The Resistance Has a Plan for Israel. But on the Other Side, Fantastical U.S. Stratagems Ensure a Cascading Failure
By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | February 19, 2024
In a speech on Tuesday, Hizbullah leader Seyed Nasrallah said that the Party will continue the border offensive until at least the Gaza massacre stops. The war in Gaza however, is far from over. And Nasrallah warned that even were a ceasefire to be reached in Gaza, “should the enemy perform any action, we will return to operating according to the rules and formulas that existed before. The purpose of the resistance is to deter the enemy, and we will react accordingly”.
Israel’s Defence Secretary Gallant has underlined that contrary to international consensus expectations, he too expects the war in Lebanon to continue. Gallant said the military has stepped up its attacks against Hizbullah by one level out of ten:
“The Air Force planes flying currently in the skies of Lebanon have heavier bombs for more distant targets. Hizbullah went up half a step, whilst we, a full one … We can attack not only at 20 kilometres [from the border], but also at 50 kilometres, and in Beirut and anywhere else”.
It is not clear what ‘red line’ Hizbullah would have to cross for Israel to significantly escalate its response to much higher levels; Israeli leaders have suggested that an attack on a strategic site; or an attack leading to major civilian casualties; or a substantive barrage on Haifa might constitute the breaking point.
Nonetheless, with three military divisions rather than the usual one now deployed in the north of Israel, the IDF has more forces poised for action on the northern border than it has preparing for an incursion into Rafah – at this point. It is clear, as Chief of Staff Halevy has specified, that Israel is “preparing for war” against Hizbullah (more than preparing for Rafah).
Is the threat to Rafah a bluff to put pressure on Hamas to concede on the deal and hostages? One way or another, both Israel’s political and military chiefs are adamant: The IDF will incurse into Rafah – ‘at some point’.
The qualitatively different Hizbullah strike on Safed on Israel’s northern regional command HQ on Wednesday – which resulted in 2 dead and 7 further casualties – is being treated in Israel as the gravest attack since the start of the war, with Ben Gvir calling it a “declaration of war”. Subsequent Israeli attacks killed 11 people, including six children, in a barrage of strikes on villages across southern Lebanon, in retribution for the Safed blitz – with the fierce exchange of fire still continuing.
The ‘Safed Strike’ deep into the Galilee very likely was intended to signal that Hizbullah is not about to capitulate to western demands that it provide Israel with a ceasefire that is intended to facilitate evacuated Israelis to return to their homes in the north. As Nasrallah confirmed in a scathing attack on those external (Western) mediators who serve only as Israel’s lawyers, and neglect to address the massacres in Gaza:
“It is easier to move the Litani River forward to the borders, than to push back Hezbollah fighters from the borders, to behind the Litani River … They want us to pay a price without Israel committing to a thing”.
In these circumstances, Nasrallah clarified that residents of northern Israel will not return to their homes – warning that even more Israelis risk being displaced:
“‘Israel’ must prepare shelters, basements, hotels and schools to house two million settlers who will be evacuated from northern Palestine, [were Israel to expand the war zone].”
Nasrallah outlined what is clearly the agreed Axis of resistance’s overarching strategic plan. (There has been a flurry of meetings between senior Axis principals over the last week, across the region, for which Nasrallah is speaking):
“We are committed to fighting Israel until it is off the map. A strong Israel is dangerous to Lebanon; but a deterred Israel, defeated and exhausted, is less of a danger to Lebanon”.
“The national interest of Lebanon, the Palestinians, and the Arab world is that Israel leaves this battle defeated: Therefore, we are committed to Israel’s defeat”.
Put bluntly, the Axis has its vision of the conflict’s outcome. And it is a “deterred, defeated and exhausted” Israeli State. By implication, it is an Israel that has relinquished the Zionist project – one that is reconciled to the notion of living as Jews between the River and the Sea – albeit with rights no different to others living there (i.e. Palestinians).
On the other side, the western strategic plan, as the Washington Post reports – which the U.S. and several Arab countries hope to present within a few weeks – is a long-term plan for peace between Israel and the Palestinians, including a “time frame” for the establishment of a provisional de-militarized Palestinian “state”:
“Imperatively, it begins with a hostage deal accompanied by a six-week cease-fire between Israel and Hamas. While it may be termed “cessation of hostilities” or an “extended humanitarian pause,” such a cease-fire will signal the de facto end of the war along the lines and scale that it has been fought since 7 Oct.”
The plan addresses “Post-war Gaza”, in terms already well-known. As senior Israeli commentator, Alon Pinkas, affirms:
“Parallel to the announcement U.S., Britain and possibly other countries will consider and eventually make a joint statement of intent by recognizing a provisional, demilitarized and future Palestinian state – without delineating or specifying its borders”.
“Such a recognition does not necessarily contradict Israel’s legitimate and reasonable demand to have overriding security control over the area west of the Jordan River in the foreseeable future … [it constitutes] a practical, timebound, irreversible path to a Palestinian state living side-by-side in peace with Israel … whose recognition could also be submitted to the UN Security Council – as a binding resolution. Once the Arab countries sign off on such a framework, the U.S. believes that neither Russia nor China would veto it …
“Within the “regionalization” phase however, the Americans will craft a regional security cooperation mechanism. Some in Washington imagine a reconfigured region with a new “security architecture” as a harbinger to a gradual Mideast version of the European Union, with greater economic and infrastructure integration”.
