A brief review of AMERICA AND IRAN A History 1720 to the Present by John Ghazvinian (2021)

I just finished this book. I didn't find it riveting although many reviewers did but I learnt a lot about how American crimes and follies have prevented good relations with Iran.

John Ghazvinian is an American of Iranian descent, his parents left Iran with him when he was one, he speaks Persian and researched this book in Iran’s archives after getting limited permission.

He shows that America has no reason to have any conflict with Iran except the influence of Israel, the bipartisan US Israel lobby, the hawks and the Arab states which don't want to share their influence in Washington.... and of course the useless media.

His book makes clear that Iranians will resist U.S. efforts to impose “regime change” as they opposed interference by Russia, and England.

Oil was found in Iran as early as 1908, and was exploited by the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, which enabled the Royal Navy to convert from coal before 1914. The concession was shockingly unfair to Iran, the oil money flowed to Britain while Iranian oil workers lived in slums in the oil port of Abadan.

British exploitation prompted resistance and in the early 1950s Mohammed Mosaddeq won a democratic election, tried to negotiate a better oil deal, failed and nationalised the company.

MI6 and the CIA organised a regime change operation which succeeded in toppling the popular Iranian leader with the Shah, a not very impressive autocrat and US puppet.

A very similar thing was attempted by the CIA, MI6 and this time Mossad in January of this year but failed. They intended to place the Shah's son on the throne.

The Ayatollah Khomeini made his name in a 1964 speech not by a religious pronouncement but a patriotic one, denouncing the Shah’s decree that exempted American military personnel and their families from Iranian laws.

Khomeini said: “They’ve given the people of Iran a status lower than that of American dogs.”

The Shah forced Khomeini into exile.

The era of miniskirts and hard liquor was a good one in many ways but the opposition continued to grow and some of the largest demonstrations in human history eventually forced the autocrat into exile in 1979.

Americans blame Carter for the fall of the Shah but there was nothing he could do - and anyway, what right did he have to choose who ruled Iran?

Israel supported the Shah, and was also quietly sympathetic to the Islamic government during the 1980s because it did not want Saddam Hussein to win the Iran-Iraq war.

In the 1990s however Israel feared that as the Cold War was over America might disengage from the Middle East.

Israel therefore made Iran a bogeyman and started issuing groundless warnings about Tehran’s nuclear program.

Ghazvinian says:

"For Israel, the goal had never been to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear bomb (something they knew Iranian leaders had little interest in). The goal had been to prevent a thawing of relations between Iran and the United States."

As often happens, Israelis then came to believe their own propaganda.

Eisenhower and Trump come out of the story very badly.

The only American president who looks good is Obama, but his attempt at a rapprochement with Iran was stymied by Israel, its DC lobby and the opportunistic Republicans.

Americans do not forgive or understand the chant the Iranians still repeat of 'Death to America' despite the Iranians having been given numerous reasons for it from the replacing of Mossadeq by the Shah onwards. 

Americans think the Iranians who support what they always call 'the regime' want to kill them personally.

Americans have not forgiven the affront they received by the taking hostage of the diplomats (in fact CIA operatives steeped in dark arts) in the Tehran embassy by Marxist students (not the Islamic government) in 1979. 

The Americans have the same attitude to this as British liberals like Macaulay and Dickens to the Indian Mutiny. 

This fury is silly but it is an indication, i suppose, that Americans are not decadent like the British. 

John Ghazvinian tells this story about Bruce Laingen, the most senior US diplomat held hostage by Iran for 444 days, who later said this (I found the full quotation on the net).

“I had been sitting in my solitary cell as a hostage for about a year, when one day the cell door opens, and there is standing one of the hostage takers, one of my jailers. And all of my rage and my fury built up over one year sitting in that cell just burst out, and I started screaming at him, and I was telling him, 'You have no right to do this! This is cruel, this is inhumane! These people have done nothing! This is a violation of every law of God and man! You cannot take innocent people hostage! I went on like this for several minutes. When I was finally out of breath, the hostage taker paused for a moment, and then he leaned into my cell and said, in very good English, 'You have no right to complain, because you took our whole country hostage in 1953."

According to John Ghazvinian it was a point that Mr Laingen said he found it difficult to argue with. 

