China Declares War On The United States (Gonzalo Lira)

February 22, 2023

Full document:

US Hegemony and Its Perils

2023-02-20 16:28

US Hegemony and Its Perils

February 2023

Contents

Introduction

I. Political Hegemony—Throwing Its Weight Around

II. Military Hegemony—Wanton Use of Force

III. Economic Hegemony—Looting and Exploitation

IV. Technological Hegemony—Monopoly and Suppression

V. Cultural Hegemony—Spreading False Narratives

Conclusion

Introduction

Since becoming the world’s most powerful country after the two world wars and the Cold War, the United States has acted more boldly to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries, pursue, maintain and abuse hegemony, advance subversion and infiltration, and willfully wage wars, bringing harm to the international community.

The United States has developed a hegemonic playbook to stage “color revolutions,” instigate regional disputes, and even directly launch wars under the guise of promoting democracy, freedom and human rights. Clinging to the Cold War mentality, the United States has ramped up bloc politics and stoked conflict and confrontation. It has overstretched the concept of national security, abused export controls and forced unilateral sanctions upon others. It has taken a selective approach to international law and rules, utilizing or discarding them as it sees fit, and has sought to impose rules that serve its own interests in the name of upholding a “rules-based international order.”

This report, by presenting the relevant facts, seeks to expose the U.S. abuse of hegemony in the political, military, economic, financial, technological and cultural fields, and to draw greater international attention to the perils of the U.S. practices to world peace and stability and the well-being of all peoples.

I. Political Hegemony — Throwing Its Weight Around

The United States has long been attempting to mold other countries and the world order with its own values and political system in the name of promoting democracy and human rights.

◆ Instances of U.S. interference in other countries’ internal affairs abound. In the name of “promoting democracy,” the United States practiced a “Neo-Monroe Doctrine” in Latin America, instigated “color revolutions” in Eurasia, and orchestrated the “Arab Spring” in West Asia and North Africa, bringing chaos and disaster to many countries.

In 1823, the United States announced the Monroe Doctrine. While touting an “America for the Americans,” what it truly wanted was an “America for the United States.”

Since then, the policies of successive U.S. governments toward Latin America and the Caribbean Region have been riddled with political interference, military intervention and regime subversion. From its 61-year hostility toward and blockade of Cuba to its overthrow of the Allende government of Chile, U.S. policy on this region has been built on one maxim-those who submit will prosper; those who resist shall perish.

The year 2003 marked the beginning of a succession of “color revolutions” — the “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine and the “Tulip Revolution” in Kyrgyzstan. The U.S. Department of State openly admitted playing a “central role” in these “regime changes.” The United States also interfered in the internal affairs of the Philippines, ousting President Ferdinand Marcos Sr. in 1986 and President Joseph Estrada in 2001 through the so-called “People Power Revolutions.”

In January 2023, former U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo released his new book Never Give an Inch: Fighting for the America I Love. He revealed in it that the United States had plotted to intervene in Venezuela. The plan was to force the Maduro government to reach an agreement with the opposition, deprive Venezuela of its ability to sell oil and gold for foreign exchange, exert high pressure on its economy, and influence the 2018 presidential election.

◆ The U.S. exercises double standards on international rules. Placing its self-interest first, the United States has walked away from international treaties and organizations, and put its domestic law above international law. In April 2017, the Trump administration announced that it would cut off all U.S. funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) with the excuse that the organization “supports, or participates in the management of a programme of coercive abortion or involuntary sterilization.” The United States quit UNESCO twice in 1984 and 2017. In 2017, it announced leaving the Paris Agreement on climate change. In 2018, it announced its exit from the UN Human Rights Council, citing the organization’s “bias” against Israel and failure to protect human rights effectively. In 2019, the United States announced its withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty to seek unfettered development of advanced weapons. In 2020, it announced pulling out of the Treaty on Open Skies.

The United States has also been a stumbling block to biological arms control by opposing negotiations on a verification protocol for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) and impeding international verification of countries’ activities relating to biological weapons. As the only country in possession of a chemical weapons stockpile, the United States has repeatedly delayed the destruction of chemical weapons and remained reluctant in fulfilling its obligations. It has become the biggest obstacle to realizing “a world free of chemical weapons.”

◆ The United States is piecing together small blocs through its alliance system. It has been forcing an “Indo-Pacific Strategy” onto the Asia-Pacific region, assembling exclusive clubs like the Five Eyes, the Quad and AUKUS, and forcing regional countries to take sides. Such practices are essentially meant to create division in the region, stoke confrontation and undermine peace.

◆ The U.S. arbitrarily passes judgment on democracy in other countries, and fabricates a false narrative of “democracy versus authoritarianism” to incite estrangement, division, rivalry and confrontation. In December 2021, the United States hosted the first “Summit for Democracy,” which drew criticism and opposition from many countries for making a mockery of the spirit of democracy and dividing the world. In March 2023, the United States will host another “Summit for Democracy,” which remains unwelcome and will again find no support.

II. Military Hegemony — Wanton Use of Force

The history of the United States is characterized by violence and expansion. Since it gained independence in 1776, the United States has constantly sought expansion by force: it slaughtered Indians, invaded Canada, waged a war against Mexico, instigated the American-Spanish War, and annexed Hawaii. After World War II, the wars either provoked or launched by the United States included the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan, the Iraq War, the Libyan War and the Syrian War, abusing its military hegemony to pave the way for expansionist objectives. In recent years, the U.S. average annual military budget has exceeded 700 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 40 percent of the world’s total, more than the 15 countries behind it combined. The United States has about 800 overseas military bases, with 173,000 troops deployed in 159 countries.

According to the book America Invades: How We’ve Invaded or been Militarily Involved with almost Every Country on Earth, the United States has fought or been militarily involved with almost all the 190-odd countries recognized by the United Nations with only three exceptions. The three countries were “spared” because the United States did not find them on the map.

◆ As former U.S. President Jimmy Carter put it, the United States is undoubtedly the most warlike nation in the history of the world. According to a Tufts University report, “Introducing the Military Intervention Project: A new Dataset on U.S. Military Interventions, 1776-2019,” the United States undertook nearly 400 military interventions globally between those years, 34 percent of which were in Latin America and the Caribbean, 23 percent in East Asia and the Pacific, 14 percent in the Middle East and North Africa, and 13 percent in Europe. Currently, its military intervention in the Middle East and North Africa and sub-Saharan Africa is on the rise.

Alex Lo, a South China Morning Post columnist, pointed out that the United States has rarely distinguished between diplomacy and war since its founding. It overthrew democratically elected governments in many developing countries in the 20th century and immediately replaced them with pro-American puppet regimes. Today, in Ukraine, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria, Pakistan and Yemen, the United States is repeating its old tactics of waging proxy, low-intensity, and drone wars.

◆ U.S. military hegemony has caused humanitarian tragedies. Since 2001, the wars and military operations launched by the United States in the name of fighting terrorism have claimed over 900,000 lives with some 335,000 of them civilians, injured millions and displaced tens of millions. The 2003 Iraq War resulted in some 200,000 to 250,000 civilian deaths, including over 16,000 directly killed by the U.S. military, and left more than a million homeless.

The United States has created 37 million refugees around the world. Since 2012, the number of Syrian refugees alone has increased tenfold. Between 2016 and 2019, 33,584 civilian deaths were documented in the Syrian fightings, including 3,833 killed by U.S.-led coalition bombings, half of them women and children. The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) reported on 9 November 2018 that the air strikes launched by U.S. forces on Raqqa alone killed 1,600 Syrian civilians.

The two-decades-long war in Afghanistan devastated the country. A total of 47,000 Afghan civilians and 66,000 to 69,000 Afghan soldiers and police officers unrelated to the September 11 attacks were killed in U.S. military operations, and more than 10 million people were displaced. The war in Afghanistan destroyed the foundation of economic development there and plunged the Afghan people into destitution. After the “Kabul debacle” in 2021, the United States announced that it would freeze some 9.5 billion dollars in assets belonging to the Afghan central bank, a move considered as “pure looting.”

In September 2022, Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu commented at a rally that the United States has waged a proxy war in Syria, turned Afghanistan into an opium field and heroin factory, thrown Pakistan into turmoil, and left Libya in incessant civil unrest. The United States does whatever it takes to rob and enslave the people of any country with underground resources.

The United States has also adopted appalling methods in war. During the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, the Kosovo War, the War in Afghanistan and the Iraq War, the United States used massive quantities of chemical and biological weapons as well as cluster bombs, fuel-air bombs, graphite bombs and depleted uranium bombs, causing enormous damage on civilian facilities, countless civilian casualties and lasting environmental pollution.

III. Economic Hegemony — Looting and Exploitation

After World War II, the United States led efforts to set up the Bretton Woods System, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, which, together with the Marshall Plan, formed the international monetary system centered around the U.S. dollar. In addition, the United States has also established institutional hegemony in the international economic and financial sector by manipulating the weighted voting systems, rules and arrangements of international organizations including “approval by 85 percent majority,” and its domestic trade laws and regulations. By taking advantage of the dollar’s status as the major international reserve currency, the United States is basically collecting “seigniorage” from around the world; and using its control over international organizations, it coerces other countries into serving America’s political and economic strategy.

◆ The United States exploits the world’s wealth with the help of “seigniorage.” It costs only about 17 cents to produce a 100 dollar bill, but other countries had to pony up 100 dollar of actual goods in order to obtain one. It was pointed out more than half a century ago, that the United States enjoyed exorbitant privilege and deficit without tears created by its dollar, and used the worthless paper note to plunder the resources and factories of other nations.

◆ The hegemony of U.S. dollar is the main source of instability and uncertainty in the world economy. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the United States abused its global financial hegemony and injected trillions of dollars into the global market, leaving other countries, especially emerging economies, to pay the price. In 2022, the Fed ended its ultra-easy monetary policy and turned to aggressive interest rate hike, causing turmoil in the international financial market and substantial depreciation of other currencies such as the Euro, many of which dropped to a 20-year low. As a result, a large number of developing countries were challenged by high inflation, currency depreciation and capital outflows. This was exactly what Nixon’s secretary of the treasury John Connally once remarked, with self-satisfaction yet sharp precision, that “the dollar is our currency, but it is your problem.”

◆ With its control over international economic and financial organizations, the United States imposes additional conditions to their assistance to other countries. In order to reduce obstacles to U.S. capital inflow and speculation, the recipient countries are required to advance financial liberalization and open up financial markets so that their economic policies would fall in line with America’s strategy. According to the Review of International Political Economy, along with the 1,550 debt relief programs extended by the IMF to its 131 member countries from 1985 to 2014, as many as 55,465 additional political conditions had been attached.

◆ The United States willfully suppresses its opponents with economic coercion. In the 1980s, to eliminate the economic threat posed by Japan, and to control and use the latter in service of America’s strategic goal of confronting the Soviet Union and dominating the world, the United States leveraged its hegemonic financial power against Japan, and concluded the Plaza Accord. As a result, Yen was pushed up, and Japan was pressed to open up its financial market and reform its financial system. The Plaza Accord dealt a heavy blow to the growth momentum of the Japanese economy, leaving Japan to what was later called “three lost decades.”

◆ America’s economic and financial hegemony has become a geopolitical weapon. Doubling down on unilateral sanctions and “long-arm jurisdiction,” the United States has enacted such domestic laws as the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act, and the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, and introduced a series of executive orders to sanction specific countries, organizations or individuals. Statistics show that U.S. sanctions against foreign entities increased by 933 percent from 2000 to 2021. The Trump administration alone has imposed more than 3,900 sanctions, which means three sanctions per day. So far, the United States had or has imposed economic sanctions on nearly 40 countries across the world, including Cuba, China, Russia, the DPRK, Iran and Venezuela, affecting nearly half of the world’s population. “The United States of America” has turned itself into “the United States of Sanctions.” And “long-arm jurisdiction” has been reduced to nothing but a tool for the United States to use its means of state power to suppress economic competitors and interfere in normal international business. This is a serious departure from the principles of liberal market economy that the United States has long boasted.

IV. Technological Hegemony — Monopoly and Suppression

The United States seeks to deter other countries’ scientific, technological and economic development by wielding monopoly power, suppression measures and technology restrictions in high-tech fields.

◆ The United States monopolizes intellectual property in the name of protection. Taking advantage of the weak position of other countries, especially developing ones, on intellectual property rights and the institutional vacancy in relevant fields, the United States reaps excessive profits through monopoly. In 1994, the United States pushed forward the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), forcing the Americanized process and standards in intellectual property protection in an attempt to solidify its monopoly on technology.

In the 1980s, to contain the development of Japan’s semiconductor industry, the United States launched the “301” investigation, built bargaining power in bilateral negotiations through multilateral agreements, threatened to label Japan as conducting unfair trade, and imposed retaliatory tariffs, forcing Japan to sign the U.S.-Japan Semiconductor Agreement. As a result, Japanese semiconductor enterprises were almost completely driven out of global competition, and their market share dropped from 50 percent to 10 percent. Meanwhile, with the support of the U.S. government, a large number of U.S. semiconductor enterprises took the opportunity and grabbed larger market share.

◆ The United States politicizes, weaponizes technological issues and uses them as ideological tools. Overstretching the concept of national security, the United States mobilized state power to suppress and sanction Chinese company Huawei, restricted the entry of Huawei products into the U.S. market, cut off its supply of chips and operating systems, and coerced other countries to ban Huawei from undertaking local 5G network construction. It even talked Canada into unwarrantedly detaining Huawei’s CFO Meng Wanzhou for nearly three years.

The United States has fabricated a slew of excuses to clamp down on China’s high-tech enterprises with global competitiveness, and has put more than 1,000 Chinese enterprises on sanction lists. In addition, the United States has also imposed controls on biotechnology, artificial intelligence and other high-end technologies, reinforced export restrictions, tightened investment screening, suppressed Chinese social media apps such as TikTok and WeChat, and lobbied the Netherlands and Japan to restrict exports of chips and related equipment or technology to China.

The United States has also practiced double standards in its policy on China-related technological professionals. To sideline and suppress Chinese researchers, since June 2018, visa validity has been shortened for Chinese students majoring in certain high-tech-related disciplines, repeated cases have occurred where Chinese scholars and students going to the United States for exchange programs and study were unjustifiably denied and harassed, and large-scale investigation on Chinese scholars working in the United States was carried out.

◆ The United States solidifies its technological monopoly in the name of protecting democracy. By building small blocs on technology such as the “chips alliance” and “clean network,” the United States has put “democracy” and “human rights” labels on high-technology, and turned technological issues into political and ideological issues, so as to fabricate excuses for its technological blockade against other countries. In May 2019, the United States enlisted 32 countries to the Prague 5G Security Conference in the Czech Republic and issued the Prague Proposal in an attempt to exclude China’s 5G products. In April 2020, then U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced the “5G clean path,” a plan designed to build technological alliance in the 5G field with partners bonded by their shared ideology on democracy and the need to protect “cyber security.” The measures, in essence, are the U.S. attempts to maintain its technological hegemony through technological alliances.

◆ The United States abuses its technological hegemony by carrying out cyber attacks and eavesdropping. The United States has long been notorious as an “empire of hackers,” blamed for its rampant acts of cyber theft around the world. It has all kinds of means to enforce pervasive cyber attacks and surveillance, including using analog base station signals to access mobile phones for data theft, manipulating mobile apps, infiltrating cloud servers, and stealing through undersea cables. The list goes on.

U.S. surveillance is indiscriminate. All can be targets of its surveillance, be they rivals or allies, even leaders of allied countries such as former German Chancellor Angela Merkel and several French Presidents. Cyber surveillance and attacks launched by the United States such as “Prism,” “Dirtbox,” “Irritant Horn” and “Telescreen Operation” are all proof that the United States is closely monitoring its allies and partners. Such eavesdropping on allies and partners has already caused worldwide outrage. Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks, a website that has exposed U.S. surveillance programs, said that “do not expect a global surveillance superpower to act with honor or respect. There is only one rule: there are no rules.”

V. Cultural Hegemony — Spreading False Narratives

The global expansion of American culture is an important part of its external strategy. The United States has often used cultural tools to strengthen and maintain its hegemony in the world.

◆ The United States embeds American values in its products such as movies. American values and lifestyle are a tied product to its movies and TV shows, publications, media content, and programs by the government-funded non-profit cultural institutions. It thus shapes a cultural and public opinion space in which American culture reigns and maintains cultural hegemony. In his article The Americanization of the World, John Yemma, an American scholar, exposed the real weapons in U.S. cultural expansion: the Hollywood, the image design factories on Madison Avenue and the production lines of Mattel Company and Coca-Cola.

There are various vehicles the United States uses to keep its cultural hegemony. American movies are the most used; they now occupy more than 70 percent of the world’s market share. The United States skilfully exploits its cultural diversity to appeal to various ethnicities. When Hollywood movies descend on the world, they scream the American values tied to them.

◆ American cultural hegemony not only shows itself in “direct intervention,” but also in “media infiltration” and as “a trumpet for the world.” U.S.-dominated Western media has a particularly important role in shaping global public opinion in favor of U.S. meddling in the internal affairs of other countries.

The U.S. government strictly censors all social media companies and demands their obedience. Twitter CEO Elon Musk admitted on 27 December 2022 that all social media platforms work with the U.S. government to censor content, reported Fox Business Network. Public opinion in the United States is subject to government intervention to restrict all unfavorable remarks. Google often makes pages disappear.

U.S. Department of Defense manipulates social media. In December 2022, The Intercept, an independent U.S. investigative website, revealed that in July 2017, U.S. Central Command official Nathaniel Kahler instructed Twitter’s public policy team to augment the presence of 52 Arabic-language accounts on a list he sent, six of which were to be given priority. One of the six was dedicated to justifying U.S. drone attacks in Yemen, such as by claiming that the attacks were precise and killed only terrorists, not civilians. Following Kahler’s directive, Twitter put those Arabic-language accounts on a “white list” to amplify certain messages.