Ah – the New Middle East again!!!
Even Alon Pinkas, an experienced former Israeli diplomat, concedes: “If the plan seems too fantastical to you: You’re not alone”.
The basic improbabilities to this plan simply are disregarded. Firstly, Israel’s Finance Minister Smotrich responded to the reported American-Arab plan, saying: “there’s a joint American, British and Arab effort to establish a terrorist state” next to Israel. Second, (as Smotrich further notes): “They see the polls. They see how the absolute majority of Israelis oppose this idea [of a Palestinian State]”; and thirdly, some 700,000 settlers were installed in the West Bank – precisely to block any Palestinian State.
Is the U.S. really going to impose this onto a hostile Israel? How?
And, from the Resistance perspective, ‘a provisional, demilitarized and future Palestinian ‘state’, without delineated or specified borders, is not a state. It is truly a Bantustan.
The reality is that when a Palestinian State might have been a real prospect (two decades ago), the international community turned a willing ‘blind eye’ – for decades – to Israel’s successful and complete sabotage of the project. Today, circumstances are much changed: Israel has moved far to the Right and is in the grip of an eschatological passion to establish Israel on the entire “Land of Israel”.
The U.S. and Europe have only themselves to blame for the dilemma in which they now find themselves. And a policy stance – such as outlined by Biden – plainly said is doing untold strategic damage to the U.S. and its compliant European allies.
Even on the Lebanon track, let us be plain too, Israel’s demands from Lebanon go far beyond a mutual ceasefire. There is no guarantee, even should a ceasefire be reached in Gaza as part of a comprehensive hostage/end-of-war deal, that Nasrallah will agree to withdraw all his forces from the border with Israel, or conversely, that Israel will comply with its commitments.
And with the U.S. defining its Palestinian ‘solution’ as an improbable, provisional, disarmed and wholly impotent Palestinian entity, nestled within a fully militarised Israel, exercising ‘full security overlordship from the River to the Sea’, it would not be surprising were Hizbullah rather, to opt to pursue the Axis’ plan of a defeated, exhausted post-Zionism.
Israeli commentator, Zvi Bar’el, writes:
“Even were the American assumptions to become a working plan, it is still unclear what policy Israel will adopt on Lebanon. Even pushing Hezbollah back so that Israeli communities are no longer within the range of its anti-tank missiles does not remove the threat of tens of thousands of medium and long-range missiles. The deterrence equation between Israel and Hezbollah will continue to determine [the true] reality along the border”.
[The current U.S. working assumption, as presented by the Administration’s special envoy Amos Hochstein in his previous visits to Lebanon], “is that a border demarcation agreement between Israel and Lebanon will result in final and full recognition of the international border and thus deny Hezbollah the formal basis for justifying its continued fight against Israel to liberate occupied Lebanese territories. At the same time, it allows the Lebanese government to order its army to deploy its forces along the border in order to assert its sovereignty over its entire territory and demand that Hezbollah forces pull back from the border”.
This is just more wishful, ‘fantastical’ thinking. And it contains a flaw: Hochstein’s work plan does not include an agreement on the Sheba’a Farms, but only on the ‘Blue Line’ – the border agreed in 2000, but which is not recognized by Lebanon as an international border. If the issue of the Sheba’a Farms is not settled, Hezbollah will not be bound by a limited demarcation accord that omits the Sheba’a area.
Since Hamas’s attack on Israel on 7 October, every stratagem and protocol, dug from some musty West Wing cupboard, and upon which the U.S. leant, has failed. What was supposed to be a limited and compartmentalized military operation in Gaza by the IDF has turned into a regional firestorm. Aircraft carriers sent to deter other actors from getting involved failed with the Houthis; U.S. bases in Iraq and Syria became targets, with attacks on U.S. bases continuing, despite U.S. attempts at delivering deterrent ‘punches’.
Quite clearly, Netanyahu is ignoring Biden, and ‘defying the world’ – as this week’s headlines attest:
“Defying Biden, Netanyahu Doubles Down on Plans to Fight in Rafah” (Wall Street Journal )
“As Israel corners Rafah, Netanyahu defies the world” (Washington Post )
“U.S. won’t punish Israel for Rafah op that doesn’t protect civilians” (Politico )
“Egypt Builds Walled Enclosure on Border as Israeli Offensive Looms: Authorities are surrounding an area in the desert with concrete walls as a contingency for possible influx of Palestinian refugees” (Wall Street Journal ).
Netanyahu has vowed to forge ahead, saying on Wednesday that Israel would mount a “powerful” operation in the city of Rafah, once residents have been “evacuated”. Israelis explicitly say the White House is not opposed to the Rafah blitz, provided Palestinians are given the opportunity to “evacuate” (to where, is left unsaid). (Meanwhile, Egypt is building a refugee camp inside its border, surrounded by concrete walls …).
