By Connor O’Keeffe – Mises Wire – 12/06/2023
Over the weekend, border-policy negotiations between Senate Democrats and Republicans fell apart. The talks were meant to firm up Republican support for the president’s massive $105 billion military support proposal ahead of Wednesday’s vote by including additional funds for border security in the spending package. Now, with no imminent approval of further aid to Ukraine, hawks in government and the media are trying to stoke panic about what will happen if Kyiv is cut off from US support.
In a letter to Congress Monday, White House budget director Shalanda Young told Congress the funds will dry up by the end of the year:
I want to be clear: without congressional action, by the end of the year we will run out of resources to procure more weapons and equipment for Ukraine and to provide equipment from U.S. military stocks. There is no magical pot of funding available to meet this moment. We are out of money—and nearly out of time.
Young goes on to forecast disaster for Ukraine if more money isn’t allocated. But is that really accurate? Are the Ukrainian people doomed if Washington stops funding the war?
If we’re going to understand what might happen in the absence of US involvement in Ukraine, we must first understand Washington’s actual effect on the war, the true nature of which has been laid out brilliantly in a series of recent columns by Ted Snider.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began with a bombardment of cruise missiles on February 24, 2022. Later that day, infantry and armored divisions rolled in from Russia, Belarus, and Crimea while paratroopers dropped in around the capital city of Kyiv.
Days later, as the shock and confusion of the initial offensive began to dissipate, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky attempted to set up indirect talks with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Zelensky called then–Israeli prime minister Naftali Bennett and asked him to contact Putin and to serve as a mediator. Bennett agreed.
Over the next week, Bennett had a series of phone calls with Putin before traveling to Moscow and Berlin to help organize diplomatic communication channels. His effort culminated in a March 10 meeting between the Russian and Ukrainian foreign ministers in Turkey.
In the series of talks that followed, Bennett described both sides as making “huge concessions” in pursuit of a ceasefire.
But Kyiv’s Western backers were resistant to the truce. At a special summit on March 24, NATO decided not to support or approve the peace negotiations. Still, Zelensky and Putin kept at it. And on March 29, the two sides reached an agreement.
According to a draft unsealed this past June, Russia had agreed to pull its forces back to prewar boundaries. In exchange, Ukraine had agreed it would not seek NATO membership.
So why didn’t it happen? Well, it may have started to. In early April, Russia withdrew its forces from northern Ukraine, around Kyiv—an action Putin later said was related to the Istanbul agreement.
But then, according to Bennett, former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, and the leader of the Ukrainian delegation to the talks, David Arakhamia, the West pressured Zelensky to abandon negotiations and fight.
Assuming the best intentions, it’s possible officials in Washington and Brussels believed the Ukrainians could win enough battles to improve their leverage in future negotiations. But that is not what happened.
Instead, Washington bankrolled a horrifying twenty-one-month war of attrition that has cost the people of Ukraine greatly in land, lives, and limbs. After talks broke down, Russia laid permanent claim to tens of thousands of square miles of Ukrainian territory that it had earlier agreed to relinquish.
Last summer, Ukrainian forces began attempting to retake this land by force in the so-called counteroffensive. But they have since lost more territory than they have gained. Ukraine keeps its casualty count classified, but by the end of August US estimates had put it north of two hundred thousand. And it has likely climbed substantially with the ongoing struggle to break through heavy Russian minefields.
As their supply of military-aged men has dwindled, the average age of a Ukrainian soldier has climbed to forty-three. And now there is a push within the Ukrainian government to lower the draft age to begin conscripting those who have so far been too young to be eligible.
The Ukrainian people are being put through hell. And now even senior Ukrainian military officials admit there is no military path out.
If the purpose of stifling the Istanbul agreement was to help the Ukrainians gain more leverage, the West must admit failure before Ukraine loses even more.
And if Washington’s intentions were more nefarious—as comments from officials like Mitch McConnell, who have framed the war as an easy way to burden Russia without spilling American blood, suggest—that’s all the more reason to call off this horrific project.
That brings us back to the original question. What would happen if the United States stopped supporting Ukraine? We already know. Ukraine and Russia would work toward a deal. It won’t go as well for Ukraine as it did almost two years ago when they were stronger. But it’s not a path to fear. Because the alternative is that the White House gets its way and this brutal, unnecessary war carries on. And that’s so much worse.
