Hezbollah wades in

Garland Nixon interviews Laith Marouf — Tuesday’s West Asia update.
Israel (and the combined West) can’t go left.

Iran’s exposure of western air defenses was exploited by Lebanese Hezbollah in the last 48 hours. Send swarms of drones to saturate ADs, followed by the pinpoint kamikaze drones/missiles..
Zionists have switched from direct Iran confrontation (for now) to the non-state actors, starting a spade of Hezbollah assassinations in last week and resuming culling Palestinians, in their fine traditional style.
Hezbollah has matched the raised intensity of attacks — jumping to obliterate command bases 25-30 km from the border with high-value targets (at least one general admitted killed, see Salon)
Israel has been totally defeated on all fronts, including intelligence gathering, with secret commands being taken down several times, including those skulking in arab-israeli community centers used as human shields (!). The only remaining card remains: drag in USUK somehow, but now to save their necks from Hezbollah
a tit-for-tat liquidation of Israeli/Hezbollah commanders is underway in last week, with Hezbollah having acquired unprecedented up-to-date surveillance capability of enemy movements, in addition to precision projectiles.
the zionists, supported to the hilt by western elites, will continue to perpetuate massacres and abominations against Palestinians, until physically stopped by the Resistance. That is the only recourse left.
The masks have been dropped by combined West. This war will continue, and intensify, through at least the US Elections.. (he doesn’t anticipate inclusion of Iran again as a direct front, until after elections)
There was a feeble, symbolic response by Israel on Isfahan, driven by US fear of repercussions, given severe depletion in 404. Most likely they used a few quadcopter drones hoisted by MEK terrorists from within Iran, given their ranges.
… instability in CONUS will be driven by fuel prices … and continuing student protests which will continue as Genocide in Palestine will certainly continue, in echoes of Vietnam, with similar hit pieces by the national guard (NG) to soon play their knuckle-dragger roles… the chaos and agony of West Asia comes home.. and will those NG really turn their guns on their own class??

Sunni-Shiite shism, carefully curated by Anglo-Zionists since 2006 Hezbollah victory over Zion, is now kaput. Billions upon billions invested in Hate between sects was exposed by the Shiite led Resistance being sole members coming to defense of Sunni Hamas and Palestinians. The Lie was exposed. Youth are now immunized against these divide et impera lies. The totering criminal compradore regimes are more exposed than ever. The Sunni street can not be tricked now to join a crusade against Iran or Hezbollah or Houthis or Iraqi Resistance — seeing who the real enemies are. The Empire is bereft and isolated in the region.
The Victories of Russia and China will happen in Palestine. As with Napolean and Hitler, obsession over defeating Russia has severely weakened USUK in West Asia, critical center of global trade and commodities and silk/maritime roads…..
Soleimani’s genius: Bury yourself 70m and you cannot be touched by a casualty-averse Empire with insufficient boots. This has been the secret strategy (in addition to cheap tech precision dronification, patience and attrition warfare) to outlast and beat the Last Satanic Empire, as exemplified by Yemen.
Yemen’s gift to mankind: its resolute chokehold over the Bab El Mandeb has sped up the fall of the thalassocratic Anglo-Zionist Empire.
Geography largely determines fate. Sea-based will lose out to land-based that is immovable. The owners and friends of the Holy Land will move the World (take that Mackinder! This is the real Heartland), not those who in senseless futility went to die in the rich black soil of Novorossiya
The Cradle of Civilization, the Triangle between Iraq, Egypt and Yemen, were the land-based empires and powers. As the USUK collapses, this region will regain its traditional heft and role in relations of nations, as China has regained hers in last decades
Yemen, Iran and the West Asian Axis of Resistance have got China’s back in applying commensurate pressure on USUK’s SLOCs if the deranged dare to shut down Malacca and SCS… China has defeated USUK without a single battle
The bluster of USUK has been called by Iran, shown to be weaker than a spider’s web, which will lead to further dominos toppling in Korea, Monroe-lands, etc…

Palestinian Resistance Continues

Jon Elmer takes a look at last week’s videos from the resistance in Gaza and the West Bank. As in 404, to the last zionazi invader …. the Holy Land, the eternal Black Hole devourer of Empires beyond count

Accelerants of Armageddon

It needs to be understood there’s calculated purpose behind ostentatious bestiality. Listen to this very short piece. If you have imagination, and understand what is being done in a traditional region with ancient sense of honor, justice, and chivalry, and that Palestinians are not alone but enveloped in a larger matrix, everything becomes clear about the nature of the provocation. I omit the visual horrors and details, ubiquitous throughout social media… this is how to detonate the Earth and ensure the end of the Old Order

Did Zion try to Nuke Iran?

Was Israel Going to Nuke Iran as Pepe Escobar’s Source Claims? | Ray McGovern

Note the day after the controversial F-35 mission, the committed Christian Zionist in charge of the US House of Representatives put to a successful vote the $61 Billion funding bill for both the genocided Ukraine and Genocidal Zion.. on the April 20 birthday of Adolf Hitler

Israel vs. Iran – a Trigger towards Armageddon?

One might ask, was this “out-of-control” situation planned and prepared by the Zionist-dominated west?

Peter Koenig
17 April 2024

Israel’s Minister of War, Joav Galant, told his troops the Iranian attack was not successful; that of about hundred drones and rockets, Israel downed them all but four, thanks to our good preparation. This is a lie on many levels.

Both Netanyahu and Galant expressed their determination to retaliate, after a well-thought-out plan. Netanyahu qualified, it needs to be a “clever response”.

Likewise, army chief Halevi is crystal clear in his attempt of launching a response for Iran’s retaliation attack on Israel, but he does not want to cause a war.

The Israeli Cabinet is also “mulling” over what they call a “political offensive” – whatever that may mean.

Interesting though, is that both sides, Israel and Iran, do not seem to want war, or better a HOT WAR, where sable rattling could surreptitiously convert into a mushroom cloud. They know, when NATO gets involved, Russia and China may get involved – and then – the sky is open and Armageddon is on the table – or, rather, all over Mother Earth.

If indeed, Israel goes ahead with such a counter-attack, however benign or non-benign it may be, it is like giving Biden the finger. Because, according to the latest news, Biden backtracked from his earlier limitless commitment to support Israel and to always fight for Israel’s security. Biden’s “back-stoppers” must have told him otherwise: “America is not going to war with Iran for Israel.” – Israel – you are on your own, so to speak.

That was a smart decision. Will they stick to it? The US is divided. There are the Zionists, who so far have called the shots in Washington and in the Pentagon. But the balance is gradually shifting in favor of the more level-headed thinkers, those who do not want to risk WWIII which could become nuclear – and global.

Similar messages of “caution” seem to emanate from British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, a strong supporter of Zionism. He called Benjamin Netanyahu, suggesting prudence in any further action he may take. An escalation – that could spin out of control, is in nobody’s interest.

Nevertheless, PM Sunak assured Netanyahu of UK’s support to “guarantee Israel’s security”.

If this sounds like a game of words, probably it is a game of words. Maybe hiding a surprise – and perhaps during the days of “thinking about prudence”, something much bigger may be under preparation. Knowing the Israel-Zionist’s own supremacy concept, they will not let the Iranian attack, even if well justified, go unanswered.

Just to refresh memories, because they are systematically wiped out by the bought mainstream media: Iran launched a measured, but well calculated retaliation attack on Israeli military targets in the early morning hours of 14 April. The drone and ICBM missile assault of some 300 projectiles was a response for Israel’s unprovoked attack of 1 April on Iran’s Consulate in Damascus, leaving 7 people dead, including 2 high ranking Iranian military officers.

By the multitude of rockets Iran fired on Israel in sequence, first the drones than the missiles, Iran suppressed Israel’s and their allies air defense system that concentrated on intercepting drones and was unable to intercept the subsequently launched hypersonic missiles.

Tehran having entered a new stage of political and military stature beyond the Middle Eastern boundaries, had to react to Israel’s Damascus provocation of 1 April, in terms of a clear message, “Don’t mess with Iran – or else”.

Iran, now militarily speaking, one of the three key members of the newly ten BRICS nations, must assure the west that sanctions and threats and random unprovoked attacks will not cut it anymore.

The 14 April attack by Iran, was not just a retaliatory strike, but established a new order, depriving Israel of her absolute impunity, which until recently had been guaranteed by the US.

Important to note is, that Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) Commander-in-Chief, Hossein Salami, said that from now on, if Israel attacks the interests of Iran and Iranian citizens, Tehran will strike it again (RT – 16 April 2024).

