In Case You Missed It RSS Feed (2024)

21/09/2021

"Australia is not aligned with the US to protect itself from China. Australia is aligned with the US to protect itself from the US.

Joe Biden may have forgotten the name of the Australian Prime Minister. But Scott Morrison knows who he is expected to work for. In 1975 the U.S. and the UK launched a coup against the Australian Prime Minister Gough Whitlam who was moving his country towards independence. Few in the U.S. will remember that but Australian politicians do. Their country has since always done as it was told to do."

Although the contract was signed in 2016, construction hasn’t begun yet, and the first submarine under the program won’t be launched for another decade. At least.

20/09/2021

"Maybe this isn't the Afghanistan-related content that my largely-American audience is most eager to consume, but having been in London for the past two weeks and followed the coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal here, I can't help but be grimly fascinated by the steady stream of overwrought fury bellowing from UK political and media elites. It's worth paying attention to as an American, even if you don't have any particular reason to care about what goes on in the UK. Because what's most grimly fascinating is that a furor which has dominated UK political debate for weeks arose not due to any decision taken by UK policy-makers, but rather due to a unilateral policy decision taken by Joe Biden. And yet, debate in the UK proceeds with hardly any acknowledgement of the willfully subservient military arrangement its elected officials have acceded to for decades. Instead, UK politicians and pundits lash out at Biden like he's their own de facto chief executive or something; few seem aware of how fundamentally strange this is....

For a variety of reasons -- including residual fantasies of Post-WWII glory, the exigencies of short-term party politics, among others -- UK elected officials and pundits have studiously avoided any frontal acknowledgement of this submissive arrangement, and what it signifies about the limits of their own agency....

Why take any interest in this, as an American who otherwise ignores or is apathetic toward the UK? Perhaps because the shambolic uproar here is a preview of what's to come 'on this side of the Atlantic' (an annoyingly ubiquitous cliche). As US hegemony inevitably and ineluctably recedes, just like UK hegemony did in an earlier era, our own elites are unlikely to fare any better in the process of reconciling themselves to their newfound impotence."

Maybe this isn’t the Afghanistan-related content that my largely-American audience is most eager to consume, but having been in London for the past two weeks and followed the coverage of the Afghanistan withdrawal here, I can’t help but be grimly fascinated by the steady stream of

14/09/2021

"Entire branches of Shakira's family tree, from the uncles who used to tell her stories to the cousins who played with her in the caves, vanished. In all, she lost sixteen family members. I wondered if it was the same for other families in Pan Killay. I sampled a dozen households at random in the village, and made similar inquiries in other villages, to insure that Pan Killay was no outlier. For each family, I documented the names of the dead, cross-checking cases with death certificates and eyewitness testimony. On average, I found, each family lost ten to twelve civilians in what locals call the American War."

In the countryside, the endless killing of civilians turned women against the occupiers who claimed to be helping them.

08/09/2021

"The patent falsehoods peddled by the Beltway press corps in response to the Biden withdrawal reveals just how tightly they have become linked to the interests of the military and Pentagon. And its flamboyant opposition to a pull-out favored a solid majority of the American public is yet another factor that will accelerate the decline of an already cratering corporate media."

Biden's popular and long overdue withdrawal from Afghanistan triggered a big media meltdown that exposed its de facto merger with the military.

08/09/2021

"Thousands of Syrians staged a protest against US occupation forces in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor to condemn the arrest of 300 anti-terrorist fighters from the Al-Shaitat tribe.

According to reports, demonstrators called for the immediate release of the tribesmen who have been instrumental in the fight against the Islamic State (IS) terrorist group, and who were allegedly imprisoned without charges. For their part, the US and the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) maintain the tribesmen were arrested for 'collaborating' with the Syrian government.

Protesters also said that if the prisoners are not released, the protest would spread..."

Protesters demand the release of hundreds of anti-terror fighters who were unlawfully arrested by US troops and the SDF

07/09/2021

"There is a larger story behind the recent terror events in Afghanistan. Here is an attempt to track it down."

Over the years several reports by the Afghan Analyst Network (AAN) about the Islamic State in Khorasan Province (ISKP or ISIS-K) show that it had grown out of militant groups from Pakistan. A report from 2016 describes extensively how they were fostered by the Afghan state:

07/09/2021

"In Israel, officially, those who have been injected with two doses of Pfizer's so-called vaccine are no longer counted as vaccinated.

What does this mean?"

