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Washington’s ‘Waiver On, Waiver Off’ Game at Chabahar

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – December 9, 2025

In recent months, Washington has swung from revoking to restoring India’s sanctions waiver for operating Iran’s Chabahar port. The ‘waiver on, waiver off’ routine, however, comes with a clear strategic intent.

The move is not just leverage over New Delhi as trade talks loom; it’s also a signal to Central Asian states that their economic futures — including access to Chabahar — depend on aligning their foreign policies with US preferences.

In September 2025, the United States pulled the rug out from under one of India’s most carefully nurtured strategic ventures: the Chabahar Port in Iran. Long viewed by New Delhi as a critical gateway to Afghanistan and Central Asia, Chabahar suddenly became a high-stakes chess piece in Washington’s policy game. On September 16, the US Department of State announced it would revoke the special exemption granted in 2018 under the Iran Freedom and Counter-Proliferation Act (IFCA), with the revocation taking effect September 29. Overnight, Indian companies, shippers, insurers, and banks involved in the port’s operations were cast into uncertainty: their assets could be frozen, their access to the US financial system curtailed, and their commercial contracts imperilled.

This move did not occur in isolation. At the same time, New Delhi was itself involved in a high-stakes game with the US over bilateral trade. Specifically, it is resisting US pressure to halt oil imports from Russia. By targeting Chabahar, Washington signaled that it was willing to leverage unrelated strategic projects to enforce compliance elsewhere, effectively turning Indian economic and geopolitical interests into bargaining chips. Yet the situation shifted quickly: reports emerged on October 28 that Indian firms had halted Russian oil imports, and the very next day, the US issued a fresh six-month waiver, allowing Chabahar operations to continue without immediate penalty.

The rapid “waiver on, waiver off” cycle exposes the transactional and unpredictable logic of US sanction policy. A project that represents over $120 million in Indian investment, long-term regional connectivity, and painstaking diplomacy is reduced to a geopolitical pawn, its fate dictated less by commercial or developmental imperatives and more by Washington’s strategic calculus. This particular calculus, however, is not meant for India only. The politics of granting and restricting waivers is also tied very closely to Washington’s relationship with Central Asia.

The Central Asian gamble

Chabahar port is important not only for India but also for the landlocked states of Central Asia, offering a rare direct link to the Indian Ocean and a potential route to India that bypasses Pakistan. Several Central Asian states have expressed interest in using Chabahar Port for this purpose. Tajikistan has emerged as the most active player, signing a formal cooperation agreement with Iran in early 2025 and committing to developing a logistics hub with terminals and storage facilities. Uzbekistan has held discussions about utilising the port for trade and storage. While a lot of this is still far from being fully operational, there is little denying that a major roadblock has been the US sanctions.

In the same vein, the waiver also signals to Afghanistan, where India has recently become very active. The Taliban regime is currently involved in a border standoff with Pakistan. Kabul has suspended its trade with Pakistan, and the reopening of this route remains highly uncertain. At the same time, Washington has been pressuring the Taliban to come to terms with handing over the Bagram airbase to the US military for its potential operations against China. In this context, if Afghanistan wants to continue—and even expand—its trade with Central Asia and other countries beyond the region, i.e., with India itself, as an alternative to Pakistan, its best route goes through the Chabahar Port.

Beyond this, the US decision to grant the waiver—and unless it restricts it again in the future—also puts it in a position where it can influence several other regional trade and connectivity projects, including the Trans‑Caspian and broader International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) projects. By granting or revoking waivers, the US is signalling that it can create opportunities and or introduce uncertainty for companies and governments contemplating investment or trade through corridors that touch Iran.

For example, Central Asian states considering cargo flows via Chabahar—or via the Caspian Sea to Azerbaijan and beyond—must now weigh the risk that US sanctions could suddenly be applied, making insurance, financing, or banking services problematic and/or unavailable. Even if the Trans‑Caspian route itself does not pass through Iran, the interconnected nature of regional logistics networks means that a disruption at Chabahar could ripple across supply chains, raising costs or forcing alternative routing through Russia, Turkey, or China.

In essence, the waiver policy acts as a geopolitical lever. Its application is meant to put pressure on countries and companies so that they align their foreign and trade policies with US preferences, discouraging full exploitation of alternatives like the Trans‑Caspian corridor that could reduce American influence. The US has, for some time, been trying to expand its geopolitical footprint in Central Asia. Its ability to strangulate or allow Chabahar helps it signal its continued relevance. On the whole, the uncertainty imposed by such sanctions creates a risk premium, slows governmental and private investment, and subtly nudges regional actors toward pathways that the US finds strategically acceptable, even if they are less efficient or commercially less viable.

Salman Rafi Sheikh, research analyst of international relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs

December 9, 2025 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Deep State Targets Thomas Massie

By Matt Wolfson | The Libertarian Institute | December 9, 2025

With the retirement next month of Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) in the face of vociferous attacks from President Donald Trump, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) is the only member of any of the three branches of our government who consistently and on principle opposes American empire—and who also opposes the taxes, debt, and interventions that come with it. In a little over a year, he may not be.

For the first time in his seven-term congressional career, Massie is being challenged by a formidable primary opponent. That opponent is Ed Gallrein, a former Navy Seal who during his thirty years of meritorious service earned four Bronze Stars and whose extended family of small business owners is a multi-generational staple of Kentucky’s 4th District. As the last line in Gallrein’s X bio has it, he is “Trump-endorsed to defeat Thomas Massie and Deliver America First for Kentucky”—and, given the popularity Trump still enjoys among Republican voters as well as Gallrein’s sterling military reputation, and despite Massie’s strong endurability, Gallrein may succeed in realizing his goal.

Whether Gallrein’s election would actually mean delivering America first is a very different question. Putting America first presumably means putting the soldiers sworn to protect Americans, those individuals with whom Gallrein so valorously served, first as well. But a closer examination of the agenda Gallrein is running on makes clear that, unlike Massie’s prudent America first constitutionalism, it does not accomplish that goal. Instead it is the latest iteration, this time under Donald Trump, of a long-running play where small networks of ideologues ensconced in Washington’s military-corporate complex use America’s armed forces to run imperial plays for profit and power. The people running this version—connected Zionists tied to Trump’s re-election bid and now to his White House—are using Gallrein’s military service, which one might think would end up aiding our men and women in uniform, as an excuse to do the opposite. They are funding a decorated veteran to act as a front for imperial plays that mis-serve our armed forces and the Americans they’re sworn to protect.

Understanding the conditions that allowed this operation to happen and their consequences means going back to the creation of the current armed forces at the hands of the military-corporate complex after 1945—and tracing its abuses and misuses at the hands of a small number of players whose inheritors are now backing Trump and targeting Massie.

Americans’ rightful and deep respect for the men and women of our armed forces obscures an essential fact about the organization they serve: in its current form, it was never intended to exist. From Thomas Jefferson and James Madison to Dwight Eisenhower, people concerned for our liberties saw a large and expanding standing army and its support systems as inherent threats to our constitutional republic. These men were not unrealistic about the need for an armed forces—Jefferson founded West Point, and Eisenhower commanded D-Day—but they knew that an essentially defensive army equipped for a republic was very different than an aggressive army serving empire. In their view, this latter type of army would become a version of the British Army which Jefferson’s revolutionaries had fought against: an aggressive tool of imperial operators to use for power and profit.

