Hidden History -- In The Making

A MILITARY BUILD UP FOR A WAR WITH CHINA IS WANTED BY THE NEW YORK TIMES

As America Hits Its First Official Trillion-Dollar Annual Military Budget, The New York Times Argues That It Is Going To Need More Money To Prepare For A Major War With China.

Just as the United States hits its first official trillion-dollar annual military budget, the New York Times editorial board has published an article which argues that America is going to need to increase military funding to prepare for a major war with China.

The article is titled “Overmatched: Why the U.S. Military Must Reinvent Itself,” and to be clear it is an editorial, not an op-ed, meaning it represents the position of the newspaper itself rather than solely that of the authors.

This will come as no surprise to anyone who knows that The New York Times has supported every American war throughout its entire history, because The New York Times is a war propaganda firm disguised as a news outlet. But it is surprising how brazen they are about it in this particular case.

The article opens with graphics one commenter describes as “Mussolini-core” because of their conspicuously fascistic aesthetic, accompanied by three lines of text in all-caps which reads as follows:

“AMERICA’S MILITARY HAS DEFENDED THE FREE WORLD FOR 80 YEARS.

OUR DOMINANCE IS FADING.

RIVALS KNOW THIS AND ARE BUILDING TO DEFEAT US.”

The narrative that the American war machine has “defended the free world” during its period of post-world war global dominance is itself insane empire propaganda. Washington has abused, tyrannized and starved the world at levels unrivaled by any other power during that period while spearheading the theft of hundreds of trillions of dollars from the global south via imperialist extraction. The American empire has not been defending any “free world”, it has been actively obstructing its emergence.

The actual text of the article opens with another whopper, with the first sentence reading, “President Xi Jinping of China has ordered his armed forces to be ready to seize Taiwan by 2027.”

This is straight-up state propaganda. The New York Times editorial board is here uncritically parroting a completely unsubstantiated claim the American intelligence cartel has been making for years, which Xi Jinping explicitly denies. While it is Beijing’s official position that Taiwan will eventually be reunited with the mainland, not one shred of evidence has ever been presented to the public for the 2027 timeline. It’s a American government assertion being reported as verified fact by the nation’s “paper of record”.

And it doesn’t get any better from there. The Times cites a Pentagon assessment that the American regime would lose a hot war with China over Taiwan as evidence of “a decades-long decline in America’s ability to win a long war with a major power,” arguing that this is a major problem because “a strong America has been crucial to a world in which freedom and prosperity are far more common than at nearly any other point in human history.”

“This is the first of a series of editorials examining what’s gone wrong with the U.S. military — technologically, bureaucratically, culturally, politically and strategically — and how we can create a relevant and effective force that can deter wars whenever possible and win them wherever necessary,” The New York Times tells us.

The Times argues that the American regime needs to reshape its military to defeat China in a war, or to win a war with Russia if they attack a NATO member, saying “Evidence suggests that Moscow may already be testing ways to do this, including by cutting the undersea cables on which NATO forces depend.”

The “evidence” the Times cites for this claim is a hyperlink to a January article titled “Norway Seizes Russian-Crewed Ship Suspected of Cutting an Undersea Cable,” completely ignoring the fact that Norway released that ship shortly thereafter when it was unable to find any evidence linking it to the event, and completely ignoring reports that American and European intelligence had concluded that the undersea cable damage was the result of an accident rather than sabotage.

And then, of course, comes the call for more military funding.

“In the short term, the transformation of the American military may require additional spending, primarily to rebuild our industrial base. As a share of the economy, defense spending today — about 3.4 percent of G.D.P. — remains near its lowest level in more than 80 years, even after Mr. Trump’s recent increases,” the Times writes, adding that America’s allies should also be pressured to ramp up spending on the war machine.

“A more secure world will almost certainly require more military commitment from allies like Canada, Japan and Europe, which have long relied on American taxpayers to bankroll their protection,” the authors write, saying “China’s industrial capacity can only be met by pooling the resources of allies and partners around the world to balance and contain Beijing’s increasing influence.”

Of course the idea that perhaps the United States should avoid fighting a hot war with China right off the coast of its own mainland never enters the discussion. The suggestion that it’s insane to support waging full-scale wars with nuclear-armed great powers to secure American planetary domination never comes up. It’s just taken as a given that pouring wealth and resources into preparations for a nuclear-age world war is the only normal option on the table.

But that’s the New York Times for you. It’s been run by the same family since the late 1800s and it’s been advancing the information interests of rich and powerful imperialists ever since. It’s a militarist smut rag that somehow found its way into unearned respectability, and it deserves to be treated as such. The sooner it ceases to exist, the better.

THE AMERICAN REGIME SENT 22 CUBAN MIGRANTS TO GUANTANAMO DESPITE A COURT A RULING

The Transfer Marks The First Arrival Of Cuban Nationals At The Naval Base In Months, Reigniting Legal And Human Rights Concerns. It Defied A Recent Federal Court Ruling.

