Threat to Arrest Russian Journalists Signals Growing Political Persecution in West
By John Miles – Sputnik – 04.06.2024
Western governments are increasingly turning towards overt methods of repression as they lose their grip on control of the masses.
The Clooney Foundation for Justice (CFJ) has been forced to disavow comments by a legal director with the organization calling for the arrest of Russian journalists after intense backlash.
Anna Neistat, who leads the foundation’s The Docket project, claimed Thursday that her team is urging international authorities to prosecute Russian reporters.
“We want them to travel to other countries and be arrested there,” said Neistat, revealing that she is pressuring the European Union and International Criminal Court to pursue the matter. Neistat made the comments during an interview with the US state-backed propaganda outlet Voice of America.
The organization has since backpedaled on the provocative claim with a statement asserting that “someone in our foundation misspoke,” but observers see the proposal as yet another sign of the West’s growing authoritarianism and intolerance of dissenting voices.
Author and political analyst Caleb Maupin joined Sputnik’s The Critical Hour program Monday to discuss the incident.
“There’s a lot of things to keep in mind in reaction to this news story,” said the author and reporter. “The first of which is that the European Union has basically already outlawed all Russian media within the EU space, right? You can’t watch RT. Websites are suppressed, blocked, and it’s pretty hard to look at Russian media in the EU.”
“RT France has been shut down. You can’t watch RT in Belgium, you can’t watch RT in EU countries,” he continued. “What is a little bit different, though, about this is that this was specifically aimed at journalists who would report in Russian, for Russian audiences, but would do so from EU countries. And the idea was that they would be charged, and what’s interesting also is that the warrants for their arrest would be secret.”
“They would be arrested upon arrival and it would be a way to basically just kidnap these reporters and journalists and hold them hostage. And, if you look at it, it’s a particularly nasty proposal. And that’s probably why I noticed that George Clooney is now backing away from it and saying, ‘oh, people from our foundation misspoke, we didn’t mean this,’ etcetera.”
European countries have made increasingly aggressive attempts in recent years to restrict media and control the flow of information across the continent. The EU has outright banned Russian media outlets from broadcasting within the 27-nation bloc, but measures have been taken against third-party platforms, as well. The video sharing website Rumble was forced to block French users from accessing the platform after refusing to comply with government demands to block Russian content.
Politicians in the UK have also explored blocking the website, and the country recently detained journalist Kit Klarenberg at an airport in London, questioning him for five hours about his political views.
Across the Atlantic, the United States has famously condemned journalist Julian Assange to 12 years of effective confinement after the Wikileaks founder published leaked material revealing US war crimes in Iraq. Former CIA director and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made plans to kidnap and murder the firebrand transparency activist, it was recently revealed.
The uproar over the CFJ’s comments comes as Sputnik contributor Scott Ritter was denied travel to speak at a conference in Russia Monday, having his passport confiscated by authorities on apparent orders from the US State Department. Free speech concerns have also been raised over police crackdowns on campus pro-Palestine encampments, a move demanded by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
“I will say, though, that the Ukrainians have been saying this from the beginning,” said Maupin of the calls to arrest Russian journalists. “I mean, they have this list of ‘information terrorists’ – which I’m proudly on, by the way, I’m listed by the Ukrainian government as an ‘information terrorist’ – and they have been calling for the assassination and murder of journalists, and they’ve done it since the war has begun.”
“This is not a change for Ukraine. What’s changed here is that the Clooney Foundation made such a statement and wanted to enlist EU governments in carrying it out.”
Western governments are usually more subtle in their attempts to control information, noted Maupin, typically relying more on efforts to influence popular narratives rather than outright censorship. The move towards more overt repression may be seen as a response to the increased transparency allowed by the Internet, or perhaps another sign of the West’s loss of power as a multipolar world order comes into view.
“They like subtly bringing up points they like,” Maupin noted. “Finding people who say things that they agree with and boosting them rather than saying it themselves. This is how the intelligence world works, and a huge amount of what the American intelligence apparatus does is construct media narratives and insert ideas into media discourse.”
“A lot of what the intelligence apparatus does is just boost certain messages and try to control the conversation in a subtle way to advance US foreign policy goals.”
The Trump Trial and our Injustice System
By Ron Paul | June 3, 2024
I’ve long criticized our current US justice system – on all levels – as becoming much more about political justice than blind justice. The bizarre trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump last week on 34 felonies only reinforces my concerns.
The New York District Attorney, Soros-backed Alvin Bragg, has been notorious for downgrading felony charges against others to misdemeanor charges. According to a recent article in the Daily Mail, Bragg had downgraded 60 percent of felony cases to lesser charges, resulting in violent criminals being released on the streets and a crime wave across New York City.
But when it came to Donald Trump, Bragg lurched in the other direction, upgrading what normally would have been misdemeanor charges against anyone else to 34 felony charges against the former president. How can this sudden “about-face” be explained other than politics?
Jonathan Turley, who is no fan of Donald Trump, has been covering the trial closely and has found more than a little disturbing the exuberant celebrations of Trump’s conviction among the mainstream media and his political opponents. Recently, he wrote:
“The conviction of former President Donald Trump in Manhattan of 34 felonies produced citywide celebrations [which] extended to the media, where former U.S. Attorney Harry Litman told MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace that it was ‘majestic day’ and ‘a day to celebrate.’ When I left the courthouse after watching the verdict come in, I was floored by the celebrations outside by both the public and some of the media.”
