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Telegram Will Now Share Users’ IP Addresses and Phone Numbers With Governments in Response to Legal Requests

By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | September 23, 2024

Telegram, the messaging app that once positioned itself as the rebel’s answer to Big Tech surveillance, has made a sharp U-turn on the “we protect your data at all costs” highway. On Monday, the company quietly updated its privacy policy to allow for the disclosure of user information—like those precious IP addresses and phone numbers—to law enforcement, but only, of course, if they present a valid legal request.

As we all know, no one has ever stretched the definition of “valid” to fit their agenda, right?

This revelation comes hot on the heels of a little incident back in August, when Telegram’s CEO Pavel Durov found himself in handcuffs, detained by French authorities. What was the crime? Well, it appears Telegram was accused of playing hardball with French law enforcement, refusing to hand over data, leading to Durov’s arrest. It seems law enforcement didn’t take kindly to that level of noncompliance, especially after making 2,460 unanswered requests for information.

The Policy Flip-Flop

The new policy revision is a complete about-face from the one Telegram’s loyal fans were sold on. The old rules were crystal clear. Telegram might give up your details—your IP address and phone number—but only if you were a suspect in a terror case. The policy even reassured everyone that this kind of handover had never happened.

Not anymore.

Now, Telegram has widened the net. According to the newly revised policy, if you violate Telegram’s Terms of Service—you know, the thing no one ever reads—they may hand over your info if they get a “valid” order. The language is dripping with corporate hedging: “If Telegram receives a valid order from the relevant judicial authorities that confirms you’re a suspect in a case involving criminal activities that violate the Telegram Terms of Service, we will perform a legal analysis of the request and may disclose your IP address and phone number to the relevant authorities.”

Of course, Telegram is still committed to transparency—at least on paper. The company promises to disclose all such incidents in its quarterly transparency reports, which, conveniently, can be accessed via a dedicated bot.

Durov’s Declaration: Aimed at Who, Exactly?

Durov took to Telegram to tell users, “We have updated our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, ensuring they are consistent across the world.”

He continued, “We’ve made it clear that the IP addresses and phone numbers of those who violate our rules can be disclosed to relevant authorities in response to valid legal requests.”
Durov further added, “These measures should discourage criminals. Telegram Search is meant for finding friends and discovering news, not for promoting illegal goods. We won’t let bad actors jeopardize the integrity of our platform for almost a billion users.”

The French Connection

But what really forced Telegram’s hand? Let’s rewind to Durov’s August airport arrest, where things started to get clearer.

After allegedly over 2,400 ignored requests for data, French authorities had had enough. They brought in the National Gendarmerie to get to the bottom of Telegram’s refusal to cooperate.

Apparently, turning over data wasn’t an option until they started detaining CEOs.

September 23, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment

Russia Slams NATO’s ‘Reckless’ Rejection of Putin’s Red Line on Ukraine Attacks

Sputnik – 18.09.2024

MOSCOW – Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov stated on Wednesday that dismissing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s warnings about the dangers of Ukraine using Western weapons to attack Russian territory is both provocative and perilous.

“Such a ostentatious desire not to take seriously the statements of the Russian president is an absolutely short-sighted and unprofessional step,” Peskov told reporters.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg denied in an interview out on Tuesday that allowing Ukraine to use long-range Western weapons to strike deep into Russia would cross country’s “red line” despite warnings from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“There have been many red lines declared by him [Putin] before, and he has not escalated, meaning also involving Nato allies directly in the conflict,” Stoltenberg told The Times newspaper.

Stoltenberg said that he supported the United Kingdom and France in their decision to lift restrictions on Kiev’s use of long-range weapons against Russia. He argued that their use by Ukraine would not draw the alliance into conflict with Russia.

Putin said that NATO countries were essentially deciding whether to get directly involved in the Ukrainian conflict. He warned that direct participation of Western countries in the conflict would change its nature, forcing Russia to respond to emerging threats.

Meanwhile, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto stated on Wednesday that Hungary is concerned about the potential use of long-range arms to strike Russia, as this would contradict Europe’s security interests and heighten the risk of escalation. He emphasized that “Hungary is interested in peace, and every step that threatens escalation makes us concerned,” adding that the use of long-range missiles against targets deep in Russia would “increase the threat of escalation,” which runs counter to European security interests.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | 1 Comment

How Britain Started the Vietnam War

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | September 12, 2024

On September 2nd 1945, within hours of Imperial Japan’s Emperor Hirohito formally signing an instrument of surrender and ending World War II in the Pacific, Ho Chi Minh, leader of the Viet Minh, proclaimed the Democratic Republic of Vietnam’s foundation. Liberally citing passages from the 1776 US Declaration of Independence, Ho pledged that his newly-created state would never again be subject to foreign domination or exploitation, and evermore remain governed solely by and for its people.

Vietnam’s radical post-war euphoria was palpably captured by French photographer Germaine Krull, a French photographer who visited the country mere days later. In her diary, she observed how in Saigon, “all the streets were hung with large banners and all the walls and official buildings” bore revolutionary inscriptions. They declared; “down with French imperialism; down with the colonials; the era of colonization is over; down with slavery.” The Communist-dominated Viet-Minh’s “big red [flag] with the yellow star” could also be seen in profusion.

Japanese soldier hands over his sword to the British, September 1945

This was quite some contrast from the scenes that greeted Krull at Saigon airport. There, “an unusual situation prevailed”:

“It was being serviced entirely by the Japanese. They were doing everything: driving trucks and cars, standing guard, carrying luggage and refuelling. The British were in command of them and kept order… The Japanese performed their duties faultlessly and were perfectly disciplined.”

Krull had flown in on one of several “transport planes carrying British troops,” among them a sizeable detachment of “handsome, impeccable” Gurkhas, along with “their Scotch commanding officer.” Unstated by the photographer, their mission was to comprehensively crush the country’s dreams of independence, and re-establish France’s control over her colonial holding. Under its auspices, the “unusual situation” of Vietnam’s recently vanquished Japanese occupiers taking orders from and working alongside the British, until mere days earlier their sworn adversaries, was not restricted to Saigon airport.

Many decades later, Britain’s immediate post-war intervention in Vietnam remains virtually unknown. Yet, despite lasting just six months, the bitter conflict cost many lives, and effectively ignited the three-decade-long Vietnam War, which ended in embarrassing defeat for Western powers. The impact on the region, and wider world, endures for untold numbers of people today. It is a sordid, secret chapter in London’s recent history, urgently demanding re-evaluation.

That the British meant grave business in Vietnam is amply underscored by their Indian Army’s entire 20th Division’s deployment to the country. As journalist George Rosie reported in 1970, this force had “been at the very heart of the fighting” against Japan over Burma, and in turn control over the whole subcontinent. Across countless brutal battles, its units fought off “ferocious” attacks, “inflicting terrible casualties” on the enemy.