With the start of the Cold War and the beginning of an arms race with the Soviet Union, Jefferson’s and Madison’s and Eisenhower’s fears came true, giving an enormous opportunity to a network that did not share them. Namely, old Northeastern WASPs and their allies who by 1945 had spent 150 years eschewing America’s constitutional politics in favor of building institutions and corporations in and around Washington DC. The Henry Cabot Lodges and the Brothers Harriman, the Rockefellers and the DuPonts and the Bushes, John Foster and Allen Dulles and John Jesus Angleton—these were the financial and corporate and military players who used the Cold War as an opportunity to make themselves into runners of American empire, for their own power and profit.   

At their hands, the American Army became the British Army of a later age, with its own public-debt-fueled corporate outgrowths which purport to be serving our soldiers. In reality, as Dwight Eisenhower said publicly in his presidential farewell address of 1961, the new weapons-for-profit system made its minders into what Eisenhower called in his notes for the speech “merchants of death”: “flag and general officers retiring at an early age take positions in war based industrial complex shaping its decisions and guiding the direction of its tremendous thrust.” And these civilians running the weapons contractors were rotating not just through Pentagon and CIA consultancies and administrative agencies but through America’s new civilian intelligence service, the CIA. There, the profit motive—combined with a high level of ideological zeal—also distorted policy.

By 1961, Allen Dulles, John Jesus Angleton, and the lineup of other old-line WASPs running the CIA outside of meaningful oversight had put America into the Congo, Iran, Guatemala, Cuba, and the beginnings of Vietnam. After these came interventions in El Salvador, Lebanon, Nicaragua, Kuwait, Panama, Grenada, Somalia, Kosovo, Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen, Venezuela, Palestine, and (again, this year) Iran. These were plays executed with input from McKinsey and Raytheon to Langley and the Pentagon via the Situation Room. They were increasingly run by new networks: once disproportionally WASP, these new networks were disproportionally made up of Jewish Zionists bent on using American empire to protect Israel. Among these were early operators like Henry Morgenthau and Theodore Kollek; and their later inheritors like Martin Peretz and William Kristol, Elliott Abrams and Paul Wolfowitz, Michael Ledeen and Thomas Pritzker, people who in many ways shaped the policies of the Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden administrations. At their hands, accelerated military corporate cronyism has been the order of the day starting in 1993, when the Clinton administration, which assumed power thanks in part to Zionist backing, pressured the fifty major weapons contractors active during the Cold War to consolidate in the nominal name of cutting costs. The ensuing distortion of our military has occurred via multiple forms, which I reported on for the Libertarian Institute in July.

One distortion has been cost overruns on weapons systems, which contractors feel free to allow or even encourage since no competition exists for their product. This has also allowed errors in construction which diminishes the equipment that’s supposed to serve our troops. Then, as I have reported elsewhere, in response to the overruns came budget cuts and the “fix” of “sequestration,” which reduced these cost overruns by cutting expenditures on the troops, further under-equipping and overstretching personnel. Exacerbating the problem, as I have also reported, were Pentagon-and-contractor funded think tanks, which covered the problem with “social initiatives” via mental health, climate, and DEI, further distracting the Pentagon from the imperatives of readiness and training. All the while, interventions urged by the same financial-military-intelligence networks attenuating the capacity of our armed forces also overstretched them: in Somalia and Bosnia and Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya, and (in an “advisory” capacity) Syria and Israel and Ukraine.

The result has not just been surging deficit spending that mortgages the future of Americans; nor backlash from affected populations to our imperial arrangements abroad. It has also, even more dramatically, been a spate of military embarrassments since 2018, most notably crashes of planes at the hands of overcommitted and demoralized troops and their commanders. These have racked up losses to the tune of nearly $500 million per crash and cost the lives of servicepeople. As I reported in January of this year, in an investigation of these crashes and their causes:

“For the Army, [the shrinking of budgets and personnel since the 2010s] meant “cut[ting] 40,000 active-duty soldiers, shrinking [the Armed Forces] to 450,000 by 2017.” For the Air Force, this meant a reduction of active-duty airmen from 333,370 to 310,000.”

“An Air Force report to Congress in 2018 said that, thanks to sequestration, the Air Force was ‘the smallest… it has ever been.’ Active-duty aircrew flying hours had been slashed from 17.7 to 13.2 hours per month. 31 squadrons, including 13 coded for combat, had stood down because of funding pressures. Plans had been announced to eliminate 500 planes, and, according to a Military.com report cited by The American Legion, the Air Force was ‘making do with ‘half-size squadrons.’’ The common refrain today is that hours in the air are even shorter—4.1 hours a month, by one estimate—and that efforts to replace real flying with “on-the-ground simulators” are dismal failures.”

“These shortages of manpower and training had immediate effects that took time to tally… 2018, the year after the sequester was complete, saw a spate of plane crashes. In late 2020, Congress found that, in just six years since the sequester began, ‘‘mishaps’ in training flights or routine missions killed 198 service members and civilians, destroyed 157 aircraft, and cost taxpayers $9.41 billion.’ Two weeks alone in 2022 saw three crashes on routine training missions in Alabama and California, costing at least five lives and two injuries. The last few months of 2023 saw four crashes. On December 22, 2024, a navy jet was shot down by friendly fire, and another narrowly avoided being shot down by the same barrage, in the Mediterranean.”

A year ago, given the stakes Donald Trump himself articulated for his re-election (a run against the “deep state”), it seemed unthinkable that Trump would adopt military corporatist priorities wholesale almost immediately on assuming office. But, influenced in part by Zionist operators who swung to support his re-election campaign in the summer of 2024 after pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, he has done exactly that. As I reported for the Libertarian Institute in July, Trump has forgone actually reforming aspects of the military corporate complex to aid our soldiers. Instead he has committed to a “Big Beautiful Bill” that inflates ICE’s budget but does not direct military funding away from corporate cronyism; a surface-level crusade against “wokeness” and “DEI”; a military parade; superficial demonstrations of force in Yemen and Iran and Venezuela; the militarization of law enforcement via ICE recruiting; and the placement of American troops in American cities. He claims to be standing above all for our troops—but in reality he is standing for the military corporate complex that mis-serves them, to the demonstrable detriment of our men and women in uniform.

The most recent example of Trump’s demonstrably detrimental effect on our troops comes from The Washington Post, in a story published December 4, 2025. The subject was a deployment to the Middle East for the benefit of Israel and its Saudi and Emirati allies against Yemen; a campaign prosecuted in the Biden administration and before with the encouragement of Zionists but decisively and unprecedentedly accelerated by Trump in his second term:

“The U.S. Navy on Thursday released its findings from four investigations scrutinizing the significant challenges encountered by one of its aircraft carrier groups over nine months in the Middle East, where several major accidents occurred as the ships battled Yemeni militants.”

“The Truman carrier group departed its home port in Norfolk in September 2024 — and by the time it returned in May, the carrier itself had collided with a merchant vessel; its cruiser had shot down one of its fighter jets, another warplane was lost when it slid overboard as the carrier performed an evasive maneuver to dodge an incoming missile; and a third jet was lost when an arresting cable failed as the pilot attempted to land.”

