Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Washington’s new plan to control the Global South

By Anna Belkina | RT | September 20, 2024

When US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken announced a new “joint diplomatic campaign” to be implemented in concert with Canada and the UK last week, he clearly set out the initiative’s goal – “to rally allies and partners around the world to join us in addressing the threat posed by RT and other machinery of Russian disinformation and covert influence.”

Make no mistake: there is nothing diplomatic in this latest US effort to silence any voice that does not adhere to the Washington- and London-dictated narratives about the world.

The point of all news media is to inform. Any information has the potential to influence people. Thus, the collective West has set out to curtail all potential influence that is not theirs.

Helping hand

James Rubin, the coordinator for the US State Department’s Global Engagement Center, elaborated on how this plan would work in an interview with his ex-wife, Christiane Amanpour, on CNN.

“Other countries will make decisions for themselves,” of course, but the charitable, the always-benevolent, the never self-interested American hand will be “helping other governments come to their own decisions about how to treat” RT.

Ah, all those poor, hapless “other governments” that clearly cannot read, watch, think, and decide for themselves. They were just waiting for Big Brother to help them.

What Rubin was really doing was scapegoating RT – and by extension, all other independent voices in what is supposed to be a free and diverse global information space, reflecting a diverse, very complicated, multipolar world – for the increasingly diminishing buy-in of much of the world into Washington’s foreign policies, and propaganda campaigns that accompany them.

As Rubin admitted during his press conference, “one of the reasons […] why so much of the world has not been as fully supportive of Ukraine as you would think they would be […] is because of the broad scope and reach of RT – where propaganda, disinformation, and lies are spread to millions if not billions of people around the world.”

Which countries refused to jump on board with the US and NATO support of the Kiev regime and the continuous escalation of the conflict? In reality, it is most of the world, including such geopolitical giants as India and China, who preferred to leave regional issues to the region in question.

Where official positions are concerned, it’s mostly NATO and its cohorts’ one billion vs our planet’s other seven. And while in those seven not everyone in the general population is of the same mind, neither is everyone in the US and other NATO countries.

Yet, due to the decades-long domination of the international information space by American and European mainstream news media (can you believe the BBC is over 100 years old?), many have been conditioned to think of the world – in the sense of who defines the global order, its rights and its wrongs – as the US and its vassal-state allies.

Notably, Mr Rubin specifically referred to Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa as regions where RT must be stopped. In other words, the so-called Global South. What’s got the US State Department so worried there?

RT’s success is Western media’s loss

Western military, political, and media establishments have been panicked over their loss of monopoly on global information in general, and about RT’s growing reach and influence in particular, for a while now. The self-proclaimed champions of free press, speech and thought cannot handle any of that free-thinkin’ they campaigned for.

To wit, have a scroll:

THE FOUNDATION FOR DEFENSE OF DEMOCRACIES, US: “Washington is struggling in the battle for hearts and minds in the ‘Global South’, where Russian propaganda outlets are often more popular than Western media.”

NEWSWEEK : “… it’s in the Global South that Russia has reaped the most significant rewards. The popularity of the Kremlin-controlled TV station Russia Today is high…”

POLITICO : “… many of the Kremlin-backed accounts – especially those from sanctioned media outlets like RT and Sputnik – have an oversized digital reach. Collectively, these companies boast millions of followers in Europe, Latin America and Africa…”

ROYAL UNITED SERVICES INSTITUTE, UK: “Latin America has witnessed a growth in Russian information efforts. Just like in the Middle East, Russia is operating a number of popular media channels, such as RT en Espanol, Sputnik Mundo and Sputnik Brasil, with substantial followings.”

CENTER FOR STRATEGIC AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES, US: “Russia’s […] media presence and influence [in Latin America] are unmatched… The reach of Russia’s technique has proven to be effective … Actualidad RT and Sputnik Mundo have become so mainstream in LAC, that in December 2022, RT Spanish won three prestigious Mexican journalism awards for their coverage of the war in Ukraine.”

WILSON CENTER, US: “Russia has successfully implemented long-term strategies to capture and influence intellectual elites in Latin America.”

ATLANTIC COUNCIL: “Russia has established a significant media and information footprint throughout the [Latin American] region with Russia Today and Sputnik News.”

EL MUNDO, SPAIN: “In addition to hybrid channels, [Russia] uses public companies such as Russia Today, whose propaganda is triumphing in Latin America – the Spanish-speaking version of RT […] is integrated into family daily life from Venezuela to Bolivia.”

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS TIMES, UK: “Egyptian media ran headlines and reports verbatim from RT Arabic, […] EU Reporter, an independent media outlet, reported that ‘Russian media outlets like RT Arabic and Sputnik are extremely popular, with RT Arabic becoming one of the most trafficked news websites in the country.’”

FOREIGN POLICY : “RT Arabic and Sputnik Arabic emerged as major sources of legitimate regional news in the Middle East.”

JOSEP BORRELL, HIGH REPRESENTATIVE OF THE EU FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS AND SECURITY POLICY: “When you go to some African countries and you see people supporting Putin, supporting what Putin is doing in Donbass, saying Putin has saved Donbass, now he will come to Africa and save us.”

ABC, SPAIN: “The Kremlin has tried to increase its influence in the media using Russia Today and Sputnik News. And there have also been collaboration agreements with local media, hiring African journalists and African activists, and at the same time generating news in Arabic, English or French to gain the support of the African population.”

Thank you, thank you very much.

Exporting censorship

Since RT’s launch in 2005, our journalists have brought to light countless stories and points of view disallowed in the Western mainstream. We have built a massive global audience and won the trust of viewers and readers worldwide.

But, despite Western elites’ declarations to the contrary, any voice that fails to fit into the rather cramped echo-chamber they have set up to accommodate supposedly free discourse, is inherently seen as illegitimate. Therefore, it must be silenced.

Which is why, having pushed out official RT channels from Western airwaves and digital platforms, they now want – nay, need and ought – to export their particular brand of censorship globally. They pledge to wage a coordinated campaign to force other nations into following their example, all so that the West can recover its information monopoly. They must “disrupt [RT] activities” everywhere. It is not enough for them to silo off their own people from inconvenient facts and alternative viewpoints. They have the megalomania and the audacity to say that no one in the world should hear them either.

This is especially so in the Global South countries – the ones that the US has gotten accustomed to patronizing, manipulating, dominating, undermining and overthrowing unsuitable-to-them regimes, and outright controlling in any way they could, over the last century.

Welcome to neocolonialism, Taylor’s 2024 Version.

Government folks have also already lined up Silicon Valley wunderkinds – the tech giants that are ever so eager to curry political favor in order to stay on the lax side of corporate regulation – in this endeavor. Meta, which blocked access to RT’s Facebook and Instagram accounts in the EU in 2022, has overnight removed RT from its platforms – entirely and worldwide.

