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Wednesday, September 18, 2024

Recent happenings from X users' tweets ... September 18, 2024

 

Sunday, September 15, 2024

Fourteen times Aid Groups have been attacked by the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) in spite of having been given prior notification of their locations

 

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-hamas-war-gaza/

 

Is Israel intentionally attacking aid workers?

We’ve compiled 14 incidents where humanitarians were attacked despite giving the IDF their coordinates and being clearly identified as civilians

 

 

 Despite a meticulous process in place to ensure aid worker safety in Gaza, the leading cause of death in the humanitarian sector over the last 11 months has been Israeli airstrikes.....................

 

Fourteen times aid groups were attacked after giving the IDF their location

November 18, 2023: Israeli forces attacked a convoy of five clearly-marked MSF vehicles, killing two MSF staff members. MSF had coordinated the convoy’s movement with Israeli authorities and followed the route prescribed by the Israeli military. MSF staff members saw no military targets in the area when they were attacked. MSF requested an explanation from the IDF but received no response.

December 8, 2023: The Israeli Navy fired at facilities affiliated with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) in Rafah with 20mm cannon rounds, damaging the west side of the two buildings. UNRWA officials had repeatedly shared the coordinates of the buildings with Israeli officials, including on the same day of the attack. Agency staff told Human Rights Watch that they were unaware of any military targets in the area. Afterwards, the Israeli military said the attack was carried out by mistake.

December 16, 2023: An IDF tank fired several rounds at the Convent of the Sisters of Mother Teresa (Missionaries of Charity), part of the Holy Family Catholic Parish compound in Gaza. The attack displaced the 54 disabled people sheltering there, leaving some without the respirators “that some of them need to survive,” the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said in a statement.

An aid worker was reportedly injured in the attack. Later that day, an Israeli sniper killed two women sheltering at the church, shooting one woman as she tried to carry the other to safety. When others in the church ran toward the women, Israeli snipers shot them too, wounding several, including two children. Pope Francis condemned the attack, calling it “terrorism.”

Emails between Catholic Relief Services and U.S. Senate staff obtained by Politico show that Catholic Relief Services (one of the largest Christian aid organizations operating in Gaza) had provided the coordinates of the two buildings to Senate staffers, who then relayed that information to the IDF. The IDF confirmed the location of the buildings that Catholic Relief Services requested for protection. The aid group also provided aerial photos of the facilities directly to Israeli authorities. The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem Church said they shared their GPS coordinates with the IDF several times before the attack.

December 28, 2023: A convoy of U.N. aid vehicles were shot at by Israeli forces in central Gaza as it was returning from delivering aid in the north. The vehicles were clearly-marked with U.N. insignia, traveling along a route designated by the Israeli military and had coordinated its plans with Israeli authorities beforehand.

January 8, 2024: An Israeli tank fired at a clearly-marked MSF shelter in Khan Younis housing more than 100 staff and their family members, killing a five-year-old girl. MSF had previously notified the IDF of the shelter’s location. Israeli forces denied that they fired a round at the shelter, but remnants of an Israeli-made tank shell were discovered right outside the building.

January 18, 2024: An Israeli airstrike struck a residential compound housing staff from the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP) in Al-Mawasi, an Israeli-designated safe zone. The blast injured several workers and severely damaged the building. As a result, six emergency medical workers had to leave their posts, and IRC and MAP surgeons suspended their work at Nasser hospital. Forensic evidence suggests the munition used in the attack was a U.S.-made 1,000-pound MK-83 bomb, reportedly dropped by a U.S.-made F-16 aircraft. British officials had used high-level diplomatic channels to ensure the compound was deconflicted with the IDF. A month before the strike, the Israeli military explicitly reassured aid staff through text messages that they were safe. “We’re aware of the location” of the compound, a message from an IDF official read. The MAP employee then clarified whether the building is still safe. “Yes,” replied the IDF official.

Israel provided six different — and often conflicting — explanations for the attack. It said it wasn’t operating in the area; it said it was attempting to hit a target next to the MAP-IRC compound; it said it wasn’t actually a bomb but a piece of the aircraft fuselage. The IDF told The New York Times that they didn’t strike the location at all.