◆The United States practices double standards on the freedom of the press. It brutally suppresses and silences media of other countries by various means. The United States and Europe bar mainstream Russian media such as Russia Today and the Sputnik from their countries. Platforms such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube openly restrict official accounts of Russia. Netflix, Apple and Google have removed Russian channels and applications from their services and app stores. Unprecedented draconian censorship is imposed on Russia-related contents.

◆The United States abuses its cultural hegemony to instigate “peaceful evolution” in socialist countries. It sets up news media and cultural outfits targeting socialist countries. It pours staggering amounts of public funds into radio and TV networks to support their ideological infiltration, and these mouthpieces bombard socialist countries in dozens of languages with inflammatory propaganda day and night.

The United States uses misinformation as a spear to attack other countries, and has built an industrial chain around it: there are groups and individuals making up stories, and peddling them worldwide to mislead public opinion with the support of nearly limitless financial resources.

Conclusion

While a just cause wins its champion wide support, an unjust one condemns its pursuer to be an outcast. The hegemonic, domineering, and bullying practices of using strength to intimidate the weak, taking from others by force and subterfuge, and playing zero-sum games are exerting grave harm. The historical trends of peace, development, cooperation, and mutual benefit are unstoppable. The United States has been overriding truth with its power and trampling justice to serve self-interest. These unilateral, egoistic and regressive hegemonic practices have drawn growing, intense criticism and opposition from the international community.

Countries need to respect each other and treat each other as equals. Big countries should behave in a manner befitting their status and take the lead in pursuing a new model of state-to-state relations featuring dialogue and partnership, not confrontation or alliance. China opposes all forms of hegemonism and power politics, and rejects interference in other countries’ internal affairs. The United States must conduct serious soul-searching. It must critically examine what it has done, let go of its arrogance and prejudice, and quit its hegemonic, domineering and bullying practices.

The Yellow Vests at 4 years old: their 3 greatest historical achievements

Sunday, 04 December 2022 1:04 PM [ Last Update: Sunday, 04 December 2022 1:04 PM ]

By Ramin Mazaheri

On December 1, 2018, the Yellow Vests announced themselves in France and the world, registering their name in history books with their revolutionary graffiti tagging of the Arc de Triomphe, one of the country’s most iconic monuments.

“The Yellow Vests will win” was a slogan that reverberated across the world, as the movement became the biggest, most organic, most devoted and truly revolutionary threat any Western country had faced for over half a century.

It was their third week of protest, and there was no going back now.

The world never expected a genuine resistance movement to sprout in France, a Western imperialist hub. The French were – many insisted – too self-righteous, too spoiled, too indoctrinated, and yet for the next six months every Saturday turned into a war zone across the country.

France was wholly gripped by the revolutionary frenzy at the time, and it was because the French way of life isn’t as extravagant as people may think.

The Yellow Vests didn’t bravely endure all this – at least 11,000 arrests, 1,000 political prisoners, 5,000 protesters seriously hurt, 1,000 critically injured, scores maimed for life and 11 deaths – because they have a luxurious lifestyle.

It is hard to say what was worse – the repression by the French regime, or the way Western media and NGOs slandered and ignored the weekly bloodletting, tear gas shelling and mass arrests.

The Yellow Vests are an immediate, permanent rejoinder to Westerners who claim that their governments are more protective of democracy and less brutal than those in non-Western countries. That’s one of the three great legacies of the Yellow Vests.

The key to understanding the Yellow Vests is this, and it’s implicitly understood by the average European, totally not understood in places like the United States, and has been intellectually mastered by the vanguard Yellow Vests.

Ever since the pan-European project was activated in 2009, it has failed to do anything. Prosperity, stability and democracy – none of these have been implemented. France is not really France anymore – not unless Brussels says so – and it’s becoming less like France with each passing day under a political system that is still new.

So the Yellow Vests were truly 10 years in the making. They even arrived after a decade full of major social movements, because the first war of the European Union wasn’t a proxy war against Russia but the social war it waged against its own citizens.

The problem was not just the Great Recession of 2008 but the fact that the European Union/Eurozone was the only macroeconomic bloc that implemented absolutely no major recovery plan.

Even worse, its response was to undemocratically ram through far-right austerity policies. The Yellow Vests were the “working-poor class” cemented by the changes in Brussels, and their opponents were the highly-unequal “bourgeois bloc” that only saw the pan-European project in a rainbow glow of total success.

The Yellow Vests disproved the insistence of the Anglosphere – whose cultures are politically conservative – that all populist groups in the West are necessarily on the far-right.

As soon as December 2018, it was clear in France that the Yellow Vests were steeped in left-wing economics, anti-imperialism and a non-Islamophobic, modern conception of healthy patriotism.

This explains the nearly 80 percent approval rate for the movement, and staggering popularity, especially in France which had grown extremely cynical due to undemocratic failures of the pan-European project.

If one word had to be given to describe the Yellow Vests, it would be “civic-minded”. Concern for fellow citizens and the downward spiral of non-elite masses is what basically propels such popular revolutions.

These simple, obvious and pro-community concepts are forbidden in the Western mainstream media. There is no “working-poor class” in France. There are only racist, backward, lazy, always-complaining Frenchmen. There is no “bourgeois bloc” but only an elite group of enlightened and deserving technocrats who decide for us what constitutes the “reality”.

These are truly the two classes of the 21st century West – forget “middle class”, because the pan-European project has dealt the final blow to what Reaganomics/Thatcherism began.

Fully understanding and opposing the West’s current social class reality is the second great achievement of the Yellow Vests, but of course, one cannot find class discussed in the English-speaking media. 

However, there is another achievement that is even greater but less discussed, probably because it requires a complete overview of modern Western politics, which began in 1789 with the anti-monarchy/anti-aristocrat/anti-privilege French Revolution.

The arrival and the repression of the Yellow Vests remind us all of the undeniable failures of “liberalism”. The Yellow Vests aren’t actually new but are integral to French revolutionary history transported from 1848-71.

The struggle today is the same as it was back then. It’s a struggle against elitist liberalism and its attendants: oligarchical and anti-democratic parliamentarianism, free-market chaos, anti-government ideology encapsulated by austerity cuts to social services, and encouragement of a rat race to “become bourgeois”.

The Yellow Vests took France and Europe back to 1848 when the “Second Republic” re-ended the French monarchy and claimed the mantle of the French Revolutionary “First Republic”. Liberalism was installed for the first time and immediately proved that it was plagued by all the problems described above.

Liberalism has proved a failure since 1848, and the liberalist principles (“neoliberal” is more commonly used today to differentiate it from the discredited, original “liberalism”) that underpin the pan-European project have failed today. They always fail.

The arrival, desperate passion and durability of the Yellow Vests are proof of this, and showing the hypocrisy, brutality and ineffectiveness of always-unequal liberalism is the third and greatest and historical achievement of the Yellow Vests.

Liberalism, infamously, does not promise anyone the right to a decent existence. Back in 1848, Karl Marx and other socialists demonstrated these facts about Western liberal democracies. The Yellow Vests have brought us back to these inescapable political and social truths. 

Why did the Yellow Vests “fail”? Quite simply because the French government scared people away from it through heavy-handed tactics such as violence, heavy fines, arrests and imprisonment. That’s why their protests slowly dwindled in scale and magnitude – owing to fear of state repression. 

The fear has had dramatic, lasting consequences: the French have been reduced from the most politically-active nation in the West to being apathetic and uninvolved – typical of Western liberal democracies.

The apathy surrounding this year’s re-election of French President Emmanuel Macron was completely atypical for the country but it showed there was no stopping the will of the 1 percent and their fanatical “bourgeois bloc” toadies.

The Yellow Vests recently marched to commemorate their fourth anniversary, but you probably didn’t hear about it. You also likely haven’t heard that they’ve been marching every Saturday since “Season 2” began in October 2021, following a year-and-a-half coronavirus pause – which no world leader embraced with more joy and relief than Macron. However, the media blackout on them actually began way back in June 2020.

France is no longer gripped in revolutionary fervor, but the Yellow Vests haven’t gone anywhere. The average person has put their reflective yellow vest back where it belongs by law – in the car – but the network, relationships and experiences created by this extraordinary movement ensure that they will be back one day.

And they will be back. The history of Western liberalism has proven over and over again that the average person’s right to live decently will never be guaranteed.

Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009.

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Saudi War Killed, Injured More Than 8,000 Yemeni Children

November 22, 2022

By Staff, Agencies

A human rights organization said the ongoing Saudi war and tight blockade have taken a heavy toll on children in Yemen, leaving more than 8,000 minors dead and injured in the already impoverished Arab country.

The Entesaf Organization for the Protection of Women’s and Children’s Rights, in a statement released on the occasion of the World Children’s Day which is celebrated on November 20 each year, announced that 3,860 children have lost their lives and 4,256 others sustained injuries as a result of the seven-year war.

The group noted that the number of disabled people has soared by 50 percent as a result of the Saudi-led aggression, stating that while the figure was at around 3 million before the war it now stands at 4.5 million now.

The rights group further highlighted that nearly six thousand civilians have been disabled since the beginning of the Saudi-led aggression, including approximately 5,559 children, emphasizing that the actual number is likely much higher.

Entesaf noted that at least two million and 400 thousand Yemeni children are out of primary schools; and nearly three thousand schools are either destroyed or damaged.

It also warned that the number of children, who would have to leave school without basic qualifications may rise to nearly six million, according to the statistics of the Yemeni Ministry of Education.

The rights group further stated that four thousand children are victims of improvised explosive devices [IEDs], bombs, landmines and remnants of war, saying that at least 131 children were killed during the six-month ceasefire in Yemen. The truce was brokered by the United Nations in April and was renewed twice.

“More than 80 newborns die every day in Yemen due to the use of internationally banned weapons. This accounts for the high rate of premature Yemeni infants, as one third of the child births in the country are untimely,” Entesaf said.

The human rights organization finally held the United States and Saudi Arabia accountable for all crimes and violations against Yemeni civilians, especially women and children.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and other Western states.

The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and crush the Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.

While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

DELIBERATE MISREPRESENTATION: WESTERN MEDIA BIAS MAKES ISRAELI WAR ON PALESTINIANS POSSIBLE

AUGUST 26TH, 2022

Children and relatives of the five Palestinian children from Najm family who were killed in the last conflict between Palestine and Israel, hold placards during a rally in Jabalia, northern of Gaza strip. (Photo by Nidal Alwaheidi / SOPA Images/Sipa USA)(Sipa via AP Images)

RAMZY BAROUD

While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.

Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, “Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day” is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.

For the uninformed reader, the article succeeds in finding a balanced language between two equal sides. This misleading moral equivalence is one of the biggest intellectual blind spots for western journalists. If they do not outwardly champion Israel’s discourse on ‘security’ and ‘right to defend itself’, they create false parallels between Palestinians and Israelis, as if a military occupier and an occupied nation have comparable rights and responsibilities.

Obviously, this logic does not apply to the Russia-Ukraine war. For NYT and all mainstream western media, there is no question regarding who the good guys and the bad guys are in that bloody fight.

‘Palestinian militants’ and ‘terrorists’ have always been the West’s bad guys.  Per the logic of their media coverage, Israel does not launch unprovoked wars on Palestinians and is not an unrepentant military occupier or a racist apartheid regime. This language can only be used by marginal ‘radical’ and ‘leftist’ media, never the mainstream.

The brief introduction of the NYT article spoke about the rising death toll, but did not initially mention that the 20 killed Palestinians include children, emphasizing, instead, that Israeli attacks have killed a ‘militant leader’.

When the six children killed by Israel are revealed in the second paragraph, the article immediately, and without starting a new sentence, clarifies that “Israel said some civilian deaths were the result of militants stashing weapons in residential areas”, and that others were killed by “misfired’ Palestinian rockets.

On August 16, the Israeli military finally admitted that it was behind the strikes that killed the 5 young Palestinian boys of Jabaliya. Whether the NYT reported on that or not matters little. The damage has been done, and that was Israel’s plan from the start.

The title of the BBC story of August 16, ‘Gaza’s children are used to the death and bombing’, does not immediately name those responsible for the ‘death and bombing’. Even Israeli military spokesmen, as we will discover later, would agree to such a statement, though they will always lay the blame squarely on the ‘Palestinian terrorists’.

When the story finally reveals that a little girl, Layan, was killed in an Israeli strike, the language was carefully crafted to lessen the blame on her Israeli murderers. The girl, we are told, was on her way to the beach with her family, when their tuk-tuk “passed by a military camp run by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad”, which, “at the exact moment, (…) was targeted by Israeli fire”. The author says nothing of how she reached the conclusion that the family was not the target.

One can easily glean from the story that Israel’s intention was not to kill Layan – and logically, none of the 17 other children murdered during the three-day war on Gaza. Besides, Israel has, according to the BBC, tried to save the little girl; alas, “a week of treatment in an Israeli hospital couldn’t save her life”.

Though Israeli politicians have spoken blatantly about killing Palestinian children – and, in the case of former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, “the Palestinian mothers who give birth to ‘little snakes’” – the BBC report, and other reports on the latest war, have failed to mention this. Instead, it quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who reportedly said that “the death of innocent civilians, especially children is heartbreaking.” Incidentally, Lapid ordered the latest war on Gaza, which killed a total of 49 Palestinians.

Even a human-interest story about a murdered Palestinian child somehow avoided the language that could fault Israel for the gruesome killing of a little girl. Furthermore, the BBC also labored to present Israel in a positive light, resorting to quoting the occupation army’s statement that it was “devastated by (Layan’s) death and that of any civilians.”

Miko Peled: Israel Blames its Victims for the Violence it Causes

The NYT and BBC have been selected here not because they are the worst examples of western media bias, but because they are often cited as ‘liberal’, if not ‘progressive’, media. Their reporting, however, represents an ongoing crisis in western journalism, especially relating to Palestine.

Books have been written about this subject, civil society organizations were formed to hold western media accountable and numerous editorial board meetings were organized to put some pressure on western editors, to no avail.

Desperate by the unchanging pro-Israel narratives in western media, some pro-Palestine human rights advocates often argue that there are greater margins within Israel’s own mainstream media than in the US, for example. This, too, is inaccurate.

The misnomer of the supposedly more balanced Israeli media is a direct outcome of the failure to influence western media coverage on Palestine and Israel. The erroneous notion is often buoyed by the fact that an Israeli newspaper, like Haaretz, gives marginal spaces to critical voices, like those of Israeli journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.

Israeli propaganda, one of the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, however, can hardly be balanced by occasional columns written by a few dissenting journalists.

Additionally, Haaretz is often cited as an example of relatively fair journalism, simply because the alternatives – Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other rightwing Israeli media – are exemplary in their callousness, biased language and misconstruing of facts.

The pro-Israel prejudices in western media often spill over to Palestine sympathetic media throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world, especially those reporting on the news in English and French.

Since many newspapers and online platforms utilize western news agencies, they, often inadvertently, adopt the same language used in western news sources, thus depicting Palestinian resisters or fighters, as ‘militants’, the Israeli occupation army as “Israeli Defense Forces” and Israeli war on Gaza as ‘flare ups’ of violence.

In its totality, this language misinterprets the Palestinian struggle for freedom as random acts of violence within a protracted ‘conflict’ where innocent civilians, like Layan, are ‘caught in the crossfire.’

The deadly Israeli wars on Gaza are made possible, not only by western weapons and political support, but through an endless stream of media misinformation and misrepresentation. Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.

Feature photo | Children and relatives of the five Palestinian children from the Najm family who were killed by Israel in its latest military assault on Gaza, hold placards during a rally in Jabalia, Gaza. Nidal Alwaheidi | Sipa via AP Images

Dr. Ramzy Baroud is a journalist, author and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is ‘Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out’. His other books include ‘My Father was a Freedom Fighter’ and ‘The Last Earth’. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website is www.ramzybaroud.net

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News

How problem solving became the problem in the west

June 19, 2022

by Denis A. Conroy

Source

Awoke this morning and thought it was time to review my political convictions as it had become apparent that the war in Ukraine was beholden to the usual ‘us-and-them’ arrangements that stood in for enlightened insight… Another day wherein the propaganda-controlled media confronted me with the power of its’ nuclear-ballistic narrative (based on fire power), to assure me that our ace-in-the hole superior mediation could slam dunk those who refused to acknowledge Western exceptionality-a clear sign that the Pentagon was in bed with The Chicago School of economics.

My ruminations continued as I set about preparing breakfast…I found time for coffee despite the chaos beyond my boundaries. What was wrong with our market-oriented economy? Was our model up shit creek?

We in the West have a problem it seems? People of the lesser than white pigmentation are no longer accepting the fact that we, the descendants of the first European industrial revolution, can be trusted. We, who colonized great swathes of the non-industrialized world are no longer being viewed as magnanimous partners in any sharing sense.

The neo-conservative West tried exporting its’ Globalization (WTO) rules-based business-school mentality that underpins the theories of the Chicago School of Economics to the entire planet. The white man’s burden should be applied and set… and reset… according to the rules of the inchoate modernist unilateralist and utility-minded who eschew democracy over money.

The dream; to regroup in order to grow the capitalist vision of capturing Eurasia in a muscular web of 800 military bases put there to inhibit the development of peer modelling, meant full spectrum dominance.

On hearing the news that Washington was giving Ukraine a 64 billion super-duper military handout, the inner consultant took over from the inner muse and my mind went into equative overdrive.

Do the righteous amongst us choose formulaic thinking over science-based deductive observation? Well, the answer to that seems to be a big yes!