After his release he advocated reconciliation between the USA and Iran, as does the conclusion to this book.

The epilogue to the book and to the anecdote about Mr Laingen is being written now.

From Alastair Crooke's Conflicts Forum's Raw & Cooked: Israel’s Iran Strategy Collapses

‌
'Israel’s Iran Strategy has Collapsed' — 'Emerging Iran Agreement is the lesser of evils' (Danny Citronovicz, former Military Intelligence Iran desk manager, Haaretz):

The agreement crystallizing between Iran and the US is the lesser of evils compared to the bad alternatives that were laid before Trump: continuing a futile siege, or returning to a confrontation that would endanger US soldiers without guaranteeing any real change in Iranian thinking. The vast gap between the statements issued at the beginning of the campaign and the agreement that appears to be ending it demonstrates the magnitude of its failure. Above all, this war has proven that Netanyahu's strategy has collapsed. It is doubtful that any future US president would agree to return to such an adventure. And if Trump himself was not prepared to "finish the job”, it is hard to imagine who might do so in the future. Given Israel's inability to act alone without American cover, and in light of the campaign's outcomes, one thing has become clear: Israel's strategy has collapsed.

Ben Capsit: 'Facing Strategic Defeat; Lamenting the JCPOA' /

"At least 20% of Gazans exterminated by Israelis"

British surgeon Dr. Nick Maynard says Israel has exterminated at least 20% of the population in Gaza.

He described to Tucker Carlson the kidnapping, torture and rape of Palestinian medics. "Their genitals were repeatedly attacked. Specifically. They were electrocuted through their genitals."

This reminds me that twenty years ago a Romanian woman told me that she had dated an Israeli who claimed that in the IDF he'd killed women and children. When she asked he'd said he hadn't raped the women because he wasn't attracted to Arabs. It might have been a sadomasochistic sex game but it could be true.

Lunch tirade

I had lunch the other day with a partner in a big law firm who said that Romanians had always idealised America and now she did not know what to think. She asked my advice.

I said that 20 years ago I had described Romania as the eternal and fascinating adolescent always looking for some adult figure to descend like a deus ex machina to rescue her, but America is an idol with feet of clay and always was.

I said that the myth of the 20th century is that the Munich conference in 1938 was a terrible betrayal whereas in fact it was nothing of the sort, because had England and France gone to war they could have done nothing to help the Czechs any more than they helped the Poles the next year.

But in 1939 we started a World War which led to 70 million dead, to Eastern Europe being ruled by the communists, the other half of Europe being ruled by America.

The Second World War is the story of the creation of the American empire, which was motivated like all empires by what Schopenhauer called the will to power.

Roosevelt foolishly ruled out a negotiated peace and insisted on unconditional surrender and that precedent is why now European countries do not talk to Russia or Iran.

The great danger to England in 1938 and 1939 was not Germany. It was Japan and Roosevelt without any doubt provoked Pearl Harbor which led to the destruction of the British Empire and the creation of the American empire.

Looking back now the creation of NATO was not an altruistic attempt to save Western Europe because even in the time of Stalin Western Europe was not in danger from communism.

Nato and the Marshall Plan were American empire building just like the wars against Saddam, Gaddafi, Venezuela and Iran.

Two intelligent Englishmen

A Facebook friend sent me this message - I do not know if he is left-wing, right-wing or centre or what those terms now mean

'I don't come here much, as to be honest, the morons still believe the West is always the victim. Tell them different, and you are automatically pro-Iran, pro Russia, pro-Hamas, pro-anything but the West. The fact that we are the bad guys never reaches their little brains.'


Another Facebook friend, a libertarian, wrote this to me.


'I see it as a great deliverance that the American vampire is being prised off the global throat. As for the Israelis, they deserve all the Karma coming their way.'

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's letter to George W. Bush in 2006, the first letter from an Iranian president to his American counterpart, which went unanswered

Mr George Bush,




President of the United States of America



For sometime now I have been thinking, how one can justify the undeniable contradictions that exist in the international arena -- which are being constantly debated, specially in political forums and amongst university students. Many questions remain unanswered. These have prompted me to discuss some of the contradictions and questions, in the hopes that it might bring about an opportunity to redress them.

