Connexion
This utterly false representation which we’ve discussed many times, still continues with gusto. It has morphed into a hard-headed unwillingness to examine the matter with care. Hopefully, this explanation by FM Lavrov calms the turbulent waters.
Eva Bartlett reports:
MOSCOW, December 15. /TASS/.
“Former Syrian President Bashar Assad did not coordinate his approaches with Russia prior to his resignation, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov revealed in an interview with the Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB).”
“He did not coordinate any approaches. We maintained close relations with Assad and extended assistance to his government in 2015, when Damascus was effectively besieged and at risk of falling to opposition forces. We established military presence there – air force and naval bases – and actively worked to dismantle terrorist strongholds. Our efforts were collaborative, involving other international partners, primarily Iran and Turkey. Overall, the process was quite positive,” Lavrov stated.
Reflecting on the Syrian National Dialogue Congress, Lavrov noted, “The agreements we reached with our Iranian and Turkish colleagues faced repeated setbacks. These agreements were not entirely dependent on the Assad government. I prefer not to draw definitive historical conclusions now, but many opportunities were missed regarding national reconciliation, consensus, and inviting all political and ethno-confessional groups to participate in dialogue.”
He also recalled the situation a year ago when certain events unfolded in Syria. “At that time, we had no combat units on the ground – only two bases, one air and one naval. The rapid advance of the opposition, led by Ahmed al-Shara’a, was unexpected. They seized territory with little resistance,” Lavrov explained.”
https://tass.com/politics/2059011
Netanyahu’s idea is “Make the Midde-East in Israel’s image.” Opening speech on the video, by Jeffrey Sachs.
We’ve been talking about an attempt at Pax Judaica that is operating in the region now. What seems to be happening in Australia is that the country is being punished for standing for a Palestinian State some months ago. The investigation itself is a zionist affair and the Australian law enforcement is being pushed out. This is in order to own the narrative. When Syria fell, it was unbelievable how the narrative was created and I watched with dismay. This narrative is now on steroids. Israeli intelligence now claims far and wide that Iran is the prime suspect in the Bondi Beach attack. At least the Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese rejected ICC‑wanted Benjamin Netanyahu’s claim that Australia’s recognition of Palestinian statehood was behind the shooting. Asked by the ABC if he saw a link between the decision and the Bondi Beach shooting, Albanese replied: “No, I don’t.”
The brave man who attacked the one shooter at Bondi Beach and took his gun away, is being lauded, but nobody says his name. His name is Ahmed al Ahmed. With the vile narrative building from the zionist entity, we of course can’t say that Ahmed did something very brave and was shot twice himself. Then the narrative falls apart.
Israeli soldiers capture the moment they light the first Hannukah candles in Mount Hermon, Syria.
For Hannukkah, I’ve never seen so many giant Hannukkah candles in the open. I’ve seen these candle holders in Russia, in Ukraine, in the US and in many locations. Here Israeli soldiers capture the moment they light the first Hannukah candles in Mount Hermon, Syria, area that does not belong to them.
The narrative continues in the US and in Britian.
This story, from Syria, to now, is one story. It is one initiative and one set of hasbara to attempt to adjust the worldview toward zionist-israel. They want all of us to forget the consequences of their genocide and as such, they want to walk free.
Giant Hanukkah menorah in Moscow was not lit this year, first time since 1991. The office of Russia’s chief rabbi said the ceremony was not approved by city officials ‘for security reasons’
PIG HEADS THROWN ON MUSLIM GRAVES NEAR BONDI TERROR ATTACKS
We of course also do not see anything about children shot and fishermen shot and bombed and any other horror in Gaza. That is suddenly verboten to talk about, while the narrative is being constructed in order to resucitate the ‘poor jew under assault’ story. Last night’s bombing, shooting, more tanks in Gaza and more children and Gazan’s killed is not in the headlines. The attacks on Lebanon is ongoing.
But the 10 year old child (rip) killed at Bondi Beach, have huge photos in all media.
NETANYAHU:
“We have never killed children in Gaza.
This is antisemitic propaganda.” pic.twitter.com/AvRopbWZjA
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) December 10, 2025
To tie this to Syria, looks like two stories, but it is one, and is an intellectual and social assault on all of us. IOF soldiers celebrated the Hanukkah holiday by lighting torches atop the ruins of Gaza’s Indonesian Hospital, the main medical facility in northern Gaza that once served thousands of Palestinian civilians, and now lies in ruins.
Here is an update. It is a speech by Netanyahu (apologies).
Australia “caused” antisemitism by recognizing a Palestinian state.
Albanese “let the disease spread” by not following Israel’s preferred policy.
The Bondi attack happened because Australia showed “weakness.”
Western governments must act according to what Israel expects, or terrorism will “consume you as well.”
There were no condolences, no expressions of solidarity, only political coercion using a domestic Australian tragedy as leverage. I believe this attack is not innocent but was created to confirm that everyone must obey the dictates of the zionist entity. Netanyahu’s message to the West is “Follow our political line or your citizens will die, and it will be your fault.” That crosses every line of respect between sovereign states and sounds like a direct threat.
—-
Syriana Analysis: In tonight’s live stream, I break down the mysterious incident involving US forces in Syria in which three American service members lost their lives – and why the official version of events does not add up.
While US officials publicly point to the so-called “Islamic State” as the culprit, multiple indications suggest something very different: that the individual who opened fire in the ambush was actually a member of the Syrian security apparatus operating under the Jolani-led authorities. In other words, part of the same structure that has been indirectly empowered and protected by Washington in post-Assad Syria.
