Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered on Thursday a speech on the Islamic Resistance Martyred Leaders Day.
As Sayyed Nasrallah condoled with the families of the martyr leaders, he recalled their sacrifices.
His Eminence further congratulated Iran, its people and the Leader of the Islamic Revolution His Eminence Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei on the 44th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution.
“The international and Arab media neglected the millions who poured into the streets to celebrate 44 years of the Islamic Revolution while they used to focus on gatherings or riots that had a few people,” he added, pointing out that “All who betted on toppling the Iranian revolution, especially the Zionists, made a mistake, and I advise them not build their calculations on such mirage.”
On the Lebanese side, Sayyed Nasrallah hoped that the agreement with the Free Patriotic Movement continues. “The Mar Mikhail Agreement is in a critical situation and we hope it will be preserved for the sake of the national interest,” he mentioned.
Moreover, His Eminence condoled with the Lebanese and the lovers and advocates of late PM Rafik Hariri on the anniversary of his martyrdom.
Meanwhile, the Resistance Leader hailed the sacrifices of “the oppressed Bahraini people, who won’t abandon their national cause, nor that of Palestine and occupied Al-Quds.”
Regarding the celebrated anniversary, he underlined that “Our martyr leaders clung to the option of resistance despite all the difficulties, betrayal and stabs in the back of the resistance.”
“Our achievements were scored thanks to the blood of our martyrs, leaders and all martyrs in the resistance movements, the Lebanese army, the Palestinian factions and the Syrian army,” Sayyed Nasrallah added, cautioning that “Since 2019, Lebanon has entered into a new scheme to return the country into the era of US hegemony.”
In addition, His Eminence underscored that “The liberation of Lebanon, its water and oil, and the revival of hope through the Palestinian intifada in 2000 are among the main achievements against the enemy.”
“Former US President Barack Obama admitted that toppling regimes needs only to alter the public opinion with ‘spam’,” he said, noting that “Obama himself explained the US tools to overthrow regimes by making people lose confidence in their leadership, and this thought is adopted by Biden administration.”
According to Hezbollah Secretary General, “We’re facing the challenge of confronting the US media, political and economic tools, on top of which is the game of dollar price.”
“What helps the Americans in their scheme is the presence of corruption and errors in the administrations of the targeted countries,” Sayyed Nasrallah explained, noting that “We must take the initiative, plan and cooperate in order to overthrow the scheme of chaos, domination and tampering with our people’s minds to control them.”
Recalling that “In October 2019, the slogan was ‘All means all’, because what was required is that the Lebanese lose their confidence in all officials,” he confirmed that “The US embassy, along with some NGOs, were manufacturing leaders. However, this project failed.”
On the regional level, Sayyed Nasrallah renewed Hezbollah’s condolences with the Turkish and Syrian governments over the devastating earthquake. “We’re facing a great human tragedy, and what happened is a test to the humanity of every person, party, association and country,” he said, noting that “Syria’s earthquake revealed the US administration’s failure in the test of humanity in and its brutal criminal face.”
The Resistance leader went on to say “In the 1st days of the earthquake, the American administration left the people die in Syria through its severe sanctions.”
His Eminence also slammed “The international community’s discrimination and double standards that were clear at various levels in dealing with the repercussions of the earthquake in Turkey and Syria.”
“The West’s double standards in dealing with the devastating earthquake in Syria and Turkey is a resounding human failure,” he said, urging “all sides to help Syria and Turkey to return to normal life, and this is the most difficult challenge.”
Sayyed Nasrallah cautioned that “According to experts’ expectations, Lebanon is facing a new challenge, which is the possibility of an earthquake.”
“The Lebanese government – even if it is a caretaker one – must initiate contingency plans in anticipation of a possible earthquake,” he stated, noting that “Despite its modest capabilities, Lebanon can set contingency and comprehensive plans to face the possibility of an earthquake.”
In parallel, Hezbollah Secretary General underlined that “Among the first steps the Lebanese state must consider is fixing the cracked buildings.”
“Directly after the earthquake, the buildings in the northern Lebanese city, Tripoli, were the first to come to my mind, and I confirmed our readiness to help,” he uncovered.
Sayyed Nasrallah praised the Lebanese government’s steps in sending the official delegation to Syria, and offering all kinds of assistance. “Lebanon would benefit the most from breaking the siege on Syria,” he stated.
Moving to the “Israeli” front, Hezbollah Secretary General explained that “The internal ‘Israeli’ situation is unprecedented, especially in light of the entity’s officials fear from a ‘civil’ war.”
“The ‘Israeli’ occupying entity’s President acknowledged his fears of an imminent internal explosion and the collapse of the entity,” he mentioned, praising the “Palestinian people’s new uprising, particularly the heroic operations of the Palestinian youth in Occupied Al-Quds, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
According to His Eminence, “The foolish Zionist government may push for escalation in the entire region, not just in Palestine, and this is a possibility, especially in case of attacking the Al-Aqsa Holy Mosque.”
On the internal Lebanese front, Sayyed Nasrallah unveiled that “There is nothing new in the presidential file and we all saw what happened in Paris. It is true that the Lebanese are responsible.”
“Efforts must continue to search for agreement and understanding in order to resolve the issue of Lebanese presidency,” he said, noting that “No one can impose a president on Lebanon and the effort should be domestic.”
His Eminence went on to say that “The uncontrolled rise in the dollar in face of the Lebanese Lira must be dealt with, and the demands of the public sector are very justified.”
“What is happening in Lebanon is mainly caused by American pressure and the policy of withdrawing funds and deposits in a planned manner,” he stressed, adding that “The Americans sent a lot of messages to Iran in order to conduct direct negotiations, but Tehran refused that. We must seek to achieve a strong economy in our country and search for other markets, such as China and Russia.”
Moreover, Sayyed Nasrallah urged the Lebanese “not to accept any procrastination by the companies in the oil and gas file.”
To the Americans, the Resistance Leader sent a sounding message: “The resistance’s environment that you are seeking to target with chaos, suffering and pain will not give up its principles.”
He warned against any procrastination in extracting oil from water, and the Americans must be told to stay away from such move
To the Americans, the Resistance Leader said: “If you’re to sow chaos in Lebanon, you will lose everything. If you push Lebanon into chaos, you must wait for chaos in the entire region, particularly ‘Israel’. Those pushing Lebanon into chaos and collapse must anticipate everything and things that can’t be imagined.”
“Just as we were ready for war in defense of our oil, we’re ready to hit your protégé, ‘Israel’,” he vowed, noting that “Tomorrow is close.”
Under the guise of improving the plight of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees, an initiative by the British Foreign Office has ulterior motives that impact Lebanese domestic politics.
The British government has infiltrated Lebanon’s Palestinian refugee camps, ostensibly to use those demographics to political advantage. Otherwise, why not assist them through UNRWA?Photo Credit: The Cradle
In February, Lebanese journalist Mohammed Shoaib was arrested on suspicion of collusion with Israel’s Mossad spy agency. The writer who worked for Al-Jaras, confessed that the notorious spy agency secretly paid him to author “dozens” of anti-Hezbollah articles, receiving a paltry $30 to $70 per article.
In particular, Shoaib was tasked with writing hit jobs on the “Iranian occupation” of Lebanon, and falsely linking Hezbollah with the August 2020 Beirut port blast, drug trafficking, and murder of political activists.
It is also alleged that Mossad specifically requested his work incite hostility towards Palestinian refugees in the country who number almost 300,000. In all, Lebanon hosts more than 1.7 million refugees and has the largest per capita population of refugees in the world.
Roughly half inhabit camps administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), where they endure abysmal living conditions, overcrowding, poverty, unemployment, lack of access to justice, and other unspeakable hardships. The 11-year, foreign-backed crisis in neighboring Syria has also prompted Palestinian refugees there – and Syrian citizens – to seek sanctuary in Lebanon.
Given Israel’s track record of multifaceted crimes against the Palestinian people, that they are targeting an already vulnerable refugee population for propaganda purposes is hardly surprising. Nonetheless, Israel is not the only hostile foreign country resorting to these tactics.
Leaked files reviewed by The Cradle reveal the British Foreign Office has for many years secretly meddled in Lebanon’s refugee camps, courtesy of ARK, a shadowy intelligence cutout run by probable MI6 operative Alistair Harris. London’s agenda is rather different than Tel Aviv’s, however – it seeks to subtly stir up revolutionary fervor, and exploit them as unwitting foot soldiers in its ongoing clandestine war against Lebanon’s ruling elite.
‘Community Engagement’
The documents indicate ARK has been operating in all 12 camps since 2009, implementing British-funded “programming” of various kinds. This experience has granted the company “granular understanding” of their internal political, economic, ideological, religious and practical dynamics, and led to the establishment of a “diverse delivery team” and array of “local contacts” with “access throughout all camps and gatherings,” meaning community-level discussions and activities of residents can be spied upon and influenced.
This intimate, insidious insight is reinforced by “daily monitoring of neighborhood-level WhatsApp groups,” with “any new information, such as affiliation between a local group and a faction, or conflict between factions” documented by ARK’s in-house “stakeholder tracker.”
Typically, ARK has engaged in small-scale initiatives in the camps, including the restoration of streets and cemeteries, recycling initiatives, assisting in the launch of small businesses, providing income to disadvantaged and disabled residents, creating nurseries and daycare centers, and even launching a community hub, Sawa Coffeeshop. It serves to this day as “a popular place for youth to gather and promote civic engagement in their community and a shared Palestinian identity that bridges factional differences.”
In submissions to the Foreign Office dating to May 2019, ARK proposed ramping up these activities significantly. It pledged to create “Community Leadership Committees” in each camp, composed of hand-picked “stakeholders” – including NGOs, youth activists, women’s organizations, and representatives of neighborhood armed groups – to identify “quick impact projects” that could be implemented therein. These projects aim to “counter threats to social stability in the camps, create or improve livelihood opportunities, and provide better access to services.”