January 31, 2024: Israeli forces bombed the offices of the Belgian development agency, Enabel, completely destroying the building. Handicap International, an NGO, had offices in the same structure. Belgian Foreign Minister Hadja Lahbib said that Israeli authorities “knew very well that Enabel’s offices were located in this building.” Earlier that day, the Belgian government announced it would not suspend funding for UNRWA, after the Israeli government claimed without evidence that UNRWA staff had participated in the October 7 massacre.

In mid-February, Israeli forces claimed it had not bombed the Enabel building, but that it was destroyed when they blew up the building next door for an unspecified military reason.

February 5, 2024: Israeli ships shelled a clearly-marked UNRWA convoy, damaging one of the aid trucks. The convoy was stopped at an Israeli-designated holding point when it was shelled. UNRWA had coordinated the convoy’s movement with Israeli authorities. As a result of the attack, UNRWA had to pause its operations in northern Gaza for nearly three weeks, affecting 200,000 people. Israeli authorities later acknowledged the attack and said it had put in place “prevention measures” to prevent another incident. The next month, the Israeli government blocked UNRWA from providing any food assistance to northern Gaza.

February 20, 2024: Two family members of MSF staff were killed when an Israeli tank fired a shell at a MSF shelter. Seven others, mostly women and children, were injured. A large MSF flag was clearly visible on the side of the building. Israeli forces provided MSF with no warning before the attack and no explanation afterwards.

March 9, 2024: An Anera employee was killed in his home along with his six-year-old son and several neighbors in an Israeli airstrike. The building was registered with the Israeli military as a “sensitive site.” Email records show that Anera had repeatedly shared coordinates and photos of the staff shelter with the IDF, including days before the strike. A precision-guided munition was likely used in the attack.

April 1, 2024: Multiple precision Israeli drone strikes on a World Central Kitchen (WCK) convoy killed seven aid workers, including an American citizen. The Washington, DC-based group had coordinated its route with the IDF beforehand. The vehicles were struck in a deconfliction zone controlled by the Israeli military. WCK founder José Andrés said Israeli forces targeted his colleagues “systematically, car by car.” Forensic evidence backs up Andrés’s claim. “This was not just a bad luck situation where ‘oops’ we dropped the bomb in the wrong place,” Andrés said, pointing to the fact that it was clearly-marked humanitarian convoy with colorful WCK logos on the vehicle roofs, and the 1.8 kilometer distance between the first and the third car in the convoy, each. It was “very clear who we are and what we do,” he added.

IDF Spokesman Danial Hagari said WCK had “coordinated everything correctly with the IDF in advance” and blamed “internal failures.” President Joe Biden said he was “outraged and heartbroken” by the deaths, and called on Israel to investigate itself. But for WCK’s founder, “The IDF cannot credibly investigate its own failure,” Andrés said.

April 9, 2024: A clearly-marked UNICEF aid truck was reportedly hit by Israeli gunfire south of the Salah Al-Din checkpoint. The vehicle was at a holding point when it was struck by several bullets coming from the direction of the Israeli checkpoint. The IDF had approved the convoy beforehand. The Israeli military denied that its troops had fired the shots.

August 27, 2024: A U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) convoy came under fire near an Israeli checkpoint at the Wadi Gaza bridge. As the vehicles approached the checkpoint after receiving multiple clearances to proceed, Israeli troops opened fire, hitting one WFP vehicle at least ten times. Several bullets struck the vehicle’s windows, just above the clearly-visible U.N. insignia and WFP logo emblazoned on the side doors. Israeli officials blamed a “communication error” for the attack.

August 29, 2024: An Israeli airstrike on an Anera aid convoy killed four Palestinians as it was en route to the Emirati Red Crescent Hospital. The route was coordinated and approved by Israeli authorities. Israeli officials claim the lead car the IDF struck was carrying many weapons, but there was no indication that weapons were present. The IDF provided Anera no warning before carrying out the attack...............

Saturday, September 14, 2024

Items on the attempted coup in Venezuela; the planned USA/NATO war on Russia; the attacks on freedom of speech by the West akin to the Soviet Union of the gulag era, etc.

