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The Role of Turkey in the Fall of Syria

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Eric Striker

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government in Syria marks a turning point. Prior to the start of the 2011 civil war, Syrians were among the most highly educated people in the Arab world. Syria’s flourishing middle-class, high quality universities, and advanced pharmaceutical industry allowed them to punch above their weight class in influencing the Middle East. As a middle power, Assad’s Ba’athist social-nationalist government sought to retain good ties with all players, including the United States at one point, though its commitment to combating Zionist expansionism ultimately led to its targeting for destruction by the very United States it had sought to keep good terms with.

With Iran and Russia behind it, Syrian forces emerged victorious over Zionist backed Islamist forces in 2018, but this victory was incomplete and led to a period of stagnation in the country. Syria has been unable to recover from the brain drain wrought by the exodus of educated professionals — teachers, physicians, engineers, etc — to Europe and Turkey. The strict sanctions regiment imposed on Syria by the United States and other Zionist powers has made it difficult for the state to participate in global commerce, leading to economic isolation and stagnation. A culture of corruption and cynicism has flourished under the weakened and demoralized Assad, seen everywhere from organized crime groups recruiting the country’s unemployed chemists to become the region’s top producer of crystal meth and Captagon, to the sad display of Syrian Arab Army forces unable to move tanks and airplanes to confront rebels due to their commanders having stolen and sold all the fuel.

Both Russia and Iran have their own reasons for wanting to cut their losses with Assad. The two nations are distracted with their own existential wars against the American-Israeli Zionist order, which is why the Russian presence in Syria was small (a handful of jets) and the Iranian one was already withdrawing from strategic areas such as Idlib.

Hezbollah’s supply routes, which run through Homs and Palmyra, were highly surveilled and regularly targeted by Israel — sometimes attacked a dozen times a day — likely due to corrupt Syrian officers informing on them to the Zionists, making these routes increasingly difficult to use. In one instance, IRGC experts were killed by an Israeli airstrike just blocks away from Assad’s private residence, which Iranian intelligence traced to information obtained from bought off Syrian officials, yet Assad demonstrated a lack of will or capacity to root out the compromised operatives. Syria has gone out of its way to keep a low profile and stay out of the conflict over Gaza since October 7th, including cutting ties with the Houthis in Yemen, which has upset many of its Axis of Resistance allies who expended large amounts of blood and treasure keeping Assad in power.

On the Russian side of the equation, Moscow has been frustrated with Assad’s inability to combat corruption or make an effort to bring about an official end to the conflict. Both Russia and Iran have sought to reintegrate Syria in a post-American geopolitical environment, but Assad was intransigent despite being the weakest party in the alliance.

Following the 2023 Chinese brokered detente between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which whipped the rug from underneath Washington’s feet, an attempt was made by Beijing, Moscow and Tehran to organize a solution to conflicting Turkish and Syrian interests. Assad rejected this offer, stating that negotiations were off the table until Turkish troops withdrew from Syrian territory.

Turkey has emerged as a highly antagonistic but transactional actor, leveraging its massive army, network of terrorists, and intelligence apparatus at times to do the bidding of America and Israel when their interests intersect, while also carving out a sovereignist position that also deals with Russia and Iran when it benefits Ankara.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani war exemplifies this dynamic. The Armenian government, which had made its own bed by publicly insulting and seeking to distance itself from its Russian and Iranian allies in hopes of winning the favor of America, Israel and Western Europe, was instead caught isolated and alone when Turkish and Israeli backed Azeri forces launched a sudden invasion of Nagorno-Karabakh in late 2020.

Both Russia and Iran avoided a potential war with Turkey by staying out of its way. In exchange, they have reaped tangible benefits from allowing the Turks to achieve their objectives in what they see as their natura sphere of influence. In the aftermath of the Armenian conflict, Azerbaijan, under Turkish protection, has defied Washington by providing a trade corridor for Russia to transport goods to Iran as well as becoming a vital lifeline for Russian energy amidst Ukrainian sanctions.

Turkey has in the past defied Washington, largely because America increasingly needs Turkey more than Turkey needs America. Turkey has been regularly bombing Kurdish communist groups who have since 2018 served as the main American asset in Syria, such as the YPG, and have especially defied Washington in regards to their relations with Russia. Turkey’s emergence as a regional power is an issue neither the United States or Russia appear capable of combating, and both seek to get what they can out of this new reality.

In Syria, there appears to have been a similar arrangement to the one over Armenia behind closed doors between Assad’s government, Iran, Turkey and Russia, who are currently meeting in Doha without any official American, Western or Israeli presence. Hussein Ibish of The Atlantic believes a post-Assad Syria could be divided up among ethno-religious lines, with Russia being able to maintain its port in Tartus through an Alawite protectorate.

As for Iran, which media outlets and analysts are declaring the biggest loser from Assad’s fall, it would be more prudent to wait and see what happens. Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Islamist militia serving as Turkey’s proxy, has sought to distance itself from its al-Qaeda origins and so far avoided organized persecution of Christians and Shi’ites, as Iranian media has testified. Such a development suggests that they are under Turkish orders to behave in a restrained fashion, perhaps through an agreement with Russia and Iran. While HTS is unlikely to have launched its offensive with Hezbollah being forced to surge its material and men to South Lebanon, they have sent message to Shia fighters that they do not seek hostilities with them.

The status of the weapons transfer corridor to Hezbollah, however, could be in jeopardy and Israel has capitalized on this by pushing into Syrian territory, but ultimately both the United States and Israel appear to be in the passenger seat at the behest of Turkey. There is potential for Iran to convince Sunni militants in the new Syrian government to preserve their ability to support Hezbollah out of anti-Israel solidarity. Rather than a carefully calibrated Western-led regime change, the renewed Turkish aggression appears to be in the context of a vacuum in Central Asia and the Near East that a weakened Washington has no choice but to support on Ankara’s terms, which they prefer to Iranian or Russian influence, but which also introduces variables out of Washington’s control.

As NATO member, Turkey has long sought to utilize strategic agreements with America and Israel for its own morally ambiguous economic and geopolitical self-interest, including maintaining the financially lucrative oil pipeline to Israel, but they nevertheless reserve the right to retain a degree of independence. Turkey has been diligent in demanding the US break ties with its Kurdish fighters in Syria, and while HTS rebels have largely avoided major battles with Iran-backed Shia groups and Russian forces, both the Turkish military and HTS are currently eviscerating the positions long held by US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (who are Kurdish) in Northern Syria while Washington impotently tells them to stop.

