Advisers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday recommended two COVID-19 boosters during the 2024-2025 season for people ages 65 and older and for younger people who are moderately or severely immunocompromised.
The vote for all three new COVID-19 vaccine recommendations was unanimous.
The committee also voted 14-1 to recommend Pfizer and Merck’s pneumococcal conjugate vaccines — designed to protect against meningitis and pneumonia — for all adults who have never received the vaccine ages 50 and older, lowering the recommended age from 65.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in June approved Merck’s Capvaxive for prevention of invasive pneumococcal disease and pneumococcal pneumonia in adults.
The vote expands the market for both companies, who will now be able to market their vaccines to millions more eligible adults, boosting their annual revenues by hundreds of millions of dollars, FiercePharma reported.
“CDC will continue to educate the public on how and when to get their updated vaccinations so they can risk less severe illness and do more of what they love,” Cohen said.
“ACIP loves advising that people receive the most vaccines possible,” internist Dr. Meryl Nass told The Defender.
She added:
“When ACIP talks about shared decision-making, what they mean is this: ‘We lack the data to recommend this vaccine for this group, so we could be criticized (or worse) for making an unscientific recommendation. But we really want you to have it.’
“So we think the patient and doctor (who is much less educated about the minutiae regarding the vaccine than the ACIP members are) should together decide whether the patient should get it. That way we protect ourselves while maximizing the number of jabs.’”
Nass said that if ACIP members were serious about shared clinical decision-making, “They would put all their thoughts down so clinicians could become educated and then jointly evaluate the risks and benefits with patients.”
The committee also voted unanimously to add high-dose and adjuvanted flu vaccines to the Vaccines for Children Program — which provides free vaccines to children whose families can’t afford them — for transplant recipients taking immunosuppressive medications.
ACIP is described as an independent, nonfederal expert body of professionals with clinical, scientific and public health expertise. The committee decides which vaccines should be recommended to the public, who should take them and how often.
In practice, most members have financial ties to vaccine makers that they don’t consider to be conflicts of interest. For example, in Wednesday’s meeting, paid Merck consultant and researcher Noel Brewer, Ph.D., declared “no conflict” before voting to recommend Merck’s vaccine.
More recommendations may ‘exacerbate existing vaccine fatigue’
The CDC said that in the 2023-2024 COVID-19 season, only 8.9% of people over age 65 and 5.4% of immunocompromised adults age 18 and older had received two boosters.
The presenter, Dr. Georgina Peacock, said there was “obviously a need for additional education and recommendations,” but raised concerns that additional recommendations “may also exacerbate existing vaccine fatigue.”
Ruth Link-Gelles, Ph.D., presented COVID-19 vaccine efficacy data that provided the rationale for the new recommendations. Efficacy is affected by time since the last booster dose, changes in COVID-19 variants and the time since someone was last infected with COVID-19, she said.
Link-Gelles said those are hard to disentangle, especially given that all adults have high rates of infection-induced immunity. Infection-induced immunity rates ranged from 72% for people over age 65 to 89% for those ages 16-49 and 84% for those ages 50-64.
In adults over 65, she said protection waned to zero against emergency room visits and hospitalization by four to six months and was somewhat more effective against critical illness.
She also said that additional education alone wasn’t effective in increasing uptake.
Waning efficacy: an argument for more shots or proof of natural immunity?
Link-Gelles presented a slide that showed COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness waned significantly among people ages 18-64, beginning at 30% and dropping to negative 15% by six months post-vaccination.
When pressed on how to interpret the negative efficacy, she said, “There is no biological plausibility for the vaccine increasing your risk of disease.”
Vaccine effectiveness data is relative, meaning it’s a measure of how much more protection a vaccinated person has than an unvaccinated one, she said. Therefore, “what we think is happening” is that unvaccinated people were getting natural immunity during that time, giving them more robust immunity and skewing the baseline for comparison.
Because vaccine efficacy is a comparison of the disease in the vaccinated versus the unvaccinated, if the efficacy is negative, “then the unvaccinated have more protection than the vaccinated,” Karl Jablonowski, Ph.D., senior research scientist at Children’s Health Defense, told The Defender.
Jablonowski pointed out that Link-Gelles suggested the unvaccinated are exposed to wild-type COVID-19 and then gain immunity, compared with the vaccinated who would not gain that same wild-type immunity.
“What Dr. Link-Gelles is not entertaining, that which she sees ‘no biological plausibility,’ is the possibility of diminishing immune health of the vaccinated,” he said.
Jablonowski added:
“Both scenarios reduce the infections in the unvaccinated relative to the vaccinated. Either scenario points to the same conclusion, that the unvaccinated have superior long-term (180-299 days) immune health when facing the COVID-19 pandemic.
“More broadly, you cannot present VE [vaccine efficacy] analysis as a valid assessment of how well a vaccine works and then disregard the analysis when it shows the vaccine is not working.
“It is clear, from CDC’s own data and presentation, that the vaccinated had a higher long-term incidence of disease than the unvaccinated.”
The House report on HHS Covid propaganda is devastating. The Biden administration spent almost $1 billion to push falsehoods about Covid vaccines, boosters, and masks on the American people. If a pharma company had run the campaign, it would have been fined out of existence.
HHS engaged a PR firm, the Fors Marsh Group (FMG), for the propaganda campaign. The main goal was to increase Covid vax uptake. The strategy: 1. Exaggerate Covid mortality risk 2. Downplay the fact that there was no good evidence that the Covid vax stops transmission.
The propaganda campaign extended beyond vax uptake and included exaggerating mask efficacy and pushing for social distancing and school closures.
Ultimately, since the messaging did not match reality, the campaign collapsed public trust in public health.
The PR firm (FMG) drew most of its faulty science from the CDC’s “guidance,” which ignoredthe FDA’s findings on the vaccine’s limitations, as well as scientific findings from other countries that contradicted CDC groupthink.
The report details the CDC’s mask flip-flopping through the years. It’s especially infuriating to recall the CDC’s weird, anti-scientific, anti-human focus on masking toddlers with cloth masks into 2022.
President Biden’s Covid advisor Ashish K. Jha waited until Dec. 2022 (right after leaving government service) to tell the country that “[t]here is no study in the world that shows that masks work that well.” What took him so long?
In 2021, formerCDC director, Rochelle Walensky rewrote CDC guidance on social distancing at the behest of the national teachers’ union, guaranteeing that schools would remain closed to in-person learning for many months.
During this period, the PR firm FMG put out ads telling parents that schools would close unless kids masked up, stayed away from friends, and got Covid-vaccinated.
In March 2021, even as the CDC told the American people that the vaxxed did not need to mask, the PR firm ran ads saying that masks were still needed, even for the vaxxed. “It’s not time to ease up” we were told, in the absence of evidence any of that did any good.
In 2021, to support the Biden/Harris administration’s push for vax mandates, the PR firm pushed the false idea that the vax stopped Covid transmission. When people started getting “breakthrough” infections, public trust in public health collapsed.
Later, when the FDA approved the vax for 12 to 15-year-old kids, the PR firm told parents that schools could open in fall 2021 only if they got their kids vaccinated. These ads never mentioned side effects like myocarditis due to the vax.
HHS has scrubbed the propaganda ads from this era from its web pages. It’s easy to see why. They are embarrassing. They tell kids, in effect, that they should treat other kids like biohazards unless they are vaccinated.