Shall we start with the Jewish controlled media? The Jewish ability to trade themselves to the center of power is impressive, but does it contain the seed of a truly universal outlook, or is it anchored in ethnic moorings that have succeeded in pulling off a coup par excellence that has taken the West by storm! The question is, does it require an arcane narrative in order to occupy the high moral ground? And, having acquired the moral high ground vis a vis alliance with power brokers, does this give them the right to LORD it over those who are told that they are checkmated vis a vis 800 military bases in Eurasia or the iron rim of the Gaza strip. All of this is precisely what Mainstreet Media is conniving at. Accept our ‘truth’ or we will execute great vengeance upon our enemies with furious rebukes (and Palestine and America are not the only counties that have an Anglo-Zionist problem). Think of what America and Israel have in common; exemption from the injurious consequences of their actions (what’s that line again about actions speaking louder than words and why are their cinematic art forms so bereft of human dignity?).

PART 2

For instance, PULP FICTION, released in 1994 as an American black comedy neo-noir crime film written and directed by Quentin Tarantino, is from a story by Tarantino and Roger Avery. It was, and continues to be a cultural watershed…a great piece of cinematic art capturing the myopia within American culture. Samuel Jacksons treatment of Ezekiel’ passage 25:17 “And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them” is quintessentially, American hubris.

Pulp Fiction grafts contemporary narrative on arcane roots in antiquity to create a novel way of resolving the delusions of myopic grandeur that beset Jules Winnfield, a thug in need of redemption. The society Tarantino presents to the public is one where hype and entertainment paralyse the human spirit as the market economy goes about its business shredding the wellbeing of its’ citizens…the sense that an intractable appetite for personal gratification has become America’s raison d’etre is all pervasive.

Marsellus Wallace is a gang boss and husband to Mia Wallace. He is the boss of Vincent Vega, Jules Winnfield, Butch Coolidge and many other unknown gangsters. He famously states that the business he’s in “is filled with unrealistic motherfuckers” when addressing Butch Coolidge (Bruce Willis), a pugilist being forced to “throw” a fight. The term motherfucker here implies the existence of somebody of indeterminate status and inevitably applies to all who get in the way of any dominant actor seeking power…hegemony…over others in a rat-race to the top. The three stories capture the ineluctable spread of corruption that seeps through to every nook and cranny of society…leaving Hollywood to capitalize on one unholy mess.

So before leaving part two, a thought: Does Volodymyr Zelensky realize what the tide of neo-conservatism lapping at the shores of Ukraine would bring to that hapless country?

PART 3

When propaganda took control of macro-America, the media went along with the process of shoving Americas’ Foreign Policy ‘down the throat of all and sundry. It happened when America found itself the sole superpower on the planet. What followed was the marshaling of Anglo/Zionist forces to downplay the role of government in economics. With the help of Milton Friedman and the Chicago School of Economics, governments throughout the West became separated from governance. The Chicago School was libertarian and laissez-faire at its core, rejecting Keynesian notions of governments managing aggregate economic demand to promote growth. It was a 1930s form of economic unilateralism that succeeded in keeping finance out of the hands of the so-called ‘turbulent’ masses. It also became the political incarnation of colonial interference, aided and abetted by military overkill forever available to induct or vamoose main-street–ness.

“MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN” became the clarion call of muscular America in the service of promoting the United States of Americas’ dream of empire. But was anybody listening? When Biden said “America is back”, was anybody listening? When Putin said enough is enough, quit the provocation, was he or anybody in Bidens’ administration listening? When the nonaligned nations of the world rejected Americas sanctioning of Russia, was anybody in the West listening? Isn’t it time Americans consulted their inner jerks and gave a thought to the suffering their imperial obsession has wrought on Afghanistan and Palestine, to mention but two examples of the arcane mindset.

Hollywood, the dream machine always gets it right. Life in America is about coupling in one way or another…couples struggling with their destinies are at the hub of the three stories that did it for Pulp Fiction in an extremely fractious way. Hollywood became Hollywood because it succeeded in identifying the American existential narrative as a drama belonging to couples or individuals compelled, by external social conditions, to trade their way through a dog-eat-dog system designed to produce winners and losers from within its protean boundaries.

PART 4

America and Palestine are not the only countries…nations…with an Anglo-Zionist problem!!

As Europe squishes under the yoke of the pulpy Atlantic Alliance, there is little reason to believe that hope might spring eternally from the minds of its’ generally mediocre neo-conservative leadership.

Riyadh No Mediator but Party to War: Yemeni Official on GCC Invitation for Talks

March 16, 2022

By Staff, Agencies

A senior Yemeni official has reacted to a recent report that the Saudi-based Gulf Cooperation Council [GCC] is considering inviting the Ansarullah resistance movement and other Yemeni parties for consultations, saying the kingdom cannot be a mediator as it is a perpetrator of the bloody war.

“What is being circulated in the media about the GCC invitation for talks is in fact an invitation by Riyadh,” head of Yemen’s Supreme Revolutionary Committee Mohammed Ali al-Houthi said in a post on his Twitter account on Tuesday.

“Riyadh is itself a party in the war, not a mediator,” he asserted.

The remarks came after two Gulf officials told Reuters that formal invitations would be sent within days for the talks, planned to be held in Riyadh between March 29 and April 7,to discuss military, political and economic aspects of the war.

Ansarullah officials, they added, would be “guests” of GCC Secretary General Nayef Falah Mubarak al-Hajraf at the body’s Riyadh headquarters and would have his security guarantees if the group accepted the invitation.

Gulf officials, who declined to be named, also noted that former Saudi-sponsored Yemeni president Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi, who is based in Riyadh, had agreed to the discussions.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war against Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western states.

The objective was to return to power the Hadi regime and crush the Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

The war has stopped well shy of all of its goals, despite killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and turning entire Yemen into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

Yemeni forces have continued to grow stronger in the face of the Saudi-led invaders, advancing toward strategic areas held by Saudi-led mercenaries, including Marib province, and conducting several rounds of counterstrikes against Saudi Arabia and the UAE in recent months.

On maps wars and hate-filled mobs “canceling Russia”

March 12, 2022

First, the obligatory map of the day:

Now I need to make a note about maps, as some clearly struggle with the concept.  Okay, first, a map is NOT a faithful representation of reality.  But it is just that, a REPRESENTATION.  Which means that depending on the author of the map and the intended public, two different maps representing the same situation on the ground can look very different.

That, my friends, is *normal*.

When preparing a map, the first thing you need to ask yourself is what is your goal.  A military map will typically be more accurate, but it will be confusing to most people.  Now a “what happened today” like the one above does not have any other purpose than to give you, the non-specialized reader, an idea, a feeling for what is going on.

Check out this map for example:

And, finally, please check this western map (which I already posted yesterday):

These three maps do not contradict each other, at least not in a significant way or, should I maybe say, not in a significant way for you.  The top one is the “general trend”, the middle focuses on Ukie positions while the third one is a projection of kind of territory the Russians are likely to want to control, they are, therefore, Russian forward subunits are quite likely already roaming most of what this maps shows in red.

The top map shows the cauldron in the eastern Ukraine

The second map also shows it, but does not show it at fully locked, instead, it shows the main axis of advance of the Russian/LDNR froces

And the third map has already “buried” the huge Ukie operational forces in the east, because in the mind of its author, that force is done, spent and basically gone.

It just so happens that today I got the confirmation that the last road leading out from the eastern Donbass towards the direction of Dnipropetrovsk (aka “Dniepr”) is now closed by Russian armor.  No, NOT by Russian artillery and close air support like for the past week or so, that is what is called “closed by fire”, but close like we imagine it, two armored columns moving towards each other, soldiers coming out, hugging, etc.

So while the reality on the ground is one and the same, the maps show/stress different things.

I also hasten to add that the 2nd map, from this excellent website, has the following pinned message, in bold and red.  Here is a machine translation: (emphasis added!)

ATTENTION! Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a law criminalizing false information about the Russian Armed Forces (AF). In connection with the foregoing, I bring to your attention that: 1. The purpose of the blog for the duration of the special military operation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine is information and moral support for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, as well as the troops of the People’s Militia of the DPR and LPR. 2. To create the maps published on this blog, information is taken only from open sources, including official communications from the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, as well as official bodies of the DPR and LPR. 3. Data on the points of deployment, composition, organizational structure, command, its plans and decisions, the tasks of the troops, the level of their training, routes of movement, the timing of operations and hostilities, losses of personnel and equipment, as well as any other information, having a closed nature, and / or the publication of which may bring any harm to the actions of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, and the troops of the DPR and LPR, will be immediately deleted, and the persons who published such information will be banned forever, and the data on them will be submitted to the competent authorities. 4. The blog will also immediately remove knowingly false information about the actions of the troops of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, NM DPR and LPR. The authors of comments containing such information will also be permanently banned, and the data on them will be submitted to the competent authorities. 5. In addition, the author of the blog reserves the right to delete comments and ban the accounts of any people who simply do not like him

So, I would submit that it is rather self-evident why the maps coming from that blog, while much more detailed than the “red maps” (which come from this website: https://readovka.news/) in what concerns showing Ukrainian forces and rather very vague about actual Russian position.  Well duh!  Did you really expect a Russian map to actually give out exactly the positions for the Russian forward echelons?!?!

Instead what we get is various pseudo pro-Russian websites dismissing all the “Russian propaganda” maps while promoting other, putatively not pro-Russian propaganda, maps.  The truth? These websites are run by civilians with exactly no relevant education or experience and their goals are purely financial (clickbaiting) and ideological (serving the interests of the 5th or 6th, depending on the case, columns).

As for the real owners (and masters) of these websites they are, of course, Western PSYOPs.  Until just about now, the western PSYOPs mission was simple “flood the Internet with info showing the Russians have failed, the Ukies are winning, Putin is sobbing and hugging a pillow under his bed“.

If that means declaring that 3000 Russian aircraft have been shot down – no problem.

So, for the first two weeks, the point of maps from the point of view of western PYSOPs was simple.  Now that the “map wars” are coming to an end (at least in the mind of those who can read a map), the main theme will change.  It won’t be “the heroic Ukie cyborgs destroyed 3 Airborne Divisions” but it will be “drunken Russians bombing a maternity hospital, murdering all the innocent babies and raping nurses” (the more cliches, the “better”).

And, who knows, I would not be surprised if tomorrow’s CNN’s or BBC’s would be “Russian invaders toss all the babies from the incubators in Volnovakha”!

Wait, what?  Did we not see that already?

Oh yes, I guess we did, at least the older ones who remember the Gulf War…

You catch my drift 🙂

So, the map wars are coming to an end and welcome to the gore wars!

***

There is another topic I want to mention tonight.

The West, I am talking about BOTH the political leaders of the Empire of Lies AND many MILLIONS of their followers want to, I kid you not, “cancel Russia“.  This desire is so sincere that Instagram and Facebook lifted their ban on “hate speech” if that hate is directed at Russians.

I have lived in Europe for about half my life and about half in the USA.  I have never seen so much hate, especially so much SPONTANEOUS hate.  And for every ONE Roger Waters out there (see Roger Water’s interview for RT and following by the following (Israeli) headlines:Roger Waters Latest Disgraceful Shilling for Russia, Roger Waters Heaps Love on Russia and Assad In Latest Disgraceful Remarks and Roger Waters’ Hypocrisy on Full Display) there 10 Dave Gilmours out there too (and he dares to call himself “Pink Floyd” to boot!).

All that hate is spewed not so much by politicians, though there is plenty of that too, but by corporations.  See for see yourself, this is from today’s CNN:

But there is much more.  It’s not just the leaders of the Empire of Lies, or their IT giants, it is also millions of individuals and small businesses.  Their “noble support” of the Nazi ranges from cancelling “Russian sauces” (à la French fries becoming “Freedom Fries”), to smashing storefronts, to making millions of AK bullets to send to the Ukraine.

The hatred for everything Russia is very palpable if you are Russian and probably just “normal background noise” if you are not.  So here is what happened, is happening and will continue for a long time:

The rulers of the Empire told their serfs “hate and lynch everything Russian” and the serfs enthusiastically obeyed.

So remember that great Ukie slogan “the Ukraine is Europe”.

I agree with this slogan.  But only because the entire West became one big Ukronazi Banderastan.

Is that “just” human nature?

I don’t think so.

I think that was we are all witnessing is the climax of a genocidal hatred against Russia which dates from at least the Northern Crusades.

And here is the bad news: thousands, tens of thousands, or even more completely innocent Russians will suffer from these persecutions all over Zone A (including many kids, students, artists or atheletes).  And there is nothing Russia or anybody else can do about it.

But there is also good news.  Russians in Zone B will mostly be safe (though the risk of kidnapping and subsequent torture by CIA/DoD gangs is always a possibility!) and, crucially, there is nothing at all that the “Cancel Russia” culture can do to Russia and Russians in Russia other than make them shed their stupid delusions about the West and make them more mature in their understanding of Western PYSOPs.

It is better for Russia to learn the hard way than never to learn.

The West wants to “Cancel Russia”?  Okay.

Let’s make sure that this reality gets to every single Russian out there, and then to every single person living in a sovereign country.  To those who live in Zone A but not in Russia I will say this:

The Empire of lies does not want to “just” cancel Russia.

It wants to cancel all of Zone B.

It wants to cancel *YOU*.

Think!

Enough for today and, following two weeks of nonstop work, I am taking tomorrow Sunday off (barring some huge development, of course).

Tomorrow, Sunday, is the Day when we celebrate the Triumph of Orthodoxy.

I extend my joyful congratulations to all my fellow Orthodox Christians, may this day give us all courage and hope in the victory of Love, Life and Truth over Hate, Death and Falsehood everywhere!

Andrei

Related

• Rostislav Ishchenko on the war in the Ukraine
• Iurii Podoliaka about the effect of sanctions on Russia
• Sitrep: Housekeeping – Translations in comments for Saker Blog – please read!

Exclusive: Pro-Zionist U.S. Politicians Dead Set on War with Russia

World affairs are rapidly moving toward chaos as the war between Russia and Ukraine threatens to escalate into a nuclear conflagration.

March 9, 2022

By  VT Editors

by Richard C. Cook for VT

World affairs are rapidly moving toward their culmination as the U.S.-instigated war between Russia and Ukraine threatens to escalate into a nuclear conflagration.

The charge to world war is being led by U.S. Zionist politicians and bureaucrats, especially President Joe Biden and his chief implementer, Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. As usual, the dirty work on the ground is being carried out by the ever-present CIA and its compliant military superstructure.

By now the Zionist march to world domination has been thoroughly documented and will not be reprised here. It has been accomplished largely through infiltration and control of the English-speaking nations—chiefly Great Britain and the U.S.

Great Britain was taken over during the latter part of the 19^th century through the instrumentality of Cecil Rhodes’ Round Table, controlled by the Rothschilds. The U.S. fell under the dominion of the same influences with Zionist creation of the Money Trust leading to the Federal Reserve System in 1913.

The chief competition for world hegemony by 1900 was imperial Germany, which the Zionists succeeded in knocking off through World Wars I and II. Along the way, it was also necessary to eliminate competition from the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, Ottoman, and Persian empires, although the aid of Bolshevik Russia, aka the Soviet Union, had to be enlisted to counter the strength of Hitler’s Germany on the European continent.

By then, the independent Zionist entity of Israel had been wrested from British-controlled land in Palestine. Zionism now had a tangible world headquarters.

But after World War II, as Zionist-controlled America moved decisively toward world hegemony through war against all comers led by its CIA and military establishments, Russia became viewed as a dispensable burden, leading to the Cold War and the dissolution of the Eurasian Soviet conglomeration of nations during the 1990s.

In Europe, Zionist America moved swiftly to take over the British-inspired NATO, which metastasized by the early 21^st century to include most of Eastern Europe. Also eager to join were politicians on the Zionist payroll from the former Soviet republics of Georgia and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, with Russia seemingly down for the count, the Zionists had utilized their 9/11 false flag attacks to launch a massive series of wars against nations of the Middle East to cement control over the Asia-European bridge and to seize the Asian heartland in Afghanistan. Russia’s Slavic kinsmen in Yugoslavia had already been trounced through the NATO attacks in the Balkans in the 1990s.

Earlier, the ground for the Middle Eastern assaults had been prepared by the U.S. through the first Iraq war of the late 1980s. Afghanistan, Iraq, and Libya were then smashed to bits, while Zionist wars against Syria and Yemen are ongoing.

Of course, Iran has proven a harder nut to crack. Part of the problem with the Zionist plans for Syria and Iran came from support to those nations given in various forms by a resurgent Russia led by Vladimir Putin.

This brings us to today.

Russia under Putin was the last remaining obstacle to final Zionist victory, particularly with China having been pacified through incorporation into the West’s consumer economy and the threat of military confrontation through the U.S.’s “pivot to Asia.” So, obviously, Russia and Putin had to go.

After Russia stomped on the pretensions of Georgia and effectively began to integrate itself into the European economy through the export of petrochemicals, wheat, and strategic minerals, a provocation through the Western takeover of Ukraine presented itself as the chosen means to draw Russia into a catastrophic war.

This was accomplished expertly under the second Obama administration by the 2014 coup engineered by Vice President Joe Biden and the Obama State Department, whereby the legitimate democratically-elected government of Ukraine was overthrown and replaced by a cabal of U.S. puppets under Poroshenko.

Soon afterward, the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine declared independence from the Kiev regime, followed by the Russian annexation of the vital region of the Crimean peninsula.

The Kiev regime then began the assault on Donbass which has gone on now for eight years, and Americans began a relentless propaganda attack against Russia for its actions in Crimea. This attack was led then, as now, by the ubiquitous U.S. Zionist media led by such entities as CNN, NBC, FOX, the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, etc.

