Tag: perpetual war

Trump’s plan, Blair’s hand

Those who don’t die will meet again

There is an old saying that goes, “Those who don’t die will meet again,” which somehow fits politicians perfectly, because sooner or later, they all reappear on the political scene.

In fact, shortly after the announcement of the formal recognition of Palestine as a state, the United Kingdom sent former Prime Minister Tony Blair with the task of hindering the Palestinian self-determination process, in accordance with the so-called “Peace Agreement” of then-US President Donald Trump. A truly masterful move.

This decision once again highlighted the usual hypocrisy and colonial mentality of Washington, London, and, more generally, the West.

Who remembers Tony Blair?

It is worth giving a brief summary, because his presence is by no means a random choice.

The Middle East knows Blair well, especially for his infamous conduct during the 2003 Iraq War, alongside then-US President George W. Bush, leader of the so-called “war on terror.” On the strength of false accusations about weapons of mass destruction, Blair dragged Britain into a conflict that caused hundreds of thousands of Iraqi casualties, earning himself a well-deserved reputation as a war criminal. Nothing new, you might say, since the United Kingdom has been an imperialist entity for a long time.

This confirms that Blair is the last person who should appear in an organization called the “Peace Council.”

While Bush retired to a quiet life painting dogs and portraits of Vladimir Putin, Blair continued to make himself indispensable in the Middle East—and to reap considerable profits from it. After resigning as prime minister in 2007, he was appointed special envoy of the international “Quartet” – composed of the United States, the European Union, Russia, and the United Nations – officially committed to resolving the Israeli-Palestinian issue. A coincidence? No, not at all: the choice of an emissary with close ties to Israel made any progress towards genuine peace impossible, which shows us how much it was in the interests of the Western powers to maintain a certain tension in the region. At the same time, Blair’s diplomatic activities were intertwined with a network of extremely lucrative business deals in the region: consulting for Arab governments and private assignments, such as the one he took on in 2008 as senior advisor to the American investment bank JP Morgan, which paid him over $1 million a year.

No philanthropy, no spirit of humanitarian aid. When Blair attended meetings in the Middle East, no one knew which Tony Blair they were dealing with: the Quartet envoy, the founder of the Tony Blair Faith Foundation, or the head of the consulting firm Tony Blair Associates.

On the other hand, the beauty of conflicts of interest is that they always pay off well.

For example, in 2009, he obtained radio frequencies from Israel to create a mobile phone network in the West Bank, in exchange for a commitment from the Palestinian leadership not to bring accusations of Israeli war crimes to the UN for Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008, during which approximately 1,400 Palestinians were killed in 22 days. Blair had private economic interests linked to that agreement: both Wataniya and JP Morgan had a lot to gain from the opening of the telecommunications market in the West Bank.

It is therefore easy to imagine that Blair will also have a certain interest in Trump’s plan for Palestine, perhaps with his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, committed to “changing the world,” perhaps by helping Israel and the United States build the infamous 5-star resort that businessman Donald Trump has long dreamed of, as if capitalism and the tyranny of foreign investors could suffice for the Palestinians in place of freedom and security.

It therefore seems that the West’s “brilliant idea” (sic!) is once again to entrust the fate of Gaza to international war criminals. Not bad, right?

Today, Blair appears not simply as an “advisor,” but as an official charged with protecting the joint interests of Israel and the West in Gaza and managing the post-war transition phase.

Tony Blair’s experience in Iraq is a clear sign of his unreliability on the Palestinian question.

During the US invasion in 2003, thousands of civilians were killed and entire cities were destroyed. Blair, who convinced President Bush to wage that war, admitted years later that there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the military campaign had been based on falsified intelligence reports.

Despite these admissions, no international court has ever tried him for the serious violations of international law he committed.

Today, paradoxically, the same person is being proposed as a key figure in the “reconstruction” of Gaza, based on a supposed peace plan that in fact only protects Israeli interests.

