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Trump plans withdrawal from Syria – media

RT | February 5, 2025

The Pentagon is drafting plans for a full withdrawal of US troops from Syria, NBC News has reported, citing two anonymous defense officials. This comes shortly after President Donald Trump suggested that America’s military involvement in the country serves no useful purpose.

US troops entered Syria in 2014 on the pretext of fighting Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS), and have maintained a presence in the country ever since, despite never being invited by Damascus.

According to NBC’s report on Tuesday, US defense officials have begun preparing withdrawal plans, with timelines ranging from 30 to 90 days. Sources told the network that Trump’s new national security adviser, Mike Waltz, met with senior military commanders at the headquarters of US Central Command in Tampa, Florida on Friday. He was reportedly briefed on the situation in the Middle East.

Commenting on media reports suggesting that he had informed Israel of the imminent pullout, Trump said last week: “We’ll make a determination on that. We’re not getting, we’re not involved in Syria.”

“Syria is its own mess. They got enough messes over there. They don’t need us involved,” he added.

The Israeli public broadcaster Kan made the claim regarding the supposed withdrawal plans late last month, which presumably caused concern among Israeli officials.

In December 2018, during his first term, Trump announced plans to withdraw US troops from Syria. The decision faced significant pushback from Defense Secretary James Mattis, who ultimately resigned in protest. While some personnel were withdrawn, many were later redeployed

Shortly after the overthrow of Bashar Assad’s government in December 2024 by a loose coalition of armed opposition groups, the Pentagon acknowledged that the number of US troops in the country was in fact 2,000, as opposed to the previously reported 900. Several media outlets claimed later that month that several large US military convoys carrying weaponry and equipment had crossed into Syria from Iraq, further reinforcing the US contingent.

Assad and Moscow have repeatedly denounced the US military presence as an illegal occupation, stressing that Washington was never granted permission to station troops in Syria. The former government in Damascus also accused Washington of stealing the country’s natural resources, given that the US bases are located in the oil-rich northeastern parts of Syria.

The latest claims about the potential withdrawal from Syria came as Trump announced on Tuesday a proposal that includes a plan to “take over” Gaza. He did not rule out deploying US troops to the Palestinian enclave, vowing to “do what is necessary.”

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Illegal Occupation | , , | Leave a comment

How the CIA Spawned Google

By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 05.02.2025

American tech giant Google has faced regulatory scrutiny on numerous occasions amid accusations of antitrust violations. Google’s relationship with the CIA, ranging from early financial support to collaborative efforts have been decried as undermining privacy rights and free speech in the digital landscape.

Google’s creation played a crucial role in the US intelligence community’s scheme to attain global dominance by controlling information.

How it Started

  • The Pentagon founded its private sector project the Highlands Forum during the Clinton administration in 1994, according to the INSURGE INTELLIGENCE project.
  • Together with defense contractors, the group hammered out a strategy for “network-centric warfare.”
  • The 9/11 terrorist attacks were seized upon by US spy agencies to justify not only military invasions across the Muslim world, but also mass surveillance of civilian populations.

CIA Steps In

  • The CIA’s Massive Digital Data Systems (MDDS) program, which originated in the 1990s, was designed to enhance query techniques and track users’ digital footprints.
  • To better serve its goals, in 1999, the CIA established its own venture capital firm, In-Q-Tel, to invest in potentially useful technologies.
  • Ph.D. students at Stanford University, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, were working on precisely such a tech start-up.
  • The design of the search engine and algorithms that ultimately evolved into Google was funded by CIA grants through a program aimed at enhancing mass surveillance capabilities.

PRISM

  • Whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed in 2013 that the NSA had direct access to Google’s systems through its secret PRISM program, enabling the agency to harvest vast amounts of data on American citizens, Washington’s allies, and foreign nationals.
  • Ex-CIA spooks are employed in almost every department at Google, according to a 2022 report based on the analysis of employment websites.
  • Google has been slapped with multiple lawsuits stemming from its history of data misuse and privacy violations.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Did Trump’s Ukraine Peace Plan Just Leak?

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | February 4, 2025

A leaked document has given us a first glimpse at President Donald Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian online newspaper Strana, U.S. officials handed the plan to European diplomats who then passed it on to Ukraine.

The existence of the plan has not been verified, and Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, has said “no ‘100-day peace plan’ as reported by the media exists in reality.”

If the plan is real, and if it is being put on the table by the Trump administration as a finished product that, if rejected, will lead to more sanctions on Russia and more weapons for Ukraine (as Trump has threatened), then the war will go on, and Trump’s promise to quickly end the war will vanish in a puff of delusion. But if the plan is real, and if it is put on the table as a starting point for negotiations, then there is hope. And there is suggestion that it is a starting point.

Here is an item by item analysis of what each side may consider acceptable in the supposed plan and what each side may insist on negotiating further.

The process begins with an immediate phone call between Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin followed by discussions between Washington and Kiev. That the plan may be intended as a starting point for negotiations is suggested by the fork in the schedule that negotiations will continue if common ground is found or pause if it is not. Further negotiations would lead to an Easter truce along the front line, an end of April peace conference, and a May 9 declaration of an agreement.

Russia has said that the Istanbul agreement could still be “the basis for starting negotiations.” In June 2024, Vladimir Putin set out a peace proposal based on the Istanbul agreement, but adjusted for current territorial realities. Putin’s proposal had four points: Ukraine must abandon plans to join NATO, they must withdraw from the four annexed territories, they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and they must ensure the rights of ethnic Russians in Ukraine.