Meanwhile, the now-president of the Kiev Regime, Zelensky, continued to lobby openly for NATO membership and announced his intention to acquire nuclear weapons, even as the U.S. Defense Department set up bioweapons laboratories throughout the country. Russia and Putin, quite naturally, saw the actions of the Kiev regime as an existential threat. On February 24, 2022, the Russian military invaded.

Now the Zionist West has seen its big chance. The time for war with Russia has come, whatever the cost may be. As Zionist politicians everywhere salivate, the door is about to slam, where the last vestiges of independent national sovereignty on planet earth may be closed. Nuclear war looms as the U.S. takes action through sanctions, weapons shipments, and threats of armed retaliation through NATO allies, such as Poland.

Russia has accused the West, rightly so, of acts of economic warfare, and has put its strategic weaponry on alert. The U.S. claims it does not want war against Russia, but this is a sham. The U.S. has already mobilized its direct and asymmetric weaponry.

The main threat is to cut off all imports from Russia, with Germany and other European nations expected to follow suit. This is already crashing Western stock markets and will inevitably cause an economic depression.

Even as this takes place, the Zionist media is trying to get us to blame only Putin. Biden and the other Zionists will, of course, continue to blame Putin for everything, and the megaphone of MSM media will continue to amplify the call to war a thousand-fold.

World war is roaring down the tracks.

Unless, someone, somewhere, breaks the Zionist shackles. As it is absolutely impossible for this to come from the enslaved English-speaking nations, the initiative can only come from continental Europe.

If Zelensky should begin acting like a sane human being and accepts the Russian conditions for peace, and if Putin refrains from taking the Zionist bait and desists from launching a preemptive nuclear attack, then maybe something can change even at this hour. We can only hope.

---

Richard C. Cook is a former U.S. government analyst who writes on geopolitical subjects.  

Day 3 of the Russian operation in the Ukraine – OPEN THREAD

February 26, 2022

I found pretty decent maps on the YouTube channel of Iurii Podoliaka and I will do something ugly but, I hope, effective: add a few things to his maps with my thick black marker.

But first, this: it appears that  yesterday Putin had ordered a temporary stop to the Russian offensive while talking with “Ze” but when the latter stop talking, Putin gave a “full ahead” order.

I will begin with an older (by a few hours) map of this:

The ugly think black lines are from me.

Starting at the top left and going clockwise here is what is important:

1. Kiev will soon be encircled
2. The Ukie forces in the Donbass are fleeing hoping to avoid being surrounded, or “cauldroned” if you wish, (look how long and narrow the red lines are around the Ukies!)
3. Mariupol is almost surrounded
4. Nikolaev is under attack

Now, another of this maps, but updated.

Again, going clockwise can clearly see the race between the evacuating Ukie forces from the Donbass and the attempt by Russian forces to envelop them in an “operational cauldron”, exactly as predicted.

Next, Nikolaev is either full surrounded or will be very soon.

So, what does all that mean?

It means that we are coming to some kind of informational climax here.  So far, in the West, that information is suppressed (even Sputnik and RT are under regular DDoS attack).  I won’t even bother on the 500 foot high wave of disinformation produced by western PSYOPs in the social media.  The bottom line is this, pretty soon I expect

• The operational cauldron in the Donbass to lock in the Ukie forces which did not have time to evacuate
• The entire coast from roughly Nikolaev to Mariupol will be liberated
• Kiev will be if not physically surrounded, then at least “surrounded by fire”, which means that main axes of evacuation will come under steady Russian fire control

Notice something else.  In the 2nd map, some cities in the Russian rear are circled in blue: Chernigov, Konotop, Sumy, Kharkov and Kherson.  I would add Mariupol to that list.  These are all cities which were cut of from the rest of the Ukie forces, but which still have pockets of resistance inside, that is especially true of Mariupol where a large Nazi contingent appears to be ready to take its last stand.

All this is to say that the mopping up operations inside bigger cities might take a while.  That is normal and won’t affect any outcome.

So right now the western PYSOPs can still thrown out as many claims as it wants, but pretty soon the entire narrative will collapse, at which point the Russia-hating-and-bashing hysteria will reach a new feverish pitch.  Be mentally prepared for that.

I will conclude with something quite typical: remember how yesteryear tons of were distributed in Kiev?  Well, overnight, various gangs have been engaged in firefights, but not against Russians (who have still not entered the city), but against each other.  Some of the wannabe Ukie Volkssturm even took a group of SBU officers prisoners.  Some rumors report 60 dead or so just overnight.

Let’s hope that this crazy nonsense stops and that some Ukrainian commanders will restore law and order before their entire country turns into a “Mad Max Zone”.  If such commanders are found, I am sure that the Russians will not only not engage them, but will even offer some degree of collaboration.

Putin tried to reason with Ze.  Predictably, this did not work.

Now the Russian badly need to find somebody to talk to on the other side.  If they don’t, Russia will have to continue to take unilateral actions and turn up the pain dial on both Banderastan and the West.

I hope to be back with a summary of the day later.

Andrei

High probability of a major false flag PSYOP in the Ukraine

JAN 31, 2022

A senior LDNR military official, Col. Edward Basurin, the Deputy Head of the DPR People’s Militia Department, has confirmed that a false flag PSYOP operation was prepared by western special services (please make sure to also check the article Lilia Shumkova wrote about this).  According to Basurin, we are talking about three separate video productions which will be prepared for release by the AngloZionist propaganda machine (aka “the free and democratic press”) and on social media.  The three videos will have the following topics:

• First video: it will show how the Russians hordes will attack the noble Ukrainian forces which, of course, will heroically repel the assaults of the barbaric vodka soaked Snow Niggers.
• Second video: the heroic Ukrainian forces, armed with Javelins, will mount a successful counter attack and will penetrate deep inside the territory of the LDNR.
• Third video: LDNR civilians will welcome the Ukronazi forces as European liberators from the Asiatic Russian yoke.

Any civilians killed in the process will, of course, be declared “terrorists”.

The purpose of these videos will be to demoralize both the civilians and the soldiers defending the LDNR.  This is what I call the “Borg message” (“surrender, resistance is futile, you shall be assimilated“) from the Star Trek Next Generation series.

When analyzing information, it is a common practice to separately evaluate the source and the actual contents of this information.  Nothing personal against Col Basurin (whom I like), but since he is a top level official, I cannot credit him as a source anywhere higher than “B”.  That means that he is a pretty decent source, but not only to be categorically trusted.  In terms of the actual info, I would rate the above it as a “1” with no hesitation whatsoever: that means that the contents of the information provided by Basurin fully agrees/”fits” with all the other information I have access to.

Therefore, with an overall rating of B-1 this is info we most definitely cannot ignore.

Now, it goes without saying, that Basurin’s purpose in releasing this info is to preempt that PSYOP, just like Russia recently did with the planned false flag chemical attacks.  Hopefully this will happen again.

But we need to understand two crucial facts:

• The US and UK are absolutely desperate for war.
• PSYOPS and false flags cost money and resources, the West simply cannot afford canceling them over and over again “just” because the Russians revealed what is being planned.

Finally, on all sides, except in Russia proper, it the overall situation is extremely unstable.

Something must give, and something will give.  Probably within weeks, possibly within days.

Today the US tried to engage in some “preparation of the informational battlefield” at the UNSC.  It was a waste of time, especially since both Russia and China could veto any decision anyway.  But remember, past behavior is the best predictor of future behavior.

Colin Powell anybody?

BTW – I want to remind everybody the reason for all this panic: it appears that the West won’t be able to force Russia to send forces into the Ukraine.  The only likely Russian move would be to recognize the LDNR and bring in peacekeepers, which would be totally insufficient for western PSYOPs to declare that the Russian hordes are invading the peace loving Ukraine and are about to “loot Kiev” and all of the European continent.

These are the folks who not only did MH-17, the Skripals or even the fake chemical attacks in Syria, these are the folks who also did 9/11 murdering 3000 of their own innocent civilians.  For them to fight Russia down the the last Ukie is a totally viable and reasonable plan.  So blowing up, say, a Ukie nuclear plant or releasing a “dirty bomb” in downtown Kiev is a no-brainer for them.

I don’t know if Basurin’s very specific warning will preempt this latest PSYOPs and whether the filming and release of these three videos will happen or not, but I would be amazed if we did not see a major, dramatic, false flag taking place somewhere in the Ukraine (either in Banderastan proper or in the LDNR) in the next couple of weeks.

Andrei

Clouds on the horizon (OPEN THREAD)

December 27, 2021

The US did not provide Russia with any answer on Friday.  By itself, this is not very surprising, the levels of infighting in the US ruling elites have made it impossible to agree on a reply on such short notice, especially during the various end of year celebrations in the West.

As for the Russians, they are fine with that, since their own deadline was mid-January.  So as of right now, nothing significant has changed, what we observe is only a lot of statements by anybody and everybody, most of these statements make little or no sense and they typically all contradict each other.  We should not get too caught up in the “he said this, she said that” thingie, as this is, quite literally, just hot air.

In terms of actions, again we see contradictory developments: some sources report that NATO is preparing for a major war while other report that the US Americans and UK personnel are preparing an emergency evacuation.

There appears to be a meeting between Putin and Biden in the making, according to same sources after the Orthodox Nativity, so sometime around or soon after January 8th.  If so, I welcome that.

Also, Stoltenberg has said that there will be a meeting between NATO and Russia on the 12th.  But then, Stoltenberg is a powerless clown whose verbal emissions mean nothing.  He was the one who totally rejected any negotiations with Russia just a week ago, and now he is offering to negotiate…

I spent the last 3 days reading opinions on the Runet, listening to talk shows and watching various officials and personalities expressing their opinion and I want to share my conclusion with you: there is absolutely overwhelming evidence that the Russians are NOT bluffing, that they really mean every word they said.  There is even a growing chorus of voices saying that it would be better for Russia if the West would simply reject all the Russian demands out of hand.  Many clearly hope that the West will try that as this would completely untie Russia’s hands (or, if you prefer, her bear claws).

Most military officials seem to believe that a full-scale war against NATO will not happen, but that some kind of conflict with the Ukraine is now inevitable.  I tend agree with them.

Many observers also seem to be really fed up.  Fed up with the constant bloodletting in the LDNR, fed up with the constant presence of western military “advisors” in the Ukraine, fed up with the grandstanding and pompous declarations by EU/NATO officials whom the Russians don’t even take seriously.  This entire topic has become a huge abscess in the mind of many Russians and an increasing number of them now want this abscess to be cut open, disinfected and healed.  “More of the same” is just not something anybody is willing to accept.

But while I am sure that the Russians are not bluffing, I am not so sure at all whether decision-makers in the West realize that.  Judging by the nonsense spewed by western officials and the AngloZionist media, I would say that no, they mostly don’t (there are a few notable exceptions like this one).

So I would say that there are definitely clouds on the horizon.

But the fact that the US and Russia seem to be preparing for some kind of summit is definitely a good sign as it shows that there is still a chance for the two sides to make some kind of deal avoiding the worst (if the US Americans only wanted to meet to issue more threats or to dismiss the Russian demands, neither side would bother with organizing a meeting).

The biggest risk now is that the US Americans will try to talk their way out and just let the clock run down without ever giving a clear answer to the Russians.  Deputy Foreign Minister Riabkov said this about that “we don’t need negotiations, we need security guarantees, and very soon”.  The Russians won’t take unilateral action unless and until they become convinced that the West is not willing to restrain itself and offer any legally biding and verifiable security guarantees.  The other side of this coin is that should the West not be willing to restrain itself and refuse to offer any legally biding a verifiable security guarantees, then the Russians will be free take unilateral action.  In other words, the Russians are saying this: look, we will get what we want, one way or another, whether we do that by means of a bilateral/multilateral negotiation or unilaterally now depends on you.  For us, either way is fine, and we will achieve our objective in any scenario.  The key message here is this: there is nothing you, the collective West or the USA, can do to prevent that outcome.

I conclude that the Russian ultimatum was really the very last effort by Russia to settle the problem diplomatically.  If this effort fails, then the West better prepare itself for a lot of unilateral Russian actions.

As they say in Russia “those who will not listen to Lavrov will have to deal with Shoigu“.  Even Lavrov himself seems to agree.

We will soon find out I suppose.

I invite you all to share your views in the open thread below.

Andrei

PS: in the meantime, the LDNR authorities have identified the chemical substances US PMCs have brought to the cities of Mariupol, Krasnyi Liman and Avdeevka: botulinum toxin and dibenzoxazepine.  These chemical weapon were brought over from the USA by USAF contracted aircraft and are now deployed by 120 US mercenaries.

Sunni Lebanese Sheikh: ‘In just 10 years our Axis has shifted global balance of power’

December 25, 2021

Description:

In a recent interview published on the Islam asil YouTube channel, Sunni Lebanese Sheikh Ghazi Yusuf Hunayna stated that ‘within only 10 years, the Resistance Axis managed to shift the global balance of power’.

The ‘Resistance Axis’ referenced here by Sheikh Hunayna broadly refers to a strategic anti-Israel/anti-US imperialist alliance composed of, but not limited to, Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Iraq’s Hashed al-Shaabi, Yemen’s Ansarullah, and various Palestinian armed factions.

Source: Islam asil (You Tube)

Date: November 8, 2021

( Please help us keep producing independent translations for you by contributing a small monthly amount here )

Transcript:

Sheikh Ghazi Yusuf Hunayna, Sunni Lebanese Scholar:

There is no doubt that the Islamic Unity Project – or so to put it more precisely and broadly, that the Resistance Axis Project – is facing a very big opponent, which is the United States, along with several Western states, the Zionist lobby, and a great deal of Arab hypocritical states that are unfortunately secretly colluding behind the scenes with the Zionist enemy and with the American enemy. This Islamic Unity Project and this Resistance Axis Project is facing all of these enemies with, of course, a clear disproportion in (each side’s) capabilities.

The Americans and their allies have a huge media apparatus as well as strong financial capabilities. It is correct that we are still treading the first steps of (establishing) the authentic Muhammadan Islamic media, which calls for the unity of the (Muslim) nation, (which promotes) the culture of Islamic unity among the members of the Ummah and the renunciation of disagreement and of fragmentation.

In addition, we hold on to the Resistance Axis Project along with the idea of the Islamic Unity Project for the sake of liberating Palestine, thereby leading other sides to unite against us and (seek to) influence our internal coherence. However, this does not mean that we are not concerned about cultural, social, and political issues in terms of the Islamic Unity Project, (in contrast), the project shoulders additional dimensions.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is concerned with addressing such topics, but we must keep in mind the Resistance Axis (in comparison with the) other side’s capabilities. However, despite the imbalance in capabilities, we were able, and within 10 years (only), to alter the international equations (in our favour). 

The Security Council was led by a singular pole, which is the United States, however, today a tripartite international balance has been generated consisting of America-Russia-China. With Russia and China stands the allies: Syria, Iran, Yemen, Palestine, Lebanon, Venezuela, and many other free states of the world.

Therefore, within the (context) of the Islamic Unity Project we must expand the scope of our work and build and open (new) bridges (that connect us) with others, even though we know that those others whom we hope will reach the same awareness that we have reached are experiencing a lot of pressure that might even threaten their livelihoods and occupations.

Deconstructing Islamophobia (alas, a necessary repost)

November 09, 2021

Foreword: almost exactly two years ago I wrote a column entitled “Deconstructing Islamophobia“.  Yesterday, I posted an article about immigration which, alas, generated a few truly idiotic comments about “The Muslims they… bla bla bla” which I initially planned to reply to, but which I simply deleted in utter disgust.  Here I need to clarify, I was not disgusted by anybody’s dislike (or even hatred) for Islam or Muslims, not at all, I was disgusted by the utter stupidity of the “arguments” invoked.  So I decided that before writing my next column about issues of immigration, I would repost my “Deconstructing Islamophobia” as a reply to all those who believe that ignorant hatred is a form of piety.  On a more personal note, I am particularly ashamed when I see some (not all, thank God!) of my fellow Orthodox Christians parrot exactly the lines which the National-Zionists want to inject into our collective minds.  These are the type of folks which can’t even understand the truisms I listed yesterday, including these two truly basic ones:

• Being FROM a Christian/Muslim country and actually BEING Christian/Muslim are two totally different propositions and the former does not in any way imply the latter.
• To be considered as an adherent of religion X requires, at the minimum,  a) being aware of its main teachings and b) living your daily life in according to at least the main precepts of this religion.

So, especially for (some of) my fellow Orthodox Christians, I will add this: how would you like it if some Muslim, Buddhist or Judaic blamed the Orthodox Church for the Papacy’s Inquisition or Crusades, or blamed Orthodoxy for the actions of Cromwell in Ireland?  And if you began protesting the ludicrous nature of such accusations, your accuser would reply “the Christians they… bla bla bla“!  You would be pretty disgusted, wouldn’t you?  So you want the non-Orthodox to understand how different our faith is from the Papacy or Cromwell’s Puritanism and their innumerable crimes, yet you steadfastly refuse to even admit that the Muslim world is at least as diverse as the Christian one, and has been so during its entire history!

But hey – Who needs education and knowledge when hatred and bigotry are seen as acceptable, even pious, substitutes, right?!

Well, I want to you know that I am personally ashamed of this bigotry masquerading a piety and while in the current prevailing political doxa most people will side with you, I shall never, no matter what labels (crypto-Muslim being the kindest I saw) you place upon me.  And please remember that: I reject your theses not because I defend Islam or Muslim, but because you are ignorant bigots.

With that out of the way, I invite the rest of my readers to (re-)discover my two year old analysis.