The American regime has transferred 22 Cuban migrants to its naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, defying a recent federal court ruling that found the administration exceeded its authority by holding migrants at the facility, according to a report published on Tuesday.

The men arrived on Sunday aboard an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) charter flight from Louisiana, The New York Times reported, citing sources familiar with the matter. They are believed to be the first Cuban citizens sent to Guantanamo since January.

ICE has detained roughly 730 men at the base, most from Latin American countries including El Salvador, Guatemala and Venezuela, the report said.

According to a Department of Defense official quoted anonymously by the Times, five of the newly transferred Cubans were labeled “high-threat illegal aliens,” while the remaining detainees are being housed in dormitory-style facilities typically used for Caribbean migrants seeking asylum.

Guantanamo Bay is best known for its military prison, where detainees captured after the September 11^th 2001 attacks were held for years, often without charge, and subjected to what rights groups have described as torture and abuse.

President Donald Trump announced in January plans to expand the use of the detention center to hold undocumented migrants, a move that has drawn sharp criticism from civil liberties organizations.

A federal judge in Washington recently ruled that the Trump administration lacked legal authority to detain migrants at Guantanamo, raising questions about the legality of continued transfers.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other advocacy groups have warned that holding migrants at the offshore base risks serious human rights violations and have demanded immediate access for legal counsel to ensure due process and transparency.

A PALESTINIAN SECURITY GUARD AT FOOTBALL MATCH IS BEATEN BY ISRAELI POLICE

Qays Haddad Was Repeatedly Attacked By Three Plainclothes Detectives And Around 10 Uniformed Officers, He Said. He Was Told “An Arab Won’t Check Me.”

A Palestinian citizen of Israel working as a security guard at a football match was brutally beaten by 13 police officers while on shift earlier this month, he said on Wednesday.

Qays Haddad, 21, works as the head of a security team at events in Jerusalem, mainly at Pais Arena and Teddy Stadium.

On December 8^th, he told Haaretz, he was working at the latter during a derby between Beitar Jerusalem and Hapoel Jerusalem.

Haddad said that while he was at the entrance, overseeing the scanning of tickets, three plainclothes detectives were among those entering the stadium. They did not initially introduce themselves, as required, Haddad recounted.

He told them to slow down, and put his hand out to block their passage.

Haddad recounted that one of them said: “Who are you to put your hand up like that?” and pushed him. “An Arab won’t check me.”

That plainclothes detective then identified himself as a police officer.

The three detectives then began beating up the Palestinian security guard, and took him to one side.

“One of them held me by the head, took me to the police officers who were standing on the side and told them, ‘I’m the police.’ I thought to myself, ‘Maybe they came to help me,’ but about 13 police officers started beating me all over my body,” he said.

The uniformed officers handcuffed him, punched him repeatedly and swore at him, calling him an “Arab son of a bitch”.

“All the policemen’s hands were bloody from the beatings,” Haddad said. “I wasn’t breathing, I couldn’t see where I was. I was dizzy, and I passed out for a few minutes.”

Haddad said that although ambulances are supposed to have access to all areas of the stadium, there was a delay in one arriving at the scene.

“We waited for half an hour,” he said. “My face was all bloody, I was vomiting blood, I couldn’t breathe, they were choking me. I have marks on my neck. I couldn’t breathe.”

He went to file a police complaint the day after the incident, but a policewoman told him: “There’s no way a brother can file a complaint for another brother.”

Several days later, a complaint was eventually filed, and an investigation was opened.

Over a week on from the attack, Haddad said he struggles to eat due to his injuries. He is also traumatized.

“I wake up in the morning, and my head hurts. I can’t sleep. But more than the head, my heart hurts. On Thursday… I heard an ambulance or police siren from the window. I jumped, thinking, ‘What happened to me? This doesn’t make sense.’ I thought they were coming for me.”

Haddad said that he would struggle to go back to work alongside police officers. He said that he is in a WhatsApp group with a large number of security guards who are Palestinian citizens of Israel, who are also afraid to work.

“Because of this incident, there won’t be any security guards left. There’s already been a shortage since the war,” he said.

Haddad said that he has many police officer friends, including Jewish Israelis, who told him not to be silent and to speak up about what happened.

Israeli police said in a statement: “During preparations for a football game, a bouncer at the scene began to confront the police. If there are any complaints about the conduct of the police at the scene, they should be referred to the relevant authorities.”

THE AMERICAN REGIME SHOULDN’T PROVIDE SECURITY GUARANTEES TO UKRAINE

Fighting Russia Over Ukraine Isn’t Remotely In America’s Interests. Despite Trump’s Claim To Put The United States First, His Ukraine Peace Plans Risk Putting America Last.

For years, even before he became president, Donald Trump criticized the Europeans for free riding on America. Today he has apparently proposed adding Ukraine as another defense dependent, with a possible trigger for war against nuclear-armed Russia.

