NATO Is Preparing and Plotting Strategy to Invade Russia: War Is Insanity

By Gary D. Barnett

Source: GaryDBarnett.com

” The chief evil of war is more evil. War is the concentration of all human crimes. Here is its distinguishing, accursed brand. Under its standard gather violence, malignity, rage, fraud, perfidy rapacity, and lust. If it only slew man, it would do little. It turns man into a beast of prey.”

William Ellery Channing

The cursed evil of war, all war, is the sole possession of humankind. Many would claim that it is the sole possession of the State, but they would be mistaken, for if the masses did not support wars, they would never take place. If the soldiers refused to kill on orders, no war could continue. If mothers and fathers refused to allow their sons and daughters to be used as cannon fodder, who would fight the wars? It would never be the politicians or their children, as they are only willing to sacrifice the blood of others and their families in order to satisfy their lust for money and power. If those who plot and sanction war, those who vote to approve and fund war, those who gain great wealth due to war, those who demand war in the name of ‘country,’ and those who applaud war in the name of ‘exceptionalism,’ were responsible for fighting the wars, war would cease to exist on this earth. Kings, princes, monarchs, presidents, and politicians do not actively wage war, they do not risk their own lives, they just fatten their cowardly bellies on the carnage of conflict.

As I write this, the largest NATO war exercise ever to take place since the Cold War is being conducted in Eastern Europe. This is a multi-month exercise through May of this year, that is being staged as preparation for war with Russia. According to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) (actually Offense) this exercise called “Steadfast Defender 24, is based on a ‘fictitious’ Article 5 scenario due to a ‘fictitious’ attack against a NATO member. While the DOD stresses that these exercises “are not directed against any country,” it goes on to say:

 “Still, Russia has launched the largest war in Europe since World War II, attacking neighboring Ukraine. since Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014, NATO has strengthened defense and deterrence on the continent. While Steadfast Defender has been planned for years, the exercise incorporates defense plans based on Russia’s actions. Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine will shape our understanding of conflict for years to come. NATO is observing the conflict in Ukraine closely in order to improve our readiness and refine our future training capabilities and innovation.”

This is what is referred to as doublespeak, contradiction, hypocrisy, and propaganda, all rolled into one. The initial aim of NATO’s founding treaty, was meant to create a mutual assistance pact (warmongering document) to counter so-called risk from the Soviet Union, so the ‘fictitious’ Article 5 reference that this is not directed at any country, is completely bogus, just as the DOD’s language reveals.

This is very serious business, and it is being done in my opinion to solicit a reaction. The entire Middle East is in turmoil, Zionist Israel with total complicity and support of the U.S., is committing mass genocide (a Holocaust) against all Palestinians, while conflict between Israel and Egypt is getting ever closer. This U.S. led NATO operation, a blatant act of force in the region, is a direct threat to Russia and Iran, who have done nothing to warrant any such belligerent and aggressive ‘exercise’ in their own back yard.

This so-called ‘exercise’ will involve almost 100,000 troops from 31 NATO countries and Sweden. It will take place in Finland, Estonia, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. Most of these countries border either Russia or Ukraine, which puts most of this operation right next door to Russia. To put this into perspective for those Americans who have never seen a world map or have no concept of geography, this is akin to a huge Russian military operation in both Canada and Mexico, right on the U.S. border. Try to imagine the insanity that would create, especially considering that this world nearly ended in the 60s simply because the Soviet Union (Russia) was thought to have missiles in Cuba.

What thought process could have possibly been considered in planning such an action as this? There certainly is no basis whatsoever for this kind of combative and hostile challenge to a world power with nuclear capabilities, especially in such a dangerous time in that entire region. The U.S. is surrounding Russia with American military bases, while expanding NATO to include more and more of their direct neighboring countries, and at the same time, is running huge military operations on their border. This is either complete idiocy, or some other plot is being pursued. Either way, the risk is definite, and anything can happen if the proverbial fuse gets too short.

This nation-state called America is the most aggressive empire that has ever existed on earth, has fomented and prosecuted unwarranted war throughout its entire history, all of them, has been responsible for tens, if not hundreds of millions of deaths around the world, and has attempted to rule the entire planet in one way or another under the claim of asinine ‘exceptionalism.’ Now the U.S. is on the verge of total bankruptcy, possible loss of its reserve currency, has unimaginable debt, has become generally speaking, an immoral society, and is threatening more war and killing apparently in order to stoke more fear into the hearts and minds of its blind and dumb citizenry. How else can totalitarian control be preserved in a failing nation?

Watch this situation closely, as it has all the markings of a nation on the verge of collapse attempting to create one more major war in order to survive a bit longer. Any who have the ability to think clearly, would look at this situation and understand that this is the absolute worst way to approach impending doom, and in fact is backward.

There may be other things going on of which we are not aware, but how on earth can this end well? How can actions such as these bring about anything good? I can tell you, they cannot. Only hell comes from aggression and war, and hasn’t there been enough killing in this world to last an eternity?

“War is not a means but an end. It makes violence respectable and makes sadists look like heroes”

Mary Horlock

Why does Israel destroy hospitals?