RT | December 6, 2023
British special forces operators were embedded with Ukrainian troops in the early days of the conflict, Declassified UK reported on Wednesday, citing the newly published book by Polish journalist Zbigniew Parafianowicz.
Parafianowicz is the Ukraine correspondent for the Polish daily Dziennik Gazeta Prawna. His latest work, ‘Polska na Wojnie’ (Poland at War), examines Warsaw’s role in the neighboring conflict.
According to Declassified, at one point, a Polish government minister – who is not named – told Parafianowicz about a time in March 2022 when he was traveling from Kiev to Zhitomir.
“It was a time when the Russians were still standing in Bucha, and the route was a gray zone. It was possible to run into Russians. We passed the last checkpoint. The Ukrainians told us that we continue at our own risk,” the unnamed minister reportedly said. “Well, and who did we meet next? Ukrainian soldiers and … British special forces. Uniformed. With weapons.”
According to Parafianowicz’s source, the British and the Ukrainians worked together, driving around the countryside with artillery tracking radars, “learning about this war.”
The same official also said that Polish special forces based in Lublin had been in Brovary, a suburb of Kiev, “on the first day” of the hostilities. Poles – along with Brits and Americans – had been training the Ukrainian special forces since 2014, the minister said. According to Parafianowicz, Britain’s Special Air Service (SAS) had trained President Vladimir Zelensky’s security detail as well.
Another source, identified only as a high-ranking Polish officer, said that these commandos did not return to Poland, but “went in the opposite direction” – to Kharkov and parts of Donbass controlled by Ukrainians.
“They cooperated with the British,” the officer said. “Later, we worked out a formula for our presence in Ukraine … we were simply sent on paid leave. Politicians pretended not to see this.”
According to Declassified, some of these Polish commandos may have trained members of the neo-Nazi ‘Azov’ movement – specifically the ‘Kraken’ unit based in Kharkov – in the use of British-supplied NLAW rocket launchers. Social media posts identified them only as “instructors from NATO countries.”
Parafianowicz’s book appears to confirm previous media reports about NATO commandos fighting alongside Ukrainian troops. In April 2022, the French daily Le Figaro claimed that SAS and Delta Force operators had waged a “secret war” on behalf of Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s military operation. Shortly after those revelations, The Times said a number of SAS operators had returned to Ukraine to teach Kiev’s soldiers how to operate British-made anti-tank rockets. Last December, a British military publication admitted that up to 300 Royal Marines had been deployed to Ukraine for “discrete operations.”
Classified Pentagon documents that were leaked in April this year also showed at least 50 British special forces operators were still active in Ukraine as of March.
RT | December 5, 2023
Sellafield, regarded as the most hazardous nuclear site in Europe, has developed a leak in a massive radioactive waste silo that has prompted concerns about the facility’s safety measures, as well as potential dangers to the public and the environment, The Guardian has reported.
The two-square-mile (6km sq) plant, located in Cumbria in England’s northwest, is responsible for the storage and decommissioning of nuclear waste from nuclear weapons programs and power generation. It was previously used to generate nuclear power from 1956 to 2003.
However, the decades-old facility, Europe’s largest nuclear site, has a catalog of safety issues, the newspaper said, including asbestos and fire hazards. Perhaps more concerningly, though, are cracks in storage silos which have prompted diplomatic squabbles with affected countries, including the US, Norway and Ireland.
Damage to one silo of toxic radioactive waste has caused a leak of “potentially significant consequences,” The Guardian said on Tuesday, citing official documents seen by the outlet. It adds that the leak, which it says is likely to continue until 2050, could contaminate groundwater should the situation worsen further.
Scientists are attempting to assess the full risks of the leak using “ongoing radiological dose assessments” and statistical modeling, the newspaper added. In June, the UK’s Office for Nuclear Regulation (ORR) said in a report that the risk presented by the leak is “as low as reasonably practicable.” However, the nuclear regulator remained concerned by the full impact of the leak and at what rate, if any, it may affect groundwater.
An unnamed expert who sits on a committee that monitors Sellafield and other nuclear sites told The Guardian : “It’s hard to know if transparency is put aside because no one’s brave enough to say ‘we simply don’t know how dangerous this is – other than certainly dangerous.’”
