The West’s duplicitous stance and hypocrisy draw condemnation in the world
By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 15.02.2024
Many politicians around the world strongly condemn not only Israel’s inhumane policy in the Gaza Strip, when peaceful Palestinians are being slaughtered, but also the hypocrisy, duplicity, pharisaism and arrogance of the West. In one case, the current worthless rulers of Europe condemn the defence of their citizens in Donbass by Russia, which is complying with all international rules of engagement. On the other, when Israel started to destroy civilians in the Gaza Strip (which according to international laws is considered a policy of genocide), the West welcomes and applauds, defending its protégé in the Middle East in every possible way.
For example, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called the West’s position on Gaza, which differs from its position on Ukraine, “the height of hypocrisy.” “What happened in Gaza, has caused the West and the Europeans to lose all their reputation, all their accumulated credits (of trust). They have squandered all their political capital in the eyes of humanity, especially in the eyes of our generations,” Turkish daily Hürriyet quoted Hakan Fidan as saying. According to him, it will not be easy for the West to regain the lost trust. “It will not be easy for them to regain it. Unlike their stance on Ukraine and Russia, their stance on Gaza is the height of hypocrisy. They cannot talk about principles, virtue and morality. They ignore them completely. I see that all this is preparing the ground for a huge geostrategic rupture,” the minister said.
A huge swath of the Global South sees and criticises the double standards that guide the West’s actions in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine, as the New York Times (NYT) reluctantly reported through gritted teeth. The publication notes that for the past 20 months, US authorities have actively criticised Moscow for its special military operation in Ukraine, but now that the IDF has carried out a bloodbath in Gaza, full American support for Israel risks creating new and complex obstacles in Washington’s efforts to win over world public opinion.
The war in the Middle East, the piece says, is driving a wedge between the West and leading nations of the Global South such as Brazil and Indonesia. In addition, the West’s unconscionable double standard in defence of Israelis has been sharply criticised by leaders of the Arab world. The fact that the West treats Ukraine as a special case because it is in Europe, against the backdrop of Middle East escalation, has only increased discontent in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There, the impression is that the West is more concerned about refugees from Ukraine than about those affected by the conflicts in Arab countries. The publication has to admit that the West has failed to convince countries such as India and Turkey to support sanctions against Russia. Given the bloody events in the Gaza Strip, “Western efforts to widen the front against Russia are unlikely to be successful in the near future.”
Earlier, American businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who was seeking the nomination as the country’s presidential candidate from the Republican Party (he ended his campaign and supported Donald Trump’s candidacy in the presidential election), said that the United States should seek an early settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, which would provide for the transition of Russian-speaking regions into Russia. And he is not alone in the US, where questions are increasingly being asked as to why it is the Americans who should bear the brunt of the financial burden and supply vast quantities of weapons to the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.
Irish MEP Mick Wallace has rightly stated that the Ukrainian conflict is still going on because of the unwillingness of the United States to end it. He expressed the same opinion with regard to the situation in the Gaza Strip. The world media also noted that the International Criminal Court, at the behest of the United States, has ignored many years of genocide in Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and therefore the ICC is “unfair in its choice of topics to explore” and has turned into “an unscrupulous legal body of the West.”
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has accused the United States of its position preventing the Security Council from adopting resolutions aimed at stopping the violence in the Gaza Strip, RIA Novosti reported. “It is regrettable that under these circumstances the UN Security Council has so far failed to adopt a single resolution demanding a halt to the violence because of the position of one delegation, the United States, which is blocking all efforts and initiatives to stop the bloodshed,” the diplomat said. He noted that this gave Israel carte blanche to further destroy the Palestinians.
The huge difference in the West’s attitude to the Palestinian-Israeli and Ukrainian conflicts points to hypocritical double standards, one of the goals of which is to interpret international law exactly as it suits the US. In this case, the fate of the Palestinian population is much less interesting to the hardened Western officials in terms of “domestic political points.” How many times have Western delegations requested UN Security Council meetings on Ukraine? The answer is at least twice a month, while how many times the said delegations have requested Security Council meetings on the Middle East issue – zero. Apparently, in this case comments are unnecessary, the conclusion is already on the surface. The West’s double standards “in all their glory” were also observed in the situation with the migration crisis in the EU. While Ukrainian refugees have been given all sorts of benefits, refugees from Africa and the Middle East are being “kept in camps in inhumane conditions.”
The State Department has after all decided to explain the difference in its approaches to the situation in Gaza and Ukraine in the way that yesterday’s hegemon considers, rather than in accordance with the generally accepted laws of international law. Thus, the deputy head of the State Department’s press service, Vedant Patel, responded to a journalist’s question about the difference in the approaches of the US authorities to the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The official said that Washington sees no grounds to accuse Israel of genocide of Palestinians, and “one should be very careful when making such statements.” At the same time, when Patel was asked why US President Joe Biden “very quickly” called the events in Ukraine “genocide” in 2022, the State Department official could not give more specific explanations. He only noted that “such definitions must be made with a careful consideration of the law and the facts”, without specifying which facts he had in mind. He simply did not have a reasonable answer, and in the current circumstances he did not dare to say that this was Washington’s wish and favourable.
Incidentally, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier that international law must be respected in all conflicts. This is a correct observation, but according to the Secretary General’s personal interpretation, the conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine have differences. And he personally believes that Israel, which destroys peaceful Palestinians, strictly observes international law, while Russia, which fights against the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev only on the battlefields, violates this law. Apparently, in Stoltenberg’s “enlightened” opinion, Russia will respect international law only when it, like Israel, destroys the peaceful population of our brother nation. A strange opinion worthy of a schizophrenic from a psychiatric hospital. On this occasion, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the statement by the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, about the “senselessness of humanitarian aid supplies to the Gaza Strip” if hostilities continue there an apologetic of transhumanism. She asked her colleague whether he also considered it pointless to provide medical assistance and love “someone who will die tomorrow”. There was, of course, no reply.