A social media platform created by ARK, Nastopia – which boasted 20,000 “highly invested” followers on Facebook at the time, a figure that has almost doubled since – was forecast to be fundamental to these efforts.
The page, run by a 24-strong team of ARK-trained “youth reporters”, would be used to recruit local participants, increase awareness and demand for “community engagement and improved conditions” among camp residents. Other activities include the promotion of Foreign Office-financed projects and to publicize “success stories” generated by them, while “promoting Palestinian culture and a sense of belonging, and tackling social injustice.”
Nastopia was “already [an] effective voice for connecting Palestinian communities, particularly youth” by that point. ARK cited a recent “Camps Films Festival” organized by the platform, covered by Al-Jazeera, which showcased “films portraying life in the camps and what it means to be Palestinian,” and in the process provided “positive examples of a shared identity.”
All along, the Nastopia page was to be monitored with “community feedback” on the assorted initiatives gauged to identify areas in which these activities “could be adapted to maximize impact.” Specialist training provided to its staff meant the platform could also serve “as a forum for online and offline discussion about social injustices [and] virtual space to talk about topics considered taboo in the camps,” allowing ARK to burrow even deeper inside the heads of refugees.
‘Active Citizenship’
If the obvious surveillance and manipulation dimensions of ARK’s project weren’t troubling enough, it takes on an acutely sinister character when one considers a key objective of “highlighting successful initiatives” in the camps was to “[enhance] the audience’s confidence in their own ability to contribute to social change.”
A Foreign Office-commissioned Target Audience Analysis conducted by ARK in March 2019 sought to pinpoint a segment of Lebanon’s population that could be mobilized to “affect positive social change,” and methods by which tensions between sectarian communities could be reduced, in order to unify them in opposition to the country’s ruling elite. Reading between the lines, it gives every appearance of a blueprint for the overthrow of the Lebanese government.
An ideal audience was duly identified, representing 12 percent of the population, who disavowed violence but did not reject “other forms of contentious politics,” and could be “influenced” to engage in “behaviors leading to positive social change,” such as protests and community initiatives.
The only questions for ARK were: “What might be done to enable other Lebanese to have similar confidence in their potential to contribute to positive social change?” and “how might this segment of the population … be grown to include a larger fraction of the public?”
The answer, ARK proposed, was to both covertly and overtly promote the message that “change is possible and ordinary citizens have a role to play in achieving change,” by way of propaganda campaigns and civil society initiatives “[highlighting] where change has been achieved or where threats to Lebanon’s stability have been countered.” This would demonstrate to the country’s diverse population that “barriers” to reform can be overcome, by taking matters into their own hands.
Providing evidence of “responsive government at local levels” was crucial for reinforcing “principles of active citizenship” among Lebanon’s population – and the analysis specifically cited Syrians and Palestinians, who are mostly Sunni Muslims, as representing an “important part” of the country’s demography, to be motivated in this manner.
In other words, Foreign Office activities in the refugee camps form just one fragment of a wider, clandestine, multi-channel assault on public perceptions in Lebanon that Britain has been waging against its democratically-elected government.
A mobilized force
One can judge these efforts by their fruits. In October 2019, seven months after ARK’s Target Audience Analysis was supplied to the Foreign Office, large-scale protests engulfed the streets of Beirut, which have ebbed and flowed ever since, and generated enormous amounts of western media coverage along the way.
The extent to which ARK’s Foreign Office-funded meddling in Lebanon influenced this incendiary unrest may never be fully quantifiable, but it may be significant that in July that year, thousands of refugees across several camps began demonstrating in unison, demanding the government immediately reform employment laws barring them as “foreign workers” from numerous professions.
This turmoil was arguably the spark that ignited the entire “October Revolution” – and in one of its Foreign Office submissions, ARK refers to how it “takes pride” in ensuring refugees recruited to its illicit schemes receive “annual leave, sick leave, and health insurance,” despite this not being “legally necessary” due to local legislation “discriminating against Palestinians.”
Who benefits?
The influence of ARK on Lebanon’s impending general election in May, the country’s first since the riots began, is even more unambiguous. Several news outlets have hailed the unprecedentedly high profusion of young candidates vying for office – 80 in total, many of them women.
A clandestine Foreign Office project influenced by the aforementioned Target Audience Analysis sought to enlist Lebanese youth as “agents of change”, fostering among them a culture of active political participation, in order that they could better “hold political institutions and individuals accountable,” and increase “electoral participation” in favor of opposition parties.
Under its auspices, ARK convened “boot camps” in “priority areas” of Lebanon, cultivated “a national group capable of pushing for greater change” composed of young women, and created social media assets and youth-focused websites featuring political interviews, question-and-answer sessions, coverage of boot camp meetings, “calls to action,” and “humorous messaging campaigns.” Activity on these assets was scheduled to ramp up ahead of the 2022 elections.
Clearly, irrespective of the outcome of the Lebanon May elections, the ultimate victors won’t be the parties and candidates that secure office, or the average Lebanese citizens who elected them, but Britain – for whatever form the next government takes, one way or another, it will serve London’s financial, ideological, military, and political interests.
The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect those of The Cradle.
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Jens Stoltenberg, the secretary general of NATO who answers to Washington declared today (Feb 19) at the Munich Security Conference that “if the Kremlin’s aim is to have less NATO on its borders, it will only get more NATO.” He says NATO is beefing up its forces “across the alliance,” that is, in the NATO countries on Russia’s borders. See this.
This is an extremely aggressive response to Russia’s concern about missile bases placed on her borders. To speak frankly, Stoltenberg is inviting a Russian attack before she finds herself with more missile bases on her borders.
As if this isn’t enough and with Russia already concerned with the unwillingness of the West to abide by any agreements, treaties, and international law, the president of Ukraine declared today at the Munich Security Conference that Ukraine was on the verge of renouncing the Budapest Memorandum in which Ukraine agreed to abstain from nuclear weapons in exchange for its independence from Russia. As Ukraine has already broken the Minsk Agreement, there is no reason for Ukraine to keep to the Budapest Memorandum. See this.
So, Russia goes to the US and NATO and says frankly: “You are making us uncomfortable by putting missile bases on our borders and by your plans to bring Ukraine into NATO. This is not something we can accept. Here is our proposal for mutual security.” And the reply is more NATO military expansion and Ukraine developing nuclear weapons.
There was never any possibility of any success of Russian negotiations with Ukraine, because Ukraine is not a sovereign country and cannot make its own decisions. Ukraine is Washington’s pawn used to cause trouble for Russia. Russia brought this upon herself by standing aside while Washington overthrew the Ukraine government and installed a Washington puppet. Biden, Blinken, Stoltenberg, and the rest of the crew have made it completely clear that they intend to make Russia less secure. The West thinks that this is riskless because all the Russians will do is complain and ask for more negotiations. Washington has Russia trapped in the self-defeating process of answering Washington’s accusations.
Perhaps Biden, Blinken, and Stoltenberg are right. But on the other hand, what would you do if you were the government of a vast country allied with China and armed with a military force that can walk through any force NATO can muster as if it were a wet paper bag? Would you sit there wasting time and energy in negotiations that only make things worse while your enemies build up their forces on your borders and Ukraine acquires nuclear weapons?
I don’t know what Putin has learned. I have learned that previous Russian and Soviet governments were correct in realizing that Russian security required buffers. There are solid reasons Ukraine, Belarus, Georgia, and Central Asia were integral parts of Russia and the Soviet Union. The Soviet government formed the Warsaw Pact (East European countries) as a buffer to NATO, which was formed first. The weak Yeltsin government, by agreeing to strip Russia of her buffers, has produced the insecurity that Putin has tried to resolve peacefully.
Biden, Blinken, Stoltenberg, Inc. have made it clear that there will be no peaceful resolution except the Kremlin’s acceptance of Washington’s hegemony. As I have written for years, Russia’s choice is surrender or fight.
I still think peace is achievable, but not until there is a demonstration of judicious Russian force. The West needs to understand that Russia means it when she says she has had enough.
What would be an example of judicious force? Perhaps this:
The Kremlin accepts the vote of the Donbass Russians to be returned to Russia like Crimea. This would end the violence in Ukraine as not even the Ukrainian neo-Nazis are stupid enough to attack Russia.
The Kremlin announces that Ukraine is in no danger from Russia unless Ukraine becomes a NATO member, accepts US missile bases, or begins developing nuclear weapons, in which case Ukraine will be destroyed.
The US missile bases in Poland and Romania will be removed or Russia will remove them.
There will be no further strengthening of NATO military forces in NATO countries bordering Russia. Any such forces will be destroyed upon arrival.
The red lines would be clear. If the West crosses them, it will be the West that is responsible for the violence.
If nothing of this sort is done, Washington will keep pushing until Russia has to take far more drastic action that would bring a much greater chance of nuclear war.
It is clear from Washington’s negative response to Russia’s demand that her security concerns be addressed that negotiations are pointless. Washington controls the Western media, and the media spins the outcome to Washington’s satisfaction. More negotiation just means more Russian frustration.
It is difficult for the Kremlin to act in Russia’s interest because of the Russian fifth column consisting of the Atlanticist Integrationists. These are influential people and organizations who are more concerned to be a part of the West than they are with Russian sovereignty. Globalism is everywhere, including in the Russian government and economic establishment. Russian economists have been indoctrinated by their Western counterparts that Russia needs foreign exchange in order to develop the Russian economy. Consequently, they think energy sales to Europe should be billed in dollars or euros, which strengthens the dollar and the euro instead of the ruble. It is a sad situation when a country’s economists recommend a policy that strengthens the enemy’s currency instead of its own.
Washington is relying on the Atlanticist Integrationists and the Western-financed NGOs, which the Russian government foolishly permits to operate against itself inside Russia, to make it difficult for Putin to meet the challenges that Washington is bringing in order to weaken and destabilize Russia.
Russia cannot negotiate away either the US military/security complex’s need for an enemy to justify its power and budget or Washington’s desire for hegemony. This is the reality that Putin faces.