It is unclear in the immediate aftermath if America and Israel are really the major winners or simply opportunistically getting their licks in amidst the chaos. Turkey has likely already agreed with the US to allow Israel to steal Syrian territory in exchange for a free hand, but this doesn’t mean Iran won’t also be allowed to develop an alternative way to aid its allies in Lebanon in a separate agreement. One can recall the aftermath of Saddam Hussein, overthrown by the US due to his stalwart opposition to Israel and replaced with a weak puppet regime that ultimately created an unforeseen vacuum, allowing Iran to cultivate a new and increasingly important branch of its Axis of Resistance via Popular Mobilization Units.

For Iran, which appears to be preparing for a war with the incoming Trump administration, avoiding an intervention in Syria preserves weapons and funds needed in Lebanon and at home, but also avoids reigniting cooling sectarian tensions by avoiding attacking Sunnis to preserve the rule of a Shia minority. The prospect of unchallenged American hegemony in Syria, which would’ve transpired without outside intervention in the 2011 civil war, is an acute threat to both Iran and Russia, so the decision to allow the rebels to take Damascus should be observed with this in mind. The truth of the matter is that the rebels, armed with Turkey’s state of the art drones and other new battlefield dynamics the Syrian army was unprepared to defend against, were easier to accommodate than fight.

The big picture mission for Iran in the new security landscape is to undercut American and Israeli machinations by uniting Shia and Sunni Muslims for the Palestinian cause, which appears to be bearing some fruit. Iran has successfully pitched a united front against Israel to win over unlikely Sunni militant allies, such as Hamas and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Detente between Saudi Arabia and Iran seems to be taking the form of entente, as seen with the two country’s increased military cooperation. Last March, Hezbollah’s foreign minister Wafiq Safa was welcomed by officials in the Sunni United Arab Emirates, considered by many to be a pivot away from the United States. In Lebanon, Sunni militias once seen as rivals of Hezbollah have put aside their differences to fight alongside the Shia resistance group against Israel. The hard truth for Gulf States, who under the first Trump administration were being organized into a proxy army for Israel, is that the Yemen war, where Saudi oil refineries were destroyed, showed them the United States is unable or unwilling to provide them with the kind of security guarantees needed for them to fight Iran and its allies. It will remain to be seen what Trump’s second administration, which is directed almost exclusively by Israel’s well-being, will offer to bring the Saudis back to the negotiating tables.

The US and Israel unleashing the Turkish juggernaut could be interpreted as a recalibration and reaction to increased collaboration between Shia and Sunni nations elsewhere, who have been brought together by the genocide in Gaza as well as the rise of BRICS. Though Turkey is a Sunni nation, various Arab states from Egypt to Saudi Arabia fear the Muslim Brotherhood and other forms of political Islam backed by Ankara. One could argue that empowering Turkey, which has decent relations with Russia, could also drive a wedge between Moscow and Tehran in the long-run as most of the Middle East, including Iran, reject neo-Ottoman influence.

It is doubtful that relying on Turkey was Washington’s first choice in the Middle East. A comparison could be made with the Atlanticist embrace of Joseph Stalin during the Second World War. The Turks, both as a society and state, largely reject the liberal values America and its Jewish policy makers seek to impose on the world, especially in the realm of foreign policy. In the last two years, Turkey has sought to circumvent Western sanction on Iran and outright refuses to acknowledge their sanctions on Russia, seemingly unafraid of any Western retaliation.

The nightmare of trying to control Turkey is bound to cause the liberal West a major headache down the line. Recep Erdogan’s stated imperial ambitions do not stop at Armenia and Syria, he has also repeatedly called for increasing influence or outright invading his supposed NATO “allies” Greece, Bulgaria, and Romania. Turkey functions as a gangster state, extorting Europe out of billions of dollars by threatening to flood the continent with migrants. Whatever short-term benefits to their geopolitical infrastructure the US and Israel obtain from helping unleash Turkish savagery on the world is tantamount to running with scissors.

[…]

Via https://www.unz.com/estriker/turkish-opportunism-and-multipolarity-in-syria/

 

What Makes Hospitals So Deadly and How Can We Fix It?

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hospitalization

A Midwestern doctor

Story at-a-glance

  • Throughout COVID-19, abysmal hospital care and the suppression of effective off-patent therapies killed approximately a million Americans. Much of this originated from Obamacare pressuring hospitals to aggressively treat patients so they could quickly leave the hospital and reduce health care costs
  • More frail patients respond poorly to aggressive protocols, resulting in them frequently being pushed into palliative care or hospice. Sadly doctors are no longer trained to gradually bring their patients back to health, and hence view many of those deaths as inevitable
  • During COVID-19, hospitals enforced rigid protocols centered around remdesivir and ventilators while denying alternative treatments, even in cases where patients were likely to die — in one striking example, patients who received court-ordered ivermectin had a 95% survival rate compared to just 5% for those denied it
  • Current medical training emphasizes following standardized protocols rather than practicing individualized medicine, with younger doctors being trained to execute procedures rather than critically examine cases and adjust treatment plans for each patient
  • In this article, we will review some of the forgotten medical therapies that dramatically improve hospital outcomes and highlight some of the key strategies patients and lawmakers can use to reduce hospital deaths

During COVID-19, we witnessed something previously unimaginable. A national emergency hospitalized thousands of Americans, where they were cut off from their loved ones and inevitably died. It soon became clear that the hospital protocols did not work, but regardless of how futile conventional care was, patients in our hospitals could not get the alternative therapies they needed.

This led to a sobering realization throughout America — what many of us believed about our hospitals was utterly incorrect. Rather than help patients, hospitals effectively functioned like assembly lines that ran disastrous protocols (e.g., remdesivir), denied patients access to their loved ones and refused to use alternative therapies even when it was known the patients were otherwise expected to die.

This was best illustrated by a travel nurse who was assigned to the New York hospital with the highest death tolls in the nation and realized something very wrong was happening throughout the hospital so she covertly recorded it:

Note: The full interview provides conclusive proof many patients were killed due to grossly inappropriate hospital protocols. A similar horrific testimony by another NYC COVID nurse can be viewed on my Twitter account here.

Appallingly, the COVID-19 treatment protocols financially incentivized remdesivir (“run death is near”) and then ventilator care but penalized effective off-patent treatments. As such, hospital administrators required deadly “treatments” like Remdesivir and retaliated against the doctors who used unprofitable treatments that saved lives.1

Note: The NIH continued to make remdesivir the treatment for COVID-19 and forbid alternative therapies even as a mountain of evidence piled up its protocols. This was due to Anthony Fauci appointing the NIH committee and selecting chairs that had direct financial ties to Remdesivir’s manufacturer — a recurring problem in American medicine (e.g., I showed how our grossly inaccurate cholesterol guidelines were authored by individuals taking money from statin manufacturers here).

Because of this murderous corruption, families began suing hospitals to allow the use of ivermectin for a relative who was expected to die (after being subjected to Fauci’s hospital COVID protocols). Remarkably, because there was so much money on the line, the hospitals chose to fight these lawsuits in court rather than just administer ivermectin.