The accusations against the Russian side on the subject of “indiscriminate strikes” against Ukrainian cities can best be assessed by comparing “two realities” – the situation in Ukraine and in the Gaza Strip. In this regard, we can recommend that opponents go to the Internet and familiarise themselves with Ukrainian news or watch local TV channels. On Ukrainian websites one can easily find a large number of reports on club and restaurant life in such cities as Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk and others. Ukrainian state institutions and other municipal buildings are functioning normally almost everywhere, transport continues to operate, schools and hospitals are open. This situation can be observed almost two years after Russia launched a special operation aimed at protecting the population of Donbas from the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv. All of this shows, as has been repeatedly confirmed by independent observers, that the Russian Armed Forces are conducting exclusively precision strikes against military facilities and infrastructure related to military capabilities. This policy is in sharp contrast to the crimes against humanity committed by the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, which is deliberately firing Western-made missiles at civilians in Donbas. And there are numerous facts and evidence to this effect, which at the very least would make for a new Nuremberg process.
The current leaders of the West should look at what their lackey Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip, which for three months now has sought to raze the territory and destroy the Palestinians living there. Not only have hospitals and schools been burned to the ground, but entire towns have been destroyed, and the death toll, including a large number of children, is appalling. And all this is happening before the eyes of the world in the 21st century, to the hooting and applause of the Biden administration and the current rulers of Europe, who have finally lost shame, conscience and simple human compassion. “Comparing these two realities, ask yourself a question: how many times have you condemned the methodical annihilation of peaceful Palestinians?” – noted Russia’s UN representative Nebenzya, when asking Western representatives whether they had ever supported calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East conflict, whether they had condemned Israel’s anti-human crimes. The answer would be only negative. Not only has the West done nothing to stop Israel’s current massacre of Palestinian civilians, it has encouraged them even more by supplying the latest lethal weapons, financially pumping in huge sums of money and defending them on the international stage. Suffice it to say that the US representative at the UN has twice vetoed Security Council resolutions to stop the deadly slaughter in the Gaza Strip, unleashing the Israeli military for even more atrocious crimes, rightly assessed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
In the current circumstances, when the former hegemon has lost its power and authority, it has to resort more and more to hypocrisy and double standards to somehow camouflage its bankrupt policy. But no matter how hard the West, led by the U.S., tries, they will no longer be able to fundamentally influence events in the world. And the events in Ukraine, where Russia is successfully conducting a special military operation to protect the Russian population, and the bloody events in the Gaza Strip are the best evidence of this.
Victor MIKHIN is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.
US spies behind ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy – report
US President Barack Obama and CIA Director John Brennan, December 14, 2012 in Washington, DC. © Pete Souza / The White House via Getty Images
RT | February 14, 2024
The US intelligence community inappropriately used foreign allies to target Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s campaign to set up the ‘Russiagate’ conspiracy ahead of the 2016 election, according to a trio of investigative journalists.
Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi and Alex Gutentag – of ‘Twitter Files’ fame – published the first part of an investigation on Tuesday, in which they claim the so-called ‘Five Eyes’ were operationalized against Trump staffers, citing anonymous sources close to the House Intelligence Committee.
According to their report, President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had sent America’s partners – the UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand – a list of 26 Trump associates to target with data collection, misinformation and manipulation.
The Russiagate conspiracy involved multiple failures across western media networks to critically assess US intelligence claims that Russia had interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. A 2018 Pulitzer prize was awarded to Washington Post and New York Times journalists for their reporting on what was later to exposed as a false story.
“They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” said a committee source. “They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up,” the journalists claim.
Officially, the FBI only started looking into the Trump campaign that summer, after an Australian diplomat reportedly overheard an aide mention Russia. If confirmed, these findings would demonstrate that the US intelligence community had worked for months before that to set up just such a pretext.
In a statement to the investigative journalists, the FBI said it had made “missteps” in the 2016 and 2017 investigation of the Trump campaign, but has since implemented reforms to prevent it from happening again.
“The allegations that GCHQ was asked to conduct ‘wiretapping’ against the then president-elect are nonsense,” a spokesman for the British surveillance agency said. “They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.” Shellenberger, Taibbi and Gutentag said they had never asked the GCHQ about “wiretapping.”
According to Shellenberger, there is a “10-inch binder” containing previously unknown documents about the intelligence community’s surveillance of the Trump campaign. The 45th US president had ordered these documents declassified, but they went missing instead. In a Fox News appearance on Tuesday evening, Shellenberger suggested the FBI’s August 2022 raid on Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort may have been related to the missing binder.
After the US intelligence community created a pretext for investigating Trump for ‘ties to Russia,’ they spied on his campaign – and then his presidency – using a falsely obtained FISA warrant. The warrant was based on the ‘Steele dossier,’ a file compiled by a British spy in the pay of Hillary Clinton’s campaign, through several intermediaries. The FBI knew the dossier was false as early as January 2017, but continued using the FISA warrant for almost a year thereafter.
The FBI lawyer who altered evidence to obtain the warrant, Kevin Clinesmith, ended up sentenced to probation and his law license has since been restored.
CIA Had Foreign Allies Spy On Trump Team, Triggering Russia Collusion Hoax, Sources Say
By Michael Shellenberger, Matt Taibbi, and Alex Gutentag | Public | February 13, 2024
Last year, John Durham, a special prosecutor for the Department of Justice (DOJ), concluded that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) should never have opened its investigation of alleged collusion by then-presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and Russia in late July of 2016.