Can one be a follower of Jesus Christ (PBUH), the great Messenger of God,


Feel obliged to respect human rights,

Present liberalism as a civilization model,

Announce one’s opposition to the proliferation of nuclear weapons and WMDs,

Make “War and Terror” his slogan,

And finally,

Work towards the establishment of a unified international community – a community which


Christ and the virtuous of the Earth will one day govern,


But at the same time,

Have countries attacked; The lives, reputations and possessions of people destroyed and on the slight chance of the … of a … criminals in a village city, or convoy for example the entire village, city or convey set ablaze.

Or because of the possibility of the existence of WMDs in one country, it is occupied, around one hundred thousand people killed, its water sources, agriculture and industry destroyed, close to 180,000 foreign troops put on the ground, sanctity of private homes of citizens broken, and the country pushed back perhaps fifty years. At what price? Hundreds of billions of dollars spent from the treasury of one country and certain other countries and tens of thousands of young men and women – as occupation troops – put in harms way, taken away from family and love ones, their hands stained with the blood of others, subjected to so much psychological pressure that everyday some commit suicide ant those returning home suffer depression, become sickly and grapple with all sorts of aliments; while some are killed and their bodies handed of their families.


On the pretext of the existence of WMDs, this great tragedy came to engulf both the peoples of the occupied and the occupying country. Later it was revealed that no WMDs existed to begin with.

Of course Saddam was a murderous dictator. But the war was not waged to topple him, the announced goal of the war was to find and destroy weapons of mass destruction. He was toppled along the way towards another goal, nevertheless the people of the region are happy about it. I point out that throughout the many years of the … war on Iran Saddam was supported by the West.

The Sapiența church early this morning

Built in 1710 which is old for Romania it is hidden, mysterious and has a strange and movingly spiritual feeling. It was built by the Vornic Iordache Kretzulescu and his wife, Safta Brâncoveanu, daughter of the great king and martyr Constantin Brâncoveanu, the last Romanian prince to reign over Wallachia. The couple also built the much more famous Kretzulescu Church.

Brian Berletic this morning. Professor Jiang says the same

<The Western media continues to portray US-Iranian talks as a means for US President Trump to end the war many portray as a "failure" even as the US continues striking Iran amid a "ceasefire."

But the US wanting to end the war is a false assumption.

The US goals are:

1. Continue weakening Iran but without triggering wider, unsustainable hostilities;

2. Continue decreasing Middle East energy exports to Asia, including China by maintaining constant instability and threat of wider war;

3. While preventing a rapid global economic collapse and instead using the crisis to incrementally impose dependence on US energy exports onto Asia just as the US did to Europe;

The worst part about Western reports regarding supposed US "diplomacy" is that the last 26 years alone of US aggression against Iran prove the US uses diplomacy only to further war on its own terms, not to avoid or end it!

The US is currently managing similar balancing acts of hostility just below all out direct war with both Russia and China.>

This makes sense. I hope he is wrong in thinking America intends European troops to fight Russia in Ukraine on behalf of the American empire.

In a sensible world European countries would be on good terms with China and Iran to balance their ties to America and insist on a peace settlement between Ukraine and Russia on terms that protect Russia as well as Ukraine. 

Holocaust is happening now

"Only when the tide goes out do you discover who's been swimming naked." Warren Buffett

Similarly when things are done that are just as bad as the things the Germans did in what we still call 'the war' a lot of things are naked and we see who has no moral compass.  

The man in the street sees who has sided with Israel in the holocaust in Gaza and Lebanon. He sees the US  government go from being the world's very corrupt policeman to being literally a gang of pirates. 

Jordan Peterson is one person who has lost his reputation. Douglas Murray was always a neo con. 

All American politicians except Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene whose careers have been ended by Trump and Zionist money, have made terms with murder. 

All British politicians from Starmer to Kemi.

Some good people, notably Tucker Carlson, John Mearsheimer, Chas Freeman and Andrew Napolitano. 

I like this post by a great man very much. 

Around town

 

X is responsible for the golden age of aphorisms

Never were so many aphorisms coined, published and disseminated globally.  

This is why bad actors like the USA and the European Union are held to account in a way that was impossible at the turn of the century. 