Putin and Lavrov keep trying to rely on reason and fact, but in the West reason and fact have lost their influence. Reason is a “white construct” that white people who are “systemic racists” use to oppress people of color. Biologically-based gender is not even a fact. A physical man can declare himself a woman, and a physical woman can declare herself to be a man. Employers, schools, even the military have to accept the self-declaration of gender regardless of fact, or courts rule they are in violation of the Civil Rights Act and are discriminating on the basis of sex.
The Western world has replaced reason and fact with narratives. Narratives are official explanations that no matter how false carry the imprimatur of truth. To challenge them can be life-threatening. We are not yet shot in the back of the head in the Lubyanka. Instead, we are declared to be “domestic terrorists,” “Russian agents,” “disinformation agents,” “enemies of democracy.” We are deplatformed, fired from our jobs, our medical licenses are taken away, we are arrested and our property seized for protesting a narrative as is currently happening to the Canadian protesters.
Independent scientists of the highest reputation have proven that the Covid narrative is incorrect, that the mRNA vaccines are more dangerous to most people than Covid itself. Yet the scientific facts do not correct the narrative. Instead, the narrative bans the facts.
How is it possible that Putin and Lavrov expect to negotiate with a culture in which reason and fact do not exist? Why do they continue in this folly? Is the reality they face too much to accept compared to the pretend world of negotiation?
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Dr. Paul Craig Roberts writes on his blog site, PCR Institute for Political Economy, where this article was originally published. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.
لا يمكن لسفير أجنبي في بيروت أن يمارس ما تعلّمه في أكاديميات بلاده، أو أن يحافظ على بروتوكول العمل الديبلوماسي كما تقتضي الأعراف. غالباً، يعاني الديبلوماسيون الأجانب كثيراً عندما يغادرون لبنان إلى بلاد طبيعية. «متلازمة لبنان» تلاحقهم أينما ذهبوا. المشكلة ليست في أن لدى بعضهم – أو غالبيتهم – استعداداً لـ«الانحراف»، بل لكون «الفيروس» اللبناني قوياً جداً، وهو، ربما، سابق على فيروس «كورونا» الذي يكشف نقاط الضعف في الجسد. فـ«الفيروس» اللبناني كاشف لنقاط الضعف لدى عدد غير قليل من الأجانب ممن عاشوا في لبنان مستعمرين أو غزاة أو ضيوفاً، أو حتى عابري سبيل.
الديبلوماسيون الأجانب ليسوا كلهم عرضة للإصابة. لكن من ينجو منهم، يصلح أن يتحوّل خبيراً محلفاً في شؤون «الشعب العنيد». سفير دولة أوروبية كبيرة أسف، في حفل عائلي ضيق قبل مغادرته لبنان، على حال هذه البلاد. ليس على حال سياسييها الذين يعتقدون بأن الدنيا لا تعيش من دونهم، بل على حال مواطنيها الذين يكذبون على أنفسهم طوال الوقت. إذ يشكون كثيراً، لكن ليست صدفة أنهم لم يتمكّنوا يوماً من إحداث تغيير شامل وحقيقي في آلية إنتاج السلطة في بلادهم.
الديبلوماسي العربي أو الغربي، أو حتى الشرقي، الذي يمر في لبنان، يعرف أن مهامه تتجاوز إطار العلاقات التقليدية بين بلدين. وهو، أساساً، يدرك أن ضابط الأمن في السفارة شريك أساسي له في مهامه. صحيح أن محطات الاستخبارات ناشطة في كل سفارات العالم، لكنها في لبنان تلعب دوراً يبدو في بعض الأحيان متقدماً على دور السفير نفسه. إلا أن صاحب التأثير الأكبر اليوم، هو الديبلوماسي الذي يتولى ملف «السلطة الموازية». وهو تعريف يُقصد به كل من يلعب دوراً موازياً للدولة، سواء كان موجوداً في مؤسساتها، أو يملك نفوذاً خارج إطار المؤسسات. يعرف الديبلوماسيون، مثلاً، أن زيارة قصر المختارة أو بنشعي أو بكفيا أو بكركي أو… أمر لا يقف عند طبيعة من هو موجود في الحكم الآن. يعرف هؤلاء أن في البلاد جمعيات ومؤسسات أكاديمية تحفر عميقاً في النظام اللبناني. الجامعتان الأميركية واليسوعية لهما حظوة لا يتمتع بها حزب كبير في لبنان. وما هو مستجدّ، يتجلى في الإطار الجديد للتنظيم البديل، أو «فرقة العمل الناعم» التي تضم عدداً غير محدود من المنظمات غير الحكومية، أو ما يمكن تسميته أحياناً بقوى المجتمع المدني أو الجمعيات والمؤسسات الأهلية… وقس على ذلك ما تشاء من أسماء وصفات هي، في حقيقة الأمر، عناوين لمجموعات تنشط بعيداً من الدولة ومؤسساتها، وبعيداً من أي تقاليد متعارف عليها للعمل السياسي أو الاجتماعي أو الاقتصادي. هي مجموعات لا يمكن محاسبتها من قبل الشعب أو السلطات. تكتسب حصانتها بمجرد حصولها على «إجازة عمل» من الممول الغربي أو العربي المتصل، أولاً وأخيراً، بحكومة أو سفارة أو حزب حاكم في دولة قادرة. و«الفوضى» اللبنانية، تسمح لهذه الجمعيات أو المنظمات بالعمل بعيداً من أعين الرقابة. وحده الممول يحق له سؤال هذه الجمعية أو تلك عن موازنتها وأنشطتها، و«الشاطر بشطارته». يمكن لجمعية أن تخدع مموّلاً وتنصب عليه، ويمكن لهذا الممول أن يحول جمعية، بكل من فيها، إلى مجموعة مخبرين لديه. لكن القاعدة الأساسية هي أنه لا يحق للشعب اللبناني، ولا لحكومته أو لأجهزته الأمنية والقضائية والمالية – الضريبية، أن تراقب أو تسائل أو تحاسب هذه الجمعية أو تلك. وحده الممول من بيده قرار تشكيلها وحلّها. مع ذلك، تمنح هذه الجمعيات نفسها حق مراقبة السلطات المنتخبة من الناس، بحجة أن انتخابهم تم بطريقة غير شرعية أو غير موثوقة (من الممول)، وتمنح نفسها حق المطالبة بالتغيير، لمواقع حكومية أو نيابية أو حزبية أو لكل أطر قانونية، بحجة أنها تمثل «الغالبية الصامتة»، وهذا ما جرى تعميمه طوال عقود، بينما ترفض هذه الجمعيات ومن خلفها الإقرار بأن غالبية وازنة من الشعب المقيم صوّتت وانتخبت ممثلين عنها في البلديات أو المجالس النيابية واختارت هذا الحزب أو ذاك.
هذا الحشد من الجمعيات صار أبرز «حيلة» بيد الغرب الذي يواجه بلادا دخلتها «سوسة المقاومة»
«كلن يعني كلن» شعار يمكن رده إلى هذه الجمعيات لو أردنا التصرف بنكاية. لأن التمايز حيال الموقف من المسألة الوطنية لا يبدو واضحاً عند الغالبية، والسبب واضح وبسيط، وهو يتصل بالعلاقة مع الممول. وهذا يعني، ببساطة، أنه عندما يصار إلى اتهام القوى السياسية لبعضها البعض بأن هذه تعمل لأجندة هذا المحور وتلك تعمل وفق أجندة محور آخر، فإن هذه «القوى الناعمة» التي تقدم نفسها بديلاً عن كل هذه القوى، إنما تعمل بدرجة أعلى من الخضوع لشروط المموّل. حصل أن قُلبت القوى الكبيرة في لبنان على بطنها وظهرها مرات عدة. طارت دول وسقطت أنظمة ولا تزال الزعامات اللبنانية واقفة على قدمين وليس على قدم واحدة. بينما يكفي أن تقلص أميركا أو ألمانيا موازنة الدعم لهذه المجموعات حتى نجد قسماً منها قد تبخر في ليلة واحدة، وتشرّد العاملون فيها بحثاً عن مصدر رزق آخر.
المسألة، هنا، تتعلق بالقدرة على محاسبة هؤلاء جميعاً. المحاسبة بمعنى سؤالهم عما يفعلون، وكيف يعملون، ولمن يصرّحون عن تمويلهم، وكيف يصلهم وكيف ينفقونه؟ ولأن الأمر يبدو صعباً، وجدنا في «الأخبار» أن نطرق الباب من زاوية تجميع ما يكفي من معطيات حول الجهات المانحة وكيفية إعداد الموازنات والبرامج وآلية التمويل وحجم الأموال التي وصلت إلى هذه الجمعية أو تلك، ولسنا هنا في معرض الإدانة المسبقة لأي طرف، بل في معرض طرح السؤال المشروع والمحددّ: هل تعرفون ماذا تفعلون وعند من تعملون؟
بالعودة إلى الديبلوماسيين الأجانب الذين يعرفون تفاصيل هائلة عن أمزجتنا وأذواقنا في الطعام والمشرب والملبس والهوايات والرغبات بالسفر، فإنهم عندما يتعرضون للسؤال حول كيفية عمل حكوماتهم أو مؤسساتهم المانحة يتحولون فجأة إلى لبنانيين ويجيبون على السؤال بسؤال: من أنت، وبأي حق تسال؟
لأمر، باختصار، هو حقنا بالسؤال والبحث عن الأجوبة، ومن لا يخشى على شيء من كرامة أو عدالة أو حق، ليس عليه سوى التوضيح، أما من يرى نفسه فوق المحاسبة، فليعلم أنه لا يعدو كونه صوصاً يقف عند أقدام دجاجة لا تبيض ذهباً كل الوقت!
The US administration, ‘Israel’, and many pro-America Arab countries are harboring hopes that the next parliamentary elections in Lebanon in mid May 2022 will be a landmark as it will bring a new majority that will lead the country in their direction, as they all assume.
Many plans are in the making now, some are ready to this effect.