This means, that if Israel now hits back, Iran will not just swallow whatever Israel does to harm Iran. And there is the danger – a real risk of escalation out of control.

One might ask, was this “out-of-control” situation planned and prepared by the Zionist-dominated west?

Let us not forget, whatever Zionist-Israel does in pursuit of her ultimate goal, the establishment of Greater Israel, is to control the Middle East’s inexhaustible energy resources.

Achieving Greater Israel depends very much on Israel conquering Iran, not only because Iran is literally in “command” of the oil and gas rich Middle East, but also, a Greater Israel needs control over the Strait of Hormuz, now controlled by Iran.

Currently about 30% or more of the world’s total oil and gas consumption is shipped through the Strait of Hormuz. See this

With a Greater Israel, the bulk of Middle Eastern hydrocarbons would be under Zionist-Israeli control — and, with the Strait of Hormuz under Israeli control, shipments of the energy resources, how much and to whom, would be under Zionist command.

Not to forget, Zionist-Israel is already in the process of appropriating the enormous gas reserves off-shore of Gaza – conservatively estimated already some 20 years ago at about a trillion cubic-feet, worth between 2 and 3 billion dollars, depending on the market price. And as we know, he, who controls the resource, decides its “market” price.

An updated assessment of the Gaza off-shore reserves may be exponentially higher. Of course, kept secret, given the current war and expropriation scenario by Zionist-Israel.

The huge port that is rumored to be planned just outside Gaza – maybe construction has already begun, has little to do with food delivery to Gaza (certainly not), or “exporting” the remaining Gazans to unknown destinations.

Much more likely will this be the port for handling the Gaza off-shore hydrocarbons through a yet to be built (but planned since 1971) Ben-Gurion Canal, all the way to the Red Sea. The new canal, would probably bankrupt the Suez Canal, possession of Egypt, an Arab state.

The Suez Canal is already suffering due to lack of transshipments of at least 20 European countries, who are afraid the Yemeni-Houthi attacks on US and Israeli controlled merchandise vessels could also target their ships.

’Twas the night afore Armageddon

This Big Picture vision speaks for Israel not letting go. From their point of view, they MUST conquer Iran. The Zionists may be so blinded by their delusion of “grandeur”, that they may not see the Mushroom Cloud that may wipe them out along with much of the rest of the world.

The reality is that Iran is no longer alone. Iran wants to make sure that their power and presence is accounted for by Israel, the US, its European vassals, and the west at large – because they are now a member of the new BRICS which is not just an economic association.

Their membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) – a strategic and economic Chinese agency – protects them from outside attacks, the same way NATO members are protected. Attack one NATO member you attack them all.

Attack One BRICS state, you attack them all.

Retaliation in the case of an attack on Iran can come from all or selected members of the ten BRICS countries, especially from Russia and China; which would pretty much mean WWIII.

This may be the reason for Iran’s relatively benign retaliation against Israel. It was a warning.

Iran does not want war. They may follow the Tao philosophy, as expressed by Sun Tzu in ancient times, “To fight 100 battles and win 100 battles is not the height of skill. The best way to win is not to fight at all.” This is Iran’s strategy. Its strike against Israel was not so much a military response as a grandmaster’s move in a big chess game. And the game is not over yet (RT, 16 April 2024).

May President Putin’s words resonate and be taken seriously, “I hope WWIII can be avoided” – meaning that an Israeli assault on Iran would not remain unanswered by Russia – which would bring in NATO – and WWIII could explode overnight.

————

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

The West begs Iran for a Face-saver

Israel is now vowing to respond to Iran’s retaliatory attack, and while the Biden regime claims to have told Netanyahoo that the U.S. won’t aid in any offensive action, they are still promising to provide air defense… just like they did when Tehran retaliated for Israel’s deadly attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria.