This is why EU 'President' Ursula von der Leyen says suppressing free speech misinformation is her first priority. 

These advertisements were removed last year from the London Underground

'Transport for London (TfL) have removed fake adverts from the tube that claimed the BBC was covering up Israel’s “crimes”. The advert showed what appeared to be dead bodies covered up by large letters in the logo of the BBC, with an Israeli army helmet hanging on the side of one of the letters. The poster proclaimed “we don’t cover Israel’s crimes, we cover them up.” 

'Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) reported this obviously illegal poster to TFL, which acted swiftly.

'A spokesperson for TFL told UKLFI: “… this poster was not authorised by Transport for London or our advertising partners. As such, we have instructed our teams and contractors to remove any that are found on our network.”'

From the site of UK Lawyers for Israel (UKLFI) which reported the ads. 

Why were they obviously illegal? 

Because they were an example of flyposting, which is a minor tort, or because their content was a crime for some reason?

I hope the former.

The organisation is very keen to suppress criticism of Israel.  Has anyone in Parliament suggested the UK allowing free speech as she did before the Race Relations Act 1965? Nigel Farage did years ago but free speech is almost the most important issue there is.

Lawrence Wilkerson thinks the negotiations with Iran are another US trick

More from Col Lawrence Wilkerson in his podcast with Professor Diesen yesterday.

'So I think what we're looking at is another Kabuki show that will wind up with again for a third occasion the Iranians thinking they're in a diplomatic exchange when the bombs fall again. And this time it'll be just as ineffective as before, except it will kill a lot of innocent civilians in Iran. And if it includes, as some are telling me it will, a small ground element to try and snatch uranium, we'll have some prisoners of war and some dead people on the screen in Iran.'

The podcast is here.

Holocaust

"For every drone, ten buildings in Beirut will be destroyed."

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich

Cenk Uygur

@cenkuygur

·

11h

And he’s saying this about invading Israeli soldiers. So, for every time Lebanon defends their own territory, Israel is going to attack ten times more. This is Nazi logic. If your victims dare defend themselves, kill ten times as many. Why are we funding the Nazis?

And he's not saying they'll destroy ten military buildings each time, he's saying they'll destroy civilian buildings and murder ten times as many civilians for every Israeli soldier attacked in Lebanese territory. So, the Lebanese must surrender, otherwise, they'll be butchered.

'My son wants me to leave some Lebanon for him to destroy later. I told him don't worry, there will be enough for everyone.'

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich

"Netanyahu is the most able consolidator of all the dark impulses of Israeli society … [However], the Messianic drive to settle the greater Israel predates Netanyahu, as well as the overall brutal, racist degradation of Palestinians … [Very noticeable] is the subservience of the “opposition”; I don’t recall anything like it in the past. If you look at the governments that went to wars in 1973 and 1982, they faced considerable opposition, within the Knesset and outside of it, on the very issue of whether the war was justified … None of that is left today … In Lebanon, the Israeli armed forces are using Gaza tactics, attacking hospitals and killing medical staff, while in Iran they have engaged in what has been rightly described as chemical warfare on account of strikes on fuel depots.

"As to the Labor Party … [there are] a handful of MKs that are obsessed with displays of liberal values and with welfare legislation when genocide is in full force and Apartheid shifts from de facto to de jure. The other “opposition” parties are either led by generals (Golan, Eizenkot) who offer zero alternatives to military dominance, or by right-wing neoliberals (Bennet, Lapid). The only representatives of left values in the Knesset are the Arab MKs …"

Idan Landau, Professor of Linguistics at Tel Aviv University, who has been imprisoned on several occasions for his refusal to serve in the IDF, quoted by Alastair Crooke

“It’s ironic and tragic that a movement that began as an attempt to free Jews from persecution, to give them a place of their own – a process of emancipation, liberation, humanitarian aspiration – ends its path as a racist and violent one … It became more and more likely that without a constitution that protects rights for everyone, Zionism, once it became the ideology of a state, would give up on the option of becoming a normal state for its citizens … There were attempts to redirect the process. The most important came in the early 1990s with Oslo. That attempt was blocked, very aggressively, with Netanyahu’s encouragement, with Rabin’s murder. Not enough is said about the fact that Rabin’s blood is on Netanyahu’s hands. Netanyahu was the main beneficiary of one of the most successful political murders of the 20th century." 

