Tag: perpetual war

Report from humanitarian groups proves Israel is deliberately blocking essential aid from entering Gaza

Israel has been preventing the majority of essential aid from entering the Gaza Strip since the Israel-Hamas conflict began on Oct. 7.

A report conducted by 15 humanitarian aid organizations recently revealed that essential aid – including food, medicine, fuel and shelter – has been systematically blocked from entering Gaza for almost a year. (Related: UN investigator accuses Israel of “deliberately starving” Palestinians in Gaza; Netanyahu denies allegation.)

“Agencies have detailed six main ways their life-saving aid is systematically obstructed on a daily basis,” the report stated. “These include the denial of safety, with more than 40,000 Palestinians and nearly 300 aid workers killed since last October; the sharp tightening of a 17-year blockade to a full siege, which prevents aid from entering Gaza; delays and denials which restrict the movement of aid around Gaza; tightly restrictive and unpredictable control of imports; the destruction of public infrastructure such as schools and hospitals; and the displacement of civilians and humanitarian workers (witnessed again in recent displacement orders from the so-called “humanitarian zone” in Deir el-Balah.)”

This obstruction has driven the people of Gaza into a worsening state of desperation, with nearly half a million now facing starvation and the entire population suffering from hunger and disease.

For instance, 83 percent of the necessary food aid is being blocked from entering the area, up sharply from 34 percent in 2023. In turn, residents, who previously had access to two meals a day, now face the grim reality of surviving on just one meal every other day. It is estimated that by the end of 2024, around 50,000 children between the ages of six and 59 months will require urgent treatment for malnutrition.

Aside from the food crisis, 65 percent of the required insulin and half of the necessary blood supply are unavailable in Gaza. Meanwhile, the availability of hygiene items has dropped to just 15 percent of what was accessible in September 2023. This has left one million women without essential hygiene supplies.

The healthcare system, which was already strained before the war, is now in a state of collapse. Only 1,500 hospital beds remain operational, down from 3,500 in 2023 and far below the needs of Gaza’s more than two million residents.

As of January, 60 percent of homes in Gaza have been destroyed, leaving 1.87 million people in need of shelter, but tents have been supplied for only 25,000 people since May. In August, an average of 69 aid trucks per day entered Gaza, compared to 500 trucks per working day in 2023, leaving more than one million people without food rations in central and southern Gaza.

Moreover, the destruction of critical infrastructure such as water networks, sanitation facilities and bread mills has compounded the situation. To date, only 17 out of the 36 hospitals in Gaza remain partially functional, while large-scale destruction of schools and public facilities continues.

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What Was A Japanese Spy Doing In Belarus?

Belarusian media reported earlier this month that their security services busted a Japanese spy. He allegedly entered into a fictitious marriage that helped him legalize his stay in the country, after which he set up a business in Gomel to explain his travels, including to the border. He also taught Japanese. The spy allegedly had over 9,000 photos of roads, bridges, and military facilities and was actively in contact with his embassy. These reports raised a lot of eyebrows since few expected Japan to spy on Belarus. 

As it turns out, his home base of Gomel is in Ukraine’s crosshairs as explained last month here, and it’s possible that the security services’ additional scrutiny on all activities there as part of their precautionary measures resulted in them finally catching him. His interrogation also revealed that he was involved in the failed summer 2020 Color Revolution and had been monitoring the socio-economic situation as well, including the availability and prices of goods as well as locals’ reaction to this.

Considering the importance of his activities, especially in the context of the special operation, there’s no way that he’d be allowed to continue operating if anyone had picked up on what he was doing earlier. It’s therefore almost certainly the case that he only came on their radar recently as was speculated above. This means that he was transmitting highly sensitive information during the past two years of the New Cold War’s top proxy war, thus raising the question of why Japan would want to do this in the first place.

What might have been going on is that Japan was passing everything along to its Western partners in the implied hopes of them then supporting it more in its own part of the world. His most recent activities might also have played a role in Ukraine’s recent drone provocations in Belarus. In fact, he might have been pressured by his handlers into taking more risks than usual because the West demanded more information for Ukraine, which could have contributed to him finally getting caught.