But will their efforts succeed and will Lebanon witness a dramatic major change in its political position?
This is a valid question especially that the Americans are exercising every possible pressure to detach Lebanon from its current political position and push it towards the American sphere.
The preparations are huge and the budgets are immense, and after the American Saudi siege against Lebanon reached its peak, they suppose this will make it easier for them to buy the seats by bribing the electors with a few dollars.
Lebanon nowadays and the Lebanese are in a very dire situation, financially and economically, the budget is almost bankrupt and the state has failed to provide the vital and essential basic needs for its people; namely electricity, food, medication and health care.
All sectors are almost collapsing and the functioning ones are working at their lowest capacity.
It is anticipated that Washington and its proxy parties inside and outside the country will gradually mount their pressure as Lebanon approach the Election Day next may; this will be accompanied with a fierce media campaign to hold the resistance and its supporters responsible for all the woes that plagued the country. The main goal is to plant a wedge, sow the seeds of discord and mistrust, cast doubts about its role, depict it as a very negative one and portray it as non-conducive to public good.
The NGOs and their affiliated groups of the so-called civil society and independent figures attempt to attract more followers to their ranks by making huge investments in the misleading advertisement heavy machines.
They are trying to use bright slogans and new names to camouflage their real identities and affiliations; but what they do not know, may be, is that everyone knows almost everything about them.
The deadly mistake they did, early enough, is their animosity to all what pertains to real national independence, pride and dignity. We never heard their voices when the Saudi official authorities launched a relentless campaign against the country because of a statement made by one of the government ministers about the Saudi war against Yemen.
We never heard their voices protesting or condemning the US support to the ‘Israeli’ enemy in the issue of the maritime border demarcation.
Now, they want to focus their effort in stripping Lebanon of its strength in the resistance against the enemy so it would be easier for them to respond to Western demands to bow down to the pressures and surrender the country’s wealth and natural resources to benefit the ‘Israelis’.
The plan will simply and plainly go as follows; as these parties win the majority in the parliament, they will be in the strong position to engineer a new government, name its head and also prepare for the presidential elections where they could also choose the name that follows their plans. As such, they think they can pass the laws and regulations requested by their masters in Washington. Those laws are necessarily and truly against the Lebanese interests and would only serve the American ones.
Is this a fate that cannot be escaped?
Absolutely not, this is what they plan, but at the other side of the equation there are other parties that would not allow Washington and its allies, local or regional, to play their game of changing Lebanon’s face and faith.
Simply, Lebanon will not change to be the Lebanon on the American path, and its people’s faith and trust in their resistance and the huge sacrifices they made together will be enough to preserve Lebanon’s unity, independence and dignity.
‘Israeli’ warplanes targeted areas near the Syrian port city of Latakia on Tuesday morning.
State-run TV reported that the Zionist regime launched an airstrike on the Latakia Port area in Syria, adding that several explosions were heard.
According to a military source, several missiles came from the direction of the Mediterranean Sea targeting a site with containers in the commercial port.
As a result of the airstrike, several containers caught fire.
However, no human casualties have been reported so far.
In late November, an ‘Israeli’ F-16 fired 12 missiles in the Syrian province of Homs. The Syrian military destroyed 10 of them using air defense systems Buk-M2E and Pantsir-S, the Russian military said.
Israel bombs containers yard in Latakia seaport – عدوان اسرائيلي على ميناء اللاذقية
Israel escalates its aggression on Syria by bombing the commercial port of Lattakia, the largest in Syria, the Syrian Army’s air defense addressed the incoming missiles, the bombing caused material damage on the site.
A military spokesperson said in a statement carried by the Syrian news agency SANA:
At about 1:23 am today, the Israeli enemy carried out air aggression with several missiles from the direction of the Mediterranean, southwest of Latakia, targeting the container yard in the commercial port of Latakia. The aggression led to the burning of a number of commercial containers in the mentioned place.
The governor of Latakia headed to inspect the site and oversee the firefighting efforts, he confirmed that all fires were extinguished and that the firefighters are cooling the containers.
Locals in the city reported hearing strong explosions, firefighters were seen heading to the commercial port which is not far from residential areas as can be seen from the pictures shared by the residents there:
Targeting the commercial port is a serious escalation in Israel’s aggression, Israel’s very existence is aggression against humanity, the world’s peace and stability, and to humankind. This particular escalation will have serious consequences and a response is inevitable, the timing of it and its severity should worry the European settlers occupying Palestine.
It’s also of no coincidence that Israel is carrying this aggression hours after the Yemeni armed forces showered a number of Saudi cities with missiles in retaliation to the mad escalation in bombings and massacres carried out by the Saudis in the past 5 days after receiving the latest cache of missiles from the Biden’s junta.
Is Israel cementing the bond established between the open fronts in the region: one front led by the USA and includes Israel, Turkey, other NATO member states, the Gulfies, Al Qaeda, HTS, ISIS, and a host of hundreds of NGOs financed by the US taxpayers, against an axis led by Syria and includes Iran, Yemen, the Iraqi PMU, the Lebanese Hezb Allah, and some of the Palestinian liberation factions? Or is Israel still trying to provoke a regional war to drag the US forces deployed in the region into it to prevent their withdrawal scheduled by this year’s end?
The Syrian response to the Israeli repeated aggression is the constant work on reducing Israel’s power by eliminating the terrorist groups and weakening the US presence in Syria and in Iraq, and by strengthening the Resistance factions led by Hezb Allah in Lebanon and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza, simultaneously, working on countering NATO troops of Turkey, the USA, UK, France, Germany, and Belgium in the country. However, the near future will tell whether Syria will retaliate against today’s escalation before the US withdrawal from the region or will wait until Biden removes his oil thieves and cannon fodder troops deployed in Syria to die for Israel.
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في بداية التسعينات طرح بعض السياسيين سؤالاً عنوانه، هل أن أولوية الملف الأمني المتمثل بسحب الأسلحة وحل الميليشيات وإعادة توحيد الجيش، سيفتح الشهية الدولية نحو اعتبار الجيش حصان الرهان السياسي الأول، بحيث ننام ونصحو على تعاظم دور المؤسسة العسكرية، ونستعيد صورة الرؤساء الذين يلبسون البزة العسكرية، وعلى رغم تجاهل الكثير من السياسيين لهذه المعادلة، تقول وقائع ثلاثة عقود لما بعد اتفاق الطائف إن العسكر تصدروا الواجهة السياسية، فما كادت مفاعيل توحيد الجيش وحل الميليشيات تكتمل، حتى صار الرئيس المدني الياس الهراوي آخر الرؤساء الآتين من المجتمع السياسي، وصار الذين تناوبوا قبل الطائف وبعده على منصب قائد الجيش يدخلون إلى قصر بعبدا كرؤساء للجمهورية، ويبدو اليوم أن الأميركيين الذي يعاقبون لبنان بعقوبات جماعية يؤكدون بما لا يقبل التأويل عزمهم على مواصلة الاستثمار على علاقتهم بالجيش، لكنهم يضعون لهذا الاستثمار سقفاً أمنياً لا سياسياً، ويتراجع السقف السياسي الذي كانت عليه الحال في السابق، فالعنوان السياسي الرئيسي في زمن المواجهة الأميركية مع المقاومة لا يتخذ عنوان الرهان على المواجهة العسكرية والأمنية، فالأميركي يسلم، كما قال الكثير من المسؤولين الأميركيين صراحة، بأن تعريض الجيش لمخاطر الزج به في مواجهة مع المقاومة، يفوق قدرة الجيش وقابليته للاستجابة، والحفاظ على تماسكه.
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في السياسة طور الأميركيون مقاربتهم منذ 17 تشرين الأول 2019، واعتبروا أن عنوان مكافحة الفساد هو الأنسب لتقدم الأجندة الأميركية في مواجهة المقاومة، على رغم القناعة الأميركية بلا جدوى تجاوز اتهام المقاومة بالفساد من الشعار إلى التفاصيل بتقديم أي واقعة مكتملة تؤكد هذا الاتهام، بينما يمكن، كما أكد كثير من المسؤولين الأميركيين إلحاق الأذى بحلفاء المقاومة تحت هذا العنوان، ولو اقتضى الأمر إصابة عدد من حلفاء واشنطن، الذين أظهروا بنظر واشنطن تخاذلاً في خوض المواجهة مع المقاومة بداعي الحرص على السلم الأهلي، وخرجت دراسات وتحليلات تتحدث عن تجديد الطبقة السياسية، بإنشاء مئات وآلاف منظمات المجتمع المدني في مناخ 17 تشرين والدفع بها إلى الواجهة السياسية، وجاءت العقوبات الأميركية على سياسيين ورجال أعمال لبنانيين تؤكد هذا المنحى، لكن دفع المعركة تحت عنوان الفساد لتجديد الطبقة السياسية، وبطريقة مستهدفة لحلفاء المقاومة وتقليص حضورهم السياسي، تستدعي إنهاض صف أمامي وخلفي في المستوى القضائي، يعيد إلى الواجهة السؤال الذي طرح في التسعينات بطريقة جديدة، هل نحن أمام زمن فتح الشهية الأميركية ومحاكاة الشهيات المحلية، وعلى أعتاب الاستحقاق الرئاسي، لنشهد مرشحين رئاسيين من القضاة، لكن بدلاً من شعار الجيش هو الحل، يتقدم شعار القضاء هو الحل؟
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يريد البعض منا أن نصدق أن الفرصة التي وفرها انفجار مرفأ بيروت لتظهير الدور القضائي في مواجهة السياسيين تعبيراً عن انتفاضة الجسم القضائي على التدخلات السياسية، وتمسكاً باستقلال القضاء، الذي كان متهماً بالتقصير والاستنساب والتبعية الطائفية والسياسية، فهل حدث بين ليلة وضحاها أن نزل الوحي وتغيرت الصورة، وما يقوله حجم التصعيد القضائي تحت عنوان التضامن بين القضاة في كل تفاصيل قضية التحقيق في انفجار المرفأ، والمجازفة بمخاطر رفضت قيادة الجيش تحمل مثلها، جسدها ما ظهر من علامات الانقسام الطائفي في المجتمع وصولاً إلى الجسم القضائي نفسه، إن التذرع السابق بالضغوط التي يمارسها السياسيون كان استساغة يسلس عبرها القضاة النفس للمطالب السياسية طلباً للنفوذ والسلطة، ويعيدون فعلها اليوم بالتمرد على السياسة طلباً للتدخل فيها من باب أوسع، تتيحه النظرة الخارجية التي تدعو القضاء لملء الفراغ الناجم عن تراجع الجيش إلى الخلف، فيتقدم قضاة ليقولوا القضاء هو الحل، أي الرئاسة لقاض بدلاً من جنرال، ولا يمانعون من تدخل القضاة في السياسة تعويضاً عن زمن تدخل السياسة في القضاء.