YouTube removed RT’s record-breaking channels everywhere that same year, but Google’s parent company, Alphabet, had already worked to “de-rank” RT and Sputnik in Google searches back in 2017.

After all, “RT is the top recommended source for news concerning Douma’s chemical weapons attack, Skripal poisoning and the Syrian White Helmets,” wrote the Atlantic Council in 2018. In 2019, “Bild conducted a test and entered the query ‘Ukraine’ into Google News. Again, among the top ten articles were three from RT Deutsch and Contra Magazin.” When people looked for news, they came to RT.

This could not stand.

A quick aside: despite all the claims by the Americans and the Brits about RT’s supposed attempts to “sow discord” in their societies, the network really should be lauded for bringing people together instead. In the US, where political bipartisanship is a near-extinct species, the Biden administration’s present-day efforts are fully endorsed by Fiona Hill, of Donald Trump’s National Security Council, who argued that “there has to be concerted action against RT.” In the UK, the recently elected Labor leadership has fully adopted their Tory predecessors’ anti-RT playbook.

Not going away

Let me be clear: RT is not going anywhere, in the West nor in the Global South. Our journalists will continue to do their jobs. We will continue to find ways to have our voice heard. Our audiences “of millions if not billions of people around the world” expect nothing less of us. This is our duty to the global community.

As for the global community, where does it stand, in the face of this new US-led campaign?

The Hindu, one of India’s newspapers of record, reported that already “US officials have spoken to [India’s] Ministry of External Affairs about joining their actions against what they call ‘Russian disinformation’, by revoking accreditations and designating [RT] journalists under the ‘Foreign Missions Act’. However, while the ministry has been silent on the issue, government officials said that the debate on sanctions is not relevant to India, while a former diplomat said that banning media organizations showed ‘double standards’ by Western countries… An official said that the matter ‘does not pertain’ to India and pointed out that India does not follow unilateral sanctions that are not approved by the United Nations.”

We are confident that the rest of the truly independent world will follow suit.

Anna Belkina is RT’s deputy editor in chief and head of communications, marketing and strategic development.

September 20, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

New Report: State Department Funded Fact-checkers to Censor ‘Lawful Speech’

By Michael Nevradakis, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 18, 2024

The U.S. Department of State-funded domestic and international fact-checking entities that censored American independent media outlets and social media users who questioned the Biden administration’s COVID-19 and other policies, according to a congressional report.

The report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Small Business stated:

“The Federal government has funded, developed, and promoted entities that aim to demonetize news and information outlets because of their lawful speech.”

The government’s actions fueled “a censorship ecosystem” that suppressed “individuals’ First Amendment rights” and “the ability of certain small businesses to compete online.”

The report focused on the State Department’s Global Engagement Center (GEC), which promoted and funded “tech start-ups and other small businesses in the disinformation detection space … with domestic censorship capabilities.”

The “fact-checking” firms named in the report include the International Fact-Checking Network — owned by the Poynter Institute — and NewsGuard.

The International Fact-Checking Network, established in 2015, has received funding from another State Department-affiliated group, the National Endowment for Democracy — and from Google, the Open Society Foundations and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

According to the House report, the federal government “assisted the private sector in detecting alleged MDM [misinformation-disinformation-malinformation] for moderation” and “worked with foreign governments with strict internet speech laws,” including European Union member states and the United Kingdom, to censor speech.

The report determined that the GEC and the National Endowment for Democracy violated international restrictions by “collaborating with fact-checking entities” to assess the content of domestic media outlets.

The “fact-checking” operations targeted independent media outlets, and as a result, “the scales are tipped in favor of outlets which express certain partisan narratives rather than holding the government accountable.”

Whether the State Department’s actions rise to “unconstitutional violations of the First Amendment is currently before the courts,” the report stated.

The State Department and several GEC officials are defendants in Murthy v. Missouri, a lawsuit alleging the Biden administration colluded with social media to censor free speech.

Children’s Health Defense (CHD) and its chairman on leave, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., are plaintiffs in Kennedy v. Biden, a similar lawsuit that last year was consolidated with Murthy v. Missouri.

The Poynter Institute is a defendant in another censorship lawsuit, CHD v. Meta, that CHD filed against Facebook’s parent company.

NewsGuard partnered with CDC, WHO to censor online content

According to the report, NewsGuard used money it received from the GEC and the U.S. Department of Defense to fund efforts to lower the advertising revenue “of businesses purported to spread MDM.”

“A system that rates the credibility of press is fatally flawed as it is subject to the partisan lens of the assessor, making the ratings unreliable,” the report states.

NewsGuard leveraged taxpayer dollars to develop Misinformation Fingerprints, a product that “catalogues what it determines to be the most prominent falsehoods and ‘misinformation narratives’” circulating online, “essentially outsourcing the U.S. government’s perception of fact to NewsGuard,” the report states.

NewsGuard later partnered with dozens of companies, organizations, universities and media outlets, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Office of the Surgeon General and the World Health Organization (WHO).

“During the pandemic, the WHO enlisted NewsGuard for its input, including regular reports, on which COVID-19 narratives it determined to be misinformation were prevalent online,” the report states. “The WHO then contacted social media companies and search engines asking them to remove this content.”

‘Nobody wanted’ fact-checkers until ‘actual truths started getting out’

Tim Hinchliffe, publisher of The Sociable, told The Defender, “These so-called ‘fact-checkers’ are not in the business of actually checking facts. They are in the business of controlling narratives … Nobody wanted or needed these organizations until actual truths started getting out.”

Catherine Austin Fitts, founder and publisher of the Solari Report and former U.S. assistant secretary of Housing and Urban Development, told The Defender the government increasingly relies on censorship to promote its favored narratives.

“They need to institute more and more censorship,” Fitts said. “It’s hard to refute the gaslighting that flows from this imagination factory.”

Francis Boyle, J.D., Ph.D., professor of international law at the University of Illinois, told The Defender he wasn’t surprised that the State Department is “working to censor those who disagree with U.S. government policies and their globalist agenda.”

The report recommends that no federal funds “should be used to grow companies whose operations are designed to demonetize and interfere with the domestic press” and that federal agencies “should not be outsourcing their perception of fact to speech-police organizations subject to partisan bias.”

GEC also faces the loss of its government funding. According to the Washington Examiner, “A provision through the annual State Department appropriations bill, which passed the House this summer and will be negotiated in the Senate, aims to ban future checks to the GEC.”

But for Boyle, this is not enough. He said the State Department has, “at a minimum,” committed “the federal crime of conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government.”

Censorship ‘a pendulum that swings both ways’

The Gateway Pundit last week reported on additional links between the International Fact-Checking Network, other “fact-checking” firms and Big Tech.

In 2015, Poynter partnered with Google News Lab, which earlier that year, helped establish First Draft News. Active until 2022, First Draft was a consortium of social media verification groups that shared methods for combating “fake news.”

