The US-NATO Military Alliance Continues Confrontation Along Russia’s Borders
By Brian Cloughley | Strategic Culture Foundation | July 23, 2019
The Pentagon and its sub-office in Brussels, HQ NATO, in its new billion dollar building, are intent on maintaining military pressure around the globe. The US itself is much more widely spread, having bases tentacled from continent to continent, with the Pentagon admitting to 514 but omitting mention of many countries, including Afghanistan, Syria and Somalia.
Independent researchers came up with the more realistic total of 883 bases, and examination of the current US defence budget shows that the Pentagon’s spending priorities are far from modest in regard to spreading its wings, hulls and boots-on-the-ground to maintain military domination by what Trump calls “the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth.” To this end its vast military spending programme includes:
- increasing the strength of the Army, Navy, and Air Force by almost 26,000;
- building another ten combat ships for $18.4 billion;
- increasing production of the most expensive aircraft in world history, the F-35, costing over eleven billion; and
- upgrading and expanding the triad of nuclear weapons deliverable from air, land and sea.
The US military budget for 2020 is officially $750 billion. According to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, total US-NATO military expenditure in 2018 was “$963 billion, which represents 53 per cent of world spending.” In striking (no humour intended) contrast, Russia’s entire defence budget was $61.4 billion, its annual outlay having “decreased by 3.5 per cent,” which even the most brainwashed western war-drummer would have to agree does not reflect the policy of a nation preparing to invade anybody.
Yet the US-NATO alliance is increasing the number and scope of military manoeuvres along Russia’s borders, and announced that “in 2019, a total of 102 NATO exercises are planned; 39 of them are open to partner participation.” The exercises include 25 land, 27 air and 12 maritime-centred groups of manoeuvres.
“Partner participation” is a disguised way of saying that non-NATO countries around Russia’s borders have been encouraged to join in all the expensive military jamborees aimed at convincing their citizens they should follow “the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth” in its never-ending conquests.
HQ NATO announced that from 8-22 June military forces of 18 nations took part in the BALTOPS naval manoeuvres which involved “maritime, air and ground forces with about 50 ships and submarines and 40 aircraft” in and around the Baltic. The NATO spokesperson said, presumably with a straight face and no hint of the wry amusement felt by independent observers, that “BALTOPS is now in its 47th year and is not directed against anyone.” Sure. And the Easter Bunny just landed on Mars.
In the most recent example of US-NATO confrontation, according to US European Command, “the US Air Force deployed F-35 Lightning and F-15E Strike Eagles to Spangdahlem Air Base, Germany, as part of Operation Rapid Forge under the Department of Defense’s Dynamic Force Employment Concept. Rapid Forge will involve forward deployments to bases in the territory of NATO allies in order to enhance readiness… and are conducted in coordination with US allies and partners in Europe. Rapid Forge aircraft are forward deploying to the territory of NATO allies… The goal of the operation is to increase the readiness and responsiveness of US forces in Europe…”
Then on July 16 Stars and Stripes (a remarkably objective commentator, incidentally) reported that the Rapid Forge strike aircraft had been sent to Poland, Lithuania and Estonia “in a test of the service’s ability to quickly deploy air power overseas” These aircraft were specifically deployed to operate as closely as possible to Russian airspace.
The manoeuvres are part of ongoing refinement of the Pentagon’s new Dynamic Force Employment strategy “which is focused on using more unpredictable deployments to demonstrate military agility to possible adversaries.” This concept involves “a shift away from traditional six-month naval deployments to a flexible system that can involve shorter but more frequent stints at sea. And in March, the Army dispatched 1,500 soldiers from Fort Bliss, Texas, to Germany and onward to Poland in one of the service’s largest snap mobilizations to Europe in years.”
It was intriguing that the surge in US-NATO military deployment confrontation occurred at the same time it was revealed that the US has been storing nuclear weapons all over Europe for years. Most analysts knew this, although nothing had been admitted, but, as noted in the brilliant BBC TV satire Yes, Minister by the lead character: “First rule in politics: never believe anything until it’s officially denied.”
As the Washington Post reported, “A recently released — and subsequently deleted — document published by a NATO-affiliated body has sparked headlines in Europe with an apparent confirmation of a long-held open secret: some 150 US nuclear weapons are being stored in Belgium, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands and Turkey.” The moment a “NATO official” announced that “we do not comment on the details of NATO’s nuclear posture… this is not an official NATO document,” it was obvious that the deleted details given in the document must be accurate. And now many questions must be answered. For example : under whose guard are these weapons held? Are officials, politicians and military personnel of host countries permitted access to US nuclear storage facilities? What are the nuclear readiness states, and are the host nations informed of these? And it would be very interesting to know if US practice deployments involve nuclear bombs and missiles.
One of the most important aspects of the nuclear bases saga is the likely connection between these US weapons and this year’s US-NATO military manoeuvres. The ‘Rapid Forge’ deployments to Russia’s borders involve F-35A and F15E strike aircraft, and Lockheed Martin tells us that “once air dominance is established, the F-35 converts to beast mode, carrying up to 22,000 pounds of combined internal and external weapons.” Similarly, the F-15E is now capable of delivering B61-12 nuclear bombs.
As reported by the Belgian daily De Morgen (in English in the Brussels Times on 16 July), the document stated that “In the context of NATO, the United States [has deployed] around 150 nuclear weapons in Europe, in particular B61 free-bombs, which can be [delivered] by both US and Allied planes.” But we can be certain that the citizens of the countries concerned, or of any of the other NATO nations, will never be told on what terms the United States is storing nuclear weapons in their countries and what international developments might govern their use.
Presumably it is the President of the United States who will give approval for release of the nuclear bombs being stored in six of the US bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy (2), the Netherlands and Turkey — but is he going to seek agreement from the governments of these countries to use these weapons? It is far from certain that there would be concurrence on the part of Turkey, for example, whose relations with Trump Washington are extremely precarious.
What would happen if President Erdoğan objected to an obviously indicated US intention to convert the USAF’s F-35s to “beast mode”, loading B61 nuclear bombs at Incirlik airbase?
Nobody knows.
And nobody knows if all these US-NATO martial fandangos in the skies around Russia’s borders involve test deployment of strike aircraft in “beast mode”, as nuclear attack preparedness is so aptly described by Lockheed Martin, that prominent member of Washington’s Military-Industrial Complex.
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland seem to be delighted that US-NATO is continuing to confront Russia by flying nuclear strike aircraft in their airspace. But have they really thought all this through?
US & UK doctors warn against hormones/surgery for trans-identified kids
RT | July 23, 2019
Medical professionals in the US and UK are sounding the alarm about the growing use of “hormonal and surgical interventions” for children who are confused about their gender identity, saying that more studies are required.
Members of the conservative childrens’ advocacy group the American College of Pediatricians (ACP) wrote a letter on Monday to the Surgeon General of the United States, warning about the effects of gender-reassignment surgeries and hormonal drugs on minors, saying such interventions have “not undergone long-term study.”
The ACP called the issue a “grave public health concern” and said that the drastic methods have become the new “standard of care” in lieu of “ethical psychotherapy” for children and teens who present with gender dysphoria (GD).
