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[This article was first published by Global Research. You may read it here.]

In mid-2024, the Western media was portraying former US Ambassador to Syria Robert Stephen Ford as a “moderate”, committed to supporting so-called “moderate mainstream opposition rebels”. R. S. Ford was upheld as a outspoken critic of US foreign policy, tacitly blaming the US State Department for gross mismanagement:

“I was no longer in a position where I felt I could defend the American policy… We have been unable to address either the root causes of the conflict in terms of the fighting on the ground and the balance on the ground, and we have a growing extremism threat.”… (quoted in Slate, June 3, 2014, emphasis added)

R. S. Ford called upon Washington to support the moderates:

“We need – and we have long needed – to help moderates in the Syrian opposition with both weapons and other non-lethal assistance. … Had we done that a couple of years ago, had we ramped it up, frankly the al Qaeda groups that have been winning adherents would have been unable to compete with the moderates who frankly we have much in common with,” (Reuters,June 3, 2014, emphasis added)

Responding to Ford’s comments, State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said, “He’s a private citizen. He’s entitled to his views.”(Reuters,June 3, 2014)

Who Is Robert Stephen Ford?

In a bitter irony, Robert Stephen Ford is no “moderate” as portrayed by the media. He was from the very outset in January 2011 involved in carrying out the “extremism threat” scenario including the channeling of military aid to the Al Qaeda affiliated rebels, including Al Nusra.

I was in Damascus in mid-January 2011 when Robert Ford presented his credentials to President Bashar Al Assad. I was familiar with his role as “number two official” at the Embassy in Iraq under Ambassador John Negroponte.

Negroponte’s mandate as US ambassador to Iraq (together with Robert S. Ford) was to coordinate out of the US embassy, the covert recruitment and support to death squads and paramilitary groups in Iraq with a view to fomenting sectarian violence and weakening the resistance movement. Robert S. Ford as “Number Two” (Minister Counsellor for Political Affairs) at the US Embassy in Baghdad played a central role in this endeavor.

My hunch –which I conveyed to my friend, Ali, Prof. at Singapore’s NUS Middle East Institute– was that “something was to going to happen in the next few months.”

To understand Robert S. Ford’s mandate in both Baghdad and subsequently in Damascus, it is important to reflect briefly on the history of US covert operations and the central role played by John D. Negroponte (see text below).

In the months leading up to the March 2011 insurrection, Robert Stephen Ford was among the key architects involved in the formulation of a US “Terrorist Option” for Syria including the recruitment and training of death squads in Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey. (See details below)

In recent developments (May 15, 2025) France’s Le Monde, described Robert Stephen Ford’s as follows:

Translation of above:

Robert Ford, former US ambassador to Damascus: “In Syria, Al-Sharaa is the best tool for the United States against the Islamic State organisation”

The diplomat met with the new Syrian leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, on several occasions, the last time in Damascus, in January.

In an interview with “Monde”, he returns to Donald Trump’s decision to lift sanctions against Syria.

“Analyst at the Middle East Institute in Washington, Robert Ford is an experienced American diplomat familiar with the Middle East. In particular, he was the United States ambassador to Syria, under the Obama presidency, between 2011 and 2014.

In an interview with Le Monde, he welcomed Donald Trump’s decision to lift sanctions and his meeting with Ahmed Al-Sharaa, a former jihadist [Al Qaeda and leader of Al Nusra] who became interim president, after the fall of the Al-Assad regime. Robert Ford met with the new leader several times, including the last time in Damascus in January.

(Translated from Le Monde by Global Research)

The title of Le Monde is contradictory to say the least. Al Sharaa was from the outset a leader within Al Qaeda, ISIS, Daesh.

Robert Stephen Ford had no doubt met with Al-Sharaa, at an earlier stage of the US-led war when he was leader of Al Nusra. His jihadist name was Abu Mohammad al-Julani.

On May 1, 2025, Robert S. Ford at a presentation at the Baltimore Foreign Affairs Institute, revealed “a secret Western role in preparing Syria’s current president, Ahmad Al-sharaa—formerly known as Abu Muhammad al-Julani—for leadership”.

“During a lengthy discussion lasting over an hour at the Baltimore Foreign Affairs Institute, (BFAI) Ford—an expert on Islamist groups in the Middle East —disclosed that British intelligence agencies had requested his assistance in transitioning Julani from extremism to a more moderate path as part of a plan to integrate him into political leadership.”

The transcript of his presentation is not available. According to the BFAI,

“He continued to meet Syrians [aka Jihadists] at personal risk until the Obama administration closed the Embassy in February 2012. But he kept up his ties to the Syrian opposition [Al Qaeda ISIS Daesh] ever since, and when the regime fell last December, he was well plugged in with the force that took control, the HTS Islamist militia, headed by Ahmed al Sharaa.

In the words (until recently) of the U.S. Embassy in Syria: “We remain committed to bringing AQS [Al Qaeda in Syria] figures to Justice.”

[Image: Source: US Embassy Syria]

The following text is based on a longer article first published by GR in August 2011 under the title The Pentagon’s “Salvador Option”: The Deployment of Death Squads in Iraq and Syria; as well as Terrorism with a Human Face: The History-of Americas Death Squads.

The article below was first published on June 6, 2014.

—Michel Chossudovsky, May 24, 2025

The Pentagon’s “Salvador Option”, Al Qaeda Government in Damascus.

The History of U.S.-sponsored Terrorism in Iraq and Syria

by Michel Chossudovsky

Click here to read the article.

The post The Pentagon’s ‘Salvador Option’, Al Qaeda Government in Damascus appeared first on LewRockwell.

From the Tom Woods Letter:

When I think back to 2008 and 2012, I recall all those people who would tell me, “I agree with Ron Paul — except on foreign policy.”

I would shake my head and think: they’re not ready, but maybe someday they will be.

