Winberg harvested so much crucial intelligence in this role, her resultant insights represented a “core contribution” to British, European and US understanding and assessment of armed groups in Syria. Intriguingly, she was transferred to Istanbul directly from the British consulate in Jerusalem, a vital regional base of operations for MI6. While there, she reported on “violent extremist organisations” active in Gaza, “including during Operation Cloud Pillar” in November 2012, for which she was “commended internally.”

Cloud Pillar saw Israeli Occupation Forces massacre almost 200 Palestinian civilians after assassinating high-ranking Hamas commander Ahmed Jabari. This was in keeping with MI6’s strategy to “degrade the capabilities” of “rejectionists” of the pro-Zionist Palestine Authority. Winberg’s close-range view of these events made her a compelling candidate for overseeing London’s contribution to the proxy war from the perspective of her employers in British intelligence. Moreover, she was not alone among InCoStrat operatives in secretly surveilling Palestinian resistance firsthand.

One company staffer managed a $25 million “small grants programme to directly support community stabilisation, engage youth, and moderate actors in the Palestinian Territories” for US intelligence cutout USAID, 2005 – 2007. This placed them on the frontline of the Zionist entity’s embarrassing drubbing by Lebanon’s Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, and concurrent “military incursion” in Gaza.

Along the way, they “reported on the political, economic, and security situation” locally, “including extensive reporting during internal instability in Gaza.” Meanwhile, another InCoStrat operative’s CV boasts that they “travelled and studied in Israel and Palestine, focusing on religious political movements,” then “studied Palestinian refugees in Syria before the uprising.” After that, they “worked with and trained Syrian activists in several different organisations.”

It is a supremely striking feature that multiple InCoStrat operatives went straight from intently “studying” Palestinian refugees and armed groups, to cloak-and-dagger management of the “moderate” Syrian opposition. In this context, what are we to make of British intelligence cutouts having been heavily active in Lebanon’s numerous Palestinian refugee camps, for many years? Around 300,000 Palestinian refugees inhabit the country, roughly half of them in installations administered by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Living conditions are appalling, with overcrowding, poverty, and unemployment rampant. Discrimination towards Palestinian refugees at both a public and state level in Lebanon is commonplace. This has intensified significantly due to untold numbers of displaced people – among them many Palestinians – pouring into Beirut from neighbouring Syria, as a result of the grinding, 11-year-long Western proxy war against Damascus. Such a milieu inevitably produces a wide array of grievances among refugees – which, of course, can be malignly exploited by British intelligence.

Since 2009, Foreign Office contractor ARK – founded and run by MI6 operative Alistair Harris – has operated across all Lebanon’s 12 Palestinian refugee camps. In leaked files, the company boasts of its “granular understanding” of the camps’ internal political, economic, ideological, religious and everyday dynamics. ARK’s voluminous “local contacts” have “access throughout all camps and gatherings.” This means that community-level discussions and activities of all residents can be influenced and spied upon, as required.

Such everyday, real-life insight is augmented by “daily monitoring of neighbourhood-level WhatsApp groups.” Meanwhile, local engagement with a social media platform created by ARK, Nastopia, is heavily monitored. The page, run by a 24-strong team of ARK-trained “youth reporters,” is intended to increase demand for “community engagement and improved conditions” among camp residents. It promotes covertly Foreign Office-financed projects in the camps as “success stories” while serving “as a forum for online and offline discussion about social injustices [and] virtual space to talk about topics considered taboo in the camps.”

ARK has spearheaded various community initiatives elsewhere in the “offline” realm. These include repairing and restoring streets and cemeteries, recycling, promoting small businesses, providing welfare to disadvantaged and disabled residents, managing nurseries and daycare centres, and even launching a local coffee shop. The leaked files describe this as “a popular place for youth to gather and promote civic engagement in their community and a shared Palestinian identity that bridges factional differences.”

Insidious surveillance and manipulation components of these projects aside, one might reasonably argue that given the harsh internal environments of Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, any effort to regenerate and improve conditions for residents of all ages and create a sense of community is a net positive. Yet, the ultimate purpose of these projects is to create a secret army of anti-government activists, which can be activated to stir up trouble if and when British intelligence wishes.

Of course, the leaked documents do not frame that objective in such terms. One file refers to the value of highlighting “success stories” in the camps as “enhancing the audience’s confidence in their own ability to contribute to social change.” In other words, encouraging Palestinian refugees to take matters into their own hands. This intention is articulated far more emphatically in a leaked March 2019 target audience analysis conducted by ARK.

The document identified a segment of Beirut’s diverse population that could be united in opposition to Lebanon’s government, and therefore mobilised to “affect positive social change.” The ideal target group comprised individuals who disavowed violence but not “other forms of contentious politics,” and could be “influenced” to engage in certain “behaviours”, such as protests, leafleting campaigns, and other community initiatives. The analysis explicitly cited Palestinian refugees as an “important part” of such an effort.

Therefore, ARK pledged to both covertly and overtly promote the message that “change is possible and ordinary citizens have a role to play in achieving change” through propaganda campaigns and civil society initiatives. These would “highlight where change has been achieved or where threats to Lebanon’s stability have been countered.” In turn, Lebanon’s wider population would be well-educated on how “barriers” to reform can be overcome via direct popular action.

Seven months after ARK produced this study, large-scale protests engulfed the streets of Beirut. Western media immediately spoke of “revolution” in the country. Few outlets acknowledged the unrest had originally begun in July of that year, when thousands of refugees inhabiting several camps commenced mass demonstrations, demanding reforms to local employment laws that barred them from numerous professions.

Coincidentally, in one leaked document, ARK boasts of how the company “takes pride” in ensuring refugees recruited to its illicit schemes receive “annual leave, sick leave, and health insurance,” despite this not being “legally necessary” due to local legislation “discriminating against Palestinians.”

Lebanon was a critical organising nucleus for the Syrian opposition, which ARK directed and embedded with before the “revolution” started. A document circulated among anti-Assad elements in Beirut in May 2011, secretly intercepted by Syrian security services, set out a blueprint for events in the uprising to date and precisely what would subsequently transpire in Damascus.

The opposition proposed convening mass demonstrations in every major Syrian city so security forces “will lose control of all regions,” be “taken unaware,” and become “exhausted and distracted.” This, along with “honest officers and soldiers” joining “the ranks of the revolution,” would make “toppling down the regime” straightforward. Any crackdown on these protests was forecast to precipitate a Western “military strike,” a la Libya. The opposition foresaw major news outlets playing a significant role:

The Assad government did not choose to publicise this bombshell file, for reasons unclear. It only became publicly available – and translated into English – via the work of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA). The organisation was spun out of ARK in May 2011 to prosecute Syrian officials for war crimes. Its first act was to covertly train opposition activists “in basic international criminal and humanitarian law”, in service of a “domestic justice process in a future transitional Syria.”