Now, multiple credible sources tell Public and Racket that the United States Intelligence Community (IC), including the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), illegally mobilized foreign intelligence agencies to target Trump advisors long before the summer of 2016.
The new information fills many gaps in our understanding of the Russia collusion hoax and is supported by testimony already in the public record.
Until now, the official story has been that the FBI’s investigation began after Australian intelligence officials told US officials that a Trump aide had boasted to an Australian diplomat that Russia had damning material about Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
In truth, the US IC asked the “Five Eyes” intelligence alliance to surveil Trump’s associates and share the intelligence they acquired with US agencies, say sources close to a House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence (HSPCI) investigation. The Five Eyes nations are the US, UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
After Public and Racket had been told that President Barack Obama’s CIA Director, John Brennan, had identified 26 Trump associates for the Five Eyes to target, a source confirmed that the IC had “identified [them] as people to ‘bump,’ or make contact with or manipulate. They were targets of our own IC and law enforcement — targets for collection and misinformation.”
Unknown details about the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign and raw intelligence related to the IC’s surveillance of the Trump campaign are in a 10-inch binder that Trump ordered to be declassified at the very end of his term, sources told Public and Racket.
If the top-secret documents exist proving these charges, they are potentially proof that multiple US intelligence officials broke laws against spying and election interference.
“They were making contacts and bumping Trump people going back to March 2016,” a source close to the investigation said. “They were sending people around the UK, Australia, Italy — the Mossad in Italy. The MI6 was working at an intelligence school they had set up.”
The IC, a source said, considered the 26 Trump campaign people identified to “bump” or “reverse target,” or manipulate through confidential human sources (CHSs), to be easy marks because of their relative inexperience.
Doing so was illegal, both because US law prohibits such intelligence gathering unless authorized by a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant and because the weaponization of the IC for political purposes constitutes election interference.
…
Subscribers to Public substack can read the full report here…
US ‘security threat’ revelations prompt panic
RT | February 14, 2024
The US is facing a “serious national security threat” that requires action from the White House, the head of the House Intelligence Committee said on Wednesday. The exact nature of the alleged threat has not been revealed.
Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, has sent a letter to all members of Congress about an urgent matter “with regard to a destabilizing foreign military capability.” The House Intelligence Committee voted on Tuesday to make certain information available to lawmakers between Wednesday and Friday this week, he said.
Turner also called on President Joe Biden to declassify “all information relating to this threat.”
What exactly the threat might entail, Turner did not say. CNN cited two anonymous sources and an unnamed US official to claim it was “related to Russia.” One of the sources, who has allegedly viewed the intelligence Turner provided, described it as “a highly concerning and destabilizing” Russian capability “that we were recently made aware of.”
A Fox News correspondent cited a Pentagon source to claim the threat “has to do with space.”
Answering questions from reporters on Wednesday afternoon, National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said he had been trying to schedule a meeting of top lawmakers for Thursday when Turner went public with the existence of the “threat.”
“I’m not in a position to say anything further from this podium at this time,” Sullivan said when asked about the alleged threat.
Numerous social media commentators have pointed out the uncanny coincidence that the supposed “security threat” was announced just after the US Senate passed a $95 billion foreign aid bill – about two thirds of which was earmarked for Ukraine – and amid the pressure on the House of Representatives to do the same. Turner is a vocal proponent of funding Kiev.
The White House and most US media outlets have consistently denigrated Russia’s military capabilities and insisted that Ukraine is “winning” the conflict thanks to the ongoing support of the West.
According to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, the alleged threat was announced because “the White House and Intel Committee felt a need to scare Members of Congress into line for a certain set of controversial pro-war and/or surveillance votes” that are coming up.
US Dictating to its “Ally” Kenya and Creating Biased Vistas of Global Events
By Simon Chege Ndiritu – New Eastern Outlook – 14.02.2024
Democracy is (or should be) a form of government in which policy decisions are influenced by the Majority of the population. However, this is not what Washington has been doing with its ally Kenya. An article published in the East African (here) ran a revealing title, “US pushes Nairobi into anti-Houthi campaign as EA peer steer clear.” The heading reveals that Washington is influencing Kenya’s policy instead of the citizens doing so. In addition to this push, the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin proceeded to announce that Kenya was working with the US to address the Red Sea and Ukraine crises; was he also speaking for Kenya? January 2024 article by CNBC (here) also admitted to Washington’s coercion of allies and urged change to ‘persuasion’ but apparently in vain. From the foregoing, there is no democracy in Washington’s camp as allies are forced to adopt an American-fashioned tunnel vision.
US Modus Operandi; Lying and Bribing
Amidst ongoing crises in the international arena, one would expect all governments to seek balanced information as a basis for sound policy, but Washington and its allies are pursuing the formers’ failed strategies, concerning the ongoing war in Ukraine, Israeli-Gaza war, and US-Houthis standoff in the Red Sea. Kenya’s populace has no interest in these wars which Washington created. Therefore, the Kenyan government should let the US address its misadventures in the interest of democracy. Kenya, as the so-called US ally is unwilling or unable to stand against Washington’s dictations, and instead amplify Washington’s talking points, and interests while omitting or denying inconvenient truths concerning the Haiti, the Red Sea, Palestine, and Ukraine.