When the Delta variant arrived, the PR firm doubled down on fear-mongering, masking, and social distancing.
In September 2021, CDC director Walensky overruled the agency’s external experts to recommend the booster to all adults rather than just the elderly. The director’s action was “highly unusual” and went beyond the FDA’s approval of the booster for only the elderly.
The PR campaign and the CDC persistently overestimated the mortality risk of Covid infection in kids to scare parents into vaccinating their children with the Covid vax.
In Aug. 2021, the military imposed its Covid vax mandate, leading to 8,300 servicemen being discharged. Since 2023, the DOD has been trying to get the discharged servicemen to reenlist. What harm has been done to American national security by the vax mandate?
The Biden/Harris administration imposed the OSHA, CMS, and military vax mandates, even though the CDC knew that the Delta variant evaded vaccine immunity. The PR campaign studiously avoided informing Americans about waning vaccine efficacy in the face of variants.
The propaganda campaign hired celebrities and influencers to “persuade” children to get the Covid vax.
I think if a celebrity is paid to advertise a faulty product, that celebrity should be partially liable if the product harms some people.
In the absence of evidence, the propaganda campaign ran ads telling parents that the vaccine would prevent their kids from getting Long Covid.
With the collapse in public trust in the CDC, parents have begun to question all CDC advice. Predictably, the HHS propaganda campaign has led to a decline in the uptake of routine childhood vaccines.
The report makes several recommendations, including formally defining the CDC’s core mission to focus on disease prevention, forcing HHS propaganda to abide by the FDA’s product labeling rules, and revamping the process of evaluating vaccine safety.
Probably the most important recommendation: HHS should never again adopt a policy of silencing dissenting scientists in an attempt to create an illusion of consensus in favor of CDC groupthink.
You can find a copy of the full House report here. The HHS must take its findings seriously if there is any hope for public health to regain public.
Dr. Jay Bhattacharya is a physician, epidemiologist and health economist. He is Professor at Stanford Medical School, a Research Associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a Senior Fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, a Faculty Member at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute, and a Fellow at the Academy of Science and Freedom. His research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Co-Author of the Great Barrington Declaration.
Internal information has revealed that Canadian doctors are questioning the morality of euthanizing vulnerable and impoverished patients who are choosing death not just because of illness, but because of poverty and loneliness.
According to internal information published October 16 by the Associated Press, poverty and loneliness are two popular reasons for choosing euthanasia in Ontario, Canada’s most populous province, a phenomenon which has left doctors grappling with the morality of the deadly practice.
“On private forums, doctors and nurses have expressed deep discomfort with ending the lives of vulnerable people whose deaths were avoidable,” the report found.
Canada has one of the most permissive euthanasia programs in the world, euphemistically called “Medical Assistance in Dying.” First introduced in 2016, MAiD was initially only available to those who were terminally ill. However, in 2021, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government expanded the deadly practice to be available to those who are not at risk of death but who suffer from chronic illness. It is worth noting that whether someone is terminally ill or just chronically ill, it is gravely immoral to intentionally kill a human person, a truth infallibly affirmed by the Catholic Church.
In its report, the Associated Press revealed that internal information shows that this 2021 expansion of MAiD has led to a significant number of people in Ontario’s poorest areas seeking MAiD when their pain might be alleviated by “money, adequate housing or social connections.”
While pro-euthanasia Dying with Dignity Association President Dr. Konia Trouton assured the AP that killing patients for vulnerability or financial reasons alone is “completely forbidden,” it remains true that patients themselves suffering with these conditions are factoring that in when opting for death.
In one case, a doctor told forum participants that a middle-aged worker, whose ankle and back injuries had left him unable to work, felt that the government’s insufficient support was “leaving (him) with no choice but to pursue MAiD.”
While the man was eligible under the current MAiD law, the doctor was hesitant to euthanatize him since he had listed the reduced government payments as a key factor in his request.
In another case, a doctor revealed that a patient with a serious lung disease was seeking MAiD “mostly because he is homeless, in debt and cannot tolerate the idea of (long-term care) of any kind.”
While the doctor was hesitant, some on the forum encouraged him to euthanize the man, claiming that “looking at the wall or ceiling waiting to be fed … to have diapers changed” was sufficiently painful. The doctor finally agreed to euthanize his patient.
Other cases included an obese woman who described herself as a “useless body taking up space,” which one doctor argued met the requirements for MAiD since obesity is “a medical condition which is indeed grievous and irremediable.”
In another case, an 80-year-old woman who required dialysis sought MAiD after she lost her husband, sibling and cat in a six-week period. Some doctors argued that the loss of her husband would make her pain unbearable, while others recommended grief counseling.
Overall, in Ontario 116 of 4,528 euthanasia deaths in 2023 involved non-terminal patients, with many of those killed being from impoverished communities.
2023 data from Ontario’s chief coroner revealed that over three quarters of those euthanized when their death wasn’t imminent required disability support before their death.
Similarly, nearly 29% of those killed when they were not terminally ill lived in the poorest parts of Ontario, while only 20% of the province’s general population lives in those areas.
While some doctors appeared to have little to no qualms about killing Ontario’s vulnerable, others questioned the morality of killing their patients instead of offering real care to those in need.
“I don’t want (euthanasia) to become the solution to every kind of suffering out there,” one physician wrote on the forum.
“I have great discomfort with the idea of MAiD being driven by social circumstances,” another admitted. “I don’t have a good solution to social deprivation either, so I feel pretty useless when I receive requests like this.”
While some doctors prefer patient care to MAiD, Trudeau and his government have worked to expand MAiD thirteen-fold since it was legalized, making it the fastest growing euthanasia program in the world.
Currently, wait times to receive care in Canada have increased to an average of 27.7 weeks, leading some Canadians to despair and opt for euthanasia instead of waiting for assistance. At the same time, sick and elderly Canadians who have refused to end their lives via MAiD have reported being called “selfish” by their providers.
The most recent reports show that MAiD is the sixth highest cause of death in Canada. However, it was not listed as such in Statistics Canada’s top 10 leading causes of death from 2019 to 2022.
When asked why MAiD was left off the list, the agency said that it records the illnesses that led Canadians to choose to end their lives via euthanasia, not the actual cause of death, as the primary cause of death.
According to Health Canada, in 2022, 13,241 Canadians died by MAiD lethal injections. This accounts for 4.1 percent of all deaths in the country for that year, a 31.2 percent increase from 2021.
Praise be to God, Lord of the Worlds. May prayers and salutations be upon the most deserving of creatures, our master, beloved leader, (the Prophet) Abul-Qassim Mohammad, upon his noble and pure family, upon his pious chosen companions, and upon all the Prophets and Righteous, until the Day of Judgment.
Peace be upon you, and God’s Mercy and Blessings.
Israel and its supporters fight, kill, and commit massacres. We find ourselves in a situation that demands we take a stand.
God Almighty has said in His Sacred Book: “Permission to take up arms is hereby granted to those who are attacked; they have suffered injustice. God has all the power to give victory to those who were unjustly expelled from their homes only because they said, “God is our Lord.” Had it not been for God’s repelling some people through the might of the others, the monasteries, churches, synagogues, and mosques in which God is very often worshipped would have been utterly destroyed. God shall certainly help those who help Him. He is All-powerful and Majestic.” [Qur’an, s. 22, v. 39-40] God Most High has spoken the truth.