As the foreign-fomented crisis escalated into an all-out proxy war, CIJA began employing extremist groups to smuggle sensitive documentation out of abandoned government buildings in opposition-occupied areas of Syria, paying these factions – including al-Nusra Front and ISIS – vast sums for their services. While generating enormous amounts of fawning media coverage, the Commission convicted just two Syrian officials of war crimes, and only after the pair voluntarily defected and made numerous incriminating statements to their Western handlers.

This failure is attributable to the collapse of Anglo-American regime change project in Syria. The success of CIJA’s business model was wholly contingent on the violent overthrow of Assad and his government. That the Commission was founded before the Syrian Arab Army was even formally deployed to Damascus amply demonstrates CIJA and ARK had substantial grounds to believe decisive Western intervention would be forthcoming, at the earliest stages of the ‘peaceful revolution.’

Per the intercepted document, so too did opposition activists in Lebanon in May 2011 – the same month CIJA was founded – which of course referenced then-ongoing NATO airstrikes on Libya. While such intervention didn’t arrive as expected in Damascus, arms and fighters promptly began flowing from Tripoli to Syria, in direct coordination with MI6. Many insurgents were former members of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), freed from prison four years earlier by Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, after an intervention from one of the group’s founders, Noman Benotman.

Benotman claimed to have rejected political violence, embraced pacifism and democracy, and pledged to deradicalise the jailed LIFG fighters in return for their release. In 2010, he became President of the UK government-funded Quilliam Foundation, the world’s first “counter-extremism” think tank. In this position, he was instrumental in securing high-level defections from Gaddafi’s government during the civil war. The organisation’s avowed contribution to NATO’s Libyan intervention intensified existing suspicions about the spectral interests it might be serving.

After Quilliam shut down in April 2021, veteran journalist Ian Cobain made a startling disclosure. The Foundation had been secretly established by the Office for Security and Counterterrorism (OSCT), a shadowy British intelligence agency. London’s spies had initially planned to fund the venture covertly, “with money appearing to come in from a Middle Eastern benefactor, but channelled by MI6.” Instead, overt government financing was granted, a move “eventually judged within Whitehall to have been a mistake.”

[…]

Palestinian-focused civil society organisations and initiatives are frequently constructed by British intelligence without participants or broader local populations learning the true sponsors and purposes they serve.

[…]

Via https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/leaked-how-mi6-exploits-palestinian

By Paul Serran

Many feared (or hoped) that when the late Queen Elisabeth passed away, the British Monarchy of the Windsor dynasty would have its days numbered.

And in many ways, these ‘worst-case scenario’ fears (other people’s hopes) seem to have become an actual possible outcome, as the relentless infighting in the Royal family and the apparent lack of relevance of their work to the present-day reality of Britain are a constant object of debate.

Now, reports arise that ailing King Charles has stated that ‘he will not stand in the way’ if Australia wishes to replace him as the country’s head of state.

Ahead of his visit down under later this month, the Monarch is said to be adopting a soft, ‘anti-confrontational approach’ to the Australian republican campaigners.

“In response to the Australian Republican Movement’s (ARM) request for a meeting with the monarch, the king’s assistant private secretary is understood to have emphasized his ‘deep love and affection’ for Australia.

Nathan Ross reportedly told the anti-monarchists: ‘His majesty, as a constitutional monarch, acts on the advice of his ministers and whether Australia becomes a republic is, therefore, a matter for the Australian public to decide’.

The ARM says it is ‘the peak body advocating on behalf of the Australian people for an Australian republic with an Australian as our head of state’. Australia held a referendum in 1999 on the issue of becoming a republic, in which 54.9% voted against.”

[…]

Via https://hellboundanddown.com/2024/10/13/the-last-king-britains-charles-iii-will-not-oppose-australia-becoming-a-republic-as-the-future-of-the-windsor-monarchy-appears-uncertain/

Al Mayadeen

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz cites sources as saying that the Israeli military is now operating under “tight weapons management.”

The Israeli military has adopted a policy of “strict weapons economy” regarding the use of shells and other arms in response to the depletion of ammunition stocks and the global embargo on arms exports to “Israel”, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

According to Haaretz sources, the Israeli military is now operating under “tight weapons management,” with the authorization for using certain weapons being elevated in some cases to brigade commanders who hold the rank of colonel.

This policy is designed to ensure that senior commanders prioritize weapon usage based on their operational objectives, a responsibility previously handled by lower-ranking officers.

The Israeli military also mentioned that its “ammunition economy” for Iron Dome interceptions began in the second week of the war. However, the current state of ammunition stocks has necessitated further restrictions.

This comes as “Israel” is facing relentless military operations involving rocket, missile, and drone launches by the factions of the Axis of Resistance, namely Hezbollah, the Palestinian Resistance, the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, and the Yemeni Armed Forces, since the onset of the Israeli war on the Gaza Strip on October 7, 2023.

[…]

Via https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/stock-depletion–declining-supply-prompt–israel–to-restric

As a requirement for discussing and appreciating the imperative of health freedom in the USA, we must first define what is meant by health freedom. A simple definition is: the right of every American to decide what medical interventions to put into or onto one’s body, the right to access and use the medical and healing modalities of one’s choice, the right to maintain one’s health according to one’s conscience, and the right to live free of involuntary medication be it via the food supply, the water supply, or something airborne.

In a free and moral society, health freedom is not simply a convenience, it’s an imperative. In this vein, in the event of injury or illness, all Americans must possess the absolute right to choose what medical interventions and treatments to accept and what medical or healing modalities to utilize in order to address illness or injury; Americans must be free to choose how to maintain their health whether that be through nutrition, supplements, herbs, drugs, or a myriad of healing modalities; Americans must have access to truthful information regarding how the seeds for plants and animal feed and the food in our food supply has been grown or developed, medicated, processed, and packaged; and Americans have the right to exist in a society free of water and airborne medications, insect vectors, and chemicals.

Health freedom can only exist in a free and moral society which values each and every member of that society. This prerequisite thus excludes medical mandates of any kind. It is immoral to force another individual to risk their life for the theoretical benefit of another. Moreover, government does not have the moral authority or power to dictate what medical products any American puts into or on his or her body. If anyone in government does possess that power, then no American is truly free, nor does he or she possess any meaningful right whatsoever – Americans are merely chattel.

In order to create a society based on true health freedom, the following policy shifts should be implemented, as a first step. There are many more changes which should be implemented as well, but these proposals would address some of the most glaring, pernicious anti-liberty and anti-health aspects of our system as it exists today:

1. Ban all Medical Mandates:

The Declaration of Independence states, “that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness…”  Medical mandates are prime facie violations of our founding documents.

Health freedom demands prior voluntary informed consent before a medical treatment or intervention is administered. Medical mandates are thus, by definition, antithetical to voluntary consent and therefore must be prohibited in a free and moral society. No single individual in government knows the medical history of any American, knows what is best for Americans, or has to live with the repercussions of any choices made by Americans, thus, medical mandates are never justified in any circumstance.