Journalist and Editor-in-Chief of The Cradle, Sharmine Narwani, reported that an Iranian military security official revealed exclusively to The Cradle that the U.S. reached out and asked Iran to allow Israel “a symbolic strike to save face,” which was “outright rejected” and met with warnings that any attack from Israel targeting Iran will be met with immediate action.

~~~~~

Choreographed retaliations impacting Iran proper, or its interests anywhere else, as during the mild and lawful Round One Iranian barrage, were rejected by Iran for Round Two.

Iran warned ANY support of Zion’s aggression by the deranged West (such as needed aerial refueling and air defense) will bring retaliation on their bases throughout the region, and closing Hormuz, perhaps selectively a la Houthis?!

Zion is committed to regaining permanently lost deterrence. F-UKUS is committed to Zion. The circle is about to be squared

Iran Strikes Israel

Garland Nixon interviews Laith Marouf — West Asia update — on a seismic week which changed our world. Le roi est mort, vive le roi!

Iran’s retaliation is historic for Palestine, the region, our world. Zio-USUK suffered a strategic defeat, on top of moral defeat of Gaza
the regional war has moved from non-state actors to state-on-state [with the implications of aligned alliances a la 1914]
Iran forced Anglo-Zionist-NATO alliance to reveal their air defenses (AD), including radars, locations, capabilities, occult allies (GCC), tactics, etc.  It made clear Franco-Brits are vassals; the combined West is a totalitarian Empire under a single diktat, for those oblivious the last six months of Genocide…
Iran has started bleeding both their budgets/treasure ($3+ BILLION cost in a few hours!) and air defense interceptors/warjets wear & tear/munitions through massive unprecedented swarm of cheap drones
Iran demonstrated, in addition to precision of its older drones/missiles (! Thx Comrades BeiDou & GLONASS), significant deterrence
Israel demonstrated its survival is dependent on combined West – demoted to abject vassal like Bahrain from its former optical strut
even this western defense is proven worthless, as in 404. US funded and part-built air defenses were thoroughly exposed.
as they proved they could take down western AD using older drones and Scuds, in real war they would rapidly degrade airbases and hardware required for the sole remaining advantage of Anglo-Zionists – air power; Hamas has exposed ground war inadequacy and Houthis the lost naval force projection.
Everything in Israel today exists by Grace of Iran (!!!). It can be leveled
Hezbollah today salted the wounded by blasting another “Iron” Dome AD complex in north occupied Palestine
during the Iranian aerial slap, Netanyahoo hid in the Jerusalem bunker of the messianic Jewish billionaire funding the Red Heifer sacrifice, destruction of Al Aqsa Masjid and building of the Third Temple on its ruins. The crazed want Armageddon. The Danger remains
A lesson learned by multipolar Global Majority during this measured & mild Iranian deterrence action: the US will need to bring all its forces for zionazi proxy to have a chance! Thus dominoes will quickly fall everywhere else, whether 404, Korea, etc.. [unfortunately, this INCREASES risk of total West Asian war.. all now have a vested interest in finishing off the Last Satanic Empire in such a distant and predictable weak theater, also given its tenuous logistics and abject emotional messianic devotion. iow, an emotional albatross]
As Houthis have same weaponry as Iran, they are shown to have pulled their punches in Red Sea.. more proof of imperial lunacy to keep fighting a lost war, merely for optics
if USUK persist, they will end up third world countries at the end of this mad devotion to Zion [AHH: actually, a best case scenario at this point]
Jordanian compradore regime will soon cease to exist; its fate is linked to zionism now
the Arab region now plans for the day after collapse of Zion, and eviction of USUK (provided we’re still alive); this is not merely Greater Syria but other natural agglomerations which used to exist prior to arrival of West or even Turks
Garland: the strike on Israel was an Exclamation Point of the [arrival] of the Multipolar World

Iran’s ‘Strategic Patience’ lifts to Serious Deterrence

Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel were not conducted alone. Strategic partners Russia and China have Tehran’s back, and their role in West Asia’s conflict will only grow if the US doesn’t keep Israel in check.

By Pepe Escobar at The Cradle.

Iran’s Retaliation: Early Implications

Iran’s Retaliation: Implications of the Attack on Israel | Syriana Analysis W/ Mohammad Marandi

Join us as we explore the recent unprecedented Iranian attack on Israel, which consisted of a wave of drones and missiles launched in retaliation for an attack on the Iranian consulate in Syria. Dr. Mohammad Marandi, a Professor at the University of Tehran, provides insights on the implications of this attack.

“The era of strategic patience is over.” As with Bears forced to awaken over Genocide in Novorossiya, it is active deterrence from now on.

Iran on the Rise

Peter Koenig
14 April 2024

The warning was on the wall. Ever since Israel attacked “out of the blue” on 1 April 2024 the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, Syria, killing 7, including two generals, an Iranian retaliation was to be expected.

The New York Times (NYT) reports “Iran mounted an immense aerial attack on Israel on Saturday night, launching more than 200 drones [other sources talk about 300 drones] and missiles in retaliation for a deadly Israeli airstrike in Syria two weeks ago, and marking a significant escalation in hostilities between the two regional foes.”

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) say there were over 300 aerial threats, including some 200 drones, 100 ballistic missiles, and 30 cruise missiles. See this.

Israel and her western friends claim that many of the drones were intercepted by IDF and the help from allied military support. The latter apparently include the UK, France, and Jordan – and most likely also US-NATO forces that have long been stationed in the region.

Nevertheless, according to several RT reports, a large-scale missile and drone attack against Israel has been a success, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) has said in a statement published by IRNA news agency. The Islamic Republic’s military managed to “hit and destroy” some “important military targets,” it added, without providing any further details.

Short video clips published by Iranian media on social networks, viewing Islamic Republic’s missiles hitting their targets in Israel. Several missiles appeared to have been striking targets in a settlement, RT reports, however without being able to confirm the veracity of the clips.

The Guardian informs, that it was the Islamic Republic’s first-ever direct attack on the Jewish State, a development that brings the two countries to the brink of all-out conflict after more than a decade of shadow war and soaring stress six months into Israel’s war in Gaza, following the Hamas attack last October.

It was reported on Israeli television that Iran had launched more than 100 drones as well as cruise missiles towards Israel, and Iran later said it had fired a “first wave” of ballistic missiles. See this.

This latest war theatre is in full development. At this point it is unclear what exactly happened and to what level the conflict may escalate. A regional war – that could expand to a WW-scenario is a real danger. It depends largely to what extent foreign – non regional – players, will get involved. Arab states have already warned against any “foreign”, meaning non-regional, intervention. Specifically, that means the US / NATO. The latter would include of course almost all of the spineless European nations.

—–

Iran has many reasons for retaliation. Other than the Syrian Consulate event, the killing of General Qasem Soleimani with a targeted US drone attack on 3 January 2020 in Baghdad. This assassination was still carried out under President Trump, but the question remains, did he act on behalf of Israel – as many analysts suspect?

After a public mourning of Major General Soleimani, Iran launched missiles against US military bases in Iraq wounding at least 110 troops. Deaths were not officially reported.

Over the past several decades Israeli provocations on Iran abounded no end. Israel’s intent is to wipe out Iran as part of its “master plan” towards “Greater Israel”, and control of the Gulf of Hormuz with access to the Arabian Sea – and ultimately Asia. And in the north, where Israel is currently attempting to brutally genociding Palestinians – evicting them from their homeland, an atrocious slaughter supported by most western un-human leaders (sic).

This is not only Apartheid “social cleansing” – it is also taking possession – stealing – of tens or hundreds of billions worth of Gazan off-shore gas reserves.

To be sure, Israel is an illegal state, on Palestinian land stolen through the 1917 UK-sponsored Zionist-initiated Balfour Declaration, with the support in 1948 of the then 52-member young US-dominated United Nations. See this.

——–

For the past 100 years or so, Washington was – and still is – tacitly as well as openly manipulated by a strong worldwide Zionist movement. Zionists control the world’s – at least the western world’s – financial system, Big Finance, Wall Street, and not least the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), in Basle Switzerland, also called the Central Bank of all central banks, controlling about 90% of the worldwide monetary flow. All in Zionists command.

There is a strong symbiotic relationship, an interdependence between the Zionists, today’s Israel, and the US. The Zionists, the self-declared Chosen People, wield the scepter of Big Finance, aspiring for world domination through Greater Israel (see provisional map, below), with the might of military power by the United States.

Iran is the major stumbling block for Israel’s Zionists to achieve their goal. Once Iran is conquered, they dream, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf States will fall in place.

Zionist-Israel has been allowed by the discreet influence of the US and UK secret services to become a “clandestine” nuclear power. They know they can count not only on the US tax-payers financial support, but more importantly, also with the Pentagon’s military might. By the way, US tax-payers have been footing a considerable portion of Israel’s budget for its 75-year existence.

Sounds controversial, doesn’t it – with the Zionists in control of worldwide Big Finance.

Israel’s provocations on Iran are openly or tacitly supported or even encouraged by Washington. The Washington war-mongers would love to go to war with Iran, a military and economic heavy weight, way beyond the Middle East.

And now, as a new BRICS member (BRICS-plus 5 [the sixth nation, Argentina, dropped out]), Iran’s strength has expanded almost exponentially, with such heavy-weight allies like China and Russia.

——

Israel’s assault on the Iranian Consulate in Damascus, may have been the spark that lit the fire. The extent of the “fire” cannot be assessed yet, as it will depend on clear-thinking and levelheadedness – or not – of western decision makers – specifically NATO countries.