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Russia Continues Bombardment of Ukraine Energy Infrastructure

Russia attacked Ukraine’s power grid overnight into Sunday, part of an ongoing campaign to cripple Ukrainian energy infrastructure before winter. This came as Moscow expressed “extreme concern” over the United States potentially providing Tomahawk cruise missiles to Ukriane.

Kyiv regional Gov. Mykola Kalashnyk said two employees of Ukraine´s largest private energy company, DTEK, were wounded in Russian strikes on a substation in the region. Ukraine´s Energy Ministry said that energy infrastructure was also attacked in the regions of Donetsk, Odesa, and Chernihiv.

“Russia continues its aerial terror against our cities and communities, intensifying strikes on our energy infrastructure,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on X, noting that Russia had launched “more than 3,100 drones, 92 missiles, and around 1,360 glide bombs” against Ukraine over the past week.

Zelenskyy also called for tighter secondary sanctions on buyers of Russian oil.

“Sanctions, tariffs, and joint actions against the buyers of Russian oil – those who finance this war – must all remain on the table,” he wrote on X.

The Ukrainian president said Saturday he had a “very positive and productive” phone call with U.S. President Donald Trump, in which he told Trump about Russian attacks on Ukraine’s energy system and opportunities to strengthen Ukraine’s air defense. A day earlier, Zelenskyy said he was in discussions with U.S. officials about the possible provision of various long-range precision strike weapons, including Tomahawks and more ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles.

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Trump’s Sham Peace Plan

here is no shortage of failed peace plans in occupied Palestine, all of them incorporating detailed phases and timelines, going back to the presidency of Jimmy Carter. They end the same way. Israel gets what it wants initially — in the latest case the release of the remaining Israeli hostages — while it ignores and violates every other phase until it resumes its attacks on the Palestinian people.

It is a sadistic game. A merry-go-round of death. This ceasefire, like those of the past, is a commercial break. A moment when the condemned man is allowed to smoke a cigarette before being gunned down in a fusillade of bullets.

Once Israeli hostages are released, the genocide will continue. I do not know how soon. Let’s hope the mass slaughter is delayed for at least a few weeks. But a pause in the genocide is the best we can anticipate. Israel is on the cusp of emptying Gaza, which has been all but obliterated under two years of relentless bombing. It is not about to be stopped. This is the culmination of the Zionist dream. The United States, which has given Israel a staggering $22 billion in military aid since Oct, 7, 2023, will not shut down its pipeline, the only tool that might halt the genocide.

Israel, as it always does, will blame Hamas and the Palestinians for failing to abide by the agreement, most probably a refusal — true or not — to disarm, as the proposal demands. Washington, condemning Hamas’s supposed violation, will give Israel the green light to continue its genocide to create Trump’s fantasy of a Gaza Riviera and “special economic zone” with its “voluntary”relocation of Palestinians in exchange for digital tokens.

Of the myriads of peace plans over the decades, the current one is the least serious. Aside from a demand that Hamas release the hostages within 72-hours after the ceasefire begins, it lacks specifics and imposed timetables. It is filled with caveats that allow Israel to abrogate the agreement. And that is the point. It is not designed to be a viable path to peace, which most Israeli leaders understand. Israel’s largest-circulation newspaper, Israel Hayom, established by the late casino magnate Sheldon Adelson to serve as a mouthpiece for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and champion messianic Zionism, instructed its readers not to be concerned about the Trump plan because it is only “rhetoric.”

Israel, in one example from the proposal, will “not return to areas that have been withdrawn from, as long as Hamas fully implements the agreement.”

Who decides if Hamas has “fully implemented” the agreement? Israel. Does anyone believe in Israel’s good faith? Can Israel be trusted as an objective arbitrator of the agreement? If Hamas — demonized as a terrorist group — objects, will anyone listen?

How is it possible that a peace proposal ignores the International Court of Justice’s July 2024 Advisory Opinion, which reiterated that Israel’s occupation is illegal and must end?