Regardless of one’s view of Donald Trump, it is a disturbing development in our society when justice is treated more like a football game where you root for your “team” rather than a way of preserving our freedom and liberty in an equal way for all.
The real goal of the trial was political. None other than George Soros’ son Alex let the cat out of the bag recently when he advised fellow Trump-haters how to take advantage of the trial result. He posted on Twitter after the verdict, “Democrats should refer to Trump as a convicted felon at every opportunity. Repetition is the key to a successful message and we want people to wrestle with the notion of hiring a convicted felon for the most important job in the country!”
It was not about justice in any way. It was all about being able to call the likely Republican presidential nominee a “felon” so as to undermine his support among voters. In other words, election interference.
The market has a way of prevailing, however. The repeated attempts at using “lawfare” to remove Trump from the political scene have all backfired and actually have served to make the former president even more popular among voters. Immediately after Trump’s conviction on the 34 charges he began sending out fundraising appeals based on his “persecution” by the state of New York. As of this writing, he has, according to press reports, raised over $200 million for his campaign.
The politicization of justice is not limited to the Democratic Party. The wind sown by political opponents of Donald Trump may well become the whirlwind they reap when their own political opponents are in positions of power. When that is the case, we all lose.
Copyright © 2024 The Ron Paul Institute
US seizes Scott Ritter’s passport
Scott Ritter. © David McNew/Getty Images
RT | June 3, 2024
The US State Department has seized the passport of former Marine and UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, he told RT on Monday.
Ritter was on his way to Russia for the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) when he was pulled off the plane and had his documents confiscated.
“I was boarding the flight. Three [police] officers pulled me aside. They took my passport. When asked why, they said ‘orders of the State Department’. They had no further information for me,” Ritter told RT. “They pulled my bags off the plane, then escorted me out of the airport. They kept my passport.”
Ritter is a former US Marine Corps intelligence officer, who later served as the US and UN weapons inspector in Iraq. He is also a RT contributor, writing about international security, military affairs, Russia, and the Middle East, as well as arms control and nonproliferation.
He most recently visited Russia in January, spending time in Chechnya, Moscow and St. Petersburg, among other places.
The most recent post on Ritter’s Telegram channel put the Clooney Foundation for Justice on notice for its alleged crusade against “Russian propagandists.”
“Here I am. In your face. If telling the truth about Russia makes me a propagandist in your book, then I accept the title,” he wrote. “Bring it on. I’ll school you on the First Amendment.”
“You have zero concept of what free speech is. Try and arrest me and you’ll find out. In spades. It’s war,” he added.
The amount of copper needed to build EVs is ‘impossible for mining companies to produce’
By Tanya Weaver | Engineering & Technology | May 16, 2024
Copper cannot be mined quickly enough to keep up with current policies requiring the transition to electric vehicles (EVs), according to a University of Michigan study.
Copper is fundamental to electricity generation, distribution and storage. According to GlobalData, there are more than 709 copper mines in operation globally, with the largest being the Escondida mine in Chile, which produced an estimated 882,100 tonnes of copper in 2023.
This may sound like a lot but with electrification ramping up globally it is not. The Michigan study, Copper mining and vehicle electrification, has focused on the copper required just for the production of EVs over the coming years.
Many countries across the world are putting forward policies for EVs. For instance, in the US the Inflation Reduction Act, signed into law in 2022, calls for 100% of cars manufactured by 2035 to be electric.
However, an EV requires three to five times more copper than petrol or diesel cars, not to mention the copper required for upgrades to the electricity grid.
“A normal Honda Accord needs about 40 pounds of copper. The same battery electric Honda Accord needs almost 200 pounds of copper,” said Adam Simon, professor of earth and environmental studies at the University of Michigan.
“We show in the paper that the amount of copper needed is essentially impossible for mining companies to produce.”
The researchers examined 120 years of global data from copper production dating back to 1900. They then modelled how much copper is likely to be produced for the rest of the century and how much copper the US electricity infrastructure and fleet of cars would need to upgrade to renewable energy.
The study found that renewable energy’s copper needs would outstrip what copper mines can produce at the current rate. Between 2018 and 2050, the world will need to mine 115% more copper than has been mined in all of human history up until 2018 just to meet current copper needs without considering the green energy transition.
To meet the copper needs of electrifying the global vehicle fleet, as many as six new large copper mines must be brought online annually over the next several decades. About 40% of the production from new mines will be required for EV-related grid upgrades.
The research concluded that instead of fully electrifying the entire US fleet of vehicles, they should focus on manufacturing hybrid vehicles.
“We know, for example, that a Toyota Prius actually has a slightly better impact on climate than a Tesla. Instead of producing 20 million EVs in the US and, globally, 100 million battery EVs each year, would it be more feasible to focus on building 20 million hybrid vehicles?”
Apart from EVs, copper is, of course, vital in other sectors: for instance, building infrastructure in the developing world such as an electricity grid for the approximately one billion people who don’t yet have access to electricity.
“What we will end up with is tension between how much copper we need to build infrastructure in less developed countries versus how much copper we need for the energy transition,” warned Simon.
“We are hoping this study gets picked up by policymakers who should consider copper as the limiting factor for the energy transition, and to think about how copper is allocated.”
