourself remains
You may notice some changes. Colors may seem less vivid. Music may stop reaching you the way it once did. Orgasms may become a memory you’re not sure you’re remembering correctly. These are signs the treatment is working. Please do not confuse returning aliveness for wellness. That feeling you had before, the one that brought you here, that was the disease.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long will I need treatment? Most patients require lifelong management. Think of it like insulin, except for your soul.
What if I feel worse? This is common. It means we haven’t found the right combination yet. Stay the course. There are many options. We can always add more.
What if I want to stop? We’d ask you to examine that impulse carefully. The desire to feel your feelings again is often a sign of relapse. Your brain has been corrected. Going back now would be like choosing disease.
Can I ever be cured? We don’t use that word. But with compliance, you can achieve something even better: symptom management with minimal breakthrough emotion.
Share Your Journey
Now that you have a diagnosis, it’s time to tell the world.
Post it. Pin it to your bio. Add it to your Instagram highlights. Change your Twitter handle. You are no longer just a person with a name. You are a person with a condition, and conditions deserve visibility.
Use the hashtags. Join the communities. Find your tribe. You’ll discover thousands of others just like you, sharing their medication selfies, their symptom lists, their before-and-after stories. You will be seen. You will be validated. Strangers will leave heart emojis beneath your pain. Isn’t that what healing looks like?
Don’t be shy. Vulnerability is currency now. The more you share, the more you belong. And if anyone questions your diagnosis, remember: that’s stigma. Block them. They are part of the problem.
Your disorder is your story. Your story is your brand. Your brand is your identity. And your identity, as we’ve discussed, is permanent.
So go ahead. Tell everyone. We’ll be here when you get back.
A Note on Gratitude
You’re lucky, you know. In another era, you might have been told to sit with it. To feel your way through. To let grief crack you open. To treat your anxiety as a messenger rather than a malfunction. You might have been surrounded by people instead of professionals. You might have been asked what happened to you rather than what’s wrong with you.
But you live now. And we have built an entire world to catch you. Billboards. Commercials. Sponsored content. Quizzes that always confirm what you already suspected. Doctors with ten minutes and a prescription pad. Pharmacies on every corner. A pipeline so smooth you’ll barely notice you’re inside it.
We’ve made it so easy. Your insurance covers it. Your employer encourages it. Your friends will understand. And someday, when you’re sitting in a room, feeling very little, wondering if something got lost along the way, you can comfort yourself with this: at least you weren’t difficult.
Welcome to the industry.
We’re so glad you’re ours.
Warmly,
The Psychiatric Industry
P.S. If this letter has stirred any strong feelings, please contact your provider immediately.
In May 2000, at a Workshop on Aluminum in Vaccines held in Puerto Rico, Dr. Michael Gerber from the National Institutes of Health posed a question to Dr. Norman Baylor of the Food and Drug Administration. The exchange, preserved in the workshop transcript, deserves to be read in full:
Dr. Gerber: “The standard of 0.85 milligrams of aluminum per dose set forth in the Code of Federal Regulations—can you tell us where that came from and how that was determined?”
Dr. Baylor: “Unfortunately, I could not. I mean, we have been trying to figure that out. We have been trying to figure that out as far going back in the historical records and determining how they came up with that and going back to the preamble to the regulation. We just have been unsuccessful with that but we are still trying to figure that out.”
A senior FDA official publicly admitted the agency could not explain the basis for its own regulation on aluminum content in vaccines. This was not a fringe question posed by an outsider. It came from an NIH official at an official government workshop. And the FDA’s answer was that they had searched their historical records and come up empty.
That was twenty-five years ago. In the intervening decades, the 0.85 mg limit has remained unchanged. It continues to govern vaccines administered to infants, children, and adults worldwide. And the question of where it came from—the foundational safety studies that would justify exposing newborns to this amount of injected aluminum—has never been answered.
Until now, no one had followed the documentary trail that regulators themselves claimed existed.
The Documents That Exist
In 2025, a team of French researchers—Loïc Angrand, Romain K. Gherardi, and Guillemette Crépeaux—published the results of a detailed investigation into the regulatory history of aluminum limits in vaccines. Their paper, appearing in Environmental Toxicology and Pharmacology, traces the documentary trail that regulatory agencies had apparently never followed.
The researchers began with the 2011 Federal Register, where they found this statement: “The aluminum content per dose in the formulation of a licensed biological product, as specified in § 610.15(a), reflects the NIH Minimum Requirements for Diphtheria Toxoid (1947) and Tetanus Toxoid (1952).”
These two documents—the 1947 and 1952 NIH Minimum Requirements—are the foundational texts cited as the basis for current aluminum limits. The researchers set out to obtain them.
A Freedom of Information Act request (Case Number 63550) was submitted to NIH and the National Library of Medicine in February 2025, requesting copies of these documents. On March 7, 2025, the NLM responded: “The NLM and Office of NIH History and Stetten Museum searched its files and no records responsive to your request were located.”
The recommendation was to check with the FDA History Office, “as the Department of Biological Standards became the FDA.” When contacted, the FDA’s Foreign Regulatory Communications Coordinator replied: “I was unable to find the information that you are seeking. You may be able to obtain the requested documents by submitting a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the National Institutes of Health (NIH).”
A circular response: NIH directing them to FDA, FDA directing them back to NIH.
Eventually, after persistent efforts, the researchers obtained both documents from the FDA—8 pages and 19 pages respectively.
What the Documents Actually Say
The analysis of these foundational texts reveals something straightforward: they are not about aluminum safety. They are not about aluminum toxicity. They are about manufacturing diphtheria and tetanus toxoids.
The 1947 document on diphtheria toxoid and the 1952 document on tetanus toxoid describe composition, production methods, and quality criteria for the toxoids themselves. They address cultivation techniques, detoxification using formaldehyde, identity tests, and sterility requirements.
The only reference to general safety testing describes a brief animal observation: “A safety test shall be made on the contents of a final container… The parenteral injection… shall cause neither significant symptoms nor death. At least 2 animals of each species are used and the observation period is not less than 7 days.”
Seven days. Two animals per species. This is the extent of safety testing described in the documents that supposedly establish safe aluminum limits for human infants.
On the subject of aluminum itself, the documents contain a single relevant statement: “In all instances the amount of aluminum used shall be the minimum needed to accomplish the purpose intended.”
This is a statement about efficacy—using enough aluminum to achieve the desired immune response—not about the maximum amount that can be safely injected. The documents do not evaluate aluminum toxicity. They do not establish a toxicological threshold. They do not consider cumulative exposure, developmental windows, or long-term effects.
The researchers’ conclusion is direct: “Neither document discusses Al toxicity.”
From Efficacy Limit to “Safety Standard”
The historical record allows us to trace how an efficacy-based recommendation became encoded as regulatory law and eventually treated as a validated safety threshold.
In 1966, a Canadian study referenced allowances by British, Canadian, and American regulators for 15 mg of potassium alum per dose of toxoid—corresponding to 0.85 mg of elemental aluminum. This amount was derived from data on immunological effectiveness, not toxicological safety.
In 1968, the NIH codified this figure in the Federal Register, stating that an adjuvant “shall not contain more than 0.85 milligrams of aluminum.”
In 1972, regulatory authority over biological products transferred from NIH to FDA. The maximum aluminum levels remained unchanged.
In 1981, the FDA aligned regulations with World Health Organization standards for hepatitis B vaccines, maintaining the 0.85 mg limit while permitting up to 1.25 mg in certain circumstances with approval.
The 2011 Federal Register explicitly cited the 1947 and 1952 NIH documents as the basis for current standards—the same documents that, as we now know, contain no toxicological evaluation of aluminum.
At no point in this seven-decade regulatory history did anyone conduct or cite studies establishing safe thresholds for injected aluminum in humans. The limit was set based on what worked immunologically. It was transferred between agencies. It was aligned with international standards. And it came to be treated as a safety benchmark—a threshold below which harm is assumed not to occur.
