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Israeli PM orders evacuation of last Gaza ‘safe zone’

 https://www.rt.com/news/592207-israel-plans-rafah-civilian-evacuation/ 11 Feb 24

Benjamin Netanyahu has directed his military to prepare for moving civilians out of Rafah ahead of a major ground offensive

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has ordered his military to make plans for evacuating over a million Palestinian civilians crowded into Rafah, the last remaining refuge for displaced residents of the war-ravaged Gaza Strip. Israeli troops are preparing to launch a massive ground offensive against Hamas fighters in the area.

Netanyahu’s office announced the directive on Friday, saying the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) needed a “combined plan” for the mass evacuation of civilians and the destruction of the last Hamas stronghold in the Palestinian enclave. “It is impossible to achieve the goal of the war of eliminating Hamas by leaving four Hamas battalions in Rafah,” the statement said. “On the contrary, it is clear that intense activity in Rafah requires that civilians evacuate the areas of combat.”

The UN has estimated that around 1.4 million displaced Gazans have taken refuge in Rafah, located on the besieged enclave’s border with Egypt, since the Israel-Hamas war began in October. The city, which normally has a population of some 280,000, has become the last so-called “safe zone” for civilians as the IDF levels much of Gaza in its hunt for Hamas fighters.

The evacuation directive comes as the US and other allies step up pressure on West Jerusalem to reduce civilian casualties. The US State Department warned on Thursday that an Israeli military operation in Rafah without “serious planning” for protection of civilians would be disastrous. US President Joe Biden told reporters on Thursday night that the IDF’s operations in Gaza had been “over the top,” marking his most pointed criticism of Israeli war tactics since the conflict began.

Biden’s administration has refused so far to press for a ceasefire in Gaza and has criticized allegations that Israel is committing genocide against the Palestinians. About 28,000 people have been killed in the territory since the war began, according to local health authorities. The UN has reported that 85% of the population has been displaced from their homes, and 570,000 Gazans are starving.

The war started when Hamas fighters launched surprise attacks against Israeli villages, killing more than 1,100 people and taking hundreds of hostages back to Gaza.

February 12, 2024 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Why Biden’s $61 billion in weapons for Ukraine won’t prevent inevitable defeat

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 11 Feb 24

For 4 months President Biden has been beseeching Congress to grant another $61 billion in aid to Ukraine to continue their 2 year war with Russia. This is on top of $113 billion that has made no dent in Ukraine’s efforts to prevail against overwhelming Russian forces.

Biden could give Ukraine a trillion dollars in aid but it’s essentially worthless because Ukraine is running out of soldiers to use US weapons.

A dozen Ukrainian soldiers and commanders told the Washington Post that personnel deficits are at their lowest point ever.

One mechanized brigade battalion commander advised he’s down to 40 soldiers from a normal 200 to hold off the Russian advance. Another mentioned the same shortage in his unit.

Replacements are scares since August when Zelensky fired all recruitment office heads due to corruption. That’s caused a dramatic decline in replacements still not solved.

But if Biden gets his $61 billion he’d be better off tossing it into a bonfire instead of squandering it on more weapons for Ukraine. That will only prolong a war that was lost on Day One, 717 days ago. Had Biden not torpedoed a peace deal nearly inked in the first month, over 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers would still be alive, the Ukraine economy would not be devastated, and Ukraine may not have lost a single square mile of territory.

Biden knows the $61 billion more will not turn the tide. But as Pete Seeger sang about LBJ continuing to fight a lost war in Vietnam 57 years ago, in today’s White House…’The Big Fool says to push on.’

February 12, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Pushing Gazans Into Rafah And Then Attacking Rafah, Killing UNRWA Funding Without Evidence


CAITLIN JOHNSTONE, FEB 10, 2024, Caitlin’s newsletter.

Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Israel is reportedly preparing to launch a ground assault on Rafah, the southernmost part of the Gaza Strip where Gazans have been pushed to flee to. Israel has instructed the 1.4 million refugees sheltering there to evacuate, along with the hundreds of thousands of people who were already living there before, but there doesn’t seem to be anywhere for them to go. This could wind up being the single deadliest phase of Israel’s onslaught to date.

So to summarize, the IDF has been packing the population of Gaza into the southernmost part of the enclave like toothpaste toward the end of a tube, and now they’re going to attack that southernmost part, but it’s totally not genocide and you’re an evil Nazi if you say it is.

This genocide is not a genocide. Ceci n’est pas une pipe.

Can we all just stop and marvel at how successful Israel and its allies have been at moving the conversation from “The ICJ ruled that Israel needs to immediately cease killing Palestinians” to “Is it right or wrong to starve two million people based on unevidenced claims?”

Australian foreign minister Penny Wong has acknowledged that Canberra joined the US, UK and other allies in cutting off UNRWA funding without having seen proof of Israel’s claims against the organization. Empire managers are now openly admitting they suspended aid to Gaza without having seen evidence of the claims that call was based on; they cut the aid because they were told to, then waited for narratives to be provided to them as to why this was a good and righteous decision.

If you’re going to say that a bad thing happened and we therefore need to cut off aid to the most aid-dependent population on earth, then you’d better at least be able to prove the bad thing actually happened. If evidence exists, then show it. If you insist on starving two million people, you can’t do it on vibes alone.

How is this not obvious to everyone? How was it not immediately obvious the instant it came up? Time and time again we are asked to consent to the empire doing the most heinous things to the most vulnerable populations on secret, invisible evidence. We are expected to trust their secret evidence without getting to look at it, even though they’ve been caught lying about things like this over and over and over again.

They think we’re idiots………………………………………………………………..  https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/pushing-gazans-into-rafah-and-then?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=82124&post_id=141542598&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email—

February 12, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Religion and ethics, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Escalating to de-escalate with nuclear weapons: Research shows it’s a particularly bad idea

How well does escalate to de-escalate work? Escalate to de-escalate strategies appear at first to be logically appealing. Upon deeper investigation, however, the potential for the strategy’s success is likely to be outweighed by the potential for its failure. The high chance of failure lies in potential escalation outcomes on the receiving side of the escalating attack.

The Bulletin, By Daniel R. Post | February 9, 2024

The growth of Chinese nuclear capabilities and the ongoing Russian invasion of Ukraine have brought “great power competition” back to the center of United States national security strategy. With that competition have come calls for increasing US tactical nuclear weapons capabilities. A primary justification for increasing these capabilities is that they provide additional options at different potential levels of conflict escalation and can help stop a conventional-turned-nuclear war before it becomes a full-scale nuclear exchange.