We are in the Resistance. We have been uplifted by our great leader, His Eminence Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, may God the Most High be pleased with him, to whom we extend our sincerest greetings. This leader has filled every land with determination, jihad, glory, and victory.
O great leader, you have not abandoned us; your spirit remains with us. Did not the Almighty say: “(The martyrs) are alive with their Lord, receiving their sustenance” [Qur’an, s. 3, v. 169]? Your teachings are our constitution; your words illuminate our path, and your speeches mark the milestones of our journey. You have not left us. The Mujahideen confront their challenges with determination and strength, and your people stand firm, embodying the deep love of God. You have not left us: our hearts are filled with your love, our hope for victory is limitless, and your enemies fear your ghost, seeing you in every mujahid and every person who loves you. Your commands will be executed: we will defeat them and drive them from our land.
I would like to address several points.
First, let us recount what has transpired this year, so that both those close to us and those not so close may understand the vision that guides us and how we perceive the unfolding events. We regard Israel as a usurping and occupying entity, posing a genuine threat to the region and the world. Israel is an expansionist occupation that is not satisfied with Palestine; it seeks to dominate the entire Arab region, the whole Islamic world, and the globe from its position in the region. This occupying force is founded on murder, displacement, massacres, and the worst vices known to this earth. This occupation relies on three pillars: 1) criminality that instills fear, 2) unwavering support from the United States, and 3) time, meaning the notion that what it cannot seize today can be taken tomorrow or the day after.
The Palestinians, led by Hamas, initiated the Al-Aqsa Flood (on October 7) to expel the occupier and declare to the world that 75 years have passed during which the occupation has become entrenched, killing, expanding, displacing, exterminating, and committing every atrocity, leaving us with not an inch of this land. Is it not the right of the Palestinians to act against this occupation, to undermine its presence, and to prevent its continuation? Instead of questioning why the Al-Aqsa Flood occurred, we should ask why the occupation took place. The Al-Aqsa Flood has happened now, after 75 years of occupation. It is a legitimate right—an inherent right for the Palestinians and all who stand beside them.
In Lebanon, we cannot separate Lebanon from Palestine, nor the region from Palestine. Did not the Israelis officially and directly occupy Lebanon in 1978, refusing to leave despite Resolution 425? Did they not occupy again in 1982, maintaining their presence for a total of 22 years, from 1978 to 2000, only to be expelled by the Resistance? Why did Israel persist in occupying Lebanon? It established the Lahd Army, hoping to create a state in southern Lebanon as a precursor to further Israeli colonization, but this plan failed. In 2006, Israel attempted once more to advance into southern Lebanon, only to fail again. Clearly, Lebanon is part of Israel’s expansionist agenda. When Israel appears to cease its expansion, it is merely due to its incapacity; whenever it feels able to expand, it will.
That is why our support for the Palestinians is a support for justice, as they have a legitimate cause. By backing the Palestinians, we restrict Israel’s options for fulfilling its expansionist ambitions. On one hand, we strive to counter the threat to the Palestinians as much as we can, and at the same time, we confront it to prevent the expansion they desire.
Without the United States—the Great Satan—Israel would not have been able to establish such a foothold. The United States seeks a new Middle East. Condoleezza Rice articulated this in 2006, just days after the Israeli attack on Lebanon, when she responded to calls for a ceasefire by saying, “These are the birth pangs of a new Middle East.” However, they failed in 2006.
Today, Netanyahu utters those same words: he desires a “new Middle East.” This means that the United States and Israel, through their crimes and acts of extermination in Palestine, Lebanon, and the region, when the U.S. hands over control to Israel to do as it pleases—mobilizing all its military, political, media, and international resources—are complicit in this project. Thus, we face the threat of a new Middle East shaped by the Israeli-American partnership, executed by the Israeli criminal under the auspices of the Great Satan. When foreigners came to Lebanon with their ambassadors and envoys, asking us through intermediaries or directly to cease our war of support for Gaza so that settlers can return to the north of occupied Palestine, they demanded that we retreat 10 kilometers or more from the border to avoid provoking Israel. They avoid discussing the root of the problem: Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the extermination of the Palestinian people. We replied that they should get a ceasefire in Gaza, after which everything would return to normal in Lebanon, everything would revert to the way it was before. They responded that they couldn’t speak in such terms, and insisted that they wanted to separate Lebanon from Gaza. We did not yield to their demands.
We consider our resistance to be legitimate. It is defensive and has two objectives: rejecting the occupation and liberating the land. O people, you must understand that the project in the region is an expansionist one, and that the Palestinians are fighting for the liberation of their homeland. When we support the Palestinians, it is to help liberate their land and protect ours. And when Iran supports the Palestinians, it is to facilitate the liberation of Palestine, which would also be a blessing for Iran. This is not merely an Iranian project, but a Palestinian endeavor supported by Iran, Hezbollah, Yemen, Iraq, and the free peoples of the region. Is it fair that the entire arrogant imperialist world should support Israel in its aggression while we are denied the right to support the oppressed in their struggle for liberation? Contributing to this cause is an honor for Iran—the Iran of Imam Khomeini, may God sanctify him; the Iran of Imam Khamenei, may God preserve him—who has committed all of Iran’s resources to strengthen the Palestinians. It is Iran’s pride that the great martyr Qassem Soleimani worked to fortify this region in the face of Israeli occupation. In contrast, it is the shame and disgrace of the United States and its allies to support Israel’s criminality and murder.
I’m going to address a question that some people naively ask through the media: “Don’t you see the damage being inflicted in Lebanon?” I ask them: who is responsible for this damage? Is it the one defending the land or the one murdering our people and destroying our infrastructure? In defending ourselves, are we causing harm? Can’t you see that it is Israel that kills, Israel that attacks, Israel that commits these atrocities? I want you to understand that if we do not confront Israel—whether under the pretext of international resolutions meant to protect Lebanon and restore its rights, or the notion that Palestine is not our concern, or any other excuse—Israel will achieve its objectives. This is how Israel operates today: they sow terror, killing children and women and committing horrific massacres to undermine the will of the people. After that, all they have to do is say, “We want this village, we want this town, we want this country,” and people will surrender because they’ve seen what has happened before. But when we stand firm, when we take on the challenge and confront the enemy, when we endure sacrifices and inflict losses upon them, we will have protected generations for decades and centuries to come. It is natural to pay a price when we face the enemy, and these sacrifices—which we honor and praise—are necessary to liberate our land, deter the enemy, and thwart its plans, for the enemy also pays a price.
Secondly, how do we cope? As the Resistance, we fight with honor, targeting their military. Israel acts with monstrosity and ignominy, murdering children, women, the elderly, hospitals, humanitarian workers, and all those in the civilian sphere. Israel’s goal is to destroy and eradicate the Resistance and its people; they want to obliterate everything. When Israel initiated its recent campaign in Lebanon, it established three phases. The first was to strike at our leadership and military capabilities in order to deprive us of our ability to defend ourselves and confront the occupation. The second phase aims to eliminate Hezbollah’s presence. Finally, the third phase seeks to redefine Lebanon to serve Israeli and American interests, allowing them to govern it at will. However, they haven’t even succeeded in achieving the first phase. It is true that we have suffered greatly, and the loss of our leaders, including His Eminence the Secretary General—may God be pleased with him—has been significant and painful. Israel attempted to neutralize our military force by targeting our capabilities and missiles in various locations, but, thank God, they were unable to complete this first phase.
