The Cradle | November 20, 2023
Lebanon has been witnessing a “suspicious security movement,” Al-Akhbar reported on 18 November, as several Western military planes carrying weapons have arrived at Beirut International Airport since the outbreak of the Gaza-Israel war last month.
According to the Lebanese daily, some of these planes have also landed at a decommissioned airstrip in the Hamat military base.
The deliveries reportedly come in the wake of “requests sent by foreign countries to Lebanon to allow the entry of weapons and ammunition, under the pretext of enhancing the security of its embassies and evacuating its nationals and diplomats.”
Aircraft recently landed in Lebanon include US, British, French, and Canadian planes. The report adds that some of these planes came from Israel.
Sources told the newspaper that Lebanon recently rejected a French request to “agree on the entry of a ship carrying about 500 soldiers and approximately 50 vehicles.”
The Lebanese Foreign Ministry also received a request to grant two permits for a Canadian plane and a Belgian plane to arrive at Beirut airport, which was rejected.
However, Al-Akhbar’s sources say that “the Canadian plane had already landed at Beirut Airport and was found to be carrying various types of weapons (including silencers and detonators).”
Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati listed these western requests on the agenda of the last cabinet meeting. However, nothing was decided on.
Western and Arab states reportedly sent requests to Lebanese security services expressing “fear that their employees or nationals would be exposed to attacks against the backdrop of what is happening in Gaza.”
Western embassies have not answered any questions about these shipments, the report says, adding that diplomats have referred all questions to military attaches “who coordinate all steps with the Lebanese army and security forces.”
In a statement last week, the Lebanese army command claimed these movements aligned with the routine transport of military aid.
However, Al-Akhbar’s sources say there are “suspicions regarding the aircraft entering and unloading their cargo, as it is not known to whom this equipment is going, and whether the destination is actually limited to the army.”
“What is happening has put the current army commander, Joseph Aoun, under the microscope … and has put question marks about the extent of his cooperation with Westerners nations,” the sources added, highlighting a possible “attack on the principle of sovereignty” in Lebanon.
Aoun has often been accused of having a very close relationship with the US embassy and Ambassador Dorothy Shea.
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | November 20, 2023
On February 27, just the third day of their war, Russia and Ukraine announced direct negotiations in Belarus. Having already said that he was prepared to abandon Ukraine’s pursuit of NATO membership, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky went into the negotiations “without preconditions.” That round of talks, having identified priority topics, led to a second round, again in Belarus.
But, though Ukraine was willing to discuss neutrality and “the end of this invasion,” the United States was not. On February 25, the same day Zelensky said he was “not afraid to talk to Russia” and that he was “not afraid to talk about neutral status,” State Department spokesman Ned Price was asked at a press conference, “What’s the U.S.—what’s your thinking about the efficacy of such a—of such talks?” Price responded, “Now we see Moscow suggesting that diplomacy take place at the barrel of a gun or as Moscow’s rockets, mortars, artillery target the Ukrainian people. This is not real diplomacy. Those are not the conditions for real diplomacy.” The United States said no, and the promising direct talks were not to be.
However, a few days later, Ukraine would attempt indirect, mediated talks. Zelensky would turn to then-Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennet to mediate. In a February 2, 2023 interview, Bennet revealed that “Zelensky initiated the request to contact Putin.” Bennett said, “Zelensky called me and asked me to contact Putin.”
Bennet accepted the request and a flurry of shuttle diplomacy began, first with a series of back-and-forth phone calls between Bennett and Putin and Bennett and Zelensky. On March 5, 2022, Bennet flew to Moscow at Putin’s invitation. The next day, Bennet flew to Berlin for meetings with German chancellor Olaf Scholz. On the following day, March 7, the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and France held a videoconference that, according to some reports, discussed the talks. On March 10, Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov met Ukraine’s foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, in Turkey. Turkish foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, who was present at the meeting, described their meeting as “civil.”
Bennet says that “everything [he] did was fully coordinated with Biden, Macron, Johnson, with Scholz and, obviously, Zelensky.” According to Bennet, Putin told him that “we can reach a ceasefire.” In order to make that happen, Bennet says that Putin and Zelensky both made “huge concessions.” When Bennett asked Putin if he was going to kill Zelensky, Putin answered, “I won’t kill Zelensky.” Putin also “renounced” Russia’s demanded “disarmament of Ukraine.” He also reportedly promised that there would be no regime change in Kiev and that Ukraine would remain sovereign. Putin then passed the message to Zelensky through Bennet that if you “Tell me you’re not joining NATO, I won’t invade.” Bennett says that “Zelensky relinquished joining NATO.”
It is key that in both the direct and mediated negotiations in the first weeks of the war, Ukraine was willing to give up NATO membership for a negotiated settlement with Russia.
In return for abandoning their NATO ambitions, Putin and Zelensky agreed that Ukraine would receive a strong, independent military capable of defending itself analogous to “the Israeli model.”
Bennett reports that “there was a good chance of reaching a ceasefire.” Sources “privy to details about the meeting” said that Zelensky deemed the proposal “difficult” but not “impossible” and that “the gaps between the sides are not great.” But, once again, it was not to be. Former UN Assistant Secretary-General in UN peace missions Michael von der Schulenburg says that “NATO had already decided at a special summit on March 24, 2022, not to support these peace negotiations.” Bennett agrees that the West made the decision “to keep striking Putin.” When Bennet’s interviewer asks him if he means that the West blocked the diplomatic settlement, Bennet simply replies, “They blocked it.”
In March and early April of 2022, there would be one final attempt at negotiations before the negotiating table would be abandoned for the battlefield. This time it was to be Turkey that would play the lead role as mediator. A supporting role was to be played by former German chancellor Gerhard Schröder who, like Bennet before him, was asked by Kiev to play a role in the mediation.
This final round of talks was the most promising. Putin has confirmed, as had already been reported, that Russia and Ukraine had “reached an agreement in Istanbul.” But Putin also revealed for the first time that the tentative agreement had been initialed by both sides. “I don’t remember his name and may be mistaken, but I think Mr. Arakhamia headed Ukraine’s negotiating team in Istanbul. He even initialed this document.” Russia, too, signed the document: “during the talks in Istanbul, we initialed this document. We argued for a long time, butted heads there and so on, but the document was very thick and it was initialed by Medinsky on our side and by the head of their negotiating team.”
Putin’s account is backed by Lavrov who said at a press conference that “we did hold talks in March and April 2022. We agreed on certain things; everything was already initialled.”