2. Repeal the Bayh-Dole Act:

“The Bayh-Dole Act, formerly known as the Patent and Trademark Act Amendments, is a federal law enacted in 1980 that enables universities, nonprofit research institutions and small businesses to own, patent and commercialize inventions developed under federally funded research programs within their organizations.”

Under this program, government scientists may receive up to $150,000 per year on their patents.

In theory, Bayh-Dole incentivizes bright scientists to seek employment at federal health agencies rather than entering more lucrative private industry by allowing these taxpayer-funded scientists and other individuals and entities to retain the patent rights to intellectual property developed during their taxpayer-funded research and development activities.

In practice, this Act forever realigned the interests of taxpayer-funded scientists away from the American people and toward their own interests and profits and the profits of the private industries with which they collaborate. Dr. Anthony Fauci and his team at NIAID infamously owned half the Moderna Covid vaccine patent which incentivized the misguided covid era policies leading to a colossal violation of the rights of Americans demonstrating the perverse incentives created by Bayh-Dole and the necessity of repealing the act.

3. Repeal the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) of 1992:

“The Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA) was created by Congress in 1992 and authorizes FDA to collect user fees from persons that submit certain human drug applications for review or that are named in approved applications as the sponsor of certain prescription drug products. Since the passage of PDUFA, user fees have played an important role in expediting the drug review and approval process.”

In 2022 alone, the pharmaceutical industry paid $2.9 billion in user fees amounting to 46% of FDA’s entire budget including $1.4 billion or 66% for FDA’s drug approvers’ salaries and $197 million or 43% of the biologics (vaccines) program budget. As a direct consequence of PDUFA, the FDA has a vested interest aligned with the profits and success of the pharmaceutical industry rather than the health and wellbeing of the American people.

4. Repeal the Public Readiness and Preparedness Act (PREP Act) which authorizes the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to issue a PREP Act declaration.

“The declaration provides immunity from liability (except for willful misconduct) for claims:

• of loss caused, arising out of, relating to, or resulting from administration or use of countermeasures to diseases, threats and conditions
• determined by the Secretary to constitute a present, or credible risk of a future public health emergency
• to entities and individuals involved in the development, manufacture, testing, distribution, administration, and use of such countermeasures

A PREP Act declaration is specifically for the purpose of providing immunity from liability, and is different from, and not dependent on, other emergency declarations.”

The PREP Act desecrates the ethical principle of informed consent by protecting individuals from liability even when they expressly act contrary to patients’ wishes and instructions and must be repealed.

5. Repeal the Affordable Care Act:

The Affordable Care Act anchors Americans to the pharmaceutical and drug-based medical paradigm even though a majority of Americans used at least one form of “alternative” medicine in 2021 and spent $30.6 billion in out of pocket expenses for those holistic medicine services in 2023 according to Statista. Instead, implement a health savings program which permits Americans to access the health and medical modalities of their choice which in turn would foster more competition and reduce the exorbitant health care costs in the US by breaking the extant monopolies held by the medical and insurance industries.

6. Repeal the National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act (NCVIA):

NCVIA shields vaccine makers and those who administer vaccines from liability (except for willful misconduct), creating a perverse incentive to industry to develop a never-ending stream of vaccines which are then mandated by the states and a perverse incentive to medical professionals to charge for and inject patients irrespective of the harm they may cause. Further, the NCVIA protects industry, medical professionals, and vaccine programs by creating a separate administrative federal court structure lacking due process and discovery, managed by “Special Masters” instead of judges, all in violation of the constitutionally protected right to due process. While NCVIA contains other provisions designed to protect American families and ensure the safety of the national vaccine supply, Congress is not conducting proper oversight and the promises made in 1986 at the time of the Act’s passage have not been upheld. As such, Americans who have been injured or killed by vaccines are left with astronomical medical bills and to fend for themselves.

7. Prohibit Private Donations to Government Entities:

Prohibit private individuals, foundations, corporations, contractors, any other person or entity from donating or otherwise giving money to any agency or entity of the federal government. FDA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) accept money from private actors such as the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and Pfizer thus skewing the interests of the agency in favor of these private actors and away from the American public. Gates has collaborated with FDA and the CDC Foundation takes money from the pharmaceutical industry whose products CDC is responsible for monitoring for safety.

8. Cooling-off Period for Senior Federal Employees:

Enact a 5-year cooling-off period before which agency leadership, deputies, and other key officials may depart federal agencies in order to enter the companies they regulate in the private sector.

9. Prevent Conflicts of Interest:

Eliminate conflict of interest waivers so that no person serving on a health agency committee, board, or other regulatory entity may have a conflict of interest. Disclosure of conflicts of interest is insufficient to ensure the agencies pursue the interests of the American people. Individuals with financial or ideological conflicts of interest should not serve as decision makers in any capacity.

10. Prohibit Government Grants to Nonprofits:

Prohibit government from allocating taxpayer dollars to nonprofit. Nonprofits exists to serve the public interests and should be funded directly by American citizens. If a nonprofit has a worthwhile mission, the public will gladly support it. Government exists to protect our rights and should not be in the business of picking winners and losers nor should it be using third parties to pursue policies outside the reach and review of the public.

11. Ban Water Fluoridation:

While water fluoridation programs are broad spread, they are not only dangerous from a health standpoint, they are forced medication in violation of the ethical principle of informed consent. Research comparing the health outcomes and IQs of communities that do and do not fluoridate their water supply reveal that children in the fluoridated water communities have reduced IQs and therefore inferior prospects in life. Other research has documented the health hazards of fluoride, an industrial waste product.

In addition, as fluoride is added to municipal water supplies, residents of those communities have no way to opt out and therefore are subjected to involuntary forced medication. No one should be forced to consume drugged water in order to maintain a biological necessity.

12. Ban Release of Genetically Modified Insects

Two tenets of good health are abundant exposure to sunshine and fresh air, however in some states, the state governments have collaborated with private business to release genetically modified mosquitoes into communities. While these mosquitoes are often designed to breed with one another and eliminate the “dangerous” species going forward, the health impacts of humans being bitten by these insects is not well understood. Nor should a person have to be risk being bitten by one of these creatures in order to venture outside. This amounts to a form of forced medication absent any form of consent and must be ended.

[…]

Via https://healthfreedomdefense.org/policy-imperatives-for-health-freedom/

A military whistleblower release documents recording 601 deaths of military service members and a high rate of serious adverse events in clinical trials involving remdesivir, an antiviral commonly administered to COVID-19 patients during the pandemic.

According to “The Remdesivir Papers,” some clinical trials were improperly run. In the case of at least one study, results were never made public. The whistleblower also alleged a widespread lack of informed consent for trial participants.

“Data derived from the Department of Defense [DOD] Joint Trauma System … by a military whistleblower offers a stark contrast to results of multiple clinical trials involving the liberal usage of remdesivir in military treatment facilities and other civilian facilities, as well as its potential contribution to, at minimum, hundreds of untimely deaths,” the documents state.