And for some people that day did eventually come. It dawned on these folks that the same establishment that lied to them about Covid and health and “Russia collusion” and BLM (I remind you that Mitt Romney held all of these positions just as much as Hillary Clinton did; that’s what I mean by establishment) and scores of other things might also have been lying about the heroic stories it tells about itself.

When you have that realization, you have at last made it over to the other side.

It’s not a popular or comfortable place to be, to be sure: every perfunctory Memorial Day social-media graphic about honoring our fallen heroes fills you with rage about the lies that got these men killed in the first place — lies that make “safe and effective” sound like the very gold standard of truth.

And neoconservatives become downright intolerable to you.

Just yesterday, Mark Levin wrote: “I will not back any isolationist/America-trashing candidate in the GOP presidential primaries.”

Of course Levin, himself a neocon, would use the agitprop word “isolationist.”

“Isolationist,” translated into non-propaganda English, means a person who has noticed that the grandiose promises of the world’s nation-builders never seem to come true, that having 700 military bases around the world obviously doesn’t make us “safer,” and that after you blow a trillion here and a trillion there you’re starting to talk about real money.

And what could Levin mean by “America-trashing”? As Dave Smith says, we’re not insulting the lakes. We’re criticizing our government. Neocons want to conflate criticism of the regime with criticism of “America,” but it shouldn’t be difficult to understand that these are two distinct things.

On the neocon issue, Donald Trump himself recently said in Riyadh (emphasis mine below):

This great transformation has not come from Western interventionists…giving you lectures on how to live or how to govern your own affairs.

No, the gleaming marvels of Riyadh and Abu Dhabi were not created by the so-called nation-builders, neocons, or liberal non-profits, like those who spent trillions failing to develop Kabul and Baghdad, so many other cities.

Instead, the birth of a modern Middle East has been brought about by the people of the region themselves…developing your own sovereign countries, pursuing your own unique visions, and charting your own destinies….

In the end, the so-called “nation-builders” wrecked far more nations than they built — and the interventionists were intervening in complex societies that they did not even understand themselves.

We correctly assume the medical establishment is not being entirely truthful with us. If we haven’t yet, let’s extend that insight into the forbidden terrain of foreign policy, so that snake-oil salesmen who line their pockets as they sell us alluring promises while drowning us in debt don’t wind up producing still more Americans to mourn next Memorial Day.

Never pay for a book again: TomsFreeBooks.com

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I am not a politically complicated person. I think genocide is bad. I think peace is good. I don’t think anyone should be struggling to survive in a civilization that is capable of providing for all. I think we should try to preserve the biosphere we all depend on for survival.

To me these are just obvious, common sense positions, no more remarkable or profound than believing I should refrain from slamming my nipple in a car door. I do not think these views should put me on the political fringe. I don’t think they should cause me to be seen as some kind of radical. It’s not outlandish that I hold these views, it’s outlandish that everyone else does not.

But that’s the kind of society we find ourselves in today. The obvious is framed as freakish while the freakish is presented as obvious. Health is framed as sickness while sickness is presented as health. The moderate is framed as extremism while extremism is presented as moderate.

We live in a twisted, backwards dystopia where everything is the opposite of the way it should be, and we’re conditioned to think it’s normal and acceptable. It’s not until some degree of insight dawns in you that you look around and realize you are living in the nightmare of a madman. Until then you spend your time here thinking, speaking, voting and behaving as though the demented status quo we are living under is the moderate and expected reality.

All our lives we are trained to believe this hellscape is the healthy and expected circumstance for our species. Our parents and teachers tell us that it’s normal for things to be this way. Our pundits and politicians assure us that there’s no other way things could be and that we are living under the best possible system.

A big part of it is just growing up in a society that’s been diseased since long before you were born, being raised and taught by people who also grew up in a society that’s been diseased since long before they were born. We show up here, we don’t know anything, and then the big people teach us about war and money and jobs and politics, and assure us that our initial horrified reaction to the things we are learning is just immature naivety to something fine and normal.

If you’ve ever had the misfortune of having to explain war to a child, then you know how insane this civilization looks when perceived by a pair of fresh eyes. I’ve never had to explain the genocide in Gaza to a young child, but I am sure it would be met with even more shock and grief. Kids have a natural, healthy revulsion toward such things, and it is only by sustained indoctrination that we are able to twist their minds into seeing them as normal.

It takes a lot of education to make us this stupid. Our minds require a whole lot of training to accept this horrific dystopia as the baseline norm. That’s why the empire we live under has the most sophisticated domestic propaganda machine that has ever existed.

In order to have clarity, we need to learn to look with fresh eyes. Uninitiated eyes. Eyes that have not been educated out of their initial healthy impulse to weep at what we are doing and how we are living here. We need to get in touch with that intuition within us which rejects the sickness of our society as though it was meeting it for the very first time.

Learning to meet life afresh in each instant is good practice anyway; it makes living a lot more enjoyable and beautiful, and it helps us move in a much wiser way since we’re not constantly reacting to old patterns and expectations in an ever-changing world. But as an added bonus it also peels away the tolerance we have built up for the backwards lunacy of this empire we are living under.

The less healthy this civilization feels to you, the healthier you are getting. Everything about this nightmare looks appalling through clear eyes.

_________________

My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece here are some options where you can toss some money into my tip jar if you want to. Click here for links for my mailing list, social media, books, merch, and audio/video versions of each article. All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

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Given that new Pope Leo is an American citizen, he is still required under U.S. law to pay income taxes to the U.S. government. In other words, even though he is now a head of state, he is still a servant of the U.S. Empire, one who is required to send a portion of his income to the U.S. Treasury.

What happens if the Pope decides that he is no longer going to help fund the U.S. Empire through the payment of income taxes?

We all know what will happen. The IRS will come after him with a vengeance. They will have him indicted by a federal grand jury. A warrant will be issued for his arrest. Interpol will be notified. As soon as the Pope visits a country that is a loyal member of the U.S. Empire, he will be taken into custody and quickly extradited to the United States, where he will be prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated for daring to not fund the U.S. Empire with a portion of his income.