The ACP letter cites research which claims that 61-98 percent of youth affected by GD will “outgrow” it “if allowed to progress through natural puberty.”
The group also laments that healthcare professionals are “increasingly prohibited from investigating psychosocial factors” which may have led to GD symptoms and fear being penalized or accused of discrimination.
Dual warnings
The warnings are coming from both sides of the pond. Earlier this month, the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) cautioned that there is a lack of “robust evidence” about the long-term effects of puberty-blockers and hormonal drugs.
In a 12-page position paper, the RCGP complained that family doctors were under pressure to provide gender dysphoria services that “lie outside the remit” of their generalist expertise. The paper advises that more research is needed on the pros and cons of medical treatment vs. a less dramatic “wait and see” approach.
Medical treatment of children with GD often begins with the prescription of puberty blockers, which are given to halt normal onset of puberty. Next, the child is given “cross-sex hormones” – in other words, hormones which match their stated identity rather than their biologically assigned sex. At a later stage, the patients undergo gender-reassignment surgery.
The side-effects of these interventions can include “sterility, sexual dysfunction, surgical complications, thromboembolic and cardiovascular disease, osteoporosis, malignancy, and persistently elevated rates of suicide,” the ACP advises.
‘Surge’ of GD in girls
The medical warnings come as the UK’s only child gender clinic, the Gender Identity Development Service (GIDS), reported significant increases in the numbers of children seeking to transition to the opposite gender – an overwhelming majority of them (74 percent) being young girls seeking to transition to a male identity.
The Sunday Times reported on the “surge” last month, noting that the majority (54 percent) of the children referred to the clinic are 14 or under. In the UK, 17 year-olds are now allowed to be seen in adult gender clinics and to independently consent to treatment. The newspaper also recalled that a “review” into the new wave of girls seeking to transition had been ordered by the former equalities minister Penny Mordaunt last year, but “little has been heard of it since.”
While transgender rights activists argue that the huge increases are due to growing public acceptance of a previously taboo issue, skeptics say that impressionable children are being confused by activists who ‘promote’ the idea of changing genders and who pressure health professionals to immediately accept a child’s assertion that he or she is the opposite sex, rather than first exploring psychological reasons why a child may feel that way.
Whistleblower
The RCGP warning was shortly followed by claims from a National Health Service (NHS) psychologist who said poor and potentially abused children are being misdiagnosed as transgender. Dr Kirsty Entwistle, a former GIDS worker, said children can present with GD due to “traumatic early experiences,” including sexual abuse, but those cases are not being investigated properly because medical professionals fear being labeled “transphobic.”
Entwistle said she left GIDS after being accused of transphobia herself, after raising concerns over the skyrocketing numbers of young people identifying as transgender. She also claims that GIDS staff tell parents of children that the effects of puberty blockers are “fully reversible” despite a lack of evidence on the effect the drugs have on children’s brains.
The BBC reported on Monday that GIDS lowered the age it offered kids puberty blockers based on a study which is being investigated by the Health Research Authority. The drugs, which are given to children as young as 11 years-old in Britain, could be linked to increases in suicidal thoughts.
De-transitioning?
Some recent reporting has also explored the phenomenon of the “detransitioners”; individuals who believed themselves to be transgender before changing their minds and deciding to transition back to their original biological gender. The detransitioners are thought to make up a very small number of the adult trans population.
But the story seems to be different for children. A study in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry found that two-thirds of adolescent patients at a clinic in Amsterdam ended up identifying as their original birth-assigned gender. Another study, often called into question by trans activists, found that up to 80 percent of trans kids eventually identified as their birth sex. Canadian sex researcher James Cantor wrote in a blog post in 2016 that “only very few trans-kids still want to transition by the time they are adults.”
Instead, he claimed, “they generally turn out to be regular gay or lesbian folks.”
Missiles Used in Iraq Attack Match Those Used by Israel in Syria Strikes, Kuwaiti Media Claims
Sputnik – July 23, 2019
On Friday, AP reported that an unmanned drone had carried out strikes against a base in Iraq used by the Popular Mobilisation Forces, the mostly Shia Iraqi paramilitary force which took part in the campaign to defeat Daesh and which has received assistance and training from Iran.
Israel may be behind Thursday night’s mystery drone attack on an alleged Iranian-backed militia base in Amirli, northeastern Iraq, Kuwait’s Al-Jarida newspaper has alleged, citing a source in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps.
According to Al-Jarida’s source, the attack on the militia depot, which contained stocks of short- and medium-range missiles, as well as a militia headquarters building, was allegedly carried out by an aircraft flying out of an American base near the Syrian-Jordan-Iraqi border, possibly al-Tanf.
The source claimed that the preliminary results of a forensic investigation by the Iraqi government have suggested that they were the same type used by Israel during its periodic attacks against Syria.
Al-Jarida also claimed that during US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s visit to Iraq in May, Pompeo warned Iraqi officials that Israel could strike “Iranian targets” in the country “at any time.”
Iraqi sources speaking to the newspaper said that Baghdad will be unlikely to officially accuse Israel, because it would put the government ‘in a difficult position’, and lead to popular anger demanding the restructuring of the armed forces.
Officials from Iraq, Iran, and Israel have not commented on the newspaper’s allegations.
No country or group has claimed responsibility for Thursday night’s attack, which reportedly killed one militia fighter and injured two others, who may have been Iranian advisers. The US immediately denied any involvement, with a Pentagon spokesman saying bluntly that “US forces were not involved.” An Iraqi Civil Defence Corps spokesman said the perpetrator “remains unknown.”
The Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF) are an umbrella paramilitary force consisting mostly of Iraqi Shia Muslim militias formed in June 2014 to fight Daesh (ISIS) and to check the terrorist group’s advance into Iraq and Syria. Some of the member militias in the PMF took part in fighting the US occupation after the 2003 invasion, and have received training and material assistance from Iran. Relations between the PMF and US forces operating in Iraq have deteriorated in the months following Daesh’s retreat, with the two sides generally committing to avoiding operating in the same areas to avoid exacerbating tensions.
Israel-born Treasury official is at the center of U.S. policies on Iran
Sigal P. Mandelker, the undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence at the US Treasury in Dubai, UAE, July 12, 2018. (AP Photo/Kamran Jebreili, Jewish Insider )
At the Center of U.S. Iran policies is an Israel-born Treasury official named Sigal Mandelker. The Atlantic writes that her ‘hand is on the lever’ of crippling economic sanctions meant to force Iran’s ‘capitulation or demise’… meanwhile the Treasury Department refuses to divulge whether Mandelker is still an Israeli citizen… (Iran has long been in Israeli crosshairs)
By Alison Weir | If Americans Knew | July 23, 2019
According to a just published report in the Atlantic and a previous article by a former CIA officer, an Israeli-born individual is at the center of U.S. policies targeting Iran.
The Atlantic reports that financial sanctions are the “key tool” the United States has been using against Iran during “the past three presidential administrations.” And Treasury official Sigal Mandelker” is the one with her hand on the lever.”
According to the article, “Because Trump is anxious to avoid war with Iran but also eager to push the Iranians, she is one of the most powerful officials designing the strategy Trump’s administration hopes will force Iranian capitulation—or, failing that, perhaps even the government’s collapse.”