An EU report in 2001 warned that an accident at Sellafield could be more hazardous than that of the Chernobyl disaster in 1986, which exposed about five million people in Europe to radiation. Sellafield contains substantially more radioactive material than the Chernobyl facility did at the time.
Reports of Sellafield’s crumbling facade have sparked US concerns about the safety standards at the site, according to diplomatic cables seen by the publication. It has also led to complaints from the governments of both Ireland and Norway – with Oslo worried about the potential of radioactive particles being carried towards its territory by winds across the North Sea.
Health problems brought on by exposure to nuclear radiation depend on the dose but can range from nausea and vomiting to cardiovascular disease and cancer. Extremely high exposure is, in most cases, fatal.
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 05.12.2023
There is a rumor in British diplomatic circles about forcing Ukraine to negotiate a way out of the conflict with Russia, per the UK podcast Politics at Jack and Sam’s. Could the reported chatter be real, and if so, what’s behind it?
The Western press is citing Ukrainian politicians expressing criticism with regard to President Volodymyr Zelensky’s failed counteroffensive, with British observers suggesting that the Kiev regime could soon be forced to sit down with Russia and hold talks. As it recently turned out, it was then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson who encouraged Zelensky to tear up the preliminary peace agreement with Moscow in 2022. Is London’s position on Ukraine changing?
“Well, their opinion is going to have to change, because the events on the ground are going to dictate it, with Ukraine losing militarily and neither the US nor the UK being in a position to supply any kind of significant weaponry,” retired CIA intelligence officer and State Department official Larry Johnson told Sputnik. “And even if they did, who’s going to use it? That’s Ukraine’s fundamental problem right now – it’s a lack of manpower. And over the last couple of weeks, we’ve seen more and more stories, more independent evidence that Ukraine has just suffered massive losses, both killed and wounded, that are incapable of returning to the fight. So, I think this flood of information will keep pouring out. And each day it’s going to add to the problems that Zelensky faces in trying to hang on to power.”
This is not the first time the rumor of potential Russo-Ukrainian negotiations has made its way to the press. In late November, the German newspaper Bild alleged a plot between Washington and Berlin to twist Zelensky’s arm into holding talks with Russia by substantially diminishing military aid to Kiev. According to the German publication, there is also a plan B envisaging a frozen conflict that would solidify a new “quasi-border” between Ukraine and Russia along the contact line.
Per Johnson, even if the West is ready for negotiations over Ukraine, they should bear in mind that nobody in Russia would allow them to fool Moscow after the derailed Istanbul talks of March 2022 and the Bucha hoax widely circulated by the Western press. However, it’s still unclear what the US and its NATO allies really want: a sustainable peace, or merely a frozen conflict.
“Well, again, this is the problem,” the former CIA analyst pointed out. “There has been no negotiation of any substance between the United States and Russia for now more than two years. The last time Putin entered into negotiations to negotiate a peace – that was a year ago, in April. And the West, Biden, Boris Johnson, they sabotaged it. They destroyed it. They made sure that the Ukrainians knew that they were not to agree to any deal. And that’s how they treat it. My own perception is that the Russians are still smarting over that betrayal, because they legitimately thought they had an agreement in place. And then within days, as they’re pulling back their forces from north of Kiev, the tank forces, the United States and the United Kingdom launched this propaganda campaign, accusing Russia of war crimes in Bucha. It was a blatant lie, it wasn’t true. But again, the truth didn’t matter anymore.”
Meanwhile, The Economist, a British magazine, has drawn attention to the fact that Zelensky’s approval rating is in free fall after the botched counteroffensive attempt, while Ukrainian Armed Forces Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny commands 70% support. Per the media, the two are at odds, as Zelensky apparently fears that Zaluzhny may be picked as his successor.
“Well, the Americans are trying to figure out how to get rid of Zelensky,” Johnson said. “And I think this is just a natural outgrowth of the various plotting and scheming. I think part of it is wishful thinking on the part of Americans. They launched this war as a proxy war against Russia, fully expecting Ukraine to defeat Russia. It was going to cause the collapse of Vladimir Putin and could ultimately lead to the breakup of Russia. And instead, it’s not turned out that way at all. It has completely backfired.”