By Paul Larudee

Source: Dissident Voice

Hospitals are prime strategic targets of Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. The Nasser hospital in Rafah is the only major one still standing, along with a handful of smaller ones. All the rest have been destroyed, along with many of the patients and medical staff. Many have been slaughtered, while the helpless have been left to die, like the premature babies in their incubators, simply abandoned to the inevitable. Doctors and other personnel have been taken captive for an unknown length of time. Even the Nasser hospital is no longer functioning, having been taken over by Israeli soldiers, and all its patients and medical staff expelled. Its existence as a structure is a mere technicality. It is no longer a hospital, and it wouldn’t be the first to be exploded into yet another pile of rubble.

These attacks are not random, nor are the ones against bakeries, schools, and infrastructure, including water, sewage and electricity. Although more than half of all the buildings in Gaza are now rubble or unusable, the ratio for hospitals is much higher. Why?

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims that his objective is to destroy Hamas, but he is in fact destroying everything but Hamas. He knows perfectly well that Hamas is not using the hospitals, nor any of the other places laid waste by the Israeli military, armed with inexhaustible US munitions. To the extent that he even bothers to use Hamas as an excuse, few believe him anymore.

If he wants to find Hamas, he knows where they are: deep underground, in hundreds of miles of their armored and fortified hi-tech tunnels. The 10,000 tons of bombs dropped on Gaza thus far have not even been aimed at Hamas or the tunnels. Israel is casualty averse, and they know that fighting Hamas leads to casualties that will hurt Netanyahu’s popularity, already in the cellar. This is why their target has been the entire population of Gaza. Massive killing of Palestinian civilians, more than 2/3 of them women and children, make it look like he is accomplishing something.

This helps to explain the hospitals. If there is no place to treat the wounded and the sick, more Palestinians die. If your real target is the entire Palestinian population, this is an effective way to do it. Destroying hospitals has a multiplier effect upon the death toll. Furthermore, it is mainly the hospitals that compile the statistics of Palestinian dead and wounded for the Gaza Ministry of Health. If there are no hospitals, more people will die anonymously, reducing the evidence of genocide.

The multiplier effect of hospitals on the death toll also works for water, sewage, shelter, fuel, and of course food. The removal of such facilities and provisions causes deaths that tend not to be included as war dead. If Netanyahu’s objective is to decrease – or entirely eliminate – the inhabitants of Gaza, these are much more effective ways to do it. Granted, Zyklon-B might be even more effective, but there are limits to what even Netanyahu might be willing to use.

This is not speculation. Netanyahu and most of his government have publicly declared their intentions. Quotes and videos of their genocidal purpose have been used by South Africa’s attorneys to win an injunction from the International Court of Justice.  Netanyahu is running out of options. Hamas presented its ceasefire/peace proposal, which (as predicted) is unacceptable to Israel, because it fails to advance Israel’s plans for either territorial expansion or ethnic cleansing, or both.

Israel is losing the combat war in Gaza, thanks to the brilliant Hamas strategy of 1) making itself impervious to air bombardment, 2) an ability to manufacture its own weapons locally, designed specifically for Israeli systems, and 3) impeccable training of fighters capable of acting in small units, with intimate knowledge of both their enemy and Israeli weapons systems, as well as their own. Israel is not prepared to take significant casualties among its own population, and apparently its 5000-6000 mercenaries are not prepared to go on suicide missions.

That leads, once again, to genocide as the only strategy. That’s why Netanyahu is planning to up his game by destroying Rafah city, the tiny pen into which he has herded most of the population, swelling its numbers some 400%, most of them in tents or under tarpaulins providing flimsy protection from the rain and cold.

An Israeli attack will probably yield a lot more casualties per day than heretofore, to which Netanyahu can point with pride among his dwindling followers. But the US can’t appear to condone such actions, so its humanitarian-minded president has asked his Israeli counterpart to provide an evacuation plan for the civilians. Netanyahu has agreed, and when asked where they can go, he points to newly bombed out expanses in what used to be the neighboring city of Khan Younis. Now his friend, Genocide Joe, can rest easy. ICJ? No problem. Israel still has time to submit its progress report to the Court on ending its “plausibly genocidal” actions.

The West’s duplicitous stance and hypocrisy draw condemnation in the world

By Viktor Mikhin

Source: New Eastern Outlook

Many politicians around the world strongly condemn not only Israel’s inhumane policy in the Gaza Strip, when peaceful Palestinians are being slaughtered, but also the hypocrisy, duplicity, pharisaism and arrogance of the West. In one case, the current worthless rulers of Europe condemn the defence of their citizens in Donbass by Russia, which is complying with all international rules of engagement. On the other, when Israel started to destroy civilians in the Gaza Strip (which according to international laws is considered a policy of genocide), the West welcomes and applauds, defending its protégé in the Middle East in every possible way.

For example, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called the West’s position on Gaza, which differs from its position on Ukraine, “the height of hypocrisy.” “What happened in Gaza, has caused the West and the Europeans to lose all their reputation, all their accumulated credits (of trust). They have squandered all their political capital in the eyes of humanity, especially in the eyes of our generations,” Turkish daily Hürriyet quoted Hakan Fidan as saying. According to him, it will not be easy for the West to regain the lost trust. “It will not be easy for them to regain it. Unlike their stance on Ukraine and Russia, their stance on Gaza is the height of hypocrisy. They cannot talk about principles, virtue and morality. They ignore them completely. I see that all this is preparing the ground for a huge geostrategic rupture,” the minister said.

