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UK, US intended to move Palestinians out of Palestine through UNRWA, British documents reveal

By Amer Sultan | MEMO | November 27, 2024

The UK and the US intended to resettle Palestinians in the neighbouring countries, after they were forced to flee their homes in Palestine in 1947 and 1948 due to the terrorist actions of Zionist forces, British documents reveal.

The documents, unearthed by MEMO in the British National Archives, also show that the British government viewed the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as a tool to achieve this goal.

UNRWA was established by a UN General Assembly resolution on 8 December 1949, and officially began operations on 1 May 1950, with its headquarters in Beirut, Lebanon. Since its inception, the agency’s main mission was to transfer Palestinian refugees from direct relief to work programmes while awaiting a political solution to their plight. By mid-June 1950, the UN reiterated that the agency “has no mandate to deal with political settlement of the problem of the Palestinian refugees”.

In December 1949, the UN adopted Resolution 194, which recognised the Palestinian refugees’ right to return to their homes in Palestine. The resolution called for refugees who wished to return and live peacefully with their neighbours to “be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” It was adopted with 35 votes in favour, including from the United Kingdom and the United States, 15 votes against and 8 abstentions.

The resolution also stipulated that compensation should be provided to those “choosing not to return and for loss of or damage to property which, under principles of international law or equity, should be made good by the Governments or authorities responsible.”

However, in August 1949, 13 months after the announcement establishing Israel, the British government decided that the “final solution” of the problem lies in “resettlement not in relief”.

Prime Minister Clement Attlee, in a memo on the “Palestinian Arab refugees” problem, instructed his foreign, treasury and economic ministers to “discuss what further provision should be made” for addressing the problem. “The emphasis should lie heavily on resettlement,” he wrote.

When UNRWA’s operations began in 1950, the agency was assisting around 750,000 Palestinian refugees residing in 58 recognised refugee camps across Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Attlee’s memo further instructed that no financial support should be given to the governments of countries hosting the refugees unless they contributed to the resettlement effort. “Any further specific contributions from British funds should be conditional on the recognition by the local government concerned, to a greater extent than hitherto, of responsibilities in the matter,” the memo added.

This followed deliberations among various British governmental departments to establish an official British stance on the refugee problem. The ministers recommended that the governments of the neighbouring countries should “make a substantial contribution to the relief and resettlement” of the Palestinian refugees. They stressed that the British government should prioritise resettlement over relief efforts, and that “the major emphasis should be on the framing of the scheme for resettlement in preference to relief.”

At the time it was estimated that the combined costs of relief and resettlement efforts from both Western and non-Western governments amounted to around $24 million. The ministers recommended waiting to see what contributions other governments would make before committing further British funds. “We should also expect them to contribute a larger proportion to any future fund than their share,” they wrote.

In a letter to the prime minister, Lord Jay, the British economic minister, expressed his belief that “the only radical solution of the relief problem is by way of resettlement and not relief.”

“The prime responsibility for these Arab (Palestinian) refugees rests with the local governments concerned,” he wrote. While acknowledging that Britain had a “special position in the Middle East,” Lord Jay suggested that Britain had a “substantial interest” in the refugee question. However, he also argued that the British contribution to the relief fund was already “more than our appropriate share.”

Lord Jay’s letter was sent to the prime minister after a request from Ernest Bevin, the then foreign minister, who proposed that “further funds should be provided for relief and/or resettlement” of the Palestinian Arab refugees. In his response, Lord Jay again emphasised that the main focus “should be on resettlement”.

The British government viewed the refugee issue as “a direct responsibility” shared not only by Israel but also by the neighbouring Arab states and the international community.

In his letter, Lord Jay reminded his colleagues that the Arab states “inhabit an area so important from the political and strategic aspect” and noted that the Arabs “tend to consider that British policy over the last thirty years has been responsible for the setting up of a Jewish state and, in some degree, for the displacement of these Arab refugees.”

The documents also reveal that the UK and the US were in frequent contact to discuss how best to resettle the Palestinian refugees in host countries through ongoing relief activities.

The British “have been considering both in London and with the Americas how best to stimulate the local governments to continue the work of relief and turn it into resettlement,”Lord Joy’s letter explained. The British and the Americans believed that the resettlement “would provide the only long-term solution of the problem.”

The documents reveal that less than a year later, a number of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon appealed to Britain and human rights defenders for the right to return to Palestine, their homeland. In a letter to the British prime minister, sent through the British consul in Beirut, they wrote in Arabic: “We truly believe that you could send us back to our homes by using your powers if you wished.”

The letter was written by Ali Ahmed El-Abed, who had been forced to leave his village, Shafa Amr, in northern Palestine. He had to live as a refugee in the Wavel Camp, located in Baalbek, east of Beirut.

The letter placed the responsibility for the Palestinian refugees’ plight squarely on the UK. It reminded the British government that Palestinians had been under British protection for 30 years and noted: “As a result, we are scattered away far from our homes, our country, and our people.” The situation of the refugees was deteriorating, the letter explained, stating that “the situation goes from bad to worse,” and warning that “death is nearer to us than life.”

The letter, dated 21 June 1950, reminded the British government that the refugees still considered themselves “under British protection, and carry passports bearing the British crown.”

On 18 July, the British government rejected the petition. In its response, the government expressed “sympathy” for the refugees, but clarified that “it is not possible for His Majesty’s government to take any action in this matter except through the medium of the United Nations.” The response, sent to El-Abed, affirmed the British government’s “full and unqualified support” for the UN in addressing the issue.

A few weeks later, the former Soviet Union’s ambassador received a similar letter, signed by 10,000 refugees, requesting support for the Palestinians’ return to their homes. This letter rejected UNRWA as a project that “aimed to prevent the implementation of the decisions of the United Nations.” The signatories viewed this project as a “pursuit of an imperialist policy.”

The letter, written in Arabic with an English translation, was sent to the British government and insisted on the implementation of UN Resolution 194, which affirmed the Palestinians’ right to return to their homes in Palestine.

November 28, 2024 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, UK, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

The Silver Bullet – An Address by Dr Mike Yeadon

Dr Mike Yeadon and Tim West | November 25, 2024

Hello, my name is Dr. Mike Yeadon, and in the next 15 minutes or so, I would like to address those of you who’ve been vaccine injured or bereaved, and also those of you who are involved in the political process in Northern Ireland, as well as anywhere else in the world who might hear me. At the end of this process, I hope you will believe what I’m going to tell you, which, shockingly, is that the materials masquerading as vaccines were designed intentionally to harm the people who received them. I’m probably the most qualified former pharmaceutical company research executive in the world speaking out on this matter, and since I spent my entire career in the business of working with teams designing molecules to be new potential medicines, I think I am qualified to comment on it, and that is my shocking judgement that has been only reinforced over the last almost four years since I first said it.

I’ll also have some suggestions for what we can do together to fight against the global crime which is ongoing. So, just a little bit about me so you can decide whether or not to believe me. So, I’m a career-long research scientist.

I’ve worked all of my life in the pharmaceutical industry and in biotech. My first degree included a training in toxicology, so that’s an understanding of how materials can injure human beings at a molecular level, and what the relationship is between the structure of them and the toxicity. In my second degree, a PhD, I did research in respiratory pharmacology, control of breathing and control of respiratory reflexes.

So, and then after that, I joined the pharmaceutical industry in 1988, and I worked until very recently on new medicines for allergic and respiratory diseases. In my corporate career, I was for a long time responsible at Pfizer, then the biggest research-based drug company in the world, for everything to do with allergic and respiratory diseases in the research field. So, that was my responsibility.

And in the last 10 years, after leaving in 2011, I was an independent and I became the founder and CEO of a biotech company, which was eventually acquired by Novartis, which was then the biggest drug company in the world. So, I have had a good career, and I was well regarded in the industry for my scientific acumen and judgments, until, of course, I started speaking out against the nonsense, the COVID pandemic, and especially the so-called vaccines. I’ve become persona non grata.

It was my former colleagues after that. So, I’m well qualified to comment on the toxicological principles, properties of molecules, and the kind of effects you might see from certain structures. So, just very briefly, before I talk about the so-called vaccines, what happened in 2020? It’s taken me a long time to get there, and I haven’t made everybody happy with the decision I’ve reached, but there was not a pandemic or a public health emergency.

I don’t think there was anything at all, apart from lies, propaganda, fear-based information, fake diagnostic tests called PCR, and then, as it were, misattribution of real illnesses that people did have, which were called COVID when there was no such thing. But what happened, shockingly, was that after the World Health Organisation’s chairman called a pandemic, which was not true. There’s never been a pandemic.

There won’t be pandemics. They’re immunologically impossible. But after he called them, many countries in the world changed radically their medical management practises for people in hospitals, also in care homes, and in the community.

And very briefly, in hospitals, many people were sedated, had a plastic tube put down their airway, and unconscious, put on mechanical ventilators. I can assure you that is not ever an appropriate treatment for someone with an influenza-like illness, whatever you might think COVID was. But that would not be something you would do, and if applied to frail and elderly people, they will die in large numbers, which they did.

So that was the first crime. It’s not a mistake. There are no mistakes here.

Mistakes were not made. They were told to do this by figures at supranational level. We don’t know exactly who, but we know this because these mad procedures changed in many countries all at the same time.

So that’s hospitals, in care homes, assisted living, old-age people’s homes, and so on. Many people were given drugs like Midazolam, which is an injectable form of a drug like Valium, a sedative. But they were also given injections of pain-relieving drugs like morphine, even if they weren’t in pain.

My PhD was in the field of understanding what opiate drugs like morphine do to the respiratory reflux, and I can assure you it suppresses and suppresses it and depresses it. So if you give an elderly person on their own an injection of Midazolam, they will become sedated and sleepy, and if you give them an injection of morphine, their breathing will slow. I can tell you, it’s absolutely forbidden to give a person those two drugs together, those two drug classes together, unless they are under intense ongoing medical monitoring.

And the reason is they’re likely to fall asleep and stop breathing. That, of course, is what happened. So that’s hospitals and care homes.

Your relatives were killed by the medical procedures that were imposed. Now, it’s quite possible early on that not everybody involved knew what was happening, but I’m afraid after a few days, you’d have to be a blockhead not to realise that it was what you were doing to your charges, your patients, that was resulting in their deaths. So I’ve completely lost any trust in the medical profession because virtually no one has spoken up four and a half years later.