Yet according to the documents, the military began “liberally” administering remdesivir to service members who were suspected of having COVID-19 — months before the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved the drug.

The whistleblower, known by the pseudonym Daniel LeMay, shared the documents with investigative journalist J.M. Phelps, who published them last week in The Gateway Pundit.

In interviews with The Defender, LeMay and Phelps discussed the documents and their significance.

LeMay said the DOD’s Joint Trauma System is responsible for tracking “all sorts of patient data.” He told The Defender that the “initial trial depicted data manipulation in favor of remdesivir.”

He also said that based on his analysis of the data, several clinical trials did not have a true placebo group for which results could be compared with the remdesivir-receiving group. “The primary issue is with patient data. If we can’t verify the placebo group … then we can’t determine the actual efficacy of remdesivir.”

Reacting to the revelations, Brian Hooker, Ph.D., chief scientific officer for Children’s Health Defense, told The Defender:

“All of the information here needs to be made public and the public officials, including Tony Fauci, need to be held to account for the criminal acts associated with the fraudulent ‘trials’ of ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine that were tainted in order to preclude their use, and making remdesivir the standard of care despite the obvious data showing that it kills people.”

Former victims of the COVID-19 hospital protocols, which included administration of remdesivir, and advocates for those victims welcomed the documents’ release.

Gail Seiler, Texas chairperson of the FormerFedsGroup Freedom Foundation, escaped from a Texas hospital in 2021, where she was given remdesivir and listed as “Do Not Resuscitate” against her and her family’s stated wishes. She said “The Remdesivir Papers” only “scratch the surface as to the homicide toll in military hospitals.”

The documents “tell us that our government orchestrated the needless deaths of COVID patients who did not need to die,” Seiler said.

Charlene Delfico, New Jersey state chair of FormerFedsGroup, previously told The Defender that COVID-19 protocols, including remdesivir, implemented at a New Jersey hospital “ran roughshod” over her parents. She said the new documents “validate our grievances regarding remdesivir and the ‘out the window’ standard of care protocol put in place by our government.”

“The whistleblower highlights what we’ve been saying all along,” Delfico said. “This drug is dangerous, and in most cases, fatal. There’s been no transparency or oversight. This should enrage people and make them push for an immediate investigation by Congress.”

“While people were dying, their deaths were being unlawfully labeled COVID deaths — when the deaths should have been attributed to the treatment protocol,” LeMay told The Gateway Pundit.

Military administered remdesivir despite known risks, leading to 601 deaths

According to the whistleblower’s data, 941 military service members died between March 2020 and March 2024. Of those, 63.9%, or 601 service members, were treated with remdesivir. Deaths peaked between November 2020 and July 2021.

“While the military is only a subset of the larger population, it’s clear that service members and veterans who contracted severe COVID and were subsequently treated with remdesivir had a much higher chance of dying,” the documents state.

According to the documents, the DOD administered remdesivir to service members — despite the drug’s known risks and dangers.

“Gilead had already created a monopoly on the drug” with a U.S. patent it secured in 2017 “valid for up to 20 years,” the documents noted.

The drug, developed to treat Ebola, “was subsequently proven to be lethal in human patients.” According to a 2019 New England Journal of Medicine article, remdesivir resulted in the highest mortality rate among four investigational therapies for Ebola administered in the Democratic Republic of Congo — with 53.1% of patients dying.

In 2017, the documents noted, two University of North Carolina researchers, including Ralph Baric, Ph.D., received a $6 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), then headed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, to “accelerate the development of a promising new drug (remdesivir) in the fight against deadly coronaviruses.”

Despite its deadly history, in February 2020, Gilead Sciences received FDA approval to initiate two Phase 3 clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of remdesivir in treating COVID-19.

In March 2020, the DOD announced “a cooperative research and development agreement with an industry partner” — Gilead — “to gain access to an antiviral drug for treatment use in our medical centers.”

According to the documents, aside from this expedited approval on the part of the DOD, “remdesivir moved quickly through government scrutiny,” with the FDA issuing emergency use authorization in August 2020 and full approval in October 2020.

“I think the DOD has a track record of making the FDA’s life easy,” LeMay said. “If investment and preparations precede approval, who will say no to the DOD, especially if the president is in agreement on a course of action?”

Phelps noted that Public Law 115-92 allows the FDA “to authorize the emergency use of an otherwise unapproved medical product if the Department of Defense … determines that there is a military emergency involving an agent that may cause imminently life-threatening and specific risk to U.S. forces.”

“The expedited timeline for the FDA’s emergency use authorization is beyond concerning, given remdesivir’s troubling history,” Delfico said. “It was very disturbing to read that the DOD and Gilead directly contracted to do this experiment on our military.”

Clinical studies lacked placebo groups

The documents compared several civilian and military clinical studies involving remdesivir, finding a high rate of deaths and injuries among participants who were administered remdesivir. The documents also showed that studies of remdesivir revealed the drug’s dangers.

According to the documents, a May 2020 study published in The Lancet “brought concerns about the efficacy of remdesivir,” noting that administration of remdesivir was stopped early in China “because of adverse events in 18 (12%)” of patients “versus four (5%) who stopped placebo early.”

And a 2021 study published in JAMA Network Open of over 2,300 veterans hospitalized with COVID-19 found that “remdesivir treatment was not associated with survival,” with more deaths and longer hospital stays among those patients who received remdesivir compared to those who did not receive the drug.

According to the documents, “service members and veterans participated in at least four Phase 3 Adaptive COVID19 Treatment Trials” in 2020 and 2021, all of which were sponsored by NIAID. Another study was sponsored by the U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command (USAMRDC).

The documents revealed questions about studies and how they were conducted.

In one study, NCT04280705 [ACTT-1], “A true placebo, like saline, wasn’t used other than … where there were limitations on matching placebo supplies” and no distinction was made “as to who received which placebo.” Its findings “ignored those who didn’t finish the trial for various reasons, including adverse events.”

As a result, “this study is problematic due to multiple confounding variables that appear to exist intentionally to present a positive outcome for the remdesivir group,” the documents note. Yet, this study “ended up being the only comparison between remdesivir and a type of placebo.”

According to the documents, three other studies, NCT04401579 [ACTT-2], NCT04492475 [ACTT-3] and NCT04640168 [ACTT-4], had “no true placebo group.” Instead, the two groups in each trial received remdesivir alongside another drug.

In these three trials, all-cause mortality ranged from 3.5% to 7.1%, while the rate of serious adverse events ranged between 14.2% and 24.6%. In NCT04401579, “59 participants didn’t finish the trial due to death, which isn’t characterized as being caused by the investigative treatments.”

Another study, NCT04302766, sponsored by USMARDC, was conducted at 22 military facilities, “involving an undisclosed number of participants.”

