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How to Lose A Carrier Strike Group in An Afternoon

By William Schryver – imetatronink – November 28, 2023

Imagine a scenario where China, for whatever reason, announces a “no warships allowed” closure of the Taiwan Strait. It’s not an implausible scenario at all. The Chinese have spoken openly of the possibility. They regard the entirety of the strait as their sovereign waters, and assert the right to exercise control over them.

Now imagine a US carrier strike group is commanded to challenge the blockade in order to assert what the empire regards as “freedom of navigation” through what the “rules-based international order” defines as international waters.

Then imagine the distinct possibility of a perceived provocation that escalates to a limited engagement that escalates into a launch of the carrier’s air wing and then escalates to the launch of a mixed-salvo of 500+ Chinese kamikaze drones and anti-ship missiles, plus a full complement of ECCM jammers and a couple hundred decoys.

The stocks of long-range SM-6 missiles on the cruiser and destroyers would be exhausted long before the Chinese missiles stopped coming.

Short-range defense systems would deplete their ammunition in a matter of minutes.

Every ship in the flotilla would then be sunk or severely damaged — as it were in the blink of an eye.

This is how the US could lose an entire carrier strike group in an afternoon — and I challenge anyone to argue how, in the scenario I describe, the outcome could be meaningfully different than the one I project.

Also bear in mind that very similar scenarios could just as easily play out in the Baltic Sea or the Persian Gulf.

And the day it finally happens — as I fear it surely will — the world will suddenly begin operating on radically altered terms.

November 28, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

The Middle East at an inflection point

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 28, 2023 

It has been a perennial hope and expectation that Israel would abandon the path of repression, colonisation and apartheid as state policies and instead accept a negotiated settlement of the Palestine problem under pressure from its patron, mentor, guide and guardian — the United States. But that  proved delusional and the remains of the day is a chronicle of dashed hopes and hypocrisy. The big question today is whether a paradigm shift is possible. That is also the dilemma facing US President Joe Biden at 80.  

History shows that while catastrophic events have myriad negative effects, positive effects are also possible, especially in the long term. The French-German reconciliation after two world wars is, perhaps, the finest example in modern history, and it planted the germane seeds of the European integration project. Certainly, the collapse of the Soviet Union gave impetus to the Sino-Russian rapprochement, which morphed into a “no limit” partnership.

However, for such miracles to happen, visionary leadership is needed. Jean Monnet and Konrad Adenauer were indeed political visionaries — and, in a different sort of way, the two consummate pragmatists Boris Yeltsin and Jiang Zemin were as well. 

Does it look as if Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu belong to that pantheon? When Biden met with Netanyahu and his war cabinet in Tel Aviv on October 18, he assured them: “I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist.” Therein lies the paradox. For, how could you possibly be an Irish Catholic and a Zionist at the same time? Sinn Féin, which is on course to top Ireland’s next election, is embracing Palestinians and condemning Israel. Of course, there are no surprises here.

Biden is torn between conflicting faiths. Suffice to say, when Biden speaks about a two-state solution, it becomes hard to believe him. On Netanyahu’s part, at least, he doesn’t even feel the need to pay lip service to a two-state solution, after having systematically buried the Oslo Accord and embarked on the journey towards a Jewish theocracy in what was once the state of Israel. Make no mistake, Greater Israel is here to stay and the world opinion regards it as an apartheid state. 

There is a great misconception that Biden is under pressure from American opinion on the conflict in Gaza. But the fact of the matter is that support for Israel has all along been rather thin in America and had it not been for the Israel Lobby, it would have probably ceased a long time ago. Curiously, something like one third of American Jews, especially the youth, don’t even care for the Israel Lobby. 

That said, it is also a fact that Americans have generally a favourable opinion about Israel. Their problem is really about Israel’s aggressive policies — this is despite the absence of any open media or academic discussion in the US regarding the state repression of Palestinians or the colonisation of West Bank. 

A defining moment came when Netanyahu taunted and humiliated President Barack Obama on the Iran nuclear deal by consorting with the Congress against the presidency in an audacious attempt to derail the negotiations with Tehran. 

In recent years, Israel’s image has been tarnished in liberal opinion following the ascendance of right-wing forces and the overtones of racist attitudes including among Israeli youth. Indeed, Israel has been an increasingly illiberal country even toward its own citizens. Due to such factors, Americans no longer take an idealised view of Israel as a morally upright country battling for existence.    

Meanwhile, there has been a marked erosion of support for Israel within the Democratic Party. But this needs to be put in perspective, for, there has been a countervailing rise in  support for Israel among Republicans. Thus, although “bilateral consensus” on Israel is dissipating, paradoxically, the Israel Lobby still wields influence. 

That is because the Israel Lobby traditionally didn’t much pay attention to rank and file Americans but instead focused on the power brokers and indeed worked hard to shore up their support. Therefore, it must be understood that what Biden cannot but factor in is that the elites in the Democratic Party establishment remain deeply committed to relations with Israel although the support within the party for Israeli policies may have waned and American opinion finds the bestiality of Israeli conduct in Gaza revolting. 

The elites fear that the Lobby will target them if there are any signs of them wavering in their support for Israel. Put differently, the political elites do not place American national interests above their own personal or career interests. Thus, the Israel Lobby always wins on the Palestinian issue and in extracting generous financial support for Israel with no strings attached. Make no mistake that the Lobby will go to any extent to have its way whenever the crunch time comes, such as today.  