This happens to lots of people. If you listen to the recordings, heartbreaking recordings given to the Scottish COVID Enquiry, I think that’s probably the only place where there’s been an official taking of evidence from people. And what I just described is exactly what happens to lots of people’s relatives and no doubt happens to some people in Northern Ireland as well.

It certainly happens in England. There were worse things as well. People in the community were deprived of medical care that would have saved their lives.

And there’s plenty of evidence to say that not being given antibiotics when they had incipient bronchial pneumonia also killed thousands, possibly tens of thousands of people. And there, ladies and gentlemen, was your pandemic. All of those deaths were attributed to COVID and you were told this is this terrible pandemic, you need to lock down, wear masks, do what you’re told.

Nothing was happening at all apart from medical murder and propaganda from the television and the newspaper, politicians and many public, well-known public figures who are doing what they were told. So of course one conclusion I’m going to come to later is stop listening to liars. The people who’ve lied to you shouldn’t listen to them ever again.

Stop listening to them today. But for me, I think the worst thing, because it comes out of my industry and because it’s so deliberate, it requires such a lot of forethought, are the so-called vaccines. Now we were told there was this new infectious disease, so far so good ladies and gentlemen, but then they said don’t worry we’ll rustle up a vaccine and they did so at least in about 10 months, something like that.

I can tell you after spending a career in this industry, you can no more make a baby in one month with nine women than you can make a complicated biological product in 10 months. It cannot be done. It was not done.

They did something else. They created materials which were essentially injected poisons. They were not vaccines.

There was never anything to vaccinate against. And when you’ve listened to what I’ve just told you, you know that must be true because you can’t do something in 10 months that normally takes 6 to 12 years. Medicines are not put together randomly.

They are built. And they’re built by people who are discussing with colleagues, work out what kind of materials, what kind of structures, what kind of formulations, what kind of doses you would need to add in order to hit a particular molecular target to have a chance of a particular therapeutic goal being reached without unacceptable side effects. That’s called rational design.

And that is my whole career, ladies and gentlemen, from my undergraduate days to today. So when I look at the design of the medicine, whatever kind it is, and look at the design on paper and its composition structures and so on, it is as if I’m looking over the shoulder of the designer, someone like me, someone with my qualifications designed these things. So when I look at them, I’m looking over the shoulder of the designer and I can discern something of what their objectives were, what were they trying to do? And I came quickly to the conclusion that they wanted to bring about toxicity that would injure, kill and reduce fertility.

There aren’t any other alternatives. And remember, there was no public health emergency. So I’ll just give you three examples.

I’m not going to be too scientific, but three things so you can check them. The objective of these so-called gene-based vaccines was to inject you with a genetic sequence for something called spike protein. Now, it doesn’t really matter what spike protein is, if it’s real, where it came from.

The point is, it’s a genetic sequence for a protein that doesn’t belong in your body. It’s non-self, it’s foreign. Your immune system is a wonderful work of God and nature.

It distinguishes self, things that are meant to be inside you and are fine from anything else, foreign, non-self. If you inject a person with a genetic sequence that instructs your body to become a factory for some protein that doesn’t belong in you, your immune system will detect that and it will attack every cell that’s done that instruction and kill it. Now, these materials, when injected in your arm, didn’t stay in your arm, they travelled around your heart, your lungs, your kidneys, your brain, your ovaries.

And in every place it landed, if it was taken up and expressed, your body registered that as foreign invasion and it attacks and kills every cell doing it. There is no other possible consequence from doing that. So that’s step one and no one can argue that’s not what they did.

That is the design of them. It also picks a particular protein. I’m not really sure where spike protein came from, if it’s really real, but proteins like the one they claim was encoded in these gene-based materials are known to be toxic.

There are loads of experiments, lots of published experiments, showing that proteins like that one cause blood coagulation, damaged nerves, damaged heart tissue. So they injected you with something that would make your body make a protein that doesn’t belong there, knowing axiomatically, automatically, unavoidably, your immune system would attack that. It would be like rejecting an organ transplant.

Your body would say, that’s foreign, got to go, uses your immune system to kill it. And then they also inject you with something that’s inherently toxic. So if it got out into your body or wherever it was made, it would harm you.

And I’ve got a third one that cannot be argued with. At least the mRNA products from Pfizer and Moderna were encapsulated in something called lipid nanoparticles. It’s really a blob of fat, complicated, technical blob of fat, that’s what it is after all.

And what that material did is allowed your injection to glide all around your body across all biological barriers and get everywhere in your body. So of course, it’s not what you would want, is it? For something that they told you was inhaled into your nose and lungs. But no, it went all around your body, into your brain, blood vessels.

But in particular, I need to tell you, there were publications that are now more than 10 years old in peer-reviewed journal articles. I’m sceptical about whether they’re always very honest, but there were peer-reviewed journal articles showing that lipid nanoparticles were recognised over a decade ago of having a particular property, which you’re not going to like to hear, which shocked me when I learned it. They tend to deposit their payload into the ovaries.

That is exactly what happened with these injected materials. There was at least one study performed with the Pfizer agents, with the Japanese regulatory authorities. Lo and behold, the material accumulated in the ovaries of the test animals.

That is what’s happened, ladies and gentlemen, every woman and girl injected with these materials. Remember what I said about designing molecules to do things deliberately with objectives in mind? They picked lipid nanoparticles, knowing they accumulate the payload in ovaries. It’s not an accident.

Mistakes were not made. So I tell you, as a professional who spent his whole honest scientific career in an industry I did not realise was corrupt, trying to make experimental medicines for respiratory and allergy diseases, that my experience tells me that there are multiple independent, unnecessary and obvious mechanisms of toxicity built into these so-called vaccines. And then by sheer luck, all four companies, Moderna, Johnson & Johnson, AstraZeneca and Pfizer, all chose basically the same formula for their so-called vaccines.

That would never happen if it was real. For a start, I would call my opposite numbers and say, we should do different things because if something goes wrong, if we’re wrong in an assumption, all of the so-called vaccines will fail for the same reason. We should do different things.

It’s called diversification. But no, they all did the same things because they’re just lying. They were making intentionally dangerous material, passing them off as vaccines to having you and your children.

And that’s what they did. Of course, I didn’t get injected and neither did my children and most of my relatives. Some of them didn’t believe me.

I’m afraid they’ve been injected too. So big picture, what happens, I think from the research I’ve done, and of course, I’m an expert in research and development, not in politics, but I believe that very wealthy people, the kind of people who run foundations with names, have planned, as have their antecedents for a couple of generations, to take over the world, to remove the freedoms of ordinary people like us that they regard as useless eaters. They don’t want us around anymore.

And their intention is to strip us of our freedoms by persuading us that there are very frightening events occurring in the world, and we need them to lead us to safety. There are documents you can find from a group called the Club of Rome, who in the late 1960s were commissioned by some of these people who run the nameless global foundations that have hundreds of billions of pounds of worth. They were asked to come up with scenarios that would produce challenges for countries that couldn’t be solved by countries on their own, so they would have to look outwards and upwards to supranational solutions.

Now guess what? The two things they came up with, pandemics of infectious diseases, which I know as an immunologist are not possible and have never happened. The other thing they said to account for or plan for were climate change crises. I’ve done enough research now, ladies and gentlemen, I’ve spoken to people who have spent as long in climate atmospheric research as I have in pharmaceutical R&D, and they have explained to me, and I understand very well, that there’s all of this nonsense about carbon dioxide, global boiling, net zero.

It’s all a complete scam from the same people who bought you the Covid scam and the dangerous injections. It’s the same people. They want one world government, they want to be deprived of your liberty, and then I’m afraid I think they will kill us using these injections because they’re going to do it again.

All over the world, factories to make mRNA-based materials are being thrown up, billions of doses are being made, and if we let them they will sicken in our arms and people will sicken and die. So those of you who have been injured or bereaved, in my mind no blame whatsoever attaches to you. How could you know that people you trusted and thought you could trust were lying to you? Well, you didn’t know, but if you let them inject you again, you have no sympathy for me because they have lied to you, you’ve been injured or killed, and I’ve explained to you that they’re liars and they have attacked us.

So if you go along with it, you cannot be saved. All we need to do is enough of us continue to speak out about this and say we’re not having it anymore, get lost, don’t listen to liars anymore. People who’ve lied to you forfeit their trust forever, in my view, and so anyone who’s in the political process, for example in Northern Ireland looking at this so-called public health bill, which if you pass it would allow these supranational criminals to take you from your house, to inject you by force if necessary, they are aiding and abetting a global crime.

And I saw someone online say recently that if you pass that legislation, I don’t think it’d be unreasonable to interpret that as an act of war. It’s as serious as that. So politicians, you may well be under pressure from shadowy figures, but if you go along with it and hope for like an easier time of it, you will have unlocked the doors of hell and pushed everybody in it and you as long with it as well.

So this is your time to do what I’m doing, which is to speak out no matter the consequences. I say to you if you’re frightened about what happens, if you speak out, you should be absolutely terrified about what’s going to happen if you don’t. So really that’s all I’ve got to say.

I do think these criminals are going to do it again, they’re continuing to threaten us with pandemics like bird flu, monkey pox and so on. It is all nonsense. Stop listening to liars right now.

Put things right between you, the people you love, and between you and God if you haven’t already. And for goodness sake, be one of the people who speaks out no matter what the consequences, because if you don’t, we’ll lose our freedom and then our lives. Thank you.

November 27, 2024 Posted by aletho | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular, Video | COVID-19 Vaccine, Human rights, UK | Leave a comment

How the Strategy of Fighting to the Last Ukrainian Was Sold to the Public as Morally Righteous

By Professor Glenn Diesen | November 26, 2024

For almost three years, NATO countries have boycotted diplomatic contacts with Russia, even as hundreds of thousands of men have died on the battlefield. The decision by diplomats to reject diplomacy is morally repugnant as diplomacy could have reduced the excess of violence, prevented escalation, and even resulted in a path to peace. However, the political-media elites skilfully sold the rejection of diplomacy to the public as evidence of their moral righteousness.

This article will first outline how NATO planned for a long war to exhaust Russia and knock it out from the ranks of great powers. Second, this article will demonstrate how the political-media elites communicated that diplomacy is treasonous and war is virtuous.