© 2024 The Institution of Engineering and Technology
Belgium’s Ghent University cuts academic relationship with all Israeli universities
Press TV – June 1, 2024
One of the major universities in Belgium has broken off relationship with all Israeli universities and research institutions which it says no longer align with its human rights policy.
University of Ghent (UGent) said in a statement that an investigation by the public research center highlighted concerns regarding connections between Israeli academic institutions and the Israeli administration, military, or security services.
UGent had 18 ongoing partnerships with Israeli academic institutions, it added.
The investigation also referenced a recent World Court ruling which ordered Israel to halt its offensive in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and withdraw from the besieged territory, in a case brought by South Africa saying Israel is committing genocide in the narrow Strip.
The development comes two weeks after UGent announced in a statement that it was severing ties with three Israeli educational and research institutions.
The university’s rector, Rik Van de Walle, said at the time that ties were being cut with Holon Institute of Technology, MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Centre, which carries out agricultural research.
“We currently assess these three partners as (very) problematic according to the Ghent University human rights test, in contrast to the positive evaluation we gave these partners at the start of our collaboration,” Van de Walle said.
Partnerships with MIGAL Galilee Research Institute and the Volcani Centre “were no longer desirable” due to their affiliation with Israeli ministries, an investigation by the University of Ghent found, and collaboration with the Holon Institute “was problematic” because it provided material support to the army for actions in Gaza.
A spokesperson for the university said the move would affect four projects.
Pro-Palestinian protesters in Ghent have been demonstrating and occupying parts of the university campus since early May protesting against the Israeli regime’s military onslaught in Gaza killing nearly 36,400 Palestinians so far.
The protesters told Belgian broadcaster VRT they welcomed the decision, but want to see it extended to include the six non-academic Israeli institutions that UGent currently partners with.
Earlier this week, two other Belgian universities announced changes in their partnership with Israeli institutions.
The University of Antwerp said it would continue its ongoing research projects with Israeli educational institutions, but will put new projects on hold.
The Université Libre de Bruxelles announced that it will no longer initiate projects with Israeli partners.
Clooney Foundation Weaponizes Project for Secret Arrest Warrants Against Russian Journalists
Sputnik – 31.05.2024
Anna Neistat, the Legal Director of the Clooney Foundation for Justice’s Docket Project, revealed that the organization is seeking to obtain secret arrest warrants for Russian journalists in Europe.
Neistat explained that some European countries have laws against “war propaganda” in their criminal codes.
“We are submitting requests to initiate criminal proceedings in countries where this provision exists in the criminal code,” Neistat told the US state-controlled ‘Voice of America’ radio (listed as a foreign agent in Russia).
“Prosecutors can issue an arrest warrant,” she said. “If the warrant is issued, it essentially becomes an EU-wide warrant through Europol. This means journalists could potentially be arrested and extradited to the country investigating them.”
Neistat added that no requests have been submitted yet, and the names of the journalists targeted by the project have not been disclosed. She mentioned that the focus is on “the most prominent Russian propagandists.”
“We are asking prosecutors to issue secret arrest warrants… so the names are not revealed,” she added. “We want these individuals to travel to other countries and be arrested there. It’s better if they are left guessing rather than receiving a clear warning.”
However, Neistat acknowledged that no cases have ever been initiated under the “war propaganda” articles in the criminal codes of the relevant countries.
The project is also considering approaching the International Criminal Court (ICC) to hold journalists accountable and investigate their involvement in “incitement to genocide.”
Neistat noted this would be a legally complex process, requiring evidence of the crime. Moreover, the court is currently dealing with a large number of cases.
Western countries overlook the persecution and murder of Russian journalists and threats against them from the Kiev regime.
Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s First Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN, stated that the Kiev regime openly boasts about its involvement in the killings of Russian journalists.
He mentioned recent deaths at the hands of Ukrainian special services, including Darya Dugina, Vladlen Tatarsky (real name Maxim Fomin), Oleg Klohov, Sputnik war correspondent Rostislav Zhuravlev, Rossiya-24 war correspondent Boris Maksudov and Izvestia war correspondent Semyon Yeremin. Polyanskiy added that the West deliberately turns a blind eye to these crimes by Kiev.
Additionally, Russian law enforcement authorities have uncovered Kiev’s plans to commit terrorist acts against several Russian journalists, including Vladimir Solovyov, Margarita Simonyan, Dmitry Kiselev, Olga Skabeeva and Yevgeny Popov.
Alternative Media Giants Sue The Censorship Industrial Complex
By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | May 29, 2024
In a new lawsuit, Webseed and Brighteon Media have accused multiple US government agencies and prominent tech companies of orchestrating a vast censorship operation aimed at suppressing dissenting viewpoints, particularly concerning COVID-19. The plaintiffs, Webseed and Brighteon Media, manage websites like NaturalNews.com and Brighteon.com, which have been at the center of controversy for their alternative health information and criticism of government policies.
We obtained a copy of the lawsuit for you here.
The defendants include the Department of State, the Global Engagement Center (GEC), the Department of Defense (DOD), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), and tech giants such as Meta Platforms (formerly Facebook), Google, and X. Additionally, organizations like NewsGuard Technologies, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), and the Global Disinformation Index (GDI) are implicated for their roles in creating and using tools to label and suppress what they consider misinformation.