But according to the documents, “While the trial examined the effects of remdesivir on the treatment of COVID-19, there are no details available at ClinicalTrials.gov to determine the amount of remdesivir administered to participants. There are no results posted to determine all-cause mortality or serious adverse events.”

“In four of five trials, the use of remdesivir resulted in a minimal positive effect on instances of all-cause mortality and serious adverse side events when compared to the administration of a placebo,” the documents stated.

“In some cases, these patients also had comorbidities (e.g., renal and liver disease) that could have been exacerbated by remdesivir and resulted in some of the reported complications such as acute renal injury and failure, as well as liver dysfunction and hepatic failure,” the documents noted.

“With many clinical trials involving service members and veterans taking place before Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin’s now-rescinded 2021 shot mandate, I question whether the deaths in these trials should have been attributed to remdesivir, or the overall treatment protocol, rather than COVID,” Phelps asked.

“If this was the case, what better coercion technique is there than to improperly say, “Look at all the people dying from COVID,” when you’re trying to convince someone to take a so-called vaccine that can also wreck people’s lives or send them to their graves?” Phelps added.

Remdesivir risks withheld from service members

The documents also noted that key details about the risks of remdesivir were concealed from service members, depriving them of being able to provide informed consent.

For instance, participants in NCT04302766 were told “there have not been kidney problems seen in humans who have been given remdesivir,” while there was “no mention that the use of remdesivir resulted in the highest mortality rate among participants” in the African Ebola trial.

Gilead’s lobbying may have played a role in the lack of military or regulatory oversight the drug enjoyed. Between 2018 and 2021, Gilead increased its spending on lobbying from $3 million to $8.1 million. By spring 2020, taxpayers had already funded Gilead to the tune of at least $70.5 million for the development of remdesivir.

Delfico connected Gilead’s lobbying to remdesivir’s inclusion in the National Institutes of Health’s COVID-19 hospital protocols. She said:

“Under the CARES Act [Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act] hospitals received significant payments for administering specific treatments, including remdesivir, which created a financial incentive for hospitals to use the drug despite its mortality rates.

“The lobbying, financial incentives and treatment protocols raise questions about the motivations behind remdesivir’s widespread use and the potential impact on patient care.”

Questions about the remdesivir clinical trials, missing clinical trial results and the potential lack of informed consent were addressed in a Sept. 27 letter by Rep. Clay Higgins (R-La.) to Austin and the heads of other federal and military agencies, including the FDA.

Separately, on Sept. 24, Phelps submitted a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request to the USAMRDC, for the results of the NCT04302766 trial. According to LeMay, “They’ve been unresponsive and will likely continue in that fashion unless there’s an official inquiry by Congress which is specific to this matter.”

[…]

Via https://childrenshealthdefense.org/defender/remdesivir-papers-drug-military-members-601-deaths/

Jeffrey Tucker

Most of the things we use today have not been stress tested. They are centralized and have a single point of failure. And they are very vulnerable. It could all stop in an instant with no sure guarantee of when it will come back.

Once a huge champion of all things digital, I’ve come to develop serious doubts about the pace at which humanity made the switch from analogue to the cloud. The hackings, outages, data breaches, and extended breakages all make the point. Then it dawned on me that the danger is even greater.

A turning point came for me visiting a small basement laundry in Manhattan. The proprietor was still using a sewing machine from 1948. She would have nothing to do with newer models. After that, I took greater notice of the machinery of other merchants in my area. Many sewing machines were 75 years old and still working well. My cobbler uses equipment more than a century old. This is not uncommon.

They can all still do business with a generator and a good supply of fuel. They are prepared. This is also why people are holding on to their older gas-powered cars without all the snazzy stuff. They are more trustworthy and you can fix what breaks. It’s better to maintain the old thing in good repair than move to the new thing that is not going to last long.

These days, few things are built for the long term. We buy smartphones and computers with full anticipation that we will buy new ones in a few years. Repairing things is ever less possible. Home appliances are the same: kaput in 5 to 10 years. And so many are dependent on digital applications to work. The operations of locks on homes, cars, ignitions, lights, and so much more are wholly dependent on a web of hooks that require that everything is in perfect working order.

What if it’s all a house of cards?

Imagine a time when it all goes down, not for an hour or day but for weeks. Or months. This is precisely what people in areas most affected by Hurricane Helene experience. As is well known, FEMA has been underperforming, but more importantly, it has attempted to stop private efforts in multiple documented instances. Elon Musk had to take to social media to beg the government to let him offer free internet to people because all other options died.

The money died. Credit cards stopped working. ATMs were dead. All communications came to a halt. The only way to transact was through cash, silver, gold, or barter. Electric cars could not be charged. The locks on doors seized up. You could not access your bank. The internet was gone in a flash. In short, the whole of the 21st century vanished in an instant.

The only path out of this mess was with old technology. Gasoline. Generators. Matches and candles. Internal combustion. Radios with hand cranks. Cash. Books on physical paper. Paper maps. Thermometers. Blankets. Firewood. In the end, survival depended on analogue things and analogue skills. For all the methods in which we’ve tried to reinvent the world in ways that are not dependent on “fossil fuels,” know-how, and elbow grease, it just keeps reverting.

Remember during the COVID crisis when everyone became suddenly obsessed with “touchless” everything? None of it made any sense because the virus did not spread on surfaces, and we discovered that pretty early on. But touchless went ahead anyway, and when restaurants reopened, people had to scan a code to access a list of things to order.

Customers hated it and now most places have gone back to physical menus. We go to restaurants to get away from digital everything, not find ourselves newly immersed in it.

There is something deeply wrong with the attitude that touching things is icky and beneath us. It suggests an unwillingness to use the hands God gave us to better the world. On a theological level, it suggests disgust with the incarnation: why would God ever become man if God wanted to be “touchless?” It suggests even a cult-like disgust with the physical world itself.

Fortunately, the word touchless seems to have lost its cache. Even so, the word itself reveals a dangerously millenarian eschatology, the belief that history is somehow headed toward a full escape from the physical world and all its limits, including the need for work and the inevitability of mortality. It’s pure delusion. A disaster event proves that.

Government has been running table-top exercises for decades with the idea of preparing for large-scale grid outages in the event of a huge weather event or a cyberattack. I can predict with 100 percent certainty that whatever plans they have in place, none will work. As our experience with Helene suggests, in the event of an emergency, the government may not be your friend but rather an obstacle, even a dangerous one.

My friend Mark Hendrickson experienced some of the worst of the hurricane. He writes: “I had never been without electric power for such an extended period of time before, and the experience vividly underscored something that I had known intellectually, like an abstract theory, but now felt at a deep, visceral level: how utterly dependent our society is on electric power.”

It meant for him a fundamental rethinking of everything.

“Sitting at home during most of the power outage, time seemed to slow down. It seemed like every few minutes I had an impulse to turn on the TV to see how storm cleanup was proceeding, but—oops—no TV. Or I wanted to go online and see which teams had won sports contests, what was going on in the world, or even something as trivial as checking my current bank balance with the addition of the month-end interest payment. Oops—no internet.”