President Biden has been clear, so western media: “Our support for Israel’s security is ironclad. The United States will stand with the people of Israel and support their defense against these threats from Iran.”

How serious is this American promise? – There is more at stake than words, especially considering Israel’s ever deeper falling within the world’s sympathy for her non-stop onslaught against Gaza and Palestine in general – having killed more than 35,000 Palestinians, about 70% of whom are women and children.

Strategically speaking, can the US afford this “unwavering” support for an outright genocide nation? And secondly, Washington knows that Iran has full support from Russia and China, Iran’s BRICS allies. BRICS association has similar meaning to that of NATO’s: Attack one country means you attack them all – and retaliation may be massive.

Are there still a few clear-thinking western political human strategists left, not to risk total destruction of civilization as we know it? – As President Putin has warned on several occasions, A Third World War, turning nuclear has no winner.

Let us hope reason and the sense for Peace will prevail.

————

Peter Koenig is a geopolitical analyst and a former Senior Economist at the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), where he worked for over 30 years around the world. He is the author of Implosion – An Economic Thriller about War, Environmental Destruction and Corporate Greed; and  co-author of Cynthia McKinney’s book “When China Sneezes: From the Coronavirus Lockdown to the Global Politico-Economic Crisis” (Clarity Press – November 1, 2020)

Peter is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG).
He is also a non-resident Senior Fellow of the Chongyang Institute of Renmin University, Beijing.

 

Unprecedented Trauma in Gaza

As Surgeons, We Have Never Seen Cruelty Like Israel’s Genocide in Gaza. We urge anyone who reads this to publicly oppose sending weapons to Israel as long as this onslaught continues.

By Feroze Sidhwa and Mark Perlmutter at Common Dreams.

On March 25 the two of us, an orthopedic surgeon and a trauma surgeon, traveled to the Gaza Strip to work at Gaza European Hospital in Khan Younis. We were immediately overwhelmed by the overflown sewage and the distinct smell of gunpowder in the air. We made the short journey from the Rafah crossing to Khan Younis, where Gaza European Hospital stands as one of the last remaining semi-functional hospitals for the 2.5 million human beings—half of them children—in the Gaza Strip. As humanitarian surgeons we thought we had seen all manner of cruelty in the world, but neither one of us has ever experienced anything like what we found when we arrived in Gaza.

We exited the van into a sea of children, all shorter and thinner than they ought to have been. Even over their screams of joy at meeting new foreigners, the snowmobile-like hum of Israeli drones could be heard overhead. It quickly became background noise, an omnipresent reminder that violence and death can rain down on anyone at any time in this besieged and ransacked territory.

Our limited sleep was constantly interrupted by explosions that shook the hospital’s walls and popped our ears, even well after the United Nations Security Council declared a cease-fire must be implemented. When warplanes screamed overhead, everyone braced for a particularly loud and powerful explosion. The timing of these attacks always coincided with “iftar,” when families in this overwhelmingly Muslim county broke the daily fast of Ramadan and were most vulnerable.

We as Americans must acknowledge that we are responsible for this crime against humanity, now in its seventh month and unfolding in full view of the entire world.

We walked through the wards and immediately found evidence of horrifying violence deliberately directed at civilians and even children. A three-year-old boy shot in the head, a 12-year-old girl shot through the chest, an ICU nurse shot through the abdomen, all by some of the best-trained marksmen in the world. Every square inch of the hospital’s floor is taken up with makeshift tents where displaced families live, desperate to find some semblance of safety. They are the lucky several hundred who get to live indoors, unlike the tens of thousands sheltering outside on the hospital’s grounds.

As we got to work we were shocked by the violence inflicted on people. Incredibly powerful explosives ripped apart rock, floors, and walls and threw them through human bodies, penetrating skin with waves of dirt and debris. With the environment literally embedded in our patients’ bodies we have found infection control to be impossible. No amount of medical care could ever compensate for the damage being inflicted here.

As humanitarian trauma surgeons we have both seen incredible suffering. Collectively, we were present at Ground Zero on 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Boston Marathon bombing, and the 2010 earthquake in Haiti on the first day of these disasters. We have worked in the deprivation of southern Zimbabwe and the horrors of the war in Ukraine. Together we have worked on more than 40 surgical missions in developing countries on three continents in our combined 57 years of volunteering. This long experience taught us that there was no greater pain as a humanitarian surgeon than being unable to provide needed care to a patient.

But that was before coming to Gaza. Now we know the pain of being unable to treat a child who will slowly die, but also alone, because she is the only surviving member of an entire extended family. We have not had the heart to tell these children how their families died: burned until they resembled blistered hotdogs more than human beings, shredded to pieces such that they can only be buried in mass graves, or simply entombed in their former apartment buildings to die slowly of asphyxia and sepsis.

The United States has heavily funded and overwhelmingly armed what is called “the occupation” of Palestine, but the term is misleading. Israel’s first president, Chaim Weizmann, declared that the existence of the Palestinians was simply “a matter of no consequence.” Thirty years later, Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan told the Israeli cabinet that the Palestinians “would continue to live like dogs…and we will see where this process leads.”

Now we know: This is where it leads. It leads to Gaza European Hospital, and to two surgeons realizing that the blood on the floor of the trauma bay and the operating room is dripping from our own hands. We Americans provide the crucial funding, weapons, and diplomatic support for a genocidal assault on a helpless population.

The two of us continue to hope against hope that American politicians, and especially President Joe Biden, will abandon their support for Israel’s war on the Palestinians. If they do not, then we have learned nothing from the history of the past hundred years. Polish poet Stanislaw Jerzy Lec quipped that “no snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible,” but we as Americans must acknowledge that we are responsible for this crime against humanity, now in its seventh month and unfolding in full view of the entire world.

By December, the Israeli Air Force had dropped so much American ordinance on Gaza that it exceeded the explosive force of two of the atomic bombs that destroyed Hiroshima. Nearly 14,000 children have been killed in Gaza in the past six months, more than were killed in all war zones in the entire world in the past four years combined. No conflict of any size in history has ever been this deadly to journalists, healthcare workers, or paramedics. Indeed, we and our entire team lived in constant fear that Israel would attack Gaza European Hospital directly, as it has with so many others. The complete and utter destruction of al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, along with the killing, kidnapping, and torture of the healthcare staff, only heightened this sense of dread.

We came to Gaza as two individual snowflakes trying to stop this avalanche of death and horror, and yet we also feel responsible for it. We urge anyone who reads this to publicly oppose sending weapons to Israel as long as this genocide continues, until the Israeli siege of Gaza is lifted, and until an end to the occupation can be negotiated.

Defeats Foretold

the main discussion begins around 30 min; the preamble is worthwhile too. He discusses the first glimmers of dawning realization of absolute defeat in the messianic madmen — a Haaretz article from yesterday (paywall). Nothing new to the “Reality-based” but the limits appear to have been reached in saner liberal quarters — beyond the cope of drugs, hedonism and mindless chest-thumping.

What happens when conventional means are no longer sufficient, effective attrition and siege have been laid, and one’s sugar daddy is shown to be a naked, flaccid and geriatric dementia-patient long denied admittance to the padded sanitary homes for the criminally insane?? We are about to find out…….

Israel Has Been Defeated – a Total Defeat
The war’s aims won’t be achieved,
the hostages won’t be returned through military pressure,
security won’t be restored
Israel’s international ostracism won’t end

@KevorkAlmassian

Swine Lake

A Brief History of Bullshit in America – Everything, that is EVERYTHING, is presented counter to reality. There aint NO Money for nothin’ and NO chicks for free. And that’s the whole enchilada …

with thanks from FiveGunsWest and penned by Bones!

Judge Napolitano: “I told Trump, ‘you promised you would release the records of the JFK assassination.’ He said to me ‘If they showed you what they showed me, you wouldn’t have released it either.’ I said ‘Who’s they? What did they show you?’ Trump said “Someday when we’re not on the phone and there aren’t 15 people listening to the call, I’ll tell you.'”

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: “It has been said that after the Kennedy assassination, there has been no president. They have only been factotums of the system since then.”

Lake Flaccid

Notes on the Magic Christian

Guy Grand, an eccentric billionaire prankster, is rich enough to do whatever he likes. And what he likes is to carefully execute projects where he can cauterize by ridicule what the rest of the world ignores: complacency, greed, corruption, and idiocy.

Determined to “make it hot for people,” Grand spends his billions staging a series of hilarious, sometimes bewildering stunts, lampooning along the way the American holy cows of money, status, power, beauty, media, and stardom.

Concocting deliciously perverse mayhem, he throws a million one-hundred-dollar bills into an enormous vat of steaming offal, proving just what people will do for money, and he promotes a new silky shampoo that turns hair to wire and a deodorant that becomes a time-released stench-bomb.

He inserts subliminally suggestive and perverse images into well-loved classic films, takes a howitzer on safari, and brings a panther to a kennel club dog show.

His most elaborate adventure is an ultra-exclusive cruise aboard the S.S. Magic Christian, where elite passengers are treated to a series of madcap indignities.

