The Israel Exception to Free Speech
Israel’s stranglehold on American foreign policy must be identified and eliminated
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • NOVEMBER 10, 2023
Last Tuesday there took place a disgraceful display of visceral malignancy in the United States House of Representatives Chamber in the south wing of the Capitol building. The House, long characterized by its aversion to truth, justice and what was once the American way, has been corrupted by special interests who have effectively bought an overwhelming majority of legislators, to include the leadership of the two major political parties. In the area of foreign policy, as well as a spill-over into many domestic and constitutional issues, there is no more powerful lobby than that of the state of Israel, and its power was on full display on Tuesday afternoon when Representative Rashida Tlaib was censured for the crime of being of Palestinian ancestry and speaking up against the ongoing genocide of her people by the Jewish state. Nearly all Republicans voted to condemn her together with a considerable number of her fellow Democrats.
On the following day, the White House added its own condemnation of Tlaib, referring specifically to the phrase “from the river to the sea” used by her, a slogan conveniently regarded by some like the fanatical Zionist Anti-Defamation League (ADL) as an Arab rallying cry for the eradication of Israel. ADL’s ghastly director Jonathan Greenblatt inevitably equates use of the phrase with “antisemitism” and ADL insists that “’From the River to the Sea’ is a Hamas call to annihilate Israel” while also “claiming [that] it is a rally of coexistence [which] gives cover to terror.” Tlaib, for her part, was resurrecting a memory of the Palestine that once was, and she has asserted that the slogan is “an aspirational call for freedom, human rights and peaceful coexistence, not death, destruction or hate.” Pro-Palestinian protesters do also use the slogan as a plea for their long-delayed nationhood, but groups like ADL prefer to claim that the activity provides “material support for Hamas,” and, as Hamas is a US listed terrorist group, that equates to aiding terrorists. Tlaib had also particularly angered the White House through her recently posted online video that accused President Biden of supporting genocide in the Gaza Strip, a seemingly undisputable assertion.
One might argue that even Congressmen are protected by the First Amendment right to free speech, but it is becoming increasingly obvious that the Bill of Rights does not apply when Israel is concerned, either in the halls of Congress or on college campuses, where Palestinian groups are being harassed and banned. The Tlaib censure vote can be seen as part of the bipartisan effort to protect the state of Israel from any and all criticism. Rashida Tlaib broke no law, did not threaten anyone, nor did she call for the destruction of any nation, yet she was excoriated by a series of her comrade-speakers in the House for something akin to a crime against humanity due to her turning against what was repeatedly described as one of America’s closest allies, a best friend and the only democracy in the Middle East, all of which are lies. Israel is no ally, which would require a certain reciprocity, a word that apparently does not exist in Hebrew. And in the current crisis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has demonstrated that he will not be moved by US interests to mitigate the slaughter no matter how much Blinken-Biden suck up to him to make him budge. And as for the claim of democracy, Israel only grants citizenship with full rights to Jews, hardly a democratic measure. Apparently, cutting off the massive amounts of US aid, including the current $14.5 billion to pay for exterminating the Palestinians, is not even on the table. Israel will always get its pound of flesh and will call all the shots in its relationship with Washington.
Tlaib’s comments are in the context of a White House that believes it is free to send bombs to Israel to slaughter Palestinian children — without even revealing how many plane loads of weapons have been delivered or are on their way. And then there are members of Congress like Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina who are free to advocate a “total war” against what he calls “the most extremist population on Earth,” i.e. the Palestinians. But verbal criticism of what is clearly a genocide and a massive violation of international law that has the US government as an accessory in a war crime is impermissible and there are even concerns that the Tlaib censure could become the foundation for a criminalization of any criticism of Israel under the assumption that all critics are ipso facto antisemites and the comments themselves amount to a “hate crime.”
Consider for a moment the precedents to Tlaib’s disgrace who are still in office untouched by any procedural steps to define what are acceptable rights of legislators. Beyond Senator Lindsey Graham’s unchallenged invitation to a mass murder, there is Senator Bob Menendez of New Jersey whose apparent tendency to accept bribes has been a particularly lurid tale in part because much of the loot consisted of $480,000 in cash stuffed into jacket pockets, closets and in a safe, along with 13 gold bars, two of them marked as 1 Kilogram in weight to the value of more than $100,000. Both men are still walking around free of censure!
Israel’s love of the United States is only skin deep, if it is as much as that. Recall for a moment the comments by Israeli prime ministers on the nature of the relationship. Consider Ariel Sharon’s 2001 comment: “Every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don’t worry about American pressure on Israel. We, the Jewish people, control America, and the Americans know it… I don’t care what the American people think, I own the congress!” Or Netanyahu’s famous quip also in 2001: “America is a thing you can move very easily!” So that is what “America’s best friend’s” leadership actually thinks about the United States and its people! It is a cash cow to be milked and otherwise exploited for political cover before being disposed of when its usefulness is gone.
Sharon also famously said “I vow that if I was just an Israeli civilian and I met a Palestinian, I would burn him and I would make him suffer before killing him.” It squares the circle on why the Gazans erupted in rage on October 7th. Palestine was one nation from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea when Israel was founded in 1948. Since that time, Israel has been ethnically cleansing the Palestinians for three quarters of a century, has stolen and plundered their land, has replaced or eradicated hundreds of villages, has besieged Gaza for nearly 2 decades, and has engaged in mass starvation and now in genocidal mass killing. In the fighting preceding Israel’s independence, three quarters of a million Palestinians were driven from their homes and sent into refugee camps by Israeli militias, together with tens of thousands who were killed outright. Now the refugee camps in Gaza are being bombed together with churches, hospitals, schools and apartment blocks and we have only just learned that some Israeli officials are considering using one of their nuclear bombs to completely wipe out Gaza. It is surprising that the Palestinians have shown as much restraint as they have.
