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US seeks strategic dialogue with Russia

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | OCTOBER 30, 2023 

Almost four weeks into Hamas’ attack on Israel, Russia is in no hurry to exploit the Biden administration’s quandary over the collapse of Middle East security. The western media was unanimous that Russia was waiting in the wings to seize the opportunity once the US took its eye off the ball in Ukraine. However, no such thing happened. 

Ukraine war is on autopilot. The compass has been set, the die is cast and the calculus is holding steady with regard to the strategic objectives set by President Vladimir Putin in February last year. Russia senses that it has gained the upper hand in the war and that is irreversible. 

Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed and the fighting is presently restricted to two sectors of the frontline, as Russian forces strengthen the security of the Donetsk region and seek to regain control of territories up north in the borderlands of Donbass and Kharkov region from where they retreated for tactical reasons last September and October.

Yet, Moscow has not begun its grand offensive, as many had predicted. One plausible explanation is that Moscow is watching the maelstrom sweeping through the Middle East. Moscow is particularly sensitive about any spillover into Syria. 

With an eye on the formidable US naval build-up in Eastern Mediterranean with the deployment of two aircraft carrier groups, President Vladimir Putin has publicised that Russian jets equipped with hypersonic Kinzhal missiles are roaming the skies above the Black Sea, which can strike targets 1000 kms away at Mach 9 speed, which no existing missile defence system can intercept. Suffice to say, the war in Ukraine remains attritional. 

Curiously, Russia conducted a simulated nuclear strike in a drill on Wednesday overseen by Putin, hours after Russian parliament voted to rescind the country’s ratification of the global nuclear test ban treaty (CTBT). The drill needs to be seen in the broader context of global strategic stability. A Kremlin statement said, “The purpose of the training exercise was to check the level of preparedness of military command bodies, as well as the skill of the leadership and operational personnel in managing the troops (forces) under their command.” Everything, however, adds up in these extraordinary times. 

At its most obvious level, the Palestine-Israel conflict is a manifestation of the growing imbalance in the existing system of international relations. New wars are emerging; longstanding conflicts are mutating (eg., Nagorno-Karabakh). Last week, Pakistan bracketed Palestine and Kashmir as the UN’s unfinished business in the post-colonial era. North Korea and Iran are flash points that have no military solution. 

In the months ahead, without doubt, Washington will continue to provide Israel with military and diplomatic support but an extended Israeli operation lasting months in Gaza will mean dispersal of US resources that might be needed in other theatres. The conflict in Gaza underscores the imperative for a rethink in the US’ notions of global hegemony. The fact remains that the US, despite its self-proclaimed status as the “Indispensable Nation” (Madeline Albright) and the guarantor of “rules-based order,” failed to prevent the latest eruption of conflict in the Middle East. 

Arguably, therefore, the latest US proposal for a systematic resumption of strategic dialogue with Russia can be seen as a sign of positive thinking. Unsurprisingly, Moscow has displayed a studied indifference to the US proposal. But that needn’t be taken as the last word. Historically, Soviet-American strategic dialogue brought on board into the agenda all major issues and most minor issues affecting international security. 

The big question, therefore, is the timing of the US proposal. Against the backdrop of the gathering storms in the Middle East, the Biden Administration probably seeks to calm the nerves by proposing talks with Russia on global strategic balance, since the guardrails in arms control no longer exist. This is one thing. 

At any rate, Russia’s “neutrality” in a Middle East conflict could also be a consideration. Equally, Western leaderships understand that the war against Russia is practically lost — although they will not admit it publicly — and engagement with Russia is needed.   

Again, although the US has provided Israel with significant military and diplomatic support and keeps influencing the latter not to escalate the conflict, there are variables in the situation and any big conflagration in the Middle East will require a massive concentration of material and financial resources that are limited even for a superpower, since there are other unresolved problems in the world, too.

The breakdown of trust in the Russian-American ties hurts US interests. Fundamentally, it must also be understood that what Moscow seeks even today after nearly 20 months of battling NATO and the US in Ukraine’s killing fields is a sustained engagement with Washington and a willingness to accommodate mutual interests. 

On its part, Russia is conducting itself as a responsible power vis-a-vis the crisis in Gaza. There is no shred of evidence to show that Russia has acted as a “spoiler”. On the contrary, Moscow has been projecting its credentials as a potential peacemaker who enjoys good relations with all key players — Israel, Hamas, Iran and other regional states alike. 

In fact, President Biden’s recent remarks on the Gaza situation bring the US position rather close to Russia’s. Biden read out the following from a prepared text at a joint press conference with Prime Minister Anthony Albanese of Australia: 

“Israel has the right and, I would add, responsibility to respond to the slaughter of their people. And we will ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself against these terrorists. That’s a guarantee… 

“But that does not lessen the need for — to operate and align with the laws of war for Israeli — it has to do everything in its power — Israel has to do everything in its power, as difficult as it is, to protect innocent civilians. And it’s difficult. I also want take a moment to look ahead toward the future that we seek. 

“Israelis and Palestinians equally deserve to live side by side in safety, dignity, and peace. And there’s no going back to the status quo as it stood on October the 6th. That means ensuring Hamas can no longer terrorise Israel and use Palestinian civilians as human shields.

“It also means that when this crisis is over, there has to be a vision of what comes next. And in our view, it has to be a two-state solution.” 

Putin couldn’t have put this across differently. There is a sense of expectation in Moscow that in the emergent conditions in regional security, the US and its allies will “reconsider their notions of defeating Russia in the Ukraine conflict at any cost” — as an establishment think tanker wrote in the Kremlin-funded RT last week. 