Putin went further than announcing the initialed document, on June 17, 2023, he dramatically held it up before a delegation of African leaders, showing it to the world for the first time. “We did not discuss with the Ukrainian side that this treaty would be classified, but we have never presented it, nor commented on it. This draft agreement was initialed by the head of the Kiev negotiation team. He put his signature there. Here it is.”
The draft agreement was the end product of a position paper presented by the Ukrainian delegation. The Istanbul Communiqué, dated March 29, 2022, agreed that Russia would withdraw to its prewar boundaries and Ukraine would promise not to seek NATO membership. Instead, Ukraine would receive security guarantees from a number of countries, possibly including Russia, China, the U.S., UK, France, Turkey, Germany, Canada, Italy, Poland and Israel. The final proposal of the communiqué proposes a possible meeting between Putin and Zelensky to sign the treaty.
On March 28, Putin reportedly went so far as to express a willingness to withdraw Russian troops from around Kiev. On March 29, the day the communiqué was initialled, the leaders of the U.S., UK, Germany, France and Italy spoke on the phone.
But, again, it was not to be. On April 5, The Washington Post reported that the West would “respect Kyiv’s decisions in any settlement to end the war with Russia, but with larger issues of global security at stake, there are limits to how many compromises some in NATO will support to win the peace.” The Post then spelled it out: “Even a Ukrainian vow not to join NATO—a concession that Zelensky has floated publicly—could be a concern to some neighbors. That leads to an awkward reality: For some in NATO, it’s better for the Ukrainians to keep fighting, and dying, than to achieve a peace that comes too early or at too high a cost to Kyiv and the rest of Europe.”
On April 9, then-UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson rushed to Kiev to rein in Zelensky, insisting that Russian President Vladimir Putin “should be pressured, not negotiated with” and that, even if Ukraine was ready to sign some agreements with Russia, “the West was not.”
And that is just what happened. “We actually did this,” Putin told war correspondents at the Kremlin, “but they simply threw it away later and that’s it.” Talking to the African delegation, Putin said, “After we pulled our troops away from Kiev—as we had promised to do—the Kiev authorities… tossed [their commitments] into the dustbin of history. They abandoned everything.” But Putin did not primarily blame Ukraine. He implicitly blamed the United States, saying that when Ukraine’s interests “are not in sync” with U.S. interests, “ultimately it is about the United States’s interests. We know that they hold the key to solving issues.”
Lavrov says the same. In a September 28, 2023 interview, Lavrov said that “in April 2022… Ukraine proposed ceasing hostilities and settling the crisis based on providing reciprocal, reliable security guarantees.” He then clearly said, “But this proposal was recalled at the insistence of Washington and London.”
But it is not just Russia who says this: two well placed Turkish sources say the same. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says that, because of the talks, “Turkey did not think that the Russia-Ukraine war would continue much longer.” But, he said, “There are countries within NATO who want the war to continue.” “Following the NATO foreign ministers’ meeting,” he explained, “it was the impression that… there are those within the NATO member states that want the war to continue, let the war continue and Russia get weaker.”
And Numan Kurtulmus, the deputy chairman of Erdogan’s ruling party, told CNN TURK, “We know that our President is talking to the leaders of both countries. In certain matters, progress was made, reaching the final point, then suddenly we see that the war is accelerating…Someone is trying not to end the war. The United States sees the prolongation of the war as its interest… There are those who want this war to continue… Putin-Zelensky was going to sign, but someone didn’t want to.”
Schröder agrees. Describing the negotiations, he says that Ukraine “does not want NATO membership,” would accept “compromise” security guarantees, said that they would “reintroduce Russian in Donbass,” and “were ready to talk about Crimea.”
“But in the end nothing happened,” Schröder said. “My impression: Nothing could happen because everything else was decided in Washington.” Like the Russian and the Turkish sources, Schröder reports that “the Ukrainians did not agree to peace because they were not allowed to. They first had to ask the Americans about everything they discussed.”
Schröder adds one more significant detail. It is often reported that the massacre in Bucha played a pivotal souring role in the negotiations, contributing to their termination. Schröder challenges that account: “Nothing was known about Butscha during the talks with Umjerov on March 7th and 13th. I think the Americans didn’t want the compromise between Ukraine and Russia. The Americans believe they can keep the Russians down.”
In all three sets of negotiations, Ukraine renounced their aspirations to join NATO, and in all three, peace was possible but for the U.S. blocking it. Both the Bennet talks and the Istanbul talks were Ukrainian initiatives that put forward Ukrainian solutions. The United States was not supporting Ukraine at the negotiating table: they were overturning the table in order to use Ukrainian bodies to pursue American goals.
The story of Maya Kowalski and how it might help Covid treatment victims
BY JJ STARKY | NOVEMBER 19, 2023
Days ago, a Floridian jury ruled in favour of the surviving family members of a wife and mother who took her own life after her daughter, Maya, was “medically kidnapped” for nearly 90 days.
The six-person jury in Sarasota County unanimously determined Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital in St. Petersburg was liable for the incidents leading up to the January 2017 death of Beata Kowalski, 43.
They also ruled that the hospital should pay the Kowalski family well over $210 million for the losses they endured, which included punitive damages.
The Kowalski’s story is one of torment, heartache, and anguish.
In fact, it is the sort of story that would make the most limp-wristed of us metamorphose into an angry cage fighter that looks like they’ve snorted a cubic tonne of cocaine before stepping into the octagon. You want blood after hearing it.
Netflix made a near two-hour documentary on their case, ‘Taking Care of Maya’, which I highly recommend watching.
To recap the bare bones, in 2015, 10-year-Maya began experiencing some nasty symptoms. These included breathing problems, headaches, blurred vision, skin lesions, lower limb dystonia, and debilitating chronic pain. And they would come on arbitrarily. So her parents, Jack and Beata, naturally sought medical advice.
But it was to no avail. They saw dozens of medical experts and they still didn’t know what was wrong with their daughter. That was until they visited one Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick in September 2015, who diagnosed Maya with advanced complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS).
CRPS is a form of amplified musculoskeletal pain syndrome in which pain from a physical interaction outlasts the expected recovery time. For example, a gentle touch can mimic a slap – a flick, a punch.
Fortunately for Jack and Beata, Dr Kirkpatrick encountered the syndrome before in past patients. He had a treatment protocol in mind using ketamine, but – and herein lies the beginning of the problem – it was not conventional or well-known. Nor was the prescribed treatment available in Florida, where the Kowalski family lived.
