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Had UN condemned Israel, there’d be no need for retaliation – Iran

RT | April 11, 2024

Iran feels obligated to punish Israel for its attack on the diplomatic mission in Syria because the UN Security Council has failed in its duty, Tehran’s mission to the world body said on Thursday.

The April 1 airstrike killed seven Iranian officers, including two generals of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Quds Force. Israel did not officially claim responsibility for the attack.

“Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated,” the mission posted on X.

Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has said that Israel “must and shall be punished” for what it did. Israeli and US intelligence has fueled speculation that possible reprisal could entail anything from drone attacks to ballistic missile strikes.

Israel has been bracing for some kind of response for over a week, with the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) canceling all leave and starting to spoof GPS signals.

Reports on Wednesday, sourced to anonymous US intelligence officials, spoke of an imminent Iranian strike within 24-48 hours, following the end of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and the feast of Eid-al-Fitr. Brent oil futures rose above $90 a barrel in anticipation.

British-based media have reported that Israel has been preparing to attack Iranian nuclear program facilities in case of a missile strike. The US government has declared it would back West Jerusalem against Tehran, but anonymous claims that American jets would join Israeli strikes have not been officially confirmed.

April 11, 2024 Posted by | War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment

How Big a Factor is Iran in the War on Gaza?

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | April 10, 2024

In both Ukraine and Gaza, the Joe Biden administration has adopted the dangerous doctrine of war management in which, while not stopping a war diplomatically, it attempts to contain it and prevent it from becoming a wider war into which the United States might get drawn.

This difficult to calibrate policy is being threatened in both theaters.

In the Middle East, two Israeli actions have escalated the calibrated strikes between Israel and Iran, up to the threshold that Iran could absorb without feeling the necessity to respond.

One was an airstrike in southern Lebanon that killed Ali Ahmad Hassin, an important Hezbollah commander. The more significant and volatile one was the April 1 attack on an Iranian embassy compound in Damascus that killed seven Iranian officers, including General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, the top Iranian Quds Force commander in Lebanon and Syria.

Zahedi is the most senior Iranian commander to be killed since war broke out on October 7. But what made this strike escalatory and dangerous is that it targeted an embassy compound under Iranian sovereignty. “When they attack our consulate,” Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech on April 10, “it is as if they have attacked our soil.” Khamenei called the decision to escalate to such an attack a “mistake” that “must be punished.”

A direct response by Iran against Israel could risk the nightmare scenario the United States has sought to avoid through its policy of managing wars. In that scenario, Iran retaliates in kind against Israel and Israel responds, drawing Iran and Hezbollah into the war in a manner that pulls in the Houthis as well as militias in Iraq and Syria. A Houthi source told Responsible Statecraft that “In case a full-scale war was to erupt between Hezbollah and Israel, Yemen and its leadership will stand with the party [Hezbollah] militarily, politically and economically” in a way that could even include “sending foot soldiers.” Such a force aligned against Israel could risk drawing the United States into the war.

In a speech on April 5, Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah called the attack on Iran’s Damascus embassy “a turning point” and said that it is “certain that the Iranian response to the [bombing] of the Iranian consulate is coming without a doubt.”

He said, perhaps clearly for the first time, that Hezbollah could intervene in the event of a full-scale Israel-Iran war. “Everyone must prepare themselves, arrange their matters and be careful,” he said, “when the Iranian side responds to the targeting of the Iranian consulate and to the Zionist enemy’s possible response to the Iranian response.”

Nasrallah said that an Iranian response is inevitable and seemed to caution against the size of the Israeli counter-response, saying, not only that “everyone must prepare themselves,” but reminding that Hezbollah has “not used the main weapons nor the main forces and we have not called in the reserves.”

Nasrallah may have been leveraging a fuller Hezbollah entrance into the war to caution Israel and the United States against an even more escalatory Israeli counter-response to the response Iran feels it must deliver. Iran may have gone one step further, leveraging its entrance into the war in an attempt to stop the war altogether.

As Trita Parsi, Executive Vice President of the Quincy Institute first reported, an Arab diplomatic source told Jadeh Iran that Iran will respond to the Israeli attack on its embassy with a direct attack on Israel unless the United States orchestrates a ceasefire in Gaza. According to reporting in Jadeh Iran, “Iran has vowed to respond to the assassination of Zahedi.” However, in an “exchange of messages between Tehran and Washington” whose aim is “to contain escalation,” an Iranian proposal “stipulated a ceasefire in Gaza as a price” for not striking Israel in retaliation.

Though a causal line cannot be drawn, it is interesting that, in an interview recorded on April 3, President Joe Biden said, “I think what [Netanyahu’s] doing is a mistake. I don’t agree with his approach,” and then said, “So what I’m calling for is the Israelis to just call for a ceasefire, allow for the next six, eight weeks, a total access to all food and medicine going into the country.”