Biden is hardly in a position to displease or annoy the Israel Lobby on a day of reckoning. So, why is he making big promises to President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi of Egypt that “under no circumstances will the United States permit the forced relocation of Palestinians from Gaza or the West Bank, or the besiegement of Gaza, or the redrawing of the borders of Gaza”? 

The answer is simple: these are fait accompli that have been forced upon the US and Israel by the Arab States in their finest hour of collective security, none of whom is willing to legitimise Israel’s genocide or its roadmap of ethnic cleansing. Didn’t even little Jordan say ‘no’ to Biden?

Biden is making hollow promises. In reality, what matters is that the Israel Lobby will go to extraordinary lengths to protect the emerging Greater Israel. Again, it costs Biden nothing by affirming support for a two-state solution. He knows it will be aeons before such a vision takes life, if at all, and if South Africa’s experience is anything to go by, the journey will be fraught with much bloodshed. 

Most important, Biden knows that Israel will not accept a two-state solution as per the Arab Initiative crafted by Saudi Arabia’s King  Abdullah, which is a finely balanced matrix of mutual interests with an historical and long term perspective. In an historic speech addressing the Arab League on the day of its adoption, then Crown Prince Abdullah said with great prescience: “In spite of all that has happened and what still may happen, the primary issue in the heart and mind of every person in our Arab Islamic nation is the restoration of legitimate rights in Palestine, Syria and Lebanon.”

The high probability is that Israel will hunker down with the help of its Lobby in the US and would rather prefer to be a Pariah in the world community, to a two-state solution that demands abandonment of the  Zionist state built around Greater Israel. The only game changer could be if Biden is willing to make the US force its will on Israel — through coercive means, if necessary.

But that requires the courage of conviction and a rare ingredient in politics — compassion. Biden’s hugely successful half century in public life was almost entirely devoted to realpolitik and there are no traces of conviction or compassion in it. A legacy cannot be built on ephemeral considerations and expediency. 

November 28, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Americans don’t want to keep funding Ukraine – congresswoman

RT | November 28, 2023

Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has said that any spending bill pairing US border security with more military aid for Ukraine amid the conflict with Russia would be “a slap in the face” of the American people.

US Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Sunday that he will hold a vote on President Joe Biden’s request for $106 billion in military assistance for Ukraine and Israel during the first week of December.

The Biden administration has so far failed to push through its supplementary ‘national security’ proposal, with Schumer saying that “the biggest holdup” is opposition from the Republicans, who insist that additional aid to Kiev should be combined with funding for security on the US-Mexico border.

“Our border is the worst national security crisis in US history,” Greene wrote on X on Tuesday. According to AP, illegal crossings on the US-Mexico border surpassed a daily average of more than 8,000 people in September. However, the flow has subsided by around 14% since then.

“Ukraine is not the 51st state,” she said. “US border security should not be paired with funding for the losing war in Ukraine.”

The congresswoman slammed the Democratic Party for resisting the Republican push for more spending and increased security on the border. “Democrats want the daily invasion into America, they don’t want to fix it,” she wrote.

“Americans do not support the war in Ukraine and don’t want to continue funding Ukraine,” Greene said. “So any bill pairing our own border security with more billions for Ukraine is a slap in the face to the American people.”

The Biden administration has provided Ukraine with more than $76 billion in military and other assistance since the start of the conflict between Moscow and Kiev in February 2022. However, it has recently said that the money is running out, as some Republicans refuse to back any new aid packages for Ukraine. US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, who visited Kiev last week, announced a new tranche of arms and ammunition worth just $100 million.

READ MORE: Origin of US weaponry used by Hamas must be investigated – congresswoman
The US public also appears be souring on support for Ukraine, with a recent poll AP-NORC showing that around 45% of Americans believe that Washington is sending too much money to Kiev.

November 28, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Separate Tech and State

By Ron Paul | November 27, 2023

Some libertarians dismiss concerns over social media companies’ suppression of news and opinions that contradict select agendas by pointing out that these platforms are private companies, not part of the government. There are two problems with this argument. First, there is nothing unlibertarian about criticizing private businesses or using peaceful and voluntary means, such as boycotts, to persuade businesses to change their practices.

The second and most significant reason the “they are private companies” argument does not hold water is the tech companies’ censorship has often been done at the “request” of government officials. The extent of government involvement with online censorship was revealed in emails between government and employees of various tech companies. In these emails the government officials addressed employees of these “private companies” as though these employees were the government officials’ subordinates.

Government officials using their authority to silence American citizens is a blatant violation of the First Amendment. Yet some conservative elected officials and writers think the solution to the problem of big tech censorship is giving government more power over technology companies. These pro-regulation conservatives ignore the fact that it would be just as unconstitutional if a conservative administration was telling tech companies who they must allow to access their platforms as it is when progressives order social media companies to deplatform certain individuals. Furthermore, since the average government official’s political views are closer to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez than to Marjorie Taylor Greene, giving government more power over social media companies is likely to lead to more online censorship of conservatives.

Instead of giving government more power over social media, defenders of free speech should work to separate tech and state. An excellent place to start is pushing for passage of the Free Speech Protection Act. Unlike other legislation, such as the PATRIOT Act and the Affordable Care Act, this bill is accurately named. Introduced by Kentucky Senator Rand Paul and Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, this bill makes it a crime for any federal employee or employee of a federal contractor to use his position to communicate with a social media company to interfere with any American’s exercise of First Amendment protected rights. Violators of this law would face fines of at least 10,000 dollars as well as suspension, demotion, or even termination and a lifetime ban from working with the federal government.