 

https://dissidentvoice.org/2024/09/the-us-attempted-coup-in-venezuela-uses-new-cyber-tools-but-cannot-break-the-chavista-wall/

 The US Attempted Coup in Venezuela uses new Cyber Tools, but cannot Break the Chavista Wall

The peoples around the world have looked to Venezuela as a vanguard leading Nuestra América in its second independence struggle, against the US. The US rulers operate as the inheritor of the European colonial empires, assuming the right to interfere in other countries’ elections, and dictate who are the winners. No other country – save US underlings in Europe, and Israel – dares to violate international law so brazenly.

The Venezuelan right-wing had no real plan to win a democratic election, but instead prepared for a coup d’etat even before the polls closed. Working with the US government and corporate media, they allege President Maduro stole the July 28 presidential election, then committed human rights abuses to crush protests. This opposition declares it beat President Maduro 70% to 30% but refuses to present their “evidence” to the National Electoral Council (CNE) or Supreme Court. The opposition claimed fraud in every election during the 25-year period of Chavista rule – except twice, when they won.

The attempted coup bears much in common with recent US coup attempts in Nicaragua (2018), Bolivia (2019) and Venezuela (2013, 2014, 2017, 2019). If the US-backed candidates lose, the election is “fraudulent.” This scheme drove Evo Morales from power in Bolivia. The US even appointed its own president for Venezuela after its 2018 presidential election, and then proceeded to steal tens of billions of dollars of Venezuela’s resources held overseas.,....................

 

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https://news.antiwar.com/2024/09/12/putin-supporting-long-range-strikes-on-russian-territory-would-put-nato-at-war-with-russia/

 

Putin: Supporting Long-Range Strikes on Russian Territory Would Put NATO ‘at War With Russia’

POLITICO reports the US is preparing to expand where Ukraine can hit inside Russia with US and British missiles

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday strongly warned the US against allowing Ukraine to use NATO missiles in long-range strikes inside Russian territory, saying the move would put the Western military alliance “at war with Russia.”

Putin’s comments came after POLITICO reported that the White House was finalizing plans to expand the areas inside Russia where Ukraine can use US and British-provided missiles.

“This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,” Putin told a TV reporter, according to AFP. “It would mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia. If that’s the case, then taking into account the change of nature of the conflict, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face.”

He added that supporting long-range Ukrainian strikes inside Russian territory is “a decision on whether NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not.”...............

 

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https://consortiumnews.com/2024/09/13/raising-the-stakes-in-ukraine/

 

By  John Wight
Special to Consortium News

The legendary Athenian historian and general, Thucydides, was a man who believed in the supposed verities of war and conflict as a means by which to settle the affairs of state.

It is therefore no accident or surprise that his classic account of the Peloponnesian War between Athens and Sparta in the fifth century BC remains a staple of military academies throughout the West.

Therein lies the problem, because unlike in the days of antiquity, when wars between the great powers were fought with spears and swords, in our time hypersonic missile technology and nuclear payloads have raised wars between the great powers — or perhaps reduced it — to the status of a zero sum game.

This is the grim context in which must be viewed the latest escalatory development when it comes to the conflict in Ukraine between Russia and the West. Yes, you read that correctly. This is in truth a conflict between Russia and the West, not per se Russia and Ukraine.

Ukraine in this regard is merely a convenient and bloodsoaked proxy  — a cat’s paw whose manhood has and is being sacrificed on the altar of U.S.-led Western hegemony.

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https://www.fff.org/2024/09/09/tampa-trial-on-free-speech-exposes-u-s-hypocrisy/

Tampa Trial on Free Speech Exposes U.S. Hypocrisy

by

 

As I have written in my last two blog posts (here and here), the U.S. government is prosecuting members of a small political group named the African People’s Socialist Party and its related “Uhuru” movement. The trial is taking place in U.S. District Court in Tampa. The group has been advocating socialism and opposing U.S. imperialism for around 50 years. The feds are prosecuting them as part of their anti-Russia crusade that U.S. officials have been waging since even before the end of World War II. Specifically, the defendants are being prosecuted for failing to register themselves as agents of the Russian government and “sowing discord and conflict” within American voters, especially by opposing the U.S. government’s foreign policy of interventionism, including in Ukraine.