Let me clarify our position: there is only one way to achieve results, recover our territory, and halt the aggression, and that is through the steadfastness of the Resistance and the unity of its people around it. The Secretary General, His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah—may God be pleased with him—has built a robust Resistance based on faith, trust in God, and preparation of all its capabilities. The mujahideen have hearts that aspire to a dignified life and do not fear death. As for the enemy, because he is morally bankrupt and all the resources at his disposal have proven useless, he has resorted to assassinating members of the Lebanese army, attacking UNIFIL forces, and bombing churches, places of worship, and mosques. Today, he even struck an aid convoy carrying the flag of the International Red Cross, prompting the Commissioner of UNRWA to declare that the agency has never faced such a situation since its inception. Even when Israel attacks UN forces, including UNIFIL, he demands they abandon their positions. Where are the emergency forces? Where is the UN? Where are France, Great Britain, and the United States? Where are all those who constantly lecture us on the necessity of respecting international resolutions? Israel disregards any international resolution. Israel does as it pleases, and international resolutions merely serve to remind Israel of the law, to no effect. Israel answers to no one.
In any case, we are facing a rampaging monster that cannot tolerate resistance preventing it from achieving its goals. But here’s the good news: we are going to grab its leash and take it back to the pen. Just wait and see.
Third, what are the equations of confrontation? We have moved from support (for Gaza) to direct confrontation with Israel since September 17, marked by the pager explosions, which were the first step toward war, culminating on September 27 with the assassination of His Eminence the Secretary General—may his soul be sanctified. Consequently, since September 17, we have entered a new phase: the confrontation of Israeli aggression against Lebanon. We are no longer in the support phase, which involved occasional escalations at the front line (along the border between Lebanon and occupied Palestine). Today, Israel has declared war against us. For the past two weeks, we have started the equation of the battlefield at the front line. The Mujahideen have been engaging the enemy in various locations, including Kfar Kila, Adaisseh, Yaroun, and Mays al-Jabal. In all honesty, their performance on the ground during these two weeks has exceeded their expectations. The mission of the Resistance is not to act as a regular army preventing a regular army from advancing; it is to conduct guerrilla operations against the enemy wherever it may be. So, when the Israelis boast that they have gained hundreds of meters in Lebanon, we respond that they are behind schedule, as they have been unable to advance in the past two weeks. In any case, as they advance, our young fighters are ready for increasingly tough confrontations.
In the first week on the front line, 25 Israeli soldiers were killed and 150 wounded. This was just in the first week. Of course, as usual, Israel has acknowledged only a fraction of those casualties. From one week ago to today—seven days since last Tuesday—we have established a new equation called “inflicting pain on the enemy,” ensuring that he feels the pain. Our missiles will reach Haifa and beyond, as our Sayyed (Nasrallah) wished. You have seen that our drone and missile strikes have reached Tel Aviv. Last Sunday alone, Israel acknowledged 100 killed and wounded—and of course, when Israel claims 100 casualties, we know there are likely more. The strike on Benyamina alone resulted in over 70 casualties. This demonstrates the Resistance’s resolve and capabilities. On Monday, we successfully targeted our missiles at Tel Aviv. Two million settlers from the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, Gush Dan, took shelter. A total of 194 towns and settlements went into their shelters, and warning sirens sounded everywhere. Ben Gurion Airport halted operations. This is all part of the “inflict pain on the enemy” equation, and it will continue.
Sidebar: On october 23rd, Hezbollah stated that the enemy’s losses have reached over 70 killed and more than 600 injured among the officers and soldiers of the Israeli army. Additionally, 28 Merkava tanks, 4 military bulldozers, one armored vehicle, and one troop transport vehicle had been destroyed. Three Hermes 450 drones and one Hermes 900 drone have also been shot down. These figures do not include Israeli losses in the military bases and barracks in the north and interior of occupied Palestine.
I tell you: since the Israeli enemy has targeted all of Lebanon, we have the right, from a defensive position, to target any point within the Israeli entity—whether in the center, north, or south. We will choose any point we deem appropriate. There are no limits in this equation, as Israel has opened this equation. In this regard, I’d like to point out something that many people may not be aware of. While we certainly cannot thank the enemy, it inadvertently aids us in striking back. How so? When we launch a missile, their anti-missile systems engage, and the debris falls on settlements and towns, which is a blessing. It’s not just about what we hit; it’s also about what their anti-missile systems hit when they fall back. Our drones and missiles are active, and sirens sound everywhere. You should understand that the sirens ringing throughout Israel are a sign of the impact on Israeli society.
We will focus our strikes on the Israeli army, its centers of presence, and its barracks. I tell the Israeli home front that the only solution is a ceasefire. I don’t say this from a position of weakness. If the Israelis do not want it, we will continue. After the ceasefire, according to the indirect agreement, the settlers will return to the north, and subsequent stages will take shape. As the war continues, the number of evacuated settlements will multiply, putting hundreds of thousands, if not over two million Israelis, at risk at any moment. Do not believe the claims of your officials about our capabilities; instead, look with your own eyes at the dead and wounded in your army, knowing that what they tell you is far from the truth.
Look at what is happening in Gaza. In Gaza, the legendary confrontation has persisted for a year, and the Israelis have achieved nothing. Martyr Haniyeh and many other martyrs have fallen, and immense sacrifices have been made: over 40,000 killed, over 100,000 wounded, and over 10,000 missing. Yet they remain steadfast, and the resistance operations continue. What is the Israeli response? Strikes against refugee camps! Near the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Hospital, they hit the tents where children were! Where is the free world? Where are the United States? Where is France? Where is Great Britain? Why do they not denounce these acts? They are all complicit in these crimes by imposing no limits on them. The Israeli army is acting immorally. As far as he is concerned, the issue of the prisoners in Gaza is closed. He does not want them back.
As for the Resistance, I tell you it will not be defeated, because it is its land, and its fighters are aspiring martyrs who accept nothing less than a dignified life. Your army is already defeated and will become even more so, with God’s grace.
Fourthly, if you seek reassurance about Hezbollah, I tell you: Hezbollah is strong, despite the heavy blows suffered after the pager explosions and everything else that has happened. We stated earlier that we have regained our strength on the ground and restored our leadership. The deputies have stepped up in place of the martyrs. I repeat: there is no vacant leadership position; every role now has a commander. The battlefield bears witness to this evolution.
Hezbollah is strong—strong in its mujahideen and capabilities, strong in its cohesion, as is the Amal movement, with this population working together in solid alliance, with strength and determination. It is strong through its allies, the noble media, supporting organizations, and the government that assists. It is strong in the national unity that has silenced dissenting voices to the point where they are unable to express themselves. It is strong due to popular support, and it is grounded in piety, under the leadership of our great leader, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah—may God the Most High be pleased with him.
I will now conclude with three messages.
The first message is for the Mujahideen: you are the greatest example of jihad and a title of honor and dignity. You are the hope and good news of victory. “Fight them! God will punish them with your hands, cover them with ignominy, grant you victory over them, and heal the hearts of a believing people.” (Quran, S. 9, V. 14). You are the trustees of the martyrs, the wounded, the prisoners, and their families—those who have given and sacrificed what they held dearest for this cause. Our trust in you is immense, and we stand with you and behind you.