In addition to working to pass the Free Speech Protection Act, those who object to the big technology companies’ “content moderation” policies should abandon big tech for more free speech friendly platforms. Many of the newer social media companies were started to meet the demand for a “content moderation”-free alternative to the dominant companies. Senator Paul himself stopped posting videos on YouTube because of its suppression of free speech. While my Liberty Report still airs on YouTube, its main platform is Rumble. It is wonderful to do a show on any topic I choose without worrying about being canceled.

Big tech censorship is a problem created by big government. The solution lies not with giving government more power but with separating tech and state. Passing the Free Speech Protection Act and making big tech pay a price for cooperating with big government by leaving to use sites like Rumble are two excellent places to start.

November 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

White House funding massive phone surveillance program

Press TV – November 27, 2023

US Senator Ron Wyden has expressed “serious concerns about the legality” of a secretive phone surveillance program funded by the White House to track trillions of domestic phone records every year across the United States.

According to a letter sent by Wyden to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday, the DAS (Data Analytical Services) program has been collecting information from countless phone calls nationwide.

The mass surveillance program, formerly called Hemisphere, allows officials to simply ask for phone records of not only criminal suspects, but of their spouses, children, parents, and friends.

In the letter, obtained by tech news site Wired, Wyden warned that “troubling information” he had received “would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress.”

“While I have long defended the government’s need to protect classified sources and methods, this surveillance program is not classified and its existence has already been acknowledged by the DOJ in federal court.”

Hemisphere was first exposed in a New York Times report in 2013. At the time, it was understood that the program was used solely for drug-related investigations.

Four billion new records are being added to its database every day, according Wired.

Wyden’s letter also indicates the program is being used by law enforcement agencies across the country — from local police and sheriff’s departments, all the way up to federal agencies — for any of their investigations.

November 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , | Leave a comment

Europe worries about the rise of “populism”, but real specter haunting EU is “maidanization”

By Uriel Araujo | November 27, 2023

In the Netherlands, the PVV (Freedom Party), led by controversial politician Geert Wilders, often described as “far-right” and “populist”, won about 37 of the 150 seats in the Dutch parliament. While talks have started to form the new government, Wilders and his party are now in a leading position. Predictably, much is being written now about the rise of “populism” in Europe, while Western discourses try to link it to far-right Nazi-Fascism.

Whether one likes the “populist” wave or not, this being an umbrella term for a variety of movements, it would be simply inaccurate to equate all such groups with Fascism in general. The supposed connection to Russia in turn only appears “sinister”, thanks to a wave of Russophobia, if one suffers from memory loss: as recently as 2021, the (now gone) Nord Stream 2 German-Russian pipelines project was being completed to deliver Russian gas directly to Western Europe. It had been opposed from the very start by Washington, while Berlin resisted American pressures all the way to almost completion – and then pipelines got blown up in a sabotage explosion, just as US President Joe Biden himself on February 7 had promised would happen, when he said: “If Russia invades (…) there will be no longer a Nord Stream 2. We will bring an end to it.”

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, the sabotage was indeed carried out by Washington. However, thus far, the only voices that vehemently demand an active investigation about such an act of terrorism come from the populist camp, such as the  Die Linke and the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) political parties in Germany. It is no wonder then that populism is on the rise in the continent.

Notwithstanding any valid criticism one may have of the current Russian military campaign in Ukraine, the roots of today’s conflict lie on this energy angle and American interests – as much as they also lie on US geopolitical goals pertaining to “encircling” Russia and to NATO’s enlargement for the sake of maintaining unipolarity.

This month Moldova, a country which is trying to join the European Union (EU), banned a “pro-Russian” party (the Chance Party) from taking part in local elections, two days before the vote, on the basis of “national security” concerns. The measure is in line with the latest European trend, which can only be described as Neo-Mccarthyism: in France, Marine Le Pen, who vowed to pull Paris out of NATO’s military command last year, was questioned for four hours, on June, during what was described as a witch trial, and her Rassemblement National party was described as a “communication channel” for Russia by a report published by the French government.

The same month, Poland’s President Andrzej Duda signed a law allowing Warsaw to conduct political repression against the opposition, the justification being, of course, “to investigate Russian influence on Polish politics”. The commission created for that purpose can ban people from public office for a decade. Such measures, as I wrote, mirror post-Maidan Ukraine’s own anti-Russian initiatives pertaining to banning vaguely defined “pro-Russian” political parties (at least 11 thus far) and the opposition. The Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also been advancing moves to outlaw (Russian) Orthodox communities, something which even the head of the Ukrainian Catholic Church, Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk of Kyiv-Halych, has denounced.

France, particularly, had always boasted of being the land of demonstrations, but that has changed. Last month, the country’s Interior Ministry banned all pro-Palestinian rallies nation-wide. Violent clashes between police and defiant protesters ensued, and organizing such demonstrations can now lead to arrest. Similarly, protests have also been banned or restricted in Germany, the United Kingdom, Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, and Austria, among other European nations. Esther Major, Amnesty International’s Deputy Director for Research in Europe voiced the organization’s concern, stating, on October 20, that “in many European countries, the authorities are unlawfully restricting the right to protest (…) In some cases, protests have been banned altogether.”