NATO’s Long War

To exhaust Russia in a long war, the goal was to ensure that the Russians and Ukrainians kill each other for as long as possible. The US Secretary of Defence Lloyd Austin outlined the US objective in the Ukraine War as weakening its strategic adversary: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine”.[1] In late March 2022, Zelensky revealed in an interview with the Economist: “There are those in the West who don’t mind a long war because it would mean exhausting Russia, even if this means the demise of Ukraine and comes at the cost of Ukrainian lives”.[2]

The Israeli and Turkish mediators confirmed that Russia and Ukraine agreed to the terms of a peaceful settlement in Istanbul, in which Russia would withdraw its forces and Ukraine would restore its neutrality. However, why would the US and its allies accept that Ukraine return to neutrality, when the alternative was to use the powerful proxy army they had built in Ukraine to bleed and weaken Russia?[3]

The Turkish Foreign Minister acknowledged that there are “NATO member states that want the war to continue—let the war continue and Russia gets weaker. They don’t care much about the situation in Ukraine”.[4] The former Israeli Prime Minister also confirmed that the US and UK “blocked” the peace agreement as there was a “decision by the West to keep striking Putin” to destroy a strategic rival.[5] The retired German General, Harald Kujat, a former head of the German Bundeswehr and former chairman of the NATO Military Committee, also argued that this was a war deliberately provoked by NATO, while the US and UK sabotaged all paths to peace “to weaken Russia politically, economically and militarily”.[6] Interviews with American and British leaders in March 2022, revealed that a decision had been made for “the conflict to be extended and thereby bleed Putin” as “the only end game now is the end of Putin regime”.[7]

Chas Freeman, the former US Assistant Secretary of Defence for International Security Affairs and Director for Chinese Affairs at the US State Department criticised Washington for the objective to prolong the fighting to “fight to the last Ukrainian”.[8] Republican Senator Lindsey Graham argued that the US was in a favourable position as it could fight Russia to the last Ukrainian: “I like the structural path we’re on here. As long as we help Ukraine with the weapons they need and the economic support, they will fight to the last person”.[9] Republican leader Mitch McConnell was similarly explicit:

“the most basic reasons for continuing to help Ukraine degrade and defeat the Russian invaders are cold, hard, practical American interests. Helping equip our friends in Eastern Europe to win this war is also a direct investment in reducing Vladimir Putin’s future capabilities to menace America, threaten our allies, and contest our core interests”.[10]

Senator Mitt Romney argued that financing the war was “the best national defense spending I think we’ve ever done” as “We’re diminishing and devastating the Russian military for a very small amount of money” and “we’re losing no lives in Ukraine”. US Congressman Dan Crenshaw also celebrated the proxy war as “investing in the destruction of our adversary’s military, without losing a single American troop, strikes me as a good idea”.[11]

Retired US General Keith Kellogg similarly called for extending the war in Ukraine as knocking out Russia would allow the US to focus on China: “if you can defeat a strategic adversary not using any US troops, you are at the acme of professionalism”. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg shared this logic as he argued defeating Russia on the battlefield will make it easier for the US to focus also on China. Stoltenberg also noted that “if Ukraine wins, then you will have the second biggest army in Europe, the Ukrainian army, battle-hardened, on our side, and we’ll have a weakened Russian army”.[12]

Diplomacy as Treason and War as Virtue

When the decision had been made for a long war, the politicians and media began to construct narratives and a moral case for a long war, which would convince the public that diplomacy is treasonous, and war is virtuous.

Presenting the world as a struggle of good versus evil lays the foundation for effective war propaganda, as perpetual peace can be achieved by defeating the evil opponent while negotiations entail sacrificing indispensable values and principles. To this end, the Hitler analogy is very effective as diplomacy becomes dangerous appeasement while peace requires military victory. Reminiscent of George Orwell’s “war is peace”, Stoltenberg argues that weapons are the path to peace.

The Western public was reassured that fuelling the war was required to push Putin to the negotiation table, however, during almost three years of war the West never proposed negotiations. Reading the Western media, one gets the impression that Russia would not negotiate. However, Russia never opposed diplomacy or negotiations, it was the West that shut the door. So-called “peace summits” were held to give the public the impression that governments pursued peace, although Russia was not invited and the stated purpose was to mobilise public opinion and resources against Russia.

In November 2022, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley argued for starting negotiations with Russia. Ukraine had just captured large swaths of territory in Kherson and Kharkov, and General Milley argued Ukraine would not be in a better position to negotiate a peace deal. General Milley was correct in this assessment, yet he neglected that the principal objective of the war was to keep it going to bleed Russia. General Milley had to walk back his statements that threatened to end the war.[13]

The EU almost always advocates for immediate diplomacy and negotiations in conflicts around the world. In Ukraine, the EU’s foreign policy chief at the beginning of the war, Josep Borrell, argued that the war would be won on the battlefield.[14] The incoming foreign policy chief of the EU, Kaja Kallas, rejected any need for diplomacy during the war: “Why talk to him [Putin], he is a war criminal”.[15] Diplomacy now entails sitting in a room with people who agree with you, and pat each other on the shoulder for having isolated the adversary. The EU has completed its transition from a peace project to a geopolitical project.

Arguing against the dangerous precedent of “rewarding” Putin’s aggression with territory has been another seemingly moral argument against peace negotiations. However, this argument is based on the false premise that the war began as a territorial dispute. As we learned from the Istanbul peace agreement, Russia agreed to pull back its troops in return for Ukraine restoring its neutrality. Furthermore, the proxy war has been lost and Ukraine will only lose more men and territory with each passing day.

The Coming Backlash

As the Ukrainian frontlines collapse and their causalities subsequently intensify, the Americans are pushing Ukraine to lower its conscription age as sacrificing the youth could keep the war going for a bit longer. The Ukrainian public no longer wants to fight, desertions increase drastically, and “recruitment” consists of grabbing civilians off the streets and throwing them into vans that take them almost directly to the front lines. A recent Gallup poll found that there is not a single oblast in Ukraine where the majority support continuing the war.[16]

Oleksyi Arestovych, the former advisor to President Zelensky, predicted in 2019 that the threat of NATO expansion would “provoke Russia to launch a large-scale military operation against Ukraine”. NATO would then use the Ukrainian army to defeat Russia: “In this conflict, we will be very actively supported by the West—with weapons, equipment, assistance, new sanctions against Russia and the quite possible introduction of a NATO contingent, a no-fly zone etc. We won’t lose, and that’s good’.[17]

The war did not go as planned and Ukraine is being destroyed, and Arestovych recognises the folly of continuing the war. There is a growing realisation in Ukrainian society that NATO sabotaged the peace to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian. Ukrainians will resent Russia for decades to come, although there will also be hatred against the West. The war propagandists in the Western media will then surely act bewildered and blame Russian propaganda.

[1] G. Carbonaro, ‘U.S. Wants Russia ‘Weakened’ So It Can Never Invade Again’, Newsweek, 25 April 2022.

[2] The Economist. ‘Volodymyr Zelensky on why Ukraine must defeat Putin’ The Economist, 27 March 2022.

[3] The Minsk Peace Agreement was never intended to be implemented but used as an opportunity to build a large Ukrainian military, which both German and France have admitted.

[4] R. Semonsen, ‘Former Israeli PM: West Blocked Russo-Ukraine Peace Deal’, The European Conservative, 7 February 2023.

[5] N. Bennett, ‘Bennett speaks out’, YouTube Channel of Naftali Bennett, 4 February 2023.

[6] Emma, ‘Russland will verhandeln!’ [Russia wants to negotiate!], Emma, 4 March 2023.

[7] N. Ferguson, ‘Putin Misunderstands History. So, Unfortunately, Does the U.S.’, Bloomberg, 22 March 2022.

[8] A. Maté, ‘US fighting Russia ‘to the last Ukrainian’: veteran US diplomat’, The Grayzone, 24 March 2022.

[9] A. Maté, ‘US, UK sabotaged peace deal because they ‘don’t care about Ukraine’: fmr. NATO adviser’, The Grayzone, 27 September 2022.

[10] M. McConnell, ‘McConnell on Zelenskyy Visit: Helping Ukraine Directly Serves Core American Interests’, Mitch McConnell official website, 21 December 2022.

[11] L. Lonas, ‘Crenshaw, Greene clash on Twitter: ‘Still going after that slot on Russia Today’’, The Hill, 11 May 2022.

[12] T. O’Conner, ‘So, if the United States is concerned about China and wants to pivot towards Asia, then you have to ensure that Putin doesn’t win in in Ukraine’, Newsweek, 21 September 2023.

[13] K. Demirjian, Milley tries to clarify his case for a negotiated end to Ukraine war, The Washington Post, 16 November 2022.

[14] Foreign Affairs Council: Remarks by High Representative Josep Borrell upon arrival | EEAS, https://www.eeas.europa.eu/eeas/foreign-affairs-council-remarks-high-representative-josep-borrell-upon-arrival-1_en

[15] “Why talk to Putin? He’s a war criminal” Estonian PM Kaja Kallas,

[16] B. Vigers, Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War, Gallup, 19 November 2024, Half of Ukrainians Want Quick, Negotiated End to War

[17] A. Arestovich, ‘Voennoe Obozrenie’ [Military Review], Apostrof TV, 18 February 2019.

November 26, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | NATO, Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States | Leave a comment

No more ‘deals’: what Palestinians want and will fight to achieve

By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | November 26, 2024

A major problem in American thinking about the Middle East is the utter rejection of the notion that Palestinian rights are fundamental, if at all relevant, to the coveted peace and stability of the region. Long before Donald Trump’s first “Deal of the Century” was revealed officially on 28 January, 2020, successive US administrations attempted to “stabilise” the Middle East at the expense of the Palestinians.

Earlier plans, or deals, rested on the premise of the total marginalisation of the Palestinian people and their cause. They included the 1969 Roger Plan and Roger Plan II in the early 70s, which culminated in the Camp David Accords later in the decade.

When all had failed to subdue the Palestinians, Israel and the US began investing in an alternative Palestinian leadership that would be compliant with Israeli will, often in exchange for money and a minimal share of power. The outcome was the 1993 Oslo Accords, which initially segmented Palestinians politically, yielding competing classes, but eventually failed to defeat the Palestinian quest for freedom.

Numerous other initiatives and plans, produced mostly by the US and other western entities, tried to conclude the Palestinian struggle in favour of Israel without having to deal with the inconvenience of putting pressure on Israel to respect international law. They have all failed.

Trump’s so-called “Deal of the Century” was another failure.

It was situated in previously thwarted Israeli plans centred around Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2009 “economic peace”. For Israel, the new “deal” was meant to represent a win-win scenario: ending Israel’s regional isolation, amassing wealth, making the Israeli military occupation permanent, avoiding any accountability under international law, and thus permanently defeating the Palestinians.