“My thoughts turned to my dear Amish friends and neighbors when I lived in Pennsylvania. Our quiet candle-lit evenings at home during the outage now mirrored their evenings. Without the myriad distractions that electronic devices offer, there is more time for quiet reading or direct human interaction. In a society that has been becoming increasingly atomized, more personal connection seems appealing. Hmmm … maybe now, with the power back on, I should choose one evening a week to forsake the electronic world.”

The scenarios above all depend on disaster happening. It might not happen. The actual reason we might fall into crisis are simple matters of inflation. It could just become too expensive to use, and cost too much to charge the cars or keep the lights on. Already I have friends whose utility bills are higher than their mortgages from 10 years ago. Somehow people don’t think about this when they buy maximum square footage. Do you have an additional $15,000 to heat and cool it?

Most houses today, and certainly most office complexes, are designed to require electric-powered indoor air cooling and heating. We don’t use gas furnaces or rely on cross breezes anymore. Fireplaces are nothing but nostalgic vanities.

When all this building was going on for many decades, hardly anyone even considered the contingencies. We built as if there were no eventualities for which to prepare.

There is another factor: forced government rationing of power. Dependency on the grid, electric cars connected to the internet, and app-controlled things are all very easily controlled by a third party. But you say: these companies are all private and surely will ignore government edicts. We know now that this is not the case. Private companies become arms of the state under the right conditions. They will gladly comply to keep the paychecks rolling in and out.

People who have dealt with the worst of the hurricane came face-to-face with the state of nature without all the comforts we’ve learned to take for granted. For my own part, it has caused me to rethink some matters. Keeping a stash of cash around is a good idea. Some bags of silver dimes are also essential. Having plenty of blankets is advisable.

The most important way to prepare is to have a strong network of friends. In the end, human bonds will prove more enduring than the power grid.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/when-electricity-dies

The war that the Israeli regime has opened will not close until it is dealt a strategic defeat, one from which it will not likely recover.

Robert Inlakesh

After all of its gloating, the Zionist entity appears to have fallen for its own propagandistic bravado and is sleepwalking into the abyss. Having failed to defeat Hamas in Gaza, the Israelis appear to have lulled themselves into a belief that they had already crushed Hezbollah with their initial blows of the war.

When the Israelis detonated thousands of pagers on September 17, a day later detonating walkie-talkie devices, inflicting dozens of deaths and hundreds of serious injuries, this represented a momentary tactical victory for the settler project. What followed, with the assassination of countless Hezbollah officials, culminating in the martyrdom of the party’s Secretary-General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, made the Israelis appear as if they were then in the driver’s seat of the conflict.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu grew so confident and emboldened that he decided to record a video message to the people of Iran, indicating that he would soon aid in carrying out a regime change. The Zionist leaders ordered large-scale airstrikes against thousands of targets across Lebanon, devastating civilian infrastructure and inflicting over 2,000 deaths. The Israelis repeatedly pounded the Southern Suburb of Beirut with hundreds of tons of explosives, while expanding the nature of their strikes against Syrian territory too.

While the Arab and Muslim World entered a stage of collective mourning over the repeated attacks on Lebanon, processing the loss of one of its most cherished leaders in recent memory, the Israelis also decided to declare a ground incursion into South Lebanon. Terrorist tactics and assassinations have served as propaganda victory in the media battle of the optics, in addition to a temporary tactical victory, which certainly inflicted a blow.

Yet, the strategic initiative was suddenly recovered on October 1, with the Islamic Revolution Guard Corps (IRGC)’s unprecedented response to the repeated assassinations – including the murder of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran – firing 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli military sites. Despite countless attempts to deflect, cover up, and downplay the effectiveness of the Iranian response, dubbed “Operation True Promise II,” the impact was felt throughout the entire region.

What also happened following this, with the repeated successful strikes against Israeli targets by Yemen’s Ansar Allah and the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, combined with repeated Hezbollah’s successes in repelling the Zionist forces’ attempts at penetrating Lebanese land, all worked at changing the direction of the tide. On October 7, Hamas demonstrated its ability to hit “Tel Aviv” with M90 rockets, which was followed by strikes on “Tel Aviv” by Ansar Allah and then Hezbollah.

After repeated costly failures along the Lebanese border, the Israelis then decided to invade Jabalia Refugee Camp in northern Gaza and begin a terror bombing campaign across northern Gaza, also carrying on its assassinations of journalists and educators in the besieged territory. However, despite the terror that they inflicted, when their forces entered on the ground and besieged Jabalia Refugee Camp, the Palestinian Resistance factions began executing sophisticated and daring ambush operations, exacting a significant price on their soldiers.

The al-Qassam Brigades – the armed wing of Hamas – then began firing drones at troop formations and even one toward Israeli settlements, indicating that their capabilities were much greater than they were previously believed to be by the enemy. Suddenly, the Israelis were in a position where the Palestinian Resistance was killing and injuring their soldiers in Gaza, while Hezbollah was doing the same from South Lebanon.

Although the Israelis dealt significant blows to the Axis of Resistance, it is now in an even more difficult position than it previously found itself in prior to its assaults on Lebanon. Hezbollah has replaced its military leadership and has had the time to plan, rid itself of potential security breaches, and take the initiative on the battlefield. We see that Hezbollah is today intensifying its rocket strikes against the Israelis, dealing significant blows and putting the Zionist entity in a position of embarrassment before its own public once again.

The Israelis now must mount significant offensive actions across all fronts and fight on, managing a battle with Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank, Yemen, Iraq, and even Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu envisioned himself as the Israeli Prime Minister to inflict a 1967-style defeat on the regional resistance, yet he has dragged the entire entity into something very different. We are no longer in the days of Egyptian President Gamal Abdul Nasser or the PLO in the 1980s, Hezbollah and the regional Axis of Resistance axis are not an alliance that can be broken through assassinations of senior leaders, in addition to this, they are ready for the fight.
Hezbollah undoubtedly enjoys superiority on the ground, in face-to-face combat, while the Zionist military has only proven capable of pulling off sophisticated terrorist plots and assassinations, in combination with their elite video-game warriors who specialize in using advanced weapons from a distance. The reality is that typing on a keyboard or commanding controllers, while sitting in a fortified position, may deliver some tactical victories, but it will not win a war that requires immense physical courage, which the Israelis simply do not possess.

Even in the West Bank, where the Israelis frequently raid refugee camps and face off against poorly trained teenagers and men in their young twenties, armed with no more than light weapons, their special forces units have to call in backup and end up using air support. Even against the weakest link in the chain of Resistance groups, they struggle to hold ground in confrontations and never do so in a fair way. In Lebanon, they face committed, well-trained, and well-prepared fighters who do not fear death and crave the opportunity to confront them.