Two years after Baylor’s admission that the FDA could not explain the origin of the 0.85 mg standard, he co-authored a paper with two other FDA officials stating: “The amount of 15 mg of alum or 0.85 mg aluminum per dose was selected empirically from data that demonstrated that this amount of aluminum enhanced the antigenicity and effectiveness of the vaccine.”
Selected empirically for efficacy. Not derived from toxicological studies. Not validated for safety. The FDA itself acknowledges the standard was set based on what boosted immune response, not on what was proven safe to inject.
The Studies That Were Never Conducted
The absence of foundational safety studies is not merely a historical artifact. It reflects an ongoing gap that regulatory agencies have acknowledged but never filled.
In 2015, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published a paper examining cumulative and episodic vaccine aluminum exposure in young children. The paper, led by Jason Glanz, contained a remarkable admission: there was “complete absence, in children as well as in adults, of population-based studies on the long-term tolerance” of aluminum-based adjuvants.
The CDC was not claiming such studies had been conducted and showed safety. They were acknowledging such studies had never been done—while demonstrating that the data to conduct them existed.
In 2019, FOIA requests were submitted to both NIH and CDC asking for “copies of any human or animal studies involving the subcutaneous or intramuscular injection of aluminum adjuvant relied upon by the NIH to establish the safety of injecting infants and children with aluminum hydroxide, aluminum phosphate or amorphous aluminum hydroxyphosphate sulfate.”
The NIH response: “The NIH Office of Intramural Research (OIR), National Institute of Allergies and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) searched their files and no records responsive to your request were located.”
The CDC and Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry response: “A search of [the agency’s] records failed to reveal any documents pertaining to your request.”
No records. From either agency. For studies establishing the safety of a practice that has continued for a century.
What Happens When Someone Runs the Study
The rarity of proper safety studies makes the exceptions worth examining closely.
In 2010, Chinese researchers published a large multicenter, double-blind, randomized trial comparing anti-H1N1 vaccines with and without aluminum hydroxide, alongside an aluminum-free placebo. This study—involving 12,961 participants—represents the only major trial to have included a true neutral placebo when evaluating aluminum-adjuvanted vaccines.
The results were unambiguous. Across all tested antigen doses, the vaccine containing aluminum produced significantly more adverse events than both the placebo and the same vaccine formulated without aluminum. The methodologist Peter Gøtzsche calculated from this data that aluminum-based adjuvant increased the frequency of severe adverse events by 2.5 to 3 times.
The study had limitations—it observed participants for only three days after each dose and therefore could not assess long-term or cumulative effects. But within its observational window, it demonstrated measurable harm attributable specifically to the aluminum adjuvant.
This finding stands largely alone. The standard practice in vaccine trials is to use aluminum-containing solutions as “placebos”—a methodology that renders the specific effects of aluminum invisible by comparison. When both test and control groups receive aluminum, any adverse effects common to both will not appear as a signal.
Dr Christopher Exley, a leading aluminum researcher, has argued that aluminum adjuvants should not be used as placebos in clinical trials for precisely this reason: it eliminates the baseline needed to detect adjuvant-specific harms.
The predictable response to concerns about injected aluminum is comparison to dietary intake—the argument that 0.85 mg is trivial relative to what we consume in food and water. This comparison is pharmacokinetically meaningless. Ingested aluminum passes through the gastrointestinal tract, where the vast majority is excreted without absorption. Injected aluminum bypasses this barrier entirely, entering tissue directly as particulate matter that immune cells engulf and transport throughout the body, including to the brain. These are not equivalent exposures.
In 2022, a systematic review pooled 102 randomized controlled trials comparing aluminum adjuvants to placebo or no intervention. The conclusion: serious adverse events may be increased, with a risk ratio of 1.18—but the evidence was graded “very low certainty” and the trials were underpowered to detect rare harms. After nearly a century of use in billions of doses, the best available meta-analysis cannot determine whether aluminum adjuvants cause serious harm. The authors of that review did not frame this as reassuring. They framed it as uncertainty. The field has simply never produced the high-quality, adequately powered trials that would be standard for any other long-term injected product.
In Alice Through the Looking-Glass, a character by Lewis Carroll says, “One can’t believe impossible things,” to which the White Queen replies, “When I was your age, I sometimes believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Like Alice’s White Queen, European and Spanish authorities want us to believe six impossible things about climate change and the energy transition, before and after breakfast. These six impossible things to believe — and yet many people, like the White Queen, do believe them — are as follows:
The first is believing that humans have — or could have in the near future — some degree of control over the climate and the weather, and that through our actions we can reduce the frequency and intensity of hurricanes, floods, droughts, or sea-level rise. Anyone who believes this is capable of believing anything.
The second is believing that the climate, in its extraordinary complexity with hundreds — perhaps thousands — of variables, is controlled by just one: changes in the concentration of greenhouse gases. The theory and models that propose this are based on a good understanding of the properties of CO₂, but a poor understanding of the other climatic variables. And the fact that no solid evidence for this theory has emerged, despite decades of intensive searching, makes it very difficult to believe.
The third is believing that an energy transition is taking place or will take place. There are no examples of energy transitions. We use more biomass, coal, oil, natural gas, and uranium than at any other time in history, and we are simply adding the so-called renewable energies, which are installed, maintained, and replaced thanks to hydrocarbon fuels. Our energy use is growing faster than our capacity to install renewable energy. The transition is a myth, and anyone who claims to believe in it is either lying or poorly informed.
The fourth is believing that the use of hydrocarbon fuels is going to be abandoned. At the recent climate conference in Brazil, a group of countries, including Spain, pushed for the agreement to include a roadmap for abandoning those fuels. They were forced to back down, and hydrocarbon fuels are not even mentioned in the final agreement. Eighty-three governments supported that roadmap, but together they represent only 13.6% of the world’s population. The remaining 86.4% shows no intention of abandoning the source from which the human species obtains 85% of its external energy.
It is impossible to believe that such an abandonment will take place because, 33 years after the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and 10 years after the Paris Agreement, support among nations for abandoning hydrocarbon fuels has decreased rather than increased.
The fifth is believing that a reduction in global CO₂ emissions will occur. These emissions are linked to human development and population growth. Many regions of the planet remain underdeveloped, and the world’s population will continue to grow in the coming decades. Since the first climate conference in Berlin in 1995, where strict emission-reduction commitments were adopted — but only for “developed” nations — global CO₂ emissions have increased by 70%. These 30 years should be enough to convince anyone that they are not going to stop rising.
The sixth is believing that energy can be decarbonized. Only 23% of the EU’s final energy consumption is electricity, and only 70% of that electricity comes from carbon-free sources. One third of it comes from nuclear energy, which Spain rejects and which was installed in the last century. So far this century, the EU has managed to decarbonize less than 10% of the energy it uses. Most of the planet is not even trying.
These six things are impossible to believe, but if we refuse to believe even just one of them, the entire climate and energy strategy of the European Union and the Spanish government is revealed as a tragic farce. Based on these impossibilities, our national and European governments have committed themselves to a transition whose consequences we are already suffering: more expensive energy, declining industrial production and competitiveness, increased risk to the power grid, environmental policies with tragic consequences, greater indebtedness, and, ultimately, an accelerated decline of Europe relative to the rest of the world.
This article was published on 23 December 2025 at libertaddigital.com.
(Translated from Spanish for Climate Intelligence (Clintel) by Tom van Leeuwen. Clintel is an independent foundation informing people about climate change and climate policies.)
Javier Vinós holds a PhD in science, is a scientist, an independent climate researcher, and president of the Asociación de Realistas Climáticos (Association of Climate Realists).
On December 26th, the Zionist entity recognised Somaliland – historic Somalian territory that has claimed independence since 1991 – as a state, the first country in the world to do so. The move sparked widespread outcry and international condemnation, with the African Union demanding it be revoked. Undeterred, Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar visited Hargeisa on January 6th, signing a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in multiple areas, including ‘defence’. President Abdirahman Mohamed Abdullahi hailed the visit as a “historic milestone” in Somaliland’s quest for international legitimacy.