Of the 80 lawsuits filed by lawyer Ralph Lorigo, in 40 the judge sided with the family, and in 40 with the hospital. Of those, in the 40 where patients received ivermectin, 38 survived, whereas of the 40 who did not, only 2 survived — in essence making suing a hospital arguably the most effective medical intervention in history. Yet rather than take this data into consideration, the profit-focused hospitals banded together to develop an effective apparatus to dismiss further lawsuits.2

As I had expected something like this to happen, shortly before the pandemic, I put a home treatment plain into place (e.g., by procuring high-powered oxygen concentrators and noninvasive ventilation). Numerous people in my immediate circle were successfully treated at home, many of whom would have otherwise been immediately hospitalized and likely died.

Note: Prior to COVID, we’d had other patients who merited hospitalization but simultaneously were likely to be put on the palliative care pipeline once admitted, so we’d already learned how to provide much of the care they needed at home.

Likewise, I also heard of more stories than I can count throughout the pandemic where a relative snuck an “unapproved” therapy to a patient in the hospital, saving the patient’s life.

Reductionist Realities

Every situation has two sides: the concrete factors and the intangible processes that lie between them. While modern science often focuses on optimizing the tangible, it tends to overlook the deeper essence of each phenomenon. However, those who nonetheless master these intangible aspects excel, as they solve a myriad of problems their peers cannot.

In medicine, this is clear in the contrast between algorithmic care — where doctors follow strict protocols — and the art of medicine, which involves critical thinking, individualized treatment plans, and nurturing the doctor-patient relationship, which is key to healing.

Unfortunately, medical training has increasingly shifted from fostering independent judgment to prioritizing corporate-driven guidelines, leaving little room for the art of care. In tandem with this shift, the costs of American health care have ballooned:3

Most remarkably, despite spending 2 to 4 times as much on health care as any other affluent nation,5 the United States has the worst health care outcomes amongst the affluent nations.6,7

This I would argue, is a result of our health care spending prioritizing what corporate interests want, not what produces effective health care and pervasive corruption being established throughout the government.

Economic Enticements

One of the most reliable means the government has to change the behavior of the health care system is by financially incentivizing the behavior it wants (e.g., pushing remdesivir).

A key part of this is grading hospitals on the quality of care they give patients and hospital reimbursement rates being tied to their “quality.” Unfortunately, while some metrics are helpful (e.g., what percent of patients get infected at a hospital), many other metrics lobbyists put in are not (e.g., what percentage of patients get vaccinated). As such, hospital administrators frequently force health care workers to push policies that harm patients.

After age 40, the amount of money spent on health care increases exponentially,9 with 22% of all medical expenses10 (and 26% of Medicare expenses11) being spent in the last year of life. Since there’s always been a looming threat that Medicare (and Social Security) will go bankrupt, reducing those expenses has long been a focus for health care bureaucrats (as best as I can gather, this began in 1979 but really kicked into gear with Obamacare).

The high cost of hospital stays — $2,883 per day on average, or up to $4,181 in California12 — has thus made reducing their length a priority for health care administrators.

For example, hospitals are reimbursed with a flat fee per admission,13 regardless of how long the patient stays (causing hospitals to eat the cost of extended stays), and critical access hospitals (which get paid more) must keep their average hospital stay under 96 hours to maintain JCAHO14 and Medicare15 accreditation.

Hospitals thus frequently pressure doctors to shorten stays through financial rewards or penalties for “excessive” stays,16 with committees aggressively scrutinizing and questioning any extended admissions.

Time to Heal

Whenever a problem arises in medicine, the bureaucratic tendency is to find ways to micromanage the concrete variables at the expense of the intangible aspects of patient care. As such, almost all the protocols physicians are trained in (“to improve the quality of medical care”) tend to cast the intangibles to the side — to the point doctors are often penalized if they break from the protocols.

One area where this is particularly problematic is dosing, as different patients simply need different doses of the same therapy. For almost all therapies, a specific dose exists where most patients will begin to benefit from the therapy and another where they will begin to show toxicity.

For example, in patients with congestive heart failure, they typically receive an aggressive diuretic regimen to get the excessive fluid out of the body. In more robust patients, this works, and you can discharge them within 2 to 3 days, but in weaker patients, it can set off a variety of severe complications (e.g., low blood sodium or kidney failure). For them, good outcomes can only be achieved with a 4 to 5 day hospital stay and a gentle, well-paced diuretic protocol.

[…]

Because of these economic incentives, hospitals have gotten very efficient at moving patients through the palliative care pipeline, and hospital care often turns into a Darwinian situation where if you haven’t recovered in 3 to 4 days, you are ‘selected’ to pass away.

In short, hospitals are incentivized to “treat” patients with a standardized protocol rather than get them better. As such, many things that need to be done to improve patient outcomes aren’t, and critical resources are inappropriately diverted.

For instance, hospitals routinely invest in social workers to expedite patients’ discharge (e.g., by pressuring them). In contrast, nurses are so understaffed at hospitals that they often only have the time to take vital signs and give out the pills a doctor ordered, rather than examine each patient every few hours let alone become aware of what’s actually going on with them (which is often crucial for patient recovery).

Ideally, nurses should be evaluating patients every 2 to 3 hours, and if slightly more money was spent to have 1 to 2 more nurses on each floor, it would be a relatively low-cost way to dramatically improve patient outcomes.

Ultimately, we believe the push to rapidly discharge patients from hospitals (e.g., nursing homes) rather than saving money actually increases health care costs because premature discharges frequently lead to numerous readmissions — which is particularly tragic since multiple hospital admissions often pull patients into a fatal downhill spiral.

[…]

Life Saving Measures

At the turn of the 19th century, conventional medicine was rapidly becoming extinct because natural therapies were far safer and effective. To “save” medicine, the American Medicine Association (AMA) partnered with the industry and the media to monopolize health care and eliminate all competition by declaring it quackery. As a result, between the 1920s to 1960s, many remarkable therapies (I regularly use in practice) were blacklisted and forgotten.

Many of these treatments initially gained their fame for the miraculous results they provided hospitalized patients on the brink of death.

For example, ultraviolet blood irradiation (UVBI) was remarkably effective for a myriad of infections antibiotics had failed (or couldn’t work on, such as viral pneumonia), and before long, doctors also discovered it was incredible for autoimmune conditions (e.g., asthma exacerbations), circulatory disorders (e.g., heart attacks) and surgeries (e.g., preventing infections, restoring bowel function, and accelerating healing).

Sadly, once it took our hospitals by storm, the AMA blacklisted it (causing UVBI’s use to shift to Russia and Germany), and despite hundreds of studies showing its immense value (discussed here), it remains blacklisted by our medical system.