U.S. officials would argue that no American citizen is above the law, not even the Pope. They would remind us that every American citizen exists to serve the greater good of the nation. His income effectively belongs to the federal government, which decides how much of people’s income they will be permitted to keep. The citizenry serve the government, not the other way around. If a citizen refuses to serve the Empire by refusing to pay his income taxes, the IRS is there to straighten him out.

An American citizen named Irwin Schiff learned this lesson the hard way. He believed that the income tax was unconstitutional and, therefore, that he didn’t have to deliver any portion of his income to the federal government. He wrote books advising people of the same thing. Many of those people stopped paying their income taxes as well.

Federal officials became apoplectic over Schiff. The IRS went after him with a vengeance. They had him indicted, prosecuted, and jailed. When Schiff got terminal cancer, the feds viciously refused to give him a compassionate early release so that he could die among his family. He had to serve as a message to anyone else who even thought about going down that road. He died in prison for having refused to fund the Empire with a portion of his income.

That’s what they would do to the Pope if he refused to serve and support the Empire with his income taxes. Even though Pope Leo is now a head of the Vatican, he still exists as a serf within the U.S. Empire, just as every other American citizen does. Pay up or pay the consequences.

What happens if Pope Leo decides to give up his American citizenship in order to no longer be a serf within the U.S. Empire? The U.S. government will punish him with an exit tax for his act of disloyalty, which is what they do to any American who decides to change citizenship. What happens if that person refuses to pay the exit tax? The IRS will have him indicted, prosecuted, convicted, and incarcerated. If Pope Leo decides that he no longer wishes to be a serf within the U.S. Empire, he will have to pay the Empire’s exit tax … or else.

It’s worth nothing that our American ancestors lived without income taxation and the IRS for more than a 100 years. That’s because they knew that an income tax and an IRS to enforce it were antithetical to the principles of a genuinely free society. They understood that anyone who lives under a government that wields the power to seize their income is a serf, not a genuinely free person. Only a person who is free to keep everything he earns and decide for himself what to do with his own money can genuinely be considered free.

Our American ancestors were right to reject income taxation and the serfdom that comes with it. Pope Leo is implicitly reminding us that if the American people ever wish to regain their sovereignty as free men and free women, a necessary prerequisite is the abolition of the income tax and the IRS that enforces it.

Reprinted with permission from Future of Freedom Foundation.

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Thanks, Gail Appel.

Facebook

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Thanks, John Frahm.

Dave Ramsey slams Washington lawmakers, reveals what’s killing small businesses

See here.

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Thanks, John Frahm.

Chronicles Magazines

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Thanks, John Frahm.

The American Conservative

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Mike Benz on how NGOs run the world on behalf of a small number of very dangerous people.

Chapters:
0:00:00 Introduction
0:01:20 What Are NGOs?
0:05:11 The 3 Levels of The Blob
0:09:00 Why the CIA Was Really Created
0:21:41 Why So Many American Companies Are Wrapped up in the NGO Madness
0:24:02 George Soros’ Open Society Foundation
0:30:54 Foreign Governments’ Failed Attempts to Escape NGO Control
0:36:58 The Dark Side of America’s Global Domination
0:42:14 The Soros Connection to the State Department Is Deeper Than You Think
0:50:33 How the CIA Controls the Education System
0:58:03 The Anti-American Agendas American Taxpayers Are Funding
1:01:19 What You Should Know About the US Institute of Peace
1:11:57 What DOGE Found When They Tried to Shut Down the Institute of Peace
1:15:31 Why The Blob Hates Putin
1:22:21 George Soros’ Coup of Mongolia
1:30:57 The Blob’s Regime Change Strategy Playing Out in the US
1:42:48 How Trump Has Successfully Drained the Swamp So Far
1:54:06 What Trump Should Focus On Next

The post Tucker Carlson – Mike Benz: How NGOs Have Dominated the World, Who’s Behind Them, & How They’re Now Undermining Trump appeared first on LewRockwell.

Tim McGraw wrote:

Alcatraz means “Pelican” in Spanish. It’s a fitting name. Pelicans eventually go blind from diving into the water to catch fish. There is a lot of catching fish, nets, and blindness at Alcatraz…and San Francisco in general.

“Welcome to the Rock!” Sean Connery.

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Thanks, John Smith.   

Antiwar.com

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Thanks,  John Smith. 

The Cradle

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Brian Dunaway wrote:

There are lots of ways to disappear people, even entire peoples. One way is to simply pretend that they don’t exist.

As a side note to their article, ZH states that, “Increasingly, conflict is being renewed in the West Bank …”

The “West Bank,” since it’s capitalized, must be an actual place. But this Reuters photo that ZH included in its article suggests it isn’t. I wonder if anyone in the press that was present for Netanyahu’s presentation asked him where the West Bank went?

The post West Bank Disappeared appeared first on LewRockwell.

Click here:

Eugyppius

The post German pensioner receives 75-day prison sentence in latest speech crime scandal to hit the Federal Republic appeared first on LewRockwell.

The post Trump Hits ‘Crazy’ Putin In Rage-Filled Post appeared first on LewRockwell.

Thanks, John Smith. 

Antiwar.com Blog

The post Video Shows Girl Trying To Escape Inferno as Gaza Family ‘Burned Alive’ in Israeli Massacre appeared first on LewRockwell.

David Martin wrote:

Yesterday was the fifth anniversary of the death of BLM hero, the petty criminal George Floyd.  There is a very strong case to be made that President Trump should pardon officer Derek Chauvin.  See below.