“So what you’re getting now are these, let’s call them crazy ideas. People keep thinking that, ‘Okay, we can engineer this in such a way that maybe we will replace Zelensky with Zaluzhny.’ [… ] But these are the kinds of rumors that are circulating. What’s clear is that Zelensky does not have a secure hold on the presidency in Ukraine. And right now, there is a meeting underway in Washington with, I guess, the next in line for the presidency, probably because Zelensky himself didn’t feel secure leaving Ukraine right now to go beg for more money. And so he’s sticking close to home in order to just, I think, try to preserve his position.”
MEMO | December 1, 2023
As part of efforts to drive iO Associates to cut ties with Elbit, activists stormed and occupied its Manchester office on 1 September and again on the 7th October. Activists painted iO offices red on 9 October in London, Reading and Manchester. They were forced to vacate their Manchester offices from 11 October, after the premises were also stormed by the Youth Front For Palestine, and then finally targeted in Edinburgh twice, on the 11 and 17 October.
By Lucas Leiroz | December 1, 2023
The collective West seems increasingly interested in worsening the crisis in the Middle East. Now, the United Kingdom is sending a new combat ship to the Persian Gulf region with the aim of deterring Iranian and pro-Palestinian forces. Amid growing tensions in the maritime zone of the Middle East, the British measure tends to escalate the crisis significantly.
According to Defense Secretary Grant Shapps, the destroyer HMS Diamond is heading to the Persian Gulf to “strengthen the United Kingdom’s presence” in the Middle East. The ship will join the frigate HMS Lancaster, which has been stationed in the region since last year. For Shapps, improving the UK’s defense capacity in that area is essential to guarantee British interests amid the current conflict situation.
“HMS Diamond is en route to join Operation Kipion, the UK’s maritime presence in the Gulf and the Indian Ocean (…) Recent events have proven how critical the Middle East remains to global security and stability,” he added in a statement (…) From joint efforts to deter escalation, following the onset of the renewed conflict in Israel and Gaza, to now the unlawful and brazen seizure of MV Galaxy Leader by the Houthis in the Red Sea – it is critical that the UK bolsters our presence in the region, to keep Britain and our interests safe from a more volatile and contested world,” he said.
More than that, Shapps also added that the destroyer will help deter regional actors, mainly “Iran and its proxies.” With these words, Shapps clearly refers to Hezbollah and mainly to the Yemeni Houthis, who recently launched a series of naval assaults, making the Israeli maritime presence in the Red Sea unworkable. Furthermore, it has also been stated that sending the ship will contribute to ensuring “freedom of navigation”, which is a common rhetoric of British and American strategists.
“Freedom of navigation” operations are naval military mobilizations carried out in disputed or conflict regions with the excuse of guaranteeing freedom of passage for civilian and merchant ships. Among Western navies, these operations have become commonplace to provoke enemy countries in a “disguised” way. The US constantly promotes such incursions into maritime zones claimed by China in Asia, for example. Now, the UK wants to do something similar in the Middle Eastern region, where military tensions are growing rapidly.
Around fifty large merchant ships pass through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait daily, while one hundred pass through the Strait of Hormuz. These are extremely busy maritime areas that facilitate the commercial flows of local countries. The problem is that the sea is one of the first areas affected in a war scenario. Pro-Palestinian forces are intercepting Israeli ships reaching the Red Sea through the straits. Soon, it is possible that ships from Western countries will also begin to be attacked, as these states are giving full and unrestricted support to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
The UK uses this scenario as a justification for sending warships to the region, but this does not seem to be the correct way to deal with the situation. Instead of “deterring” the Palestinian and Iranian allies, the UK will be provoking them further and contributing to the deterioration of the crisis. The more Western interventionism is being conducted in the Middle Eastern situation, the more tensions will escalate, which is why London is making a serious mistake.
However, it is noteworthy that the British maneuver is inserted in a context of increased naval interventionism by London in several “tense” regions.
For example, in addition to the ship heading to the Gulf, the deployment of an international task force led by the British was also announced. The aim is allegedly to launch patrols from the English Channel to the Baltic Sea. In addition to the UK, countries such as Denmark, Finland, Iceland, the Baltic states, Norway and Sweden are participating in the project. The group is being called the Joint Expeditionary Force (JEF) and, according to Shapps, will “defend our shared critical infrastructure against potential threats”.