Another First Draft founder, fact-checking firm Bellingcat, also received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy.

First Draft was previously led by Claire Wardle, Ph.D., a Brown University professor who, according to “Twitter Files” released last year, advised the Biden administration on COVID-19 “misinformation” — despite having no science or medical credentials.

In 2016, Poynter and the International Fact-Checking Network partnered with First Draft “to tackle common issues, including ways to streamline the [news] verification process.” Other partners included Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, ABC News, NBC News and BBC News.

In 2017, Google News Lab partnered with the International Fact-Checking Network “to dramatically increase the searchable output of fact-checkers worldwide, expand fact-checking to new markets and support fact-checking beyond politics, such as in sports, health and science.” The following year, Poynter acquired PolitiFact.com.

Google was also one of the original funders of The Trust Project, a consortium of news organizations that developed eight “trust indicators” to help the public “easily assess the integrity of news.”

These “trust indicators” later became “one of the sources being used by NewsGuard Technologies for a new product to improve news literacy,” and formed “a foundation for NewsGuard review development.”

Hinchliffe warned that the beneficiaries of censorship based on today’s “fact-checking” may become its targets in the future.

“One of the problems of censorship that operates under the guise of misinformation and disinformation, apart from stifling free speech and suppressing actual truths, is that it’s a pendulum that swings both ways,” he said. “The people calling for censorship now may be in a greater position of power to do so, but it will one day swing back at them.”

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.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Science and Pseudo-Science | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Could Lebanon Blasts Affect Global Security and Attitude to Western Hi-Tech Producers?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 19.09.2024

A series of blasts reportedly involving Taiwanese, Japanese, American, and European-made devices in Lebanon on September 17 and 18 have prompted grave security concerns worldwide.

“Weaponizing mobile communications devices will fill many people with horror and fear,” Marc Ostwald, chief economist at ADM Investor Services International, told Sputnik. “It may, at the margin, dampen demand.”

The Lebanese government attributed the attack to Israel, accusing Tel Aviv of an outright act of terrorism.

Given almost “unconditional support” provided to Israel by some Western countries, some of them may have colluded with Tel-Aviv, said Hasan Abdullah, analyst and researcher at Global Security and Strategy Institute.

“The US is going to be the country that’s going to generate the greatest trust deficit with their customers, primarily because of its very close collaboration with Israel,” Abdullah told Sputnik.

The US has long been one of the largest suppliers of communication equipment, including for military needs, to the Global South, the pundit noted, adding that the recent blasts could alienate the developing world from Western producers.

Earlier, researcher Mehmet Rakipoglu and military analyst Alexei Leonkov told Sputnik they did not rule out US involvement in the Lebanon attack.

The Intercept reported on Wednesday that the US military had explored the possibility of planting remote-activated bombs in innocuous devices starting from the 1960s.

Middle East and other developing countries could eventually turn to Russian, Chinese or Turkish tech firms out of fear that the US involvement could compromise their security, Abdullah said.

Ostwald and Abdullah believe that several measures could be taken to stop the covert bombings, starting with investigations into manufacturing processes and ending with the deployment of international watchdogs to oversee production and supply.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Economics, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukraine at the Crossroads

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | September 18, 2024

The West is being increasingly confronted with the cold realization that Ukraine cannot win this war. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has set as a threshold for victory, not only the recapture of territory up to his country’s prewar borders, but the reclamation of all of its territory to the 2014 border, including the Donbas and Crimea. There are few among Ukraine’s Western backers who subscribe any longer to that illusion.

But Western governments and the Western media delude their public into believing that the war is a stalemate that Russia also cannot win. This assessment is based on the unsubstantiated claim that the threshold for Russia winning is, as a start, the subjugation of Ukraine in its entirety.

But that has never been Russia’s stated goal. Just as listening to Zelensky’s stated definition of victory leads to the realization that it cannot be attained, so listening to Vladimir Putin’s leads to the conclusion that it can. Russia cannot subjugate all of Ukraine. But it has also never claimed that as its goal. Putin has consistently said that “this conflict is not about territory… [it] is about the principles underlying the new international order.” He has said that Russia never intended to conquer Kiev and that the early advance toward the capital was intended to force Ukraine into the negotiations that the United States declined.

Putin’s stated goals have always been a written assurance that Ukraine will not join NATO and protection of ethnic Russians in the Donbas. His June peace proposal contains those very points. The proposal states that Ukraine must guarantee that it will be a non-nuclear, non-aligned neutral nation that will not join NATO. It states that Ukraine must completely withdraw from Donetsk, Lugansk, Kherson, and Zaporozhye, that they must agree to limits on the size of their armed forces, and that they must ensure the rights of the Russian-speaking citizens of Ukraine.

If that is Russia’s definition of victory, then it is not impossible that Russia could win the war. And the advance on Pokrovsk is bringing some of those key points closer to realization.

Ukraine’s Western partners are at a crossroad. Plans of providing Ukraine with whatever they need for as long as it takes to push Russia out of Ukraine have been replaced by reinvigorating Ukraine’s position on the battlefield to strengthen their position at the inevitable negotiating table, even if that means, as one Western columnist put it, allowing Ukraine to “bomb Putin to the negotiating table.”

That would be one side of the crossroad: escalating war to advance peace. But that road, if it crosses Russia’s red line, is fraught with hazards. The other would be to find an offroad to the war, a road that leads to diplomatic negotiations and peace. Ukraine and some of its NATO partners, perhaps most importantly Britain, are urgently pushing the former. But a growing choir of Ukraine’s partners may be beginning to consider the second road.

In a vague article that names no names, Bloomberg reports that “some of Ukraine’s allies are starting to talk about how the fight against Russia’s invasion might end.” According to the report, “officials are more seriously gaming out how a negotiated end to the conflict and an off-road could take shape.” Facing the realization that Ukraine is unlikely to improve its position on the battlefield, “some allied officials” have begun “exploring ways in which diplomacy could break the deadlock.”

One of Ukraine’s partners is Germany. In a September 7 TV interview, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz said, “I believe that now is the time to discuss how to arrive at peace from this state of war, indeed at a faster pace.” Scholz’ statement may mark the most significant brake in NATO unity since the early days of the war. There are even unconfirmed reports that Scholz, who recently announced that Germany would provide no financial aid to Ukraine for the war after 2025, is preparing a plan for a diplomatic settlement to the war that could include Ukraine making territorial concessions.

And, though out in front, Germany may not be alone. The Wall Street Journal reports that some European diplomats are telling Ukraine that the battlefield reality necessitates that “Ukraine needs to be more pragmatic in its wartime aims and strategy.” Senior European officials have told the Ukrainian leadership that “a full Ukrainian victory would require the West to provide hundreds of billions of dollars worth of support, something neither Washington nor Europe can realistically do.”