“In three of the four incidents, investigators determined, either poor training, improper procedures or crew fatigue played significant roles. And while no service members died, those incidents could have led to multiple fatalities, the Navy found.”

All of which raises with some immediacy the question of Ed Gallrein, who was selected to run against Massie after the congressman repeatedly voted, along Jeffersonian constitutionalist lines, against using taxpayer money and deficit spending to benefit Israel. Gallrein’s selector was Chris LaCivita, Trump’s co-campaign manager in 2024 and Trump’s pick to spearhead the anti-Massie campaign, who is working with at least $2 million from an anti-Massie PAC funded by the Jewish Zionist billionaires Paul Singer, John Paulson, and Miriam Adelson. These three operators owe their easy entrée into Washington in part to the military-intelligence Zionist operators linked to the money and power at the origins of the CIA and of the host systems for the merchants of death 80 years ago—just as the decisive momentum was building for the creation of Israel.

And the $2 million they have committed so far on behalf of Israel’s interests has had its effect. At a recent gathering of campaign donors, Massie informed the group that before this primary campaign his approval/disapproval rating in polls was 62-12 (adding together very approved, somewhat approved, etc.) But, he went on to say, after $2 million in negative ads spent in his district, it’s now 51-37. He said hthat he personally expects $20 million to be spent against him, but will feel comfortable in his odds if he raises $5 million.

Gallrein was endorsed preemptively by Trump, which is to say before he entered the race, and he is by any measure a shrewd choice for Trump and Trump’s Zionist allies to back. He is not just a decorated veteran with thirty years of valorous service, he is also a fifth generation farmer and the scion of a Kentucky family with deep roots in the 4th District. The Gallrein Family Farm, founded in 1929, became the largest dairy producer in the state; expanded aggressively into tobacco and vegetables and grain along with a subset of trucking; and has now expanded into “agritourism” with weddings and a farmers market, along with a store and lunch counter which sells the farm’s “produce and product lines.” According to his LinkedIn CV, Gallrein worked at the farm from 1962, when he was four, to 1982, when he was 24, rising to vice president; then in 1984 he joined the U.S. Army, where “he served for 30 years and became a Navy SEAL officer… rose to the rank of captain and served in Panama, Afghanistan and Iraq.” Since retiring in 2014, Gallrein has experimented with careers: opening a farm and stables as well as two “leadership” and “startup” consultancy businesses, and running in the Republican primary for the District 7 state senate seat, going on to lose the race by 118 votes. He speaks, repeatedly, of his intention to bring the skills he learned during his military service to serve the 4th District.

Gallrein, having never served in office, has no voting record, and his policy platform amounts to loyalty to President Trump’s agenda, which now includes supporting interventions or operations abroad in Yemen, Palestine, Venezuela, Iran, and possibly Nigeria. In public statements this year, Gallrein has doubled down on interventionism, specifically defended our engagements in the Middle East, especially against Iran, as “leveraging” our “power” there and (echoing a favorite line from Trump-supporting media) “playing chess” against our enemies. He uses the authority of his service to help make the case—even to the extent of arguing that what may seem to be the Trump administration’s irresponsible ventures abroad and at home with authoritarian surveillance regimes like the Saudis and Emiratis via the ministrations of Israel are in fact necessary complements to our national security. (“Economic is the centerpiece of national power. [That concept is] called ‘Dime’ as we studied it in the War College.”)

What Gallrein doesn’t emphasize in his interviews is as telling as what he does. What he under-emphasizes is not just questions of taxes and debt and cost of living, which is not a surprise considering that he has said publicly that he “believes it’s his stance on foreign policy that put him on Trump’s radar.” What he under-emphasizes also relates to crucial questions when it comes to his nominal area of expertise, our military. He does not speak about meaningfully reforming our weapons contracting systems or their think tank outgrowths; or about the influence of money on the interventions we make in other sovereign nations. In other words, he does not speak about any actual structural problem in the military corporate complex that hurts the men and women with whom he once valorously served—or about any actual structural reform that would help them. And why would he? His financial and political backers are tied, directly, to those very structures—the military corporate systems and their financial supporters and their think tanks and advocacy groups and the state, Israel, that is their main priority and beneficiary and the beneficiary of our endless interventions.

Not just our sovereignty, but the safety of the people pledged to protect us, are under clear threat when they’re presided over by politicos like Gallrein run by networks, and operators, like these.

December 9, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

Florida blacklists CAIR, Muslim Brotherhood as ‘foreign terrorist organizations’

The Cradle | December 9, 2025

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued an order on 9 December naming the Muslim Brotherhood and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) as “foreign terrorist organizations,” following in the steps of Texas.

Florida’s designation makes it the second Republican-led state in as many months to target the two groups.

DeSantis said the move was “EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY” and instructed state agencies to deny employment, contracts, funding, or any state-provided resources to the organizations and to individuals providing them with “material support.”

His executive order repeats claims that the Muslim Brotherhood supports “political entities and front organizations that engage in terrorism and funnel money to finance terrorist activities.”

It also alleges that CAIR “was founded by persons connected to the Muslim Brotherhood” and ties both groups to Hamas.

The order further directs agencies to take “all lawful measures to prevent unlawful activities” by the two groups. DeSantis framed the action as part of broader legislative efforts, saying lawmakers were “crafting legislation to stop the creep of sharia law.”

He added that he hopes legislators “codify these protections for Floridians against CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.”

CAIR, founded in 1994 and a leading US Muslim civil rights group, rejected the designation as “defamatory and unconstitutional.”

The group said it will sue the state, as it is already doing in Texas over a similar proclamation issued by Governor Greg Abbott.

In joint statements from its national office and Florida chapter, CAIR accused DeSantis of prioritizing “the Israeli government over the people of Florida” and targeting the organization because of “decades advancing free speech, religious freedom and justice for all, including for the Palestinian people.”

“We look forward to defeating Gov. DeSantis’s latest Israel First stunt in a court of law, where facts matter and conspiracy theories have no weight,” the statement added.

Neither the Muslim Brotherhood nor CAIR is designated as a terrorist organization by the US government, and so their restrictions remain at the state level.

The designations come as Trump reviews whether any US-based chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood should be blacklisted.

Federal agencies under Trump have also taken actions against individuals and organizations critical of Israel, including student visa cancellations, university fines, and the detention of British commentator Sami Hamdi during a CAIR speaking tour.

December 9, 2025 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Europe needs to heed the invitation in the U.S. National Security Strategy and return power to its nation states

By Ian Proud | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 9, 2025

The publication of America’s new National Security Strategy has sent many European commentators into a collective rage. It is perhaps not surprising that those who are most enraged are the same people in favour of maintaining the war in Ukraine. The cold truth is that European citizens want their nations to focus on their national interests. The European Commission would sooner drag them into a war.

Despite the uproar on X and other social media, the U.S. National Security Strategy says relatively little about Europe, precisely because it focuses on U.S. core national interests. And, indeed, that is the core point made about Europe; that in trying to create a unified geopolitical role, it has neglected the core interests of its Member States.

The Strategy expresses a desire to see Europe regain its self-confidence and reestablish strategic stability with Russia. That aspiration appears driven by a desire to maintain Europe as an open market for U.S. goods and investment, and also to avoid it continuing to be a chaotic continent that diverts U.S. resources from its main peer competitor, which is China. There is also an underlying though unstated sense of Europe and Russia maintaining a healthier relationship in part to resist Chinese domination of both.