Trust is lacking, he concluded, “compromises without the full consideration of Russian interests” are difficult to reach, but “a pivotal stage in the (world) order … is taking shape before our eyes.”  

October 30, 2023 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia: Israel’s bombardment of Gaza unlawful

Press TV – October 28, 2023

Russia has shown its strongest reaction to the Israeli regime’s nonstop bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip by labeling the three-week campaign targeting the civilians in the Palestinian territory “unlawful.”

Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said in remarks published by the Belarusian state news agency Belta on Saturday that the carnage is against international law and could create a decades-long catastrophe in the region.

Lavrov said Israel has been “indiscriminately using force against targets where civilians are known to be present.”

He warned that Israel’s stated goal of seeking to eradicate the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas would require a total destruction of Gaza, an enclave of over 2.3 million people located on the Mediterranean.

“If Gaza is destroyed and 2 million inhabitants are expelled, as some politicians in Israel and abroad propose, this will create a catastrophe for many decades, if not centuries,” said the Russian foreign minister.

“It is necessary to stop, and to announce humanitarian programs to save the population under blockade.”

Israel’s savagery began on October 7 in response to a Hamas operation in the occupied territories which led to over 1,400 deaths among settlers and regime troops.

Israelis were already angered by Moscow’s decision to host a Hamas delegation in the midst of the conflict in Palestine.

Russian authorities have defended the move while Hamas leaders say they have received a request from Moscow to look for eight people identified by Russia as possibly being among hostages taken by the group’s fighters during the blitz into the occupied territories.

Figures released by Gaza’s health officials on Saturday showed the Israeli bombardment has killed more than 7,700 Palestinians, including over 5,000 women and children.

October 28, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The Gods Are Going Against the Chosen People – Mammon Against Israel, Mars Against the Pentagon

By John Helmer | Dances with Bears | October 27, 2023

The Palestinian strategy against Israel is aimed at destroying Israel’s capacity to survive in its present state in a long war.

This means attacking the invincibility of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and their so-called Iron Dome defence; this began with the cross-border offensive on October 7, and continues with daily drone and artillery attacks on targets inside Israel, as well as resistance to IDF incursions in Gaza.

The plan also means exposing the weakness of the state’s infrastructure and economy; extending the battlefield across all of Israel’s territory – the ports, power plants and electricity grid, communications, and financial markets — making the cost of occupation of the Arab territories unendurable. In a long war, two of Israel’s leading exports earning more than 40% of the state’s trade — diamonds and tourism — face ruin.*

“The Israelis cannot withstand one year of fighting in a war,” Iraq’s President Saddam Hussein told his general staff in 1983 during a discussion of planning for a regional war of the Arabs against Israel.** In the forty years since then, the evolution of military technology and tactics has expanded the power of small national liberation armies like Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, of proxy principals like Iran, and of the strategic balancing role of Russia and China. Their combination now has shortened the Zionist state’s endurance in a long war, and that of its proxy principal, the US.

The Israelis and the Jewish diaspora comprehend this reluctantly. For them, the short war must be correspondingly shorter. This means the genocide of at least a million Palestinians in lives and displacement.

The war to do that has now become an international war – and this is a war the US cannot sustain. As a Pentagon insider said publicly this week, “because there are so many draws on the logistics and support infrastructure of the Pentagon, we’re not prepared to go in in a concerted way. What we are seeing right now is death by a thousand cuts. Our adversaries know we are stretched so they are going to make us stretch even more, so we can respond even less.”

The Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Maria Zakharova, acknowledged the point in Moscow on Thursday: US naval, air force, and marine reinforcements deployed around Israel and Gaza are “American tactics to strengthen their own security (this is how it should be interpreted) at someone else’s expense.” They are backfiring on Washington’s capacity to defend US forces in the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, the Persian Gulf, and in land bases in Syria, Iraq and Jordan. “On the contrary,” Zakharova added, the US military deployment “will further rock the situation in the Middle East, create additional tension that can spill out beyond the region.”

Zakharova’s warning came in the Moscow afternoon. By then Russian Foreign Ministry officials had held meetings with a Hamas delegation, and officials from Iran, Egypt, and Kuwait. Across the city at the same time, President Vladimir Putin held telephone talks with Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The Kremlin communiqué reported: “Russia and Turkiye have practically overlapping positions.”

Israeli and US-led media censorship and propaganda are concealing the breadth of impact of the Palestine warfighting plan, and the deepening military and economic weaknesses of the Israeli state.

The longer the war continues, the plainer the evidence is on the battlefield that the single-state scheme of Israel and the US is no longer possible. Whether Israel and the US can be compelled to withdraw to the 1967 borders and a new Palestinian state created with partition, demilitarisation, and international security guarantees – the basis of the Russian position announced again on Thursday in Moscow — remains to be fought over.

In this long war, the gods do not favour the Chosen People.

Following with precision the battlefield action is impossible in the Israeli and Anglo-American press. Reporting of operations, and of Israeli and US casualties, is being suppressed entirely or delayed for days, if not weeks.

According to this NBC television report, broadcast on October 24, there were at least 24 US combat casualties following drone attacks on or about October 18 at the Al-Tanf base in Syria and the Al-Asad base in Iraq. Reporting of naval action in the Red Sea, when the USS Carney reportedly engaged Houthi missiles over several hours, has been changing since the initial news flashes of October 19. Read more here. In a new report of October 24, Israeli and US casualties in a joint raid inside Gaza were revealed: “in the last 24 hours or so, some of our Special Ops forces and Israeli Special Ops forces went into Gaza to reconnoiter, to plan for where they might want to go to free hostages and make an impact, and they were shot to pieces and took heavy losses, as I understand it. I think that is where we are headed and I don’t see that as a win for Israel in any way, shape, or form. And I certainly think it is very dangerous for us”. In current reporting by Al Mayadeen, daily strikes against US bases in Iraq and northeastern Syria are documented.