A huge swath of the Global South sees and criticises the double standards that guide the West’s actions in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine, as the New York Times (NYT) reluctantly reported through gritted teeth. The publication notes that for the past 20 months, US authorities have actively criticised Moscow for its special military operation in Ukraine, but now that the IDF has carried out a bloodbath in Gaza, full American support for Israel risks creating new and complex obstacles in Washington’s efforts to win over world public opinion.

The war in the Middle East, the piece says, is driving a wedge between the West and leading nations of the Global South such as Brazil and Indonesia. In addition, the West’s unconscionable double standard in defence of Israelis has been sharply criticised by leaders of the Arab world.   The fact that the West treats Ukraine as a special case because it is in Europe, against the backdrop of Middle East escalation, has only increased discontent in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There, the impression is that the West is more concerned about refugees from Ukraine than about those affected by the conflicts in Arab countries. The publication has to admit that the West has failed to convince countries such as India and Turkey to support sanctions against Russia. Given the bloody events in the Gaza Strip, “Western efforts to widen the front against Russia are unlikely to be successful in the near future“.

Earlier, American businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who was seeking the nomination as the country’s presidential candidate from the Republican Party (he ended his campaign and supported Donald Trump’s candidacy in the presidential election), said that the United States should seek an early settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, which would provide for the transition of Russian-speaking regions into Russia. And he is not alone in the US, where questions are increasingly being asked as to why it is the Americans who should bear the brunt of the financial burden and supply vast quantities of weapons to the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.

Irish MEP Mick Wallace has rightly stated that the Ukrainian conflict is still going on because of the unwillingness of the United States to end it. He expressed the same opinion with regard to the situation in the Gaza Strip. The world media also noted that the International Criminal Court, at the behest of the United States, has ignored many years of genocide in Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and therefore the ICC is “unfair in its choice of topics to explore” and has turned into “an unscrupulous legal body of the West.”

Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has accused the United States of its position preventing the Security Council from adopting resolutions aimed at stopping the violence in the Gaza Strip, RIA Novosti reported. “It is regrettable that under these circumstances the UN Security Council has so far failed to adopt a single resolution demanding a halt to the violence because of the position of one delegation, the United States, which is blocking all efforts and initiatives to stop the bloodshed,” the diplomat said. He noted that this gave Israel carte blanche to further destroy the Palestinians.

The huge difference in the West’s attitude to the Palestinian-Israeli and Ukrainian conflicts points to hypocritical double standards, one of the goals of which is to interpret international law exactly as it suits the US. In this case, the fate of the Palestinian population is much less interesting to the hardened Western officials in terms of “domestic political points.” How many times have Western delegations requested UN Security Council meetings on Ukraine? The answer is at least twice a month, while how many times the said delegations have requested Security Council meetings on the Middle East issue – zero. Apparently, in this case comments are unnecessary, the conclusion is already on the surface. The West’s double standards “in all their glory” were also observed in the situation with the migration crisis in the EU. While Ukrainian refugees have been given all sorts of benefits, refugees from Africa and the Middle East are being “kept in camps in inhumane conditions”.

The State Department has after all decided to explain the difference in its approaches to the situation in Gaza and Ukraine in the way that yesterday’s hegemon considers, rather than in accordance with the generally accepted laws of international law. Thus, the deputy head of the State Department’s press service, Vedant Patel, responded to a journalist’s question about the difference in the approaches of the US authorities to the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The official said that Washington sees no grounds to accuse Israel of genocide of Palestinians, and “one should be very careful when making such statements.” At the same time, when Patel was asked why US President Joe Biden “very quickly” called the events in Ukraine “genocide” in 2022, the State Department official could not give more specific explanations. He only noted that “such definitions must be made with a careful consideration of the law and the facts”, without specifying which facts he had in mind. He simply did not have a reasonable answer, and in the current circumstances he did not dare to say that this was Washington’s wish and favourable.

Incidentally, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier that international law must be respected in all conflicts. This is a correct observation, but according to the Secretary General’s personal interpretation, the conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine have differences. And he personally believes that Israel, which destroys peaceful Palestinians, strictly observes international law, while Russia, which fights against the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev only on the battlefields, violates this law. Apparently, in Stoltenberg’s “enlightened” opinion, Russia will respect international law only when it, like Israel, destroys the peaceful population of our brother nation. A strange opinion worthy of a schizophrenic from a psychiatric hospital. On this occasion, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the statement by the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, about the “senselessness of humanitarian aid supplies to the Gaza Strip” if hostilities continue there an apologetic of transhumanism. She asked her colleague whether he also considered it pointless to provide medical assistance and love “someone who will die tomorrow”. There was, of course, no reply.

The accusations against the Russian side on the subject of “indiscriminate strikes” against Ukrainian cities can best be assessed by comparing “two realities” – the situation in Ukraine and in the Gaza Strip. In this regard, we can recommend that opponents go to the Internet and familiarise themselves with Ukrainian news or watch local TV channels. On Ukrainian websites one can easily find a large number of reports on club and restaurant life in such cities as Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk and others. Ukrainian state institutions and other municipal buildings are functioning normally almost everywhere, transport continues to operate, schools and hospitals are open. This situation can be observed almost two years after Russia launched a special operation aimed at protecting the population of Donbas from the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv. All of this shows, as has been repeatedly confirmed by independent observers, that the Russian Armed Forces are conducting exclusively precision strikes against military facilities and infrastructure related to military capabilities. This policy is in sharp contrast to the crimes against humanity committed by the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, which is deliberately firing Western-made missiles at civilians in Donbas. And there are numerous facts and evidence to this effect, which at the very least would make for a new Nuremberg process.