[…]

Likewise, sepsis (which despite our “best” efforts, still kills 350,000 Americans each year18) responds remarkably well to early IV vitamin C. Paul Marik for example, found it dropped his hospital’s sepsis death rate dropped from 22% to 6%19 (and in a study he showed it dropped the death rate from 40.4% to 8.5%20).

Similarly, in the (rare) hospitals we’ve worked at that use IV vitamin C, sepsis deaths are extraordinarily rare. Yet, this approach is demonized, and it’s almost impossible to get it for a loved one in the hospital.

Recently, I’ve also begun bringing attention to another remarkable forgotten therapy, DMSO (e.g., it is arguably the safest and most effective pain treatment in existence — which in turn has led to hundreds of readers sharing that DMSO got them their lives back).

DMSO also effectively treats heart attacks, strokes, brain bleeds, traumatic brain injuries, and severe spinal cord injuries (areas where medicine struggles), and the evidence shows that were it to be adopted in our hospitals, DMSO could spare millions from a lifetime of disability or paralysis.

[…]

Via https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2024/12/13/hospitalization.aspx

 

The Siege of Syria, Poverty and Famine

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Richard C Cook

I have received the following urgent update from my confidential on-the-ground correspondent in Syria:

Syria: Guns and Butter

Syria fell because the livelihood of the population was destroyed due to US occupation of energy resources and grain fields, which was compounded by the “Caesars” sanctions. Damascus had one hour of electricity per day, a soldier’s monthly salary was $7, and a general’s $40, way below subsistence levels.

The situation was worse than the siege of Leningrad, where some supplies, albeit insufficient, could come via Lake Ladoga. The siege of Syria lasted longer than the 900 days of Leningrad.

Syria tried to have China invest in productive projects, but nothing came of it, because China was afraid of breaking the sanctions.

Syria then decided to mend relations with the Gulf Oil monarchies, seeking investments. This was prevented by the US.

The Syrian government had enough guns but not enough butter. The situation was unsustainable, and there was no light at the end of the tunnel.

When the NATO-Turkey-Israel-backed terrorists started the most recent attacks, President Assad decided it was best for the Syrian people for him to leave. Thus he rejected Russian and Iranian military aid proposals, as this would bring more deaths and destruction on Syria, and the economic suffering of the population would not be resolved.

Many talk shows blame the debacle on the corruption of Syrians and Arabs in general. Besides the inherent racism in such remarks, a good reminder to those would be the ruthless Nazi proxy “Russian Liberation National Army” comprised of tens of thousands of Soviet military who fought alongside the Nazis against the Soviet Union.

As for corruption, one recalls the rampant and across-the-board corruption during the Yeltsin years when the Russian economy was destroyed by neoliberalism.

This brings to mind the Arabic proverb: “حين تسقط البقرة يكثر سلاّخوها” “When the cow falls, many are the butchers.”

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/the-siege-of-syria-poverty-and-famine-richard-c-cook/5874833

The “Fall of Assad”: A Strategic Retreat, Not a Defeat?

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By Prof. Ruel F. Pepa

The recent developments in Syria, marked by what many describe as the “fall of Assad,” are far from the final chapter in the conflict. Contrary to popular narratives of capitulation, the departure of Assad’s forces from Damascus is better understood as a calculated maneuver forged through exhaustive consultations between the Syrian government and its Russian allies. Rather than signaling a surrender, this retreat reflects a tactical strategy aimed at regaining control over Syria in the long term.

The Strategic Context

Syria’s complex conflict has been shaped by the involvement of numerous insurgent groups, many of which receive backing from the United States and Israel. These groups have rendered the political and military landscape perilously constricted for Assad’s government. Under such conditions, fighting entrenched enemies within a heavily contested Damascus would risk further fragmentation and depletion of loyalist forces. Instead, stepping back creates an opportunity to regroup and strengthen Assad’s defenses.

This retreat allows Assad’s government to escape the tight space carved out by terrorist factions and consolidate its resources. By shifting focus outside Syria, loyalist forces gain room to rearm, reorganize, and prepare for future offensives. Historically, such strategic withdrawals have proven to be effective precursors to counterattacks, especially when they allow forces to strike from unexpected directions.

Lessons from History

The dynamic unfolding in Syria is reminiscent of other geopolitical contexts where external backers of insurgent governments ultimately lose interest. The United States’ diminished commitment to Afghanistan after decades of involvement offers a cautionary tale. A similar scenario is plausible in Syria, where the Islamist government, now supported by U.S. and Israeli resources, could face abandonment as those nations turn their focus inward due to their own protracted conflicts.

Israel’s ongoing battles with Hamas and Hezbollah, coupled with the United States’ embroilment in Ukraine alongside its NATO allies, strain both nations’ military and economic capacities. These pressures suggest a likely reduction in their ability or willingness to sustain the Islamist government in Syria over the long term. Assad’s strategy appears to hinge on this eventuality.

A Calculated Pause

The current lull is part of a longer game. Assad’s forces—and their Russian allies—are buying time to evaluate their enemies, regroup, and strengthen. When regional tensions ease and external backers waver, the conditions will be ripe for a counteroffensive. In this scenario, Assad’s forces can capitalize on the weakened resolve of their opponents to reclaim Syrian territory and governance.

While the present Islamist government’s grip on power might seem secure, its foundation is precarious. Its reliance on foreign sponsorship leaves it vulnerable to shifts in global priorities and alliances. Assad’s strategic withdrawal is an acknowledgment of this reality and a preparation for the opportune moment to strike back.

The Road Ahead

Assad’s retreat should not be mistaken for resignation. Instead, it’s a calculated response to a battlefield that has been reshaped by external forces and internal chaos. The consolidation of loyalist forces outside Syria’s borders is a clear indication of intent: a determination to outlast the insurgent government and to reclaim Syria when the conditions are favorable.

The current Islamist regime may appear victorious for now, but history and geopolitical trends suggest that its position is far from secure. When the balance of power shifts, Assad’s forces will likely seize the opportunity to return—this time, with the advantage.

Conclusion

The so-called “fall of Assad” is not the end but a strategic pause. It’s a move calculated to ensure survival, preparation, and eventual resurgence. As external backers of the Islamist government become preoccupied with other conflicts and priorities, the stage will be set for Assad’s forces to reclaim their position. This conflict is far from over, and its final outcome may yet redefine the region once again.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/fall-assad-strategic-retreat-not-defeat/5874599

Aging Rocket Fuel Disabling US/Chinese Nuclear Weapons

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America’s nuclear arsenal is slowly being eaten away by rocket fuel. Image: CNN Screengrab

Gabriel Honrada

Aging rocket fuel may be quietly crippling the world’s nuclear arsenals, according to a new report exposing the ticking time bomb inside both US and Chinese missiles.