The Jackal Gargles With Plasma

A Brief Review of ‘A Brief History of Bullshit in America’

Bullshit can be so many things. It could be anything from a degree in Gender Studies to something simple as a three-word campaign slogan, or even something as complicated as our nation’s 6,550-page tax code.

Political speeches, self-help books, marketing, press conferences, tax code, song lyrics, conspiracy theories, many college majors, Santa, the Tooth Fairy, the multi-billion-dollar diet industry, medicine, and even the Constitution of the United States itself are all some form of bullshit in one way or another.

Bullshit is everywhere all around us. It influences the clothes we wear, shapes our political views, and even determines what food we eat.

Bullshitters are beautiful highly intelligent individuals, and they play a vital role in our world.

They start almost all of our wars, make our drugs, sell us our cars, raise and lower our taxes, regulate our economy, they tell us what to wear, and in many instances what to believe. You should develop some basic bullshit strategies that you can use in your own life as well.

April is Confederate History Month.

‘Good Foot in Heaven, Bad Foot in Hell’

Musings of a Crippled Writer Concerning Post-Modern Mesmerism with our hero James LaFond

Lori, a physical therapist of 30 years, choked back tears as she told me, “You are strong, but you have a serious injury. We can’t have you do anymore work then you are doing until the spinal specialist examines you… In the mean time, when taking the stairs, remember this, ‘Good foot in heaven, bad foot in Hell.’ It’s easy to remember that way. Put the weight on the good foot.”

In the week since then, as I have crawled, shrimped, crab walked, crutched, used a walker, wall walked and counter crawled around the Brickmouse House, and out at my mother’s house whom I visited in Whitebreadistan, I had a prawn’s eye view of the world passing bye. The news is all positively delusional and has the same exact messages as the ball games, the TV dramas, the movies and the commercials.

Everything, that is EVERYTHING, is presented counter to reality.

Worried about crime?

The news profiles dangerous white supremacists being brought to justice on hate crime charges. The news paints a picture of the last likely type of American violence, Ghost on Gawd, as the most likely.

Back to school shopping?

Well, the commercials depict the most common concerned parent, a black man shopping for his son. Would you like to vacation on a ranch in your four-wheel drive vehicle? Black cowboys will be there wrangling cattle.

Is there a threat to world peace?

No, it is not the nation that has 931 military bases in other countries. It is the nation that is the largest exporter of fuel and grain to less well off nations, ruled by a cartoon dictator, who makes all military decisions based on how mean and cruel the result would be for enemy civilians.

The news broadcast to the people of Goodland, is full of images of tyrannical nations that are utterly evil threatening world peace. Materialism, or utility, having the best most recent gadget, serves as a great handle for inculcating falsehoods, such as most cowboys, combat soldiers, and truck drivers are black and most violent criminals are white.

The Magic Christian is a 1969 British satirical black comedy film directed by Joseph McGrath and starring Peter Sellers and Ringo Starr, with appearances by John Cleese, Graham Chapman, Raquel Welch, Spike Milligan, Christopher Lee, Richard Attenborough and Roman Polanski. It was loosely adapted from the 1959 comic novel of the same name by American author Terry Southern, who co-wrote the screenplay adaptation with McGrath.

Here’s the whole enchilada …

James continued …

… WWII was so expensive, that it cost so much valuable time and material to be spent on wiping out not enough working class Аrуаns to achieve hive stability, that the Plutocrats decided that war on human flesh and artifacts would only be a stage prop in the real war waged to control the human mind.

When I see the ridiculous news that Doctor Evil is targeting, not tanks and soldiers with his missiles, but “blood banks” “hospitals” and “civilians,” it is clear that the phony war is the one where Eastern Europeans are actually getting killed, and the real war is on the TV and the Smartphone.

 

Iranian Retaliation: the First Domino

---

Israel is provoking an expanded regional war that it cannot win

By Abdel Bari Atwan at Rai Al Youm.

When and how will Iran retaliate?

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is a man of few words. When he publicly threatens a harsh response to Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus — which killed seven people including senior Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) commanders — that means retaliation is impending.

The question is whether it will be immediate or postponed for few days; and, also, if it will be carried out directly by the IRGC or by its paramilitary allies in South Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen, or both.

If there’s a war, there is no need for the element of surprise, and it may be militarily or politically unwise to defer it. The decision to retaliate was already taken by Iran’s Supreme National Security Council at an emergency meeting convened immediately after news broke of the airstrike on the consulate, according to a source close to the council. This could entail launching hundreds or thousands of missiles at Israeli targets, and even striking Israeli diplomatic missions in the Gulf region or elsewhere.

The demonstrations held by thousands of Iranians in Tehran to condemn the Israeli attack were different to previous rallies held in support of Gaza. This time, demonstrators criticised their own political leaders for their failure to respond firmly and directly to a succession of earlier Israeli assassinations and attacks, and demanded they retaliate decisively this time. Iranian leaders are bound to take account of this growing frustration with their policy of ‘strategic patience’.

Allied resistance groups are likely to play a role in this retaliation. Lebanese Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah has said retaliation is certainly coming. Abu Ali al-Askari of Iraq’s Kataeb Hezbollah spoke of thousands of armed fighters prepared to cross from Jordan into occupied Palestinian to join the struggle there. As for the Yemenis, they have no need for a call-to-arms. They began their battle against Israeli-linked shipping — and then the US navy — in support of Gaza months ago.

The reference to Jordan was significant. Some weeks ago, tens of thousands of Iraqi Hashd ash-Shaabi (Popular Mobilisation) members rallied at the Iraqi-Jordanian border and chanted calls for it to be opened so they could reach Palestine and fight in defence of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

In the event of an expanded war, US military bases in Iraq, Syria, Jordan, and the Gulf region could also be targeted. Washington had reached secret understandings with Tehran not to expand the Gaza war into a regional one. But it did not live up to its side and failed to restrain its Israeli ally. By carrying out a succession of deliberately provocative attacks against Iranian targets, and further escalating the genocidal war against civilians in Gaza, Netanyahu belittled and humiliated Biden, and demonstrated that it is he who calls the shots in the White House.

If the Iranian state join the prospective war directly alongside its Lebanese, Iraqi, and Yemeni allies, I expect that the Syrian army will do to. Shortly after the al-Aqsa Flood operation, the Iranian foreign minister visited Damascus to sound the Syrian president out about the need to join the war on all fronts in support of the Palestinian resistance. According to high-level Syrian sources, President Bashar al-Asad replied: “Syria is a state, not a front. If the Iranian state enters into this war, we will be by its side, without hesitation.”

Iran is a regional superpower with a huge arsenal of missiles, drones, and submarines. It has been a nuclear breakout state for three years and may have already manufactured nuclear weapons. If it enters a war that Israel forced on it by attacking its consulate — a blatant violation of its sovereignty — it may prove to be the region’s last war, and the beginning of the end of the Zionist occupation state in its current form.

It would probably be a rolling conflict, starting with a limited retaliation and escalating into all-out war. The occupation state has been reopening public shelters. Its settlers have been stocking up on food and cash. The military has been placed on alert, air defence reservists have been called up, and home leave for combat units cancelled. Its current leaders want a war and are preparing for one.

But it is a war it cannot win. It failed, despite the full backing of the US, to overcome the resistance fighters of the miniscule and vulnerable Gaza Strip after six months of merciless bombardment. Can it withstand a war against the Axis of Resistance led by Iran?

Anglo-Zionists attack Iran

Garland Nixon interviews Laith Marouf — West Asia update: ISRAEL ATTACKS IRANIAN CONSULATE – RUSSIA FURIOUS

wide ranging talk includes:
Anglo-Zionist terrorism on sovereign diplomatic territory of Iran in Damascus
— use of F-35 and weaponry just delivered by the US to attack Iran [a double provocation, carrying imprimatur of Anglo-Americans]
— the calculated savagery in holy time, at time of breaking fast, among top military cadre of Iran in a protected establishment [the banner photo on right is of the martyred General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, assassinated yesterday in Damascus, with future Leader Ayatollah Khamenei during Iran-Iraq war frontline in the 1980s. This was the highest ranking general killed since Soleimani, and a personal friend of Khamenei]
— Iran directly blames the USA
— Israel admitted they obtained permission from USA for the terrorism (!!)
— Likely retaliation at either Israeli embassy in Azerbaijan or Jordan [this is debatable. I disagree. If so, Jordan, to speed along the fall of its odious regime, would be more likely. No need to stir up the gung-ho Azeris tied at the hip to the Sultan in the fragile Transcaucasia as well]

Jordan is tottering and not for long in current condition and regime; Iraq is mobilizing Jordanian Resistance with arms for initial 12,000 cadre as well as severing the “Abraham Accords” land bridge running through the kept GCC concubines
Israel has lost the battles in both Gaza and Lebanon; all this is a provocation to draw in USA, directly against Iran. They are losing the attrition war and are on precipice of Collapse. Lunatics count on dramatic war expansion to the entire region, involving the equally sinking USUK, to save them
Zionism will be conclusively defeated, having already morally defeated itself. A global civilizational siege is on
The occupied Golan height is a front that has been shaped by Hezbollah, Iraqis and Syrian resistances. They degraded much of the installations and hardened military sites. In major upcoming war expansion, these critical height will be an objective, and to deny Israel its tremendous water resources.