The administration’s recent 28-point plan, criticized for leaning toward Russia, bars Kiev from joining NATO but offers “reliable security guarantees” instead. Although Trump officials did not detail the American role, they promised “a decisive coordinated military response” in response to renewed Russian military action. The European response added a “U.S. guarantee that mirrors Article 5.”

French president Emmanuel Macron has been particularly insistent that Washington put American wealth and lives on the line, stating that “the absolute condition for good peace is a set of very robust security guarantees and not paper guarantees,” including from America. The 19-point America-Ukraine draft has not been published but likely moves toward the latter. Presumably these issues were discussed in Monday’s Moscow meeting between Russian president Vladimir Putin and American emissaries Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, which revealed continuing disagreements on major issues.

For America, the details of a guarantee are the most important provision in any agreement. Not even Trump’s predecessors Barack Obama and Joe Biden, whom the president regularly accuses of weakness, were willing to make such a needless concession to the feckless Europeans.

That Kiev wants the American people to be ready to fight and die on its behalf is no surprise. Ukrainians have suffered greatly in a terrible war. Continuing combat is prodigiously consuming Ukrainian lives and wealth. However, alliances should be based on security, not charity. Although the conflict is a humanitarian tragedy, Ukraine’s future, and especially the details of any settlement, such as who controls the Donbas, are not vital American concerns.

Of course, Kiev is not alone in its desire for support. Much of the known world—almost every European nation, most of the Middle Eastern royals, and the richest Asian states—remains on the American defense dole. The wealthiest, most advanced foreign states continue to mimic suckling babies years, even decades, after the initial crises in which they first became reliant on Washington. America’s defense of Europe is at 80 years and counting.

Although the early American republic aggressively overspread the North American continent, it was initially reluctant to risk its citizens’ lives and wealth in other nations’ wars. That barrier was breached by President Woodrow Wilson, more delusional megalomaniac than charismatic idealist, as he has been typically portrayed. World War I was an idiotic imperialist war in which the American regime had no stake. However, Wilson was determined to remake the world. Which, unfortunately, he did, disastrously. His intervention wasted more than 117,000 American lives and resulted in another, even greater conflict. As Ferdinand Foch, the French general who served as supreme allied commander, described the botched Versailles Treaty ending the war: “This is not a peace. It is an armistice for twenty years.”

Successive American administrations avoided the continent, soon wracked by communism, fascism, and Nazism. Even the Europeans were ultimately unwilling to defend Wilson’s and his allied compatriots’ handiwork, hence “appeasement.” World War II was the tragic but predictable outcome. America was dragged into the resulting imbroglio. After dispatching the horrific Third Reich, what remained of Europe faced the triumphant Soviet Union, headed by dictator.

So, Washington stayed that time. However, America’s continuing military presence, through the North Atlantic Treaty Organization—which would have been more accurately named the North American Treaty Organization—was intended to be only temporary, until Western Europe recovered economically. Dwight Eisenhower, no left-wing peacenik, said in 1951: “If, in ten years, all American troops stationed in Europe for national defense purposes have not been returned to the United States, then this whole project will have failed.” Seventy-four years later American forces are still there and, if most Europeans have their way, will still be there in another 74 years, and probably beyond.

At least Washington then treated alliances as serious. They were extended to countries thought to be strategically important. There was Western Europe, which America had just fought to liberate, as well as South Korea and Japan, client states acquired in the aftermath of the same conflict. Security commitments also typically resulted from formal treaties, negotiated with other governments and ratified by the Senate. Multilateral agreements with less important participants, most notably the Baghdad Pact/CENTO, SEATO, and ANZUS, were looser and weaker.

In recent years, Washington has treated military commitments like hotel chocolates, to be placed on every guest’s pillow. In recent years NATO has inducted military midgets, such as Albania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia, with no strategic significance. Imagine trying to explain why an American soldier, airman, sailor, or Marine died for what amounts to little more than a celebrated movie set. Moreover, presidents have added informal guarantees without congressional approval—to the Mideast monarchies and even quasi-states, such as Rojava, the Kurdish region in Syria. Of late Trump has unilaterally declared America to be the guardian of absolute monarchy in the Middle East, turning the American military into a modern Janissary Corps to serve thousands of dissolute kings, emirs, and princes in Qatar and Saudi Arabia. Can the rest of the Persian Gulf be far behind?

DETENTIONS ON THE WEST BANK ARE FAR GREATER THAN REPORTED BY ISRAEL

Israeli Forces Are Detaining And Abusing Hundreds Of Palestinians Across The West Bank Each Week, Far Beyond What The Israeli Army Publicly Reports. Does That Surprise You?

A Palestinian rights organization says Israeli forces are detaining, interrogating and mistreating hundreds of Palestinians across the occupied West Bank every week, far beyond the numbers Israel publicly reports.