Given the damage that a corrupting Israel has done to America’s political system, it is important to ask what good the relationship with Israel has done for the average American whose tax dollars support the Zionist enterprise together with its plan to remove the Palestinians. The answer is that nothing good has come out of the so-called alliance, which has cost the US $260 billion in direct aid adjusted for inflation since 1946. Plus there is the large sum of $14.5 billion more recently approved and pending currently as some kind of war fund to enable Netanyahu to crush the Palestinians. Israel regularly gets $3.8 billion yearly in direct aid from the US Treasury, a gift from Barack Obama, that is more than what goes to all other countries combined. And there is also more-or-less “off the books” considerable additional money from special and joint military projects, dubious charities and state level development boards that bring the total up to roughly $10 billion per year, which does not include the billions in financial aid that are in reality bribes paid to Egypt and Jordan to maintain peace with the Jewish state. The handout from Uncle Sam helps make Israel a very wealthy country which can afford to give its Jewish citizens free health care and college education as well as subsidized housing.
And being joined at the hip to the Jewish state has a considerable downside, requiring the use of the US United Nations veto at regular intervals to protect the client state as well as involvement in unneeded wars in places like Lebanon, Iraq, Syria and Libya with Iran coming up next. Nor has Israel hesitated to kill Americans when it felt that the US was not fully supportive of its interests and the White House is so constrained by its “alliance” that it has essentially covered up the crimes against its own citizens. Last year’s sniper killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh, which produced only a whimper from the Jewish dominated State Department, plus acceptance of Israeli lies about the incident, is a prime example. And then there is the killing of 34 sailors and the injuring of 172 more on the USS Liberty in international waters on June 8th 1967. The US Navy largely unarmed intelligence ship was monitoring the ongoing fighting with Egypt when it was attacked by Israeli planes and torpedo boats. Efforts to send US aircraft carrier warplanes to assist the ship were called back by President Lyndon B. Johnson, who also orchestrated a cover-up exonerating Israel from blame. One hopes he and his Secretary of Defense Robert MacNamara are now burning in hell.
The US government is so averse to challenging Israel that many believe that there are other unrevealed influences at play, possibly to include the Jeffrey Epstein/Mossad pedophile sex trafficking caper. It has long been true that candidates for high office in the US are approached by agents of the Zionist lobby and coerced into signing a pledge to support Israel. In return, the candidates who accept receive substantial political contributions and positive media. If they say “no” they are frequently targeted for defeat and go the way of Cynthia McKinney, Charles Percy, William Fulbright, Pete McCloskey and Paul Findley.
Congressman James Traficant of Ohio was perhaps the most aggressive voice in Congress in the 1980s and 1990s in expressing a critique of Israel’s power. He was inevitably controversial and was eventually imprisoned for seven years on a corruption charge that many subsequently considered to be a government set up. He had argued, among other things, that “Israel has a powerful stranglehold on the American government” explaining how Israel was “controlling much of our foreign policy” and “influencing much of our domestic policy.” He claimed quite plausibly that former Pentagon official Paul Wolfowitz, working for Israel, had “manipulated” President George W. Bush into the disastrous invasion of Iraq.
Traficant maintained in the 1990s that “We’re conducting the expansionist policy of Israel and everybody’s afraid to say it. They control much of the media, they control much of the commerce of the country, and they control powerfully both bodies of the Congress. They own the Congress.” If Traficant were still with us, he would be astonished to see how Jewish influence has actually increased, with 35 states having some rules or legislation punishing advocates of boycotts of Israel and bills currently before congress authorizing automatic war against Iran and even the expulsion of Palestinians from the US. The State Department has an ambassador who monitors so-called antisemitism and the White House has recently declared a war against what it describes as “surging antisemitism.”
Currently, everyone opposing the US engagement with Israel in its extermination of the Arab population in the area it controls is being labeled an anti-semite and speaking up for the Palestinians is becoming a good way to get kicked out of university and unemployed. Israel’s friends are busy compiling lists of students who support the Palestinians and are working on schemes to circulate their names to deny them jobs once they graduate. Rashida Tlaib is only the latest affront to the dignity and common sense of the US Constitution but she is certainly not going to be the last victim of the Jewish lobby, which must be labeled for what it is, made to register as the agent of the Israeli apartheid state, and excluded from unilaterally making the policies that all of us Americans have to pay the price for in the Middle East.
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 Damage Israel Does
Constitutional rights and genuine national interests are ignored as governments surrender to Jewish power
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 23, 2023
There are numerous one-liners like “wag-the-dog” that constitute a long running joke about how Israel exploits Jewish power in the United States to limit and control Washington’s options in foreign policy as well as in many other aspects of international interaction. This has been accomplished by a cleverly executed neoconservative takeover of the foreign policy instruments of both major parties based on a series of nonexistent “threats” coupled with media control and billions of dollars in political donations that have bought the numerous politicians willing to be bought, which clearly constitutes a majority of Congress.
President Joe Biden and those who surround him are all about Israel and many of them are Jewish. His Secretary of the Treasury Janice Yellen claims that the US “can afford” two wars simultaneously and the Chuck Schumer led Senate has voted unanimously 97-0 pledging full and unconditional support for the Jewish state. Biden’s somewhat pathetic fifteen-minute speech last week justifying throwing another $105 billion of deficit spending at Ukraine and Israel could have been written by a neocon scribe in its attempt to demonstrate that the US is threatened by developments in those two countries. It is not, even Biden knows that, and his assertions were as hollow as the rhetoric used to support the false premise. My favorite argument being made by the president was that “American leadership holds the world together….and is necessary to keep freedom alive in both the Middle East and Eastern Europe… Hamas and Putin represent different threats, but they share this in common: They both want to completely annihilate a neighboring democracy.” As it turns out, Biden was wrong on every point. Opinion polls suggest that the world overwhelmingly sees the United States as the most disruptive and dangerous nation on the planet, so Biden’s unwillingness or inability to discern that he is presiding over the death throes of America’s global leadership is particularly troubling. And Joe even fails to realize that Russia is more democratic by most measures than is Ukraine, which is consistently rated as the most corrupt country in the world, while Israel is not a democracy at all unless one is a Jew.