Tracking the electric war and infrastructure strikes by Hamas and Hezbollah is also difficult. They commenced with cyber attacks on Israel’s electricity generation plants and power grids; these have been followed by missile and drone strikes. “The ground has been laid for attacks on the Israeli grid,” a US military source claims. “I believe drones will come first, then missiles. We may even see commando raids.”

Israel’s seaports are also under constant attack. Ashkelon, which is closest in range to Gaza, has been closed. Eilat may have been the target of the Houthi missile strike which was engaged last week by the USS Carney. Ashdod, which accounts for about 40% of incoming and outgoing Israeli seaborne trade, and Tel Aviv port have been targeted. The result is a tenfold surge in war risk insurance for vessels and cargoes, and the curtailment of international vessel movement in and out of the Israeli ports; there are reports that shipping is down 30% in Ashdod compared to the pre-war volume. Evergreen, the Taiwanese container shipping company, declared force majeure for Ashdod on October 17, diverted one vessel to Haifa, and halted future shipping into both ports. “We advise evaluating each port visit in Israel on a case by case basis and implementing appropriate precautions in ship contingency plans,” recommends a maritime industry alert bulletin.

Chevron’s offshore Tamar gas field has been shut down. The source produces 70% of the gas required to fuel Israel’s electricity generation needs. Not a single Anglo-American media source has noticed that Israel is at risk of losing its principal energy source to drone or missile attack. “After what the Americans and Germans did to blow up the Nordstream pipelines,” comments a Moscow industry source, “what is holding Hamas back from hitting Tamar, or Hezbollah from the other Israeli gas fields?”

Left: Chevron’s Tamar gas production platform is located at sea 24 kilometres west of Ashkelon. Right: click to enlarge map of Israel’s offshore gas sources.
Left: Chevron’s Tamar gas production platform is located at sea 24 kilometres west of Ashkelon. Right: click to enlarge map of Israel’s offshore gas sources.

A Moscow source comments that “in Israel, the US and the UK will be able to bring in supplies without a very big risk of US ships being attacked. The risk is to the ports and bases, not to supplies from the Med[iterranean]. The Greek and Cyprus bases will come in very useful. Israel will not face severe logistical issues as long as it is on the offensive. If its settlements start getting cut off, encircled or penetrated then it is a different matter.”

The indirect economic impacts of the war have also not been calculated or discussed in the mainstream media or international business newspapers. The leading export revenue earners are diamonds at above $9 billion per annum, and tourism which had been peaking at $8.5 billion in 2019. Counted together, diamonds and tourism amount to more than 40% of the state’s export earnings.

The Covid-19 pandemic and worldwide travel restrictions cut Israel’s tourism revenue fourfold, and this had been recovering over 2022 and the tourist season this year. This has now stopped, although for the time being Hamas rocket launches on Ben Gurion airport near Tel Aviv have been intercepted.

October 12, 2023 — source: https://www.youtube.com/.
October 12, 2023 — source: https://www.youtube.com/.

ISRAEL TOURISM REVENUE TRAJECTORY, 1999-2022

Israel’s high-tech machine exports and pharmaceuticals may also be affected if electricity supply, internet networks, and transportation are damaged.

The cumulative effect will be the outcome which the international ratings agencies have been warning the international banks and financial markets to prepare for. “In our view,” Fitch reported to clients on October 17, “the combination of Israel’s dynamic, high-value added economy, the record of resilience to regional conflict, [and] preparedness for military confrontations… make it unlikely a relatively short conflict largely confined to Gaza will affect Israel’s rating…. the risk that other actors hostile to Israel, such as Iran and Hezbollah, could join the conflict at scale has risen significantly… a major escalation could result in negative rating action. This could take the form of a wider and longer conflict, resulting in a sustained fiscal drain, both from higher spending and lower tax collection, as well as loss of human and material capital and severe economic disruption.”

How short, and also how long, Israel’s warfighting plan will take depends on American and international acceptance, not only of the genocide intended for the Palestinians of Gaza, but of the Novichok-type chemical warfare planned by the IDF and the Pentagon for the Hamas tunnel system in Gaza City. After several years in which the US and UK have fabricated claims that Syria and Russia were using prohibited gas warfare weapons, the Israelis have reportedly persuaded the US to participate in the tunnel attack operation. The Pentagon is denying the reports.

Russian and US military sources are already confirming the logistical supply problems facing Israeli and US forces at present, when the war is just three weeks long. Greek sources are reporting the Souda Bay, Crete, base has already reached its capacity for incoming US navy and air force supply and support operations; the spillover is facing growing Greek protest at the Elefsina air base near Athens.

A Cyprus source says the movement of US and British aircraft into and out of the Dekhelia and Akrotiri airbases is accelerating, and there is an air and seaborne shuttle between the Cypriot ports of Larnaca and Limassol and the USS Gerald Ford carrier group at sea to the southwest of the island.

The lengthening of the supply lines required to support the USS Eisenhower carrier group in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf and the shore bases needed to support it are politically sensitive already; and the risks of Houthi and other attacks, along with domestic Arab crowd protests, will intensify for these bases in the Arab sheikhdoms the longer the war against Israel reveals Arab and Iranian warfighting skill and resistance.

Converting these gains into a negotiating framework for Israeli-American retreat is the task Russian officials are attempting in silent coordination with the Chinese, and in semi-open negotiations in Moscow this week. In its first move outside the region since the war began, Hamas has visited Moscow for negotiations, led by US-educated Moussa Mohammed Abu Marzouq.