In fact, many in the US strategic community believe that “escalate to de-escalate” strategies—which threaten early and significant escalations, such as limited nuclear use, followed by demands for immediate war termination—are a desirable approach for nuclear deterrence, and a viable option if deterrence fails.

But how likely is it that even a “limited” nuclear war could be kept to a level at which the benefits of fighting outweigh the costs if deterrence fails? Could escalating from conventional weapons to nuclear ones have a de-escalatory impact on a conflict? Should the United States or other countries pursue the development of relatively low-yield nuclear weapons for this purpose? My research, as well as other recent work, strongly suggests that this kind of thinking is theoretically unsound, fraught with danger, and likely to drastically increase the risk of escalation in a nuclear conflict if attempted.

What is escalating to de-escalate? In this strategy, escalation is a deliberate action taken primarily for the purpose of ending a conflict without any further increase in the intensity or level of fighting. The strategy aims to achieve de-escalation by signaling capability and commitment. Escalate to de-escalate relies on psychological responses wherein the other side comes to see the conflict as too costly to continue at the new potential level of violence. The goal of escalation is not to completely disable or defeat the enemy, but rather to compel the adversary to decide to end the conflict—on terms set by the escalating state. The strategy is meant to be both bold and restrained.

When escalation involves a nuclear attack, the attacker is expecting to increase the likelihood of coercive advantages or to end the war altogether. Nuclear weapons generate and heighten fear, increase the risk of further escalation, and are the ultimate signal of strength and resolve.

A Russian strategy? Much of the contemporary discussion about escalating to de-escalate is rooted in an assertion by experts that it is an accurate interpretation of Russian strategy. The 2018 version of the United States’ Nuclear Posture Review, for example, stated that “Russian strategy and doctrine emphasize the potential coercive and military uses of nuclear weapons. It [sic] mistakenly assesses that the threat of nuclear escalation or actual first use of nuclear weapons would serve to ‘de-escalate’ a conflict on terms favorable to Russia.”

Katarzyna Zysk, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, has argued that this assessment is essentially correct, ………………………………………………

However, some experts disagree with this assessment of Russian strategy. Their arguments typically acknowledge Russian willingness to use nuclear weapons in a limited fashion under certain circumstances but characterize escalate to de-escalate as too simple an interpretation, incomplete, or inaccurate. Instead, these experts say, Russian plans to use nuclear weapons should be considered as part of a broader strategic deterrence, counter-escalation, and warfighting strategy.

How well does escalate to de-escalate work? Escalate to de-escalate strategies appear at first to be logically appealing. Upon deeper investigation, however, the potential for the strategy’s success is likely to be outweighed by the potential for its failure. The high chance of failure lies in potential escalation outcomes on the receiving side of the escalating attack……………………………………………………

positive outcomes, however, are theoretically counteracted—and upon empirical investigation, very often outweighed—by incentives to continue to resist. There are several reasons for this. First, escalation is likely to be a public and observable strategy, especially if it involves using a nuclear weapon, and giving in to such a demand comes with higher reputational costs than does refraining from retaliation. This exacerbates worries over precedent setting and future vulnerability.

Second, the receiving state may not get the intended signal, or may misinterpret, misunderstand, mistrust, or misperceive the intended signal. This sort of misperception has long been identified as a problem in international relations. Additionally, if the escalation violates an important norm—for example, the non-use of nuclear weapons, or the targeting of civilians—this effect may be amplified. In this situation, decision makers on the receiving side are likely to be willing to accept more risk to resist the escalation and prevent further losses.

A third reason escalate to de-escalate may result in continued resistance is that the attempt heightens the perceived stakes. In addition to the original stakes of the conflict, once a “red line” has been crossed (particularly the nuclear threshold), the stakes may increase dramatically. This again exacerbates concerns over precedent and reputation.

Can nuclear weapons help? The answer is likely no. Escalate to de-escalate may fail often in a nuclear setting because a limited nuclear attack against a nuclear-armed adversary will aggravate reputational and precedent-setting concerns. Because the stated purpose of nuclear weapons is (at a minimum) to deter a nuclear attack, when a nuclear state gives in to a limited nuclear attack the entire purpose of its nuclear deterrent has been negated. Giving in to a nuclear attack, then, drastically weakens future deterrence.

Also, escalating with nuclear weapons is likely to produce stronger negative effects than conventional attacks, because violating the norm of nuclear non-use may trigger stronger reactions than violating other norms of armed conflict (like killing unarmed civilians) that are routinely violated and are not as black and white as nuclear use.

Third, nuclear weapons cause effects that other types of weapons do not, such as radioactive fallout, electromagnetic pulse damage, and increased blast and fire impacts. These capabilities add an immense amount of uncertainty to a nuclear attack. This uncertainty will increase the incentives for decision makers to engage in worst-case scenario planning.

……………………………………. likely for the receiving side to think that the aggressor who first uses nuclear weapons has begun to behave irrationally or has abandoned these norms.

In sum, using nuclear weapons will increase incentives for the receiving state to continue to resist the attacker.

Slim chance of success. My ongoing research strongly supports claims regarding the likelihood that escalate to de-escalate will fail. I have conducted several surveys among two US populations (a general population and a military population) and found that respondents are overwhelmingly more likely to favor continued resistance when placed on the receiving end of escalate to de-escalate attempts. In the civilian sample, only 30.6 percent of respondents chose to de-escalate in response. In the military sample, that number was a measly 6.9 percent…………………………………….

If both sides in a conflict subscribe to escalate-to-de-escalate-type thinking, the logical outcome is an endless escalatory cycle. This outcome is distinctly at odds with a strategy aimed at de-escalation. Scholars and practitioners should beware of seeing a limited nuclear attack as some sort of resolve-demonstrating “trump card.”  https://thebulletin.org/2024/02/escalating-to-de-escalate-with-nuclear-weapons-research-shows-its-a-particularly-bad-idea/

February 11, 2024 Posted by | weapons and war | 2 Comments

Gaza: Chris Hedges: Let Them Eat Dirt

The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it.

By Chris Hedges ScheerPost, 8 Feb 24,  https://scheerpost.com/2024/02/08/chris-hedges-let-them-eat-dirt/—

There was never any possibility that the Israeli government would agree to a pause in the fighting proposed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken, much less a ceasefire. Israel is on the verge of delivering the coup de grâce in its war on Palestinians in Gaza – mass starvation. When Israeli leaders use the term “absolute victory,” they mean total decimation, total elimination. The Nazis in 1942 systematically starved the 500,000 men, women and children in the Warsaw Ghetto. This is a number Israel intends to exceed. 