The alleged Trump plan can be evaluated by comparison to Putin’s proposal and to recent statements made by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

  1. Ukrainian troops must withdraw from Kursk at the time of the April Truce. This would be acceptable to Russia, who would insist on Ukrainian troops leaving its territory. But for Ukraine, this would be a difficult concession; not because of the withdrawal but because of the timing. Aside from the strategically catastrophic hope that the Kursk invasion would divert Russian troops away from the Donbas, the point of taking Russian territory was to use it to barter for the return of Ukrainian territory. Giving up the bargaining chip before the negotiations begin would nullify Ukraine’s hope of using it to force the return of more of its land.
  2. Ukraine must end martial law and hold presidential elections by the end of August and parliamentary elections by the end of October. This could be a bitter pill for Zelensky. Recent polling has shown that he could well lose that election. Elections would be welcomed by Russia, who see Zelensky’s government as intransigently hostile and anti-Russia. This would legally transfer hope for regime change to Ukrainians.
  3. Ukraine must declare neutrality and promise not to join NATO; NATO must promise not to expand into Ukraine. Ukraine was willing to abandon its NATO hopes in Istanbul. Though accepted by Kiev as inevitable, it would now be a painful concession. In the absence of NATO membership. It would be a hard sell to Ukrainians that the war after the Istanbul talks was worth the devastation. For Russia, this point is key, and there can be no negotiations without it. It would be the key accomplishment to get the two-sided promise that Ukraine will not ask for membership and NATO will not offer it.
  4. Ukraine will become a member of the European Union by 2030. This item is acceptable to both. EU membership will be necessary for Zelensky to present to Ukrainians as something that was worth fighting for. Ukraine is now free to pursue its ambitions to turn west and join Europe. Though Russia had concerns in 2014 with the EU’s Association Agreement with Ukraine because of its implied integration of Ukraine into the European security and military architecture, Putin has long left EU membership on the table for a postwar Ukraine, and that was specifically agreed to in the Istanbul agreement.
  5. Ukraine will not reduce the size of its armed forces and the United States will continue modernizing the Ukrainian military. While Ukraine will welcome this, it may not be enough. Russia will have a hard time with this one. This is like “the Israeli model” that then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett says Putin and Zelensky were both open to in the early days of the war. But, in the absence of NATO, Zelensky has been adamant about American supported security guarantees. And, already by Istanbul, Russia was demanding limits on Ukraine’s armed forces. At the very least, modernized Ukrainian weaponry would have to be defensive and with a cap on firing into Russian territory.
  6. Ukraine refuses military and diplomatic attempts to return the occupied territories, but does not officially recognize Russian sovereignty. This item does not go far enough for Russia and too far for Ukraine. Zelensky has accepted that “De facto, these territories are now controlled by the Russians. We don’t have the strength to bring them back.” So, he will accept not attempting to return the occupied territories militarily. He has also insisted that Ukraine would never officially recognize Russian sovereignty over those lands. But the added clause, that he will not attempt to return them diplomatically, may be going further than Zelensky has been willing to go. In the case of Crimea, he has reserved the right to try to bring territory back diplomatically. For Russia, the de facto recognition of the territory it occupies will likely be enough. In his proposal, Putin insisted on the complete withdrawal from the territories while saying nothing about Ukraine officially recognizing Russian sovereignty over them. However, though Russia may be willing to negotiate over Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, they are less likely to accept only the lands east of the current front without it including all of the Donbas.
  7. Some sanctions on Russia will be lifted, including European Union bans on Russian oil. This item will likely be acceptable to Ukraine, especially since temporary duty on sales of oil will be used to restore Ukraine. It will likely be acceptable, at least as a starting point, for Russia.
  8. Parties that support Russian language and peaceful relations with Russia can participate in Ukraine’s elections. State actions against the Ukrainian Orthodox Church and Russian language must cease. Though difficult for Zelensky and some forces in Ukraine to accept, protection of language, religious and cultural rights is the second key Russian demand along with NATO.
  9. The idea of a European peacekeeping force is to be discussed separately. The recognition that security guarantees are both key and difficult for both parties is realistic. Neither side will agree to a European security force: Russia because it goes too far, Ukraine because it goes not far enough.

If this possible plan is a final draft whose rejection means negotiations end, then the war will not end. But if Donald Trump’s plan is intended as a starting point to negotiations—the most difficult of which may be the security guarantees — then there is hope.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Pulling the Money Chain: The NGO Network in Ukraine and the Global War on Terror

By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | February 5, 2025

Detritus from Joe Biden’s administration doesn’t just amount to the obvious—inflation and deficit spending, regulations and wars. There’s also been a more subtle shift off of these failures, affecting who has power in our country and how they’ll use it in the future.

Nowhere is the shift less noticed or more definite than in the world of humanitarianism, which has been enriched these past three years by the previous administration’s proxy wars. Since 2022—when the Biden White House responded to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by neither escalating nor defusing but prolonging—a network of humanitarian non-profits has grown up around the conflict. This network has fed off the deaths of Ukrainians and the piling on of debt for future Americans through its operators’ deep contacts with the United States government and its outgrowths.

This network is worth investigating on its own. But with the advent of the second Trump Administration which is looking to wind down the war, its players appear to be pivoting from Ukraine to the Middle East: from ginning up funds for an endless proxy war to ginning them up for a repeat of the Global War on Terror.

The most obvious entry point into this network is Ukraine NGO Coordination Network (UNCN), which has a small staff but a wide reach: forty-two organizations are members. Many of them are some version of globalist: “Cross Border Civilians,” “Aviation without Borders,” “Global Outreach Doctors,” “Medical Teams Worldwide.” And many of these have the institutional links one might expect. Cross Border Civilians recruits from the World Economic Forum while Global Outreach Doctors traffics in Black Lives Matter. But even UNCN non-profits with close connections to Ukraine are much more tied into Washington DC-backed institutions than they first appear.

Listed first of all these organizations is Razom, a Ukrainian-American non-profit active since 2014. Its president, Dora Chomiak, is a Princeton and Columbia graduate who served in the 1990s as a Director of Regional Media Programs for George Soros’ newly-founded Open Society Institute. Under Chomiak’s leadership, Razom has a spot at the World Economic Forum, a regular Soros haunt. It also has a strong presence at Bard College, a major accepter of Ukrainian refugees which recently received a $500 million endowment pledge from Soros, whose second wife directs the Bard Graduate Center.

Razom also has government and university contacts. Samantha Power, the outgoing director of USAID, the government agency responsible for foreign aid, has been a featured speaker at Razom-hosted events, and so has the U.S. State Department’s Special Representative for Ukraine’s Economic Recovery, Penny Pritzker. Columbia University, which has received extensive donations from Soros as well as tax exemptions from Washington, hosts regular pro-Ukrainian events at its Harriman Institute, where Chomiak serves on the board.

Another prominent member of UNCN’s network is Help Ukraine, founded by Brian Mefford, who also founded Wooden Horse Strategies, which by its own description is “a Kyiv-based consulting firm focusing on USAID and EU project development and evaluation, risk analysis, due diligence, political strategy and strategic communications” that “provides clients with both Ukraine and regional insight that achieves results for their projects, businesses and policy objectives.” In 2023, Wooden Horse Strategies was listed by Russian officials as under contract with Ukraine’s Science and Technology Center to help carry out “the United States’ military biological programs in Ukraine.”