This explanation is the most logical since Japan couldn’t act on its own with what that spy hadn’t uncovered this entire time. It was also reported that he was spying on China’s Belt & Road Initiative investments too, of which its primary one in Belarus is the “Great Stone” industrial park, which could have disguised his more nefarious activities had he been caught earlier under different circumstances. It’s much better, after all, to be busted for conducting “business intelligence” than military intelligence.

In retrospect, there’s not much that the security services could have done better to have stopped him ahead of time.

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Pranked Sikorski says quiet part out loud about Kyiv’s​ EU challenge

Trenchant Polish Foreign Minister, Radoslaw Sikorski, was rendered red faced recently by a prankster, who interviewed him, pretending to be former Ukrainian President, Petro Poroshenko.

Sikorski illuminated a number of granular and controversial policy issues related to the Ukraine war. His most telling comments focussed on Ukraine’s aspiration to join the European Union, which he described as a process ‘that will take a decade or more’.

Since the start of the war in Ukraine, Zelensky has been pushing for immediate or fast-tracked EU membership for Ukraine. Ukraine has campaigned hard for this, the EU finally opening accession negotiations in June 2024. Sikorski’s comments remind us what others have voiced quietly: that it won’t be quick and easy.

More significantly, he hints at reasons why it might not be possible at all, on terms that Ukraine would like.

Despite being British, I’m a passionate believer in the European project and I think it is right for Ukraine to focus on future membership. Unlike many, I have always seen the EU as first and foremost an economic project. When I ended my posting to Russia in February 2019, I drove from Moscow to England, passing through Ukraine and into the EU at the Polish border. I saw the moderating influence on relationships between citizens of very different states, by opening borders to free movement and commerce.

The EU advertising slogan describes the enlargement process as a “geostrategic investment in peace, security, stability and prosperity.” But it’s not simply a matter of peace and security. It’s also a matter of money. The EU works on the basis of richer countries subsidising the poorer, in a carefully negotiated and hotly contested settlement that has been in place for twenty years since the last big bang enlargement. Ten wealthier countries, led by Germany, pay more to the EU than they receive, and subsidize the 17 less wealthy countries who receive more EU funds than they pay to the EU budget. An easy concept to grasp.

So, even though Poland has burgeoned economically since the end of the Cold War, it still receives more EU funding that it pays in. In fact, Poland receives more EU funds than any other European country, because it has such a large population, with net inflows of 7 billion euros in 2023.

But Ukraine’s economy is four and a half times smaller than Poland’s. It is the poorest country in Europe — in fact, poorer now than Moldova — with the sixth largest population. It has a larger population than all the other EU aspirant countries combined. It would be, by some considerable margin, the largest recipient of EU funds in the event of accession.

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Both Sides Talking ‘End Of The War’ In Ukraine-Is Peace Near?

We couldn’t help but notice this morning that both side in the last 48 hours have talked about ending the war in East Ukraine. In our view, this is the best way forward — stop the useless killing!

For its part, the Russian Federation stated today that the ‘special military operation’ will end when its goals are achieved.

“For us there is absolutely no alternative to achieving our set goals,” declared Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov emphasized. “As soon as these goals have been achieved in one way or another, the special military operation will be completed.”

Russian President Vladimir Putin repeatedly mentioned the fundamental goals of the special military operation, such as the demilitarization and denazification of Ukraine, its neutral status, and recognition of the realities on the ground, including the wish of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and Kherson and Zaporozhye regions to reunite with Russia the way Crimea and Sevastopol did in 2014, reported Russian state news agency TASS.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said during an interview with ABC that the ‘end of the war was near’, mentioning his peace plan. However, Zelenskiy was just in the United States visiting munitions factories and pushing in Washington, D.C. for long-range weapons to strike deep into the Russian Federation.

In an unexpected development, it was reported that Pentagon leadership told President* Biden that they were ‘in control of the war’ and the continued push for WWIII would be abated; meaning — no approval to continue to hit major Russian targets far from Ukraine.

This is a double-edged sword as the linked article suggests, but an interesting development.

The best path for world peace is to stop in its tracks the onslaught of world war, and get President Trump in The White House. In other words, get some adult leadership in the room.

To that point, there are also reports President Trump may meet with Zelenskiy.

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Are They Trying to Start World War 3 Before the Election?

Events in the Middle East and in Ukraine are bringing us dangerously close to the unthinkable, but meanwhile most people in the western world are paying very little attention to what is going on.  We literally have not been this close to an apocalyptic global war since the end of World War 2, and yet most of the population is partying.  Unfortunately, it won’t be too long before they are shaken out of their slumber.