Low doses of ketamine kept proving ineffective and so the family travelled to Mexico so Maya could undergo a ketamine coma, fearing her symptoms would worsen and become fatal. Thankfully, the procedure was successful. Her symptoms dissipated.
Except, one random night in October 2016, they returned – with vengeance. Her father rushes her to the local hospital, Johns Hopkins All Children’s, admits her, and tries to explain the rare syndrome to the staff. But they were mystified. They hadn’t come across the condition and even became suspicious of its existence. Beata told the hospital staff what treatment was required, but as soon as they learnt of the amount of Ketamine she had been taking, it was too late.
The next thing they know, a child abuse paediatrician, Dr Sally Smith, turns up unidentified to Maya’s bedside for an assessment. Within ten minutes, Smith concludes Beata has been abusing Maya, and that CRPS is not present. A nurse then informs Jack that his daughter is now in state custody and orders him to leave. Maya has been diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy, the fancy phrase for “medical child abuse”.
What transpires over the next 3 months is nothing short of parental hell. Maya was still separated from her family. Her father was allowed to see her now and again because he adopted the role of pacifier, but her mother, Beata, who’d actively argued with hospital staff, was not.
Beata descended into a pit of depression. During rare scheduled calls with Maya, she discovered her symptoms were deteriorating and that the hospital had changed her treatment without her consent. Allegations also surfaced that a contracted social worker had stripped her daughter down to a sports bra against her will in order to take pictures of her body. This, again, occurred without Beata and Jack’s consent.
The same social worker, Catherine Bedy, Maya accused of telling her she was “going to go into a foster home”, her mother “was in a mental institution”, and she was “going to end up adopting” her.
On January 8, 2017, after 87 days without her daughter, believing she is the primary reason for Maya’s separation, Beata commits suicide. She hangs herself in the garage at home while Jack and her son Kyle attend a party. Jack didn’t discover her body until her brother had read Beata’s suicide note and rushed over to the home. When Jack woke up to Beata’s brother’s piercing screams, he knew his wife had taken her own life.
In the fallout of Maya’s medical kidnapping, the Kowalski’s lawyer, Debra Salisbury, discovered Dr Smith works for the Suncoast Center, which provides child welfare services to Pinellas County. Salisbury also finds out that children in Pinellas County, where the hospital is based, are almost two and a half times as likely to be removed from their families when compared to the Florida average. Suspicions arise Suncoast has incentivised its employees to misdiagnose children so their customer base could increase.
Retrospective analysis of Maya’s diagnosis would support this theory. After Beata’s suicide, Dr Kirkpatrick, the doctor who initially prescribed the Ketamine, testifies that he informed Dr Smith of Maya’s rare condition and offered to send her all the documented evidence to support his prescription when she contacted him to file her original report. The only thing is, she didn’t include any details of their discussion in that report. The medical expertise of the doctor who’d provided the most materially effective treatment was totally excluded.
Weeks later, local investigative reporter Daphne Chen hears of Beata’s passing. Like any good journalist seeking truth, she refuses to accept the “official story” – “official narrative” connotations intended – and digs in. In January 2019, when her fingertip presses publish on a write up about the Kowlaski’s, something unexpected occurs. Calls start flying in.
Chen becomes inundated with calls and emails from local parents, alleging the misdiagnosis of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. Instances where parents called 911 because their child was experiencing a life-threatening emergency – seizures, breathing difficulty, excess vomiting – were resulting in the same outcome. After their child underwent a series of tests and scans, hospital staff would question parents over the injuries and symptoms and issue a case review. And curiously, the one thing they all had in common – you guessed it – was an assessment from Dr. Smith. Post-Smith assessment, these parents found themselves legally segregated from their child, with some being arrested. They did what the system told them to do, sought help, but were instead, punished.
Upon further investigation, Salisbury, the Kowalski’s lawyer, found that the root cause was less to do with a rogue clinician than it was a deep fault in the system. In the 1970s, child protective services in the U.S. diagnosed child abuse via excess corporeal punishment. We’re talking overt physical abuse – beatings, cigarette burns, etc. But overtime, they redefined the criteria. Fast forward to the 2020s, parents with children suffering from rare conditions that consult with over 3 or 4 doctors can find themselves accused of “doctor-shopping”, exposing a child to unnecessary medical procedures and thus, being guilty of medical child abuse.
In a recent interview with The Epoch Times, investigative journalist Stellar Paul explained how similar circumstances led to the mistreatment of hospitalised Covid patients. Like Maya, these patients were attacked by a system that continually found itself departing from traditional medical ethics and toward a form of blanket-style healthcare. In turn, personalised treatment and attention were subverted. The medical complex treated them en masse, rather than as individuals with unique health needs.
Take the story of Ray Lamar, who, when hospitalised with Covid, specifically requested he not receive certain treatments. He even wrote on his inner forearm, “no vent. (ventilator) no Remdesivir”. So what did his “carers” do? They gave him Remdesivir, without informing him of dangers, without receiving his consent. He later died.
Then, there is Christine Johnson. Christine’s daughter was a nurse, so she was aware of Remdesivir’s questionable benefit-to-risk ratio and the detrimental impact it could have on her kidneys. She also said she didn’t want the drug. So hospital staff gave it to her while she slept. She also died.
These stories go on and on.
Why did hospitals treat patients in this way? Well, again, as Stellar explains, it is because, whether by policy or practice, external forces adulterated the structure of the system. For Ray and Christine, it was the 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act (CARES) and the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedeness Act (PREP). One financially incentivised the use of dangerous treatments while the other legally shielded hospitals that administered them. For Maya, it was the empowerment of Dr Sally Smith and the dilution of the definition of “child abuse”.
The court proceedings for the Kowalski’s were not straightforward. There were various lengthy delays, and they wondered if they would ever see justice. To give you an idea of how vicious the hospital’s lawyers were, when Maya missed just one hearing, they combed through her social media and presented photos to the jury of her attending her homecoming. This, they argued, was proof that Maya could live a “normal teenager’s life”. Talk about vipers.
However, thanks to Beata’s meticulous note-taking of events without which the family’s lawyer said prosecution would have not been possible, the Kowlaski family successfully sued the hospital on multiple claims of false imprisonment, battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, medical negligence, negligent infliction of emotional distress, negligent training of doctors and healthcare providers, and fraud.
There are numerous parallels we could draw from Maya’s story and 2020 Covid treatment victims but if there is one overarching precedent set, it is how the mutated structure of the medical complex has facilitated anti-healthcare. And it is one that could help dozens upon dozens of Covid treatment victims currently fighting their battles in court as well as other victims of the misdiagnosis of medical child abuse.