Allegations of Censorship and Anti-Competitive Practices:
The lawsuit claims that these government entities and tech companies conspired to develop and promote censorship tools to suppress the speech of Webseed and Brighteon Media, among others. “The Government was the primary source of misinformation during the pandemic, and the Government censored dissidents and critics to hide that fact,” states Stanford University Professor J. Bhattacharya in support of the plaintiffs’ claims.
The plaintiffs argue that the government’s efforts were part of a broader strategy to silence voices that did not align with official narratives on COVID-19 and other issues. They assert that these actions were driven by an “anti-competitive animus” aimed at eliminating alternative viewpoints from the digital public square.
According to the complaint, the plaintiffs have suffered substantial economic harm, estimating losses between $25 million and $50 million due to reduced visibility and ad revenue from their platforms. They also claim significant reputational damage as a result of being labeled as purveyors of misinformation.
The complaint details how the GEC and other agencies allegedly funded and promoted tools developed by NewsGuard, ISD, and GDI to blacklist and demonetize websites like NaturalNews.com. These tools, which include blacklists and so-called “nutrition labels,” were then utilized by tech companies to censor content on their platforms. The plaintiffs argue that this collaboration between government agencies and private tech companies constitutes an unconstitutional suppression of free speech.
A Broader Pattern of Censorship:
The lawsuit references other high-profile cases, such as Missouri v. Biden, to illustrate a pattern of government overreach into the digital information space. It highlights how these efforts have extended beyond foreign disinformation to target domestic voices that challenge prevailing government narratives.
Webseed and Brighteon Media are seeking both monetary damages and injunctive relief to prevent further censorship. They contend that the government’s actions violate the First Amendment and call for an end to the use of these censorship tools.
As the case progresses, it promises to shine a light on the complex interplay between government agencies, tech companies, and the tools used to control the flow of information in the digital age. The outcome could have significant implications for the future of free speech and the regulation of online content.
America’s Ugly History with the International Criminal Court
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | May 30, 2024
On May 20, the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court announced that he was seeking arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant as well as for Hamas leaders Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, and Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri.
Officials in Washington lashed out against the court and began preparations to pressure the ICC to back off on pursuing the arrests. Netanyahu and Gallant, the United States insisted, should be left alone or left to Israel’s courts.
The Hamas officials should be held accountable, according to the State Department, but not by the ICC. “The Israeli government should hold them accountable on the battlefield. And if not a battlefield, then a court of law,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said. “We absolutely believe that Hamas should be held accountable. That could either be through the prosecution of the war effort by Israel. It could be by being killed. It could be by being brought to justice in an Israeli court.”
Congress is looking to take the lead in punishing the ICC. House Speaker Mike Johnson said, “Congress is reviewing all options, including sanctions, to punish the ICC and ensure its leadership faces consequences if they proceed.”
During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Secretary of State Antony Blinken was asked if the White House would cooperate on legislation that “includes the question of the ICC sticking its nose in the business of countries that have an independent, legitimate, democratic judicial system.” Blinken responded that he is “committed to doing that.” He added, “We want to work with you on a bipartisan basis to find an appropriate response” and that “there’s no question we have to look at the appropriate steps to take to deal with, again, what is a profoundly wrong-headed decision.”
Blinken also told the Senate Appropriations subcommittee he would “welcome” working on “bipartisan” sanctions against the ICC. However, the White House may be considering other steps to deal with the ICC that do not include sanctions.
On May 28, White House spokesperson John Kirby said that sanctions were “not the right answer” to deal with the ICC arrest warrants. It is not that the White House would not punish the ICC, but that “Sanctions on the ICC are not an effective or appropriate tool to address U.S. concerns,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, adding that the White House “will work with Congress on other options to address the ICC overreach.”
Still, the White House remains firmly committed to thwarting the ICC deliberation into issuing an arrest warrant for Netanyahu. “Let me be clear,” Biden said, “We reject the ICC’s application for arrest warrants against Israeli leaders.”
Washington has centered its argument on the grounds that a democratic nation’s legal system should be given priority to act first. Marjorie Cohn, emerita professor of law at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and dean of the People’s Academy of International Law, told me that “the ICC operates under the principle of ‘complementarity.’ That means the Court will assume jurisdiction over a case only if the home country of the accused is unable or unwilling to hold him legally accountable.”
The White House also argued that Israel is not a member of the ICC, so the court lacks jurisdiction over Tel Aviv. Additionally, the Biden administration said that because the United States is not a member, it should not have to support or follow the court.
But, the U.S. fully supported the recent ICC arrest warrant for Russian President Vladimir Putin over actions taken in Ukraine. Russia and Ukraine are also not members of the ICC.
Biden endorsed the arrest warrant for Putin. “Well, I think it’s justified,” he said. “But the question is—[the ICC is] not recognized internationally by us either. But I think it makes a very strong point.” Blinken urged all member nations of the ICC to comply with Putin’s arrest warrant. Asked if European allies should “turn over” Putin, Blinken answered, “I think anyone who’s a party to the court and has obligations should fulfill their obligations.”
A reporter asked if the administration’s policy for Israel would impact the Defence Department’s work “with the ICC to provide evidence about Ukraine.” Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin answered, “Regarding the question of whether or not we’ll continue to provide support to the ICC with respect to crimes that are committed in Ukraine, yes, we continue that work.”