This claim isn’t verifiable, but it is verifiable that Ukraine’s Science and Technology Center contracted with Wooden Horse Strategies to combat “disinformation” about the Ukrainian war effort. Mefford was also reliably identified as an attendee at a 2022 Washington summit on the conduct of the war sponsored by “private sector cyber security and intelligence operators and CIA venture capital firm In-Q-Tel,” which, according to its CEO, has seen over thirty of its portfolio companies “deplo[y]” their technologies “as part of Western efforts to support Ukraine.

These players, in other words, are not the Salvation Army. They’re highly plugged into government-funded universities and intelligence agencies as well as the U.S. Department of State. This positions them to be indirect or direct recipients not just of defense and university grants but of staggering amounts of formal humanitarian aid. “Since February 2022,” according to a Congressional Research report released on January 6, 2025, “Congress has appropriated more than $46 billion in emergency funds for accounts solely or partially managed by USAID to address the war in Ukraine” including for “humanitarian assistance.” This is on top of $65.9 billion in direct military assistance in the same period.

It’s not clear, as this report notes, where funds raised and spent this fast actually went. But almost surely some of them percolated directly or indirectly to the organizations which help make up the UNCN. Now, with the Trump administration opposed to further involvement in Ukraine, at least one of UNCN’s players appear to be mobilizing to get funding for a different foreign cause.

This player is Sarah Adams, Chief of Operations for UNCN from January 2022 to January 2024 and an institutional operator par excellence. At the start of her career, Adams worked for a pharmaceutical company with links to Pfizer and in the 2010s she was a CIA analyst abroad, including in Libya. She serves as a Program Analyst for the United States Department of the Air Force in Tampa.

Currently, though, on conservative podcasts like Shawn Ryan’s and Tudor Dixon’s on which she appears, Adams presents herself as a former CIA agent and whistleblower cut from MAGA’s mold: an ex-soldier sounding the alert on jihadi infiltrations. She makes the case for a unified global movement of pre-planned Al Qaeda “wave” attacks which represent a clear and present danger to the United States. Not surprisingly, in the wake of the January 1 terrorist attack in New Orleans, Adams’s supporters claimed validation for her—despite the fact that the attacker was an American-born resident of Texas and a Deloitte employee radicalized online.

Adams claims to be going up against Pentagon pushback when she makes her warnings, despite the fact that she’s employed by the Air Force, which is run from the Pentagon. But the Pentagon’s history of firing employees who dissent, among them decorated Space Force Colonel Matthew Lohmeier, renders this claim extremely dubious. Journalist Max Blumenthal has pointed out other inconsistencies as well. Not only are “Adams’ sources [for her claims] unnamed,” they’re also uncited outside of her constant references to “we.” In only the first fifteen minutes of her appearance on The Shawn Ryan Show, Adams cites “open source” information, i.e. information from publicly available sources or that she got “on the ground”; doesn’t link to those sources (outside of a terrorist training video); and then makes broad claims. One is that Al Qaeda activities in Europe are a planned operation for revenge against America for its interfering in the Middle East. Another is connecting threatened Al Qaeda attacks on America to the October 7 attack against Israel, implying that combating one means combating the other.

The way Adams phrases her warnings reinforces the confusion. She sounds either like she’s not confident in her own material, or that she’s patronizing her audience by talking down. “But it’s just, um, al Qaeda has all these waves of attacks planned, okay” is her way of describing a clear and present threat to Americans. About terrorist trainees: “Remember their life is they train all the time so if that’s all you’re doing all day long, I mean, you’re gonna get really competent at it and then they have different emotions behind it too and, you know, different beliefs, and the religion behind it too, which makes you more devout.” She calls a Pentagon communication to her a “nastygram.” She says (jokingly? not?) that Shawn Ryan’s head of production looks like a terrorist and that she “could have [his address] by the end of the day if I really wanted it.” This doesn’t sound like an experienced veteran delivering a serious warning. It sounds like a self-promoter with a strange side.

When it comes to questions about her analysis or sources, Adams is not tolerant. When I pushed back on X with “total respect” about whether the issue of the Taliban targeting a French Afghani in France was relevant, as Adams claimed, to “all of us,” she responded before blocking me:

One reason Adams may take this attitude is that engaging with American conservatives isn’t really what she wants to be doing; it’s a means to an end. One of her supporters explained to me on X: “Sarah’s focusing on raising attention with ‘the right’ (even though they typically lack nuance) because they’re still national security focused, while Left leaning westerners tend not to [be].” This ally, James Griffin, runs a website titled “Analytica Camillus.” It pairs broad sloganeering (“Morality in Ruthlessness”; “You may not be interested in war but war is interested in you”) with intricately plotted maps of counteroffensives in Ukraine.

All of this raises a question: if Muslim terror tactics have been such clear threats and created such humanitarian calamities, why did self-identified experts in war and humanitarianism like Adams and Griffin spend years focusing on Ukraine and only pivot to Islamism as a new Donald Trump presidency loomed? One answer is that these pivots—from the Russia threat to Muslim terror, from Kosovo to Iraq—have been happening for three decades, executed by the same connected institutional operators in the name of the same general principles applied to different situations based on which administration is in the White House.

These general principles are security and humanitarianism, a double rhetorical punch that has justified the foreign interventions that have created unprecedented non-and-for-profit boondoggles since the 1990s. Tellingly, Adams describes herself as 10% warlord, 90% humanitarian, or a warrior in the name of humanitarian ideals, and neither her pairing of war and human rights nor the profits that accrue from that pairing are new. An early beneficiary was George Soros, whose Open Society Foundations picked up in the Balkans where NATO left off, and who has been heavily invested in Ukrainian companies. The Iraq and Afghanistan wars were also a boondoggle for non-profits as well as for business ventures to “build up” the region America had decimated by players like the Pritzker Family; one of whose members, Thomas Pritzker, set up North America Western Asia Holdings in partnership with a former undersecretary of Defense in the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administration to pursue those opportunities in 2011.

A humanitarian-crusader thru-line also runs through the careers of government officials responsible for these crusades. Biden USAID director Samantha Power made her name in the 1990s with a Pulitzer Prize winning book urging American intervention in the name of human rights and later stage-managed the intervention in Libya, where Sarah Adams served as a CIA analyst. Biden’s Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, a key backer of humanitarianism up to his last days in the State Department, had a father, another humanitarian, who was a key supporter of the NATO expansion off of our 1990s Balkans interventions which began our long cool down with Russia. Both Power and Blinken also  advanced their career off of or in support of the Iraq War. This was the ultimate in humanitarian-security politics gone wrong. It was justified by links between Muslims (Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda) that later proved conflationary and that are uncomfortably similar to the links Sarah Adams is currently making between different Muslim groups.