The current leaders of the West should look at what their lackey Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip, which for three months now has sought to raze the territory and destroy the Palestinians living there. Not only have hospitals and schools been burned to the ground, but entire towns have been destroyed, and the death toll, including a large number of children, is appalling. And all this is happening before the eyes of the world in the 21st century, to the hooting and applause of the Biden administration and the current rulers of Europe, who have finally lost shame, conscience and simple human compassion. “Comparing these two realities, ask yourself a question: how many times have you condemned the methodical annihilation of peaceful Palestinians?” – noted Russia’s UN representative Nebenzya, when asked by Western representatives whether they had ever supported calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East conflict, whether they had condemned Israel’s anti-human crimes. The answer would be only negative. Not only has the West done nothing to stop Israel’s current massacre of Palestinian civilians, it has encouraged them even more by supplying the latest lethal weapons, financially pumping in huge sums of money and defending them on the international stage. Suffice it to say that the US representative at the UN has twice vetoed Security Council resolutions to stop the deadly slaughter in the Gaza Strip, unleashing the Israeli military for even more atrocious crimes, rightly assessed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

In the current circumstances, when the former hegemon has lost its power and authority, it has to resort more and more to hypocrisy and double standards to somehow camouflage its bankrupt policy. But no matter how hard the West, led by the U.S., tries, they will no longer be able to fundamentally influence events in the world. And the events in Ukraine, where Russia is successfully conducting a special military operation to protect the Russian population, and the bloody events in the Gaza Strip are the best evidence of this.

How Sad It It Is to Watch America’s Abandonment of Morality and Degeneration into Evil.

By Paul Craig Roberts

Source: PaulCraigRoberts.org

To be an American today is to collect a basket full of sadness.  We have been at war forever for the profits of the military/security complex, for the hegemonic ideology of the neoconservatives, for Cold War hysteria, and for Israel.  Huge sums of money have been wasted for no benefit to the American people.  Just yesterday I was listening to a deputy sheriff tell me how frustrating it was that he cannot reach the criminal American elite and bring them home to their crimes, but has, instead, to focus on the minor crimes of their lower class victims.  

I asked him why it is the lower class that most waves the flag, and he said that patriotism is all that they have that gives them meaning.  I responded that this means that they cannot escape their victimhood, and he said “that is what is sad about it.”

Parents have not come home from Washington’s wars to their spouses, children, family, and friends.  They died for the military/security complex’s profits, for Israel, or for some dumbshit ideology.  They did not die for America, but for their deaths to have meaning, their families have to insist that they did.  With the American people trapped in this way, Washington can pile up the deaths, thanking the dead not for defending the military/security complex’s profits, but for “defending America.” In this way Washington can continue its endless wars. Dying for America is a way the lower class can find meaning in their lives. 

Now that Russia has shown that there is to be no American victory in Ukraine, Washington has renewed its war adventures in the Middle East, aligning solidly with Israel’s massacre of the Palestinians and against the Arab and Muslim countries that oppose what is an Israeli genocide of the Palestinians. Palestinian women, children, hospitals, schools, social infrastructure are being blown to tiny pieces with the American bombs and missiles that Biden is handing to Israel’s Nazi leader, Netanyahu, who is under indictment both in Israel and now in effect by the International Court of Justice.  But this means nothing to Washington, which sees itself as the exceptional, indispensable country unaccountable to any law, domestic or international.

The alleged “moral democracies,” the US, UK, EU, Japan, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and Iceland, thumbed their noses at the International Court of Justice’s verdict against Israel by suspending their funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), the major source of aid to the Palestinians in Gaza.  

What does this tell us about the morality of the Western World.  It tells us that it is worse than in Sodom and Gomorrah. 

How can we be Proud Americans when the suspension of funding by Washington will impact life-saving assistance for over two million civilians, over half of whom are children, who rely on UNRWA aid in Gaza? The population faces starvation and an outbreak of disease under Israel’s bombardment and blockade of aid.

This is the way that Zionist Israel, together with its Biden Regime Democrat ally, intends to accomplish its genocidal elimination of the Palestinian people. 

Israel has blockaded all water, food, electricity, and medical supplies to Gaza for the last 120 days. As a result, a half million Palestinians face starvation. 

The massive and ongoing bombing of Gaza, courtesy of the continuous shipment of US munitions to Israel, has killed and wounded at least 90,000 Palestinians, 70% of them women and children. More than 1000 children have had to undergo amputations without anesthesia. There is no medicine, no blood for transfusions, no clean water to wash wounds. And no food. Only more bombs falling from the sky each day, thanks to America.

Chris Hedges reports that the West’s alleged humanitarian and medical institutions refuse to denounce Israel’s decimation of human life in Gaza.  We are faced with the stark fact that even Western medical and humanitarian institutions are in the pocket of Israeli Zionists.  Morality cannot be found on the scene.

How is it that a tiny county, the existence of which depends entirely on American support, can force the world to accept genocide at the risk of the war widening into Nuclear Armageddon?