As we can see, once again the irresponsible maneuvers of Western countries can lead to serious consequences. In order to supposedly “protect their interests”, these countries implement dangerous escalatory measures that tend to create real problems. Maritime tensions in the Middle East will grow as there is more Western participation in favor of Israel – in the same sense that maritime tensions in Europe will begin to emerge from the moment that the maneuvers of Western countries began to generate security problems for Russia.
Instead of creating false enemies and launching bellicose measures, the best thing for the West to do is to calm tensions and reestablish dialogue for a peaceful solution. But unfortunately this strategic sense no longer seems to exist among Western decision makers.
Lucas Leiroz, journalist, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, geopolitical consultant.
You can follow Lucas on X (former Twitter) and Telegram.
Gatito Bueno – bad cattitude – November 27, 2023
Well that sure does maybe explain why so much of this felt like a milspec psyop…
Jeez, can you imagine if they did something like this in the US?
Because this sure seems like waging info-war on your own people…
Yikes.
Dissenting Doctors Dishonourably Disparaged
Health Advisory & Recovery Team | November 29, 2023
The sordid state of the medical system here in the UK is laid bare in excruciating detail in a recent Daily Mail article which chooses to perpetuate myths and disinformation rather than engage in genuine reporting.
The story so far
Dr Sarah Myhill – a doctor now working as a naturopath – is being hounded by the General Medical Council (GMC) who have referred her to various hearings at the Medical Practitioners Tribunal Service (MPTS). Myhill’s alleged transgressions are outlined in great detail on the MPTS website, but the gist of the complaint seems to be that Myhill has had the temerity to highlight the benefits of low-cost treatments (such as Vitamin D) over expensive – and possibly harmful – pharmaceuticals.
This matter should hardly be controversial, even to the mainstream – after all, many will have heard or watched the various TV series such as ‘Dopesick’, ‘Painkiller’ or even the BBC recent Panorama expose ‘The Antidepressant Story’. In contrast to these expensive chemical compounds that have multiple adverse effects – both on individuals and society as a whole – stand inexpensive treatments and lifestyles that are as cheap as (and substantially healthier than) chips.
Consider the benefits of Vitamin D – the ‘sunshine vitamin’ – extolled in no lesser organ of public opinion than the Daily Mail itself, Mark Solomons reporting only a few weeks ago that “a third of Britons have Vitamin D deficiency due to spending too much time indoors, poor diet and failing to take supplements”.
What an opportunity to follow this excellent educational reporting with an additional piece that promotes healthy living and the perils of the over-promotion of ‘pill popping’.
Alas… ‘achievement not unlocked’. The headline alone is a classic of the disinformation genre, a masterclass in deceptive propagandisation comprising just 23 words (and a number):
Precisely why all Welsh doctors approaching retirement are deemed worthy of this drive-by assassination by headline is not fully clear – perhaps that is just the Daily Mail’s house style. That aside, the following twin headline double-barrelled untruths deserve greater scrutiny:
What a heart-warming story! If only the Daily Mail had chosen to share this feel-good blockbuster with its readers. Many doctors chose to prescribe Ivermectin off-label, which is entirely normal behaviour (after all, repurposing a drug that already has a defined safety record is far less risky than rushing a new medicine – which by definition will not have a long track record – to market):
“There are clinical situations when the use of unlicensed medicines or use of medicines outside the terms of the licence (i.e. ‘off-label’) may be judged by the prescriber to be in the best interest of the patient on the basis of available evidence. Such practice is particularly common in certain areas of medicine: for instance, in paediatrics where difficulties in the development of age-appropriate formulations means that many medicines used in children are used off-label or are unlicensed“.
Who better to make these kinds of decisions than a patient’s doctor?
Many people will be aware of what happened next. Various shenanigans ensued resulting in Ivermectin being discredited. One of the most Kafkaesque situations was an FDA-orchestrated smear campaign that branded Ivermectin as ‘horse-paste’ and informed people that “you are not a horse”. Quite an eyebrow-raising stunt when you consider that Ivermectin is safe enough to feature on the CDC website with an oral dosage level that is declared safe for use in children over the weight of 15kg. The FDA was – quite rightly – subsequently eviscerated in a recent Fifth District court ruling:
“The Food and Drug Administration is not a physician, so it had no business cautioning people not to take Ivermectin”.