In between stints in government, both Power and Blinken subsisted off Ivy League research perches with links to nonprofits and security contractors. Almost surely, both will lend their support to policies already being bandied around in Washington, and reinforced by testimony from people like Sarah Adams that empower those institutions. These policies include re-authorizing government surveillance on American citizens and expanding the power of the Department of Homeland Security in the name of combating Muslim terror.

Other prominent supporters of these policies like Aayan Hirsi Ali, operating out of non-profits inside government-funded universities, want Americans to take the same broad-brush approach to national security as Sarah Adams does. But they expand the threats even further, broadcasting a new humanitarian and security crusade against Marxism, Islamism, the Chinese Communist Party, and Vladimir Putin. Tellingly, Hirsi’s husband, Niall Ferguson, an institutionally-connected booster of American interventionism and humanitarianism since a dozen years before the Iraq War, has recently become a Trump supporter, self-professedly dancing at Mar-a-Lago not too long ago.

He, along with longtime interventionist Bret Stephens and Stephens’ protégé, Free Press founder Bari Weiss, have increasingly identified with conservatives while pushing very different focuses. As of January 28, The Free Press’ last twenty international stories have included five on the Western hemisphere or China; the other fifteen have been on Europe and the Middle East. And this doesn’t even mention The Free Press’ separate section on Israel and antisemitism. Whatever one’s views of these issues, these players’ focus is far away from the focus of constitutional conservatives or the Trump White House.

Arguably, these humanitarian-military crusades—the ones which fund people like Sarah Adams, Brian Mefford, and Dora Chomiak, and which open investment opportunities for the Pritzkers and George Soros—are the most durable beneficiaries of America’s post-Cold War deep state apparatus. Quietly since 1995 and loudly since 2001, there has literally not been a year when we weren’t engaged in one of these missions, empowering contractors and non-profits abroad while encouraging surveillance at home.

Today’s latest sales pitch for a new crusade by Ukraine War pushers is something believers in small government and individual liberties should push back against. Profits in the name of war-linked humanitarianism are suspect to begin with. But when they threaten our liberties and our finances, they’re anathema to American interests.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Moscow welcomes Trump’s stance on Kiev’s NATO bid

RT | February 5, 2025

Russia welcomes the statements made by US President Donald Trump regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership ambitions, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has said. Trump is the first Western leader to admit that it was wrong to support Kiev’s plans to join the military bloc, the diplomat said on Wednesday.

Trump stated last month that he understands the Russian stance that Ukraine should not be part of NATO. Speaking to reporters in Florida, the US president said Moscow’s position had long been “written in stone,” but that his predecessor, Joe Biden, had ignored it, which contributed to the current conflict.

“Somewhere along the line, Biden said, ‘[Ukraine], they should be able to join NATO.’ Well, then Russia has somebody right on their doorstep, and I can understand their feelings about that,” Trump added.

Speaking at an ambassadors’ roundtable on Ukraine, Lavrov said Trump’s comments suggest Washington may finally be ready to address issues linked to Ukraine’s NATO bid and the bloc’s eastward expansion.

“President Trump bluntly said that one of the main mistakes was drawing Ukraine into NATO, and that if he had been in power the past four years, the conflict would not have happened,” Lavrov noted.

“For the first time, a Western leader… the leader of the entire Western world, uttered these words, which we welcome because for the first time the problem of NATO was identified as something that the US is ready to discuss seriously,” he added. Lavrov reiterated Moscow’s stance that Ukraine’s NATO aspirations were a root cause of the current conflict, saying that warnings not to encourage these aspirations either fell on deaf ears or were met with “duplicity” and “hypocrisy” by Western politicians.

“The root cause is the conscious, long-term desire and… practical steps of the West to create direct military threats to Russia on our borders, on the territory of Ukraine, and drawing it into NATO. We have raised this issue repeatedly, demanding NATO honor its pledge not to expand eastward, but all was in vain,” Lavrov said. He suggested Trump’s remarks could signal a shift in US policy, which he called crucial as “Washington is the one who will ultimately make the decisions” regarding Ukraine’s NATO membership.

Moscow has long opposed Ukraine’s NATO aspirations, insisting any settlement of the ongoing conflict must include Kiev’s neutrality and demilitarization. Ukraine, however, considers its membership a strategic foreign and security policy objective, and has recently claimed that it sees its admission to the US-led military bloc as a security guarantee to agree to a ceasefire with Moscow. While NATO last year declared that Ukraine was on an “irreversible” path to joining the bloc, its members warned that Kiev would have to meet certain conditions first, such as resolving the conflict with Moscow.

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

US pulls out of UN human rights council, cancels funding to UNRWA

Press TV – February 4, 2025

US President Donald Trump has signed an executive order withdrawing Washington from the UN Human Rights Council and UNRWA, the refugee agency that works primarily with the Palestinians being oppressed by the Israeli regime.

Trump signed the order in the Oval Office of the White House on Tuesday ahead of his meeting with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who had carried out a 15-month genocidal war against the people of Palestine in Gaza in which more than 47,300 people were killed, mostly women and children.

The ceasefire between the Palestinian resistance group Hamas and Israel was reached after the regime failed to realize any of its wartime objectives, including freeing the captives, “eliminating” the Gazan resistance, and causing forced displacement of Gaza’s entire population to neighboring Egypt.

Hundreds of thousands of displaced Palestinians began returning to the northern part of the Gaza Strip.

Trump’s aide introduced the measures, saying, “Next up, in light of numerous actions taken by a number of bodies of the United Nations which exhibited deep anti-American bias, we have an executive order prepared for your attention that would withdraw the United States from the U.N. Human Rights Council.”

“I would withdraw the United States from the UNRWA, which is a refugee organization, and would also review American involvement in UNESCO, which also exhibited anti-American bias,” he added.

“More generally, the executive order calls for a review of American involvement and funding in the UN in light of the wild disparities in levels of funding among different countries that, as you’ve expressed previously, is deeply unfair to the United States,” the aide concluded before giving the order to Trump to sign.