Perhaps the saddest realisation after researching this case is that had Beata not taken her own life, it is unlikely we would have heard about Maya’s ordeal. May she rest in peace.
By Tyler Durden | Zero Hedge | November 19, 2023
Ever since Friday’s release of more than 40,000 hours of Jan. 6 Capitol Police security video, dozens of clips debunking the Jan. 6 committee’s ‘violent insurrection’ narrative have been floating around X.
In response to the exculpatory footage that the Jan. 6 committee never showed the American public, Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) has raised significant questions about the handling of security footage.
Lee’s statements directly challenge the integrity of the now-disbanded committee, particularly addressing the roles of its former Republican members, Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger. He also accuses the committee – particularly those two, of selectively sharing information.
After Cheney attempted to hit back with her ‘best hits’ Jan. 6 footage, Lee replied: “Liz, we’ve seen footage like that a million times. You made sure we saw that—and nothing else.”
Lee also called for an investigation into the committee itself, labeling it a “sham” and questioning the use of taxpayer dollars in its operations. He insinuates that crucial information about the committee’s work could have been “deliberately lost or destroyed,” casting doubts on the committee’s transparency and objectivity.
The argument continued throughout the day, with Lee linking to a NY Post article with the headline “FBI lost count of how many paid informants were at Capitol on Jan. 6, and later performed audit to figure out exact number.”
Kinzinger swings and misses all day
In response to the backlash, Kinzinger made a stupid joke comparing Jan. 6 protesters to US army helicopters providing fire for South Vietnamese ground troops attacking the Vietcong in 1965.
He also retweeted about a dozen similarly stupid jokes (check out his timeline).
The House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack was disbanded in January 2023, after releasing its final report in December 2022. The committee, comprising seven Democrats and two Republicans, faced criticism for its composition and the perceived partisanship in its approach.
Kinzinger did not seek reelection, and Cheney lost her primary, marking a significant shift in the Republican landscape. The release of the security tapes by Johnson is seen as a step towards transparency, allowing the public to form their own opinions about the events of January 6, away from the committee’s narrative.
The Cradle | November 19, 2023
Fifty-two crew members on an Israeli-linked ship in the Red Sea were detained by Yemeni naval forces who intercepted and seized the vessel on 19 October, sources told Al-Mayadeen.
An official Yemeni source confirmed to the outlet that the news is true.
Saudi media also reported that Yemeni forces seized the Israeli-linked Galaxy Leader vessel. According to Hebrew media reports, the ship is owned by a British company owned by Israeli businessman Abraham Unger, who goes by the name ‘Rami.’
In an official statement, the Israeli army described the incident as “very serious” and clarified that the ship was not Israeli:
“The ship departed from Turkiye on its way to India, staffed by civilians of various nationalities, not including Israelis.”
The Yemeni army is expected to release a statement later on Sunday.
Yemen’s Armed Forces, allied with the Ansarallah resistance movement, had announced earlier in a statement on 19 November that they would target all vessels associated with Israel in the Red Sea.
“To provide relief to our oppressed people in Gaza,” the armed forces announced, “they will target … ships carrying the flag of the Zionist entity, ships operated by Israeli companies, ships owned by Israeli companies.”
The Yemeni statement also calls on “all countries of the world to withdraw citizens working on the crews of these ships,” to “avoid shipping on or handling these vessels,” and to “inform ships to stay away from these vessels.”
This is not the first statement issued by Ansarallah and the Yemeni army vowing to attack Israeli-linked vessels in the Red Sea.
Less than one week ago, Ansarallah leader Abdel Malik al-Houthi said that “eyes are open,” and vowed to “monitor and locate Israeli ships in the Red Sea.”
“We will continue to plan for additional operations. We can’t stop,” he said, adding that “we will not hesitate to target” Israeli-linked ships.
The Yemeni resistance has been carrying out frequent drone and missile attacks against Israel, which it began last month in solidarity with the Palestinian resistance in Gaza.
In response, the Israeli army has deployed warships to the Red Sea.
According to Hebrew media reports, some of these attacks have been intercepted by Saudi Arabia and Jordan.
Nonetheless, Yemen has vowed to continue attacking Israel.
The Prime Minister of Yemen’s National Salvation Government (NSG), Abdulaziz bin Habtour, said on 10 November that Sanaa will continue to conduct attacks on Israel for as long as the ethnic cleansing campaign of Gaza continues.
Bin Habtour added that the attacks will continue despite possible setbacks to peace talks with the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, as fighting for Palestine is “a sacred duty for every Muslim and Arab.”
The Sanaa government has also decided to ban all US-made goods and those produced by international companies that support Israel’s occupation of Palestine.
Review by Marilyn Langlois | November 10, 2023
If you regard the United States as perhaps flawed but overall a force for good in the world . . .
If you scoff at the notion that the US, a republic founded on principles of freedom and democracy, has morphed into a world empire, perpetrating assassinations, coups d’état, acts of terror and illegal warfare . . .
If you want to promote peace but haven’t yet explored deceptive events that precipitate US warmongering . . .
. . . here is a volume that will clear the air and paint an honest picture of the significant, not-so-rosy impact US foreign policy and actions have had in the world around us.
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Swiss historian and peace researcher Daniele Ganser, is the newly published English language translation of his book Imperium USA, originally written in German and published in 2020. Here is a summary of key points — including some lesser-known ones — along with remedies for a more peaceful future, that are covered in the book.
Ganser takes us on a tour of meticulously documented historical events that would be shocking to anyone committed to fairness and basic human decency. His intention is to strengthen the peace movement, which encompasses people all over the world — including in the US — who reject war as well as the lies and propaganda used to initiate and perpetuate wars. Throughout the book, he emphasizes three key pillars to the peace movement: the United Nations ban on any kind of violence or aggression, mindfulness (allowing one to recognize and see through war propaganda and lies), and viewing all people as members of the human family.
Before delving into history, Ganser sets the stage in Chapter 1, “The USA Poses the Greatest Threat to World Peace.” He backs up this assertion with a dizzying array of figures about how many countries the US has bombed since 1945 (at least 23), how many military bases it has in foreign countries (more than 700), the US world record on military spending (now approaching $1 trillion annually), the number of US troops abroad (over 200,000), and the US status as the only country to have deployed nuclear weapons. He shares results of a Gallup poll of 67,000 people in 65 countries that asked, “Which country poses the greatest threat to world peace today?” to which 24% named the US, while between 5% and 9% named one of six other countries and less than 5% named one of twelve other countries.