The Anatomy of the Neck Argues against Asphyxiation

What They Didn’t Want You to See in the Chauvin Case

Big George Floyd

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Il manoscritto fornisce un grimaldello al lettore, una chiave di lettura semplificata, del mondo finanziario e non che sembra essere andato "fuori controllo" negli ultimi quattro anni in particolare. Questa è una storia di cartelli, a livello sovrastatale e sovranazionale, la cui pianificazione centrale ha raggiunto un punto in cui deve essere riformata radicalmente e questa riforma radicale non può avvenire senza una dose di dolore economico che potrebbe mettere a repentaglio la loro autorità. Da qui la risposta al Grande Default attraverso il Grande Reset. Questa è la storia di un coyote, che quando non riesce a sfamarsi all'esterno ricorre all'autofagocitazione. Lo stesso è accaduto ai membri del G7, dove i sei membri restanti hanno iniziato a fagocitare il settimo: gli Stati Uniti.

____________________________________________________________________________________

(Versione audio della traduzione disponibile qui: https://open.substack.com/pub/fsimoncelli/p/perche-lamerica-non-ha-bisogno-di)

D'accordo, il titolo è un po' forte e ha un tono volutamente beffardo, ma deve esserlo perché nel catechismo della politica estera nazionale è radicata una presunzione, quasi sacra, secondo cui “alleati”, “alleanze” e “coalizioni dei volenterosi” sono il fondamento di una politica estera illuminata, necessaria ed efficace.

I politici e i diplomatici americani non dovrebbero quindi mai lasciare queste coste al resto del mondo. Questo dogma ha raggiunto la sua massima espressione nella “coalizione dei volenterosi” del Segretario di Stato, James Baker, durante la prima, assolutamente inutile, Guerra del Golfo nel 1991 e da allora ci tormenta... purtroppo.

In realtà, la verità è più o meno l'opposto, quindi va espressa in modo crudo, quasi provocatorio. In altre parole, gli alleati nel mondo di oggi sono per lo più un peso, del tutto irrilevanti per la sicurezza militare della patria americana e una fonte importante di inutili attriti e persino di veri e propri conflitti tra le nazioni.

In parole povere, l'America è stata resa un egemone economico e militare da tutte le piccole e medie nazioni che ha schierato in alleanze formali e di fatto, dato che sono incentivate a perseguire politiche che minimizzano i propri investimenti nella difesa e incoraggiate a gettare al vento la cautela diplomatica. In altre parole, le “alleanze” di Washington consentono ai politici interni o ai governi eletti di questi piccoli alleati di essere più aggressivi o conflittuali nei confronti dei “cattivi” designati da Washington di quanto non sarebbero sicuramente se operassero solo con le proprie forze.

Ad esempio, l'ex-primo ministro estone tra il 2021 e il 2024, Kaja Kallas, e ora Capo degli affari esteri dell'UE, è stata una critica sguaiata e al vetriolo della Russia e una sostenitrice intransigente dell'invio di denaro altrui [cioè il vostro] a sostegno dell'altrettanto inutile guerra per procura contro la Russia nelle steppe ucraine.

Con una popolazione di appena 1,3 milioni di abitanti, un PIL di appena $40 miliardi e una forza armata di 8.000 unità, l'Estonia rappresenta un alleato insignificante nello schema generale delle cose. Quindi non contribuisce in alcun modo alla sicurezza nazionale americana.

D'altronde, se non esistessero la NATO e lo scudo militare degli Stati Uniti previsto dall'Articolo 5, pensate che la Kallas esulterebbe a gran voce per Zelensky? Il suo popolo avrebbe tollerato il suo atteggiamento da piccolo Davide che brandisce una fionda contro il Golia della porta accanto?

Osiamo dire che sarebbe prevalso l'esatto opposto. L'Estonia e il suo leader si sarebbero preoccupati di comportarsi bene con il loro vicino di dimensioni extra large, come hanno sempre fatto i piccoli Paesi da tempo immemore.

E se per qualche motivo la buona diplomazia e la conduzione di un commercio economico reciprocamente vantaggioso non avessero funzionato, cosa che accade quasi sempre, sarebbero stati obbligati ad armarsi fino al collo. Ovvero, mobilitare il 10-25% del PIL per la difesa, se necessario, anziché il misero 2,9% del PIL che l'Estonia effettivamente spende. A sua volta ciò avrebbe creato un deterrente: la resistenza a un potenziale aggressore, l'alto costo in sangue e denaro che sarebbe stato costretto ad affrontare violando i confini e la sovranità di un vicino più piccolo.

E, per l'amor del cielo, il mondo del XXI secolo non è certo un caso isolato per quanto riguarda le relazioni tra nazioni grandi, piccole e medie. “Fare pace” in diplomazia ed economia e rendere chiara la deterrenza è in realtà il modo in cui il mondo delle nazioni dovrebbe funzionare e, prima dell'ascesa dell'Egemone sulle rive del Potomac, di solito funzionava.

Di certo gli dei della storia non hanno conferito ai politici e ai burocrati di Washington il mandato di farsi amici e di salvaguardare, da un capo all'altro del pianeta, ogni piccolo uomo dal respiro affannoso dei grandi uomini nelle vicinanze.

Infatti in un mondo senza l'Egemone sulle rive del Potomac, nessuno avrebbe pensato di definire “ispirazione” la sconsiderata follia di Kiev nell'attaccare militarmente e brutalizzare le popolazioni russofone del Donbass dopo il colpo di stato di Piazza Maidan nel febbraio 2014. Si è trattato di una stupidaggine incredibile – qualcosa che i vicini non storditi dallo scudo militare dell'Egemone o istigati da CIA, NED, USAID, Dipartimento di Stato e Pentagono non avrebbero avuto problemi a riconoscere e comprendere.

Infatti questa osservazione si applica a tutta la schiera di piccoli Paesi che sono stati ammessi nella NATO dall'inizio del secolo. Ad esempio, per quanto riguarda i cinque piccoli Paesi balcanici che non condividono nemmeno le coste del Mar Nero con la Russia, ecco la misera capacità militare e il peso della difesa (misurati in percentuale del PIL) che apportano alla sicurezza nazionale americana.