On Day 3 of the trial last week, the feds presented an “expert witness” to establish Russia’s history of disinformation. That’s rich, given that the U.S. government has long been one of the leaders of disinformation............

 

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https://ronpaulinstitute.org/free-speech-and-the-department-of-political-justice/

 

Free Speech and the Department of Political Justice

by | Sep 12, 2024

 

In 1966, two famous Russian literary dissidents, Yuli Daniel and Andrei Sinyavsky, were tried and convicted on charges of disseminating propaganda against the Soviet state. The two were authors and humorists who published satire abroad that mocked Soviet leaders for failure to comply with the Soviet Constitution of 1936, which guaranteed the freedom of speech.

Their convictions sparked international outrage. Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice, and then America’s U.N. ambassador, Arthur Goldberg called the charges and the trial “an outrageous attempt to give the form of legality to the suppression of a basic human right.” When a secret transcript of the trial was circulated in the West, it became clear that Daniel and Sinyavsky were convicted of using words and expressing ideas contrary to what Soviet leaders wanted. They were sentenced to five and seven years, respectively, of hard labor in Soviet prison camps.

Last week, the U.S. Department of Political Justice took a page from the Soviets and charged Americans and Russians with disseminating anti-Biden administration propaganda in Russia and here in the U.S. What ever happened to the freedom of speech?

Here is the backstory.

The Framers who crafted the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, both under the leadership and the pen of James Madison, were the same generation that revolted violently against King George III and Parliament and won the American Revolution. The revolution was more than just six years of war in the colonies. It was a radical change in the minds of men — elites like Thomas Jefferson and Madison, as well as farmers and laborers generally untutored in political philosophy...........................

 

 

Monday, September 9, 2024

Vids on traumatized children due to wars and Covid

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Tuesday, September 3, 2024

Vids: Kim Iversen on Egyptian comedian Bassem Youssef; Tucker Carlson on why Casey Means and her brother Calley quit their jobs.

 

****************************************************************************************************************************************************************************************** Casey Means was a Stanford-educated surgeon. Her brother Calley was a lobbyist for pharma and the food industry. Both quit their jobs in horror when they realized how many people were being killed by the systems they participated in. This is an amazing story.

Items: Rappers working for the Establishment; Fake Images and how to spot them; Untrained Ukrainians recruits; first Jew to escape Auschwitz; when Presidents kill.

 

https://www.mintpressnews.com/fight-the-power-chuck-d-public-enemy-cia-neutralized-rap/288184/

From Fight the Power to Work for It: Chuck D, Public Enemy and How the CIA Neutralized Rap 

by Alan MacLeod

Surprising many, legendary rapper and activist Chuck D appeared at the White House earlier this summer, announcing that he was joining forces with YouTube and Antony Blinken’s State Department to become one of Washington’s “global music ambassadors” – a role directly modeled on Washington’s Cold War-era efforts to use the arts to inspire U.S.-backed regime change in Eastern Europe, and to use musical tours as covers that the CIA could use to assassinate foreign leaders.

Among a crowd of artists that included Herbie Hancock, Armani White, BRELAND, Denyce Graves, Grace Bowers, Jelly Roll, Justin Tranter, Kane Brown, Lainey Wilson, and Teddy Swims, the Public Enemy frontman was centerstage, standing directly on Blinken’s right-hand side, and was the first artist in the room mentioned by the Secretary of State, earning a round of applause from the journalists and dignitaries assembled. “I would like to thank everybody in the U.S. State Department and also YouTube for having me being invited to being a United States global music ambassador,” he said.

All this is a far cry from Chuck D.’s beginnings and outward image. The rapper and writer of such songs as “Fight the Power” and “Rebel Without a Cause” used both the aesthetics and message of the Black Panther Party in his performances and was seen as Malcolm X with a microphone. He lists the Panthers and Malcolm X as influences during his formative years.  “I was in the Black Panther lunch program,” he told the Historic.ly podcast. Thus, for an artist to go from unapologetically demanding black power to now enthusiastically supporting state power is a bitter pill to swallow for his millions of fans......