The French newspaper Le Figaro reported on September 16 that the battlefield reality, the “slowly but steadily” advancing Russian forces and the realization in the West that “Donbass and Crimea are beyond the military reach of the Ukrainians,” are causing some of Ukraine’s Western partners in the United States and Europe to “discreetly” discuss a negotiated settlement. A “senior French diplomat” reportedly told the Le Figaro that France, too, is now contemplating a “lasting and negotiated solution to the war.”

All of these reports point to the slow birth of momentum to choose a different path at the crossroad. Even Zelensky has said, “I feel that not all territories should be regained by hand or with weapons. I believe this will take a long time and involve a significant number of people. And I think this is a bad thing. As a result, I believe we might retake our territories diplomatically.”

But Zelensky is still trying to push his NATO partners to take the road of escalation to future peace talks. And he seems to have the backing of British Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Calling daily for the U.S. to sign off on using Western long-range missiles to fire deep into Russian territory, Zelensky and Starmer are advocating the “bomb Putin to the negotiating table” route.

There appear to be delays on that route while the U.S. awaits the presentation of Zelensky’s promised plan for winning the war and what it needs from the West to do that. His “Ukrainian Victory Plan” promises to identify the steps needed on the battlefield to “give us the strongest possible position to bring about peace—a real, just peace.” Zelensky promises, “For each step, there is a clear list of what is needed and what will strengthen us.” Officials expect Zelensky to request NATO and European Union membership, security arrangements, economic commitments, and a steady flow of advanced weapons. Zelensky has also promised to include a list of targets inside Russian that Ukraine believes would help achieve victory.

Both roads lead to diplomatic talks. The one at “a faster pace,” in the words of Olaf Scholz, the other at risk of escalation that will, in Putin’s words, “change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict” and, potentially, mean that NATO countries… are at war with Russia.”

How seriously Ukraine’s partners take Putin’s warning will help determine which road they take at the crossroad. The lack of a decision being announced after the September 14 meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and Starmer suggests that the United States may be taking the warning seriously. National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby told a press conference that the Biden administration would never say “that we don’t take Mr. Putin’s threats seriously… He has obviously proven capable of escalation over the last, now, going on three years. So, yeah, we take these comments seriously.”

But, more concerningly, he qualified that seriousness by saying, “it is not something that we haven’t heard before. So, we take note of it. Got it. We have our own calculus for what we decide to provide to Ukraine and what not.” More concerningly still, was Biden’s dismissive response to Putin’s caution. “ I don’t think much about Vladimir Putin,” Biden said.

Which attitude prevails in Washington and which view, Germany’s or Britain’s, prevails in Europe will help determine which road is chosen at the current crossroad: escalation or a faster pace to diplomacy. The first risks crossing red lines that could pull the West into direct conflict with Russia and offers little hope of improving Ukraine’s position at the negotiating table that the second road arrives at more quickly and directly. The first seems too dangerous to consider; the second seems like dangerous folly not to consider.

September 19, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Top Oncologist Raises Alarm: Every New Cancer Patient Is Under 45

By Frank Bergman | Covid Intel | September 1, 2024 

A leading oncologist is raising the alarm about the staggering surge in cancer cases among young people.

North Carolina‘s Duke University oncologist Dr. Nicholas DeVito is warning that “every new patient” who now comes to his clinic is under 45 years old.

Dr. DeVito says he and his colleagues have experienced a complete demographic switch in recent years.

Based on what he’s seeing every day, talking to patients on the ground and analyzing the data, DeVito is now issuing a red alert to warn the public about the phenomenon.

However, the doctor is raising concerns that U.S. government officials are refusing to address or even acknowledge the dramatic surge in cancer cases.

The physician wrote for STAT News :

“The desire to protect Americans from substances that cause cancer and other diseases should transcend party affiliation and political motivation to overcome industrial lobbying efforts.”

In recent years, multiple studies and oncology experts have warned that cancer cases have been skyrocketing in younger people.

The U.S. has the sixth highest rate of early-onset cancers – disease in people under 50 – with 87 cases per 100,000 people younger than 50 years old.

And studies project diagnoses of early-onset cancers will rise by 31 percent and deaths will rise by 21 percent by 2030.

Cancers increasing the fastest include throat and prostate cancers.

Early-onset cancers with the highest mortality include breast, tracheal (windpipe), lung, stomach and colon.

DeVito wrote: “I hope to have a long career in oncology and eventually practice in an era where the U.S. has turned the tide against early-onset gastrointestinal cancers and few, if any, of my patients are under age 50.”

As Slay News reported earlier, a growing number of experts are demanding answers as aggressive turbo cancers continue to surge to unprecedented levels in young people.

Two shocking new reports from the American Cancer Society have revealed that various forms of the deadly disease surging among younger citizens.

In response to the reports, the corporate media is promoting several narratives to explain away the rapidly developing and spreading cancers.

However, several doctors have spoken out to warn that Covid mRNA shots are causing the recent emergence of aggressive cancers.

The disease has been found to form and spread so rapidly among vaccinated people that doctors have dubbed the phenomenon “turbo cancer.”

Doctors have revealed that some “turbo cancers” spread so quickly that seemingly healthy patients can die within a week of being diagnosed.

Oncologists are also warning that these aggressive cancers don’t respond to conventional treatments.

A study published in the August edition of The Lancet Public Health revealed that the incidence rates for 17 of 34 cancer types were increasing in progressively younger people in the U.S.

More recent data from the ACS’s “Cancer Statistics 2024” report shows the trend of cancer rates and related mortality continuing to rise.

The data shows cancer cases spiked dramatically in 2021, shortly after the Covid shots were released for public use.

The cases have continued to surge at alarming rates since then.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

The FBI visited my house today for free speech acts they knew were not crimes

Jeremy Kauffman • 09-16-2024

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

FDA Approves Vaccine for Mpox — Warns It May Cause Death in Vaccinated and People They Come in Contact With

By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | September 17, 2024

A vaccine approved in August by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for people deemed to be at “high risk” for mpox infection may cause more harm than good, according to the FDA’s own medication guide for the product.

ACAM2000 — made by Emergent BioSolutions, a company specializing in vaccines for biochemical warfare threats such as anthrax and smallpox — was approved for smallpox in 2007.

However, on Aug. 29, the FDA issued an expanded supplement approval for ACAM2000’s use against mpox.

Since then, social media users have been posting clips of the FDA’s ACAM2000 medication guide, which warns the vaccine may cause “serious complications” in both the vaccinated person and those with whom they come into close contact up to 6 weeks after getting the shot.

Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D. — senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense — told The Defender that the FDA’s approval of the shot is a “public hazard, not the practice of public health.”

“You can call ACAM2000 a ‘vaccine,’ but its impact on the United States will be as a ‘disease,’” Jablonowski said.