It is also interesting that the United States is participating in the latest round of ceasefire negotiations in Cairo. In an April 8 press conference, National Security Communications Advisor John Kirby said that CIA Director Bill Burns was in Cairo for the talks. He said that the Biden administration “is doing everything possible to broker a deal that secures the release of all the hostages and leads to an immediate ceasefire. And there’s simply no higher priority.”

CNN went further, reporting that Burns wasn’t just present or participating, but that he “presented a new proposal to try to bridge the gaps in ongoing negotiations to broker a deal to bring about a ceasefire.”

Hezbollah may be responding to the killing of one of their commanders by leveraging the threat of its entering the war to prevent the war from entering an uncontrolled series of escalations. Iran may be responding to the airstrike on its embassy that killed a general by leveraging its entering the war to stop the war altogether. How big a factor Iran is, and how powerful its leverage, may help determine what comes next, how big the Israeli counter-response to Iran’s promised response is and even, perhaps, the prospects of a future ceasefire.

April 11, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

China tells US it won’t be bullied on Russia

RT | April 10, 2024

Relations between Beijing and Moscow are their business alone, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning has said, responding to veiled threats by a senior American diplomat.

US Deputy Secretary of State Kurt Campbell said on Tuesday that any further Russian advances in Ukraine will “have an impact” on the US-China relationship.

“China and Russia have the right to carry out normal cooperation. Such cooperation should not come under external interference or constraint,” Mao said, when asked about Campbell’s comments at Wednesday’s press briefing. “China will not accept the accusations and pressuring.”

Speaking to the nonprofit National Committee on US-China Relations, Campbell – who recently took over from Victoria Nuland – said that recent Russian gains could “alter the balance of power in Europe in ways that are, frankly, unacceptable” to Washington, and that the State Department has told Beijing as much.

“On Ukraine, China has always taken an objective and just position and played a constructive role in actively promoting peace talks,” Mao told reporters. “If certain countries truly care about peace and want an early end to the crisis, they should reflect on the root cause of the crisis and do something that will actually help bring about peace, rather than deflect the blame to China.”

Beijing has repeatedly resisted US pressure to side with Kiev and join the Washington-led embargo against Moscow.

Campbell’s remarks echoed the statements made by US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen during her visit to China earlier this week. Mao responded by saying that China would “take resolute measures to safeguard our legitimate rights and interests.”

On Wednesday, the Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman also condemned US travel warnings as “totally unwarranted,” “wrongful” and “groundless,” noting that they have “deterred many Americans” who wanted to visit the country.

China and other members of BRICS have helped Russia mitigate the “illegal policy of unilateral sanctions” by the West, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday, after meeting his counterpart Wang Yi in Beijing.

Moscow’s trade with the rest of the world has surged over the past two years, more than offsetting the embargo by the US and its allies, imposed over the Ukraine conflict.

April 11, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , | Leave a comment

Still Trying to End the Vietnam War Killings

By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | April 10, 2024

The Vietnam War ended nearly 50 years ago. Still, the killing and maiming is not over. People continue to suffer from and succumb to injuries from the war long past. And others, often people born since the war’s end, are killed or injured by the explosion of some of the many bombs from the war that now clutter Vietnam.

A March 15 New York Times article profiles Chuck Searcy who, as a United States Army intelligence analyst in Vietnam, became disillusioned with the war. Years later, writes Seth Mydans in the article, Searcy is working in Vietnam on ameliorating the harm from the left behind bombs. Project Renew that he cofounded has been “deploying teams of de-miners, teaching schoolchildren how to stay safe, and providing prosthetics and job training to victims” for over 20 years. You can read the article here.

It is inspiring that people are dedicated to trying to minimize the long-term damage of the US government’s wars. It is unfortunate, though, that, since the Vietnam War, Americans have been suckered into allowing their government to pursue a series of devastating wars across the world. These wars, like the Vietnam War, have killed and maimed many people and then, after their conclusion, left behind new streams of suffering that flow into the future.

The world would do much better if there were a big uptick in one “illness” in America: the Vietnam Syndrome.

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

CDC Demonstrates Failure of Public Health Management of the COVID-19 Pandemic

BY DR. HARVEY RISCH | APRIL 1, 2024

In so many words—and data—CDC has quietly admitted that all of the indignities of the Covid-19 pandemic management have failed: the masks, the distancing, the lockdowns, the closures, especially the vaccines, all of it failed to control the pandemic.  It’s not like we didn’t know that all this was going to fail, because we said so as events unfolded early on in 2020, that the public health management of this respiratory virus was almost completely opposite to principles that had been well established through the influenza period, in 2006.  The spread of a new virus with replication factor R0 of about 3, with more than one million cases across the country by April 2020, with no potentially virus-sterilizing vaccine in sight for at least several months, almost certainly made this infection eventually endemic and universal.