The Kenyan Government experiences backlash at home after agreeing to send 1000 police officers to Haiti, after probably being bribed by Washington. The High Court of Kenya had ruled such deployment illegal (here) as the Kenyan constitution does not envision the police service being deployed outside the republic. One scholar, who also sat on the committee that drafted the new constitution, questioned the wisdom of sending police service to other countries while Kenya experiences a shortage (here). He noted that Kenya’s ratio of the police to citizenry fell below the UN recommendation, which made Washington’s request to Kenya, allegedly through the UN, misguided. He also noted Washington’s financial inducement of Kenya Shillings 14 billion, (here) which shows that when Washington is not misrepresenting the truth, it is bribing clients state to follow along with unpopular and illegal policies. This cannot be democracy and must be called out for what it is; Washington’s political meddling.
US Deceitful stand on Houthis
On 7th February 2024, the US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced that Kenya had joined other nations to defend the Red Sea from Houthi rebels and to assist Ukraine. Ukraine and the Red Sea crises have become another of Washington’s sideshows to distract allies’ attention away from their interests, and instead join the US to pursue its increasingly failing prospect of global domination. Citizen’s interests are set aside, such that Lloyd Austin, an American citizen with no role in the Kenyan government was announcing to Kenyans, hence extending the American dictatorship from coercing to talking for allies; the American democracy for you. In Austin’s company was Kenya’s Defense Cabinet Secretary, Adan Duale, (a devout Muslim who in the past even clashed with the chief Kadhi and purported to know matters of moon sighting better than the head of this religious group) was not bothered by how Austin’s policy was genociding Palestinian Muslims, and that Houthis were only trying to help fellow Muslims. Instead, Duale was willing to view the evolving crises through Washington’s tunnel vision that focuses solely on the Houthis and conceals Israel’s and the US’s illegal actions in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iraq.
Supporting Ukraine
Washington is openly meddling in Kenyan politics and illegally influencing policy towards Ukraine, noting that the Kenyan parliament has never debated the subject. Most Kenyans do not think the matter is a priority, as it has not been featured in the media or social media as being important to the masses. Despite this, Lloyd Austin, as seen earlier, announced Kenya’s support for Ukraine’s Contact Group, of about 50 countries that have stopped minding their business and followed Washington’s lead. I highly doubt whether the Kenyan government can provide any meaningful assistance to Ukraine if all the backing from the US and EU is counting to naught. Supporting Ukraine is another tunnel vision that the Kenyan Government has chosen to follow, as opposed to letting Washington address its imperial overreach alone. The US meddled in Ukraine’s political affairs from as early back as 2004 (here) and continued to 2014 precipitating a coup. The coup brought leaders handpicked by Victoria Nuland to power, as can be noted in her leaked phone call to the then-US ambassador to Ukraine, Mr. Geoffrey Pyatt (here). Therefore, all the responsibility for the atrocities committed by Ukraine’s regime handpicked by the US should be left to Washington to address. Kenya and other countries should let Ukraine and Washington face a Russia’s response for committing atrocities against Russian-speaking Ukrainians in the east and the south of Ukraine since 2014. Instead, Washington’s allies and vassals are being led to bankrupt themselves supporting its overindulgence and misadventure that will also not change the course of the war.
Washington Attempts to erase the Genocide in Gaza?
Washington and its Disciples in Nairobi are disregarding the reality that they are the course of the problem, and that Houthis only resulted to attacking Israeli-bound vessels after Washington-backed Israel declined to lift its medieval blockade against Gazans. Houthis also attacked US vessels in retaliation after the US and UK bombed Yemen. Evidence is seen here; on December 9th, 2023, the Houthis threatened to target all vessels headed to Israel, if Israel did not lift its blockade against Gaza and allow food and medicine in. The group had not attacked any vessels, but Washington and Israel decided to ignore the warning, probably knowing they would lie to their client regimes to target Houthis instead of obeying the international law. Despite the Preliminary ICJ’s ruling ordering Israel to stop Genocide against Palestinians (here), and media reports that close to 30,000 Gazans have been killed, the US and its allies are conveniently omitting this reality in their policy as seen in the excerpt by Kenya concerning Houthis action “We condemn these attacks and demand an end to them. We also underscore that those who supply the Houthis with the weapons to conduct these attacks are violating UN Security Council Resolution 2216 and international law” (here). The statement strips all the context from the event while trying to spin the matter to deny justice to Palestinians, and Justifying Washington’s savage attacks on Yemen. The US is violating international law and enlisting its client states to follow it, while ignoring its role in supporting Israeli genocide against Gazans. If there was any democracy in Washington’s camp, participants would have stopped the genocide, but that is not the case.
Simon Chege Ndiritu is a political observer and research analyst from Africa.
Biden will not ‘punish Israel’ for civilian massacre in Rafah: Report
The Cradle | February 14, 2024
The White House has no “reprimand plans” in the works to punish Israel if its army launches a ground invasion into the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip, where 1.4 million Palestinians are taking shelter after forcible displacement.
“Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences,” POLITICO reports, citing three US officials speaking on condition of anonymity.
Measuring about 64 square kilometers in size, Rafah is severely overcrowded, with hundreds of thousands of civilians who fled there after the Israeli army designated the city a “safe zone” in its ongoing genocide campaign.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu plans to stage a land assault on Rafah, as he announced over the past several days, where he claims the “last four battalions” of Hamas’ armed wing are entrenched.
“We’re going to do it while providing safe passage for the civilian population so they can leave,” Netanyahu said in an interview with US outlet ABC News on Sunday. The premier, however, failed to specify where such a large number of displaced civilians could evacuate, stating only that Tel Aviv is “working out a detailed plan.” He alleged that “there are plenty of areas” north of Rafah despite the Israeli army having flattened most buildings and infrastructure in that region.
US President Joe Biden reportedly told Netanyahu on Sunday that an attack on Rafah should not be launched “without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of and support for the more than one million people sheltering there,” yet he did not oppose the operation.
Hours later, bombs rained down on Rafah, killing over 100 civilians.
