THE “ENFORCED DISAPPEARANCES” OF GAZANS AT FOOD AID SITES ARE ALARMING TO UN EXPERTS

The 7 Independent Experts Said They Had Reports That A Number Of Individuals, Including A Child, Had “Forcibly Disappeared” After Going To Aid Sites In Rafah, In Gaza.

UN rights experts voiced alarm Thursday at reports of “enforced disappearances” of starving Palestinians seeking food at distribution sites run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), urging Israel to end the “heinous crime”.

The seven independent experts said in a joint statement they had received reports that a number of individuals, including one child, had been “forcibly disappeared” after going to aid distribution sites in Rafah, southern Gaza.

“Reports of enforced disappearances targeting starving civilians seeking their basic right to food is not only shocking, but amounts to torture,” said the experts, who are mandated by the UN Human Rights Council, but who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations itself.

“Using food as a tool to conduct targeted and mass disappearances needs to end now.”

Israel’s military was reportedly “directly involved in the enforced disappearances of people seeking aid”, said the statement signed by the five members of the UN Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disappearances, along with Francesca Albanese, the UN special rapporteur on rights in the Palestinian territories, and her counterpart on the right to food, Michael Fakhri.

“ISRAEL HAS THE LEGAL OBLIGATION TO PROVIDE FOOD”

Israel’s military was “refusing to provide information on the fate and whereabouts of persons they have deprived of their liberty”, in violation of international law, the statement said.

“The failure to acknowledge deprivation of liberty by state agents and refusal to acknowledge detention constitute an enforced disappearance.”

The UN declared a famine in Gaza governorate last week, blaming “systematic obstruction” of humanitarian deliveries by Israel. Israel, which has accused Hamas of looting aid supplied by the UN, imposed a total blockade on Gaza between March and May.

Once it began easing restrictions, the GHF, a private organization supported by Israel and the United States, was established to distribute food aid, effectively sidelining UN agencies.

The experts pointed to how “aerial bombardment and daily gunfire at and around the crowded facilities have resulted in mass casualties”.

“The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is obligated to provide secure distribution sites and has contracted private military security companies to that end,” they said.

The UN human rights office said last week it had documented that 1,857 Palestinians had been killed while seeking aid since late May, including 1,021 near GHF sites.

Now, the experts warned, “the distribution points pose additional risks for devastated individuals of being forcibly disappeared”.

The experts urged Israeli authorities to “put an end to the heinous crime against an already vulnerable population”.

They demanded that the authorities “clarify the fate and whereabouts of disappeared persons and investigate the enforced disappearances thoroughly and impartially and punish perpetrators”.

LEAVING AFGHANISTAN DID NOT UNLEASH TERROR ON AMERICA OR THE REGION AS PREDICTED

There Have Been Zero Attacks Against American-Linked Targets At Home Or Abroad In The Four Years Since The Withdrawal.

It will be four years since the American regime withdrew from Afghanistan on Aug. 30th, 2021, ending a nearly 20-year occupation that could serve as a poster child for mission creep.

What began in October 2001 as a narrow intervention to destroy al-Qaeda, the terrorist group that supposedly perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, and topple the Taliban government for refusing to hand over al-Qaeda’s leader, Osama bin Laden, morphed into an open-ended nation-building operation that killed 2,334 American military personnel and wounded over 20,000 more.

But the failure of the war to deliver on its maximalist platitudes of bringing peace, democracy, and women’s rights to a nation that rejected them has obscured two of the most important lessons from the conflict and its end: first, the American regime need not occupy a country indefinitely to prevent terrorism against the American homeland. Second, the United States will severely punish any government that allows terrorist groups to attack American targets from its territory, and the threat of American punishment is a highly credible deterrent against state-sponsored terrorism.

Those two facts should be shouted from the rooftops of the nation’s capital any time members of the foreign policy establishment claim that the American regime must deploy troops to far-off locales to prevent terrorist “safe havens” from emerging.

In fact, there have been zero terrorist attacks directly linked to Afghanistan against American targets at home or abroad in the four years since the American regime departed. Zero. The 2025 Bourbon Street attack, which killed 14 people, was perpetrated by a lone-wolf American citizen who was “inspired” by ISIS ideology but acted alone, with no known contacts to the original ISIS or its Afghan affiliate, ISIS-Khorasan (ISIS-K).

That’s despite fevered warnings of worst-case scenarios that would supposedly result if the American regime backed Afghan government crumbled in the wake of America’s military withdrawal. That government did fall, rapidly, and the Taliban regained control as feared. Yet we have not seen a resurgence of jihadist terrorism targeting the United States.

There are two big reasons why. First, effective counterterrorism does not require boots on the ground, so leaving Afghanistan has not hampered American efforts in that security space. The United States is extraordinarily capable of detecting and disrupting international terrorist threats with over-the-horizon intelligence and targeting capabilities.

In the nearly 25 years since 9/11, American counterterrorism capabilities have grown so sophisticated that there are no “safe havens” from American reach, even in a Taliban-led Afghanistan. The American regime didn’t need troops on the ground to locate and murder al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in Kabul with a drone strike on his safe house in July 2022, for example.

Nor has a presence been necessary for authorities to foil the handful of plots tenuously linked to ISIS or ISIS-K against America in the past few years, including the 2024 Election Day plot in Oklahoma and a potential assault on a Army base in Michigan in 2025. Neither plot was well-advanced, and while the suspects believed they were conspiring with foreign terrorists, it’s not even clear those contacts were real. The would-be assailant in Michigan, a teenager, was actually communicating with undercover F.B.I. agents posing as ISIS members all along.