Andrei

***

Introduction: a short survey of the cuckoo’s nest

My initial idea was to begin with a definition of “Islamophobia” but after looking around for various definitions, I decided to use my own, very primitive definition. I will define Islamophobia as the belief that Islam (the religion) and/or Muslims (the adherents to this religion) represent some kind of more or less coherent whole which is a threat to the West. These are two distinct arguments rolled up into one: the first part claims that Islam (the religion) represents some kind of threat to the West while the second part claims that the people who embrace Islam (Muslims) also represent some kind of threat to the West. Furthermore, this argument makes two crucial assumptions:

1. there is such thing out there as a (conceptually sufficient) unitary Islam
2. there are such people with (conceptually sufficient) common characteristics due to their adherence to Islam

Next, let’s summarize the “evidence” typically presented in support of this thesis:

1. The god of Islam is not the same god as the God of Christianity
2. The Muslim world was created by the sword
3. The Prophet of Islam, Muhammad, was an evil person
4. Islam is incompatible with western democracy and represents a threat to what are referred to as “values” in the modern day West
5. Muslims have treated Christians horribly in many different historical instances
6. Muslims often turn to terrorism and commit atrocities
7. Islam is socially regressive and seeks to impose medieval values on a modern world

There are more such as these, but these, I believe, are the main ones.

What is crucial here is to point out that this evidence relies both on theological arguments (#1 #4 #7), and historical arguments (#2 #3 #5 #6).

Finally, there is a most interesting phenomenon which, for the time being, we shall note, but only discuss later: the legacy corporate Ziomedia on one hand denounces Islamophobia as a form of “racism” but yet, at the same time, the very same circles which denounce Islamophobia are also the ones which oppose all manifestations of real traditional Islam. This strongly suggests that the study of this apparent paradox can, if carefully analyzed, yield some most interesting results, but more about that later.

Of course, all of the above is sort of a “bird’s eye” view of Islamophobia in the West. Once we go down to the average Joe Sixpack level, all of the above is fused into one “forceful” slogan as this one:

This kind of crude fearmongering is targeted at the folks who don’t realize that the USA is not “America” and who, therefore, probably don’t have the foggiest notion of what Sharia law is or how it is adjudicated by Islamic courts.

[I have lived in the USA for a total of 22 years and have observed something very interesting: there is a unique mix of ignorance and fear which, in the USA, is perceived as “patriotic”. A good example of this kind of “patriotism through ignorance” is in the famous song “Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning” by Alan Jackson which includes the following words: “I watch CNN but I’m not sure I can tell you the difference in Iraq and Iran, but I know Jesus and I talk to God“. Truth be told, the same song also asked in reference to 9/11 “Did you burst out with pride for the red, white and blue?“. Why exactly the massacre of 9/11 should elicit patriotic pride is explained as follows “And the heroes who died just doin’ what they do?“. Thus when the “United American Committee” declares that Sharia law is a threat to “America” the folks raised in this culture of fear and patriotism immediately “get it”. David Rovics hilariously described this mindset in his song “Evening News” where he says: “Evil men are plotting, to blow up Washington, DC, ’cause they don’t like freedom and democracy, they’re fans of the Dark Ages, they are all around, they’re marching from the desert sands, and coming to your town“. I have had the fortune of visiting all the continents of our planet (except Oceania) and I can vouch that this blend of fear+patriotic fervor is something uniquely, well, not “American” but “USAnian”.]

Having quickly surveyed the Islamophobic mental scenery, we can now turn to a logical analysis of the so-called arguments of the Islamophobes.

Deconstructing the phobia’s assumptions: a unitary Islam

Let’s take the arguments one by one beginning with the argument of a unitary Islam.

Most of us are at least vaguely aware that there are different Islamic movements/schools/traditions in different countries. We have heard of Shias and Sunni, some have also heard about Alawites or Sufism. Some will even go so far as remembering that Muslim countries can be at war with each other, and that some Muslims (the Takfiris) only dream about killing as many other Muslims (who, obviously, don’t share the exact same beliefs) and that, in fact, movements like al-Qaeda, ISIS, etc have murdered other Muslims in huge numbers. So the empirical evidence strongly suggest that this notion of a Muslim or Islamic unity is factually simply wrong.

Furthermore, we need to ask the obvious question: what *is* Islam?

Now, contrary to the hallucinations of some especially dull individuals, I am not a Muslim. So what follows is my own, possibly mistaken, understanding of what “core Islam” is. It is the acceptance of the following formula “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God” or “lā ʾilāha ʾillā llāh muḥammadun rasūlu llā“. Note that “Allah” is not a name, it is the word “God” and “rasul” can be translated as “prophet”. There are also the so-called Five Pillars of Islam:

• The Shahada or profession of faith “There is no god but God and Muhammad is the messenger of God“
• The Salat or a specific set of daily prayers
• The Zakat or alms giving
• The Sawm or fasting
• The Hadjj or pilgrimage to Mecca

That’s it! A person who fully embraces these five pillars is considered a Muslim. Or at least, so it would appear. The reality is, of course, much more complex. For the time being, I will just note that in this “core Islam” there is absolutely nothing, nothing at all, which could serve as evidence for any of the Islamophobic theories. Yes, yes, I know, I can already hear the Islamophobes’ objections: you are ignoring all the bad stuff in the Quran, you are ignoring all the bad stuff about spreading Islam by the sword, you are ignoring all the bad things Muhammad did in his life, you are ignoring the many local traditions and all the normative examples of the tradition (Sunnah and it’s Hadiths). Yeah, except you can’t have it both ways. You can’t say:

1. Islam is inherently evil/dangerous AND
2. use local/idiosyncratic beliefs and actions to prove your point!

If Islam by itself is dangerous, then it has to be dangerous everywhere it shows up, irrespective of the region, people, time in history or anything else.

If we say that sometimes Islam is dangerous and sometimes it is not, then what we need to look into is not the core elements of the Islamic faith, but instead we need to identify those circumstances in which Islam was not a threat to anybody and those circumstances when Islam was a threat to others.

Furthermore, if your argument is really based on the thesis that Islam is evil always and everywhere, then to prove it wrong all I need to do is find one, just ONE, example where Muslims and non-Muslims have lived in peace together for some period of time.

[Sidebar: while I was working on my Master’s Degree in Strategic Studies I had the fortune of having the possibility to take a couple of courses outside my field of specialization and I decided to take the most “exotic” course I could find in SAIS‘ curriculum and I chose a course on Sharia law. This was an excellent decision which I never regretted. Not only was the course fascinating, I had the chance of writing a term paper on the topic “The comparative status of Orthodox Christians in history under Muslim and Latin rule“. My first, and extremely predictable, finding was that treatment of Orthodox Christians by Muslim rulers ranged from absolutely horrible and even genocidal to very peaceful and kind. Considering the long time period considered (14 centuries) and the immense geographical realm covered (our entire planet from Morocco to Indonesia and from Russia to South Africa), this is hardly surprising. The core beliefs of Islam might be simple, but humans are immensely complicated beings who always end up either adding a local tradition or, at least, defending one specific interpretation of Islam. My second finding was much more shocking: on average the status of Orthodox Christians under the Papacy was much worse than under Muslim rule. Again, I am not comparing the status of Orthodox Serbs under Ottoman rule with the status of Orthodox Christians in modern Italy. These are extreme examples. But I do claim that there is sort of a conceptual linear regression which strongly suggests to us that there is a predictive (linear) model which can be used to make predictions and that the most obvious lesson of history is that the absolute worst thing which can happen to Orthodox Christians is to fall under their so-called “Christian brothers” of the West. A few exceptions here and there do not significantly affect this model. I encourage everybody to take the time to really study the different types of Muslim rulers in history, if only to appreciate how much diversity you will find].

Deconstructing the phobia’s assumptions: the “Muslim god” vs the “Christian God”

This is just about the silliest anti-Muslim argument I have ever heard and it come from folks inhabiting the far left side of a Bell Curve. It goes something like this:

We, Christians, have our true God as God, whereas the Muslims have Allah, which is not the God of the Christians. Thus, we worship different gods.

Of course, the existence of various gods or one, single, God does not depend on who believes in Him or who worships Him. If we can agree on the notion that God is He Who created all of Creation, and if we agree that both Christians (all denominations) and Muslims (all schools) believe that they are worshiping that God then, since there is only one real/existing God, we do worship the same God simply because there are not “other” gods.

I wonder what those who say that “Muslims worship another god” think when they read the following words of Saint Paul to the Athenian pagans: “For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, To The Unknown God. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you” (Acts 17:23). What Saint Paul told them is that they ignorantly worship a god whom, in spite of that ignorant worship, Saint Paul declared to them. I submit that “ignorant worship” is not an insult, but a diagnosis of heterodoxy, and that such an “ignorant worship” can nonetheless be sincere.

The issue is not WHOM we worship, but HOW we worship (in terms of both praxis and doxa).

And yes, here the differences between Christians and Muslims are huge indeed.

In my 2013 article “Russia and Islam, part eight: working together, a basic “how-to”” I discussed the immense importance of these differences and how we ought to deal with them. I wrote:

The highest most sacred dogmatic formulation of Christianity is the so-called “Credo” or “Symbol of Faith” (full text here; more info here). Literally every letter down to the smallest ‘i‘ of this text is, from the Christian point of view, the most sacred and perfect dogmatic formulation, backed by the full authority of the two Ecumenical Councils which proclaimed it and all the subsequent Councils which upheld it. In simple terms – the Symbol of Faith is absolutely non-negotiable, non-re-definable, non-re-interpretable, you cannot take anything away from it, and you cannot add anything to it. You can either accept it as is, in toto, or reject it.

The fact is that Muslims would have many problems with this text, but one part in particular is absolutely unacceptable to any Muslim:

And in one Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Only-begotten, Begotten of the Father before all ages, Light of Light, Very God of Very God, Begotten, not made; of one essence with the Father, by whom all things were made

This part clearly and unambiguously affirms that Jesus-Christ was not only the Son of God but actually God Himself. This is expressed by the English formulation “of one essence with the Father” (ὁμοούσιον τῷ Πατρί in Greek with the key term homousios meaning “consubstantial”). This is *THE* core belief of Christianity: that Jesus was the the anthropos, the God-Man or God incarnate. This belief is categorically unacceptable to Islam which says that Christ was a prophet and by essence a ‘normal’ human being.

For Islam, the very definition of what it is to be a Muslim is found in the so-called “Shahada” or testimony/witness. This is the famous statement by which a Muslim attests and proclaims that “There is no god but God, Muhammad is the messenger of God”. One can often also hear this phrased as “There is no god but Allah, Muhammad is His prophet”.

Now without even going into the issue of whether Christians can agree or not that “Allah” is the appropriate name for God (some do, some don’t – this is really irrelevant here), it’s the second part which is crucial here: Christianity does not recognize Muhammad as a prophet at all. In fact, technically speaking, Christianity would most likely classify Muhammad as a heretic (if only because of his rejection of the “Symbol of Faith”). Saint John of Damascus even called him a ‘false prophet’. Simply put: there is no way a Christian can accept the “Shahada” without giving up his Christianity just as there is no way for a Muslim to accept the “Symbol of Faith” without giving up his Islam.

So why bother?

Would it not make much more sense to accept that there are fundamental and irreconcilable differences between Christianity and Islam and simply give up all that useless quest for points of theological agreement? Who cares if we agree on the secondary if we categorically disagree on the primary? I am all in favor of Christians studying Islam and for Muslims studying Christianity (in fact, I urge them both to do so!), and I think that it is important that the faithful of these religions talk to each other and explain their points of view as long as this is not presented as some kind of quest for a common theological stance. Differences should be studied and explained, not obfuscated, minimized or overlooked.

Bottom line is this: it is PRECISELY because Islam and Christianity are completely incompatible theologically (and even mutually exclusive!) that there is no natural enmity between these two religions unless, of course, some Christian or Muslim decides that he has to use force to promote this religion. And let’s be honest, taken as a whole Christianity’s record on forced conversions and assorted atrocities is at least as bad as Islam’s, or even worse. Of course, if we remove the Papacy from the overall Christian record, things looks better. If then we also remove the kind of imperialism Reformed countries engaged in, it looks even better. But even Orthodox rulers have, on occasion, resorted to forceful conversions and mass murder of others.

And here, just as in Islam, we notice that Christians also did not always spread their faith by love and compassion, especially once Christian rulers came to power in powerful empires or nations.

Deconstructing the phobia’s assumptions: Islam was spread by the sword

In reality the “Islam spread by the sword” is a total canard, at least when we hear it from folks who defend “democracy” but who stubbornly refuse to concede that 1) most democracies came to power by means of violent revolutions and that 2) just a look at a newspaper today (at least a non-western newspaper) will tell you that democracy is STILL spread by the sword. As for the USA as country, it was built on by far the biggest bloodbath in history. If anything, Sharia law and Islam could teach a great deal to the country which:

1. spends more on aggression than the rest of the world combined
2. has the highest percentage of people incarcerated (and most of these for non-violent crimes)
3. whose entire economy is based on the military-industrial complex
4. and who is engaged in more simultaneous wars of choice than any other country in history

So “Sharia Law Threatens America” is a lie. And this is the truth:

Was Islam really spread by the sword?

Maybe. But anybody making that claim better make darn sure that his/her religion, country or ideology has a much better record. If not, then this is pure hypocrisy!

Finally, I will also note that Christ said “My kingdom is not of this world: if my kingdom were of this world, then would my servants fight, that I should not be delivered to the Jews: but now is my kingdom not from hence” (John 18:36). In contrast, the Prophet of Islam established the first Islamic state in Medina. So when we compare Muhammad’s actions to Christ, a better comparison should be with the various Christian rulers (including Byzantine ones) and we will soon find out that the Christian Roman Empire also used the sword on many occasions.

Next:

Deconstructing the phobia’s assumptions: the Prophet of Islam was a bad man

You must have all sorts of stories about how the Prophet Muhammad did things we would disapprove of. I won’t list them here simply because the list of grievances is a little different in each case. I actually researched some of these accusations (about marrying young girls, or sentencing people to death for example) and in each case, there is a very solid Muslim defense of these incidents which is almost always ignored and which provides a crucial context to, at least, the better understanding of the incident discussed.

Since I am not a historian or a biographer of the Prophet Muhammad I don’t have any personal opinion on these accusations other than stating the obvious: I am not a Muslim and I don’t have to decide whether Muhammad was a sinful man or a infallible person (that is a purely theological argument). I will simply say that this ad hominem is only relevant to the degree that some Muslims would consider each action of their prophet as normative and not historical. Furthermore, even if they would consider each action of their prophet as normative, we need to recall here that we are dealing with a prophet, not a God-Man, and that therefore the comparison ought not to be made with Christ, whom Christians believe to be 100% sinless, but with a Christian prophet, say Moses, whom no real Christian will ever declare sinless or infallible. As for the Quran, let’s not compare it to just the New Testament but to all the books of the Bible taken together, including those who were eventually re-interpreted by the new religion of (some) Jews after the fall of Jerusalem: rabbinical/Phariseic Talmudism which found plenty of passages in its (deliberately falsified) “Masoretic” text of the Old Testament “Tanakh” (please see here if you don’t know what falsification I am referring to).

Finally, NO religious text worth anything is self-explanatory or “explains itself” by means of comparing passages. This is also why all major religions have a large corpus of texts which explain, interpret, expand upon and otherwise give the (deceptively simple looking) text its real, profound, meaning. Furthermore, most major religions also have a rich oral tradition which also sheds light on written religious documents. Whatever may be the case, simply declaring that “Islam is a threat” because we don’t approve of the actions of the founder of Islam is simply silly. The next accusation is much more material:

Deconstructing the phobia’s assumptions:Islam is incompatible with democracy

That is by far the most interesting argument and one which many Muslims would agree with! Of course, it all depends on what you mean by “democracy”. Let me immediately concede that if by “democracy” you mean this:

Then, indeed, Islam is incompatible with modern western democracy. But so is (real) Christianity!

So the so-called “West” has to decide what its core values are. If Conchita Wurst is an embodiment of “democracy” then Islam and Christianity are both equally incompatible with it. Orthodox Christianity, for sure, has not caved in to the homo-lobby in the same way most western Christian denominations have.

But if by “democracy” we don’t mean “gay pride” parades but rather true pluralism, true people-power, and the real sovereignty of the people, then what I call “core Islam” is not threat to democracy at all. None. However, there is also no doubt about two truisms:

1. Some Muslim states are profoundly reactionary and freedom crushing
2. Traditional Islam is incompatible with many modern “western values”

Still, it is also very easy to counter these truism with the following replies

1. Some Muslim states are pluralistic, progressive and defend the oppressed (Muslim or not)
2. Traditional Christianity is incompatible with modern “western values”

Again, Iran is, in my opinion, the perfect illustration of a pluralistic (truly diverse!), progressive and freedom defending Muslim state. I simply don’t have the time and place to go into a detailed discussion of the polity of Iran (I might have to do that in a future article), and for the time being I will point you to the hyper-pro-Zionist Wikipedia article (which nobody will suspect of being pro-Muslim or pro-Iranian) about the “Politics of Iran” which will show you two things: Iran is an “Islamic Republic” meaning that it is a republic, yes, but one which has Islam as its supreme law. There is absolutely nothing inherently less democratic about a Islamic republic which has a religion as its supreme law than a atheistic/secular republic which has a constitution as its supreme law. In fact, some countries don’t even have a constitution (the UK and Israel come to mind). As for the Iranian polity, it has a very interesting system of checks and balances which a lot of countries would do well to emulate (Russia for starters).

As for modern “western values”, they are completely incompatible with Christianity (the real, original, unadulterated thing) even if they are very compatible with modern western (pseudo-) Christian denominations.

So, now the question becomes: is there something profoundly incompatible between the real, traditional, Islam and the real, traditional, Christianity? I am not talking about purely theological differences here, but social and political consequences which flow from theological differences. Two immediately come to my mind (but there are more, of course):

• The death penalty, especially for apostasy
• Specific customs (dress code, ban on alcohol, separation of genders in various settings, etc.)