Stupid Macho U.S. Electioneering Will Push Biden Into Doomed War

By Finian Cunningham

Source: Strategic Culture Foundation

Predictably, Joe Biden is being flayed by the Republicans over the killing of three U.S. troops in Jordan by Iraqi militants.

The Democrat president is slammed for being weak and a coward by his political opponents.

Donald Trump, his main Republican rival, mocked Biden as a “loser” and said the attacks on U.S. troops were because of the president’s “weakness and surrender”.

Nikki Haley, the other Republican vying for the presidential election this year, also taunted Biden for showing spinelessness toward Iran. She called for direct retaliation on the Islamic Republic “with the full force of American strength”. Logically, that could imply the use of nuclear weapons.

Unanimously across the mainstream U.S. political spectrum, it was assumed that Iran was ultimately responsible for the deadly attack on the U.S. military base on Sunday in Jordan where three military servicemen were killed and 34 were reportedly wounded, according to early reports.

The attack was claimed by Iraqi militants, the Kata’ib Hezbollah, as part of an umbrella group known as the Islamic Resistance. The militants are believed to be an alliance of militias based in Iraq, Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, and Yemen. The latter two include Hezbollah and the Ansar Allah movement also known as the Houthis. All are allied with Iran. But each is understood to have its own agency in directing and executing operations.

These groups have carried out hundreds of attacks on U.S. and Israeli bases since October 7 when Israel launched its offensive on Gaza following the deadly raid on Israel by Hamas. The Yemenis bring a maritime dimension to the region-wide resistance with the ongoing targeting of U.S. and other ships in the Red Sea area.

Iran has denied that it was involved in the latest attack on the U.S. base in Jordan. Tehran also denies it is behind the Yemeni operations in the Red Sea.

Iran and the resistance groups say they are an anti-imperialist alliance that is united by opposition to the U.S.-backed Zionist genocide in Gaza. These groups are not “Islamist” in the mold of Islamic State and its hardline Sunni (Wahhabi or Takfiri) offshoots. Far from it. The resistance groups were galvanized to defeat the Islamists which have been fomented and supported covertly by the United States for its regime change war in Syria. That proxy war was defeated after Russia intervened in 2015 in support of Syria.

The Americans are locked into a downward spiral created by their own flawed logic and cumulative imperialist occupation in the region.

Even President Biden has accused Iran of being responsible for the killing of the three U.S. military personnel. Biden vowed to respond at a time of “our choosing”.

So, Washington unquestioningly determines that Iran is the master culprit. That means the U.S. has committed itself to going after Tehran without any evidence or realistic understanding of where such a direction is leading. That is, how bad it could get for the Americans.

In a U.S. election year shaping up to be more fraught than ever, and with Biden facing dwindling poll numbers, the White House incumbent is highly susceptible to being goaded by Republican adversaries.

Trump has already been hammering Biden for being weak and frail. With the Middle East turning into a cauldron over the Israeli slaughter in Gaza, the Commander-in-Chief is cornered to show mettle. Biden is a hostage of stupid macho politics and bankrupt American imperialism. Diplomacy is simply not an option for the empire, according to its own logic and delusions.

After the deadly drone strike on the U.S. base in Jordan, Republican Senator Tom Cotton dialed up the revenge with the usual warmongering ranting and raving: “The only answer to these attacks must be devastating retaliation against Iran’s terrorist force… Anything less will confirm Joe Biden as a coward.”

Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell said Biden’s inaction was the problem because it was emboldening enemies in the Middle East, saying: “The time to start taking this aggression seriously was long before more brave Americans lost their lives.”

How hilarious that Biden is scoffed at for being dovish. During his long career, he has been one of the most warmongering politicians in Washington. He backed the U.S.-led NATO wars in former Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, and presently in Ukraine. The only thing cowardly about Biden is that he is a craven tool of the military-industrial complex and a pathetic psychopath.

Biden is also known for his bad temper and macho knee-jerk character. We can be quite certain that the Republican taunts about his supposed pusillanimous policy in the Middle East will get his hackles up. Biden has already taken a reckless militarist position over supporting Israeli aggression. The shocking mass killing of over 26,000 Palestinian civilians under a brutal blockade of starvation has shocked the world and in particular Arab and Muslim people. And yet Biden has not paused in his “unwavering support” for Israel.

Biden has led U.S. imperialism out of the quagmire of Afghanistan into an even bigger quagmire in the Middle East. With the goading by his equally brainless political rivals, the Americans are plowing further into disaster.

With over 50 military bases strung across the Middle East in 10 countries and with over 50,000 U.S. troops stationed in the region, the Americans are sitting ducks for the resistance. The advent of drones and newer missile technology is a new realm of warfare the Americans have not adapted to with their land garrisons in remote deserts and gaudy warships.

The death of three U.S. troops has long been on the cards. The stupid American politicians think they are going to get revenge. They have no idea what is coming to them given the long history of U.S. aggression, provocation, and illegal occupation in the region. The support of Israel’s genocide, the heartrending scenes of children being torn apart by American bombs, the bombing of Yemen – the poorest Arab country – the crazed threats to Iran, the insufferable American arrogance, and decades of impunity are all now welling up in the Middle East.

The stupid American politicians are digging a hole for themselves and have no awareness of how to reverse it. Democrats, Republicans, Biden, Trump, and so on, they are all a ship of fools.