These developments are of significant concern to Somaliland’s neighbours throughout the Horn of Africa, with which the statelet has extremely strained relations, that have boiled over into all-out conflict on numerous occasions over decades. Fears are understandably widespread an Israeli – if not accompanying US – military presence locally will embolden breakaway authorities to intensify their belligerence, and seize contested territory claimed by both Hargeisa and Somalia. But grave anxieties are also felt throughout West Asia.
Speculation has long-swirled that Somaliland is viewed as a potential dumping ground for Gaza’s population by the US and “Israel”, to clear the way for further Zionist settlement and Palestine’s total erasure. Recognition appears to be a move in that monstrous direction. Moreover, in November 2025, the highly influential Tel Aviv-based Institute for National Security Studies published a paper explicitly stating Somaliland was “an ideal candidate” for “strategic” cooperation, in service of numerous geopolitical and military objectives. Chief among them, a “future campaign” against Yemen’s Ansar Allah.
Throughout the Gaza genocide, Ansar Allah (God’s Partisans) have stood defiant in their defence of the Palestinian people. This has included direct strikes into the heart of the Zionist entity with drones and hypersonic missiles, and a blockade of the Red Sea. The latter effort endured for almost two years, causing immense disruption to global trade and crippling “Israel’s” ports, to the extent of outright closure. Along the way, Ansar Allah resoundingly defeated two grand Anglo-American air and naval efforts to regain control of the Sea.
The INSS paper noted Somaliland’s geographical position offers the Zionist entity “potential access to an operational area close to the conflict zone.” Put simply, an Israeli military presence in the would-be country would make striking AnsarAllah considerably easier in a future war. Entity military and political officials have for months made clear they have not jettisoned reveries of crushing the Resistance, despite the embarrassing failure of Tel Aviv’s 12-day-long broadside against Iran in June 2025.
Nonetheless, there may be other motivations underpinning “Israel’s” recognition of Somaliland – for the territory has long been a subject of literal religious fascination for Zionists. In 1943, the Harrar Council was founded in New York to pursue the dream of Hermann Fuernberg, who fantasised for years about forging a “permanent home for a large Jewish population” in “Harrar” – land spanning Ethiopia and then-British Somaliland. World War II provided Fuernberg and his adherents an ideal opportunity to put their plan into action – or so they thought.
The Council had high hopes of success. First and foremost, Ethiopia’s Emperor Haile Selassie was supposedly a “descendant of the House of David,” and “successor of King Solomon.” The sense the organisation believed God was on their side is writ large in private communications with the monarch. Jewish scripture stating “the Diaspora will come to an end when Jews enter the Land of Cush” is repeatedly cited. The Council elaborated, “Cush is no other than Ethiopia, of which Harrar forms a part.”
‘Heroic Achievements’
The Harrar Council is largely forgotten today, the only vestiges of its existence are correspondence between its representatives and British, Ethiopian, and US officials. The little-known material contains a number of extraordinary insights, not merely into the ultimately failed project itself, but Zionist settlement of Palestine, and how the repulsive colonial ideology of Zionism grew from a niche political project into a dominant force within Judaism.
Some of the most incendiary excerpts can be found in a pamphlet authored by Hermann Fuernberg in early 1943, The Case Of European Jews. Repeated reference is made throughout to the urgent necessity of resolving the “Jewish problem” once World War II was over, and how the Holocaust had significantly strengthened arguments for the creation of a Jewish state. However, Fuernberg was critical of the Zionist colonial movement for its exclusive focus on Palestine as a destination:
“The Zionist program has as its goal the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine and the regeneration – cultural, political and religious – of the Jewish people within the framework of this Palestinian state. Their extensive program is so set they cannot deviate from it to take account of current events and urgent problems. Thus, Zionism believes that every attempt at collective emigration which Jews may undertake on a non-Zionist basis may easily damage the Zionist cause and therefore the Zionists oppose all such attempts.”
Fuernberg noted, Adolf Hitler’s ascent to power in Germany “gave Zionism… a great increase of strength,” boosting “both legal and illegal” immigration to Palestine. However, this led to “increasing resistance… to Jewish immigration (infiltration)” locally – “not only from the Arab world.” In particular, ever-increasing Zionist demands for further territory, including lands belonging to nearby states such as Jordan, arrayed international opinion against the settler colonial project. In practical terms too, due to its size and existing population, Palestine was unable to “absorb” the world’s Jews in entirety.
While hailing Zionism’s “many admirable and heroic achievements,” Fuernberg lamented how the ideology “has not been able to convert to its side the great mass of the Jewish people,” despite “40 years of propaganda”. While US Jews provided “the bulk of the funds” for Palestine’s colonisation, and “80% of the Jewish press is Zionist dominated,” Stateside Zionist organisations boasted meagre memberships, representing a tiny percentage of the world’s Jewish population. Nazi rule in Germany had failed to shift this needle significantly outside Europe.
In the same four-decade-long period, “Zionists were able to build a number of quasi-political organizations, which… assumed greater importance” for Jews in lieu of alternative movements opposing Hitler. Despite their putative clout though, “these organizations had never been capable of arousing even among their own adherents sufficient political understanding… so as to make the cry for a Jewish state the united demand of a whole people.” Vast sums reaped by these entities was provided out of “charity and piety”, not support for the Zionist colonial project.
‘Equitable Proportion’
So it was in early 1944, the Harrar Council, led by Fuernberg, submitted a detailed proposal to Ethiopia’s Emperor on establishing a “permanent home for a large Jewish population” in his country, and neighbouring Somaliland. In an accompanying letter to the US State Department, the organisation spelled out the perceived benefits of this land grab. For one, the proposed territory was “large enough to accommodate the very large number of Jews, whose emigration from Europe will become inevitable in the near future.”
Furthermore, “climatic conditions are such that fruit, grain and vegetables grown in Europe can also be grown in Harrar, thus assuring favorable living conditions for a people emanating from Central Europe.” Best of all, “the territory is very sparsely populated, so that the political and racial obstacles to a free development found elsewhere” – ie Palestine “are not likely to arise.” Fuernberg stressed to US officials, “our project is in no way a rival to Palestine,” but instead complemented the settler colonial project.
In submissions to Ethiopia’s Emperor, the Council made a number of bold pledges. All Jews settling in Harrar Province would “swear allegiance to Your Majesty,” the territory’s “internal affairs” would be administered by an elected governing body and “governor-royal or viceroy,” English would be the colony’s official language, and the Emperor would “be entitled to an agreed equitable proportion of certain taxes to be levied… an income which will increase with the growth of the industrial and cultural life of the province.”
It was promised Harrar’s imported population would be “law-abiding, orderly and loyal citizens,” inspired by the “autonomy and the possibility of free development” granted by Ethiopian authorities. Palestine was cited as “an excellent example” of how Jews could “build up an agricultural and colonial settlement and to develop it successfully.” This would greatly “enrich” Ethiopia, offering “vast markets for the products of your land and stimulate the development of its natural resources.”
The Council signed off, “if a harassed and persecuted people can be turned into a happy and prosperous community, the whole of Ethiopia will thereby also be enriched and Your Majesty will rightly be regarded as one of the great benefactors of humanity.” In secret discussions with the State Department, the organisation bragged it had “reason to believe” the Emperor was “favorably inclined towards the Jewish people,” and there was “a fair probability that he will be willing to cooperate to a large extent.”
However, this was not to be. In July 1944, the Emperor’s subordinates politely informed the Council that while Ethiopia had eagerly “afforded asylum to many refugees from Europe,” authorities rejected any suggestion “an entire province” be given to “one group of refugees.” Resultantly, the Emperor demanded “the proposal…be now abandoned.” There is no indication that the British government was possessed of such opposition. Now, over 80 years later, the Harrar Council’s designs are on the verge of becoming reality.