The second message is directed to all the Lebanese people. We are one country. Throughout the previous phase, we have worked to build and save this country. It is Israel that disrupts our lives with its continuous aggression. Today, your human solidarity, the national solidarity of all Lebanese denominations and parties, and all religious schools strengthen our cohesion and help build our homeland politically, together, with a clear vision of who our friends and enemies are. We will remain united, with God’s grace, and let no one gamble on the notion that it will be otherwise: Hezbollah will remain at the heart of the action. Whatever happens, the results will come from the battlefield.
The third message is for our grassroots supporters. O our beloved ones, who have been displaced, endured destruction, and made sacrifices, we deeply appreciate your contributions. Your children are on the battlefield while you remain displaced. By God, you are the most honorable, the greatest, and the noblest of people. We share the same destiny; we are one family on a single path. We suffer what you suffer and rejoice in what you celebrate. We understand the sacrifices are immense, but we must endure. Today, we must be patient despite the hardships.
“If a people, one day, aspires to live, Fate must respond. The night must end, The chains must break.” [famous poem by a Tunisian revolutionary].
Victory comes with patience and requires steadfastness.
I repeat the promise of our Sayyed, Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, may God be pleased with him: I assure you that you will return to your homes, which will be rebuilt even more beautifully than before. We have begun laying the groundwork to realize this project once we have completed our struggle and triumphed, enabling us to start the work of reconstruction, with God’s grace, in cooperation with all parties. We will not abandon you, just as we know you will not abandon us.
The enemy will witness what this great resistance and its remarkable people are capable of.
Peace be upon you, and may God’s mercy and blessings be with you.
In a twisted interpretation and in line with the preestablished propaganda narrative, the Western media unanimously declared Israel’s aggression against Iran as “retaliation.”
From CNN to Fox News to Axios to the New York Times to the Washington Post – all major Western media outlets rallied behind the Tel Aviv regime as it added fuel to the already raging flames.
In the early hours of Saturday, the regime jets carried out a fresh act of aggression against the Islamic Republic of Iran, attacking several sites in Tehran, Khuzestan and Ilam provinces with missiles.
Although most of the missiles were intercepted and the military damage was minor, the regime’s move represented a serious escalation as four servicemen on Iranian soil were martyred in the attacks.
The motive for the attack was face-saving after a barrage of Iranian ballistic attacks pounded Israeli military and intelligence sites earlier this month that again laid bare the inefficacy of much-hyped Israeli air defense systems such as Iron Dome, David’s Sling and Arrow.
Iran’s ‘Operation True Promise II’ was carried out as a response to the cowardly assassinations of Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh and Iranian military commander Abbas Nilforoushan by the Israeli regime.
Iran’s military action was in full accordance with its inherent right to self-defense under Article 51 of the UN Charter, and a direct response to the regime’s repeated acts of aggression, including the violation of Iran’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Manipulative headlines used by major US television networks and newspapers
The same applied to ‘Operation True Promise I’ in April when Iran retaliated after the Israeli attack on the Iranian consulate building in the Syrian capital of Damascus.
These facts, however, were deliberately disregarded by most of the Western media outlets while reporting on Saturday’s aggression against Iran, offering the audience a decontextualized interpretation of the Israeli regime as a victim “retaliating” against the Iranian attack.
Manipulative headlines
A cursory look at Western media, of which a sample of about 20 are selected here, it is noticeable that they all shaped the headline in the same suggestive way, using the same terminology.
The term “retaliation” has been used by all these outlets for the Israeli act of aggression against Iran, while also employing other terms such as “reprisal”, “response” and “payback,” while ignoring the full sequence of events that have shaped this region in the past year.
The list of media outlets that employed such terminology includes major US networks CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox News, together covering over three-quarters of the American audience.
It also includes six of America’s most circulated newspapers, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and New York Post.
Among them, Fox News went the farthest in its pro-Zionist bias, stating in its headline that Israeli “retaliatory” strikes against Iran followed a “missile barrage targeting Israelis,” although only military targets were precisely targeted and there were no settler casualties.
The Washington Post stated that the Israeli attacks add to the “cycle of tit-for-tat strikes” between the two sides, without specifying who started that cycle by provocatively targeting the other side.
Most other media outlets in the story summary and the text itself treated the Iranian retaliatory ballistic attack as the “cause” and did not mention what preceded it.
In this way, media analysts say, the deception of the majority of the American public has been completely achieved and there has been no progress since the times when by similar propaganda methods they turned the majority of the population for military aggressions in the West Asia region.
Other US media that resorted to the same distortions by describing Israeli aggression as “retaliatory” are the news agency Associated Press (AP), National Public Radio (NPR), the state propaganda broadcaster Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), news websites Al-Monitor and Axios, etc.
Among the international media, the same terminology in the headlines was also used by the French pan-European television network EuroNews, the newspaper Le Monde, the British television news channel Sky News, the Saudi television network Al Arabiya, Emirati news website The National, and of course, the Israeli media.
Congruently, the headline of the five mentioned major American television networks for the Iranian retaliatory attack from the beginning of the month was again almost uniform, “Iran launches missile attack on Israel,” without mentioning that it was retaliatory in nature.
Headlines in Western media seek to manufacture consent for Israeli terrorism
These identical headlines with unanimous manipulation of the context are by no means a coincidence, according to media analysts, but a reflection of centralized propaganda emanating from the top of the American regime and projected further onto the media and client states.
Such statements and the aforementioned media headlines are the result of unquestioningly following the official American narrative that the Israeli regime is a “victim” and that their aggressions on all surrounding countries are “the right of self-defense.”
Social media users took to X to call out the hypocrisy of Western media outlets.
“This is ridiculous pro-Israel propaganda in the media. Israel’s attack on Iran was not “retaliatory”; Iran’s response to Israel was retaliatory,” wrote journalist Ben Norton.
“Israel started this by first bombing Iran’s consulate in Syria, then launching an attack inside Tehran, then killing an IRGC general.”
Peter Daou, a political analyst, said these distortions are how the propaganda works.
“You’ll notice mainstream US media outlets using the word “retaliatory” in describing Israel’s attack on Iran. That’s how state propaganda works,” he wrote.
After weeks of grandiose threats, Israel struck a number of military sites in Iran over the weekend. While many details of the attack remain unclear, Iran’s leadership suggests that a qualitative response is on the horizon.
Twenty-five days after Iran’s massive 1 October missile attacks on Israel, and following weeks of threats and bluster about its huge preparations, Tel Aviv unleashed its own offensive against military sites of the Islamic Republic of Iran in the early hours of Saturday, 26 October.
The Israeli attack started in the capital, Tehran, where at around 02:15 local time (22:45 GMT), very loud explosions were heard on the western side of the city. Reports which usually are published immediately on the social media platform X, suggested six explosions had been heard.
A multi-wave attack
Footage surfacing afterward — though scarce in number — showed Iranian anti-aircraft guns firing into the sky over Tehran, but no sign of missiles were recorded in those videos. The lack of visible missile evidence sparked debate among analysts, with some suggesting that the occupation state employed tactics designed to evade traditional detection methods, potentially by using low-altitude or stealth drones. But others have questioned whether Israeli jets even entered Iranian airspace.
The second and third waves of strikes came two to four hours later when aerial defense systems became active in Iran’s western province of Ilam and the southwestern province of Khuzestan. This multi-wave strategy indicated a calculated attempt to wear down Iran’s defenses, probing their response times and resilience in multiple regions simultaneously.