Iraqis, like Yemenis, have upgraded missiles and drones which now overcome Jordanian, US, and Israeli air defenses, hitting the most sensitive sites in occupied Palestine with pinpoint precision! The building of the naval commander in Eilat was struck a night ago..
Zionists appear to hit targets in civilian areas within Lebanon due to lack of up-to-date knowledge. Some are Hezbollah offices abandoned since 2006! They just lash out for the optical value, and to harm civilians, focusing on first responders and civil defense teams, due to the usual viciousness
ISIS, Zionists, UkroNazis — rabid imperial tools, are thoroughly exposed, and condemn their USUK patron
ISIS in Syria is on last legs — why Idleb largely ignored, to focus on Damascus and major population centers; and for depleted Syria to regain strength. Russia is also busy on so many other fronts, chiefly 404 but also Sahel, Transcaucasia, Asia-Pacific, etc..
Erdogan: punished at local elections due to anger over his two-faced Palestine policy, which no longer fools Turks…
the sheer satanism of Al Shifa Hospital
the purposeful targeting of medical and humanitarian aid (food delivery) workers in Gaza
the shelf life of the Zionist project: sayonara! Put a fork in the bastards
the future consolidation of region around Greater Syria — with the end of the zionist project, Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, Palestine (and northern KSA) will disappear to return into the historic Greater Syria of the Holy Land, connectivity center of the Afro-Asian World Island.
the moral midget Little Blinkie returns to Saudi today to push them to normalize with the Zionists (!) And zionazi-controlled western media also is pushing Saudi normalization with Zionists. Unbelievable. You can’t fix Stupid
The West is fatally sucked into West Asia — as its last gasp and energy is fully devoted to zionism– other regions such as the Sahel, 404, slip through the dripping claws…
the contraction of Empire began at Syria, with the loss of that war during [official] Obama days
the loss of Israel will mean the loss of this Empire’s crown jewels, as with the Brits losing India.. a retreat across the Pond..
China is an active member of the Axes of Resistance — backstopping Russia, Iran, the Sahel, and others through its hefty wallets and protecting them from vicious imperial sanctions tool. There is a Global-Resistance. The two major civilizational states built up Iran, Yemen, other middlings to serve as firebreaks of Armageddon. The delusional Empire will exhaust and shatter itself long before it can get to a direct contest..
within the next two weeks, the messianic madmen will try to engineer Armageddon through ritual sacrificing of a Texan GMO red heifer, demolishing the Al Aqsa Mosque and turbo-charging a contrived civilizational war
mankind will come to appreciate and thank the 1.5+ century anti-imperialist sacrifice of the Palestinian nation. Being part of Greater Syria, they were simply the rock that could not be budged from the middle of the road

Russia and The Holy Land

A continuation of the thought of “Zionism, Arrogance & World War III” — why a rising Orthodox Russia is fated to bury both Messianic Judaism and the hired western muscle in the Holy Land — from the perspective of geopolitics and geoeconomics. The eschatological consequences of lose-lose predicaments are profound

By Jamal Wakim at Al Mayadeen.

Gamal Abdel Nasser announced in 1969 that the battle on the banks of the Suez Canal would decide the fate of the world. This piece explains how.

Russia’s victory in struggle with collective West will be achieved in Middle East, not Eastern Europe

This article discusses the importance of what is happening in the Middle East and the battle taking place there specifically in the region extending from Egypt in the west to Iraq in the east to determine the fate of the world. When we talk about this region, there is a connection between the battle taking place in the Middle East and the battle that has always been taking place in the heart of Eurasia, specifically against Russia.

In the past two centuries, Russia was the one facing the so-called collective West, and it was the spearhead in confronting this collective West. In the early nineteenth century, this collective West was represented by Napoleon, and after that, during World War II, the collective West was represented by Nazi Germany, and after World War II, the collective West was represented by the United States of America.

Experience facing Napoleon

In the face of Napoleon’s invasion, we must understand that there was a project for this collective West, represented by global hegemony, and this collective West began its attack in Egypt and the occupation of Egypt in the year 1799. France’s failure in Egypt two years later was what determined Napoleon’s fate, and therefore his defeat was a matter of time in the confrontation against Russia. After that, Napoleon did not succeed in isolating Russia after the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805, despite his victory in this battle. After that, Napoleon had to invade Russia in an attempt to subjugate it, and in this way, he recruited an army from various parts of Europe to begin his invasion of Russia.

On June 24, 1812, and the following days, the first wave of the multinational French Grande Armée crossed the Niemen River, beginning the French invasion of Russia. Despite the great advance of the French forces inside Russian territory, and despite their tactical victory over the Russian army in the Battle of Borodino, and then Napoleon’s occupation of Moscow itself, he was unable to achieve victory over Russia and began his withdrawal five weeks after his entry into Moscow, only to be defeated tactically in the battle. Bonaparte began his retreat before the Russian forces, which pursued him until Paris, where he was forced to abdicate and accept exile to the island of Elba, off the coast of Corsica. Despite his desperate attempt to return to power in early 1815, Napoleon was actually defeated by Russia, but his strategic defeat had begun with his failure in Egypt a decade and a half before that date.

World War II experience

Then, during World War II, Nazi Germany launched a military campaign in North Africa as part of its larger strategic goals. This campaign, led by General Erwin Rommel, was known as the North African Campaign. However, Nazi Germany’s primary focus in Eastern Europe was not initially directed toward the Russian heartland. Instead, it invaded Poland in 1939, which led to the outbreak of the war in Europe. Later, in June 1941, Germany launched Operation Barbarossa, a massive invasion of the Soviet Union, with the intention of capturing key cities like Moscow and Leningrad.

At the time, the advance of Erwin Rommel’s forces in North Africa constituted an attempt to isolate it and reach the Suez Canal and cut off British access to the Middle East. In parallel, Nazi forces had begun to invade the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. They advanced toward major cities like Leningrad, Moscow, and Stalingrad; where they faced tough resistance from the Soviet military and encountered numerous logistical challenges due to the vastness of the territory and the harsh conditions. But it was Erwin Rommel’s failure in the Middle East that sealed the final failure for Nazi Germany, and it was only a matter of time before Nazi Germany was defeated.

Rommel’s defeat at the Battle of El Alamein in the fall of 1942 represented a colossal failure. Therefore, this defeat in the Middle East was followed by the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad in February 1943. The Battle of Stalingrad weakened the German army and boosted Soviet morale, contributing to the eventual Soviet counteroffensive. Then, the Battle of Kursk occurred in July 1943 and was a major offensive launched by Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union. The battle ended in a decisive Soviet victory and marked the beginning of a series of successful Soviet offensives that pushed German forces back toward Eastern Europe. The defeat of Nazi Germany was announced in May 1945.

Brezhnev’s geopolitical shortsightedness

The Soviet Union emerged victorious in the war against Nazi Germany, only to find itself facing the United States, which would take the banner of leadership of the collective West from Nazi Germany. According to the divisions of the Yalta Conference, the Soviets expanded their influence into Eastern and Central Europe, securing a defensive depth in the heart of Russia. But Soviet leader Joseph Stalin did not have the opportunity to reach the eastern Mediterranean after the defeat of the communists in Greece in the civil war in 1947, nor did he have the opportunity to reach the Adriatic Sea after a dispute broke out with Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito, who accepted generous offers from the West to stay away.

About the bloc of socialist countries

Here, the United States began to encircle the bloc of socialist countries by establishing NATO in 1949, which was supposed to besiege the communist bloc and contain the communist influence in Southeast Asia. The Baghdad Pact, also known as the Central Treaty Organization (CENTO), was established in 1955 among Iraq, Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom. It aimed to foster cooperation and mutual defense among its member states, particularly in the face of perceived Soviet expansionism and influence in the Middle East. However, the main target of the United States was to attack the Soviet interior. What hindered this plan was the coup led by Gamal Abdel Nasser in Egypt, which brought him to power. Abdel Nasser declared his blatant opposition to the policy of Western alliances and declared his own policy of non-alignment in the Cold War, and, at the same time, he began to take rapprochement initiatives toward the Soviet Union and the bloc of socialist countries in order to balance Western support for “Israel”. After his victory against Britain, France, and “Israel” during the tripartite aggression, Abdel Nasser was able to overthrow the Baghdad Pact in 1958 after the coup that he supported against the Hashemite monarchy in Iraq in the summer of 1958.

The Soviet rapprochement with Abdel Nasser contributed to opening the African arena to the growth of African-Russian relations and led to the liberation of African countries from Western colonialism.

But after the year 1965 and the coup against Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in the Soviet Union, the arrival of a bureaucratic class with a “Eurocentrism” orientation in the Soviet Union that gave priority to Moscow’s relations with Europe led to the neglect of Soviet-Arab relations and pushed them to second place in terms of importance. What made matters worse was the communist dogmatism of short-sighted Soviet leaders, which made them neglect the geopolitical dimension. Unfortunately, during the Cold War, the Soviet Union, and specifically the leadership that took power after 1965, did not realize the importance of what was happening in the Middle East as a result of its European-centric vision. Therefore, they were content and happy with what was happening with their share of influence in Eastern and Central Europe, and they neglected their influence in the Middle East.