How can it fail to mention the Palestinian’s right to self-determination?

Why are Palestinians, who have a right under international law to armed struggle against an occupying power, expected to disarm while Israel, the illegally occupying force, is not?

By what authority can the U.S. establish a “temporary transitional government,” — Trump’s and Tony Blair’s so-called “Board of Peace” — sidelining the Palestinian right to self-determination?

Who gave the U.S. the authority to send to Gaza an “International Stabilization Force,” a polite term for foreign occupation?

How are Palestinians supposed to reconcile themselves to the acceptance of an Israeli “security barrier” on Gaza’s borders, confirmation that the occupation will continue?

How can any proposal ignore the slow-motion genocide and annexation of the West Bank?

Why is Israel, which has destroyed Gaza, not required to pay reparations?

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Trump’s “Super Duper” Delusion

“We have the super-fast missiles — tremendous number of the super-fast. We call them ‘super-fast,’ where they’re four, five, six, and even seven times faster than an ordinary missile. We need that because, again, Russia has some.” Donald Trump, February 2020

“We have a — I call it the ‘super-duper missile.’ And I heard the other night, 17 times faster than what they have right now….and you take the fastest missile we have right now — you’ve heard Russia has five times, and China is working on five or six times. We have one 17 times.” Donald Trump, May 2020

“We are building…rockets, and missiles; even a hypersonic missile that goes 17 times faster than the fastest missile currently available in the world and can hit a target 1,000 miles away within 14 inches from center point.” Donald Trump, July 2020

For years now, Donald Trump has been hyping the existence of a “super-fast” missile—something he calls the “super-duper missile” capable of flying “17 times faster” than the nearest competition.

Some believe that Trump is referring to the AGM-183A missile that is being developed under the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW) program. The US Air Force awarded a contract worth more than $480m to Lockheed Martin for designing the ARRW in August 2018. An initial test of the missile was done in 2019. Lockheed Martin received a $988.8 million contract modification for the ARRW critical design review, test and production readiness support, in December 2019. A second ARRW missile was tested in 2020. The US Air Force requested $382m in funding for the ARRW program development 2021 and another $581 million for 2022. The goal was to produce a total of 33 ARRW missiles for testing by December 2022.

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Declassified: MI6 Support For Nazi ‘Forest Brothers’

September 22nd marked “Resistance Fighting Day”. It was on this date in 1944 anti-Communist guerrilla forces in Estonia declared war on the Soviet Union’s ‘occupation’ of their state. Parallel paramilitary factions rapidly formed in neighbouring Latvia and Lithuania. For over a decade, these violent factions – popularly known as the Forest Brothers – waged a brutal, ill-fated insurgency against Soviet authorities. They remain venerated in the region and beyond today as courageous freedom fighters, immortalised by commemorative monuments, street names and statues throughout the Baltic states.

In reality, the vast majority of the tens of thousands of Forest Brothers were Holocaust perpetrators and Nazi collaborators. In many cases, militants joined the movement due to fear of prosecution and punishment for their activities during World War II. While waging their anti-Soviet crusade, the Brothers also murdered thousands of innocent civilians, including many children. However, critical scrutiny of the Forest Brothers’ genocidal legacy is criminalised throughout the Baltics. Academics, journalists and lawyers have been jailed for exposing the truth.

The same legislation moreover prohibits any public discussion of how the Jewish populations of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania were slaughtered in their virtual totality, largely before the Wehrmacht arrived in June 1941 under Operation Barbarossa. Western powers are aggressively complicit in this historical coverup. In July 2017, NATO produced a slick propaganda film heroising the Forest Brothers. Meanwhile, mainstream pundits routinely whitewash Baltic Nazi collaboration, on the risible basis local populations simply sought to resist Communist rule.