This month, South China Morning Post (SCMP) reported that Chinese rocket scientists have discovered that the solid fuel used in intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) ages much faster than previously known, potentially rendering hundreds of missiles unusable.

Research conducted at China’s National Key Laboratory of Solid Rocket Propulsion in Xian revealed that significant changes in the fuel columns can occur within 30 years, making them unable to withstand the loads during flight. This finding could explain the frequent launch failures experienced by some nuclear powers in recent years.

The study, led by senior engineer Qin Pengju, found that while the aged propellant appeared stable during routine storage, it became significantly more brittle under high pressure. It mentions that the research focused on the solid fuel commonly used in ICBMs: ammonium perchlorate, aluminum powder and hydroxyl-terminated polybutadiene (HTPB) binder.

SCMP says the study’s findings suggest that the fuel’s ductility under pressure can be compromised after just 27 years, leading to possible rapid fractures during launch. It notes that the issue has raised concerns about the US’s declining nuclear deterrent capability, which relies on Minuteman III missiles manufactured in the 1970s and Trident II missiles that have been operational for nearly three decades.

Perhaps illustrating the unreliability of aging ICBMs, a failed Minuteman III ICBM test in November 2023 has heightened concerns about the US’s aging land-based nuclear arsenal. The unarmed missile was terminated during a launch from Vandenberg Space Force Base due to an anomaly.

While the Minuteman III as a whole is still considered a reliable weapons system, its subcomponents, such as the silo, electronics and warhead, are old and may have been neglected.

Asia Times has previously reported that the US faces mounting pressure to replace its aging Minuteman III ICBMs as delays and cost overruns plague its next-generation LGM-35A Sentinel program.

Budgeted initially at US$95.8 billion, the Sentinel’s cost has surged to an estimated $160 billion, forcing the Pentagon to justify the increase under the Nunn-McCurdy Amendment. Due to Covid-19 disruptions and inflation, production delays have postponed its deployment until 2029. As a result, the US Air Force must extend Minuteman III’s lifespan.

Aside from old delivery systems, Asia Times reported in January 2024 that the aging of plutonium pits in US nuclear weapons poses a significant challenge to the country’s strategic deterrent. Despite plutonium’s 24,000-year half-life, microscopic changes over time can affect the storage safety and explosive yield of nuclear weapons.

The US National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has struggled to produce new plutonium pits, with current production capacity unlikely to meet the goal of 80 pits annually until 2030 or later. This shortfall is attributed to a post-Cold War culture of complacency, a lack of skilled workers and restrictive environmental regulations.

Existing pits, designed for older weapons, may not perform as required in newer systems, raising concerns about the reliability of the US nuclear arsenal.

Keeping the 1970s-era Minuteman III poses significant challenges. In a February 2014 RAND report, Lauren Caston and other writers mention that central to keeping the aging Minuteman III in service is the aging infrastructure and components that require continuous modernization to maintain operability.

Caston and others mention that while the Minuteman III Service Life Extension Program (SLEP) aims to incrementally modernize the system by replacing critical subsystems like guidance and propulsion, the incremental modernization approach is hampered by the obsolescence of original manufacturing processes and materials, forcing reliance on more expensive, modern substitutes.

Another significant operational constraint is the depletion of missile inventory due to annual test firings, which accelerated after 2017 when the rate increased from three to four tests annually. They say America’s missile stockpile could dip below required operational levels by 2030 without ramping up new production.

As the US struggles to keep the Minuteman III in service while justifying the Sentinel’s ballooning costs, Parth Satam mentions in a July 2024 article for The Aviationist that extending the Minuteman III’s life until 2050 is significantly cheaper, with past refurbishments costing only $7 billion for 450 missiles.

However, Satam points out that maintaining these vintage systems is technically challenging due to outdated documentation and a lack of knowledgeable technicians. He contrasts that to the Sentinel program, despite its $140 billion price tag and cost overruns, promising a modern, cyber-defendable command and control system.

Satam says the US Department of Defense’s (DOD) projected lifetime for the Sentinel, set up to 2075, is arbitrary and inflates costs. He says a more flexible timeline could make the Minuteman III extension more viable. However, he cautions about the risks of not modernizing, citing the need to address emerging threats from nuclear-armed competitors like China and Russia.

However, he notes the Sentinel’s development could also strain budgets, potentially impacting other key defense programs such as the Next-Generation Air Dominance (NGAD) fighter and B-21 Raider stealth bomber.

This situation raises concerns about reliability and deterrence amid growing threats from nuclear rivals. Unlike the US, China and Russia have aggressively modernized their nuclear arsenals, further exacerbating the US’s strategic dilemma as China is ramping up fissile material production and Russia showcasing nuclear brinkmanship in the Ukraine war.

While liquid-fuel systems may avoid problems associated with solid fuel, they bring challenges such as difficult-to-store propellants, design complexity, which opens up more points of possible failure, and the need to be fueled before launch, unlike solid-fuel missiles.

To illustrate these problems, Sidharth Kaushal mentions in an October 2024 Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) article that Russia’s efforts to replace the aging liquid-fuel R-36 Satan ICBM with the RS-28 Sarmat have faced significant challenges, highlighting issues within its missile production sector.

Kaushal says that the recent catastrophic failure of the Sarmat test in September 2024 underscores these difficulties. He notes that the failure, likely due to propulsion issues, caused extensive damage to the Plesetsk Cosmodrome.

He notes that the Sarmat, intended to replace the Soviet-era R-36, has experienced repeated delays and technical problems since its development began in 2013. The complexity of the new system’s propulsion and lighter structure have contributed to these setbacks.

Additionally, he mentions that the collapse of Russia’s cooperation with Ukrainian contractors, who previously maintained the R-36, has exacerbated the situation. He says Russia’s reliance on its Makeyev Rocket Design Bureau for the Sarmat’s development has not fully mitigated these issues.

Kaushal points out that the RS-28’s troubled history, including multiple failed tests and delays, raises concerns about the reliability of Russia’s silo-based ICBMs, which are crucial for its strategic deterrence. However, he says that despite these challenges, the Sarmat has been accepted into service, reflecting the urgency of replacing the R-36.

[…]

Via https://asiatimes.com/2024/12/rocket-fuel-eating-away-at-us-china-nuclear-weapons/

RFK Jr. wants to prove CIA killed his uncle

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RFK Jr. wants to prove CIA killed his uncle – Axios
File photo: US President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy in Dallas, Texas, November 22, 1963. ©  Getty Images/Bettmann

RT

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is lobbying for his daughter-in law to become deputy CIA director so she can get to the bottom of the assassination of his uncle, John F. Kennedy, the Washington outlet Axios has claimed.

President Kennedy was fatally shot in Dallas, Texas in November 1963. The official investigation identified Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole suspect. Oswald himself was killed soon afterward by local resident Jack Ruby. RFK Jr. has long suspected the CIA of being behind the hit, however.