Left: Moussa Mohammed Abu Marzouq; centre: Husam Badran; right, Ali Bagheri Kyani.
Left: Moussa Mohammed Abu Marzouq; centre: Husam Badran; right, Ali Bagheri Kyani.

Zakharova confirmed the start of the talks with Hamas on Thursday. She said: “I can also say and confirm that representatives of the relevant Palestinian movement are in Moscow. As for contacts, we will inform you additionally.” She has also disclosed that since the war began, nine thousand Russian passport holders have returned to Russia from Israel; and that at least fifteen Russian passport holders among the Hamas hostages have been killed in the IDF airstrikes.

At the same time as Marzouq’s meetings, Husam Badran issued a statement to the Russian state news medium, Sputnik. “Russia,” Badran said, “is able to play an important role in ending the war between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and delivering aid to the Palestinian exclave. Hamas values Russia’s role on the international stage, especially use of veto in the UN Security Council against the United States. But Russia can play a greater role in ending the aggression against our people in the Gaza Strip and applying international pressure to deliver urgent aid to our people in the Gaza Strip.”

What Hamas means by “greater role” for Russia has not been disclosed publicly yet. It is known that Hamas is willing to negotiate the release of “non-military” hostages, including Israelis holding Russian passports, through Iran. This is conditional on the IDF lifting its siege on Gaza and allowing sufficient supplies into all parts of the territory.

The “military hostages” are being held in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. There are more than 6,000 of the latter; there may be fewer than 200 hostages in Gaza, as up to 50 have been killed by Israeli bombing.

The Russian Foreign Ministry statement on the talks with Hamas is less revealing. According to the Sputnik release, “Russia has discussed release of hostages and evacuation of Russians from the Gaza Strip during a meeting with a delegation of Hamas in Moscow on Thursday.” A member of the political office of the Islamic resistance movement Hamas, Abu Marzouq, is in Moscow. Contacts took place with him in continuation of the Russian line for the immediate release of foreign hostages located in the Gaza Strip, and issues related to ensuring the evacuation of Russian and other foreign citizens from the territory of the Palestinian enclave were also discussed.”

At the same time on Thursday – unnoticed and unreported by the western media – Russian officials held several negotiating sessions with an Iranian emissary, Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kyani. In three separate Foreign Ministry releases, meeting communiqués were issued for Kyani’s meetings with deputy ministers Mikhail Bogdanov, Sergei Ryabkov, and Mikhail Galuzin. “The need for the cessation of hostilities in and around the Gaza Strip and the prompt provision of humanitarian assistance to the affected Palestinian population was confirmed,” Bogdanov’s communiqué said. “It was stated that Moscow and Tehran are determined to continue close coordination of efforts in the interests of stabilizing the situation in the Middle East.”

It is unclear if the talks also included the Hamas officials in a three-party format. During the day there were also Foreign Ministry negotiations in Moscow with Kuwaiti and Egyptian officials.

At the Kremlin it has been announced that President Putin spoke with Turkish President Erdogan to discuss the war. According to the Kremlin release, “the presidents reviewed the active efforts undertaken by Russia at the UN Security Council, as well as the corresponding political and diplomatic steps taken by Turkiye to stop the bloodshed and ensure the unimpeded delivery of humanitarian aid to those in need. It was emphasised that Russia and Turkiye have practically overlapping positions, focused on implementing the well-known two-state solution, which provides for the creation of an independent Palestine coexisting with Israel in peace and security.”

In her briefing for the press, Zakharova dismissed the US moves so far. “We do not consider the US presence in the Middle East as contributing to the stability of the situation in the region. Exactly the opposite. Washington’s earlier attempts to monopolise the Middle East settlement process, ignoring the true causes of the protracted conflict, have largely led to the current catastrophic consequences… This situation has an absolutely clear and understandable road, a ‘road map’ for settlement. It is not simple, but complex, painful, but leading to the solution of the issue, not its aggravation.”

“Of course, no air defence systems, arms supplies, materiel injections into some ‘security complexes’ will help resolve this situation. Today’s lesson must be learned. How many Americans have deployed there (their bases, experts, satellites), nothing has worked to prevent a bloody scenario, of which both Palestinians and Israelis are victims.”

[*] With support from Israel and influential Jewish diamantaires in New York and Tel Aviv, a scheme of sanctions is being prepared by the US Government to stop Russian raw diamonds, produced by Alrosa, from being sold into the Belgian, Israeli, and US markets. The Russian goods are to be tagged “blood diamonds” because of the war in the Ukraine. However, now that Israel is destroying the Palestinian population of Gaza, the “blood” tag can be applied to the Israeli diamond cutting industry and to the Jewish diamond trade abroad. Support for the anti-Russian sanction, and also for the IDF operations against the Palestinians can be found in Rapaport.com news reports. “Rapaport stands with Israel”, the publication and its owner Martin Rapaport declared on October 26, “and has undertaken all the necessary effort and costs for the October Single Stone Auction to help the Israeli market continue to conduct business as best as possible during this difficult time. Rapaport believes that continuing to do business in Israel during the war is a victory over the brutal Hamas terrorists, and will help Israel win the war.” In another editorial for the diamond trade, Rapaport proposes “to boycott Iran and all other supporters of the Hamas terrorist organization.” Rapaport also cites religious authority for liquidation. “In the words of G-d (Exodus 17:14): ‘I will utterly blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven.’May the words of G-d be done, here and now.” Quietly, Russia’s state diamond interests dictate a strategy for protecting against this double-edged Israeli policy.