There is another core component of the Forest Brothers’ history their advocates at home and abroad are keen to conceal. Namely, the Baltic Nazi guerrilla war was covertly supported financially, materially and practically by MI6. Britain’s foreign spying agency assisted their attempted insurrection by supplying explosives and weapons, infiltrating and exfiltrating agents, and sponsoring assassinations and sabotage attacks. Yet, MI6 records documenting this dark alliance are unforthcoming. Evidence of London’s cloak-and-dagger assistance to the Forest Brothers is provided largely by declassified CIA files.

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Israeli Defense Minister Says IDF Will Destroy Gaza Tunnels Once Hamas Releases Israeli Captives

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday that the Israeli military would destroy tunnels in Gaza after the remaining Israeli captives are released by Hamas, which is expected to happen on Monday.

“Israel’s great challenge after the phase of returning the hostages will be the destruction of all of Hamas’s terror tunnels in Gaza, directly by the IDF and through the international mechanism to be established under the leadership and supervision of the United States,” Katz wrote on X.

“This is the primary significance of implementing the agreed-upon principle of demilitarizing Gaza and neutralizing Hamas of its weapons. I have instructed the IDF to prepare for carrying out the mission,” he added.

According to the outline of the Gaza ceasefire proposal released by the White House, all “military, terror, and offensive infrastructure, including tunnels and weapon production facilities, will be destroyed and not rebuilt,” and there will be a “process of demilitarization of Gaza under the supervision of independent monitors.” But the details of how those steps will be taken, including who will be doing it, are unclear.

So far, Israel and Hamas have just entered the first phase of the ceasefire deal, which involves the release of the Israeli hostages in exchange for thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails, the IDF pulling back to an agreed-upon line, and Israel allowing more aid to enter Gaza. Details on implementing the rest of the agreement still need to be worked out in negotiations between Israel and Hamas.

Katz’s comments come as many are concerned Israel will restart its genocidal war once Hamas releases the Israeli captives. Also on Sunday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the military “campaign is not over,” though he could be referring to other areas where Israel is at war or potential escalations elsewhere in the region.

“And I want to say: Everywhere we fought – we won. But in the same breath, I must tell you: The campaign is not over. There are still very great security challenges ahead of us,” Netanyahu said, according to a statement from his office. “Some of our enemies are trying to rebuild themselves to attack us again. And as we say – ‘We’re on it.’”

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US Has Been Supporting Long-Range Ukrainian Drone Attacks Inside Russia for Months

The Trump administration has been providing Ukraine with intelligence to carry out long-range drone attacks against Russian energy infrastructure, the Financial Times reported on Sunday, citing multiple US and Ukrainian officials.

The report said that the US intelligence helps Ukraine “shape route planning, altitude, timing and mission decisions, enabling Ukraine’s long-range, one-way attack drones to evade Russian air defenses.”

A US official told the paper that Ukraine selects the target for the strike, then the US provides information on its vulnerabilities. However, other officials said the US has actually been setting out target priorities for the Ukrainian military, meaning the US is choosing what to strike.

One of the FT’s sources described Ukraine’s drone force as the “instrument” the US is using to achieve the goal of undermining the Russian economy and pushing Russian President Vladimir Putin toward a settlement to end the war. The US has spent billions helping build up Ukraine’s drone program, an effort backed by the CIA.

The report said that the US began supplying Ukraine with the intelligence following a July phone call between President Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, during which Trump reportedly asked if Ukraine could hit Moscow if the US provided longer-range weapons. In August and September, Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian energy infrastructure significantly escalated.

US-backed attacks on Russian territory always risk a major escalation between Russia and NATO, and the FT report noted that the Biden administration refrained from supporting such strikes on Russian energy infrastructure. President Biden did support Ukrainian strikes on Russian border regions using ATACMS, US-provided missiles that have a range of about 190 miles.

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Russia accuses US of planning coup in Venezuela

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vassily Nebenzia has accused the US of plotting a coup in Venezuela under the guise of an anti-drug campaign.