Covid-19 starts as an annoying, intense, uncomfortable flu-like illness, and for most people, ends uneventfully two-three weeks later.  Thus, management of the Covid-19 pandemic should not have relied upon counts of cases or infections, but on numbers of deaths, numbers of people hospitalized or with serious long-term outcomes of the infection, and of serious health, economic and psychological damages caused by the actions and policies made in response to the pandemic, in that order of decreasing priorities.  Even though numbers of Covid cases correlate with these severe manifestations, that is not a justification for case numbers to be used as the actionable measure, because Covid-19 infection mortality is estimated to range below 0.1% in the mean across all ages, and post-infection immunity provides a public good in protecting people from severe reinfection outcomes for the great majority who do not get serious “long-Covid” on first infection.

Nevertheless, once the Covid-19 vaccines were rolled out, with a new large wave of the delta strain spreading across the US in July-August 2021 even after eight months of the vaccines taken by half of Americans, instead of admitting policy error that the Covid vaccines do not much control virus spread, our public health administration doubled down, attempting then to compel vaccination on as many more people as could be threatened by mandates.  That didn’t work out too well as seen when the large Omicron wave hit the country during December 2021-January 2022 in spite of some 10% more of the population getting vaccinated from September through December of 2021.

A typical mandate example: in September 2021, Washington Governor Jay Inslee issued Emergency Proclamation 21-14.2, requiring Covid-19 vaccination for various groups of state workers.  In the proclamation, the stated goal was, “WHEREAS, COVID-19 vaccines are effective in reducing infection and serious disease, and widespread vaccination is the primary means we have as a state to protect everyone … from COVID-19 infections.”  That is, the stated goal was to reduce the number of infections.

What the CDC recently reported (see chart below), however, is that by the end of 2023, cumulatively, at least 87% of Americans had anti-nucleocapsid antibodies to and thus had been infected with SARS-CoV-2, this in spite of the mammoth, protracted and booster-repeated vaccination campaign that led to about 90% of Americans taking the shots.  My argument is that by making policies based on number of infections a higher priority than ones based on the more serious but less common consequences of both infections and policy damages, the proclaimed goal of the vaccine mandate to reduce spread failed in that 87% of Americans eventually became infected anyway.

In reality, neither vaccine immunity nor post-infection immunity were ever able fully to control the spread of the infection. On August 11, 2022, CDC stated, “Receipt of a primary series alone, in the absence of being up to date with vaccination through receipt of all recommended booster doses, provides minimal protection against infection and transmission (3,6). Being up to date with vaccination provides a transient period of increased protection against infection and transmission after the most recent dose, although protection can wane over time.”  Public health pandemic measures that “wane over time” are very unlikely to be useful for control of infection spread, at least without very frequent and impractical revaccinations every few months.

Nevertheless, infection spread per se is not of consequence, because count of infections is not and should not have been the main priority of public health pandemic management.  Rather, the consequences of the spread and the negative consequences of the policies invoked should have been the priorities.  Our public health agencies chose to prioritize a failed policy of reducing the spread rather than reducing the mortality or the lockdown and school and business closure harms, which led to unnecessary and avoidable damage to millions of lives.  We deserved better from our public health institutions.

Harvey A. Risch, MD, PhD

References Cited

1.     Inglesby TV, Nuzzo JB, O’Toole T, Henderson DA.  Disease mitigation measures in the control of pandemic influenza.  Biosecur Bioterror.  2006;4(4):366-75.  https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/bsp.2006.4.366

2.     Ramirez VB.  What Is “R-naught”? Gauging Contagious Infections.  Healthline, June 14, 2023.  https://www.healthline.com/health/r-naught-reproduction-number

3.     Worldometer.  United States Coronavirus Cases.  March 28, 2024.  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

4.     Gupta S.  Was I wrong about the Covid infection fatality rate?.  UnHerd, April 5, 2023.  https://unherd.com/newsroom/how-wrong-was-i-on-covid-ifr/

5.     Inslee J.  PROCLAMATION BY THE GOVERNOR AMENDING PROCLAMATIONS 20-05 and 20-14: 21-14.2. COVID-19 VACCINATION REQUIREMENT.  Issued September 27, 2021.  https://governor.wa.gov/sites/default/files/proclamations/21-14.2%20-%20COVID-19%20Vax%20Washington%20Amendment%20(tmp).pdf

6.     CDC.  2022-2023 Nationwide COVID-19 Infection- and Vaccination-Induced Antibody Seroprevalence (Blood donations).  March 22, 2024.  https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#nationwide-blood-donor-seroprevalence-2022

7.     Our World in Data.  Total number of people who received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine.  Downloaded March 27, 2024.  https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/people-vaccinated-covid

8.     Massetti GM, Jackson BR, Brooks JT, Perrine CG, Reott E, Hall AJ, Lubar D, Williams IT, Ritchey MD, Patel P, Liburd LC, Mahon BE.  Summary of Guidance for Minimizing the Impact of COVID-19 on Individual Persons, Communities, and Health Care Systems – United States, August 2022.  MMWR Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2022;71(33):1057-1064.  https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7133e1.htm

Dr. Harvey A. Risch MD, PhD is a Professor Emeritus of Epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health and a guest contributor for Peter Navarro’s Taking Back Trump’s America

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Bill to Extend Mass Surveillance Program Fails House Vote

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | April 10, 2024

A group of 19 House Republicans bucked GOP leadership and voted with Democrats against a bill that would extend Section 702, the law that allows for mass surveillance and the collection of Americans’ data.

On Wednesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) brought the legislation up for a procedural vote, and it failed 193-228. The Republican opposition was made up of a group of freedom-oriented Representatives led by Matt Gaetz (R-FL).

“The reauthorization lacks essential reforms to protect Americans’ Fourth Amendment rights, such as requiring the FBI to obtain a warrant before searching Americans’ data and a prohibition on the government purchasing Americans’ data from third-party data brokers,” the Flordia congressman said in a statement. “FISA authorities have been used to violate the law more than 278,000 times by the national security state, and there has yet to be any consequences for this illegal activity by our government.”

Gaetz criticized Johnson for letting a bill to renew Section 702 come to the floor without sufficient reforms. “If Speaker Johnson is unwilling to fix FISA Section 702, we are left wondering what he is indeed willing to fix. Now, the very authorities that we saw weaponized against President Trump and the American people are poised to get enhancements under this reauthorization, rather than any of the reforms that are so desperately needed,” he explained.

In the leadup to the 2016 election, the FBI launched an investigation into Donald Trump’s campaign and alleged ties to the Russian government. That probe was based on opposition research paid for by the Hillary Clinton campaign and ultimately failed to prove any ties between Trump and the Kremlin.

Trump announced his opposition to the bill prior to the vote on Truth Social, saying, “KILL FISA, IT WAS ILLEGALLY USED AGAINST ME, AND MANY OTHERS. THEY SPIED ON MY CAMPAIGN!!!” While Trump now says he opposes Section 702, he signed extensions to the program when he was in the White House.

Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 has allowed the US government to warrantlessly sweep up the information of millions of Americans for decades. It is set to expire on April 19.

However, even if Congress fails to act before April 19, the Wall Street Journal reports that surveillance will continue for at least a year. 702 spying “could potentially continue for another year due to how and when the secretive court that oversees the program grants annual approval for the categories of intelligence collection it allows.” WSJ adds, “Such a continuation of the program would almost certainly be met with legal challenges, a complexity that Biden administration officials have said they want to avoid.”

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties | , | Leave a comment

Jim Jordan Demands Big Tech CEOs and Feds Hand Over Censorship Collusion Documents

By Dan Frieth | Reclaim The Net | April 10, 2024

Advocating for transparency in the interactions between Big Tech and the government, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan has taken further action. On Tuesday, he issued letters to the FBI, Department of Justice, and CEOs of key Big Tech firms, including Amazon, Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft. These letters were not just mere inquiries; they were demands for documents that could shed light on the Biden administration’s communication with social media companies.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

Jordan’s initiative isn’t isolated but comes in the context of an ongoing legal battle concerning the government’s alleged collaboration with social media platforms. He pointed out in a recent press release that the FBI’s Foreign Influence Task Force (FITF) had, as of March, re-engaged with major social media companies. This development, especially considering the FITF’s prior interactions with these companies during the 2020 presidential election, raises significant concerns for Jordan. With the 2024 presidential election on the horizon, he finds the renewal of this relationship between the FITF and Big Tech worrisome.

The documents are related to the renewed efforts of the DOJ to work with tech companies after the Supreme Court appeared skeptical of censorship claims.

He expressed these apprehensions, stating, “Given the FITF’s improper role in communicating with social media and technology companies during the 2020 presidential election, the resumption of meetings between the FITF and Big Tech before the 2024 presidential election is deeply troubling.”

But Jordan’s requests went beyond mere expressions of concern. He specifically asked Alphabet, and similarly, the other companies and government agencies, to produce detailed documentation of their communications with the FITF or the San Francisco Field Office of the FBI. He underscored the urgency and legitimacy of his request by referencing a continuing subpoena issued last year.

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , | Leave a comment

Occupied Nation: How the CIA Created Modern Germany

The sprawling U.S. embassy in Berlin. [Source: spiegel.de]
By Kit Klarenberg | CovertAction Magazine | April 9, 2024

On February 4th, The Economist published a devastating analysis—or perhaps, “pre-mortem”—on the collapse of the German Social Democratic Party (SPD) under Olaf Scholz’s stewardship. Elected in what the Western media contemporaneously branded a “shock” result in September 2021, hopes for his coalition government in many quarters were high. Today, he enjoys the worst approval ratings of any Chancellor in modern history, and national opinion polls place SPD approval at 15% or lower.

The Economist frames Scholz’s collapsed fortunes, and the prospects of his party’s imminent extinction as a serious force within German politics, as a microcosm of Berlin’s declining economic and political clout more widely. It notes that the nation’s finances have gone “limp” during his tenure, with business-sector confidence collapsing, and record inflation destroying citizens’ incomes and savings. Other sources have detailed the country’s “deindustrialization,” Politico coining the nickname, “Rust Belt on the Rhine.”