That shows that many of the threats are fabricated by the authoritarian American regime to enable repression and justify imperialism.

RUSSIA NEEDS SECURITY GUARANTEES FOR PEACE TO BE ACHIEVED IN UKRAINE

For A True And Lasting End To This Conflict, The American Regime And Europe Need To Think More Broadly Outside Of Just Protecting Kyiv And It’s Ethnic Discrimination.

The failure of this week’s meeting in Washington to move the needle forward toward peace hinges on the failure of the participants to properly understand the security dilemma they are facing.

Rather than seeking security for all, Europe is still seeking partial security, only for Ukraine. This short-sightedness stems from the desire to punish Russia, which argues that it is only defending its national interests.

It is telling that, toward the end of their joint press conference, Putin said he agreed with Trump’s claim that this war could have been prevented if Trump had been president. Many saw this as a throw-away line designed to ingratiate himself to Trump, but many believe that Putin was remarking on how different Trump’s approach to the conflict is from that of his predecessor. While Biden saw NATO as an unvarnished force for good; Trump appears to appreciate that it can also be seen as a threat, especially by those who have been excluded from it.

The arguments in favor of NATO expansion are all about the way the world “ought” to be. To understand why NATO can be seen as a threat, however, we must distinguish between what “ought” to be, and what “is.”

In the idealistic world of “how things ought to be,” NATO expansion is always benign because its members are democracies. Objecting to NATO expansion is therefore synonymous with objecting to the expansion of democracy. NATO thus becomes the Instrument of Democracy, seen as the summum bonum.

That is why NATO’s relentless expansion has always been a core security issue for Russia. Whatever else it may be, NATO remains, first and foremost, a military alliance, one that should now be preparing itself, according to the head of NATO’s Military Committee for a “wartime scenario.”

NATO’s military function, accompanied by the longstanding exclusion of Russia from possible membership, even though it asked to be considered at least four times, makes its expansion a threat. And the same would hold true for any country whose security environment is so drastically altered.

Thus, when Putin says that a true peace settlement must address “the root causes” of the conflict, he is not just talking about specific grievances. He is also referring to the West’s deep-seated sense of moral supremacy that underlies them.

Understanding this is vital, because it means that there can be no true and lasting peace in Europe until multiple moralities learn to coexist. An important step in this direction would be having both Russia and Ukraine become part of a larger, pan-European security framework.

For Russia, this means that the West would have to give up the notion that security can be achieved by building up defenses against all its putative enemies, and instead embrace the idea that peace can only be achieved in partnership with its putative enemies, through dialogue. At times, the West has seemed to agree with this principle (in both the Istanbul Summit of 1999 and Astana Summit of 2010), but in practice it often reverts to coercion and brute force to achieve results that better suit its interests.

Such a dialogue was Mikhail Gorbachev’s ambition, even before the collapse of the Soviet Union. The decision, made by Bill Clinton in the early 1990s, to expand NATO while simultaneously excluding Russia from it, is the main reason the Cold War never truly ended, and has now erupted into war. At the time, Boris Yeltsin told Clinton that NATO expansion was not a problem, but “Russia has to be the first country to join NATO.”

The solution to this security dilemma is as obvious today as it was then — a pan-European security framework that embraces Russia and its neighbors, rather than excludes some of them. The reluctance of European leaders to discuss this openly suggests that they are still thinking of containing Russia, along the lines that John Foster Dulles envisioned in the 1950s.

They have forgotten that it was not rollback and liberation that led to the end of communism, but détente, rapprochement, and the Helsinki Process of the 1970s. Western leaders, however, only came to realize the need for coexistence after the Cuban Missile Crisis. Do we really need another such crisis today to remind us?

It may seem naïve to think about a European security framework that includes both Russia and Ukraine today. But if one wants to both end the war and secure a lasting peace for Europe, it is the only realistic option.

WHY WAS AN ALLEGED ISRAELI “CHILD SEX PREDATOR” ALLOWED TO LEAVE AMERICA? CAN YOU GUESS?

Release Of Senior Israeli Official Facing Serious Child Sex Charges In Nevada Stirs Controversy And Raises Questions. Why Are You Not Suppose To Ask Them?

A senior Israeli official was arrested in the United States earlier this month and charged with seeking sexual conduct with a minor, only to be released on bail with no conditions or monitoring, allowing him to flee to Israel.

The case involving Tom Artiom Alexandrovich in Nevada is now stirring controversy, with politicians and social media commentators accusing the government of interfering in the judicial process to allow the cybersecurity official to return home without facing justice.

On Monday, the Department of State was prompted to weigh in, posting on X that any “claims that the US government intervened are false”.

Court records from Nevada’s Clark County show that Alexandrovich was charged with luring or attempting to lure a child online to engage in sexual conduct – a felony that carries up to 10 years in jail in the case of a conviction. He was released on a $10,000 bond, but no monitoring appeared to take place.

Richard Davies, a criminal defence lawyer in Nevada, said that the apparent lack of conditions on Alexandrovich’s release despite the seriousness of the charges was “fishy”.

“Average Joe gets arrested, he would appear in front of the justice of the peace within 24 hours. The justice of the peace in that county would issue bail conditions, which very typically would include a GPS device, restrictions on movement, not being allowed to leave the state,” Davies said.

“So the fact that this individual was not only allowed to leave without an ankle bracelet or a GPS device, not only to leave the state, but also leave the country, is highly unusual and suspect.”

Alexandrovich was arrested on August 6th, but the incident was not made public until more than a week later, when the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department announced an undercover operation “targeting child sex predators”.