Washington has deployed marines and warships off of Venezuela’s coast and has carried out airstrikes on alleged drug-smuggling vessels. At least four boats have been sunk, killing more than 21 people. Caracas condemned the move as a violation of its sovereignty and requested an emergency UN Security Council session, warning the operation sought to topple President Nicolas Maduro and threatened regional peace.

At the session on Friday, Nebenzia said Russia “strongly condemned” the US campaign, calling it “a flagrant violation of international law and human rights.”

“We are witnessing a brazen campaign of political, military, and psychological pressure on the government of an independent state with the sole purpose of changing a regime unfavorable to the US,” he stated, noting that the coup plot is being carried out “using the classic tools of color revolutions and hybrid wars” by “artificially fueling an atmosphere of confrontation.”

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Israeli airstrikes devastate south Lebanon’s power grid, destroy reconstruction equipment

Israeli warplanes carried out a series of intense airstrikes along Musaylih Road in southern Lebanon overnight on 11 October, cutting off the main route and plunging large parts of the south into darkness after severing key power lines.

At least 10 strikes hit six excavation and bulldozer depots, destroying more than 300 engineering vehicles and heavy machines, and leaving one person dead and seven wounded.

Electricité du Liban (EDL), Lebanon’s main electricity provider, said the strikes caused severe damage to the national grid. A 66 kV tower was completely destroyed, cutting the Zahrani-Musaylih line and disrupting power to the main 66 kV substations in Sidon and Siblin. 

The unprovoked attack also severed the primary 220 kV Zahrani–Tyre transmission line, forcing the shutdown of several substations across southern Lebanon, including Tyre and Wadi Jilou.

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The Israeli media is reporting on a ‘secret clause’ in the Gaza ceasefire deal that no one is talking about

The ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas could collapse due to an alleged “secret clause” in the agreement that would allow Israel to resume the war, according to reports in the Arab and Hebrew-language Israeli media. That so-called clause would reportedly be “activated” in the event that Hamas is unable to locate all the Israeli captives within the 72-hour window allotted to the Palestinian resistance group during the first part of the deal’s implementation.

On Friday, Al Jazeera’s Palestine Bureau Chief Walid al-Omary pointed out on the network’s live broadcast that the second article of the deal concerning the release of Israeli captives included a phrase in the Hebrew version about an undisclosed annex. According to al-Omary, if Hamas fails to release all Israeli captives, dead and alive, a “secret clause in appendix B” would be “activated.”

Israel’s Kan TV was the first to report on the clause, which was subsequently covered by other Israeli media outlets. According to Kan, an unnamed source who had been exposed to the content of the secret clause said that it was “jumbles of words.” Israel’s Channel 13 also reported that an Israeli court dismissed a petition to disclose the “secret contents” of the deal, citing security considerations.

Although the alleged clause implies punitive consequences on Hamas in the event of failing to meet the 72-hour deadline, Hamas official Osama Hamdan said in an interview hours after the deal was first announced that the time needed to find, gather, and release Israeli captives would depend on “field conditions.” Hamdan added that locating the captives might take longer. U.S. President Donald Trump also admitted that finding the dead bodies of Israeli captives might take longer than anticipated.

Hamas has officially denied the existence of such a clause. A Hamas official told Al Jazeera that “the reported rumors concerning the presence of ‘secret clauses’ in the agreement to end the war on Gaza are completely untrue.”

The potential existence of such a secret clause has reinforced already-existing Palestinian concerns that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would seek to find a way to sabotage the deal. Already in March, Israel broke the first ceasefire after the release of all civilian Israeli captives in the first phase of the deal. Last July, Hamas accepted a proposed deal following talks through Egyptian and Qatari mediators, while Netanyahu completely ignored it as mediators waited for Israel’s response.

Moreover, the lack of any additional terms within the deal for the end of the war, known as Trump’s “20-Point Plan,” has contributed to the spread of such reports in Arab media outlets. Issues relating to disarmament, Gaza’s postwar administration, and Israel’s withdrawal have all been relegated until after the prisoner exchange.

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