Biden was certainly motivated to speak to the American public in prime time, only the second time he has done so, by his overriding concern to express and obtain absolutely total support for Israel no matter what it does. He is willing to lie, cheat and steal for Israel. In the wake of the devastating October 17th blast at al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, a Christian-run medical complex in central Gaza City, which killed at least 500 people and injured hundreds more, he immediately jumped on the protect-Israel bandwagon and declared that Israel had not done it, which is far from being demonstrated and is being hotly disputed by eyewitnesses and forensic specialists. Ukraine is a secondary issue but it too is a war supported overwhelmingly by international Jewry for various reasons, most notably visceral hatred of Russia.
Nevertheless, the control by the Israel Lobby aside, one is at a loss to understand the actual rationale behind the recent trips to Israel in the wake of the Gaza uprising made by Secretary of State Antony Blinken and “they beheaded the babies” Joe Biden since the United States has no genuine national interest that compels it to get involved in either war, even less so in Gaza where Israel has been indisputably the source of nearly all the trouble. Lest anyone be confused over what signal was being sent, two US aircraft carrier strike groups were also dispatched to the Eastern Mediterranean together with orders to prepare to deploy 2,000 Marines, suggesting that Washington was itself preparing for war. And the Muslim world, convulsed by what it is seeing happen to Gaza, is also heeding a call to arms. As of last Friday there have been seven separate drone and rocket attacks on US military bases in Iraq and Syria. Journalist Caitlin Johnstone has neatly summarized the legitimate rage on the ground in Palestine that the White House and Congress make no attempt to appreciate: “The status quo in Israel has been one of continually escalating violence, tyranny and abuse for generations… Stand on someone’s face for long enough and one day it will surprise you if he eventually bites your foot. You might even feel like you were the victim, because that’s just what you’d gotten used to.”
Blinken, citing his ancestors and the holocaust, presented himself as a Jew to his Israeli audience, which meant that no further justification was required as he totally rolled over to comply with the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s interpretation of what had taken place on October 7th. Reports suggest that Blinken had initially sensibly supported a cease-fire on social media just after the Hamas attack, writing that he would be “encourage[ing] Turkey’s advocacy for a cease-fire and the release of all hostages by Hamas immediately.” Presumably under pressure from Biden and the Israel Lobby, he then deleted that and wrote, “Israel has the right to defend itself, rescue any hostages, and protect its citizens.” The State Department got the message and circulated instructions to staffers to not use the terms “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm” in regard to the Gaza/Israel situation, giving Netanyahu a free hand to do whatever he would choose to do.
Blinken was thus converted to fully support massive and indiscriminate Israeli retaliation against the civilian population, a war crime, and his reward was being stiffed by the Saudi Crown Prince, forced to wait in attendance all night before being allowed a short and non-productive audience. Biden outdid his colleague in being completely stonewalled by Saudi, Jordanian, Egyptian, Iraqi and Palestinian heads of state and government, which leads to the question “What did Biden seek to achieve apart from demonstrating that the United States was owned by Israel which is committing a war crime by its collective punishment of Gaza? Did he think the Arab and Muslim states would react positively to a developing massacre of the Gazans, which he specifically supported?”
So why were Biden and Blinken so willfully ignorant as to be unable to appreciate that they were bearing a message that could only succeed in infuriating their hosts? Israel, after all, is by law a Jewish state which not only does not provide equal rights to the non-Jewish citizens and residents, it also has a government that has senior officials and some leading religious figures describing Palestinian Arabs as something less than human or even “animals” and who, in some cases, openly consider it perfectly acceptable to exterminate them. It is the same government with a different cast of characters that has been stealing, killing and inflicting a host of war crimes and crimes against humanity on its captive and largely helpless Palestinian Christian and Muslim minority for the past 76 years.
Biden’s nice package of $105 billion, which will likely sail through Congress because it is “for Israel,” will include $14 billion for Netanyahu to buy some new heavy ordnance to exterminate the Palestinians, which guarantees that the Muslim world will hate the United States for the foreseeable future. The money is also funding the war in Ukraine for the next year and arming Taiwan with some shiny new weapons to ward off China. Ironically, a new CBS/YouGov poll finds that most Americans don’t want the US providing Israel with weapons and supplies in this war, but, of course ordinary voters are never asked their opinion when the White House chooses to demonstrate “American exceptionalism” towards the country that it loves beyond all others. Oh, and the bill will also include some cash to “fortify” America’s Mexican border, a sweetener that runs completely contrary to what Biden has been doing for the past three years. All this will be piled on to the United States government debt which, at just short of $33 trillion, is considered to be unsustainable and weighs in at $350,230 for every American family. And it is all being done for no good reason whatsoever in terms of genuine American interests, and probably illegally too as proxy wars run by the Executive Branch would seem to go against the Constitution’s separation of powers as well as the time constraints in the War Powers Act of 1973. Congressman Michael McCaul from Texas, the Israel firster fanatic who heads the House Foreign Affairs Committee, is currently pushing legislation that would provide an in-advance authorization to go to war on Iran and on Lebanon if Hezbollah were to come in to support the Gazans when Netanyahu starts his potentially genocidal ground attack. Another Congressional clown, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina is already calling for an attack on Iran under the presumption that it assisted the Gazans.
Fortunately for all of us who care for such issues as life and death, some cracks are appearing in the wall surrounding total subservience to Israel and its interest. Some even suspect that the “US-based Middle East system,” which mandates blind support for Israel, has become so abusive that the public is becoming reluctant to support it. Indeed, public opinion polls suggest that support for the Palestinians is increasing while that for Israel is growing weaker as atrocities against the Arabs multiply with Israel new ultra-conservative government. The resignation letter of senior State Department official Josh Paul, who recently quit over the Biden administration’s position on the Gaza War, makes for interesting reading. Paul described the Hamas attack as a “monstrosity of monstrosities” but continued: “This Administration’s response – and much of Congress’ as well – is an impulsive reaction built on confirmation bias, political convenience, intellectual bankruptcy and bureaucratic inertia. Decades of the same approach have shown that security for peace leads to neither security nor peace, The fact is that blind support for one side is destructive in the long term to the interests of the people on both sides.”