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يريد البعض القول إن هذا تحول إصلاحي ثوري يستحق التشجيع بمعزل عن المقدمات والظروف، التي يمكن وضعها في حسن التقاط اللحظة المناسبة لهذا الانقلاب، فلماذا التشكيك طالما أن هناك إجماعاً على أولوية مكافحة الفساد، وأن اللبنانيين ضاقوا ذرعاً بالسياسيين وعبروا عن ذلك في انتفاضة الغضب في 17 تشرين، ويردون السؤال بالقول، ولماذا تضع المقاومة نفسها كخط دفاع أمامي عن الطبقة السياسية سواء في مرحلة 17 تشرين، أو في مرحلة الملاحقات القضائية، والجواب بسيط، لكن بسؤال أيضاً، وهو لماذا يحجم القضاء عن فتح ملفات المصارف ومصرف لبنان، طالما جوهر النظام الفاسد يجد قلعته الحصينة في نظام الريع الذي يرعاه مصرف لبنان وتمثل المصارف قوته الضاربة، وطالما أن الثورة على الفساد وإثبات الأهلية لقيادة العمل الإصلاحي تبدآن من هنا، ومن دون هذا الشرط يصير المشهد واضحاً، إعادة تعويم النظام الريعي التابع والمستتبع برموز جديدة أشد طواعية واستعداداً للمجازفة بتعريض السلم الأهلي للخطر، وأكثر عدائية للمقاومة، وأشد طائفية، من القيادات الطائفية، مقابل الوصول للسلطة، فهل هذا إصلاح أم خراب؟
إذا كان ابن خلدون يخشى من مخالفة الجيل الرابع لنهج أسلافه فإنَّ جيل الحزب الجديد يستفيد من وجود الأجيال الثلاثة السابقة، ويعمل معهم جنباً إلى جنب.
تجاوز “حزب الله” معضلة الأجيال الأربعة التي تحدَّث عنها ابن خلدون في الفصل الخامس عشر من الباب الثاني في مقدّمته الشهيرة؛ فإذا كان الجيل المؤسّس الأول يفاخر بانطلاقه في العمل بإمكانيات محدودة، مقارناً بين قدرات الحزب اليوم، إذ يتوفر كلّ ما يمكن أن تطلبه، وقدراته في تلك الأيام، حين كانت تنقل عدة العمل المتواضعة نفسها من عملية إلى أخرى، فإن الجيل الرابع يُذهل اليوم من سبقه بما يظهره من اندفاع وإبداع في التخطيط.
هذه الأجيال الأربعة تظهر تفاؤلاً كبيراً في الانتقال الواضح في المواجهة المباشرة من الوكيل إلى الأصيل.
وإذا كان ابن خلدون يخشى من مخالفة الجيل الرابع لنهج أسلافه وقلبه رأساً على عقب، فإنَّ جيل الحزب الجديد يستفيد من وجود الأجيال الثلاثة السابقة، ويعمل معهم جنباً إلى جنب. وإذا كانت المعاناة هي محرّك الجيل الأول، فإنّ الانتصارات تحرّك جيل اليوم. وللمقاتل في “حزب الله” سنوات خدمة محددة (تتراوح غالباً بين 8 و12)، تسبقها وتتبعها من دون شك مهام حزبية أخرى، وهو ما يبقي التداخل كبيراً بين الأجيال الأربعة.
وقد بنى الحزب مؤسَّسة ضخمة جداً: دينية أولاً، ثم عسكرية وأمنية، ثم اجتماعية، ثم سياسية وإعلامية، وأخيراً اقتصادية، مع إدارة مالية منضبطة جداً. وخلال 15 عاماً، تطوّر الشّكل من حزب لبناني مع ذراع عسكريّة إلى حزب إقليمي يتقدم بأشواط جميع المتساوين في لبنان، وله تأثيره الكبير، سواء لدى مجموعات المقاومة داخل فلسطين المحتلة أو في دوائر صناعة القرار في كل من غزة وسوريا والعراق واليمن.
في لحظة الهجوم الأميركي والأوروبي والخليجي المكثّف والمتكرر لتغيير الأنظمة في المنطقة، فوجِئ هؤلاء بحزب لم يحسبوا له الحساب الجديّ، يضع العصي في دواليب الآلة الأميركية المدنية والعسكرية والتكفيرية والسياسية والإعلامية. ومن لبنان، إلى العراق، إلى سوريا، إلى اليمن، فـ”صفقة القرن”، وما تستوجبه من تكريس لمشاعر التطبيع، كان الحزب حجر الزاوية في بعثرة الطّموحات وتثبيت المعادلات السياسيّة في 5 دول على الأقل.
ولا بدَّ في هذا السياق من تخيّل 5 رسوم بيانية تظهر تطور الحزب منذ استنفار واشنطن في العام 2005 عسكرياً وأمنياً وإعلامياً ومالياً لتحجيمه، وصولاً إلى اليوم، وذلك على 5 مستويات: (1) جغرافيا انتشاره، (2) تأثيره، (3) قدراته البشرية، (4) معنوياته القتالية، (5) تجهيزاته اللوجستية.
على المستوى الجغرافي، كان الحزب يتحرك في رقعة محدودة جداً (نحو 2500 كلم مربع). أما اليوم، فهو يتحرك في مساحة هائلة (أكثر من 500 ألف كلم مربع). بوضوح أكثر، كانت مشكلة “إسرائيل” محصورة في 2500 كلم مربع، فيما هي اليوم موزعة على مساحة 500 ألف كلم مربع. كانت طائرات الاستطلاع تعجز عن ضبط مخيمات التدريب ومخازن الصواريخ والمصانع وغيره في مساحة 2500 كلم مربع، فيما يتوزع هذا كله في محيط من اليابسة تبلغ مساحته أكثر من 500 ألف كلم مربع، بعضه صحارى، وبعضه الآخر غابات وسهول ووديان ومدن مأهولة.
على المستوى البشري، كان عديد مقاتلي الحزب قبل الحرب السورية محدوداً. أما اليوم، فتضخ المدارس التدريبية الموزعة على الحدود السورية- العراقية آلاف المقاتلين الشباب سنوياً، والذين يمكن أن يكونوا بكبسة زر في بغداد أو الشام أو الجولان أو صنعاء أو مارون الراس أو الجليل. كان الحزب يتكل في تطويع المقاتلين على نحو نصف أبناء الطائفة الشيعية في لبنان أو كلها في أفضل الأحوال. أما اليوم، فيفتح الباب لمن يشاء من شباب العراق وسوريا واليمن…
على المستوى اللوجستي، كان التحدّي في العام 2008 يتعلَّق بشبكة اتصالات خاصة بـ”حزب الله”، فيما نتحدث اليوم عن شبكة رؤوس ذكية وشبكة مسيرات وشبكة تشويش واختراق وشبكة صواريخ مخصصة لإسقاط الطائرات وشبكة دبابات وسلاح ثقيل يمكن لمح بعضه في وثائقي “أسرار التحرير الثاني” الذي أعدته قناة “المنار”، مع الأخذ بالاعتبار أن مشروع الدخول إلى الجليل في العام 2006 كان مجرد احتمال يطمح إلى خطف بعض المستوطنين لإنضاج تسوية في حال كان “حزب الله” مأزوماً في الحرب. أما اليوم، فدخول الجليل هو مشروع كامل متكامل يفترض أن يلاقيه الفلسطينيون في مناطقهم المختلفة في ثلثي الطريق.
أما على المستوى العسكريّ، فقد تحول ما كان يوصف بالذراع العسكرية لـ”حزب الله” إلى جيش نظامي يضم قيادة، ووحدات خاصة (أكثر من خمسة)، وقوات جوية (مسيرات وغيره)، ومديرية شؤون جغرافية، ومديرية إعلام حربي، ومديرية تدريس عسكري وتدريب وتوجيه، وقوات بحرية، وأكثر من 4 ألوية، وفوج هندسة، وفوجاً لوجستياً، وفوج تدخل، وفوج مدرعات، وفوج إشارة، إضافةً إلى جهاز استخباراتي ضخم، وجهاز دفاع مدني، وجهاز طوارئ صحية، وجهاز طوارئ غذائية، وجهاز دفاع مدنيّ.
وإذا كان هذا الجهاز العسكريّ ضخماً، فإنَّ الأضخم هو الجهاز التربوي الذي يعرف بـ”التعبئة التربوية”، وهي من حيث الحجم أكبر عددياً من كل الأحزاب اللبنانية مجتمعة، من دون الحديث عن القطاعات المناطقية والكشافة والمؤسسة الدينية والماكينة الانتخابية وغيره، مع العلم أنّ كلّ من يملك المال بوسعه بناء كلّ ما سبق، لكنَّ الفارق الرئيسي يكمن أولاً في الروحية القتالية التي أثبت الحزب أن ليس بين جيوش العالم من يضاهيه فيها، والانضباط الذي كان له الفضل الأكبر في الإنجاز السوريّ.