The Palestinian Prisoners Society said in a statement on Friday that Israeli troops had carried out widespread detentions during raids, subjecting people to field interrogations, intimidation and abuse.

Most detainees are released after hours or days, meaning they never appear in the army’s official arrest figures.

Emani Serahine, a spokesperson for the group, said Israel only acknowledges Palestinians it transfers to prisons or formal detention centres, while ignoring the many whose homes were stormed, belongings destroyed, or money seized before they were held briefly and released.

She said the scale of recent operations underscores the gap. During the latest raid on Tubas on November 26^th , the group documented 162 detentions in the city alone, despite Israeli claims of only “dozens”.

Serahine added that soldiers routinely beat and threaten Palestinians during interrogations and that raids often involve vandalism and theft.

The Israeli army has been carrying out extensive raids across the northern West Bank.

In Tubas, it dropped leaflets in Arabic warning residents that their area had “become a nest of terror” and threatening the same fate as Jenin and Tulkarem, where more than 42,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced as part of recent operations.

Large sections of both camps have been demolished, and residents are still barred from returning.

AFTER THEY WERE RAPED IN ISRAELI JAILS PALESTINIAN PRISONERS SPEAK OUT

In Exclusive Interviews, Two Palestinians Detained In Separate Israeli Prisons Recount Harrowing Details Of Violent Sexual Assault.

As Sami al-Sai was escorted to a clinic inside an Israeli prison, he could hear screaming from nearby rooms. Prisoners were being tortured.

The Palestinian journalist had heard accounts of abuse in Israeli jails before his arrest in February 2024. But nothing, he said, prepared him for what followed.

After a brief medical examination, a doctor turned to the guards.

“‘Everything is fine. Take him,’ he said,” al-Sai recalled.

Al-Sai was dragged into a separate room, where for nearly an hour he said he was kicked, stamped on, insulted and raped with an object while blindfolded.

Israeli guards watched, laughed and, al-Sai believes, may have filmed the assault.

For more than a year, al-Sai told no one what had happened. Months after his release in June, he decided to speak out.

“It’s difficult to talk about,” he said. “But staying silent is worse.”

Al-Sai said he felt compelled to tell the world what Palestinian prisoners endure in Israeli jails, adding that the sexual assault he suffered was far from an anomaly.

“What I suffered is a drop in the ocean compared with others,” he said.

“It is nothing compared to what I heard from fellow prisoners.”

Al-Sai is now speaking about his experiences as a prisoner on public platforms and to local media in the West Bank. But his interview is the first time he has spoken to international media on camera. Details of his story are being published with his permission.

Another former prisoner, who described how soldiers used a dog to rape him and other instances of violent sexual assault, also agreed to speak on condition of anonymity.

This reporting adds further weight to widespread serious concerns about Israel’s systematic mistreatment and use of sexual violence against Palestinian prisoners.

Earlier this year, a United Nations inquiry accused Israel of using sexualised torture and rape as “a method of war… to destabilize, dominate, oppress and destroy the Palestinian people”.

The Israeli human rights organisation B’Tselem has described the Israeli prison system as a “network of torture camps” within which prisoners were subjected to “repeated use of sexual violence” including “gang sexual violence and assault committed by a group of prison guards or soldiers”.

Last year, Israel’s Channel 12 published a leaked video which appeared to show Israeli soldiers sexually assaulting a Palestinian detainee.

In response to questions, the Israeli Prison Service said it “categorically rejected” the allegations of abuse described by the prisoners.

‘WE WANT TO KILL YOU’

On February 23^rd 2024, Israeli forces raided his home during an intensive arrest campaign in the West Bank following the October 2023 war on Gaza. He was taken from his home and spent the next 16 months in Israeli custody under administrative detention.

Under the controversial practice, detainees are held without charge or trial based on secret evidence they are not permitted to see.

‘The pain was overwhelming. But I still didn’t know what they were going to do. Why did they remove my trousers?’

– Sami al-Sai, Palestinian journalist and former prisoner

After an initial 19 days in military custody, al-Sai was transferred to Megiddo Prison. Upon arrival, he said he was handcuffed and blindfolded.

His first stop was the prison clinic. On the way, he could hear screams from other rooms.

“‘Say long live the Israeli flag,’” he recalls hearing a guard, speaking fluent Arabic, shout at a prisoner. “’We want to kill you. We want to make you die.’

“At that moment, I knew I was entering a stage I had never experienced before,” said al-Sai, who had been arrested by Israeli forces three times before.

Inside the clinic, guards and medical staff accused him of being a member of Hamas, repeatedly threatening him that they “fuck, fuck, fuck” anyone associated with the group. He denied the accusation.

After an electrocardiogram and a brief examination, the doctor told the guards he was fit.

Al-Sai said he was blindfolded again and escorted by four to six guards, including a woman, through a series of corridors. Doors opened and closed. He was finally thrown to the ground.

At this point, al-Sai said, his trousers and underwear were pulled down, and he was ordered onto his knees. The beating began, with the guards striking him repeatedly on the head, back and legs.