Paul was responding to the latest arms package being rushed through congress for Israel, which he described as “shortsighted, destructive and unjust,” and the US veto early last week of a Russian proposal in the UN Security Council to call for a ceasefire. The US permanent representative to the UN Linda Thomas Greenfield submitted the veto and then erupted with “By failing to condemn Hamas, Russia is giving cover to a terrorist group that brutalizes innocent civilians. It is outrageous, it is hypocritical, and it is indefensible.” She is the hypocrite in that she obviously does not recognize or does not care that Israel’s record is far worse than Russia’s in “brutalizing innocent civilians” for the past 76 years.
There are also other reports of general “discomfort” and dismay among civil servants over what is happening vis-à-vis the US role in Gaza out of concern for Israel not being urged to show restraint and the White House lack of any genuine concern over the developing humanitarian crisis. It also appears that several of the few Muslim federal government officials have been removed from positions having anything to do with Middle East policy. The US media likewise has been transferring many of its Muslim journalists who were on the ground in Gaza and elsewhere in the Middle East for fear that they will actually try to tell the truth about what is going on and who is doing what to whom.
On a next to last final note, it has often been noted that the first victim of war is truth. The US government in its various guises has been lashing out at social media and other sites that have been making available material that can be construed as favorable to Gaza. So far, they have been less than successful, but the efforts persist and could lead to legislation. Also, there have been the usual claims regarding “antisemitism” which can be exploited in “hate crimes” prosecutions as well as the existing legislation in 35 states that protect Israel with potential criminal and civil penalties as well denial of jobs and services to applicants who are critics of the Jewish state’s behavior. In Israel itself, al-Jazeera journalists have now been detained and expelled as a consequence of legislation criminalizing the activity of journalists who report “facts” that are not approved by the Israeli government.
But some of the most bizarre lashing out by the Israel lobby and its friends is taking place in the United States. In Florida the state Attorney General has told prosecutors to “exercise zero tolerance” when dealing with the “anti-Jewish hate crimes” engaged in by college students who have been demonstrating in support of the Gazans. At Harvard, major donors who are mostly Jewish have cut off donations to the university due to its tolerance of pro-Gazan student demonstrators. A so called “conservative group” Accuracy in Media headed by one Adam Guillette, who is Jewish, has led the response to a coalition of more than 30 Harvard student groups that posted an open letter on the night of the Hamas attack, citing Israel as “entirely responsible” for the violence that killed more than 1,400 people, mostly civilians. The letter was posted on social media and did not include the names of the individual students in the groups. But within days, students connected to those groups were being identified together with their personal information, all of which was posted online. Families back home were threatened while presumed Harvard alumni businessmen and executives demanded a list of the student names to ban their hiring. And a truck with a digital billboard paid for by Accuracy in Media circled Harvard Square, flashing student photos and names, under the headline, “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.” The students now have to deal with “people’s lives being ruined, people’s careers being ruined, people’s fellowships being ruined” because they opposed a certainly controversial war being fought. Guillette said his organization’s next move, which has already started, is to create online domains using the students’ first and last names to create sites identifying them as antisemites. Guillette boasted that “I think it’s incredibly important for people to know who the antisemites are on their campus and in their community.”
And on a final note, if you have wondered where the money is coming from to fund Israel’s wars and crimes beyond what Joe Biden and his buddies are willing to hand them, there is an interesting story out of Georgia. Republican Governor Brian Kemp has ordered his state treasurer to use tax revenues to purchase $10 million in Israel Bonds. The bonehead then issued a statement: “Israel is one of Georgia’s strongest allies and greatest friends, and our support for its people as they endure horrific attacks from terrorists is unwavering. Purchasing these bonds is just the latest expression of that support.” It is not clear if the purchase is completely legal and someone should have advised the governor that buying Israel bonds is in the nature of a gift as they lack liquidity and are generally regarded as a terrible investment. So it is a rip-off of the Georgia taxpayer. I wonder if anyone will notice!
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.
Zelensky Should Have Stayed Home

BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • OCTOBER 3, 2023
Most Americans do not understand how the United Nations functions, or does not function as the case might be, preferring to think of it as some kind of debating society where the 193 member nations representing the world community can vent over issues that they rarely have control over. Nevertheless, in spite of the torrent of words and the lack of any real program, it is always interesting to watch and listen to the UN’s annual General Assembly meeting, which is held in New York during September. This year’s meeting was particularly interesting as it came complete with a major war blazing in Eastern Europe as well as political turmoil in Africa and rising tension with China. It also features the rumblings coming from a new emerging global economic movement, the so-called BRICS developing as a champion of a multipolar-world currency challenge to the US-European dollar dominated international monetary and banking system.
And with economic union, there is also some political realignment, with China strengthening its ties to the developing world and Russia entering into defense arrangements with Iran. President Xi Jinping and Russian president Vladimir Putin will be meeting in Beijing later this month to discuss common concerns. And, as usual, Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu showed up to vent his hostility towards Iran with demands that that country’s alleged “nuclear program” be confronted militarily and the sooner the better, just as he has been claiming for the past twenty years.
Indeed, several back stories playing out during this year’s meeting made it more than usually interesting. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky had hoped to turn the gathering into an anti-Russian hate fest, but though there was much complaining about Moscow’s attack on Ukraine coming from the Baltic States and others, the ground continues to be shifting against Zelensky over concerns that the war has become an unwinnable money pit that could easily escalate into a nuclear exchange. Speaking before a UN Security Council session, Zelensky was reduced to harshly criticizing the UN itself for failing to prevent or resolve conflicts before calling for Moscow to be stripped of its veto power on the Security Council. Zelensky, his voice rising in anger, complained how “It is impossible to stop the war because all actions are vetoed by the aggressor.” Observers noted immediately that Zelensky’s complaint did not help his cause. While there have been calls for UN reforms in the past, including over the veto power, the existence of the veto for a limited number of post-1945 greater powers was the only reason the United Nations could be created in the first place at all.