The ongoing Israeli war and genocide in Gaza, the destabilisation of the whole region and the ongoing Palestinian steadfastness and resistance are the final proof that there can never be real peace in the Middle East without justice for Palestinians and other victims of Israeli brutality. No number of future US-western deals and initiatives can ever alter this fact.

The same inference applies to those operating at a less official capacity, but still committed to the same perusal of creative “solutions” to the so-called “conflict”. Such notions may suggest that the lack of solutions reflects the lack of imagination, resolve or the dearth of legal text that makes a just end to the “conflict” impossible.

However, a solution is readily available. Indeed, the solution to military occupation, apartheid and genocide is simply to end the military occupation, dismantle the racist apartheid regime, and hold Israeli war criminals accountable for their extermination of the Palestinian people.

Not only do we have enough international and humanitarian laws and court orders to guide us through the process of holding Israel accountable, but we also have more than the needed critical mass of international consensus that should make this “solution” possible. The main obstacle is the stubborn and unconditional US support of Israel, which has allowed the occupation state to flout international law and consensus with total impunity for decades.

International law regarding Palestine is not an outdated resolution.

It is a robust and growing legal discourse that refuses to entertain any Israeli or US interpretation of the war crimes, including the crime of genocide underway in Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories.

Last February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) began holding hearings that allowed representatives of over 50 countries to articulate their political, legal and moral stances on the Israeli occupation of Palestine. While the acting legal adviser at the US State Department argued that the 15-judge panel at The Hague should not call for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied West Bank, China’s Foreign Ministry’s legal adviser, Ma Xinmin, contended that Palestinian “use of force to resist oppression is an inalienable right”.

In July, the ICJ issued a landmark ruling that the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory in all of its expressions is illegal under international law, and that such illegality includes the occupation of East Jerusalem, all Israeli Jewish settlements, annexation attempts and theft of natural resources.

In September, international consensus followed again, when the UN General Assembly passed a resolution demanding that Israel must end “its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory” within 12 months.

This is but a footnote in the massive body of international law regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Yet more is constantly being added to the already clear discourse, including the latest arrest warrants by the International Criminal Court (ICC) for top Israeli leaders, including Netanyahu.

With such clarity in mind, why then should Palestinians, Arabs and the international community entertain or engage in any new deals, plans and solutions that operate outside the realm of international law and standards? The issue is obviously not the lack of a roadmap to a just peace, but the lack of interest or will, namely on the part of the US and a few of its western allies. It is their relentless backing of Israel and financing of its war machine that makes a just solution in Palestine unattainable, at least for now.

As far as Palestinians are concerned, there can only be one acceptable “deal”, one that is predicated on the full implementation of international law, including the Palestinian people’s right of return and right to self-determination. Continued US-Israeli attempts to circumvent this fact will never impede Palestinians from carrying on with their legitimate struggle for freedom.

November 26, 2024 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, War Crimes | Human rights, Israel, Palestine, UK, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

The Games of the ICC

By Christopher Black – New Eastern Outlook – November 26, 2024

On November 21, the prosecutor of the ICC announced that a three-judge panel has finally made a decision on his May 2024 application for an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

A warrant for his arrest and that of his former Defence Minister, Gallant, has been issued. If an indictment has been drawn up, which should precede an arrest warrant, we are not told and none appears on the ICC website.

Many are celebrating the arrest warrant against Netanyahu and Gallant. But, while there is no doubt that they deserve to be held to account by the Palestinians and the world for the crimes they have and continue to commit in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Iran, they are not charged with the crime of genocide, even though they are charged with inflicting mass starvation on the people of Gaza, nor the supreme war crimes of aggression for their continued illegal occupation of Palestinian lands and the brutal suppression of the Palestinian resistance to that occupation. Nor are they charged for their aggression against the sovereign nations of Lebanon, Syria and Iran, which crimes they openly brag about and which are recognised by the entire world, but not, it seems, by the prosecutor or judges of the ICC.

Further, as people calm down in their cheering, they must realise that the ICC has also issued arrest warrants for a leader of Hamas, Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri whose alleged war crimes are nothing more than echoes of Israeli propaganda about the Palestinian armed resistance to the brutal occupation of Palestinian lands and the brutal oppression by the occupation forces of the Palestinian people.

Where is the charge of Genocide?

Netanyahu and Gallant are charged with war crimes and crimes against humanity for mass starvation and targeting the civilian population with aerial attacks, and mass attacks by Israeli armoured and other forces.

The ICC press release states,

“Each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare, and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts.”

“The Chamber also found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population.”

But these charges also amount to acts of genocide, so why are they not charged with genocide? And why has no indictment been issued? Only the prosecutor and the judges can explain, and they do not.

But aside from pointing out the obvious compromise made by the ICC, to placate its critics about its inaction over Israeli crimes by laying charges yet not laying the most serious charge, the one that should be laid, we have this phrase underlined above which needs to be considered, the phrase, “jointly with others.”

Israel’s Partners in Crime Untouched

Who are the “others”? The ICC coyly refuses to say, hoping no one will ask the question. But the answer is clear: the USA, the EU, UK, France, Canada and the rest, who all give military aid and support to Israeli to carry out these crimes and have made themselves co-belligerents in this murderous war against the peoples of the Middle East, and are its partners in crime. The leaders of those nations must also be charged and warrants issued for their arrest. They are equally culpable under international law. But they are not charged. So that, in his defence, Netanyahu, if he is ever brought before this tribunal, can argue the defence of selective prosecution, that is, he can ask, “why am I charged but not the co-conspirators, the co-actors who supported and encouraged my crimes. It is not just to charge me if they are not going to be charged.”

He would be right to use that defence, and perhaps the prosecutor has arranged it so that Netanyahu and Gallant now have that defence available to them.

Political Purpose of the Warrants

But we know that Netanyahu will never be arrested and face a trial at this so-called world court. The Americans immediately came to his defence and denounced the action of the ICC. They have to because if Netanyahu is ever before the judges of the ICC, they fear the facts about their role in the crimes against the Palestinians and the others will be revealed in all their detail and depravity. The British, the French, and the Canadians will have their dirty crimes exposed as well. None of the allies of Israel want Netanyahu arrested and tried. So he will not be. The ICC knows this.

So why was the warrant finally issued after so long a delay, after so much political interference was exerted by Britain, the US, the French and others to prevent the ICC from issuing charges?

We can only speculate, as we are not privy to the phone calls between Mr. Khan and the various governments involved in these crimes, and how it was all arranged, but it was a political decision of a political prosecutor of a political tribunal.

One reason can be to improve the image of the ICC, to make it look like it is doing something, while, in effect, nothing is done to change the situation for the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Iranians, and the Syrians. It will placate some who support the Palestinians, who think the ICC is a real court, and perhaps it is hoped that this will reduce the street protests across Europe and elsewhere. No need now the ICC will say, we have acted, and you can go home now.

The ICC attempts to justify its charges against Russia

But there is another reason, and that is to trick people into thinking the ICC is some real arbiter of international justice and therefore the arrest warrants the ICC issued against President Putin and others are valid and should be acted upon.

The ICC has issued warrants of arrest of a series of Russian officials over the past few months; we suppose to keep the pot boiling, each as absurd as the one before it.

On 17 March 2023, the ICC issued warrants for Vladimir Putin, President of the Russian Federation, and Ms Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Commissioner for Children’s Rights in the Office of the President of the Russian Federation. Based on the Prosecution’s applications of 22 February 2023, Pre-Trial Chamber II considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe that each suspect bears responsibility for the war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation, in prejudice of Ukrainian children.

The absurdity of these charges and warrants, based solely on Kiev propaganda about Russia’s attempts to save the lives of children, is manifest. It is also clear that they did not charge President Putin with aggression because there has been none, and so they decided to use the most emotive charge possible to inflame public opinion against Russia. In other words, the ICC became an active tool of NATO in its war against Russia.

On 5 March 2024, the ICC issued warrants of arrest for Sergei Ivanovich Kobylash, a Lieutenant General in the Russian Armed Forces who at the relevant time was the Commander of the Long-Range Aviation of the Aerospace Force, and Viktor Nikolayevich Sokolov, an Admiral in the Russian Navy, who at the relevant time was the Commander of the Black Sea Fleet for the war crime of directing attacks at civilian objects, the war crime of causing excessive incidental harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects, and the crime against humanity of inhumane acts. None of these allegations are based on any facts or any investigation and meant to be propaganda.

On 24 June 2024, the ICC issued warrants of arrest Sergei Shoigu and Valery Gerasimov, in the context of the situation in Ukraine for alleged international crimes committed from at least 10 October 2022 until at least 9 March 2023 for the same reasons, war propaganda, to justify the continuance of the war against Russia.

Ukraine leadership given immunity from prosecution for its crimes

The ICC has not charged anyone in the illegitimate government of Ukraine for any of its crimes against the civilian population of Ukraine in the Donbass oblasts from 2014 to today, nor for its gratuitous attacks on the civilian population of Russia. It has been given immunity from prosecution.

The only legitimate prosecutors are the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iranians and Syrians for Israeli crimes committed against them.

So, all those celebrating and cheering the warrants issued against Netanyahu and Gallant should think carefully about what they are doing. Yes, those two are war criminals. Yes, they should be held accountable, but to the Palestinians and the Lebanese, the Syrians and Iranians. They are the ones who should be issuing warrants for their arrest, who should make them stand trial before the tribunals of those nations, as well as the leaders of the USA and the other nations who are parties to the Israeli crimes not this political farce called the ICC which is not a world court, which is not an independent judicial body capable of rendering justice, but a political tool of the West, used by the West for its own political and strategic reasons and objectives. The world is tired of the games of the ICC. The people of the world want real justice.

Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events.

November 26, 2024 Posted by aletho | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | Canada, France, ICC, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Russia, UK, Ukraine, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Britain’s Kursk Invasion Backfires

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | November 24, 2024

British Challenger 2 tanks reached Ukraine with enormous fanfare, ahead of Kiev’s long-delayed, ultimately catastrophic 2023 “counteroffensive”. On top of encouraging other proxy war sponsors to provide Ukraine with armoured fighting vehicles, Western audiences were widely told the tank – hitherto marketed to international buyers as “indestructible” – made Kiev’s ultimate victory a fait accompli. As it was, Challenger 2 tanks deployed to Robotnye in September were almost instantly incinerated by Russian fire, then very quietly withdrawn from combat altogether.