Europe’s supposed decline is framed in the context of its reduction in economic stature from 25% of global GDP to 14% now. European economic growth has never fully recovered from the shock of the Global Financial Crisis. With the economic centre of gravity shifting to Asia, the continent is being left behind.

Pundits have taken most offence to the notion that Europe faces civilisational erasure, driven by: ‘European Union and other transnational bodies that undermine political liberty and sovereignty.., censorship of free speech and suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.’

Right at the heart of this critique is the idea that the current ‘trajectory of Europe’ which the U.S. wants to ‘cultivate resistance to’, is eroding national sovereignty and the value of the nations within Europe. The Strategy is shot through with bemusement that culturally rich and diverse Europeans nations, which are the well spring of America’s citizenry, are abandoning their interests in favour of an inchoate supranational identity that is simultaneously unattainable self-harming.

In the aftermath of World War II and centuries of conflict, the European project emerged as a way to allow for the peaceful coexistence of very different nations, linguistically, politically and historically. The adrenalin running through the veins of unprecedented levels of peace and stability until 2014 was the dismantling of economic social and cultural barrier nations, that did not erode their unique sense of self of any nation.

It may well be true that a U.S. security shield avoided the domination of Europe by a hostile Soviet Union until 1991, and for that we should be thankful. But the reason why European states learned to live in peace with each other after that period was largely because politics and security were largely left out of the conversation.

The reason European nations spent less on defence after the Soviet Union collapsed was not because their security was underwritten by American troops in Europe, but because they faced no external threat of invasion either in military terms of through unchecked migration.

The irony, of course, is that the factors that precipitated Europe’s contemporary decline, the ever greater weight and importance given to undemocratic transnational groupings such as NATO – were U.S. led. Impetus from the U.S. to keep expanding NATO gradually reintroduced very real risk to Europe as Russia felt increasingly left out in the cold and threatened. Needing to justify a role for itself, the European Institutions have grabbed ever more competence from Member States to resist so-called Russian aggression.

Once and for all, at least it is hoped, the Strategy attempts to kill ‘the perception… of NATO as a perpetually expanding alliance’. That is being interpreted by the usual pro-war commentators as a sop to Russia. In fact, it is an invitation to European nations to refocus on their national interests, for the benefit of the European continent as a whole.

Without digging over again the history of NATO expansion, the key point is that neither NATO nor the institutions of Europe are states. They have no core interests beyond the bureaucratic need to exist, grow and accrete ever greater powers. You will never see the European Commission or NATO advancing recommendations on how they might reduce in size or hand power back to their members.

At this time of unprecedented threat of a reemergence of continent-wide conflict in Europe, the Americans are simply suggesting that nation states start to wrest back control. Both NATO and the European Commission, in my opinion, have both undermined the national and inflamed the international, while contributing to the stagnation of Europe as an idea of community, rather than a confederation.

A core principle of the U.S. Strategy is to ‘seek good relations and peaceful commercial relations with the nations of the world without imposing on them democratic or other social change that differs widely from their traditions and histories’.

How Trump seeks to coexist with other nations of the world is exactly how European states sought to coexist peacefully with each other after World War II. The European Economic Community, as it was called for a while, didn‘t seek to erode the primacy of the nation state, focussing instead on the economic, social and cultural features to create the idea of common purpose, without the shackles of common identity.

Yet, the European Commission’s concept of expansion – which in any case Europe cannot afford – is rooted in a desire to homogenise states under a fictious notion of common European values, and to prioritise conformity over identity.

Any existing European Member that seeks to raise a hand is called out by the collective as a back-slider, a quisling and a Putin stooge, taking Hungary, as a prime example.

Yet, European nations that focussed first and foremost on their economic wellbeing and the maintenance and protection of their industrial bases would buy Russian gas because it made good economic sense to do so.

A Europe that focussed on the protection of its citizens would seek a negotiated end to the war in Ukraine as soon as possible, instead of rejecting every possibility of dialogue, and raising the spectre of a future war that would kill and displace millions of their citizens.

A Europe that focussed on good neighbourly relations would seek a way to live on good terms with Russia and for Russia and Ukraine to live on good terms with each other, however long it may take to recreate that balance.

And in my experience of engaging with the Russians, they reciprocate with friendship as vigorously as they do with hostility, so the possibility of peace is far less of a mirage than people would have you believe.

Of course, war with Ukraine is used as a reason for why this is neither possible nor desirable. But then, unfortunately, the arguments in favour of perpetual conflict with Russia become self-reinforcing, with both Europe and Russia arguing to their quite separate allies about who is to blame, and no one seeking reconciliation, through the cutting off of contact.

So the European Commission has increasingly sought to dominate continent-wide diplomacy and marshalled the tools of its willing legions of media talking heads who insist that nothing must change, that talking to Russia is tantamount to treason. The bellicose response to the U.S. National Security Strategy is proof of that. Moscow’s signalling of their alignment with its principles offered as further evidence that Trump is selling us out.

Yet, restoring strategic balance between Europe and Russia, which the U.S. strategy claims to want, requires restoring the primacy of the individual Member States of Europe over its institutions, and handing back control to capitals in how to govern their relations with Russia and other countries.

The European institutions have succeeded in defining Europe as something distinct from Russia, when in fact, Russia is a part of Europe. Calls by Defence Commissioner Kubilius to develop a common European geopolitical strategy, is merely another effort to grasp more competence from the nation states of Europe. These should be roundly rejected. The common foreign and security policy has been an abject failure and should be dismantled.

It is the institutions of Europe who are blocking the door of efforts to restore some normality in relations with Russia, most notably in the form of rabid Russophobes such as Kaja Kallas. She would happily take Europe to war from the comfort of a safe distance. I’d invite more European citizens to heed the invitation of the Americans to seek a way out with the implication that she, and other unelected war-mongers, are stripped of their powers.

December 9, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

Russia’s Return to Syria Changes Everything

TMJ News Network | December 8, 2025

A year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad and Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s rise to power, Syria remains a politically volatile state. West Asian geopolitical analyst and Cradle columnist Sharmine Narwani joins TMJ News to reveal the power plays unfolding behind the scenes: Russia’s sudden return near the Golan, Israel expanding its reach in the south, Gulf and Turkish maneuvering, U.S. calculations, and the IMF positioning itself for influence. What does the future of Syria look like as foreign powers get involved?

December 8, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Video | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel Plans to Spend $740 Million on Propaganda in 2026

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 8, 2025

A proposal calls for nearly quintupling Israel’s public diplomacy – or hasbara – budget.

The plan calls for increasing the propaganda budget to $729 million in 2026, up from $150 million this year. The significant boost to the public diplomacy fund comes as Israel’s image is plummeting in the US.

Over the past years, polls have found that a decreasing number of Americans support Israel and approve of Tel Aviv’s onslaught in Gaza. A New York Times survey in September found more Americans sympathize with Palestinians than Israelis. Additionally, 40% of Americans believe Israel is intentionally killing Palestinians in Gaza.

Earlier this year, public filings showed that the Israeli Foreign Ministry is spending $4.1 million to target American Evangelical Christians. The campaign will involve creating a mobile “October 7 experience” that will visit Christian colleges, churches, and events.