Zelensky also did real damage to his position when he said that while the Ukrainian refugees in Europe have “behaved well . . . and are grateful” to those who have given them shelter, it would not be a “good story” for Europe if a Ukrainian defeat “were to drive the people into a corner.” It was reasonably enough seen by critics as nothing less than a threat of possible unrest producing domestic terrorism as well a possible internal insurrection uncontrollable by whatever Ukrainian government survives defeat. Such unrest might involve the millions Ukrainian refugees without houses and jobs already in place in other European nations if Zelensky is not given all the support which he apparently believes is his due.
Zelensky’s actual message to the General Assembly was not quite so incendiary and impulsive as his other interactions while on his visit, but he offered little new. He reportedly received an obligatory “warm welcome” from those in attendance, but “he delivered his address to a half-full house, with many delegations declining to appear and listen to what he had to say.” He warned those present that “The goal of the present war against Ukraine is to turn our land, our people, our lives, our resources into a weapon against you, against the international rules-based order. We have to stop it. We must act united to defeat the aggressor.” Zelensky did go overboard when he referred to Russia and Russians as “evil” and as “terrorists” and accused them of carrying out a “genocide” against Ukraine. Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov responded to comments made by both President Joe Biden and Zelensky by turning the argument around and observing that it is the US and its NATO “puppets” who already “are waging war against us.”
Zelensky’s frustrations spilled over in Washington on the following day where he met both with Biden and with some members of Congress and also dropped by the Pentagon and left flowers at the National 9/11 Pentagon Memorial in Arlington Virginia. His meeting at the White House with the president went relatively well with the announcement of a new aid package in the works including “significant air defense capabilities,” and, according to one report, even some of the much sought after ATACMS long range missile systems. Nevertheless, to his evident disappointment, Zelensky was not given a hero’s welcome like he received last year. He met privately with Kevin McCarthy, speaker of the House, and several other GOP hawks who will be instrumental in approving any aid, as well as with Senators Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer who promised to be “in his corner.” McCarthy boldly asked what Zelensky needed to win the war and to provide lawmakers with “a vision of a plan for victory.”
Nevertheless, it seems that many conservative Republicans and some progressive Democrats are fed up with the war and are concerned over the lack of accountability combined with the all too evident level of corruption within the Ukrainian government. There are moves by some in the GOP to separate Ukraine funding from other defense appropriations, requiring a separate vote, and other proposals by the White House to guarantee the money even if the government shuts down. One wonders if anyone had the grit to ask Zelensky how many mansions he owns in Israel, Europe and the United States, but that is precisely the sort of story that is being increasingly written about Ukraine’s comedian turned war hero, demonstrating that the public and even the media have become tired of the charade. A continuing multi-billion-dollar cash flow, seen by Joe Biden as necessary to keep the war going until the 2024 election to vindicate his policy, is still likely but it is no longer a slam-dunk.
Two other media accounts also suggest that the dissatisfaction with Zelensky and the war is breaking through the self-imposed acceptable narrative on the war, that Vladimir Putin is an aggressor without any real provocation from Kiev, a despot and the human monster. One came surprisingly from the New York Times and is apparently a leak from the White House or Pentagon on a September 6th missile attack on the Ukrainian village of Kostiantynivka which killed at least 18. The attack was quickly labeled by Zelensky as a war crime carried out by Russian “terrorists” which was echoed by the US media but an investigation, presumably carried by the US military and intelligence using satellite and other technical methods, has now determined that the missile was fired by Ukraine. This is similar to the missile attack that struck Poland in November 2022, which also was blamed by Zelensky on Russia but turned out to be from Ukraine, both incidents reflecting just how willing Zelensky is to lie and cheat to get a NATO and US intervention in a full-scale war with Russia, which could easily go nuclear.
The other story tells how Poland will not be providing any more arms to Ukraine, in part because it is now building up its own defenses and also over Ukrainian attempts to flood the Polish agricultural market with cheap low quality grain that it cannot sell elsewhere. To describe the Polish action as disappointing to Zelensky would be an understatement, but it is one more indication that many former allies are now seeing Ukraine as a lost cause and are looking to their own national security and economic interests. Both of these stories were, incidentally, published while Zelensky was in the United States hat in hand, and it must be considered that the timing was deliberate to damage the Ukrainian president’s credibility to coincide with the UN General Assembly visit and the trip to Washington.
Zelensky’s journey to North America ended in Ottawa, where he apparently recouped some of his swagger during a speech to the Canadian government and parliament which resulted in standing ovations. Or so it seemed. The Canadians produced a 98 year old Hungarian veteran of the Second World War named Yaroslav Hunka who had fought against the Russians and emigrated to Canada after the war ended. He too was cheered by the assembled Canadian politicians. The intention was clearly to present a narrative of a brave Ukrainian who fought valiantly to free his country from Russian domination but it didn’t quite work out that way. To fight the Russians required being in Nazi Germany’s armed forces and it turned out that Hunka had served in the 14th Waffen-SS Grenadier Division, also known as the Galicia Division, a volunteer unit made up mostly of ethnic Ukrainians commanded by German officers that has been rightly or wrongly credited with a number of wartime atrocities against Russians, Poles and Jews. Soldiers in the division swore a personal loyalty oath to Adolf Hitler. The bad judgement shown by the Canadian government in producing Hunka without fully investigating his story subsequently produced a huge uproar in Canada, with the head of parliament resigning, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in deep political trouble and the Polish government demanding that Hunka be extradited to them for a war crimes trial. There has been some suspicion that Zelensky may have been instrumental in arranging the affair in expectation that it would strengthen Canadian support for his cause. Instead, it has accomplished the reverse and Zelensky returned home with little or nothing accomplished.