Chapter 2, “The USA Is an Oligarchy,” spotlights an ominous manifestation of empire: the astronomical disparities in wealth and income (540 billionaires vs. over 100 million living in poverty, not to mention impacts around the world) resulting from an oligarchy of super-rich running the empire and manipulating information flows with little meaningful influence by voters.
Chapters 3 and 4 describe key precursors to empire both before and after the new US republic established its independence from Britain in the late 18th century — namely, the mass murder and displacement of Native Americans and the importation and exploitation of slave labor from Africa in much of the new nation.
Chapter 5 covers the overt launch of imperial actions in the mid and late 19th century, when the US initiated wars based on lies and often false flag incidents to annex half of Mexico and conquer former Spanish colonies either as outright possessions (Puerto Rico and Guam) or with nominal autonomy but under tight US control (Cuba and the Philippines). The Kingdom of Hawaii was captured and annexed under threat of violence.
Chapter 6, devoted to World War I, elaborates on how, even prior to the US entering combat in 1917, US-based war profiteers flourished. J.P. Morgan & Co. was financing England and France, and US corporations sold arms to Europe. Hence, vested US interests in intentionally prolonging the war cost millions of avoidable deaths. War propaganda thrived, with Germans — who had done nothing to the US — being severely vilified. Hamburgers became “Liberty Steak” and sauerkraut “Liberty Cabbage.” (Remember how in 2003, when France hesitated to join in the war on Iraq, the US Senate cafeteria sold “Freedom Fries”?) The Espionage Act was passed to prosecute pacifists (including Eugene Debs) and deny free speech — and is still being used today to persecute Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes in Iraq.
Chapter 7 scrutinizes the US role in World War II, unravelling its carefully cultivated image of fighting honorably on the side of righteousness, and exposes both belligerent proclivities and mixed loyalties. Ganser reminds us that US companies were allowed to sell oil to Nazi Germany both before and well into the war. Without that fuel supply, the Nazi threat may have dissipated prior to some of the worst atrocities being committed. Again, the war was unnecessarily prolonged.
Though officially allies of the Soviet Union, the US and Great Britain were pleased to see Hitler taking action against communist Russia, and they avoided opening a western front until mid-1944, when it looked like the Soviet Union (which lost 27 million citizens in World War II) would be the sole victor over the Nazis. Ganser unearthed this remarkable June 1941 quote by then-US Senator and later President Harry Truman: “If we see that Germany is winning the war we ought to help Russia, and if Russia is winning we ought to help Germany. And that way let them kill as many as possible, although I certainly don’t want Hitler to win in the end.” Divide et impera — divide and conquer.
Truman, as US president, ordered the first and only deployment of nuclear weapons in history so far, killing hundreds of thousands of civilians in Hiroshima and Nagasaki and terrorizing many more at a time when Japan was already prepared to surrender. Ganser documents how, in order to gain popular support for the US entering the war, it intentionally goaded the Japanese into attacking Pearl Harbor, providing the desired casus belli. The infamous December 7, 1941, attack was no surprise to President Franklin Roosevelt, who let it happen, sacrificing thousands of US servicemembers. As will become relevant to Chapter 12 on the September 11 attacks, Ganser notes that a Hollywood movie, “Pearl Harbor,” parroting the surprise attack myth, was released in May 2001, priming the public subliminally for what was to follow a few months later on September 11.
Chapter 8, “Covert Warfare,” tells us how the Central Intelligence Agency and National Security Council were born in the post-war years. It includes a laundry list of how the US used them to perpetrate multiple coups d’état (Iran, Guatemala, Chile), assassinations (Lumumba in Congo, Trujillo of the Dominican Republic, Diem in Vietnam, Che Guevarra in Bolivia), assassination attempts against Fidel Castro, and the failed invasion of Cuba in 1961. President Kennedy ultimately became so outraged by these illegal operations that he fired CIA director Allan Dulles.
Note that Ganser devoted an entire previous book, NATO’s Secret Armies: Operation Gladio and Terrorism in Western Europe, to numerous additional covert operations involving the US, via NATO and the CIA, that are not covered in the present volume. These include false flag assassinations, bombing of civilians (blamed on communists), and fixing elections in much of Western Europe throughout the Cold War.
Chapter 9 focuses on the Kennedy assassination, summarizing evidence exonerating Lee Harvey Oswald and implicating Allan Dulles in a conspiracy to commit this heinous murder. After District Attorney Jim Garrison of New Orleans brought much of the evidence to light in 1967, questioning the validity of the Warren Commission Report (authored by Dulles), the CIA created and widely publicized the notion of “conspiracy theorist” as a derogatory term for anyone who challenged the official narrative. Interestingly, Ganser notes that in 1979 the US House of Representatives Select Committee on Assassinations “saw a high probability that two men had shot Kennedy. . . . The Committee believes, on the basis of the evidence available to it, that President John F. Kennedy was probably assassinated as a result of a conspiracy. The Committee is unable to identify the other gunman or the extent of the conspiracy.” This report was conveniently obscured by the media, and few are aware of it today.
Chapter 10, on the Vietnam War — which rapidly escalated after Kennedy’s murder — is a painful reminder to those readers who lived through it of the needless suffering inflicted on millions of Vietnamese and on tens of thousands of US soldiers and the peripheral damage to neighboring countries of Laos and Cambodia. The latter two countries were bombed by the US without provocation, inciting the brutality of Khmer Rouge communists, whom the US could demonize to deflect from its own role in the bloodshed. Ganser reminds us of the false flag Gulf of Tonkin incident in 1964 that was used to provoke a dramatic escalation of the war in Vietnam. While we were repeatedly warned of the propagandistic “domino theory,” there was in fact no chain reaction of neighboring countries turning communist after Vietnam prevailed and defeated the US in 1975 — hence all that death and destruction was in vain, other than benefitting war profiteers.
In Chapter 11 on the Iran-Contra Affair, Ganser elucidates another example of the US pitting two of its adversaries against each other when it supported Saddam Hussein in Iraq’s war against Iran while simultaneously and covertly selling weapons to Iran and secretly using the proceeds to fund the Nicaraguan Contras, who supported the dictatorial Somoza regime. Ganser further shows how the CIA hypocritically engaged secretly in the cocaine trade to finance its covert operations. How many people’s lives have been upended by those operations abroad and in drug-infested US cities?