Just as “three weeks to flatten the curve” turned into around 18-months (and counting), “double jabbed” is now evolving into “triple jabbed”….and just as they used linguistic tricks to turn &…

06/09/2021

"I don't know if we're in the heyday of questioning the motives of people we disagree with rather than simply rebutting them -- character assassination, that is -- but it's got me wondering why this is such a popular pastime these days. Think about how often we hear people's motives impugned -- even when they have impressive credentials -- because of their positions on COVID-19, climate change, nutrition, racial policy -- you name it. Considering motivation is not a bad thing per se, but too often it substitutes for a counterargument. That's a confession of vacuity....

If someone defends a proposition that is easily refuted or has been repeatedly refuted before, we might wonder why that person defended it. Inquiring into the possible motives seems appropriate, but not before the claim is shown to be poor."

I don't know if we're in the heyday of questioning the motives of people we disagree with rather than simply rebutting them--character assassination, that is--but it's got me wondering why this is such a popular pastime these days. Think about how often we hear people's motives impugned--even when t...

06/09/2021

"In order to oppose this new form of totalitarianism, we need to understand how it both resembles and differs from earlier totalitarian systems. The similarities are fairly obvious -- the suspension of constitutional rights, governments ruling by decree, official propaganda, public loyalty rituals, the outlawing of political opposition, censorship, social segregation, goon squads terrorizing the public, and so on -- but the differences are not obvious.

Whereas 20th-Century totalitarianism (i.e., the form most people are generally familiar with) was more or less national and overtly political, New Normal totalitarianism is supranational, and its ideology is much more subtle. The New Normal is not Na**sm or Stalinism. It is global-capitalist totalitarianism, and global capitalism doesn't have an ideology, technically, or, rather, its ideology is 'reality.' When you are an unrivaled global ideological hegemon, as global capitalism has been for the last 30 years or so, your ideology automatically becomes 'reality,' because there are no competing ideologies. Actually, there is no ideology at all ... there is only 'reality' and 'unreality,' 'normality' and 'deviations from the norm.'...

A globally hegemonic system has no need for ideology, because it doesn't have to compete with rival ideologies. So it erases ideology and replaces it with 'reality.' Reality (whatever you personally believe it is, which of course is what it really is) is not actually erased. It just doesn't matter, because you do not get to dictate 'reality.'...

Also, because this 'reality' is not a cohesive ideological system with fundamental values, core principles, and so on, it can be drastically revised or completely replaced more or less at a moment's notice. Global capitalism has no fundamental values -- other than exchange value, of course -- and thus it is free to manufacture any kind of 'reality' it wants, and replace one 'reality' with a new 'reality' any time that serves its purposes, like stagehands changing a theatrical set.

For example, the 'Global War on Terror,' which was the official 'reality' from 2001 until it was canceled in the Summer of 2016, when the 'War on Populism' was officially launched. Or, now, the 'New Normal,' which replaced the 'War on Populism' in the Spring of 2020. Each of which new simulations of 'reality' was rolled out abruptly, clumsily even, like that scene in 1984 where the Party switches official enemies right in the middle of a Hate Week speech."

In The Covidian Cult (Part I) and (Part II), I characterized the so-called “New Normal” as a “global totalitarian ideological movement.” Since I published those essays, more…

06/09/2021

"Claiming to be a daring outsider who speaks forbidden truths has become a standard trope. Can it still threaten the establishment?"

Claiming to be a daring outsider who speaks forbidden truths has become a standard trope. Can it still threaten the establishment?

01/09/2021

"With the 'intelligence' 'community' providing the results of its alleged 'investigation' as to the origins of the pandemic, reportedly 'inconclusive' -- it's important to keep some critical things, and some possibilities, in mind. Among them..."

With the "intelligence" "community" providing the results of its alleged "investigation" as to the origins of the pandemic, reportedly "inconclusive" -- it's important to keep some critical things, and some possibilities, in mind. Among them: * The US Congress can investigate without Chinese involve...

31/08/2021

"A new BBC report shows eyewitnesses at the scene of the deadly Kabul airport explosion on Thursday saying that a significant number of the 170 Afghans killed in the attack actually died from gunfire by the US-led alliance in the chaos following the blast."

Listen to a reading of this article: ❖ A new BBC report shows eyewitnesses at the scene of the deadly Kabul airport explosion on Thursday saying that a significant number of the 170 Afghans killed in the attack actually died from gunfire by the US-led alliance in the chaos following the blast.

31/08/2021

"It appears in the 29th paragraph of a 39-paragraph New York Times story on Saturday about the aftermath of the su***de bombing at Kabul airport last week that killed more than 180 people, including 13 U.S. military personnel:

'For the first time, Pentagon officials publicly acknowledged the possibility that some people killed outside the airport on Thursday might have been shot by American service members after the su***de bombing.'...