Professor Omer Bartov interviewed in Ha’aretz

"You said that Israel is at war with Hamas. Let me ask you a simple question. Why are you shooting children in the skull and in the chest? why are you killing journalists? Why are you killing medics? Why are you killing UN workers?" 

Norman Finkelstein

Ana Kasparian on X

 

Col Lawrence Wilkerson sees a 60-65% chance of war between Russia and Nato, provoked by 3 Nato states

He was Colin Powell's Chief of Staff and is more impressive than his cowardly former chief, who did not run for president for fesr of assassination and didn't resign in opposition to the invasion of Iraq.

'I think he's [Putin's] pretty much 60-65% sure he's going to have to go to war with NATO at some point. What that war is going to involve and how big it's going to become will be principally up to NATO because I don't think he will want to widen it after he punishes some little upstart NATO member. Uh there's three of them that come to mind immediately who are doing things they shouldn't be doing and supporting things they shouldn't be supporting whether it's US or British or whatever troops on their soil doing it or their own people doing it. So I think we're in a very dangerous situation here and I'm glad that Putin is in Moscow, frankly, because he is probably as circumspect a leader in the world as there is along with Xi Xing Ping with regard to this sort of thing. But he's not going to take it forever and ever. He's going to respond one of these days and he's going to respond in a way that he's gonna cause us to have to step aside, step back, move away or, you know, double down and I don't I still I can't figure out what Trump's strategic calculus is if he has one. I don't think he has one. I think he just acts.'

Here is the podcast.

Media bias is the air we breath

 

Good news from the Middle East

Points made by former US Ambassador Chas Freeman talking to Glenn Diesen today.

"I tell my friends in China that the United States is now agreement-incapable."

"Any fondness that the Iranian people previously had for the United States is now pretty much erased."

At one point he says the Iran war has had no positive consequences but then lists a number. USA and Israel are much less powerful. Most of the Gulf monarchies are disenchanted with America, Israel’s new best friend the United Arab Emirates excepted.  Iran will get the bomb and Nato is largely finished.  

Indeed it's an ill wind that blows no good.

'You have members of NATO now denying the United States the use of their airspace or their bases. You have publics that are very turned off by both the United States and by Israel. You have the revelation that the bases in Europe for the most part are there not to defend Europeans against a mythical Russian threat but to provide 'lily pads' from which the United States can project power into West Asia and it's projecting power into West Asia to do things that almost nobody in Europe approves. But you opened all this with questions about  the viability of the state of Israel and this [the end of Nato] is a situation like that question which unfolds only with time. There's nothing instant about it, very likely. So it will be like Hemingway's  famous description of bankruptcy  which happened gradually then suddenly.'

Why do I look forward to an Iranian  bomb? Obviously because it will prevent further American attacks on Iran. 

The word terrorist should be avoided but if you want to use it then the murder of 49 Iranian leaders was clear terrorism. 

Except terrorist means a fighter of whom Americans disapprove. That excludes the IRA whom they funded. 

Brian Berletic: US-backed Terrorists Kill 16 in Pakistan as Part of Years-Long Campaign to Target China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (part of China's BRI)

As the US pretended to engage in diplomacy with China, US-backed terrorists have been/still are attacking Chinese citizens, Chinese investments, and diplomatic missions around the world - including in Pakistan, Myanmar, and Afghanistan - all as part of an ADMITTED campaign to target and disrupt China's Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). 

This most recent attack reported on by FT admits: 

A bombing near a railway track in Quetta in south-western Pakistan killed at least 16 people and injured dozens more, according to state media.

The Balochistan Liberation Army, a separatist group, claimed “full responsibility” for the attack, which they said had targeted a train carrying security personnel, according to a statement from the group that was seen by the FT.

and that: 

The BLA has also targeted China-backed infrastructure and Chinese workers in the region, including the Gwadar Port, the flagship of the $62bn China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. CPEC is a centrepiece of Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s Belt and Road overseas infrastructure investment programme.

As far back as 2011, US policymakers discussed using BLA to target BRI projects in Pakistan - like in the National Interest piece titled, "Free Baluchistan" which says: 

Pakistan has given China a base at Gwadar in the heart of Baluch territory. So an independent Baluchistan would serve U.S. strategic interests...