Mandelker has been working on governmental policies since 2006 – the year in which U.S. officials “focused on finding ways to cut off Iran from the global financial system.”
According to Mandelker’s Treasury Department bio, from 2006-2009, Mandelker served as Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice. Prior to that, she was Counselor to the Secretary of Homeland Security, “where she advised the Secretary and worked extensively on intelligence, national security, counterterrorism, and border security matters.”
In 2017 Mandelker was named Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. As we will see, this office was created at the behest of Israel partisans. It provides a powerful position from which to direct policies.
In this position she is in charge of “developing and implementing U.S. government strategies to combat terrorist [sic] financing and money laundering… She oversees the operation and coordinates actions of the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), the Office of Intelligence and Analysis (OIA), and the Office of Terrorist Financing and Financial Crimes (TFFC).”
In the years just before her 2017 Under Secretary appointment, Mandelker was a partner at Proskauer Rose LLP, a powerful, politically connected international law firm with ties to Israel. The pro-Israel website Algemeiner,* reports: “Historically, Proskauer Rose was known as a ‘Jewish’ law firm.” Partner Joseph M. Proskauer was “a Democratic Party stalwart, friend of politicians, state judge, civic and philanthropic personality, and major fund raiser for the state of Israel.”
Born in Israel
It appears that Mandelker is or was an Israeli citizen who was born in Israel. While this is periodically referred to in Israeli and Jewish media, the Treasury Department has refused to answer whether Mandelker is still an Israeli citizen, despite numerous email and phone inquiries requesting this information about a high U.S. official.
The information is particularly relevant since U.S. attacks on Israel’s neighbors are often pushed by Israel partisans concerned with maintaining Israeli hegemony in the region.
Dual citizenship became permissible in the U.S. in 1967 under a decision by the Abe Fortas Supreme Court in a case on behalf of Israel that broke a 200 year American tradition. Today, many Americans feel that such a potential conflict of interest by governmental officials should, at minimum, be divulged to the U.S. public, and perhaps disallowed.
Israel has long targeted Iran for attack.
From Israel’s earliest days, Ben Gurion wrote about the need to neutralize Israeli neighbors who might potentially support Palestinian rights. This strategy has also been enunciated in various strategy documents, including the Yinon Oded Plan and A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm (the realm was Israel).
Israel and pro-Israel groups in the U.S. have frequently promoted anti-Iran policies, despite the fact that U.S. intelligence agencies have found that Iran is not developing nuclear weapons and that accusations claiming this have proven unfounded. (Israel has in the range of 100-300 nuclear weapons and has refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the only Middle East state that has not signed the NPT.)
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Israel partisans & Treasury’s “Office of Terrorism”
The Atlantic reports that Stuart Levey was the founding official in the role Mandelker now holds. Mideast analyst Grant Smith writes: “AIPAC and its associated think tank, the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP), were instrumental in lobbying the president for the creation of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence unit early in 2004. The Israel lobby also vetted Stuart Levey who President Bush approved to lead the new unit.”
Israel partisans continued to abound. Levey was then succeeded by David S. Cohen (Israel advocate Alan Dershowitz recommended Cohen for his first job, with Israel partisan Nathan Lewin). The Secretary of the Treasury, Steven Mnuchin, is also an Israel partisan.
Former CIA officer and current executive director of the Council for the National Interest Philip Giraldi investigated this situation and found that Israel partisans have pervaded the office. He writes:
… A key component in the Israeli penetration of the U. S. government has been President George W. Bush’s 2004 signing off on the creation of the Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (OTFI) within the Department of the Treasury. The group’s website proclaims that it is responsible for “safeguarding the financial system against illicit use and combating rogue nations, terrorist facilitators, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferators, money launderers, drug kingpins, and other national security threats,” but it has from its founding been really all about safeguarding Israel’s perceived interests. Grant Smith notes however, how “the secretive office has a special blind spot for major terrorism generators, such as tax-exempt money laundering from the United States into illegal Israeli settlements and proliferation financing and weapons technology smuggling into Israel’s clandestine nuclear weapons complex.”
The first head of the office was Undersecretary of Treasury Stuart Levey, who operated secretly within the Treasury itself while also coordinating regularly both with the Israeli government as well as with pro-Israel organizations like AIPAC, WINEP and the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD). Levey also traveled regularly to Israel on the taxpayer’s dime, as did his three successors in office.
Levey left OTFI in 2011 and was replaced by David Cohen. It was reported then and subsequently that counterterrorism position at OTFI were all filled by individuals who were both Jewish and Zionist. Cohen continued the Levey tradition of resisting any transparency regarding what the office was up to. Smith reports how, on September 12, 2012, he refused to answer reporter questions “about Israel’s possession of nuclear weapons, and whether sanctioning Iran, a signatory to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, over its internationally-inspected civilian nuclear program was an example of endemic double standards at OTFI.”
Cohen was in turn succeeded in 2015 by Adam Szubin who was then replaced in 2017 by Sigal Pearl Mandelker, a former and possibly current Israeli citizen. All of the heads of OTFI have therefore been Jewish and Zionist. All work closely with the Israeli government, all travel to Israel frequently on “official business” and they all are in close liaison with the Jewish groups most often described as part of the Israel Lobby. And the result has been that many of the victims of OTFI have been generally enemies of Israel, as defined by Israel and America’s Jewish lobbyists. OTFI’s Specially Designated Nationals And Blocked Persons List (SDN), which includes sanctions and enforcement options , features many Middle Eastern Muslim and Christian names and companies but nothing in any way comparable relating to Israel and Israelis, many of whom are well known to law enforcement otherwise as weapons traffickers and money launderers . And once placed on the SDN there is no transparent way to be removed, even if the entry was clearly in error.
Here in the United States, action by OTFI has meant that Islamic charities have been shut down and individuals exercising their right to free speech through criticism of the Jewish state have been imprisoned. If the Israel Anti-Boycott Act succeeds in making its way through congress the OTFI model will presumably become the law of the land when it comes to curtailing free speech whenever Israel is involved…
Mandelker frequently speaks movingly of her parents’ suffering under the Nazis. She seems to equate Iran with Hitler, despite the fact that Germany was defeated almost three-quarters of a century ago, and that today it is her birth country that is based on discrimination against people who are not of the preferred religion or ethnicity.
The economic policies Mandelker and others have engineered against Iran are creating significant humanitarian hardship, which seems to be the plan – just as Israel partisans worked to destabilize and eventually attack Iraq. Today, we are teetering on the brink of escalation that could again cost untold lives and damage the U.S. even more.
Perhaps it’s time for Americans to stop allowing the Treasury Department to be weaponized by partisans working in the perceived interests of a foreign country.
Alison Weir is executive director of If Americans Knew, president of the Council for the National Interest, and author of Against Our Better Judgment: The Hidden History of How the U.S. Was Used to Create Israel.