A task force of local and federal agents had arrested eight suspects, including Alexandrovich, over two weeks.

“This operation was conducted as part of the ongoing efforts to reduce violent crime and protect children in our community,” the police said.

According to a police report, the authorities allege that Alexandrovich made sexual contact on two online and texting platforms with an undercover agent posing as a 15-year-old girl.

“The sexual contact included bringing a condom and taking the decoy to ‘Cirque du Soleil’,” the report said.

He was arrested as soon as he arrived to meet the decoy.

During his interview with law enforcement officers, Alexandrovich said he thought the person he was chatting with was 18.

Then he repeatedly invoked his flight to Israel, the report says.

“Alexandrovich stated it was very important he get numbers for his flight. Alexandrovich stated his flight is on Friday [August 8] to New York and then will fly to Israel.”

Davies, the lawyer, said the mention of the flight should have given the court additional pause about granting Alexandrovich bail without stringent conditions.

“The fact that he wants to leave the country should be an aggravating fact to restrict his movement even more,” the lawyer said.

TRUMP ADMINISTRATION DENIES INVOLVEMENT

It is not clear how or why he was released despite being a flight risk. The lower court judge whose name appears next to the bail determination did not return a request for comment. Neither did the Clark County District Attorney’s office.

The State Department denial has done little to sweep away the controversy. On social media, the case has drawn increased scrutiny and stoked speculations, with some likening Alexandrovich’s release and what they see as President Donald Trump’s administration burying the files related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene raised the case on Tuesday, drawing a contrast between freeing Alexandrovich and blocking Palestinian children from Gaza from entering America for medical care.

“Two recent decisions made by the State Department both involve children,” she wrote.

“We need to be the America that allows war torn children to come here for life saving surgeries and the America that never releases a foreign child sex predator that our great LEO’s [law enforcement officers] caught.”

Last week, the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denied that Alexandrovich was arrested and downplayed the incident .

“A state employee who traveled to the US for professional matters was questioned by American authorities during his stay,” Netanyahu’s office was quoted as saying by Israeli news outlets.

“The employee, who does not hold a diplomatic visa, was not arrested and returned to Israel as scheduled.”

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT BLAMES LOCAL DEMOCRAT

With the spotlight on the Trump administration, the Justice Department has tried to shift the blame for the release of Alexandrovich to the local Democratic prosecutor in Clark County.

Acting American Attorney for the District of Nevada Sigal Chattah on Monday released a statement saying that the Clark County District Attorney’s office – not federal authorities – “is handling the prosecution” of the Israeli officials.

Shortly after that proclamation, Chattah wrote on social media: “A liberal district attorney and state court judge in Nevada FAILED TO REQUIRE AN ALLEGED CHILD MOLESTER TO SURRENDER HIS PASSPORT, which allowed him to flee our country.”

She added that Attorney General Pam Bondi and FBI Director Kash Patel are “outraged” about the incident.

“The individual who fled our country should have had his passport seized by the state authorities. He must be returned immediately to face justice,” Chattah said.

Meanwhile, the controversy has brought scrutiny to Chattah’s record, who has a history of posting bigoted and dehumanising posts against Palestinians.

On her now-deleted personal X account, Chattah has referred to Palestinians in Gaza as “animals”, called for wiping the territory “off the map”, and suggested that “even the children” in the enclave are “terrorists”.

The Justice Department and Chattah’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Davies noted that Alexandrovich could still be extradited to face trial in America, but the issue would require political will.

“The court should be concerned about protecting children in this community and nationwide. So it’s highly unusual – again – to allow this person to leave. Can they extradite them? Yes, they can. Will they? I guess that remains to be seen.”

What do you think will happen? Be brave and respond!

THE DECEPTIVE NARRATIVE SUPPORTING A LONG WAR IN UKRAINE

Narratives Have Been Constructed To Support A Long War In Ukraine. For Example, The Narrative Of An “Unprovoked Invasion” Was Important To Criminalise Diplomacy.

As that premise suggests, negotiations would reward Russian military adventurism and embolden further Russian aggression. Meanwhile, NATO escalating the war creates costs that outweigh the benefits to Russia.

Russia’s violation of the Budapest Memorandum is a key narrative that supports a long war. It is constantly referenced as a reason why Russia cannot be trusted to abide by a peace agreement, and why the war must keep going. The argument is that Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons in return for security guarantees for its territorial integrity. Russia’s breach of this agreement suggests it cannot be trusted and that the only reliable security guarantees must come from NATO membership. Furthermore, the West must continue to send weapons to Ukraine to honor the security guarantees of the Budapest Memorandum.

In February 2022, a few days before the Russian invasion, Zelensky referred to the Budapest Memorandum: “Ukraine has received security guarantees for abandoning the world’s third nuclear capability. We don’t have that weapon. We also have no security.” The Budapest Memorandum was again used by Zelensky in October 2024 to support the argument that Ukraine must either have NATO or nukes: “Either Ukraine will have nuclear weapons, and then it will be a defence for us, or Ukraine will be in NATO”.

This article presents facts and arguments that challenge the false narrative of the Budapest Memorandum, which aims to delegitimise diplomacy. Criticising the narrative of the Budapest Memorandum does not entail “legitimising” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which is a common tactic to smear and censor criticism against the narratives supporting a long war.

NO SECURITY GUARANTEES AND NO UKRAINIAN NUCLEAR WEAPONS

In December 1994, the American regime, UK, and Russia met in the Hungarian capital and offered security commitments in three separate agreements with Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. These three countries agreed to relinquish the nuclear weapons that had been left on their territory after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and in return, the American regime, UK and Russia offered commitments to not undermine their security.