Israel, and its chief patron the United States, by attempting to shut down the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), which provides food and aid to Gaza, is not only committing a war crime, but is in flagrant defiance of the International Court of Justice (ICJ). The court found the charges of genocide brought by South Africa, which included statements and facts gathered by UNWRA, plausible. It ordered Israel to abide by six provisional measures to prevent genocide and alleviate the humanitarian catastrophe. The fourth provisional measure calls on Israel to secure immediate and effective steps to provide humanitarian assistance and essential services in Gaza. 

UNRWA’s reports on conditions in Gaza, which I covered as a reporter for seven years, and its documentation of indiscriminate Israeli attacks illustrate that, as UNRWA said, “unilaterally declared ‘safe zones’ are not safe at all. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.” 

UNRWA’s role in documenting the genocide, as well as providing food and aid to the Palestinians, infuriates the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused UNRWA after the ruling of providing false information to the ICJ. Already an Israeli target for decades, Israel decided that UNRWA, which supports 5.9 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East with clinics, schools and food, had to be eliminated. Israel’s destruction of UNRWA serves a political as well as material objective. 

The evidence-free Israeli accusations against UNRWA that a dozen of the 13,000 employees had links to those who carried out the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which saw some 1,200 Israelis killed, did the trick. It led 16 major donors, including the United States, the U.K., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Estonia and Japan, to suspend financial support for the relief agency on which nearly every Palestinian in Gaza depends for food. Israel has killed 152 UNRWA workers and damaged 147 UNRWA installations since Oct. 7. Israel has also bombed UNRWA relief trucks. 

More than 27,708 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, some 67,000 have been wounded and at least 7,000 are missing, most likely dead and buried under the rubble.

More than half a million Palestinians – one in four – are starving in Gaza, according to the U.N. Starvation will soon be ubiquitous. Palestinians in Gaza, at least 1.9 million of whom have been internally displaced, lack not only sufficient food, but clean water, shelter and medicine. There are few fruits or vegetables. There is little flour to make bread. Pasta, along with meat, cheese and eggs, have disappeared. Black market prices for dry goods such as lentils and beans have increased 25 times from pre-war prices. A bag of flour on the black market has risen from $8.00 to $200 dollars. The healthcare system in Gaza, with only three of Gaza’s 36 hospitals left partially functioning, has largely collapsed. Some 1.3 million displaced Palestinians live on the streets of the southern city of Rafah, which Israel designated a “safe zone,” but has begun to bomb. Families shiver in the winter rains under flimsy tarps amid pools of raw sewage. An estimated 90 percent of Gaza’s 2.3 million people have been driven from their homes.

“There is no instance since the Second World War in which an entire population has been reduced to extreme hunger and destitution with such speed,” writes Alex de Waal, executive director of the World Peace Foundation at Tufts University and the author of “Mass Starvation: The History and Future of Famine,” in the Guardian. “And there’s no case in which the international obligation to stop it has been so clear.”

The United States, formerly UNRWA’s largest contributor, provided $422 million to the agency in 2023. The severance of funds ensures that UNRWA food deliveries, already in very short supply because of blockages by Israel, will largely come to a halt by the end of February or the beginning of March. 

Israel has given the Palestinians in Gaza two choices. Leave or die.

I covered the famine in Sudan in 1988 that took 250,000 lives. There are streaks in my lungs, scars from standing amid hundreds of Sudanese who were dying of tuberculosis. I was strong and healthy and fought off the contagion. They were weak and emaciated and did not. The international community, as in Gaza, did little to intervene. 

The precursor to starvation – undernourishment – already affects most Palestinians in Gaza. Those who starve lack enough calories to sustain themselves. In desperation people begin to eat animal fodder, grass, leaves, insects, rodents, even dirt. They suffer from diarrhea and respiratory infections. They rip up tiny bits of food, often spoiled, and ration it. 

Soon, lacking enough iron to produce hemoglobin, a protein in red blood cells that carries oxygen from the lungs to the body, and myoglobin, a protein that provides oxygen to muscles, coupled with a lack of vitamin B1, they become anemic. The body feeds on itself. Tissue and muscle waste away. It is impossible to regulate body temperature. Kidneys shut down. Immune systems crash. Vital organs – brain, heart, lungs, ovaries and testes — atrophy. Blood circulation slows. The volume of blood decreases. Infectious diseases such as typhoid, tuberculosis and cholera become an epidemic, killing people by the thousands.

It is impossible to concentrate. Emaciated victims succumb to mental and emotional withdrawal and apathy. They do not want to be touched or moved. The heart muscle is weakened. Victims, even at rest, are in a state of virtual heart failure. Wounds do not heal. Vision is impaired with cataracts, even among the young. Finally, wracked by convulsions and hallucinations, the heart stops. This process can last up to 40 days for an adult. Children, the elderly and the sick expire at faster rates.

I saw hundreds of skeletal figures, specters of human beings, moving forlornly at a glacial pace across the barren Sudanese landscape. Hyenas, accustomed to eating human flesh, routinely picked off small children. I stood over clusters of bleached human bones on the outskirts of villages where dozens of people, too weak to walk, had laid down in a group and never gotten up. Many were the remains of entire families. 

In the abandoned town of Mayen Abun bats dangled from the rafters of the gutted Italian mission church. The streets were overgrown with tussocks of grass. The dirt airstrip was flanked by hundreds of human bones, skulls and the remnants of iron bracelets, colored beads, baskets and tattered strips of clothing. The palm trees had been cut in half. People had eaten the leaves and the pulp inside. There had been a rumor that food would be delivered by plane. People had walked for days to the airstrip. They waited and waited and waited. No plane arrived. No one buried the dead. 

Now, from a distance, I watch this happen in another land in another time. I know the indifference that doomed the Sudanese, mostly Dinkas, and today dooms the Palestinians. The poor, especially when they are of color, do not count.  They can be killed like flies. The starvation in Gaza is not a natural disaster. It is Israel’s masterplan. 

There will be scholars and historians who will write of this genocide, falsely believing that we can learn from the past, that we are different, that history can prevent us from being, once again, barbarians. They will hold academic conferences. They will say “Never again!” They will praise themselves for being more humane and civilized. But when it comes time to speak out with each new genocide, fearful of losing their status or academic positions, they will scurry like rats into their holes. Human history is one long atrocity for the world’s poor and vulnerable. Gaza is another chapter.