* According to Wikipedia, “The Algemeiner Journal, known informally as The Algemeiner is a New York-based newspaper, covering American and international Jewish and Israel-related news. Former Senator Joseph Lieberman described the paper and the Jacobson Foundation as “independent truth telling advocates for the Jewish people and Israel”.[2] The Algemeiner‘s Advisory Board was chaired by Nobel laureate, writer and activist Elie Wiesel…. In 1972, Gershon Jacobson founded the Yiddish-language Der Algemeiner Journal, after consulting with the Lubavitcher Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson.[3] He served as editor and publisher from its inception until his death in 2005.[4]
Mueller’s FBI ‘Attack Dog’ Weissmann Begged Ukrainian Oligarch For Dirt On Trump
By Tyler Durden – Zero Hedge – 07/23/2019
As the FBI investigated whether Donald Trump was working with Russia, top bureau attorney Andrew Weissmann secretly approached a Ukrainian Oligarch’s US attorneys seeking dirt on President Trump, according to The Hill‘s John Solomon.
In exchange, the FBI was willing to drop an ongoing case against the Ukrainian – Dmitry Firtash, who was hit with 2014 corruption charges in Chicago alleging that he engaged in corruption and bribery in India linked to a US aerospace deal.
According to a defense memo recounting Weissmann’s contacts, the prosecutor claimed the Mueller team could “resolve the Firtash case” in Chicago and neither the DOJ nor the Chicago U.S. Attorney’s Office “could interfere with or prevent a solution,” including withdrawing all charges. “The complete dropping of the proceedings … was doubtless on the table,” according to the defense memo. –The Hill
Dmitry Firtash at the supreme court in Vienna on June 25
It was a desperate move for the FBI – which was grappling with a lack of evidence against Trump as the Steele dossier was turning out to be an embarrassing dud (“There’s no big there there,” lead FBI agent Pete Strzok texted a few days before Weissmann’s overture, writes Solomon).
At the same time, the DOJ’s evidence against Firtash in the 2014 case was also falling apart.
Two central witnesses were in the process of recanting testimony, and a document the FBI portrayed as bribery evidence inside Firtash’s company was exposed as a hypothetical slide from an American consultant’s PowerPoint presentation, according to court records I reviewed. –The Hill
In short, the DOJ had two high profile cases which were unraveling as Weissmann reached out.
Two weeks before the offer was made, Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel – tasked with continuing and expanding upon the FBI’s substantial investigative efforts (including espionage) against Donald Trump and anyone in his orbit.
Firtash’s legal team thought Weissman was probably overstepping his authority, as the special counsel’s office was still subject to DOJ oversight. They were also taken aback after Weissmann went to extraordinary lengths to enlist the Ukrainian by sharing prosecutorial theories the FBI was forming about Trump and his team.
Prosecutors in plea deals typically ask a defendant for a written proffer of what they can provide in testimony and identify the general topics that might interest them. But Weissmann appeared to go much further in a July 7, 2017, meeting with Firtash’s American lawyers and FBI agents, sharing certain private theories of the nascent special counsel’s investigation into Trump, his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Russia, according to defense memos.
For example, Firtash’s legal team wrote that Weissmann told them he believed a company called Bayrock, tied to former FBI informant Felix Sater, had “made substantial investments with Donald Trump’s companies” and that prosecutors were looking for dirt on Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner.
Weissmann told the Firtash team “he believes that Manafort and his people substantially coordinated their activities with Russians in order to win their work in Ukraine,” according to the defense memos. And the Mueller deputy said he “believed” a Ukrainian group tied to Manafort “was merely a front for illegal criminal activities in Ukraine,” and suggested a “Russian secret service authority” may have been involved in influencing the 2016 U.S. election, the defense memos show. –The Hill
Despite being ‘holed up’ in Austria for five years while fighting extradition charges to the US, Firtash turned down Weissmann’s plea overtures. His lawyers told John Solomon that he rejected the deal because he didn’t have credible information or evidence against Trump, Manafort, or anyone else Weissmann laid out in his theories.
In sealed Austrian court filings earlier this month, Firtash’s attorneys compared the DOJ’s 13-year investigation to medieval inquisitions, citing Weissman’s approach as politically motivated – and noting the “possible cessation of separate criminal proceedings against the applicant if he were prepared to exchange sufficiently incriminating statements for wide-ranging comprehensively political subject areas which included the U.S. President himself as well as the Russian President Vladimir Putin.”
Hilariously, the DOJ won a ruling in Austria to secure Firtash’s extradition to Chicago – Austrian officials reversed course after his legal team filed new evidence that included the Weissmann overture, according to the report.
That new court filing asserts that two key witnesses, cited by the DOJ in its extradition request as affirming the bribery allegations against Firtash, since have recanted, claiming the FBI grossly misquoted them and pressured them to sign their statements. One witness claims his 2012 statement to the FBI was “prewritten by the U.S. authorities” and contains “relevant inaccuracies in substance,” including that he never used the terms “bribery or bribe payments” as DOJ claimed, according to the Austrian court filing.
That witness also claimed he only signed the 2012 statement because the FBI “exercised undue pressure on him,” including threats to seize his passport and keep him from returning home to India, the memo alleges. That witness recanted his statements the same summer as Weissmann’s overture to Firtash’s team.
Firtash’s lawyers also offered the Austrian court evidence of alleged prosecutorial wrongdoing. –The Hill
Embarrassingly for the DOJ, a key document they submitted to Austria in support of Firtash’s extradition allegedly from his corporate files and purportedly showing evidence that he sanctioned a bribery scheme in India was actually a slide from a powerpoint presentation created by the McKinsey consulting firm as part of a hypothetical presentation on ethics for the Boeing Corp.
Firtash’s U.S. legal team told me it alerted Weissmann to DOJ’s false portrayal of the McKinsey document in 2017, but he downplayed the concerns and refused to alert the Austrian court. The document was never withdrawn as evidence, even after the New York Times published a story last December questioning its validity. –The Hill
“Submitting a false and misleading document to a foreign sovereign and its courts for an extradition decision is not only unethical but also flouts the comity of trust necessary for that process where judicial systems rely only on documents to make that decision,” Firtash’s US legal team told Solomon. “DOJ’s refusal to rescind the document after being specifically told it is false and misleading is an egregious violation of U.S. and international law.“
Israel’s Agents of Influence
Trips to Israel, a “Nationalism Conference,” Epstein and more
By Philip Giraldi • Unz Review • July 23, 2019
Some journalists in the Jewish media are starting to complain that President Donald Trump is “loving Israel” just a little too much since he keeps citing his concern for the Jewish state as the driving force behind some of his erratic behavior. It is a viewpoint that I most definitely share, though I would describe the apparent White House lovefest with the Israel as a “lot too much.” When the President of the United States calls a congresswoman an anti-Semite and demands that she apologize to him personally and also to Israel it is definitely a lot too much.
So Israel is always in the news, or so it seems, though it is often not in the news when the story might be derogatory. The story disappears from sight as soon as it is determined that Israel might be involved, as is currently the case with Jeffrey Epstein, or Israeli activity is excised completely as was the case with the Mueller investigation where Russiagate should have really been called Israelgate as it was Israel that was seeking favors from the incoming Trump Administration, not Russia. As Noam Chomsky put it, Israeli interference in American politics “vastly overwhelms” anything Russia has done.
I have recently written about how the Jewish state works hard to brainwash the American people and limit the foreign policy options of the U.S. government, to include aggressive efforts to obtain what the intelligence agencies would call “agents of influence.” Agents of influence live and work in one country while simultaneously and treacherously advancing the interests of another nation. It is what George Washington warned about in his Farewell Address when he counseled “Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to believe me, fellow citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government.”