Hence, many online commentators were surprised when footage of the Challenger 2 in action in Kursk began to circulate widely on August 13th. Furthermore, numerous mainstream outlets dramatically drew attention to the tank’s deployment. Several were explicitly briefed by British military sources that it marked the first time in history London’s tanks “have been used in combat on Russian territory.” Disquietingly, The Times now reveals this was a deliberate propaganda and lobbying strategy, spearheaded by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Prior to the Challenger 2’s presence in Kursk breaking, Starmer and Defence Secretary John Healey had reportedly “been in talks about how far to go to confirm growing British involvement in the incursion towards Kursk.” Ultimately, they decided “to be more open about Britain’s role in a bid to persuade key allies to do more to help – and convince the public that Britain’s security and economic prosperity is affected by events on the fields of Ukraine.” A “senior Whitehall source” added:

“There won’t be shying away from the idea of British weapons being used in Russia as part of Ukraine’s defence. We don’t want any uncertainty or nervousness over Britain’s support at this critical moment and a half-hearted or uncertain response might have indicated that.”

In other words, London is taking the lead in marking itself out as a formal belligerent in the proxy war, in the hope other Western countries – particularly the US – will follow suit. What’s more, The Times strongly hints that Kursk is to all intents and purposes a British invasion. The outlet records:

“Unseen by the world, British equipment, including drones, have played a central role in Ukraine’s new offensive and British personnel have been closely advising the Ukrainian military… on a scale matched by no other country.”

Britain’s grand plans don’t stop there. Healey and Foreign Secretary David Lammy “have set up a joint Ukraine unit,” divided between the Foreign Office and Ministry of Defence. The pair “held a joint briefing, with officials, for a cross-party group of 60 MPs on Ukraine,” while “Starmer has also asked the National Security Council to draw up plans to provide Ukraine with a broader range of support.” On top of military assistance, “industrial, economic, and diplomatic support” are also being explored.

The Times adds that in coming weeks, “Healey will attend a new meeting of the Ukraine Defence Coordination Group,” an international alliance of 57 countries overseeing the Western weaponry flooding into Kiev. There, “Britain will press European allies to send more equipment and give Kyiv more leeway to use them in Russia.” The British Defence Ministry also reportedly “spoke last week to Lloyd Austin, the US defence secretary, and has been wooing Boris Pistorius, his German opposite number.”

Evidently, the new Labour government has an ambitious vision for the proxy war’s continuation. Yet, if the “counterinvasion” is anything to go by, it’s already dead in the water. As The Times notes, the imbroglio is primarily “designed to boost morale at home and shore up Zelensky’s position,” while relieving pressure on the collapsing Donbass frontline by forcing Russia to redirect forces to Kursk. Instead, Moscow “has capitalised on the absence of four crack Ukrainian regiments to press their attacks around Pokrovsk and Chasiv Yar.”

Similarly, commenting on Starmer’s wideranging efforts to compel overt Western action against Russia, a “defence expert” told The Times: “if it looks as if the Brits [are] too far ahead of their NATO allies, it might be counterproductive.” This analysis is prescient, for there are ample indications London’s latest attempt to ratchet tensions and drag the US and Europe ever-deeper into the proxy war quagmire has already been highly “counterproductive”, and boomeranged quite spectacularly. Indeed, it appears Washington has finally had enough of London’s escalatory connivances.

In repeated press conferences and media briefings since August 6th, US officials have firmly distanced themselves from the Kursk incursion, denying any involvement in its planning or execution, or even being forewarned by Kiev. Empire house journal Foreign Policy has reported that Ukraine’s swoop caught the Pentagon, State Department, and White House off-guard. The Biden administration is purportedly not only enormously unhappy “to have been kept out of the loop,” but “skeptical of the military logic” behind the “counterinvasion”.

On top being a clear suicide mission, the eagerly advertised presence of Western weapons and vehicles on Russian soil “has put the Biden administration in an extremely awkward position.” Washington has since the proxy war erupted been wary of provoking retaliations against Western countries and their overseas assets, and the conflict spilling outside Ukraine’s borders. Adding to US irritations, the British-directed Kursk misadventure also torpedoed ongoing efforts to secure an agreement to halt “strikes on energy and power infrastructure on both sides.”

This comes as Kiev prepares for a harrowing winter without heat or light, due to devastating Russian attacks on its national energy grid. Putin has moreover made clear that Ukrainian actions in Kursk mean there is no longer scope for a wider negotiated settlement at all. Which is to say Moscow will now only accept unconditional surrender. The US has also seemingly changed course as a result of the “counterinvasion”.

On August 16th, it was reported that Washington had prohibited Ukraine’s use of British-made, long-range Storm Shadow missiles against Russian territory. Given securing wider Western acquiescence to such strikes is, per The Times, a core objective for Starmer, this can only be considered a harsh rebuke, before the Labour government’s escalatory lobbying efforts have even properly taken off. The Biden administration had in May granted permission for Kiev to conduct limited strikes in Russia, using guided munitions up to a 40-mile range.

Even that mild authorisation may be rescinded in due course. Berlin, which like Britain had initially proudly promoted the presence of its tanks in Kursk, is now decisively shifting away from the proxy war. On August 17th, German Finance Minister Christian Lindner announced a halt to any and all new military aid to Ukraine as part of a wider bid to slash federal government spending. The Wall Street Journal reporting three days earlier that Kiev was responsible for Nord Stream II’s destruction may be no coincidence.

Germany’s Bild newspaper: “In Russia, Ukraine advances with German tanks!”

The narrative of the Russo-German pipeline’s bombing detailed by the outlet was absurd in the extreme. Conveniently too, the WSJ acknowledged that admissions of “Ukrainian officials who participated in or are familiar with the plot” aside, “all arrangements” to strike Nord Stream “were made verbally, leaving no paper trail.” As such, the paper’s sources “believe it would be impossible to put any of the commanding officers on trial, because no evidence exists beyond conversations among top officials.”

Such an evidentiary deficit provides Berlin with an ideal pretext to step away from the proxy war, while insulating Kiev from any legal repercussions. The narrative of Ukraine’s unilateral culpability for the Nord Stream bombings also helpfully distracts from the attack’s most likely perpetrators. This journalist has exposed how a shadowy cabal of British intelligence operatives were the masterminds, and potential executors, of the October 2022 Kerch Bridge bombing.

Kerch Bridge in flames following its British-planned bombing

That escalatory incident, like Nord Stream’s destruction, was known about in advance, and apparently opposed, by the CIA. Chris Donnelly, the British military intelligence veteran who orchestrated the Kerch Bridge attack, has privately condemned Washington’s reluctance to embroil itself further in the proxy war, declaring “this US position must be challenged, firmly and at once.” In December that year, the BBC confirmed that British officials were worried about the Biden administration’s “innate caution”, and had “stiffened the US resolve at all levels”, via “pressure.”

The determination of Washington’s self-appointed “junior partner” to escalate the proxy conflict into all-out hot war between Russia and the West has only intensified under Starmer’s new Labour government. Yet, the Empire gives every appearance of refusing to take the bait, while seeking to curb London’s belligerent fantasies. This may be an encouraging sign that the proxy war is at last reaching its end. But we must remain vigilant. British intelligence is unlikely to allow the US to withdraw without a fight.

November 24, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | Russia, UK, United States | Leave a comment

Collapsing Empire: RIP Royal Navy

By Kit Klarenberg | Al Mayadeen | November 23, 2024

On November 15^th, The Times published a remarkable report, revealing serious “questions” are being asked about the viability of Britain’s two flagship aircraft carriers, at the highest levels of London’s defence establishment. Such perspectives would have been unreportable mere months ago. Yet, subsequent reporting seemingly confirms the vessels are for the chop. Should that come to pass, it will represent an absolutely crushing, historic defeat for the Royal Navy – and the US Empire in turn – without a single shot fired.

The HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales first set sail in 2017 and 2019 respectively, after 20 years in development. The former arrived at the Royal Navy’s historic Portsmouth base with considerable fanfare, a Ministry of Defence press release boasting that the carrier would be deployed “in every ocean around the world over the next five decades.” The pair were and remain the biggest and most expensive ships built in British history, costing close to $8 billion combined. Ongoing operational costs are likewise vast.

Fast forward to today however, and British ministers and military chiefs are, per The Times, “under immense pressure to make billions of pounds’ worth of savings,” with major “casualties” certain. Resultantly, senior Ministry of Defence and Treasury officials are considering scrapping at least one of the carriers, if not both. The reason is simple – “in most war games, the carriers get sunk,” and are “particularly vulnerable to missiles.” As such, the pair are now widely perceived as the “Royal Navy’s weak link.”

Matthew Savill of British state-tied Royal United Services Institute told The Times that missile technology is developing “at such a pace” that carriers are rapidly becoming easy for Britain’s adversaries to “locate and track”, then neutralise. “In particular,” he cautioned, China is increasing the range of its ballistic and supersonic anti-ship missiles. Meanwhile, Beijing’s “hypersonic glide vehicle”, the DF-17, “can evade existing missile defence systems,” its “range, speed and manoeuvrability” making it a “formidable weapon” neither Britain nor the US can adequately counter.

Savill advocated “cutting one or both of the carriers,” as this “would free up people and running costs and those could be reinvested in the running costs of the rest of the fleet and easing the stresses on personnel”. Nonetheless, he warned that scrapping the carriers would be a “big deal for a navy that has designed itself around those carriers…and that the £6.2 billion paid for them would be a sunk cost.”

That the Royal Navy has “designed itself” around the two carriers is an understatement. For just one to set sail, it must be supported by a strike group consisting of two Type 45 destroyers for air defence, two Type 23 frigates for anti-submarine warfare, a submarine, a fleet tanker and a support ship. This “full-fat protective approach”, Savill lamented, means “most of the deployable Royal Navy” must accompany a single carrier at any given time:

“You can protect the carriers, but then the Navy has put all of its eggs in a particularly large and expensive basket.”

‘National Embarrassment’

March 2021 saw the publication of a long-awaited report, Global Britain in a Competitive Age – “a comprehensive articulation” of London’s “national security and international policy,” intended to “[shape] the open international order of the future.” The two aircraft carriers loomed large in its contents. One passage referred to how HMS Queen Elizabeth would soon lead Britain’s “most ambitious global deployment for two decades, visiting the Mediterranean, the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific”:

“She will demonstrate our interoperability with allies and partners – in particular the US – and our ability to project cutting-edge military power in support of NATO and international maritime security. Her deployment will also help the government to deepen our diplomatic and prosperity links with allies and partners worldwide.”