The 20th Division was particularly central to these efforts. By the end of World War II, Rosie recorded, “there was no more skilful, experienced and battle-hardened” unit in Burma. The Division was “probably the best division in one of the best armies in Asia.” Now, its soldiers were to target their well-honed proficiency in the art of killing against the Vietnamese. In all, 26,000 British soldiers along with 2,500 military vehicles were airdropped into Saigon for the purpose.

Three artillery regiments also arrived, while the Royal Air Force was on hand with 14 spitfires and 34 Mosquito fighter bombers in support. Backing this vast invading army were Vichy French and Japanese troops, who were provided with new weapons by their British counterparts. The official objective was to “maintain law and order and ensure internal security” in Vietnam. Still, the British and their conquered underlings were given explicit orders to savagely crush any and all local resistance, even if innocent civilians were killed:

“There is no front in these operations: we would be dealing with bands of guerillas… We may find it difficult to distinguish friend from foe… Also beware of ‘nibbling’ at opposition. Always use the maximum force available to ensure wiping out any hostile we may meet. If one uses too much, no harm is done. If one uses too small a force and it has to be extricated [sic], we will suffer casualties and encourage the enemy.”

Japanese soldiers repair an airfield, while British troops observe

Quickly, the Vietnamese began dying in vast numbers. However, this bloodsoaked incursion initially went entirely unremarked upon in the British media, and parliament, for several months. As such, the public at home remained completely in the dark about their Army waging another grand foreign entanglement, let alone in tandem with its World War II enemies. This conspiracy of silence continued until December 1945, when a joint letter authored by British soldiers in Vietnam, sent to then-Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, was published by The Guardian:

“It appears that we are collaborating with Japanese and French forces against the nationalist forces of Viet Minh. For what purpose is this collaboration? Why are we not disarming the Japanese? We desire the definition of government policy regarding the presence of British troops in Indo-China.”

These bombshell disclosures attracted little interest, and were promptly forgotten. The signatories received a stern talking-to from a senior military official, and no further revelations about Britain’s covert war in Vietnam subsequently emerged. In the meantime, slaughter of innocent civilians continued apace. Much later, one of the signatories to the joint letter recalled of his time in the country:

“We saw homes being burned and hundreds of the local population being kept in compounds. We saw many ambulances, open at the back, carrying mainly – actually, totally – women and children, who were in bandages. I remember it very vividly. All the women and children who lived there would stand outside their homes, all dressed in black, and just grimly stare at us, really with… hatred.”

Come mid-January next year, the Viet Minh had learned lessons from launching large-scale attacks on British-led forces, which frequently ended with significant casualties due to their opponents’ superior firepower, and extensive use of machine guns. Hanoi’s freedom fighters thereafter adopted a raft of guerrilla tactics, including ambushes, assassinations, and hit-and-run raids on enemy patrols. It was the world’s first modern unconventional war. These strategies were devastatingly employed against French and US invaders over the next three decades.

Control of the mission was formally signed over by London to French generals at the end of March 1946, and most of her forces duly left Hanoi. France was emboldened by the perceived success of Britain’s intervention, believing Ho Chi Minh’s forces couldn’t withstand further onslaught from a “civilised”, professional army. This delusion led Paris to launch all-out war against Hanoi again in December that year. It ended in bitter defeat eight years later, and then the Americans stepped in.

For its part, in the post-World War II period, Britain waged a number of comparable, covert wars in every corner of the world, as its financial and military clout rapidly withered. In many cases, the US subsequently stepped in to fill London’s shoes, taking over management of far-flung crises and emergencies, and in the process Britain’s fallen empire. The past 80 years has been a neverending story of American struggle to master the dual legacies of colonialism and partition, bequeathed by its own former imperial overlord.

September 12, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | 1 Comment

Durov still does not get it

By Stephen Karganovic | Strategic Culture Foundation | September 10, 2024

After being released on bail from a French prison, Russian entrepreneur Pavel Durov made several statements which indicate that he is labouring under grave illusions about the nature of his predicament. He described the action of the French authorities, which resulted in his arrest and detention on French territory, as “surprising and misguided.” He then went on to question the legal premise of his detention and subsequent indictment, which is that he could be held “personally responsible for other people’s illegal use of Telegram.”

It is disappointing to see a thirty-nine years old sophisticated cosmopolitan adult, traumatised as he must be by his recent experiences, reasoning like a child. One should have expected a person of Durov’s wealth to secure competent legal assistance to help him understand the legal “facts of life” pertaining to his case.

There are two basic facts that the lawyer selected by Durov to represent him should have explained to his client. Incidentally, that lawyer is extremely well wired into the French establishment and the judicial system which is persecuting his bewildered protégé. It would not be uncharitable to say that his loyalties are dubious.

The first and most fundamental of these facts is the political nature of the case. Durov’s predicament cannot be properly understood apart from that reality. Recognition of that fact does not exclude entirely the effective use of legal arguments and remedies but it marginalises their practical impact. The second important fact that a conscientious legal professional already in the first interview would have made clear to his client is that in the real world in which Durov is facing grave criminal charges, indulging intuitive notions of justice, including the premise that a person cannot be held criminally liable for third-party acts, is a naïve and utterly misguided approach.

Pavel Durov is a highly intelligent and, in his field, very accomplished individual. But on another level he is just a computer nerd and his incoherent actions and statements are proof of that. Contrary to what he seems to think possible, and as incompatible as that may appear to be with the concept of natural justice, under specific circumstances an individual can be criminally charged for the acts of third parties. Mechanisms that make that possible already are firmly in place. We would not necessarily be wrong to characterise those mechanisms as repugnant to the natural sense of justice, or even as quasi-legal. But formally they are well established and are integral components of criminal law. Tyrannical political systems are free to invoke those instruments whenever they decide to target a bothersome non-conformist such as Pavel Durov.

Whilst on the one track relentless pressure is undoubtedly being applied to the conditionally released but still closely supervised Durov to accede to the demands of deep state structures and turn Telegram’s encryption keys over to security agencies, on a parallel track the legal case against him is being constructed. It will be based on some variant or derivative of the theory of strict liability. The exact contours of that variant are yet to be defined as the case proceeds, and everything will depend on how the defendant responds to the combination of carrots and sticks that are now being put in front of him. Since no evidence is being offered to prove that acting personally in his capacity as Telegram CEO Durov was complicit in any of the incriminating activities listed in the charge sheet, the only conclusion that can be drawn is that some version of strict liability will be the vehicle of choice to make the accusations stick. Unless he capitulates, the objective is to put him away for a long time, or at least to threaten him credibly with such an outcome in order to exact his cooperation. Strict liability is a convenient tool because it offers many shortcuts to the Prosecution. It achieves the desired effect in the absence of proof of specific intent and regardless of the defendant’s mental state, thus eliminating for the prosecution major evidentiary hurdles.