Foreign influence as a potential national security threat is also a status defined in legal terms by the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938 (FARA), which requires anyone working on behalf of a foreign government to register and make transparent sources of income.
Uniquely, no foundation or individual working in America to advance the interests of the Jewish state has ever been required to register under FARA even though many, like the odious American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), boast unambiguously on their websites that they are “America’s pro-Israel Lobby.” Many of the foundations are regarded as educational or charitable 501(c)3 tax exempt non-profits, which means the U.S. taxpayer is helping support their activity. But being a non-profit charity does not necessarily mean austerity, as the salaries of top employees are generous. Canadian Jew Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD), a 501(c)3, is paid $560,000 in salary and benefits. FDD has for many years been calling for war against Iran.
The most recent foundation being set up by Israel’s friends to promote the interests of the Jewish state is the Edmund Burke Foundation, which hosted a conference on “Nationalism” last week. The conference was interesting in that the Burke Foundation is headed by an Israeli and an American Jew who has served as Executive Director of the Christians United For Israel (CUFI). The event was held at the Washington D.C. Ritz-Carlton, suggesting that the Burkeans are not short of cash. Pro-Israel groups always seem to have plenty of Benjamins.
A number of traditional conservatives and even some organizations were fooled by the promotional material and speakers’ list into thinking that the program was legitimate and would focus on supporting national interests as well as foreign policy restraint, but some at least had their eyes opened when John Bolton, as featured speaker, was vigorously applauded by at least half of the audience.
Some potential critics of the agenda were not invited or even deliberately denied tickets to limit dissent, and several attendees were appalled by what they had witnessed, which was essentially an affirmation of status quo foreign policy, to the benefit of the hawks in Washington and Israel. Inevitably, some delusional dimwits were unable to understand that they were being used and were oddly entranced by what they were seeing and hearing. And don’t worry if you are among those who missed the event. It will probably be replayed in a few months under a different name and with a slightly different cast of characters.
The most visible Israeli tool for generating contacts with Americans that might prove useful is the all- expenses-paid VIP junkets that are arranged for Congressmen. New Congressmen routinely travel to Israel for a dog-and-pony show within months of their taking office. One of Congress’s leading cheerleaders for Israel, Maryland’s Steny Hoyer has visited the Jewish state many times and can be relied on to pressure freshman congressmen to make the trip. Other Americans who might be influential in the future are also feted by the Israeli hospitality machine. American military cadets from the service academies and colleges are now being brought to Israel to learn a fictional version of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Undoubtedly, some of them are set up for intelligence approaches after they are commissioned.
Which brings us to the pedophile Jeffrey Epstein story and how it is being handled by government and covered in the media since the story exploded two weeks ago. No one outside the alternative media seems to be interested in the possibility, or rather likelihood, that Epstein was working for a foreign intelligence service, which would most likely be Israel. In the media the Epstein story died almost immediately, submerged in the tale of Donald Trump telling several congresswomen to go back where they came from.
It is unlikely that the spying aspect of Epstein’s alleged crimes will even be investigated both because it involves the Jewish state and also because it appears to include participation by leading politicians from both parties and other public figures. The Deep State will make the story die, which just might also be what happens to Epstein in jail.
The evidence that Epstein was involved in intelligence work most likely bribing or blackmailing prominent individuals to act on behalf of Israel, derives both from the statement made by former U.S. Attorney for Miami Alexander Acosta that “I was told Epstein ‘belonged to intelligence’ and to leave it alone” and from other external evidence. Epstein was making videos of his guests having sex with his young girls, which is a version of a classic intelligence entrapment technique referred to as a “honey trap” that is employed by every major spy agency worldwide. And the Acosta quote – will it ever be fully investigated? Who told him that Epstein was “intelligence” and what were the circumstances?
Jeffrey’s sources of income have also been questioned. Epstein’s sole identified business connection was Ohio billionaire Les Wexner, who maintained very close ties to the upper echelons of the Israeli diplomatic and intelligence establishment. Epstein served as Wexner’s trustee when the latter was forming the Mega Group, created by Wexner and Edgar Bronfman to generate positive views of Israel as a cover for Israeli propaganda dissemination in America.
Epstein’s lack of an identifiable income stream rather suggests that he might have been supported by a government agency of some kind. He had hidden in his Manhattan house a great deal of cash, diamonds and an Austrian passport. The diamonds might have represented payment in kind from Israel, which is capital of the world diamond trade, and the existence of the passport is intriguing. It has been described in the media as “fake” but that can mean anything. The passport, dating from the 1980s, was apparently authentic with a photo of Epstein and a fake name inserted in it, but it might plausibly be the product of a government document forgery lab. Why Austria? Because Austria was at the time politically neutral and the passport would be a good one for traveling anywhere. It would be much preferred by spy agencies or by agents who wanted to travel anonymously.
That Epstein would be linked to Israel rather than to some other intelligence service is due to his relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell, whose father Robert, a Czech Jew who became a naturalized British citizen, was believed by C.I.A. and other intelligence services to be a long-time agent of Mossad. After he died under mysterious circumstances, he was given a state funeral in Israel that was attended by every current and former head of the Jewish state’s intelligence service as well as by the country’s prime minister Yitzhak Shamir. Ghislaine was reportedly Epstein’s close friend and a procurer of his young girl victims.
As most of Israel’s agents of influence are now on Martha’s Vineyard where they gather in July and August, it would be wonderful to cut off all transportation and communication with the island and leave them there, but that would be unfair to the genuine year-round residents. Alternatively, I would be happy just to see Israel’s dire influence over the United States exposed by the media and discussed in public fora by the more than 20 Democratic Party presidential wannabes. As that is not likely to happen, I would settle for a real honest-to-God investigation of Epstein and what he was doing coupled with a move by the Treasury and Justice departments against all the hundreds of pro-Israel groups that have never registered under FARA. It’s a big job to uncover Israeli subversion, but somebody needs to start doing it.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org
A Non-Hack That Raised Hillary’s Hackles
By Ray McGovern – Consortium News – July 22, 2019
Three years ago Monday WikiLeaks published a trove of highly embarrassing emails that had been leaked from inside the Democratic National Committee. As has been the case with every leak revealed by WikiLeaks, the emails were authentic. These particular ones, however, could not have come at a worse time for top Democratic Party officials.
The emails made it unmistakably clear that the DNC had tipped the scales sharply against Democratic insurgent Bernie Sanders, giving him a snowball’s chance in hell for the nomination. The posting of the DNC emails is also widely seen as having harmed the the electoral prospects of Hillary Clinton, who could not escape responsibility completely, while a handful of the very top DNC officials were forced to immediately resign.
Relatively few Americans read the actual emails, their attention diverted to the incessant media-fostered question: Why Did the Russians Hack the DNC to Hurt Hillary? For the millions of once enthusiastic Democrats who favored Sanders, however, the disclosure that the nomination process had been fixed came as a bitter pill, leaving a sour taste in their mouths and a passive-aggressive reluctance to promote the candidacy of one they considered a usurper. Having had a huge stake in Bernie’s candidacy, they had little trouble seeing through the diversion of attention from the content of the emails.