At this point, all of the U.S.’ various problems – the political polarization, widening war, funding for wars, the alienation amongst the swing-state Arab constituencies and Biden’s sinking ratings – are beginning to feed into, and reinforce, each other. What began as a foreign-policy issue – Israel defeating Hamas – has become a significant domestic crisis. Dissatisfaction within the U.S. at Israel’s conduct of the war is fuelling the growth of significant protest movements. Who can truly believe that yet another trip by Blinken to the region will solve anything at this point, asks Malcom Kyeyune?
It is hard to say where things in the region will stand, a couple of months from now. We have entered a period of breakdown and violence, as the forces pulling apart the old status quo cascade and mutually reinforce one another.
Ukraine used US-made chemical weapons – Russia
RT | February 19, 2024
Washington and Kiev have violated articles of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as Ukrainian forces have used illegal munitions on the battlefield, Russian Lieutenant General Igor Kirillov has claimed.
The head of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Protection Forces provided several examples of Kiev’s alleged use of banned chemical weapons and non-lethal chemical agents that he said were obtained from the US.
Kirillov claimed that Ukraine used drones to drop US-made gas grenades on December 28, 2023 containing “CS” compound – a chemical classified as a riot-control tool that irritates the eyes and upper respiratory tract, and can cause skin burns, respiratory paralysis and cardiac arrest when used in high concentrations.
He said the delivery of such munitions by the US to Ukraine was a direct violation of the rules of the OPCW, which states that a country must “never, under any circumstances, transfer chemical weapons directly or indirectly to anyone.”
He also reported that, on June 15, 2023, Moscow’s forces were attacked by a drone carrying a container filled with chloropicrin, which is classified as a Schedule 3 compound under the Chemical Weapons Convention and is strictly prohibited – even for law enforcement purposes. The same chemical was also used by Kiev on August 3 and 11, 2023 near the village of Rabotino, according to Kirillov.
The general also provided several examples of Kiev using toxic substances against Russian military personnel, as well as poisoning high-ranking officials such as the head of Russia’s Kherson Region Vladimir Saldo in August 2022.
Kirillov said Russian intelligence believes that Ukraine’s forces, under the guidance of its Western backers, are developing a new military tactic that would use a “chemical belt.” This would involve blowing up containers with hydrocyanic acid and ammonia to prevent an advance by Russian forces.
He added that plans for such a large-scale use of toxic chemicals were evidenced by the fact that Kiev had asked the EU to supply it with hundreds of thousands of antidotes, gas masks and other personal protective equipment in 2024. That’s in addition to 600,000 ampules of organophosphorus antidotes, and 750,000 bottles of drugs for the detoxification of mustard gas, lewisite and hydrocyanic acid derivatives that were supplied by NATO countries in 2023.
“It is obvious that the volumes requested by Ukraine are excessive for a country that does not have chemical weapons,” Kirillov stated.
There has been no response from the OPCW despite all of this evidence being presented to the organization four months ago, the general said, accusing it of being run by Washington as a tool to target its political opponents.
In November, Russia lost its seat on the OPCW Executive Council after failing to get enough votes from other members of the organization. Kirillov said Moscow was effectively “pushed out” of its seat and was replaced by Ukraine, Poland and Lithuania, who he claimed were pursuing an obvious anti-Russia policy.
US changes position on Gaza ceasefire – Reuters
RT | February 19, 2024
US President Joe Biden’s administration has reportedly dropped its opposition to a humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza Strip and proposed a UN resolution calling for Israel to cancel its planned military offensive in the Palestinian enclave’s last refuge for displaced civilians.
The draft resolution noted that the planned storming of Rafah would harm civilians and displace more Gaza residents, potentially pushing many into Egypt, Reuters reported on Monday, citing a copy of the text.
Israel’s Rafah operation – targeting the last Hamas stronghold in the besieged enclave – “would have serious implications for regional peace and security, and therefore underscores that such a major ground offensive should not proceed under current circumstances,” according to the proposed resolution.
Washington’s UN delegation has previously opposed making demands for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hamas war and has twice vetoed UN Security Council resolutions since the conflict began in October. Its new proposal comes in response to a draft resolution from the Algerian delegation, which demanded an immediate humanitarian ceasefire.
US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield has said the Algerian resolution could undermine “sensitive negotiations” to broker a pause in the fighting. She indicated on Saturday that the US would veto the resolution if it came up for a Security Council vote on Tuesday.
About 1.4 million Gazans displaced by Israeli bombardments have been crammed into Rafah, a city on the strip’s southern border that normally has a population of around 280,000, according to the UN.
The UN has warned that Israel’s planned Rafah operation would have “dire humanitarian consequences.” Dozens of European countries issued a similar warning on Monday, following in the footsteps of such nations as Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Canada, and New Zealand.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed to completely eliminate Hamas in response to the deadly October 7 attacks by Palestinian militants that triggered the war. He has rejected international calls for a ceasefire and has insisted that only “total victory” will make Israel safe. “Those who want to prevent us from operating in Rafah are essentially telling us, ‘Lose the war,’” he told reporters on Saturday.