Zelensky must also confront back home a war that he is decisively losing and a country in ruins. And Joe Biden made clear in his speech addressing the UN General Assembly that negotiations with Russia to end the Ukraine fighting would not be considered. Joe included a pledge to support the conflict until it is Russia that is doing the surrendering: “The United States, together with our allies and partners around the world, will continue to stand with the brave people of Ukraine as they defend their sovereignty and territorial integrity and their freedom… Russia alone bears responsibility for [the war]. Russia alone has the power to end this war immediately. And it is Russia alone that stands in the way of peace, because Russia’s price for peace is Ukraine’s capitulation, Ukraine’s territory, and Ukraine’s children.” In short, the speech was a lot like Joe Biden and the band of scoundrels and grifters that he has gathered around him in the White House, heavy on bellicosity but short on any serious planning or strategies to make the world and this country a better place. Joe would like to see the war continue to bring its eventual end a lot closer to the US elections, where he hopes to self-identify as a strong leader and a “winner” taking on America’s enemies. Good luck Joe.
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.
Biden demands uninterrupted cash flow to Ukraine
RT | October 1, 2023
President Joe Biden has welcomed a bipartisan short-term budget deal that will keep the US government open for the next 45 days, but was disappointed that none of the billions of dollars in aid to Kiev that he had requested made it to the final bill.
“We cannot under any circumstances allow American support for Ukraine to be interrupted,” Biden said in a brief statement on Saturday night, shortly after Congress passed the measure.
Biden had requested an additional $24 billion for Ukraine, but critics argued that Washington has more important priorities and should have stronger safeguards against the misappropriation of the funds and supplies it sends to Kiev.
The US leader, however, blamed “extreme House Republicans” for causing a “manufactured crisis” and “demanding drastic cuts that would have been devastating for millions of Americans.”
“I fully expect the Speaker will keep his commitment to the people of Ukraine and secure passage of the support needed to help Ukraine at this critical moment,” the US president added.
Republican House Speaker Kevin McCarthy had to rely on Democrats in order to pass the bill and avert a government shutdown, as 90 Republicans opposed any short-term funding measures, denying him the much-needed votes. As a part of the deal, McCarthy increased federal disaster assistance by $16 billion, but had to forgo the border security provisions sought by the GOP.
After no new aid to Ukraine made it to the final bill, the House Democratic leadership said in a statement on Saturday that they expect McCarthy to bring a separate Ukraine aid package to vote when the House returns.
The Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also welcomed the bill passing, but called on the Congress to “live up to America’s commitment to provide urgently-needed assistance” to Kiev. “America must live up to its word and continue to lead,” he added in a statement published on Saturday.
Is the ATACMS tactical missile already in Ukraine?
Russian response remains to be seen
BY STEPHEN BRYEN | ASIA TIMES | SEPTEMBER 23, 2023
Russian defense sources say that an ATACMS tactical ballistic missile was launched from Kulbakino Air Field in Ukraine. If the Russian report is correct then the Washington debate about sending tactical ATACMS missiles to Ukraine is fake, as they already are there.
The Russian report has not been confirmed. What is clear is that the Ukrainians used missiles to attack Sevastopol on September 21st, targeting Russia’s Black Sea headquarters. The historic HQ building was hit.
Reports say that President Biden told Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky that he agreed to send a “small number” of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. Apparently Biden acted against Pentagon recommendations. Biden had been warned that ATACMS would be a war escalation. He was also told that there were not many ATACMS in inventory.
ATACMS has a range of around 300km. It is ground launched.
Kulbakino is the home of the 299th Ukrainian Tactical Air Brigade. It is located in Mykolaiv Oblast. It supports a number of aircraft – most importantly the Su-24M fighter-bomber, which has been modified to fire the Stormshadow cruise missile.
ATACMS is typically launched from the M270 MLRS (multiple-launch rocket system). It can also be launched from a HIMARS platform.
The M270 is a tracked, armored vehicle that supports launch tubes for missiles. It is based on the Bradley fighting vehicle chassis. It can fire one ATACMS missile and then the platform needs to be reloaded.
The M142 HIMARS is based on the Army’s MTV truck frame. Like the M270 MLRS, it can fire one ATACMS missile.
HIMARS already is in Ukraine so delivery of the missiles will not require any significant field modifications.
The US has only small stocks of HIMARS currently available. The US Marines, who operate HIMARS, need ATACMS in order to blunt any Chinese attack either on the Senkaku islands or aimed at Taiwan. The Marines have carried out joint exercises with Japan, where Japan test fired the M270 in a demonstration. However, with ATACMS in short supply, the Marines operated the vehicle but only simulated firing the missile.
Taiwan has also requested HIMARS from the United States, equipped with the accurate ATACMS system to defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. Taiwan has ordered 28 launchers and 864 missiles. These are supposed to be delivered between 2024 and 2027. However, if Ukraine gets the supplies instead, Taiwan will be forced to wait even longer.
Because of Biden’s decision the Germans will not be able to hide behind the US as an excuse not to provide the German-Swedish Taurus KEPD 350. Taurus, a joint product of MBDA Deutschland and Saab Bofors, is a long range cruise missile with a range of 500 km. It is launched by aircraft. Most likely, if Taurus cruise missiles are delivered to Ukraine, they will be operated by Ukraine’s Su-24s, although these are also in short supply. The systems on the Su-25 in Ukraine probably are not modern enough to support the Taurus.
Taurus has a range of 500km after launch. It carries a 481 kg MEPHISTO (multi-effect penetrator highly sophisticated and target optimized) warhead.
ATACMS has different types of warheads and it is not clear what will be sent to Ukraine. Originally the missiles had cluster munition warheads, but later that was changed to so-called unitary warheads.
The Russians understand that both Taurus and ATACMS are threats to Russian territory, exposing its cities, air bases, nuclear power plants and defense installations to heavy attack.