Per mettere in prospettiva questa esiguità di personale militare, prendiamo in considerazione innanzitutto, a titolo di confronto, le dimensioni delle forze di polizia nelle principali città statunitensi. Mentre questi poliziotti possono mangiare troppe ciambelle sul lavoro e quindi non superare qualsiasi test di prontezza al combattimento, quando si tratta di pura forza umana, le forze di polizia cittadine elencate qui superano la maggior parte di quelle che questi “alleati” balcanici offrono.

Dimensioni delle forze di polizia nelle principali città degli Stati Uniti:

• New York City: 36.000 unità

• Chicago: 13.100 unità

• Los Angeles: 10.000 unità

• Filadelfia: 6.500 unità

Questo per dire che tutte le città sopra menzionate hanno forze di uomini in blu più numerose rispetto alla maggior parte dei piccoli alleati della NATO raffigurati di seguito, dove mostriamo la loro forza militare attiva e la loro spesa per la difesa in percentuale del PIL.

• Croazia: 14.300 unità/1,8% del PIL

• Macedonia del Nord: 8.000 unità/1,7% del PIL

• Slovenia: 7.300 unità/1,5% del PIL

• Albania: 6.600 unità/1,7% del PIL

• Montenegro: 2.350 unità/1,6% del PIL

Chiaramente questi Paesi non tremano per niente di fronte all'orso russo. Nell'ultimo anno di guerra per procura tra NATO e Russia nelle sventurate steppe dell'Ucraina, nessuno di questi cinque si è nemmeno preoccupato di spendere il 2% del PIL per la difesa!

Infatti persino i pesci più grossi, posizionati gomito a gomito con la Russia sul Mar Nero, non hanno mostrato una paura maggiore di fronte all'orso russo. La Romania spende solo il 2,2% del PIL per la difesa e i suoi elettori volevano eleggere un presidente che voleva stringere amicizia con Putin – un leader eletto democraticamente, ovviamente, odiato dagli “alleati” della Romania a Bruxelles e Washington.

Allo stesso modo, la Bulgaria spende solo il 2,2% per la difesa e la Serbia non ha nemmeno ritenuto opportuno aderire alla NATO. Beh, non da quando la sua capitale è stata bombardata in mille pezzi nel 1999 dagli aerei da guerra della NATO, a causa della sua insistenza sul fatto che il Kosovo non fosse separato dal suo territorio sovrano in base al mandato di Bill e Hillary Clinton.

Anche in quanto alleato fermo della Russia nella regione, la Serbia spende circa il 2,3% del PIL per la difesa e ha circa 28.000 uomini attivi in ​​uniforme nelle sue forze armate. Vale a dire, le forze neutrali serbe ammontano a circa la stessa potenza militare combinata dei cinque piccoli Paesi della sponda adriatica dei Balcani.

Inoltre risulta anche che questi cinque piccoli membri della NATO spendono in realtà circa la stessa miseria per le capacità militari di Ungheria e Slovacchia, confinanti con l'Ucraina. La prima spende circa il 2,0% del PIL per la difesa, mentre la spesa militare della seconda è del 2,1% del PIL. Eppure entrambi i governi, vicini all'orso russo, si oppongono con fermezza alla guerra per procura della NATO in Ucraina e vanno piuttosto d'accordo con Mosca!

In breve, nessuno di questi Paesi sembra davvero temere l'orso russo, altrimenti spenderebbero percentuali a due cifre del loro PIL per armarsi così bene da offrire un pasto poco invitante al presunto aggressore russo. Al contrario, o hanno aderito alla NATO per entrare nel Club Atlantico, o hanno semplicemente rifiutato l'opportunità (Serbia) o si sono lasciati trasportare (Ungheria e Slovacchia).

Il punto è che estendere la NATO ai Balcani è stata una stupidaggine perpetrata dai burocrati dello Stato militare a Washington e Bruxelles. Non contribuisce assolutamente alla difesa nazionale americana dal punto di vista militare, mentre consente ai piccoli vicini di casa della Russia di spendere una miseria per la difesa e di tanto in tanto provocare l'orso russo, cosa che non si sognerebbero mai di fare con i loro 8.000 soldati armati alla leggera.

Naturalmente lo stesso discorso vale a nord, sul Baltico. Le tre repubbliche baltiche hanno entrambe vissuto e ricordano i decenni di occupazione sovietica, eppure i loro attuali bilanci pubblici dimostrano ampiamente che non percepiscono affatto la Russia postcomunista come una minaccia esistenziale. Ecco perché spendono soldi in eserciti fittizi, mentre i loro politici, come la Kallas, fanno demagogia su Putin per aizzare gli elettori e ottenere il favore dei burocrati neocon guerrafondai che dominano la NATO e l'UE.

Tuttavia nessun Paese con le scarse capacità militari illustrate nei numeri qui sotto teme davvero il vicino russo. Se lo facesse, con o senza la NATO, investirebbe i propri fondi di bilancio laddove si cela la deplorevole retorica di alcuni politici dalla lingua lunga.

Dimensioni delle forze armate e di difesa in % del PIL:

• Lituania: 14.100 unità/2,8% del PIL

• Estonia: 7.700 unità/2,9% del PIL

• Lettonia: 6.750 unità/2,4% del PIL

In breve, le osservazioni di Trump hanno colto nel segno nel caso di tutti questi insignificanti alleati della NATO.

In altre parole, tutti questi alleati sono molto più problematici di quanto valgano. La sicurezza militare del territorio americano può essere garantita da un'invincibile triade nucleare strategica basata su bombardieri, missili balistici intercontinentali terrestri e sottomarini nucleari – nessuno dei quali richiede basi o “alleati” stranieri. Questo, unito a una potente difesa convenzionale delle sue coste e del suo spazio aereo, sarebbe più che sufficiente a garantire la sicurezza militare del territorio americano nel mondo odierno.