After 1965, the United States took advantage of the short-sightedness of the new Soviet leadership to resolve the battle in the Middle East. The defeat of the Arab countries in 1967 was not against “Israel”, but it was in fact against the collective West, primarily the United States of America, which supports “Israel”. It also constituted the first major defeat for the Soviet Union. Then, the American attack began in Eastern Europe via the destabilization of Czechoslovakia and Poland. And when the Soviet Union left the region, and after Egypt turned toward the United States under Anwar Sadat, the issue of defeating the Soviet Union was only a matter of time. This brings us back to what the late Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser said in 1969 when he announced that the battle on the banks of the Suez Canal would decide the fate of the world. Therefore, the defeat of the progressive Arab countries, led by Egypt, constituted a defeat for the Soviet Union as a whole, making it lose strategic superiority in favor of the United States, which began achieving one victory after another, leading to victory in the Cold War.

In summary

Now what is happening in the Middle East is also a renewed attempt launched by the collective West, led by the United States, to win global hegemony. They began this attack by occupying Afghanistan in 2002, then Iraq in 2003, before heading to the Russian heartland. They began their attack in Afghanistan, occupying Afghanistan, and then invading Iraq, only to begin shortly after the process of the so-called “Arab Spring” aimed at changing regimes through the use of soft power. After the outbreak of the “Arab Spring”, an indirect war was launched against Russia in the year 2014. Therefore, what is happening in the Middle East, in my estimation, is that any victory in Eastern Europe will not be decisive until the Middle East is done, and, therefore, the Eurasian powers led by Russia must focus their attention on the battle currently taking place in the Middle East because this is the one that could end American influence.

If the Americans win this battle, all the victories that Russia could achieve in Ukraine or Eastern Europe will have no strategic benefit, because the main battle would have been lost, as it happened during the Cold War. Therefore, in the year 1969, during a visit by the late Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser to the Suez Canal, when Sinai was occupied and the Israeli enemy was on the other side of the canal, he said that on the banks of the Suez Canal the fate of the world was decided, and unfortunately the fate of the world was decided not in our favor, but in their favor. What he meant was the American hegemony with the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Now, the focus must be on this battle. What is happening in the Middle East is a major battle centered on the main axis: Palestine. What is happening in Palestine is something mentioned in religious books. I may have my own interpretation. Hence, we find that some of the signs mentioned in the Bible are being witnessed now: the killing of children at the hands of Rhodes two thousand years ago is being repeated at the hands of Netanyahu in Gaza. The attempt to deport the Palestinians to Egypt is similar to the story of the Virgin Mary and her son Jesus taking refuge in the land of Egypt. It is worth mentioning that the Resistance in Palestine receives assistance from Iran, similar to the gifts that the Three Magi gave to the child Jesus in the cave. Note that what led the three wise men to the cave was mainly the North Star seen in the Middle East as Russia. Could it be a sign that guides the current Russian leadership toward the region to achieve a decisive victory in the contemporary battle of Armageddon?

 

Netanyahoo’s Armageddon

Do Netanyahu’s coalition partners want an all-out regional war? Ehud Olmert claims Gaza is just the first step.

Join the discussion with Elijah J. Magnier and Mohamad Hasan Sweidan on the potential “Armageddon”.

Former Prime Minister of Israel Ehud Olmert wrote an article in Haaretz claiming that Netanyahu’s coalition partners want an all-out regional war and Gaza is just the first step. Syriana Analysis discusses the potential “Armageddon” with Elijah J. Magnier and Mohamad Hasan Sweidan.

• Follow Kevork Almassian: https://twitter.com/KevorkAlmassian
  • YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@SyrianaAnalysis
• Follow Elijah J. Magnier: https://twitter.com/ejmalrai
  • Website: https://ejmagnier.com/
• Follow Mohamad Hasan Sweidan: https://twitter.com/mhmdsweidan
  • The Cradle column: https://thecradle.co/columns/mohamad-hasan-sweidan

Pagan American Rome and Christian Russian Rome

” … These two Romes are fulfilling the legacies they inherited: American Rome, like its pagan predecessor, has become an oppressive conqueror, seeking to impose its culture on all its victims. Russian Rome, like Orthodox Constantinople, seeks friendly relations with anyone on the basis of shared spiritual values … And just as the old Roman West once envied New Rome Constantinople and sought to rob her … so now pagan American Rome eyes Russian Rome with the same envious look (mainly her natural resources).”

by Walt Garlington at Katehon.

When most folks look at a map, they will see only a single Rome, the one in Italy. But there are actually two more, neither of them in Italy: one is identified with Washington, D.C., in the United States and the other with Moscow in Russia, each quite different from the other as they represent two different stages of Roman history. In the American Rome one will see a continuation of pagan, pre-Christian Rome, while in the Russian Rome one will see a continuation of Orthodox Constantinople/New Rome.

Let us look first at American Rome. From her earliest days, the leaders of the US identified closely with the pre-Christian Roman Republic:

‘Throughout the course of history, the ancient civilization of Rome has been widely discussed, praised, and emulated by writers, statesmen, and philosophers alike. Rome has no shortage of admirers, and arguably some of its most enthusiastic supporters were the American Founding Fathers who were enamoured of the Roman past largely because of Rome’s unique form of government, which had supposedly preserved liberty for hundreds of years. The Founders lavished praise upon the Roman republican heroes who defended their government from tyranny in the turbulent final days of the Republic.

‘ . . . The American Revolution further intensified interest in the Roman world. By anchoring those arguments for freedom to ancient precedent, Revolutionary American authors aimed to demonstrate that their arguments were timeless and firmly embedded in history. Historians such as Plutarch, Livy, and Tacitus successfully encapsulated in writing the eternal and unavoidable struggle between liberty and power.[4] Parallels between Rome and America were made frequently by Revolutionary writers and orators. Josiah Quincy compared the tyrant Caesar to King George, asking “is not Britain to America what Caesar was to Rome?”[5] One of the most dramatic and obvious examples of reference to Rome was Joseph Warren’s oration on the Boston Massacre in 1775, during which he wore a Roman toga.[6] It would be difficult to find any public figure of the Revolutionary period who did not quote a classical author in their pamphlets, orations or letters.[7]

‘ . . . The founding generation admired Cicero as a steadfast defender of liberty and a deeply philosophical thinker on the ways in which government can best preserve our naturally endowed rights and freedoms. He was referred to as a constant source of wisdom on the topic of political philosophy as well as a guide to civic virtue and was described by Josiah Quincy as “the best of men and the first of patriots.”[15] Cicero’s oratorical prowess was emulated by many early American lawyers and statesmen who wished to be as eloquent and impassioned as the man who defied tyrants.[16]

‘ . . . Historical figures such as Cicero and Cato were considered fitting role models not only due to their character, but because of the similarity between their predicament and that of the Founders. Cicero and Cato, faced a power far greater than themselves, but were steeled by the cause of liberty. Regardless of how history played out, the Founders viewed Cicero and Cato as heroes of freedom and enemies of tyranny.’

The preoccupation in US thinking vis-à-vis Rome, as with nearly everything else, is the idea of a religiously agnostic individual liberty. This will contrast with Russia, as we shall see. But to begin with, we must see what it is that Russia, the Third Rome, inherited from the second Rome, Constantinople:

‘As the historical, lawful descendants of ancient Rome, which was destroyed by barbarians in the fifth century, the inhabitants of Byzantium called themselves Romans. In a vast empire divided into many nationalities there was one faith—Orthodox Christianity. The Byzantines literally fulfilled the Christian teaching of a new humanity living in a Divine spirit, where “there is neither Greek, nor Jew, nor Scythe,” as the Apostle Paul wrote. This hope preserved the country from the destructive storm of ethnic conflict. It was enough for any pagan or foreigner to accept the Orthodox Faith, and confirm it in deed, in order to become a full member of society. On the Byzantine throne, for example, were almost as many Armenians as there were Greeks; there were also citizens of Syrian, Arabian, Slavic, and Germanic origin. Amongst the higher ranks of government were representatives of all peoples in the Empire—the main requirements were their competence and dedication to the Orthodox Faith. This provided Byzantine civilization with incomparable cultural wealth.

‘The only foreign elements for the Byzantines were people who were strange to Orthodox morals and to the ancient Byzantine culture and perception of the world. For example, coarse, ignorant, money-grubbing Western Europeans of the time were considered barbarian by the Romans. . . .

‘We must admit that our own Slavic forebears were no more well-mannered, and also succumbed to the barbaric temptation to get rich quick at the expense of Constantinople’s seemingly inexhaustible wealth. However, to their credit, and fortunately for us, their lust for the spoils of war did not eclipse the most important thing: Russians comprehended Byzantium’s greatest treasure! This was neither gold, nor expensive textiles, nor even art and sciences. The greatest treasure of Byzantium was God.

‘Having traveled the world over in search of the truth and God, Prince Vladimir’s ambassadors experienced only in Byzantium that a true relationship between God and man exists; that it is possible for us to have living contact with another world. “We did not know whether we were in heaven or on earth,” said the ancestors of present-day Russians, astounded by their experience of Divine Liturgy in the Empire’s most important cathedral, the Hagia Sophia. They understood just what kind of treasure can be obtained in Byzantium. It was upon this treasure that our great forebears founded not banks, nor capital, nor even museums and pawn shops. They founded Rus’, Russia, the spiritual successor of Byzantium.’