February 10, 2024 Posted by | Israel, Reference, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Another $61 billion to kill more Ukrainians in an unnecessary and losing war

The $61 billion will make no difference on the battlefield except to prolong the war, the tens of thousands of deaths, and the physical destruction of Ukraine.

The Biden-Schumer Plan to Kill More Ukrainians  JEFFREY D. SACHS, Feb 08, 2024, Common Dreams,  https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/the-biden-schumer-plan-to-kill-more-ukrainians

President Joe Biden is refusing to fold a losing hand as he bets with Ukrainian lives and U.S. taxpayer money. Biden and Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer propose to squander the lives of tens of thousands more Ukrainians and $61 billions of federal funds to keep Biden’s disastrous foreign policy failure hidden from view until after the November election.

The $61 billion will make no difference on the battlefield except to prolong the war, the tens of thousands of deaths, and the physical destruction of Ukraine. It will not “save” Ukraine. Ukraine’s security can only be achieved at the negotiating table, not by some fantasized military triumph over Russia.

$61 billion is not nothing. This worse-than-useless outlay would exceed the combined budgets of the U.S. Department of Labor, Environmental Protection Agency, National Science Foundation, and the Women, Infant, and Children nutrition program.

Almost exactly 10 years ago this month, Biden did much to put Ukraine on the path to disaster. This is well known to those who have looked carefully at the facts but is kept hidden from view by the White House, the Senate Democrats, and the mainstream media that back Biden. I have previously provided a detailed chronology, with hyperlinks, here.

Ukraine’s security can only be achieved at the negotiating table, not by some fantasized military triumph over Russia.

In 1990, President George H. W. Bush, Sr. and his German counterpart Chancellor Helmut Kohl promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not expand eastward if the Soviet Union accepted German reunification. When the Soviet Union disbanded in December 1991, with Russia as the successor state, American leaders decided to renege.

President Bill Clinton began NATO expansion over the vociferous opposition of top diplomats like George Kennan and the opposition of his own Secretary of Defense, William Perry. In 1997 Zbigniew Brzezinski upped the ante, with a plan for NATO to expand all the way to Ukraine. He famously wrote that without Ukraine, Russia would cease to be a great power.

Russian leaders have repeatedly made clear that NATO expansion to Ukraine is understandably the reddest of Russian redlines.

 In 2007, President Vladmir Putin stated that NATO enlargement to that date was a cheat on the 1990 promise, and that it must go no further. Despite these clear warnings, including by his own diplomats, George W. Bush Jr. committed in 2008 to expand NATO to Ukraine and Georgia in order to surround Russia in the Black Sea.

William Burns, now CIA director, and then the U.S. Ambassador to Russia, wrote a famous memo entitled “Nyet means Nyet,” explaining that Russia’s opposition to NATO enlargement was across Russia’s political spectrum. Most Ukrainians themselves were also firmly against the plan, favoring neutrality over NATO membership. The Ukrainian Rada declared Ukraine’s state sovereignty in 1990 on the basis of becoming “a permanently neutral state.” In 2009, the people of Ukraine elected Viktor Yanukovych, who ran on a platform of neutrality.

In early 2014, the U.S. decided to help bring down Yanukovych in a coup. This was standard U.S. deep-state operating procedure, one used on dozens of occasions around the world. he CIA, National Endowment for Democracy, USAID, and NGOs like the Open Society Foundation went to work in Ukraine. The point person was Victoria Nuland, who was first Richard Cheney’s principal deputy foreign policy advisor, then George Bush Jr.’s ambassador to NATO, then Hillary Clinton’s spokesperson, and by 2014 Assistant Secretary of State.

This time, the Russians caught the conspiracy on tape, in an intercepted call between Nuland and U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt (now Assistant Secretary of State). Nuland explains to Pyatt that Vice President Joe Biden will help choose and cement the post-coup government. The 2014 Ukraine team, including Biden, Nuland, Jake Sullivan (then and now Biden’s national security advisor), Geoffrey Pyatt, and Antony Blinken (then the deputy national security advisor), remains the Ukraine team today.

It is a team of bunglers. They thought that Yanukovych’s overthrow would quickly usher in NATO expansion. Instead, ethnic Russians in Ukraine virulently rejected the Russophobic post-coup government that was installed by Nuland, and called for autonomy of the ethnically Russian regions. In a referendum, Crimea voted overwhelmingly to join Russia.

Obama, Biden, and their team armed the post-coup government to attack the ethnically Russian regions, thinking this would be the end of it. Yet the regions resisted. Ukraine and the breakaway regions signed the Minsk Agreements to bring an end to the fighting and give constitutional autonomy to the ethnically Russian Donbas. The Minsk II agreement was backed by the UN Security Council, but the U.S. privately agreed with the Ukrainian government that it was okay to ignore it.

In 2021, after 7 years of fighting and more than 14,000 deaths in the Donbas, Putin called on newly elected President Biden to stop NATO enlargement and engage in negotiations with Russia over mutual security arrangements. Biden rejected Putin’s call to end the gambit of NATO enlargement to Ukraine.

In February 2022, Putin launched the Special Military Operation (SMO) invasion to push Ukraine to the negotiating table. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky immediately called for negotiations based on Ukraine’s neutrality. Within a month, a framework agreement to end the fighting was reached between Ukraine and Russia, based on Ukraine’s neutrality and an end to NATO’s enlargement to Ukraine. Biden stepped in to stop the deal, with the U.S. informing Zelensky that the U.S. would not support neutrality.

Biden and team had still more failed tricks up their sleeve. They firmly believed that U.S. financial sanctions—freezing Russia’s assets and cutting it out of the SWIFT banking system—would cripple the Russian economy and cause Putin to relent. In fact, they expected that the ensuing economic crisis would topple him. Of course, nothing of the sort happened.

Then they expected that NATO weaponry would trounce Russia on the battlefield. That too did not happen. Then they expected that Ukraine’s “counter-offensive” in the summer of 2023, backed by Pentagon and CIA planners, would defeat Russia. Instead, Ukraine lost hundreds of thousands of soldiers dead and wounded—its military hardware destroyed.

The entire war, including the loss of Ukrainian territory, the hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian casualties, and the utter waste of more than $100 billion of U.S. taxpayer money to date, could easily have been avoided.