While publicly supporting Israel’s war effort – and providing US weaponry – Biden has reportedly clashed with Netanyahu behind the scenes. During a telephone call with Netanyahu on Thursday, Biden “reiterated his view that a military operation should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety of, and support for, the civilians in Rafah,” according to a White House statement.
The UN resolution proposed by the Biden administration also would condemn any efforts to reduce Gaza’s territory or move Israeli settlers into the enclave, Reuters said.
UAE banks closing Russian accounts – media
RT | February 19, 2024
Several large banks in the United Arab Emirates have begun limiting transactions with Russia and closing the accounts of Russian companies and individuals due to the risk of secondary Western sanctions, the news outlet Vedomosti reported on Monday, citing businessmen working in the UAE.
The sources, whose identities are not disclosed in the article, told Vedomosti that in September first-tier UAE banks, such as First Abu Dhabi Bank, Emirates NBD, and Abu Dhabi Commercial Bank, largely purged their ties to Russia. It thus became virtually impossible to carry out transactions with Russia using these banks. This happened after Russia’s Ak Bars Bank, which used to be the main channel for Russia-Emirati payments, came under US sanctions.
Second-tier institutions have allegedly so far treated Russian companies and individuals more loyally, but have demanded that these clients purchase additional banking services or put extra funds on their accounts.
The sources also complained that it has recently become next to impossible to open a new account with the country’s larger banks. Many applications from Russian residents are returned after the first compliance check.
The sources attributed the problem to sanctions. According to one businessman, his company’s account was closed after it was discovered that one of the products he was importing had appeared on a EU sanctions list. Some also said banks may be wary of a decree signed in December by US President Joe Biden enabling punitive measures against financial institutions outside US and EU jurisdictions that continue to work with Russia. The regulation specifically targets lenders that facilitate transactions related to the Russian military-industrial complex.
According to analysts briefed by the news outlet, it is still possible for Russian residents to run a business successfully in the UAE, but certain criteria must be met. For instance, the business activity itself should not fall under sanctions; the company should not be linked to ‘politically exposed persons’ in Russia such as government officials, top managers of large Russian companies or banks; and it should not deal with products under Western sanctions, especially dual-use goods that could be employed by the military.
A Vedomosti source close to the Kremlin said the government is aware of the problems faced by Russian businesses in the UAE, but doesn’t consider them critical or unsolvable.
EU Plans for New Russia Sanctions Driven by Desire to ‘Please’ US – Budapest
Sputnik – 19.02.2024
The European Union’s plans for a new package of Russia sanctions make no sense, as they will constitute just a demonstrative step designed to “please” Washington and liberal media, Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said on Monday.
Earlier in the day, the EU foreign ministers discussed new Russian sanctions they are seeking to impose by February 24, which marks the anniversary of the beginning of Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine. As many as 193 individuals and legal entities are expected to be included in the 13th package of sanctions, media reported. Most of them will be from Russia, but sanctions may also be imposed against individuals or organizations from Belarus, China, India, Turkiye and North Korea.
“The EU, suffering from military psychosis, just wants to please Washington, liberal media and non-governmental organizations by adopting a new, this time completely meaningless package of sanctions that would serve only as a demonstrative step saying ‘this is the second anniversary of the start of the war [in Ukraine]’,” the Hungarian prime minister said on social media.
The upcoming anniversary of the start of the Ukraine conflict should encourage European politicians to promote a ceasefire and peace talks, but “there are no peace proposals on the agenda today,” Szijjarto added.
Western countries and their allies rolled out a comprehensive sanctions campaign against Russia after the latter launched its special military operation in Ukraine in February 2022. The European Union, in particular, has already adopted 12 sanctions packages. The measures include freezing of Russia’s foreign currency reserves and halting of international payments from Russian banks.
US democracy in crisis as election looms
By Uriel Araujo | February 19, 2024
American doctor Marty Makary, a John Hopkins University surgeon and professor, has claimed Joe Biden is undergoing “cognitive decline right in front of our eyes”, during an interview with conservative TV channel Fox News. Dr. Makary is not the only one to have noticed – as he says: “it’s not really a medical diagnosis as much as it is obvious to even a lawyer who essentially made the diagnosis in this report of age-related dementia… It’s very obvious how he’s performing today versus, say, five years ago, and it’s sad, really.”
More importantly, Makary is not the only voice saying that out loud, the said lawyer being attorney Robert Hur, who, on February 5, published a report on Biden’s controversial case (while he was Barack Obama’s vice president) of illegal storage and disclosure of US classified documents pertaining to American military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other national security issues – the documents were recovered by FBI agents from Biden’s home in Delaware and private offices of his. Hur oversaw the 2023/2024 investigation into this alleged mishandling of classified documents, and, in his aforementioned report, he famously justified his decision to not recommend prosecution of Biden thusly: “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory… It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
According to the same document, the US president could not remember when exactly his one son died. Ronny Jackson, Biden’s former personal physician, has also stated the president should pass a battery of cognitive health exams before running in the next presidential election.