The first one, this is really a non-issue because while traditional, Patristic, Christianity has a general, shall we say, “inclination” against the death penalty, this has not always been the case in all Orthodox countries. So while we can say that by and large Orthodox Christians are typically not supporters of the death penalty, this is not a theological imperative or any kind of dogma. In fact, modern Russia has implemented a moratorium on the death penalty (to join the Council of Europe – hardly a moral or ethical reason) but most of the Russian population favor its re-introduction. Note that Muslims in Russia are apparently living their lives in freedom and overall happiness and when they voice grievances (often legitimate ones), they don’t have “reintroduce the death penalty” as a top priority demand.

The simple truth is that each country has to decide for itself whether it was the use the death penalty or not. Once a majority of voters have made that decision, members of each religion will have to accept that decision as a fact of law which can be criticized, but not one which can be overturned by any minority.

As for religious tribunals, they can be easily converted by the local legislature into a “mediation firm” which can settle conflicts, but only if both sides agree to recognize it’s authority. So if two Muslims want their dispute to be settled by an Islamic Court, the latter can simply act as a mediator as long as its decision does not violate any local or national laws. Hardly something non-Muslims (who could always refuse to recognize the Islamic Court) need to consider a “threat” to their rights or lifestyles.

An “Islamic Matrioshka”?!

As for the social customs, here it is really a no-brainer: apply Islamic rules to those who chose to be Muslims and let the other people live their lives as they chose to. You know, “live and let live”. Besides, in terms of dress code and gender differentiation, traditional Islam and traditional Christianity are very close.

Check out this typical Russian doll, and look at what she is wearing: this was the traditional Russian dress for women for centuries and this is still what Orthodox women (at least those who still follow ancient Christian customs) wear in Church.

Furthermore, if you go into a Latin parish in southern Europe or Latin America, you will often find women covering their heads, not only in church, but also during the day. The simple truth is that these clothes are not only modest and beautiful, they are also very comfortable and practical.

The thing which Islamophobes always miss is that they take examples of laws and rules passed by some Muslim states and assume that this is how all Muslim states will always act. But this is simply false. Let’s take the example of Hezbollah (that name means “party of God”, by the way) in Lebanon which has clearly stated on many occasions that it has no intention of transforming Lebanon into a Shia-only state. Not only did Hezbollah say that many times, but they acted on it and they always have had a policy of collaboration with truly patriotic Christians (of any denomination). Even in today’s resistance (moqawama) there are Christians who are not members of Hezbollah as a party (and why would they when this is clearly and officially a Muslim party and not a Christian one?!), but they are part of the military resistance.

[Sidebar: by the way, the first female suicide bomber in Lebanon was not a Muslim. She was a 18 year old from an Orthodox family who joined Syrian Social Nationalist Party and blew herself up in her car on an Israeli checkpoint (inside Lebanon, thus a legitimate target under international law!), killing two Israeli invaders and injuring another twelve. Her name was Sana’a Mehaidli]

A Hezbollah fighter respectfully picks up an image of the Mother of God from the ruins of a church destroyed by US-backed Takfiris

Recent events in Syria were also very telling: when the AngloZionist Empire unleashed its aggression against Syria and the “good terrorists” of al-Qaeda/al-Nusra/ISIS/etc. embarked in a wholesale program of massacres and atrocities, everybody ran for their lives, including all the non-Takfiri Muslims. Then, when the plans of the Axis of Kindness (USA, KSA, Israel) were foiled by the combined actions of Russia, Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, something interesting happened: the Latin Christians left, whereas the Orthodox Christians stayed (source). Keep in mind that Syria is *not* an Islamic state, yet the prospects of a Muslim majority was frightening enough for the Latins to flee even though the Orthodox felt comfortable staying. What do these Orthodox Christians know?

Could it be that elite traditionalist Shia soldiers represent no threat to Orthodox Christians?

Deconstructing the phobia’s assumptions: Islam generates terrorism

In fact, there is some truth to that too. But I would re-phrase it as: the AngloZionists in their hatred for anything Russian, including Soviet Russian, identified a rather small and previously obscure branch of Islam in Saudi Arabia which they decided to unleash against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan. From the first day, these Takfiris were federated by the USA and financed by the House of Saud. The latter, in its fear of being overthrown by the Takfiris, decided to appease them by internationally supporting their terrorism (that is all Takfiris have to offer, their leaders are not respected scholars, to put it mildly). Since that time, the Takfiris have been the “boots on the ground” used by the West against all its enemies: Serbia, Russia first, but then also secular (Syria) or anti-Takfiri Muslim states (Iran).

So it is not “Islam” which generates terrorism: it is western (AngloZionist) imperialism.

The US and Israel are, by a wide margin, the biggest sponsors of terrorism (just as the West was always by far the biggest source of imperialism in history) and while they want to blame “Islam” for most terrorist attacks, the truth is that behind every such “Muslim” attack we find a western “deep state” agents acting, from the GIA in Algeria, to al-Qaeda in Iraq to al-Nusra in Syria to, most crucially, 9/11 in New York. These were all events created and executed by semi-literate Takfiri patsies who were run by agents of the western deep states.

As far as I know, all modern terrorist groups are, in reality, “operated by remote control” by state actors who alone can provide the training, know-how, finances, logistical support, etc needed by the terrorists.

And here is an interesting fact: the two countries which have done the most to crush Takfiri terrorism are Russia and Iran. But the collective West is still categorically refusing to work with these countries to crush the terrorism these western states claim to be fighting.

So, do you really believe that the West is fighting terrorism?

If yes, I got a few bridges to sell all over the planet.

Conclusion: cui bono? the so-called “liberals”

There are many more demonstratively false assumptions which are made by the AngloZionist propaganda machine. I have only listed a few. Now we can look to the apparent paradox in which we see the western “liberals” both denouncing Islamophobia and, at the same time, repeating all the worst cliches about Islam. In this category, Barak Obama and Hillary Clinton are the most egregious examples of this hypocrisy because while pretending to be friends of Muslims, they got more Muslims killed than anybody else. For western liberals, Islam is a perfect pretext to, on one hand, cater to minorities (ethnic or religious) while pretending to be extremely tolerant of others. Western liberals use Islam in the West, as a way to force the locals to give up their traditions and values. You could say that western liberals “love” Islam just like they “love” LGBTQIAPK+ “pride” parades: simply and only as a tool to crush the (still resisting) majority of the people in the West who have not been terminally brainwashed by the AngloZionist legacy corporate propaganda machine.

Conclusion: cui bono? the so-called “conservatives”

Western conservatism is dead. It died killed by two main causes: the abject failure of National-Socialism (which was an Anglo plan to defeat the USSR) and by its total lack of steadfastness of the western conservatives who abandoned pretty much any and all principles they were supposed to stand for. Before the 1990s, the conservative movements of the West were close to fizzling out into nothingness, but then the Neocons (for their own, separate, reasons) began pushing the “Islamic threat” canard and most conservatives jumped on it in the hope of using it to regain some relevance. Some of these conservatives even jumped on the “Christian revival in Russia” theory (which is not quite a canard, but which is also nothing like what the Alt-Righters imagine it to be) to try to revive their own, long dead, version of “Christianity”. These are desperate attempts to find a source of power and relevance outside a conservative movement which is basically dead. Sadly, what took the place of the real conservative movement in the West is the abomination known as “National Zionism” (which I discussed here) and whose ideological cornerstone is a rabid, hysterical, Islamophobia.

Conclusion: cui bono? the US deep state

That one is easy and obvious: the US deep state needs the “Islamic threat” canard for two reasons: to unleash against its enemies and to terrify the people of the USA so that they accept the wholesale destruction of previously sacred civil rights. This is so obvious that there is nothing to add here. I will only add that I am convinced that the US deep state is also supporting both the Alt-Right phenomenon and the various “stings” against so-called “domestic terrorists” (only only Muslims, by the way). What the Neocons and their deep-state need above all is chaos and crises which they used to shape the US political landscape.

Finally, the real conclusion: rate the source! always rate the source…

Whom did we identify as the prime sources of Islamophobia? The liberals who want to seize power on behalf of a coalition of minorities, conservatives who have long ditched truly conservative values and deep state agents who want to terrify US Americans and kill the enemies of the AngloZionist Empire.

I submit to you that these folks are most definitely not your friends. In fact, they are your real enemy and, unlike various terrorists abroad who are thousands of miles away from the USA, these real enemies are not only here, they are already in power and rule over you! And they are using Islam just like a matador uses a red cape: to distract you from the real threat: National Zionism. This is true in the US as it is true in the EU.

Chechens in Novorussia

Most westerners are now conditioned to react with fear and horror when they hear “Allahu Akbar”. This is very predictable since most of what is shown in the western media is Takfiris screaming “Allahu Akbar” before cutting the throats of their victims (or rejoicing at the suffering/death of “infidels”).

Yet in the Donbass, the local Orthodox Christians knew that wherever that slogan (which simply means “God is greater” or “God is the greatest”) was heard the Ukronazis are on the run. And now we see Russia sending mostly Muslim units to Syria to protect not only Muslims, but everybody who needs protection.

Having a sizable Muslim minority in Russia, far from being any kind of threat, as turned to be a huge advantage for Russia in her competition against the AngloZionist Empire.

There are, by the way, also Chechens fighting on the other side in this conflict: the very same Takfiris who were crushed and expelled from Chechnia by the joint efforts of the Chechen people and the Russian armed forces. So, again, we have Muslims on both sides, the Takfiris now happily united with the Nazis and the traditionalist Muslims of Kadyrov protecting the people of Novorussia.

That is one, amongst many more, nuances which the Islamophobic propaganda always carefully chooses to ignore.

Should you?

The Saker

Beirut Shootings: How Western Media Manipulation Hides the Murky Hand of US Imperialism

Posted by INTERNATIONALIST 360° on OCTOBER 22, 2021

Steve Sweeney

The attack bore all the hallmarks of a US-backed intervention, and it doesn’t take much digging to find the links between the murky hand of Washington and the dark forces behind the bloodshed on the streets and a cover-up by a compliant western media.

Last week’s killing of seven people in the Lebanese capital Beirut, widely believed to be carried out by a far-right Christian fascist militia, is a worrying sign that the US wants to provoke a new civil war to destabilize the country in a change in its Middle East strategy.

The attack bore all the hallmarks of a US-backed intervention, and it doesn’t take much digging to find the links between the murky hand of Washington and the dark forces behind the bloodshed on the streets and a cover-up by a compliant western media.

Supporters of the Shi’ite Amal and Hezbollah movements were fired upon as they made their way to the Palace of Justice for a peaceful demonstration against what they perceive as the politicization of a probe into last year’s devastating port explosion.

The judge heading up the investigations, Tarek Bitar, is being directed by the US Embassy they claim, accusing him of unfairly and disproportionately targeting their allies while ignoring those close to Washington.

They may have a point. But the debate over the fairness and transparency of the judicial report is a side issue to the events that took place in the Tayouneh district of Beirut last week.

A peaceful march that had been approved by the authorities was fired upon by snipers placed on buildings along its route. It was an ambush by US-backed fascists who are hell-bent on plunging Lebanon into chaos.

None of the seven people killed in the protest were armed. Among the dead was Meryem Farhat, a mother shot through the head as she was getting ready to collect her child from kindergarten. Delivery driver Ali Ibrahim was also killed by sniper fire.

Not that you would know any of this judging by how the incident was reported by the western press. Readers would be forgiven for thinking that it was a Hezbollah march that turned violent, with the movement seemingly responsible for the deaths of its own supporters.

Liberal British mouthpiece The Guardian explained to its readers: “The trigger for the clashes in neighborhoods near the justice courts, which left dozens more injured, was a protest by members of Amal and Hezbollah, two predominantly Shia political parties, against a judicial probe into the massive blast in the port last year.”

“…eyewitnesses said they heard at least two explosions near the site where a protest was supposed to be held by Iran-backed Shia militia Hezbollah against a judge who is investigating last year’s devastating blast at Beirut’s port. Thursday’s shootings mark the deadliest civil violence in Beirut since 2008,” reported the part Saudi-owned Independent.

It concluded in carefully chosen language: “The heavily armed Hezbollah has accused Mr. Bitar of conducting a politicized probe.”

The Independent failed to mention the Lebanese Forces at all. Instead, it opted to make vague references to ‘unidentified gunmen.’ The Guardian mentioned their name once, but only to say that Hezbollah ‘claimed’ to have been shot at by the Christian militia.

The rest of the article followed a similar pattern to that of The Independent, containing snippets such as ‘chants of “Shia, Shia, Shia’ were heard on the streets.

“Large numbers of men brandishing weapons took to the streets throughout the day, and gun trucks flying Hezbollah and Amal flags paraded through the Bekaa Valley in a show of strength not seen since Hezbollah overran west Beirut in May 2008…” it added, failing to mention that Bekaa is nowhere near the Lebanese capital. This was the crowning glory of The Guardian hatchet job, evoking images of violent Muslims seeking to overthrow Lebanon, no doubt to impose an Islamist caliphate.

France 24 went with: “Last week, Hezbollah led a protest to demand his dismissal. It sparked a gun battle in the heart of Beirut that left seven people dead and reignited fears of new sectarian violence.”

It continued with a paragraph about “hostage diplomacy and what it means for those imprisoned by Tehran” in an exceptionally tenuous attempt to link the shootings to Iran.

That they let the Lebanese Forces, a US-backed right-wing militia led by a war criminal, off the hook is no mere accident.

Nor is the reporting down to lazy journalism. This would be to deny the role of the media as a propaganda tool used and manipulated by western imperialism to manufacture a consensus among the public.

That is that Hezbollah and Amal are the bad guys and it is up to the west, always the good guys in any situation, to step in and save the people of Lebanon from their evil clutches.

The use of descriptions such as ‘Iran-backed Shia militia Hezbollah’ is a not particularly subtle, but deliberate attempt to paint the movement – which is a legitimate political force with representatives in the Lebanese parliament – as a foreign-controlled entity.

The irony of this is, that it is, in fact, the very group responsible for the attack that is in hock to external forces, namely the US, “Israel” and Saudi Arabia who see the Lebanese Forces as its proxy inside the country.

It is perhaps best known in the west for its role in the brutal massacre of thousands of Palestinian men, women, and children on behalf of “Israel” at the Sabra and Chatila camps during the Lebanese civil war.

I visited the camps and met survivors of the three-day pogrom in Beirut earlier this year and they described how the Christian militia raped and executed more than three thousand defenseless people, as the camps were surrounded by Israeli soldiers.

The leader of the Lebanese Forces, Samir Geagea, has been convicted of war crimes, sentenced to life in prison for ordering four political assassinations, including that of former prime minister Rashid Karami in 1988.

For many, he will always be associated with the massacre of scores of people, including the bombing of Sayidat al-Najat church in Jounieh killing 10 people and wounding 54, with Christians also targeted by the bloodthirsty Geagea.

But he was released under an amnesty in 2005 following Lebanon’s so-called Cedar Revolution which took place after the assassination of prime minister Rafik Hariri, the perpetrators of which have never been brought to justice.

Geagea’s propulsion into the limelight once more comes with the US suffering a series of defeats across the Middle East, including its humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan and its failure to dislodge Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

His reelection in May has led many Arab and European nations to restore diplomatic relations with Damascus, with border crossings reopening along with the return of ambassadors and consulates as they recognize political reality.

But Assad could not have held on to power without the explicit support of the Syrian people. No leader could have withstood the pressure exerted on him without it.

Not only has he defeated Washington’s regime-change operations – he has come out the other side stronger, having faced down five US presidents; Bill Clinton, George W Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and now Joe Biden.

The US now appears to be strengthening its relations with Kurds in the north of the country once more where its soldiers are based as an occupying force. The Biden administration recently announced there would be no troop withdrawal, reassuring Kurdish officials after the debacle in Afghanistan.

Despite Assad’s plans for decentralization announced in April, the Kurdish administration there is pursuing a policy that seeks political recognition from the US. It is a move that has alienated many of its supporters and undermines its dismissal of claims it acts as a “proxy force” in the region.

Having lost the military and now the political war on Syria, it seems logical that the US would change its strategy to foment further instability in Lebanon, with a return to civil war only serving to benefit Washington and Tel Aviv as they hope for the sectarian division of the country.

The hands of the US were all over the Tayouneh attack, which came straight out of the Washington/CIA copybook, mirroring its interventions and use of proxy forces to oust governments or prop up its client states in Latin America and across the world.

Geagea’s militia – many of whom have been trained by “Israel” – would be an obvious choice for the US given his previous overtures to Washington, confirmed in a 2008 Wikileaks cable.

He claimed that the Lebanese Forces had as many as 10,000 well-trained soldiers, telling the US embassy: “We can fight against Hezbollah. We just need your support to get arms for these fighters.”

But, speaking in a public address on Monday, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah explained that the Shi’ite movement commands a 100,000 fighters-strong military structure, dwarfing that of the Lebanese Forces. The difference between the two, he pointed out, is that Hezbollah’s forces protect the Lebanese people.

It may be enough to concentrate the minds of the more pragmatic US officials, but the links between Washington and the Lebanese Forces run much deeper than that of Geagea who, despite his delusions of grandeur, remains a marginal figure and is unlikely to be trusted with a leading political role.

Walid Phares, a former leading light in the Lebanese Forces, now acts as a national security advisor and consultant on Middle Eastern politics in the US. Fleeing the country in 1990, he went on to advise the presidential election campaigns of Mitt Romney and then Donald Trump.

During the Lebanese Civil War, Phares told Christian militiamen that they were the vanguard of a war between the West and Islam. He justified the fight against Muslims by saying “we must have our own country, our own state, our own entity, and we have to be separate.”

Despite his peddling of far-right, Islamophobic conspiracy theories, he has rebranded himself as an academic and has testified to international bodies including the European Parliament and UN Security Council on international security matters and the Middle East.