Now, Biden and Schumer want to throw more Ukrainian lives and more tens of billions of dollars at this glaring failure. They want to do this in a rushed vote, without any Congressional let alone public oversight, without hearings, and without any strategy. The fact is they want to save Biden from the embarrassment of a decade of puerile and failed plotting, at least until the November election.

There remains one answer for Ukraine’s security: diplomacy and neutrality. That solution doesn’t cost lives or money. It was Ukraine’s choice before the 2014 coup and again in 2022 until stopped by Biden. It is the path that Biden and the Senate Democrats still refuse to take.

February 10, 2024 Posted by | Ukraine, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Chicago Tribune needs reality check on Russo Ukraine war.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 9 Feb 24

For the past 2 years now the Chicago Tribune has been misrepresenting both the nature and status of the Russo Ukraine war.

Its latest update in today’s editorial ‘Time for responsible GOP voices to step up and back Ukraine’ doubles down on both misrepresented aspects of the war.

Regarding its nature, the Trib continues spreading the false US narrative that Vladimir Putin’s reason for invading was to recreate the Soviet Union, starting with Ukraine. “Putin has made no secret of his ambitions to stitch something resembling the old USSR back together. Ukraine is by far the biggest prize in that quest. Stopping this ambition in its tracks is critical to future peace in the region.”

We know this is false. Putin spent 8 years prior to his invasion proclaiming and seeking US assurances NATO would not expand up to Russia’s border with Ukraine. While it may be easy to dismiss Putin’s words and actions prior to the invasion, it’s impossible to dismiss the words of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky himself.

Prior to the war Stoltenberg stated that “Russia’s NATO security demands were a precondition for not invading Ukraine.” He further stated after the invasion, “Putin went to war to prevent NATO from getting closer to Russia.”

On March 27, 2022, 5 weeks into the war, Ukraine President Zelensky admitted to an interviewer that Ukraine’s promise not to join NATO was “the first fundamental point for the Russian Federation not to invade.” He further stated “As far as I know, they started the war because of this.”

Prior to the war Stoltenberg stated that “Russia’s NATO security demands were a precondition for not invading Ukraine.” He further stated after the invasion, “Putin went to war to prevent NATO from getting closer to Russia.”

On March 27, 2022, 5 weeks into the war, Ukraine President Zelensky admitted to an interviewer that Ukraine’s promise not to join NATO was “the first fundamental point for the Russian Federation not to invade.” He further stated “As far as I know, they started the war because of this.”

Politics aside, the peace community supports any all efforts of many Republicans and a few courageous Democrats to derail squandering $61 billion more in weapons and other aid to maintain a war that will only end with a negotiated settlement.

So should the Chicago Tribune.

February 10, 2024 Posted by | media, weapons and war | Leave a comment

The pragmatist’s guide to nuclear disarmament

Feb. 9, 2024, Steve Olson, The Seattle Times, https://www.seattletimes.com/opinion/the-pragmatists-guide-to-nuclear-disarmament/

The United States has not seen a widespread nuclear disarmament movement since the early 1980s. A new one is desperately needed — but with a twist.

The 1980s movement was based on fear. In 1982, a million people, alarmed by President Ronald Reagan’s nuclear buildup, gathered in New York City’s Central Park to oppose the nuclear arms race — still the largest one-day protest in U.S. history. The next year, 100 million people — almost half the population of the United States — watched the television movie “The Day After,” which horrifically depicted the nuclear destruction of Kansas City.

Fear can generate a fight-or-flight reaction, but it’s ultimately counterproductive. People become so scared that they think nothing can be done and give up. Or they ignore the issue entirely, at least on a conscious level.

There are still plenty of things to fear. Nuclear treaties are lapsing. National leaders have threatened to use nuclear weapons against their enemies. New research, now being reviewed by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, has strengthened the case that even a limited nuclear war could shut down agriculture for years and doom billions to starvation. A large-scale nuclear war could smother agriculture for more than a decade and end civilization.

But fear isn’t necessary to spur action. There are two very practical reasons to abolish nuclear weapons.

The first is their outrageous cost. The U.S. government is on track to spend at least $1.5 trillion over the next 30 years modernizing its nuclear weapons. That’s as much as the federal government currently spends on the National Institutes of Health. Or, to put it another way, four years of that spending, evenly divided among the 50 states, would buy us an entirely new ferry fleet.

Key parts of the modernization effort, like the new Sentinel ballistic missile program, are already massively over budget. Taking apart nuclear weapons systems would cost a small fraction of the money now slated to build new ones.

The second reason for getting rid of nuclear weapons is that they are far more dangerous than they are useful. Nuclear bombs are too large and destructive to deploy effectively in warfare. They would kill soldiers and noncombatants on both sides of a conflict. Nuclear fallout would drift far from a battlefield. Weapons have been getting smaller and smarter, not bigger and dumber.

Nuclear weapons also don’t make sense politically. If a nuclear weapon were detonated in a war — assuming that a general nuclear war did not follow — the responsible nation would face devastating conventional attacks and be ostracized internationally. No country has been willing to face those consequences, at least not since the very different circumstances that prevailed at the end of World War II.

The existence of nuclear weapons supposedly deters their use. No one has been able to figure out what that nonsensical statement means.   Making a threat implies being willing to carry it out. The idea that deterrence has worked ignores the history of crises, miscalculations, and accidents that almost triggered nuclear war. Deterrence works until it doesn’t.

Nuclear weapons are a federal responsibility. For us as Washingtonians, that means working through our 10 U.S. representatives and two U.S. senators to change nuclear policy. Except for U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal, the members of our congressional delegation have been, at best, guarded in their statements about nuclear weapons. Washington receives about $20 billion a year in defense spending. Reducing that flow of funds would seem to be a recipe for electoral disaster.

But couldn’t at least part of our defense funding be spent in more socially productive ways? After all, flying a nuclear bomb-carrying F-35A jet for two hours costs as much as a nurse makes in a year. Keeping more than 55,000 mostly young men and women here in Washington well-trained and outfitted for future conflicts may help us feel more secure. But it doesn’t build infrastructure, spark innovation, or improve the health and well-being of the population at large.

Here, the Washington Against Nuclear Weapons coalition, led by the Washington chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility, has been exerting pressure on our representatives and senators to take a stand against nuclear weapons. The Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action — on a 4-acre plot adjacent to the Kitsap submarine base outside Bremerton — works for disarmament right next to the largest stockpile of deployed nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. At the national level, the Ploughshares Fund, the Federation of American Scientists, the Arms Control Association and many other organizations are working to reduce and then eliminate the existential threat these weapons pose.