The separate standard for friends and enemies has consequences beyond the ICC. It nourishes the perception of the global majority and the newly emerging multipolar world that the U.S. has abandoned the universal application of international law for the self-serving application of the rules-based order. In doing so, it further damages the United States’ standing in the world and its pursuit of hegemony.
The ICC had jurisdiction to issue an arrest warrant for Putin because Ukraine accepted ad hoc jurisdiction of the court in 2014, meaning that crimes against humanity or genocide, but not crimes of aggression, committed on Ukrainian territory can be tried by the ICC.
But Palestine is an observer state in the UN General Assembly and also granted the ICC jurisdiction over its territory, including Gaza. On February 5, 2021, the ICC ruled that it does have jurisdiction over Palestine. What’s more, unlike Ukraine, Palestine is a signatory to the ICC’s Rome Statute.
The United States does not recognize the ICC. In 1998, 160 countries attended a conference to formulate the Rome Statute. Many of those countries advocated for universal jurisdiction that would give the new court jurisdiction over crimes committed anywhere in the world. The U.S. blocked that universal jurisdiction and insisted that the ICC have jurisdiction only over crimes committed in countries that voluntarily signed the Rome Statute. This was a loophole the U.S. planted for future exploitation.
In 2000, President Bill Clinton signed the Rome Statute but did not send it to the Senate to be ratified. Two years later, President George W. Bush withdrew the signature. That ensured that the ICC could not prosecute Americans for war crimes.
That has always been an important concern for the United States. Current and former officials told The New York Times in 2023 that “American military leaders oppose helping the court investigate Russians because they fear setting a precedent that might help pave the way for it to prosecute Americans.” Following the decision to seek an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, Mike Johnson said, “If the ICC is allowed to threaten Israeli leaders, ours could be next.”
To ensure that never happens, in 2002, the Bush administration enacted the American Servicemembers’ Protection Act, or the “Hague Invasion Act,” as it came to be known. The act authorizes the U.S. to use “all means necessary… to bring about the release of covered U.S. persons and covered allied persons held captive by, on behalf, or at the request of the Court.”
To be doubly sure, the Act banned “the provision of U.S. military assistance… to the government of a country that is a party to the court.” That prohibition was extended in 2004 by the Nethercutt Amendment to include several other types of economic assistance. NATO countries and major non-NATO allies were exempt. For all other countries—unless the president deemed it important to the national security of the United States– there was only one route to exemption. That was by entering a Rome Statute Article 98 agreement with the United States, ensuring that they agree not to surrender Americans to the ICC, “preventing the International Criminal Court from proceeding against United States personnel present in such country.”
WikiLeaks revealed hundreds of cables that show how the U.S. used the threat of sanctions to force countries into Article 98 agreements. A confidential December 2002 U.S. cable from Honduras states, “The U.S. will help those countries that sign Article 98 agreements and cut aid to those that do not.”
The United States sought agreements from 77 countries who joined the ICC “to make extraditions of Americans to the Hague impossible.” They exerted significant pressure. Romania’s foreign minister said he “can’t remember anything they put so much weight or interest into.”
The European Union told member states that entering into an Article 98 agreement with the U.S. “would be inconsistent” with their ICC obligations. Human Rights Watch said the American goal was “to exempt U.S. military and civilian personnel from the jurisdiction of the ICC” and that signing the “impunity agreements… would breach their legal obligations under the Rome Statute.” In the end, at least one hundred countries signed Article 98 agreements with the United States.
The long list of sanctioned countries eventually boomeranged against the United States, leading countries to look to Russia and China for help and impeding the U.S. wars on terror and drugs. They were gradually dropped.
In 2020, when the ICC tried to investigate the American use of torture against terrorism detainees, the U.S. imposed sanctions on court officials. The Biden administration revoked the sanctions order in 2021. When the ICC resumed its investigation into Afghanistan, it decided to focus on the Taliban and the Islamic State in Khorasan Province and allow alleged U.S crimes to “take a back seat.”
Whatever the U.S. intent is—whether it is to protect its friend or itself—the hypocritically selective application of its policy undermines the universality of international law. It also reinforces the perception of the global majority and the newly emerging multipolar world that the U.S. is no longer a sponsor of international law but of a rules-based order that is invoked when it suits them or their friends and is not invoked when it doesn’t.
What Has Israel Done for Americans in the Past Week?
They’ve taken our money & weapons and made us complicit as war criminals
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MAY 30, 2024
The Jewish Virtual Library asserts that “The US-Israel relationship is based on the twin pillars of shared values and shared interests. Given this commonality of interests and beliefs, it should not be surprising that support for Israel is one of the most pronounced and consistent foreign policy values of the American people.” That is, of course, the big lie among the many that constitute the tie that binds the two countries together. The back-up lies, regularly spouted in Congress, are that Israel is a democracy and an ally. It is, of course neither, as it is a Jews-only apartheid regime that has no fixed borders and no reciprocal security arrangements with the US. Israel and its promoters never tell the truth, particularly when they are conning the United States government into providing more money and more weapons, as has been occurring both openly and secretly over the past eight months during the horrific ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
So how does it happen, particularly as Israel is manifestly evil in terms of its treatment of the Palestinians as well reckless in its aggression directed against neighbors like Lebanon and Syria? That it is not also bombing Egypt and Jordan is largely attributable to the billions of dollars in aid that the US gives to those countries conditional on their maintaining a wobbly modus vivendi with the aggressive and nuclear armed Zionists.