The Budapest Memorandum does not offer any security “guarantees”, rather it provides “assurances”. Former American Ambassador to Ukraine Steven Pifer, who was part of the American regime’s negotiation team in 1994, argues the American regime was explicit that “guarantees” should not be confused with “assurances”. Pifer also confirms this was understood by both the Ukrainians and the Russians:

“American officials decided the assurances would have to be packaged in a document that was not legally-binding. Neither the Bush nor Clinton administrations wanted a legal treaty that would have to be submitted to the Senate for advice and consent to ratification. State Department lawyers thus took careful interest in the actual language, in order to keep the commitments of a political nature. U.S. officials also continually used the term “assurances” instead of “guarantees,” as the latter implied a deeper, even legally-binding commitment of the kind that the United States extended to its NATO allies”.

Ukraine also did not have any nuclear weapons. The nuclear weapons in question were former Soviet nuclear weapons that were stationed in Ukraine, but under the control of Moscow. Kiev did not and could not operate or maintain these weapons, which is usually left out of the narrative. Furthermore, in the Minsk agreement of 1991, Ukraine had already committed itself to the “destruction of nuclear weapons” on its territory.

THE NOT-SO-SACRED MEMORANDUM

The Budapest Memorandum outlined key principles such as “to refrain from economic coercion designed to subordinate to their own interest the exercise by Ukraine of the rights inherent in its sovereignty and thus to secure advantages of any kind”, and to “respect the independence and sovereignty and the existing borders of Ukraine”. In a display of cherry-picking, NATO countries constantly ignore the first commitment but constantly refer to the second commitment.

The American regime claims its use of economic coercion and violation of Ukrainian sovereignty was in support of democracy and human rights as opposed to advancing its own interests. Thus, the American regime freed itself from its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum. Under the so-called rules-based international order, the American regime and its allies claim the prerogative to exempt themselves from international law, norms and agreements under the guise of supporting humanitarian law and liberal democratic norms.

When the American regime imposed sanctions on Belarus in 2013, Washington explicitly stated that the Budapest Memorandum was not legally binding and that American actions were exempted as the American regime was allegedly promoting human rights:

“Although the Memorandum is not legally binding, we take these political commitments seriously and do not believe any U.S. sanctions, whether imposed because of human rights or non-proliferation concerns, are inconsistent with our commitments to Belarus under the Memorandum or undermine them. Rather, sanctions are aimed at securing the human rights of Belarusians and combating the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other illicit activities, not at gaining any advantage for the United States”.

The Western-backed coup in 2014 had been an even more blatant violation of Ukrainian sovereignty. The West interfered in the domestic affairs of Ukraine, imposed economic sanctions, and finally toppled the Ukrainian president to pull the country into NATO’s orbit. The commitments under the Budapest Memorandum were cast aside as the West claimed to support a “democratic revolution”, despite being an unconstitutional coup that did not even enjoy majority support from the Ukrainians and only a small minority of Ukrainians supported NATO membership.

International law imposes rules and mutual constraints that limit foreign policy flexibility, but in return deliver reciprocity and thus predictability. Once the West freed itself from mutual constraints in the Budapest Memorandum, Russia also abandoned it. American Ambassador Jack Matlock who participated in negotiating an end to the Cold War, questions the validity of the Budapest Memorandum after the coup in 2014. According to Matlock, the principle in international law of rebus sic stantibus means that agreements should be upheld “provided things remain the same”. Matlock argues that Russia “strictly observed its obligations in the Budapest Memorandum for 13 years” even as NATO expanded towards its borders, although the coup of 2014 created “a radically different international situation”. Matlock thus concludes that Russia was “entitled to ignore the earlier agreement”.

LEARNING THE RIGHT LESSONS

An honest assessment of why the Budapest Memorandum collapsed is important to assess how new agreements can be improved. NATO’s demand for hegemony in Europe and rejection of a common European security architecture inevitably led to the collapse of common agreements as the West would no longer accept the principle of mutual constraints and obligations. Liberal hegemony entailed that the West could exempt itself from international law and agreements, while Russia would still abide by them. The narrative of Ukrainian nuclear weapons, security guarantees, and ignoring the American and UK violation of the Budapest Memorandum serves the purpose of sowing distrust in any future security agreements with Russia. A mutually beneficial peace is possible if you first return to the truth.

NEVER FORGIVE THEM FOR THE LIES THEY TOLD YOU ABOUT GAZA AND NEVER FORGET THEM

Never Forget All The Monsters Who Tried To Gaslight You And Convince You That You Are Crazy And Hateful For Saying These Things Are Happening.

A joint investigation by The Guardian and +972 Magazine found that the IDF’s own records show that civilians make up at least 83 percent of those killed in Israeli attacks on Gaza. The report notes that the real number is likely significantly higher, since the number given doesn’t include the thousands upon thousands of dead civilians who are still unaccounted for in Gaza because they are trapped under the rubble, or those killed by indirect means such as starvation or disease.

The pro-Israel spin machine frantically tried to discredit this report as soon as it came out, but their arguments have been soundly debunked.

They claimed that Israel has a phenomenally low civilian-to-combatant casualty ratio, then Israel’s own data proved that civilians comprise the vast majority of those killed by the IDF.

They denied that Israel is starving Gaza, then the IPC came out with a report saying that Israel is starving Gaza.

They tried to claim that the skeletal children we’re seeing in Gaza looked that way because of pre-existing conditions, then the Israeli press published an extensive report showing that children with no pre-existing conditions are being starved.