With Trump’s recent regime change in Venezuela , the subject of American regime change is back in the mainstream conversation.
This marks the perfect time to note that the long-running hybrid regime change war on Venezuela is not unique to the country and is a repeat of similar regime change campaigns that Washington has unleashed around the world.
In this article, I will review the recent history of U.S. regime change operations.
Reshaping The Middle East
In 1996, Benjamin Netanyahu was elected as Prime Minister of Israel, and a group of American Zionist Neo-conservatives came up with a plan sent to him to have Israel dominate the Middle East.
These Neo-conservatives such as, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, laid out this plan in a letter sent to the newley elected Benjamin Netanyahu titled, “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” which called for him to abandon the prospect of a two state solution and instead overthrow governments in the Middle East that were seen as too sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, first and foremost though, “removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq — an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right”.
When George W. Bush was elected president of the United States in 2000, many of the authors of this document filled up high ranks in his administration, Richard Perle was “A key advisor to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld”, Douglas Feith was, “Under Secretary of Defense for Policy from July 2001 until August 2005” and David Wurmser was “Middle East Adviser to then US Vice President Dick Cheney”.
After 9/11, these Neo-cons saw it as the perfect opportunity to carry out the “important Israeli strategic objective” of overthrowing Saddam Hussien.
The Pentagon created a Office of Special Plans, which funnelled fabricated intelligence from the U.S’s Iraq puppet Ahmad Chalabi, and a secret rump unit created by then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, which falsely claimed that Saddam Hussein was connected to Al Qaeda and had weapons of mass destruction.
Similarly, the UK’s Prime Minister, Tony Blair fabricated intelligence claiming Iraq had WMDS and spread the claim through a dossier, despite the fact- as the British Chilcot report later found- “the original reports said that intelligence was ‘sporadic and patchy’ and ‘remains limited’ and that ‘there was very little intelligence relating to Iraq’s chemical warfare programme’”, all of which was left out of the UK dossier.
Based on this mass fabrication, the U.S. and UK launched a criminal invasion of Iraq in 2003 and removed the Saddam Hussein-led regime, which killed 1.03 million people by 2008.
For the U.S, Israel, and the UK, this regime change war was only the beginning of a grander plan to “reshape the Middle East” through regime change.
The U.S. General Wesley Clark said that after 9/11, when he went to the Pentagon and met with “Secretary Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz” he learned they came up with a plan to, “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, and, finishing off, Iran.”
Clark later revealed that this plan came from a study which was “paid for by the Israelis” which expanded on the clean break document, saying, “if you want to protect Israel, and you want Israel to succeed… you’ve got to get rid of the states that are surrounding”.
The plan was later continued by the Obama administration when the Arab Spring protests erupted across the Middle East, to carry out the already planned regime change in Libya and Syria.
To take out Libya’s leader, Muammar Gaddafi, the Obama administration organized a bogus humanitarian intervention through NATO, claiming that Gaddafi was about to slaughter civilians.
Based on this false claim, the U.S. and allied NATO states intervened in Libya and bombed the way for “rebels” to take out Muammar Gaddafi.
But in 2015, a UK Parliament Inquiry into the regime change operation found that the claim Muammar Gaddafi was massacring civilians was fabricated, writing, “The Gaddafi regime had retaken towns from the rebels without attacking civilians in early February 2011”, and “The disparity between male and female casualties suggested that Gaddafi regime forces targeted male combatants in a civil war and did not indiscriminately attack civilians”.
It added, “the proposition that Muammar Gaddafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence”.
Furthermore, it noted that the rebel force backed by NATO, which was presented as moderate and pro-democracy, in reality was largely made up of, “militant Islamist militias” including branches of Al Qaeda and ISIS.
The regime change in Libya, was used by the U.S. advance the next regime change war in Syria.
Following the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, journalist Seymour Hersh reported that the CIA established a rat line to, “funnel weapons and ammunition from Libya via southern Turkey and across the Syrian border to the opposition” adding, “Many of those in Syria who ultimately received the weapons were jihadists, some of them affiliated with al-Qaida”.
The CIA’s rat line to Al-Qaida linked rebels fighting the Bashar Al Assad regime eventually turned into a CIA program to arm the rebels directly, dubbed Timber Sycamore which the New York Times called, “one of the costliest covert action programs in the history of the CIA” and “one of the most expensive efforts to arm and train rebels since the agency’s program arming the mujahideen in Afghanistan during the 1980s”.
According to the Washington Postin 2015 , Timber Sycamore was, “one the agency’s largest covert operations, with a budget approaching $1 billion a year.”
A declassified State Department cable from 2015 revealed the real reason for the operation, writing, “A new Syrian regime might well be open to early action on the frozen peace talks with Israel. Hezbollah in Lebanon would be cut off from its Iranian sponsor since Syria would no longer be a transit point for Iranian training, assistance and missiles” and “Iran would be strategically isolated, unable to exert its influence in the Middle East” adding, “America can and should help them (Syrian rebels) – and by doing so help Israel”.
Following the CIA regime change program- as the U.S. Pentagon official Dana Stroul, boasted -the U.S. placed crushing sanctions on Syria and occupied one third of the country military which was the “economic powerhouse of Syria” with the intention of keeping Syria in “rubble” in hopes it would lead to regime change, a plan that eventually came through in late 2024, when CIA backed rebels overthrew Bashar Al Assad.
Turning Ukraine Into A U.S. Proxy
Another major U.S. regime change project was the overthrow of Ukraine’s neutral, elected president, Viktor Yanukovych, to turn Ukraine into a U.S. proxy to be used to fight Russia.
The U.S., through USAID and NED, funded groups like New Citizen, which organized protests against Viktor Yanukovych in late 2013.
Once the protests were underway, they were overtaken by far-right extremist groups, including Right Sector and the Svoboda party, who eventually overthrew Yanukovych in a violent coup backed by the U.S. over false claims that Viktor Yanukovych massacred protestors in Maidan Square.
After the coup, the U.S. senator Chris Murphy, who went to Ukraine during the coup, admitted on C-Span, “With respect to Ukraine, we have not sat on the sidelines; we have been very much involved. Members of the Senate have been there, members of the state department that have been there on the (Maidan) square. The Obama administration passed sanctions, the Senate was prepared to pass its own set of sanctions, and as I said, I really think the clear position of the United States has been in part what has led to this change in regime. I think it was our role, including sanctions and threats of sanctions, that forced, in part, Yanukovych from office”.
The U.S. justified backing the coup based on the claim that Viktor Yanukovych’s forces committed a sniper massacre on protestors in Maidan Square, but in-depth research from the University of Ottawa’s Ukrainian-Canadian professor of political science, Ivan Katchanovski, proves that the massacre was actually carried out by Right Sector, one of the militant groups behind the coup.
Before the coup took place, then Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland was caught on tape deciding who to install in government after Viktor Yanukovych was deposed, eventually deciding that, “Yats is the guy” referring to the Ukrainian opposition leader Arseniy Yatseniuk.
This – as Forbes Magazine noted at the time – was because, “Yanukovych resisted the International Monetary Fund’s demand to raise taxes and devalue the currency” while, “Yatsenyuk doesn’t mind”.
Ukrainian political scientist Konstantin Bondarenko documented the effect of the IMF-imposed policies after the U.S. imposed regime change in Ukraine, including:
“Ukraine’s GDP shrinking by approximately 17%”.
The exchange rate going from “8 hryvnias (Ukrainian dollar) to 1 U.S dollar” in 2013 to “23 hryvnias to the dollar” in 2015
Inflation rising from 24.9% in 2014 to 43.3% in 2015
a “significant decline in industrial production during the first two years” after the coup, leading to Ukraine losing “its economic cluster that manufactured goods with high added value (machine engineering)”
“mining and metallurgical complex, energy (coal production), chemicals, food production”, “sustained significant losses”.