Following the signing of the executive order, Trump said, “So I’ve always felt that the UN has tremendous potential. It’s not living up to that potential right now. It really isn’t and has been for a long time. It has– there are great hopes for it, but it’s not being well run, to be honest, and not doing the job. A lot of these conflicts that we’re working on should be settled, or at least we should have some help in settling them.”

“But we never seem to get help. That should be the primary purpose of the UN and the United Nations. And again, it’s got great potential. And based on the potential, we’ll continue to go along with it. But they’ve got to get their act together,” he added.

“What would they need to do to get their act together?” a reporter asked Trump.

“Well, they’ve got to be fair to countries that deserve fairness. They have some countries, as you know, that are outliers that are very bad, and they’re being almost preferred as countries to those that do their job and are doing a good job. And they have to really they’re going to end up losing a lot of countries and end up losing their credibility like other organizations,” Trump replied.

Trump also said Palestinians would “love” to leave their embattled homeland in Gaza and live elsewhere if given an option.

They would “love to leave Gaza,” he told reporters at the White House. “I would think that they would be thrilled.”

Last week, Trump suggested cleaning out the Palestinian land and relocating the war-stricken people there to neighboring Arab countries, namely Egypt and Jordan.

“You’re talking about probably a million and half people … I’d like Egypt to take people. And I’d like Jordan to take people,” he said. “[W]e just clean out that whole thing,” he said.

In the meantime, the Palestinian leaders and people in Gaza condemned any attempt to relocate them, saying such a move is reminiscent of a dark page in Palestine’s modern history known as the “Nakba” or catastrophe – when millions of Palestinians were forcibly displaced to create room for Israel’s illegal creation.

Member of Hamas’s political bureau, Bassem Naim, said that Palestinians would “foil such projects” as they have done to similar plans “for displacement and alternative homelands over the decades.”

February 5, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

RFK Jr. Wins Crucial Vote, Moves One Step Closer to Top HHS Post

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 4, 2025

The Senate Finance Committee today narrowly advanced Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s nomination to lead the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to the full Senate for a confirmation vote.

The 14-13 vote along party lines came after Kennedy secured the vote of Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee that oversees HHS. Cassidy was the lone Republican considered to be a possible hold-out.

The Senate is expected to vote on Kennedy’s confirmation later this week or early next week, ABC News reported. The nomination “is likely to succeed absent any last-minute vote switches,” The Associated Press reported.

Kennedy, founder and former chairman of Children’s Health Defense (CHD), can be confirmed even if up to three Republican senators and all Democrats vote against him in the full Senate.

If confirmed, Kennedy will oversee a $1.7 trillion budget and 90,000 employees. HHS oversees 13 public health agencies, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

During today’s committee meeting, Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) said, “It is time to put a disruptor” like Kennedy at the helm of the HHS. “I hope he goes wild,” Tillis said.

Shares of vaccine manufacturers and packaged food companies, including Pfizer, Moderna, BioNTech, Novavax, Kraft Heinz, General Mills, Mondelez and Hershey, dropped after today’s vote, Reuters reported.

CHD CEO Mary Holland welcomed today’s outcome. She said:

“CHD is delighted that the Finance Committee is sending RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate. Given the 2024 presidential results, this seems only fitting. ‘Make America Healthy Again’ has become a worldwide rallying cry, and CHD is proud to be a foundational part of this movement.”

In a statement, Dr. Joseph Varon, president and chief medical officer of the Independent Medical Alliance, also welcomed today’s vote. He said:

“Americans demand a frank conversation about the state of our government healthcare agencies, and we’re very grateful for the Senators who responded by voting to move RFK Jr.’s nomination to the full Senate.

“RFK Jr. has been asking the tough questions, and he’s been unmoved in the face of big-corporate money campaigns against him.”

In a statement before the vote, Sen. Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), chair of the committee, said that if confirmed, Kennedy “will have the opportunity to deliver much-needed change to our nation’s healthcare system.”

Cassidy, Kennedy agree to ‘unprecedently close collaborative relationship’

During last week’s hearing in the Senate Finance Committee, Cassidy said he was “struggling” with some of Kennedy’s positions regarding vaccines.

“I’ve had very intense conversations with Bobby and the White House over the weekend and even this morning,” Cassidy posted on X earlier today. “I want to thank VP JD [Vance] specifically for his honest counsel. With the serious commitments I’ve received from the administration and the opportunity to make progress on the issues we agree on like healthy foods and a pro-American agenda, I will vote yes.”

Following today’s vote, Cassidy delivered remarks on the Senate floor, revealing the content of those discussions and the agreement he made with Kennedy to secure his vote.

He said Kennedy committed to a strong public health role for Congress and to meeting or speaking with Cassidy multiple times per month. They also agreed that Cassidy will participate in the hiring process for HHS and the public health agencies it oversees.

“He and I will have an unprecedently close collaborative relationship,” Cassidy said, noting that the hiring decisions that will follow “will allow us to represent all sides of those folks who have contacted me over this past weekend.”

Kennedy also agreed to maintain statements on the CDC website that vaccines do not cause autism and to maintain the recommendations of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

Cassidy said he would also reject any attempt to remove the public’s access to “life-saving vaccines” without “iron-clad, causational scientific evidence” indicating otherwise. He also said he would carefully monitor any attempt to “wrongfully sow public confusion” about vaccines.

Cassidy conceded that “many mothers do need reassurance that the vaccine their child is receiving is necessary, effective, and most of all, safe” and expressed his support for Kennedy’s positions on toxic foods and reforming the NIH.

“These commitments, and my expectation that we can have a great working relationship to Make America Healthy Again, is the basis of my support,” Cassidy said, noting that institutions like NIH and FDA require “reform.”

During last week’s confirmation hearings, Kennedy emphasized his “Make America Healthy Again” agenda and said he would work to tackle the chronic disease epidemic in the U.S.

Kennedy also said he would implement “radical transparency” in HHS. He also voiced support for vaccines — if backed by “good science.”

Related articles in The Defender

This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Trump says US will ‘take over’ Gaza Strip

RT | February 5, 2025

US President Donald Trump has announced that the United States will assume control over the Gaza Strip, vowing to rebuild the war-torn enclave and create economic opportunities for its future residents. When asked whether US troops would be deployed to Gaza, Trump vowed to “do what is necessary.”

Trump made the remarks on Tuesday following his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House. The US president reiterated his view that Palestinians should be permanently resettled elsewhere, adding that the US would “take over” Gaza and lead efforts to clear the destruction left by 15 months of war between Israel and Hamas.