In Chapters 12 and 13 on 9/11 and the War on Terror, respectively, the US empire ushers in the 21st century with an overwhelming display of shock and awe. The first sub-heading is prescient: “A New Pearl Harbor” refers to a prophetic statement in the year 2000 by the neocon Project for a New American Century, noting that it would be difficult to get the US population to accept massive military spending and upgrades for fighting multiple wars simultaneously “absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor.”
Ganser offers three ways of evaluating the events of September 11, 2001: (1) Surprise attack catching everyone in the US, including top leadership and intelligence services, completely off guard; (2) LIHOP (let it happen on purpose), implying foreknowledge by key players of what was going to happen but intentionally failing to stop it; and (3) MIHOP (made it happen on purpose), involving direct complicity of certain players within the US military-intelligence apparatus and their agents. He disproves (1) and points to (2) and (3) as much more plausible, leaning toward (3).
Abundant research has been conducted debunking the official 9/11 story that 19 Muslim hijackers and a few men in a cave in Afghanistan were solely responsible for the death and destruction that day, and Ganser includes references to much of it in his footnotes. Bringing us to the present day, the author of this review refers readers to the International Center for 9/11 Justice for an up-to-date collection of relevant 9/11 research.
In this volume, Ganser touches on a handful of key anomalies: obvious fallacies of the official 9/11 Commission report authored by Philip Zelikow, a Bush administration insider; the utter failure of the multi-billion dollar US defense system to prevent an attack, including on its own heavily fortified headquarters; the millions in profits made by unnamed individuals who invested heavily in put options in the days before September 11, 2001 (betting that United and American airlines stocks would soon plummet), indicating specific foreknowledge; the clear evidence that World Trade Center Building 7 was destroyed later that day by controlled demolition and the refusal of US authorities or media to even entertain that possibility; and the evidence for the use of explosives in the destruction of the Twin Towers.
With the fall of the Soviet Union ten years before, the US empire had been searching for a new major enemy, and the crimes of 9/11 offered an “ideal” replacement: the never-ending and amorphous “War on Terror,” which could be and has been used to justify numerous military incursions and the proliferation of US bases anywhere “terrorists” are deemed to be lurking. Ganser details the US role in illegal wars in Afghanistan, Iraq (initiated by spreading lies about alleged weapons of mass destruction), and Syria, all of which left millions dead in their wake, not to mention the horrendous abuses of Iraqi prisoners by US soldiers at Abu Ghraib.
On a note of optimism, Ganser points out how the blatant injustice of the wars in the Middle East — like the injustice of the Vietnam War before them — energized the peace movement in the US, prompting massive demonstrations and civil disobedience in opposition, indicating vast numbers who denounce war and empire and seek peaceful coexistence with all peoples. Beyond famous peace movement leaders like Jeannette Rankin, Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi, he highlights the role of everyday citizens affirming their commitment to all people as members of the human family and rejecting attempts by the elites to divide and conquer. He also points out how the rise of alternative media has played a role in allowing for dissemination of information that counters the mainstream lies and war propaganda. The explosion of the internet and social media can be a two-edged sword, however, as Ganser points out in Chapter 14, “The Digital Empire,” with consolidation and monopolization of technology and information flows by such digital giants as Google, Facebook, and Wikipedia.
The 15th and final chapter, called “The Fight for Eurasia,” details the US role in the 2014 coup d’état in Ukraine — which was a catalyst for ensuing violence that has now escalated exponentially — as well as the relentless eastward expansion of NATO, contrary to US assurances in 1991 that this would not happen, which is another key causative factor in the havoc being wreaked there today. The original German edition was written two years prior to Russia’s 2022 “special military operation” in Ukraine. This new English edition does add a few paragraphs condemning Russia’s invasion as a violation of the UN Charter, while noting the provocations by NATO and Ukraine that fueled this proxy war between the US and Russia.
The book likewise does not include the up-to-the-minute status of the US relationship with China, but does note in the last chapter that China’s humiliation by the British Empire during the 19th century Opium Wars has prompted caution in its current relations with the West. We learn about China’s 2013 announcement of the “New Silk Road” in the form of a massive transcontinental infrastructure project also known as the Belt and Road Initiative, now well underway, designed not as an imperial land and resource grab but rather to mutually benefit all participating nations, allowing them to respect each other’s sovereignty and reducing tensions among them.
In his conclusion, Ganser notes that “the peace movement must trust that a world without war is possible.” He is “convinced that a fundamental exit from the spiral of violence is possible. The decisive factor is whether we really want inner and outer peace. If this will is strong enough, we can orient ourselves according to the following three principles: the human family, the UN ban on violence, and mindfulness.” These three principles, he notes, can be applied to overcome polarization, profiteering, and propaganda. A key tool of empire is dividing people into those who are favored and those who are demonized, pitting them against each other while enabling elites to generate profits for the few from the fighting of the many. Mindfulness can help people “wake up and quicky realize that war and lies always go hand in hand.” Those who practice mindfulness can no longer be so easily deceived by psychological operations.
In the words of President John F. Kennedy, invoked by Ganser in the introduction to the book, “Our problems are man-made. Therefore, they can be solved by men.”
USA: The Ruthless Empire, by Daniele Ganser
Skyhorse Publishing, 2023
ISBN: 97815107768
Marilyn Langlois is a volunteer community organizer and peace activist based in Richmond, California. She is a guest editorialist for TRANSCEND Media Service and a member of Daniele Ganser’s online peacemaker community. She serves on the board of the International Center for 9/11 Justice.
By William Schryver – imetatronink – November 18, 2023
The map pictured below has been circulating:
It purports to portray the current positions of the impressive array of US/NATO naval assets in the eastern Mediterranean, Red Sea, and the Arabian Sea / Gulf of Oman.
Maybe most of it is more or less accurate in terms of the positioning it indicates. But I do not, at present, believe it accurately represents the position of the USS Eisenhower Carrier Strike Group, which it suggests is sailing in the far reaches of the Gulf of Oman, more or less at the gates of the Strait of Hormuz.
The Eisenhower CSG is indicated by the bright green number 5 on the map. I am very dubious it has ventured into those dangerous waters.
Many believe the strike group will transit the straits, and take a cruise in the Persian Gulf.
I do not believe that will happen.
It would be, in my opinion, an extraordinary blunder of hubris.
That said, it will be a sure indicator of US intent towards Iran.
If the Eisenhower enters the Persian Gulf, it means the US aims to put it in optimal position to strike Iran — or at least to raise the stakes of its bluff to a level that it will very likely be called.