Such bombast directly echoed the bold wording of a July 1998 strategic defence review, initiated a year earlier by then-prime minister Tony Blair. Its findings kickstarted London’s quest to acquire world-leading aircraft carriers, which culminated with the birth of HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales. Britain’s explicit objective, directly inspired by the US Empire’s dependence on carriers to belligerently project its diplomatic, economic, military and political interests abroad, was to recover London’s role as world police officer, and audaciously assert herself overseas:

“In the post-Cold War world, we must be prepared to go to the crisis, rather than have the crisis come to us. So we plan to buy two new larger aircraft carriers to project power more flexibly around the world… This will give us a fully independent ability to deploy a powerful combat force to potential trouble spots without waiting for basing agreements on other countries’ territory. We will… be poised in international waters and most effectively back up diplomacy with the threat of force.”

Blair’s reverie appeared to finally come to pass in May 2021, when HMS Queen Elizabeth set off on a grand tour of the world’s oceans, escorted by a vast carrier strike group. Over the next six months, the vessel engaged in a large number of widely-publicised exercises with foreign navies, including NATO allies, and docked in dozens of countries. Press coverage was universally fawning. Yet, in November, as the excursion was nearing its end, an F-35 fighter launched from the carrier unceremoniously crashed.

The F-35’s myriad issues were by that point well-established. The jet, which has cost US taxpayers close to $2 trillion, entered into active service in 2006 while still under development. It quickly gained a reputation for hazardous unreliability. In 2015, a Pentagon report acknowledged its severe structural issues, limited service life and low flight-time capacity. Two years later, the Department of Defense quietly admitted the US Joint Program Office had been secretly recategorising F-35 failure incidents to make the plane appear safe to fly.

Despite this, the HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales were specifically designed to transport the F-35, to the exclusion of all other fighter jets. However, Britain has all along struggled to source usable F-35s, which produces the ludicrous situation of the two carriers almost invariably patrolling seas with few if any fighters aboard at all, therefore invalidating their entire raison d’être. In November 2023, the Daily Telegraph dubbed these regular “jet-less” forays a “national embarrassment”.

‘Carrier Gap’

An even graver embarrassment, rarely discussed with any seriousness by the British media, is that the two aircraft carriers have been plagued with endless technical and mechanical issues as long as they’ve been in service. Flooding, mid-operation breakdowns, onboard fires, and engine leaks are routine. Both vessels have spent considerably more time docked and under repair than at sea over their brief lifetimes. In 2020, an entire HMS Prince of Wales crew accommodation block collapsed, for reasons unclear.

As the elite US foreign policy journal National Interest acknowledged in March 2024, “the Royal Navy remains unable to adequately defend or operate” its two carriers “independently” – code for the Empire being consistently compelled to deploy its own naval and air assets to support the pair. This is quite some failure, given British officials originally intended for the vessels to not only lead NATO exercises and deployments, but “slot into” US navy operations wherever and whenever necessary.

The Empire’s inability to outsource its hegemonic duties to Britain has created a critical “carrier gap”. Despite maintaining an 11-strong fleet, Washington cannot deploy the vessels to every global flashpoint at once, grievously undermining her power and influence at a time of tremendous upheaval worldwide. In a bitter irony, by encouraging and facilitating London’s emulation of its own flawed and outdated reliance on aircraft carriers, the US has inadvertently birthed yet another needy imperial dependent, further draining its already fatally overstretched military resources.

Several Royal Navy destroyers were originally part of abortive US-led Operation Prosperity Guardian, launched in late 2023 to smash Ansar Allah’s righteous anti-genocide Red Sea blockade. Almost immediately, it became apparent the British lacked any ability to fire on land targets, therefore rendering their participation completely useless.

Subsequently, photos emerged of areas on Britain’s ships where land attack cruise missiles should’ve been situated. Instead, the spaces were occupied by humble treadmills, for use as on-board gyms.

It transpired that the appropriate weapons hadn’t been purchased, due to a lack of funds – the money having of course been spent instead on constructing barely operable aircraft carriers, which now face summary defenestration. By investing incalculable time, energy, and money in pursuing the mythological greatness associated with carrier capability, Britain – just like the US Empire – now finds itself unable to meet modern warfare’s most basic challenges. Meanwhile, its adversaries near and far have remorselessly innovated, equipping themselves for 21^st century battle.

Days after The Times portended the impending death of London’s aircraft carriers, mainstream media became awash with reports of savage cutbacks in Britain’s military capabilities, in advance of a new strategic defence review. Five Royal Navy warships, all of which had lain disused due to staffing issues and structural decay for some time, were among the first announced “casualties”. What if anything will replace these losses isn’t certain, although it likely won’t be an aircraft carrier.

November 23, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, UK | Leave a comment

They’re at it again… the U.S. and Britain, inciting global war, must be defeated for good

Strategic Culture Foundation | November 22, 2024

This week marks a fateful threshold for the world. In a grave announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the three-year proxy war in Ukraine has now reached a global dimension.

The responsibility for this abysmal moment lies fully with the United States’ elitist rulers and their British accomplices. They are inciting global catastrophe in a desperate bid to save their hegemonic empire.

Putin’s announcement on November 21 came only hours after Russia launched a retaliatory strike against Anglo-American aggression. Russia’s new hypersonic ballistic missile destroyed a munitions center in Dnepropetrovsk in central Ukraine. The conventionally armed missile – called Oreshnik – was deployed in combat for the first time. It delivered several warheads at Mach-10 speed. There is no air defense against such a unique weapon.

The Oreshnik attack was in response to the firing of long-range missiles by the United States and Britain on November 19 and 21 against the pre-conflict territory of the Russian Federation. There is no doubt that the U.S. and British forces were directly involved because, as Moscow has noted, the Ukrainian regime does not have the personnel or logistics capability to operate these advanced NATO weapon systems.

The conclusion is stark. The world is on the cusp of World War Three, a war that would inevitably become a nuclear conflagration and precipitate the end of life on Earth. The evil facing humanity is staggering.

Western barefaced lies to the public

Ludicrously, or perhaps more accurately, fiendishly, Western politicians and media are condemning Russia for the escalation. Their accusations are in flagrant contradiction with the facts. The Western public is being lied to about the sequence and causes of war.

In a move beyond reckless, the United States and Britain attacked Russia with long-range missiles from the territory of Ukraine. The ATACMS and Storm Shadow weapons were aimed at Bryansk and Kursk Oblasts in Western Russia. The American missiles were shot down by Russian air defense, while the British Storm Shadow cruise projectile caused deaths in Kursk.

That barrage marked an open act of war against Russia by the United States and Britain. Hence, the Russian leader commented that the proxy war in Ukraine had now taken on a global dimension.

The American and British leadership went ahead with this aggression even after Russia had explicitly warned several weeks ago that the deployment of such weapons against Russian territory would be seen by Moscow as an act of war. It also followed only hours after Russia revised its nuclear defense doctrine on November 19, defining that the use of long-range conventional weapons from the territory of a non-nuclear state (Ukraine) supplied by nuclear states (the U.S. and Britain) would constitute a joint attack, thereby giving Russia the right to retaliate with nuclear force.

The situation has thus entered the realm of nuclear world war.

Given the aggression initiated by the U.S. and Britain with their ATACMS and Storm Shadow missiles, Russia has the legal right to hit those territories and any other territory of the NATO alliance. Russia chose not to do so – for now – limiting its Oreshnik’s target to the territory of Ukraine.

What happens next over the coming days depends on the U.S. and its NATO partners. So far, the White House and Pentagon have sought to (irrationally) blame Moscow for escalation and are saying that the United States will continue to deploy long-range missiles from Ukraine against Russian territory. That remains to be seen if the insanity prevails.

Russia has shown incredible restraint

Far from escalating conduct, Russia has shown incredible restraint, given the relentless provocations by the U.S. and NATO over many months and, indeed, years.

The U.S. and its allies have continually weaponized their corrupt, NeoNazi Ukrainian proxy regime – whose pretend-president and former cross-dressing comedian Vladimir Zelensky was given a standing ovation in the European Parliament this week – despite repeated warnings from Moscow that the dynamic is leading to a world war.

The insanity is compounded by Zelensky’s insatiable demands for more weapons and Western taxpayer handouts worth hundreds of billions of dollars, along with hubristic Western notions that “Russia is bluffing.”

How delusional! The Western leaders are playing Russian Roulette. The United States and its NATO partners are now legitimate targets for Russian strikes. Russia demonstrated this week that it has the capability to breach any Western defense, and it is warning that any further aggression on its territory will be responded to.

President Putin admonished Western ruling elites to think carefully about the choices they are going to make. They can pull back from the abyss and negotiate a diplomatic end to the proxy war. Or they can choose to keep escalating to inevitable disaster.

Western ruling class beyond reason

However, of acute concern is that the Western ruling class seems to be beyond reason and sanity. The U.S. hegemon is facing an existential crisis from its terminal collapse as a global power and loss of imperial supremacy. Starting a war with Russia – even to the point of catastrophe – seems to be the only way the Western imperialist system led by the U.S. can respond.

Significantly, the Biden administration is only a matter of weeks from exiting in disgrace. Incoming President Donald Trump has vowed to end the conflict in Ukraine through prompt negotiations. The U.S. deep state is in a quandary.

The American people voted for Trump on November 5 in large part out of repudiation of the Biden administration, the Democrat Party and its servile adherence to the deep state’s endemic warmongering.

Before Trump’s inauguration on January 20, the American ruling class is desperately pushing the proxy war in Ukraine to prevent a negotiated settlement.

Biden’s approval for using ATACMS – followed by the British lackey Prime Minister Keir Starmer – was a brazen U-turn. Only a month ago, they refused such a move. The election of Trump and the prospect of diplomacy with Russia has caused the Western establishment to ramp up the proxy war.

This week saw the 1,000th day of conflict in Ukraine since Russia launched its special military operation to stop NATO aggression on February 24, 2022. The conflict has reached its most dangerous point.

Russia again this week repeated that it is open to a diplomatic settlement, just as it was in late 2021 when it presented far-reaching security proposals to prevent hostilities. The Western elites dismissed that opportunity, choosing the path of war instead. They also sabotaged the Minsk Accords in 2014 and 2015, and the Istanbul peace deal in March 2022. Millions of casualties later, they still want more war, slaughter, and global war, with their grotesque masks of “defending democracy and rules-based order.”