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https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-08-25/jonathan-freedland-truth-israel/


By Jonathan Cook

Jonathan Freedland rewrites history to hide an ugly truth about Israel

 The Guardian columnist has to twist the story of the first Jew to escape Auschwitz because a true biography of Rudolf Vrba would expose the Zionist movement’s collusion with the Nazis

Tony Greenstein offers an excoriating account of how Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland distorted the historical record in his biography of Rudolf Vrba, the first Jew to escape Auschwitz.

One might wonder why Vrba’s incredible story has been buried for decades, given how keen Hollywood is to make Holocaust movies.

Greenstein explains. Vrba’s efforts in early 1944 to warn other Jews of their coming fate in the Nazi death camps were betrayed by European leaders of the Zionist movement, who silenced him.

That movement was prepared to sacrifice hundreds of thousands of Jews in return for the Nazis escorting the Zionist elite out of danger in Europe to Palestine. There the Zionist movement was already well-advanced in its preparations to expel the native Palestinians and build a self-declared Jewish state on the ruins of their homeland...................

 

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https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/poorly-trained-recruits-contribute-loss-ukrainian-territory-eastern-113049856

 

Poorly trained recruits contribute to loss of Ukrainian territory on eastern front, commanders say

Ukrainian commanders and soldiers say some new troops refuse to fire at the enemy

By SAMYA KULLAB Associated Press
August 22, 2024, 12:09 AM
 

KYIV, Ukraine -- Some new Ukrainian soldiers refuse to fire at the enemy. Others, according to commanders and fellow fighters, struggle to assemble weapons or to coordinate basic combat movements. A few have even walked away from their posts, abandoning the battlefield altogether.

While Ukraine presses on with its incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, its troops are still losing precious ground along the country's eastern front — a grim erosion that military commanders blame in part on poorly trained recruits drawn from a recent mobilization drive, as well as Russia’s clear superiority in ammunition and air power.

“Some people don’t want to shoot. They see the enemy in the firing position in trenches but don’t open fire. ... That is why our men are dying,” said a frustrated battalion commander in Ukraine’s 47th Brigade. “When they don’t use the weapon, they are ineffective.”

The accounts come from commanders and soldiers who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity in order to speak freely about sensitive military matters. Others spoke on the condition that they be identified only by their call signs in keeping with Ukrainian military protocol.

Commanders say the recruits have contributed to a string of territorial losses that enabled Russia’s army to advance, including near the city of Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub. If it falls, the defeat would imperil Ukraine’s defenses and bring Russia closer to its stated aim of capturing the Donetsk region. Russian soldiers are now just 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) away.

 

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https://www.theepochtimes.com/article/fake-images-are-everywhere-now-heres-how-to-spot-them-5703444

 

Fake Images Are Everywhere Now—Here’s How to Spot Them

Updated:

As artificial intelligence (AI) continues to develop, it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference between real photographs and AI-generated images.

AI can create everything from stunning landscapes to lifelike portraits in a matter of moments—and at first glance, they may appear perfectly legitimate.

In this age of misinformation, how can you discern if the images you’re seeing are real or fabricated?

Fortunately, there are subtle clues that can help us tell the difference, including inconsistencies in texture, anomalies in human features, and garbled writing. By understanding these telltale signs, you can better navigate digital information and assess the authenticity of the images you encounter.

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 https://consortiumnews.com/2024/08/16/when-presidents-kill/

 By Andrew Napolitano

 Sometime before he withdrew from the presidential race, President Joe Biden secretly reaffirmed his own self-willed and self-created authority to kill persons in other countries, so long as the C.I.A. and its military counterparts have “near certainty” that the target of the homicide is a member of a terrorist organization. That standard was concocted by the George W. Bush administration in 2002.

There is no “near certainty” standard in the law, as the phrase is oxymoronic and defies a rational definition — like “nearly pregnant.”

Just as one is either pregnant or not, one is either certain or not. There is no “near” there.

Yet, the creation of this standard underscores the lamentable absence of the rule of law in government today.

The Biden administration and its three immediate predecessors have all deployed drones to kill persons who were not engaged in acts of violence at the time of their killing, irrespective of the near certainty of their membership in any organizations..............

 

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