He added:

“For instance, the drug’s package insert reveals (see Table 3) that the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) found roughly 520 per million ACAM2000 recipients contracted myocarditis or pericarditis.

“That is about 1 in 2,000. But elsewhere in the package insert, the FDA acknowledges that — based on additional studies — the risk is actually 5.7 per 1,000 vaccinations.

“That’s about 1 in every 175 people. If the 262 million adults in the U.S. received this vaccine, an estimated 1,493,000 would contract the serious adverse reaction of myopericarditis.”

Myopericarditis is an umbrella term for myocarditis, inflammation of the heart, and pericarditis, inflammation of the tissue surrounding the heart.

Dr. Meryl Nass, an internist and biological warfare expert, told The Defender that the CDC also acknowledged this same figure — myopericarditis in 5.7 per 1,000 primary ACAM2000 vaccinations — during a June 23, 2022, meeting.

“It’s a huge number,” Nass said. “The fact that the FDA and CDC are acknowledging it means no one should get the vaccine.”

She explained:

“Myopericarditis is a life-threatening condition. It lowers your life expectancy.

“Most people are never going to be exposed to mpox or smallpox. Vaccines are typically given to healthy people who are never even going to be exposed, therefore the risk posed by the vaccine needs to be low.

“That’s why vaccine safety is critical — even more than drugs, because drugs are given to people who are already sick.

“This risk — 1 in 175 — is higher than all other licensed vaccines for which the CDC acknowledges side effects. This is the worst.”

ACAM2000 can also cause fetal death when taken during pregnancy, the package insert states.

Additionally, the shot contains a “live vaccinia virus” that can be spread to — and possibly cause the death of — people who have close contact with the vaccinated person up to 6 weeks following vaccination, according to the medication guide.

The guide — which the FDA requires to be given to patients before they get the ACAM2000 vaccine — says, “ACAM2000 can cause serious complications in vaccinated individuals and in their close contacts to whom the vaccine virus has spread.”

Jablonowski said, “The spread of vaccinia virus is an infliction and an assault, as an unsuspecting person cannot possibly consent.”

“For good reasons you would not consent to this vaccine,” Jablonowski said, “even if you believed your benefits outweigh your risks, as you become a potential vector of a disease that is damaging to the heart and fatal to both fetus and infant.”

Risk of serious complications and death in vaccinated and those exposed to vaccinated individual

ACAM2000 is a single-dose vaccine administered using a bifurcated needle that’s been dipped into the vaccine solution, according to an Emergent BioSolutions press release.

In its Aug. 30 press release, the FDA stressed that “every person” who receives ACAM2000 is “required” to be given the drug’s FDA-approved medication guide.

“A Medication Guide is necessary,” the FDA said, “for safe and effective use of the vaccine because it could help prevent serious adverse events and inform the vaccine recipient of serious risks relative to benefit that could affect their decisions to be vaccinated.”

The guide lists serious possible complications, including: myocarditis, inflammation of the brain or spinal cord, serious skin infections, spreading the vaccine virus through the blood to other parts of the body and fetal death if taken during pregnancy.

According to the guide, “The risks for serious vaccine side effects are greater for people who:

  • have heart problems or a history of heart problems
  • are taking steroid eye drops or ointment
  • have a weakened immune system
  • have skin problems such as eczema, atopic dermatitis, burns, impetigo, contact dermatitis, chickenpox, shingles, psoriasis, or uncontrolled acne
  • are less than 1 year old
  • are pregnant or become pregnant within 6 weeks after vaccination.”

ACAM2000’s package insert warns of a longer list of possible serious complications, including:

“Myocarditis and/or pericarditis, encephalitis, encephalomyelitis, encephalopathy, progressive vaccinia (vaccinia necrosum), generalized vaccinia, severe vaccinial skin infections, erythema multiforme major (including Stevens-Johnson syndrome), eczema vaccinatum, accidental eye infection (ocular vaccinia) which can cause ocular complications including keratitis and corneal scarring that may lead to blindness, and fetal death in pregnant women.”

The insert also goes into more detail about the risk of death:

“Historically, death following vaccination with live vaccinia virus is a rare event; approximately 1 death per million primary vaccinations and 1 death per 4 million revaccinations have occurred after vaccination with live vaccinia virus.

“Death is most often the result of sudden cardiac death, post-vaccinial encephalitis, progressive vaccinia, or eczema vaccinatum.

“Death has also been reported in unvaccinated contacts accidentally infected by individuals who have been vaccinated.”

U.S. stockpile contains more than 100 million doses

The FDA’s approval of ACAM2000 for use against mox followed just days after Emergent BioSolutions pledged to donate 50,000 doses to address the mpox outbreak in Africa.

On July 2, the U.S. Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response at the HHS signed a $99.9 million deal with the drugmaker to obtain more ACAM2000 doses this year. Although the exact number of doses was not disclosed, Forbes on Sept. 8 reported that the U.S. currently has over 100 million doses.

HHS did not respond when The Defender asked if these doses are reserved for an emergency smallpox outbreak or are being made available as an mpox vaccine.

The Defender reached out to the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control (CDC) with the same question but was told by a CDC spokesperson, “We defer to the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response (ASPR) where the National Stockpile is housed.”

The CDC website on mpox vaccination states that ACAM2000 “has not been used in the ongoing clade II mpox outbreak that started in 2022″ but “has been made available for use against mpox in the clade II outbreak under an Expanded Access Investigational New Drug (EA-IND) protocol, which requires informed consent along with completing additional forms.”

When The Defender asked the CDC to clarify if the agency currently recommends ACAM2000 for mpox, an agency spokesperson said:

“It has not been used for U.S. civilians affected by the clade II global outbreak that began in 2022, and there are no plans to use it broadly during Mpox outbreaks.

“This is because JYNNEOS, the alternate to ACAM2000 in the United States, has fewer side effects.”

The Defender asked Emergent BioSolutions what it wants to tell members of the public who may be concerned about risks associated with ACAM2000 but did not receive a response by our deadline.

This article has been updated to clarify that both the FDA and CDC acknowledge that the myopericarditis risk for ACAM2000 is estimated at 5.7 per 1,000 primary vaccinations.

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.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , | Leave a comment

The real reason US wants to silence RT

By Fyodor Lukyanov | RT | September 18, 2024

In late 1986 Yegor Ligachev, the secretary of the Soviet Communist Party’s Central Committee, and Viktor Chebrikov, then-head of the KGB, proposed that the country end the practice of jamming foreign radio stations. ‘Enemy voices’ was the popular term used at the time to describe these broadcasts from abroad.

Of course, the two prominent officials were not imbued with bourgeois ideas when seeking to end radio jamming. They were actually taking a businesslike approach. The pair explained to the Central Committee that blocking was expensive but not very effective, given the size of the country. So, it was suggested that signal-jamming be abandoned and that funds be diverted to counter-propaganda measures. This meant more active work with foreign audiences to communicate the Soviet Union’s own views on world events.