In other words, if the USS Eisenhower and its escorts enter the Persian Gulf, it will almost certainly compel an engagement with Iranian forces — likely ignited by an Iranian shoot-down of US ISR assets.
If, on the other hand, the Eisenhower remains sailing in the relatively safe deep blue waters of the broad portion of the Gulf of Oman and the Arabian Sea, then you can be sure the US actually has no desire to escalate to war with Iran.
That would be, in my estimation, a very wise course of action.
Strategic Culture Foundation | November 17, 2023
Despite the hype in the U.S. media about their much-anticipated summit in California this week marking a putative return to normal bilateral relations, the Biden administration continues pushing unprecedented aggression towards China.
Just like San Francisco’s notorious Third World-like homelessness and squalor being hurriedly cleaned up (swept under the rug, more like it) for the media spectacle, all the signs point to no return to decent U.S.-China relations in the longer term. It’s all a duplicitous facade for a passing moment on a path of enmity.
Biden held a four-hour summit with Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping on Wednesday in San Francisco ahead of the annual conference for the 21-nation Association of Pacific and Economic Cooperation (APEC).
It was highly notable that Biden and Xi did not hold a joint press conference following their lengthy discussions. Nor did the two leaders issue a joint statement. So much for a new beginning!
Almost comically, the supposed positive meeting was later thrown into disarray when Biden at the end of his solo press conference made a hallmark embarrassing gaffe by repeating an earlier epithet for Xi. Asked by a reporter if he still considered the Chinese president “a dictator”, Biden responded, “Yes”.
Antony Blinken, the U.S. Secretary of State, was visibly perplexed by his tone-deaf boss’s remarks, sensing that all the effort to create an apparent amiable reset in relations was in danger of collapsing in farce.
Chinese media tended to overlook Biden’s undiplomatic gaucheness. Surprisingly, China’s foreign ministry and media appeared to talk up the presidential summit as bearing prospects of more friendly bilateral relations. Global Times reported in an upbeat mood on a “strategic summit” for “greater stability in the world”.
The American and Chinese media spinning or wishful thinking about a seeming turnaround in positive relations is misplaced.
As Biden’s foolish and gratuitous remark about Xi being a “dictator” shows, the U.S. rulers have nothing but contempt for China. Biden may have held out a friendly hand to Xi, but the American president and the U.S. establishment are harbouring endemic and growing hostility towards Beijing.
The two presidents last met a year ago during the G20 gathering in Bali, Indonesia. Since that encounter there has been a worrying downturn in U.S.-China relations with many commentators in the U.S. and China, as well as around the world, fearing a possible outbreak of war between the two global nuclear powers.
Frankly, the belligerence stems from one side: the United States. It’s not just the administration of President Joe Biden that espouses aggression by deploying contrived economic sanctions against China. There is a preponderance of irrational hostility in Congress towards Beijing as well as among the U.S. military. Only a month ago, the Pentagon once again labelled China as a growing military threat to American global interests. The alleged threats that Washington traduces are baseless or, ironically, a projection of its own intimidatory actions, such as sending countless naval and aviation patrols near China’s borders on the cynical pretext of “freedom of navigation”.
The Biden White House has continually provoked China with false claims of Chinese expansionism in the Asia-Pacific while the U.S. relentlessly builds up its own military power in the region. Washington is also assiduously recruiting regional allies to gang up on China in the event of war. The AUKUS coalition with Australia and Britain armed with nuclear submarines is a particularly tendentious development. So too is the Quad group involving the U.S., Japan, South Korea and India which arrogantly denigrates China as a hemispheric threat, thereby turning reality completely on its head.
Biden is merely continuing an escalation in hostility that began ramping up under the Obama administration (2008-16) more than a decade ago. Trump maintained the belligerence during his four years (2016-20), which Biden has redoubled. The latter was vice president when Obama launched the so-called Pivot to Asia in 2011.
The trajectory unmistakably shows a systematic policy of U.S. power to confront China, and that policy prevails regardless of who sits in the White House, and no matter whether the president is a Democrat or Republican. So much for democratic choice!
As American hegemonic dominance goes into rapid decline owing to inherent economic and societal failure under sclerotic late U.S. capitalism, it has become all the more imperative for Washington to try to scale up military aggression towards perceived geopolitical rivals. It’s a desperate gambit to offset an historic decline.
China, being the world’s ascendant second largest economy after the U.S., is logically seen as the Number One threat. So too are Russia and other nations that advocate a multipolar world order free from arbitrary U.S. and Western privileges. This is the geopolitical context for why the NATO axis is waging a proxy war in Ukraine against Russia, and why the United States seems hellbent on fomenting chaos and conflict in the Middle East. The would-be hegemon needs violence, chaos and tension like a drug addict craving a narcotic fix.
The deterioration in U.S.-China relations has caused many observers to be apprehensive of a looming war. Pentagon commanders remark openly about an anticipated armed conflict breaking out between the two nuclear powers, especially in relation to tensions over Taiwan.
One reason why Biden seems to be seeking a belated easing of tensions with China is precisely because Washington has stoked the war tendency too much and therefore needs to dampen it, albeit for short-term practical reasons.
Another reason for seemingly engaging with President Xi this week is Biden’s electioneering. He faces a tight presidential race next year and no doubt is looking for something positive to show American voters. Significantly, Biden chose to prioritize his top achievement from discussions with Xi as “counter-narcotics policy”. Over 70,000 Americans die every year from opioid overdosing, more than from gun violence or road accidents. It is a major national scandal in the U.S. China is blamed as a source of fentanyl precursor chemicals. Biden boasted this week that the U.S. and China would cooperate more on controlling illicit drug trade. It seems that Biden was looking more at scoring favour with the U.S. electorate than to genuinely restoring normal bilateral relations with China based on principles of ensuring global peace.
Under Biden, the U.S. has recklessly intensified military and political interference in Taiwan, an island province of China. The Biden administration has proliferated weapons sales to Taiwan in flagrant defiance of China’s warnings to desist.
High-level political delegations from the U.S. to Taiwan have gone hand-in-hand with the increasing American militarization of the island, which is only some 130 kilometres from China’s southeast mainland. The provocation is similar to how the U.S. and NATO weaponized Ukraine to antagonize Russia.
The breakdown in military communications between the U.S. and China was instigated by the visit to Taiwan in August 2022 by Nancy Pelosi, the then Speaker of the House of Representatives, which is the third most senior political office in the U.S. after the president.
This week’s summit between Biden and Xi declared a resumption in military communications between the U.S. and China.
We’ll see how long the supposed detente lasts. Not for long, one suspects going by past form.