[**] Saddam Hussein is quoted in the chapter on US plots against him in Iraq – see The Jackals’ Wedding: American Power, Arab Revolt, Ch. 6.

October 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran, Russia, Hamas officials discuss Gaza-Israel war in Moscow

The Cradle | October 27, 2023

Authorities from Iran, Russia, and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas met on 27 October at the Iranian Embassy in Moscow to discuss the Gaza-Israel war.

Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani was invited by his Russian counterpart, Mikhail Bogdanov, to discuss a potential ceasefire between Palestine and Israel with Mousa Mohammed Abu Marzouk, a senior Hamas official.

“Inviting the movement’s leadership to visit Moscow is a message to the whole world that Russia considers Hamas a national liberation movement and not a terrorist movement,” Abu Marzouk told Russian media on Friday, noting that President Vladimir Putin “graciously did justice to the Hamas movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people and protected it politically in the Security Council and the UN.”

During Thursday’s meeting, Kani solidified Tehran’s “undoubtable” support for Palestine. “Tehran’s priorities in talks with foreign sides are declaring an immediate ceasefire, providing aid to people, and lifting the repressive blockade of Gaza,” the Iranian Embassy in Moscow quoted the Iranian official.

Iranian and Russian diplomats held separate talks and discussed the need for a ceasefire in the war between Palestine and Israel and the urgency of delivering humanitarian aid to Gaza.

A member of Hamas’ political bureau revealed to Sputnik that the Hamas delegation discussed the region’s future and how this differs from the US narrative.

Israeli authorities were not pleased with the meeting held in Moscow, saying that this was a show of Russia’s support for Hamas.

“Israel condemns the invitation of senior Hamas officials to Moscow, which is an act of support of terrorism and legitimizes the atrocities of Hamas terrorists,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Lior Haiat said on social media. “We call on the Russian government to expel the Hamas terrorists immediately.”

Russia has actively monitored the situation between Palestine and Israel, putting forward multiple draft resolutions in the UN Security Council to reach a ceasefire in Gaza. However, the US and its allies have struck down these resolutions.

October 27, 2023 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | , , | Leave a comment

Biden Inches Towards Military Disaster in Middle East

By Ilya Tsukanov – Sputnik – 27.10.2023

The US has dramatically beefed up its presence in the Middle East, sending two carrier strike groups, thousands of Marines, multiple THAAD and Patriot missile batteries, and more warplanes to the region amid the Palestinian-Israeli flare-up. But these forces can’t guarantee victory in case of a shooting war, says military observer Andrei Martyanov.

Tehran issued its strongest warning to Washington to date over the Palestinian-Israeli crisis on Thursday, cautioning that the US wouldn’t be able to escape if the conflict continues unabated.

“I say frankly to the American statesmen, who are now managing the genocide in Palestine that we do not welcome [an] expansion of the war in the region,” Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said in New York during an emergency United Nations General Assembly session. America “will not be spared from this fire” if the crisis endures, Amir-Abdollahian emphasized. “It is our home, and West Asia is our region. We do not compromise with any party and any side, and we have no reservation when it comes to our home’s security.”

Tehran has so far moderated its response to US and Israeli actions during the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, ignoring efforts by Tel Aviv to goad the country into a military response by attacking Iranian allies in Syria and Lebanon, and snubbing threats by loudmouth officials and lawmakers to bring the war home to “Iran’s backyard.” Instead, Tehran has joined countries including Russia, China, Brazil and Turkiye in calling for an immediate ceasefire.

Netanyahu cabinet minister Nir Barakat threatened last week to cut off the Iranian “head of the snake” and launch attacks against the Islamic Republic if Hezbollah tried to open a second front against Israel from the north. Meanwhile, President Biden on Wednesday said he had issued a “warning” to Iran’s supreme leader that if Iran “continue[s] to move against” American troops in the Middle East, the US “will respond, and he should be prepared.”

But as observers with an understanding of Iran’s military capabilities observe, tackling Iran would be unlike anything either Israel or the US have ever attempted, with the Islamic Republic’s combination of natural defensive geography, powerful indigenous military-industrial complex, advanced missile and drone programs, and readiness to defend its interests even against much more powerful foes, making it an extremely difficult target.

US Carriers in Eastern Med ‘Sitting Ducks’ for Missiles

The centerpiece of the US forces deployed to the Middle East amid the Palestinian-Israeli crisis are the USS Gerald Ford and USS Dwight D. Eisenhower carrier strike groups. Each armada theoretically has enough firepower to level a small country, with each carrier carrying a complement of up to 90 combat aircraft, and the giant warships themselves flanked by between four to six cruise missile-equipped destroyers.

The armadas are certainly no threat to be taken lightly, but do have important weaknesses when stacked up against countries with modern missile capabilities, transforming into “white elephants” from a bygone era, says veteran military analyst and best-selling author Andrei Martyanov.

“In terms of their real power projection,” carriers “are big fat sitting targets against modern weaponry such as anti-ship missiles and hypersonic missiles,” Martyanov told Sputnik’s New Rules podcast.

“In this respect, they are not a real asset, but rather a liability against any major power such as Russia or China,” the observer explained. “In this particular case, those aircraft carriers and their battle groups, which usually comprise two or three ‘Aegis’-carrying destroyers – they are not really any more a serious military asset except for their ‘fear factor’…They could be sunk or basically disabled, and that’s pretty much it,” he said.

Israel-Palestine War: Is the US Preparing to Attack Iran?

The same can be said even for a mid-tier military power like Iran, given its vast arsenal of thousands of medium and long-range ballistic and cruise missiles, and recent development of a hypersonic missile known as the Fatah. Many of these weapons are theoretically in range of US warships, plus dozens of US bases dotting the Middle East – some of them conveniently just across the Persian Gulf separating Iran from the Arab Gulf oil states.