Over recent weeks, western media has been awash with reports that Biden is growing “frustrated” with Netanyahu, even using “disparaging terms” to refer to the Israeli premier and holding discussions about the “day after” Netanyahu.
Nevertheless, public statements by White House officials make it abundantly clear there will be no change in approach to US–Israel relations.
Newly-minted US National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told reporters on Monday that the White House will “continue to support Israel … And we’re going to continue to make sure they have the tools and the capabilities” to continue military operations.
Asked on Wednesday what the US response would be to a ground invasion of Rafah without concern for civilian safety, Kirby refused to respond, saying, “I’m not going to get into a hypothetical game.” The senior US official has also come under fire for saying the Israeli military is doing a “better job at protecting civilians in Gaza” than their US counterparts would.
Furthermore, as international calls grow for Washington to cut arms deliveries to Israel, earlier this month, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Barbara Leaf, made it clear Washington has no plans to do such a thing.
“In a word, no – we are not contemplating that,” Leaf told reporters during a digital press briefing when asked if the White House is contemplating a reduction in the pace of arms deliveries to Israel.
In addition to fueling the mass murder of nearly 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza, the US has also provided political cover for Israel. Most recently, it threatened to review its ties with South Africa after Pretoria took Tel Aviv to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on charges of genocide.
When courts intervene: halting the transfer of vital military equipment to Israel
By Dr Binoy Kampmark | MEMO | February 14, 2024
Moody’s Downgrades Israel, Warns That Weaker US Backing for Israel, War with Hezbollah Would Trigger Crash
By John Helmer – Dances with Bears – February 11, 2024
Twice already the warning of the obvious has been posted in the money markets — Israel cannot survive a long war with the Arabs and Iran.
In this long war, the gods do not favour the Chosen People, it was reported on October 27, three weeks after the Hamas offensive began. The decline in Israel’s export earnings from tourism and diamonds; the loss of imported supplies for manufacturing and consumption from the Houthi blockade of the Red Sea; and increasing risk to both imports and exports at the Mediterranean ports within range of Hamas and Hezbollah strikes were identified at that time.
The international ratings agencies, Moody’s, Fitch and Standard and Poors, postponed announcing the obvious for as long as they could.
In attrition war, on the economic front just like the Gaza and other fire fronts, the Axis of Resistance wins by maintaining its offensive capacities and operations for longer than the US and US-backed Israeli forces can defend. Like troops, tanks, and artillery pieces, the operational goal is to grind the enemy slowly but surely into retreat, then capitulation. Last week, Moody’s had already decided in-house to downgrade Israel; for several days senior management fended off a ferocious attack from Israeli officials and their supporters in the US trying to compel postponement of the downgrade and the analytical report substantiating it.
On February 6, in a review of the shekel, bond, credit default swaps (CDS), budget deficit, and other indicators, the conclusion was there could be no stopping the money markets from moving against Israel. Negative ratings from the agencies raise the cost of servicing Israel’s state and corporate bonds, and put pressure on the state budget. A ratings downgrade is a signal to the markets to go negative against the issuer – this usually comes after the smart money has changed its mind and direction. In Israel’s case, however, there has been an exceptional delay between negative outlook and downgrade. The last Fitch report on Israel was dated October 17; Moody’s followed on October 19; Standard & Poors (S&P) on October 24.
That Israeli and US tactics had forced postponement of new reports from the troika was obvious. A fresh warning was published on this website: as real estate and other tax collections collapse, Israel will have to make a large cash call on the US. This is going to come in the near future, just as the government in Kiev has been forced into calling on Congress as the Ukraine war is being lost. The longer both wars are protracted, the more obviously the loss of confidence expresses itself in Washington.
Moody’s has now caught up. According to the Israeli press, this is the first credit and currency downgrade in their country’s history.
In a report dated last Friday but not issued until Saturday, the Jewish sabbath, the agency officially reduced Israel’s rating from A1 to A2, and added pointers of further downgrading to come. The Anglo-American press immediately reacted against Moody’s. “Israel hits back”, the Financial Times headlined. The newspaper added: “[Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu, in a rare statement over the Jewish Sabbath, said: ‘The rating downgrade is not connected to the economy, it is entirely due to the fact that we are in a war. The rating will go back up the moment we win the war — and we will win the war.’” In the Associated Press report, “Israel’s finance minister blasts Moody’s downgrade”. Rupert Murdoch’s platform Fox claimed: “Israel has a strong, open economy despite Moody’s downgrade”. “Israel’s creditworthiness remains high,” according to the New York Times, “but the rating agency noted that the outlook for the country was negative… A rating of A2 is still a high rating.”
The press release version of Moody’s report is republished verbatim so that its meaning can be understood without the propaganda.
Three points have been missed in the Anglo-American counterattack and Israeli government’s bluster. The first is the warning that Israel will soon have to request enormous cash backing from the US, and if there is any sign of weakening on that in Washington, the collapse of the Israeli economy and its capacity to continue its war is inevitable. The Moody’s report camouflaged the point this way: “The related issuances benefit from an irrevocable, on-demand guarantee provided by the Government of the United States of America (Aaa negative) with the government acting through USAID. The notes benefit explicitly from ‘the full faith and credit of the US’ and as per prospectus, USAID is obligated to pay within three business days if the guarantee is called upon.”
The second point strikes at announcements from Israel Defence Forces (IDF) generals and Netanyahu of their plan to expand their operations on the northern front – the Litani River ultimatum they called it in December. According to Moody’s report, “downside risks remain at the A2 rating level. In particular, the risk of an escalation involving Hezbollah in the North of Israel remains, which would have a potentially much more negative impact on the economy than currently assumed under Moody’s baseline scenario. Government finances would also be under more intense pressure in such a scenario.”