In keeping with those meditations on Germany’s ever-worsening woes, The Economist’s bleak diagnosis made no mention of how Western sanctions imposed on Russia in February 2022 created Berlin’s crisis. Scholz was a prominent cheerleader for the Biden administration’s push to “make the Ruble rubble.” Now that effort has so spectacularly backfired that it can no longer be ignored or spun otherwise; Newsweek admits “any realistic war game could have easily predicted” the sanctions would not only fail, but boomerang on the sanctioners.

Those few analysts who predicted the invasion of Ukraine well in advance universally failed to anticipate Berlin would support and facilitate any U.S. counterattack, particularly in the financial sphere. They believed Germany possessed the requisite autonomy and sense not to commit willful economic suicide in service of Empire. After all, the country’s stability, prosperity and power were heavily dependent on cheap, readily accessible Russian energy. Voluntarily ending that supply would be inescapably disastrous.

For this failure, they can be forgiven. Berlin, particularly in the wake of reunification, has successfully presented itself to the world as sovereign, led by sensible people acting in the best interests of their nation, and Europe. In truth, ever since 1945, Germany has been a heavily occupied nation, drowning under the weight of U.S. military installations, and its politics, society and culture aggressively shaped and influenced by the CIA.

This unacknowledged reality is amply spelled out in Agency whistleblower Philip Agee’s 1978 tell-all book, Dirty Work: The CIA in Western Europe. Comprehending who is truly in charge in Berlin, and what interests Germany’s elected representatives are actually serving, is fundamental to understanding why Scholz, et al., so eagerly embraced the self-destructive sanctions. And why the facts of Nord Stream 2’s criminal destruction can never emerge.

“Enormous Presence”

Following World War II, the United States emerged as the world’s undisputed military and economic superpower. As Agee wrote, the overriding aim of U.S. foreign policy thereafter was to “guarantee the coherence of the Western world” under its exclusive leadership. CIA activities were accordingly “directed toward achieving this goal.” In service of the Empire’s global domination project, “left opposition movements had to be discredited and destroyed” everywhere.

After West Germany was forged from the respective occupation zones of Britain, France and the U.S., the fledgling country became a particularly “crucial area” in this regard, serving as “one of the most important operational areas for far-reaching CIA programs” in Europe and elsewhere. Domestic Agency operations in West Germany were explicitly concerned with ensuring the country was “pro-American,” and structured according to U.S. “commercial interests.”

In the process, the CIA covertly supported the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and SPD, and trade unions. The Agency “wanted the influence of the two major political parties to be strong enough to shut out and hold down any left opposition,” Agee explained. The SPD had a radical, Marxist tradition. It was the only party in the Reichstag to vote against the 1933 Enabling Act, which laid the foundations for Germany’s total Nazification, and led to its proscription.

Newly reinstituted following the war, the SPD maintained its revolutionary roots until 1959. Then, under the Godesberg Program, it abandoned any commitment to challenging capitalism in a serious way. It stretches credibility to suggest the CIA was not expressly responsible for neutering the party’s radical tendencies.

In any event, effective control of West German democracy ensured that Washington’s “enormous presence” there–which included hundreds of thousands of troops and almost 300 separate military and intelligence installations—was not challenged by those in power, irrespective of the party to which they belonged, despite a majority of the population consistently opposing U.S. military occupation.

This presence in turn granted the CIA “a number of different covers to work behind,” according to Agee. The majority of its operatives were embedded within the U.S. military, posing as mere soldiers. The Agency’s biggest station was an army base in Frankfurt, although it also boasted units in West Berlin and Munich. U.S. operatives were “highly qualified technicians who tap telephones, open mail, keep people under surveillance, and encode and decode intelligence transmissions,” working “all over the country.”

Dedicated divisions were charged with “making contact with organizations and people within the political establishment,” such as the SPD and its elected representatives. All the intelligence collected was “used to infiltrate and manipulate” the same organizations. The CIA, moreover, collaborated “very closely” with West German security services in many domestic spying efforts, the country’s assorted intelligence agencies conducting operations at the Agency’s direct behest, “often [to] protect CIA activities from any legal consequences.”

“Discredit and Destroy”

Intimate bedfellows as they were, there were nonetheless “difficulties” in the CIA’s relationship with its West German counterparts, per Agee. The Agency never fully trusted their protégés, and felt a pronounced need to “keep an eye” on them. Still, this lack of faith was no barrier to the CIA partnering with the BND, West Germany’s foreign intelligence service, to secretly purchase Swiss encryption firm Crypto AG in 1970. Perhaps this was done to “protect CIA activities from any legal consequences.”