Most of what Ukraine has so far launched into Russian territory have been small drones. While drones have done some damage, many of them have been shot down. Russia does have layered air defenses, although they do not appear to be well integrated, and there are considerable coverage gaps.
Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, interviewed by ABC News, was asked, “Are you OK if Ukraine uses those missiles [ATACMS] to strike deep into Russia?” He replied: “Their decision, not ours.” Blinken knows very well that Ukraine needs support from US overhead intelligence for long-range strikes, something the Russians also understand very well.
The Russians have made clear that delivering these missiles to Ukraine is a significant escalation by NATO and the United States. It remains to be seen exactly how and in what ways Russia will respond.
Biden’s 2024 Campaign Will Continue Flagging “Misinformation” To Big Tech
By Tom Parker | Reclaim The Net | September 21, 2023
The Biden regime’s practice of flagging content for censorship and pressuring platforms to remove content that it deems to be “misinformation” is so pervasive that it’s the subject of a major censorship lawsuit where an appeals court recently ruled that the Biden admin violated the First Amendment when pushing for social media censorship.
Despite this ruling, Joe Biden’s 2024 presidential campaign plans to continue flagging so-called misinformation to social media platforms, “reaching out” to social media companies, and working with media outlets to “fact-check untruths.”
Additionally, it may target “deepfakes” in states with laws against the technology and use “applicable copyright laws.”
According to POLITICO, Biden’s campaign will hire hundreds of staffers and volunteers to monitor online platforms as part of this effort.
Not only is Biden’s campaign planning to continue engaging in actions similar to those that were flagged by an appeals court for violating the First Amendment, but one of the leaders of the Biden campaign’s effort will be Rob Flaherty, a former White House Digital Director who is a defendant in the First Amendment lawsuit that the appeals court ruled on.
Flaherty is currently a deputy campaign manager for Biden’s 2024 campaign.
Documents that were uncovered as part of the censorship lawsuit against the Biden admin revealed that Flaherty was one of the Biden White House’s most aggressive censorship proponents.
Flaherty demanded that Facebook censor then-Fox News host Tucker Carlson and Fox News and Outkick host Tomi Lahren. He also pressured Facebook to suppress The Daily Wire and the New York Post while boosting The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
Additionally, he pushed for the censorship of “borderline content” (a term that Facebook uses to describe content that doesn’t violate the rules but could result in “vaccine hesitancy”) and “coded language.” If Facebook employees didn’t censor to his liking, Flaherty would berate them.
POLITICO notes that “Biden has continued to back Flaherty as his social media attack dog,” despite the ongoing lawsuit and an investigation into Big Tech-federal government censorship collusion led by Jim Jordan.
Flaherty told POLITICO that “the campaign is going to have to be more aggressive pushing back on misinformation from a communications perspective and filling some of the gaps these companies are leaving behind.”
The Biden campaign plans to focus its misinformation targeting efforts on leading Republican candidates, including Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ “Covid anti-vaccine rhetoric.”
As Biden’s 2024 campaign doubles down on pressuring social media platforms to censor, the Supreme Court is considering whether to hear the censorship lawsuit that accuses the Biden White House of violating the First Amendment.
The Biden campaign’s admission that it will be flagging so-called misinformation in the run-up to the 2024 presidential election follows a major censorship controversy that erupted in the weeks leading up to the 2020 election.
Just three weeks before the 2020 election, a bombshell story alleging that Joe Biden was involved in a corruption scandal was censored by Big Tech platforms.
51 former intelligence officials subsequently signed a letter suggesting the story was part of a Russian “disinformation” campaign and the Biden campaign used this talking point to downplay the story, despite the laptop being real. The FBI also warned Facebook about a “dump” of “Russian disinfo” just before the Hunter Biden laptop story broke.
79% of Americans believe “truthful” coverage of the Hunter Biden laptop would have changed the outcome of the 2020 election.
Biden’s ‘age’ is now becoming an issue
Leave it to The Washington Post to come up with a ridiculous euphemism designed to conceal the real story
BY BILL RICE, JR. | SEPTEMBER 19, 2023
The spin-producing talents of our nation’s most prominent mainstream media “journalists” leave me dumbfounded.
The Washington Post would be at the top of the list of “news” organizations that excel in covering up real news and, when its editors feel they have to run an embarrassing story, concocting outlandish euphemisms to conceal the real story.
The Post just published a big story stating that President Biden’s “age” is making many political leaders wonder if he should not run for re-election.
This long story never once mentioned the words “dementia” or “cognitive decline,” proving once again that the press knows which giant elephants it can’t mention in a news article – especially if this elephant is a Democrat donkey.
A few excerpts from the article should give readers a greater appreciation of the talents of the Post’s wordsmiths.
Here’s the lede paragraph:
“A growing number of polls are showing voters concerned about President Biden’s age and energy … Prominent commentators have ruminated on whether he should drop out of the presidential race.”
“… Parts of the Democratic Party (now) fret about whether the man who helped oust Donald Trump from the White House may not have the vitality, at 80, to successfully prevent a return …”
“Supporters and critics alike suggested that Biden’s prospects may hinge on whether he can find a way to overcome a persistent and growing feeling in the electorate that his advanced age is his defining characteristic.”
Deep into the story, we get one sentence where Post editors come as close as they as they can to broaching the real truth:
“When asked what word came to mind when they thought of Biden, more than a quarter of (poll) respondents mentioned age, with another 15 percent using words like “slow” or “confused.”
Readers could also read between the lines with this passage:
“Biden’s gait can be stiff, and his physical and verbal stumbles have at times given his critics material. “
My comment: Biden’s verbal stumbles don’t happen only “at times;” they happen every single day, every time he opens his mouth and tries to read the teleprompter remarks written for him by aides.
While The Post frames this story with the question of whether Biden will step down because of his “age,” increasing numbers of Americans now understand the real story is the growing realization that our national “watchdog” press corp is completely captured.