حزب كهذا الحزب يفترض البعض أنّه قادر على هزمه بهاشتاغ من ذبابه الإلكترونيّ (بحسابات وهمية بغالبيتها)، أو بمجموعة “أن جي أوز” تعزف على الطناجر وتعانق بعضها البعض لترفع معنوياتها، أو بمجموعة شتامين في وسائلهم الإعلامية ومواقع التواصل، أو بشعلة سمير جعجع وتغريدات فارس سعيد ونظريات نجل نهاد المشنوق.
ولا شكَّ في هذا السياق في أنَّ من يجالس نفسه فقط أو يستمع إلى جهابذة السفارات فقط يمكن أن يُغش. أما من يستمع إلى الفريقين ويلتقيهما ويرافق أجيال “حزب الله” بكل ما خبروه في العقدين الماضيين، فلا يمكن أن يُغش أبداً. هناك من خسر كل معاركه من دون استثناء، وهناك من ربح كل المعارك من دون استثناء. هناك من يتحدث عن وقائع ويستعرض الحقائق، وهناك من يراكم الأوهام فوق الشعارات فوق الأحلام.
مع بدء الأحداث في سوريا، كانت هناك وجهة نظر تقول إنها تشهد نمواً اقتصادياً متواصلاً منذ بضع سنوات. ولأول مرة منذ نشأة الدولة، تتأمن غالبية الأساسيات على صعيد الدواء والغذاء والكهرباء والمواصلات، ويصعب بالتالي تأمين وقود اجتماعي- اقتصادي للثورة، فيما لا يوجد بديل سياسيّ.
ومع ذلك، فإنّ المنظّرين للثورة كانوا يُستفزون جداً من هذا المنطق، معتبرين أنَّ الأساس عند الإنسان هو كرامته والحرية، لا رغيف الخبز، لكن هؤلاء أنفسهم يقولون اليوم للبنانيين إن الرغيف والكهرباء والمازوت والمواصلات أهم من الحرية والسلاح الذي يحميها، فيدعون هم أنفسهم – باستهزاء طبعاً – من يتحدّث عن الكرامة إلى أن يطعم أولاده عزّة، وهو ما يقود بيئة “حزب الله” إلى التأكيد أنَّ “معركة الخبز” مفتعلة جملةً وتفصيلاً، وما المشاكل المعيشية اليومية سوى أدوات ضغط في معارك جانبية كان يفترض أن تستنزفه، لكنها لم تفعل، تماماً كما كان يفترض بجموع التكفيريين الذين شحنوا إلى سوريا من كلّ أصقاع العالم أن يفعلوا، لكنهم لم ينجحوا، مع التأكيد أن من يربح هذه الحروب الاستنزافية الصغيرة لا يربح الحرب. أما الأساس الذي يسمح بربح الحرب، فهو السلاح والتمدد الجغرافي وتطوير القدرات.
وهنا، يبدو الحزب مرتاحاً جداً، فهو لم يعرف منذ نشأته سنوات أفضل من هذه السنوات الأربعة على صعيد تطوير قدراته وتأمين التجهيزات البشرية واللوجستية لقضيته الأساسية المرتبطة بالصراع مع “إسرائيل”، من دون أية متاعب تُذكر. وتكفي في هذا السياق الملاحظة أنَّ الجميع اليوم يتحدث عن البنزين والمازوت والمياه والكهرباء والغلاء المعيشي، لكن لا يأتي أحد على ذكر سلاح “حزب الله”، بعدما كان هذا السلاح قبل 4 أعوام الشغل الشاغل للجميع في الداخل والخارج، مع العلم أنَّ طرق الإمداد الخاصة بهذا السلاح (الذي يمثل الهدف الرئيسي لكلِّ ما تفعله الولايات المتحدة في المنطقة) لا تتأثر بانقطاع الكهرباء أو شحّ المحروقات أو تدمير العملة الوطنية.
عودٌ على بدء، حين يتعلّق الأمر بـ”حزب الله”، فإنَّ اللقاء مع البيئة الحزبيّة غالباً ما يشمل 4 أجيال. مجرّد رؤية هذه الأجيال الأربعة تتآزر في التفكير لمواصلة التقدّم هو أمر استثنائي لا يمكن رؤيته في أيِّ مكان آخر، إذ تطغى غالباً تناقضات الأجيال على كلِّ شيء آخر.
هذه الأجيال الأربعة تظهر تفاؤلاً كبيراً في الانتقال الواضح في المواجهة المباشرة من الوكيل إلى الأصيل. الحرب ليست مع “إسرائيل” أو مع رياض سلامة أو مع منظمات المجتمع المدني أو سائر الأدوات، إنما مع من يمول كلّ هؤلاء ويحرّضهم و”ينفخ الخسّ في رؤوسهم”.
وإذا كان الحزب حريصاً جداً على عدم تبني أي عملية من العمليات الموجهة ضد القوات الأميركية في العراق وسوريا أخيراً، فإن الولايات المتحدة تعرف جيداً أن حجر الزاوية في صمود كل هذه المنطقة وإسقاط كل ما كان مرسوماً لها هو “حزب الله”، تماماً كما تعرف أن ما حققه الحزب تعجز عن تحقيقه ألف قنبلة نووية إيرانية. تعرف الولايات المتحدة جيداً كل ما سبق، وتعرف أنَّ “حزب الله” يعرفه أيضاً، وكذلك إيران وروسيا والصين.
Hezbollah’s initiative to bring ships of Iranian fuel to Lebanon has prompted Washington and its allies to kick start actions to sabotage the step or to lessen its positive effects on Lebanon and the Lebanese.
The US administration is heavily involved in the Lebanese affairs and following up attentively daily politics in the country, yet all this to no avail.
The US Congress delegation to Lebanon last week expressed dismay over the Iranian fuel supplies saying that Lebanon is not in need for Iranian petroleum and provoking Saudi Arabia to play a role in blocking Tehran’s help and replacing it by a Saudi one.
In another position, the delegation described Hezbollah as a cancer that should be eradicated. This reflects Washington’s rage and frustration from the influential role the party is playing in Lebanon as well as in the region.
First, the US ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea has mocked the step and did not take it seriously when Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced it. The head of American diplomacy made consultations and wrongly concluded this is not serious enough, but when Sayyed Nasrallah announced the shipment was on its way she was heavily shocked about her hasty calculations.
Second, the American delegation in an arrogant blackmail threatened there will be sanctions against those who deal with Iran to import oil, and some Lebanese parties mistakenly, or with bad intentions, started to talk about international sanctions though they know for a fact it is only Washington, due to its animosity to the Resistance, and complete bias to ‘Israel’, may impose such sanctions.
Third, the American embassy in Lebanon has become a kind of oil agency that dictates on the distributors the directives on when, where and what quantities of gasoline they would distribute to the stations. According to reports, lists of distributors and distribution places would first arrive to and be approved by the embassy before the process of distribution takes place.
Fourth, the American embassy has recently and repeatedly scorned many of the pro US NGO’S for their failure to confront Hezbollah or to gain influence in the party’s areas. Dorothy Shea expressed her resentment and frustration that not much has been done so far, and it is not enough at all to influence the party followers or supporters.
Fifth, the black propaganda that is being orchestrated and designed in the embassy to distort the party’s reputation, to tarnish its image, and to demonize it in the eyes of the Lebanese and to hold it responsible for all what Lebanon and the Lebanese are going through has come into a complete failure. New plans and more campaigns are in the making now to make up for previous failures.
Sixth, in the same vein, Washington is urging its gulf allies especially Saudi Arabia and UAE to take the initiative from Hezbollah and send supplies to the tormented country so they would earn good reputation that could be later translated into political influence and thus ballots to be casted during the next parliamentary elections.
Seventh, the pro-US gulf countries that are heavily involved in Lebanon and the Lebanese politics are not encouraged enough to send money and supplies because they are not pretty sure this would reach to their proper receivers. In Lebanon, the pro-West, pro-Gulf camp is very notorious for its corruption, malfunction, and its trust unworthiness.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues, as planned, its efforts on many levels to alleviate the suffering of the people. Aside from the fuel shipments coming from Iran, the party has launched a series of many vital and very important projects that make people life easier; this includes electricity, water, health and medical facilities, along with streets repair and educational services.
To sum up, Washington with all its tools in the region and the country are waging a relentless war against all those who oppose its hegemony and its imperialist colonialist policies. Thankfully and hopefully, it is losing, and they are winning.
This is going to show us, sooner or later the writing of a new chapter where the US hegemony loses and our people achieve more independence, prosperity and freedom away from Washington sinister plans and conspiracies.
In addition to the political disturbance and the governmental void in Lebanon, foreign powers are trying to add a new element to the confused and confusing scene in the country.
Hundreds of non-governmental organizations have recently emerged in a very small country to carry out weird missions in Lebanon. In light of 2019 protests and Beirut Port blast in 2020, those organizations have received huge financial and logistic aids from foreign powers.
The researcher Ali Mourad told Al-Manar that 360 NGOs emerged within one month just after Beirut Port explosion on August 4. Those organizations applied for the governmental approval during that period.
Ahead of the parliamentary elections next May, those organizations are intensively funded to face the traditional parties in Lebanon. According to Mourad, many corruption files, in which members from those NGOs are involved, will be exposed soon.
For a period of about ten years, I operated a website of political commentary that contained thousands of articles, many of which were content from various media, but many being my own work. That website experienced occasional but persistent DDOS and other attacks by forces unknown
Some years ago, I published on that website a three-page article on the Western media similar in content to the media series I am presenting here. Of all my written work, only this one article was under constant attack. Most often, the pages wouldn’t load properly, preventing readers from seeing the full contents and preventing them from clicking through to the following pages. It was clear I had attracted the attention of someone who preferred to not have this information in the public realm.
A short while ago, I wrote an article titled, A Search for Truth and Understanding. It provides an excellent lead-in to this series and I suggest you read it. It isn’t long. (1)
When I arrived in China the news reporting format was one of the first things to draw my attention. There was something different, unusual; the reporting seemed somehow stilted, a bit dry or reserved, perhaps cautious. Reserve and caution are of course Chinese tradition, but I had difficulty assessing it. My first thought was that perhaps the government controlled not only content but method – the way news was reported.