“an increase in unemployment and the emigration of citizens from Ukraine to neighboring countries—primarily to Poland and Russia.”
“utility rates increasing by 123%, reaching up to 20% of family income” from the IMF introduced policies
Along with the IMF “reforms” the coup was done to turn Ukraine from a neutral country into a U.S proxy willing to fight Russia.
As Konstantin Bondarenko put it, “The West, however, did not want a Ukrainian president who pursued a multi-vector foreign policy; the West needed Ukraine to be anti-Russia, with clear opposition between Kyiv and Moscow. Yanukovych was open to broad cooperation with the West, but he was not willing to confront Russia and China. The West could not accept this ambivalence. The West needed a Ukraine charged for confrontation and even war against Russia, a Ukraine it could use as a tool in the fight against Russia.”
Following the regime change, the UK’s channel 4 news reported that, “the far-right took top posts in Ukraine’s power vacuum”, which supported abuses against Ukraine’s ethnic Russian population, including by supporting ethnic Russians being trapped in a burning trade Union building in Odessa in 2014 and burning alive, which eventually led to all out civil war in Eastern Ukraine.
Furthermore, the new U.S.-backed government dropped its neutral stance on NATO and, as former NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg put it was, “keen to ensure that the resolution from the 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, through which Ukraine had been promised NATO membership, would be upheld”.
This regime change- by design -provoked the eventual Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and ensuing U.S. proxy war to weaken Russia.
Regime Change In South America
The recent regime change in Venezuela is far from the only U.S. regime change in South America in recent years.
As Mother Jonesreported in 2004, when, “a rebellion erupted against President Jean-Bertrand Aristide”, Haiti’s democratically elected president, “Several leaders of the demonstrations — some of whom also had links to the armed rebels — had been getting organizational help and training from a U.S. government-financed organization”, the International Republican Institute, a subsidiary of the CIA cutout NED.
Mother Jones noted, “In 2002 and 2003, IRI used funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) to organize numerous political training sessions in the Dominican Republic and Miami for some 600 Haitian leaders. Though IRI’s work is supposed to be nonpartisan — it is official U.S. policy not to interfere in foreign elections — a former U.S. diplomat says organizers of the workshops selected only opponents of Aristide and attempted to mold them into a political force. In 2004, several of the people who had attended IRI trainings were influential in the toppling of Aristide”.
In 2009, a military coup took place against Honduras’ elected president Manuel Zelaya, and an in-depth investigation fromthe Center for Economic and Policy Research Research Associate Jake Johnston later found that:
… high-level US military official met with Honduran coup plotters late the night before the coup, indicating advance knowledge of what was to come;
While the US ambassador intervened to stop an earlier attempted coup, a Honduran military advisor’s warning the night before the coup was met with indifference;
Multiple on-the-record sources support the allegations of a whistleblower at SOUTHCOM’s flagship military training university that a retired general provided assistance after-the-fact to Honduran military leaders lobbying in defense of the coup;
US training of Honduran military leaders, and personal relationships forged during the Cold War, likely emboldened the Honduran military to oust Zelaya and helped ensure the coup’s success;
US military actors were motivated by an obsessive concern with Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez’s perceived influence in the region, rather than just with developments in Honduras itself. …
From 2014-2018, the United States National Endowment for Democracy spent $4.1 million funding opposition groups in Nicaragua- which “laid the groundwork for insurrection” that attempted to violently oust the country’s president, Daniel Ortega.
The outlet Global Americans noted during the insurrection in 2018, “it is now quite evident that the U.S. government actively helped build the political space and capacity in Nicaraguan society for the social uprising that is currently unfolding”.
USAID even funded opposition outlets which- before the failed coup attempt- “urged anti-Sandinista forces to storm the presidential residence, kill the president, die by the hundreds doing so, and hang his body in public”.
The U.S. also caused a violent military coup in Bolivia in 2019, by pushing the false claim that the country’s president, Evo Morales, stole the election that year, which was used to justify the military coup, which installed a military dictatorship led by U.S. puppet Jeanine Áñez, who massacred many of Morales’ indigenous supporters when they protested the coup.
The U.S.’s latest regime change in Venezuela is yet another regime change campaign to be added to the long list.
Israel has authorised the use of electronic tracking devices on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, formalising real-time surveillance of civilians who have not been charged, tried or convicted of any crime, according to a new directive issued by the Israeli army.
The order allows Israeli authorities to compel Palestinians placed under administrative movement restrictions to wear or carry electronic monitoring devices and criminalises any attempt to tamper with them. The measure embeds electronic tagging within Israel’s system of military rule over the occupied territory, further expanding the regime of surveillance imposed on the Palestinian civilian population.
Significantly in another example of the Israel’s apartheid rule, defence minister, Israel Katz, has explicitly excluded illegal Jewish settlers in the West Bank from the directive, underscoring the discriminatory nature of the policy and its application along ethnic and national lines. The order was issued following coordination between the Israel Defense Forces, the Israel Security Agency, Israel Police, the Ministry of Justice and the military’s legal authorities responsible for the occupied West Bank.
Human rights observers note that the policy applies to civilians subjected to Israel’s system of administrative control, a framework that routinely denies Palestinians due process and relies on secret evidence. Palestinians placed under such measures often face severe movement restrictions, prolonged surveillance and the constant threat of detention without trial.
The new directive reflects what journalist and filmmaker Antony Loewenstein has described as Israel’s “Palestine Laboratory”, a system in which Palestinians are used as testing grounds for advanced military and surveillance technologies later exported abroad. In his work, Loewenstein argues that Israel exports not only weapons but a comprehensive model for controlling what it labels “difficult populations”, combining military force, mass surveillance and spatial domination.
This model is explored in Al Jazeera’s latest documentary How Israel tests military tech on Palestinians, part of The Palestine Laboratory series. The film documents how Israeli checkpoints function as experimental sites for so-called “frictionless” technologies, including AI-enabled remotely operated weapons that fire stun grenades, tear gas and sponge-tipped bullets. These systems are deployed at checkpoints where Palestinians are routinely subjected to intrusive searches and data collection.
The documentary also details Israel’s extensive use of biometric surveillance systems such as Red Wolf and Blue Wolf. Blue Wolf operates on soldiers’ mobile phones, enabling them to photograph Palestinians and instantly access personal data, movement histories and profiling information.
Red Wolf is installed at checkpoints and control rooms, scanning faces and assigning individuals a colour-coded risk score. Palestinians labelled as “red” are flagged for increased scrutiny, harassment or restriction, including journalists and non-violent human rights defenders. According to testimony featured in the film, Palestinians are categorised without consent and subjected to constant monitoring that shapes every aspect of daily life.
The documentary further exposes the close and often opaque partnerships between Israel’s military and private technology firms. Israeli companies have tested facial recognition, behavioural analysis software, CCTV networks, drones and invasive spyware on Palestinians before marketing these systems internationally as “battle-tested”.
Human rights groups warn that the expansion of electronic tracking and biometric surveillance in the occupied West Bank constitutes a serious violation of international law. Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, an occupying power is prohibited from imposing collective punishment or discriminatory measures on a protected population.
Tucker is right, but he forgot to mention that Paul Singer is the largest contributor to the Philos Project, a group of Catholic lackeys who undermine Church teaching for Jewish interests. https://t.co/koiRPPkAzn
I want to make you a wager… I bet that 99% of Americans have never read the speech that President James Monroe made to the US Congress on December 2, 1823. As part of that speech — which was the seventh annual address to the US Congress — President Monroe outlined a policy that is now commonly referred to as the Monroe Doctrine. Understanding what President Monroe actually said has taken on more importance because Donald Trump referenced the Monroe Doctrine to justify his kidnapping of Venezuelan President Maduro. I am going to show you that President Monroe said nothing that would excuse or support Trump’s action. To the contrary, Trump is behaving like one of the old European colonial tyrants.