Ever since, the US has backed armed militants across Eurasia to target and destroy Chinese projects, kill Chinese citizens, and even have attempted to assassinate Chinese diplomats in what is a US dirty war on China. 

Don't listen to what the US is saying, watch what it and its proxies are doing... 

Sources: 

FT: https://archive.ph/WhWII#selection-2049.0-2056.0

National Interest: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/free-baluchistan-4799

UN Special Rapporteur on Torture received no answer from the Israeli government about dogs trained to sodomise prisoners

Two months before Nick Kristof's report about dogs trained by Israelis raping Arab prisoners the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture wrote to the Israeli government asking for investigations into sexual assault of Palestinian detainees, including with dogs. She got no response. 

American analyst Brian Berletic says the US will never make a lasting deal with Iran because it wants to rule the world

The world was much smaller when Alexander ruled it. Neither Napoleon nor Hitler sought to rule the world and nor did England, which was content to rule a quarter of it, but America does.

This is from Brian Berletic today and yesterday. He has become my favourite analyst along with former Ambassador Chas Freeman, Professor John Mearsheimer and Professor Jeffrey Sachs. 

Mr Berletic underestimates the power of Israel and the Israel lobby. Just as we now know Kim Il Sung manipulated Stalin and Ho Chi Minh manipulated Soviet Russia much more than the other way around, Netanyahu most certainly manipulated US presidents. As Bill Clinton said after talking to him 'Who's the f-ing superpower here?

China is trying to build faster than the United States can destroy.

The US hypothetically seeking a constructive role among nations rather than seeking dominance over them is for a nation that wants to be stable. The current US strategy is driven by a desire to be supreme. Historically, when a great power chooses supremacy over stability, the transition to a new international order usually happens through a major crisis - like a world war - rather than a “grand bargain.

People never read for pleasure so much as today

A study published in the journal iScience by researchers at the University of Florida and UCL found that daily reading for pleasure in the US fell by over 40% between 2003 and 2023. Reading encompassed books, magazines and newspapers in print, e-book or audio formats but not newspapers and magazines online. 

Probably the figures or other Western countries are similar. Romanians are more bookish though.

Max Blumenthal says at least $2.8 billion has been made by investors with White House inside knowledge

Max Blumenthal says at least $2.8 billion have been made by insider trading based on insider information about posts by Trump on Truth Social. 

$2.8 billion is serious money. Who made the money? Anonymous trading accounts. 

Questions are asked about the role of Barak Ravid, a former Israeli spy who writes for Axios and regularly breaks stories that move markets.

America was always a very corrupt country. It had become much more corrupt in the quarter century before he came to power (think the Clintons, the invasion of Iraq) but Trump has further immeasurably corrupted America and the corruption spreads beyond America.

On the other hand, I am still pleased he won in 2016. 

Had Hillary won she said her top priority would have been regime change in Syria. 

It was the fall of Assad that led to the attack on a weakened Iran. 

Seen on X

People can easily argue that Palestine is irrelevant to Britain (they’re wrong, on multiple levels, of course) but Palestine is the moral test of the world.

It is the centre of everything. How you react, who you defend, and who you abandon is the supreme litmus test of humanity.

The Decline of the American Empire

If only Trump had won in 2020 his second term might have resembled his first. 

I am sure had he been in the White House Russia would not have invaded Ukraine.

World war would therefore not have become a  danger. 

I imagine, though it's impossible to know, that he would not have attacked Venezuela, killed people in boats on the high sea, prepared an invasion of Cuba or demanded Greenland and Canada. 

He would not have deteriorated mentally in office. 

I don't know whether he would have launched an attack on Iran, which he did for what reasons he never made clear but on  a sugar high after Venezuela. I doubt it but nobody knows.  

As it is he seems to have achieved something that seemed impossible: to be as bad as or worse than George W Bush and Biden.

But there are very good reasons why he won the White House twice and those reasons strongly suggest that America is in decline. 

A dog called Lucy

There's a clip on X posted by Rami Abdu, the founder of Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor,  of a purported French aid worker saying: “We found a mass grave in Gaza containing 300 bodies. Small children were killed with their hands tied behind their backs".  