The third point is the most explosive. After cutting Israel’s rating to A2, Moody’s warned that further and deeper downgrades may follow, but that there is presently no way the ratings agency can predict what will happen next. “The ongoing military conflict with Hamas, its aftermath and wider consequences materially raise political risk for Israel as well as weaken its executive and legislative institutions and its fiscal strength, for the foreseeable future.”
In flagging those last four words – “for the foreseeable future” — Moody’s has told the markets that the strategic initiative in this war has now passed to the Axis of Resistance. Of course, the Arabs and Iranians already know. … Full article
No chance of diplomatic solution to Ukraine conflict – FM Lavrov
RT | February 14, 2024
The West will not offer a realistic diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict because the US and its allies are still intent on inflicting a strategic defeat on Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Wednesday.
Briefing Russian MPs on his ministry’s work and the current international situation, Lavrov stated that Moscow is “at the advance guard in the fight for a better future,” adding that the Western-dominated system is giving way to a multipolar world.
The US and its allies, however, remain committed to waging a hybrid war against anyone that prioritizes national interests, as evidenced by the continued Ukraine conflict, Lavrov claimed.
There has been a shift in Western rhetoric due to Moscow’s battlefield successes, according to the minister, with officials now focusing on preventing a Russian victory rather than ensuring its defeat. Nonetheless, their core policy of trying to damage Russia remains the same, Lavrov said, meaning the conflict is unlikely to be resolved diplomatically.
“Considering that those who declared a war on us offer no serious proposals and are unwilling to respect our interests and the reality on the ground, getting an agreement at the negotiating table will certainly be impossible. No such scenario is foreseen,” the diplomat stated.
Lavrov insisted that the West had initiated the conflict through its continued quest for “global domination and exceptionalism.” Russia, meanwhile, is working with its allies to dismantle the current system, which it perceives as colonialist in nature, he told the lawmakers.
US President Joe Biden reiterated his Ukraine policy on Tuesday, urging the House of Representatives to adopt a Senate-approved foreign aid package including roughly $60 billion for Kiev. The money will mostly fund arms production in the US and will help Ukraine oppose the “vicious onslaught” by Russia, Biden claimed.
“The United States pulled together a coalition of nearly 50 nations to support Ukraine. We unified NATO; we expanded it. We can’t walk away now,” the leader declared.
If approved, the bill would raise the amount of military assistance provided to Ukraine by the US since the outbreak of hostilities in February 2022 to some $170 billion.
New York’s Proposed Minor Consent Law ‘Dangerous’ and ‘Misleading,’ Critics Say
By Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D. | The Defender | February 12, 2024
New York state lawmakers are weighing legislation that would allow any child or teen under 18 to seek out and consent to medical treatment — including vaccines, dental procedures, hospitalization and even surgery — without parental consent, as long as the minor appears to have the mental capacity for making that decision.
Assembly Bill A6761, introduced by New York Assemblymember Karines Reyes (D-Bronx), also would allow Medicaid funds to pay for procedures and drugs administered to children.
Proponents of the legislation, such as the American Civil Liberties Union of New York, say the measure is about ensuring all youth have access to quality care.
But critics, including John Gilmore, founder and executive director of the nonprofit Autism Action Network, said the bill is dangerous.
“The bill’s biggest problem,” Gilmore told The Defender, “is that it allows any medical procedure to be done to children of any age without parental knowledge or consent. That’s the kicker.”
Gilmore said the bill has another problem, too: The “active summary” statement on the official New York Assembly website says it “allows homeless youth to give effective consent to certain medical, dental, health, and hospital services.”
But Gilmore said that statement is “deliberately misleading” because the bill’s text applies to more than just “homeless” youth seeking “certain” services.
The bill states:
“Any person, including a minor, who comprehends the need for, the nature of, and the reasonably foreseeable risks and benefits involved in any contemplated medical, dental, health, and/or hospital services, and any alternatives thereto, may give effective consent to such services for themself, and the consent of no other person shall be necessary.”
“Albany is lying” about the bill, according to Autism Action Network.
Michael Kane, a New York resident and founder of Teachers For Choice, agreed. “It’s a complete lie to say the bill applies only to homeless children or runaways — and it’s a dangerous one,” Kane told The Defender. “It’s imperative that legislators understand what the bill really does,” Kane said.
With New York lawmakers considering close to 10,000 bills, legislators may rely on a bill’s one-sentence summary — rather than reading its full text — for deciding how they vote, according to Gilmore.
The bill has a companion in the Senate (S8352), introduced Jan. 19 by state Sen. Rachel May (D-Syracuse). The bills share identical text.
Unclear how practitioners would assess minor’s ‘capacity to comprehend’
According to the latest version of the bill, a minor could consent to:
- General medical, dental, health and hospital services.
- Mental health outpatient services.
- Substance abuse treatment.
- Immunizations.
- Family planning services.
- Sexually transmitted disease (STD) diagnosis and treatment.
The bill states that a practitioner may administer a vaccine if “they have reason to believe that a person in parental relation to the child … objects to the immunization.”
It also states, “A child who may give effective consent [to various medical interventions] … may give such consent to their own immunization, and the consent of no other person shall be necessary.”
The bill allows minors under 16, in certain circumstances, to access psychotropic drugs or psychotherapy without parental consent.
Psychotropic drugs include a host of pharmaceutical products, including medications for depression, anxiety, sleep disorders, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Current New York law allows minors 16 or older residing in a hospital to agree to psychotropic medications without parental consent if any of the following conditions are met:
- A parent or guardian “is not reasonably available” and the physician determines “the minor has the capacity”; or
- requiring parental consent “would have a detrimental effect on the minor”; or
- the parent has refused consent, providing that two physicians (including a psychiatric doctor who does not work for the facility) agree the medications are in the minor’s best interests.