Another FARA filing revealed that Tel Aviv is paying some influencers up to $7,000 per post that promotes Israeli narratives. Israel is also planning to spend $145 million to influence popular AI chatbots.

Tel Aviv’s public relations push also involves bringing Americans to Israel. Earlier this year, the Israeli Foreign Minister gathered 250 state-level American lawmakers for a conference on passing laws that target the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in the US.

December 8, 2025 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , | Leave a comment

As former CIA chief joins board of Ukraine’s Fire Point, more questions need answered

By George Samuelson | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 8, 2025

With a closet full of skeletons to his name, Mike Pompeo has joined a major Ukrainian defense company that produces weapons capable of targeting Moscow. Is it time to end the ‘revolving door’ between the world of politics and business, especially now with World War III on the line?

Michael Pompeo is the ultimate Washington insider. His decades-long stint on Capitol Hill has seen him serve under Donald Trump as both the Secretary of State (2018-2021) and CIA Director (2017-2018). Before that, he served for six years in the U.S. House of Representatives (2011-2017). His multilevel experience and vast contacts give him tremendous sway over Washington DC to this day. In other words, he is the perfect candidate to sell his connections to a defense contractor.

In November, Pompeo joined the advisory board of Ukrainian defense company Fire Point, which develops long-range missile systems that allow Ukraine to strike deep into Russian territory. Pompeo’s new position represents a dangerous conflict of interest since his extremely hawkish views on the Ukrainian conflict are already well known. In 2023, he advised the Biden administration to “reverse its policy of denying weapons and adequate weapons supplies” that would help Ukraine. The Biden administration responded to the plea with billions of dollars’ worth of expenditures, which served to enflame the situation on the ground in Ukraine.

The move by Pompeo to join Fire Point, reflective of America’s well known “revolving door” phenomenon, which sees opportunistic individuals move effortlessly between public service and the commercial sector, should raise some major red flags. Unfortunately, the tradition is too deeply embedded in the U.S. political system to end anytime soon. That’s because the defense industry revolving door pays rich dividends. In 2019, a government watchdog reported that the Pentagon’s 14 largest contractors had hired 1,700 former Department of Defense senior civilian and military officials. That same year, the six largest defense contractors reported $18.4 billion in profits. To many taxpaying Americans, this reeks of blatant corruption.

The problem with Pompeo working for a foreign agency, however, is rather new and very problematic. On the one hand, we see the Trump administration attempting to broker a peace agreement between Moscow and Kiev, while on the other hand, we have a powerful former American official working on behalf of the pro-war lobby. Pompeo is the face of those hawks in Washington, DC and Kiev who stand to be handsomely rewarded if war continues to drag on indefinitely in Ukraine. It’s a hard truth to swallow, but no defense contractor wants to see the end of hostilities in Ukraine. And let’s not forget Pompeo’s sinister background. As the former CIA Director, he once admitted that “We lied, we cheated, we stole. We had entire training courses. It reminds you of the glory of the American experiment.”

Ah, yes. Another “American experiment,” this time smack on Russia’s border. With no loss of irony, bringing Pompeo on board with Fire Point could be an effort to whitewash the reputation of the company, which is currently under investigation for its alleged price gouging practices, and for its connections to Tymur Mindich, a Zelensky associate being investigated for corruption charges. NABU, Ukraine’s Western-backed anti-corruption bureau, exposed a money laundering scheme in the energy sector of Ukraine, through which some $100 million passed, leaving the Zelensky regime deeply red-faced in the process. Pompeo cannot magically make these problems disappear, however, as his own history is a deeply stained one.

In the summer of 2024, Pompeo co-wrote an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal where he commented: “Ukraine joins NATO as soon as possible so all European allies assume the burden of protecting it. NATO should establish a $100 billion fund for arming Ukraine, with the U.S. share capped at 20%, as is the case with other alliance common budgets. The European Union should swiftly admit Ukraine and help it modernize and develop its economy.”

Surely the pompous Pompeo is aware that Russia views the admission of Ukraine into NATO as a clear red line, not to mention the militarization of its Western neighbor. Yet in full-blown CIA style he is actively fomenting the situation to the peril of the Russian and Ukrainian people. And now that Pompeo is sitting on the board of advisors of one of Ukraine’s most profitable defense companies, he will obviously see no reason to tone down the pro-war rhetoric in favor of corporate profit. That would certainly not make the company’s stockholders pleased. Pompeo is sitting many miles away from the battle zone and has no reason to view his blatant self-interest as a personal risk.

In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned that the influence of the military-industrial complex could “endanger our liberties or democratic processes.” We have reached the point when personal self-interest trumps what is best for the nation, with America’s standing on the international stage disregarded. It’s time to end the revolving door between public service and corporate interests before it’s too late.

December 8, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

NATO Is a Menace, Not a Benefit, to America

By Ted Galen Carpenter | The Libertarian Institute | December 8, 2025

Since its creation in 1949, NATO has been the keystone of U.S. foreign policy in Europe. Indeed, the alliance has been the most important feature of Washington’s overall strategy of global primacy. America’s political and policy elites have embraced two key assumptions and continue to do so. One is that NATO is essential to the peace and security of the entire transatlantic region and will remain so for the indefinite future. The other sacred assumption is that the alliance is highly beneficial to America’s own core security and economic interests.

Whatever validity those assumptions may have had at one time, they are dangerously obsolete today. The toxic, militaristic views toward Russia that too many European leaders are adopting have made NATO into a snare that could entangle the United States in a large-scale war with ominous nuclear implications. It is urgent for Donald Trump’s administration and sensible proponents of a U.S. foreign policy based on realism and restraint to eliminate such a risky and unnecessary situation.

Throughout the Cold War and its immediate aftermath, NATO’s European members followed Washington’s policy lead on important issues with little dissent or resistance. That situation is no longer true. The governments and populations in the alliance’s East European members (the countries that the Kremlin held in bondage during the Cold War but that eagerly joined NATO once the Soviet Union collapsed) have adopted an especially aggressive, uncompromising stance toward Russia as the USSR’s successor. They have lobbied with special fervor in favor of admitting Ukraine to NATO, despite Moscow’s repeated warnings over the past two decades that such a step would constitute an intolerable provocation. The East European states also have been avid supporters of the proxy war that NATO has waged against Russia following Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.

Their toxic hostility toward Russia has inexorably made inroads even among the previously more restrained, sensible members of the alliance. With a few partial exceptions, such as Hungary and Slovakia, NATO governments now push for unrealistic, very risky policies with respect to the Ukraine-Russia war. Washington’s volatile, ever-changing policy under President Trump regarding that armed conflict has not helped matters.

The Trump administration’s latest approach has been to try to inject some badly needed realism into the position that Ukraine and its NATO supporters pursue. Realities on the battlefield confirm that Russia is winning, albeit slowly and at considerable cost, the bloody war against its neighbor. Moscow’s forces are gradually expanding the amount of territory they control. Kiev’s propaganda campaign to portray Ukraine as a stalwart democracy and a vital symbol of resistance to an authoritarian Russia is collapsing as well. Corruption scandals now plague the government of President Volodymyr Zelensky, as does growing evidence of his regime’s authoritarianism. Proponents of NATO’s continuing military intervention now seek to downplay the once-dominant “moral case” for the alliance’s involvement and try to stress Ukraine’s alleged strategic importance to both the United States and its allies.