An army of pack-thinking journalist clones are basically acknowledging their most important job is the daily effort to protect the person who was selected to implement their favorite country-destroying causes.
Clear-thinking adults now know the press corps will always eschew important journalism if said stories embarrass them or might lessen the likelihood key items from their agenda are brought to fruition.
The Washington Post has hundreds of journalists, including a platoon of journalists who cover only the White House and the president. Each of these journalists and editors have multiple sources in the White House and probably shoot the bull with these White House aides over drinks after work.
For four years, they’ve known Biden has textbook dementia, which was obvious three years ago, but has gotten worse every week since.
If they wanted to, these alleged journalists could have “broken” the “Biden has dementia” story years ago, including anecdotes that would make even the most loyal Democrat proclaim, “Good God.”
I’m a freelance journalist in Troy, Alabama and I know from common sense that 50 White House staffers must be working 24-7 to produce the cue cards, teleprompter speeches and recruiting Easter Bunny interns, all of whom are working feverishly to get the leader of the free world through another day without the Mother of All “gaffes” playing out for the world to see.
None of this would matter if this was our retired grandfather battling this affliction, but this happens to be a man who can start World War III and signs “emergency orders” that affect hundreds of millions of citizens.
Needless to say, if Donald Trump had been experiencing the same cognitive decline while he was president, this alarming mental condition would have – correctly – been exposed in one week.
If it was exposed, this would mean all those Biden “critics” referenced in the Post article … had been right all along. It would mean that everyone would know that America’s news-gathering journalists actually exist to conceal important news.
And more people are starting to reach this conclusion as well: If 98 percent of the most-important journalists in the world are concealing obvious truths about the president’s dementia, what else have they been concealing or refusing to investigate?
The answer: Everything important.
The Washington Post could also detonate all the Covid lies and cover-ups … in about two weeks – if its editors wanted to do this and were given permission to do so from their controllers.
They could have easily broken the Hunter Biden/Joe Biden influence peddling scandals … years ago.
The real story is the public is never going to get any real stories from this batch of sycophants and professional propaganda writers.
If some rogue journalists stunned us and decided to practice important investigative journalism, their editors and publishers wouldn’t let them because this would prove this news organization spiked important stories for years.
People might say, “Wow. This expose is great … but why did it take you three years to figure this out or authorize these investigations?”
The fear of publishers is the public would belatedly learn the most important lesson – that all those wacko and dangerous critics were … right all along.
Not only were all the experts wrong – not only were all the key narratives fiction – plenty of journalists must have suspected this; they simply knew they weren’t allowed to prove this.
As we can see from this article, there’s now no denying President Biden has major mental issues (even though the story never mentions “mental issues.”) It’s a coin toss whether “Joe Biden” can make it through the primaries, much less four years of a second term.
Even with mail-in ballots and rigged elections, the Powers That Be are no doubt wondering if Biden’s dementia will cost the Democrats four more years in the White House.
From Climate Change initiatives to central bank digital currency to the WHO treaty to future mRNA vaccines (and to cover-up past crimes against humanity), it’s imperative their guy remain in the White House.
Gavin Newsom, an awful governor of a state that’s coming apart at the seams, seems to be the betting favorite as the best politico Democrats can find to fill in for their current leading man … who will exit stage left not because of dementia … but because of “age.”
Apparently, this is the only story they’ve got and they’re going to stick to it.
For the last four years, disinformation has become a buzz word of our times. Biden himself (reading from his teleprompter) said this, and so has everyone who works for the federal government.
The Washington Post says it too. But most of the world doesn’t understand the key way the most important disinformation is spread. What we have is Disinformation by Omission. Don’t talk about all those giant pachyderms in the room. Don’t tell your readers our Emperor has no Brain.
When “don’t investigate this” might no longer work, society’s elite communicators simply spun another narrative – The poor man is simply getting up there in age and is beginning to lose some of his previous “vitality.”
They even spin the poll questions. This particular story was picked up by msm.com, which included one of its requisite reader polls at the end of the article:
“How concerned are you about the age of President Biden?”
I don’t answer narrative-manipulating poll questions and I’m not really concerned about Biden’s “age.” For that matter, I’m no longer worked up about his dementia, which I detected four years ago. Plus, I’ve known for years that “Joe Biden” isn’t making the big decisions.
The question that should have been asked is this:
How concerned are you that our nation’s leading “news” organizations are completely captured?
My answer: Pretty damn concerned.
Biden repeats ‘unforgivable’ remark about Putin
RT | September 19, 2023
US President Joe Biden has described Russian President Vladimir Putin as a “dictator,” claiming that his main political opponent, former President Donald Trump, would “bow down to” him if elected in 2024. The Democrat also touted himself as a defender of US democracy.
Speaking to supporters during a fundraiser at the Lunt-Fontanne Theater in New York City on Monday, Biden said, “I will not side with dictators like Putin. Maybe Trump and his MAGA friends can bow down, but I won’t.”
The incumbent president claimed that “Donald Trump and his MAGA Republicans are determined to destroy American democracy,” whereas he would always “protect and fight” for it.
This recent comment made by the US head of state about President Putin is not the first instance of him referring to another foreign leader as a dictator.
Last March, Biden told attendees of the annual Friends of Ireland Luncheon that the US and its allies were standing together against a “murderous dictator, a pure thug who is waging an immoral war against the people of Ukraine.” A day prior, the US president said he considered Putin a “war criminal.”
Commenting on Biden’s remarks at the time, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told TASS news agency that Moscow deemed “unacceptable and unforgivable such rhetoric from a head of state whose bombs have killed hundreds of thousands of people around the world.” He noted that the US leader had resorted to “personal insults,” a level that President Putin, a “thoughtful and wise leader,” would never stoop to.
Last month, several US media outlets also quoted President Biden as alleging that China is run by “bad folks.” In June, he described Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “dictator,” which Beijing characterized as a “political provocation.”