According to Julia Hall, Amnesty International’s expert on counter-terrorism and human rights (in Europe), “what people can say and do is narrowing by the day”, with France proposing to “criminalize people who criticize Israel”, which is “something new”. She adds that “free speech in Europe has been narrowed in record time. It is leaving victims without any voices. I do not think this will be a one-off.” The United Nations (UN) rapporteur Clement Voule has also voiced his concern about such “disproportionate and arbitrary” blanket bans on protests and the like setting “a very worrying precedent that could have a great impact on the exercise of our fundamental rights and freedoms” because in times of crisis people should have “space to raise their voices, grievances and solidarity, and calls for peace, justice and security.”

All such measures clearly violate human rights in Europe in Europe’s own terms, in accordance with article 11 of the European convention on human rights, by stigmatizing minorities such as Muslims and others,  and by violating the freedom of peaceful assembly and the freedom of expression. The thing is this trend has not started now with the issue of Palestine at all: in fact, this year Germany banned Russian and Soviet flags during its “World War II commemorations” on Victory Day, this being the very day when the Soviet Union defeated Nazi Germany.

While European Establishment voices may try to demonize populism, we are witnessing in fact the “Maidanization” of the continent, with rising anti-Russian neo-McCarthyism, talks about banning political parties and demonstrations, the Western mainstreamization of the far-right and even Nazism (as long as it is not “pro-Russian”) plus Europe agreeing with Kyiv on “no Russian minority” in Ukraine. Rather than expecting Ukraine to adapt to European norms and values, it would seem Europe is changing in such a way that post-Maidan Ukraine will just feel at home if its accession ever materializes.

November 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Russophobia | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The Magician’s Hat, and the Great Simulacrum of Palliative Balm

By Alastair Crooke | Strategic Culture Foundation | November 27, 2023

The Magician steps onto the stage, his black cloak swirling about him. Centre stage, he flourishes his hat: It is empty. He punches it lightly to demonstrate its solidity. The Magician then picks up certain objects and places them into his hat. Into it goes AnsarAllah’s seizure of an Israeli-owned vessel (the situation is being ‘monitored’); into it goes the Iraqi strikes on U.S. bases (barely noticed by the main-stream media); into it too go the 1,000 missiles fired into northern Israel by Hizbullah; into it goes the hot war in the West Bank. The Magician turns to the audience – the hat is empty. But the audience knows those objects have a physical reality, but somehow they are magically obfuscated.

It is in this way that the western main-stream media maintains deterrence by playing down the state of war through what Malcom Kyeyune describes as “a simulacrum of peace” – of a gently subsiding conflict and the quieting deployment of (paraphrasing Kyeyune) a very “post-modern question”: What exactly is the meaning of civilian ‘non-combatant’ anyway?

One aspect to the image of easing conflict is the hostage exchange that has been agreed. It is both real, and at the same time it underpins the simulacrum that once Hamas is annihilated, and the hostages released, then the problem of 2.3 million Palestinians can go into the magician’s hat, and be eased from sight. For some, the hope is sincere and well intentioned – that once the fighting ceases, it will stay ceased, and that an end to the bombardment in Gaza might open a window to some political ‘solution’ – if it can be extended sine dei.

‘Solution’ being here but a polite word for the EU’s attempted bribery of Egypt and Jordan. Reportedly, the EU President, Ursula von der Leyen, visited Egypt and Israel to present them with financial offers ($10bn for Egypt and $5bn for Jordan), in exchange for the dispersal of the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip elsewhere – effectively to facilitate the evacuation of the Palestinian population from the Strip in line with Israel’s aims of ethnically-cleansing Gaza.

However, former minister Ayalet Shaked’s tweet – “After we turn Khan Yunis into a soccer field, we need to tell the countries that each of them take a quota: We need all 2 million to leave. That’s the solution to Gaza” – is but one by senior Israeli political and security figures extoling what Israel increasingly sees as the “solution” for Gaza.

But by being so explicit, Shaked likely has torpedoed Von der Leyen’s initiative – for no Arab state wants to be complicit in a new Nakba.

A Hudna or ‘time out’ inevitably is highly precarious. In the 2014 fighting, when IDF forces initiated military sweeps in Gaza after a ceasefire had begun, it led to a fire-fight and the collapse of the cease-fire. The fighting continued for another full month.

Two key lessons that I learnt from trying to initiate truces on behalf of the EU during the Second Intifada were that a ‘truce is a truce’ and only that – both sides use it to reposition themselves for the next round of fighting. And secondly, that ‘quiet’ in one confined locality does not spread de-escalation to another geographically separate locality; but rather, that one outbreak of egregious violence is virally contagious, and spreads geographically instantly.

The present hostage exchange is centred on Gaza. However, Israel has three fronts of hot conflict open (Gaza, its northern border with Lebanon, and in the West Bank). An incident occurring in any one of the three fronts may be enough to collapse confidence in the Gaza understandings and re-launch Israel’s assault on Gaza.

On the eve of the truce, by way of example, Israeli forces heavily bombed both Syria and Lebanon. Seven Hizbullah fighters were killed.

The point here, plainly said, is that the historical precedents of Hudnas leading to political openings are not that great. A hostage release, per se, resolves nothing. The issue in the present crisis runs far deeper. When, ‘once upon a time’, Britain promised the Jews a homeland, western powers also (in 1947) promised Palestinians a state, but never took it to implementation. This lacuna ultimately is culminating in a head-on train crash.