Stubbornness and lack of realism on the part of NATO’s European members (as well as too many American policy analysts and media mavens) is worrisome and dangerous. They have launched a concerted effort to torpedo the Trump administration’s latest peace initiative.  Proponents of continuing the alliance’s proxy war insist that no peace accord include territorial concessions by Ukraine. They also demand that Kiev retain the “right” to join NATO. Finally, they insist that any settlement contain a NATO “security guarantee” to Ukraine, and that a peacekeeping force that includes troops from alliance members enforce that settlement. Britain and France have explicitly made the demand to send troops.

Such demands amount to a poison pill designed to kill any prospect of an agreement that Moscow might accept. The insistence on a security guarantee to Kiev and a peacekeeping contingent especially fits that description. Any accord that puts NATO military personnel in Ukraine would make the country a protectorate of the alliance, even if Kiev did not receive an official membership card. The commitment itself would have NATO’s military might perched on Russia’s border. That is precisely the outcome that Moscow has sought to prevent for decades.

Extremely inflammatory and combative rhetoric on the part of high-level European officials increasingly accompany such provocative, anti-Russia policy stances. Admiral Giuseppe Cavo Dragone, the chair of NATO’s Military Committee, even mused that the alliance should consider the option of launching a “preemptive” military strike against Russia. Other officials in NATO member governments have asserted that the alliance (or “Europe”) must be prepared to wage war against Russia, if relations continue to deteriorate.

NATO’s European hawks are flying high, and the irresponsible options they toy with put the United States in grave danger. The NATO alliance is no longer even arguably a security asset for the American people. Instead, it has become an increasingly worrisome, perilous liability – a loose cannon that poses a grave danger to our country.

NATO was created so that the United States could protect a collection of weak democracies in Western Europe still suffering from the aftermath of World War II against a strong, menacing totalitarian state: the Soviet Union. That world no longer exists. Today, a much larger, stronger collection of democratic and quasi-democratic European states confronts Russia – a weaker, non-totalitarian power. Even without the United States, the European countries are capable of building and deploying whatever forces they deem necessary to sustain their security interests. NATO’s European contingent also has its own, extremely assertive (indeed, aggressive) policy agenda toward Moscow. That agenda endangers rather than benefits the United States and the American people. It is now imperative for America to sever the transatlantic security tie and say farewell to NATO.

December 8, 2025 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia | , , , , | Leave a comment

James Angleton: JFK Assassination Architect?

By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | December 7, 2025

Newly-declassified files show President John F Kennedy’s alleged assassin Lee Harvey Oswald was monitored for years by James Angleton, the CIA’s infamous veteran counterintelligence chief, right up until the President’s death. In this context, freshly-released FBI documents indicating Oswald was removed from Bureau watchlists six weeks before Kennedy’s assassination, despite being judged a high security risk, at the express direction of Angleton’s staff, take on a distinctly disquieting character. Was Oswald a target of, or participant in, Angleton’s illegal domestic spying operations?

In June 1953, a memo was circulated among senior FBI officials, its subject line: “Central Intelligence Agency – information received from James Angleton”. It documents how the CIA’s counterintelligence chief had over the past year “been very cooperative and… volunteered voluminous information of interest to Bureau.” Such was the vast and sensitive intelligence yield, it was considered necessary to establish dedicated, strict internal protocols for handling and storing material provided by Angleton to the FBI.

This was “particularly” vital in respect of information Angleton received and passed on to the Bureau from Mossad, his “primary source” of intelligence among “numerous foreign sources and channels” he maintained worldwide. The memo went on to outline how Angleton handled “special cases of a various nature”, and was “usually given considerable freedom and leeway in directing the operations of his unit.” Angleton was “responsible only” to the CIA’s Director, and his staff were “responsible only to him.”

James Angleton testifies to the Senate Intelligence Committee

The memo noted approvingly how “much of the information” provided by Angleton “consists of the actual reports” he received from his sources. This was of significant advantage to the FBI, as the agency was able to “better evaluate the information instead of waiting for the delay and processing through normal channels in the CIA.” Angleton also “frequently” kept the Bureau apprised of Agency activities overseas, “which the CIA sometimes camouflages with some of its cloak and dagger techniques.”

Angleton’s extensive cooperation bought him enormous goodwill within the FBI. He successfully leveraged this in January 1958, when the Bureau serendipitously “flushed out” a scandalous, illegal spying operation targeting US citizens conducted by the CIA’s counterintelligence unit. A memo that month shared between senior FBI officials records how the Bureau was seeking to establish a program to monitor all mail being sent to and from the Soviet Union by American citizens, only to discover Angleton was already doing precisely the same thing.

Angleton in turn learned his scheme had been busted, so approached the Agency’s FBI liaison agent on a “personal basis” to outline the program. He claimed he would be fired if Langley caught wind of his disclosures to the Bureau. Angleton explained how the interception program was “one of the biggest and most secret operations being conducted by CIA,” and “extensive and expensive”. An “elaborate array of IBM machines” catalogued and conducted “complex scientific examinations” of all mail gathered.

In all, “two or three hundred CIA employees” were “exclusively engaged on various facets” of the operation, which cost “well over a million dollars a year” – roughly $11 million today. Angleton said the effort’s “sole purpose…was to identify persons behind the Iron Curtain who might have some ties in the US and who could be approached… as contacts and sources for CIA.” The operation was purportedly a “success”, with numerous valuable assets cultivated.

While FBI higherups questioned whether the effort “invaded our jurisdiction”, it was concluded Angleton’s unit had a “legitimate right” to conduct the mission. Moreover, the Bureau could avoid “the inherent dangers” of conducting a parallel mail intercept program – including “the sensitive nature of it, its complexity, size and expense” – by simply demanding the CIA counterintelligence unit hand over their operation’s vast intelligence yield to them.

Lee Harvey Oswald first came to Angleton’s attention in November 1959, due to news reports of his defection to the Soviet Union the previous month. Thereafter, all mail Oswald sent to and received from the US was opened and read by the CIA, until he returned home in May 1962 with his Russian wife Marina. Angleton’s monitoring of the minutiae of Oswald’s life persisted until Kennedy was killed. Multiple separate CIA operations collected intelligence on the President’s alleged assassin throughout.

‘CIA Project’

The CIA counterintelligence officer who monitored Oswald’s mail was Reuben Efron, part of a personal spying network constructed by Angleton from Jewish émigres from the Soviet Union, outside of formal Agency structures. Eerily, Efron attended a February 1964 hearing of the Warren Commission – officially charged with investigating JFK’s assassination – at which Marina Oswald testified. His presence was noted in an official volume of the investigation’s proceedings, but his employment by the Agency was unmentioned. Was he there on Angleton’s behalf?

This is but one of many mysteries related to Oswald that Angleton’s closed-door testimony to Senate investigators in June 1975 failed to resolve. During his grilling, Angleton had little to say about Kennedy’s assassination, despite being repeatedly probed about “the Oswald situation”. Questioned whether the CIA kept records on Oswald, Angleton prevaricated, “they have a file… I think more than one.” He offered scant further information, beyond claiming the supposed lone nut shooter was likely a Soviet operative.