On Sunday, it was being reported that a Ukrainian drone has hit a facility in Russia that houses one of the highly sophisticated nuclear missiles that Russia has started to produce…

A Ukrainian kamikaze drone strike reportedly struck Vladimir Putin’s Satan-2 nuclear missile, prompting an apocalyptic explosion yesterday morning.

A secret ammunition silo facility at Toropets in Tver region that housed one of the Russian President’s nuke missiles was hit by Ukrainian drone, it was claimed yesterday.

It allegedly happened just ten miles from an ‘indestructible’ 30,000 ton munitions storage site that had been obliterated on Wednesday.

It is literally insane to use kamikaze drones to attack nuclear missiles. But that is the entire point.

The Ukrainians are losing the war, and so they are desperately trying to provoke an “over the top” reaction from the Russians that will force NATO to get directly involved in the fighting.

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Israel’s True Objectives in Gaza, and Why It Will Fail

Never in its history of war, and military occupation has Israel been so incapable of developing a coherent plan for its future, and the future of its victims.

Even a quick glance at headlines in international media reveals the depth of the Israeli dilemma. While Tel Aviv continues to carry out a genocidal war against the Palestinian people in Gaza, it seems to have no idea what to do beyond simply destroying the Strip and its people.

Even the country’s Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, who could soon be officially wanted by the International Criminal Court (ICC), indicated on multiple occasions that Israel has no post-war plan in Gaza.

“Since October, I have been raising this issue consistently in the Cabinet, and have received no response,” Gallant said in the clearest possible language last May.

Others suggest that Netanyahu and his far-right government might have a plan but, in the language of the Washington Post, it is a ‘no workable plan’ or, according to Vox, “is no plan at all”.

Netanyahu’s ‘not workable’ plan, or ‘no plan’ at all, is inconsistent with the wishes of the US administration.

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Washington’s Ukraine Obsession Is Going To Get Us All Killed!

Last week the world narrowly escaped likely nuclear destruction, as the Biden Administration considered Ukraine’s request to allow US missiles to strike deeply into Russian territory. Russian president Vladimir Putin warned, as the request was being considered, that because these missiles could not be launched without the active participation of the US military and NATO, Russia would consider itself in a state of war with both NATO and the US should they be launched. It was a Cuban Missile Crisis on a massive scale.

Thankfully, permission was reportedly not granted by Washington to hit deep inside Russia, but as we have seen throughout this war, a weapons system is often first denied and then eventually granted to Washington’s proxies in Kiev. We should not rest easy even if nuclear war has been temporarily averted.

Would missile strikes deep inside Russia win the war for Ukraine? Not even the Pentagon thinks so. US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin himself said earlier this month that granting Ukraine permission to launch missiles into Russia would not be a “game-changer” in the two and a half year war.

Risking nuclear destruction for no tangible purpose? Have these people gone insane?

Even the “game-changers” have changed little in this war. How many times has the pro-war mainstream media told us a weapons system would be a “game-changer” for Ukraine? Remember Javelin missiles? Leopard tanks? HIMARS? And as each one of them fails to turn the tide in Ukraine’s favor, the neocons and their friends in the media only demand more.

The fact is that Russia is winning the war despite hundreds of billions of dollars and the best weapons systems from the US and NATO countries. Each new shipment of increasingly sophisticated weapons does not produce battlefield victories for Ukraine. It only produces more dead Ukrainian soldiers and more profits for the weapons manufacturers.

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Ukrainian President Zelensky Openly Campaigns for Dems in Battleground State, Harris Surrogate PA Governor Josh Shapiro Joins Him to Sign Bombs

While Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky is in the United States begging for more U.S. taxpayer dollars and munitions, he appears to be using some of his time to stump for the Harris campaign and attack Donald Trump and his running mate JD Vance on American soil.

Zelensky also joined Harris surrogate Democrat Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro for a tour of an ammunition factory in the Keystone State.

Zelensky had time for a sitdown interview with The New Yorker and directly went after Trump and Vance.

“My feeling is that Trump doesn’t really know how to stop the war even if he might think he knows how,” Zelensky said in the interview.