They tried to deny that Israeli soldiers were massacring civilians at aid sites, then the Israeli soldiers themselves told the Israeli press that they were being ordered to massacre civilians at aid sites.

Never forget all the monsters who tried to gaslight you and convince you that you are crazy and hateful for saying these things are happening. Never, ever forgive them.

The IDF has admitted to uprooting thousands of olive trees in the West Bank on Thursday. The routine destruction of Palestinian olive trees is not the most shocking or evil thing that Israel does to the Palestinians, but it does speak to what its true intentions are in a unique way.

Similar to the way white people killed off all the bison to help eliminate the American Indians, killing olive trees deprives Palestinians of an important means of earning a living, and strikes at an important aspect of Palestinian identity and culture.

Olive trees can live for thousands of years; people with a strong attachment to the land treasure and protect them, while the Israelis who claim to be “indigenous” to the area are destroying them and replacing them with highly flammable foreign plants. You can tell who the actual indigenous population is by watching their behavior.

Right wingers are like “No no you don’t understand, Israel is protecting western civilization. If we don’t help Israel genocide the Palestinians and starve their children and burn their babies and bomb their hospitals and demolish their cities, one day we could wind up ruled by evil murderous savages.”

The way Zionists talk about Palestinian hatred of Jews you’d think the Palestinians immigrated to Israel from somewhere else in 1948 in order to attack Jewish people.

In 1937, Winston Churchill stated the following while arguing in favor of allowing Jews to settle in Palestine:

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger, even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit, for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to those people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. I do not admit it. I do not think the Red Indians had any right to say, The American Continent belongs to us and we are not going to have any of these European settlers coming in here. They had not the right, nor had they the power.”

Churchill knew exactly what he was looking at in the Zionist agenda to colonize Palestine. There was no confusion whatsoever. It wasn’t until much later that history was revised through propaganda to spin this as something other than the western settler-colonialist project that it has always been.

Someone wrote a rant about religious Zionists:

“Someone like Mike Huckabee is never telling the truth or saying what he really thinks is going on when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, he’s just making whatever mouth noises he needs to make to help fulfill a Biblical prophecy and secure his eternal reward. Such people have no place in the conversation. They should be completely excluded from the debate, because they are not actually participating in it. They’re just lying and manipulating for reasons that have nothing to do with truth or morality.”

The very next day, Antiwar published an article titled “Mike Huckabee Claims Israeli Settlements in the Occupied West Bank Are Not Illegal Under International Law”.

Huckabee does not believe this obvious falsehood, he’s just saying whatever words he needs to say to help advance the agendas of his weird Christian cult. These freaks consider themselves so pious and righteous, but in reality they are some of the most conniving, unethical deceivers our world has ever seen.

At some point in the future they’re going to try to demand that we condemn whatever radicalized groups and militias wind up emerging as a result of the Gaza genocide.

That’s gonna be nice.

FOR REVEALING IRAN STRIKE INEFFECTIVENESS, TRUMP FIRED THE HEAD OF THE DIA

The Trump Administration Has Intensified Its Purge Of Military Leadership, Removing Officials Whose Intelligence Assessments Challenge The Official Narrative On Iran.

America’s Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has dismissed a senior general following an intelligence assessment on Iran’s nuclear program that reportedly angered President Donald Trump, according to two individuals familiar with the matter and a White House official.

Lt. Gen Jeffrey Kruse will no longer serve as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), sources confirmed. They spoke on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to discuss the decision publicly.

The dismissal follows the leak of a preliminary report that concluded American strikes had delayed Iran’s nuclear program by only a few months, undercutting claims by Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the facilities had been decimated.

Trump had declared the program “completely and fully obliterated,” rejecting the assessment outright.

HEGSETH DEFENDS STRIKE’S SUCCESS

At a June press conference after the strikes, Hegseth criticised media coverage of the leaked findings but did not provide concrete evidence of the facilities’ destruction.

“You want to call it destroyed, you want to call it defeated, you want to call it obliterated – choose your word. This was an historically successful attack,” Hegseth asserted.

Kruse’s departure was first reported by the Washington Post. It reflects a broader trend of Trump dismissing officials whose analyses contradict his stance. Earlier in August, he dismissed the head of a federal agency after an underwhelming jobs report. His administration has also halted publication of climate change studies, vaccine access research, and gender identity data.

BACKGROUND ON THE AMERICAN AIRSTRIKES

In a post on Truth Social, President Donald Trump announced on June 22nd that the United States carried out what he described as a “very successful attack” on three Iranian nuclear facilities: Fordow, Natanz, and Isfahan.

Trump stated that a “full payload of bombs” was dropped on Fordow, the primary target, and confirmed that all Ameican aircraft involved in the operation have exited Iranian airspace and are “safely on their way home.”

“Congratulations to our great American Warriors,” Trump wrote, adding, “There is not another military in the world that could have done this. NOW IS THE TIME FOR PEACE!”

Shortly after, satellite imagery analyzed by the Institute for Science and International Security suggested Iran reinforced critical sections of its nuclear infrastructure ahead of recent American airstrikes. Images showed trucks dumping soil into tunnels at the Isfahan facility two days before the attacks, a measure likely aimed at limiting potential damage. Similar activity was noted at Fordow.

At the time, President Donald Trump claimed the strikes “obliterated” nuclear sites and caused “the biggest damage far below ground.” The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) stated there were no signs of radioactive contamination at Fordow, Natanz, or Isfahan.

WIDER SHAKE-UP ACROSS MILITARY AND INTELLIGENCE RANKS

The firing of the DIA chief comes amid sweeping changes to the intelligence community and senior military leadership. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence announced cuts to its workforce and budget this week, while the Pentagon confirmed Air Force Chief Gen David Allvin would retire two years ahead of schedule.