Given the wonderful comfort zone that Israel has established largely due to US protection in international bodies like the United Nations and the UN Security Council as well as vis-à-vis the several international courts and humanitarian aid agencies, Israel has been regularly attacking and otherwise killing its neighbors without ever being held accountable for anything. It is a pattern that is particularly visible now as the slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza approaches the 50,000 mark, consisting mostly of women and children. The recent outrageous assault on the Tal al Sultan neighborhood refugee camp near Rafah, which killed at least 45 and included graphic photography of a burning child’s body without a head as well as other still flaming and smoking corpses, was directed against homeless Gazans living in tents who had previously been driven from their destroyed homes in the northern part of the country. And to the eternal shame of Biden and company, the slaughter used US-made and supplied weapons.
Add to the carnage the famine that is now threatening to kill tens of thousands more Palestinians due to the Israeli government and its extremist settlers blocking the entry of food supplies and the scale of Israel’s chosen genocidal actions can be appreciated. Netanyahu’s claim that the army only used small munitions in Rafah and was targeting two Hamas officials hiding among the civilians was as usual a lie and the camp otherwise had no significance as a military target. Israel has followed up on the attack with another bombing run on nearby al-Mawasi the following night which killed more than twenty and the Jewish state’s tanks are now penetrating deep into the city no doubt preceding an infantry assault that could kill tens of thousands more. They have also cut off access to the entry point from Egypt to the south of Rafah. One senior Israeli government official is now predicting that the war will continue until the end of the year, another seven months, success apparently being measured by arriving at a point when Hamas and all other hostile Palestinians will be either killed or deported.
Following the Rafah slaughter, there no doubt occurred the mandatory phone call exchange between a sneering Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the grinning mental giant President Joe Biden, no doubt including Bibi’s expressing thanks for the American weaponry reportedly used in the killing. It’s really great when you don’t even have to pay for the weapons used to murder someone. To show his appreciation of the Israeli gratitude Biden no doubt muttered a phrase engraved on his prefrontal lobes, i.e. “Israel has a right to defend itself!” The transnational interaction presumably also produced the typical flatulence that emerges from the White House propaganda machine. Biden, in a bid to make it look like he was actually pressuring Israel to reduce civilian casualties, had previously warned that a full-scale invasion of Rafah would be hard to support and would be considered a “red line” issue, but it was a political stunt that he never intended to carry out apart from one delayed arrival of a shipment of the super heavy 2000 pound bombs. Many Americans, indeed a majority, are rightly deeply upset about the support of the US military and government for Israel’s latest war and an addled Biden is now counting votes while pretending to have humanitarian concerns.
Even so, the White House did not go so far as to blame the Israelis for their overreach. At a press conference, Biden’s National Security communications officer John Kirby, who reportedly was an Admiral once upon a time, possibly on the Good Ship Lollypop, articulated how “You’ve all seen the images, they’re heartbreaking, they’re horrific. There should be no innocent life lost here as a result of this conflict. Israel, of course, has a right to go after Hamas… As a result of this strike on Sunday, I have no policy changes to speak to. It just happened. The Israelis are going to investigate it. We’re going to be taking great interest in what they find in that investigation.” Sure you are John, and it will be a great and thorough investigation by Israel just like it was in the cases of the dead Americans on board the USS Liberty, peace activist Rachel Corrie, journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and, most recently, the 80 year old American citizen Omar Abdalmajeed As’ad who was beaten to death by elements in Israel’s “most moral army in the world” after being detained for the crime of having been walking in his West Bank village.
Why are Joe and company such dedicated dissimulators of the truth when it comes to Israel and all its malignant works? It is because of an entity known euphemistically as the Israel Lobby but which I much prefer to describe more accurately as the Jewish Money In Politics Entity (AIPAC, ADL and others) supported by the Scofield Bible Zio-Christian Crowd headed by clowns like House Speaker Mike Johnson. I know it’s a mouthful but that is what it is. Israel does not obtain US uncritical and overwhelming support because its behavior deserves it or because it serves American interests but rather because of all that money judiciously applied to corrupt the government at all levels and to buy and control the message of the media and entertainment industries. Professor John Mearsheimer, co-author of 2007’s The Israel Lobby, has long claimed that “Israel’s backers will go to silence anyone who challenges their narrative.” But according to Mearsheimer, something changed because of October 7th: “The big difference is that the lobby’s activities are completely out in the open today. I think few people knew much about the lobby back then. And very few people knew much about the lobby’s influence on American foreign policy, especially as it applies to the Middle East. And I think that we helped to expose that and now more people understand what’s going on. The lobby is now forced to operate much more out in the open.”
Pari passu, all that corruption judiciously applied is serving to strip Americans of their fundamental rights, particularly freedom of speech, as it will soon be illegal to criticize either Jews or Israel. And don’t expect any relief coming from the national election in November if there is a GOP victory in the form of Donald Trump and possibly Nikki Haley or some creature like that as a Ziocon replacement part. Trump sold out on every conceivable issue for Israel back in 2016-20 and would do it again. The Republicans have been striving to become the new party of “Israel First” as they want to steal away all that cash and media support from the Democrats. Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina has been calling for nuking Gaza while Nikki has been in Israel signing bombs to be dropped on the Pals with a purple marker: “Finish Them! America [Loves] Israel.” Her urging of a foreign military funded and armed by the US government to kill refugees living in tents after the destruction of their homes might be considered the cruelest way to endorse mass murder, but hey, Israel always comes first in the thinking of most Congressmen and those who are unfortunately sitting in the White House.