“Iran will be able to deliver both an asymmetric and a very symmetrical” response, Martyanov observed. “Iran has a vast number of highly sophisticated, highly developed ballistic missiles… And they have a vast number of cruise missiles. [The response] can be very symmetrical. And every single air base, military base of the United States will be under attack.”

Combined with carriers’ vulnerabilities is their massive cost, Martyanov said, pointing out that the new Ford-class carrier alone costs some $13 billion, plus $5-6 billion for its complement of aircraft.

“So you have a single weapon, a single carrier, a single ship, which carries on itself almost $20 billion worth of military assets and could be taken out by two or three missiles such as Zircon or Kinzhal. Can you imagine the impact, apart from fact of them having a very serious cultural and mental influence within the United States? The loss of a single ship can escalate…to the nuclear threshold because of the political, emotional, cultural and of course military impact of such a loss. Don’t forget, you also have more than 6,000 people onboard this carrier,” the observer stressed.

Even the Russian-made Yakhont anti-ship missile possessed by Syria – which can reach up to Mach 3 at the terminal stage of flight and has a range of some 300 km, can pose a serious challenge to the American carrier groups, Martyanov said, not to mention the various missiles possessed by Hezbollah – which together force the US to stay further away the region’s coasts.

Israeli or US attack on Iran Would Result in Massive Retaliation

Asked to comment specifically on Lindsey Graham’s threats against Iran, Martyanov emphasized that the “blowhard,” “certified war criminal” lawmaker “doesn’t know what he’s talking about” when it comes to the consequences of the actions he’s proposing.

For one thing, Martyanov said, Graham “doesn’t understand that the United States is not capable” of mounting “any kind of serious ground operation at all” against Iran.

“They know if they go in” that they “can send some Tomahawks there. Well, guess what? Iran is not even Syria. Iran is a serious regional power with actually quite significant military potential. And it has some high-tech weapons, including extremely advanced air defense. So in the United States, obviously, those statements are primarily made for public and for the benefit of Israel, too,” the observer said.

The same is the case for Israel, Martyanov noted, with Tel Aviv’s spate of anti-Iranian rhetoric constituting “empty threats,” since the Jewish State lacks the resources to mount a ground operation against Iran even if it were technically feasible.

“It would be decimated, but don’t forget, there are 1,200 kilometers separating Israel and Iran. Neither side can actually provide serious deployment of forces to fight a real war,” the observer said, pointing out that neither country would be able take advantage of combined arms multipliers fighting at such great distances.

“So what’s left is primarily air operations. And even this, on the part of Israel, will require direct interference and support from the United States because, as already stated, it’s 1,200 kilometers and they would have to fly over the territory of Jordan, Saudi Arabia. Good luck getting permission to do that. Or you can try to circumnavigate them, but then you have to refuel them nonstop. And that’s where the United States comes in,” Martyanov said.

“People forget that Iran has not only good air defense – they have a pretty outstanding variety of all kinds of operational tactical and operational ballistic missiles. And those are not Katyusha [rockets]; they are very serious, highly sophisticated missiles with great targeting. As the United States experienced in 2020, when Donald Trump ordered the absolutely irresponsible assassination of [IRGC Quds Force Commander Qasem] Soleimani,” the military analyst noted, recalling Iran’s bombardment of a pair of US bases in Iraq using precision missiles.

“Iran can literally blow up every single American base in the Middle East as a retaliation. So we have these dynamics there. And that’s why, for the most part, these are pathos statements or chest thumping,” Martyanov summed up.

October 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainian attack on Russian nuclear facility thwarted – officials

RT | October 27, 2023

A Ukrainian attack involving multiple drones has been stopped in the Russian city of Kurchatov, home to the Kursk nuclear power plant, according to civilian and military officials. Unconfirmed reports claimed that one of the aircraft damaged a nuclear waste storage building at the site.

The spree of incidents happened on Thursday evening in Kursk Region, which borders Ukraine. The Russian Defense Ministry reported intercepting a fixed-wing drone over Russian territory on two occasions, about two hours apart, while the power plant’s press service said it was attacked by three enemy drones. Kurchatov is located some 60 km from the Ukrainian border.

The statement by the civilian authorities reported no damage or casualties on the ground, and said all four units of the facility were operating normally. Three of them are currently online, while one is undergoing a shutdown procedure ahead of being decommissioned, it said. The oldest reactor, which first went operational in 1976, has not been generating power since late 2021.

The news outlet SHOT claimed that the incident was more serious than according to official statements, reporting that the third drone “fell next to a nuclear waste storage and blew up.” The report said the blast caused minor damage to the infrastructure but didn’t hurt anyone.

Another drone incident in Kurchatov that may have been an attempted attack on the plant was previously reported in mid-July. An unmanned aerial vehicle, which was described as home-made and fitted with a Taiwan-manufactured jet engine, exploded several kilometers away from the nuclear site, media reported at the time.

Moscow has accused Kiev of launching multiple attempts to sabotage its crucial energy infrastructure, including nuclear power plants, amid ongoing Russian-Ukrainian hostilities.

Earlier this month, the chief of Ukrainian military intelligence, Kirill Budanov, confirmed three failed commando raids on Energodar, the city where the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant is located.

Energodar is located in the Zaporozhye region, which joined Russia last year after people living there voted for the move in a referendum. Ukraine has dismissed the vote as a “scam,” and Kiev partially controls the contested territory.