In what appeared to be a collective case of “pluralistic ignorance”, also known in social psychology as collective illusion, for a while, everyone could in fact notice that the emperor is senile, while mistakenly believing that (almost) no one else did – even though this has been the subject of memes and tweets for years in face of Biden’s lapses and often incoherent speech visible in widely shared clips. Such was the case until now, when the topic is making national headlines almost everyday.
According to a NBC poll, 76% of US voters now have concerns about Biden being physically and mentally fit for the presidency. Less than half of voters had similar concerns about Trump’s mental and physical health, which, in any case, is still a quite large number. Unlike the incumbent president, Trump does not display obvious signs of senility but the man is 77 years old nonetheless (Biden being 81 years old). Again, it is quite remarkable that the political system of a “thriving” democratic superpower, in both the Republican and Democrat parties, simply cannot find viable alternatives to such over-aged politicians. The Democrats have to go with Biden, no matter how senile he is or how much his family is tangled up in Ukrainian controversies and, likewise, Trump remains the Republican favorite, even with all the coup attempt accusations and the several legal problems he currently faces. His recent arrests (on March 2023 in New York and on August 24 in Georgia) are, in any case, largely seen as politically motivated. All of that certainly undermines the credibility of the US institutions. Things will likely get worse, as the election looms.
US journalist Lee Fang writes that, by persisting on the ballot, Biden has in fact “effectively preempted the possibility of a credible Democratic challenger mounting a traditional bid for the nomination.” Moreover, should he abruptly exit the race for whatever reason within the next eight months, Fang speculates, then, voters arguably will have no direct say in his replacement because, in this scenario, Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials, “including lobbyists for companies like Google and UnitedHealth,” could “ultimately determine the party’s nominee.” Far from being a “solution” to a possible crisis, such a scenario could bring about further complications. This happened in 1968, when convention delegates (not voters) selected the Democratic presidential nominee, who was then-vice president Hubert Humphrey. The convention faced protests and riots while Humphrey won the nomination “without running as a candidate in a single primary.”
The overall US political crisis is also a crisis of its federalism: there is no unified national legislation on election procedures, there being different rules for each state. This brought chaos and uncertainty in the aftermath of the 2000 elections, when several Representatives filed objections to the Florida electoral votes. At the time, George W. Bush, like Donald Trump in 2016 (and like 3 other US presidents before them) won the election even though he actually lost the popular vote, due to the complexities of the US Electoral College.
As I wrote, Biden’s own inauguration, in January 2020, was not free from concerns about a major political crisis or even a coup, taking place, with Washington DC on high alert in the aftermath of the January 6 pro-Trump riot at the Capitol. Back then, there was a large nationwide political “conspiracy” to prevent Trump from being re-elected, as a 2021 Time magazine article detailed, with “shadow campaigners” getting states “to change voting systems and laws”, and recruiting “millions of people to vote by mail for the first time” (actually “half the electors”, in a “revolution in how people vote”). It is no wonder, then, that by June 2023 a third of US Americans had doubts about the 2020 election result itself.
The 2020 US presidential election was a peculiar one – and one should not expect the 2024 to be any different. Considering the unprecedented ongoing Texas border crisis, yet another instance of the federalist “contract” being questioned, with calls for secession on the rise, this year’s elections should in fact be even more “interesting” than the previous ones. Washington views itself as the champion of democracy worldwide. Domestically, however, things are not going smoothly.
Hungary snubs US senators – ambassador
RT | February 19, 2024
Senior Hungarian officials have refused to meet four US senators who arrived in Budapest on Sunday, Washington’s envoy to the country has said. The American lawmakers are attempting to press Prime Minister Viktor Orban into speeding up approval of Sweden’s accession to NATO.
The delegation sought to meet a range of senior government officials and representatives from the ruling Fidesz party, US Ambassador David Pressman stated. The Hungarians declined, however, despite the group being “the most senior US bipartisan congressional delegation” to visit the country in recent years, the diplomat added.
The senators intend to submit a joint resolution to the US Congress that would condemn Hungary for alleged democratic backsliding, the Associated Press reported. Thom Tillis, one of the visiting lawmakers, urged Orban to speed up Sweden’s accession, claiming at a news conference that doing so would be “a great service to freedom-loving nations worldwide.”
Chris Murphy, another delegate, called the boycott “strange and concerning” and identified Orban as standing in the way of the ratification. Hungary is the only NATO country yet to approve Sweden’s membership of the US-led military bloc.
“We are wise enough about politics here to know that if Prime Minister Orban wants this to happen, then the parliament can move forward,” Murphy said.
Orban addressed the issue of NATO expansion during a rally on Saturday, saying Budapest and Stockholm were on a path to “rebuild trust.” A vote could happen during the parliamentary spring session, he suggested.
The prime minister previously cited Swedish criticism of his government and Hungary’s democratic credentials as the main reasons for skepticism among lawmakers in Budapest. NATO approved Sweden’s bid to join in June 2022.
The anti-Hungarian US resolution will criticize Orban for maintaining good relations with Russia and China, according to AP. Budapest has “resisted and diluted” the EU sanctions imposed on Moscow, the text reportedly states.