The Israeli Cabinet’s ambition for a Jewish State on the biblical lands of Israel simply is intended to block any Palestinian State from emerging either in part of Jerusalem, or elsewhere in historic Palestine. In this context, Hamas’ actions were precisely intended to break this impasse and the endless paradigm of fruitless ‘negotiations’.

Unsurprisingly, Israel’s Defence Minister already has announced Israel’s intention to renew fighting immediately after the end of the cease-fire. Israeli officials have been telling their U.S. counterparts that they anticipate several more weeks of operations in the north of the Strip, before shifting focus to the south.

Thus far, the IDF has been operating in areas close to the shoreline in Gaza, and in places, such as the Wadi, south of Gaza City, where the subsoil does not facilitate the building of tunnels. These are the areas, therefore, where Hamas does not have significant defensive capabilities. Should military action be renewed, the IDF is likely to move away from the northern coastline towards the Gaza City epicentre, allowing Hamas to manoeuvre more easily, and inflict greater losses on the IDF and their armoured vehicles. In this sense – away from the simulacra – the war is just beginning.

Prime Minister Netanyahu has been described both in Israel and in the western MSM as a ‘dead man walking’ in political terms. Be that as it may, Netanyahu has his strategy: He has openly defied the Biden Team on every war-related issue, except that of eradicating Hamas.

During a press conference last Sunday, Netanyahu touted a “diplomatic Iron Dome”, saying he would not give in to “increasingly heavy pressure … used against us in recent weeks … I reject these pressures and say to the world: We will continue to fight until victory — until we destroy Hamas and bring our hostages back home”.

Yonatan Freeman, from the Hebrew University, perceives the gambit in Netanyahu’s vague statements: He defies Team Biden, yet takes care to leave sufficient ‘wiggle room’ so that he can always blame Biden, whenever he is ‘forced’ by America into some reversal.

The Israeli Cabinet’s strategy, therefore, rests on the big bet that Israeli public opinion will hold – despite Netayahu’s personal disapproval ratings – due to the overwhelming public support at this point for the two declared objects set by the War Cabinet: Destroying the ‘Hamas regime’ and its capabilities, and the release of all Israeli hostages.

At its core, ‘the bet’ lies in the conviction that public sentiment – contextualised deliberately by the Israeli cabinet in absolute Manichean terms (light versus the dark; civilisation versus barbarism; all Gazans being complicit with ‘Hamas’ evil’) – will ultimately arouse a wave of support for the further move of taking “the fiction” of a Palestinian state off the table “once and for all”. The table is being set for a long war against ‘cosmic evil’.

The ‘solution’, as National Security Minister Smotrich and his allies underline, is to offer Palestinians a choice – ‘to renounce their national aspirations and continue living on their land in an inferior status’, or to emigrate abroad. Put bluntly, the ‘solution’ is the removal of all non-subservient Palestinians from the lands of Greater Israel.

Turning now to the contending perspective:

The ‘united axis’ supporting Palestinians observe that Israel continues to adhere to its initial military goals of destroying Gaza to the point where there is nothing left – no civilian infrastructure at all – by which Gazans might live, were they even to try to return to their collapsed homes.

They see this Israeli objective fully supported by Biden when his spokesman said:

“We believe that they have the right to [embark on further combat operations in Gaza]; but [such actions] … should include greater and enhanced protections for civilian life”.

Regional security commentator, Hasan Illaik, notes,

“Axis officials also believe that conciliatory-sounding U.S. statements, which sometimes suggest that a de-escalation phase is imminent, are nothing but an effort to repair a public image heavily damaged by unstinting U.S. support for Israel’s continuing massacre of Palestinians in Gaza”.

So, is Israel, supported by Team Biden and some EU leaders, winning?

Tom Friedman – an intimate of Team Biden – wrote in the New York Times on 9 November – after traveling around Israel and the West Bank:

“I now understand why so much has changed. It is crystal clear to me that Israel is in real danger — more danger than at any other time since its War of Independence in 1948”.

Far-fetched? Possibly not.

Back in 2012, U.S. author Michael Greer wrote that Israel was founded at a particular propitious time, despite being surrounded by hostile neighbours:

“Several of the major Western powers supported the new state with significant financial and military aid; of at least equal importance, members of the religious community responsible for creating the new state, who remained back in those same Western nations, engaged in vigorous fundraising efforts to support the new state, and equally vigorous political efforts to get existing governmental support maintained or increased. The resources thus made available to the new state gave it a substantial military edge against its hostile neighbours, and its existence became enough of a fait accompli that some of its neighbours backed away from a wholly confrontational stance”.

“Still, the state’s survival depended on three things. The first, and by far the most crucial, was the ongoing flow of support from the Western powers to pay for a military establishment far larger than the economic and natural resources of the territory in question would permit. The second was the continued fragmentation and relative weakness of the surrounding states. The third was the maintenance of internal peace within the state and of collective assent to a clear sense of priorities, so that it could respond with its full force to threats from outside – instead of squandering its limited resources on civil strife or popular projects that contributed nothing to its survival”.

“In the long run, none of these three conditions could be met indefinitely … When it happens that these early patterns of support break down, Israel may find itself backed into a corner”.

Last week, a leading Israeli commentator noted:

“You might think a Presidential visit, presidential speech, three Secretary of State visits, two Secretary of Defence visits, the dispatching of two aircraft carrier groups, a nuclear submarine and Marine expeditionary unit, and the pledge of $14.3 billion in emergency military aid, are testament to the unwavering support the U.S. is extending to Israel” …

“Think again”.