With news about the initial raids ebbing, western media began to frame the Israeli strikes as enormous as well as successful. These evidence-free portrayals were met with skepticism from Iranian officials, who emphasized the effectiveness of their air defenses in minimizing any damage from Israeli strikes.
The New York Times wrote, “Israeli jets first targeted air defense batteries and later struck Iran’s missile arrays and production sites.”
Axios quoted Israeli officials as claiming, “Israel had sent a message to Tehran, ahead of the airstrikes, warning the Iranians not to respond.”
In the morning, the Israeli military issued a statement saying “it had completed its strikes but that if Iran makes the mistake of carrying out another attack, Israel will have to fight back.”
The Khatam al-Anbiya Air Defense Base — the central command in charge of defending the skies of Iran — meanwhile announced that:
“Despite all previous warnings from the Iranian authorities to the criminal, illegal Zionist regime against engaging in any form of adventurism, that fake regime in an escalating move struck military locations in Tehran, Ilam, and Khuzestan. The joint aerial defense of the country successfully intercepted and thwarted the aggressor’s raids. Despite that, limited damage was done to some sites with the extent of the harm being investigated.”
The Iranian army later in the day announced the death of at least four officers, including a colonel, killed during Israeli air raids in Khuzestan. An informed source speaking to The Cradle on condition of anonymity reveals that the number of Iranian casualties is higher than what is officially being reported.
What were Tel Aviv’s tactics?
More than 24 hours on, details about the Israeli air raids or the extent of the harm to the Iranian military are unclear and patchy at best. Both sides have a vested interest in controlling the narrative: Tel Aviv to project power and deterrence, and Tehran to maintain an image of resilience and minimize perceived vulnerabilities.
Israel says it deployed over 100 F-35 fighter jets to conduct the offensive. However, an Iranian conservative lawmaker on Saturday morning claimed that the strikes in Tehran were actually carried out by small drones or quadcopters.
Hamid Rasaei wrote on his Telegram channel that “the Zionist regime’s agents in Tehran were involved in those attacks and Iranian anti-aircraft guns fired at those microdrones.”
The narrative in the west of the country was different. Images of an Israeli missile’s booster falling in Iraq’s Salahuddin province suggest Israel used the Golden Horizon Air launched Ballistic Missile to hit Iranian radars in the western belt of the country.
The use of Iraqi airspace by Israel was confirmed by the Khatam Al-Anbiya Air Defense Base. It has blamed the US military for allowing Israel to fire air-launched ballistic missiles into Iranian territory from 100 kilometers deep inside the Iraqi soil. No such permission had been granted from Iraqi authorities.
Baghdad was joined by other Arab capitals in strongly condemning the Israeli attack on Iranian soil without referring to the use of its airspace by Israel. The Cradle’s correspondent in Baghdad says, “Iraq did not approve of the use of its skies, but Prime Minister [Mohammed Shia] al-Sudani has no say in this matter because Washington controls the Iraqi airspace, while Iraqi radar systems are old.”
Khatam al-Anbiya has not mentioned Jordan, a country that denies involvement in the Israeli aerial attack despite its track record of defending the occupation state from previous Iranian retaliatory strikes.
Limited success or major damage?
Although the official Iranian media have downplayed the extent and strength of the Israeli strikes, University of Tehran academic and political analyst Mohammad Marandi tells The Cradle that “it was a big operation on the side of Israel and actually a considerable one, as Israelis did a harm to Iranian radar and defense systems.”
Iranian academic Foad Izadi believes “the Israeli attack was not something that many had expected, much less than what was thought it would do.” But, he emphasizes, “(In essence) Israel has no right to strike Iran, whether the strikes are small, medium or large. Iran is an independent country, and attacking another country is a violation of international law.”
Izadi dismisses western claims that Israel’s patently illegal strikes on Iran are justified as “self-defense,” pointing out that, in all cases, Tel Aviv launched the original aggressions while Tehran was legally retaliating.
“Iran fired a barrage of missiles on Israel for the first time in April in the wake of an Israeli attack on the Iranian embassy in Damascus, Syria, that had been conducted despite Tehran’s previous warnings. The second encounter happened following Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran. Iran had the right to respond to the killing of its guest, as well as the events that unfolded in Lebanon including Nasrallah’s assassination.”
Izadi points to a stellar performance by Iran’s air defense systems, in which “Iran was basically able to minimize the effect of this aggression” by Israel.
Marandi, who served as a consultant for the Iranian negotiating team at the last round of Vienna nuclear talks, agrees with the assessment that Iran’s air defenses performed well:
“Iranians had conducted security and intelligence operations ahead of the strikes and succeeded in limiting the extent of damage by dummies and decoys as well as spreading misinformation about sensitive sites.”
As he tells The Cradle, the damage inflicted on Iranian military sites was not grave because “the possibility of a direct confrontation with the United States convinced Iranians many years ago to relocate almost all sensitive sites and strategic production facilities underground. Neither warplanes nor missiles are able to penetrate into those underground facilities.”
“What remains on the ground are small workshops producing missile spare parts and they are scattered across the country, but not near borders, that’s why the strike failed to leave a significant harm,” Marandi adds.
True Promise 3?
Saturday’s direct hits on the Iranian capital and Iran’s provincial military facilities were the first since 1987, when former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s military forces rained missiles on Tehran and other Iranian cities. The psychological impact of targeting Tehran itself cannot be overstated; it represents a symbolic blow that challenges Iranian security and sovereignty and will likely necessitate a meaningful and calibrated response.
That notion was reiterated by Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, who has the final word on all national security matters. During a meeting with“Martyrs of Security” family members earlier today, Khamenei pointed out that Israel has yet to learn its lesson:
“They (the Israelis) need to understand the power, determination, and innovation of the Iranian nation and its youth. How to convey this power and resolve of the Iranian nation to the Zionist regime is for our officials to determine, and what is in the best interest of the nation and the country should be done.”
Foad Izadi believes a third Iranian attack against the occupation state is likely because “Iran’s leaders are very much in line with the analysis that attacking the country should not become normalized. Mohammad Marandi says Tehran’s retaliation isn’t a matter of if, but when: “Even if Tehran had not been struck and only Ilam had been targeted by the Israelis, the Iranian leadership would have reacted,” he tells The Cradle.
“Iran’s retaliation to April’s Damascus strike took days. After Haniyeh’s assassination, it took months for Tehran to strike back,” Marandi elaborates. Following the Israeli strikes, Iran’s Supreme National Security Council met to get briefed on the targets that were hit and assess the extent of damage. While a possible Iranian military response was reportedly discussed, there is no information yet on whether that decision has been made.
Iran’s foreign minister says the United States’ complicity in Israel’s act of aggression against the country is “quite clear” as it has provided the regime with military equipment and airspace to conduct the terrorist raid.
Abbas Araghchi made the remarks on Sunday, a day after US officials claimed that Washington was not directly involved with the Israeli assault that targeted military installations and claimed the lives of four Iranian Army forces.
“The US is fully behind the Zionist regime and is complicit in all its crimes. In the operation two nights ago, the Americans’ participation is quite clear to us,” he said.
“The least they (the Americans) did was to provide a space corridor for the Zionist regime, as well as the equipment they already supplied [to Israel] somehow for participation in this operation.”
The top diplomat also noted that the United States bears responsibility for its “completely obvious” partnership in the occupying regime’s atrocities and escalation of tensions in West Asia.
He further said that Israel is committing crimes in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon using US weapons and enjoying Washington’s political support.