Israel’s Starvation Strategy

By Mike Whitney

Source: The Unz Review

It’s not a coincidence that the attacks on UNRWA took place after the ICJ ruling. Israel is trying to discredit the International Court of Justice, and one way of doing that is by rubbishing UNWRA. But UNWRA has fulfilled the heroic role of providing health, education and all other services to the Palestinian refugees since 1948. And it’s really heartbreaking that Israeli propaganda is now demonizing UNWRA and leading some countries to cut off aid. So, my sympathy and support is entirely on the side of UNWRA, and I hope it can long continue to play the vital role it has always played in supporting the Palestinian victims of Israeli aggression. Avi Shlaim, Israeli historian, You Tube

UNRWA provides food and flour distribution for the entire 2.2 million population of Gaza. Defunding UNRWA will lead to mass starvation and death.

Here’s your Zionist quiz for the day: Why did Israel launch a full-blown media blitz on a United Nations relief agency (UNRWA) on the same day that the International Criminal Court of Justice (ICJ) released its historic genocide ruling?

  1. —To divert attention from the fact that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza
  2. —To inform the public that new intelligence had serviced revealing Hamas involvement in the United Nations Relief and Works Agency
  3. —To assure people everywhere that Israel’s main concern is fighting terrorism
  4. —To activate the final phase of their ethnic cleansing operation

If you answered “4” then pat yourself on the back because that is the right answer. Of course, it’s also true that Israel wanted to divert attention from the ICJ’s announcement, but that pales in comparison to the launching of the final phase of its ethnic cleansing operation. This is the real coup de grâce, the final death blow to the two-state solution and a practical remedy to Israel’s nagging demographic problem. This is also the critical puzzle piece that makes sense of the last 100-plus days of relentless bombardment, airstrikes and other forms of state terror. It’s as if Israel is boldly laying down its cards so the entire world can see the strategy it plans to employ to eradicate the native population and fulfill the Zionist dream of a Jewish state from the river to the sea.

And what might that strategy be?

To disperse 2 million Palestinians to the four corners of the earth via mass immigration.

But, how will they do that, after all, haven’t a number of countries already refused to take the Palestinians?

Indeed, they have, but that is before the (soon to-be-published) photos of starving women and children flooded social media sites around the world generating an unprecedented outpouring of sympathy for the beleaguered population. And as public sympathy leads to widespread outrage, more and more people will demand that their governments take action to relieve the suffering through mass immigration. This is how Israel intends to rid itself of its native population and create Zionist Valhalla, a Jewish majority into perpetuity.

This is why Israel has launched its ferocious attack on UNWRA, because UNWRA—more than any other humanitarian organization operating in the Middle East—helps to keep the Palestinians fed and housed which is at-odds with Israeli explicit intentions. The last thing Israel wants is for the Palestinians to establish a massive refugee camp near Rafah that will balloon in size in years to come. That phenom has already taken place in both Jordan and Lebanon where nearly 3 million Palestinians still languish in refugee camps (75 years after the creation of the Israeli state) and are still determined to return home sometime in the future. That is not what Israel wants. Israel wants the Palestinians to ‘vanish into thin air’ which is why they want them dispersed around the world so even the thought of returning home, will never enter their minds.

So, while Israeli leaders do not relish the reputational damage they are experiencing due to their treatment of the Palestinians, they are willing to endure it in order to achieve their broader strategic objectives which are the complete eradication of the Arab population and the strengthening of a permanent Jewish majority.

Israel’s overall strategy was best summarized by Daniella Weiss, a former mayor of a West Bank settlement, who said the following in a short interview on Tik Tok:

“They will move. They will move. The Arabs will move….. So, we don’t give them food, we don’t give the Arabs anything, and they will have to leave. The world will accept them.” (Middle East Eye, Tik Tok)

That’s Israel’s plan in a nutshell.

Destroy a Nation: Israel Is Deliberately Bombing Palestine’s Educational Institutions

By Timothy Alexander Guzman

Source: Silent Crow News

It’s not about Hamas, nor the Palestinian resistance hiding its weapons or any other excuse to attack Palestinian schools and universitiesit’s a plot to destroy the Palestinian people. The Israeli government is deliberately targeting all educational institutions of Palestine whether they are in the Gaza strip or in the West Bank and beyond.  So why would they do such a thing?    

If the Palestinians don’t have educational institutions to train doctors, engineers, lawyers, historians, mathematicians, religious scholars, lawyers, and every other profession that is essential for a nation to survive and thrive, then what kind of society would they have?  Trained doctors and nurses won’t be able to treat and cure their patients.  Engineers and architects won’t be able to build critical infrastructure such as buildings, roads, water and sewer systems, railways and airports.  An uneducated people won’t be able to maintain or compete with other countries in terms of finance and international trade with skilled accountants, economists, financial planners, and investment bankers.  Professors, teachers, and school administrators won’t be able to teach their students reading and writing, math, history, religion and the sciences such as biology, chemistry and physics.  Newspapers and media won’t have trained journalists, researchers, and radio broadcasters and so on.  In other words, a nation without knowledge is doomed for failure and the Israelis are well aware of it.    