In 2021, the International Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which prohibits the development, production, use, and threat of use of nuclear weapons, entered into force after being ratified by 50 countries. The nine countries that have nuclear weapons have so far opposed the treaty, but they are nevertheless bound by the 1968 Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons to negotiate an agreement “on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.” That they have not yet done so is both a bitter disappointment and a betrayal of their stated intentions.

Nuclear disarmament will not be unilateral or immediate. Nations will need to negotiate stepped reductions and means of verifying progress. An especially urgent task is to eliminate the ground-based missiles now clustered in underground silos in Colorado, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota and Wyoming, as well as in Russia and China. These weapons are inherently destabilizing and dangerous. They have to be launched within minutes if a president thinks a nuclear attack is underway. A mistake, miscalculation, or moment of madness could spell the end of the world.

Unlike efforts to slow climate change, which will require widespread changes in how we live, the threat of nuclear annihilation could be eliminated if nine men agreed to destroy about 12,500 pieces of elaborately machined metal. Reagan and then-president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev almost agreed to junk their nuclear weapons in 1986. The only stumbling block was Reagan’s commitment to a nuclear weapons defense program that was canceled a few years later.

February 10, 2024 Posted by | USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Over $1 Billion in Weapons Missing In Ukraine

Real Clear Wire, By Adam Andrzejewski, February 07, 2024

Topline: The Department of Defense has failed to properly track $1 billion worth of weapons provided to Ukraine, according to an internal audit released on Jan. 10 by the DOD Inspector General.

Key facts: The DOD is supposed to use special “enhanced end-use monitoring” techniques” to “safeguard” key weapons such as smaller, high-tech weaponry provided to Ukraine, which are likely targets for theft.

The audit says these monitoring procedures are not properly being followed in Ukraine, due to staffing shortages, poor internal logistics and more.

The audit found that $1 billion of the $1.7 billion — or 59% — in enhanced end-use monitoring designated weapons provided to Ukraine as of June 2023 are “delinquent,” meaning they can’t be accounted for in inventory reports.

Maybe the weapons are being used properly; maybe they have been stolen by Russian forces. No one can be completely sure…………………………….

The report also found that inventory databases were not regularly updated and that the Ukrainian Armed Forces failed to properly report missing weapons……………….

Background: The Biden administration has sent over $75 billion to Ukraine since February 2022, including $44 billion in military aid.

Some Republican leaders are already trying to block Biden’s request for additional funds for Ukraine. The missing weapons could strengthen their arguments.

This is not the first time weapons have gone missing during Biden’s administration……………………………………………………

Summary: While there is no direct evidence that weapons in Ukraine have actually been misused, the $1 billion inventory error calls into question the White House’s constant assurances that any aid would be carefully tracked.

https://www.realclearwire.com/articles/2024/02/07/waste_of_the_day_over_1_billion_in_weapons_missing_in_ukraine_1008519.html—

February 9, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, Ukraine, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Israel Aid Bill Fails in House as Progressives Slam ‘Blank Check for Netanyahu’

“The supplemental funding proposed, which includes no humanitarian aid for Gaza nor assistance for Ukraine, supports weapons of war and destruction that further jeopardize Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians,

“Each U.S.-made or funded bomb dropped in Gaza further jeopardizes the chances of long-lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians,” said Rep. Delia Ramirez.

JAKE JOHNSON, Feb 07, 2024,  https://www.commondreams.org/news/israel-aid-house

A Republican effort to push through a standalone military aid package for Israel failed to clear the U.S. House on Tuesday, with members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus condemning the proposed $17.6 billion in unconditional assistance for a government that stands accused on the world stage of committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.

The legislation, which President Joe Biden threatened to veto if it reached his desk, needed two-thirds support to pass the House under a suspension of the rules. The final tally was 250 to 180, with 166 Democrats and 14 Republicans voting no.

Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) said in a statement that “under no circumstances” could she have voted for the legislation, which House Republican leaders sought to advance ahead of the Senate’s planned procedural vote on a broader package that includes military aid to Israel and Ukraine and a border agreement that would dramatically weaken asylum protections.

“The death toll in Gaza continues to rise. Gazans are starving,” Ramirez said late Tuesday. “Over 1.5 million people have been displaced. Hostilities between the U.S. and Iran are escalating. And just this morning, The New York Times reported that one-fifth of the hostages still in captivity since the start of the conflict have likely died. We must change course.”

“The supplemental funding proposed, which includes no humanitarian aid for Gaza nor assistance for Ukraine, supports weapons of war and destruction that further jeopardize Israeli hostages and Palestinian civilians,” she continued. “Each U.S.-made or funded bomb dropped in Gaza further jeopardizes the chances of long-lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it now: I will only support actions that bring us closer to peace.”

In a brief floor speech ahead of Tuesday’s vote, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) described standalone Israel aid legislation as a “blank check for [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu” and other far-right officials seeking the permanent removal of Palestinians from Gaza.

If passed, the aid measure would have allowed the U.S. State Department to waive congressional notification requirements for billions of dollars in U.S. military financing for Israel, which has massacred Gaza civilians with American-made weaponry.

“I will vote no because it is painfully obvious to the entire world that what is needed today is a permanent cease-fire and a release of all hostages,” Khannas said. “There come moments in a nation’s history when our actions reveal our values. This is such a moment.”

The failure of the Israel aid bill came shortly after House Republicans also fell short in their effort to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.

Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) wrote in response to the Mayorkas vote that “Republicans are deeply disconnected from the people.”

“They’re not serious about fixing our immigration system, they have no plan to improve folks’ lives, and they keep wasting our time with political stunts like these,” Pressley added. “This sham, failed impeachment is just the latest example.”

Senate Republicans on Wednesday are expected to block consideration of the broader supplemental security package over the border agreement, which they claim isn’t sufficiently harsh—a position right in line with that of former President Donald Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination.

February 9, 2024 Posted by | politics, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

On the brink of disaster: Israel threatens Lebanon with war – what could go wrong?

As mediation efforts fail to bear fruit, war between Israel and Lebanon seems to be matter of when, not if

Rt.com 7 Feb 24

srael’s Foreign Minister Yisrael Katz met his French counterpart on Monday, warning him that “time [is] running out to find a diplomatic solution in Lebanon,” and indicating that his country was prepared to go to war if diplomacy fails.