At the Nasser Hospital in 2024 a mass grave was discovered with over 300 bodies after an Israeli raid. Israelis blamed Hamas.

Mr Abdu seems to like Hamas. In 2024 he posted in Arabic before deleting the post that, "the world does not deserve these fighters" referring to Hamas fighters.  

It's a point of view, one that might get him 14 years in prison if he repeated it in the United Kingdom. 

He was one of the sources for the New York Times story about dogs being trained by Israeli guards to sodomise prisoners.

That story caused outrage from the Israeli government and many American supporters of Israel.  

The stories of Hamas gang rapes on October 7 in the New York Times were shown by Max Blumenthal to be lies and the New York Times took the allegations off its site without retracting them. Hardly anyone noticed and people continue to talk about the rapes.

People believe what they want to believe but the Western media tell their readers little about alleged Israeli atrocities and spend much ink complaining when a singer leads a chant of "Def Def to the IDF" at a pop concert. 

Meanwhile the warm hearted Israeli public is angry about an Israeli settler beating a dog called Lucy.

Quotations

He knew that the causes of hatred and mainsprings of popularity are determined by the price of food.
Lucan, Pharsalia 3.55-56 (translated by J.D. Duff)

The Financial Times is an important part of MI6 Information Operations. These stories are not the byproduct of an editorial board of journalists, but a psychological operations team working out of Vauxhall. I saw it firsthand in 1998 with Operation Mass Appeal. 

Scott Ritter

Chay Bowes

@BowesChay

·

23m

A new record has been reached on Mount Everest- 274 people have reached the summit in a single day. How long before the Starbucks and McDonald's open?

Brian Berletic today

The US isn't trying to open the Strait of Hormuz - it is literally blockading it and perpetuating a war that ensures insecurity around it indefinitely.

The US is engaged in a controlled demolition of Middle East energy exports and a large part of the global economy.

It is playing games to manage prices and markets as it does so - NOT trying to find a way "out" of consequences everyone in Washington knew about before launching the most recent war of aggression.

The US simply doesn't want things to collapse overnight - just like it managed Europe's decoupling from Russian energy (which is still taking place).

Theories otherwise are based entirely on believing US statements at face value, as if the US is in the habit of telling the truth especially when things are going poorly?

All while the US feigns seeking peace with Iran and Russia, it continues preparing its proxies in the Asia-Pacific for war with China.

After 80 years of false analogies with Hitler the shoe finally fits

Pascal Lottaz reposted

Trita Parsi

@tparsi

It is difficult to fathom how people can commit truly evil acts, such as genocide and the murder of children. What is even more difficult to comprehend, is others ENJOYING and CELEBRATING images of those evil acts. But that is what you get in Israel now, with parties of people watching and cheering videos of Israel blowing up villages in Southern Lebanon.

Here is the clip.

I remember Israelis paid to watch scenes in Gaza by telescope

The inhumanity of the USA is comparable with that of the Israelis. The New York Times reports today that the Pentagon tested an experimental PRISM missile packed with 180,000 tungsten pellets on an Iranian sports hall killing 21 girls who were playing volleyball.

The American empire has its origin with Pearl Harbor and bases its legitimacy on its defeat of Hitler's Germany, Japan and much later Communist Russia, though the USSR fell apart for internal reasons.

Now, as happens to all empires even imperial China, America in trouble.

It is abandoning its heroic myth (I use the word myth to mean a sacred narrative that defines a society's core values, rather than a story that's untrue).

This is a huge mistake and sign of how decadent it is.

Hypocrisy is vice's tribute to virtue (Rochefoucauld), after all.

Without it man cannot bear too much reality (to adapt TS Eliot).

The USA didn't really have the moral high ground very much after 1991 but people, especially in the rich countries that were American clients, thought it did.

Though I remember the Daily Telegraph saying under Clinton that US foreign policy made the USA resemble the armed wing of Oxfam (a British charity that gives money to starving people).

That ain't so bad, but that was in the last century.

Do I have any readers who regret that the USA has not won its unprovoked war against Iran?

Not many, I imagine.

I expect I have some who hope who hope the USA succeeds in doing whatever it is trying to do to China.

The habit of siding with America is hard for some to break.