The Israeli regime may well pull off more trickery and terrorism on a grand scale, as it will turn to more assassinations, attempts to stir unrest, and perhaps special force operations deep into Lebanese or Syrian territory. There cannot be any doubt that there will be more challenges ahead, that the Israelis have many more tricks up their sleeves, and that the terror they plan to inflict will be painful, primarily to civilians. Yet, they do not possess the capability to win a multi-front confrontation and will be bled to death, so long as the Axis of Resistance continues to seize the initiative and respond forcefully to each escalatory violation of international law that the Israelis commit.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, in his first speech issued during the Gaza Genocide, spoke of “scoring points” and that the “knockout blow” had not yet been delivered against the Israeli regime. What has happened during the past month is that the Israelis were being beaten on points and decided to begin throwing haymaker punches with the intent of ending the fight abruptly, taking a chance at victory. Some of those punches landed and knocked down the Axis of Resistance, yet they got back on their feet, dealt blows back to the Israelis, and are now fighting with even more intensity. Both sides have been hit and hurt, so this fight now looks like it will end with a KO.

The war that the Israeli regime has opened will not close until it is dealt a strategic defeat, one from which it will not likely recover. It is also a war that the United States has enabled and backed in every way. In today’s world, the Palestinians and Lebanese people are taking on not only the Zionists, but the US too.

[…]

Via https://libya360.wordpress.com/2024/10/12/the-zionist-regime-cannot-fight-hamas-and-hezbollah-at-the-same-time/

Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Crown Prince, (R), received Iranian  Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, Riyadh, Oct. 9, 2024

M. K. BHADRAKUMAR

Reuters reported on Friday quoting three sources in the Persian Gulf that the regional states are lobbying Washington to stop Israel from attacking Iran’s oil sites as “part of their attempts to avoid being caught in the crossfire.” The exclusive Reuters report singled out Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar as also refusing to let Israel fly over their airspace for any attack on Iran.

These moves come after a diplomatic push by Iran to persuade its Sunni Gulf neighbours to use their influence with Washington. Saudi Arabia has drawn the bottom line to the Biden Administration that it is determined to pursue the track of normalisation with Iran that began with the rapprochement brokered by China in March 2023. This affirmation, well into the Iranian-Saudi détente’s second year, puts paid to any residual hope that Arab states may eventually join a ‘coalition of the willing’ against Iran.

The big picture here is that the Gulf states are positioning themselves to be among the key contributors to the ongoing power diffusion in their region — and globally. Tehran and Riyadh have found ways to responsibly share the neighbourhood. Suffice to say, the Arab world is already in the post-US and post-West era.

Now, this also signals Riyadh’s unease about Israel continuing its war on Gaza and Saudi frustration with the US for refusing to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government into accepting a ceasefire.

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi was in Riyadh on Wednesday and was received by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The Saudi readout said they discussed bilateral relations and regional developments as well as the “efforts exerted towards them.” The meeting was attended by Saudi Defense Minister Prince Khalid bin Salman, Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan bin Abdullah and Minister of State and National Security Advisor Dr. Musaed bin Mohammed Al-Aiban.

Araqchi also held talks with Prince Faisal. “Discussions focused on relations and explored ways to strengthen them across various fields,” the Saudi report said. Only the previous day, Prince Khalid had spoken with his American counterpart Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin.

The Saudi Press Agency reported Tuesday that the two defence ministers “discussed the latest regional and international developments, efforts to de-escalate tensions in the region, and ways to ensure regional security and stability.”

Clearly, the Saudis are on the ball, quite aware that they can assume a pivotal role in restoring calm and preventing the spillover of the conflict into the region. The ground beneath the Israel-Iran standoff is shifting in systemic terms.

The military implications are profound when the Gulf States close their airspace to Israel (and the US) for operations against Iran. The Israeli jets will now have to take a circuitous route via the Red Sea and circumvent Arabian Peninsula to approach Iranian airspace, which of course will necessitate mid-air refuelling and all that it entails in such a sensitive operation that may have to be undertaken repeatedly. In a ‘missile war,’ Iran may prevail.   

How far the coordinated move by the Persian Gulf States to get the US to de-escalate the situation will work remains to be seen, as it depends largely on Netanyahu mellowing, of which there are no signs. Nonetheless, President Joe Biden did his part by calling Netanyahu on Wednesday. But the White House readout neatly sidestepped the main talking point between them.

It stands to reason, though, that the call from Biden did have some effect on Netanyahu. The New York Times reported that Israel’s security cabinet convened on Thursday during which Netanyahu discussed with senior ministers “the overall plan for Israel’s retaliation.”

The results of the meeting were not released. And Times concluded its report by taking note that “analysts still say neither side appears interested in all-out war.” Indeed, the Gulf states’ anxiety has become a key talking point between the US officials and Israeli counterparts.

After the call from Biden, Netanyahu asked Defence Minister Gallant who was scheduled to visit Washington to stand down. Meanwhile, the US Central Command chief General Michael Kurilla came to Israel for “a situational assessment.” Lloyd Austin followed through on Thursday with a call to with Israeli defence minister Yoav Gallant but the focus was on Lebanon. No doubt, the Biden administration is pulling many strings in Tel Aviv.

Netanyahu is known to be a realist himself. The point is, Tehran is explicit that Tel Aviv will pay a heavy price for any further hostile action. The warning will be taken seriously as Israeli military and intelligence — indeed, Netanyahu himself — have just had a preview of Iran’s deterrent capability.

Second, the price of oil has already begun going up and that is something Candidate Kamala Harris wouldn’t want to see happening.

Third, as for nuclear facilities, Iran has dispersed them to all parts of the country and the critical infrastructure is buried deep in the bowels of mountains that are hard to reach.

To be sure, Iran’s missile strike on October 1 carried also showed that it has superb intelligence to know what to target, where and when. In a tiny country like Israel, it is difficult to hide — although Tehran may not stoop so low as to decapitate opponents.

Suffice to say, all things taken into account, a terrible beauty is born in the Middle East: How far will the US go to rescue Israel?

The beginning of an alignment of the Arab states, as evident this week, refusing to be part of any form of attack on Iran and the signs of ‘Islamic solidarity’ bridging sectarian divides — these are, quintessentially, to be seen as tipping points. This is the first thing.

Secondly, this isn’t going to be a short, crisp war. Colonel Doug Macgregor, an astute US combat veteran in the Gulf War and former advisor to the Pentagon during the Trump administration and a noted military historian, aptly drew the analogy of the Thirty Years’ War in Europe (1618-1648), which began as a battle among the Catholic and Protestant states that formed the Holy Roman Empire but evolved in time and became less about religion and turned into a political struggle, more about which group would ultimately govern Europe, and ultimately changing the geopolitical face of Europe.