We will look at: • The timeline of the incident and how the story changed • Why blaming “IS” so quickly helps maintain a convenient narrative • How local security forces linked to Jolani interact with US troops on the ground • The broader relationship between the Jolani system and US policy in northern Syria • What this reveals about the real nature of American presence in Syria after the fall of Assad
This episode is not about sensationalism. It is about connecting open-source information, leaks and local testimonies to understand how a supposed partner structure can become a direct threat – and why this is almost impossible to admit in official statements.
This video explains in depth what happened.
There were some of our reliable journalists who continually blamed Russia for losing Syria. I was not of that opinion, as I watched Mr Lavrov at the very final regional meeting before the gates of Idlib opened. There was significant pushback on my stance, as it was more comfortable to blame Russia for ‘losing’ Syria. I also did not believe that Russia would leave the issue, but would let it develop. The criticism was around ‘Russia is only trying to keep its warm water ports’, and completely forgotten was the fact that Russia rescued at least Bashar al-Assad and offered many Syrians safety around the Russian area. This opinion, that Russia did not rescue Syria, spreading ‘Russia Sold out Syria’ became the prevailing orthodoxy. It was not correct then, and it is not correct now.
Recently, another lengthy interview was published on the issue, and I waited a moment to debunk it, as it was beginning to need serious debunking. To my joy, others recognized that the orthodoxy is becoming destructive. Throughout the time, I watched a number of journalists who remained quiet on the matter and, of course, wondered why. These are now stepping forward: journalists like Eva Karene Bartlett and, specifically, Marwa Osman, both highly competent, who have never spoken out in this way.
One can forgive those who were making up and pushing the idea of ‘Russia sold out Syria’ over and over again, because they’ve done good work. Still, during that time, no matter what was presented, they insisted on claiming a higher-than-all perception and continued with Russia Bad under the guise of: We Will Speak the Truth, no matter what. OK, but if your truth sucks and is a made-up view, to serve your world-view? There is no problem with critiquing Russia, but why not instead tell who was behind the fall of Syria instead of continually critiquing from a ‘better than’ perspective?
Here is Sharmine Narwani from the Cradle, who did a thorough and correct look-back on the fall of Syria, why Russia did what she did, and the current development trajectory. I am grateful for this work. Throughout this time, I had a sense that Russia was staying because it was blocking something, which turned out to be the correct and justifiable stance.
Eva Bartlett says: “Sharmine Narwani’s words are a rational counter to the “Russia sold out Syria” voices.
“Sharaa goes to Moscow to meet with Putin. And of course, those who are against the terror that Syria experienced and the regime change were appalled: ‘Putin’s working with the Zionists. Putin’s okay with al-Qaeda!’
No. No. Countries act in accordance with their national interests. And they’re opportunistic. Opportunism is what you need to be as a political leader of a country…”
*Note: Sharmine was going to Syria early on in the global war on Syria. If I recall correctly, she went there in 2012 or 2013, I myself started going there in 2014 (https://ingaza.wordpress.com/syria/syria-my-published-articles-from-and-on-syria-2014-2022/). She has credibility on the ground, she took a very unpopular, honest, stance back then, writing excellent articles countering the propaganda. She’s credible now.]”
A year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad and Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s rise to power, Syria remains a politically volatile state. West Asian geopolitical analyst and Cradle columnist Sharmine Narwani joins TMJ News to reveal the power plays unfolding behind the scenes: Russia’s sudden return near the Golan, Israel expanding its reach in the south, Gulf and Turkish maneuvering, U.S. calculations, and the IMF positioning itself for influence. What does the future of Syria look like as foreign powers get involved?
Time Stamps:
00:00 One year of Jolani in Power
08:30 Syria and the Abraham Accords
16:02 Why Russia is Back in Syria
22:55 MAGA vs. MIGA
25:58 What Media get Wrong about Syria
“These gentlemen are the moral equivalents of America’s Founding Fathers.” — President Reagan meeting with Freedom Fighters from Afghanistan (Mujahedin), Oval Office, 1985.
Nima AlKhorshid interviews our roving eye nomad on the central Asian Stans, Al Qaeda ‘R US, and other travails of stark-naked Anglo-Zionists.
From the archives: “U.S. game-plan to conquer Russia & China is clarified”
Posted on December 29, 2016 by Eric Zuesse.
America’s Secret Planned Conquest of Russia
The U.S. government’s plan to conquer Russia is based upon a belief in, and the fundamental plan to establish, “Nuclear Primacy” against Russia — an American ability to win a nuclear war against, and so conquer, Russia.
This concept became respectable in U.S. academic and governmental policymaking circles when virtually simultaneously in 2006 a short-form and a long-form version of an article endorsing the concept, which the article’s two co-authors there named “nuclear primacy,” were published respectively in the world’s two most influential journals of international affairs, Foreign Affairs from the Council on Foreign Relations, and International Security from Harvard. (CFR got the more popular short version, titled “The Rise of U.S. Nuclear Primacy”, and Harvard got the more scholarly long version, which was titled “The End of MAD?”.)
This article claimed that the central geostrategic concept during the Cold War with the Soviet Union, Mutually Assured Destruction or “MAD” — in which there is no such thing as the U.S. or the U.S.S.R. conquering the other, because the first of the two to attack will itself also be destroyed by the surviving nuclear forces of the one responding to that attack — will soon be merely past history (like the Soviet Union itself already is); and, so, as the short form of the article said, “nuclear primacy remains a goal of the United States”; and, as the long form said, “the United States now stands on the cusp of nuclear primacy.” In other words: arms-control or no, the U.S. should, and soon will, be able to grab Russia (the largest land-mass of any country, and also the one richest in natural resources).