Clinton Prevails
A mere four days after the WikiLeaks release, a well orchestrated Democratic Convention nominated Clinton, while many Sanders supporters loudly objected. Thus, she began her campaign under a cloud, and as more and more Americans learned of the fraud that oozed through the DNC email correspondence — including the rigging of the Democratic primaries — the cloud grew larger and darker.
On June 12, 2016, six weeks before the convention, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange had announced in an interview on British TV, “We have upcoming leaks in relation to Hillary Clinton … We have emails pending publication.”
Independent forensic investigations demonstrated two years ago that the DNC emails were not hacked over the Internet, but had been copied onto an external storage device — probably a thumb drive. Additional work over recent months has yielded more evidence that the intrusion into the DNC computers was a copy, not a hack, and that it took place on May 23 and 25, 2016.
The DNC almost certainly knew what had happened — not only that someone with physical access to DNC computers had copied thousands of emails, but also which ones they had copied, and thus how prejudicial to the Clinton campaign they would be when they saw the light of day.
And so, candidate Clinton, the DNC, and the mainstream media (forever quoting anonymous “current and former intelligence officials”) appear to have colluded, deciding the best defense would be a good offense. No one knew how soon WikiLeaks would publish the emails, but the DNC offense/defense would surely have to be put in place before the convention scheduled to begin on July 25. That meant there were, at most, six weeks to react. But it only took two days. As early as July 24, about 48 hours after the leaks were published, and a day before the convention, the DNC first blamed Russia for hacking their emails and giving them to WikiLeaks to sabotage Clinton.
A Magnificent Diversion
Clinton: Already blaming the Russians at DNC 2016 convention. (Wikipedia)
Granted, it was a stretch — and the DNC would have to hire a pliable cybersecurity firm to back up their claim. But they had good reason to believe that CrowdStrike would perform that service. It was the best Clinton campaign manager Robbie Mook and associates could apparently come up with. If they hurried, there would be just enough time to prepare a PR campaign before the convention and, best of all, there was little doubt that the media could be counted on to support the effort full bore.
When WikiLeaks published the emails on July 22, 2016, just three days before the Democratic convention, the propagandists were ready to deflect attention from the damning content of the DNC emails by repeating incessantly that the Russians hacked the emails and gave them to WikiLeaks to hurt Clinton.
It pretty much worked like a charm. The late Senator John McCain and others were quick to call the Russian “hack” an “an act of war.” Evidence? None. For icing on the cake, then-FBI Director James Comey decided not to seize and inspect the DNC computers. Nor, as we now know, did Comey even require a final report from CrowdStrike.
Eight months after the convention, in remarks at the Clinton/Podesta Center for American Progress on April 6, 2017, Clinton’s PR director, Jennifer Palmieri, could scarcely contain her pride that, after a difficult start, she was ultimately successful in keeping the Russian bear front and center.
Transcribed below (verbatim) are some of Palmieri’s more telling remarks when asked to comment, from her insider perspective, on “what was actually going on in late summer/early fall.”
“… I did appreciate that for the press to absorb … the idea that behind the stage that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Russia to defeat Hillary Clinton was too fantastic for people to, um, for the press to process, to absorb…. But then we go back to Brooklyn and heard from the — mostly our sources were other intelligence, with the press who work in the intelligence sphere, and that’s where we heard things and that’s where we learned about the dossier and the other story lines that were swirling about … And along the way the administration started confirming various pieces of what they were concerned about what Russia was doing. … [Emphasis added.]
“And we did finally get to the point on October 7, when the administration came out with a very stunning [memorandum]. How stunning it was for both the Director of National Intelligence and the Director of Homeland Security to put out a statement – a long statement – that said with high confidence that Russia was interfering in the election and they were also directing the timing of the leaks. And it named the institutions – WikiLeaks, DC Leaks, and Guccifer – as being Russian-led, and how stunning that was to be that certain and that public. … So I do think that the answer for the Democrats now … in both the House and the Senate is to talk about it more and make it more real ….”
And so, the Magnificent Diversion worked as intended.
Recognizing Liminal Time
But not all journalists fell for it. Patrick Lawrence (once of The Nation, now of Consortium News) was onto the ruse from the start. He says he had “fire in the belly” on the morning of July 25, 2016, the day the Democratic convention began, and that he dashed off an article “in one long, furious exhale” within 12 hours of when the media started really pushing the “the Russians-did-it” narrative. The title of his article, pointed out to me a few months ago by VIPS member Todd Pierce, was “How the DNC fabricated a Russian hacker conspiracy to deflect blame for its email scandal … a disturbing resemblance to Cold War red-baiting.”
Lawrence’s off-the-cuff ruminations, which Salon published the next day are extraordinarily prescient and worth reading in full. He instinctively recognized the email disclosure-cum-media-obfuscation campaign as a liminal event. Here are some excerpts, reprinted here with Lawrence’s permission:
”Now wait a minute, all you upper-case “D” Democrats. A flood light suddenly shines on your party apparatus, revealing its grossly corrupt machinations to fix the primary process and sink the Sanders campaign, and within a day you are on about the evil Russians having hacked into your computers to sabotage our elections … Is this how lowly you rate the intelligence of American voters? …
The Sanders people have long charged that the DNC has had its fingers on the scale … in favor of Hillary Clinton’s nomination. The prints were everywhere … Last Friday WikiLeaks published nearly 20,000 DNC email messages providing abundant proof that Sanders and his staff were right all along. The worst of these, involving senior DNC officers, proposed Nixon-esque smears having to do with everything from ineptitude within the Sanders campaign to Sanders as a Jew in name only and an atheist by conviction. …
The caker came on Sunday, when Robby Mook … appeared on ABC’s “This Week” and … CNN’s “State of the Union” to assert that the D.N.C.’s mail was hacked “by the Russians for the purpose of helping Donald Trump.” He knows this … because “experts” — experts he will never name — have told him so.
… the Clinton campaign now goes for a twofer. Watch as it advances the Russians-did-it thesis on the basis of nothing, then shoots the messenger, then associates Trump with its own mess — and, finally, gets to ignore the nature of its transgression (which any paying-attention person must consider grave). Preposterous, readers. Join me, please, in having absolutely none of it. There is no “Russian actor” at the bottom of this swamp, to put my position bluntly. You will never, ever be offered persuasive evidence otherwise. … [Emphasis added.]
Trump, to make this work, must be blamed for his willingness to negotiate with Moscow. This is now among his sins. Got that? Anyone who says he will talk to the Russians has transgressed the American code. … I am developing nitrogen bends … Which way for a breath of air?”
Sad Sequel
A year later Lawrence was commissioned by The Nation to write an investigative report on the so-called “Russian hack.” On August 9, 2017, after he interviewed several Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, among others, The Nation published his findings in an article entitled “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack.” Lawrence wrote, “Former NSA experts, now members of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), say it wasn’t a hack at all, but a leak—an inside job by someone with access to the DNC’s system.”