Trump is not the first to misunderstand the Monroe Doctrine, which is now widely interpreted in America as giving the US control of the Western Hemisphere and giving the US the right to take action against ANY foreign government that has relations with the countries of Central and South America, Mexico and Canada.
The essence of the Monroe Doctrine originally was a firm declaration to oppose European colonization of the Americas. Read carefully what Monroe said:
In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers
All US presidents in the 20th Century — including Trump — believe that the Monroe Doctrine gives the US a veto over political or economic relations that any country outside the Western Hemisphere can have with Canada, Mexico, and the countries of Central and South America. But Monroe’s focus was on European colonial imperialism. President Monroe did not declare that the US would be the final arbiter in deciding whether a country in Central or South America can voluntarily form a political or economic alliance with another country, such as China or Russia.
Monroe’s specific concern was to keep the US out of the wars that were ravaging Europe in the 19th Century. He said:
In the wars of the European powers in matters relating to themselves we have never taken any part, nor does it comport with our policy to do so. It is only when our rights are invaded or seriously menaced that we resent injuries or make preparation for our defense. With the movements in this hemisphere we are of necessity more immediately connected, and by causes which must be obvious to all enlightened and impartial observers. . . .
We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere.But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintain it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States. In the war between those new Governments and Spain we declared our neutrality at the time of their recognition, and to this we have adhered, and shall continue to adhere, provided no change shall occur which, in the judgement of the competent authorities of this Government, shall make a corresponding change on the part of the United States indispensable to their security.
Monroe made two critical points in the preceding two paragraphs… First, the US will act only if it is attacked or threatened by European powers. Again, his concern was to keep America free of the wars among the various European powers as they sought to secure and consolidate their respective colonial ambitions. Second, Monroe insisted that the US will not interfere with existing colonies or dependencies. However, if people in Mexico, Central America or South America decided to declare independence — as did the 13 British colonies on July 4, 1776 — then any European military action against those former colonies would be viewed as an attack on the United States. In other words, the US policy proposed by Monroe gave priority to those American countries that declared independence a tacit promise that the US would support them. However, this did not grant the US the right to unilaterally insert itself into the political affairs of countries in Central and South America, nor did it empower the US to carry out regime changes in those countries simply because we did not like the new rulers or the structure of the new government.
Monroe then makes a policy statement that every US president in the 20th and 21st Century has ignored… No interference in the internal affairs of other countries:
Our policy in regard to Europe, which was adopted at an early stage of the wars which have so long agitated that quarter of the globe, nevertheless remains the same, which is, not to interfere in the internal concerns of any of its powers; to consider the government de facto as the legitimate government for us; to cultivate friendly relations with it, and to preserve those relations by a frank, firm, and manly policy, meeting in all instances the just claims of every power, submitting to injuries from none.
Monroe concluded his outline of the Monroe Doctrine by emphasizing that would be his policy to prevent foreign governments from forcibly imposing their political systems on countries in the Western Hemisphere:
It is impossible that the allied powers should extend their political system to any portion of either continent without endangering our peace and happiness; nor can anyone believe that our southern brethren, if left to themselves, would adopt it of their own accord. It is equally impossible, therefore, that we should behold such interposition in any form with indifference.
Sadly, the Monroe Doctrine has been desecrated and ignored by a bevy of Presidents, starting with President Polk in 1848. Instead of defending Mexico and our Central and South American neighbors from foreign interference, we have repeatedly behaved as an authoritarian dictator. Mexico declared independence from Spain on 16 September 1810. Thirty-six years later, the US provoked a war with Mexico by annexing Texas and manufacturing a border crisis in service of a broader expansionist project. Maybe we should christen this kind of behavior as the Polk Doctrine, i.e., only we, the US, have the right to decide what kind of government the people and nations in the Western hemisphere can have. The Monroe Doctrine was intended to combat foreign interference by imperial powers… The US has bastardized that doctrine and now uses it as an excuse to feed our own imperial ambitions. Venezuela is just the latest casualty.
The US’ sudden military operation against Venezuela and the forcible seizure of the country’s president has dominated headlines worldwide since Saturday. The operation is viewed by global media and observers as a real-life example of the Monroe Doctrine in action, under which the Trump Administration claims that the Western Hemisphere is its sphere of influence.
Focus on the Monroe Doctrine intensified further after US President Donald Trump invoked the doctrine to defend the strike on Venezuela at a press conference on Saturday amid mounting international condemnation. “All the way back, it dates back to the Monroe Doctrine,” Trump stated at the press conference, according to a Sunday report by ABC News. “The Monroe Doctrine is a big deal, but we’ve surpassed it by a long shot. They’re calling it the ‘Don-roe Doctrine’ now,” he added.
Trump’s version of Monroe Doctrine, centered on “America First,” is a geopolitical strategy for the US to impose hegemonic control over the Western Hemisphere. Its core objective is to reconsolidate Latin America as America’s “backyard” through exclusive cooperation, extract regional resources, and ultimately serve US economic interests and consolidate its global hegemony, Xu Yanran, an associate professor at the School of International Relations, Renmin University of China, told the Global Times.
At a press conference on Monday, when asked for response to the sphere of influence concept – the Monroe Doctrine, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lin Jian reiterated China’s stance to “oppose hegemony and power politics.”
What exactly is the Monroe Doctrine? What role has it played in shaping US-Latin America relations over the past 200 years? And what does the doctrine’s resurgence mean for the region and the world? To answer these questions, the Global Times has launched a two-part series to decode the doctrine – a scourge that has haunted Latin America for 200 years – and to expose the US’ long-standing interventionist schemes in various fields across the region. In the first installment, we examine the doctrine’s historical evolution, draw comparisons between the Trump and original versions, and explore its potential implications for both the region and the wider world.
Shadow over the Western Hemisphere
The Monroe Doctrine was articulated by President James Monroe in 1823 to oppose European interference in Latin America. In the early 1900s, former US president Theodore Roosevelt expanded the doctrine to justify military intervention across the region. As a result, US Marines were sent into Santo Domingo in 1904, Nicaragua in 1911, and Haiti in 1915, according to an article on the website of the US National Archives and Records Administration.
In addition to direct intervention, the US also undertook dollar diplomacy – supposedly replacing bullets for dollars – aimed at expanding US financial capital in Latin America and fostering regional dependency on the US. The imposition of Panamanian independence and the construction of the canal are prominent examples of this policy, as are the numerous armed interventions in Central America, according to a paper released in 2020 by International Organisations Research Journal published by the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Russia.
With these practices, the Monroe Doctrine, originally designed to prevent other major world powers from meddling in Latin America, evolved into a pretext for the US to turn the region into its so-called “backyard.”
More grievously, in the aftermath of World War II, the US leveraged the Central Intelligence Agency for decades to infiltrate and meddle in the political affairs of Latin American nations. This trapped some countries in prolonged political instability and social deprivation, gravely derailing their paths toward modernization, Sun Yanfeng, director of Latin American research at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations, told the Global Times.
One notable example occurred in December 1989, when the US invaded Panama, overthrowing Manuel Antonio Noriega’s regime and seeking long-term control over the Panama Canal. Noriega surrendered to the US authorities on January 3, 1990, the same date of the forcible seizure of Maduro.
While the US continues to pursue its “America First” agenda under the banner of the Monroe Doctrine, people across Latin America have gradually awakened. Resistance against US aggression, intervention, economic colonization and ideological control has steadily grown in the region since the 1990s after a number of anti-US left-wing forces successively came to power in several Latin American countries. At the same time, more Latin American countries have sought to pursue autonomous diplomatic policies and actively expand cooperation with both regional partners and countries beyond the hemisphere, opening up new space for their own development, according to a paper published on the Journal of Latin American Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences in April 2020.
It is against this backdrop that the Monroe Doctrine was widely described by experts and politicians as outdated. The US administration also appeared to acknowledge the shift. In November 2013 during a speech at the Organization of American States, former secretary of state John Kerry said that “the era of the Monroe Doctrine is over,” according to Fox News.