Crypto AG produced high-tech machines through which foreign governments could transmit sensitive high-level communications around the world, safe from prying eyes. Or so they thought. In reality, the clandestine owners of Crypto AG, and by extension the NSA and GCHQ, could easily decipher any messages sent via the firm’s devices, as they themselves crafted the encryption codes. The connivance operated in total secrecy for decades thereafter, only being exposed in February 2020.

The full extent of the information collected via Crypto AG—along with key national competitor Omnisec AG, which the CIA also owned—and the nefarious purposes to which it was put is unknown. It would be entirely unsurprising though if the harvested data helped inform CIA operations to “discredit and destroy” left-wing opposition in West Germany and beyond, efforts that no doubt continue to this day.

The Cold War may be over, but Germany remains heavily occupied. It hosts the largest number of U.S. troops of any European country, despite an overwhelming majority of the population supporting their partial or total withdrawal in the years following the Berlin Wall’s collapse. In July 2020, then-President Donald Trump announced the withdrawal of 12,000 soldiers of the 38,600-strong contingent still there.

While intended to punish Germany for greenlighting the now-destroyed Nord Stream 2, polls indicated most Germans were only too happy to say “auf wiedersehen.” In all, 47% were in favor of them leaving, while a quarter called for the permanent closure of all U.S. bases on their soil. Yet, just two weeks after entering the White House, Joe Biden reversed his predecessor’s policy, returning 500 soldiers who had departed.

The President also scrapped plans to relocate the Stuttgart-based U.S. Africa Command, which effectively embeds Washington in the armed forces of 53 countries across the continent, elsewhere in Europe. Research shows the Command’s training programs have precipitated a significant rise in the number of military coups in Africa. As Agee attested, U.S. military bases are a hotbed of CIA spies. Berlin therefore must remain “one of the most important operational areas for far-reaching CIA programs” within and without the country, whether Germans like it or not.

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Deception | , , | Leave a comment

Matt Hoh: Can Gaza Be Saved?

Judge Napolitano – Judging Freedom – April 9, 2024

April 10, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Xi meets Lavrov, reaffirms China’s emphasis on partnership with Russia

By Yang Sheng | Global Times | April 9, 2024

Chinese President Xi Jinping met with Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday in Beijing. Chinese analysts said the meeting sends a strong signal that China will firmly develop its strategic partnership with Russia, despite pressure from the West. The China-Russia partnership continues to be key for the global strategic balance and the hope for promoting a multipolar world in which countries of the Global South will have greater roles to play.

Xi asked Lavrov to convey his sincere greetings to Russian President Vladimir Putin. Noting that this year marks the 75th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic ties between the two countries, Xi said China and Russia have embarked on a new path of harmonious coexistence and win-win cooperation between major countries and neighbors, which has benefited the two countries and their peoples and contributed wisdom and strength to international fairness and justice, the Xinhua News Agency reported on Tuesday.

Earlier in the day, Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held talks with Lavrov in Beijing, and both sides expressed hope for strengthening practical cooperation in various fields, Xinhua reported.

Wang, also a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, said that China is willing to work with Russia, in accordance with the consensus reached by the two heads of state, to strengthen the synergy of the two countries’ development plans and promote practical cooperation in various fields.

The top diplomats of the two countries held a joint press conference after their meeting. Wang mentioned “five always” at the press conference. For example, he said that the two countries should always follow the strategic guidance of head-of-state diplomacy, and should always adhere to the principle of no-alliance, no-confrontation and no-targeting at any third party.

China and Russia should always stay on the right course on major matters of principle. As permanent members of the UN Security Council and major emerging countries, China and Russia actively respond to the common aspirations and legitimate concerns of the people of all countries, advocate a new path of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership rather than confrontation and alliance, and actively promote the building of a community with a shared future for humanity, said Wang.

Yang Jin, an associate research fellow at the Institute of Russian, Eastern European and Central Asian Studies at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times on Tuesday that the remarks made by Xi and the “five always” raised by Wang provide a “framework and outline” for the future development of the China-Russia comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination.

Yet many voices from the West, mainly from the US as well as some senior NATO officials, insist on depicting the China-Russia relationship as akin to an “anti-West alliance,” which is completely wrong. By reaffirming the principles of “non-alignment, non-confrontation, and not targeting any third party,” China and Russia are refuting those voices with a clear stance, experts said.

Multipolar world

China always attaches great importance to the development of China-Russia relations, and stands ready to strengthen bilateral communication with Russia and enhance multilateral strategic coordination in BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation  Organisation (SCO), Xi said when meeting with the visiting Russian top diplomat.

Xi said that the two countries will show more responsibility, unite countries in the Global South in the spirit of equality, openness, transparency and inclusiveness, promote the reform of the global governance system, and vigorously lead the building of a community with a shared future for humanity.

China and Russia are trying to promote a multipolar world where developing countries and emerging economies of the Global South will play a greater role, which is the antithesis of the unipolar world dominated by the US, analysts said.

“China and Russia will not target any third party, but if hegemonic forces threaten China and Russia, or threaten world peace, China and Russia will stand together and fight to protect their own interests and safeguard world peace together,” said Li Haidong, a professor at the China Foreign Affairs University.