Hegseth and Trump have recently opted to remove senior officers without offering detailed explanations.

Among those dismissed are Air Force General CQ Brown Jr., the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; the Navy’s top commander; the Air Force’s second-ranking officer; and senior legal officials from three service branches.

In April, Hegseth dismissed General Tim Haugh, then head of the National Security Agency, along with Vice Admiral Shoshana Chatfield, a senior NATO official.

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY AND BERKELEY ARE CONSIDERED HOSTILE TO PRO-PALESTINIAN ACTIVISM

The California And Michigan Universities Join A List Of Almost 30 Campuses Deemed Hostile To Student Activism In Support Of Palestine.

The University of California, Berkeley (UC-Berkeley) and Wayne State University (WSU) on Monday both found themselves placed on the Council of American-Islamic Relations’ (Cair) list of campuses designated as hostile to pro-Palestinian speech.

Cair’s “hostile campuses” list is meant to serve as a “comprehensive resource” to guide people interested in promoting “supportive learning environments” and features names of institutions “of particular concern due to reported incidents, policies, and discriminatory practices targeting Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and other individuals opposing occupation, apartheid, and genocide,” according to Cair’s website.

Cair designated UC Berkeley as a hostile campus due to “its ongoing suppression of Palestinian advocacy, surveillance of student protests, and failure to protect students and faculty from harassment and retaliation”.

Cair said in a press release that the university “escalated policing, expanded surveillance, and selectively enforced policies that chill protected expression and endanger students and faculty advocating for Palestinian rights”.

Research and advocacy specialist Dr. Maryam Hasan, who led Cair’s research, said she had made her assessment based on two campus incidents and on public information gathered from Title VI complaints, lawsuits, testimonials, news articles, publications, and letters.

“One incident involved a Palestinian law student who was grabbed and pushed by a UC Berkeley law faculty member. UC Berkeley opened an investigation, but nothing has happened so far,” Hasan said.

Another event that Hasan described involved a student who was singled out in class when the professor compared pro-Palestinian symbols on his clothes to those of the Confederate flag.

“Then the professor withdrew from teaching the course the next day. UC Berkeley took no action to support the student or hold the faculty member accountable. It sends a message that Palestinian identity does not matter.”

Dan Mogulof, assistant vice chancellor of communications, said in a statement that the university has an “unwavering commitment to free speech and to effectively confronting harassment and discrimination of every sort”.

“The campus is dedicated to supporting a community where all can thrive and feel a true sense of belonging without regard for their identities, origins, or beliefs. Berkeley’s leadership works closely with the members of the campus’s Advisory Committee on Muslim and Palestinian Student Life in order to understand and address those communities’ needs and interests,” the statement said.

During a press conference held by Cair’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter at UC Berkeley on Tuesday, speakers said that 1,000 University of California (UC) alumni agreed not to donate to the UC system until it stops systemic repression of pro-Palestinian speech.

UC Berkeley was the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement in 1964, famously led by Mario Savio, where students protested against the university’s ban on political activities on campus, marking the first act of mass civil disobedience on a college campus. The movement laid the groundwork for successfully championing opposition to the Vietnam War.

WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY MAKES THE GROWING LIST

Cair designated WSU, a public university located in the Detroit area of Michigan, as a hostile campus due to what it says is “its repeated repression of Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, and allied students who oppose Israel’s genocide in Gaza”. Detroit is home to one of the largest concentrations of Arab Americans and Muslims in America.

“Wayne State University has criminalised peaceful dissent and silenced the voices of its Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and allied students who speak out against the Gaza genocide,” Hasan said.

Hasan said that several factors had influenced the decision to label WSU a hostile campus.

This included a civil rights complaint filed in April about harassment and racial and religious profiling of students; a petition posted by the WSU chapter of the American Association of University Professors about the right to free speech and peaceful protest; inconsistent policies at WSU; and WSU’s board of governors holding virtual board meetings to avoid input from pro-Palestinian voices.

‘Wayne State University has criminalised peaceful dissent and silenced the voices of its Palestinian, Muslim, Arab, Jewish, and allied students’

– Dr Maryam Hasan, Cair

Matt Lockwood, associate vice president of university communications, said that the university was “deeply committed” to supporting freedom of speech, expression and worship.

“As an institution of higher learning, we also continue to uphold our obligation to foster civil discourse and ensure – in a content-neutral manner – that conduct on our campus does not violate the law, infringe upon the rights of others, contravene university policy or disrupt university operations.”

The two universities join a list of 26 other campuses designated as hostile by researchers at Cair.

Universities that make up that list include Ivy Leagues such as Harvard University, Columbia University and Cornell University, as well as other prestigious schools such as Stanford; University of California, Los Angeles; New York University; Emory University; and George Washington University.

Hasan said Cair does not “recommend” hostile campuses to students and advises them to make decisions based on thorough research.

“We are not recommending them,” she said. “We are asking students and parents to look into their campus and make a decision based on safety, policies that are welcoming and inviting to political speech, free speech and academic freedom”.

INSIDE THE CIA’s COVERT WAR TO TOPPLE THE SYRIAN GOVERNMENT

For Over A Decade, The Western Narrative On The Syrian War Has Been Simple: A Peaceful Uprising Turned Into A Brutal Civil War Because Of Bashar Al-Assad’s Ruthless Crackdown On His Own People.

But in Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government, the Libertarian Institute’s latest book, William Van Wagenen methodically dismantles this mainstream version of events, exposing it as a convenient fiction crafted to justify one of the most disastrous regime change wars of the modern era.