Neither version of this article mentioned the key reason why nuclear victory is exceedingly dangerous even under the most favorable conditions, which reason is the concept (and the likely reality in the event of nuclear war between the two superpowers) “nuclear winter” — the scientific studies showing that a resulting sudden sharp cooling of the atmosphere after all those enormous explosions would produce a global die-off. America’s aristocracy and its vassal-aristocracies controlling the U.S.-allied nations (billionaires, centi-millionaires, and their top agents in both the public and private sectors) are buying and building deep-underground nuclear shelters for themselves, but they wouldn’t be able to stay underground and survive on stored feedstuffs forever. (As for everybody else, those other people are not involved in geostrategic decision-making, and so are being ignored.) However, many of America’s (and associated) elite are paying those bomb-shelter expenses, but none of the West’s elite are condemning the path toward nuclear war that their governments are on. So: buying or building nuclear-war shelters is more acceptable to them than is stopping America’s planned conquest of Russia. The higher priority is to conquer Russia.
A far less influential scholarly journal, China Policy, published later in 2006 a critical article arguing against nuclear supremacy, but that article has had no impact upon policymaking. Its title was “The Fallacy of Nuclear Primacy” and it argued that, “American nuclear supremacy removes the root source of stability from the nuclear equation: mutual vulnerability.” It presented a moral argument: “U.S. leaders might try to exploit its nuclear superiority … by actually launching a cold-blooded nuclear attack against its nuclear rival in the midst of an intense crisis. The professors discount significantly the power of the nuclear taboo to restrain U.S. leaders from crossing the fateful threshold. If crisis circumstances grow dire enough, the temptation to try to disarm their nuclear adversaries through a nuclear first-strike may be too strong to resist, they argue.” The concept of “nuclear winter” wasn’t even so much as just mentioned (much less dealt with) in this article, just as it was ignored in the two that it was arguing against.
The co-authors of (both versions of) the article that had proposed and endorsed nuclear primacy, then published in 2007 (this one also in International Security), a response to that critical article. This reply’s title was “U.S. Nuclear Primacy and the Future of the Chinese Deterrent”. But it had no more impact than did the obscure article it was arguing against.
Thus, nuclear primacy has become U.S. policy, and MAD no longer is U.S. policy (though it remains Russian policy). The U.S. government is planning to take over Russia (basically, to install a puppet-regime there). That’s the reality.
Central to the nuclear-primacy concept is that of what’s variously called a “Ballistic Missile Defense” (BMD) or “Anti Ballistic Missile” (ABM) system: a system to disable or knock out Russia’s retaliatory nuclear weapons so that a U.S. blitz nuclear attack won’t be able to be met by any nuclear counter-attack.
As “The End of MAD?” put it: “Russia has approximately 3,500 strategic nuclear warheads today, but if the United States struck before Russian forces were alerted, Russia would be lucky if a half-dozen warheads survived.”
In other words: America’s aristocracy aren’t necessarily hoping to protect all of the U.S. population from a counter-attack, but are willing to sacrifice perhaps a few million Americans here and there, in order to achieve the intended result: conquest of Russia.
That article then says that a BMD-ABM system wouldn’t necessarily indicate America’s determination to pursue nuclear primacy against Russia, because it could instead be intended purely and authentically defensively, to protect against nuclear attack from Iran, North Korea or some other country. However: “Other U.S. nuclear programs are hard to explain with any mission other than a nuclear first strike on a major power adversary. For example, the decision to upgrade the fuse of many SLBM warheads (the W76s) to permit ground bursts makes sense only if the mission is destroying hundreds of hardened silos. One might argue that ground bursts could be useful for a variety of other missions, such as destroying North Korean WMD bunkers or remote cave complexes housing terrorist leaders. The United States, however, already has a large number of highly accurate, similar-yield warheads that would be ideal for these purposes.” The article even notes that: “Other analysts have noted that the current U.S. nuclear force looks surprisingly like an arsenal designed for a nuclear first strike against Russia or China.” And, “A group of RAND analysts agrees: ‘What the planned force appears best suited to provide beyond the needs of traditional deterrence is a preemptive counterforce capability against Russia and China. Otherwise, the numbers and the operating procedures simply do not add up.’” So: the co-authors here are claiming to be merely giving a name, “nuclear primacy,” to America’s existing strategic military policy — not to be inventing or creating it. They are, above all, saying that this is the reality now in U.S. policy-making circles; that MAD no longer is.
And their article has, indeed, described the guiding strategic-planning objective not only of the George W. Bush Administration, but also of Barack Obama’s — as will now be documented.
U.S. President Obama has always been saying that the reason why America is installing anti-ballistic missiles (“ABM”s, otherwise known as ballistic-missile defense or “BMD”) in Romania, Poland, and other nations that border (or are near to) Russia, is in order to protect Europe against Iranian missiles that might be aimed against Europe. He says that this is purely defensive, not aggressive, and that what it’s defending from is Iran, not Russia — so, Russia has no reason for complaint about it.
But then, Obama reached his nuclear deal with Iran; and this deal ended, for at least ten years, any realistic possibility that Iran would develop any nuclear-weapons capability — Obama himself emphasized that this was the case; he wasn’t denying it.
So: Obama’s claimed reason for installing ABMs in Europe was now, quite simply, gone. (Not that it had been credible anyway, since Iran didn’t have any nuclear weapons. It was merely a pretext, not honestly a reason.)
Here is how Russia’s President, Vladimir Putin, stated the matter, at that time, during the meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, on 22 October 2015:
“The use of the threat of a nuclear missile attack from Iran as an excuse, as we know, has destroyed the fundamental basis of modern international security – the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The United States has unilaterally seceded from the treaty. Incidentally, today we have resolved the Iranian issue and there is no threat from Iran and never has been, just as we said.
The thing that seemed to have led our American partners to build an anti-missile defence system is gone. It would be reasonable to expect work to develop the US anti-missile defence system to come to an end as well. [But] What is actually happening? Nothing of the kind, or actually the opposite – everything continues.
Recently the United States conducted the first test of the anti-missile defence system in Europe. What does this mean? It means we were right when we argued with our American partners. They were simply trying yet again to mislead us and the whole world. To put it plainly, they were lying. It was not about the hypothetical Iranian threat, which never existed. It was about an attempt to destroy the strategic balance, to change the balance of forces in their favour not only to dominate, but to have the opportunity to dictate their will to all: to their geopolitical competition and, I believe, to their allies as well. This is a very dangerous scenario, harmful to all, including, in my opinion, to the United States.
The nuclear deterrent lost its value. Some probably even had the illusion that victory of one party in a world conflict was again possible – without irreversible, unacceptable, as experts say, consequences for the winner, if there ever is one”
He called Obama there a “liar,” and that’s a blatantly truthful characterization of the situation. But Putin missed there saying what’s even more basic for an understanding of what Obama was doing in this matter — and which makes that “lie” from Obama particularly heinous: Putin missed saying that an anti-missile system can be at least as important as an aggressive weapon as it is as a defensive one, because if a first-strike attacker wants to eliminate the defender’s ability to strike back from the attacker’s first-strike attack, then an anti-missile system is the weapon to do that, by eliminating the defender’s missiles before those strike-back missiles can reach their targets. It nullifies the other side’s defense — and to do this is enormously aggressive; it strips the victim’s retaliation. The whole distinction between offensive and defensive can thus be pure propaganda, nothing having to do actually with aggressive and defensive. Whether the use will be defensive, or instead offensive, won’t be known until the system is in actual battlefield use. Only the propaganda is clear; the weapon’s use is not.
So, Putin understated the heinousness, and the danger to Russians, that was actually involved in Obama’s tricks. All that Putin did was to vaguely suggest an aggressive possibility: “It was about an attempt to destroy the strategic balance, to change the balance of forces in their favour not only to dominate, but to have the opportunity to dictate their will to all.” Most people don’t relate to such abstractions as “strategic balance.”
Obama and other agents of the U.S. aristocracy know that their public have been trained for decades, to hate, fear, and despise, Russians, and especially the Russian government, as if it were the Soviet Union, and as if its Warsaw Pact and communism still existed and Russia hadn’t ended its hostility to the U.S. in 1991 (though the U.S. continued its hostility to Russia — that rump remaining country from the former communist empire — and during Obama’s second term the hostility soared). So, for example, at the conservative website Breitbart, when that statement quoted here from Putin was posted as part of an honestly written and presented article titled “Vladimir Putin: U.S. Missile Defense System Threatens Russia”, almost none of the reader-comments indicated any ability or inclination of the readers to sympathize with the plight for Russians that Putin had just expressed. Instead, to the extent that the comments there were relevant, they were generally hostile, such as:
“Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday he has concerns that the U.S. ballistic missile defense system threatens Russia’s nuclear capability.”
Vlad, its supposed to, its called defense. The only way it could harm your nukes is if they were shot down…………….after you launched them!
and
How can a defense system threaten anything? Like Obama would attack Russia. That is laughable.
Most people’s minds are straightjacketed in bigotries of various sorts, preconceptions such as that a “missile defense” system, and a “Defense” Department, can’t be aggressive — even extremely aggressive and war-mongering. The first thought that comes to mind about anything that’s ‘defensive’ is that something else must be ‘aggressive’ or ‘offensive’, and that whatever is ‘defensive’ (such as an ABM) is therefore good and even necessary. That’s thinking, and receiving the term “defense,” like thinking just one move ahead in a chess-game, but this is the mental limit for most people, and every propagandist (such as the people who professionally design propaganda or PR slogans and campaigns) do precisely what Obama and the rest of the aristocracy and their agents do in order to deceive their gulls: they phrase things for one-move-ahead-limit thinkers, like that. The cardinal rule in the deception-professions is therefore, first, to find people with the desired prejudices, and then to play them as that, with one-move-ahead-limit sales-pitches, which are directed to precisely those prejudices. This report at the Breitbart site was instead presenting a high-quality news-report, to a low-quality audience, and so the reader-comments it generated were few, and generally hostile.
Obama is a master at deception. Another good example of this was 26 March 2012, during Obama’s campaign for re-election, when he confidentially told Dmitry Medvedev, “On all these issues, but particularly missile defense, this can be solved, but it’s important for him [the incoming President Putin] to give me space. … This is my last election. After my election, I have more flexibility.” Obama was privately communicating to Putin (through Medvedev) that Obama was pushing the ABM installations only so as not to be politically vulnerable to charges from the knee-jerk Russia-haters, Republicans, and that Obama’s fakery regarding the supposed ABM-target’s being Iran was only in order to appeal to yet another Republican bigotry (against Iran), and so Obama was intending to back away from supporting the ABM system during his second term.
But actually, Obama had had Russia in his gunsights even prior to his coming into office. Two specific objects in focus were Moscow-friendly leaders of nations: Assad of Syria, and Yanukovych of Ukraine. America’s strategy, ever since 24 February 1990, has been to strip Russia of allies and friends — to leave Russia increasingly isolated and surrounded by enemies. When Obama entered the White House on 20 January 2009, there already was a plea in the pipeline from the Syrian government for urgently needed food-aid to address the all-time-record drought there, which had decimated Syrian agriculture. Obama’s Administration never even answered it. Well before the Arab Spring demonstrations in 2011, Obama was hoping for turmoil in Syria and the overthrow of Assad — lots of starving Syrians would be just the thing.
Moreover, the planning for the February 2014 coup to overthrow the Moscow-friendly democratically elected President of Ukraine, Viktor Yanukovych, started in the U.S. State Department by no later than 2011.
So: when Obama told Medvedev and Putin, on 26 March 2012, not to worry about Obama’s intentions toward Russia, he was lying. He wanted his intended victim to be off-guard, unprepared for what was soon to come.
On Obama’s way out the door, he did two things that significantly advanced America’s ABM-BMD threat against Russia.
On 10 December 2016, ‘Defense’ Secretary Ashton Carter stated, burying it in a speech he gave in Bahrain — site of a major U.S. military base — “just this week, we reached an agreement for Qatar to purchase a 5,000-kilometer early-warning radar to enhance its missile defenses,” and he said nothing more about it, as if this announcement weren’t the bombshell it actually was. Alex Gorka headlined about that at Strategic Culture, “US-Qatar Deal Threatens Russia: Reading News Between the Lines” and he explained that this system “is designed to be used as an early warning system against strategic offensive assets – something Iran does not possess.” Near the start of Carter’s speech, Carter had said that he would be talking about “checking Iranian aggression and malign influence, and helping defend our friends and allies,” including Bahrain, Qatar, UAE, and Saudi Arabia. Gorka noted, “The announced range of 5,000km (3,100mi) by far exceeds the requirement to counter a missile threat coming from Iran,” and, “There is no other reasonable explanation for the choice, except the fact that the AN/FPS-132 can monitor large chunks of Russian territory,” the objective being “to surround the Russian Federation with BMD sites and neutralize its capability to deliver a retaliatory strike if attacked.”
One of Obama’s last actions as the U.S. President was to sign into law a bill that had been quietly passed in Congress, which included a key change in U.S. law that would enable the government to spend unlimited funds on realizing former President Ronald Reagan’s dream of a space-based ABM system, “Star Wars.” On December 22nd, David Willman of the Los Angeles Times, headlined “Congress scrapped this one word from the law, opening the door to a space arms race”, and he reported that the eliminated word was “limited.” Willman explained that, “The nation’s homeland missile defense system is designed to thwart a small-scale, or ‘limited,’ attack by the likes of North Korea or Iran. As for the threat of a large-scale strike by China or Russia, the prospect of massive U.S. retaliation is supposed to deter both from ever launching missiles.” He noted: “The bill awaits action by President Obama. The White House has not said what he will do.” Willman also noted that on an earlier occasion, “the Obama administration criticized the changes in the Senate bill, saying it ‘strongly objects’ to removing ‘limited’ and to placing anti-missile weaponry in space. The statement stopped short of threatening a veto.” But then, the next day, on December 23rd, Willman bannered, “President Obama signs defense bill that could spur new space-based arms race”. Whereas Obama’s public rhetoric portrayed himself as being the type of person who had deserved to win the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize, almost all of his actual decisions in office were the exact opposite — and here was a superb example of that.
Whether Obama’s successor, Donald Trump, will continue with that longstanding (ever since 24 February 1990) plan to conquer Russia, or instead finally end the Cold War on the U.S. side (as it already had ended in 1991 on the U.S.S.R.’s), isn’t yet clear.
This is what happens when what President Eisenhower called “the military-industrial complex” takes over the country, and everything (including the ‘news’ media) serves it, rather than the military-industrial complex’s serving the public.
It fits in with the massive data which indicates that the U.S. government is run by an aristocracy or “oligarchy”, instead of run by people who represent the public — a “democracy.” Obama as President fit right in.
Additional details “Summing Up Russia’s Real Nuclear Fears” were provided by a superb article from Jonathan Marshall, on December 28th.
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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.
A poignant travelogue and historical review of this former pearl port city of the Eastern Mediterranean
Laith Marouf and Hadi Hotait travel to Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city, to discover its hidden and neglected treasures, discuss its brilliant past, and analyze threats by the USA to hand it over to the Wahhabi Death-Squads governing Syria today, if Lebanon doesn’t disarm the Resistance.
Filmed on: 2/8/2025
Producer: Hadi Hotait
Montage: Rabih Ghannam
X: https://x.com/TVFreePalestine
TG: https://t.me/freepalestinetv
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/free.palestine.tv/
Substack: https://substack.com/@freepalestinetv
RU: https://rumble.com/user/FreePalestineTV
Here, we will not forget GAZA!
Jul 26
Today we bang on our pots: The people of Gaza hear your voices in the streets – and they are calling for more… until the genocide and starvation end. Take to the streets. Bang on your pots. Raise your voices for Gaza. Today, we will see you in cities around the world – for Gaza and its people, for Palestine, and to shatter the global silence surrounding a crime still unfolding.
There are many protests around the world, and the police brutality is incredible to see.
Jul 25
We may hold out a little hope for an internal Israeli breakup. The contradictions are getting too large to hide, and to serious to ignore. We also know now who the lying bastard is: Trump’s envoy and Trump wants his Gaza Riviera.
Thousands of protesters in Tel Aviv clashed with Israeli forces while demanding an end to the war in Gaza and the release of the Israeli captives.
Also see this: Qatar, Egypt Issue Statement Contradicting Witkoff’s Claim That Hamas Rejected Gaza Ceasefire Deal: https://globalsouth.co/2025/07/25/qatar-egypt-issue-statement-contradicting-witkoffs-claim-that-hamas-rejected-gaza-ceasefire-deal/
Jul 23
American soldiers aim their weapons and hurl grenades at starving Palestinian civilians searching for food near US-Israeli-engineered death traps.
The 2 most satanic regimes in human history.#GazaHolocaust #GazaStarving pic.twitter.com/Sy3PszPkmV
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) July 23, 2025
Stop the flow of oil, cut off ties, and halt trade. The children are starving.#GazaGenocide pic.twitter.com/lSWQCNT9Z7
— Seyed Mohammad Marandi (@s_m_marandi) July 23, 2025
Jul 21
Marwa Osman: “I haven’t slept properly for 3 days straight.
The messages, photos and videos of starvation in Gaza are making me sick to my stomach and unable to shut my eyes.
I have been repeating 1 Dua without even thinking about it…
“O Lord, let the Day of Judgment come tomorrow, and may this weary world vanish into oblivion.”
Humanity has failed.
Today I apologise and will take a break from this thread.
People ask what they can do? People want to put themselves into this bodily. For myself, I sometimes just struggle to eat and cannot look at my food, as I want to stretch right across the ocean and give it to Gaza. But we have to remain healthy as we have to continue testifying.
I looked at the statistics for this thread, i.e., how many read it, and find that we get around 10,000 views per month. These are not the regulars but what they call unique visitors. So on the average the rate is that +- 10,000 new sets of eyes look at this thread. It is a big number for us. Looking at the locales, i.e., where the viewers come from, it is quite a surprise. We even have viewers from Burkina Faso – a whole 11 of them, so far this month. You are so welcome!
What we can do, is to continue testifying. I know there are not many comments here, because it breaks one. Some days in my routine work, I put this last because it is so heartbreaking that I cannot continue. But if you can continue commenting, this will encourage all of those +- 10,000 new incoming eyes to not forget about Gaza.
Jul 21
The WHO Offices were just shot up in Gaza.
Dear heavens – one of the very last journalist groups in Gaza.
Jul 19
UNRWA has enough food for the entire population of #Gaza for over three months stockpiled in warehouses–including this one in Al Arish, Egypt–awaiting entry.
The supplies are available. The systems are in place.
Open the gates, lift the siege, allow UNRWA to do its work and… pic.twitter.com/3e1bVbFnGv
— UNRWA (@UNRWA) July 19, 2025
Jul 18
The balkanization of Syria and the big regional picture.
Please listen. You don’t have to be a genius to understand Israel’s strategy in the region. Israeli officials are not geniuses but the people are too distracted. https://t.co/gxSVQpEYNz
— Kevork Almassian (@KevorkAlmassian) July 18, 2025
They are telling you their intentions in advance but people don’t see beyond their noses. pic.twitter.com/OnzUIVCRkO
— Kevork Almassian (@KevorkAlmassian) July 18, 2025
Special security sources report that prominent Syrian officials, including Julani, left the capital Damascus in recent hours, heading toward Idlib province or Latakia, accompanied by their families and some relatives. The operation was reportedly carried out at the direct request and coordination of the Turkish side. Al Mayadeen confirms that Syrian ‘President’ Ahmed al-Sharaa has left Damascus with his family—just hours after an alleged Israeli assassination operation targeted three top officials in the Transitional Administration, including Defense Minister Marhaf Abu Qasra.
Vanessa Beeley: “Turkey will maintain control in the north through the Syrian National Army but will not be allowed to expand into central Syria. Russia and France will come to a deal on the management of the coast area in cooperation with Israel. The situation is fluid and I will update as more information comes in and I can add any developments to the analysis .
One thing is for sure, the more Israel over-extends, the greater the opportunity for the Resistance.”
Sources expect the pace of the attacks to gradually decline starting tomorrow. The latest is that the head of Turkish Intelligence has made a deal with Israel to de-escalate.
The situation is very fluid. Bear in mind the Druze consists of different tribes with different allegiances. It is not one cohesive group that can be protected by Israel .. Israel with US support says it is protecting the Druze. If you believe that, then there is a bridge in Brooklyn that you may buy for cheap! It really is an insult to all the rest of the world that have been watching these long +- 20 months and all the previous Gaza ‘haircuts’.
Basically the whole world condemned Israel yesterday in the UN and the UNSC for their attacks but this is simply part of building the Greater Israel. Israel acts with complete impunity.
Predictably Syria is disintegrating and US intelligence agencies are very pleased to see the fruits of their “work” come to fruition.
Every morning in Gaza, people begin their day with faint hope and empty stomachs, going out in search of a loaf of bread to ease their hunger… but no one finds anything.
All roads lead to the siege, and all doors are closed in the face of the hungry.
Gaza wakes up each day to the pain of hunger, and bread remains a distant dream in a homeland wilting under the fire of occupation and starvation.
Yesterday, 12 countries announced their commitment to a full arms embargo on the Israeli government. The resolution comes out of an emergency summit in Bogota where members of the Hague Group gathered to coordinate legal and diplomatic action to counter the “climate of impunity” for Israeli war crimes that is enabled by the US and other countries.