Destroy the education of the Palestinians, you destroy a nation of people.  Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that “the Israeli army has killed 94 university professors, along with hundreds of teachers and thousands of students, as part of its genocidal war against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.” Israel has killed many professors along with their family members in the Gaza Strip, “the Israeli army has targeted academic, scientific, and intellectual figures in the Strip in deliberate and specific air raids on their homes without prior notice. Those targeted have been crushed to death beneath the rubble, along with members of their families and other displaced families.”  The number of Palestinian professors, teachers, administrators, and students killed is a sign that those involved in education is a legitimate target for the Israelis:

According to preliminary estimates, the ongoing Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip have resulted in the deaths of hundreds of university students, reported Euro-Med Monitor. The rights group pointed out that destroying universities and killing academics and students will make it more difficult to resume university and academic life when the genocide ends, saying it may take years for studies to be resumed in an environment that has been completely destroyed.

According to the Palestinian Ministry of Education, 4,327 students have been killed and 7,819 others injured, while 231 teachers and administrators have been killed and 756 injured during the ongoing attacks. Meanwhile, 281 state-run schools and 65 UNRWA-run schools in the Gaza Strip have been completely or partially destroyed

Israel is targeting the cultural and historical properties of the Palestinian people to erase their history, but also to destroy any knowledge they have to rebuild their society:

Israel’s widespread and intentional destruction of Palestinian cultural and historical properties, including universities, schools, libraries, and archives, demonstrates its apparent policy of rendering the Gaza Strip uninhabitable, Euro-Med Monitor warned. The attacks are creating an environment devoid of basic services and necessities and may eventually force the Strip’s population to emigrate.

Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor stressed that the targeting of civilian objects by armed forces, particularly those that are historical or cultural artifacts protected by special laws, is not only a serious breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but falls under the purview of the crime of genocide

There is an indication that there is an agenda behind the mass killings of people involved in education.  The Toronto Star had an interesting article titled, ‘How Israel’s ‘scholasticide’ denies Palestinians their past, present and future’ said that “Academics raising concerns about this particular type of destruction call it “scholasticide,” and point to three related phenomena: the destruction of Gaza’s educational infrastructure, assaults on universities in Gaza and West Bank, as well as serious harassment and attacks on senior faculty and students supporting Palestine within the Israeli university system.” “Scholasticide’ is a term that shows how Israel’s destruction of the education system in Gaza directly impacts the past, present and future of the Palestinian people:

The destruction risks erasing Gaza’s past. For instance, the university that was blasted on Wednesday also housed a national museum containing rare artifacts. Whether those artifacts were destroyed or, as West Bank’s Birzeit University is accusing, stolen by Israel, they are lost to Palestinians. With archives and architecture destroyed, it’s as if Palestinians never lived there.

If the current situation continues, Gaza is also likely to be denied to its people in future. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reiterated his long-standing opposition to Palestinian statehood saying Thursday, “In the future, the state of Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea”

According to Abdel Razzaq Takriti, an associate professor of history at Rice University in Texas who is also the chair of the Arab American Educational Foundation said that “as scholars, we cannot fathom how it is possible that we’re supposed to stay silent while our colleagues are being bombed with bombs supplied by our countries” he also said that “this is an attack on the enlightenment in society” he continued“and it’s going to cause ignorance. It’s going to cause lack of opportunity. And it’s designed to do that. Scholasticide is a very dangerous aspect of genocide.”

It’s not just in Gaza, its all of Palestine’s educational institutions that are being targeted by the IDF forces.  The Norwegian Refugee Council conducted a report from January 2018 until June 2020 and found that “Palestinian children in the West Bank contended with a deluge of attacks on education, at a crushing pace of 10 attacks per month, on average.”  The research was based on a 30-month period and it “found that 296 attacks against education by Israeli forces or settlers and settlement private security guards took place during 235 separate incidents.” 

Israel’s actions is nothing less than a diabolical plot to destroy a nation’s people.  It gives the Israelis the excuse it needs to call the Palestinians animals who don’t even know how to read or write and that the Palestinians don’t know how to make a living and that’s why they are dependent on foreign aid.  A report by Amnesty International said that “Palestinians across all areas under Israel’s control have fewer opportunities to earn a living and engage in business than Jewish Israelis” and that “They experience discriminatory limitations on access to and use of farmland, water, gas and oil amongst other natural resources, as well as restrictions on the provision of health, education and basic services.”

With no educational institutions to train and educate its people, the Palestinians will face a collapse of their society.  Zionist warmongers want nothing more but to eradicate any hope for a better future for the Palestinian people by erasing all forms of education that would allow them to advance their society and that is something that the Israelis don’t want to see happen.  

“Not Wanting” A Wider Middle East War, the U.S. Has Started One

By Edward Curtin

Source: Dissident Voice

You have to hand it to the U.S. and its henchmen for brazenness.  In order to protect their client state Israel and its genocide in Gaza, the U.S., together with the UK, have in one week launched air and sea attacks on the Houthis in Yemen five times, referring to it as “self-defense” in their Orwellian lingo.  The ostensible reason being Yemen’s refusal to allow ships bound for Israel, which is committing genocide in Gaza, to enter the Red Sea, while permitting other ships to pass freely.

To any impartial observer, the Houthis should be lauded.  Yet, while the International Court of Justice considers the South African charge of genocide against Israel that is supported by overwhelming evidence, the U.S. and its allies have instigated a wider war throughout the Middle East while claiming they do not want such a war.  These settler colonial states want genocide and a much wider war because they have been set back on their heels by those they have mocked, provoked, and attacked – notably the Palestinians, Syrians, and Russians, among others.