“RFK believes that and wants to get to the bottom of it,” an anonymous Republican source told Axios on Wednesday, suggesting this rationale might be behind the proposal to nominate Amaryllis Fox Kennedy as deputy director of the CIA.

Fox Kennedy ran her father-in-law’s independent presidential campaign after the Democrats closed off their primaries. RFK Jr. ended up endorsing Republican Donald Trump, who won in November. The former Democrat has been nominated to head the Department of Health and Human Services in the next administration, while former Director of National Intelligence John Ratcliffe has been tapped to head the CIA.

According to Axios, RFK Jr. has been telling people that Fox Kennedy would help get to the truth about JFK. She has previous experience at the CIA, having been an undercover agent for almost a decade.

Shortly after RFK Jr. endorsed him in August, Trump promised to declassify the last of the documents pertaining to the JFK assassination through a new presidential commission.

In an interview with Tucker Carlson in August 2023, RFK Jr. claimed that the CIA had the means, motive, and opportunity to murder his uncle and suggested the agency may have been behind the 1968 assassination of his father as well.

According to RFK Jr., the commission that investigated the Dallas assassination and pinned it on Oswald was not really run by Justice Earl Warren but by Allen Dulles, the long-running CIA chief that JFK had sacked in November 1961.

The CIA and Dulles had a personal vendetta against JFK because he had cracked down on their operations against Cuba after the 1962 missile crisis with the Soviet Union and threatened to purge the agency’s planning division, RFK Jr. has argued.

[…]

Via https://swentr.site/news/609218-rfk-jfk-assassination-cia/

The Ancient Greeks: Crucible of Civilization Episode 1 Revolution

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The Ancient Greeks: Crucible of Civilization Episode 1

PBS (2000)

Film Review

This film describes the birth of democracy in ancient Athens in 508 BC, after a popular uprising ended centuries of brutal oppression by aristocrats who virtually owned their workers as serfs. Although Athens wasn’t the first Greek polis (city-state) to institute democracy, it’s the most comprehensively documented.

In 594 BC, Solon had been the first leader to give every free (male) resident of Attica (greater Athens) the right to participate in assembly meetings. Solon also enacted significant economic reforms including cancelling existing debts, freeing debt saves and banning debt slavery (the practice of using oneself as loan collateral).

In 561 BC, the benevolent “tyrant”* Pisistratus overthrew Solon’s nascent democracy. Ironically he laid the groundwork for the 508 BC uprising by reducing taxes and implementing free loans to farmers. In this way, he greatly increased agricultural productivity, enabling Athens to export wine, olive oil and Greek vases to Egypt, Persia, Phoenicia Assyria and other Greek states, and import sword fish from the Black Sea, grain from Scythia, gold, silver and jewelry from Egypt and metallic weapons and utensils from the island of Keros.

Following the death of Pisistratus in 527 BC, his son Hippias succeeded him. The latter initially followed his father’s example as a benevolent ruler. However following his brother’s murder, he began arbitrarily executing innocent Athenians and eventually descended into madness.

In In 510 BC, Spartan troops helped the Athenians overthrow the tyrant Hippis, and Cleomenes I, king of Sparta, installed a pro-Spartan oligarchy headed by Isagoras. One of the latter’s first moves was to exile 700 aristocrats who posed a threat to his rule, starting with the aristocrat and lawyer Cleisthenes. After the 508 BC popular uprising expelled Isagoras himself, the mob recalled Cleisthenes from exile and asked him to create a new government.

Under Cleisthenes, all free males (around 30% of the population) belonged to an Athenian assembly that gathered every nine days to vote on governance decisions, such as setting taxes, importing food and making war. Each assembly member was given a white pebble for “yes” and a black pebble for “no” to deposit into a clay pot.

*In ancient Greece the word tyrant referred to individuals who seized power illegitimately (in many cases with popular support to quell civil unrest and restore stability). A tyrant could be good kind ruler or an evil despotic one.

How to Escape Federal Debt Trap with US Debt at $36 Trillion!

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Ellen Brown

The U.S. national debt just passed $36 trillion, only four months after it passed $35 trillion and up $2 trillion for the year. Third quarter data is not yet available, but interest payments as a percent of tax receipts rose to 37.8% in the third quarter of 2024, the highest since 1996. That means interest is eating up over one-third of our tax revenues.

Total interest for the fiscal year hit $1.16 trillion, topping one trillion for the first time ever. That breaks down to $3 billion per day. For comparative purposes, an estimated $11 billion, or less than four days’ federal interest, would pay the median rent for all the homeless people in America for a year. The damage from Hurricane Helene in North Carolina alone is estimated at $53.6 billion, for which the state is expected to receive only $13.6 billion in federal support. The $40 billion funding gap is a sum we pay in less than two weeks in interest on the federal debt.

The current debt trajectory is clearly unsustainable, but what can be done about it? Raising taxes and trimming the budget can slow future growth of the debt, but they are unable to fix the underlying problem — a debt grown so massive that just the interest on it is crowding out expenditures on the public goods that are the primary purpose of government.

Borrowing Is Actually More Inflationary Than Printing

Several financial commentators have suggested that we would be better off if the Treasury issued the money for the budget outright, debt-free. Martin Armstrong, an economic forecaster with a background in computer science and commodities trading, contends that if we had just done that in the first place, the national debt would be only 40% of what it is today. In fact, he argues, debt today is the same as money, except that it comes with interest. Federal securities can be posted in the repo market as collateral for an equivalent in loans, and the collateral can be “rehypothecated” (re-used) several times over, creating new money that augments the money supply just as would happen if it were issued directly.

Chris Martenson, another economic researcher and trend forecaster, asked in a Nov. 21 podcast, “What great harm would happen if the Treasury just issued its own money directly and didn’t borrow it? … You’re still overspending, you still probably have inflation, but now you’re not paying interest on it.”

The argument for borrowing rather than printing is that the government is borrowing existing money, so it will not expand the money supply. That was true when money consisted of gold and silver coins, but it is not true today. In fact borrowing the money is now more inflationary, increasing the money supply more, than if it were just issued directly, due to the way the government borrows. It issues securities (bills, bonds and notes) that are bid on at auction by selected “primary dealers” (mostly very large banks). Quoting from Investopedia:

Because most modern economies rely on fractional reserve banking, when primary dealers purchase government debt in the form of Treasury securities, they are able to increase their reserves and expand the money supply by lending it out. This is known as the money multiplier effect.

Thus, “the government increases cash reserves in the banking system,” and “the increase in reserves raises the money supply in the economy.” Principal and interest on the securities are paid when due, but they are paid with borrowed money. In effect, the debt is never repaid but just gets rolled over from year to year along with the interest due on it. The interest compounds, an increasing amount of debt-at-interest is generated, and the money supply and inflation go up.