If the story of U.S. soldiers firing into the crowd after the su***de bombing is true, it would be a major development that deserves prominent media attention. Western news organizations with reporters on the ground have been publishing highly detailed accounts of events at the airport for days. "

Western media appear to be downplaying a possible major development in the Kabul airport attack, writes Joe Lauria. By Joe Lauria Special to Consortium News It appears in the 29th paragraph of a 39-paragraph New York Times story on Saturday about the aftermath of the su***de bombing at Kabu

30/08/2021

"A US drone strike in Kabul on Sunday killed nine members of one family, including six children, the brother of one of the victims told a journalist in the city working with CNN.

The US claims the strike destroyed a vehicle carrying 'multiple su***de bombers' from Afghanistan's ISIS affiliate, but witnesses said it hit two cars parked at a residential building. 'We are not ISIS or Daesh and this was a family home -- where my brothers lived with their families,' the brother said.

The brother said the youngest of the dead was a two-year-old girl. The journalist said family members told him that one of the cars that were hit contained a father and three of his children.

Earlier in the day, Capt. Bill Urban, a spokesperson for US Central Command, confirmed the drone strike and said the US is investigating if there were civilian casualties."

The US claims the strike targeted ISIS

09/06/2021

"We yesterday looked at the record of Roman Protasevich, the western financed neo-nazi arrested on Sunday in Belarus. Another still open issue is how the incident developed."

We yesterday looked at the record of Roman Protasevich, the western financed neo-nazi arrested on Sunday in Belarus. Another still open issue is how the incident developed.

05/06/2021

"A new report, published just yesterday, has provided yet more evidence that the CDC is manipulating data to conceal the number of "breakthrough infections".

A "breakthrough infection" (or "breakthrough case") is defined as a person who tests positive for Sars-Cov-2 infection, despite already being fully vaccinated....

Statistical studies have shown up to 86% of Covid "cases" never experience symptoms. To exclude such cases from your vaccine effectiveness studies is to poison your data in order to prop up a pre-determined conclusion. It is, at the very best, extremely poor science.

Of course, the truth is far more cynical even than that.

From the beginning of the so-called 'pandemic', waves of asymptomatic 'cases' were deliberately created by running unreliable PCR tests on 100,000s of perfectly healthy people every day.

The entirely predictable false positives were called 'cases', and these manufactured 'cases' of Covid19 were used to build up the illusion of a global plague....

To this point 'asymptomatic cases' have been the backbone of the Covid narrative. But now the CDC has attempted to remove them from the reckoning by instructing medical labs and hospitals around the country to stop looking for them, but only in those who have had the 'vaccine'....

In short: before the vaccine they needed 'asymptomatic infections' to create a 'problem', after the vaccine they are actively hiding 'asymptomatic infections', because their existence undermines their 'solution'."

Kit Knightly A new report, published just yesterday, has provided yet more evidence that the CDC is manipulating data to conceal the number of “breakthrough infections”. A “breakt…

04/06/2021

"Despite the raging ideological schism that's supposedly roiling the GOP, ostensibly between reviled 'neocons' and the new wave of principled 'America First' reformers, you will find virtually no difference whatsoever on this issue between say, Liz Cheney and the hardcore MAGA stalwarts who just agitated to oust her from the GOP House leadership, like Lauren Boebert. This is unsurprising because MAGA stalwarts are huge fans of Donald Trump, and Trump himself repeatedly bragged about being the most pro-Israel president of all time. (With 'pro-Israel' essentially meaning: subsidize and cheerlead whatever the Israeli government desires to do...)

With few and marginal exceptions, right-wing figures who declare themselves to be so against foreign entanglements on the basis of some half-formed 'America First' ideology have zero qualms about the status quo of the US-Israel relationship -- particularly the $3.8 billion per year in direct US taxpayer-funded military aid that flows to the country....

It is not an exaggeration to say that the US is functionally Israel's allied combatant. If you're in favor of the US acting as a co-belligerent alongside Israel on the basis of whatever political/theological/strategic rationale, then OK. But stop pretending this is remotely consistent with wanting to disengage from wasteful foreign wars."

After the conclusion of the Derek Chauvin trial a few weeks ago, it became apparent that across the worlds of culturally left/liberal US corporations, non-profits, academia, professional sports, and electoral politics, certain slogans were mandatory to recite. The phrase “There Is Still Much Work ...

03/06/2021

"The UK government tracked millions of people, without their knowledge, using their phones to gain insights into behavioral changes after vaccination, according to a new report. The government somehow insists the data collection was ethical and no privacy laws were broken.