“It is a well-proven fact that without the US, Israel has no power in the region,” Araghchi emphasized.
In the early hours of Saturday, Israeli warplanes used the space available to the US military in Iraq to fire long-range air-to-air missiles in Iran’s Tehran, Khuzestan, and Ilam provinces in flagrant violation of international law and the UN Charter.
Iran said that the attack was successfully intercepted and countered by the country’s air defense system and that it only caused limited damage to radar sites.
In an X post after the criminal raid, Araghchi said Iran reserves the right to duly respond to this aggression, which cannot be separated from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and bloodshed in Lebanon.
TEHRAN – Iranian officials will decide how to respond to the recent attack on Iranian territory carried out by Israel, Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said on Sunday.
“How to convey this power and resolve of the Iranian nation to the Zionist regime is for our officials to determine, and what is in the best interest of the nation and the country should be done,” Khamenei was quoted as saying by the Nour News agency.
Khamenei added that Israel’s attack should “neither be exaggerated nor downplayed.”
The Israel Defense Forces said overnight on Saturday that it had struck military targets in Iran in response to the attacks on the Jewish state on October 1. The CBS News broadcaster reported, citing sources, that the Israeli attack on Iran had been limited to military targets without involving nuclear or oil facilities.
According to IRNA, none of Iran’s oil facilities were damaged.
The Fars news agency claimed that Israel had struck a number of military bases in the west and southwest of Tehran. At the same time, the Tasnim news agency stated that the military centers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC, elite units of the Armed Forces), located in the west and southwest of the Iranian capital, had not been damaged.
A Sputnik correspondent reported that at about 1:25 GMT, a second series of explosions was heard in the central part of Tehran, in the area of the Russian embassy, which lasted about a minute.
… On Saturday, Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi also addressed the issue of the attacks in a post on X, strongly condemning the atrocity as a “reckless and cowardly assault” and a “violation of international law and the UN Charter.”
”We fully reserve our right to duly respond to this aggression, which cannot be separated from Israel’s genocide in Gaza and bloodshed in Lebanon. The world must unite against this common threat to international peace & security,” the top diplomat added.
Araghchi sent a letter to the United Nations, calling the attack “unlawful and aggressive” and denouncing the Israeli regime for violation of the Islamic Republic’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
He called on the UN to take a “firm stance and condemn” the regime.
Also on Saturday, Araghchi spoke to Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, Bassam al-Sabbagh, and Badr Abdelatty, his counterparts from Qatar, Syria, and Egypt, asserting likewise that the Islamic Republic would undoubtedly deliver a “decisive and proper” response to any act of aggression against its territorial sovereignty and security.
He, meanwhile, urged the international community to try to prevent expansion of the scope of war to the entire region by taking “prompt and effective action” to enable realization of just ceasefires in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, which have been subjected to incessant deadly aggression by the Israeli regime since last October.
For their part, the foreign officials condemned the Israeli attack against the Islamic Republic, while laying emphasis on the need for enhancement of efforts at bringing about cessation of the regime’s aggression against Gaza and Lebanon, stopping its war machine, and reestablishment of stability and security in the region. – Full article
After a few cat and mouse days of Defense Secretary Lloyd “Raytheon” Austin’s denials, the Pentagon finally yesterday affirmed that there was evidence of a North Korean military presence in Russia. Asked what they were doing in Russia, Austin replied, “What exactly they are doing? Left to be seen. These are things that we need to sort out.”
For days, South Korea (no conflict of interest there) and Ukraine (nor there) had been claiming that thousands of North Korean soldiers had swooped in to rescue a beaten and bloodied Russian army from certain defeat at the hands of Ukraine (which has lost nearly a million men at arms in the nearly three year war). As the Russian army accelerates its pace, burning through the last fortified towns in eastern Ukraine, the mainstream media continues – with a few reluctant but panicked exceptions – to push the “Russia is losing” narrative.
The added twist of thousands of “evil communists” from North Korea screaming across the Russian tundra (on horseback, no doubt) promises to add new plot lines to the drama concocted by the mainstream media and most of Washington, and indeed the usual suspects are biting furiously at the bait.
Take US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Michael Turner. He is so outraged that there might be members of the North Korean military in Russia that he actually sent a letter to President Biden calling for war. “If North Korean military forces join Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Fox News reported him to say, “the US should consider the possibility of direct military action.”
Against whom? We are already involved in a proxy war with Russia through Ukraine. We are already directly involved in Israel’s seven-front war against its neighbors and Iran. Who does Chairman Turner think we should attack if North Korean troops are present in Russia? Russia? North Korea? China? All of them?
North Korea and Russia have just signed a treaty whereby their two militaries will more closely collaborate and even come to each other’s aid if one is threatened. While such an agreement may give Turner and the other neocons the vapors, it is nothing different than the mutual defense treaty the US has with its NATO partners and with many others on a bipartisan basis.
Treaties for me but not for thee? Is that the name of the “rules-based international order” game?
The hypocrisy runs even deeper. It is well-known and widely reported that NATO countries are training Ukrainian troops not only in NATO countries but inside Ukraine itself. So it’s absolutely fine for the US and its NATO partners to insert troops inside Ukraine to train its military to kill more Russians and to even operate sophisticated weapons systems inside Ukraine that the Ukrainian military could never operate on its own, but if Russia strikes up a deal with North Korea where the two armies can train together inside Russia, it’s a “red line” (as Chairman Turner wrote) that demands that we start WWIII.
It seems we are not sending our best and brightest to Congress.
What we are witnessing is the birth of a new narrative after some 500 Ukraine narratives have already collapsed under the weight of their own contradictions. Remember the two years of “Russia is losing” narrative? Well just this week NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, General Christopher Cavoli, said in an interview with the German Spiegel magazine that Russia would emerge from this conflict actually STRONGER than when it entered!
But of course they are losing…
So what to do? Just as the Hollywood writers do once a sit-com has run too many seasons and is playing itself out, plot-wise, insert a new character. Insert a new twist, to bamboozle the viewers and give them a new reason to keep watching the program. It’s funny but not funny, because the future of the world hangs in the balance. Just like the film “Idiocracy” has become a documentary in our absurd times, so has “Wag the Dog.” The military industrial complex with its Hollywood-like allies producing endless narratives to keep the gravy train rolling…
P.S. if anyone believes this whole insane and hysterical anti-North Korea narrative is not political…well I have a bridge in Brazoria, TX, to sell you…
This article first appeared as an exclusive for Ron Paul Institute subscribers. Subscribe for free here.
If bullshit was fungible, both Israel and Ukraine would be rolling in dough and not need another dime of foreign aid. The nonsense spilling out of Tel Aviv and Kiev is legendary and much of the Western public is slurping it up like a ravenous dog eating a bowl of rabbit stew.
Let’s start with Israel. The Zionists used more than 100 aircraft to send an estimated 200 air-launched ballistic missiles into Iran. Israeli aircraft did not dare to fly inside Iran. And what happened? Iran, with Russian help, shot down the majority of the Israeli missiles. Iran showed no signs of panic or anger in the aftermath of the attack — not what one would expect if Israel’s assault had been a smashing success.
Compare for yourself. The first video show’s Iran’s October 1 attack on Israel. The second video shows what happened in the skies over Tehran.