“The US will take over the Gaza Strip. And we will do a job with it, too. We’ll own it and be responsible for dismantling all of the dangerous unexploded bombs and other weapons on the site,” Trump said, promising to “level the site and get rid of the destroyed buildings.”

Asked to clarify what exactly he meant by a “takeover,” the US leader said he envisions a “long-term ownership position” that would supposedly bring “great stability” to the entire Middle East. “Everybody I’ve spoken to loves the idea of the United States owning that piece of land, developing it, and creating thousands of jobs,” Trump claimed.

Trump also said he is not ruling out deploying US troops to support his Gaza development plan. “We’ll do what is necessary. If it’s necessary, we’ll do that. We’re going to take over that place,” he said.

Approximately 92% of homes in the Gaza Strip have been destroyed or severely damaged, and around 1.9 million people – more than 90% of Gaza’s population – have been displaced since the war broke out in October 2023, according to the UN. Trump, a former real estate mogul, has repeatedly referred to Gaza as a “demolition site” in recent weeks.

When asked who would populate Gaza once the US “takes over” and redevelops it, and whether the Palestinian people would be able to return, Trump responded:

“I envision… the world’s people living there. I think the potential in the Gaza Strip is unbelievable. And I think the entire world, representatives from all over the world, will be there and they’ll live there… Palestinians also,” he said. “I don’t want to be a wise guy. But the Riviera of the Middle East – this could be so magnificent.”

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

Trump approves $1 billion in new bombs, armored bulldozers for Israel

The Cradle | February 4, 2025

US President Donald Trump has asked Congress to approve transferring $1 billion worth of additional bombs and other military equipment to Israel, The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported on 4 February.

The planned weapons transfer includes 4,700 bombs that weigh 1,000 lbs each, worth more than $700 million, as well as armored bulldozers built by Caterpillar, worth more than $300 million, the White House officials said.

The 4,700 bombs consist of 4,500 BLU-110s and 200 Mk-83s, which the Pentagon refers to as “general purpose bombs.”

The Caterpillar D9 armored bulldozers are used by the Israeli army to demolish Palestinians’ homes in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.

Funds for the weapons and equipment will come from the billions of dollars in US military aid provided to Israel annually at the expense of US taxpayers.

US-supplied bombs have significantly contributed to Israel’s killing of over 62,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the majority women and children, since the start of the war on 7 October 2023.

The report of the new weapons transfer comes as Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu and other Israeli officials are in Washington to meet with President Trump.

Netanyahu is expected to pressure Trump to approve additional arms transfers that were initially requested by former president Joe Biden, the WSJ added. These additional arms requests include $8 billion in new bombs, missiles, and artillery rounds.

Before Israel’s ground invasion of the city of Rafah in southern Gaza last spring, the US suspended just one shipment of 2,000-pound bombs to Israel.

President Trump lifted the suspension last week, saying he released the bombs because “they paid for them, and they have been waiting for them for a long time.”

Netanyahu later thanked Trump in a video message.

While a temporary ceasefire is currently in place in Gaza, Israel is escalating its war on Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, including through the use of airstrikes.

On 1 February, three Israeli airstrikes killed five Palestinians and injured three others in Jenin in the northern occupied West Bank. Among the victims was a 14-year-old.

During the recent Israeli army campaign in Jenin, dozens of houses have been demolished, and roads in the refugee camp there have been dug up by armored Israeli bulldozers, driving thousands of people from their homes.

Since the beginning of Israel’s war on Gaza in October 2023, Israeli forces and settlers have killed more than 900 Palestinians across the occupied West Bank.

As the war began, former national security minister Itamar Ben Gvir initiated a campaign to arm Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank with thousands of additional high-caliber rifles. He also intensified calls for Israel to annex the occupied Palestinian territory.

When asked about the possibility of annexation on Tuesday, Trump did not answer the question but stressed Israel’s small size.

“It’s a pretty small piece of land,” Trump said. “It’s amazing what they’ve been able to do when you think about it – a lot of good, smart brain power.”

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

‘This is NPR’: America’s Public Media Faces Reckoning on What it is

By Jonathan Turley | February 2, 2025

“This is NPR.” That tagline has long been used for National Public Radio, but what it is remains remarkably in doubt. NPR remains something of a curiosity. It is a state-subsidized media outlet in a country that rejects state media. It is a site that routinely pitches for its sponsors while insisting that it does not have commercials. That confusion may be on the way to a final resolution after the election. NPR is about to have a reckoning with precisely what it is and what it represents.

While I once appeared regularly on NPR, I grew more critical of the outlet as it became overtly political in its coverage and intolerant of opposing views.

Even after a respected editor, Uri Berliner, wrote a scathing account of the political bias at NPR, the outlet has doubled down on its one-sided coverage and commentary. Indeed, while tacking aggressively to the left and openly supporting narratives (including some false stories) from Democratic sources, NPR has dismissed the criticism. When many of us called on NPR to pick a more politically neutral CEO, it instead picked NPR CEO Katherine Maher, who was previously criticized for her strident political views.

Some have long questioned the federal government’s subsidization of a media organization. NPR itself continues to maintain that “federal funding is essential” to its work. However, this country has long rejected state media models as undermining democratic values.

This funding is likely more important given NPR’s cratering audience and revenue. NPR’s audience has been declining for years. As a result, NPR has been forced to make deep staff cuts.

Ironically, NPR has one of the least diverse audiences. Its audience is overwhelmingly white, liberal, and more affluent than the rest of the country. Yet, while serving fewer and fewer people, it still expects most of the country to subsidize its programming.

Many of us have argued that NPR should compete with other radio companies in the free market. Notably, some Democratic members pushed to get Fox News dropped by cable carriers despite not being subsidized and ranking as the most-watched cable news network. (For full disclosure, I am a legal analyst at Fox.)

NPR and PBS are facing calls to remove the subsidy at long last. However, at the same time, pressure is coming from the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). FCC Chair Brendan Carr is inquiring about NPR’s claim that it does not do commercial advertising.

Many of us have noticed that NPR has ramped up its sponsor statements with taglines about the products or firm’s clientele. Carr wrote, “I am concerned that NPR and PBS broadcasts could be violating federal law by airing commercials. In particular, it is possible that NPR and PBS member stations are broadcasting underwriting announcements that cross the line into prohibited commercial advertisements.”

The support for noncommercial radio and television stations fell under different regulations. It is hard to see the sponsor acknowledgments not as commercial advertising. It is common for for-profit outlets to have hosts read commercial sponsors.