There is also legislation in the pipeline being pushed by the Republicans opposing any attempts by the White House to try to condition behavior by suspending weapons shipments to good friend and ally Israel, not that Biden would really go that route. The Congress has also been putting intense pressure on universities to clamp down on Pro-Palestinian groups on campus by claiming they are antisemites while not doing the same vis-a-vis the sometimes violent supporters of Israel, and the universities are obliging, canceling the graduation of protesters or even expelling them. Donald Trump has recently told a largely Jewish audience that he will deport any anti-Israel protesters if he becomes president, an interesting proposal as most of those demonstrating are native born American citizens and many of them are Jewish. He has also called on Israel to “finish” what it is doing to the Palestinians, clearly meaning that they should be exterminated or forced to emigrate, and has also told Jewish donors that today’s atmosphere in the US is very much like “before the holocaust.” No longer the loudmouth who called for an end to foolish wars, Trump has now in addition said that if he had been president when the Russian intervention into Ukraine had taken place, he would have bombed them. Likewise for China if it were to attack Taiwan. Either move would almost certainly start World War 3 even though neither Ukraine nor Taiwan is a vital security interest of the US but Trump is too stupid to know that. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is, for his part, urging that the US release for deployment in Ukraine advanced missile systems that would be able to strike deep into Russia. As dumb ideas go that it about as dumb as it gets, as the Russians have already indicated that they would respond with everything they have, meaning US military targets worldwide would be considered fair game for retaliation possibly using nuclear weapons.
We have truly been entering into something that might be entitled the Psycho Zone if it were to be made into a movie. War is being treated by the sociopaths in Washington, Israel and parts of Europe as though it were something to be casually entered into in one’s spare time. There is even talk in both the US and UK as well as in some other European capitals about initiating active conscription at a close to war level so we freedom lovers can sock it to those Russkies and Chinks good and proper. And as for the Palestinian trash, the Biden pontoon bridge that cost $320 million appears to be broken but it can still be used to carry out Netanyahu’s plan to push a bunch of screaming Ay-rabs into the Mediterranean Sea to get rid of them for once and for all. Hopefully they can’t swim and the Chosen ones will again be able to take possession of what was given to them by Yahweh. Or something like that.
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.
The Israeli regime is in legal trouble, but what does this actually mean?
By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | May 30, 2024
Within the space of one week, the Israeli regime was hit with two major legal blows, first from the International Criminal Court (ICC) and then from the International Court of Justice (ICJ). While these measures may not actually translate to any tangible changes on the ground for now, the chronic effects may prove irreversible.
Prior to the launch of Operation Al-Aqsa Flood by the armed wing of Hamas, the al-Qassam Brigades, the political predicament of the Palestinian cause was that it remained on life support. Although the majority of United Nations member states would annually vote on the so-called Two-State solution model on bringing about a resolution to the conflict, there were no real efforts to translate this unanimous consensus into a reality on the ground.
It was interpreted throughout most of the world, including in the United States and the Zionist entity, that the Palestinian question was effectively stuck and was not even worthy of attention. Therefore, the US government pursued normalization deals with the Arab regimes and believed that Israeli efforts to Judaize the holy sites in occupied al-Quds and the Naqab, as well as to annex areas in the West Bank, were not going to impede their mission to reach a prized Saudi-Israeli deal.
Meanwhile, the situation on the ground for Palestinians grew even more dire. While in the past there were certain political limits as to how far internationally renowned Human Rights groups could go in their criticisms of Israeli policy and practices against the Palestinians, this somewhat eased as there was not even talk of any developments in favor of Palestinians politically. Therefore, we saw the likes of Human Rights Watch (HRW), Amnesty International, and the top Israeli human rights group, B’Tselem, release reports justifying why they identified “Israel” as an apartheid regime.
It is telling that these human rights reports, which in the cases of HRW and Amnesty were voluminous and provided copious sources, were able to essentially affirm what Palestinian human rights groups had been saying for decades. What was most significant about these reports, however, is that they did not stop at condemning Israeli conduct in the West Bank, Gaza, and the eastern part of al-Quds, but chose to shine a light on the entirety of occupied Palestine.
Despite the condemnations by Israeli leaders, who predictably labeled the reports “antisemitic”, it became clear that these were not deemed as consequential to the point of triggering any form of change in policy. Yet, this is where it all started to go terribly wrong for the Zionist entity.
In this post-October 7 setting, we are now living in a world where the Palestinian cause is not only internationally relevant, it is the most popular issue of its time. The entire world is fixated on the Palestinian struggle and the ongoing atrocities in Gaza, and millions of people are consistently taking any action they can to support the Palestinian cause for national liberation. This is all happening without there even being a unified Palestinian leadership.
It is in this context that the International Court of Justice (ICJ), ruled in favor of South Africa’s submission accusing the Israelis of violating the Genocide Convention. The ICJ voted unanimously to impose provisional measures on the Zionist regime to prevent genocide in Gaza. This may not have actually stopped the war in Gaza, but the effects of the Israeli regime being plausibly accused of committing genocide in the top legal authority on earth will remain now forever.