When asked if there was a “connection between Oswald and the FBI”, Angleton elliptically acknowledged “there was a tremendous flap in the Bureau” following Kennedy’s assassination, and “confusion” the FBI “had not turned over, or had not taken enough initiative in turning over, all the information on Oswald to the local police” in Dallas. Angleton neglected to mention the FBI informed his counterintelligence unit one week prior to November 22nd 1963 Oswald was living and working in the city. By this time, the file collated by Angleton on Oswald ran to 180 pages.

Angleton was even more dishonest when testifying to the House Select Committee on Assassinations in October 1978. Asked point blank by a senior investigator if, to his knowledge, “Oswald [was] ever the subject of any CIA project,” Angleton lied, “no”. Coincidentally or not, he was then asked whether he knew Reuben Efron, and his responsibilities. Angleton responded in the affirmative, explaining Efron’s duties related to mail interception. Angleton was uniquely well-placed to elaborate that Efron was monitoring Oswald’s mail, in an operation he personally oversaw.

Angleton was grilled about his counterintelligence unit providing Israel with technical support for constructing nuclear weapons. He denied the charges, but under questioning admitted Tel Aviv may have conducted clandestine operations to source nuclear material in the US. Asked if he possessed “certain knowledge” of Israeli efforts “to acquire nuclear secrets in the US,” Angleton pleaded, “Do I have to respond to that?”

Kennedy entered office in January 1961 deeply concerned about Tel Aviv’s nuclear ambitions. A CIA assessment the previous month concluded a “major purpose” of Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant was “plutonium production for weapons.” The assessment outlined numerous grave outcomes of Tel Aviv acquiring nukes. Chief among them, exposure of the program would inevitably cause “consternation” in North Africa and West Asia, potentially prompting “threatened” Arab and Muslim states to turn to the Soviet Union for military assistance.

Perhaps spurred by this prospect, from day one of his Presidency, Kennedy made harmonious relations between Washington and Israel contingent on regular U.S. inspections of Dimona. Under intense pressure, Tel Aviv’s then-Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion finally allowed inspections in May 1961. Extensive efforts were conducted to camouflage areas of Dimona dedicated to research and development of nukes. Resultant assessments concluded the facility was solely concerned with nuclear power generation. Kennedy was unconvinced, however. In May 1963, he dispatched an ominous private telegram to Ben-Gurion:

“The dangers in the proliferation of national nuclear weapons systems are so obvious that I am sure I need not repeat them here… We are concerned with the disturbing effects on world stability which would accompany the development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel… Development of a nuclear weapons capability by Israel would almost certainly lead other larger countries, that have so far refrained from such development, to feel that they must follow suit.”

‘Intelligence Operation’

The House Select Committee on Assassinations’ (HSCA) failure to interrogate Angleton over Israel’s nuke ambitions is all the more inexcusable given the contents of an April 1978 interview, conducted by Committee researcher Gaeton Fonzi with journeyman CIA officer Joseph Burkhalter Smith. Declassified records show Smith made a number of striking disclosures about Angleton’s role and influence within the Agency, and relationship with Tel Aviv. He suggested there was suspicion at the CIA’s highest levels Angleton may have been involved in Kennedy’s assassination, or at least concealed shadowy counterintelligence operations related to the world-changing event.

Smith enjoyed a close relationship with William Colby, who headed the CIA September 1973 – January 1976. A relative dove, Colby was forced out and replaced by George H. W. Bush, due to his candid public criticisms of the Agency’s record, and drive to break open the US intelligence community to greater scrutiny. Henry Kissinger aggressively pressed for his removal, fulminating how every time Colby “gets near Capitol Hill, the damn fool feels an irresistible urge to confess to some horrible crime.”

It is uncertain whether Angleton, Colby’s avowed nemesis, also played any role in Colby’s ouster. Smith claimed “Colby’s problems within the Agency stemmed largely from the conflict he had” with the CIA’s obsessively secretive counterintelligence supremo. Colby was totally in the dark as to what Angleton and his team were doing at any given time. Smith relayed how Colby had said of Kennedy’s assassination, “there could have been operations that Angleton’s staff was running that he wouldn’t even tell the Director.”

Smith went on to record how Angleton’s staff did “strange things”, and “handled all Israeli operations,” despite this not falling under their official purview. This “had a strange effect” on CIA operations in West Asia, “because unlike in other divisions where station chiefs kept each other informed, Angleton wouldn’t pass information to other stations in the Arab countries unless ‘he felt like it’.” It was also a mystery to Smith how Angleton “got all his power”.

Nonetheless, Smith testified Angleton had a “special relationship” with Allen Dulles, the longtime CIA director fired by Kennedy over the 1961 Bay of Pigs fiasco, subsequently appointed to the Warren Commission. Smith also described an “incredible” cult-like ethos among Angleton’s Agency adherents. Universally convinced the CIA had been heavily penetrated by the KGB, they were “confirmed believers in the world Communist conspiracy theory” – to the extent of suspecting the Sino-Soviet split was “a great deceptive operation.”

Asked by Fonzi “to be speculative” as to whether Lee Harvey Oswald could’ve been “a deep cover agent for the Agency,” Smith suggested Oswald may have “worked either for the Soviet Division, which ran operations in the Soviet Union, or the Counter Intelligence staff.” Angleton’s team was furthermore “very interested in the Fair Play for Cuba Committee”, a longstanding target of the CIA and FBI, to the extent “getting a penetration into it would have been a high priority effort.”

After moving to New Orleans in April 1963, Oswald set up a one-man chapter of the FPCC. In an apparent attempt to attract new members to the group in the virulently anti-Castro city, which was heaving with Cuban exiles, Oswald publicly distributed leaflets promoting the group. He hired random members of the public to assist with the effort, which lasted only 15 minutes, but just so happened to be captured on camera by a local TV station.

Oddly, when testifying to the Warren Commission, Oswald’s half-brother John Pic was “unable to recognize him” in pictures of the leafleting event, raising the prospect Oswald was being impersonated. Even more curiously, as Fonzi noted in his discussion with Smith, some of the leaflets listed the address of Oswald’s FPCC chapter as 544 Camp Street, which housed “some kind of intelligence operation run by Guy Banister, a former FBI agent.” Smith responded, “there were a lot of former FBI men on Angleton’s staff.”

Today, journalists, researchers, and concerned citizens have no choice but “to be speculative” about how and why John F Kennedy was killed, and by whom. The newly-declassified documents offer only further questions – but they all unambiguously point in James Angleton’s direction. His multifaceted role as master of the CIA’s vast Oswald file, chief of Agency relations with Israel, and potential enabler of Tel Aviv’s nuclear weapons program all appear interlinked. And these operations in tandem may account for what occurred on November 22nd 1963.

December 8, 2025 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Israeli intel-linked Axonius penetrated 70 US federal agencies

Al Mayadeen | December 7, 2025

A technology firm with longstanding links to Israeli intelligence has quietly assumed a central role in safeguarding the digital systems of more than seventy US government agencies, including the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, according to initial reporting by independent outlet Do Not Panic.

Axonius, founded by former officers of “Israel’s” Unit 8200, offers software designed to give organizations “visibility and control over all types and number of devices.” In practice, this means the platform collects and analyzes data tied to millions of federal employees.