The Zaporozhye plant hosts a monitoring mission of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the UN’s nuclear watchdog. It was stationed there last year, amid a string of drone and shelling attacks, which Moscow and Kiev blamed on each other.

October 27, 2023 Posted by | Nuclear Power, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Russia, China veto US-drafted resolution backing Israeli offensive

Press TV – October 25, 2023

Russia and China have prevented the passage of a US-drafted UN Security Council (UNSC) resolution that had said Israel, which has killed more than 6,500 people as part of its underway war on Gaza, has been acting in “self-defense.”

The draft was put to vote on Wednesday. The United Arab Emirates also voted no, while 10 members voted in favor and Brazil and Mozambique abstained.

Israel launched the devastating war on October 7 after the Gaza Strip-based Palestinian resistance groups staged Operation al-Aqsa Storm, a surprise attack on the occupied territories, in response to the Israeli regime’s intensified crimes against the Palestinian people. The war has killed 6,546 Palestinians, including 2,704 children, according to the Palestinian health ministry.

The Council then voted on a Russian-drafted resolution that had called for a humanitarian ceasefire and urged Tel Aviv to immediately cancel its orders on Palestinian civilians to head into southern Gaza.

Only Russia, China, the UAE, and Gabon voted in favor of the draft, while nine members abstained and the United States and Britain voted no.

A resolution needs at least nine votes and no vetoes by the US, France, Britain, Russia or China to be adopted.

Also on Wednesday, Russia’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the death of thousands of children in the Gaza Strip had not been enough to get the West behind a resolution demanding a ceasefire in the besieged coastal territory.

“This is the most obvious and rather simple thing to do in this situation: Simply to produce a statement, a resolution, a document with a unified call for a ceasefire, settling the situation and so on,” she said in an interview with Sputnik Radio.

“Even these numbers (the fatality count among the Palestinian minors) cannot compel certain political forces in the West to come to their senses and realize what is going on,” Zakharova regretted.

October 25, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia Receives Proposals From US on Arms Control

By Oleg Burunov – Sputnik – 25.10.2023

Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov touched upon a spate of pressing issues, including US arms control proposals, Moscow-Tehran cooperation and prisoner exchange.

Russia has received proposals on strategic stability and arms control from the United States that are currently being studied, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov told a news briefing earlier in the day.

According to him, there are no new elements in these proposals and Moscow will respond to Washington in due time.

Ryabkov added that the US is “proposing to discuss strategic stability and arms control on a systematic basis” and “in isolation from current events”. The Russian diplomat stressed that Moscow is “not willing to do that.”

“We believe that a return to the dialogue on strategic stability, including the issue of strategic offensive weapons and other issues, is simply impossible in its previous form without a change in the fundamentally hostile attitude of the United States towards Russia,” Ryabkov pointed out.

Russia-Iran Cooperation

Separately, Ryabkov touched on Iran-related issues, saying Russia intends to use the lifting of UN Security Council restrictions on the Islamic Republic’s missile program to develop cooperation.

“We will continue to develop our cooperation on a mutually beneficial basis in full accordance with international obligations and existing regimes in this area. Now, after the expiration of some restrictive provisions of [UN] Resolution 2231, there are fewer such restrictive regimes. Of course, we will take advantage of this, and this should not raise any questions for anyone,” he told reporters.

Moscow cooperates with Iran within a strictly legal framework, the Russian diplomat said, adding that the Kremlin foresees all politicized attempts to prevent this and will try to stop them.

Prisoner Exchange

In addition, Ryabkov commented on a recent statement by the US State Department by saying that the Russian Foreign Ministry had not received any additional proposals from the US on the exchange of prisoners through its channels.

Ryabkov was referring to Washington’s “serious proposal” to Moscow for the release of former US Marine Paul Whelan, who is serving a prison sentence in Russia for espionage.
“The issues of prisoner exchange, or rather, the issues of release of Russian citizens who, in the vast majority of cases, have received long sentences on unjust verdicts and false charges, are being discussed through the special services. The Russian Foreign Ministry has not recently received through its channels any additional ideas or proposals in this regard from the American side,” Ryabkov stated.

“If such proposals are received, they will be forwarded to those involved in the distribution of responsibilities on this issue so that the proposals can be considered. At the moment, there is no news or updates on this issue,” the Russian diplomat added.

Russian authorities charged Whelan with espionage and arrested him in December 2018, he was sentenced to 16 years in prison by a Moscow court. Whelan, who is a citizen of Canada, Ireland, and the United Kingdom, has maintained his innocence, claiming that he came to Russia for a friend’s wedding.

October 25, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Russia’s top lawmaker slams Biden’s ‘new world order’ plan

Russian State Duma Chairman Vyacheslav Volodin © Sputnik / Vladimir Fedorenko
RT | October 24, 2023

Russia’s State Duma chairman has compared the US government to a company executive, who has run a business into the ground and now wants to try again with a new corporation.

Vyacheslav Volodin was reacting on Tuesday to remarks by US President Joe Biden, who said last week that a new international order was needed, and that Washington can “unite the world in ways that it never has been”.

The speaker of the lower house of the Russian parliament said that just as a corporate manager with a bankruptcy on their hands would not be trusted with someone else’s money again, “nobody in the world will accept Biden and the US, who have destroyed the global security system, to build a new world order in their interests.”

The Russian official claimed the US has inflicted harm on the world “in attempting to save its hegemony,” causing a disruption of international commerce through trade wars, a deep crisis in the European Union, tensions over Taiwan, and hostilities in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“Attempts to reshape [the world] to fit the American mold will not lead to anything good and can only result in a global disaster,” Volodin warned, urging the US leader to be isolated “before he unleashes a world war”.