The American people want to end the conflict. The incoming Trump administration appears to be willing to honor the popular demand.

But sanity, morality and democracy are not qualities shared by the imperialist ruling class in the U.S. and its NATO accomplices.

An American deep state coup, then and now

A couple of observations are notable. November 22 marks the date 61 years ago when an American president, JFK, was murdered by the U.S. deep state. A coup d’état was executed very much for the objective of keeping the Cold War going with the Soviet Union because of the vested economic interests of U.S. militarism and the military-industrial complex.

All these years later, the U.S. deep state is attempting another coup against the democratic wishes of the American people for a peaceful end to the proxy war in Ukraine. The U.S. ruling elite want the war against Russia to persist in maintaining their lucrative profits and for existential reasons of empire. Joe Biden is a brain-dead president who is signing orders pushed in front of him by deep-state operatives like Tony Blinken and Jake Sullivan just before he wanders off to a retirement home – or into the Amazon jungle à la the hilarious photo-op at the G20 summit in Brazil this week.

Ukraine proxy war back to Nazi Germany

This long perspective also puts the Ukraine proxy war into a proper, wider historical context. The conflict in Ukraine did not start in February 2022. It did not even start with the CIA-backed coup in Kiev against an elected president in February 2014. It did not even start with the U.S.-financed Orange Revolution in Ukraine in 2004. This conflict goes back at least to the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in 1945 when the United States and its imperialist allies immediately responded by creating the Cold War with its newly forged imperialist instrument known as NATO, in part by deploying Ukrainian fascist collaborators to covertly attack Russia. After World War Two, the CIA and Nazi remnants like spymaster Major General Reinhard Gehlen were united in purpose along with the British MI6 to defeat the Soviet Union. What is transpiring today in Ukraine is the culmination of a systematic conflict, essentially about projecting and maintaining Western imperial power.

The emergence of Russia, China, the BRICS, and the Global South has amplified Western imperial angst and diehard hostility to preserve global power and privilege. The latter hegemonic Western system is the epitome of fascism and neocolonialism.

Historical nemesis

There is a profound historical nemesis at this juncture. Will the U.S. imperial aggressor and its NATO front go down in defeat, or will it push the world to a final global war?

Russia is not bluffing. It won’t back down because of the historical sacrifices it has made already to defeat fascist tyranny – 27 to 30 million dead in World War Two alone. The Russian nation’s pain and suffering from imperialist aggression make it defiant and resolute in a way that the Western regimes could never comprehend or emulate.

Will sanity prevail? The American and European people have onerous obligations to hold their criminal elite rulers accountable.

November 23, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | Joe Biden, NATO, Russia, UK, United States | Leave a comment

The Counter-insurgency Is “On” – Against Trump’s ‘storm’

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 22, 2024

More than just a dangerous provocation aimed at Russia, the ATACM and Storm Shadow attacks represent an attempt to turn foreign policy on its head.

“The Deep State whispered to Trump: ‘You cannot withstand the storm’. Trump whispered back: “I am the storm”. The war is on. The Deep State has launched a war of disruption to disable Trump’s ‘storm’. This week’s ATACM strike was but one part to an inter-agency counter-insurgency – a political strike directed at Trump; so too are all the inter-agency false narratives attributed to the Trump camp; and so too, the escalating provocations directed at Iran.

Be assured the Five Eyes are full participants in the counter-insurgency. Macron and Starmer openly conspired together in Paris ahead of the U.S. announcement to promote the ATACMS strike. The inter-agency grandees clearly are very fearful. They must worry that Trump may expose the ‘Russia Hoax’ (that Trump in 2016 was a Russian ‘asset’) and put them in jeopardy.

But Trump understands what’s afoot:

“We need peace without delay … The foreign policy establishment keeps trying to pull the world into conflict. The greatest threat to Western civilization today is not Russia. It’s probably more than anything else ourselves… There must be a complete commitment to dismantling the entire Globalist Neo-con establishment that is perpetually dragging us into endless wars, pretending to fight for freedom and democracy abroad while they turn us into a Third World country and a Third World dictatorship right here at home. The State Department, the Defense bureaucracy, the intelligence services and all of the rest need to be completely overhauled and reconstituted. To fire the Deep Staters and put America first – we have to put America First”.

Whilst the long-range ATACM launch on ‘deep Russian pre-2014 territory’ is no game-changer – it will not change the course of the war (ATACMS regularly are – at 90% – downed by Russian Air Defences); the salience of this act however, is not strategic; rather, it lies with the crossing into the realm of direct NATO attacks on Russia.

Colonel Doug MacGregor reports that two sources are telling him that “Russian nuclear rocket forces are on full alert. They are at the highest level of readiness ever achieved. It suggests that Russia has taken this crossing of the line very seriously”.

Yes, it was a provocation, and President Putin will respond appropriately. He has to – but not necessarily through nuclear escalation. Why? Because the war in Ukraine is moving rapidly in his direction, with Russian forces closing-in on the Dnieper east bank. Effectively, facts on the ground will be the outcome determinant, leaving little point to external mediation.

But more than just a dangerous provocation aimed at Russia, the ATACM and Storm Shadow attacks represent an attempt to turn foreign policy – literally – on its head. Instead of policy being aimed directly at a rising foreign adversary threatening U.S. hegemony, it is being transformed into a loaded weapon locked onto America’s domestic war. It is aimed specifically at Trump – to ‘hog tie’ him in, and to divert his attention to wars that he does not want.

Logic suggests that Trump would want to keep clear of Netanyahu’s scheming for a war against Iran. But the ‘Israel Firsters’ and the Lobby (as Professor Jeffrey Sachs argues) long have had effective control over Congress and the U.S. military – more than does the President. Explains Sachs:

“Because the Zionist Lobby is so powerful, Netanyahu basically has had control over the Pentagon to fight wars on behalf of Israeli extremism. The war in Iraq in 2003 was a Netanyahu War. The attempt to overthrow Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the overthrow of Moamar Gaddafi – All were ‘Netanyahu Wars’”.

The important point is that Netanyahu can ‘do what he does’ because it was always planned this way – a plan that has been 50 years in execution. The ‘Israel First’ strategy was fully embraced by Scoop Jackson (a two-times Presidential candidate). And just so the policy could not be rolled back, Scoop insisted on Zionists staffing the State Department, and that neo-cons and Zionists hold the reins at the NSC. That same pattern continues until today.

At bottom lies the ultimate boondoggle by which the political class of both U.S. parties become wealthy and afford the campaign costs of remaining legislators: “It’s quite a dandy deal that the Israel Lobby or the Zionist Lobby puts in, say, a hundred million dollars into campaigns and it gets trillions out –trillions, not billions, trillions out [in government] expenditures. And so, when Netanyahu speaks, it’s bizarre to me, but it is not Trump who is appointing or naming [those ‘Israel Firsters’ who are part of his Team, but Netanyahu]”, Sachs says.

When Netanyahu describes Trump’s ‘Israel First’ nominations as his ‘dream U.S. team’, the explanation is not difficult to see. On the one hand, Trump has a ‘Revolution’ to conduct in America and wants his nominations to office approved. And, on the other, Netanyahu has a further war he wants the U.S. to fight for him.

“The ‘Big Ugly’ was always a description of the battle that few understood”, another commentator notes:

“The Senate is factually the core of republican opposition to MAGA and President Trump. The visible battle … consumes the most attention. However, it is the less-visible battle against the entrenched ideological Republicans that proves to be the hardest”.

“The Republicans in the upper chamber will not relinquish power easily. They have a multitude of weapons to use against the (Trump) insurgency … We are seeing this play out now in the alignment of Republican Senators who stand in opposition to Trump’s nomination of Matt Gaetz as Attorney General, [as] this recent report [explains]”.

“The basic outline is that the senate leadership will reluctantly support Matt Gaetz for Main Justice, where ‘support’ means they will not directly oppose; in exchange for the nomination of FBI Director Mike Rogers [a co-founder of the ‘Never Trump’ group] to defend inter-agency interests at FBI”.

The prospective Republican Senate Leader, John Thune, will play his cards carefully in order to extract maximum damage . He has leverage by trying to connect Trump to Netanyahu’s carnage in the region.

Thune, whilst announcing huge quantities of weapons for Israel, said:

“To Our Allies in Israel, and to the Jewish People Around the world, my message to you is this: Reinforcements are on the way. In six weeks, Republicans will reclaim the Senate Majority, and we will make clear that the United States Congress stands squarely In Israel’s Corner”.

Trump will need to play his cards carefully, too. Since, for his purposes, the absolute priority are his two domestic wars: First, “dismantling the entire Globalist Neocon Establishment”, and secondly, ending the out-of-control government expenditure that has bloated the Deep State boondoggle and turned the U.S. real economy into a shadow of its former self.

Trump needs those radical reform nominations to pass, even if he has to sacrifice one or two to secure Senate approval for the others. The Israel First nominees, needless to add, will be approved seamlessly.

Of the two ‘entanglement’ threats to Trump’s reform agenda, Russian escalation is the lesser of the two. The Ukraine war is motoring steadily towards some form of dénoument. One that works for Russia. Putin is in the driving seat, and does not need a major war with NATO. Nor does Putin need Trump’s ‘art of the deal’. A resolution of some sort will occur without him.

However, Trump’s role will be important subsequently to define a new border between the security interests of the Atlanticists and those of the Asian heartland (including China and Iran).

The other putative war – Iran – is the more dangerous to Trump. Jewish political influence and the Lobby has taken the U.S. into multiple disastrous wars before. And now, Netanyahu desperately needs a war and he is not alone. Much of Israel is clamouring for war that would end ‘all the fronts’ facing it. There is a profound conviction in this prospect as the solution and the ‘Great Victory’ that Netanyahu and Israel so desperately need.

The ground has been dug-over, both by propaganda that Iran’s nuclear programme is ‘staggeringly vulnerable’ (which it isn’t), and by the media’s onslaught that replays the meme that to attack Iran now represents a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, with Hizbullah and Hamas already weakened. War with Iran – totally erroneously – is thus being sold as an ‘easy war’.

There is an unshakeable certitude that it must be so. ‘We are strong, and Iran is weak’.