A few weeks later, at a meeting with US President Ronald Reagan in Iceland, USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev raised the issue. He said “your radio station Voice of America broadcasts around the clock in many languages from stations you have in different countries in Europe and Asia, and we can’t present our point of view to the American people. So, for the sake of equality, we have to jam the Voice of America broadcasts.” Gorbachev offered to stop blocking ‘VOA’ if his counterpart agreed to let Moscow have a frequency to do the same in the US. Reagan evasively promised to consult when he returned home. In the end, the Soviets stopped jamming foreign radio stations unilaterally, without any deal.

The events of the last few days have echoes of this old story. US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken devoted an entire speech to RT, which is subject to ‘full-blocking’ (that’s a new formula!) sanctions for its supposedly destructive and subversive work around the world. According to Blinken and the American intelligence agencies he references, the threat posed by the Russian company is of the highest order and requires the most decisive measures from all of Washington’s allies.

Without irony or exaggeration, it can be said that RT could only dream of the global recognition that Blinken’s appeal has facilitated. The effectiveness of the media group was not so much confirmed as it was certified, and by prominent representatives of its rivals.

We could deplore infringements on freedom of expression and restrictions on pluralism of opinion, but there is little point in doing so. Such notions should only be promoted in relation to the internal information space of individual countries; at a national level, they are an indispensable prerequisite for normal development. As for foreign sources of information, people generally perceive them as instruments of influence. And it hardly depends on the type of socio-political system that exists in a given state. The more comprehensive the information and communication environment, the greater its impact on people’s behavior, and the more acute the desire of governments to tighten control over the flow of ideas and analysis. The international media sphere is deliberately ideological, electrified and conflictual. Hence Blinken’s, shall we say, uncharacteristic remarks that RT should be treated “like an intelligence agency.”

How effective are the tactics of restricting alternative views and jamming radio waves? Comrades Ligachev and Chebrikov rightly pointed out that the costly efforts to jam hostile broadcasters were, to put it mildly, not particularly effective. Worse, as the author well remembers, the very fact that the authorities were fighting foreign radio voices had the opposite effect to that desired – if they were silencing voices, it meant that they were afraid of the truth. And, by the end of the Soviet era this opinion was not only widespread among the frontline intelligentsia, many ‘ordinary people’ also didn’t give a damn about the official channels.

At their meeting in Iceland, Reagan countered Gorbachev’s appeal by saying that, unlike the Soviets, “we recognize freedom of the press and the right of people to listen to any point of view.” The US president had no doubts about the superiority of the American system in all respects. Accordingly, the demands for information pluralism, then and later, reflected the confidence of Washington that it would emerge victorious from any competition. And so, a few years later, the US achieved a de-facto monopoly on the interpretation of everything.

Washington’s current extreme reaction is due to the feeling that it’s losing this monopoly. Alternative interpretations of events now arouse public interest. In fact, the total resources of the Western, mainly English-language media are incomparably greater than what all the carriers of alternative points of view can offer, at this moment. But internal insecurity is growing all by itself, fueling the desire to fence off the information space. From the same playbook comes the US’ attempts to explain its internal strife and accumulated contradictions by pointing to a pernicious external influence. This was also the Soviet experience. However, the USSR didn’t solve its own issues by blaming them on external causes. In fact, as its problems grew, those same outside factors actually began to exacerbate them.

Targeted punitive actions can create obstacles for any organization, there is no doubt about that. Especially when they come from what is still the most powerful country on the planet. But American history teaches us that monopolies do not last forever. Sooner or later, a cartel becomes a brake on development, then it becomes the subject of measures to break it up.

Fyodor Lukyanov is the editor-in-chief of Russia in Global Affairs, chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, and research director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

UN overwhelmingly demands Israel end occupation of Palestinian territories

Press TV – September 18, 2024

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a resolution that demands Israel end its unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory within a year.

A total of 124 countries voted in favor, while 14, including the US, opposed the resolution. Britain, Switzerland, Ukraine, India and Germany were among the 43 countries to abstain.

The resolution welcomes a July advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that said Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories and settlements is illegal and should be withdrawn.

The advisory opinion – by the highest United Nations court said this should be done “as rapidly as possible.”

The measure calls for Israel to pay reparations to Palestinians “for the damage caused to all the natural and legal persons concerned in the occupied Palestinian territory”.

The resolution also demands sanctions and an arms embargo against Israel.

The 193-member Assembly also calls on states to “take steps towards ceasing the importation of any products originating in the Israeli settlements, as well as the provision or transfer of arms, munitions and related equipment to Israel … where there are reasonable grounds to suspect that they may be used in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.”

Riyad Mansour, Palestine’s UN ambassador, who opened the assembly meeting on Tuesday, said that no occupying power can have a veto right over the inalienable rights of the people under its occupation.

“Those who think the Palestinian people will accept a life of servitude, a life of apartheid, are the ones who are not being realistic,” Mansour said.

“Those who imagine the Palestinian people will disappear or surrender are the ones who are not being realistic. Those who claim that peace is possible in our region without a just resolution for the question of Palestine are the ones who are not being realistic.

“Each country has a vote, and the world is watching us,” Mansour said. “Please stand on the right side of history. With international law. With freedom. With peace.”

US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield urged countries to vote no on Wednesday. Washington, an arms supplier to and ally of Israel, has long opposed any resolution at the world body in favor of Palestine.

Unlike in the Security Council, no country in the General Assembly has veto power.

The action isolates Israel days before world leaders travel to New York for their annual UN gathering.

In May, the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in favor of reconsidering Palestine’s full membership. It is now recognized by 145 of 193 UN member states.

Several countries, including Spain, Norway, and Ireland, recognized Palestine as a state in late May amid mounting criticism of Israel’s genocidal campaign in the besieged Gaza Strip.

While the 15-member council is largely paralyzed on the ongoing Israeli genocidal campaign in Gaza, with the United States repeatedly vetoing censures of its ally Israel, the General Assembly has adopted several texts in support of Palestinian civilians.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The US has allowed Israel’s attack on Lebanon, and now war may follow

By Robert Inlakesh | RT | September 18, 2024

On Tuesday, Israel was accused of detonating hundreds of wireless communication devices that were primarily being used in a civilian capacity, injuring upwards of 4,000 people. Although the details are still being ironed out, this attack will now force Hezbollah to make major decisions in retaliation.

Less than a day after the Israeli security cabinet officially adopted a new war goal of returning their displaced residents to areas close to the Lebanese border, an indiscriminate attack was carried out throughout Lebanon. This indicates that the war in Gaza has now expanded in the eyes of the Israeli political and military leadership to include Lebanon. However, there are question marks surrounding how such an escalation will take shape.