Nessuna di queste capacità militari è minimamente rafforzata dagli alleati insignificanti che sono stati arruolati nella NATO sin dal 1999. Né nel mondo odierno vi è alcun rischio che una potenza come la Russia, o la Cina, possa attaccare, conquistare e accumulare decine di migliaia di miliardi di PIL, manodopera in età militare e capacità di produzione militare.

Infatti sia la Russia che la Cina sanno bene che il costo dell'invasione, della conquista e della pacificazione nel mondo odierno non varrebbero minimamente la candela. Ecco perché la risposta alla domanda su quanti Paesi la Cina comunista abbia conquistato negli ultimi quattro decenni è zero!

Al contrario, le 750 basi americane e i 160.000 militari dislocati all'estero, dal Giappone alla Germania, dall'Italia al Regno Unito, rappresentano in realtà dei pericolosi “cavi di inciampo” progettati per:

• Fornire una scusa alle aziende della difesa statunitense per vendere armi alle nazioni alleate in cui hanno sede le forze armate statunitensi.

• Creare una scusa per intromettersi nei conflitti stranieri basandosi sul fatto che i militari americani sono in pericolo.

Durante il periodo di massimo sviluppo dell'America come la più grande nazione sulla Terra (dalla cancellazione del trattato con la Francia nel 1797 alla ratifica del trattato NATO nel 1949), l'America non aveva alleanze, trattati militari o alleati autorizzati a provocare conflitti con i propri vicini, con l'intesa che lo Zio Sam avesse coperto loro le spalle.

Durante quei 152 anni tutto andò per il meglio per l'America, così come per qualsiasi altra nazione nella storia, prima e dopo di essa. E assolutamente nulla è cambiato affinché la saggezza di Washington e Jefferson venissero alterate riguardo l'evitare alleanze all'estero.

[*] traduzione di Francesco Simoncelli: https://www.francescosimoncelli.com/

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The Hate That Hate Produced shocked Americans of all creeds and colours. Broadcast in July 1959, this five-part documentary brought the Nation of Islam (and, to a lesser extent, the United African Nationalist Movement) to wider public attention for arguably the first time. Few Americans had hitherto been exposed to the black nationalism and even black supremacism of the Nation of Islam – a religious and political organisation that called for black and white Americans to live in separate states. The Hate That Hate Produced achieved something else, too: it catapulted a then little-known Malcolm X to national prominence.

The Hate That Hate Produced featured various Black Muslims, as Nation of Islam followers are sometimes called, finding white people guilty of various crimes. In the dramatic words of Malcolm X himself:

‘I charge the white man with being the greatest murderer on Earth. I charge the white man with being the greatest kidnapper on Earth.‘

Given views being expressed like this, it’s hardly a surprise that The Hate That Hate Produced unnerved a great many. But it also inspired a significant minority of black Americans. Indeed, within weeks of the documentary being broadcast, the number of people attending Nation of Islam meetings increased significantly, and the group’s membership doubled to 60,000. By 1961, there were an estimated 100,000 Black Muslims in the US (1).

Malcolm initially appeared on the The Hate That Hate Produced to introduce the then leader of the Nation of Islam, Elijah Muhammad. He also appeared in a later episode as part of a panel discussion. He had enjoyed a minimal public profile up until then, but that changed almost overnight. From that point on, Malcolm X became a major public figure, not to mention a source of quotes guaranteed to outrage conservative America.

He had been on quite a journey up until then. Malcolm X was born Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska on 19 May 1925. He was the seventh child of his father, Earl Little, and the fourth child of his mother, Louise. His father was a tall, dark-skinned man from Georgia, and his mixed-race mother was from Grenada, in the British West Indies. Both of his parents were strong advocates of Marcus Garvey (1887-1940), the Jamaican-born black separatist who, in the 1920s, led a back-to-Africa movement – that is, a movement calling for the descendants of black slaves to return to Africa.

Shortly after Malcolm’s birth, Earl Little moved his family out of Nebraska, before ultimately settling in Lansing, Michigan. When Malcolm was six years old, his father was killed in what the family deemed suspicious circumstances. Whereas official reports stated that he had been killed in a streetcar accident, the insurance company refused to pay out on what they categorised as a suicide. Malcolm later surmised that his father had been killed by white racists.

In the seventh grade, Malcolm enrolled in a predominantly white junior high school in Mason, Michigan, where he excelled academically and was even elected president of his class. Yet, by the end of the following school year, he had dropped out, aged 15. The reason he gave was a discouraging counselling session with a teacher, who advised him to train as a carpenter instead of a lawyer because carpentry was more appropriate for a ‘nigger’.

At the same time, Malcolm’s family life had been plunged into chaos. In 1938, his mother was committed to Kalamazoo State Hospital after having a breakdown. A then 13-year-old Malcolm and his siblings were housed in various foster homes before he eventually went to live with his half-sister in Boston, Massachusetts. He soon became a street hustler and petty criminal. Having been arrested for robbery in 1944, he was charged, found guilty and eventually given a seven-year prison sentence in 1946, which he served at Boston’s Charlestown Prison.

Prison – or more accurately, the prison library – liberated Malcolm. ‘My alma mater was books, a good library’, he later explained: ‘I could spend the rest of my life reading, just satisfying my curiosity.’ There he changed his name to Malcolm X, on the grounds that ‘Little’ was a ‘slave name’ given to his ancestors.

It was during his time in prison that Malcolm came into contact with Elijah Muhammad, the leader of the Nation of Islam, which was then a small, urban-prophet cult committed to religious and racial segregation, with branches in Detroit, Chicago and New York. At the time it had no more than a few hundred members. Malcolm’s brother was already a Black Muslim, and convinced Malcolm to convert, too. While in prison Malcolm began communicating with Muhammad via mail. After being released on parole in 1952, Malcolm visited him in Chicago, before setting to work recruiting Black Muslims in Detroit.