A report by the Scientific Pandemic Influenza Group on Behaviors (SPI-B) admitted that government funded researchers tracked one in ten people via their phones in February, without the users' knowledge or permission.

They used 'cell phone mobility data for 10 percent of the British population,' and chose over 4,200 vaccinated individuals. They then focused on the vaccinated group, and tracked it through 40 'CDR [call data records] with corresponding location observation.' The data collected was used for behavioral analysis, looking at 'gyration (radius of gyration on vaccination day), time (opening hours) and home (do they go home directly after vaccination).'

Privacy activists heavily criticize the tracking, especially as it was conducted by the government, and it was not made public."

A shocking revelation.

02/06/2021

"There is more to say about the Ryanair incident in Belarus and the arrest of the 'regime change' operative Roman Protasevich.

We will start with the latter.

The sympathetic portraits of Protasevich in the New York Times and in the Guardian are only of interest for what they leave out."

There is more to say about the Ryanair incident in Belarus and the arrest of the 'regime change' operative Roman Protasevich.

02/06/2021

"Israel is not dropping bombs. But it is still besieging Gaza; still smothering Palestinian life in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; still repressing its second-class Palestinian citizens; still violently barring the refugees' right of return....

Israeli police on both sides of the 1947-67 line are raiding Palestinian homes and dragging people off to dungeons. The line distinguishing 'Israel' from 'the occupied territories' is meaningless: the same racial violence grips both sides of the line.

A ceasefire in Palestine means we're back to the slow suffocation of apartheid and brutal military occupation."

He said: "Israel is not dropping bombs. But it is still besieging Gaza; still smothering Palestinian life in the West Bank and East Jerusalem; still repressing its second-class Palestinian citizens; still violently barring the refugees’ right of return. This racial violence must also end. "Israeli...

01/06/2021

"The evidence for microwave effects of the type categorized as Havana syndrome is exceedingly weak. No proponent of the idea has outlined how the weapon would actually work. No evidence has been offered that such a weapon has been developed by any nation. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and no evidence has been offered to support the existence of this mystery weapon."

There’s little evidence for an unknown weapon being behind “Havana syndrome.”

01/06/2021

"There would be nothing to discuss, no re-entry to negotiate, had the U.S. not randomly decided to renege on all of its commitments in 2018. Iran did not do the same thing, and for more than a year after the U.S. pulled out of the agreement they remained in full compliance. Even now, Iran is still a party to the agreement and has reduced its compliance only because of the U.S. breach. This is a matter of basic accuracy. If the paper of record can't get something this elementary right at the start of its report on the negotiations, what hope is there for understanding more complicated questions?

This error is unfortunately not limited to this article or this paper. It is commonplace for U.S. journalists and government officials to talk about reentry into the agreement as if it is something that both governments have to do in equal measure....

The article does point to the real stumbling-block in the talks. Namely, the Biden administration is so wedded to its misguided talking points that it is screwing up what ought to be a fairly straightforward process of rejoining and lifting the relevant sanctions...

Salvaging the nuclear deal was supposed to be one of the easy wins for Biden in the first few months of his presidency. He and his officials have taken that easy win and turned it into what looks increasingly like an avoidable loss. This is deeply regrettable, and it bodes ill for the rest of Biden's foreign policy for the next four years."

There isn’t going to be a subsequent agreement, and insisting that there has to be one is a good way to make sure that we lose the agreement that already exists.

01/06/2021

"Nearly one third of recently registered Covid deaths in England and Wales are people who died primarily from other causes, the latest figures show.

Weekly death data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that, for nearly 33 per cent of people included in the overall coronavirus death figures, Covid was not an underlying cause of death.

The number of people who are not principally dying from Covid but are still being included in the official figures has been creeping up steadily as the pandemic has declined."

Weekly data from the ONS shows nearly 33 per cent of people included in the overall death figures that Covid was not an underlying cause.

25/05/2021

"On May 5, Hamas commander Mohammed Deif issued a warning to Israel's government: Unless Israeli police and troops stopped attacking Palestinians in Jerusalem -- including not just those protesting against the regime's theft of their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood on behalf of Israeli 'settlers,' but also worshipers at al-Aqsa mosque, one of Islam's most sacred sites -- rockets would fly.

On the same day, the Biden administration notified Congress of its approval for Boeing's sale of $735 worth of Joint Direct Attack Munitions to the Israeli regime.

The Israelis ignored Deif's warning and continued their abuses. The rockets flew. And, in the name 'self-defense,' prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the war he badly needs to distract from his recent election defeat and his ongoing corruption trial....

Let's at least be honest about those weapons. The Israelis aren't really buying them. You are."