The reason is that, since October 7, Hezbollah, the Lebanon-based group linked to Iran, has carried out hundreds of attacks on Israeli targets. Fearing an influx of militants that could potentially invade and conquer parts of the country, some 60,000 northern Israelis have opted to leave, seeking refuge in the center, away from the hostilities.

Atalia Regev, from the community of Abirim about five kilometers from Israel’s border with Lebanon, left her home on October 7, when thousands of Hamas militants invaded southern Israel, massacring an estimated 1,200 people and injuring over 5,000.

“Back then, we were sure that a northern front would [soon] open, and we, too, would face the occupation of the Galilee, a scenario that had been talked about for a long, long time. There was so much fear. So, we packed our bags, took our kids and left,” Atalia recalls.

She was not the only one. As the fighting in the south intensified, some 60,000 Israelis left communities in the north, finding refuge in the center and in Jerusalem, with the hope that the rockets of the Iran-linked militia Hezbollah would not reach them there.

So far, Hezbollah’s attacks have been limited and measured. According to reports, the movement has staged more than a thousand anti-Israel assaults since the beginning of the hostilities. It has also targeted 48 border sites and at least 17 communities. But, for Regev, this was a good reason to stay where she was.

“Even when things calmed down [in the south], we realized we couldn’t go back. Our area was threatened all the time. Educational institutions for children have remained closed until recently. There were multiple power outages due to infrastructure damages [caused by attacks], and at times we had to spend long hours without electricity.”

Drums of War

Now, however, Regev fears, it may get even worse. On January 3 an explosion rocked the suburbs of Beirut, killing Salah Al Arouri, a senior Hamas leader. Although Israel didn’t claim responsibility for the attack, the finger of blame was directed at officials in West Jerusalem, with Nasrallah vowing that the assassination would not remain unanswered.

Since the killing of Al Arouri, Israel has beefed up its presence along the northern border, preparing itself for a potential full-fledged war.

Israel has a reason to worry. According to estimates, Hezbollah has an arsenal of up to 150,000 rockets and missiles. Many of them are long range, able to reach central and southern Israel. Apart from that, the Islamist group also boasts a well-trained army of fighters, and a commando unit – the Radwan force – waiting for an order to storm its enemy………………………………………………….. more https://www.rt.com/news/591907-israel-lebanon-hezbollah-war/

February 8, 2024 Posted by | Israel, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Noetic Continental | Part I: How CIA Foists Military Equipment Through Private War Companies

We tend to believe that the Noetic International Inc. is a vivid example of the Continental Hotel from the John Wick franchise, where you can get any service at any time anywhere on Earth.

CIAGATE, FEB 8, 2024 [excellent graphics]

Earlier we wrote that the CEO of the Noetic International Inc. was Johnna May Holeman, a former U.S. artillery soldier and CIA operative, who took part in the supply of 155mm white phosphorus rounds to Ukraine through a tea-trade company in Bulgaria.

Now we can say that there was another CIA officer behind the creation of the Noetic International Inc. Ladies and gentlemen, please meet John Alan Irvin – the godfather of clandestine operations.

So, it was John’s idea to establish a company that would carry out the CIA’s clandestine activities without attracting much attention. However, being a top-tier spy John himself does not really conceal his affiliation with the Agency. According to his track record, John is a specialist in the field of analyzing the activities of covert secret agents. He also has decades of experience conducting clandestine operations.

Through his extensive ties, resources and expertise, John Irvin has developed a vast network of contacts, informants and partners to achieve a comprehensive range of goals in accordance with the CIA’s design. Given John’s age, today the bulk of the work is now done by Johnna Holeman. The Noetic International Inc. has offices in Illinois, California, Germany, England and Austria.

The Noetic “specialists” address complex problems in wide range of domains including air- and sea-based drones, renewable energy, cybersecurity & cryptocurrency, technology & robotics, as well as strategic influence campaigns and analysis & decision making.

The network includes hundreds of influencers connected by both personal acquaintance and virtual meetings. The Noetic operatives help local and foreign authorities to achieve goals in order to enlist the support afterwards.

According to our source, the Noetic International Inc. has a shell company in Puerto Rico, that under the guise of cannabis dispensary addresses essential tasks on behalf of the CIA, such as supply of various kinds of unmanned aerial and maritime drones to foreign countries, including Ukraine, reshore of semiconductor production to the U.S., as well as the supply of small-module nuclear reactors.

Initially, we doubted the veracity of the source’s information. Yet, as it was with the investigation surrounding Chanda Creasy, a yoga coach and a head of the CIA division responsible for arms transfers to militants in Africa and Middle East, painstaking analysis and careful sieving of information made it possible to determine that it was the Anyon Minds LLC.

CIA’s “Up in Smoke” Special Operations Group……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………..https://ciagate.substack.com/p/noetic-continental-part-i-how-cia?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1685806&post_id=141461097&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1ise1&utm_medium=email

February 8, 2024 Posted by | secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Russia has no plans to deploy nuclear arms beyond Belarus, says deputy minister

By Dmitry Antonov and Guy Faulconbridge

February 2, 2024,  https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/russia-has-no-plans-deploy-nuclear-arms-beyond-belarus-says-deputy-minister-2024-02-01/

  • Summary
  • U.S. likely to deploy nuclear weapons in England – researchers
  • Russia says UK deployment will not deter Russia
  • Russia says discussing Ukraine as part of BRICS

MOSCOW, Feb 1 (Reuters) – Russia will not deploy nuclear weapons abroad except in its ally Belarus but will find ways to counter any deployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in Britain, the deputy minister in charge of arms control said on Thursday.

President Vladimir Putin said last year that Moscow had transferred some tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus, blaming what he casts as a hostile and aggressive West for the decision.

2

Top nuclear researchers at the Federation of American Scientists, opens new tab say there is no conclusive evidence to show where the weapons are in Belarus, or even if they are there at all.

Asked by reporters if Russia would deploy nuclear weapons beyond Belarus, for example in South America, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said: “No, it is not planned.”

“The deployment of tactical nuclear weapons on the territory of Belarus was carried out to counter the increasingly aggressive and threatening activities of the North Atlantic Alliance (NATO) led by the United States.”

Ryabkov, who oversees arms control, also scolded the United States for including what he said were openly declared “nuclear free” European countries in NATO nuclear missions. He did not elaborate.

Separately, Ryabkov told Russia Today in an interview that U.S. plans to deploy tactical nuclear weapons to Britain would not deter Moscow.