After Biden met with Xi in Bali at the end of last year, there were similar professions from the U.S. side of tamping down tensions and resuming normalcy. A couple of months after that supposed “reset”, the Biden administration sparked a crisis when it shot down a Chinese weather balloon that had been blown off course.
The notion that the U.S. can easily repair relations with China is naive. All the signals indicate that Washington is on a collision course with China. Provocative name-calling of China as a threat, the relentless arming of Taiwan and the pursuit of aggressive trade war policies all spell out confrontation.
That dire direction is, unfortunately, unavoidable because the U.S. sees itself as the indispensable sole superpower that will not tolerate any global arrangement other than its hegemonic dominance. That zero-sum mindset of the United States is intrinsic to its imperialist power. That is why the U.S. as it is currently formulated as a state is destined to be a warmonger. World peace is anathema to U.S. imperial power.
China, Russia and other nations aiming for a new multipolar world must be cognizant of that nefarious reality. Aspiring to have normal relations with the U.S. as a global hegemonic power is like trying to have normal relations with a psychotic predator.
President Teddy Roosevelt (1900-10) once jocularly described the practice of U.S. foreign policy as speaking softly while carrying a big club. That’s the essence of a global bully. U.S. power always relies on wielding a military club. The only difference now under Biden is that instead of speaking softly, the U.S. stutters over its lies and deceptions.
Sputnik – 17.11.2023
WASHINGTON – Cordial talks between US President Joe Biden and Chinese President Xi Jinping were immediately undermined by the rhetoric of the American leader himself and US hubristic policies and sermonizing, experts told Sputnik.
The two men held their talks on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit in San Francisco on Wednesday. Biden said important progress was made during his talks with Xi as both sides agreed to open direct military-to-military communications and begin to cooperate on AI.
However, within a few hours, Biden outraged the Chinese by describing Xi in public as a “dictator.” His comments drew an immediate furious response from Beijing. Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Mao Ning responded by calling Biden’s comment “wrong and irresponsible.”
“Our policies and rhetoric continue to increase tension versus easing tension,” retired US Army Lieutenant Colonel Earl Rasmussen, political commentator and former vice president of the Eurasia Foundation told Sputnik.
“Until we come out of our cave and realize that the world is changing and take on a cooperative view… not much will improve in relations and the world will move past the United States and their close allies.”
“Based on the US readout, we continue to continual virtue signaling and that we are the all-powerful. Hitting all the buzz areas: Free and open Indo-Pacific; defense of Indo-Pacific allies; Freedom of navigation; Adherence to international law; maintaining peace and stability and not to forget support for Ukraine and Israel,” Rasmussen said.
Former CIA analyst and station chief Philip Giraldi said Biden’s decision to call Xi a dictator explains why the United States is in decline. Moreover, he added, there is nobody in Washington sensible enough to reverse the trajectory.
‘Outdated’ World Order
Canadian historian, political commentator and Canadian Patriotic Review editor Matthew Ehret agreed that Biden’s comments were the expression of a collapsing US political society in the American capital.
“The Xi-Biden meeting involved a glimpse into a senile and outdated primitive world order melting down under its own self-contradictions and trying desperately to stay relevant when placed into close proximity with a sane 21st century paradigm,” he said.
Biden’s political naivete and incompetence in his extreme old age went unchallenged because almost everyone else in the US political and media establishment thought and felt exactly the same way, Ehret explained.
“Biden represents the perfect embodiment of corruption, self-deceit and self-centeredness characteristic of the liberal intelligentsia of baby-boomers that have taken control of western policy making for the past 60 years while offering nothing approximating authenticity to the rest of the world,” he said.
Xi, on the other hand, expressed the confidence and philosophical as well as political strength of China as she emerged on the world scene, Ehret pointed out.
The Chinese leader “is coming from a place of well-reasoned confidence and strength in embodying the ancient traditions of Chinese civilization, Confucian values and the largest rate of industrial and scientific progress in the world, which he knows presents the greatest salvation not only for the Chinese people, but the world at large,” he said.
The United States needed to work constructively in cooperation with China to build a genuine new world order favorable to all, Ehret advised.
“If the United States itself is to survive the storms of war and economic collapse which it has largely brought on to itself, then it will be largely because of the creative efforts made by China to build a new system premised around cooperation, industrial growth and peace,” Ehret said.
RT | November 17, 2023
US President Joe Biden signed a stopgap spending bill into law on Thursday, averting a looming government shutdown. The limited appropriation of funds, which omitted aid to Ukraine, passed the Senate on Wednesday.
The legislation was proposed by House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Republican, who relied on Democrats to push it through the chamber despite the objections of the more conservative wing of his party. The Democrat-controlled Senate passed the bill in a 87-11 vote the next day.
The stopgap bill did not include spending on hot-button issues, such as abortion, border security and foreign aid – for Ukraine, Israel or any other nation. Instead, it focused on keeping government departments operational at their current level. The two-tier plan provides funding through January 19 and February 2, depending on the agency. The shutdown deadline would have arrived at midnight on Friday.
“Because of bipartisan cooperation, we are keeping the government open without any poison pills or harmful cuts to vital programs – a great outcome for the American people,” Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said after he and his fellow senators voted on the bill.
The Ukraine aid issue contributed to US political turmoil in September, which resulted in the unprecedented ouster of Johnson’s predecessor, Kevin McCarthy. Opponents of Biden’s Ukraine policy accused the then-speaker of striking a secret deal with the White House to ensure that Kiev would eventually get the money.
Some Republicans want a revision of Ukraine assistance, arguing that it lacks transparency and that other US priorities are more important than propping up the Ukrainian government.
Johnson previously drew the anger of the White House when he refused Biden’s request to bundle Ukraine aid with assistance to Israel and Taiwan and domestic security and emergency relief spending. Senior US officials have warned that without American help, Kiev may soon lose in the conflict with Moscow.
The new speaker framed the bill as the last one he would agree to and a prelude to a major clash with the Senate over the US budget for 2024.
Republican critics of the bill said Johnson made a mistake by allying with the Democrats, but agreed to cut him some slack during his “honeymoon” period in the post. The lawmaker was elected speaker three weeks ago, after a tense impasse, as GOP representatives could not agree on a replacement for McCarthy.
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By Whitney Webb | MintPress News | May 17, 2019
NEW YORK — For nearly two decades, one of the most overlooked and little known arrests made in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks was that of the so-called “High Fivers,” or the “Dancing Israelis.” However, new information released by the FBI on May 7 has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