On May 5, Hamas commander Mohammed Deif issued a warning to Israel’s government: Unless Israeli police and troops stopped attacking…

25/05/2021

"As Palestinians are forced out of their homes, attacked at their holy sites and made to watch as their children are once again massacred by those who have stolen and occupied their lands, the western media is engaging in another bout of equalising the unequal."

To compound the indignities faced by Palestinians, headline writers won't distinguish between those who attack and those who are under attack

24/05/2021

"The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have sponsored Reuters and the BBC to conduct a series of covert programs aimed at promoting regime change inside Russia and undermining its government across Eastern Europe and Central Asia, according to a series of leaked documents.

The leaked materials show the Thomson Reuters Foundation and BBC Media Action participating in a covert information warfare campaign aimed at countering Russia. Working through a shadowy department within the UK FCO known as the Counter Disinformation & Media Development (CDMD), the media organizations operated alongside a collection of intelligence contractors in a secret entity known simply as 'the Consortium.'...

The UK FCO projects were carried out covertly, and in partnership with purportedly independent, high-profile online media outfits including Bellingcat, Meduza, and the P***y Riot-founded Mediazona. Bellingcat's participation apparently included a UK FCO intervention in North Macedonia's 2019 elections on behalf of the pro-NATO candidate....

The new documents provide critical background on the role of NATO member states like the UK in influencing the color revolution-style protests waged in Belarus in 2020, and raise unsettling questions about the intrigue and unrest surrounding jailed Russian opposition figure Alexei Navalny.

Further, the materials cast serious doubt on the independence of two of the world's largest and most prestigious media organizations, revealing Reuters and the BBC as apparent intelligence cut-outs feasting at the trough of a British national security state that their news operations are increasingly averse to scrutinizing."

New leaked documents show Reuters’ and the BBC’s involvement in covert UK FCO programs to effect “attitudinal change” and “weaken the Russian state’s influence,” alongside intel contractors and Bellingcat. The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) have sponsored Reuters and the BBC ...

24/05/2021

"Social media is teeming with viral video footage of police assaulting peaceful worshippers in the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, of Israelis cheering and chanting 'Yimach shemam (may their names be erased)' at the sight of a fire near the mosque, of Israeli soldiers arresting Palestinian protesters using the signature knee-on-neck maneuver made famous by the murder of George Floyd, many of which have millions of views. Mainstream politicians on both sides of the Atlantic are putting out statements explicitly condemning Israel as the aggressor in these attacks, and the White House is facing some actual adversarial journalism for once regarding its refusal to denounce the killing of Palestinian children and its absurd position that Palestinians have no right to defend themselves.

This is the most mainstream that criticism of Israeli apartheid oppression has ever been in my lifetime, and as more and more mainstream human rights groups begin acknowledging the reality of that oppression it's only getting more so."

Listen to this article: "Twenty-four people, including nine children, were killed in Gaza overnight, most of them in Israeli strikes," reads a new report from AP. Nine children, killed with the help of United States funding to the tune of $3.8 billion a year.

27/04/2021

"In an earlier piece, we explored some country case study examples of how the press helps to manufacture consent for regime change and other US actions abroad among left-leaning audiences, a traditionally conflict-skeptical group.

Some level of buy-in, or at least a hesitancy to resist, among the United States' more left-leaning half is necessary to ensure that US interventions are carried out with a minimum of domestic opposition. To this end, corporate media invoke the language of human rights and humanitarianism to convince those to the left of center to accept, if not support, US actions abroad -- a treatment of sorts for the country's 50-year-long Vietnam syndrome.

What follows are some of the common tropes used by establishment outlets to convince skeptical leftists that this time, things might be different, selling a progressive intervention everyone can get behind."

Corporate media invoke the language of human rights and humanitarianism to convince those to the left of center to accept, if not support, US actions abroad.

22/04/2021

"Unless you never turn on the television or go on the internet, then you likely know American police kill hundreds of people every year with impunity. 1,127 -- that is the number of lives brought to an end by 'peace officers' in the land of the free in 2020. One-thousand, one-hundred, and twenty seven lives taken by the bullets, tasers, vehicles, fists, and knees of American cops....

According to a recent analysis of police killings in 2021..., the majority of police killings involve calls in which there was no crime or that the suspect is only suspected of a non-violent offense....

Of the 1,127 people killed by police in 2020, only 277 of them were suspected of a violent offense. The majority, 658 were suspected of a non-violent offense or no crime at all, while another 121 were killed over a traffic violation.

These shocking numbers highlight a major problem when it comes to how police are policing."

Shocking statistics reveal that most police killings involve cops responding to calls in which there is no crime or the suspect is accused of a non-violent act.

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