This is why China and Russia, as well as other members in the UN Security Council, are pushing an immediate cease-fire and the resumption of humanitarian aid to Gaza, even as the US vetoed these attempts time and again, before the Ramadan cease-fire resolution eventually passed on March 25, experts said.

Wang said at the joint press conference that Russia will hold the BRICS presidency this year, and China will take over the rotating presidency of SCO this year. The two sides will support each other’s chairmanship and light up the “moment of South” global governance.

Richard Sakwa, professor of Russian and European politics at the School of Politics and International Relations of the UK’s University of Kent, told the Global Times at a forum in Beijing on March 28 that China-Russia relations are “one of the key axes for international politics, and it’s not only very important but also necessary” to maintain the global strategic balance.

Lavrov said at the meeting with Wang that Russia supports the China-initiated Global Security Initiative, and is willing to deepen cooperation with China on multilateral platforms to promote the establishment of a more just and democratic international order.

The two sides also had in-depth exchanges on the Ukraine issue, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the situation in the Asia-Pacific region and other international and regional issues of common concern.

Ukraine crisis and counterterrorism

Wang said at the joint press conference with Lavrov that on the Ukraine issue, China hopes to see a “cease-fire and an end to the war as soon as possible.” China supports the timely convening of an international conference recognized by both Russia and Ukraine, with equal participation by all parties, and a fair discussion of all peace options, whether it is track one or track two, Wang noted.

Cui Heng, a scholar from the Shanghai-based China National Institute for SCO International Exchange and Judicial Cooperation, told the Global Times on Tuesday that “some Western countries have always blamed China for its ‘pro-Russia’ stance, but actually we are just asking for a mechanism that can be accepted by all parties and can treat everyone equally.”

“China’s stance is based on the desire to stop the bloodshed, but the US’ stance is to use the [Russia-Ukraine] conflict to weaken Russia as much as possible. The development of the crisis to some extent depends on the US presidential election later this year,” Cui noted “If Donald Trump is elected, there will be a chance to break the deadlock, but if Joe Biden gets reelected, we might also see some changes, as Washington and its allies might not be able to afford the war anymore.”

Xi stressed at the meeting with Lavrov that China supports the Russian people in following a development path that suits their national conditions, and supports Russia in combating terrorism and maintaining social security and stability.

At the joint press conference with Lavrov on Tuesday, Wang stressed that China must also pay attention to the resolution of other global and regional hot spot issues, including continuing to counter terrorism. “China once again reiterated its condemnation of the terrorist attack in Moscow and its condolences and support for Russia,” said Wang.

“The Chinese people are also victims of terrorism, and terrorism has always been a common threat facing mankind. The international community should resolutely combat all forms of terrorism with a ‘zero tolerance’ attitude, firmly support the efforts of all parties to maintain national security and stability, strengthen international anti-terrorism cooperation, coordinate development and security, and eliminate the breeding grounds for terrorism,” Wang remarked.

“I want to thank China for their condolences in connection with the terrorist attack in the Moscow Region on March 22, and for their support of Russia’s fight against terrorism,” Lavrov said during the meeting with Wang.

All those involved [in the terrorist attack] will be certainly punished, Russia’s top diplomat stated. “Our [Russia-China] cooperation on counter-terrorism will continue, including within the framework of multilateral institutions.”

China and Russia are two major powers in the SCO, and  counter-terrorism cooperation between them and other SCO members is significant for regional peace and stability, especially when the threat of terrorism has reemerged in relevant regions, experts said. Apart from the discussion on the diplomatic level, the militaries, law-enforcement and intelligence agencies of the two countries will promote cooperation on combating terrorism, experts said.

April 9, 2024 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Star wars coming – top US general

RT | April 9, 2024

The possibility of a conflict in space is no longer just theoretical, General Stephen Whiting, head of the US Space Command, said on Tuesday.

Speaking at the 39th Space Symposium at the command’s headquarters in Colorado Springs, Whiting painted an alarming picture of Russian and Chinese orbital capabilities.

China has built a “kill web over the Pacific Ocean to find, fix, track and, yes, target US and allied military capabilities,” Whiting said, describing Beijing’s efforts as moving at “breathtaking speed.”

Since 2018, Russia has doubled and China has tripled the number of their intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) satellites in orbit, while also testing and fielding anti-satellite weapons. Meanwhile, the US has “the world’s best space architectures,” but its military constellations are “optimized for a benign environment,” he said.

Russian and Chinese space weapons “hold at risk our modern way of life and how we defend this nation, and we must be able to deter and counter these threats when called upon to achieve space superiority,” the general said.

Whiting described a possible armed conflict in space as “economically and environmentally devastating, perhaps for decades,” and said the US wishes to keep things in the state of “enduring competition” instead.

The US is already working with Canada, Australia and the UK on Operation Olympic Defender, a program intended to “optimize space operations,” according to the Space Command. Whiting announced that Germany, France and New Zealand have been invited to join as well.