“With this war, oftentimes, the deeper you look at it the less you understand. I’ve seen many leaders who were convinced they knew how to end it tomorrow, and as they waded deeper into it, they realized it’s not that simple.”

Zelensky also belittled Vance calling him “way too radical.”

“I don’t take Vance’s words seriously, because, if this were a plan, then America is headed for global conflict. It will involve Israel, Lebanon, Iran, Taiwan, China, as well as many African countries,” Zelensky said.

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US Soldier Who Burned Himself to Death Over Gaza Wins Sam Adams Associates Award for Integrity in Intelligence

The Sam Adams Associates are pleased to announce United States Air Force Senior Airman Aaron Bushnell as the recipient of the 2024 Sam Adams Award for Integrity in Intelligence.

Bushnell was a cyber defense operations specialist with the 531st Intelligence Squadron at Joint Base San Antonio-Lackland. He was assigned to the 70th Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Wing at Fort Meade in Maryland.

Senior Airman (SRA) Bushnell martyred himself when he walked up to the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 25, 2024, while streaming himself as he approached, and then self-immolated in protest of what Israel is doing to Palestinians, the most extreme form of protest. He was 25 years old and had been on active duty since May 2020, according to the service.

He had stated as he approached the embassy:

“My name is Aaron Bushnell, and I am an active duty member of the United States Air Force. I will no longer be complicit in genocide. I’m about to engage in an extreme act of protest but, compared to what people have been experiencing in Palestine at the hands of their colonizers, it’s not extreme at all. This is what our ruling class has decided will be normal.”

In an earlier on-line post, later identified as from SRA Bushnell, he’d written: “I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world and I will never get the blood off my hands.”

In advance of his burning, Bushnell posted this message on his Facebook page:

“Many of us like to ask ourselves, ‘What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide? The answer is, you’re doing it. Right now.”

As he was consumed by flames, SRA Bushnell’s last words were, “Free Palestine,” said repeatedly.

This was not an act of suicide, as some would have us believe, though SRA Bushnell acted out of despair of any other means of protest having an effect in stopping Israeli genocide and U.S. complicity in that. He obviously suffered the moral injury that so many U.S. service members suffer from when they come to realize their role in, as SRA Bushnell put it: “I have been complicit in the violent domination of the world and I will never get the blood off my hands.”

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Israel Mulls Plan To Indefinitely Expel 300,000 Palestinians From North Gaza

Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told lawmakers that he is considering the so-called “generals’ plan” to lay total siege to northern Gaza and expel all its Palestinian residents, the Times of Israel reported Monday.

When retired major general Giora Eiland presented the plan last week, he claimed it would “change the reality” on the ground in Gaza. “We have to tell the residents of north Gaza that they have one week to evacuate the territory, which then becomes a military zone, [a zone] in which every figure is a target and, most importantly, no supplies enter this territory.” The remaining Hamas fighters would then be forced to surrender or starve, according to the plan.

Eiland was the former director of the National Security Council and former head of the Planning Department of the Israel Defense Forces.

Israeli national broadcaster Kan reported on Sunday that Netanyahu, in a closed-door meeting with the Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, said that the plan “makes a lot of sense.”

Eiland claimed that the ethnic cleansing and siege of the north of the strip, where some 300,000 Palestinians still live, is not only an effective military tactic but is also compliant with international law.

“What matters to [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar is land and dignity, and with this maneuver, you take away both land and dignity,” he said.

Eiland has been critical of Israel’s current strategy in the war against Hamas’s military wing and Palestinian civilians in Gaza, saying it has not been harsh enough against the Palestinian population.

“You can’t win a war while this is the situation in Gaza,” he said. “The slogan that ‘only military pressure will bring victory’ has no basis whatsoever. The wars of the 21st century are based on something else. The most important parameter is the population, and those who can control the population win the war.”

In November, Eiland said that the spread of disease in Gaza is good for Israel. “After all, severe epidemics in the southern strip will bring victory closer and reduce fatalities among IDF soldiers,” he wrote in Yedioth Ahronoth.

Likud MK Amit Halevi, a member of the committee, said the Eiland plan marked “the right direction” for Israeli policy in Gaza. “In order to defeat Hamas, we must control the land and the population. There is no other way to victory,” he told the Times of Israel.

The plan does not reveal whether Palestinians could ever return to northern Gaza, one of its backers told CNN.

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