Furthermore, from the beginning of the Durov case groundwork was notably being laid for the application of the Joint Criminal Enterprise [JCE] doctrine as developed by the Hague Tribunal, its category III to be precise. Even seasoned lawyers practicing at the Hague Tribunal were at a loss what to make of that legal improvisation. But their incomprehension did not prevent successive chambers from sentencing defendants to decades of prison, wholly or in part based on it.

Durov is being charged on 12 counts, including complicity in distributing child pornography, drug dealing and money laundering. It should again be recalled that it is not even alleged that Durov personally committed or intentionally participated in the commission of any of those offences. The charges stem from the accusation that Telegram’s lax moderation rules allow for the widespread criminal use of the platform by others, with whom it is not claimed that Durov entertained any direct personal link or that he was even aware of their existence.

But the marvellous feature of the category III JCE doctrine, specially invented by the chambers of the Hague Tribunal to accommodate the Prosecution in situations in which it could not contrive even the semblance of a nexus between the defendant and the crimes being imputed to him, is that it does not require any of those things. A vaguely inferred commonality of purpose, coupled with the assumption that the defendant should have been able to foresee but failed to prevent the illicit conduct of the third parties with whom he is being associated by the Prosecution, and with whom he needn’t have had direct communication or even personal acquaintance, serves as a sufficient link. If in the chambers’ considered judgment the defendant contributed substantially to generating conditions conducive to third-party unlawful conduct, that is enough. Proof that the third parties had committed the charged acts is sufficient basis to convict and no disavowal of criminal liability is practically possible.

If in relation to the third parties the defendant is situated in a position that the court deems culpable, nothing more is needed for liability for their conduct to be imputed to him.

The system’s prosecutors are eager to make those and perhaps some even more ingenious arguments to sympathetic judges. Woe to the person sitting in the dock.

That is precisely the general direction in which the Durov case is moving. In an ominous but highly indicative development, the French prosecutors are highlighting the alleged paedophile offences of an individual user of Telegram, who for the moment is identified cryptically only as “X,” or “person unknown,” and who is suspected of having committed crimes against children. The prosecution’s objective is to individualise and dramatise Durov’s guilt by connecting him to a specific paedophile case, the details of which can be disclosed later. If that sticks, some or all of the remaining charges in due course may even be dropped, without prejudice to the prosecution’s overarching goal of incarcerating Durov for a long period of time, unless he compromises. Paedophilia and child abuse alone merit a very lengthy prison sentence, without the necessity of combining them with other nasty charges.

In that regard, equally ominous for Durov is the activation, as it were on cue, of his ex-whatever in Switzerland, with whom he is alleged to have sired at least three out-of-wedlock children. Prior to his detention in France, Durov had capriciously terminated her 150,000-euro monthly apanage. This was a financial blow which naturally left her disgruntled and receptive to the suggestion of the investigative organs to come up with something to take revenge on her former companion. The woman is now accusing Durov of having molested one of the children that he had conceived with her. That is an independent and serious new charge whose potential for further mischief should not be underestimated.

Pavel Durov should stop wasting his time attempting to lecture his French captors on the wrongfulness of the persecution to which they are subjecting him. They are completely uninterested in the philosophical and legal principles to which Durov is referring. Like their transatlantic colleagues, who display juridical virtuosity by indicting ham sandwiches, with equal facility and with as little professional remorse French prosecutors are prepared to indict bœuf bourguignon, if that is what the system they serve demands of them. Far more than a legal strategy, Durov now needs an effective negotiating position (and perhaps also a crash course in poker) to preserve the integrity of his enterprise and to regain fully his freedom without sacrificing honour. For an excellent introduction to the Western rules based order, Durov need look no further than the woeful predicament of Dr. Reiner Fuellmich, the German-American lawyer who for months has been languishing in a German prison after being targeted on trumped-up charges for exposing the fraud of the recent “health emergency” that we all vividly recall.

Properly understood, the Durov affair should come as a sobering lesson not only for its principal but more importantly for the edification of the frivolous Russian intelligentsia who still entertain adolescent illusions about where the grass is greener and continue to nourish a petulant disdain for their own country, its way of life, and culture.

September 10, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | 1 Comment

The Hidden Face of War. NATO Sponsored War Professionals in Russian Region of Kursk.

By Manlio Dinucci | Global Research | September 10, 2024

The Forward Observations Group, a private military company based in the United States, published a photo of its war professionals in the Russian region of Kursk, a presence confirmed by a video showing the destruction by the Russian armed forces of Forward Observations Group armoured vehicles and commandos in Kursk. This US military company, whose role is described by the authoritative Military Watch magazine as ‘very obscure’ (evidently, it is linked to US intelligence services), has been engaged for more than two years with Ukrainian forces against Russia with the task of carrying out special operations, including preparing attacks with toxic chemicals.

There is documented evidence that Ukraine is involved in the preparation of attacks with chemical and biological weapons. This US military company is not the only one operating covertly in the theatre of war against Russia. Based on precise documentation Military Watch writes:

‘Numerous facts have emerged about the role of military personnel from NATO member states (including Royal Marines and British SAS commandos) in supporting Ukrainian war operations against Russia. Military advisers, both logisticians and combatants, and other personnel have been operating since 2022 in the theatre of war with a range of newly delivered complex weaponry.’

This confirms that the Ukrainian armed forces are not only armed and trained by the US and NATO, but that US-NATO military companies and special forces operate directly in the theatre of war in command and management roles of sophisticated weaponry, such as long-range missiles and drones, for the use of which military satellite networks are needed, which Ukraine does not have.

At the same time, the US is deploying nuclear weapons (bombs and missiles) at intermediate range in Europe, increasingly close to Russia. Even the missile defence systems, which they deploy in Europe on the official grounds of protecting European populations from the ‘Russian nuclear threat’, are in fact prepared for nuclear attack. The two US Aegis Ashore sites in Poland and Romania and the US Navy destroyers operating in the Baltic and Black Sea are equipped with Lockheed Martin’s MK-41 vertical launch systems, which, as the manufacturer itself documents, can be used for any warfare mission, including nuclear attack on land targets.

Italy actively contributes to the preparation of nuclear war. Violating the Non-Proliferation Treaty, it hosts US nuclear weapons (the new B61-12 bombs), which the Italian Air Force is trained to use, and through Leonardo it manufactures nuclear weapons. Now Italy has pledged to build – together with France, Germany and Poland – ground-launched cruise missiles with a range of more than 500 km, i.e. a more advanced version of the US intermediate-range nuclear missiles deployed at Comiso in the 1980s, which were eliminated by the 1987 INF Treaty, a treaty that the US tore up in 2019.

*

This article was originally published in Italian on Grandangolo, Byoblu TV.

Manlio Dinucci, award winning author, geopolitical analyst and geographer, Pisa, Italy.

September 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia offsets Ukraine’s Kursk offensive

By M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | Indian Punchline | September 8, 2024 

Russian President Vladimir Putin has outwitted the West by his  response to Ukraine’s Kursk offensive one month ago, which was widely celebrated as a tipping point in the conflict. The conflict is indeed at a tipping point today, but for an entirely different reason insofar as Russian forces seized the folly of Ukraine’s deployment of its crack brigades and prized Western armour to Kursk Region to reach an unassailable position in the most recent weeks in the battlefields, which opens the door for multiple options going forward. 