“I felt close to death,” he said. “The pain was overwhelming. But I still didn’t know what they were going to do. Why did they remove my trousers?”

‘RECEPTION PARTY’

Moments later, he said, a solid object was forced into his rectum.

“I tried to resist. I clenched my body to stop it. That only made the pain worse. Eventually, I surrendered.”

The object was pushed deeper and twisted deliberately, he said. When he began screaming, a guard squeezed his testicles and pulled his penis.

“I screamed so loudly I thought my voice would leave the prison walls,” he said.

“I wanted to die at that moment. I couldn’t take it. I reached a point where I couldn’t comprehend what was happening.”

Throughout the assault, guards laughed. One addressed him directly.

“You are a journalist,” the guard said, according to al-Sai.

“We will bring all the journalists and do this to them. We will bring your wife, your sisters, your mother, and your son.”

‘I wanted to die at that moment. I couldn’t take it’

– Sami al-Sai, former Palestinian prisoner

At one point, he heard a guard say: “Bring me a carrot.” Another object was inserted.

Later, he learned from other detainees that vegetables, sticks and other objects were commonly used during such assaults.

A guard stood on his head with full body weight. Al-Sai feared his skull would burst. He also heard one guard tell another to “stop filming”, suggesting the assault may have been recorded.

“They said they were taking revenge for October 7^th,” he said. “But I am not from Gaza. I am a journalist.”

The assault lasted about 25 minutes, he estimates. He was held in the room for nearly an hour.

Among prisoners, this assault is called “the reception party” – a violent attack involving sexual violence that many detainees face upon arrival at the prison.

Al-Sai did not initially tell other prisoners what had happened to him. Instead, he asked them about their experiences.

He was shocked by what he heard, particularly from detainees from Gaza.

“We had never heard of this level of brutality and sadism,” he said. “Not even in stories or in history.”

He said almost all of the abuse was carried out by Israel Prison Service (IPS) guards. He heard accounts of prisoners raped directly by guards and others sexually assaulted by dogs.

“EXPLAIN TO US WHY WE KILL PEOPLE WHO ARE NOT ARMED”

Sen. Rand Paul Gets To The Moral Heart Of The Venezuela Pressure Campaign. In September, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth Ordered A Strike On A Vessel Suspected Of Carrying Drugs From Venezuela.

So a second strike was ordered—one that Hegseth says didn’t come from him, and that President Trump says he wouldn’t have ordered—that killed the surviving men.

The legality of any of these strikes is hotly debated. The second strike on the vessel in September in particular has heightened further questions about potential war crimes.

Many in Washington, including some Republicans, are questioning this.

On Wednesday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) had questions: “If they’re armed, show us how they’re armed. If they’re not armed, explain to us why we kill people who are not armed.”

There have been no reports to this writer’s knowledge that the men were armed. The Wall Street Journal reported that military official Admiral Frank “Mitch” Bradley, who purportedly gave the order, believed there were other “enemy” vessels nearby and the surviving men were suspected of communicating with them. In his briefing with lawmakers on Thursday, Bradley reportedly said that the survivors did not appear to have radios or means of communication.

Even if they did have radios, might their top concern have been not drowning and calling for rescue?

What kind of “war” is this, exactly?

Paul wondered the same, “So we usually think of war, we think of those people taking up arms and they may kill our soldiers, so we kill them first, that’s war. But these people, we haven’t been told if they have arms. Two of them they killed in the water, but two of them they scooped up, and did they arrest them for drugs and get drugs that were floating around in the sea? Did they look for arms? No, they just released them and said, go back to your home country, which really wasn’t Venezuela, it was Colombia and Ecuador.”

If these two men weren’t taken out by American forces, it is not inconceivable they would be walking around as free men today.

Can this administration or any other simply declare that foreign actors are drug dealers or terrorists—or the combo “narcoterrorists”—and bomb them indiscriminately?

The Obama administration certainly thought so. Is Commander-in-Chief Trump simply doing the same?

Paul emphasized the problem with that: “So I think this whole thing is a terrible situation. But we as a country should not be so easygoing as to say, well, an accusation is enough. We sometimes make mistakes. Even in our country, even when we’re very, very careful, the DNA Innocence Project found that there were people in jail in our country with full due process, but we made a mistake. They’ve been in jail for 20 years.”

“Do we really think blowing up boats without any kind of process?” the senator asked. “We got records from the Coast Guard yesterday that we released, of boats stopped off of Venezuela before we had this new policy. So we’ve had an interdiction policy for 100 years probably, where we interdict people on the open seas, and the Coast Guard does it. The Coast Guard statistics say that of boats off Venezuela, 21 percent of those boats didn’t have drugs.”

This would mean almost a quarter of the suspected drug boats the Coast Guard encounters are not drug boats—a significant number.