“Underneath the full and robust backing of the Biden administration, there are dangerous and treacherous currents that are chipping away and encroaching on public sympathy for Israel across the United States. Polls released last week contained the most alarming and telling data: Public support for Israel is cratering – particularly amongst the 18 – 34 age group. Another poll shows that 36% of Americans say they oppose additional funding for Ukraine and Israel: Support for funding Israel, only – was at 14%”.

What is truly remarkable is that the leaders of the new narratives are the youth of Generation Z, Y, and Alpha. Leveraging social media, and speaking directly to their peer groups, they have conveyed the grievances of the Palestinians to the world. Many had limited knowledge of Palestine, but their unfiltered sense of justice fuelled their collective anger against Israel’s ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Greer’s second and third conditions for Israel’s survival also are metastasizing as the global tectonic plates grind and move: Non-western powers are not siding with Israel. They are coalescing in opposition to the Israeli Cabinet’s aspiration to end the notion of a Palestinian State, once and for all. And today, Israel is bitterly divided on the vision for its future; what it is exactly that constitutes ‘Israel’ and even that very post-modern question, ‘what it is to be Jewish’.

November 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

The 13 Sugar Colonies

November 19, 2021

This is a story of a rather unknown history of Zionism from before the theft & colonization of Palestine there was the colonization of 13 sugar colonies in the the Americas & Caribbean which brought about the sugar & slave trade and the birth of globalized capitalism. Join educational discussions by legit scholars and historians, both Black & Jewish professors who have discussed the 13 Sugar Colonies and the impact they played on the Black Holocaust. No matter how much they want to hide the history, there is no longer any debate. The evidence is overwhelming.

The lies have been deconstructed… you can access my video on my dropbox here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/53ekg3ljzf8…

Here is an audio file if you just want to download & listen to it: https://www.dropbox.com/s/oxue0tafikh…

Feel free to download it or upload it elsewhere, I need no credit. The critical history told to us through Dr. Leonard Jeffries, Dr. Tony Martin, Dr. John Henrik Clarke, Dr. Khalid Muhammad, Dr. Leonard E. Barrett Sr., Minister Louis Farrakhan, Dr. Aviva Ben-Ur, Dr. Stanley Mirvis, Dr. Bertram W. Korn, Rabbi Barbara Aiello, & Professor Cary Silverstein should be of public domain for the world to know about.

November 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular, Video | , , , | Leave a comment

Three Palestinian students shot, wounded in US state of Vermont

Palestinian college students Hisham Awartani, Tahseen Ali and Kenan Abdulhamid were shot walking down the street in Vermont on November 25, 2023.
Press TV – November 26, 2023

Three Palestinian college students have been shot and wounded in the US state of Vermont, in what is perceived to be an Islamophobic act amid unfaltering US support for the Israeli regime’s genocidal war against Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.

Burlington Police said that officers responded to a call on Saturday evening and found two shooting victims, with the third a short distance away, all close to the University of Vermont campus.

One victim was reportedly shot in the back while another is said to have been shot in the chest and a third sustained minor injuries.

Husam Zomlot, the Palestinian ambassador to the United Kingdom identified the students as Hisham Awartani, Kinnan Abdelhamid and Tahseen Ahmed.

He posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, that each of the victims was wearing the Palestinian Keffiyeh when they were attacked, identifying them as “three young Palestinian men.”

“The hate crimes against Palestinians must stop. Palestinians everywhere need protection,” Zomlot wrote on X.

Meanwhile, the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee said in a news release that they “have reason to believe this shooting occurred because the victims are Arab.”

The ADC said the students were speaking Arabic when the gunman yelled at them and opened fire.

“The surge in anti-Arab and anti-Palestinian sentiment we are experiencing is unprecedented, and this is another example of that hate turning violent,” said ADC National Executive Director in a statement on Sunday.

Burlington Police Chief said the shooter or shooters have not been identified or apprehended, adding the police department is “at the earliest stages of investigating this crime.”

The shooting is part of a broader surge in hate crimes against Muslims and Arabs in the United States.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the US largest Muslim civil rights and advocacy organization reported receiving 1,283 requests for help and reports of bias from the beginning of October to early November, an increase of 216 percent compared to 2022.

November 26, 2023 Posted by | Islamophobia | , , | Leave a comment

Free Speech Groups Call on Congress To Block NewsGuard Funding

By Didi Rankovic | Reclaim The Net | November 26, 2023

As many as 36 groups advocating free speech, the Free Speech Alliance, have turned to US Congress with a request to stop any further funding of NewsGuard.

NewsGuard is an outfit that describes itself as countering “misinformation on behalf of news consumers, brands and democracies.”

That “mission” also includes (trust) rating system for news sites – right in people’s browsers.

But members of the Free Speech Alliance, and those supporting it are not buying this pitch, summing up and denouncing NewsGuard instead as an ideologically-motivated “internet traffic cop.”

And they are warning that taxpayer money should never have been spent on financing it, and its ilk – and even less so, that the US authorities should continue to spend taxpayer money on what is described as politically motivated censorship of speech.

And these free speech groups want Congress to make sure the Biden White House is prevented from bankrolling such an organization – a particularly sensitive issue given the stage of the election cycle in the country – via the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

In a letter this week, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Mike Johnson are urged to make sure Congressman Richard McCormick’s free speech amendment to the NDAA sticks.

We obtained a copy of the letter for you here.