On the contrary, the West finds itself in a ‘Zugzwang’, a situation found in chess whereby it is under compulsion to move when it would rather prefer to pass. 

Putin’s address to the plenary of the 9th Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok on Thursday was eagerly awaited for what he had to say on the conflict in Ukraine. Several things stood out. 

Putin no longer characterised the Ukrainian interlocutors as the ‘Kiev regime.’ Instead, he used the expression ‘Kiev government’. And he summed up: “Are we ready to negotiate with them? We have never given up on this.” Was he being a taunting poser, as the Kremlin leader who has tangoed with four American presidents already, expects a fifth with an “infectious” laugh, which makes him “happy.” 

On a serious note, though, Putin took note that the “official authorities” in Kiev have regretted that if only they had followed up on the “signed official document” negotiated with Russian representatives at the Istanbul talks in March 2022 “rather than obeyed their masters from other countries, the war would have come to an end long ago.” 

Putin implied that Kiev must regain its sovereignty. The conciliatory words were measured, possibly with an eye on the unravelling of  political alignments within the ruling dispensation in Kiev. That is to say, Putin rejects Zelensky’s Ukrainian settlement process, but is willing to revive negotiations on terms first discussed at talks in Istanbul in March 2022 at the start of conflict.

Putin went on to discuss potential mediators. He singled out 3 BRICS member countries — China, Brazil, and India. Putin said Russia has “trusting relations” with these countries and he himself is in “constant contact” with his counterparts with a view “to help understand all the details of this complex process.” 

Evidently, Putin is distressed that he is “constantly” being told by them about the human rights situation due to the conflict, Russia’s violation of Ukraine’s national sovereignty and so on. He regretted that they overlook the genesis of the conflict — the 2014 US-backed coup d’etat in Ukraine which was resisted by native speakers of Russian language, and over suppression of Russian culture and Russian traditions.

Fundamentally, Putin stressed, the West hoped to “bring Russia to its knees, dismember it… (and) they would achieve their strategic goals, which they had been striving for, maybe for centuries or decades.” In the given situation, therefore, Russia’s strong economy and military potential are its “main guarantee of security”. [Emphasis added.] 

In such a scenario, what are the prospects going forward? Putin is sceptical about the West’s intentions. Yet, conceivably, he pampered the three mediator-countries who are also Russia’s key BRICS partners at the forthcoming Kazan summit next month (which is expected to focus on an alternative payment system for international trade.) 

Moscow is wary that the BRICS partners are beating their luminous wings in the void without comprehending that the conflict in Ukraine is a civilisational war that has been going on for centuries since the Slavic peoples began developing their own Orthodox churches through more than half of Christian history.  

Putin is a master tactician. Therefore, he will insist that Russia is open to dialogue with Ukraine — which is, of course, also a statement of fact — given the growing pressure on Russia from the Global South. But Putin does not harbour any hopes of Zelensky meeting the pre-requisites conducive to peace talks, which Putin had outlined at a meeting with the senior officials of Russian Foreign Ministry on June 14. If anything, new ground realities have since appeared. 

This becomes clear from a TV interview Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov gave in Vladivostok after Putin’s speech. Lavrov drew the bottom line: “Vladimir Zelensky is not ready for honest talks. The West will not let him near them. They have set the goal, if not to dismember the Russian Federation (even though this was stated as a goal), then to at least radically weaken it and to inflict a strategic defeat on us. The West will not allow him to make steps towards us. Zelensky is no longer able to understand what meets the interests of the Ukrainian people, since he has repeatedly betrayed them.”

Zelensky himself is zigzagging. He took a hard line in remarks at the meeting of the so-called Ramstein Format hosted by the US on Friday that brought together generals and defence ministers from 50 countries to coordinate on arms supplies for Kiev. Zelensky lamented that prohibitions on firing long-range, Western-provided missiles and rockets into Russia persisted. He’s now taking his case to President Biden.

Zelensky’s attendance in person at the Ramstein event “highlighted the sensitivity of the moment in a new, more active phase of the war,” as the New York Times reported. The daily quoted a Ukrainian expert commenting that “The main task of Zelensky at Ramstein is to bring some adrenaline to the partners.” 

Indeed, the situation surrounding Zelensky is unenviable — the sluggish delivery of Western weaponry; Germany’s wavering stance during a budget crisis even as the eastern regions comprising former GDR openly opposes the war against Russia; France, an ardent supporter of the war, is caught up in a political crisis and an early presidential election next year may produce an anti-war leadership in Élysée Palace; the post-November 5 trajectory of US policies on Ukraine remain uncertain. 

Meanwhile, US-European differences have surfaced regarding Washington’s egotistic proposal that the EU give a $50 billion loan to Ukraine and ensure that Russia’s frozen assets remain frozen until Moscow pays post-war reparations to Ukraine. Washington estimates that this way, the US won’t be on the hook for repaying the loan if the Russian assets somehow are unblocked. (The rules governing existing EU sanctions, which need to be renewed every six months, allow a single country to unfreeze assets, which Washington believes jeopardises the loan.) 

In Donbass, events vindicate Putin’s strategy that a  crushing defeat on Ukrainian troops on the most crucial sectors of the front would inevitably lead to Zelensky’s entire armed forces losing combat capacity. In fact, signs of this happening are already there. 

Putin said with quiet confidence that Zelensky “accomplished nothing” from the Kursk offensive. The Russian forces have stabilised the situation in Kursk and started pushing the enemy from border territories while the Donbass offensive is “making impressive territorial gains for a long time.” In retrospect, Zelensky’s Kursk offensive turned out to be a Himalayan blunder, which has taken the war to a tipping point favouring Russia.

In this context, the extraordinary first-ever joint piece by the spy chiefs of CIA and Mi6 which appeared in Saturday’s FT shows that beneath  word play and hyperbole, the Anglo-American strategy is in a cul-de-sac. Bill Burns and Richard Moore cannot even bring themselves to articulate what Biden’s objectives are despite admitting that “staying the course is more vital than ever.” 

Burns and Moore hinted that covert (terrorist) operations by Krylo Budanov, Ukraine’s military intelligence chief, are the option left now in the proxy war. What a Shakespearean fall for a superpower!

September 8, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Durov Bombshell: Archaic Crypto Law Charges Reveal French Intel’s Access to Private Communications

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 06.09.2024

The Durov saga in France and the continued efforts by countries around the world to crack down on his popular cloud-based, end-to-end encrypted private messenger and social media software has divulged a string of embarrassing details about the sorry state of internet privacy and freedom of information.