Paul was befuddled by others’ reasoning on this. “And it’s amazing to listen to some of the support for this,” he said. “It’s like, well, 79 percent is pretty good. It’s like, really?”

“You’d kill 21 percent innocent people just because, well, the majority of them must be drug dealers, so we’re fine,” he lamented. “No, that’s not very thoughtful. It’s actually an extraordinary, reprehensible position.”

The contrast between the message Paul is trying to convey on this issue versus what some of his MAGA critics perceive about his position was seen through an X exchange over the weekend.

Self-identified “MAGA 100%” X user “Chicago1Ray” shared a video of authorities boarding a boat that definitely looked like drug smuggling. “What do you think (Rand Paul) is gonna say when he sees this.. he’s tagged… there’s only one way to find out…so you know what to do,” he wrote, seeming to want his nearly half million followers to retweet his post.

The Atlantic’s Conor Friedersdorf pounced. “I suspect Rand Paul would say that this video illustrates our ability to interdict drugs lawfully without any need to kill anyone and shows that mistake prone extrajudicial killings are not just illegal and immoral but also unnecessary to the mission.”

This September event of so much controversy was one of more than 20 such strikes, which have killed over 80 people, carried out by the Trump administration. The administration and many Republicans are defending these types of attacks, while most Democrats and a minority of Republicans are questioning the legality and morality of the attacks.

Congress has not been consulted on these attacks. Nor do they even necessarily fall under the two decade old AUMF (authorization for the use of military force) that was supposed to apply to the War on Terror after 9/11. As the Republican Congressman Thomas Massie told The American Conservative last week, “Congress hasn’t even declared a Global War on Narco Terrorism, yet, right? That doesn’t exist.”

Ideally, America is supposed to be better than this.

In late October, TAC’s George O’Neill, Jr. noted the naked immorality on display: “Of course, the laws of man are not the only impediment to killing suspected narco-traffickers who may, for all we know, in many cases be simple fishermen.”

“In addition to the aforementioned prohibitions, the killing of people without any due process is completely contrary to the core beliefs of Christianity and the Christian nation in which we grew up,” he wrote. “It should be stopped immediately and completely.”

Does the United States now openly murder foreigners who appear unarmed and don’t seem to be at war with us?

It’s a good question, and an imperative one. Are you still proud to be a “good American”?

YOU SHOULDN’T BE BOTHERED MORE BY AUSTRALIANS BEING MASSACRED THAN PALESTINIANS BEING MASSACRED

Palestinians Don’t Love Their Families Any Less Than Australians Do. Australian Lives Aren’t Any More Significant Or Valuable Than Palestinian Lives.

There is no valid reason for the world to have focused any less on the 15 people who were killed in Gaza on March 16^th is there?

Does that day stand out in anyone’s memory as particularly significant in terms of mass murder?

No?

Most probably can’t remember it at all. This would have been during the tail end of the first fake “ceasefire”, a couple of days before Trump signed off on Israel resuming its large-scale bombing operations in Gaza, so this wasn’t one of those days with huge massacres and staggering death tolls. It doesn’t exactly stand out in the memory.

You have no idea who those people were. You don’t know their names. You never saw their pictures flashing across the news feed. You never saw any western officials denouncing their deaths, or media institutions giving wall-to-wall coverage to the news of their killing. So you don’t remember them.

A tweet came from Aaron Maté yesterday:

“15 civilians were killed in the massacre targeting Sydney’s Jewish community. A day in which Israel massacres 15 Palestinian civilians in Gaza would be at the low end of the average in 2+ years of genocide.”

“Israel’s atrocities and the impunity they receive are undoubtedly the number one driver of anti-Semitism worldwide. And to show how little Israel and its apologists care about anti-Semitism, many are exploiting the Sydney massacre to justify Israel’s rejection of a Palestinian state; baselessly blame Iran; and demand more censorship of anti-genocide protests.”

Indeed, the worst people on earth are using the Bondi Beach shooting to argue for crackdowns on free speech and freedom of assembly to silence Israel’s critics online and on the streets, in Australia and throughout the western world. And when 15 Palestinians were killed by Israel on March 16, the west barely noticed.

You probably don’t remember the 15 Palestinians who died during that 24-hour period in mid-March, but many will always remember the Bondi Beach shooting. Someone could mention it thirty years from now and you will probably know exactly what they’re talking about. Our society made an infinitely bigger deal about the deaths of 15 westerners in Sydney, Australia than the deaths of 15 Palestinians in Gaza, so it will always stick in your memory.

You may have felt sick thinking about the shooting ever since it happened, partly because you know it’s going to be used to roll out authoritarian measures and stomp out free speech in Australia, but also partly because you have felt so bad for those who died and their loved ones. Even after spending two years denouncing the way western society normalizes the murder of Arabs and places more importance on western lives than Palestinian lives, it’s still hard not to focus on the deaths in Australia.