The company was set up by three Israelis, Dean Sysman, Ofri Shur, and Avidor Bartov, who served together in Unit 8200 in the early 2010s. While Sysman’s LinkedIn profile offers only vague references to work with “far-reaching implications,” their time overlaps with key years of Israeli aggression.

Sysman left the Israeli forces in 2014 to launch a cyber-hacking venture. Shur and Bartov remained in uniform until 2017, a period that included “Israel’s” 2014 aggression on Gaza.

Rapid formation and strategic early funding

Shur and Bartov left military service in 2017 and swiftly reunited with Sysman. Almost immediately, the trio secured $4 million in seed funding from Yoav Leitersdorf, an Israeli-American investor, fellow Unit 8200 veteran, and managing partner of US-Israeli venture capital firm YL Ventures.

Additional financing arrived from Israeli firm Vertex Ventures, whose leadership is similarly rooted in Israeli military intelligence; partner Tami Bronner served four years in the IOF’s intelligence wing.

Axonius then attracted hundreds of millions in further investment from US venture capital funds with strong connections to “Israel’s” security apparatus, as per the investigative website.

Accel Partners, which has backed more than thirty Israeli tech firms, was among the earliest. Bessemer Venture Partners, whose Tel Aviv office is staffed by former Israeli intelligence personnel, also joined. One partner, Amit Karp, a former intelligence officer, now sits on the Axonius board.

Lightspeed Venture Partners, another major backer contributing roughly $200m across several rounds, employs multiple former members of Israeli military and special forces units.

Deep penetration into US federal system

Given these backgrounds, the reach of Axonius inside the US federal infrastructure is striking. The company says its platform is now running across “more than 70 federal organizations,” including four of the five core Department of Defense service branches. Award records show contracts with the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine Corps.

In November 2024, the Department of Homeland Security selected Axonius to centralise cyber data for dozens of federal agencies. A month later, the Pentagon tapped the company to update its system for 24/7 monitoring of all DoD networks, a key piece of federal cyber defense.

By April, Axonius had secured blanket authorization for its cloud-based tools to be used by any US federal agency.

Far-reaching footprint across government

Axonius’ software is now integrated into agencies spanning energy, transportation, treasury, health, and agriculture. Spending databases show the Defense Logistics Agency, responsible for managing the US global weapons supply chain, spent $4.3 million on Axonius in 2023 alone. The Department of Agriculture has paid nearly $2 million while Health and Human Services has paid more than $1.3 million since 2021.

Although the company presents itself as American, with headquarters in New York, its founders, top executives, and financial backers are overwhelmingly Israeli, and its engineering operations are based in Tel Aviv.

LinkedIn data indicates that most Axonius engineers in Tel Aviv previously worked in Israeli intelligence units. Through the platform, operators can link devices to specific individuals, track login activity, review browsing patterns, disable accounts, or quarantine devices.

The firm has also established a separate R&D arm,  AxoniusX,  led by another Unit 8200 veteran, Amit Ofer, and tasked with developing advanced cyber capabilities.

Defenders might argue that Axonius reflects the close and often opaque relationship between Washington and “Israel”. Yet “Israel’s” long record of espionage activity in the US complicates this narrative.

Historical examples range from spying operations involving Hollywood front companies to the sale of compromised software to foreign governments. Robert Maxwell, father of Ghislaine Maxwell, was an Israeli agent, and substantial evidence points to Jeffrey Epstein’s links to Israeli military intelligence. During Donald Trump’s first term, US officials reportedly discovered Israeli surveillance devices near the White House.

A Trojan horse risk?

Despite this backdrop, American authorities have permitted former Israeli intelligence officers to embed software across nearly the entire federal cyber infrastructure. In effect, the US has outsourced key elements of its digital security architecture to individuals with deep roots in the intelligence services of a foreign state.

Whether Axonius has misused or intends to misuse this access is unknown. But for analysts familiar with “Israel’s” espionage record, the arrangement raises profound questions about security, sovereignty, and oversight.

Axonius also illustrates a broader dynamic: US taxpayer funds help build “Israel’s” high-tech military apparatus, only for Washington to later purchase Israeli-developed technologies at scale, effectively paying twice. This cycle creates lucrative pathways for veterans of Israeli intelligence, while embedding their tools inside US systems, as per the investigation.

While political elites have long framed the relationship as mutually beneficial, public opinion is shifting. Millions of Americans now question whether support for “Israel” is the stabilising force it has been portrayed as.

The Axonius case surely adds fresh weight to those doubts.

December 7, 2025 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

New NSS Signals US Ready to ‘Forget’ Ukraine, Snubs ‘Weak’ EU – Analyst

Sputnik – 07.12.2025

Donald Trump’s National Security Strategy (NSS) sketches a future in which the US is “ready to throw the current political leadership in Ukraine under the bus, much as several NATO countries and EU leadership expect,” believes retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski.

The US signals in the document, where Ukraine is downgraded to just four mentions, that it expects peace and some form of a “viable sovereign state” afterward, Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, tells Sputnik.

“This is a practical US acceptance that the cost of the US/NATO proxy war is not worth it,” stresses the analyst.

The NSS reflects a realization that “no NATO army or combination of armies can stop Russia’s advance or the achievement of its goals,” which include the end of the current neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, she underscores.

NSS Puts Europe on Notice

Unprecedentedly, the NSS “directly alienates and demeans the current political leadership of the EU and many key NATO countries,” says the pundit.

The strategy depicts the EU as economically frail, politically fractured, and dependent on US support “for a price.”

The message to the EU hawks is: the US will not assist the European establishment in “holding off the new generation of nationalists and populists from taking power.”

According to Kwiatkowski, it is unlikely that the US deep state will “tactically and strategically aid European elites, through money, deals, and color revolutions, or even help with NATO expansion, as they have for the past 30 years.”

As for Europe’s policy toward Ukraine—if determined by the populist movements likely to prevail in coming European elections, it will “settle for a smaller, possibly landlocked Ukraine, and investment in Ukraine will not be charitable but geared primarily to recoup European economic losses.”

December 7, 2025 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Amendments in US’s New Security Doctrine Largely Align With Russia’s Vision – Kremlin

Sputnik – 07.12.2025

The adjustments made to the new US National Security Strategy are largely consistent with Moscow’s vision, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.

“The adjustments that we are seeing, I would say, are largely consistent with our vision,” Peskov told Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin.

On Friday, the White House published a new US national security doctrine that calls on Europe to take responsibility for its own defense. The document also suggests that the White House disagrees with European officials on their stance regarding the conflict in Ukraine.

Responsibility for the possible seizure of Russian assets will be shared by individuals and entire countries, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov also said.

“Listen, we will have both national responsibility and personal responsibility, personal and legal responsibility for these actions,” Peskov told Russian journalist Pavel Zarubin.

Peskov also recalled that the International Monetary Fund (IMF) opposed the seizure of Russian assets and urges caution to avoid negative repercussions on the international financial system.

“We hear that the International Monetary Fund has issued a statement addressing this issue with great caution and calling for such measures to avoid any negative impact on the international financial system. That is, even the IMF [opposes], and what is the IMF? It is what they created, it is the foundation of monetary policy in the monetary world. So it turns out that this foundation is now turning against its progenitors, saying ‘Come to your senses,’” he said.

December 7, 2025 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , | Leave a comment

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