The US role

Commenting on the issue to reporters, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that “the US was not involved in it, the US was not aware of this incident in advance and, at this point, we’re gathering information.” He then even went as far as suggesting that the US government was gathering information just as journalists around the world are.

While this was Washington distancing itself from the incident, it is almost comical for an American official to inform the media that the Biden administration has no special information from its ally on the incident. Taking this at face value, it is an embarrassing admission that the ally to which the US has provided tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons and aid over the past 11 months does not even have channels of dialogue to discuss an attack which could lead to a regional war.

Even if we are to assume that the US had no idea about the attack, which is doubtful, the mere fact that American bipartisan support for Israel throughout the course of its war on Gaza has not buckled under immense international condemnation is telling. Every single organ of the United Nations has been ringing the alarm bells, accusing Israel of committing war crimes, and even the United Kingdom has decided to cancel 30 of some 350 weapons-licensing contracts over violations of international law.

While the US has continually stated that it seeks to de-escalate tensions and that it disapproves of an Israel-Lebanon war, at best it is doing nothing to stop it. If the US government were truly so out of the loop with Israel’s escalatory steps and really wanted to stop a regional war, the wake-up call should have come at the end of July.

When Israel bombed a civilian apartment building in Beirut’s southern suburb of Dahiyeh, killing Hezbollah commander Fouad Shukr, then only hours later assassinated the leader of Hamas, Ismail Hanniyeh, in Tehran, this would have been the time when the Americans put pressure on the Israelis to stop. Instead, the US government decided to do the very opposite. At the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) session called to discuss the issue, they condemned Iran. On top of this, just under two weeks later, the US decided to approve a $20-billion weapons package for Israel.

Israeli terrorism 

There can be no doubt that the act of sabotage carried out on Tuesday was done using terrorist tactics and its intended goals are important to analyze. While all the precise details remain hidden as to how Israel managed to detonate hundreds of pagers, the impacts are crystal clear and we have enough information to render a judgment.

Firstly, the fact that this occurred across Lebanon and its victims were not just confined to those in the rank-and-file of Hezbollah has now left a lingering feeling of anxiety among the general public. The question cannot help but be posed: If the Israelis can blow up pagers, can they also detonate phones, laptops and other devices, and how many other plots of this nature do they have up their sleeves? This also impacts Hezbollah itself, because there has been a clear breach in the group’s security on one level or another, which directly caused a temporary issue with the means of communication used by the group’s military personnel.

According to the information we have so far, it appears that Israeli intelligence operatives managed to rig a batch of pagers with small amounts of highly explosive material. While the scale is unique in history, this tactic is nothing new. In fact, in 1996, Mossad assassinated a leader of Hamas’ al-Qassam Brigades named Yahya Ayyash, by planting explosive material inside his phone and detonating it remotely. In the 1980s the Israelis even operated a group called the Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners (FLLF) to carry out acts of terrorism while posing as a Christian fascist organization, one of its operations attempted to assassinate the US former ambassador to Lebanon, John Gunther Dean.  

If this action was carried out as a means of impacting Hezbollah’s communications, prior to Israel launching a larger-scale military operation, then it would have made sense as a tactic that would on some level degrade the capabilities of the group and force them to find alternative means of issuing orders to certain cadres. Yet, this is not what happened, they gave the Lebanese group the time to recover from this blow and so it must be seen within a different context, one of point scoring.

It now puts Lebanese Hezbollah in a tough position. The group must mount some kind of response to this attack, one that is designed to deter the Israelis from carrying out similar attacks in the future. However, the secretary general of Hezbollah, Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah, has made clear that, while his party is prepared for war, it is only interested in continuing to maintain a support front for the Palestinian groups fighting Israel from Gaza. 

Since October 8, Hezbollah has carried out thousands of targeted attacks against Israeli military facilities, primarily targeting surveillance, air defense and espionage equipment, but also striking army personnel too. On top of this, the Lebanese armed group has also been targeting specific populated areas that are located along the border region, with rocket barrages, forcing around 100,000 Israelis to flee.

On the other hand, roughly 110,000 Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes in southern Lebanon due to Israeli bombing attacks that have been much more devastating on the nation’s civilian infrastructure than Hezbollah’s has been on Israel’s. In fact, while Hezbollah attacks have only resulted in a handful of Israeli civilian deaths, nearly 200 civilians have been killed by Israeli strikes on Lebanon. This being said, there can be no denying the success of Hezbollah’s operations in conducting a war of attrition that is burdening Israel psychologically, militarily, and economically.

What comes next

Israel has carried out this operation in an attempt to score points against Hezbollah, primarily in the propaganda war, and the alternative goal is to drag the group into opening up a shooting war. The Israelis do not want to be seen as starting the war against Lebanon, both because they seek the support of the collective West and know that the conflict will result in a stalemate at best.

If Hezbollah does not mount a considerable defensive counter operation, it will signal weakness to the Israelis and likely encourage them to continue carrying out similar offensive operations throughout Lebanon. While, on the other hand, if the Hezbollah response is too severe, it may give Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu the perfect excuse to launch the war that he has been threatening to wage for months now.

This moment requires Hezbollah to step up and take risks militarily, at a time when they now have a popular mandate inside Lebanon to respond in self defense. It is clear that the strategy of the Lebanese group has been to continue its daily operations in support of the Gaza Strip, and Israel is determined to end this, which is why it is now attempting to transform the nature of the war and expand it outwards. Unfortunately, due to the US providing full and unconditional support to the Israeli government as it expands the war, we are no longer looking at a war which is isolated to Gaza. Unless there is a ceasefire deal signed with Hamas soon, it appears inevitable that we are heading towards a Lebanon-Israel war that will drag in the entire region.

Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker currently based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the Palestinian territories and currently works with Quds News. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe’.

September 18, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

With no coherent war plan, Netanyahu’s regime is using any excuse to derail ceasefire talks

By Robert Inlakesh | Al Mayadeen | September 17, 2024

At this point, it should be clear that Hamas is not and never has been the obstacle to securing a prisoner swap and ceasefire in Gaza. Yet, it doesn’t matter how willing Hamas truly is with the fact that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using every tool he can to create excuses as to why the war can’t come to an end, which is important to understand.

When the United States and their Israeli partners talk about the need for Hamas to sit at the table, calling on the Palestinian Resistance to accept a ceasefire deal, it is all nonsense. The analysis pieces, leaked conversations, and update articles that we see regularly published in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Axios, and other outlets are all adding to a work of fiction that has been crafted for domestic US and Israeli consumption.

There are no current negotiations, just discussions between the Israelis and Americans, which then are forwarded to the negotiating teams of Egypt and Qatar, before the conversation ultimately ends the exact same way it began, as useless ramblings that only give cover for further Israeli war crimes. This is the case as Hamas sits by and waits for the circus to end so that it can actually talk business.