But it slowly dawned on me that the unusual aspect was simply that I was seeing news without commentary – a simple chronology of events. I had become so inured to the rampant opinion-based journalism in North America that the absence of this in China made articles seem somehow barren and empty. But they weren’t empty of news; they were empty of the opinions, biases, propaganda, conjectures and moral judgments that in the West are always inextricably mixed with fact. Looking at most Western newspapers today, and certainly on topics related to politics, capitalism, religion or US imperialism, seemingly every article contains 3 facts, 4 conjectures, 2 false hypotheses, 6 moral judgments, 12 baseless opinions and at least 6 unfounded accusations, all following a coherent agenda. It is impossible to find honest reporting in America’s mainstream media today – and indeed in all the Western media, the reported “news” being little more than an ideology surge, journalism having openly become nothing more than perception management for imperialism or political power.
The US and Canada, and primarily all English-speaking countries, once had factual news reporting. But with competition for readers or viewers, the media began adding what they called ‘color’ to the news, additional information intended to make a news story more interesting, reporting for e.g., that someone in the news had a son who was an Olympic athlete; not related directly to the story, but adding human interest. The trouble with color is that there isn’t very much of it, and the media wasted no time replacing it with commentary, essentially editorialising news with ideological viewpoints.
Of course, the Western governments and the media were well-versed in Bernays’ clandestine propaganda theories, but by the 1980s ‘clandestine’ was no longer operative and even subtlety had been abandoned, ideology being not only ubiquitous but in the open. With the English media today, there is no longer any separation of fact and opinion. This is so true that many articles contain no news other than an oblique reference to some past event, and consist entirely of ideological editorialising, in fact heavily biased op-ed pieces providing primarily a political interpretation the elites want us to adopt, creating abuses of every description. Americans, Canadians, Brits and Aussies have now for two generations been exposed to this deceitful reporting and are no longer aware of the extensive propagandising even though it no longer remains hidden.
As someone wrote so accurately: “Traditional journalistic news room culture determines the basic nature of a story before the facts are assembled.”
“A young reporter writes an expose, but the editor says, “I don’t think we’re going to run that.” The second time the reporter goes to her editor, the editor says, “I don’t think that’s a good idea.” She doesn’t research and write the story. The third time the reporter has an idea. But she doesn’t go to her editor. The fourth time she doesn’t get the idea.” – Nicholas Johnson, former FCC commissioner (2)
It is true that we now have a daily stream of fabricated news. Some of it is completely fabricated in the sense that there was no newsworthy event that occurred, but where a few small facts from a topic of current interest are used to provide an excuse for political editorials. Most of it is driven by a political/capitalist ideology promulgated with a startling lack of regard for truth, using badly twisted interpretations of a few facts to spin an entirely false story. Journalistic integrity has all but disappeared from the Western countries. And indeed it is much worse than this, because a great deal of our “news” is in reality totally fabricated, with the requisite faked video and audio, misleading headlines, twisted information and bald outright lies. I am referring here to actual fabricated concoctions – invented ‘news’ – things that never happened, or that didn’t occur at all in the way they are presented. And we aren’t talking about ‘color’ or ‘bias’ here; we’re speaking of actually fabricating an event and making firm statements that are knowingly false. I will provide some typical – and outrageous – examples. You can begin with this story of Jessica Lynch and another of Osama bin Laden. (3) (4)
For most of us, it seems incredible that a news story could possibly be a fiction. We are apparently unable to accept that our government and media would actually lie. But lie, they do. Several years ago, CNN was sued by one of their news anchors for being ordered to lie in the newscasts. CNN won the case. They did not deny ordering the news anchor to lie. Their defense was based simply on the position that American news media have “no obligation to tell the truth”. In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States. FOX asserted that there were no written rules against distorting news in the media, arguing that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Fox attorneys did not dispute a news anchor’s claim that they pressured her to broadcast a false story; they simply maintained that it was their right to do so. (5) In these cases, and in others, the position of the US courts implied that First Amendment rights belong to the few individuals who own and/or control the entire media landscape, a kind of shield protecting their vast propagandising campaign.
We have come to the point where Western media are practicing a kind of psychological warfare. “We all know that our State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House have brazenly proclaimed that they have the right and the power to manage the news, to tell us not the truth but what they want us to believe.” – Myron Fagan (6)
This is a large and complex topic, but let’s begin with something simple. Since we are indeed being propagandised by our own media on a daily basis, how do we recognise what is happening to us? How do we distinguish propaganda? How do we separate truth from lies? What are the main things to look for?
1.Atrocity tales.
The first is what some people today call “atrocity porn”, in fact violent pornographic tales of events that have never occurred. For this, you can recall my comments in an earlier Propaganda article on the recommendations of Bernays and Lippman that the best way to create hate and anger towards a people is to fabricate atrocity tales. The Germans having tubs full of Jewish eyeballs, of using Jewish fat to make soap and industrial lubricants, of skewering babies and raping nuns. (7) We progressed to Saddam Hussein having WMDs ready to launch, his using wood shredders to eliminate his political opponents, of gassing millions of Kurds and burying them in mass graves, of his soldiers tossing babies out of incubators.
We had Khadaffi issuing Viagra to his soldiers, enabling them to rape more women. And we had “proof” of this, in the woman who did a survey (during a war) of abused women. 1,300 questionnaires sent out, 1,200 returned and all 1,200 women claimed to have been raped. When the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch tracked down the woman and asked to interview some of the victims, well the woman had unfortunately “lost touch” with all of them. After all, there’s a war on.
We had Bashar al-Assad in Syria gassing his people with chlorine. In the end, no evidence – no evidence – was ever discovered to substantiate any of these claims, but it was too late; the countries had already been attacked and destroyed.
Today we have the ‘genocide’ in China’s Xinjiang, the ‘concentration camps’ imprisoning millions in forced labor, and with unlimited forced sterilisations, the forced extermination of the Uigur language, the destruction of Moslem temples and graveyards and much more. In fact, the only thing happening in Xinjiang is the Chinese government’s astonishing success in de-radicalising hundreds of thousands of (Western-trained) potential terrorists, replacing religious extremism with gainful employment. We have Pompeo’s “proof” that COVID-19 escaped from a Chinese lab. Again, no evidence has ever been presented to substantiate any of these claims; as always, idle claims are equated to evidence.
2. Hate literature
Almost without exception, anything leading you to form a negative opinion of (usually) a country or its people, is propaganda, normally to build support for outrageous political action or in preparation for the next war. You need think only of the constant stream of negative news items about Russia, China, Iran, Cuba, formerly Iraq and Libya, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba . . . To the extent possible, atrocity tales (1) are part of this media onslaught.
3.Framing
This is one of the more insidious tools of propaganda – instructing us ‘how to think’ about a particular event. The invasion and destruction of Iraq were termed by the military and in the media as “Operation Iraqi Freedom”. People who are genuinely concerned about contamination and dangerous side-effects of vaccines are termed “Vaccination terrorists”. When Radio Free Europe started broadcasting its lies about the East in 1950, people were asked to donate “truth dollars” to fight communism, a bit like sending “freedom fighters” to Libya and Syria. As George Carlin said, “If fire fighters fight fires, what do America’s freedom fighters fight?” Hong Kong’s terrorists are defined in the media as “democracy protestors” – who, in one university lab alone, had created more than 10,000 petrol bombs which were used on government buildings and police stations (and on the police themselves), and who poured gasoline on a man and set him on fire. (8) In all these cases, the first step is to provide a useful propaganda definition which, if adopted by the public, eliminates independent thought in one swoop.
4.Flooding the Media
If you think back to recent world events, even very major items like the destruction of Japan’s Fukushima reactor and the leakage of vast amounts of radioactivity into the Pacific, grab the headlines for only a short time, then disappear. Most events are ‘news’ for only a day or two. But whenever we see an item recurring repeatedly in the media for weeks and months, and even sometimes for years, this is a 100% sign that we are being propagandised and that the media flow will not cease until polls tell our masters that a majority of the population has accepted the position being promoted or that the political pressure has achieved its desired result.
One such occurrence was the exchange value of China’s RMB. You may recall that when Japan was in a competitive position similar to China 40 years ago, the US forced the Plaza Accord onto Japan, revaluing the currency upward by nearly 300%, destroying the economy and eliminating Japan as a contender. The same was planned for China, led by Paul Krugman, the NYT’s Renminbi Rambo, screaming that China needed to revalue its currency by “at least 25% to 40%”. These stories of ‘China cheating’ on its currency and the necessary 40% revaluation occurring at least weekly in the Western media and the US Congress for perhaps ten years. But in fact, China’s currency had always traded in an appropriate range, as has been proven by subsequent events, and the Chinese government did not bow to the media and political pressure.
Today’s stories of China’s Xinjiang, yesterday’s stories of the ‘horrors’ of ZIKA, and more. One of the more noticeable of these is the new religion of “sexual preferences” which has been hyped in the media non-stop to the extent that few politicians would have the courage (or the death wish) to refuse participation in a Gay Pride parade. The power of propaganda. (9)
China’s Huawei is another such item, garnering far more media attention than an actual circumstance would require, and with good reason. Huawei has been in the US, Canada, and many other nations during G1, G2, G3 and G4, and never a hint of a suggestion of espionage or any threat to ‘national security’, so what happened suddenly with G5? You may care to read this, to understand the details. (10)
5.Changing Your Values
Anything suggesting you alter your moral values especially sexual, or on abortion, assisted death, pornography, immigration, family values, today’s Western white trash. In this category we have had an enormous volume on all of these topics. I would include here a recent NYT article freeing corporate executives from responsibility for all crimes including negligent manslaughter (11) (12), the movie Pretty Woman, and the flood referred to above on our new sexual perversions presented as “preferences”.