He does not appear to have held any official government post, but his closeness to a former president and his movement in elite circles is clearly a cause for alarm.

The links do not end there. Soon after the shootings, journalist Hosein Mortada claimed to have identified one of the snipers as Shukri Abu Saab – who he said works as a security official at the US embassy.

Perhaps unsurprisingly there has been a blanket media silence over the revelations, while the embassy itself has not responded to the allegations, raising suspicions further.

US ambassador Dorothy Shea has long been accused of using the embassy as an outpost for the imperialist carve-up of Lebanon and opening the country up to the mercy of the World Bank and the IMF.

It may be passed off as a mere coincidence that under secretary of state Victoria Nuland was in the Lebanese capital at the time the ambush took place, pledging an additional $67 million to the country’s armed forces as she demanded economic reform and the need to hold elections as a prerequisite for continued US support.

It also may be a mere coincidence that the Lebanese army changed its narrative of events soon after the US cash boost to appear to blame Hezbollah for its own supporters being shot at. This is despite footage circulating that appears to show a Lebanese soldier shooting at protesters.

But the attempts to destabilize Lebanon came soon after the formation of a new government, ending 13-months of political deadlock, along with the US failure to disarm Hezbollah despite sanctions and other external pressure.

The US is also angered after Hezbollah smashed sanctions imposed by Washington on Iran and Syria, by importing oil to alleviate Lebanon’s fuel crisis. This slap in the face for imperialism was a humiliating defeat, breaking the siege of Lebanon with ease and at the same time rendering the restrictive measures meaningless.

It also exposed the declining power of the US on a global stage, with the dollar at risk of losing its position as the world currency and with it Washington’s ability to control global financial markets.

Solidarity among nations has proved vital in defeating the US, and it is solidarity among the Lebanese people that will help the country rise up once more and consign the likes of Geagea and the Lebanese Forces along with all those who seek to destroy Lebanon to the dustbin of history.

Marking the twentieth anniversary of “9/11”

September 08, 2021

By Zamir Awan for the Saker Blog

President Joe Biden, smartly announced that the US troops will withdraw from Afghanistan by 11 September 2021, marking the twentieth Anniversary of the staged drama of “9/11”. He deviated from the actual deal reached between President Trump and the Taliban in February 2020, which was to complete evacuation before May 2021. President Joe Biden has the right to become a hero and get credit by linking withdrawal with “9/11”. Because he was part of scriptwriting the drama “9/11”. Without going into details, of 9/11, many reports are available describing it as a pre-planned play only.

The US was keeping its eyes on the natural resources and oil wealth of the Muslim world. He needed an excuse to impose a war on Muslim World to achieve its economic and political objectives. President Bush used “9/11” as a false flag operation, and without investigating or compiling any concrete pieces of evidence, he announce the launch of the Crusade against the Muslim world. Maybe it was written in the script already, and he have to perform accordingly. Although, it was never proved that Afghanistan was involved in “9/11”.

A massive media campaign was launched, the unholy media, played a dirty role and spread fake news, fabricated stories, and distorted stories of Muslims. Media is merely a tool for Western powers to malign any country, nation, or individual. Ugly media is one sale or for money ready to serve them, The unholy media, keeping ethics and their conscious out and looking after materialistic gains only. Projected Muslims as terrorists, barbaric, uncivilized, etc.

The BBC broke the news of Weapons of Mass destruction, and after destroying Iraq, they found nothing, and BBC accepted that the news of Weapons of Mass destruction was wrong, Prime Minister of the UK have to apologize later on. Similar tactics were used to destroy Libya. Again, it was BBC, reported, the use of Chemical weapons by Syrian Governments, which could not be verified later on, but the war in Syria has killed millions of innocent people, made millions homeless, economic loss worth hundreds of billions were caused to a poor country like Syria.

Afghanistan was attacked, and the Taliban were pushed out. Two-decades war, caused two trillion dollars, few thousand American lives, but millions of Afghans innocent citizens were killed, made homeless. Marriage parties were bombed, funerals were bombed, mother all bombs were used, schools were destroyed, hospitals were destroyed, Mosques were destroyed, agriculture, businesses were damaged. The whole society was made suffering.

The US and its close allies were beneficiaries of wars and looted the oil wealth of many Muslim countries. The net losers were the Muslim world, millions were killed, millions were injured, arrested, tortured, made homeless. The economies of Muslim countries were destroyed, Agriculture destroyed, image distorted.

Yet have to leave humiliated. The US is claiming, the safe evacuation of its troops, as its victory, and the Joe Biden administration is trying to get credit. Actually, it was the part of the peace deal, that the Taliban will allow and facilitate the safe exit with face-saving to all US troops. Taliban are responsible people and stick to their words, and did allow safe exit. It is no credit to US-Administration, but credit goes to the Taliban.

In fact, the Taliban has not harmed anyone and pardoned everyone with an open heart. Since 15 August, from peaceful recapture of Kabul to safe evacuation, law and order situation in Afghanistan, the world has witnessed, something different from the narrative which bias Western media was propagating. Taliban are behaving gently, kindly, modestly, and much more maturely, wisely, and smartly.

They have been announcing one by one important figure with their responsibilities in the new set-up. They were vigilant, and watching the response of the international community. They were engaged in diplomatic and political activities and coordinating with the international community. Now the stage has come where they are more confident and already got international recognition informally and are in a position to announce new Government.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid on Tuesday announced 33 members of the “acting” government, saying that it will be led by Mohammad Hasan Akhund while the group’s co-founder Abdul Ghani Baradar will be the deputy Afghan leader.

Key figures in the interim govt include Prime Minister, Mohammad Hasan Akhund. Deputy Prime Minister, Abdul Ghani Baradar. Interior Minister, Sirjauddin Haqqani. Foreign Minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi. Deputy Foreign Minister, Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai. Defence Minister, Mullah Yaqoob. Army Chief, Fasihuddin Badakhshani.

Finance Minister, Mullah Hidayatullah. Information Minister, Zabihullah Mujahid. Taliban’s deputy leader Sirajuddin Haqqani will be the acting interior minister, Amir Khan Muttaqi will be the acting foreign minister, political chief Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai will be the acting deputy foreign minister and Mullah Yaqoob will be the acting defense minister, he announced during a press conference in Kabul.

Mujahid himself will be the information minister, Fasihuddin Badakhshani will be the army chief, and Mullah Hidayatullah will be the finance minister.

The heads of various other ministries will be appointed soon, Mujahid added.

“All groups have been represented in the cabinet,” he said. The Taliban spokesperson said Afghanistan had “gained freedom”, stressing that “only the will of Afghans” will be applicable in the country. “After today, no one will be able to interfere in Afghanistan,” he emphasized. Mujahid said that the Taliban had been in contact with various countries and their envoys had visited Afghanistan. In response to a question, the spokesperson said the country will now be called the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Mujahid said there was no fighting in Panjshir, the last holdout of anti-Taliban forces in the country and the only province the Taliban had not seized during their blitz across Afghanistan last month. Separately, in a written statement, Acting Prime Minister Mohammad Hasan Akhund congratulated Afghans for the “withdrawal of all foreign forces, end of the occupation and complete liberation of the country”.

A caretaker and “committed” cabinet had been announced which will start working at the earliest, he said, adding that the leaders will “work hard towards upholding Islamic rules and Sharia (Islamic law) in the country, protecting the country’s highest interests, securing Afghanistan’s borders, and ensuring lasting peace, prosperity, and development”.

All governance and life in the country will henceforth be in accordance with Islamic law, Akhund said.

“We want to have a peaceful, prosperous, and self-reliant Afghanistan, for which we will strive to eliminate all causes of war and strife in the country, and [for] our countrymen to live in complete security and comfort.”

He also emphasized that the interim government will take “serious and effective steps” to protect human rights as well as the rights of minorities and underprivileged groups within the framework of the demands of Islam.

“All Afghans, without distinction or exception, will have the right to live with dignity and peace in their own country. Their lives, property, and honor will be protected.”

Terming education “one of the most important requirements”, the Taliban leader said it will be the government’s duty to provide a healthy and safe environment to all citizens to study religion and modern sciences.

“We will pave the way for the country’s development in the field of education and build our country with knowledge and understanding,” he added.

He pointed out that the country had been suffering from war and economic crises for the last four decades. “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan will use all its resources for economic strength, prosperity, and development on top of strengthening security,” he assured.

Talking further about his government’s plans, Akhund said: “It will manage domestic revenue properly and transparently, provide special opportunities for international investment and various sectors of trade [and] will work to fight unemployment effectively. Our ultimate goal will be to get our country back on its feet as quickly as possible, and efficiently perform reconstruction and rehabilitation work in our war-torn country.”

He added that the interim government would reach out to Afghan businessmen, investors, and sensible citizens to ask for their support and help in ending poverty and strengthening the country’s economy.

Talking about the media, he said the government would work towards its freedom, functioning, and improvement in quality. “We consider it our duty to take into account the sacred precepts of Islam, the national interest of the country, and impartiality in our broadcasts,” he added.

Furthermore, the Taliban wanted to have “strong and healthy” relations with all countries based on mutual respect, he said.

“We are committed to all international laws and treaties, resolutions and commitments that are not in conflict with Islamic law and the country’s national values,” Akhund stressed.

Akhund said he wanted to give Afghanistan’s neighbors, the region, and the world the message that Afghan soil would not be used against any other country, stressing that there was “no concern”.

“We assure all foreign diplomats, embassies, consulates, humanitarian organizations, and investors in the country that they will not face any problem. The Islamic Emirate is doing its best for its complete security and safety. Their presence is a need of our country, so they should carry out their work with peace of mind.”

Akhund emphasized that “no one should be worried about the future.” He said the country needed the support of its people and assured skilled people, including doctors, engineers, scholars, professors, and scientists that they would be valued.

No one was allowed to destroy, waste, or take possession of the public treasury, including military vehicles, weapons, ammunition, government buildings, and national property, he said.

The Taliban who swept to power last month has been expected to announce a government since the United States-led evacuation was completed at the end of August. They have promised an “inclusive” government that represents Afghanistan’s complex ethnic makeup, though women are unlikely to be included at the top levels. As they transition from insurgency group to governing power, the Taliban have a series of major issues to address, including looming financial and humanitarian crises.

The caretaker Government is all-inclusive, all ethnic groups, religious factions, minorities, Women, etc were given representation. Of course Traitors, CIA agents, Foreign implants, and disloyal with Afghanistan, will be not considered in political setup. Either they belong to Hamid Karzai, or Ashraf Ghani groups, or Dr.Najeeb, Hafizullah Amin, Babrak Karmal, or Noor Muhammad Turkey group, will be out of new government. Both groups were foreign agents, either baked by USSR or the US, are not to be considered for any political role in the future of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan has a long history, its uniques tribal society, traditions, and culture, the Western world can not understand their psychic and should not impose any democratic demands. The West should fulfill its moral obligation by paying them the war compensation so that reconstruction of Afghanistan can be made possible. The US spent Two Trillion Dollars to destroy Afghanistan, it is expected only a percentage of this amount should pay for rebuilding Afghanistan.

It is expected that the Taliban will formally announce their Government on September 11, 2021, marking the twentieth anniversary of “9/11”.

Author: Prof. Engr. Zamir Ahmed Awan, Sinologist (ex-Diplomat), Editor, Analyst, Non-Resident Fellow of CCG (Center for China and Globalization), National University of Sciences and Technology (NUST), Islamabad, Pakistan. (E-mail: awanzamir@yahoo.com).

The Forever Imminent Collapse of the Iranian “Regime”

July 29, 2021

Source: Al Mayadeen

Seyed Mohammad Marandi

As Iran is literally depicted as illegitimate and derogatorily labeled a “regime,” these “experts” can inform their audiences without irony of the rising “menace” of Iran and the growing threat it poses to regional stability.

Under US occupation Afghanistan has become the beating heart of global opium cultivation and distribution, but for Iran haters, just a whiff of unrest anywhere in the country is often enough for them to get practically stoned. BBC Persian becomes embarrassingly euphoric, while Persian television ‘Iran International’ headquartered in London and with ties to Mohammed bin Salman, and VOA Persian begin to hallucinate completely.

Arabic media narratives usually depend on state policy towards Iran. Saudi Arabia’s Al Arabiya news channel is consistent in its hatred and is often more deranged than ‘Iran International,’ while Aljazeera Arabic and English narratives largely sway in harmony with the state of play in Doha’s dealings with Riyadh, Ankara, and Washington.

Western corporate and state-owned media usually, but by no means always, put more effort into appearing balanced and professional than their state backed Persian language Iran bashing counterparts. However, in all these outlets there is a recurring and repetitive theme that can appear credible and even well documented to the uninitiated or the true believers.

Any objective review exposes a certain consistency in “analyses” that many years ago used to surprise me. Since the 1980s, audiences have been constantly told that the Islamic Republic of Iran is an evil, unstable, unpopular, incompetent and a corrupt “regime” that is on the brink of collapse. In over four decades of research and reporting, it has been regularly implied that the day is not far off when the “regime” will finally fall into the dustbin of history.

Some would argue that these “experts” confuse analysis with aspirations and facts with expectations. For them, it seems the ultimate collapse of revolutionary Iran is natural and inevitable, since its ideological foundations, constitution and political structures are not based upon “superior” or “contemporary” western intellectual traditions. These views are constantly reinforced by a small army of Iranian comprador intellectuals and many angry “scholars” affiliated with western academia, think-tanks and media, who reassuringly repeat the favorite talking points of their western overlords. Liberals and “leftists” at academic institutions may fight over Cuba, Venezuela, and Iraq, but when it comes to Iran there is often a loving consensus.

The latent Orientalism of these western analysts and their native informants as well as the Eurocentric worldview imposed upon western institutions and academia, are solid barriers that prevent most from recognizing the often irresolvable paradoxes resulting from such “expert” analyses. Hence, as the Islamic Republic is literally depicted as illegitimate, incapable of self-governance, and derogatorily labeled a “regime,” these “experts” can inform their audiences without irony of the rising “menace” of Iran and the growing threat it poses to regional stability and even the “international community.”

They feel no need to explain how an incompetent and universally reviled “regime” can possibly be such an enormous threat to the existing and well entrenched regional and international order. Either the US-led Western Empire is vastly overrated, or the Iranian “regime” is not quite the regime it is portrayed to be.

Their failure to acknowledge, let alone explain, this contradiction lies in the fact that most are simply blind to its existence. The Orientalist demonization of Iran makes almost all negative attributes seem reasonable and plausible, even though they are often mutually exclusive.

The seemingly always-in-crisis Iran doesn’t even have the luxury of being competently evil or deceiving. We are told that Iranians hate the “regime,” Iraqis despise Iran (no allusion to General Suleimani’s massive funeral processions in Iraq), Afghans are resentful, Lebanese feel subjugated, Syrians are outraged, and Yemenis abused. Nevertheless, it is largely left unexplained how an unpopular and heavily sanctioned Iran can wield such enormous influence and maintain such powerful allies, while its western and regional antagonists have infinitely more wealth and resources at their disposal.

These so called experts and analysts don’t seem to recognize that while these powerful anti-Iranian narratives may have a significant impact on perceptions towards Iran, they definitely do not inspire confidence regarding the stability or legitimacy of the US Empire. Hence, we will continue to be told that the Iranian “regime” is possibly facing imminent collapse, but the real story may actually be that the centuries old domination of the “Free and Civilized world” is closer to imminent collapse.

A few images as metaphors for our world :-)

July 28, 2021

Check out these two images:

The first is a perfect metaphor for the West civilization:  Everything in that picture is perfect, including the uniquely British BoJo and his oh so sincere homopride.

The second images shows a true western triumph.  On the basis of totally unsubstantiated claims by one defector who was under criminal prosecution in Russia, the collective West, via WADA and the IOC, has banned Russia from being called “Russia” at the Olympics.  No flag.  No national anthem.  No country.  Only “ROC” (Russian Olympic Committee). 

After all, we ALL *know* that Russians athletes are all full of dope and drugs, when they are not soaking in cheap vodka.  Here is some more evidence of that:

Yes, this is a woman. At least by western standards…

So the united West still has enough traction with organizations it created and controlled to insult and humiliate Russia.  Bravo, that is a triumph!  Right?

Well, none of that prevented Russian athletes to win medals, even in these terrible conditions!

But, hey, no worries, the West also has some awesome athletes.  This creature  might even win a medal, as a female: (see photo on right)

In fact, the West goes from triumph to triumph: it seized Russian diplomatic buildings, it kidnapped several Russian citizens and jailed them, it blamed MH17 on Putin personally, fabricated both the Skripal and the Navalnyi false attacked (and botched them both!!) and now it deprived the Russian athletes from their national symbols without even denying that, “yes, this is a form of collective punishment, so what?”

As for Biden, he just declared that there was nothing in Russia besides missiles and oil deposits (maybe he thinks that he has “become Obama” since that, at least, would make him black and woke-compatible!).

Surely, all this shows that the West is winning, Russia is losing, badly, and homorights and “democracy” will triumph all over our planet.

Good thing that the western legacy ziomedia is really honest and never engages in propaganda (like the Russian or Chinese press does):

As for the greatest military in the history of the Galaxy, it will crush Russia with a daring combination of (future) hypersonic missiles and (current) homo-soldiers 🙂

But, no worries, a the next generation of gender-fluid US kids is already being prepared

But , no worries, Russia is about to collapse, and so is China.

So all is well, no need to worry (or to listen to “Russian propaganda”).  The West is doing GREAT and its future is even greater.

Right?