Who will roll-back the Israel Firsters? They have the momentum and the fervour. A war against Iran will fare badly for Israel and the U.S. The wide ramifications likely will precipitate precisely the severe financial and market crisis that could derail Trump’s ‘Storm’.

November 22, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism, Wars for Israel | France, Iran, Israel, Russia, UK, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Diplomat discourages recourse to pressure, intimidation, confrontation against Iran

Press TV – November 22, 2024

A ranking Iranian diplomat has strongly discouraged Western countries from resorting to pressure, intimidation, and confrontational approach against the country over its legitimate and peaceful nuclear energy activities.

Seeking recourse to the above measures “does not amount to adoption of a sustainable and credible course, and [application of such methods] will eventually hit a dead end,” Mohsen Naziri Asl, Iran’s permanent representative at the United Nations office in Vienna, said on Friday.

“The Islamic Republic is [rather] prepared for joining positive interaction through dialog and constructive cooperation towards potential achievement of a sustainable solution [to standing issues].”

The remarks came after the Board of Governors of the UN’s nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), adopted an anti-Iranian resolution based on a proposal that had been forwarded by the UK, France, and Germany. The resolution reiterated the trio and their allies’ accusations against the Islamic Republic of insufficient cooperation with the IAEA.

In chorus with the United States and others, the threesome European states have been taking numerous similar measures against Iran in line with the accusations that run counter to the standing status of the country and the agency’s cooperation, which has even increased in frequency and quality over the past years.

The ongoing confrontational approach on the part of the West comes, while it was the US that broke off its internationally-endorsed commitments to Iran by unilaterally and illegally leaving a 2015 nuclear agreement between the Islamic Republic and world countries and returning the sanctions that the deal had lifted.

The European trio, which were likewise signatories to the deal, meanwhile, failed to return Washington to the accord, despite their repeated insistence that they would do so.

Naziri considered the US’s illegal withdrawal from the deal to be the principal reason behind the deal’s current unfavorable status, noting that Washington “has not stopped short of taking any measure to destroy the deal.”

He also reminded the European parties of their refusal to live up to their commitments under the accord.

The official also pointed to the retaliatory measures that Iran has been taking in response to the US’s withdrawal, and the European countries’ and the IAEA’s confrontational attitude, which, most recently, saw the country activating its advanced centrifuges.

He cited Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi’s repeated statements, during which the officials asserted that the Islamic Republic would walk back its legal remedial steps if the American sanctions were effectively and verifiably annulled and the nuclear deal’s other parties returned to performing their contractual duties.

Naziri, therefore, advised the European sides “not to repeat their unsuccessful courses of action of the past.”

Separately, he strongly condemned the European countries’ recent sanctions against the Iranian national carrier and shipping company, considering the bans to be in violation of the nuclear deal’s “spirit and text.”

“We consider these [economic] measures to be in contradiction with the commitments that could serve as the foundation of any future interaction.”

The official also denounced the European trio for ignoring their duty towards lifting the sanctions that they have illegally imposed over Iran’s missile program, which they have to lift under their commitment to the nuclear deal’s sunset clauses.

“One must stress that, in line with an announcement that has been made by the UN Secretariat, Iran’s missile program will no longer be subject to the restrictions that have been imposed by the UN Security Council.”

Naziri again asserted that the Islamic Republic was ready for positive interaction as long as the other parties to the nuclear deal proved their political will and commitment to the accord by not tying negotiations that address the agreement’s potential revival to irrelevant issues.

November 22, 2024 Posted by aletho | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | France, Germany, UK, United States, Zionism | Leave a comment

Oreshnik Missile Shows Russia’s Retaliatory Power to Western Arms Supplies

Sputnik – 22.11.2024

MOSCOW – Russia’s further actions if the West does not take its concerns into account have been outlined, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday, commenting on a statement made by President Vladimir Putin about a brand-new medium-range missile, Oreshnik.

Putin said in a televised speech on Thursday that Ukraine fired US-supplied ATACMS missiles and the UK’s Storm Shadows at facilities in the Kursk and Bryansk regions on November 19. Russia responded by launching a combined strike against a defense industry complex in Dnepropetrovsk, also known as Dnipro, on Thursday using the Oreshnik missile.

“Further retaliatory actions in the event that our concerns are not taken into account are also quite clearly outlined,” Peskov told reporters.

The main message of Putin’s statement is that the West’s reckless decisions on the supply of missiles to Ukraine cannot remain unanswered, the official said.

“We would, of course, prefer that Washington listened to the statements the Russian president made several months ago in St. Petersburg, where he absolutely exhaustively outlined our position on permission to use this foreign missile technology to strike deep into Russian territory. In St. Petersburg, the president sent a clear message, and we, frankly, would prefer that message to be taken into account,” Peskov said.

Additionally, Russia sent the US an automatic warning about the launch of the Oreshnik missile due to the fact that the missile is a ballistic one, the official said, adding that the missile “does not cause responsibilities like an intercontinental missile, but still, since it is ballistic, this … operates in automatic mode.”

“The Russian side clearly demonstrated its capabilities,” Peskov said.

November 22, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | Russia, UK, United States | Leave a comment

Putin outlines Moscow’s response to Ukraine escalation (FULL SPEECH)

Russian President Vladimir Putin delivered a televised address from the Kremlin on Thursday evening

RT | November 21, 2024

President Vladimir Putin has promised a decisive response to any aggression, criticizing the West for escalating tensions, and reiterated Moscow’s willingness to engage in peace talks to resolve the Ukraine conflict.

Here’s a full text of Putin’s address, as provided by the Kremlin.

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: I would like to inform the military personnel of the Russian Federation Armed Forces, citizens of our country, our friends across the globe, and those who persist in the illusion that a strategic defeat can be inflicted upon Russia, about the events taking place today in the zone of the special military operation, specifically following the attacks by Western long-range weapons against our territory.

The escalation of the conflict in Ukraine, instigated by the West, continues with the United States and its NATO allies previously announcing that they authorise the use of their long-range high-precision weapons for strikes inside the Russian Federation. Experts are well aware, and the Russian side has repeatedly highlighted it, that the use of such weapons is not possible without the direct involvement of military experts from the manufacturing nations.

On November 19, six ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles produced by the United States, and on November 21, during a combined missile assault involving British Storm Shadow systems and HIMARS systems produced by the US, attacked military facilities inside the Russian Federation in the Bryansk and Kursk regions. From that point onward, as we have repeatedly emphasised in prior communications, the regional conflict in Ukraine provoked by the West has assumed elements of a global nature. Our air defence systems successfully counteracted these incursions, preventing the enemy from achieving their apparent objectives.

The fire at the ammunition depot in the Bryansk Region, caused by the debris of ATACMS missiles, was extinguished without casualties or significant damage. In the Kursk Region, the attack targeted one of the command posts of our group North. Regrettably, the attack and the subsequent air defence battle resulted in casualties, both fatalities and injuries, among the perimeter security units and servicing staff. However, the command and operational staff of the control centre suffered no casualties and continues to manage effectively the operations of our forces to eliminate and push enemy units out of the Kursk Region.

I wish to underscore once again that the use by the enemy of such weapons cannot affect the course of combat operations in the special military operation zone. Our forces are making successful advances along the entire line of contact, and all objectives we have set will be accomplished.

In response to the deployment of American and British long-range weapons, on November 21, the Russian Armed Forces delivered a combined strike on a facility within Ukraine’s defence industrial complex. In field conditions, we also carried out tests of one of Russia’s latest medium-range missile systems – in this case, carrying a non-nuclear hypersonic ballistic missile that our engineers named Oreshnik. The tests were successful, achieving the intended objective of the launch. In the city of Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine, one of the largest and most famous industrial complexes from the Soviet Union era, which continues to produce missiles and other armaments, was hit.

We are developing intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in response to US plans to produce and deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles in Europe and the Asia-Pacific region. We believe that the United States made a mistake by unilaterally destroying the INF Treaty in 2019 under far-fetched pretext. Today, the United States is not only producing such equipment, but, as we can see, it has worked out ways to deploy its advanced missile systems to different regions of the world, including Europe, during training exercises for its troops. Moreover, in the course of these exercises, they are conducting training for using them.

As a reminder, Russia has voluntarily and unilaterally committed not to deploy intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles until US weapons of this kind appear in any region of the world.

To reiterate, we are conducting combat tests of the Oreshnik missile system in response to NATO’s aggressive actions against Russia. Our decision on further deployment of intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles will depend on the actions of the United States and its satellites.

We will determine the targets during further tests of our advanced missile systems based on the threats to the security of the Russian Federation. We consider ourselves entitled to use our weapons against military facilities of those countries that allow to use their weapons against our facilities, and in case of an escalation of aggressive actions, we will respond decisively and in mirror-like manner. I recommend that the ruling elites of the countries that are hatching plans to use their military contingents against Russia seriously consider this.

It goes without saying that when choosing, if necessary and as a retaliatory measure, targets to be hit by systems such as Oreshnik on Ukrainian territory, we will in advance suggest that civilians and citizens of friendly countries residing in those areas leave danger zones. We will do so for humanitarian reasons, openly and publicly, without fear of counter-moves coming from the enemy, who will also be receiving this information.

Why without fear? Because there are no means of countering such weapons today. Missiles attack targets at a speed of Mach 10, which is 2.5 to 3 kilometres per second. Air defence systems currently available in the world and missile defence systems being created by the Americans in Europe cannot intercept such missiles. It is impossible.

I would like to emphasise once again that it was not Russia, but the United States that destroyed the international security system and, by continuing to fight, cling to its hegemony, they are pushing the whole world into a global conflict.

We have always preferred and are ready now to resolve all disputes by peaceful means. But we are also ready for any turn of events.

If anyone still doubts this, make no mistake: there will always be a response.

November 22, 2024 Posted by aletho | Militarism | NATO, Russia, UK, United States | Leave a comment

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Long Before Epstein: Sex Traffickers & Spy Agencies

By Elizabeth Vos | Consortium News | August 23, 2019

The alleged use of sexual blackmail by spy agencies is hardly unique to the case of Jeffrey Epstein. Although the agencies involved as well as their alleged motivations and methods differ with each case, the crime of child trafficking with ties to intelligence agencies or those protected by them has been around for decades.

Some cases include the 1950s -1970s Kincora scandal and the 1981 Peter Hayman affair, both in the U.K.; and the Finders’ cult and the Franklin scandal in the U.S. in the late 1980s. Just as these cases did not end in convictions, the pedophile and accused child-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein remained at arms’ length for years. … continue

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