Again, Lawrence got it right — this time relying less on his own experience and intuition than on applied science as practiced by real technical experts with no axes to grind. But, sadly, that cut across the grain of the acceptable Russia-gate narrative, and a furor erupted among Hillary followers still licking their wounds over her loss. It proved simply too much for them to entertain the notion that Clinton was quite capable, with help from the likes of Mook, to snatch defeat out of the jaws of victory — without any help from Vladimir Putin.
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. An ex-CIA analyst, his expertise on Russia goes back a half-century. He prepared and briefed The President’s Daily Brieffor Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Reagan, and in retirement he co-founded Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
Nasrallah’s Surprises for Israel
By Marwa Osman | American Herald Tribune | July 21 ,2019
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah sent messages of “reassurance” to the Lebanese interior that the country was “not weak” in exchange for warning messages to the American axis, when he appeared for an interview on Al Manar Channel on July 12.
The date of the interview of the Secretary-General, Mr. Hassan Nasrallah, on Al-Manar TV, was not exclusively linked to the 13th anniversary of the outbreak of the July 2006 war. Nasrallah chose to address public opinion at a sensitive regional and international time as the possibility of war is being talked about more than ever in light of the recent developments in the Strait of Hormuz. The message that Nasrallah wanted to convey, seems clear: If you are willing to become a partner in the war against Iran, then you shall not be excluded from that “fire”, because “when you start a war against Iran, you open the war in the entire region.” So, the “advice” to the countries of the region was that “it is our responsibility to work to prevent the US war on Iran.”
“If the UAE were destroyed when the war broke out, would that be in the interests of the rulers and the people of the Emirates?” asked Nasrallah, while emphasizing that Israel must understand that in the event of any war in the region, it will not remain on the sidelines and that Iran can bomb it with ferocity and force.
However, despite tensions in the region, Nasrallah said, “What prevents the United States from going to war is that its interests in the region are at stake.” Trump canceled the military strike on Iranian military positions, in response to Tehran downing a US spy drone that violated Iranian airspace, “because Iranians sent a message to Americans through a third country telling them that if any target was bombed in Iran, then US presence in the region will be bombed as well.”
The words of Nasrallah reflect the concept that Iran, despite the siege and the sanctions it is facing, will not retreat. “Iran will not negotiate directly with America, and will not negotiate under the pressure of sanctions.” The latter will “strengthen domestic production, move them to a faster track in the application of the resistant economy, and strengthen relations with neighboring countries and the world.” However, Iran does not close doors to international efforts, “in a way that preserves interests and dignity.” Even the Islamic Republic, “was always ready for dialogue with Saudi Arabia and calling for it, but the answer was more [Saudi] belligerence.”
Iran’s policy of deterrence also applies in the face of the Zionist entity. 13 years after the 33-day war, “the resistance in Lebanon today is stronger than ever. The deterrence lies between a popular force and a country that considers itself a superpower in the region. This equation is recognized by the enemy with its leaders, officials and media.” Nasrallah said today that the enemy is more afraid of resistance than ever before, speaking of the development of its human and military capabilities. “We may or may not have missiles to shoot down planes, these are areas of constructive ambiguity against the enemy,” Nasrallah said.
In contrast to the Lebanese development, “the Israelis failed to restore confidence after the July war, despite everything that was done, and the acquisition of sophisticated weapons from the US, and all the military drills they conducted. The Secretary-General of Hezbollah advised the Israelis not to use expressions like “we will send back Lebanon to the Stone Age”, because it is not only the northern part of Israel that falls in the range of Hezbollah’s missiles, but also ” the most important point is the coastal strip from Netanya to Ashdod, where the heart of the entity relies, and the bulk of the illegal settlers reside, along with all basic governmental institutions.
Nasrallah asked “If there is resistance with tens of thousands of missiles capable of attacking that area, can our enemy handle this? That will be the real Stone Age. The enormous destruction is the minimum that will happen.” This state of major deterrence will prevent Israelis from resorting to war, according to Nasrallah, who is very optimistic that “it is true that our lives are in the hands of Allah, but according to the sense of logic, I will get to pray in al-Quds.”
Nasrallah stressed that Hezbollah did not withdraw from Syria, “There are no areas we have completely evacuated. We are still in all the regions where we were, but we have reduced our presence, so there is no need to keep all our elements there. ” However, if “the need arises, they will return and maybe with greater numbers, despite sanctions and austerity.”
In his interview, Nasrallah discussed the so-called American “deal of the century“, saying that “it does not have the elements of success, and it has a set of factors to blow it from within.” And what stands behind it is the unity of the Palestinian position, the steadfastness of Iran, which is basically the only remaining logistical support for Palestine, the failure of the project in Syria, the victory in Iraq and Yemen, the strength of the axis of resistance, and the absence of an Arab lever for the deal. Saudi Arabia could have played this role, had it not been for its failure in Yemen. ”
Nasrallah also revealed that the Trump administration is seeking to open channels of communication with Hezbollah through intermediaries, as the US also is trying to impose itself as a mediator in the demarcation of land and sea borders with our enemy. “The term ‘demarcation’ is wrong,” he said. “The land border is originally planned, and these borders are required.” As for sea, the link between the sea and land routes is of utmost importance. He also stressed that the oil wealth will be protected by the resistance, «Lebanon is not weak. It is enough for us to say, this is our land and this is our water, and we want to sign deals with companies [to start drilling for oil], and the Israeli will not dare to enter it.”
The messages sent by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah to the Israeli enemy last week reached Tel Aviv and imposed itself as a priority on the politicians and the media, and then the settlers, prompting the head of the enemy government to devote his speech at the beginning of the Council of Ministers to respond to it.
It is estimated Nasrallah’s words exceeds this time the usual influence on the Israelis based exclusively on internal accounts, that is, between Lebanon and the enemy, to exceed the regional accounts that are more present compared to the past due to the tension and escalation in the region.
It is clear from Netanyahu’s own speech last week that Nasrallah’s “map speech”, where he touched on specific areas in occupied Palestine and promised to destroy them in the event of a war, is placed at the top of Israel’s official agenda and was also marked by a very impressive Israeli media attention with a special discussion table in each TV channel, with the participation of a large number of Israeli experts and commentators, according to their specialties.
It was clear that the interview proved to the Israelis the mistake of betting on the restrictions they erroneously assume against Hezbollah, and can be a starting point for the wrong calculations, which are distributed as follows:
– Lebanese restrictions, including positions and voices issued from within in Lebanon that disparage Hezbollah and its protective role, which in essence is not limited to protectionism emanating from the Lebanese arena, but also, and from an advanced position, from outside Lebanese borders.
– US sanctions, which assume that Tel Aviv is restricting Hezbollah’s decisions and reducing its margin of maneuver, and pushing it to retreat in the face of Israel’s attacks. It is also similar to betting on the possibility of Hezbollah retreating as a result of the shrinking of Hezbollah’s financial resources. (In this case they need to reread the history of Hezbollah)
– Israel’s constant intimidation techniques which clearly are not working, like promising destruction and the targeting of humans and stone, and taking back Lebanon to the “Stone Age”.
These Israeli considerations left out the most important consideration of all. This consideration is the main motivation for the resistance: confronting the existential threat, whether in retaliation or attack mode, all the way from Beirut to Tehran and what lies between them. It is a consideration that will make all other Israeli faux considerations disappear at the decision-making table in Tel Aviv.