U.S. Currency Should be Issued by the U.S. Government

Well over 90% of the U.S. money supply today is issued not by the government but by private banks when they make loans.  As Thomas Edison argued in 1921, “It is absurd to say that our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the usurers and the other helps the people.”

The government could avoid increasing the debt by printing the money for its budget as President Lincoln did, as U.S. Notes or “Greenbacks.” Donald Trump acknowledged in 2016 that the government never has to default “because you print the money,” echoing Alan Greenspan, Warren Buffett and others. So writes Prof. Stephanie Kelton in a Dec. 2, 2024 blog. Alternatively, the Treasury could mint some trillion dollar coins. The Constitution gives Congress the power to coin money and regulate its value, and no limit is put on the value of the coins it creates. In legislation initiated in 1982, Congress chose to impose limits on the amounts and denominations of most coins, but a special provision allowed the platinum coin to be minted in any amount for commemorative purposes. Philip Diehl, former head of the U.S. Mint and co-author of the platinum coin law, confirmed that the coin would be legal tender:

In minting the $1 trillion platinum coin, the Treasury Secretary would be exercising authority which Congress has granted routinely for more than 220 years … under power expressly granted to Congress in the Constitution (Article 1, Section 8).

To prevent congressional overspending, a budget ceiling could be imposed – as it is now, although the terms would probably need to be revised.

Eliminating the Debt

Those maneuvers would prevent the federal debt from growing, but it still would not eliminate the trillion dollar interest tab on the existing $36 trillion debt. The only permanent solution is to eliminate the debt itself. In ancient Mesopotamia, when the king was the creditor, this was done with periodic debt jubilees — just cancel the debt. (See Michael Hudson, And Forgive Them Their Debts.) But that is not possible today because the creditors are private banks and private investors who have a contractual right to be paid, and the U.S. Constitution requires that the government pay its debts as and when due.

Another possibility is a financial transaction tax, which could replace both income and sales taxes while still generating enough to fund the government and pay off the debt. See Scott Smith,  A Tale of Two Economies: A New Financial Operating System for the American Economy (2023) and my earlier article here. But that solution has been discussed for years without gaining traction in Congress.

Another alternative is to have the Federal Reserve buy the debt as it comes due. For the last few years, the Treasury has been issuing an estimated 30% of its debt as short-term bills rather than 10-year or 30-year bonds. As a result, in 2023 approximately 31% of the outstanding debt came due for renewal. As usual, it was just rolled over into new debt. But the nearly one-third coming due in FY2025 could be bought in the open market by the Federal Reserve, which is required to return its profits to the government after deducting its costs, making the debt virtually interest-free. Interest-free debt carried on the books and rolled over does not raise the federal deficit. If a third of the outstanding debt is too much to monetize in one year to avoid inflation, this maneuver could be spread out over a number of years.

Mandating that action by an “independent” Fed would require an amendment to the Federal Reserve Act, but Congress has the power to amend it and has done so several times over the years. The incoming Administration is proposing more radical moves than that, including eliminating the income tax, ending the Fed, auditing the Fed, or merging it with the Treasury.The federal interest tab nearly doubled after April 2022, when the Fed initiated “Quantitative Tightening.” It reduced its balance sheet by selling over $2 trillion in federal securities into the economy, reducing the money supply, and by hiking the federal funds rate to as high as 5.5%. Arguably the Fed has overtightened and needs to reverse that trend by buying federal securities, injecting new money into the economy.

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How to Avoid Hyperinflation

Alarmed economists contend that a Weimar-style hyperinflation is the inevitable outcome of government-issued money. But as Michael Hudson points out, “Every hyperinflation in history has been caused by foreign debt service collapsing the exchange rate. The problem almost always has resulted from wartime foreign currency strains, not domestic spending.”

Issuing the money directly will not inflate prices if the funds are used to increase the domestic supply of goods and services. Supply and demand will then go up together, keeping prices stable. This has been illustrated historically, perhaps most dramatically in China. The People’s Bank of China manages the money supply by a variety of means including just printing currency. In 28 years, from 1996 to 2024, China’s money supply (M2) grew by 52 times or 5,200%, yet hyperinflation did not result. Prices remained stable because the funds went into increasing GDP, which went up along with the money supply.

Price inflation during the Covid crisis has been blamed on the Fed monetizing Congressional fiscal payments to consumers and businesses, increasing demand (the circulating money supply) without increasing supply (goods and services). But the San Francisco Fed concluded that the surge in global shipping and transportation costs due to COVID, along with delivery delays and backlogs, were a greater contributor than this fiscal stimulus to the runup of headline inflation in 2021 and 2022. The supply of goods could have been increased – producers could have increased production to respond to the increase in demand — were it not for the shutdown of more than 700,000 productive businesses labeled “non-essential,” resulting in the loss of three million jobs.

Swapping Debt for Productive Equity

Money printing is not inflationary if the money is issued for productive purposes, raising GDP in lockstep; but how can we be sure that the new money will be used productively? Today the banks and other large institutions that first receive any newly-issued money are more likely to invest it speculatively, driving up the price of existing assets (homes, stocks, etc.) without creating new goods and services.

Economic blogger Martin Armstrong observes that one solution pursued by debt-ridden countries is to swap the debt for equity in productive assets. This has been done by Mexico, Poland, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the United States itself. It was  the solution of Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton in dealing with the overwhelming debt of the First U.S. Congress. State and federal debt was swapped along with gold for shares in the First U.S. Bank, paying a 6% dividend. The Bank then issued U.S. currency at up to 10 times this capital base, on the fractional reserve model still used by banks today. Both the First and the Second U.S. Banks were designed to support manufacturing and production, according to Hamilton’s Report on Public Credit.

Following the Hamiltonian model is H.R. 4052, the National Infrastructure Bank Act of 2023 (NIB) now pending in Congress. The NIB proposal is to swap privately-held federal securities (Treasury bonds) for non-voting preferred stock in the bank. Interest on the bonds would continue to go to the investors, along with a 2% stock dividend. That would not eliminate the debt or the interest, but if the Federal Reserve were to buy federal securities on the open market and swap them for NIB stock, the securities would essentially remain interest-free, since again the Fed is required to return its profits to the Treasury after deducting its costs.

[…]

Via https://www.globalresearch.ca/escape-federal-debt-trap/5874742

Damascus Now Ruled By ‘Al Qaeda In Suits’

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HTS leader Jolani is in Damascus’ Umayyad Mosque, celebrating the overthrow of Assad on Sunday.

Zero Hedge

For four days Damascus has been under the control of the Islamist militants led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and backed by Turkey. The country’s President Bashar al-Assad has been overthrown, and his whereabouts are unknown, after the extremely rapid insurgent advance out of Idlib, where city after city fell starting with Aleppo in a matter of about a mere week. And just like that 50 years of Assad family rule has ended, and a new extremely unpredictable era of Syria begins.