Two of the six charges facing Telegram CEO Pavel Durov in France are grounded an obscure, never-used twenty-year-old law obliging companies providing cryptography tools to inform the French Cybersecurity Agency (French acronym ANSSI) and grant it access to the software’s source code and “a description of [its] technical characteristics.”

The 2004 law – uniquely blunt in its demand that companies divulge info about the tech tools used for private communications, is being used against Durov by accusing him of providing encrypted communications services “without certified declaration.”

The legal requirement also means, if it is applied evenly across the board, that the array of instant messengers available to French users, from WhatsApp and Signal to iMessage and the French-made Olvid ‘secure’ messenger used by the French government, do comply with ANSSI regulations, meaning French intelligence can potentially spy on any or all French users at any time.

Adding credence to this idea is the fact that Pavel Durov is reportedly the first-ever tech mogul to be charged under the 2004 law, and the fact that many big-name tech companies have been silent on the Durov case, with the exception of Proton CEO Andy Yen, who characterized the charges against the Russian-born tech mogul as “economic suicide” that’s “rapidly and permanently changing the perception of founders and investors” toward France.

“If sustained, I don’t see how tech founders could possibly travel to France, much less hire in France,” Yen wrote last week.

The law is also reminiscent of the case against WikiLeaks cofounder Julian Assange, who was threatened with decades of jail time by the US under the obscure Espionage Act of 1917, even though that he was not an American citizen, and a publisher, not a spy. Former president Donald Trump was charged under the same act in his classified documents case, which got thrown out by a judge in July.

September 7, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Iran’s UN mission rejects Western allegations of supplying ballistic missiles to Russia

Press TV – September 7, 2024

Iran has rejected allegations of supplying ballistic missiles to Russia as baseless and misleading. The allegations are leveled against Tehran by the US and its Western allies.

The mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations said on Friday that the country regards as inhuman any military assistance to parties of the Ukraine conflict that would increase damage to lives and infrastructure in Ukraine.

Therefore, not only does it not do so, but also invites other countries to stop sending weapons to the parties involved in the conflict, the mission said.

“The position of the Islamic Republic of Iran regarding the conflict in Ukraine has not changed,” the mission said after American, British and French envoys leveled coordinated accusations at Tehran concerning the ongoing Russia-Ukraine conflict during a UN Security Council meeting on August 30

The mission also called on other countries to follow suit and end the supply of weapons to the warring sides.

Iran’s permanent representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani previously also rejected the “baseless and misleading” accusations of the United States, England and France regarding Tehran’s role in Russia’s military campaign in Ukraine.

“The United States and its allies cannot deny the undeniable fact that sending advanced Western weapons, especially from the United States, has prolonged the war in Ukraine and harmed civilians and civilian infrastructure,” Iravani said.

He made the remarks in a letter sent to the UN chief and the Security Council’s president on Wednesday.

He said Iran “categorically rejects” any allegations suggesting its involvement in the sale, export, or transfer of arms in violation of its international commitments to Russia as “misleading, completely unfounded.”

Tehran has repeatedly dismissed Western allegations of its involvement in the Russia-Ukraine war.

Iran has called for a ceasefire, blaming the lingering conflict on Western arms supplies to Kiev.

Russia launched what it called a special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022 partly to prevent NATO’s eastward expansion after warning that the US-led military alliance was following an “aggressive line” against Moscow.

Russia has repeatedly warned against the flow of Western weapons to Ukraine, saying it prolongs the conflict.

September 7, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | 1 Comment

France arrests nurse who volunteered in Gaza

Imane Maarifi
MEMO | September 6, 2024

France yesterday arrested then released nurse Imane Maarifi who spent 15 days volunteering as a medic in the Gaza Strip.

Lawyer Rafik Chekkat, founder of the Islamophobia platform, said Maarifi was arrested in the morning at her home and taken into custody.

He criticised the arrest and said it took place at a time when French soldiers who fought in Gaza “enjoy total impunity.”

Thomas Portes, a lawmaker from the La France Insoumise, or France Unbowed (LFI) party, wrote that Maarifi has been released from custody.

“The search of the home in front of the family leaves no doubt about the desire to intimidate the voices that are raised to support the Palestinian people and demand an immediate ceasefire,” he wrote on X.

Maarifi attended pro-Palestinian rallies in France to share her testimony about the crippling situation in Gaza.

She has also expressed her demand for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and a boycott of companies supporting Israel.

Maarifi spent 15 days volunteering as a medic at the European hospital in Khan Yunis.

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran rejects US accusations of electoral interference

Al Mayadeen | September 6, 2024

Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nasser Kanaani rejected the US accusations against Iran, alongside other countries, of launching a campaign to interfere with the results of the upcoming presidential elections.

“Once again, we reject these unfounded accusations, which serve domestic political purposes in the United States,” he said in response to US Attorney General Merrick Garland’s allegations.

The diplomat asserted that US officials cannot reform their own deeply rooted structural, political, and social problems by deflecting responsibility onto others.

Kanaani added that the US accusations divert attention from its own record of disruptive and illegal actions against other countries.

In a joint statement with the FBI and several other US intelligence agencies, Iran was accused of conducting cyberattacks targeting the presidential campaigns of Republican candidate Donald Trump and his Democratic counterpart Kamala Harris.

Iran rejects allegations about supplying Russia with arms

The US has made several attempts to politically attack Iran this week.

Iran’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the United Nations Amir Saeid Iravani strongly rejected on Thursday claims made by the United States, the United Kingdom, and France regarding alleged Iranian arms sales and transfers to Russia.

In a letter addressed to the UN Security Council, Iravani stated that the US and its allies “cannot hide the fact that the shipment of advanced Western weaponry, particularly by the United States, has prolonged the war in Ukraine and caused harm to civilians and civilian infrastructure.”

Iravani pointed out that the representatives of France and the UK made false allegations under UN Security Council Resolution 2231 (2015), while the US representative not only reiterated those claims but also accused Iran of supporting terrorism. He emphasized that “these baseless and misleading accusations are categorically rejected.”

“It is laughable that three countries, which are directly involved in the Ukraine war and actively fueling the conflict, would brazenly accuse the Islamic Republic of intervening in the war,” Iravani said, reaffirming Tehran’s commitment to adhering to international humanitarian law.

These remarks come in response to a recent Bloomberg report, which, citing unnamed sources, claimed that European officials expect Iran to soon deliver Iranian-made ballistic missiles to Russia for use in the Ukraine war.

Iran has consistently denied accusations of providing military support to Russia in the Ukraine war, stressing that such claims were part of a “broader effort to incite hostility against the Islamic Republic.”

September 6, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | 2 Comments

The American Way of War

By Thomas DiLorenzo | Lew Rockwell | August 31, 2024

The purpose of the war is “extermination, not of soldiers alone, that is the least part of the trouble, but the people.”

  • Letter from General Sherman to Mrs. Sherman, July 31, 1862

“[H]ad the Confederates somehow won . . . they would have found themselves justified . . . in stringing up President Lincoln and the entire Union high command for violation of the laws of war, specifically for waging war against noncombatants.”