The framework for a ceasefire and prisoner exchange has already been proposed by the United States and ratified by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), and Hamas has agreed to it. Meanwhile, the Zionist entity does not speak for itself on what it has or hasn’t exactly accepted; instead, it allows the likes of US Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, to tell the world that the UNSC-endorsed Biden proposal was actually an Israeli proposal before later changing his story to that the Israelis had accepted Biden’s proposal. Even at this level, the contradictions prove how unserious the Zionist regime is.

On May 6, when Hamas announced that they had accepted a ceasefire proposal – that was almost identical to the one that Antony Blinken had spent two weeks lauding – the Israeli response was immediate rejection, followed by the invasion of the Rafah crossing.

The Israeli PM has continually argued that the war must continue until Hamas is defeated in Gaza, an objective that even the Israeli army spokesperson Daniel Hagari has said is impossible. Moreover, Netanyahu’s insistence on destroying Hamas is indicative of his outright rejection of a ceasefire. You can either defeat Hamas or do a ceasefire deal with them, you can’t have both, it simply makes no sense.

Another important point to understand is that despite the change in US President Joe Biden’s rhetoric and that of his administration, calling for an “immediate ceasefire”, you will notice that when Israeli officials comment on the issue of a ceasefire, they do so with a focus on the prisoner exchange aspect and often follow this up by stating that they must still retain the right to attack Hamas. In other words, the only ceasefire that the Zionist entity entertains is a temporary one that will ensure the release of their captives, after which they seek the “right” to continue the war. This is exactly what Benjamin Netanyahu argues, which, in essence, means that he’s openly telling Hamas to give up its bargaining chips for no reason.

The issue of Israeli forces remaining in both the Philadelphia and Netzarim corridors is a new addition to the ceasefire talks and directly violates the framework outlined in UNSC Resolution 2735 that was adopted on June 10. The resolution states explicitly that in phase 2 of the ceasefire agreement “upon agreement of the parties, a permanent end to hostilities, in exchange for the release of all other hostages still in Gaza, and a full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza,” adding that it “rejects any attempt at demographic or territorial change in the Gaza Strip, including any actions that reduce the territory of Gaza.”

The evidence that “Israel” outright rejects what is quoted above from the Security Council resolution is not just limited to these new additions to the non-existent ceasefire negotiations. When Benjamin Netanyahu spoke to Congress in July, he swore that his regime was going to secure “total victory” and argued for occupying Gaza internally for a limited period of time instead of permanently. If we look at all the polling data on the opinion of Israelis, the majority of the public also agree with these ideas too.

On top of this, the Israeli military has been creating a “buffer zone” around the perimeter of the Gaza Strip, blowing up and burning every single structure in an area that constitutes 32 percent of the besieged coastal territory. Furthermore, the new addition to the Zionist entity’s war plan which is agreed upon by the majority of the Israeli cabinet is the idea of seizing the entirety of northern Gaza for a “security zone” and expelling the hundreds of thousands of residents who live there.

As occurred in Rafah, where around a million people were completely uprooted and pushed into the ever-changing so-called “safe zone” area of al-Mawasi, the Zionist entity appears to be trying to concentrate the entire Palestinian civilian population into this zone. When the civilians arrive there, they are then repeatedly forced to move on foot and their tents are bombed, burying their bodies beneath mounds of sand.

The Zionist regime is engaged in what is clearly an “endless war”, or a war of attrition, which the United States government is fully backing with tens of billions of dollars worth of weapons. The end goal here is not actually clear, but what is certain is that Benjamin Netanyahu is not about to give up. If we follow the trajectory of the war so far, it is completely dependent upon Israeli domestic politics. The war has worked as follows:

Stage 1: “Israel” launches an unprecedented air attack that decimates civilian infrastructure, while commanding the civilian population to head south, where they are also bombed.

Stage 2: “Israel” invades the Gaza Strip, focusing on the northern part of the territory and claiming that Hamas is operating its HQ out of Al-Shifa Hospital and bases out of other hospitals. It then fails to find any headquarters.

Stage 3: A prisoner exchange is concluded, during which time the Israeli regime is changing its narrative.

Stage 4: “Israel” invades Khan Younis and central Gaza, claiming that the “real Hamas headquarters is in Khan Younis,” ultimately failing to inflict any real blow on the Palestinian Resistance.

Stage 5: “Israel” winds down the clock with more brief military incursions into areas they have already invaded, inflicting countless more civilian massacres and holding off on what they now began arguing was the true headquarters for Hamas in Rafah. During this period, Benjamin Netanyahu argued that the tunnels were being used to transfer weapons and that the war could not be won without a Rafah invasion.

Stage 6: Hamas accepts a ceasefire proposal after the US had been placing pressure on the Israelis to steer clear from a major invasion of Rafah. Netanyahu decides that same day to invade Rafah but not to wage the sort of campaign he was hoping for.

Stage 7: After having invaded every area in Gaza, the Israelis are out of excuses and are throwing out random ideas, hoping they will stick and convince their own population. This has led to reviving the idea of seizing northern Gaza, which was initially proposed at the beginning of the war, yet a large portion of the Israeli public is now demanding the return of the captives, which presents a major issue. So, they are looking for anything new to buy time before the inevitable next steps must be taken.

This brings us to today.

The Zionist regime doesn’t want a ceasefire and the US pressure simply is not there to force it to change its mind. The only thing that is now applying real pressure is the relentless fire from Hezbollah on the northern front, which has grown to the point that it cannot be ignored. In order to stop the Lebanese Resistance, they have two options: End the war on Gaza or start another war with Lebanon. If the Zionist entity will not give up on its genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, then war with Lebanon is inevitable and will likely end up taking place inside Syrian territory also.

September 17, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US Restoring Military Infrastructure on Pacific Island to Project Power in Region – Reports

Sputnik – 17.09.2024

WASHINGTON – The United States is refurbishing military infrastructure on the Pacific island of Tinian as part of efforts to bolster power projection in the Indo-Pacific region, Newsweek reported on Tuesday.

The US cleared overgrowth on taxiways and runways previously built on the island during the Second World War, the report said, citing recent satellite imagery and Pacific Air Forces spokesperson Capt. Keith Peden.

The US Defense Department established three projects to develop airfield operations on Tinian as part of its Pacific Deterrence Initiative, which focuses on defense planning for a potential conflict with China.

The Pentagon seeks to add refueling, takeoff, landing and parking operations on Tinian, the report said.

The projects will support a variety of aircraft and enable the US Air Force to “rapidly deploy and sustain forces” in diverse environments for both routine and contingency operations, Peden said.

However, China strongly opposes US efforts to bolster forward deployments in the Indo-Pacific region, Chinese Embassy in the US spokesperson Liu Pengyu reportedly said.

September 17, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »