Retired child and adolescent psychiatrist and American expatriate in New Zealand. In 2002, I made the difficult decision to close my 25-year Seattle practice after 15 years of covert FBI harassment. I describe the unrelenting phone harassment, illegal break-ins and six attempts on my life in my 2010 book The Most Revolutionary Act: Memoir of an American Refugee.
This film traces the history of Greek colonies founded between 750 and 550 BC. What they refer to as “colonies” ranged from pirate stations and trading outposts to genuine colonies founded by settllers from various Greek city-states. Most were in the western Mediterranean (the eastern Mediterranean was already colonized by more powerful empires, such as Persia), the Adriatic Sea and the Black Sea.
The founding of Greek colonies followed an overpopulation crisis that developed throughout Greece in the 8th century BC. With aristocrats owning most of the arable land, there was no room for families to expand on a mountainous peninsula. Eventually all the city-states relied on overseas colonies for grain and other foodstuffs. Many younger Greeks preferred to emigrate to the colonies, where there was no aristocracy, and it was easy to acquire more land. In most cases, the colonies were far more prosperous than the city-states that founded them.
In 775 BC colonists from the city-states of Calcus and Iritea founded the first Greek colony was settled on Pithekoussai, an island off the west coast of Italy. These early settlers became extremely prosperous trading wine, metal products, pottery and ceramics to the Etruscans in northern Italy for tin, silver and iron (which they shipped back to Greece. However by 700 BC they abandoned Pithekoussai for Zancle (in Sicily), Neapolis (Naples) and Cumae (in southern Italy).
Between 730 and 700 BC a new Greek colony was founded every other year in Southern Italy, mainly to supply grain and other agricultural products for the Corinth, Calcus, Rhodes, Crete and other city-states that founded them. Sometimes the settlement process was peaceful and in some cases Greek settlers forcibly expelled the indigenous tribes they encountered. On the island of Sicily, there was also ongoing conflict with the Phoenicians (Carthaginians) who had settled western Sicily. There was also conflict between the Ionian and Dorian colonies in southern Italy and Sicily.
Cumae (in Italy) was one of the first Greek colonies, settled by colonists from Euboea to create an outpost to trade with the Etruscans in northern Italy. The settlers’ defeat of the Etruscans at Cumae in 474 BC prevent the Etruscans from expanding their own colonies into southern Italy (see The Extensive Trade Networks of the Ancient Etruscans).
The Greek colonies on the southern Spanish and French coast were mainly trading posts. Founded in 600 BC by citizens from the city-state of Volcae, Massalia (modern day Marseilles) was an exception. Although the indigenous tribes welcomed them, the Greeks did battle with the Phoenicians to claim the region. Nearby colonies of Nikai and Emporium supplied silver, iron, tin and lead to Massalia, which exported these raw materials to Greece. Massalia also traded wine to Celtic tribes in Gaul’s interior and eventually taught the Celts how to grow grapes.
The island of Thrace had 30 Greek colonies, founded between 720 and 700 BC, by settlers from Calcus and Corinth. The new residents forcibly displaced the indigenous population.
Cyrene (in modern day Libya) was founded in 630 BC by residents from Thera, which literally ran out of food. Each family was expected to send one son, on pain of death, to the new colony. It became one of the most prosperous Greek colonies, providing the mainland with grain, wool, oxides and silphium (a laxative)
The numerous Greek colonies along the Black Sea were an important source of precious metals, copper and tin.
But somehow, the Anti-War and 9/11 Truth movements have not really been able to come together to advance their related causes.
Both agree that we’re being lied to on a regular basis about wars and foreign policy agendas, but not all in the two movements agree that 9/11 was one of those lies.
And that’s a shame given the number of wars justified by the 9/11 deception.
Given recent world events – particularly the dangerous willingness of the outgoing Biden administration to risk World War 3 by backing the launching of long-range missiles into Russia – one might wonder whether there is a new opportunity for the two movements to find common ground. The timing seems particularly good since there is now greater willingness on the part of political figures like Tucker Carlson, Jimmy Dore, Russell Brand, and Jill Stein to openly question the 9/11 official story.
To figure out why the two movements haven’t worked together more closely, one must look at what happened in the years right after 9/11. Was it simply a lack of communication and understanding? Or was possible cooperation prevented by agents of the deep state?
Anti-war activist and 9/11 truther Phil Restino has been fighting on both fronts since he became an active opponent of the Iraq War in the early to mid 2000s. He particularly remembers being angered by George W. Bush’s flippant comments at the 2005 White House Correspondents’ Dinner about the government’s inability to produce the weapons of mass destruction that it had claimed were in Iraq. (Not only did Bush make a joke about looking for the WMDs under the podium, but politicians and journalists in attendance laughed along with him.)
“Kids were coming home in body bags every day, and they were laughing.” Restino says.
He talks about how he wanted to end the wars taking place after 9/11 even before he realized that 9/11 was a false flag.
“I remember watching the buildings coming down on 9/11 and thinking, ‘This can’t be happening,’” he explains. “But the power of the media and all the propaganda arms is just amazing. So that questioning went away, and the narrative was plugged in.”
But once he did see through the deception, he committed himself to exposing the truth about 9/11 and ending the wars that resulted.
“It was just common sense,” he says. “The wars are based on the 9/11 lie, and these are the 9/11 wars.”
Restino, who spent two years in the Army (although not in combat), approached the group Veterans For Peace about starting a new chapter in Central Florida, where he lives. Joining the chapter was famed veteran, whistleblower, and peace activist Col. Bob Bowman, who had headed up the government’s Strategic Defense Initiative in the 1970s.
Bowman ended up protesting what the Reagan administration did with SDI in the 1980s, which led to him being attacked and ostracized by many of his military colleagues. He went on to become an active member of Veterans For Peace as well as working for 9/11 Truth until his death in 2013.
Restino explains that his idea in 2005 was to approach local Vietnam veterans about joining the new chapter, but that wasn’t as successful as he’d hoped.
“I thought if they had this information about how much of a lie this was, they would not allow what happened to them – being lied into that war – to happen to this generation.”
Unfortunately, he adds, many veterans likened questioning the war to “not supporting the troops who were in harms way.”
Restino points out that in the early years after 9/11, truthers and peace activists did find themselves allied to a greater degree than they were later. He recalls being part of a major Anti-War protest in Washington D.C. in 2005 that was attended by people like George Galloway, Cindy Sheehan, and Cynthia McKinney, a former congresswoman who also became a voice for 9/11 truth.
But as time went on, Restino noticed that the leadership of major peace groups like Veterans For Peace and CODEPINK was cool to the idea of pursuing challenges to the 9/11 story. Meanwhile, rank and file peace activists were being discouraged from questioning 9/11 by being branded as “conspiracy theorists.”
As to why the leaders of the Anti-War Movement were not interested in 9/11 Truth, Restino posits that the movement may well have been co-opted, pointing out that while the FBI’s COINTELPRO program was supposedly discontinued in 1971, efforts to infiltrate activist groups continue to this day.
“Those who pulled off 9/11 to justify the wars that followed had to know there would be some kind of anti-war movement,” Restino says. “To think that these guys didn’t have people in place in the 9/11 Truth and Anti-War movements is naïve at best.”
Other longtime peace activists – who are also active in 9/11 Truth – will suggest that infiltration of the peace movement has played a significant role in keeping the two factions from combining their efforts.
Longtime Canadian journalist Barrie Zwicker, author of the essential book Towers of Deception: The Media Cover-Up of 9/11, says he remembers going to an Anti-War conference in Boston years ago, and he noted that 9/11 was obvious in its omission from the agenda.
“We know that agents of the state have long infiltrated the peace movement – and then the 9/11 Truth Movement, and that these agents’ orders would include stymying of mutual
Also, Cheryl Curtiss, who has participated in both movements (she and I are co-facilitators of the monthly 9/11 and Other Deep State Teleconference) says that the Anti-War Movement gained prominence after 9/11, particularly because the Bush administration falsely blamed Saddam Hussein for 9/11, a charge that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq in 2003.
“The peace movement got really huge after 9/11,” she explains. “I mean, at one point there were something like 15 million people around the world protesting at the same time against the war in Iraq.”
Curtiss says that those in the peace movement knew that the justification given for the war was based on lies, but only some were prepared to also question 9/11.
It is obvious now, as it was to many in those first few years of the new millennium, that wars are almost always justified by lies and propaganda. Lies continue to be told about what happened on 9/11, just as they were to justify the invasions of Iraq, Afghanistan, and other countries.
Today, new lies are being added to justify new wars and new mass murder. It is essential that we have the courage to see through the kinds of deceptions that get us into wars if we ever want to break the pattern. The Anti-War and 9/11 Truth movements both understand the damage these lies do.
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich gives a speech, regarding the ceasefire proposal between Israel and Hamas, in front of the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem on June 3, 2024 [Saeed Qaq – Anadolu Agency]
Israel is getting ready to annex the occupied Palestinian West Bank. The annexation will be a major step backwards on the road to Palestinian freedom and will likely serve as a catalyst for a new Palestinian uprising. Although annexation has been on the Israeli agenda for years, this time around a “great opportunity” — in the words of extreme far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich — has presented itself and, from an Israeli point of view, cannot be missed.
“I hope we’ll have a great opportunity with the new US administration to create full normalisation [of the Israeli occupation],” he was quoted as saying by Israeli media. This is not the first time that Smotrich, along with other Israeli extremists, has made the connection between Donald Trump moving back into the White House and the illegal expansion of Israel’s nominal borders.
Two things make Israel’s far-right optimistic about Trump’s return to the Oval Office: the Israeli experience during Trump’s first term in office, when the US president allowed the occupation state to claim sovereignty over illegal settlements, the Syrian Golan Heights and occupied East Jerusalem; and Trump’s more recent statement in the run-up to the elections.
Israel is “so tiny” on the map, said Trump when addressing the pro-Israel group Stop Anti-Semitism at an event in August, asking aloud: “Is there any way of getting more?” The statement, absurd by any definition, prompted joy among Israeli politicians, who understood it to be a green light for further annexation of Palestinian land.
Israel’s aims for colonial expansion have also received a boost in more recent days.
Following the fall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Israel immediately invaded large swathes of the country, reaching as far as the Quneitra governorate, less than 20 kilometres from the capital, Damascus. What is taking place in Syria serves as a model of what to expect in the West Bank in coming months.
Israel occupied nearly 70 per cent of the Syrian Golan Heights in 1967. It cemented its illegal occupation of the Arab region by formally annexing it in 1981 through the so-called Golan Heights Law. That illegal move came shortly after another illegal annexation, that of occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem the previous year.
Although the West Bank was not formally annexed, the boundaries of East Jerusalem have been expanded well beyond its historic borders, thus swallowing large parts of the West Bank. Like East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, the West Bank is also recognised as illegally occupied under international law. Israel has no legal basis to maintain its occupation, let alone annex any Palestinian or Arab land. It is allowed to do so, however, due to US-Western support and international silence.
But why is Israel keen on annexing the West Bank now?
Aside from the “great opportunity” linked to Trump’s return to power, Israel feels that its ability to sustain a genocidal war on Gaza without any international intervention to bring the extermination to an end, would make the annexation of the West Bank a far less consequential matter on the international agenda.
Even though the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a decisive ruling on the illegality of the Israeli occupation on 19 July, followed by the issuance of arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant by the International Criminal Court (ICC) on 21 November, no action was taken to actually hold Israel accountable. The annexation of the West Bank is unlikely to change that, especially as Israel conducts its wars and illegal actions with direct US support.
The Democratic administration of Joe Biden has financed and supported all Israeli wars, including the current genocide. Trump is expected to be equally generous, or at the very least, not at all critical.
With all of this in mind, the annexation of the West Bank in the coming weeks or months is a real possibility. In fact, Smotrich has already informed “workers of the Defence Ministry body in charge of Israeli and Palestinian civil affairs in the West Bank” about his plans to “shut down the department as part of an envisioned Israeli annexation of the area,” the Times of Israelreported on 6 December.
While such annexation will not change the legal status of the West Bank under international law, it will have dire consequences for the millions of Palestinians living there, as annexation is likely to be followed by a violent campaign of ethnic cleansing, if not from the whole of the West Bank, certainly from large parts of it.
Annexation will also render the Palestinian Authority legally irrelevant.
It was created following the Oslo Accords to administer parts of the West Bank in anticipation of a future sovereign state, which has never materialised. Will the PA agree to remain functional as part of the Israeli military administration of a newly annexed West Bank?
Palestinians will certainly resist, as they always do. The nature of the resistance will prove critical in the success or failure of the Israeli scheme. A popular Intifada, for example, will overstretch the Israeli military, which will likely use an unprecedented degree of violence to suppress Palestinians, but is unlikely to succeed.
Annexing the West Bank at a time when Palestine — in fact, the whole region — is in turmoil, is a recipe for perpetual war. From the viewpoint of Smotrich and his ilk, that will be another “great opportunity”, as it will secure their political survival for years to come.
Billionaire Peter Thiel had a fascinating televised moment the other day when asked by Piers Morgan what he thought about the public making a hero of the man suspected of murdering health insurance CEO Brian Thompson. The way he stumbled and stuttered when trying to answer the question gives a lot of insight into how terrified such people are of the public turning against them one day.
“And to those who think this shooter is a hero, because he did it because he said this healthcare executive is presiding over a healthcare system which kills thousands of Americans by denying them cover, what would you say to them?” Morgan asked.
Thiel paused for a long time, and then stuttered for a long time, and then eventually got out the words, “It’s, I don’t know what, what to say? I, I think I still think you have, you should try to make an argument. And I, I think this is, this is you should, you know, there may be things wrong with our health care system, but you have, you have to make an argument, and you have to try to find a way to convince people and and change, change it by by that, and this is, you know, this is not going to work.”
For those who don’t know, Thiel is a proper deep state oligarch who owes his vast fortune to his enmeshment within the US military-intelligence machine. His company Palantir is a CIA-backed surveillance and data mining tech company with intimate ties to both the US intelligence cartel and to Israel, playing a crucial role in both the US empire’s sprawling surveillance network and Israeli atrocities against Palestinians. He backed Trump in 2016, and Vice President-Elect JD Vance was a protégé of his, so this man is thoroughly entrenched in the halls of power.
Thiel’s blustering response when asked what he thought about the public support we are seeing for the practice of assassinating health insurance CEOs reveals a lot about the kinds of things that keep men like Peter Thiel up at night.
Plutocrats like Thiel are constantly thinking about the fact that ordinary people vastly outnumber them and can kill them at any time. They think about it way more often than ordinary people do. It’s a point that they are acutely aware of at all times. It consumes their attention. They are always working on manipulating public consciousness to ensure that we don’t think as much as they do about how many more of us there are of them, and how we don’t have to put up with their domination of our society if we don’t want to.
“I tell students when they say, ‘Oh they don’t care what we think. They ignore us’, and all that, and I say, ‘Oh no, no. That’s the only thing they care about you. The only thing they care about you is what you’re thinking. They don’t care if you eat correctly, they don’t care how your living conditions are, they don’t care that they’ve built up an inhuman and irrational traffic system that’s strangulating us and polluting our air, they don’t care about anything. The only thing about you they care about is what you’re thinking. In the morning, they start, ‘What’s going to be the story today? How do we manipulate, how do we control, how do we contain, how do we influence, how do we act upon what it is that they have in their minds?’”
Manipulating public consciousness is of existential importance to the ruling class, because no matter how many billions of dollars you amass, at the end of the day you’re still a soft skin sack of blood and bones like anybody else, and you share a society with huge numbers of people who can very easily hurt you if they want to. That’s why our minds are constantly being hammered with propaganda into accepting the status quo politics upon which our rulers have built their kingdoms.
But we’re seeing the propaganda losing its grip on our minds. Hollywood tried to train people to believe heroes look like soldiers and cops, or billionaires using their wealth to become Iron Man and Batman, and then the people chose as their hero a guy who was arrested for shooting a health insurance CEO. The other day a DJ threw up pictures of the suspected shooter Luigi Mangione during his concert and drew cheers from the crowd — and this was at a Disney-themed show.
Israel is reportedly preparing to deploy dozens of weapons systems in the West Bank which are capable of firing deadly rounds without human intervention, meaning fully autonomous killing machines as opposed to remote-controlled. These killer robots have already been in use on Israel’s border with Gaza.
Various military robots have been tested in Gaza since Israel’s onslaught on the enclave began last year, and now they’re expanding the field testing of their murderbots to the West Bank as well. Of all the horrible things Israel and its western backers do to the Palestinians, among the most evil is the way they use them as lab rats to field test new weapons systems so the rest of the empire can learn how effective those systems are.
You may be sure that empire managers like Peter Thiel are watching these developments with keen interest. Militarized robots are the anti-guillotine. They’re the final solution to the ancient “there are a lot more of us than there are of our rulers” problem. Everyone with wealth and power has been eyeing their incremental rollout with intense interest while trying to play it cool.
So at this point we’re essentially looking at a race to see if the oligarchic empire can manufacture the necessary environment to allow the use of robotic security forces to lock their power in place forever before the masses get fed up with the increasing inequalities and abuses of the status quo and decide to force a better system into existence.
Europe is disintegrating as legacy political regimes are collapsing over across the world.
Just one week after Marine Le Pen precipitated the collapse of the French government, on Monday, Chancellor Olaf Scholz lost a confidence vote in the German Parliament on Monday, a defeat that effectively ended the increasingly unpopular government he has led since 2021 and ushered in elections early next year.
German lawmakers voted to dissolve the existing government by a vote of 394 to 207, with 116 abstaining.
The collapse of the government just nine months before elections had been scheduled was an extraordinary moment for Germany, once Europe’s powerhouse but now a laughingstock at the mercy of both China and Russia. This will be only the fourth snap election in the 75 years since the modern state was founded, and it reflected a new era of more fractious and unstable politics in a country long known for durable coalitions built on plodding consensus.
The confidence vote, in the same month that the French government fell, deepens a crisis of leadership in Europe at a time of mounting economic and security challenges. The war in Ukraine has reached a pivotal moment, with Russia set to make decisive territorial gains and perhaps even push on toward Kiev, while president-elect Donald J. Trump is set to take office in the United States. And now, Europe’s largest and second largest economies are in the hands of a caretaker governments, as the continent is sent reeling in a tailspin of chaos and revulsion to the status quo.
Scholz had little choice but to take the unusual step of calling for the confidence vote after his three-party coalition splintered in November, ending months of bitter internal squabbling and leaving him without a parliamentary majority to pass laws or a budget. And now, the political uncertainty could last for months. The elections are expected to be held on Feb. 23, but even if, as expected, his party does not finish first, Scholz would remain in place as a caretaker chancellor until weeks after that. He would step down only after a new coalition forms, which will probably not happen until April or May according to the NYT..
Seven parties will go into the campaign for Parliament with a realistic chance of gaining seats, and some on – especially on the right – are poised for very strong showings, according to polls.
The campaign is likely to be dominated by several issues that have roiled Europe in recent years. Germany and France, traditionally the two most influential countries in the European Union, are mired in debates over how best to revive their struggling economies, breach growing social divides, ease voter anxieties over immigration and buttress national defense.
Meanwhile, the establishment EU partners are looking warily toward Russia, where Putin has escalated threats about the use of nuclear weapons amid Moscow’s war against Ukraine, and where states like Germany have been providing Kiev with long-range missiles to be used deep inside Russia, in the process ensuring that relations with Moscow are abysmal for years to come.
And in typical social-democrat fashion, the leading European politicians have also been vexed by their deteriorating economic relationship with China, which has grown into a formidable competitor for many of their most important industries but has not become the booming consumer market for European products that leaders long envisioned. Instead, China has promptly become the world’s biggest producer of cars, making a mockery of what was once Germany’s most important and profitable industry, and no lies in tatters.
And they are bracing for the start of the new presidential term for Trump, who has threatened a trade war and the end of the United States’ commitment to the NATO alliance that has guaranteed Europe’s security for 75 years.
The combination of challenges has proved politically catastrophic for Europe’s legacy powers. French President Emmanuel Macron on Friday named his fourth prime minister in a year and is under mounting pressure to resign. Macron says he will stay in office and try to repair the deep fissures in his government over the 2025 budget. Scholz’s government faced similar budget challenges, along with growing concerns about how to rebuild the German military in the face of a belligerent Russia and Trump’s criticism of NATO.
As even the liberal NYT admits, it is an inopportune time for Germany to be plunged into a grueling winter election campaign and a political freeze that could last until a new government takes power.
The even more liberal Bloomberg News, made a stunning admission that “Germany’s Economy Is Unraveling Just as Europe Needs It Most”, and notes that “Germany is reaching a point of no return. Business leaders know it, the people in the country feel it, but politicians haven’t come up with answers.”
That has set Europe’s largest economy on a path of decline that threatens to become irreversible.
Following five years of stagnation, Germany’s economy is now 5% smaller than it would have been if the pre-pandemic growth trend had been maintained.
In short, Germany is heading straight for a historic economic and political collapse.
“The timing is absolutely terrible for the E.U. — basically, these multiple crises are hitting the E.U. at the worst possible time, because the bloc’s traditional engine is busy with itself,” Jana Puglierin, of the European Council on Foreign Relations, said, referring to Germany and France.
The war in Ukraine and the need to bolster Germany’s military — and what that will cost — will be among the urgent issues likely to dominate the election campaign, along with the floundering economy, failing infrastructure, immigration and the rise of the political extremes. Badly behind in the polls, Scholz is planning to highlight his caution when supplying Ukraine with weapons, especially sophisticated offensive hardware. Which, of course, is a U-turn to Germany’s legacy position which was literally the opposite, and took advantage of every opportunity to arm Zelensky and deposit more euros into his slush fund.
In any case, Scholz will have to fight hard to persuade voters to give him another chance. For now, it is Mr. Merz, a longtime figure on the political stage, who is widely expected to be the next chancellor, given his party’s strong lead in polls.
The three other mainstream parties are also led by well-known politicians, two of whom held important posts in the government: Christian Lindner, leader of the pro-business Free Democrats, whose falling out with the chancellor helped precipitate the collapse of the coalition; and Robert Habeck, the economic minister and lead candidate for the left-leaning Greens.
But in Germany’s fractious political landscape, no single party is likely to win an outright majority, leading to potentially tricky negotiations to build a coalition more functional and durable than the one that failed.
That necessity probably means that opponents cannot be criticized too heavily because they are all potential coalition partners. But it may also present mainstream parties with difficult decisions about whom they chose to work with.
All of the mainstream parties have said they would refuse to partner with the conservative Alternative for Germany, parts of which are being monitored as a threat to the Constitution by the domestic security services. Nonetheless, the party, which is known as the AfD and is ascendant in the polls with 18 percent approval, continues to gain ground.
As noted at the time, in the closely watched state elections in September, both the AfD and a newer, extreme-left party, the Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance, had their best showings ever. But mainstream parties still consider them an anathema, making it hard to form governing coalitions in those states. The results could portend equally messy coalition haggling in Berlin after a national vote, though the political fringes are less popular nationally than they are in those eastern states.
But given the likely vote tally, many political watchers predict a return of the grand coalition of the center between the conservative CDU and the progressive Social Democratic Party, which governed Germany for 12 of the past 20 years.
The ongoing Drone Psyop is still making headlines today in both the corporate and “alternative” media, with seemingly everyone chipping in to give their opinion about what is really happening.
We are going on almost 4 weeks now where the “headline” news in the U.S. has been obviously following a carefully written script to get the public’s attention. It started with the assassination of Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, which amazingly stayed in the news cycle as the headline story for over 3 weeks.
It took the drone story to displace that one, and it is very obvious that this story is also following a pre-determined script to try to accomplish something with the highly-medicated vaccine-damaged American public.
What I usually like to do when it is obvious that the American public is being distracted by something that the corporate and “alternative” media is publishing that stays in the news cycle for so long, is to look outside of American media to see if there are significant other news stories that are being reported elsewhere that are NOT reaching the U.S. media.
So this morning I looked at the two Russian English news sites, five different Middle Eastern English news sites, and 1 major English News site out of China.
There was not one single article on the “drone crisis” in the U.S. I could see on any of the home pages of all those English News sites as of this morning, and yet it continues to dominate the U.S. News.
The Middle Eastern news is, of course, still concentrating on the war in Gaza and the new situation in Syria, and China seems mostly consumed about Trump’s alleged new tariff trade wars that are being threatened.
So here is what Putin said today, which at the time of this writing is not being reported much yet in the U.S. media.
Western countries continue to act as if they are God’s representatives on Earth by trying to maintain their global dominance through imposing duplicitous rules, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said.
Speaking at a meeting of top Russian Defense Ministry officials on Monday, Putin noted that the military and political situation in the world remains complicated and unstable, pointing to the bloodshed in the Middle East and other regions of the world.
The president stated that the current US administration, as well as most other Western governments, are still trying to preserve their global hegemony and force the international community to play by their “so-called rules” that constantly change and distort in a way that is convenient for them.
“In fact, there is only one stable rule: no rules for those who make the rules, for those who consider themselves to be at the head of the whole world, those who consider themselves to be representatives of God on Earth, although they themselves do not believe in God,” Putin said. (Source.)
The West’s support for Ukraine is pushing Russia to the point where it cannot help but retaliate, President Vladimir Putin has said, while warning the US against deploying medium-range missiles.
Speaking at a meeting of top Russian Defense Ministry officials on Monday, Putin accused the US of seeking
“to weaken our country and inflict a strategic defeat” on Moscow by continuing “to pump a de facto illegitimate ruling regime in Kiev with weapons and money, sending mercenaries and military advisers, thereby encouraging further escalation of the conflict.”
Washington is instilling fear in Americans by resorting to “simple tactics,” Putin stated. “They push us to the red line… we begin to respond, and then they frighten their population,” he added, suggesting that the US used the same approach during its rivalry with the Soviet Union. (Source.)
I have stated in previous articles that in my opinion, it is extremely unlikely that any of the countries that the U.S. Government wants Americans to believer are our enemies, specifically China, Russia, and Iran, would have any motivation to make a military strike on U.S. soil in the mainland, as long as our financial system is still in tact, because they all drink from the spigot of U.S. wealth, even with sanctions in place.
Russia is far more likely to attack U.S. military installations in Europe and the Middle East, and a U.S. military report published earlier this year admitted that the U.S. military could not defeat China in a direct military confrontation.
U.S. Military Report: U.S. Cannot Defeat China, U.S. Public Unaware of Dangers and Unprepared for Societal Breakdown
A truly historic event was held in Washington D.C. this week that barely broke into the news cycle, when Eric Edelman and Jane Harman, from the Commission on the National Defense Strategy, presented their findings to members of Congress based on a RAND Corporation published report that came out this week explaining that the U.S. could not win a war against China, and that Americans are totally unaware of the danger they are in and totally unprepared for the consequences of such a war, such as a Cyber Attack that would bring down our ports and much of our network services infrastructure. (Full article.)
And Iran, of course, is focused on defeating Israel, and has already launched missiles into Israel twice this year. They have nothing to gain and much to lose by attacking America’s homeland.
In one way or another, this new weapons technology unveiled by Russia must be putting pressure on American military leaders, and I would not be surprised at all if this entire drone psyop has something to do with their next move, which could be some kind of “false flag attack” that is about to be launched on American soil by the U.S. military.
In a speech last weekend, Putin warned the ruling elites (the 2 families – the Rothschilds and Rockefellers) that if these attacks on Russia continue, then expect more devastating responses in Britain and France, plus the US. (Full article here.)
Shortly after I published that article, and just after Sam Parker started a 2-part series about what just happened in Syria, the Behind the News Network website went down, and it has been down for a few days now at the time of this writing.
This has happened to them before, forcing them to change domain names.
I have found very solid intelligence reports from this website frequently since the COVID Scam, and I suspect that their analysis was close to the target, and was perhaps the reason why they were just knocked offline again.
So be careful, be prepared, and don’t be fooled by the lies published in the media.
Remember, those of us who did not fall for the COVID Scam and never took their shots and drugs, are now among the few who can still think rationally and exercise discernment.
One of the worst places to live in the world for healthcare is the United States, which is rife with waste.
The latest estimates suggest that 25 percent of U.S. healthcare spending basically gets flushed down the toilet. Put another way, for every $1 spent on healthcare in America, 25 cents of it goes to waste.
In 2021, U.S. healthcare spending reached an astounding $4.3 trillion, or about $12,900 per person, on average – though keep in mind that typically older, sicker, and more insured populations account for most of that spending, not to mention the fact that millions of Americans do not even have healthcare coverage and thus are not included in that average unless they are paying for healthcare out of pocket.
If every American was covered within the existing paradigm, the total spending amount would be even higher which is amazing considering other countries with universal healthcare programs spend about half, on average, per person compared to the U.S. rate. Why is that?
A big part of the problem is waste, claims the Peter G. Peterson Foundation (PGPF). If wasteful healthcare spending was eliminated, nearly $1 trillion per year in healthcare costs could be saved, the group says.
(Related: It was announced this week that Trump is nominating “America First fighter” Kash Patel to lead the Federal Bureau of Investigation.)
Administrative costs top list of healthcare waste line items
In 2019, a team of healthcare scholars published a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) outlining how these figures were calculated. It defines wasteful spending in healthcare as follows:
1) Services and processes that are either harmful or that do not deliver any benefits
2) Excess costs that could be avoided by replacing services and products with cheaper alternatives that are identical or even better
The biggest line item that could at the very least be trimmed are administrative costs. Upwards of $266 billion annually is wasted on administrative costs, which are the highest in the world by far.
In 2021, the U.S. spent $1,055 per capita on healthcare administrative costs, which is more than three times what Germany, the second-highest spender on administrative healthcare costs, spends per capita at just $306.
“That difference is partially due to the administrative complexity of having multiple payers in the U.S. healthcare system, which results in higher costs associated with billing- and insurance-related expenses, including managing insurance claims, clinical documentation and coding, and prior authorization issues,” PGPF says.
“That administrative complexity is illustrated by the fact that estimated time spent dealing with bill-related matters amounts to $68,000 per physician per year. However, it should be noted that much of the spending discrepancies among countries stem from the fact that the U.S. healthcare system operates differently than other OECD countries, particularly those with single-payer systems.”
Out of all the OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) countries, Japan spends the least on healthcare administrative costs at just $82 per capita, followed by the United Kingdom at $97 per capita.
Operational waste, i.e., pricing failures and misuse of medical materials, is another area of U.S. healthcare spending that could use a big trim. There is so much inefficiency that a few common-sense tweaks would easily help to reduce costs and move things in the right direction.
“The wastefulness or inefficiencies of the country’s healthcare system is a notable factor contributing to costs in that sector,” PGPF says. “Since the government pays for around two-fifths of all healthcare spending, eliminating wasteful spending, where possible, would aid in reducing the nation’s debt.”
“Fortunately, there are plenty of solutions to explore that would mitigate wasteful health spending and help reduce the financial impact on both individuals and the government.”
How can a country with a degree of democracy put sanctions on various countries resulting in wide impoverishment while it brags that it is spreading democracy and freedom worldwide?
A country that has the rule of capital as its main objective. True, there are other systems with negative characteristics.
But capitalism is inherently geared toward maintaining and expanding the rule of capital, in the bottom line.
The capitalist United States systematically imposes sanctions on countries branded as “evil doers,” causing grave harm in those countries. Often the most vulnerable people are targeted and are subjected to hardships and even starvation because of the sanctions, while governing elites remain in power.
Nowadays, the U.S. does not practice as much diplomacy as it does war-mongering.
Countries are demonized really because they want to take an alternative path in a multi-polar world as opposed to a bi-polar one, which the U.S. and its allies currently impose. The U.S. monetary empire cannot stand having a rival system that threatens its dominance in the world.
Agencies like the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has imposed one-third of the sanctions worldwide.
So, the U.S. is the country with the most sanctions. But who are the “evil doers?”
From Princeton University’s Research & Project Administration, here are examples:
Cuba,
North Korea (DPRK),
Syria,
Iran,
Russia, and
regions in Ukraine like Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk.
Actions against the above: “Most transactions, including those involving persons or entities ‘ordinarily resident” require an OFAC License.
There are 18 countries listed including: the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Lebanon, Belarus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Ethiopia, Libya, Burma (Myanmar), Iraq, and Sudan.
Actions against the above: “Transactions related to activities with specific parties in these countries are prohibited.”
Afghanistan, Belarus, Russia, China (PRC), Cyprus, Iraq, Nicaragua, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Lebanon, North Korea (DPRK), Sudan, Zimbabwe, Burma (Myanmar), Cuba, Haiti, Somalia, Syria, Central African Republic, DRC, Iran, Libya, South Sudan, and Venezuela.
Actions against the above: “The U.S. Department of State prohibits the export of military/space equipment or technical data to these countries and to foreign nationals of these countries.”
As shown, some countries are in more than one category.
More specifically, here are examples of sanctions against the following countries:
Cuba
Cuba has been the victim of decades of sanctions, totaling about 64 years. The U.S. embargo, or El Bloqueo (the Blockade), as Cubans call it, has been morally bankrupt and a failure. If U.S. officials were truly concerned about the welfare of Cubans, the embargo would have been lifted long ago. Instead, it was tightened after the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It was, and is, a cruel set of actions to try to make Cuba subservient to the U.S., similar to pre-1959 Cuba.
The enforcement of sanctions has come in the form of several acts: the Trading with the Enemy Act of 1917; the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961; the Cuban Assets Control Regulations of 1963; the Cuban Democracy Act of 1992; the Helms-Burton Act of 1996; and the Trade Sanctions Reform and Export Enhancement Act of 2000.
The Foreign Assistance Act (FAA) and the Cuban Democracy Act (CDA) have, in particular, pretty-sounding names. But that is as far as it goes. The FAA spawned the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) which, despite the name, is a CIA front. The CDA contradicts democracy because, if it were actually about democracy, the embargo would have been lifted many years ago.
For 31 years, the UN General Assembly has annually voted overwhelmingly to lift the embargo. The most recent vote (November 2023) had 187 countries voting to lift it and just two countries voting to continue it, those countries being of course the United States and Israel. Ukraine abstained.
North Korea (DPRK)
With the 38th parallel dividing North Korea and South Korea (ROK), due to the Korean War, lasting from 1950 to 1953, it has been about 70 years since this alignment was established; and it has been impossible for the two Koreas to unite, mainly based on ideological differences. The U.S. has controlled the south while the USSR controlled the north. A demilitarization zone (DMZ) was established.
An agreement was made in 1948 whereby the U.S. and Soviet militaries would withdraw from both Koreas after five years. The U.S., however, left military advisers in the south, and eventually reoccupied it.
The West has consistently claimed that the DPRK wants to invade the ROK in an attempt at reunification. So, the DPRK is seen as the “aggressor.” The reality, however, is more complicated.
The DPRK, led by Kim Il Sung, and the ROK, led by Syngman Rhee, both considered civil war to unify the peninsula. But it was not the DPRK which began drawing up battle plans for another war. It was the ROK. Nevertheless, the DPRK was still interested in reunification.
In 1994, an agreement was signed to reduce the hostility between the DPRK and the U.S. It was the U.S.-DPRK Agreed Framework, with conditions that were not favorable to the DPRK. It was to close down its nuclear facilities and have IAEA inspections. The U.S. failed to honor the agreement. There were still military threats and trade and economic barriers.
The sanctions imposed against the DPRK are as follows: Trade restricted to food, medicine and other humanitarian necessities, but require a license; imports from the DPRK have been prohibited starting in 2011; arms sales and arms transfers are fully prohibited; financial transactions are prohibited; new U.S. investment is prohibited; U.S. foreign aid is minimal, except for those “fleeing” the DPRK; U.S.-based assets are blocked; Kim Jong Un and the Korean Workers’ Party are identified as being involved in illicit and punishable activities: U.S. travel requires a special valid passport.
With these sanctions, the U.S. Empire is practicing overkill. It is the usual hostility against an “evil-doer.”
Russia
Like other “enemies,” Russia is portrayed as being “evil.” Ideally speaking, its invasion of Ukraine is violating international law. But, since the change of the international situation in 1991, with the dissolution of the USSR, tragic changes took place in the former Soviet republics. Instead of democratic reforms that would have complimented socialism, capitalist shock-therapy economics was imposed causing tragedy and suffering among the Soviet population. Since then, Russia has been on the defensive, with the U.S./NATO alliance expanding to its borders with weapons pointed at it.
Recent history shows that there was a U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine in 2014. In the Donbas and Crimea, where the Black Sea fleet is located, many ethnic Russians were attacked because they were Russian. The attackers included Ukrainian Nazis who committed war crimes, resulting in the deaths of 14,000 ethnic Russians. In response, Russia invaded the Donbas and Crimea, not wanting to lose the Black Sea fleet. There were referenda in both regions, and majorities voted to separate from Ukraine.
Still, the Ukrainian military, which includes the Azov Battalion, a Nazi group, continued to attack those regions. In February 2022, Russia added more troops to its invasion in the Donbas and Crimea, among other areas, to battle the Ukrainian military. It has been a tragic affair, with many Ukrainians and Russians dying.
There was a chance for negotiations, but the alliance put a stop to that. For example, former British PM Boris Johnson visited Kyiv and talked to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky. Johnson persuaded him not to negotiate. Thus, more weapons were sent to Ukraine by the alliance.
The U.S. Empire acted quickly, putting sanctions on Russia. The majority of sanctions began in 2014, with Russia’s invasion. Examples of the sanctions are as follows, enacted with executive orders by President Barack Obama:
Executive Order 13660—“Targets those responsible for undermining Ukraine’s democracy and threatens its peace.”
E.O. 13661—“Targets Russian officials operating in the arms sector, as well as entities they own and control.”
E.O. 13662—“Targets entities and individuals operating in Russia’s financial services, energy and defense sectors.”
E.O. 13685—“Prohibits U.S. business or investment in occupied Crimea.”
Given U.S. imperialism, these sanctions are the height of hypocrisy. Further, the U.S./NATO alliance is trying to turn Ukraine into a market satellite assisted by a willing Ukrainian government whose president, Zelensky, is a neo-liberal. The idea is to take advantage of cheap Ukrainian labor.
Venezuela
The reaction by right-wing/fascist Venezuelans and their “sugar daddy,” the U.S., toward the Venezuelan presidential election is typically arrogant and pretentious outrage. A statement by Venezuelanalysissums it up:
“For more than 25 years, The U.S. has been hellbent on overthrowing the Bolivarian Revolution. Unable to see its surrogates succeed at the polls or trigger an outright coup, Washington settled on a weapon of choice: economic sanctions.”
Visa Restrictions—“Since FY 2018, the State Department has imposed visa restrictions related to corruption or human rights abuses…the State Department has also privately revoked the visas of Venezuelans, including those of current Venezuelan officials and their families.”
Terrorism-Related Sanctions—“Since 2006, the Secretary of State has made annual determination that Venezuela is not ‘cooperating fully with United States anti-terrorism efforts’…the United States has prohibited all U.S. commercial arms sales and transfers to Venezuela.”
Drug Traffic-Related Sanctions—“Treasury has imposed asset-blocking sanctions on 11 individuals and 25 companies with connections to Venezuela by designating them as Specially Designated Narcotics Traffickers…”
Targeted Sanctions Related to Antidemocratic Actions, Human Rights violations, and Corruption—“In response to increasing repression in Venezuela, Congress enacted the Venezuela Defense of Human Rights and Civil Society Act of 2014. [T]he law required the President to impose sanctions on those responsible for significant acts of violence, human rights abuses, or antidemocratic actions.”
For the last sentence, those acts in reality are the handiwork of U.S.-backed right-wing/fascists. They are the main instigators of violence. But the U.S. would call them “pro-democracy demonstrators.” Again, the hypocrisy.
Former UN Independent Expert on International Order Alfred de Zayas wrote a piece in CounterPunch that condemns the U.S. Empire’s own terrorism:
“In the US State Department’s toolkit, unilateral coercive measures (UCMs) are used to blackmail, bully and intimidate States that do not readily accept US hegemony. Placing a country in the US list of countries sponsors for terrorism is intended to lend some phony legitimacy to UCMs imposed against targeted States.”
In some of his writings, De Zayas has also emphasized the devastating humanitarian consequences of U.S. sanctions as a mode of economic warfare and the potential that they could lead to outright war if not regime change.
U.S. social movements ought to do more to publicize the terrible costs and illegitimacy of U.S. sanctions and to mount more effective campaigns to try and curtail them.
College protesters focused on the Israeli genocide in Gaza would do well to try and help raise awareness about additional government policies that cause harm around the world, including by contributing to the death and malnutrition of children.
In November, the Gateway Pundit reported on a new development in California and some other states where rural conservative voters are pushing to divorce from liberal cities to create new states.
A month later, the push is still on as these voters tire of progressive policies and restrictions on freedom.
In California, conservatives are tired of the entire state being dominated by the politics of Los Angeles and San Francisco.
FOX News reports:
Rural towns push to divorce from big cities, form new conservative state
Rural voters in California have had it with the Democratic majority in Sacramento and are pushing for their communities to divorce the blue urban areas that dominate state politics.
Conservative residents in California’s rural regions are tired of overregulation, the high cost of living and the myriad of policies coming out of the Democratic-dominated state Legislature, said Paul Preston, who founded New California State in hopes of splintering off from its current home.
“We recognized that we were in a tyranny,” Preston told Fox News Digital, citing the disparity between Democrats and Republicans in state government.
Preston, a former school administrator, described California as a “one-party” state that operates similar to a communist regime by passing laws that disregard the rural class.
Under the proposed map, New California State would comprise nearly all of California’s 58 counties, except most of Los Angeles County and parts of Sacramento County, San Francisco and other parts of the Bay Area. The map is purely a proposal and doesn’t represent the final state borders, Preston said.
There is a serious case to be made here. In the 2024 election, California moved 12 points to the right.
This is insane! Trump won in such a historic fashion he swung deep blue states close to red. California alone shifted 12 points to the right. New York shifted 11!
On November 21, 2024, Senior Judge Marsha J. Pechman of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington issued what seems likely to be her final order in Kinnucan v. National Security Agency et al. The order came more than four years after the federal case was first filed in September 2020. The suit was brought to obtain records the NSA, Central Intelligence Agency, and the Defense Intelligence Agency had failed to release despite a series of Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests concerning the USS Liberty (AGTR-5).
On June 8, 1967 – three days after Israel initiated the Six-Day War by attacking Egypt – Israeli forces launched a combined aerial and naval assault on the Liberty. Lasting over an hour, the unprovoked attack killed 34 Americans and wounded more than 170 others. The Israeli government would claim that the attack was the result of mistaken identity. More than 57 years after the attack, the FOIA lawsuit revealed new details and, more importantly, it made it clear that the US government is still refusing to release hundreds of pages of documents concerning the assault.
Attack on the Liberty
For those unfamiliar with the Liberty’s history some additional background may be in order.[1] The Liberty – a WW II-era, Victory-class cargo ship converted to serve as a signals intelligence collector or “spy ship” – was collecting intelligence for analysis by the NSA when she was attacked. The Liberty was reconnoitered multiple times by Israeli military aircraft over the span of several daylight hours on the day of, but prior to, the attack. As James M. Scott (2017) wrote: “A State Department report later determined that recon planes buzzed the Liberty as many as eight times over a nine-hour period.”
The Liberty never approached closer than 26 nautical miles to the Israeli coast.[2] Nevertheless while steaming in clear weather and calm seas in international waters of the Mediterranean Sea northwest of the Egyptian town of al-ʿArīsh, the Liberty came under repeated aerial attack by Israeli forces at approximately 2 PM, local time, followed by an assault by Israeli motor torpedo boats.
Israeli troops surrounded al-ʿArīsh on June 5 and occupied the town on June 6, 1967. Early on, Israeli officials would claim the attack on the Liberty was in response to a naval bombardment of al-ʿArīsh by an unidentified vessel. But by June 10, the Israelis dropped that claim, as no such naval bombardment had occurred. A June 1969 chronology produced by the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee stated: “It was later discovered that the explosions at al -Arish were ammunition dumps and not an Egyptian naval bombardment.”
In any case, the attack on the Liberty was the only verified Israeli surface naval engagement at sea during the 1967 Israeli-Arab war.[3] Far from occurring in a heated battle involving a tangle of enemy ships firing at each other at close quarters – the proverbial “fog of war” – the Liberty was a lone, American non-combatant vessel attacked in broad daylight on a calm blue sea miles from any other hostile engagement.
As a result of the heroic response of its officers and crew, the Liberty is “the most highly decorated ship … for a single action” in US Navy history. Yet, as will be shown here, despite the heavy casualties and the crew’s heroic performance during and after the attack, the US government, evidently, has never investigated the responsibility of Israeli civilian leaders and military officers for ordering the unprovoked assault.
An Inadequate Investigation and Evidence Ignored
On June 10, 1967, a US Naval Court of Inquiry (NCOI) into the attack was convened at the direction of Admiral John S. McCain, Jr. with Rear Admiral Isaac C. Kidd, Jr. as its presiding officer. Kidd “closed the Court” on June 16, 1967, and its findings were provided to McCain on June 18, 1967. The NCOI’s report was classified Top Secret and not declassified until 1976.
On June 28, 1967, the Defense Department issued a public media release comprised of a summary of the proceedings of the NCOI together with a transcript of testimony by the ship’s captain. On the very first page of the summary of proceedings it is stated:
It was not the responsibility of the Court to rule on the culpability of the attackers and no evidence was heard from the attacking nation … The Court heard witnesses testify … to significant surveillance of the LIBERTY…
Inasmuch as this was not an international investigation, no evidence was presented on whether any of these [Israeli] aircraft had identified LIBERTY or whether they had passed any information on LIBERTY to their own higher headquarters.[4]
On the same day as the DoD’s media release, Secretary of State Dean Rusk would read the selections quoted above, along with other portions of the summary, to members of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations meeting in a closed, executive session. In response to a question by Senator Bourke B. Hickenlooper about whether Israeli pilots had identified the Liberty as an American vessel, Rusk reiterated: “You see, we do not have in front of our own Naval Court of Inquiry Israeli personnel or officers or anything of that sort so the Court of Inquiry under those circumstances could not, I suppose, properly make a finding on that point.”[5]
In fact, according to records released during the course of the lawsuit, Secretary Rusk’s department already had pertinent information. On June 10, 1967, Message 0854 was sent from the US Defense Attaché’s Office in Tel Aviv (USDAO Tel Aviv).[6] Its addressees are the White House, Office of Secretary of Defense, Chief of Naval Operations, State Department, Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Defense Intelligence Agency (the USDAO is a subordinate unit of the DIA). Furthermore, the contents of Message 0854 were also analyzed in a June 13, 1967, State Department intelligence memo directed to Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach, Rusk’s second-in-command.[7]
Message 0854 relayed intelligence obtained from a reliable, if unwitting, Israeli source inside the Israeli military establishment. In short, Message 0854 states that Israeli aircraft, at the direction of ground controllers, made at least two reconnaissance passes specifically for the purpose of ascertaining the identity of the Liberty. On each pass, the Israeli aviators observed the Liberty flying the American flag and relayed this information to ground controllers.
The Israeli source was “positive at least two attempts to identify [the] ship and two reports of [the] US flag were made.” He also stated he personally overheard these radio transmissions and disclosed them after he heard an Israeli news broadcast claiming the attack was “erroneous.”
Thus, less than 48 hours after the attack, top US civilian and military officials had credible evidence that Israeli officials were falsely claiming the Liberty had not been identified as an American vessel before the attack, an assertion the Israelis mendaciously clung to until June 17, 1967. Even then Israelis maintained that the Liberty “made an effort to hide its identity by flying a small flag which was difficult to identify from a distance”.[8]
RADM Kidd also had access to this information soon after the attack. On June 15, 1967, the USDAO Tel Aviv sent a message (Message 0900) directed to Kidd, as “President of [the] Court of Inquiry”, providing a detailed chronology of the attack and subsequent events.[9] In paragraph 13 of Message 0900 the DAO specifically references Message 0854 and states:
USDAO source reported secondary source gave info gathered by overhearing IDF [Israeli Defense Forces] AF [air force] air-to-ground control frequencies. Info suggested [sic] that IDF aircraft made two or three identification passes over a ship sometime prior to attack on Liberty. Aircraft reported ship had U.S. flag … Info this para forwarded to limited addressees including CNO [i.e. the US Chief of Naval Operations] and DIA in USDAO 0854 Jun 67.
Note here how the author of Message 0900 reduces the unequivocal assertion of the Israeli source, as reported in Message 0854, regarding the reconnaissance overflights to a mere suggestion.
Although, as discussed earlier, this intelligence was passed directly to the State Department, Secretary Rusk makes no mention of it in his Senate testimony. By contrast, at a NATO meeting in Luxembourg less than two weeks before his Senate appearance, Rusk made “comments to [NATO Secretary-General] Brosio and several foreign ministers at Luxembourg about Israeli foreknowledge that Liberty was a US ship …” Although other messages are discussed in and included as exhibits to the NCOI’s report, neither Message 0854 itself nor the information it contains, as summarized in Message 0900, is discussed or referenced in the body of the report.
As of 2005, it was the position of the US Navy’s highest legal authority, the Office of the Judge Advocate General, that “The Court of Inquiry was the only United States Government investigation into the attack.”[10] Over the years there were additional American analyses or reviews occasioned by the attack on the Liberty but in none of the declassified records do they purport to have independently investigated the culpability of Israeli leaders for the attack. This decades-long failure to properly and fully investigate underscores the importance of prying loose the hundreds of pages of records pertaining to the attack that the US government is still withholding.
The Fruits of FOIA and Litigation
Defense Intelligence Agency Records
The lawsuit resulted in the release of 162 unredacted pages of DIA messages along with four partially redacted pages of two different versions of a single message, all originating from USDAO Tel Aviv. In the course of the lawsuit it was learned, that the messages, including Message 0854, had been transferred, years earlier, from the DIA to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). In any case, the DIA still retains and exercises declassification authority over the agency messages in NARA custody.
Central Intelligence Agency Records
As a result of the lawsuit, the CIA eventually produced five batches, totaling 255 pages, of records that they had initially identified as responsive to my requests but unreleasable. While much of the released material is not germane nevertheless some of it adds to or amplifies the existing record. Moreover, several pages of relevant material – records that had never been released before or released with fewer redactions – were obtained.
In sum, the records included 171 pages with no redactions or with redactions that are unlikely to be relevant to the attack on the Liberty. Obviously, any judgment of the significance of the withheld material is, at best, informed speculation. While source and textual context can provide important clues it is, perforce, simply impossible to properly and confidently evaluate material the CIA still refuses to release.
After accounting for the 171 pages described above, this leaves about 84 pages containing redacted information that is likely significant to understanding the attack on the Liberty and the US government’s response. Of the records the CIA identified as responsive, the agency also withheld at least 14 pages in whole. This is an estimate because an unknown number of pages, containing 29 endnotes, of at least one record are missing and the CIA never acknowledged these missing pages. On 24 pages the agency released, it redacted all substantive content on each page. There are an additional 47 pages with less extensive redaction of material that is likely significant to the USS Liberty inquiry.
Knowing that there is likely relevant material that the CIA has and still refuses to release is useful. Though, of course, it’s not nearly as useful as having it released. Moreover, a minimum of six separate records can be documented to have existed but which the CIA has never acknowledged. Two examples may suffice.
The first example pertains to the evaluation of three one-page CIA information reports – two from June and one from October of 1967. These reports were first released to other requesters in the 1970s and sparked national, albeit superficial, news coverage at the time. Copies obtained in 2021 as a result of the present lawsuit reveal significant new source information.[11]
According to these reports, sources in Tel Aviv stated: “Israel’s forces knew exactly what flag the LIBERTY was flying” and Israeli Defense Minister Moshe Dayan “personally ordered the attack” on the Liberty over the objections of senior military officers, one of whom characterized the attack as “pure murder”.
![Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich gives a speech, regarding the ceasefire proposal between Israel and Hamas, in front of the Israeli Parliament in Jerusalem on June 3, 2024 [Saeed Qaq - Anadolu Agency]](https://i0.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/AA-20240603-34769141-34769128-FARRIGHT_ISRAELI_MINISTER_THREATENS_TO_QUIT_IN_CASE_OF_POSSIBLE_CEASEFIRE.jpg?fit=1200%2C800&ssl=1)
The Most Revolutionary Act 