The Russian Rome would go on to develop characteristics unique to herself:

‘When Orthodoxy spread throughout the Russian plains, the Russian soul in its collectiveness [sobornost] sought its own gift of God, which it found by turning to the Mother of God. The Russian people particularly venerate the Mother of God, which distinguishes our country and our traditions of the Orthodox faith. Of course, other peoples also venerate the Mother of God, but the Russian people chose the Mother of God for special veneration and reverence, as the door to the Heavenly Kingdom. The Mother of God was our special Protectress: there was not a single corner of the whole expanse of the former Russian Empire into which some miraculous icon of the Mother of God had not appeared that was venerated either locally or throughout the nation. The entire Russian land was sanctified by these holy icons; the Russian people believed that the Mother of God herself was invisibly present, as it were, at each icon.

‘This is our particularity. We will enter the Heavenly Kingdom through the Mother of God. The Mother of God is always depicted with the infant Christ the Savior. This particularity of icon-painting hearkens back to an ancient tradition that tells of some freethinking and insolent people who, looking at the Mother of God during his lifetime, said: “How can she be the Mother of God? How could she have given birth to God? How is this possible?” Then the Mother of God raised her most pure hands to heaven, seeking the protection of God, just as she is depicted on the Kursk-Root Icon. Then the Lord showed Himself to these disputers of this world in her most pure womb, just as He is depicted on her icon. These cowards, seeing such an incredible miracle, were cast into the fear of God; and the insolent people, who were infected with incurable pride, fled in terror, having seen the Savior’s face as Judge in anticipation of His Second Coming.

‘This is our icon. With the raised hands of the Mother of God it addresses all non-believers and believers alike, that they might learn to fear disbelief. This best witnesses to our entire people that the Mother of God is truly the Theotokos, that she truly bore our God and Savior.

‘The particular Russian piety for venerating the Mother of God is a response to the Russian soul’s age-old yearning to perceive God’s grace, which cannot be reduced to an abstract concept, distinctly and actually. The Mother of God also showed her protection to such great saints as our St. Sergius of Radonezh, to whom she appeared more than once, and in more recent times to St. Seraphim of Sarov. Recall how St. Seraphim, sitting on a log in the dense forest, revealed God’s grace to Motovilov distinctly and actually. St. Seraphim embraced him and suddenly the grace of the Holy Spirit moved from the saint to Motovilov who, perceiving God’s grace in fear and trembling, felt as though he were not on earth but in heaven.

‘This is what the Russian people seek: it desires to perceive God’s grace actually and completely. This is the ideal of the Russian soul.’

Thus, in contrast with the American Rome, the preoccupation of Russian Rome is not with worldly ideologies about individual liberty but with acquiring and experiencing the Grace of God.

These two Romes are fulfilling the legacies they inherited: American Rome, like its pagan predecessor, has become an oppressive conqueror, seeking to impose its culture on all its victims. Russian Rome, like Orthodox Constantinople, seeks friendly relations with anyone on the basis of shared spiritual values.

The two ends find expression in the symbols of each Rome. American Rome, like pagan Rome, has a single-headed eagle for its symbol, representing its monoculture that it forces all others to accept. Russian Rome, like the Christian Second Rome, has the double-headed eagle for her symbol, representing a harmonious unity-in-diversity of peoples and their cultures.

And just as the old Roman West once envied New Rome Constantinople and sought to rob her –

‘The capital city’s incalculable wealth, its beauty and elegance, amazed all the European peoples, who were still barbarians at the time when the Byzantine Empire was in its apogee. One can only imagine—indeed, history records it as such—how crude, ignorant Scandinavians, Germans, Franks, and Anglo-Saxons, whose chief occupation at the time was primitive sacking and pillage, after arriving from some town like Paris or London (which had populations of some tens of thousands) to this megalopolis of millions, a city of enlightened citizens, scholars, and elegantly dressed youths crowding imperial universities, dreamt of only one thing: invading and robbing, robbing and invading. In fact, when this was actually accomplished in 1204 by an army of Europeans calling themselves Crusaders, who, instead of freeing the Holy Land treacherously sacked the most beautiful city in the world, , Byzantine treasures were carried away in an uninterrupted flow over the course of fifty years.’

– so now pagan American Rome eyes Russian Rome with the same envious look (mainly her natural resources).

May the Mother of God, dear to Russians, through her Softener of Evil Hearts icon, turn the peoples of the States to repentance, to friendship with Russia, and to acceptance of the same Apostolic Faith of the Orthodox Church:

‘“Softener of evil hearts”… What a great deal of hope there is in the name of this icon: hope that someday justice will triumph on earth, that people will become kind and charitable, will begin to love one another. How difficult that is in our embittered world, and sometimes the mere sight of someone else’s suffering is enough to soften our own evil hearts…

‘This Icon is also called the “Simon’s Prophecy” icon. . . . It was after he had blessed St. Joseph and the Most-immaculate Mother of the Savior, that he addressed Mary with that same prophecy: “Behold, this child is set for the falling and rising again of many in Israel, and for a sin which shall be spoken against. Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also, that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.” Just as Christ would be pierced with nails and a spear, so the soul of the Most-pure One would be pierced by a certain weapon of sorrow and pain in the heart, when she saw her Son’s suffering. After that, the heretofore hidden thoughts of the people regarding the Messiah would be revealed, and they would face a choice: to be with Christ, or against Him. Such an interpretation of Symeon’s prophecy became the subject of a number of icons of the Theotokos. All those who turn to them in prayer sense that with the softening of evil hearts comes an easing of spiritual and physical suffering. People come to recognize that when they pray for their enemies before such icons, their feelings of enmity are softened, and that internecine strife and hatreds abate, giving way to kindness.’

≈≈

Sakerites will remember our author Walt Garlington, mellifluous voice of the American South. I lived almost a decade of my life in Virginia, among most pleasant folks in USA like the Pacific NW, endearing me to southerners. He is a landscape artist like Batiushka, whom we also miss

YEMEN & RED SEA … Open Thread, 12.01.2024

Please use as an Open Thread for the new aggression on Yemen, especially those who lack Salon access. I will continue my updates there as that format better supports mixed media (writing, images, links, embedded YT videos, etc). Here: https://globalsouth.co/globalsouthforum/topic/west-asia-front-thread-10-jan-2024/

IMO, this new expansion of West Asian war shouldn’t immediately result in a conflagration. The Empire delivered a symbolic show last night, a mafia-posture demonstrating “resolve” and “demonstration of strength” to “deter the Houthi hordes” as if a school-teacher wielding a stick against unruly children (!!).

The desired switcheroo will not be accommodated. Incomprehensibly larger Victories ripen in Palestine, in the Hague, and in the court of global public opinion. The civilizational-states will ensure Yemenis and others of the Resistance Axis keep their Eyes on the Ball.

So the Resistance has its priorities and its own pace. They remain attuned to the Genocide of Gaza, which will NOT be taken off the screens and attention of mankind. Rather this is another well laid trap, as pointed out by dear Pepe.. In hindsight, everything unfolding has been gamed and played to a “T,” knowing the eternal profile and Cro-Magnon reflexes and primitive urges of the dying Anglo-Zionists!

It is absolutely riveting and shocking the exposure and total isolation of the Anglo-American elites, chained at the hip to the now universally abhorred and Pariah Zionists. Today is the Zionist “defense” against charges of Genocide at the ICJ in the Hague.

Yemeni retaliation, which is a given, and some has already been dealt, can be expected to be measured and muted so as not to distract public attention off their evisceration at the ICJ, along with the entire combined West, equally on Trial. Perhaps audiovisual documentation of last night’s retaliation will be subsequently publicised at the right moment, and so on. Many operations by other Resistance members were displayed later, sometimes weeks later as by Hezbollah and Iraqis. The horrifying Spectacle in Gaza was paramount.

The Focus will remain on Gaza, at all costs, including sucking up momentary indignities and deferring revenge, or publication of documented hits, so as not to play into the desperate need of their enemies to deflect attention from the Annihilation of Palestinians which they CANNOT halt at this point. The Zionists’ deranged eschatological timeline, with its extremely limited time-window, is being used so beautifully against them. Unable to retreat, they are invited ever deeper into total strategic loss.

Thus the overriding goal of the coordinated Resistance Axis is that the messianic Jews, and the implacably supportive Christian Zionist Anglo-American elite, be exposed in front of mankind as satanic anti-Human supremacists that require the extremely brutal solutions now underway. Even at cost of a portion of the dear Palestinians, willing to endure anyhow for Liberation, building the moral imperative for total action against the crazed is the supreme task. So it was in the eight years of patiently suffering the slower genocide in the Donbass by the same parties, which led to global recognition of the inherent justness of the SMO. These are the sad prices moral societies must pay for remaining moral whilst fighting absolute amoral madness.

The Russia-China strategic partnership played it beautifully.

Abstention at a UN Security Council vote on Yemen.

Desperate Hegemon falls into the trap.

Opens yet another war front against the Houthis – who are capable of resisting ANYTHING.

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) January 12, 2024

History will register that on the same day that BRICS member South Africa's legal team eviscerated the apartheid Zionist Project in court, the Hegemon under Straussian neocon psychos bombed Yemen to change the narrative.

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) January 12, 2024