However, the Monroe Doctrine began to re-emerge at the forefront of the US policy agenda during Donald Trump’s first term, as Washington sought ways to address mounting domestic pressure and external challenges, according to another paper released in October 2025 by the Institute of Latin America Studies under the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
During the Biden administration, policy directions and agenda priorities hinted at the emergence of a new Monroe Doctrine. Following the inauguration of Trump’s second term, this new version has surged back into prominence and entered a phase of full-scale implementation, the paper said.
‘Far more radical’
In the 2025 National Security Strategy, the Trump administration vowed to enforce a “Trump Corollary” to the Monroe Doctrine to restore American preeminence in the Western Hemisphere, according to a document released on the White House website.
The core goal of the shift is to secure US hegemony in the Western Hemisphere amid the country’s declining power and to build a US-led regional order that excludes non-regional players, Sun said.
To achieve its goal in the Western Hemisphere, the Trump administration has sought to remove Venezuela, a standard-bearer of the anti-US camp in the Western Hemisphere and “a thorn in the US side,” according to Sun.
On the other hand, this year coincides with both the US midterm elections and the country’s 250th anniversary. Plagued by domestic political struggles, the Trump administration is in urgent need of a high-profile political achievement to strengthen its position, Sun said.
Another reason behind the shift is the Trump administration’s perception of a growing “threat” as Latin American countries, especially major ones, are opening up their economies not only to the US but to a broader range of partners, and in some cases forming competitive ties with the US, according to Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Therefore, the US does not hesitate to employ coercive means, even overt military force, to expand its economic control over Latin America, and this is the core of the so-called Don-roe Doctrine, Lü said.
He noted that the Don-roe Doctrine is notably characterized by the primacy of “might makes right,” a guiding principle rooted in the era of colonialism.
“Compared with the original Monroe Doctrine, Trump’s version is far more radical. It has shifted from ‘defense’ to ‘offense,’ proactively interfering in the internal affairs of Latin American countries through hegemonic means and even directly violating the interests of sovereign states,” Xu explained to the Global Times.
Against global trends
According to Reuters, Trump claimed at a Saturday press conference that his administration would “run” Venezuela “until such time as we can do a safe, proper and judicious transition,” which experts contacted by the Global Times said is clearly illegal.
After the forcible seizure of Maduro, the Trump administration also took jabs at other Latin American leaders, including Gustavo Petro of Colombia and Claudia Sheinbaum of Mexico, according to The New York Times.
While the Trump-version Monroe Doctrine may appear to be a strategic pivot in which the US is shifting the focus of its security strategy to the Western Hemisphere, the underlying intent of great-power competition is actually growing stronger.
Pan Deng, director of the Latin America and Caribbean Region Law Center of China University of Political Science and Law, told the Global Times that the Venezuela incident marks a major shift in US policy toward Latin America – moving away from relative neglect over the years and back onto a path of high-profile intervention and coercive pressure.
In fact, the two Trump administrations have launched a series of targeted operations to “take down Latin American countries one by one.” On the political front, the first Trump administration placed Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism, and the subsequent sanctions inflicted a severe blow to Cuba’s economy.
Economic weapons have also been wielded frequently to repeatedly threaten to impose additional tariffs on Latin American countries. In terms of plundering regional resources, seizing strategic assets and even territorial expansion, the Trump administration has repeatedly made public threats to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” since returning back to the White House.
The US may have announced the end of the Monroe Doctrine, but the fact is, for the past more than 200 years, hegemonism and power politics, which is intrinsic in the Doctrine, is far from being abandoned, Lin Jian made the remarks at another press conference in August 2024, responding to protest in several Latin American countries against US interference in their internal affairs.
The US’s hegemonism and power politics runs counter to the unstoppable historical trend of Latin American countries staying independent and seeking strength through unity. Such approaches will win no support and be consigned to the dustbin of history, Lin noted.
Sun told the Global Times that while the US is once again attempting to extend its “long arm” into Latin America, the region is no longer what it once was. In recent years, Latin American countries have worked to strengthen unity and weather shared challenges. They have actively seized opportunities arising from the development of the Global South and expanded cooperation with countries in Asia and Africa.
During the seventh summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in 2023, the bloc released the Declaration of Buenos Aires, sending a strong message in favor of regional cooperation and integration, and in opposition to foreign interference.
Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University, also warned a probable spillover effect of the resurgence of Monroe Doctrine from Latin American to the other regions, which could trigger greater global instability and deliver a subversive blow to the international order and established rules.
However, at the same time, it may also generate a sense of urgency that pushes more countries to strengthen solidarity, coordination, and cooperation. This applies not only to Global South nations, but also to other countries that may similarly intensify efforts to uphold multilateralism, safeguard peace, and defend international law and rules, Li said.
December 23rd marked the 35th anniversary of an independence referendum in Slovenia, then a Yugoslav republic. In all, 88.5% of registered voters – 95.7% of participants – said “da” to secession. The plebiscite prompted Ljubljana’s formal declaration of independence, and ensuingTen Day Warbetween Slovene territorial defence forces and the Yugoslav federal army. This was the spark that triggered bitter, bloody interethnic conflicts throughout Yugoslavia over the subsequent decade, and the multiethnic socialist federation’s ultimate destruction.
In May 2000, Britain’s Observer exposed how in the Ten Day War’s leadup, London secretly supplied Slovenia with tactical military communications equipment worth millions, to assist Ljubljana’s impending battle against the Yugoslav military. The disclosure elicited outcry, as London was officiallyat the time committed to preserving Yugoslavia, leading international efforts to prevent the country descending into fractious civil wars. The clandestine provision was at direct odds with this public-stated policy, which included unbending support for an arms embargo on the region.
Responding to the news, former British Foreign Secretary David Owen, who served as the EU’s lead peace negotiator during the Bosnian war, said he was “surprised” London covertly undermined her formal commitment to keeping Yugoslavia “together”. He nonetheless downplayed the assistance, noting what Britain supplied “was not aggressive” – “radios not guns”. Owen therefore argued the shipment “sails close to the border but does not cross it.” By contrast, the Observer reported the communications equipment “played a vital role” in Slovenia’s victory over Yugoslav forces.
This was because Ljubljana won the Ten Day War not via conventional military means, but a wide-ranging, devastatingly effective international propaganda campaign. In physical terms, the brief conflict consisted exclusively of minor skirmishes, and was largely bloodless, with just 44 Yugoslav soldiers and 18 Slovene territorials killed. One would not have known this from contemporary Western media reporting though, which relentlessly portrayed Slovenia as fighting countless grand military engagements against Belgrade’s barbarous invaders, and pluckily prevailing.
British military communications equipment greatly facilitated this informational onslaught. The psychological battlefield’s centrality to Ljubljana’s successful independence struggle had a resounding impact on Slovenia’s fellow breakaway Yugoslav republics. Engendering maximum international sympathy while demonising Belgrade became a core component of Albanian Kosovar, Bosniak and Croat war strategies. In Sarajevo, secessionist authorities deliberately immiserated the local population to create emotionally impactful images for global broadcast. Meanwhile, its military routinely carried out false flags, including targeting civilians with sniper fire. As Canadian UN peacekeepers on-the-ground directly observed:
“The [Bosniaks] are not above firing on their own people or UN areas and then claiming the Serbs are the guilty party in order to gain further Western sympathy. The [Bosniaks] often site their artillery extremely close to UN buildings and sensitive areas such as hospitals in the hope that Serb counter-bombardment fire will hit these sites under the gaze of the international media.”
Ljubljana’s triumph left an enduring impression upon the British too. In multiple proxy conflicts since, London has taken the lead on psychological warfare, in particular atrocity propaganda, vilifying official enemies and justifying intervention and regime change. Since February 2022, a secret Ministry of Defence-created military and intelligence cell, Project Alchemy, has endeavoured to “keep Ukraine fighting at all costs.” Fundamental to this effort are “information operations” designed to convince Western citizens, and Ukrainians themselves, Kiev can somehow defeat Russia, by grossly distorting reality on-the-ground.