I watched this video yesterday and today it has disappeared:
Israeli draftees in Tel Aviv march against the IDF, burn their draft cards and explain why no one should serve in Israel’s genocidal army!
Watch!#TikTok https://t.co/4F59itCdYq
— Jeffrey Kaye (@jeff_kaye) July 18, 2025
“Either the U.S. lets Iran become nuclear, or the U.S. has to engage diplomatically.”
In this interview, Negar Razavi speaks with @vali_nasr about his new book, Iran’s Grand Strategy: A Political History — and the choices ahead for U.S. foreign policy.
It was pleasure to speak with Security in Context on my book Iran’s Grand Strategy https://t.co/7By3bceGnS
— Vali Nasr (@vali_nasr) July 16, 2025
“Professor Vali Reza Nasr is an Iranian-American academic and political scientist, specializing in Middle Eastern studies and the history of Islam. He is Majid Khaddouri Professor of International Affairs and Middle East Studies at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.”
This eloquent expat may provide the most balanced and rational analysis to be seen in the West, even if must operate within rigid overton windows. Born in Tehran and understanding of the current Iranian world view and spirituality, he can look through their eyes and cogently present their point of view to us
What happened in Aleppo on November 27, 2024, was not just a battlefield event—it was a political earthquake. The rapid fall of the city, and with it the backbone of the Assad regime’s military presence in northern Syria, sent shockwaves through the region. The speed at which the regime disintegrated raised eyebrows even among its most ardent opponents. Many knew a military operation was underway, but few understood the invisible war happening behind the frontlines.
Now, we may do.
According to an investigation published by New Lines Magazine, the collapse of the Syrian Arab Army in Aleppo was not simply the result of ground assaults or drone strikes—it was the product of a covert cyber operation. At the heart of this deception was not a rocket or a tank, but something much more insidious: a mobile application.
Launched under the guise of a humanitarian initiative, the app named STFD-686, a string of letters standing for Syria Trust for Development, appeared in the summer of 2024. It was allegedly linked to First Lady Asma al-Assad and marketed as a benevolent program to support Syrian soldiers with a monthly stipend of 400,000 Syrian pounds—roughly $40.
The offer to many soldiers living in desperate conditions was irresistible.
To claim the payment, users had to input a series of personal and seemingly harmless details—name, birthdate, and family size. But then came requests for more sensitive information: military rank, unit designation, deployment coordinates, and chain-of-command affiliations. One Syrian software expert familiar with the operation told New Lines Magazine that the app was designed to extract enough data to map the entire Syrian army structure in real-time.
It didn’t stop there.
The app required Facebook integration, granting its handlers access to social graphs, private messages, and login credentials. Once installed, the spyware “Spy Max” was activated, giving its operators unrestricted access to phone calls, files, photos, and even live feeds from the device’s camera and microphone.
In short, every phone with the app became a mobile surveillance hub—from inside the army’s own ranks.
What came next was clinical and devastating.
Julani forces—now equipped with a digital map of the Syrian military’s most critical vulnerabilities—moved with surgical precision. Remote units were isolated and starved of supplies. High-ranking officers found their orders intercepted or countermanded. Entire defensive lines in Aleppo crumbled not from lack of manpower, but from strategic sabotage.
And all the while, the soldiers on the ground had no idea that they themselves had handed over the keys.
This was not a cyber attack in the conventional sense. It was psychological warfare, executed through technology, exploiting desperation with a promise of aid.
That remains the million-dollar question.
The digital fingerprints are murky. One of the app’s backend domains was reportedly hosted on a U.S.-based server, raising obvious suspicions given Washington’s long history of backing Julani’s factions. But the evidence is far from conclusive. It may have been an intentional false flag, meant to mislead investigators and shift blame.
The more likely reality? This was a multi-actor operation, combining local opposition intelligence, regional assets, and possibly foreign cyber expertise. Israel, Turkey, Qatar—none are strangers to cyber warfare, and all had a strategic interest in weakening Damascus.
If this operation proves anything, it’s this: the battlefield is no longer just a physical space. Cyber warfare is no longer an adjunct to conventional military power—it is central to it.
Recall 2020: a Syrian soldier’s forgotten phone inside a Russian Pantsir air defense unit allowed Israel to triangulate and eliminate the system via airstrike. That was a warning.
What happened in Aleppo was the fulfillment of that warning.
The Syrian army wasn’t just outgunned—it was out-hacked. And as we move into a new phase of hybrid warfare, it is no longer enough to control the skies or the streets. You must also control the code.
And in November 2024, the code won.
—Kevork Almassian is a Syrian journalist, geopolitical analyst, and the founder of Syriana Analysis.
[Ed Note: Do read the link supplied. It is chilling. https://newlinesmag.com/reportage/how-a-spyware-app-compromised-assads-army/]
With great fanfare, at the time of his 3-Gulf State visits, Trump announced that the US would lift all sanctions on Syria, because he wanted to ‘give them an opportunity’.
It turns out that this announcement is similar to what we know about Britain during the years when they tried to keep power, although forced to abandon overt colonization. They designed neo-colonial leadership groups. Femi Akomolafe speaks about this in his comments on Traoré videos today and we can see it in the inability of India and Pakistan for example to arrive at a strong and lasting peace. These are very deliberate stones put in the path at the end of overt colonialism in order to maintain hegemonic control and plunder. Now we have rabid neo-colonialism raging. This is a fine example of the US, in my opinion, not intending to lift sanctions ever and maintaining its control over Syria. Rubio: “I think as we make progress, hopefully we’ll be in a position soon, or one day, to go to Congress and ask them to permanently remove the sanctions,” Rubio said.
It is not that I expect anyone here to have skin in the game to remove these sanctions, but one does think of the ordinary Syrian. Then it can be seen that this is just another resource grab for US companies to ‘rebuild’, or say they are rebuilding. Jewlani is going to have to prostrate himself in front of Israel (which he is doing) and not even then will these Ceasar sanctions be removed. It is easy to control the so-called waivers, tell your local companies (and we all know the names) which waivers will be maintained and grab some beautiful profits while filling the world with Trump Towers.
The Cradle reports:
The US secretary of state said Washington will issue temporary waivers to ease sanctions, while permanently removing them requires passing legislation in Congress
The White House is not yet ready to permanently lift US sanctions that have devastated Syria’s economy for over a decade, despite President Donald Trump’s recent announcement that he planned to do so, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio stated on 19 May.
President Trump said during his visit to Saudi Arabia last week that all US sanctions targeting Damascus would be lifted.
However, Rubio said on Thursday that Trump intends to issue temporary waivers to the sanctions lasting six months.
“That’s what the president intends to do. Those waivers have to be renewed every 180 days. Ultimately, if we make enough progress, we’d like to see the law repealed, because you’re going to struggle to find people to invest in a country when in six months sanctions could come back,” Rubio said.
“We’re not there yet, that’s premature.”
The sanctions can only be lifted permanently through legislation passed by the US Congress because the most recent round was imposed on Syria through legislation known as the “Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act” in 2019.
Congress imposed sanctions to collapse Syria’s economy, in an effort to topple the previous government of president Bashar al-Assad. The sanctions complemented the CIA’s covert war to oust Assad starting in 2011. Militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, conquered Damascus in December with US and Turkish support, causing Assad to flee to Russia. Sharaa, the former Al-Qaeda in Iraq commander who was known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani, is now Syria’s de facto president.
Speaking to reporters in Antalya, Turkiye, Rubio claimed the US wants to do everything it can to help make Syria a stable, peaceful country after 14 years of war.
He added that Republican and Democratic members of the US Congress had asked the Trump administration to use waiver authorities in the “Caesar Act” to lift sanctions.
“I think as we make progress, hopefully we’ll be in a position soon, or one day, to go to Congress and ask them to permanently remove the sanctions,” Rubio said.
Syria’s foreign minister was in Washington two weeks ago, and preparatory work was already underway regarding the Syria sanctions, Rubio said.
Removing US sanctions would allow Syria to regain access to the global financial system, allowing humanitarian organizations, foreign investors, and traders to resume activities in the country.
The Treasury Department in a post on X on Thursday said it was working with the State Department and National Security Council to execute Trump’s decision.
“We look forward to implementing the necessary authorizations that would be critical to bringing new investment into Syria,” it said.
“Treasury’s actions can help rebuild Syria’s economy, financial sector, and infrastructure and could put the country on a path to a bright, prosperous, and stable future.”
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Kevork Almassian, Syrian journalist, about foreign-backed attempts at changing the Arab country’s ruling structure, latest developments in the country, and its future. This is a PressTV interview and I cannot embed it. It is worth listening to. Kindly watch on PressTV at this link: https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2025/05/07/747564/Syria–Was-It-all-worth-It-
From Marwa Osman on her TG channel:
The very same Julani-led terrorists armed, trained, and funded by Turkey, Qatar, and the West, who carried out massacres against Syrian Alawites on the coast, are now committing yet another slaughter, this time against the Druze in the south. It’s the same takfiri playbook. Only the targets change.
And also unsurprising? Israel’s silence. Despite Syrian Druze attempts to curry favor, sell loyalty, and present themselves as allies of the Zionist entity, Israel will do absolutely nothing to stop this.
It will wait… wait until the takfiri proxies weaken the Druze beyond recovery, until the demographic fabric of the south unravels, until resistance is no longer a viable option. Then, and only then, it will strike a few symbolic targets, parade itself as the savior, and “relocate” what’s left of the Druze population into the Golan… cementing its hold over land it has illegally occupied since 1967. A calculated, colonial move. One that’s been in motion for years.
The entire Syrian theater is folding neatly into Israel’s long-term strategic plan. Julani, for his part, is merely playing his role… dangling promises of normalization to the Americans in exchange for loosening sanctions, consolidating power, and ensuring he remains the West’s man in Damascus. But the Americans never intended to lift a single sanction, whether Assad remained or was replaced. The goal was never democracy. It was always dismemberment.
What we’re witnessing now is the final stage of a carefully orchestrated plan to bring down the last standing Arab state that dared to champion pan-Arabism and resist the Zionist project. And all of it, tragically, enabled by regional actors who believed they could outplay imperial design.
Had Syria responded with resistance from the very first Israeli strike during the global war on its land, the cost—though high—would have been far less than the disintegration we’re seeing today.
Remaining on the sidelines, putting faith in shifting alliances, and trusting gulf actors with colonial agendas has led to exactly what was intended from the start: a fragmented Syria, kneeling at Israel’s doorstep.
End of the game.
What a true shame.
A masterful historical exposition – both geopolitical and eschatological, providing context to the ongoing holocaust of the Arabs, and anticipatory of the next events.
If you can, download as MP3 and speed up to 3.0x for Imran Hosein and 2.4x speed for Dr. Olsi. Highly recommended for both their two lecture parts, and the following interactive Q & As.
Imran Hosein starts after 40 min, discussing:
Lateo.net - Flux RSS en pagaille (pour en ajouter : @ moi)