At six foot three, Malcolm was an imposing, impressive figure. One historian was moved to describe him as ‘mesmerisingly handsome… and always spotlessly well-groomed’ (2). He was also a talented speaker and soon became the chief spokesman and organiser for the Nation of Islam. His speeches were virtuoso performances of rhythm, improvised cadences, silences and eruptions. Having heard Malcolm X speak at a debate at Oxford University in 1964, British radical Tariq Ali remarked that his ‘speeches were like word-jazz, with gestures but no other accompaniment, except the response of the crowd’.

Malcolm’s rise to political prominence coincided with that of Martin Luther King, the other pivotal African American leader of the era. Though hostile to each other, the two shared many characteristics. Both were hugely talented and intellectually capable. Where they differed was in their vision of America. King’s optimism moved him to embrace the nation’s liberal promise, and push it to extend the same rights and freedoms enjoyed by white Americans to black Americans. Malcolm gave vent to a considerably more pessimistic and cynical view. He thought the US was incapable of ever fulfilling its promises to its most significant minority.

Indeed, for a time, Malcolm was King’s polar opposite. His pessimism and championing of black separatism challenged the optimistic vision King had of a racially integrated United States. Malcolm repeatedly pointed to black Americans’ lack of freedom, particularly in the South – despite it being over 100 years since the Emancipation Proclamation, which pledged to free black Americans from slavery. ‘Being born here in America doesn’t make you an American’, he told an audience in 1964. Or, as he put it more succinctly, referring to the first pilgrims who landed in Massachusetts on the Mayflower: ‘We didn’t land on Plymouth Rock; Plymouth Rock landed on us.’

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Recently, Biden was announced to have (likely terminal) metastatic prostate cancer. Scott Adams took that moment to announce that he did as well and that:

• Despite being a longtime critic of Biden, he deeply empathized with Biden’s plight and hoped people could show both him and Biden kindness rather than hate. He also noted he’d delayed announcing his cancer to avoid dealing with online hate and that “people are really cruel…and are going to say it’s because I got the COVID shot—there’s no indication that that makes a difference.”

• The pain from his cancer is intolerable; being on high doses of pain killers has turned him into a zombie, he now needs a walker, and he’s had to reduce his podcasts.

• He tried ivermectin and febendazole and was hopeful it would work, but it did not, and he does not want any more medical advice, nor does he want to discuss any of his cancer’s clinical history; rather he just wants to continue his podcast until his life ends.

• Because of his pain and the futility of his condition, he is deeply grateful that California allows medically assisted suicide, and he expects to be dead by the summer.

• He has often been able to visually see his future (e.g., what his future house would look like), but what he sees in the future is simply “black” so he knows he is going to die.
Note: during my life, I’ve met numerous people who had an uncanny ability to predict future events, all of whom shared that it was in part due to some degree of “psychic” foresight.

Since Scott Adams’ experience encapsulates an unfortunate but very real facet of the cancer experience, I edited his recent podcast down to just those parts:

As many know of Adams (Trump even repeatedly called him to offer support), his announcement and the bleakness surrounding it profoundly disturbed the online community and many of his previous critics, out of empathy for Scott stopped attacking him. I’ve since received many requests to comment on specific facets of it (e.g., fenbendazole and ivermectin or what’s causing these turbo cancers).

In this article, I will cover each of these and provide some context as to why I’ve taken a different approach than others when writing about cancer.

Facts Don’t Matter, Persuasion is Everything

For most of my life, the presidential election has always followed one of two courses:

• Someone skilled at influencing the public (e.g., Reagan, Clinton, or Obama) is supported by the media and wins.

• The media builds up a marginal candidate and tears down their competitors (including popular ones with populist positions) and by having everyone collapse around the chosen nominee, makes the marginal candidate appear much better than they were at the start.

When the first Republican presidential debate happened in August 2015, Trump’s odds of winning the presidency were around 1%, and most assumed he’d joined the race as a publicity stunt. As I watched the first presidential debate, I realized that:

• The 2016 primary had been set up to have all the candidates collapse around Jeb Bush so that he could be elevated to run against Hillary.

• Trump was by far the strongest candidate running, and he was also espousing populist positions that the electorate wanted.

• Based on his answer to the Rosie O’Donnell question, Trump had a degree of verbal intelligence that made him able to withstand the kill shots the media normally used to eliminate unwanted candidates.

• If Trump went after Jeb Bush, he could likely steal his spot and collapse the nomination around him.

So once the debate ended, I checked on his betting odds, saw they were way too low, and told my friends who make these types of investments that those margins would disappear in the next few days once the market caught up and recognized Trump had a realistic chance of winning.

Around the same time, Scott Adams began posting that Trump had a realistic shot of becoming president (specifically, on July 2nd he said he didn’t support Trump but he also did not support the way he was being attacked by the media, on August 5th he said there was a viable but improbable path for him to become president, on August 24th he said Trump had a more effective way to persuade the electorate than Bush, and by August 28th said Trump would win by a large margin). Since he was one of the earliest contrarian voices to say that (e.g., on August 28th another prominent pollster had given Trump a 2% chance of the GOP nomination), Adams rapidly built a following that expanded on these themes and has now grown to over a million Twitter followers.

Scott’s central message was that since he had worked as a hypnotist, he believed facts are largely irrelevant for shifting people’s opinions, and rather how they are conveyed is what matters (which to a large degree I believe is true—although I take a different approach to reaching people than Scott). In turn, Scott repeatedly identified how Trump was using persuasive messaging when sharing his talking points (e.g., his words contained poignant visual metaphors), and blended that into content creation revolving around how persuasive language and the human tendency to filter out what they don’t want to see underlies much of what happens in society.