Israel’s Choice for U.S. President
By Philip Giraldi | American Free Press | July 18, 2019
In late June, President Donald Trump flailed away with his own particular brand of non-diplomacy at the G20 Summit in Japan, but it is worthwhile noting on the plus side that his administration is so inept that it could not even plan and execute a proper coup in Venezuela. Nor has it been able to concoct sufficient lies about Iran effective enough to create a casus belli and unleash the B-52s. There is a certain comfort in knowing that the United States is now governed by the Three Stooges—“Larry” Trump, “Moe” Pompeo, and “Curly” Bolton—which means that starting new wars might just be beyond their cognitive ability to make mischief.
The real irony is that stupidity is both bipartisan and contagious in the federal government. The Democrats have not quite figured out that instead of playing identity politics, talking about reparations, gay rights, “undocumented migrants,” and free college, they should instead be discussing more important issues, notably the impending nuclear holocaust being stumbled into by the Trumpsters, which just might bring to an end life on this planet as we know it.
A college friend recently asked me what my nightmare scenario for a totally dysfunctional foreign and national security policy might be. I responded without thinking that it really is all about war and peace, that the worst case would be the impeachment of a bumbling Trump and his replacement by a much more capable and vicious Vice President Mike Pence, who actually wants to end the world so he can be raptured up to heaven.
But my answer was wrong. Trump is unlikely to be impeached by a Senate in which the GOP holds a majority, so Pence’s ascent to the throne is not currently plausible unless the president suffers a cardiac arrest after ingesting too many cheeseburgers. The real danger is what comes after Trump, in 2024. The preferred candidate by Israel and its lobby, and therefore the prohibitive favorite, is Trump’s former United Nations Ambassador Nikki Haley. If you think Trump is blindly and blatantly pro-Israel at the expense of American interests, just wait until you see Haley’s naked self-interest at work.
Haley resigned from her position at the UN last October. Like many others in the foreign policy establishment, she was all for Israel because she understood that leaning that way provided instant access to money and plenty of positive press coverage. Completely ignorant of possible consequences, she declared that Washington was “locked and loaded,” prepared to exercise lethal military options against Syria and its Russian and Iranian allies, seen as enemies by Israel. Immediately upon taking office at the United Nations she complained that “nowhere has the UN’s failure been more consistent and more outrageous than in its bias against our close ally Israel” and vowed that the “days of Israel bashing are over.” Not surprisingly, she was greeted by rounds of applause and cheering when she spoke at the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) last March, saying, “When I come to AIPAC I am with friends.”
Haley’s embrace of Israeli points of view was unrelenting, including blocking any investigation of the Israeli army’s slaughter of unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza. She also led the effort to cut funds going to the agency providing critical food and medical assistance to millions of Palestinian refugees. In February 2017, she blocked the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad to a diplomatic position at the United Nations because he was a Palestinian. In a congressional hearing she was asked about the decision: “Is it this administration’s position that support for Israel and support for the appointment of a well-qualified individual of Palestinian nationality to an appointment at the UN are mutually exclusive?” Haley responded yes, that the administration is “supporting Israel” by blocking every Palestinian.
Not surprisingly, Haley consistently took a hard line against Iran, aggressively supporting Trump’s abrogation of the agreement to control its nuclear weapons, and she famously warned that Washington would be “taking names” of countries that don’t support its agenda in the Middle East. If Haley were a recruited agent of influence for the Israeli Mossad she could not have been more cooperative than she apparently was voluntarily.
When Haley resigned, The New York Times predictably produced an astonishing editorial headlined “Nikki Haley Will Be Missed.” Other praise of her upon her impending departure from the UN was related to whom exactly she managed to please while she was in office. The ubiquitous neocon-in-chief Bill Kristol has long been promoting Haley for president. One leading member of Kristol’s neocon chorus, Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, tweeted, “Thank you @nikkihaley for your remarkable service. We look forward to welcoming you back to public service as president of the United States.” Dubowitz is a Canadian Jew, and it would be nice if he could be deported to a remote Internet-free spot on Baffin Island where he can cease interfering in American politics, but that would mean putting an end to the $560,000 in salary and benefits that he enjoys for being one of Israel’s most reliable Fifth Column traitors in the United States.
Nikki was also praised by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “I would like to thank Ambassador @nikkihaley, who led the uncompromising struggle against hypocrisy at the UN, and on behalf of the truth and justice of our country. Best of luck!” The Israeli Army itself had nice things to say, tweeting, “Thank you @nikkihaley for your service in the @UN and unwavering support for Israel and the truth. The soldiers of the Israel Defense Forces salute you!”
It should surprise no one that Haley has recently been in Israel as the guest of the GOP’s leading donors, Sheldon and Miriam Adelson. Ha’aretz enthused over how she “. . . has a wonderful laugh. It’s warm, rounded, and the perfect length to fill the distance between you and her. Haley’s chuckle makes you feel for a moment that you genuinely amuse her, in a good way, so much so that you forget that the laugh came instead of the question you just asked her. When she runs for president, as she no doubt will one day, expect her to deploy that laugh a lot. It’s a valuable political tool. My question at which Haley laughed was ‘does the path to the White House pass through Jerusalem?’ She was in town as the guest of honor at the Israel Hayom Forum for U.S.-Israel Relations, and though I didn’t get an answer, Haley’s willingness to endure the five hours of the ‘forum’ reflected, if not the durability of U.S.-Israel relations, then certainly her relentlessness and professionalism as a politician. . . . Everything about Haley throughout the grueling evening, at least when on public display, showed her meticulous planning and determination, starting with her attire. Her long—and long-sleeved— dress on a sweltering Jerusalem summer evening contrasted with the much shorter dresses all around and drew approval from ultra-Orthodox men. ‘Wow, she really understands tzniess,’ one of them whispered to me, using the Yiddish word for modesty.”
So, Israel is just waiting for President Nikki to arrive and the line about the “path to the White House” running through Jerusalem is the kind of double entendre banter that close friends regularly exchange when discussing something that they know to be true.
It seems inevitable that we Americans go from one lover of Israel to another at the White House due largely to the impact of the narrative contrived through Zionist manipulation of the media and the direct corruption of the government itself by Jewish money. But even by that low standard, Haley is something else. She is a true believer with a fanatical gleam in her eye, just like Pence and Pompeo are in their dispensationalism, and that is very, very scary. Having her at the helm should be anyone’s worst foreign policy nightmare.
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From the Archives
A sample of vaccine and injectable medication tragedies during my lifetime
This is what happens when you demand speedy production in an era of politicized regulation
By Meryl Nass, MD | February 12, 2022
All these tragedies have been due to failures of testing or failures in manufacturing processes. Most occurred before vaccine manufacturers were given virtually complete protection from liability in 1987.
With the duration of patent exclusivity determining how much new products earn, products are rushed to market as quickly as possible, most using a shortened path for FDA review. Recalls and market removals of approved products are much more common than they used to be. We can only expect more of these disasters in the future, especially if the products are mandated for everyone. … continue
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- If Americans Knew
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- No Tricks Zone
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- Germany’s Green Energy Transition Becoming Increasingly Expensive…Another 6 Trillion Euros!
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