Biden’s “new world order” remark came on Friday, while he was meeting with donors as part of his re-election campaign. He touted the US as an indispensable nation and exemplified whipping up support of Washington-friendly governments for Ukraine as an example of his administration’s unifying endeavors.

He insisted that the US was up to the task of leading humanity, and that there has never been a crisis from which the country did not emerge stronger.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Biden was correct in saying that the old system of global governance has become obsolete, but that Moscow rejects the notion that another “American-centric world order” should replace it. Peskov stressed that Russia supports a multipolar world, in which the US would be one stakeholder among many equals.

October 24, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , | Leave a comment

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.

October 23, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Daria Dugina’s Assassination Orchestrated by Ukrainian Intelligence – Report

Sputnik – 23.10.2023

The assassination of Russian journalist Daria Dugina was orchestrated by the Security Service of Ukraine, a US newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying.

The sources claimed that “the cluttered car carrying a mother and her 12-year-old daughter seemed barely worth the attention of Russian security officials as it approached a border checkpoint. But the least conspicuous piece of luggage — a crate for a cat — was part of an elaborate, lethal plot.”

According to the insiders, “Ukrainian operatives had installed a hidden compartment in the pet carrier, and used it to conceal components of a bomb. Four weeks later, the device detonated just outside Moscow in an SUV being driven” by Daria Dugina, the daughter of prominent Russian political philosopher Alexander Dugin.

“The operation was orchestrated by Ukraine’s domestic security service, the SBU,” the sources argued, referring to “the use of the pet crate, that have not been previously disclosed.” The sources also claimed that the deadly attack on Dugina in August 2022 was “part of a raging shadow war” that Ukraine’s spy services are waging against Russia.

The insiders pointed to the large role played by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in helping the SBU wage this “shadow war.”

“Since 2015, the CIA has spent tens of millions of dollars to transform Ukraine’s Soviet-formed services into potent allies against Moscow. The agency has provided Ukraine with advanced surveillance systems, trained recruits at sites in Ukraine as well as the United States, built new headquarters for departments in Ukraine’s military intelligence agency, and shared intelligence on a scale that would have been unimaginable” before the above-mentioned year, according to the sources.

They insisted that “the extent of the CIA’s involvement with Ukraine’s security services has not previously been disclosed.”

The sources claimed that over the past 20 months the SBU and its military counterpart, the GUR, “have carried out dozens of assassinations against Russian officials, including a former Russian submarine commander jogging in a park in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar and a militant blogger at a cafe in St. Petersburg.”

“Ukraine’s affinity for lethal operations has complicated its collaboration with the CIA, raising concerns about agency complicity and creating unease among some officials in Kiev and Washington. […] Even those who see such lethal missions as defensible in wartime question the utility of certain strikes and decisions that led to the targeting of civilians including Dugina or her father, Alexander Dugin. Others cited broader concerns about Ukraine’s cutthroat tactics that may seem justified now — but could later prove difficult to rein in,” the insiders pointed out.

Dugina was killed in a car bomb explosion on August 20, 2022, on the Mozhayskoe highway in the Moscow region after returning home from a festival. Her father, who was supposed to be in the same car, changed his plans at the last moment.

Following the investigation, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) determined that the explosive device in Dugina’s car had been planted by Ukrainian Natalia Vovk. The FSB said Vovk worked for Ukrainian special services that organized the assassination. Both Dugina and her father were strong supporters of the Russian special forces operation in Ukraine.

Although Kiev denied its involvement, the FSB released video footage of Vovk entering and leaving the country using forged IDs and moving into an apartment in the same building where Dugina lived. Moscow strongly condemned the attack on the journalist and accused Ukraine of engaging in state terrorism.

October 23, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Kremlin responds to Biden’s ‘new world order’ pledge

RT | October 23, 2023

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists on Monday that Russia agrees with US President Joe Biden’s comment made last week that the current global order has lost steam. However, he added that the outcome may not align with the White House’s expectations.

“The world indeed needs a new order, based on absolutely new principles,” the Russian official claimed.

According to Peskov, the new arrangement should be based on “international laws, not [arbitrary] rules” and devoid of attempts “to concentrate all mechanisms of global governance in the hands of a single nation.” He believes that Moscow differs significantly on this point.

“Whatever new world order the US envisions, it means an American-centric world order. A world revolving around the US. This will not be anymore,” Peskov added.

Biden delivered his comments about an impending shift during a speech at a fundraising event in Washington last Friday. The US president highlighted his successful effort in uniting Japan and South Korea to support Ukraine against Russia as an exemplar of his administration’s unifying endeavors.

Tokyo and Seoul agreed to do this “because they understand if they remain silent, they may be next,” Biden claimed, suggesting that Washington can “unite the world in ways that it never has been” if it is “bold enough.”

“We were in a post-war period for 50 years where it worked pretty damn well, but that’s sort of run out of steam,” Biden mused. “It needs … a new world order in a sense.”

This reality can be achieved, the president said, because “we’re the United States of America, for God’s sake” and there has “never been a thing we’ve set our mind to [that] we haven’t been able to accomplish.”

“Name me one crisis we ever got into where we haven’t come out stronger in America. Name me one. Name me one where we went in and didn’t come out stronger,” he challenged the audience.

During Biden’s term in office, the US ended a two-decade military engagement in Afghanistan, the longest in its history. Among other things, the campaign cost the lives of 2,448 US military service members and 3,846 US contractors, according to the Brown University Costs of War project.

The US had spent hundreds of billions of dollars on security and reconstruction efforts, which were mired with graft and waste, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR).

The Taliban militant group toppled the US-backed government in Kabul before the pullout was completed.

October 23, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

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