  • Lee Kennett, Marching Through Georgia: The Story of Soldiers and Civilians during Sherman’s Campaign, p. 286.

“Distinguished military historian B.H. Liddell Hart observed that the code of civilized warfare which had ruled Europe for over two hundred years was first broken by Lincoln’s policy of directing the destruction of civilian life in the South.”

  • Charles Adams, When in the Course of Human Events, p. 116.

In When in the Course of Human Events: Arguing the Case for Southern Secession Charles Adams wrote of how the first Geneva Convention on War took place in 1863, followed by three more, with the last one being in 1949.  The 1863 convention codified the laws of war as were understood at the time to say: 1) Attacking defenseless cities and towns was a war crime; 2) Plundering and wantonly destroying civilian property was a war crime; and 3) Only necessities could be taken from a civilian population, and they had to be paid for.  Some historians, Adams wrote, claimed that these laws were the laws of war for four centuries and that they were all broken by the Lincoln regime. The lawlessness of the Lincoln regime, in other words, set the stage for the military atrocities of the twentieth century.

Most Americans have been taught to ignore the Lincoln regime’s war crimes by repeating Sherman’s CYA quip, “war is hell.” But there is a clear historical record of rape, murder, torture, arson, and the bombing of civilian occupied cities by the Union army. See for example War Crimes Against Southern Civilians by Walter Brian Cisco; The Civil War by Shelby Foote; Union Terror by Jeffrey Addicott; and South Carolina Citizens in Sherman’s Path by Karen Stokes for starters.

There you will learn that there was so much murder, arson and theft in Missouri that vast sections of the entire state were uninhabited by the war’s end. Entire towns, including my former town of Bluffton, South Carolina, were burned to the ground with every private residence set ablaze by U.S. Army “soldiers.” The Union Army was an army of pyromaniacs, rapists, and thieves.

In August of 1863 Charleston, South Carolina was not defended by Confederate forces when a six-month bombardment of the city commenced, exploding more than 22,000 artillery shells in the city. Unexploded shells were still being found a century later.

Sherman ordered the four-day bombardment of Atlanta in the Fall of 1864 when it was only occupied by women, children, infants, and elderly men, with his artillerists targeting homes where they spotted human habitation.  As many as 5,000 artillery shells rained down on Atlanta’s civilian population in a single day. Corpses littered the streets, something that Sherman called “a beautiful sight.” Thousands of surviving residents were homeless at the onset of winter.

Such war crimes were committed by Lincoln’s army, with his direction and full knowledge, for the duration of the war. It is said that when the Prussian military invited Sherman’s sidekick, General Phil Sheridan, to present a lecture on the American way of war the Prussians – no shrinking violets – were shocked and disgusted by how he described the murder, rape, plunder, and arson that occurred under his command in the Shenandoah Valley.

Just three months after Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia General Sherman was put in charge of the “Military District of the Missouri,” which was all land west of the Mississippi River. His orders were to essentially wage a campaign of genocide against the Plains Indians, which he did for the next twenty-five years, killing some 45,000 of them, women and children included, and placing the rest in concentration camps called “reservations.” In 1891, the year of his death, Sherman expressed his regrets that his army did not kill every last Indian. He is famously associated with the genocidal quip, “The only good Indian is a dead Indian.” He did all this, he once said, “to make way for the [government-subsidized] railroads,” of which he was a major stockholder.

During the Philippine Insurrection (1889) the U.S. Army killed some 200,000 Filipinos, with some estimates that a million civilians were killed. That was after the Spanish-American War also massacred thousands of civilians.

All of this was brought to mind when I recently ran across a 2010 book entitled Hellstorm: The Death of Nazi Germany, 1944-1947 by Thomas Goodrich. (There is also a YouTube video, “Hellstorm: The Genocide of Germany”). It is a hard book to read because it describes the results of the American way of war (imitated by the Russians, British, and Germans as well) combined with twentieth century military technology.

Goodrich starts by writing of how Hitler’s 1925 Mein Kampf promised to rid Germany of all “Jewish influence” if he were to ever obtain political power. This naturally “alarmed Jews worldwide . . .” Influential Jewish businessmen first organized an international boycott of the German economy and of course denounced the National Socialist German Workers Party (the Nazis). That quickly turned into what the organizer of the boycott called a “holy war” against “cruel and savage beasts,” i.e., all Germans.

Goodrich quotes Hollywood script writer Ben Hecht as writing that a “cancer” flourishes in the world in the form of “Germany, Germanism, and Germans.” They are “murderers, foul and wanton,” said the Hollywood movie script writer. “Germany must perish,” added Theodore Kaufman in a book of that title. He argued that, after the war, “all German men and women should be sterilized” to eliminate the disease of “Germanism and its carriers.” The New York Times praised this as “A Sensational Idea” while the Washington Post labeled it “A provocative theory.”

Franklin D. Roosevelt made these calls for “extermination” and genocide official when he endorsed the so-called “Morgenthau Plan,” named after his Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau.  The plan called for the complete destruction of Germany after the war by the dismantling of all industry and the confiscation of massive amounts of land, among other things.  The plan estimated that the result would be death by starvation of some 50 million Germans. Their hope was that “within two generations Germany would cease to exist.” When others expressed shock at such a barbaric proposal, Morgenthau snapped, “They asked for it. Why the hell should I worry about what happens to their people?”  Morgenthau obviously wasn’t worried about what might happen to him in the afterlife.

Winston Churchill also endorsed the plan and, it goes without saying, so did Stalin. Goodrich claims that Hitler considered the war to be a war against “Jewish Bolshevism” since “Lenin, Trotsky, and many other Russian [communist] revolutionaries were Jewish.”

Hellscape vividly describes the carpet bombing of civilian-occupied Dresden, Germany, where tons and tons of bombs were dropped by the Royal Air Force (RAF) and the U.S. Airforce on the defenseless city. Literally thousands of bombers dropped phosphorous bombs on the city, creating a hellish inferno that melted bodies almost instantly, literally broiling them alive. The entire city was described as “one huge glowing wave.” There were thousands of dead bodies everywhere and the stench of burnt, decaying flesh was nauseating, said survivors. The animals in the Dresden zoo were incinerated along with everyone else caught above ground.

Knowing that people would flee to a large public park outside of the city the RAF dropped tons of high explosive bombs there. American bombers followed up by strafing the civilians in the park with their machine guns. This whole scene was repeated day after day as though the objective was to murder every last human being in Dresden. Goodrich cites estimates of some 400,000 civilians killed in Dresden alone.

This mass murder of defenseless citizens was gleefully and fiendishly repeated in Hamburg and many other German cities near the end of the war when there was little or no military resistance. “What had taken the German nation over two millennia to build, had taken its enemies a mere six years to destroy,” Goodrich concludes.