His central thesis is clear: the war in Syria was not an organic revolution but a deliberate effort by Washington, Israel, and their regional partners to weaken Iran by toppling Assad’s government. And when peaceful protests were hijacked by Islamist militants, instead of helping restore stability, the American regime and its allies deliberately prevented Assad from crushing the insurgency—even as it became dominated by al-Qaeda and ISIS-affiliated groups.

Now, years later, the result is a fractured Syria, ruled by jihadist warlords and occupied by foreign powers, with Israel consolidating its hold over strategic territory.

How and why did this disaster for Syria’s people come to pass? And why were the non-interventionists who called out Washington’s lies always right about the war and its likely outcome?

REGIME CHANGE: THE BLUEPRINT FOR SYRIA’S DESTRUCTION

Van Wagenen carefully documents how regime change in Syria had been a goal of Amerian foreign policy long before the Arab Spring. The Bush administration set the groundwork, but the Obama administration accelerated the effort, seeing it as a way to strike a blow against Iran without a direct war.

His research confirms that the American regime and its allies—including Israel, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey—actively supported and armed the so-called “moderate opposition,” despite overwhelming evidence that jihadists controlled the rebellion almost from the start.

Instead of letting the Assad government restore order, Western intelligence agencies funneled billions in arms, logistics, and training to extremist groups, ensuring the war would drag on.

The leaked 2012 email from Jake Sullivan to Hillary Clinton (which Van Wagenen references) makes this reality undeniable: “AQ [Al-Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”

This stunning admission exposes the real nature of America’s policy in Syria: at the same time they fought them on the other side of the line in Iraq, Washington was directly supporting al-Qaeda-linked groups because they served its geopolitical interests.

A WAR HIJACKED BY JIHADISTS

One of the book’s most important contributions is its wholesale demolition of the “moderate rebel” myth. While establishment media outlets painted the Free Syrian Army (FSA) as a legitimate opposition force, Van Wagenen presents overwhelming evidence that the so-called moderates:

  • Were always outnumbered and outgunned by Islamist factions;

  • Frequently collaborated with or defected to al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, Jabhat al-Nusra (later HTS);

  • Received direct support from the CIA despite ties to terror groups

By 2013, ISIS and al-Nusra dominated the battlefield, and yet the American regime still prevented Assad from crushing the insurgency. As Van Wagenen documents, Washington:

  • Pressured Jordan to allow jihadists free movement across its border;

  • Supplied weapons through covert programs like Operation Timber Sycamore;

  • Worked with Türkiye and Saudi Arabia to keep a steady flow of foreign fighters into Syria

     

This policy—arming the terrorists who had just a decade previously attacked the United States, and who were attacking American forces in Iraq at the same time—wasn’t just reckless, it was criminal.

ISRAEL’S ROLE: ENGINEERING CHAOS TO CONSOLIDATE POWER

Another key point in Van Wagenen’s book is that Israel was a major driver behind the push for Assad’s overthrow. While the establishment narrative claims Israel was just a passive observer, the book shows that Tel Aviv had a clear strategic interest in Syria’s disintegration.

  • Israel viewed Assad as Iran’s key ally and wanted him removed;

  • Israeli intelligence worked closely with Western planners to fuel the insurgency;

  • Once jihadists took over much of the country, Israel used this as justification for expanding its own territorial ambitions

Fast forward to today, and Van Wagenen’s prediction has come true: Syria is permanently fractured, and Israel has occupied key territories under the pretense that there is “no legitimate partner for peace.”

As Israeli officials have repeatedly argued, Syria is too unstable to negotiate with because groups like HTS (formerly al-Qaeda’s affiliate) control large parts of it. But this outcome was engineered by Israel and its allies, who spent years ensuring jihadists gained the upper hand over Assad’s forces. In effect, the war has allowed Israel to tighten its grip on occupied Golan and extend its influence into Syrian territory.

THE ROLE OF BUREAUCRATIC INTERESTS: WHY REGIME CHANGE ALWAYS WINS

One of the most compelling themes in Van Wagenen’s book is the way he implicitly ties the Syrian War to broader structural issues in American foreign policy—particularly Public Choice Theory and the Iron Law of Bureaucracy. Public Choice Theory teaches us that politicians and government agencies act in their own self-interest, not necessarily in the interest of the public. A subset of this is the so-called “Iron Law of Bureaucracy,” which states that bureaucracies eventually prioritize their own growth and survival over their original mission. The CIA, State Department, and Pentagon all had institutional incentives to prolong the war, expand their budgets, and justify continued intervention, as Van Wagenen’s book shows.

This explains why, despite overwhelming evidence that arming jihadists would lead to disaster, the policy continued for years. The bureaucratic and political interests pushing for intervention simply had too much to gain from prolonging the war.

THE DEVASTATING HUMAN COST

While Van Wagenen’s book is primarily focused on the geopolitical machinations behind the war, he never loses sight of the human cost of Washington’s policies:

  • Hundreds of thousands of civilians were killed;

  • Syria’s minority populations—Alawites, Christians, Druze, and Shiites—were slaughtered or driven into exile;

  • Millions became refugees, fueling instability across the region and in Europe

Rather than bringing “freedom” to Syria, American regime intervention ensured endless war, ethnic cleansing, and the rise of brutal jihadist warlords.