Orban is a vocal critic of the Western approach to the Ukraine crisis. He has argued that the arming of Kiev and the restrictions on Russia have failed to end the bloodshed and have caused major economic harm to the EU. He has also resisted Ukraine’s push to join NATO and the EU.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said it was “not worth trying to exert pressure on us, because we are a sovereign country,” as he expressed general approval of the American visit on Friday.
Washington, Pro-Democracy? Depends on the Country
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | February 19, 2024
Pakistan just held an election; Venezuela is about to. Both incumbent governments have banned the leading opposition figure from competing. The United States sanctioned one and was silent on the other. What was the difference? Not international law or responsible leadership, both of which require a consistent application of laws and a consistent response. The important difference was that the United States supported the incumbent coup government in one case and opposed the incumbent coup survivor in the other.
On January 30, the United States reversed the small and rare diplomatic progress it had made with Venezuela by revoking the sanction relief on gold mining and by promising to revoke the sanction relief on Venezuela’s oil and gas sector at the first opportunity. The State Department cited “Actions by Nicolas Maduro and his representatives in Venezuela, including the arrest of members of the democratic opposition and the barring of candidates from competing in this year’s presidential election” as the reason.
Of central concern to the United States was its choice of an opposition leader to run against Nicolás Maduro, Maria Corina Machado, who recently appeared before a roundtable organized by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs subcommittee. On January 26, Venezuela’s highest court upheld the decision to bar Machado from running for president in the upcoming election.
But Machado was banned for reasons that might be considered reasonable in some democracies. She has a long history of being involved in coups against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. During the failed 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, Machado was a signatory to the Carmona Decree, which suspended democracy, revoked the constitution, and installed a coup president.
As if participation in a coup is not enough to be barred from running for president, Machado was stripped of her position in the National Assembly in 2014 for acting, according to Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History at Pomona College and one of the world’s leading experts on Venezuelan history and politics, as “a delegate of the Panamanian government” who “sought to testify before the Organization of American States.” She sought to testify against her own country.
That same year, Miguel Tinker Salas says, “hoping to precipitate a crisis,” Machado helped organize La Salida, The Exit, to push President Maduro out of power. She “sought to mobilize forces and take to the streets.”
The next year, in 2015, Venezuelan officials produced evidence in support of their claim of a U.S.-backed coup attempt. According to the officials, the day before the planned coup, Machado joined two other opposition leaders in signing a National Transition Agreement. They say weapons were found in the office of the opposition party.
Machado has endorsed economic sanctions on Venezuela and foreign military intervention to remove the government of Venezuela.
Despite this record, the United States reimposed sanctions for barring Machado. The European Parliament went even further, denying that the Venezuelan court has legal grounds and insisting that Machado “remains eligible to run for the elections.” It says “Unless María Corina Machado is allowed to participate in the elections… elections and election results will not be recognised.” The European Parliament then urged EU member states “to tighten existing sanctions” and to add new sanctions on judges of Venezuela’s Supreme Court.
In Pakistan, the story is very different. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been jailed and banned from running in the presidential election. His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has been demolished by the Pakistani military, who arrested its senior members.
But the American response to the barring—and even jailing—of, perhaps, the most popular candidate has been very different from their reaction to the barring of Machado in Venezuela. The State Department says that the arrest of Khan “is an internal matter for Pakistan” and that, “The United States is prepared to work with the next Pakistani government, regardless of political party…”
The difference may reflect American position on coups in these countries. Whereas, the United States has supported multiple failed coup attempts to remove the current government in Venezuela and, so, opposes that government; it supported what seems to have been the coup that replaced Khan with the current government.
In April 2022, Khan was removed from office in a non-confidence vote. Khan has claimed that the non-confidence vote was a U.S.-backed coup in democratic disguise. He may not be wrong. A leaked Pakistani cable reveals a meeting between Asad Majeed Khan, then-Pakistani ambassador to the United States, and two State Department officials, one of whom was Donald Lu, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs
Lu begins the meeting by expressing that the United States and Europe “are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position” on the war in Ukraine. He pins responsibility for Pakistan’s neutral defiance of the U.S. on Khan, saying, “it seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy.” Lu informs the Pakistani ambassador that the trigger for the American concern was “the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow.” On the day Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Khan was in Moscow, meeting with Putin. He defied the United States by refusing to cancel the meeting.
Lu then advises Pakistan’s ambassador, “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead… [H]onestly I think isolation of the Prime Minister will become very strong from Europe and the United States.”
As the polls closed in the Pakistani election, and the media began reporting stunning victories by independent candidates associated with Khan’s PTI party, the Election commission of Pakistan suddenly paused the announcement of results in remaining constituencies. By the time announcements restarted, PTI candidates who had been leading had suddenly lost.
The candidates associated with the PTI were running as independents because they were neither allowed to campaign under the PTI name nor even be identified by the PTI symbol on ballots, challenging voters’ ability to even identify PTI candidates. TV stations were banned from airing Khan’s speeches. Cell phone and internet services were cut, creating logistical confusion for voters. Voter suppression was widespread.