The reason why the accusation of genocide against the self-proclaimed “Jewish State” is so damning, is because the entire Israeli invention narrative surrounds the idea that the reason why they have a right to exist as a state is because they were themselves subjected to a genocide. So, if “Israel” is seen to be a regime that conducts genocide, it cannot on the other hand use the excuse they need to exist because of genocide.
On Friday, the ICJ accepted the South African submission requesting further provisional measures be adopted by the court, asserting that “Israel must immediately halt its military offensive, and any other action in the Rafah Governorate, which may inflict on the Palestinian group in Gaza conditions of life that could bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” What it also did was specifically deem it necessary to “reaffirm” that the Israelis must abide by the initial provisional measures ordered by the court. If the Zionist entity directly chooses to violate the ICJ’s orders, which are considered binding by the United Nations, it could trigger further action against it and work against its favor in the ongoing genocide case.
In addition to this, the decision by the International Criminal Court (ICC)’s chief prosecutor, Karim Khan, to finally request arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Yoav Gallant now also piles on even more pressure.
The way this now looks for the Zionist entity is as follows; they are a genocidal, apartheid regime that is committing crimes against humanity and are run by wanted war criminals. This is the case, as more and more nations around the world continue to recognize Palestine as a state and cut ties with the Israeli regime.
It is also apparent that this genocidal apartheid regime, run by war criminals, cannot possibly conclude any kind of deal to resolve the situation by allowing a so-called “Two-State solution”. There are no major political parties that could plausibly come to power after Netanyahu’s coalition that would accept the idea of creating a Palestinian State, nor is there any effort going on to create a viable roadmap to a peaceful solution.
For any objective observer the reality today couldn’t be any more obvious: “Israel” is an entity that is based upon total Jewish supremacy and will not allow a reality in which Palestinians can have human rights. If the Palestinian people are roughly equal to the size of the Jewish Israeli population in the entirety of historic Palestine, or what the Zionists would call “Greater Israel”, then the only way to maintain the Zionist regime in which only Jews are granted the right to self-determination, is either in maintaining an indefinite system of apartheid or choosing to conduct a mass campaign of ethnic cleansing or genocide.
It is inevitable that when people are subjected to apartheid rule, they will revolt and resist. Both the Israeli regime and its Western backers wanted this to be a status quo, to maintain apartheid and periodically allow the Zionists to mass murder the Palestinians in order to “put them in their place.” Until October 7, the US-Israeli agenda was succeeding, although the Resistance in Gaza would go to war with the Zionists every few years, these armed flare-ups never inflicted a big enough wound on the Israelis to change the equation. This is why the Zionist entity would refer to its wars with Gaza as “mowing the lawn”, they believed it to be necessary and sadistically saw it as a calculated approach.
When the Palestinian Resistance finally broke down the gates of their concentration camp on October 7, all previous understandings were torn to shreds. The Zionist army, its intelligence agencies and weapons technology were dismantled and disgraced. Operation Al-Aqsa Flood shook them to their core, as neither the Israelis nor their American allies ever believed that such a defeat could be inflicted upon them. It is at this moment that they both decided that genocide would be the new goal and that apartheid could not work within the Gaza Strip. This is why the Zionists have no idea what to do in the besieged coastal territory, they evidently believed that after eight months they would have at least weakened the resistance in Gaza, but they even failed to do this and their deliberate annihilation of civilians and their homes has not led to victory.
Politically the Zionist entity is trapped, it understands there are limits imposed on what is possible for them to do in the Gaza Strip, such as the mass ethnic cleansing of the population into the Egyptian Sinai, so they are without a clue as to how they must proceed.
While the Zionist regime’s leadership tries to buy time and look for a way to achieve a victory, in order to at least save their political careers, they set the stage for future Israeli internal strife. All as the Lebanese Resistance lay waste to their military sites and settlements in the North, displacing over a hundred thousand settlers and debunking the idea that the Israeli military has the capacity to take on Hezbollah. The Israeli economy is being devastated, the Yemeni blockade in the Red Sea is incredibly effective and even the Iraqi Resistance are able to lob missiles and drones towards them at will, with no real response. On the battlefield in the Gaza Strip, their ill-trained occupation soldiers fight without discipline, returning to their families in body bags and with life-changing injuries, losing motivation by the day, due to fighting an endless battle with no goals.
The Zionist entity is now in real legal trouble, faces a legitimacy crisis, and only promises one thing to both the world and its own settler population, a future of war and battle for ethnic supremacy. Most of the world’s population is looking on in utter horror at what they see occurring in Gaza, they are sick to their stomachs at what the Western regimes are backing and seek an immediate end to this disgusting racist regime’s never-ending civilian massacre.
Although the ICJ and ICC decisions may seem meaningless in the short term, as did the flood of human rights groups labeling the Zionist Entity an apartheid regime, these are nails that will in due time be nailed into the Israeli coffin. The Israelis have sealed their fate, their apartheid regime is coming to an end, whether this is to occur quickly through a war of liberation or through a longer drawn out process.
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Book Review
The Greatest Threat to World Peace? A Review of Daniele Ganser’s ‘USA: The Ruthless Empire’
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book. … continue
Blog Roll
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