The ruling is worth reading in full.
Returning to the Daily Mail headline, we can summarise the situation as follows: authorities have censured a doctor who promoted (within their known safe usage parameters!) certain vitamins and antiviral treatments. Whether or not these treatments are effective or not is essentially irrelevant – they are safe, which is more can be said for any newly introduced pharmaceutical product with no long-term safety data attached.
Contrast the prescription of these safe treatments with said authorities’ recent (well, since late 2020) enthusiastic one-size-fits-all promotion of various injectable products that were claimed to be both ‘safe’ and ‘effective’.
There is, of course, a rational (if somewhat chilling) explanation as to why we find ourselves in this bizarre and counter-intuitive situation.
It is worth pausing for a moment to consider what twisted circumstances can have arisen for the medical establishment to weaponise its disciplinary procedures, especially in the case of a doctor that has already attempted to take herself off the register. The GMC and the MPTS are only too aware that:
“suspension has a deterrent effect and can be used to send out a signal to the doctor, the profession and public about what is regarded as behaviour unbefitting a registered doctor.”
The action against Myhill seems overly vindictive and a waste of time, money and resources. The absurdity of proceedings has been inadvertently – and succinctly – summarised by the GMC’s KC, Tom Kark:
“The problem with the Myhill cases is that all the patients are improved and all refuse to give witness statements.”
But perhaps the intention is to come after other doctors that dare to speak out, and also to deter others from joining them in speaking truth to power.
The promotion of one-size-fits-all pharmaceutical interventions is clearly a profitable endeavour for various pharmaceutical companies and associated vested interests, but it is clearly not in the best interests of patients. Doctors promise to “first, do no harm”, and they – and all associated establishment regulators and other authorities – pay appropriate lip-service regarding patient autonomy, choice and informed consent as encapsulated in any (and one would hope all?) documented formulations of the Doctor-Patient relationship.
But the truth is starkly different. There are good doctors who are willing to put patients first, resist groupthink and stand up to bullying regulators. The hounding and demonisation of these doctors is an appalling and sinister crime. It happened before covid, it happened during covid, and it is happening now. It is sad to see spineless reporting by those in the mainstream media who (1) should know better and (2) have the resources to stand up to the drug pushers.
Perhaps the only answer is bottom-up resistance. If enough people resolve to ensure that justice is done, then complaining to the GMC might make a difference.
Press TV – November 29, 2023
Father of a British student killed by Israeli soldiers has urged the occupying regime to change its “unethical and inhuman” military tactics, warning Tel Aviv that it will lose support from the West by continuing such policies.
Anthony Hurndall, whose 22-year-old son was killed by Israeli snipers in 2004, denounced Israel’s “fundamentally unethical and inhuman attitudes,” in an interview with The Times published on Wednesday.
Tom Hurndall, who was a photography student, a volunteer for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), and an activist against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, was shot in the head by an Israeli sniper in the Gaza Strip in April 2003 and lost his life in January 2004 after spending some nine months in a coma.
He was shot when he was assisting Palestinian children caught in the crossfire in the impoverished Palestinian enclave.
Soroka Hospital’s medical staff initially claimed that the critical injuries to his head were caused by a baseball bat but an investigation later revealed that the staff had removed bullet fragments from Tom’s brain before making up the baseball bat story.
When the fabricated account was refuted, Tel Aviv claimed that the young photographer was allegedly carrying a weapon and was a gunman.
“The investigation further revealed that, as standard practice,” the Israeli military “routinely falsely misrepresent civilians and children as militants, or as armed, and fabricate accounts of events as a pretext for their killing,” Hurndall, who is director of the Center for Justice, told The Times.
“These claims appear similar to the claims that” the Israeli military is “currently making to justify their bombing, missile and other attacks on civilian targets and hospitals in Gaza. It was the view of those in diplomatic circles, expressed to us at the time, that” the Israeli military “appeared to consider themselves immune from accountability and free to misrepresent innocent civilians as legitimate military targets and to target them, as a form of intimidation or collective punishment,” he added.