It is true that some of the Israeli missiles got through and killed four Iranian soldiers. Yet, check out this headline in today’s Jerusalem Post:
The Zionist spin patrol is working overtime to paint lipstick on their pig operation. The Zionists convinced themselves that Iran’s strike on October 1 was meaningless, notwithstanding clear video — and later satellite imagery — of damage from Iran’s missile barrage. Now, when confronted with evidence of Iranian air defense knocking Israeli missiles from the sky, they simply pretend it did not happen.
Here is a typical response from an ardent Zionist upon reports that Israel’s attack was underway:
The Israeli attack has begun and apparently they had no problem getting past the Iran air defenses. Early reports are about attacks hitting around Tehran which suggests they are going after command and control and possibly military leadership. Too early to know what is happening but by morning the real war will be underway. So far they have not hit the oil which is a surprise as that would finally sink Kamala which Netanyahu wants to do. The oil markets may think this is all OK and oil prices will remain around where they are but this is just chapter one. Before this is over the nukes and oil will get destroyed by Israel. The nukes will be next up as there is no time to lose for Israel to stop any chance of Iran fining some way to use a nuke against Israel.
So, what was Mr. Big Predictor’s reaction as dawn broke in Tehran?
It seems this was a staged attack with the intent to send a message and not to do grave damage. Arab nations were told ahead of time and passed that along to Tehran. We will need to wait a few hours to see what really happened, but it now seems clear this was not the all out attack Israel is capable of and it is instead a tit-for-tat strike to keep the US onside for now until Trump takes over. Israel needs Thaad and supplies of arms for now, so it may be that Netanyahu decided to play ball with DC to get what it needs and not use weapons it currently needs in Lebanon. The oil market will get this wrong and not realize what is yet to happen next time.
What sane folks need to understand is that no amount of evidence will shake the Zionists from their delusional fantasies. It is akin to those Americans who still insist that we could have won in Vietnam. We just didn’t try hard enough.
While Israel is doing its victory dance over its totally awesome, amazing, incredible air strike in Iran, Hezbollah, which was supposedly decapitated and rendered impotent, is stepping up its missile and rocket attacks in Israel. Here is a list of Hezbollah’s operations in the last 24-hours.
1- On the afternoon of Friday, October 25, 2024, a gathering of zionist forces in the “Shoumera” settlement was targeted (https://t.me/PalestineResist/65037) with a guided missile, resulting in confirmed casualties.
3- At 06:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64867) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces around the town of Aita al-Shaab.
4- At 11:30, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64868) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the attacks and massacres committed by the zionist enemy, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the “Tel Nof” airbase south of “Tel Aviv,” hitting their targets accurately.
5- At 12:15, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64876) a rocket barrage targeted the “Mishar” base (the main intelligence headquarters for the northern region in Safad).
7- At 13:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64954) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the zionist enemy’s attacks and massacres, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched a qualitative rocket barrage at zionist forces gathered at the “Ayelet” base.
8- At 13:23, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64877) a rocket barrage targeted a gathering of zionist forces in the Al-Musharifa area in Ras Al-Naqoura.
20- At 18:00, (https://t.me/PalestineResist/64985) as part of the Khaybar series of operations and in response to the zionist enemy’s attacks and massacres, and with the call “At your service, Nasrallah,” Islamic Resistance fighters launched an aerial attack with a squadron of attack drones on the “Naoura” base east of Afula, hitting their targets accurately.
Speaking of barely hanging on, Ukrainian forces are retreating all along the 900-mile front.
Selidovo has fallen.An unexpected dash of the Russian Army and we are already at NOVOUKRAINKA.
Information is coming from the field that our troops, after a big breakthrough, were able to firmly establish themselves in Shakhtyorskoye and continue to push the enemy out of the village.
The prospects for a Shakhtar breakthrough are impressive.
As far as we understand, the goal is to reach Razliv and take up positions on the Volchya River with access to the rear of the enemy garrison in Kurakhovo.
Plus pressure from two flanking directions: on the AFU group in Bogoyavlenka, thus enabling their expedient removal, and on Velikaya Novosyolka – leveling the main “joy” of the counter oink last year.
By the way, the direction of the conscious flight of the Ukrainian Armed Forces to the Dnipropetrovsk region is also a so-so idea – the enemy has no sensible fortifications between Pavlograd and Pokrovsk. So the AFU will not be able to pull off the trick of drawing us to the prepared lines and then splitting up between Pavlograd and Konstantinovka.
Then there is the Ukrainian/CIA story claiming that North Korean troops are fighting on the front because Russia has lost so many men, it had to import new cannon fodder. I believe this story was ginned up by an increasingly desperate CIA in order to create a cover story for bringing South Korean pilots to Romania to fly F-16s. The “news” about the North Korean troops first appeared in the New York Times under David Sanger’s byline on October 8. Sanger has a long history of being a willing conduit for CIA “leaks.”
Now it has become clear why the North Korea issue is being actively stirred up during the SMO. South Korea is sending its soldiers and officers to fight in Ukraine. Let me remind you that South Korea is a passionate, evil six of the USA (slang for “lackey”- in Russia, 6 is the lowest numbered card in a deck of cards). They are not as smart as Japan, but not as dumb as the Ukraine. Most importantly, they are high-tech. . . .
Last week, the first 16 pilots from South Korea’s 19th Air Wing arrived at NATO’s Romanian air base near Mihail Kogalniceanu. Apparently, South Korea sent the first squadron of the air wing, the most prepared and combat-ready, to the war in full force. This means they are planning to throw them into battle immediately.
Currently, the F-16 fighters allocated to Ukraine are also in Romania – at the Fetești air base on the border with Moldova. As soon as the South Korean pilots go there, this will be an indicator of the imminent use of these aircraft in Ukraine. In addition to the F-16 pilots, pilots of South Korean T-50 combat training aircraft, which are used in the southern army as light attack aircraft, have arrived at the air base in the commune of Mikhail Kogalniceanu. It is assumed that these aircraft may be useful as hunters for “Geraniums” in the protection of the Odessa port.
Remains to be seen if the South Koreans will actually enter the fight. If they do, they will learn that Russia ain’t playing games and many of those pilots will likely die. I discussed this issue with Judge Napolitano. I am also posting a live podcast that Andrei Martyanov and I did with Nima as Israel’s attack was wrapping up Friday night my time.
The so-called “rules-based international order” aims to facilitate a hegemonic world, which entails displacing international law. While international law is based on equal sovereignty for all states, the rules-based international order upholds hegemony on the principle of sovereign inequality.
The rules-based international order is commonly presented as international law plus international human rights law, which appears benign and progressive. However, this entails introducing contradictory principles and rules. The consequence is a system devoid of uniform rules, in which “might makes right”. International human rights law introduces a set of rules to elevate the rights of the individual, yet human-centric security often contradicts state-centric security as the foundation of international law.
The US as the hegemonic state can then choose between human-centric security and state-centric security, while adversaries must abide strictly by state-centric security due to their alleged lack of liberal democratic credentials. For example, state-centric security as the foundation of international law insists on the territorial integrity of states, while human-centric security allows for secession under the principle of self-determination. The US will thus insist on territorial integrity in allied countries such as Ukraine, Georgia or Spain, while supporting self-determination within adversarial states such as Serbia, China, Russia and Syria. The US can interfere in the domestic affairs of adversaries to promote liberal democratic values, yet the US adversaries do not have the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of the US. To facilitate a hegemonic international order, there cannot be equal sovereignty for all states. … continue
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