While the criminalization of international law does not bode well for the ICJ’s upcoming ruling or its ability to stop Israeli’s genocide in Gaza, Michel Chossudovsky, of Global Research, as is his wont, has offered a superb analysis and suggestion for those who oppose such crimes: that Principle IV of the Nuremberg Charter – “The fact that a person [e.g. Israeli, U.S. soldiers, pilots] acted pursuant to order of his [her] Government or of a superior does not relieve him [her] from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” – should be used to supplement the South African charges and appeal directly to the moral consciences of those asked to carry out acts of genocide. He writes:

Let us call upon Israeli and American soldiers and pilots “to abandon the battlefield”, as an act of refusal to participate in a criminal undertaking against the People of Gaza.  

South Africa’s legal procedure at the ICJ should be endorsed Worldwide. While it cannot be relied upon to put a rapid end to the genocide, it provides support and legitimacy to the “Disobey Unlawful Orders, Abandon the Battlefield”  campaign under Nuremberg Charter Principle IV.

While such an approach will not stop the continuing slaughter, it would remind the world that each person who participates in and supports it bears a heavy burden of guilt for their actions; that they are morally and legally culpable.  This appeal to the human heart and conscience, no matter what its practical effect, will at least add to the condemnation of a genocide happening in real time and full view of the world, even though no one will ever be prosecuted for such crimes since any real just use of international law has long disappeared.  Yet there is a edifying history of such conscientious objection to immoral war making, and though each person makes the decision in solitary witness, individual choices can inspire others and the solitary become solidary, as Albert Camus reminded us at the end of his short story, “The Artist at Work.”

With each passing day, it becomes more and more evident that Israel/U.S.A. and their allies do want a wider war.  Iran is their special focus, with Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen targets on the way.  Anyone who supports the genocide in Gaza, explicitly or through silence, bears responsibility for the conflagration to come.  There are no excuses.

And the facts show that it is axiomatic that waging war has been the modus operandi of the U.S./Israeli alliance for a long time.  Just as in early 2003 when the Bush administration said they were looking for a peaceful solution to their fake charges against Sadam Hussein with his alleged “weapons of mass destruction,” the Biden administration is lying, as the Bush administration lied about September 11, 2001 to launch its ongoing war on terror, starting in Afghanistan.  Without an expanded war, President Biden – aka the Democrats, since he will most probably not be the candidate – and his psychopathic partner Benjamin Netanyahu, will not survive.  It is bi-partisan war-mongering, of course, internationally and intramurally, since both U.S. political parties are controlled by the Israel Lobby and billionaire class that owns Congress and the “defense” industry that thrives on never-ending war to such an extent that even the notable independent candidate for the presidency, Robert Kennedy, Jr., who is running as an anti-war candidate, fully supports Israel which is tantamount to supporting Biden’s expanding war policy.

Biden and Netanyahu, who are always claiming after the fact that they were surprised by events or were fed bad advice by their underlings, are dumb scorpions. They are stupid but deadly.  And many people in the West, while perhaps decent people in their personal lives, are living in a fantasy world of “sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity,” in MLK, Jr.’s words, as the growing threat of a world war increases and insouciance reigns.

Neither the Israeli nor American government can allow themselves to be humiliated, U.S./NATO by the Russians in Ukraine and the Israelis by the Palestinians.  Like cornered criminals with lethal weapons, they will kill as many as they can on their way down, taking their revenge on the weakest first.

Their “mistakes” are always well intentioned.  They stumble into wars through faulty intelligence.  They drop the ball because of bureaucratic mix-ups. They miscalculate the perfidy of the moneyed elites whom allegedly they oppose while pocketing their cash and ushering them into the national coffers out of necessity since they are too big to fail.  They never see the storm coming, even as they create it.  Their incompetence or the perfidy of their enemies is the retort to all those “nut cases” who conjure up conspiracy theories or plain facts to explain their actions or lack thereof.  They are innocent.  Always innocent.  And they can’t understand why those they have long abused reach a point when they will no longer impetrate for mercy but will fight fiercely for their freedom.

All signs point to a major war on the horizon.  Both the U.S.A. and Israel have been shown to be rogue states with no desire to negotiate a peaceful world.  Believing in high-tech weapons and massive firepower, neither has learned the hard lesson that anti-colonial wars have historically been won by those with far less weapons but with a passionate desire to throw off the chains of their oppressors.  Vietnam is the text-book case, and there are many others.  Failure to learn is the name of their game.

The Zionist project for a Greater Israel is doomed to fail, but as it does, desperate men like Biden and Netanyahu are intent on launching desperate acts of war.  Exactly when and how this expanded war will blaze across the headlines is the question.  It has started, but I think it prudent to expect a black swan event sometime this year when all hell will break loose.  The genocide in Gaza is the first step, and the U.S./Israel, “not wanting” a wider war, have already started one.

(For an excellent history lesson on the Zionist oppression of Palestinians and the current genocide, listen to Max Blumenthal’s and Miko Peled’s impassioned talk – “Where is the War in Gaza Going? – delivered from the heart of darkness, Washington D.C.  Two Jewish men who know the difference between Zionism and Judaism and whose consciences are aflame with justice for the oppressed Palestinians.)