To quote from a 2017 essay by Pascal Daudin, an ICRC veteran who was deployed in major conflict situations such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Central Asia, Caucasus, Saudi Arabia and the Balkans, the Thirty Years’ War turned into “a complex, protracted conflict between many different parties –- known in modern parlance as State and non-State actors. In practice, it was a series of separate yet connected international and internal conflicts waged by regular and irregular military forces, partisan groups, private armies and conscripts.” (here)

True, a Middle Eastern War in the current setting already has combatants, bystanders and onlookers who, as the conflict evolves into a latter-day Crusade, are bound to jump in — such as Turkey and Egypt.

It will most certainly exhaust Israel — and vanquish the US presence in the Middle East — although a protracted war may prompt an intellectual upheaval that would ultimately bring about the Enlightenment to the region, as the Thirty Years’ War did to Europe.

[…]

Via https://www.indianpunchline.com/the-arabs-are-transparently-displaying-their-crossover-to-multi-alignment-in-a-us-led-middle-eastern-war/

Al Mayadeen English

Israeli soldiers tell CNN that the war against Hezbollah and Lebanon has proven to be more challenging than expected, as flashbacks of 2006 haunt the occupation.

The Israeli war against Lebanon could end at a stalemate, as violent confrontations at the border indicate that [an Israeli victory] will not be easy, CNN said in a recent report.

According to the network, Hezbollah’s level of resistance has surprised many observers, particularly following the recent Israeli aggression and assassinations, including that of Martyr Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah.

Nevertheless, the Resistance remained organized and continued launching its missiles and rockets against “Israel”.

Hezbollah holds the upper hand in the South

Israeli occupation soldiers fighting in Lebanon have abundantly expressed to CNN that the open, mountainous terrain of Lebanese territories, where Hezbollah fighters are present, makes the operation more difficult to carry out.

One occupation soldier, who had fought in Gaza and is now deployed against Lebanon, highlighted the stark differences between the northern front and his experience in Gaza.

“The challenge is not that Hezbollah is more equipped by Iran or have more training. The challenge is the switch in the head from months of fighting in an urban territory versus fighting in an open area territory,” he said, adding that the most basic maneuvers, including the IOF line-up and how they move, differ.

Additionally, despite claims of the Israeli military being “far more superior” to Hezbollah’s freedom fighters on paper, due to its more sophisticated weapons arsenal, larger battalions, and stronger allies, the soldier confirmed that all their strongholds are rendered worthless in open battle in the Resistance’s homeland.

Guerrilla warfare proves deadly for Israeli soldiers

In the same context, Daniel Sobelman, an international security expert at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said the IOF underwent a similar experience during the 2006 July war against Lebanon.

“Hezbollah were up against the strongest military in the Middle East, there were literally hundreds of Israeli air raids per day, and artillery, and all the capabilities that a modern, advanced military has to offer. And they were not defeated. They survived. And throughout the entire Israeli offensive, Hezbollah was able to fire hundreds of rockets into Israel every day,” he said.

Following “Israel’s” humiliating defeat in 2006, it has spent the past two decades preparing to confront Hezbollah once again, until Hamas carried out Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on October 7, 2023, which was completely unprecedented and unexpected, according to Sobelman.

And while “Israel” decided to wage war against Hezbollah, expecting to end it unscathed, it is worth noting that Hezbollah has also been preparing for war, and “that is never the case with guerrilla warfare.”

Additionally, “Israel” is fighting on lands Hezbollah are masters in and are driven and determined to inflict massive losses against the IOF, Sobelman added.

“They’re entrenched in underground facilities and they’re playing a defensive game,” he said of Hezbollah’s fighters, noting that “it doesn’t matter how many of them you kill, still (in a guerilla war) the weaker side ultimately wins by imposing a sustained accumulation of costs.”

Revisiting “Israel’s” defeat in 2006, Sobelman said today’s scenario is exactly what happened during the July War, noting that despite the occupation’s material superiority, it was still unable to achieve any of its war objectives.

History repeats itself

Therefore, the next move could potentially constitute the deployment of more occupation troops along the northern front, which could quickly transform the current battle into a bloodier one.

“Israel” announced that four divisions of 10,000 to 20,000 soldiers each have been deployed to fight in Lebanon. However, Hezbollah remains undeterred, and continues ambushing the occupation forces and inflicting severe losses among their ranks.

On October 11, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon, in defense of its lands and in support of Gaza, targeted five Israeli forces in Ras al-Naqoura, four of which had been trying to evacuate the casualties that preceded.

[…]

Via https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/hezbollah-shocks-observers—israel–reliving-2006-war–cnn

Cynocephali

Episode 17 Fictional Travels and Monstrous Races

The Middle Ages Around the World

Dr Joyce E Salisbury

Film Review

During the Middle Ages, fictional travel accounts were far more popular than genuine travel diaries . Dr Salisbury specifically singles out The Travels of Sir John Manderville, which was was totally fabricated. Written in Norman French in the 14th century, it was mostly  copied from the works of other travellers and historians. Translated into every existing European language by 1400, 300 copies of the manuscripts survive (in contrat to 135 copies of The Travel of Marco Polo’). Until quite recently, Manderville’s book was taken as totally factual and was used as a guide book by Columbus and other explorers.

Among other false claims in the manuscript are

• assertions that Manderville visited the Holy Land (which never happened) and saw the desert cave where Adam and Eve lived. as well as spots of Mary’s breast milk on a pink rock.
• assertions that he visited Turkish and Persian lands (including the area described in Greek legend ruled by Amazon women, who expelled all men from their territory).*
• a description of a healing well that cured illness and made people young again (which sent Ponce de Leon searching for the fountain of youth in Florida)
• a description of Spice Islands rulers living in palaces of gold.**
• a visit to China (which never happened) to observe the immense opulence of the Yuan dynasty (which he copied from Marco Polo), despite the state of serious decline of the Yuan dynasty 1356.
• a visit to India (which never happened), where he claimed to have encountered a Christian king named Prester John.

According to Salisbury, Manderville’s most damaging claims concerned fantastic half-human creatures he allegedly during his voyages. This helped to popularize the notion that foreign lands harbored exotic subhuman people ripe for murder and exploitation

Manderville copied most off these accounts from the Roman historian Pliny the Elder, who first introduced the concept of race – with what are now called “Plinian races” or “monstrous races.” Examples include

• Blemmyae – human beings lacking heads or necks who had faces on their chests

• Aeomi – apple smellers who derived nutrition from smells and died if exposed to foul odors.
• Scropods – who had only a single large leg.
• Paditi – who had ears so long they could wrap their body in them.
• Cynocephali – human creature with dog heads

Catholic monks also compiled bestiaries, which alo included centaurs, manticors (had four legs with the face of a man, leading to a big debate whether such monsters were human or not. It was generally believed that refusing to wear clothes and eating human flesh were a sign of non-humanity.

*Strongly influenced by Manderville’s book, 16th century Spanish explorer Francisco Oriano named the Amazon River after women warriors he encountered in South America.

**Which inspired Columbus to sail across the Atlantic seeking gold in what he believed were the Spice Isands.

Film can be viewed with a library card on Kanopy.

https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/13172786/13172823