The Saker

PS: especially for the “alternatively gifted”: since I neither fear nor hate homosexuals, or homosexuality as such, I am not a “homophobe”.  That is just a “loaded-term” whose sole purpose and function is to disqualify as “hate-filled” (or fear, or both) bigot anybody who has not been brainwashed by wokeness. That is also why the value-neutral term “homosexual” was replaced with “gay”. This is called “framing the discussion” (in order to supress any ideological opposition).  Personally, if anything, I feel genuinely sorry for the poor people who are truly affected by gender dysphoria (the politically correct DMS-5 term for what was previously known as “gender identity disorder”) or any other psychological dysfunction.  I just refuse to simply declare that a personality disorder is actually healthy only because those affected by it (a small, but loud and obnoxious minority) don’t want to be considered anything but totally healthy and “normal”.  The very *last* thing these poor people need is to be told that they should be proud of their dysfunction.  What they need is healing, not encouragements to go into denial (especially with the comorbidity which almost always accompanies gender identity disorders!).

Western Media Parrots “Israeli” Lies: July 2006 War An Example

18/07/2021

Western Media Bias towards ‘Israel’: 

By Dr. Ibrahim al-Moussawi*

Western media generally has always played a pivotal role in misinforming rather misleading the public instead of supplying them with correct information and news; in short not telling them the truth.

All preaching and rhetoric of honesty, fairness, accuracy and transparency become obsolete, especially when it comes to our region and specifically to what used to be called the Arab Israeli conflict. To be more specific, the Western-backed ‘Israeli’ occupation to Palestine has the lions share in the field of propaganda. A propaganda which aims at polishing the ‘Israeli’ Image and distorting the Palestinian one.

This issue was not only limited to occupied Palestine and the resistance there but it has extended and stretched to include all those who resist or fight the US ‘Israeli’ occupation in any place in the region. Lebanon is not an exception.

The examples about the Western media bias towards ‘Israel’ are numerous. If we recall the ‘Israeli’ occupation of Lebanon we can find so many.

First and most importantly, the terminology.

The Western media presents ‘Israel’ as “a peaceful democratic ‘state’ which is always “defending itself against fanatic terrorists and dictator regimes and countries.” These definitions are not only misleading and incorrect but they are very dangerous because they justify the ‘Israeli’ continuous crimes against its enemies in most of the cases they are innocent civilians and children.

The big lie that ‘Israel’ and its Western allies tried to sell was that Palestine was empty without people and the ‘Israelis’ made a miracle as they came and turned the desert into a heaven on earth. This is the translation of the ‘Israeli’ slogan: a land without people to people without land.

In July 2006 war, the writer of this article has had the opportunity to meet scores of Western journalists from different European and American nationalities. I did so many interviews and answered hundreds of questions. It was a real and complete shock how most of the media personnel are grossly misinformed about the basics or the alphabet of the issue.

I had to inform many of them about the nature of the struggle and how it started and how does it unfold and manifest itself every now and then.

The ‘Israeli’ narrative is the one prevalent: “‘Israel’ is a civilized tolerant entity, it is a victim, and it is seeking to live in harmony, coexistence and peace with its surroundings, while its ‘enemies’ are pursuing every effort to destroy it.”

The ‘Israeli’ aggressions, incursions, occupations are crucial and necessary and they are actions of “self-defense.” ‘Israel’ resorted to them as a last choice and only after it has exhausted all other means.

The mainstream media in the West and in many so-called Arab outlets especially in the Gulf region has the ‘Israeli’ narrative as their official line of news. This is very telling about the size and severity of the distortion taking place.

If the journalists and media people who are supposed to inform people with accuracy about the real ongoing events and the facts are that ignorant, manipulated and biased, what one can expect from the average person in the street. This is a systematic distortion of facts with catastrophic consequences on many levels.

If the Western official line of media is biased to ‘Israel’ and telling lies to people to support ‘Israel’, then the responsibility of the informed activists and human rights advocates is very big. With the presence of social media and public applications and platforms the alternative media should be activated.

An urgent action is needed to be organized and coordinated by all those individuals and organizations who are fully aware of the situation to inform the world public about the real facts.

The task and mission performed by our media outlets as an axis of resistance is very distinguished and significant but it is not sufficient to strike the necessary balance with pro-‘Israeli’ media.

More voices are needed here, they are there we only need to make them join the circle to build our system and narrative. This is very urgent, crucial and vital now more than any time in the past.

*Dr. Ibrahim al-Moussawi is a Member of Hezbollah’s Bloc at the Lebanese Parliament. He is also a Professor of Media Studies and Social Studies at the Lebanese University. He obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham, UK.

Sayyed Nasrallah Asks Lebanese Statesmen Rejecting Eastern Economic Offers for Fear of US Sanctions: Why Don’t You Make Sacrifices for Sake of Lebanon?

July 5, 2021

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah stressed on Friday that the US sanctions and pressures on Lebanon aim at pushing the Lebanese to concentrate on their living conditions away from all their responsibilities towards the conflict with the Israeli enemy.

“Although it is s a tough and complicated task, we have to focus on the both tracks (addressing the internal crisis and assuming the responsibilities towards the conflict with the Zionist enemy),” Sayyed Nasrallah maintained.

Addressing the opening session of the conference held to discuss the renovation of the media rhetoric and administering the confrontation, Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the US policy in the Middle East has been based on stirring internal sedition in the countries which belong to the axis of resistance and besieging them economically in order to let their people on their daily-life concerns, not the strategic ones.

“They have relatively succeeded.”

Hezbollah Secretary General pointed out that the governmental deadlock in Lebanon is caused by the Constitutional flaws, attributed the socioeconomic crisis in Lebanon to the US siege which prevents any country from aiding Lebanon, state corruption, money embezzlement, and the monopoly phenomenon.

Sayyed Nasrallah also blamed some citizens whose hasty actions at the gas stations help the enemy ti achieve its goal, wondering about the causes which push them to open fire at such popular places.

Hezbollah leader asked the US allies in Lebanon, “Isn’t it the USA that prevents all countries from helping Lebanon in order to secure its own interests and serve those of ‘Israel’, regarding the naturalization of the Palestinian refugees and plunder of the Lebanese oil resources, and threatens to impose sanctions on the Lebanese officials if they approve economic deals with any Eastern country, including China and others?”

In this regard, Sayyed Nasrallah mentioned that Lebanon has major chances to cope with the socioeconomic crisis, adding that Russian and Chinese firms have offered the Lebanese authorities several investments.

Lebanese officials have rejected all those offers for fear of the US sanctions, according to Sayyed Nasrallah who asked those official, “Does not saving Lebanon from the socioeconomic crisis deserve some sacrifices?”

In this concern, Sayyed Nasrallah recalled the human sacrifices made by all the factions of the Lebanese resistance in order liberate the nation from the Israeli occupation.

Sayyed Nasrallah added that the US ambassador to Lebanon sheds crocodile tears and deceives the Lebanese by providing some masks, noting that Washington has been the main supporter of the corrupts and money embezzlers in Lebanon.

Indicating that the US administration has been adopting the same policy against Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Iran, Sayyed Nasrallah explained that Caesar Act has banned all the countries from investing in Syria reconstruction.

“Even Syria allies dd not dare to start such investments.”

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that the US policy aims at instigating the Lebanese people, especially the resistance supporters, against the resistance itself, calling for patience, sacrifice, and perseverance.

Regarding the Lebanese cabinet formation, Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out that the upcoming days will witness several meeting and developments.

Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah reiterated Hezbollah rejection of any attempt to politicize the investigation into Beirut Port blast, repeating his call on the judiciary to announce the outcomes of the probe.

Sayyed Nasrakllah considered that leaking the subpoena issued against a number of Lebanese politicians politicizes the investigations, underling the importance of adopting unified criteria in this regard.

The Conference

Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah highlighted the importance of the held conference and its outcomes to support the media warfare against the enemy, hailing the efforts of the conferees and the organizers.

Sayyed Nasrallah underlined the role of media in the overall confrontation against the Zionist enemy, underscoring the importance of renovating the content and form of the media rhetoric in order to follow up the military, security, and political developments witnessed in our and the enemy’s arenas.

Hezbollah Chief said that “there is a bad need for renovating the media rhetoric due to the  stormy developments witnessed in the region, including the loss of Palestine, the steadfastness of the axis of resistance for 10 years in face of the sedition plot which cost a large number of martyrs and injuries as well as much sacrifices, and the victory gained by the Palestinian resistance over the Israeli enemy in “Al-Quds Sword” battle with its new formulas of deterrence whose repercussions are still ongoing”.

Sayyed Nasrallah added that the resistance media must address its audience about the US hegemony in the region and the Israeli occupation of Palestine, Golan Heights, Shebaa Farms, KfarShuba Hills, and the Lebanese part of Al-Ghajar town.

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that the US hegemony in the region is based on plundering the region’s resources, preventing its peoples from deciding their destiny, turning the regional armies into dead bodies, and sustaining the survival of the Zionist entity.

It is impossible to liberate Palestine without confronting the US hegemony in the region which supports the usurping entity as well as the allied regimes, according to Sayyed Nasrtallah who recalled how the Israeli officials pleaded the US support to the ‘Iron Dome’ just 12 days after the start of “Al-Quds Sword” battle.

“US military presence in Iraq is a mere occupation despite Washington’s claim of deploying troops there upon the request of the Iraqi government.”

Sayyed Nasrallah indicated that the resistance media is characterized by honesty which has contributed ti its accumulated credibility, adding that the enemy’s public trusts the resistance media outlets more than Israeli ones.

Sayyed Nasrallah noted that the resistance makes realistic promises in light of its capabilities and circumstances, mentioning how the Lebanese resistance kept its promise to liberate Southern Lebanon from the Israeli occupation in 2000 and the Lebanese prisoners held by the Zionist enemy.

“The Palestinian resistance also kept the liberation of hostages as a top priority and imposed, during ‘Al-Quds Sword’ battle, a new formula on the Zionist enemy, which has made Al-Quds closer than ever to liberation.”

Sayyed Nasrallah stressed that when the Resistance vows to obliterate ‘Israel’ and regain Palestine’ , it relies on established facts, not dreams.

Hezbollah Leader pointed out that the audience of the resistance media is diverse with respect to its intellectual, ideological, national and backgrounds, yet gets unified in support of Al-Quds, Palestine and the rights of the Palestinians against the Zionist oppressors.

Sayyed Nasrallah added that these grassroots interact with the resistance media to the extent of vowing sacrifices despite losing children and properties.

Hezbollah Secretary General indicated that the capabilities of the resistance media have developed remarkably, noting that this media has contributed directly to the field victories gained by the axis of resistance by relying on facts, studies and researches.

“Resistance media must rely also on objective realities in a way that acknowledges the strengths of the enemy and utilizes its weaknesses,” Sayyed Nasrallah said, “Resistance media reflects the field victories gained by power and does not recite poems to over lament defeats .”

Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized that the US seizure of websites which belong to the resistance media indicates their vital role, calling on the resistance media outlets to cooperate, exchange expertise and utilize the social media platforms to pervade their message, “just as what happened during ‘Al-Quds Sword’ battle”.

Sayyed Nasrallah pointed out that the Gulf media has been involved in distorting the image of the resistance groups in the region by naming the mujahidin (fighters) as Iran ‘tails’ and highlighting the losses the Palestinians in Gaza and the socioeconomic crises in the region.

Resistance media must confidently face the slander and hypocrisy promoted by the enemy media which tries to distort the image of the resistance and undermine its victories

Sayyed Nasrallah called on the conferees and all the media professionals, who belong to the axis of resistance, to exert extra efforts in order to consecrate the new regional formula aimed at protecting Al-Quds, adding that when the Zionists know that any threat to Al-Quds will cause a regional war, they will reconsider their calculations and remain deterred.

Source: Al-Manar English Website

Sayyed Nasrallah: US Has Major Role in Destroying Lebanon, Its Economy

06/07/2021

By Zeinab Essa

Beirut – Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered on Monday a speech in the opening session of “Palestine Emerges Victorious” Conference, held by the National Media Gathering.

In his speech, Sayyed Nasrallah highlighted the role of the media rhetoric behind displaying and conveying the ongoing events.

“The advancement of media confrontation is a must, just like the advancement of the military confrontation,” His Eminence stressed, noting that “Had it not been for the victory of the resistance, one of the black strife’s goals was to make the Palestinian cause a forgotten matter.”

He further underscored the importance of confronting the US-“Israeli” front by saying: “When confronting the ‘Israeli’ occupation and the American hegemony, we cannot divide this confrontation.”

“The US hegemony turned all resources in the region to serve the ‘Israeli’ enemy’s interests,” Sayyed Nasrallah clarified, pointing out that “The Zionist entity’s both existence and arrogance rely on the US support.”

According to the Resistance Leader, “We’re facing the US hegemony and its occupation of Iraq, its attacks against the Hashd Al-Shaabi [Popular Mobilization Forces] and its occupation of eastern Syria.”

“The media rhetoric of the Axis of Resistance is based on the right of the Palestinian people in their land, and the Syrian people in the occupied Golan Heights,” His Eminence mentioned.

Hailing the efforts of the Resistance’s media, he underlined that “We find the standards of righteousness in the Palestinian Cause and in the media rhetoric of the Axis of Resistance.”

“The resistance media relies on the victories of the Axis of Resistance and this axis’ imposing the rules of engagement on ‘Israel’ and the US,” Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized, praising the fact that “The resistance’s media contributed to making victory by relying on facts, studies and researches.”

To the enemy, His Eminence said: “We’re fully aware of the points of the enemy’s weakness, from which we can triumph against it.”

On this level, he stressed that “In our psychological warfare, we didn’t rely on illusions or lies as one of the most important elements of the resistance’s strength is not exaggerating the goals.”

“Among the most important points of strength the Axis of Resistance possesses is honesty in reporting news and facts,” His Eminence elaborated, pointing out that “There is a great development in the capabilities of the axis of resistance.”

In parallel, Sayyed Nasrallah highlighted that “The enemy today trusts the media of the resistance more than it believes its leaders, this is thanks to the credibility of our media.”

Listing some aspects of the Resistance’s media honesty, His Eminence stated: “The Resistance promised to liberate the land and fulfilled its promise, and promised to release the detainees and so it did. The Resistance in Palestine promised to defend al-Quds and so it did.”

He went on to say: “The popular basis of the Axis of Resistance are ideologically and religiously diverse, but they are united by al-Quds, the sanctities and the unjustness against the Palestinian people.”

“Within the Resistance media, there are experts and innovations despite the lack of the suitable [resources] the other media outlets are being provided with,” Sayyed Nasrallah underscored, noting that “The achievements made by the Resistance media in the last decades is a major thing upon which things should be based to develop more.”

According to His Eminence: “The popular base of the Resistance needs a media rhetoric that interacts with them wherever they are, and with which they can also interact.”

“Social media participated in making the resistance’s victories,” he viewed, noting that “The enemy can take down satellite channels, but not social media platforms, so we must take advantage of them.”

Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah predicted that “‘Israel’ will reconsider its calculations when it gets convinced that its threatening of Islamic and Christian holy sites will lead to a regional war.”

“When the Palestinians were displaying the victories in Operation al-Quds Sword, which were admitted by the world and the Zionist, some Arab satellite channels were concentrating on the images of sorrow and sufferings,” he added.

In response, the Resistance Leader underlined that “The resistance’s rhetoric and strategy of the new deterrence equation must be adopted and established, which is that al-Quds is in exchange for the entire region.”

Urging the resistance media to exchange experiences and expertise so that they take advantage of social media platforms, Sayyed Nasrallah explained that “The enemy bans some satellite channels and blocks some websites due to its influence.”

“The enemy could ban some satellite channels, but it could not stop social media platforms; this is why we should take advantage of them,” he said, noting that “There is a media warfare against the Resistance, for which billions of dollars are dedicated to distort the image of the Resistance.”

According to His Eminence, “There should be a media plan to confront fabrications and fake news being published by some sides, especially regarding the cause of Palestine and al-Quds.”

“Developing the media rhetoric of the Resistance must be convenient with the regional transformations and threats,” he stated, advising the resistance axis to “revise the language of our rhetoric and literature based on the major achievements.”

On another level, Sayyed Nasrallah warned that “Those setting conspiracies for the region aim at keeping people busy making their living, and this is happening indeed. The reason behind the ongoing conspiracies is to remain busy from supporting Palestine.”

Moving to the internal front, His Eminence explained that “The governmental crisis in Lebanon is a result of the regime crisis.”

“We have to work on two parallel tracks; the first is to work upon Lebanon’s crises, and the second is not to stay busy from what is happening to the nation,” he said.

As His Eminence reiterated that “The US bans any aid to solve the crisis in Lebanon; this is to serve the ‘Israeli’ enemy,” he wondered: “Isn’t the US administration the side behind banning Lebanese banks from bringing their cash from outside the country?”

Sayyed Nasrallah also slammed some Lebanese people who fear being blacklisted by the US: “The fear being blacklisted by the US while the entire country is heading to death.”

“The goal behind the American blockade is to provoke the Lebanese people and the people of Resistance against it,” he said, pointing out that “The US Embassy in Lebanon is partner in the collapse of the Lebanese currency.”

On this level, His Eminence emphasized that “Wrong policies are among the reasons behind the crisis in Lebanon, but the US is the main reason because it is a partner of the corrupt.”

Denouncing the US ambassador “who is shedding crocodile tears over the Lebanese,” Sayyed Nasrallah underscored that “Major companies want to invest in Lebanon without costing the Lebanese state anything, but they are being told “No” because some are afraid of the Americans.”

On another level, Sayyed Nasrallah lamented the fact that the defendants in the Beirut Port Blast issue learned their names in the case through media outlets

Rejecting the political blackmail in Beirut port blast case, he wondered whether the investigation is a true judicial work or a political targeting. “Justice is still distant and the truth is still concealed,” he said, announcing that the coming days are decisive regarding the new government.

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