He also revealed that the command’s new Capability Assessment and Validation Environment (CAVE) has achieved “minimum viable capability.” The modeling and simulation laboratory will enable the US military to “derive better ways of deterring and planning to conduct operations for a war that’s never happened, and a war we don’t want to happen,” he said.

Washington recently accused Moscow of having undisclosed anti-satellite capabilities, possibly nuclear in nature. Russian President Vladimir Putin said the US claims were “unfounded” and a ploy to manipulate arms control talks. The Russian embassy in Washington has also accused the US of using “Russophobic slogans” to mask its own plans to militarize space.

April 9, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

UK and France Talk of Reviving WWI Alliance Over ‘Fear’ of Trump Return

Sputnik – 09.04.2024

In an op-ed penned on the 120th anniversary of the Entente Cordiale, a landmark agreement signed between the British Empire and France in 1904, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron and his French counterpart Stephane Sejourne penned an op-ed essentially calling for the revival of the alliance.

The two ministers argued that NATO must mobilize to deny Russia a victory in Ukraine, claiming that the UK and France, two of the military bloc’s founders and nuclear powers, “have a responsibility in driving the alliance to deal with the challenges before it.”

“We must do even more to ensure we defeat Russia. The world is watching – and will judge us if we fail,” they wrote in a piece published by The Telegraph.

Commenting on this development, Dr. John Laughland, a lecturer in politics and history at the Catholic Institute of the Vendée (ICES) in France and specialist in international affairs, observed that the UK and France are “two principal military powers in Europe” and do enjoy “quite a high level” of bilateral military cooperation.

He did point out, however, that though London and Paris “have indeed been strengthening that cooperation for some years now,” as Cameron and Sejourne wrote, he does not see “any substantial new initiatives” in the article, which he dismissed as “essentially just propaganda.”

Whereas the Entente managed to prevail in World War I in no small part due to the Russian Empire’s contribution to the cause, Dr. Laughland suggested that this new British-French axis would inevitably lean on the United States, “because everything that they say about the British-French Entente is in the context of NATO.”

“The current war is a NATO war. And so they are leaning on the Americans,” he remarked.

He suggested that France and the UK may be driven by the fear of Donald Trump’s reelection as the president of the United States.

“I think that the European powers, including France and Britain, are trying to pre-empt that outcome because whether rightly or wrongly, they fear that Trump would want to make peace in Ukraine, make peace with Russia,” the scholar mused. “But again, I regard this as just a piece of gesture politics, this article and this commemoration.”

Dr. Laughland also recalled a previous attempt by Cameron to partially revive the Entente in 2010 by signing military defense agreements with France during his premiership, with one of the outcomes of said deal being “the attack on Libya in 2011, which, as far as we understand, was a Franco-British initiative.”

“It was a French initiative which the British immediately supported. And the attack on Libya in 2011, which, of course, the Americans also supported, and then became a NATO attack, was an absolutely catastrophic war. It showed once again that NATO is an aggressive alliance,” he remarked. “I say once again, because, of course, NATO had attacked Yugoslavia in 1999. So unfortunately, it’s a very bad precedent, the 2010 agreement.”

Meanwhile, Mikael Valtersson, former officer of the Swedish Armed Forces and chief of staff of the Sweden Democrats political party, argued that the real reason for this talk about reviving the Entente Cordiale is the UK’s and France’s desire to “take a larger role in international politics” coupled with them realizing that they are not “big enough to do it on their own.”

“Both United Kingdom and France are also united in their nearly fanatical hard-line approach towards Russia. As they say in the article, Russia must lose and Ukraine must win,” he added.

According to Valtersson, this “hardline approach” towards Russia may be the reason why Germany was not included in this scheme as Berlin and Paris do not see eye to eye on how to deal with Moscow.

“The difference is that the French leader, President Macron in France, belongs to the belligerent anti-Russian camp, while the German leader Chancellor Scholz belongs to a more moderate grouping,” he explained. “These facts make a new Entante very fragile. Macron might be replaced as French president by a more nationalistic and pragmatic successor. Then the so-called alliance with the UK will be over and done with.”

Another reason for not including Germany might be the UK and France’s concerns that the German economic prowess would afford Berlin “too much influence” in such an alliance, not to mention London and Paris’ fears about Trump’s possible return to the White House, he noted.

“This talk about a revived Entente Cordiale might be an attempt from the UK and France to take over, or at least to prepare to take over, the leadership of the belligerent anti-Russian camp in the West. [It could be] Preparations in case the US abandons Ukraine,” Valtersson postulated. “But as I said earlier, it’s a weak alliance since a large part of the French population isn’t aboard.”

“But as long as the UK and France are united and work together with other belligerent states as the Netherlands, Poland, the Baltic and Nordic states, they probably can force Germany to slowly follow their lead in creating a prewar mentality in large part of Europe,” he added.

April 9, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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