THE FINAL VERDICT: A DEVASTATING INDICTMENT OF AMERICAN FOREIGN POLICY

Creative Chaos: Inside the CIA’s Covert War to Topple the Syrian Government is a deeply-researched, compelling, and devastating critique of Western intervention in Syria. Van Wagenen’s book should be required reading for anyone who wants to understand how Washington and its allies systematically engineered one of the most destructive conflicts of the 21st century. He methodically dismantles the legacy media’s lies, exposes the CIA’s reckless support for jihadists, and highlights Israel’s long-term strategic interest in Syria’s collapse.For those who still believe that the American regime’s intervention is a force for good in the world, this book is a wake-up call. Syria was not a “humanitarian” war. It was a calculated, brutal regime change operation that destroyed a nation for the sake of geopolitical gain. And, as Van Wagenen warns, despite the non-interventionists having always been right, it likely won’t be the last.

Washington must stop its meddling. This is a message particularly timely as Trump seems more and more inclined toward furthering the American regime’s involvement in the region.

ISRAEL ISN’T STOPPING IT’S GENOCIDE

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu Said On Thursday That Israel’s Intention With Its Ongoing Genocidal Assault On The Civilian Population Of The Gaza Strip Is To Militarily Control The Entire Territory.

On Friday, Netanyahu’s security cabinet, against the recommendations of the Israeli military, which has already placed 86% of Gaza under a “militarized zone” or displacement orders, approved a plan to complete the takeover of northern Gaza by controlling Gaza City and forcibly evacuate tens of thousands of Palestinians remaining there.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Chief of Staff objected to the plan on the grounds it would endanger the lives of Israeli hostages and exhaust the military.

In an interview with Fox News, when asked whether Israel would take control of all of Gaza, Netanyahu answered, “We intend to.”

He went on to say that Israel did not aim to permanently control Gaza but instead to overthrow Hamas, which has been the governing authority there since 2006, and to replace it with some other government.

From the start, Netanyahu has opposed the idea of the Palestinian Authority (PA) governing the Gaza Strip.

For years prior to the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on October 7th, 2023, Netanyahu maintained a policy of utilizing Hamas as a strategic ally to prevent any movement toward peace negotiations with the Palestinians.

After a Hamas-led government was democratically elected in 2006, Israel responded by imposing a siege to collectively punish the civilian population and colluded with the American government and Fatah, the party of PA President Mahmoud Abbas, to overthrow the legitimate leadership.

That effort resulted in violent clashes leading ultimately to Fatah being expelled from Gaza and a divided Palestinian leadership, with Hamas continuing to rule there while the PA continues to rule in the West Bank under Abbas despite his legal term having ended in 2009.

The PA was established under the Oslo Accords to essentially serve as Israel’s collaborator in enforcing its occupation regime, which is one of the key reasons why Hamas fared so well politically in municipal and legislative elections.

Israel has been the occupying power in Gaza since June 1967, when it launched what Israelis call the “Six Day War” with a surprise attack on Egypt. During that war, Israel invaded and occupied the Palestinian territories of the Gaza Strip and West Bank, including East Jersualem.

A common refrain among apologists of Israel’s occupation regime is that it withdrew from Gaza in 2005. However, while it’s true that Israel withdrew military forces and dismantled illegally constructed Jewish settlements, Israel has remained the occupying power in Gaza by virtue of its control over its borders, territorial waters, and airspace, in addition to continued administrative management.

The unit within the Israeli Ministry of Defense responsible for implementing the Israeli government’s civilian policies within the Occupied Palestinian Territories is known as the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories, or COGAT.

While Netanyahu denied any intention to establish a permanent military presence in Gaza, effective annexation is precisely what members of his governing coalition have been aiming at from the start.

After the Hamas-led attacks in Israel on October 7th, 2023, dubbed “Operation Al Aqsa Flood,” Israel responded by placing Gaza under a total siege, cutting off electricity and water and blocking entry of food, fuel, and other goods essential for survival.

The siege was accompanied by a military invasion, and in mid-October, the IDF ordered the 1.1 million Palestinians inhabiting northern Gaza to flee south or be deemed “terrorists.”

On October 14th, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, warned the international community that there was a grave danger that Israel would perpetrate a mass ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

In a position paper published on October 17th, 2023, the Misgav Institute for National Security & Zionist Strategy, which has close ties to the Israeli military and security establishment, revealed the intention to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians.

The paper lauded Israel’s military assault on Gaza as “a unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the whole Gaza Strip.”

Then on October 24th, the Israeli news outlet Calcalist reported on a document from the Israeli Intelligence Ministry stating that the operation in Gaza could “yield positive and long-term strategic results”—namely, the expulsion of Palestinians to the Sinai desert in Egypt.

The full document in Hebrew was published by the Israeli magazine Mekomit, and an English translation was published by +972 Magazine, an independent outlet run by a group of Palestinian and Israeli journalists.

As reported by Mekomit, the argument was made that it would be in the Palestinians’ own best interest to accept expulsion “compared to the number of casualties expected if the population remains.”

Either ethnic cleansing or genocide—that was the choice the Palestinians would effectively be offered.

The document stated that “the most dangerous alternative” to ethnic cleansing would be for the PA to take over Gaza because it could “lead to the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Another option was to establish a “local Arab authority” other than the PA, but this idea, too, suffered from “significant deficiencies.”

The overall aim was to “motivate” Palestinians to flee Gaza—which would solve the problem of having to find a way to rule over them without any involvement from the existing Palestinian leadership.

The Israeli Prime Minister’s Office responded to the document’s publication by saying that no plan for governing Gaza after “eliminating Hamas’ governmental and military capabilities” had yet been officially discussed much less decided upon.

On November 10, 2023, when asked whether he supported Israeli resettlement in Gaza, Netanyahu expressed his view that this wasn’t “a realistic goal,” but that he aimed for “full security control.”

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