In trying to get people to care about warmongering and imperialism what we’re really trying to do is get people to widen their circle of compassion to the furthest extent possible. To extend their care for the people around them to include caring about violence and abuse against people even on the other side of the world, who might not look and speak and live as they do. Maybe even extending it so far as caring about the non-human organisms who share our planet with us.

As Einstein wrote in a condolence letter toward the end of his life,

“A human being is a part of the whole, called by us ‘Universe,’ a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest — a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security.”

Humanity won’t survive into the distant future unless we grow into a conscious species, and part of that growth will necessarily include widening our circles of compassion to include our fellow beings around the world. If we can’t do that, we’re not going to make it. We’re too destructive. We hurt each other and our environment too much. We destroy everything around us trying to shore up wealth and resources for ourselves, and it simply is not sustainable. It’ll get us all killed eventually.

We’ve got to become better. We’ve got to become more caring. More emotionally intelligent. Less susceptible to the manipulations of propaganda. A society driven by truth and compassion rather than lies and the pursuit of profit.

That’s the only way we’re making it out of this awkward adolescent transition stage with these large, capable brains still wound up in vestigial evolutionary fear-based conditioning. That’s the only way we achieve our true potential and build a healthy world together.

ISRAELI OCCUPATION FORCES SHOT MEDICAL DOCTOR DURING ONGOING RAIDS IN THE WEST BANK

Groups Of Illegal Israeli Jewish Settlers Stormed The Courtyards Of Al-Aqsa Mosque In The Occupied East Jerusalem Under The Protection Of Israeli Police On Thursday.

A Palestinian medical doctor was shot and injured by Israeli occupation forces in the Jenin refugee camp in the occupied West Bank on Thursday.

The doctor was shot in the thigh with live ammunition fired by Israeli soldiers as he was leaving a house, the official Palestinian news agency WAFA reported. He was transferred to nearby Ibn Sina Hospital for treatment.

Also on Thursday, Israeli occupation forces raided the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in occupied East Jerusalem, where they set up a military checkpoint and issued fines to several Palestinian vehicles, according to WAFA.

YOUNG MAN DETAINED

In the Old City of Nablus, Israeli occupation forces detained a young man after surrounding a house in the city.

Ibrahim Habash was detained after Israeli army special forces infiltrated the al-Qaysariya neighborhood in the Old City and surrounded the house where he was staying, WAFA reported. This was followed by a raid by Israeli military vehicles into the Old City and its surrounding areas, the report added.

Palestinian authorities estimate that more than 9,300 Palestinians are held in Israeli prisons, including more than 50 women and about 350 children, in addition to those kept in Israeli army camps, according to the Anadolu news agency.

ILLEGAL SETTLERS STORM AL-AQSA

Also on Thursday, groups of illegal Israeli Jewish settlers stormed the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque in occupied East Jerusalem under the protection of Israeli police, the Anadolu news agency reported, citing WAFA.

The report said the illegal settlers entered the compound in groups, carried out provocative tours and performed Talmudic rituals while heavily guarded by Israeli occupation forces.

On Tuesday, the Jerusalem Governorate said that a total of 182 illegal Israeli settlers forced their way into the flashpoint site during morning and evening incursions and performed Talmudic rituals near the Dome of the Rock in the complex under the protection of Israeli police.

The governorate also noted that 778 foreign tourists also entered the mosque through a gate operated by the Israeli occupation authorities.

According to official figures, 4,266 illegal settlers and around 15,000 foreign tourists accessed the mosque compound during November.

SETTLEMENT EXPANSION

Meanwhile, Israeli occupation authorities approved the construction of 764 new settlement units in the central West Bank, Israeli media, cited by Anadolu, reported on Wednesday.

According to Channel 7, the government’s Higher Planning Council agreed to build 478 settler homes in the settlement of Hashmonaim, west of Ramallah in the central West Bank, 230 homes in Beitar Illit and 56 units in Giv’at Ze’ev.

There was no official Israeli statement on the building, the report stated.

Israeli settlement construction has surged across the occupied West Bank since Benjamin Netanyahu’s current government took power at the end of 2022.

Local media said that 51,370 settler homes have been approved across the occupied territory since the beginning of the current government’s term.

According to data from the Israeli anti-settlement group Peace Now, more than 700,000 illegal settlers live in the West Bank, including around 250,000 in East Jerusalem, Anadolu reported.

In a landmark opinion in July last year, the International Court of Justice declared Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory illegal and called for the evacuation of all settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

THE WAR POWERS ACT MUST BE INVOKED BY CONGRESS TO PREVENT A WAR WITH VENEZUELA

Claims That Caracas Poses A Military Threat To The American Homeland Are Demonstrably False. Venezuelan Oil Reserves Which Are The Greatest In The West Are The Real Target.