It seeks to ensure that the Department of Defense (DoD) is prevented from handing out contracts to NewsGuard and others, such as another highly controversial group, the Global Disinformation Index (GDI).

The complaint against them is that they show obvious and damaging ideological and political bias against the media in the right-oriented space.

The letter comes in the context of the news that NewsGuard and GDI thus far received money from the DoD, and the Department of State, respectively (NewsGuard to the tune of $750,000 from the DoD).

“As shown by two MRC (Media Research Center, one of the letter’s signatories) Free Speech America studies, NewsGuard’s ratings are heavily skewed in favor of leftist media and consistently target right-leaning outlets with scathingly low ratings,” it is stated by NewBusters.

As for GDI, its track record includes blacklisting the New York Post, The Daily Wire, Real Clear Politics and The Federalist.

The key point of the letter is that in case a (private, or NGO) organization is suspected of having political bias – well, that’s unconstitutional for a US government to support financially.

And a very pertinent point is made in the letter, regarding the “outsourcing of censorship.” Namely:

“That which government is constitutionally prohibited from doing, it cannot contract with others to do. Please ensure that Section 1532 is preserved in the final version of the NDAA.”

November 26, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | | Leave a comment

Biden moves to lift all restrictions on Israel’s access to US weapons stockpile: US media

Press TV – November 26, 2023

US President Joe Biden has requested the removal of nearly every restriction on Israel’s use of the stockpiles of weapons and ammunition stored by the United States in Israel, according to an American report.

The Intercept said on Saturday that Biden is seeking to remove all restrictions on the usage of the little-known US weapons stockpiles in Israel that the Pentagon established for use in regional conflicts, to which the Israeli regime had been previously permitted to have access in limited circumstances.

The move was included in the White House’s supplemental budget request, sent to the Senate on October 20, according to the report.

“This request would allow for the transfer of all categories of defense articles,” the proposed budget says.

The War Reserve Stockpile Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) was created in the 1980s to supply the United States with equipment in the case of a regional war, which is the largest node in a network of de facto US foreign arms stockpiles. These warehouses are controlled by a set of strict requirements.

Under the conditions outlined in these requirements, the Israeli regime has been able to tap into these stockpiles and purchase weapons at low costs if effective subsidization of US military aid is used.

The report notes that with WRSA-I, Biden seeks to remove nearly all meaningful restrictions on the stockpile and arms transfer to Israel, with plans to lift restrictions on obsolete or surplus weapons, waive an annual spending cap on replenishing the stockpile, remove weapon-specific restrictions, and curtail congressional oversight.

All of the changes in the Biden budget plan would be permanent, except for lifting the spending cap, which is limited to the 2024 fiscal year. The changes would come in an arms-trade relationship that is already shrouded in secrecy.

The House has already passed legislation reflecting the White House’s request last month, and it now stands before the Senate.

“By dropping the requirement that such articles be declared excess, it would also increase the existing strain on US military readiness in order to provide more arms to Israel,” said Josh Paul, who was the director of congressional and public affairs for the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, for over 11 years.

Paul, whose resignation last month due to US military aid to Israel caused a stir in Washington, admitted that “the President’s emergency supplemental funding request, would essentially create a free-flowing pipeline to provide any defense articles to Israel by the simple act of placing them in the WRSA-I stockpile, or other stockpiles intended for Israel.”

According to experts, the White House request would make it much harder for Congress or the public to monitor US arms transfers to Israel.

Under US law, there must be 30 days prior notice to Congress before arms transfer, but the Biden budget request would allow this to be shortened in “extraordinary” circumstances.

In a report last January, The New York Times, citing US and Israeli officials, revealed that the Pentagon sent hundreds of thousands of artillery shells to Ukraine from the so-called American emergency stockpile in Israel to help meet Ukraine’s need for artillery shells in the war with Russia.

The US has been a steadfast supporter of Israel for decades, both diplomatically and militarily. Each year, the US provides around $4bn of military support to the regime.

In early November, the American news outlet Bloomberg stated that the Pentagon has secretly increased its military aid to Israel, including more sophisticated missiles and equipment such as thousands of Hellfire missiles, which have been used extensively by Israel in Gaza war.

On Saturday in a phone call with Israeli minister of military affairs, Yoav Gallant, Pentagon chief Lloyd J. Austin underscored the US’s unwavering support for Israel and received updates as a temporary ceasefire continues across the besieged Gaza Strip following nearly seven weeks of Israeli genocidal war.

According to the Gaza-based health ministry, nearly 15,000 Palestinians have been killed in the Israeli strikes, most of them women and children, and injured around 36,000 others. 7,000 Palestinians are still missing.

November 26, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

US-German ‘Peace Talks Plot’ Shows West on Brink of Losing Ukraine

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 25.11.2023

The two Western powers are reportedly trying to force Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky into entering into talks with Russia, per German newspaper Bild. What’s behind the report and its timing?

Washington and Berlin have reportedly kicked off a plot to push Ukraine for negotiations with Russia by slashing military supplies to Kiev and leaving Volodymyr Zelensky with little if any options, according to the German publication.

According to Bild, there is also a plan B envisaging a frozen conflict that would solidify a new quasi-border between Ukraine and Russia along the contact line.

“First, [this report] should be seen in a specific temporal context,” Dmitry Evstafiev, a political scientist and High School of Economics (HSE) University professor, told Sputnik.