A6761/S8352 would allow minors under 16 in these circumstances to do the same, as long as the youth “comprehends the need for, the nature of, and the reasonably foreseeable risks and benefits involved.”
The bill does not include detailed information on how medical practitioners would assess a minor’s capacity to comprehend the potential risks of a potential treatment.
It does, however, define “capacity” as follows:
“The minor’s ability to understand and appreciate the nature and consequences of the proposed treatment, including the benefits and risks of, and alternatives to, such proposed treatment, and to reach an informed decision.”
Children’s Health Defense General Counsel Kim Mack Rosenberg told The Defender that informed consent is a “serious” thing, but this legislation devotes “little attention to how to determine if a child can truly exercise informed consent, how to obtain that consent and why true informed consent is critically important.”
Who is a ‘minor’?
The bill does not provide a clear definition of “minor” that applies across all amended laws. However, some sections of the law define or describe the age thresholds related to minor consent:
- In the amendments to the mental hygiene law section 9.13(a), anyone under 16 would still need parental/guardian consent to be admitted as a voluntary patient to a hospital.
- In amendments to mental hygiene law 33.21(a)(1), a “minor” is defined as a person under 18, excluding some special cases like emancipated minors or minors who are parents.
- In amendments to section 2305 of public health law, treatment for STDs without parental consent is allowed for those under 21.
However, earlier sections of the bill do not specify any age range for minors, suggesting even young minors could consent as long as they demonstrate appropriate “capacity.”
Even infants?
It appears the bill’s sponsors may believe that even an infant can give consent. That’s because section 18 of public health law omits previous language stating that children older than 12 can determine who gets access to their medical records.
This deletion suggests that a child of any age no longer “may” but “shall be notified of any request by a qualified person to review their patient information” and deny access to it if they so desire.
The bill states that an infant can choose to withhold information from its parents, without explaining how that would be possible:
In summary, there isn’t one definition of “minor” in the bill, but it seems for most purposes “minor” refers to anyone under age 18.
Minor consent bills bulldoze’ over decades of laws honoring parental rights
The U.S. has a strong legal history going back many decades that honors parental rights and recognizes that the state should step in only where parents are unfit to care for their children, Rosenberg said.
“Minor consent bills bulldoze over those longstanding decisions,” she said. “They try to exclude parents from medical decision-making and take over the parenting role.”
Rosenberg said she’s seen more bills like this recently being introduced in other states, such as Vermont. “We [CHD] successfully stopped one in the District of Columbia and are fighting laws and regulations elsewhere,” she said.
Kane called the bill “just horrendous” because it “completely eradicates parental control over what happens medically to our children.”
Meanwhile, a staff member for Reyes’ office who chose to remain anonymous told The Defender she disagreed, saying the bill was primarily about ensuring all kids have “access to care” and that it included “guardrails” to ensure that not all parental consent was stripped away in all situations.
For instance, the bill explains that a minor must “knowingly and voluntarily” seek care, the staff member said.
But Rosenberg said she’s concerned about the legal ramifications of the bill’s broad language — which appears to erase parental consent for “any contemplated medical, dental, health, and/or hospital services, and any alternatives thereto.”
Rosenberg told The Defender the bill was “rife with problems too numerous to address in brief remarks.”
The bill makes clear, she said, that minors can consent to vaccinations without their parents’ knowledge or consent — and that medical staff and insurance companies must hide that vaccination information from the parents unless the child permits them to share it.
Children “literally may inadvertently take their lives into their own hands” if they make serious healthcare decisions without parental involvement, Rosenberg said.
For example, children frequently don’t know their own health history — let alone their family health history — which may put them at an increased risk for an adverse reaction to a medication or treatment, she explained.
Rosenberg said:
“The legislators supporting these bills need to ask themselves what they would do if a child or grandchild of theirs consented to a surgical procedure of whatever kind requiring anesthesia and the child suffered death or irreversible harm if they had a reaction to the anesthesia.
“Is that a phone call they’d like to receive?”
‘Not a chance’ bill’s sponsors unaware of misleading statement
New York already has a law on the books about homeless youth giving consent for certain services.
Passed in 2022, A09604/S08937 allows “runaways and homeless youth under the age of 18 who are receiving approved crisis or support services to consent to medical, dental, health and hospital services.”
Gilmore, who has done legislative analysis in New York for 23 years, said, “Both Rachel May and Karines Reyes voted for the bill that was passed in 2022.”
So why would they talk about homeless youth in the summary of the new measure they introduced?
A staff member for Reyes’ office told The Defender a bill’s summary statement is written by lawyers — not by the legislator who introduces the bill.
It’s plausible the lawyers chose that language since the bill amends the same section of public health law (2504) that was amended earlier in the law about homeless youth and runaways, the staff member said. However, the staff member confirmed that the present bill does pertain to all minors.
The Defender also reached out to May’s Legislative Director Eric van der Vort, but he did not respond by our publication deadline.
Gilmore said he contacted legislators, too, but didn’t get a straight answer. When he asked van der Vort about the summary language, “he simply refused to address it in any way,” Gilmore said.
Reyes’ Chief of Staff Justin Westbrook-Lowery confirmed for Gilmore that the bill applies to all minors in New York but didn’t explain why the summary statement talked about homeless youth.
Amy Paulin (D-Scarsdale), who chairs the Assembly Committee on Health and co-sponsored the bill, “has a large staff and they’re very good at what they do,” Gilmore said. “There’s not a chance that they aren’t quite aware” that the bill’s summary statement doesn’t match what the bill would do.