Noncommercial educational broadcast stations-or NCEs are prohibited under Section399B of the Communications Act from airing commercials or other promotional announcements on behalf of for-profit entities.

What is interesting is that NPR stresses that the “NPR way” is actually better to reach consumers:

Across platforms, NPR sponsor messages are governed by slightly different regulations, but the guiding spirit is the same: guidelines are less about what’s ‘allowed’ and more about the approach that works best for brands to craft sponsor recognition messages that connect with people in ‘the NPR way.

It is common for law firms or companies to have hosts herald their work in given areas. It is also common to have product references.

The thrust of NPR’s pitch to advertisers is that this is a different type of pitch to attract more customers.  However, the federal government long ignored the obvious commercial advertisement.

There is little discernible difference between NPR and competitors beyond pretense when it comes to bias or promotions. What is striking is how NPR’s shrinking audience righteously opposes any effort to withdraw public subsidies. While dismissing the values or views of half the country, they expect those citizens to support its programming. What would the reaction be if Congress ordered the same subsidy for more popular competitors like Fox Radio?

I would oppose a subsidy for Fox as I do NPR. Each outlet should depend on its viewership for support. Notably, many liberal outlets continue to maintain their biased coverage despite falling ratings and revenues. The Washington Post has had to again lay off employees and has lost roughly half of its readership.

After being called in to right the ship, Washington Post publisher and CEO William Lewis delivered a truth bomb in the middle of the newsroom by telling the staff, “Let’s not sugarcoat it… We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right? I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”

Nevertheless, writers at the LA Times and other outlets continue to argue against balanced coverage. They would rather lose readers and revenue than their bias. So be it. These outlets have every right to offer their own slanted viewpoints or coverage. They do not have a right to a federal subsidy to insulate them from the response of consumers.

It is time to establish a bright-line rule against government subsidies for favored media outlets. “This is NPR” but it is not who we should be as a nation.

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Is North Korea a nuclear state?

By Konstantin Asmolov – New Eastern Outlook – February 4, 2025

The transition from the Biden to the Trump government was marked by an interesting discussion as to how the outgoing and coming administrations view North Korea’s nuclear potential.

Republicans: DPRK is a nuclear state and de-nuclearisation is unlikely

On January 14, US Secretary of Defence nominee Pete Hegseth called North Korea a “nuclear power” that poses a threat to global stability. He noted Pyongyang’s success in increasing its nuclear potential, bringing down the size of nuclear warheads and improving mobile launch platforms, which is of particular concern given North Korea’s proximity to the territories where US military contingents are located.

Also, Donald Trump intends to appoint Elbridge Colby, who served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defence for Strategy and Force Development in his first term, to the post of Under Secretary of Defence for Policy. This is a man who believes that the de-nuclearisation of the DPRK is an ‘unlikely’ goal. In addition, Colby believes that US troops on the Korean peninsula should focus more on threats from China and that “North Korea is not the primary threat to the United States”. “It is irrational to sacrifice several American cities to fight the DPRK” and Washington should allow South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons or at least to seriously consider such a possibility.

Democrats: DPRK is not a nuclear state, de-nuclearisation remains the goal

On the same day, January 14, the outgoing US president’s national security adviser, John Kirby, noted that the White House’s policy on this issue had not changed. The current US administration, led by Joe Biden, does not agree with Pete Hegseth’s statement.

On January 7, former US Ambassador to the Republic of Korea, Philip Goldberg, stated that, despite the issues associated with the development of Pyongyang’s nuclear and weapons capabilities, the de-nuclearisation of North Korea should remain a goal that must continue to be fought for.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry made similar statements: “North Korea’s de-nuclearisation has been a principle consistently upheld by South Korea, the United States and the international community” … Under the NPT (Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons), North Korea can never be recognised as a nuclear-armed state”.

The conservative media in South Korea also began to sound the alarm; such terminology ‘not only changes the international community’s understanding of North Korea’s nuclear status, but also undermines the long-standing efforts of South Korea and the United States to achieve the de-nuclearisation of the North’. “Recognising North Korea as a nuclear power is fundamentally different from recognising its technical nuclear capabilities”. Their writing show concerns that by shifting the conversation from de-nuclearisation to arms control, Washington and Pyongyang may eventually agree to freeze the nuclear programme, from which the US-ROK alliance would take a blow and which could also trigger a nuclear domino effect. “If North Korea is recognised as a nuclear power, countries like South Korea, Japan and even Taiwan may reconsider their non-nuclear positions”.

Marco Rubio’s views

A while later, on January 16, in response to statements that the US’ policy towards North Korea, including sanctions, is ‘ineffective’ and Pyongyang is only doubling down on its nuclear and missile programmes, Secretary of State nominee Marco Rubio has already noted that Washington should take a serious look at policy on North Korea to study how to reduce the risk of an ‘unintended’ war between the two Koreas and prevent a crisis on the Korean peninsula without encouraging countries to build their own nuclear weapons.

Note that the new Secretary of State does not make the North out to be a ‘threat to humanity’ and sets more practical tasks, avoiding what the author calls ‘conflict for irrational reasons’ and the likely fall of the nuclear non-proliferation regime due to the emergence of new nuclear actors (we shall not name them specifically, but all is clear to everyone).

Rubio admitted that he was initially sceptical about engaging with Pyongyang, but during his first term as president, Trump “stopped missile tests. This did not stop the development of the programme, but at least it calmed the situation down a bit”.

Rubio did not directly mention de-nuclearisation, but noted that Kim Jong Un “used nuclear weapons as an insurance policy to stay in power” and “no sanctions prevented him from developing this potential”.

The South Korean Foreign Ministry’s response to Rubio’s remark on January 16, 2025, was similar to the answer to Hegseth: the de-nuclearisation of North Korea is a “unanimous goal” shared by the international community. We have heard Rubio, but “the new Trump administration has yet to outline its policy towards Pyongyang” and South Korea “intends to maintain close contacts with the United States in the process of reviewing its policies to ensure a coordinated response to North Korea’s nuclear and other challenges”.

In summary…

Previously, US officials refused to publicly recognise North Korea as a nuclear power, even though Pyongyang has called itself a nuclear power in its constitution, adopted a nuclear doctrine and showed no willingness to discuss giving up its nuclear weapons. In their opinion, the use of this term can be interpreted as the recognition of the DPRK’s nuclear status and thus negatively affect US efforts to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons.