Despite all the obstacles, PTI candidates forced to run as independents won 102 seats. The second place party, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz Party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, came in second with 73 seats. Despite winning the most seats, Khan’s party did not win a majority in the 265 seat National Assembly and will have trouble forming the government.
The U.S. State Department assessed that the election featured “undue restrictions on freedoms of expression… electoral violence… attacks on media workers, and access to the internet and telecommunications services, and… allegations of interference in the electoral process.” Despite that assessment, it declared that it “is prepared to work with the next Pakistani government, regardless of political party.”
Yet again following a foreign policy guided by a rules-based order that only applies the law when it benefits the United States and its allies, instead of a foreign policy guided by international law that applies the same universal standard impartially, the U.S. has confirmed the worst suspicions of a global majority that is losing faith in American leadership. The U.S. sanctions Venezuela for banning a candidate from competing in elections but is willing to work with Pakistan who has done the same. “As consistency starts to be questioned,” S. Jaishankar, India’s Minister of External Affairs has said, “many more nations will start to do their own thinking and planning.”
They Think We Are Stupid, Volume 7
By Aaron Kheriaty, MD | Human Flourishing | February 19, 2024
Everything you need to know about our ruling class’s opinion of you. As always, these headlines are presented without commentary.
State Department Threatens Congress Over Censorship Programs
A year after its censorship programs were exposed, the GEC still insists the public has no right to know how it’s spending taxpayer money
By Matt Taibbi | Racket News | February 17, 2024
The State Department is so unhappy a newspaper published details about where it’s been spending your taxes, it’s threatened to only show a congressional committee its records in camera until it gets a “better understanding of how the Committee will utilize this sensitive information.” Essentially, Tony Blinken is threatening to take his transparency ball home unless details about what censorship programs he’s sponsoring stop appearing in papers like the Washington Examiner:
The State Department tells Congress, which controls its funding, that it will only disclose where it spent our money “in camera”
A year ago the Examiner published “Disinformation, Inc.”, a series by investigative reporter Gabe Kaminsky describing how the State Department was backing a UK-based agency that creates digital blacklists for disfavored media outlets. Your taxes helped fund the Global Disinformation Index, or GDI, which proudly touts among its services an Orwellian horror called the Dynamic Exclusion List, a digital time-out corner where at least 2,000 websites were put on blast as unsuitable for advertising, “thus disrupting the ad-funded disinformation business model.”
The culprit was the Global Engagement Center, a little-known State Department entity created in Barack Obama’s last year in office and a surprise focus of Twitter Files reporting. The GEC grew out of a counter-terrorism agency called the CSCC and has a mission to “counter” any messaging, foreign or domestic as it turns out, that they see as “undermining or influencing the policies, security, or stability of the United States.” The GEC-funded GDI rated ten conservative sites as most “risky” and put the Examiner on its “exclusion” list, while its ten sites rated at the “lowest level of disinformation” included Buzzfeed, which famously published the Steele Dossier knowing it contained errors and is now out of business.
In an effort to find out what other ventures GEC was funding — an absurd 36 of 39 2018 contractors were redacted even in an Inspector General’s report — the House Small Business Committee wrote the State Department last June asking for basic information about where the public’s money was being spent. State and GEC stalled until December 3 of last year, when it finally produced a partial list of recipients. Although House Republicans asked for an “unredacted list of all GEC grant recipients and associated award numbers” from 2019 through the current year, the list the Committee received was missing “dozens” of contractors, including some listed on USASpending.com.
The Examiner and Kaminsky subsequently wrote an article slamming GEC for sending “incomplete” records of the censorship investigation, in the process including links to a “snippet” of the GEC’s contractors:
In response to the outrage of this disclosure, the State Department sent its letter threatening in camera sessions until it gets a better “understanding” of how the Committee will use its “sensitive” information. That’s Beltway-ese for “We wouldn’t mind knowing the Examiner’s sources.”
About that: the State letter wrote that the Examiner’s records were “reportedly obtained from the Committee,” and included a footnote and a link to a Kaminsky story, implying that the Examiner reported that it got the records from the Committee. But the paper said nothing about the source of the documents, which as anyone who’s ever covered these types of stories knows, could have come from any number of places. It’s a small but revealing detail about current petulance levels at State.
“Anti-disinformation” work is not exactly hypersonic missile construction. There’s no legitimate reason for it to be kept from the public, especially since it’s increasingly clear its programs target American media companies and American media consumers, seemingly in violation of the State Department’s mission. The requested information is also not classified, making the delays and tantrums more ridiculous.
There are simply too many agencies that have adopted the attitude that the entire federal government is one giant intelligence service, entitled to secret budgeting and an oversight-free existence. They need pushback on this score and have at last started to get it. Thanks in significant part to the Examiner as well as lawsuits by The Federalist, Daily Wire, and Consortium News, the latest National Defense Authorization Act included for the first time a provision banning the Pentagon from using “any advertiser for recruitment that uses biased censorship entities like NewsGuard and GDI,” as a congressional spokesperson put it in December. We’ll see how it pans out, but congress withholding money for domestic spy programs is at least a possible solution, now in play.