Current Venezuela discourse within the Trump administration is eerily reminiscent of the run-up to the Iraq war. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth, and Fox News are beating the drums of war, perpetuating falsehoods that grossly exaggerate Venezuela’s threat to America. Over the last few weeks, inaccurate claims that Caracas bears responsibility for America’s fentanyl crisis, supplies Hamas with uranium, or directly conspires against America with Iran and Hezbollah have become the new “Saddam has WMDs” deception to justify a sham war and regime change in Venezuela.

The constant peddling of such claims is slowly being normalized within the public psyche and has laid the groundwork for a series of extralegal military operations off Venezuela’s coastal waters under the guise of counter-narcoterrorism operations. Guardrails are needed, and fast. If Congress does not immediately assert its rightful authority, under the 1973 War Powers Resolution, to stop the escalating intervention, then the United States risks following the same dark path that laid the groundwork for the horrific invasion of Iraq.

A few days ago, a group of mostly House Democrats introduced a War Powers resolution to prevent unauthorized American military action in Venezuela. That should not be viewed as a symbolic gesture, but a legitimate step toward emergency constitutional intervention. The War Powers Resolution of 1973 exists for this exact reason: to prevent American presidents from unilaterally declaring war by imposing a series of congressional oversight mechanisms designed to prevent conflict and add transparency to the deliberation process. It also stipulates “the president must notify Congress within 48 hours of military action” and prohibits the use of the armed forces in such an action for more than 60 days (or up to 90 days with a withdrawal period) unless Congress has approved the action or issued a declaration of war.

Unfortunately, the War Powers Resolution, since being enshrined into American law, has yet to prevent American military operations or war. Given the number of bungled foreign policy decisions the United States has made in that time, now would be a great time for Congress to assert its authority over war-making and establish a new precedent within the executive branch’s strategic calculus going forward.

A true War Powers process would force the administration to back its claims. Congress could vet the veracity of the evidence and likely counter these claims with indisputable evidence that we all know is being ignored. In effect, invoking the War Powers Resolution would usher in much needed transparency to prove key points that would prevent Venezuela from becoming Iraq 2.0: Venezuela is not driving the fentanyl crisis, does not possess or transfer nuclear material to Hamas, and does not pose a military threat to the United States.

Consider first the faux fentanyl claims. The White House claims or strongly implies that Venezuela is behind major fentanyl trafficking into the United States and has used this point to justify its military strikes on small boats off the coast of Venezuela. A War Powers investigation would show that the DEA pinpointed Mexican cartels, with chemical components originating from China, as the main perpetrators behind the trafficking of illicit fentanyl into the United States. Simply put, fentanyl does not come from Venezuela.

The claim that Caracas is transferring nuclear material and/or knowhow to Hamas is equally without merit. The pro-war Rep. Maria Salazar (R-FL) appeared on Fox News and stated that Nicolás Maduro is supplying uranium to Hamas and other armed groups in the Middle East. But the fact is that Venezuela does not even have a nuclear weapons program.

Every false claim made about Venezuela recalls the cherry-picked intelligence used to manufacture consent for the Iraq war by depicting Saddam Hussein as being in cahoots with terrorists and possessing weapons of mass destruction. Rubio, for example, has been pontificating about Maduro’s alleged ties to Iran and Hezbollah. The secretary of state hasn’t provided any evidence that Maduro’s regime is conspiring with Iranian and Hezbollah forces to threaten America. What we do know, however, is that Rubio is one of the most hawkish forces within the Trump administration and has been one of the biggest proponents for regime change in Venezuela.

Rubio is not the only figure in the administration who would be curbed by a War Powers Resolution. Over the last few months, the American regime has carried out over 22 military strikes off the coast of Latin America, killing 86 people in what it deems counter narco-terror operations. Hegseth has reportedly been the one of the main architects of these strikes, including the ones on boats off the Venezuelan coast, drawing the ire of Congress in the process. The strikes have prompted many to assert the possibility that the American regime may have violated both American and international maritime law.

One reason Republican lawmakers should support a War Powers resolution to stop intervention in Venezuela is that the White House unilaterally declaring war against Caracas is antithetical to the “America First” movement. Seventy percent of Americans oppose a war with Venezuela, and Americans would rather see their tax dollars spent on reviving the American Dream and improving the quality of life in the United States, rather than fueling the military-industrial complex. If Congress fails to invoke War Powers—or if Trump subsequently ignores such an invocation—this would be a continued betrayal of the ideals that the president has long championed.

Even more so, an unnecessary war against Venezuela runs counter to Trump’s electoral promise, emphasized in his second inaugural address, that he would be a peacemaker. Over the last year, this pledge has been strained in the Middle East. The United States continues to be attached at the hip to Israel, which has now expanded its military operations from the West Bank and Gaza into Syria and South Lebanon, all while possibly gearing up for round two with Iran. Moreover, the American regime has repeatedly bombed Somalia under Trump. What exactly has the American regime gained from all of this? Nothing that benefits ordinary Americans.

Now, more than ever, the United States needs the War Powers Resolution as a constraining mechanism against forces who do not prioritize American interests, constitutional principles, or global stability.