Goodrich writes of how Stalin considered Russian prisoners of war to be traitors since his order was to fight to the death.  The American authorities after the war helped Stalin enforce his rule with “operation keelhaul,” which returned thousands of Russian prisoners of war back to Stalin. “[T]he entire Cossack nation had been delivered to the Soviets.  Within days, most were either dead or bolted into cattle cars for the one-way ride to Siberia” and slave labor. Over five million Soviet citizens were returned to Stalin and “delivered to torture and slavery.” General Eisenhower supervised all of this with a collection of concentration camps that held the prisoners before handing them over to Stalin. Thousands of them were intentionally starved to death in the camps, writes Goodrich.

Stalin wasn’t the only newly-anointed slave owner. “When France requested slaves as part of its war booty, Eisenhower transferred over 600,000 Germans east.” And “like the Americans, the French starved their prisoners.” Several hundred thousand prisoners in Great Britain “were transformed into virtual slaves” as well. Eventually, “at least 800,000 German prisoners died in the American and French death camps” after the war.

One of the more sickening sections of Hellstorm is the description of the massive rape of German women and girls that occurred for several years. I will spare the reader of the gory stories and details. The Russians were the primary perpetrators, while American soldiers boasted that rape was not necessary; it was easy to bribe starving and destitute German women with a mere candy bar or a few slices of bread. “A bit of food, a bar of chocolate, or a bar of soap seems to make rape unnecessary,” an American soldier is quoted as saying very matter-of-factly. “By the summer of 1945, Germany had become the world’s greatest slave market where sex was the new medium of exchange.”

As I said, this is a hard book to stomach, but it is also a necessary book to read to understand the realities of the American way of war that was introduced the world in the 1860s and which, because of its “success,” was imitated by murderous tyrants – and their propaganda mouthpieces — the world over during the twentieth century. War crimes and their “ends-justify -the-means” rationales are so routine today that propagandists for the current Israeli war of genocide in Gaza have nonchalantly advocated the “Dresdenizing” of Gaza and the subsequent murder of thousands of women, children, and infants.

September 4, 2024 Posted by | Book Review, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The National Security State Is Killing Free Speech

Governments and institutions are using lawfare to shut down independent voices

By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • August 30, 2024

It is interesting to hear President Joe Biden claim that democracy is at stake in the upcoming national election when he and his Democratic Party colleagues have done so much to hinder the free discussion of issues that should be considered important by the electorate. Joe has operated by fiat in his opening of America’s southern border to mass invasion by illegal immigrants and has committed the US to participation in two wars without any declaration of war or credible justification for entering the conflicts in terms of the security of the United States. More to the point, in terms of how it affects every American, Biden and company have run electoral campaigns based on the premise that his opponents were being assisted by the interference of unfriendly governments in the process. In reality, if outside interference in one’s election is a real problem, it is a crime that is more true of Joe’s best friend Israel rather than anything coming from Russia, China or Iran.

But the one subject that is part and parcel of electoral corruption that is not being discussed sufficiently is the cooption of the national police and intelligence agencies to make them de facto operatives of the party in power, most recently the Democrats. After the 2016 election, the use of the so-called deep state to blacken Donald Trump through allegations that surfaced from federal law enforcement acting in collusion with the Hillary Clinton campaign and some in the media was exposed. Due to that revelation, the concept of a deep state that operates independently of elections or elected officials began to take shape in the minds of many observers of the Washington scene.

The Biden administration has taken the incestuous relationship with its law enforcement and intelligence agencies even farther. It sought to establish a “Disinformation Governance Board” at the Department of Homeland Security which would have been empowered to denounce the credibility of citizens who were complaining about what the government was doing based on the fiction that what was taking place was deliberate disruption of the government using false information. This even applied to the increasingly heavy hand employed by the Bidens over education, where parents who expressed disagreement with Critical Race Theory and other woke content taught in the schools as well as the aggressive gender bending, were conveniently labeled “domestic terrorists.” In short, anyone who disagrees with government policy has become a “domestic” problem and will be confronted with the full employment of government resources to criminalize or create disincentives to such behavior which some might recall used to be referred to as “free speech.”

Fortunately, people are beginning to take notice of what is going on to create a world where governments actively conspire to eliminate criticism of what they do. It is all reminiscent of the torment of top journalist Julian Assange by the British and US governments over the course of over twelve years, five of which were in a top security prison, for the crime of having revealed details of questionable or even illegal official behavior by US soldiers in Iraq.

Two interesting uses of federal police resources to silence dissenters have occurred recently in the United States, involving politically prominent individuals who are being surveilled and harassed for little more than their expressed contrary views on America’s wars. They are Scott Ritter, a former Marine and weapons inspector, and Tulsi Gabbard, a former congressman from Hawaii and a reserve lieutenant colonel in that state’s National Guard. What has been done to them by the Biden Administration using as its tool of choice the nation’s security services is bizarre and almost unimaginable for those who still believe that the United States is a functioning democracy whose citizens’ rights are protected by a written constitution and a judicial system that enforces the laws without regard for who is in power or the pleading of special interests.

Ritter has had two recent encounters with the FBI. On June 3rd he attempted to fly to Russia to speak at an international conference when he was stopped at the airport and had his passport taken under orders of the State Department. No explanation was given for the action and he was not given either a receipt or a warrant explaining the grounds for the seizure of the document. It has not since been returned. On August 7th, 41 FBI agents arrived unannounced and proceeded to search Ritter’s New York state home. They confiscated documents and electronic communications devices. Interestingly, they had in their possession a thick file that contained copies of many of his email and phone messages, indicating that he had been under surveillance for quite some time. It is independently known that the FBI, NSA and CIA have global surveillance capabilities that enable them to monitor phones and emails for anyone, or, indeed, for everyone, in real time, so one might assume that Ritter was only one of their many victims.

The Gabbard case is even more bewildering because, though an active critic of the Ukraine war, Tulsi is a former Democratic Party congressman and army officer who was and is eminently respectable. She is reportedly being stalked by Transportation Security Administration’s air marshals, part of the agency’s Quiet Skies covert operation targeting suspected threats to aircraft and airports. Those who are under Quiet Skies surveillance have a printed SSSS on their airline boarding tickets, requires one to be taken aside before boarding for additional screening. Gabbard believes that placing her on the TSA Quiet Skies target list was “clearly an act of political retaliation. It’s no accident that I was placed on the Quiet Skies list the day after I did a prime-time interview warning the American people about… why Kamala Harris would be bad for our country if elected as President.” Gabbard observed that, despite her having served in the US Army for 21 years, “now my government is surveilling me as a potential domestic terrorist… forcing me to be forever looking over my shoulder, wondering if and how I am being watched, what secret terror watch list I’m on, and having no transparency or due process.” A commenter on Twitter noted that “The only thing Tulsi Gabbard blew up was Kamala’s earlier presidential run. That’s why she’s on a list.”