“This is not a statement, of course, this is a publicity stunt. It appeared in the media almost immediately after the end of the meeting of the notorious Ramstein group that has made an essential decision to create the [Ground Based] Air Defense coalition to strengthen air defense. Moreover, it is quite obvious that they will strengthen not so much the air defense of Ukraine, but the air defense of the countries bordering Ukraine. Therefore, this is a kind of first proposal that it is necessary to take certain political steps that would indicate that Ukraine is ready for negotiations.”

The second aspect is an interview given by the leader of the Servant of the People faction, Davyd Arakhamia, which is “clearly synchronized with the West.” According to Evstafiev, it is “even more indicative against the backdrop of problems at the front.”

Speaking to Western journalists, Arakhamia noted that Russia’s main condition during the March 2022 peace talks with Kiev was Ukraine’s neutrality and guarantees that the Eastern European country wouldn’t join NATO. (It was Arakhamia who headed the Ukrainian delegation during the negotiations with Russians in Belarus and Türkiye in 2022.) In addition, he debunked the Western media narrative that Russia does not want to negotiate peace with Ukraine by saying that Moscow is open to talks and it may start them when Kiev is ready.

“At the moment, [Western] support to Kiev is becoming more and more politically expensive/costly, or whatever you want to call it, for the key countries that provide assistance, these are, first of all: Germany and the United States,” said Evstafiev. “The United States has already almost halted aid [to Ukraine]. Of course, there will still be a revaluation through the Pentagon, but one can no longer expect large packages.”

“Assistance from the European Union will be largely aimed at maintaining the functionality of the public administration system and some kind of social support, but not so much for military support. Therefore, the first point is that support for Kiev has become toxic in terms of politics.

“The second point, which is absolutely clearly visible from the statements of Western sources, is that Kiev now faces the last moment when it can lay claim to more or less acceptable terms of a truce with Moscow. (…) The third point – which Westerners do not conceal – is that Russia will agree to any starting conditions for these negotiations. Arakhamia speaks about this directly, openly and without hesitation.”

West Gives Nothing Short of Ultimatum to Zelensky

Per the German newspaper, the US and Germany are going to supply Ukraine with limited amounts of weapons that would be enough to hold the line but not enough to launch a new offensive. This, the publication claims, would force Zelensky to consider a peace deal.

“This proposed manipulation appears to be quite effective,” said the academic. “Where else could Zelensky get weapons? [Weapons] that had remained on the territory of the former Ukrainian SSR, in the warehouses of the Soviet army, had already clearly been exhausted. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are increasingly fighting with Western weapons. That is, the number of Soviet and Ukrainian weapons is decreasing, and at a very rapid pace, especially in the last four to five months. The Armed Forces of Ukraine will be able to fight only with Western weapons, and (…) without logistical support from NATO, the armored forces of the Ukrainian Army would stop operations in about four to five weeks.”

Still, Evstafiev believes that the West wouldn’t waste time on convincing Zelensky to start talks. It’s more likely that they would give him an ultimatum: either he joins Russia at the negotiating table or his successor will. Zelensky is by no means indispensable in the eyes of the West, according to the professor.

The West “needs a person who is willing to buy time in exchange for territory,” said Evstafiev. Someone would stabilize the state system in Ukraine, carry out some reforms, ease the pressure on Ukrainians, “because the Zelensky regime has tightened the screws in terms of political and religious freedoms much deeper than is acceptable for the Americans and Germans,” per the expert.

When it comes to Zelensky, it would be very hard for him to reverse his months-long position on peace talks with Russia, according to Evstafiev. One should keep in mind that previously, the Ukrainian president issued a decree making bargaining with Moscow illegitimate. “This is absolutely unacceptable for Zelensky and his entourage,” the professor remarked.

The West is well aware of that and considering changing horses in midstream: “They have already indicated – it has already been openly written – that a new [Charles] de Gaulle is needed. Ukraine needs its own de Gaulle, who will abandon Ukrainian Algeria, which means the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and Crimea.” (During a major armed conflict between France and the Algerian National Liberation Front (1954-1962) then-French President Charles de Gaulle came to the conclusion that continuing to hold on to Algeria, then a French colony, would exhaust France’s resources and weaken its position in Europe. On July 5, 1962, Algeria won independence.)

Why Has West Started Pushing Ukrainian Peace Talks Narrative?

While some Western policy-makers apparently view Commander-in-Chief Gen. Valery Zaluzhny as Ukraine’s de Gaulle, the problem is that he is unlikely to give up ambitions of taking back the Zaporozhye and Kherson regions, according to Evstafiev. Both regions voted in local referendums to join Russia and officially became Russia’s new territories starting from September 2022.

Given that hardliners within the Ukrainian civil and military leadership are still strong, the West has a limited number of options. Hence plan B – a “frozen conflict” – cited by the German newspaper.

“All these negotiations are just an attempt to gain time to stabilize the internal situation in the territory now controlled by the Kiev regime. In my opinion, this needs to be paid attention to,” Evstafiev pointed out.

What’s behind the West’s attempts to stabilize the situation at all costs? The answer is clear, per the academic:

“What scares Westerners the most is not even the defeat at the front. Most of all Westerners – and I think they have an adequate idea of what is happening in [Ukraine’s] rear – are frightened by the possibility of a quick and catastrophic collapse of the public administration system [in Ukraine]. That’s why they are putting so much pressure, I might say, somewhat hysterically, to freeze the situation and try to somewhat restore the stability inside, in the rear,” Evstafiev concluded.

November 25, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

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