Will the country hopelessly fracture as did Iraq and Libya for years after their strongman leaders were overthrown? Will there be mass reprisal killings? Will Christians, Alawites, and Shia be subject to mass persecution and extermination? Will the country, which has already been through over 13 years of horrific proxy war, descend into sectarian and factional chaos and hell? Will Sharia law be enforced by gunpoint? Or will some semblance of a stable transitional government emerge?

One thing is for sure, a US-designated terrorist has emerged as the current de facto ruler of Damascus and of Syria. At this very moment Washington has a $10 million bounty on his head, given his career as a jihadist began with al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) which was killing American troops in Iraq. 

The jihadist factions entered Damascus overnight without a fight from the Syrian Army, and videos quickly emerged of armed fighters entering both the presidential palace (or office) as well as Assad’s private residence in Malki neighborhood.

State television stations broadcast a message from HTS leaders urging calm and a stable transition of power. New rules for Damascus include a curfew imposed from 4pm to 5am local time, according to the local Al Watan newspaper.

Rule by ‘Al Qaeda in suits’… technocratic jihad:

While the mood on the streets has been generally jubilant, gunfire has been heard – but more likely this is from anti-Assad fighters firing in celebration into the air. Western mainstream media has also been celebratory, generally ignoring HTS’ obvious Al Qaeda links past and present.

But for every scene the media highlights of a few hundred people celebrating in a central square, there are many more thousands of families huddled and fearful in their homes, not knowing what entity or Islamist faction controls the checkpoint around the block.

So far at least one central building has gone up in flames – the former government’s passport and immigration building. It remains unclear why or what the precise cause was.

Amid all of this Israel has continued to attack some locations in Syria, also with reports overnight that Israeli tanks pushed further into a strip of southern Syria in the Golan area. Other buildings are on fire elsewhere in the Damascus region.

Al Jazeera writes:

Images show a building on fire in Damascus after a suspected air attack. It’s believed that the Israelis may have struck what is believed to be a munitions depot close to the airport.

The Israeli media reported earlier on Sunday that the Israeli air force has bombed weapons depots in southern Syria and Damascus to prevent opposition groups from seizing them.

Syrian Prime Minister Ghazi al-Jalali might be installed to head of a transitional government amid promises of stability, based on a potential deal or ‘security guarantees’ involving Turkey, Russia, Iran, and the Gulf powers.

[…]

Via https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/damascus-now-ruled-al-qaeda-suits-assads-whereabouts-unknown-curfew-imposed

New Study: Concerning Evidence of Covid19 Vaccine “Shedding”

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Guest post by Nicolas Hulscher, MPH

A new study titled, Menstrual Abnormalities Strongly Associated with Proximity to COVID-19 Vaccinated Individuals, was just published in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research:

In Spring 2021, MyCycleStorySM launched a secure online survey to which 92.3% of 6049 respondents self-reported menstrual irregularities occurring after the rollout of the COVID-19 injectables. Each respondent served as her own control because prior to the rollout of COVID-19 vaccination, the vast majority had regular menstrual cycles. A subgroup of 3390 respondents were only indirectly exposed to COVID-19 vaccines or the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This subgroup reported 1) being unvaccinated for COVID-19; 2) having had no COVID-19 symptoms; and 3) no positive test for COVID-19, yet a substantial majority of these women, who were only indirectly exposed to COVID-19 injectables or COVID-19 infections still had many of the same menstrual abnormalities as the 2659 women who were directly exposed to a COVID-19 injection (798), or had COVID-19 symptoms (1347), or tested positive for COVID-19 (514). Generalized linear mixed modeling was used to examine the association (not assuming causation) between abnormal menses experienced after the COVID-19 vaccine rollout by respondents who were only indirectly exposed by some degree of proximity to persons. Chi-Square, Student’s t, Kruskal-Wallis or ANOVA tests were used to assess the statistical significance of the similarities of menstrual irregularities reported by the directly exposed and indirectly exposed groups.

The mean age of the entire cohort was 37.8 ± 0.1 years. The percentage of the indirectly exposed participants who reported being within 6 feet of a COVID-19 vaccinated person was 85.5%. Of these, 71.7% had irregular menstrual symptoms within one week and 50.1% had irregular menstrual symptoms within ≤3 days after exposure. When comparing daily proximity to a vaccinated person, the categories of “daily within 6 feet outside the household” versus “seldom/sometimes/daily outside 6 feet” had the highest relative risk at 1.34 (p<0.01) for heavier menstrual bleeding, early menses at more than 7 days early with a relative risk at 1.28 (p=0.03), and extended bleeding for more than 7 days with relative risk at 1.26 (p=0.04). Indirect exposure to COVID-19 vaccinated persons was significantly associated with the likelihood of the onset of menstrual irregularities. This study provides additional data to complement a growing body of evidence raising concerns regarding the safety of mRNA vaccines.

In layman’s terms, the study found that women with daily close proximity (within 6 feet) to vaccinated individuals outside their household had a 34% higher risk of heavier bleeding, a 28% higher risk of menstruation starting over 7 days early, and a 26% higher risk of bleeding lasting more than 7 days.

The scientific plausibility for these findings is supported by several key observations, which are discussed in the manuscript:

  1. Timing Consistency with Shedding Studies: 68.4% of respondents reported symptoms within one week of being near a vaccinated individual, with 48.6% experiencing symptoms within 3 days or the same day, aligning with the FDA’s guidance on vaccine shedding timelines.
  2. Prolonged Presence of Vaccine Components: The detection of mRNA fragments and spike protein in vaccinated individuals’ blood for extended periods (up to 187 days) provides evidence of prolonged circulation of potential transmissible components.
  3. Documented Excretion Pathways: Established pathways for the excretion of lipid nanoparticles and spike protein, including saliva, sweat, breast milk, and potentially exhalation, provide mechanisms for environmental transmission.
  4. Alignment with Previous Studies: Similar menstrual irregularities, such as heavier bleeding and prolonged cycles, have been documented in vaccinated individuals, reinforcing the relevance of these findings in unvaccinated individuals.
  5. Potential Mechanisms of Action: The cytotoxic and estrogen-receptor-modulating properties of the spike protein, along with known inflammatory and autoimmune responses to vaccines, offer biologically plausible mechanisms for these observed effects

The authors concluded, “Our findings suggest possible indirect transmission of ingredients or products of the COVID-19 vaccines, presumably through shedding, from people who received one or more of the COVID-19 injections.”

Why didn’t our regulatory agencies conduct shedding studies before mass product rollout? This and many other critical questions demand immediate answers from federal authorities.

[…]

Via https://petermcculloughmd.substack.com/p/new-study-finds-concerning-evidence