‘Quite Incredible’
A memory-holed July 1991 report from now-defunct British newspaper The European – “Lies Win Balkan War Of Words” – lays out in forensic detail how Slovenia’s propaganda war was fought and won. The operation’s “nerve-centre” was “an underground conference complex deep below the streets of Ljubljana.” Here, dozens of Slovene Information Ministry apparatchiks “worked tirelessly” to provide over 1,000 foreign journalists with a relentless barrage of information about the conflict – particularly Yugoslav war crimes, and Slovene military victories – supposedly taking place above ground.
Wild figures on reported “tanks hit, shots fired, prisoners taken” by Ljubljana were supplied hourly. Meanwhile, the Slovenes struck up a chummy rapport with their overseas guests, portraying themselves “as clean-limbed, tanned church-goers who only wanted to live peacefully and democratically in their Alpine idyll of mountains, lakes and meadows.” They claimed to be under attack by “ruthless Communists… dirty, unshaven brutes who dropped cluster bombs on innocent civilians… [and] sought to inflict [their] intolerant religious fanaticism and alphabet of squiggly lines on Europe.”
Ljubljana “needed a bloody, dramatic conflict to ensure the world did not lose interest” in their independence crusade. Thus, “they showered the media with details of battles that had often never taken place,” frequently “enlivening the day” with lurid, often unfalsifiable assertions, such as Belgrade landing “squads of special troops in plain clothes” across the country “to terrorise the population,” or plotting to target a local nuclear power plant and create a Chernobyl-style disaster. Journalists dutifully amplified these dubious claims as fact internationally.
Such was the deluge, “it was possible to report the war without ever venturing above ground” – “but, for those who did venture into the sunlight, the bunker war often seemed a fantasy.” For example, Western news outlets widely covered a purportedly “major battle” at Jezersko, a municipality near Austria. When The European visited the area subsequently, “greatly surprised” local Slovene militiamen instead described a brief tussle with a few Yugoslav soldiers over a borderpost in which “no one had been hurt.”
Throughout the Ten Day War, the Western-backed separatist government of neighbouring Croatia was “carefully analysing” Ljubljana’s informational offensive. They concluded the conflict’s “decisive engagements, which virtually guaranteed Slovenia’s independence, took place in the pages of the foreign media and, even more important, in the news bulletins of the major television networks.” Zagreb duly launched its own “propaganda blitz”. Croat officials were instructed “to hold twice-daily press conferences, which should be as colourful and dramatic as possible,” while Western journalists were given tours by soldiers:
“Everywhere, in town halls, hotel foyers and crouching nervously behind roadblocks, Croat mayors, police chiefs and militia officers… hold press conferences or hand out neatly-typed news bulletins to tell the world of the latest atrocities by Serbian extremists and of unprovoked attacks by the [Yugoslav] army… The Croats’ strategy today is clear. They are bombarding the world with information, which is usually so petty it seems it must be true.”
For example, Croatia’s state media agency Hina pumped out “extraordinarily detailed accounts of the fighting allegedly taking place in the countryside,” with an emphasis on “trivial” incidents. Typically, it was “impossible to check most of these reports precisely because the clashes were so minor that, even if they happened, they left no mark.” This inconsequential, unverifiable cavalcade was occasionally interspersed with “quite incredible allegations”, such as Belgrade having flooded the republic with “hired assassins” drawn from the ranks of Romania’s notorious Communist-era Securitate.
‘Managed Understanding’
The “grotesque caricatures” of Yugoslav forces, and Serbs more generally, as uniquely bloodthirsty monsters peddled by “brilliant” propagandists in Ljubljana and Zagreb took “hold of the public imagination in the West”, transforming “complex” interethnic struggles “into a straightforward battle between the forces of light (Slovenes and Croats) and darkness (Serbs).” This fraudulent dichotomy was exploited even more perniciously during the Bosnian civil war, and subsequent Kosovo ‘crisis’, during which atrocity propagandaserved to justify and sustain NATO’s criminal 78-day-long bombingof Belgrade in 1999.
An impactful staged photo, Croatia, Christmas 1992
The European concluded by noting reliance on psychological manipulation to win wars created a “major problem”. Namely, while “a daily publicity blitz of exaggerations and lies may win international support… it will do nothing to heal the divisions which are ripping the country apart.” Locking-in overseas sympathy made Western-backed leaders in the former Yugoslavia less willing to accept negotiated settlements, and keep brutal internecine battles grinding on, safe in the knowledge further carnage only strengthened their position, in information warfare terms.
Notably, a key propaganda strategy for Croats and Slovenes, per The European, was to portray Yugoslav forces “as incompetent and thuggish.” An identical disinformation dynamic played out during the first 18 months of the Ukraine proxy war. As a November 2023 NATO paper on “Humour In Online Information Warfare” revealed, the military alliance and its Kiev puppets specifically sought to weaponise “humour and mockery”, emphasising “Russian failures” and “Ukrainian determination” in media reporting and online, from the conflict’s inception.
These efforts augmented “the responsiveness and impact” of Ukraine’s “information campaigns,” proving “instrumental” in Kiev securing “US-made F-16 combat aircraft” in August 2023, among other Western arms shipments. The NATO paper makes clear weaponisation of mockery is a long-running objective for the alliance, citing a 2017 study, “Stratcom Laughs”, which outlines methods of exploiting “humour” as a military “communications tool”. Four years later, an official Ukrainian government website entry boasted of how such methods can “influence your opinion”:
“How does propagandistic humor work? Relieves tension, makes perception less critical. Uses common contexts to convey messages with which the audience agrees. Simplifies everything to the ‘obvious’. Creates clear groups: strong and intelligent ‘we’ and clumsy and stupid ‘they’. Of course, the audience associates itself with the former and begins to despise the latter. Simplified managed understanding is easily disseminated by the audience and creates the necessary social context for propagandists.”
Atrocity propaganda has also played a crucial role in prolonging the unwinnable quagmire at unsustainable economic, human, and material cost. In April 2022, British intelligence exploited the ever-mysterious Bucha incident to sabotage fruitful peace talks between Kiev and Moscow, framing the apparent killing of innocent civilians in the town as somehow genocidal. At the time, a US Defense Intelligence Agency apparatchik lamented how the “Bucha Effect” had “led to frozen negotiations and a skewed view of the war” – apparently unaware this was London’s precise objective.
Staggering Health Consequences of Sugar on Health of Americans
By Dr. Gary Null | Global Research | February 3, 2014
In September 2013, a bombshell report from Credit Suisse’s Research Institute brought into sharp focus the staggering health consequences of sugar on the health of Americans. The group revealed that approximately “30%–40% of healthcare expenditures in the USA go to help address issues that are closely tied to the excess consumption of sugar.”[1]The figures suggest that our national addiction to sugar runs us an incredible $1 trillion in healthcare costs each year. The Credit Suisse report highlighted several health conditions including coronary heart diseases, type II diabetes and metabolic syndrome, which numerous studies have linked to excessive sugar intake.[2]
Just a year earlier in 2012, a report by Dr. Sanjay Gupta appearing on 60 Minutes featured the work of Dr. Robert Lustig, an endocrinologist from California who gained national attention after a lecture he gave titled “Sugar: The Bitter Truth” went viral in 2009. Lustig’s research has investigated the connection between sugar consumption and the poor health of the American people. He has published twelve articles in peer-reviewed journals identifying sugar as a major factor in the epidemic of degenerative disease that now afflicts our country. The data compiled by Lustig clearly show how excessive sugar consumption plays a key role in the development of many types of cancer, obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, and heart disease. His research has led him to conclude that 75% of all diseases in America today are brought on by the American lifestyle and are entirely preventable.[3]
Until the airing of this program, no one in the “official” world acknowledged anything wrong with sugar, here is a sampling of some the latest research available to them if they chose to look… 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.
Aletho News
Aletho News 