Kane said he’s heard from New York legislators and staffers that they believe the bill affects only homeless children.
“There’s a lot of people in the Assembly starting to co-sponsor the bill, which is scary,” he said. “We don’t want this thing passed so that we end up litigating against it for the next five years.”
The Defender asked May’s media relations staff what May would like to tell parents concerned about being excluded from medical decision-making regarding their child’s health, but did not receive a response by our publication deadline.
Suzanne Burdick, Ph.D., is a reporter and researcher for The Defender based in Fairfield, Iowa.
This article was originally published by The Defender — Children’s Health Defense’s News & Views Website under Creative Commons license CC BY-NC-ND 4.0. Please consider subscribing to The Defender or donating to Children’s Health Defense.
Joe Biden Acts Like the Defender of Gazans, But He is the Destroyer
By Adam Dick | Peace and Prosperity Blog | February 13, 2024
This week President Joe Biden was again talking about his ideas of how the Israel government should exercise more restraint in its war in Gaza. But, he remains all talk and no action on this count.
It is tedious to repeatedly hear the man who is, in the absence of congressional action to provide special assistance to Israel for its war, unilaterally providing the key aid including weapons and intelligence for prosecuting Israel’s war continue to insist he supports restraint while the Israel government keeps pursuing relentless devastation.
Biden, in a Monday statement he made at the White House after meeting with Jordan King Abdullah, said the following regarding impending Israel military action:
As I said yesterday, our military operation in Rafah — their — the major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan — a credible plan for ensuring the safety and support of more than one million people sheltering there. Many people there have been displaced — displaced multiple times, fleeing the violence to the north, and now they’re packed into Rafah — exposed and vulnerable. They need to be protected.
This schtick is way past its expiration date. The Israel war, now in its fifth month, continues to rack up destruction of life, health, and the physical manifestations of civilization in Gaza at an astounding pace, with the brunt of the suffering imposed on civilians. Israel is taking the actions. But, the US is the key accomplice to the atrocities because of the aid it provides.
This is Biden’s war as much as it is Israel’s war.
Biden is notoriously prone to make blunders in his public presentations. The blunder he made in his comment in his Monday White House statement is different than many. Biden quickly corrected his mention of “our military operation in Rafah” to clarify that the military operation is Israel’s. The slipup here was not that Biden had stated something false. Instead, it was that Biden had stated the truth that he and his administration are trying their best to hide.
Featured Video
MIT Professsor Ted Postol: Patriot Missile Capabilties
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
Neocons confess: “We did 9/11-anthrax”
By Kevin Barrett | Press TV | September 6, 2014
As the 13th anniversary of the crimes of September, 2001 approaches, the neoconservatives are shrieking from the rooftops – and effectively confessing that they were the real perpetrators of the 9/11-Anthrax false flag operation. (The neocons, you may recall, openly called for a “new Pearl Harbor” in September, 2000 – and got one exactly one year later.)
Every year at this time, the neocons orchestrate and hype a series of public relations stunts designed to magnify fears of “radical Islam” and reinforce their crumbling 9/11-Anthrax cover story. But this year’s propaganda campaign is so extreme that it represents a tacit confession: The neocons know that the truth about the 9/11-Anthrax operation is slowly closing in on them; so they are over-reacting by desperately trying to stoke the dying embers of the so-called War on Terror, in order to maintain the myth that Muslims (rather than neoconservative Zionists) attacked America in the autumn of 2001.
When a hysterical person exhibits guilty demeanor by trying too hard to blame a crime on someone else, that person is almost certainly the real perpetrator. As the neocons try much too hard to blame Islam for 9/11 and “terrorism” in general, their hysteria inadvertently reveals their own culpability. Like Shakespeare’s Lady MacBeth, the neoconservative movement has blood on its hands and “doth protest too much.” … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Israeli Intel Whistleblower: Israel Ended Clinton Iran Deal With Epstein Blackmail
- MIT Professsor Ted Postol: Patriot Missile Capabilties
- Israel Brings The War Rhetoric Towards Türkiye
- The Swiss summit of imperial humiliation
- Iran to continue IAEA cooperation under existing framework, SNSC decision: Baghaei
- Report highlights US munitions crisis: Missiles cannot be replenished quickly even with al the money in the world
- Iran’s Oil Spigot Could Open Soon But Hurdles Remain
- Trump’s Attempt to End the Iran War Infuriates the Uniparty
- First round of Swiss-hosted Iran-US talks ends with 5 key agreements
- What Is Hay Fever?
- If Americans Knew
- The Republican & Democratic Politicians Trying to Scuttle Iran Agreement
- Israel’s continued targeting of civilians in Lebanon renders ceasefire meaningless
- U.S. intelligence warns Israel is likely to undermine Iran peace deal, officials say
- In Gaza, Fathers Can’t Promise Their Children Food, Safety, or Even Survival
- This baby joins thousands of Gazans in need of medical evacuation
- Israel Kills Al Jazeera Journalist & Beloved Ecologist: 2 Articles
- Promoters of Israel: Leo Terrell, Ghana, Floyd Mayweather, Van Jones
- Gaza Soccer Player Who Dreamed of Competing in World Cup Can Now Barely Watch It
- Gaza baby loses mom and a leg; Palestinian prisoner tortured to death – Daily Update
- JNS Policy Summit to kick off in Israel
- No Tricks Zone
- 3 New Studies Find Increasing Trends In Solar Radiation Since The 1980s – Easily Explaining Warming
- THE TRANSCEIVER PARADOX: Why Organoid Intelligence (OI) Could Become Our Ultimate Alien Predator
- German Wind Turbines Face Regulatory Shutdown Due To Excessive Noise
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
Aletho News 