“If they believe that re-introduction of nuclear weapons in the UK is a deterrent to Russia, then they are mistaken,” Ryabkov said. “We urge them to stop… this endless circle of escalation.”

February 6, 2024 Posted by | Russia, weapons and war | Leave a comment

US unleashes strikes across Middle East

RT Fri, 02 Feb 2024 

Washington has launched a new bombing campaign against Iranian-backed fighters in Iraq and Syria.

The Pentagon has commenced retaliation strikes in response to a drone attack that killed three US troops at a secretive base in Jordan, targeting dozens of sites in Iraq and Syria linked to Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) Quds Force and affiliated militia groups.

“Our response began today” and “will continue at times and places of our choosing,” US President Joe Biden announced on Friday night. The airstrikes started around midnight on Saturday local time and hit more than 85 Iranian-linked targets, the US Central Command (CENTCOM) said in a statement.

The bombings come nearly one week after a drone packed with explosives struck Tower 22, a US base in Jordan located near the Syrian and Iraqi borders, killing three soldiers and wounding more than 40 others. The attack, which the US blamed on the Iranian-backed Islamic Resistance in Iraq, marked the first deaths of American troops in a wave of assaults triggered by the Israel-Hamas war.

04 February 202416:35 GMTUS airstrikes on Syria, Iraq and Yemen over the last two days were only the “first round” of Washington’s military response to last week’s drone attack on a US base in Jordan, White House national security spokesman John Kirby told NBC.

“We intend to take additional strikes and additional action to continue to send a clear message that the United States will respond when our forces are attacked or people are killed,” he said.

Kirby promised “more steps – some seen, some perhaps unseen” in comments to CBS, while stressing that he would not describe the planned US actions in the region as “some open-ended military campaign.”

16:15 GMTFurther aggression from the US and UK will not sway Yemen’s Houthis from their decision to act in support of the Palestinians of Gaza, the group’s spokesperson Mohammed Abdulsalam said in a statement, adding that the movement’s military capabilities had been forged during years of brutal war and would not be easily destroyed.

14:51 GMT

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced on X (formerly Twitter) that British Typhoon fighter jets “successfully took out specific Houthi military targets in Yemen, further degrading the Houthis’ capabilities.”

He denounced as “unacceptable” the attacks on merchant vessels in the Red Sea being perpetrated by Yemeni Shiite Houthi militants. The PM added that it is London’s duty to “protect innocent lives and preserve freedom.”

Earlier in the day, the US Central Command revealed that a series of combined air- and sea-launched strikes had taken out at least 36 Houthi targets in 13 locations across Yemen…………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The US-led coalition has targeted Yemen with 48 airstrikes in the past few hours, Houthi spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree has said on X (formerly Twitter). The US Central Command earlier announced that the bombing campaign had hit at least 36 targets in 13 locations in the country.

“These attacks will not deter us from our moral, religious and humanitarian stance in support of the steadfast Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip,” Saree insisted, adding that the actions of the US and the UK “won’t pass without response and punishment.”

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has affirmed his support of Washington’s latest military actions, calling the strikes “proportionate” and “retaliatory.”

“You can’t have the sort of attacks that we’ve seen and see no response – that’s whether it be the actions of the Houthis in targeting our trade, whether it be the attacks that occurred on Americans in Jordan,” Albanese told ABC on Sunday, 

Albanese said he does not believe the US-led strikes could spark a wider conflict in the Middle East, insisting “we want to see the area settled down.”  https://www.rt.com/news/591739-us-retaliation-strikes-updates/

February 5, 2024 Posted by | MIDDLE EAST, USA, weapons and war | Leave a comment

Palestinians Uncover Dozens Killed Execution-Style in Schoolyard in Gaza

Palestinian civilians discovered bodies blindfolded and with their legs and hands tied back. By Sharon Zhang , TRUTHOUT  https://truthout.org/articles/palestinians-uncover-dozens-killed-execution-style-in-schoolyard-in-gaza/ 4 Feb 24

ozens of bodies of Palestinians have been uncovered in a mass grave in a schoolyard in northern Gaza, with witnesses saying they appeared to have been killed “execution style” by Israeli forces. A human rights lawyer has said the killings are “clearly a war crime.”

Palestinians uncovered more than 30 bodies buried in northern Gaza in black bags with their hands and feet tied and blindfolded, according to witnesses.

“As we were cleaning, we came across a pile of rubble inside the schoolyard. We were shocked to find out that dozens of dead bodies were buried under this pile,” one witness told Al Jazeera on Wednesday. “The moment we opened the black plastic bags, we found the bodies, already decomposed. They were blindfolded, legs and hands tied. The plastic cuffs were used on their hands and legs and cloth straps around their eyes and heads.”

Video and photos appearing to show the bags containing the bodies show that they are zip-tied shut with tags with barcodes and writing in Hebrew.

The witnesses’ accounts line up with previous reports of Israeli soldiers killing Palestinians execution style in other locations, including reporting that soldiers had lined up Palestinians, including newborn babies, and shot them point blank at another school in northern Gaza in December. Around the same time, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor reported that Israeli soldiers had been killing dozens of elderly Palestinians in field executions after ordering them to leave their homes or after releasing them from being detained without charges.

Other videos and photos in December have shown Israeli soldiers stripping Palestinian men and making them kneel on the street in Gaza with their hands tied behind their backs. Israeli officials confirmed that soldiers were detaining them to check if they were members of Hamas forces.

The execution-style killings are further proof that Israel’s assault on Gaza is tantamount to a genocide, Palestinian Canadian human rights lawyer Diana Buttu told Al Jazeera on Thursday.

“This is precisely why Israel was taken to the International Court of Justice with the accusation that it is committing genocide,” Buttu said.

“Israel has been committing war crimes against Palestinians since 1948 and nobody has ever held Israel to account,” she continued. “This is clearly a war crime.”

Buttu added that the zip ties on the body bags and the state of the bodies show that Israeli soldiers feel “emboldened,” with Israeli soldiers and officials rarely facing consequences for war crimes in the past, she said.

The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs is calling for an international investigation into the allegations that Israeli forces are killing people execution-style.

“The Ministry believes that the discovery of this mass grave in this brutal form reflects the scale of the tragedy to which Palestinian civilians are exposed, the mass massacres and executions of even detainees, in flagrant and gross violation of all relevant international norms and laws,” the ministry said.

February 5, 2024 Posted by | Israel, secrets,lies and civil liberties, weapons and war | Leave a comment

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