The Biden administration tried to look the other way and not acknowledge the reality, perceiving the North Korean regime as a country that does not yet have real nuclear potential and, importantly, may even be subject to de-nuclearisation. Although, it was clear by the end of the 2010s that such a process was possible only after a regime change.

The Trump administration is more realistic in this regard. Perhaps the fact of the matter is that there are quite a lot of military personnel who have worked in the field and are well aware of what real North Korean nuclear missile power is.

The question, however, is how US policy will be adjusted in relation to the idea of a nuclear North. Say Trump decides to recognise North Korea’s nuclear status; what practical steps will follow and how it will affect changes in sanctions? On the one hand, it becomes clear that de-nuclearisation, which was the main formal goal of the negotiations between Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un at the previous stage, no longer makes sense. At best, it makes sense to talk about arms control and here there are some theoretical prospects. On the other hand, for American public opinion, North Korea remains an ‘evil state’ to which concessions are unacceptable. This means that Donald Trump will have to think very carefully to come up with a proposal that Pyongyang will actually be ready to discuss. Moreover, if such a proposal is formulated, the American deep state and public opinion will be strongly opposed to such concessions and it is unclear whether Donald Trump will be able to put his ideas into practice.

Nevertheless, it is still pleasant that the new US administration is beginning to recognise reality vis-à-vis Korea.

Konstantin Asmolov, PhD in History, Leading research fellow at the Center for Korean Studies, Institute of China and Modern Asia, Russian Academy of Sciences

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Forty Years Bashing the National Endowment for Democracy

By Jim Bovard | The Libertarian Institute | February 4, 2025

In a November 29, 1985 piece in the Oakland Tribune, I hailed NED as “one of the newest, most prestigious boondoggles on the Potomac.” But there were plenty of scoffers early on: “NED has been called many things—an International Political Action Committee, the Taxpayer Funding of Foreign Elections Program, and a slush fund for political hacks who like to travel to warm climates in cold weather. In less than two years, NED has lived up to all these epithets.” My op-ed concluded, “The sooner NED is abolished, the cleaner our foreign policy will be.”

The following year, after fresh NED scandals, Senator Ernest Hollings (D-SC) howled, “This thing is not the National Endowment for Democracy but the National Endowment for Embarrassment.” Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) complained, “From its very inception, the National Endowment for Democracy has been riddled with scandal and impropriety.”

But it was a “jobs for the boys” program that enabled politicians to launder money to plenty of their aides and donors, so it survived one pratfall after another.

In 2006, in “Defining Democracy Down” in The American Conservative, I wrote:

“In 2001, NED quadrupled its aid to Venezuelan opponents of elected president Hugo Chavez, and NED heavily funded some organizations involved in a bloody military coup that temporarily removed Chavez from power in April 2002. After Chavez retook control, NED and the State Department responded by pouring even more money into groups seeking his ouster.

The International Republican Institute, one of the largest NED grant recipients, played a key role both in the Chavez coup and also in the overthrow of Haiti’s elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In February 2004, an array of NED-aided groups and individuals helped spur an uprising that left 100 people dead and toppled Aristide. Brian Dean Curran, the U.S. ambassador to Haiti, warned Washington that the International Republican Institute’s actions ‘risked us being accused of attempting to destabilize the government.’

The U.S. pulled out all the stops to help our favored candidate win a ‘free and fair’ election in 2004 in the Ukraine. In the two years prior to the election, the United States spent over $65 million ‘to aid political organizations in Ukraine, paying to bring opposition leader Viktor Yushchenko to meet U.S. leaders and helping to underwrite exit polls indicating he won a disputed runoff election,’ according to the Associated Press. Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) complained that “much of that money was targeted to assist one particular candidate, and… millions of dollars ended up in support of the presidential candidate, Viktor Yushchenko.’ Yet with boundless hypocrisy, Bush had proclaimed that “any [Ukrainian] election… ought to be free from any foreign influence.”

In a 2009 piece for the Future of Freedom Foundation, I wrote, “NED is based on the notion that its meddling in foreign elections is automatically pro-democracy because the U.S. government is the incarnation of democracy. NED has always operated on the principle that ‘what’s good for the U.S. government is good for democracy.’”

In 2017, Donald Trump’s first administration dropped “democracy promotion” from the list of official goals of U.S. foreign policy. In a USA Today op-ed with the headline, “End Democracy Promotion Balderdash,” I wrote that the reform “could sharply reduce America’s piety exports… It is time to recognize the carnage the U.S. has sown abroad in the name of democracy.” I warned:

“Democracy promotion gives U.S. policymakers a license to meddle almost anywhere on Earth. The National Endowment for Democracy, created in 1983, has been caught interfering in elections in France, Panama, Costa Rica, Ukraine, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Russia, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Haiti and many other nations… Rather than delivering political salvation, U.S. interventions abroad more often produce ‘no-fault carnage’ (no one in Washington is ever held liable).”

In a 2018 op-ed headlined “Time for the US to end democracy promotion flim-flams” in The Hill, I wrote:

“Democracy promotion has long been one of the U.S. government’s favorite foreign charades. The Trump administration’s proposal to slash funding for democratic evangelism is being denounced as if it were the dawn of a new Dark Age. But this is a welcome step to draining a noxious swath of the Washington swamp…

Unfortunately, many Washingtonians are blinded by self-serving sanctimony. National Democratic Institute president Kenneth Wollack claims that equating U.S. and Russian interventions in foreign elections is like ‘comparing someone who delivers lifesaving medicine to someone who brings deadly poison.’ But the opiate crisis illustrates how easily therapeutic concoctions can produce vast carnage…

Democracy often provides a vast improvement in governance in foreign lands but bribery, finagling, and bombing are poor ways to export freedom. Can Washington politicians and policy wonks explain why the U.S. government deserves veto power over elections everywhere else on Earth?”

Since that 2018 op-ed, NED became a top funder of the worldwide Censorship Industrial Complex. It has also continued trying to rig foreign elections. NED tacitly justifies itself because “God wants democracy to win.” The U.S. government is simply doing God’s work—or doing what God would do if he knew as much as U.S. government agencies.

In 1984, Congressman Hank Brown (R-CO) provided a single sentence that should have nullified NED’s right to exist: “It is a contradiction to try to promote free elections by interfering in them.”  But contradictions never stopped the growth of Leviathan. NED’s continued existence is a testament to the perpetual perfidy of U.S. foreign policy. With pressure from Musk and from the Trump administration, Americans may soon learn of far more NED scandals.

February 4, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

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