Hurndall denounced the narrative portrayed by the media and the governments in the West as “one-sided” that ignores the facts.
“If Israel does not change fundamentally unethical and inhuman attitudes and policies and stop committing war crimes, it will build up even greater resistance from the Palestinian people and lose the sympathy and support of the West,” he stressed.
Israel launched the war on Gaza on October 7 after the Palestinian resistance movement Hamas waged the surprise Operation Al-Aqsa Storm against the occupying entity in response to the Israeli regime’s decades-long campaign of bloodletting and devastation against Palestinians.
According to the Gaza-based health ministry, over 15,000 Palestinians, including more than 6,000 children, were killed in Israeli strikes, during the 49 days of war. Many more dead are feared to be under the rubble.
RT | November 27, 2023
The West has essentially thrown Ukraine under the bus in its conflict with Russia by failing to provide Kiev with the necessary amount of military aid, Aleksey Arestovich, a former aide to President Vladimir Zelensky, has claimed.
Writing on Telegram on Sunday, Arestovich weighed in on the differing views of Ukrainian officials as to why Kiev’s conflict with Moscow is still in full swing despite several major attempts at peace.
According to the former presidential aide, the West bears most of the blame for the situation.
“The real responsibility lies with those who promised Ukraine real support for waging a real, big war and did not provide it. In other words, they screwed us over.”
Arestovich claimed that Ukraine “had won its war” by managing to survive in the first few months of the conflict. “This war of ours could have well ended with the Istanbul Agreements,” he suggested, referring to the talks in the Turkish city in the spring of 2022, which initially made some progress but stalled after then-British Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to Kiev. The negotiations collapsed but Russia maintains it is open to diplomatic engagement with Kiev.
After the Istanbul talks, the conflict entered another phase in which Ukraine had no chance of winning without securing massive Western arms supplies, including warplanes and long-range missiles, the former official continued. “But nothing came. We paid a huge price for that.”
Arestovich suggested that the West would now try to force Ukraine to accept the loss of several regions, which overwhelmingly voted to join Russia in a series of public referenda last autumn.
He also suggested that, while Kiev found itself in a tough spot mostly due to the West’s inaction, the Ukrainian leadership’s “stupidity and corruption has given them many formal and informal reasons to screw us over.”
Arestovich’s remarks came amid Ukraine’s faltering counteroffensive, which has been underway since early summer but has failed to gain any significant ground. Last month, Moscow said Kiev had lost more than 90,000 troops since the start of the push, with Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu claiming that Ukrainian casualties had reached more than 13,000 soldiers in November alone.
Earlier this month, Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top general, admitted that hostilities had reached a stalemate, an assessment rejected by Zelensky. Meanwhile, on Sunday, Mariana Bezuglaya, a senior Ukrainian MP, blasted Zaluzhny over the lack of a strategic plan for 2024 and called on the military leadership to step down.
By Ivan Kesic | Press TV | November 26, 2023
Amid the Israeli regime’s devastating blitzkrieg on the blockaded Gaza Strip, a football club based in Glasgow has grabbed headlines in recent weeks for its support of Palestine.
Despite the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) slapping fine on the Celtic Football Club, the club fans have vowed to continue their support for Palestine against the Israeli occupation.
On Wednesday, Europe’s top football body announced a new fine of $19,000 against the club over a “number of incidents” during its Champions League match against Atletico Madrid in late October, which ended in a 2-2 draw.
Celtic was ordered to shell out €17,500 for its supporters’ displaying “a provocative message of an offensive nature,” €8,000 for “blocking of public passageways” and €3,500 for “lighting of fireworks.”
The club fans, led by the Green Brigade group, were heard singing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ while unfurling two large banners that read ‘Free Palestine’ and ‘Victory to the Resistance’.
The Green Brigade was banned by the Scottish club in October from attending its away matches but has remained insistent on showing support for Palestine by displaying its flags at Celtic matches.
Two pro-Palestinian displays
The incident took place at the match between Celtic and Atletico on October 25 at the club’s home ground Celtic Park in Glasgow, attended by 60,000 Celtic fans, including the Green Brigade group.