Perhaps it’s time for the State Department to receive a similar wake-up call. If GEC wants to put conditions on disclosure, can we put conditions on paying taxes?
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Book Review
Shattered Dreams: The HPV Vaccine Exposed (2019)
By Christina England – 30 Q&As – Book Review & Summary
Lies are Unbekoming | September 4, 2026
… Gardasil received FDA fast-track approval in 2006, Cervarix followed in 2009, and Gardasil 9 was approved in December 2014 with more than double the aluminium adjuvant content of the original. The commercial context is specific. Merck was about to lose patent protection on Zocor and faced $18 billion in Vioxx injury claims from a cardiovascular drug the company had marketed while suppressing its own data showing a five-times increase in heart attacks. Analysts projected the global HPV vaccine market at $4 billion by 2011, contingent on government-funded national programs for teenage girls. The 1986 National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act had already granted manufacturers complete liability immunity. By 2013, Japan had withdrawn its HPV vaccine recommendation after cataloguing severe adverse reactions in hundreds of girls. No Western government followed. The establishment position across the UK, US, Australia, and most of Europe held, and still holds, that the vaccines are safe and effective, that reported injuries are coincidental, and that cervical cancer prevention justifies the program. The book was published into this position, not against a vacuum.
Shattered Dreams sits alongside Mary Holland’s The HPV Vaccine On Trial and Viera Scheibner’s foundational vaccination work as part of the documented record on what has been done to a generation of teenage girls under the banner of cancer prevention. The full summary unpacks three specific findings: that Merck used the aluminium adjuvant itself as the “placebo” control in 92.5% of trial subjects, making it structurally impossible to detect excess reactions from the adjuvant; that Dr. Sin Hang Lee found HPV DNA fragments bound to aluminium in every one of sixteen Gardasil samples tested, and in the blood and spleen of a New Zealand girl six months after her third dose; and that in every country with high vaccination coverage, including Australia, the UK, Norway, and Sweden, cervical cancer rates have stopped declining and started rising specifically in the vaccinated cohort. Martínez-Lavín’s 2017 calculation puts the number needed to seriously harm with Gardasil 9 at 140, and the number needed to vaccinate to prevent one case at 1,757. Thirteen young women are seriously harmed for every one who benefits. The vaccine was approved on the basis of trials that could not detect what the trials were supposed to detect, and it is still being given to twelve-year-olds today. … Read full review
Blog Roll
Aletho News- Georgia’s Largest Healthcare System Will Fire Employees Who Refuse Flu Vaccine
- The Five-Year Fuel Crisis: Why the World Economy Is Paying for a War It Thinks Is Ending
- Trump’s Big Bluff on Iran
- Swiss scammed out of millions by Ukraine-linked call centers – media
- Germany facing potential ‘violent conflict’ with Russia – spy chief
- Ukraine’s EU neighbors reject new plea from Kiev – Politico
- British Transport Police Facial Recognition Trial Scanned 926,912 People With Zero Arrests
- House Bill Would Ban Federal Use of Flock ALPR Data
- Can a Spice Rival a Drug? 10 Head-to-Head Trials Put It to the Test.
- The oil routes around Hormuz face their own chokepoints
- If Americans Knew
- “We See Our Homes Now From A Satellite, Like Strangers”
- Watch “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack”, originally censored by BBC
- NAZA: Israeli embassies in UK and US promote rival documentary to challenge Gaza genocide allegations
- David Ellison appoints Israeli to lead merged Paramount-Warner studios
- Turkish Red Crescent helps elderly Gaza man walk again after Israel confiscates his prosthetic limb
- Four Palestinians Killed in Israeli Attacks in Gaza
- Two Palestinian youths killed and village razed as Israeli attacks on West Bank continue
- Two more Christian women victims of Israeli raids on Gaza
- Cruelty, Deprivation, Indignity: A Journalist’s 22 Months in Israeli Prison
- New IDF Website Frames Slain Gaza Journalists as Terrorists
- No Tricks Zone
- Latest European Green Energy Debacle; Portugal’s Largest Flagship Solar Park Insolvent!
- Green Energy Debacle: German Expert Professor Fritz Vahrenholt Warns Of Severe Economic And Social Consequences
- Two More Paleo Reconstructions Affirm Meters-Higher Sea Levels Across Ireland, Brazil 7000-6000 Years Ago
- New Study: Earth And Venus Surface Warmth Largely Explained By Convection And Lapse Rate, Not CO2 Or Radiation
- 2025 Nature Paper Claiming Worsening Global Drought Gets RETRACTED …Heavily Flawed
- New Study: ‘Global Drought Shows No Detectable Recent Acceleration Under Climate Warming’
- Economic Masterminds: German Socialists Suggest Taxing Productivity Gains Stemming From Using AI
- The South China Sea Has Not Been Cooperating With The Climate Change Narrative
- Energy Crisis: Germany Enters Heating Season With Historically Low Gas Reserve Fill Levels
- New Study: The Antarctic Ice Sheet Gained Mass From 2020-2024 Due To Staggering Snow And Ice Accumulation