A former TSA agent explained that because of being listed on Quiet Skies Gabbard would have multiple air marshals on “every flight, every leg,” and canine teams will “maneuver over to the [boarding] gate area… floating around to try to pick up a scent of something… When she travels by air there is one or more sky marshals traveling with her. In some cases, she is met by a team of agents with sniffer dogs when she deplanes.” Tulsi believes that she might be targeted by the White House due to her antiwar position but she has also now endorsed Donald Trump for president and the government is therefore using law enforcement as its weapon to intimidate and discredit her.

Europe is also on board the death to free speech bandwagon. Another recent arrest is that of Pavel Durov in France on charges of permitting the use of his internet service to carry out illegal actions like collusion with organized crime, drug dealing, fraud and distribution of child pornography. He was temporarily released on a 5 million Euro bail on August 28th but cannot leave France. Durov is the Russian-born founder of Telegram, the world’s largest encrypted messenger service with over one billion users. He is a multi-billionaire with a flamboyant lifestyle and also holds the citizenship of France and the United Arab Emirates. And there is inevitably an Israeli angle relating to Telegram’s airing of graphic videos of Israeli atrocities taking place in Gaza. The French prosecutors will no doubt say it is about allowing “hate speech,” but Durov’s has had French citizenship and has been traveling in and out of the country for years. The arrest, which can mean twenty years in prison, has only taken place after Israel complained. For what it’s worth the Chief Rabbi of France Haim Korsia has justified Israeli killing of Palestinians in Gaza during a French television interview and then urged the Israeli government to “finish the job”. He was not arrested for endorsing a war crime nor was he even rebuked by Prime Minister Emmanuel Macron.

Likewise, the United States’ moves to ban Chinese owned TikTok is in large part because it also allows videos from Gaza and Israel’s complaints have aroused a normally dormant US Congress to ban the site. It is all about creating an internet that does not harbor content that Jews dislike, and that rule also applies to individual journalists. On August 14th British independent journalist Richard Medhurst was detained by police at London’s Heathrow Airport and questioned while in solitary confinement for 24 hours. He also had his phone and laptop confiscated over possible violation of section 12 of the UK’s Terrorism Act, which allows a person to be convicted and jailed for up to 14 years for what is a thought crime—“express[ing] an opinion or belief that is supportive of a proscribed [terrorist] organization.” Medhurst was guilty only of being a regular and outspoken critic of Israel’s slaughter of the Palestinians. Also in the UK, on August 29th, independent journalist Sarah Wilkinson had her home searched by 12 policemen from the counter-terrorism force who took her papers and electronic devices. They told her she was under arrest due to “content that she had posted online” that was highly critical of Israel genocide of the Gazans.

The moves against internet providers have no doubt alerted billionaire Elon Musk and others to the possibility that they might be under attack soon, in the case of Musk over his X (Twitter) site. Referring to Durov’s arrest, Musk has described the current attacks on information sites as “dangerous times.” Retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman, a Ukrainian Jew by birth, who made waves as a key witness supporting the impeachment of former President Donald Trump, issued a thinly veiled warning after Durov’s arrest, praising the move to require censorship on internet information sources. Vindman attributed the development to “… a growing intolerance for platforming disinfo & malign influence & a growing appetite for accountability. Musk should be nervous.”

Judge Andrew Napolitano, has also been a recent victim of a possible attempt to silence him and the war critics appearing on his interview program by having an internet platform that he has used for years temporarily suspended. YouTube claimed the move was due to misinformation that surfaced in a session with internationally respected journalist Pepe Escobar, who takes a decisively antiwar stance. But nothing in the interview suggests that there was anything worthy of censure as deliberate disinformation. In reality, Napolitano’s willingness to provide a platform for many experts whose views are unwelcome in mainstream media outlets has led more such individuals to join his roster of guests, which the Biden administration appears to see as a threat.

The media broadly speaking have been the principal targets of illegal government pushback, but the effort to permit only acceptable speech is also advancing in other areas. Schools and colleges are hurrying to create protest-proof campuses for the upcoming academic year, but that all too often has only meant ending demonstrations critical of Israel and its policies. Pro-Israel demonstrators who openly support the genocide against the Palestinians will not be disturbed. New York University has, for example, declared that students and faculty who discriminate against or harass “Zionists” may be violating New York University’s hate speech policies and could be suspended or expelled. Groups supportive of Israel believe that use of the very word “Zionist” in a derogatory fashion serves as a cover for attacks on Jews or Israelis. Now, NYU, which like many universities became paralyzed by pro-Palestinian unrest during the last school year, appears to be the first college to take a position on the term’s use. “Using code words, like ‘Zionist,’ does not eliminate the possibility that your speech violates the NDAH [Nondiscrimination and Anti-Harassment] Policy” reads NYU’s new student community standards. In other words, if you call someone a “Zionist” you are still likely to be an antisemite! The NYU chapter of Jewish on Campus explained how the new policy “makes it abundantly clear: Zionism is a core component of Jewish identity.” Pro-Palestinian groups on campus, objected, observing how the new code of conduct “criminalizes Palestine solidarity.”

In another move to “protect” vulnerable Zionist students from the alleged surging college antisemitism, Hillel Foundation, the Jewish student support group that is active on numerous American campuses, has launched a campaign called “Operation Secure Our Campuses” at more than 50 US universities. Meetings have been arranged to coordinate with local college administrators, police and FBI to come up with at least ten steps that should be taken to eliminate pro-Palestinian demonstrations in the upcoming academic year. Pro-Israel manifestations will apparently not be affected by the new regulations.

And there’s more, coming this time from the Republicans. Five Senators, Joni Ernst, Kevin Cramer, John Thune, Roger Marshall and Marsha Blackburn signed off on a letter to Daniel Werfe, commissioner of the IRS, about an “insufficient and insulting” response to an “inquiry to review the legal compliance of nonprofit charities that support demonstrations opposing the Jewish state.” Two groups the senators noted as involved with anti-Israel protests were Students for Justice in Palestine and Alliance for Global Justice. “An entity’s tax-exempt status is a privilege, and it is your responsibility to ensure only those who abide by tax laws are granted this privilege,” the senators wrote. The letter concluded with the lawmakers requesting information on the number of post- October 7th organizations involved in pro-Palestinian protests and the identities of the groups that have actually lost their nonprofit status as a consequence. The senators are demanding that the IRS no longer offer special tax breaks to groups or organizations that are critical of Israel.

The fact is that IRS exemptions are usually granted after careful review of the credentials of organizations that fit into various definitions as being religious, educational, or charitable. One such status is called 501(c)(3) and it enables the organization to solicit donations that are in most cases tax deductible, a major incentive when seeking funding. Again, Jewish “charitable” foundations supporting the Israeli army, or the creation of illegal settlements, or even the genocide of Palestinians, will not be subjected to such scrutiny or loss of IRS special status. Groups critical of US foreign policy will, however, be increasingly targeted by the IRS and punished for staking out a political position that differs from that of the White House and Congress, particularly if it relates to Israel. It is just one more step in the death of free speech in America!

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

August 31, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | 1 Comment

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