As the start of the Champions League group stage match approached, the stadium turned into a sea of Palestinian flags, every stand awash with the colors of Palestine in a show of solidarity with those bombed and killed by the Israeli occupying regime in the Gaza Strip.
A few days earlier, after a home match against Kilmarnock, Celtic fans strongly criticized the broadcasters for not wanting to show the North Curve corner section with Palestinian flags displayed.
This time the media was not able to cover up anything because the Palestinian symbolism was not limited to one corner of the stand, but the whole stadium was painted with colors of the Palestinian flag.
Spectacular photos and videos of pro-Palestinian Celtic fans, singing collectively “You’ll Never Walk Alone,” quickly spread around the world and were shared by millions of netizens on social media.
During the earlier Scottish premiership match against Kilmarnock in Glasgow on October 7, the Green Brigade displayed two large banners saying “Free Palestine” and “Victory to the Resistance.”
Defiance of club appeals
Two days after the 3-1 victory against Kilmarnock, the club’s board distanced itself from the fan group’s show of solidarity, issuing a statement saying “Celtic is a football club and not a political organization.”
“We ask that banners, flags and symbols relating to the conflict and those countries involved in it are not displayed at Celtic Park at this time,” the club said in a statement before the game against Atletico.
However, the Green Brigade ignored the club’s directives and, on the contrary, called on all Celtic fans to raise the Palestine flag during the club’s UEFA Champions League match.
“We must apply learning from apartheid South Africa to dismantle apartheid Israel; if we are neutral in situations of injustice, we have chosen the side of the oppressor,” the Green Brigade said in a counter-statement.
“We send our sincere solidarity and prayers to our friends across all of Palestine at this traumatic time when yet again much of the international community turns its back in cowardice while war crimes are inflicted on a largely defenseless, imprisoned population.”
Keeping the fan tradition
In another statement, issued as a response to the club’s appeals, the Green Brigade also highlighted their tradition of supporting the oppressed and criticized hypocrisy by the political and media class.
“Football remains one of the few areas of public life where working-class people have genuine political agency, and we will not be dictated to by an elitist board that has repeatedly demonstrated contempt for the history and traditions of Celtic FC,” the fan club said.
“Celtic was born out of famine and oppression, a product of colonial rule, death and the mass displacement of people. It is because of this history that Celtic fans are renowned for their empathy and solidarity; consistently siding with the oppressed and destitute,” they added.
It slammed the “hypocrisy” of the club staff, which it said is in line with “much of the political and media class, epitomized through the example of Ukraine.”
“Political messaging was welcome at Celtic Park then, yet it is being condemned now,” the statement noted. “The question on any reasonable mind should be – why? Why are Ukrainian lives more sacred than Palestinian lives.”
The fans referred to the fact that some months ago, pro-Ukrainian support on the pitches and sports stadiums was not prohibited but encouraged, ibyUEFA’s official policy.
While the Green Brigade is renowned for its Irish Republicanism and steadfast support for Palestine, fans of Celtic’s local rival Rangers have in turn supported the Israeli regime when facing Celtic.
In recent weeks, Rangers fans have waved Israeli regime flags and held a minute’s silence for the Israeli victims, but the club has not been punished for such actions.
Humanity of the club
The support of Celtic fans is much more than waving flags and is not a result of the ongoing Israeli aggression on Gaza, they have been organizing pro-Palestinian support since the 2000s.
In 2012, they organized a display of solidarity with Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike, featuring a banner reading “Dignity is More Precious than Food” alongside Palestinian flags.
Their most noble pro-Palestinian action came in 2016 after UEFA fined them £8,600 for flying Palestinian flags in a match against Israeli club Hapoel Beer-Sheva.
Defiant as always, the Green Brigade launched a crowdfunding campaign and ultimately a remarkable £176,076 was raised and split between two beneficiaries that provide medical aid to Palestinians.
One of the results of those donations was the establishment of the refugee football club Aida Celtic, based in the Palestinian city of Bethlehem.
The Green Brigade has continued with humanitarian actions in recent weeks, collecting donations for health organizations that help the Palestinian people.
Interestingly, the club was formed in 1888 by Brother Walfrid, an Irish Catholic cleric, to raise money for poor Irish immigrants in the West of Scotland, according to reports.
So, as it appears, the foundation of the Scottish club itself was based on a human cause.
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