6.Hit Pieces
Whenever you see an author or a publication being trashed in the media, you know there is something they don’t want you to know. The best is to go there immediately and find out what that is. Almost invariably, whenever people are being demonised, you know that’s propaganda; you are being indoctrinated to avoid information they don’t want you to have.
When James Bacque (12) (13) published his historically-surprising works of the millions of Germans killed in American concentration camps in Europe in the years following the end of the war, (14) he was bitterly excoriated in the North American media, his research being derided as “worse than useless” even though he’d relied entirely on US military records and the introduction to his books was written by a senior US military officer. His work was denounced as “a deeply-flawed book” (15). Someone didn’t want Americans to know, while Bacque’s books have been translated into about 15 languages and in Europe he is widely admired as an historian of consequence.
When the President of Tanzania derided Western vaccines for COVID-19 and claimed Tanzania would refuse to participate in the global vaccine money-making machine, the UK Guardian published an astonishing article stating that “this man must be removed” from his office (16). A short while later, Magufuli mysteriously collapsed on a public stage and was pronounced dead, the Guardian writing a dozen or more articles celebrating the event. It was a surprise, to say the least, that the Guardian would have any interest in such a minor person and item. Magufuli was the same man who denounced the American virus tests, claiming a goat and a papaya tested positive. (17) (18)
The same is true of Henry Ford’s series of articles on The International Jew. (19) (20) This has for more than 100 years been denounced in vicious terms as ‘anti-Semitic rants’ but, on reading them, we are surprised to discover they are no such thing and that Ford in many instances praised the Jews for their talents. But the articles contain information that some people don’t want widespread in the public domain and, the best defense being a good offense, the attacks are intended to pre-empt examination.
7.Confusion of Information
Whenever a media propaganda topic arises and contrary opinions and conclusions are leaking into the public realm, we invariably see a multitude of articles creating floods of extraneous information that serve only to create confusion in the public mind and prevent rational thought and conclusions. Often, this flood of unwelcome information is used to direct public thought in wrong directions and avoid if possible any focus on the core of the issue. COVID-19 is one such example, with columnists, apparently medically-qualified, proving that lockdowns are either useful or a crime against humanity, that masks will either prevent infection or starve you of oxygen and leave your children brain-dead. Or that the virus originated in either bats or pangolins or bananas, or frozen salmon, or Fort Detrick or the Wuhan university, or caves in Sichuan, and that it was unleashed either deliberately, or by accident, or by lab Ph.D’s selling the diseased animals on the street for coffee money. And at least 100 “facts” to support each of these claims.
Whenever we are reading about a serious current event and find suddenly multiple opinions and conclusions by multiple persons all apparently qualified, we know we are suffering a propaganda attack. It will never occur otherwise.
8.Fake NGOs
One common strategy for propagandists when promulgating questionable theories about events or accusations against a nation, is to produce ‘off-the-shelf’ NGOs with legitimate-sounding names as the actual author of the accusation or theory in question. So we suddenly see the “Center for Democratic Transition (CDT)” promoting “honest and accountable government” somewhere, or vicious trade agreements promoted with the support of the “Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE) in Washington”. And of course we have the ‘World Uigur Congress’ in Washington, created by the CIA with two people, masquerading as the only legitimate world voice of China’s millions of Xinjiang Uigurs, to say nothing of the “Tibet Government in Exile”, also created by the CIA with two people and also in Washington.
If you haven’t heard of the organisation before, it very likely did not exist before, and was created only yesterday to lend a bit of credibility to an otherwise-hapless tale.
9.Fact-Checking
You may (or may not) be surprised to learn that fact-checking is a huge worldwide industry conceived and created years ago as a powerful censorship tool, and funded with seemingly unlimited millions of dollars primarily by George Soros, the Gates Foundation, various media companies, and similar. They were never created to fact-check George Bush’s claims about Iraq WMDs, but to ‘fact-check’ you and pronounce you false when you disputed Bush’s claims.
I recently wrote a heavily-documented article on the thesis (now widely-accepted, I believe) that the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic was not influenza but was instead a bacterial infection (proven and accepted) the tragic result of a misguided experiment by the Rockefeller Medical Institute of a meningitis vaccine that began at Fort Riley in the US and spread around the world not by the soldiers but by Rockefeller itself. (21) Reuters immediately conducted a ‘fact-check’ of the thesis and pronounced it false. Reuter’s evidence? Non-existent, the claim sufficing as irrefutable proof. (22) Moreover, some of their claims were completely false.
You will be surprised to learn of the tricks these fact-checkers play in producing their results, and of the actual violations and crimes (civil, at least) they will commit in pursuing their ends. To my best knowledge, there are no fact-checkers that are not part of this worldwide network. Some like to rely on sites like Snopes, but these have also been co-opted and have now become part of the propaganda chain, filling in one of the last holes in the highway of lies. As one quick example of the latter, almost everyone has seen the video of Pompeo stating “We lied, we cheated, we stole.” Snopes’ fact-check experts tell us it is only “partially true” that Pompeo said this. In simple terms, whenever any major media outlet claims that something has been fact-checked, delete this information from your consciousness because it is almost certainly false.
10.Too much of the story known in advance
There are many such examples and all should raise an extreme cautionary awareness in readers. In the event of 9-11, the full story of who, how, and why was flooding the media the next morning, while in real life there wasn’t even sufficient time to fully realise what had happened. ZIKA was another such tale, (23) as were the reports of gassings in Syria, replete with all details which were later proven to have no substantiation.
11.Negative and Unpleasant Emotions
Anything creating a negative emotional response, other than perhaps the story of a tragic death or similar. Propaganda relies heavily on emotion, often primarily fear and usually of fears you might not care to discuss openly. It also relies heavily on hate and anger, arousing feelings of injustice or horrible crimes against populations. The rule is that whenever you find a news item creating a negative emotional response in yourself, you are almost certainly being deliberately stuffed with false propaganda. Think of all the tales of Iran, Libya, Iraq, Syria, Russia, China, so many nations and so many events, and yet none of those terrible things have ever been substantiated.
12.Opinion-based articles . . .
. . . with a few truths and many lies, articles that provide no detail or omit crucial details. These may be difficult for you to identify without some research of your own. I will provide some excellent examples.
13.Things that Just Don’t Make Sense
The two epidemics of UK foot and mouth disease (24) that resulted in the culling of millions of cattle and bankrupting most small farmers. “Animal Rights Activists” entered the Level-4 Military bio-weapons labs at Pirbright and Porton Down and stole thousands of liters of the deadly pathogen and spread it throughout the entire country. Alternatively, “a leaky drain” at Porton Down released a pathogen that killed cattle 500 Kms. distant – and nobody noticed. The fact that anyone attempting to penetrate a military bio-weapons lab would most likely be shot dead, was ignored, as were dozens of other facts.
“Pork Speculators” in turn obtained thousands of liters of deadly swine flu pathogen and used small drones to kill several hundred million pigs in China. No explanation as to why they would do that, nor whether they obtained the pathogen at the nearest 7-11 or at Wal-Mart, and all the rest. A Chinese scientist in the US announces he is on the verge of a great discovery (25a) as to the origin of COVID-19, but a day later this happily-married man has an argument with a gay lover who kills him and commits suicide. Discovery is lost. Two Chinese scientists working on COVID-19 fired from a government lab in Winnipeg, Canada, (25b)police involved, but no accusations, no crimes, merely a “procedural issue” which instantly disappears from the media, meaning they saw something they weren’t meant to see. Chinese medical students taking back to China samples of some “brown fluid” related to COVID-19, and arrested for ‘smuggling’ – which is usually a crime of bringing in, not of taking out.
14.Censorship
Propaganda, whether positive or negative, can be undermined if contrary views – or the truth – can be disseminated to the public at the same time, so media control is vital to eliminate other views or prevent them from gaining traction. Death is the ultimate censorship. Ask Gary Webb, the only known example of a man committing suicide by shooting himself in the head twice. It isn’t difficult to determine if event coverage is being censored, and you can be very certain of it when even the social media de-platform you, cite you for ‘fake news’, and Google suddenly cannot remember who you are.
15.Pablum for the Masses
This is one sure way to know that you are being fed propaganda. An easy example is recurrent articles in a Canadian newspaper with titles like “What is in the COVID-19 vaccines?” (25c), articles that omit all the real concerns of real people and provide no information of value, and which specifically omit mention of aluminum and the female hormones and other contamination which have been widely-reported to be contained in these.
16.Polls
Interestingly, public polls can tell us much about the agenda underlying various propaganda campaigns. As one example, the Western media have been flooded for more than one year with anti-China hate propaganda, centered on the coronavirus but including much else.(26) We can almost sense the glee in Gallup or Pew in reporting that assaults against “Asians” have increased by 793% during the past year, since that was clearly the point of the propaganda. And this is far from the first time such has occurred; the practice began in England during the war years. You may care to read this (25).
17.You don’t know what you don’t know
Propaganda does not only involve telling you what to think and how to think, or what not to think. There is also a huge industry that ensures much news never comes to your attention so that you don’t think ‘the wrong things’ about the wrong people. One example: In 2011, a Saudi judge advertised for a doctor to perform spinal surgery on a man, for the purpose of destroying his spine and leaving him crippled for life. The man had apparently caused a traffic accident that left another man with a damaged spine and the judge determined the appropriate punishment was “an eye for an eye”. Did you read about this? No. It’s not on the agenda.
18.Propaganda Success
Lastly, here are two examples of how successful a propaganda campaign can be, with the power to have all the media onside and to crush dissenting voices. The first is the story of China’s great famine in 1959, the story propagated in Western minds attributing the blame to Mao and being rubbish in entirety. (27) The second is the real story of China’s Tiananmen Square in 1989, certainly one of the greatest propaganda victories of all time. (28) The article referenced is considered the definitive work on this topic, at least in English, though the Internet gatekeepers will not permit many of the necessary photos to be reproduced on any website.
I will cover all these and more in a brief series of articles on Media Propaganda.
Mr. Romanoff’s writing has been translated into 30 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 