Because of this focus, he used his framework to analyze the correct decision regarding vaccination. In the first half of 2021, he shared that vaccination had no risks, potentially protected you from long COVID-19, gave you back your freedom, would create herd immunity to COVID-19, and to varying extents belittled people who chose not to vaccinate—all of which offended many of his followers and gradually led to him being nicknamed “Clot Adams.”

Later, in January 2023, to his credit, he posted a video admitting he was wrong and the antivaxxers were entirely correct. However, framed the decision to not vaccinate as being due to one’s “luck” of habitually not trusting the government and that being correct in this one instance, rather than one of intelligence, as all the data at the time had shown vaccination to be the correct choice and every intelligent person (Adams included) who correctly analyzed that data had concluded vaccinating was the proper choice.

Given that this wasn’t entirely true (e.g., a large amount of censored data showed otherwise, historical precedent shows the US government always lies about dangerous vaccines, and many of the arguments for the vaccine didn’t make logical sense), many were understandably offended by this.
Note: another prominent online author, Emily Oster, used similar logic in a highly controversial October 2022 plea for COVID amnesty in the Atlantic.

In parallel, since the COVID vaccine has such a high rate of injuries, many prominent individuals were injured by them in a manner that could not be covered up, including many political leaders (e.g., 4 of the 48 Democrat senators had severe brain injuries specifically linked to the vaccines). All of them had promoted the vaccine, and remarkably, these severe injuries did not change their stance on the vaccine (even in the case of one Democrat Congressman who had his 17 year old daughter die suddenly from cardiac arrest).

In the midst of all this insanity, Robert Malone advocated for explaining it through Mattias Desmet’s mass formation hypothesis, which stated that under the right conditions, malignant crowd consciousnesses can take over groups of people which cause them to do completely insane and horrific things, and that the group will be incredibly resistant to any external feedback which suggesting stopping it. One of the less appreciated facets of this theory is that mass formations will inevitably die off (as they are self-consuming). Once they conclude and the insanity around them dissipates, history judges their proponents harshly.

Note: a strong case can be made that Biden suffered rapidly accelerating dementia following COVID vaccination. Since he mandated the vaccines and demonized anyone opposed to them, that is now his “legacy,” and both his political collapse and death will most likely be looked back on as yet another consequence of his horrendous decision to push the vaccines.

Early Red Flags

Given what had happened with the 1976 Swine Flu (where a “safe” vaccine the government knew was dangerous was rushed to market so it would reach America “in time” and then injured many), at the end of 2019, I was worried something similar would happen with COVID. As such, I spent a lot of time looking for ways to treat the virus so people I knew would not be forced to choose between a risky vaccine and the risk of dying from COVID.

In December of 2020, (still unidentified) hackers accessed Europe’s FDA (the EMA) and leaked some of the EMA’s regulatory documents on Pfizer’s vaccine to both the dark web and journalists. Since I was concerned about the vaccine and had a background in drug research, I read through them in detail and was left with the impression that:

• Pfizer consistently chose the available option (e.g., for its lipid nanoparticles) that was most likely to produce a viable product rather than what would produce a safe one.

• Despite going out of their way to green light the vaccines, drug regulators still raised numerous clear issues with the vaccines (e.g., fragmented rather than compete mRNA being in the vaccines or COVID rapidly becoming resistant to the vaccine), which subsequently were never publicly mentioned and to the best of my knowledge were never solved prior the vaccines hitting the market.

• Pfizer was allowed to skip a variety of critical safety studies that should have been conducted before the drugs hit the market. These included testing for genetic toxicity, cancer, impairing fertility, and autoimmune disorders—despite those being amongst the greatest concerns for this experimental gene therapy (e.g., many had pointed out the vaccines had a high risk of causing autoimmune disorders and much of this testing is typically required for gene therapies).

Note: in the EMA documents, the WHO’s 2005 position was that lipids and RNA (the vaccine’s components) were “not expected” to have genotoxicity or carcinogenicity and hence did not need to be tested for (despite regulators also noting that a component of the lipid nanoparticle was a known carcinogen). Likewise, Pfizer’s current FDA label admits that genotoxicity and carcinogenicity were never tested for.

I hence predicted that many of these issues would come to pass, and that it was quite likely many of them had been identified during clinical studies but were not reported to regulators, as “plausible deniability” of knowledge of those side effects was the only viable way to get the vaccines approved.

As such, I warned everyone I knew that the COVID vaccines might initially appear safe, but there were serious risks of long-term side effects that would take time to show up (particularly since something very similar had recently happened with the HPV vaccine). However, the moment the vaccine hit the market, I was astonished to discover that I’d greatly underestimated its toxicity and was seeing numerous patients each day who’d developed significant reactions to the vaccine they’d never experienced before. Likewise, people from around the country had begun reaching out to me to ask if the vaccine could cause you to “die suddenly” as this had recently happened to their relative (e.g., from a stroke or heart attack).

Given how much more severe the reactions were than what I’d expected, I realized the chronic issues would most likely exceed the worst case scenario I’d previously envisioned and suspected the EMA leaks rather than being hacked, came from an honest regulator who was alarmed by the gross violation of regulatory standards and what was being pushed through (but was powerless to stop it).

Note: similar in America, whistleblowers, internal Zoom recordings, and documents obtained by Senator Johnson reveal that FDA and CDC officials were fully aware of the potential dangers associated with the COVID-19 vaccines. Despite this, oncologist Dr. Peter Marks, the FDA official overseeing all vaccine-related matters, repeatedly slow-walked concerns raised by the vaccine-injured—offering empathy alongside continual excuses to delay acknowledging injuries (that were backed by credible data). He also removed two of the FDA’s top vaccine scientists who had expressed concern over the rushed approval process, discouraged the CDC from issuing even basic safety guidance (e.g., advising children with vaccine-induced myocarditis to temporarily avoid sports to reduce the risk of sudden cardiac death), and at a private conference, dismissed those questioning vaccine safety—including injured individuals he publicly claimed to empathize with—as irrational and not worth engaging.

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