The truth is out there, behind all the lies
By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | November 12, 2024
There is nothing more noble than telling the truth, and yet for simply delivering nothing but the truth Palestinian journalists are being killed; they — and their families — are targeted by Israeli soldiers in Palestine and Lebanon. The death toll of journalists in Gaza alone has risen to 177, with not one newsroom left standing in the enclave.
Meanwhile, professional liars from the Zionist State’s diplomatic corps deny that its army targets journalists deliberately, even when presented with irrefutable evidence. According to Irish journalist Frank McDonald, “These shameless men and women lie on behalf of a country that is itself built on lies, mythology, terrorism, land theft and deep denial of historical truths, especially about Palestine and what successive Israeli governments have done to the Palestinians.”
Despite the rising death toll of journalists and other civilians across Gaza, the occupied West Bank (including Jerusalem) and Lebanon, Israel never tires of telling the world that it is “the only democracy” in the Middle East; we know that is simply not true on several levels, due to the fact that major human rights bodies have said that it has passed the legal threshold for classification as an apartheid state, including B’Tselem, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. Moreover, one of the keystones of democracy is a free press, but since October last year, 21 local radio stations, 15 local and international news agencies, 15 TV stations, six local newspapers, three broadcasting towers, eight print media and 13 media institutions have been destroyed in Gaza.
The Israeli government’s policy of terrorising and killing journalists and its ban on foreign media makes it impossible for journalists like me to get into Gaza so that we can do our jobs and report the truth of what we witness. Not that we would do that any better than the courageous Palestinian journalists, but wherever journalists are banned we all know that it is because powerful people in powerful places do not want anyone shining the light of publicity on their activities.
Meanwhile, Israel pumps out lies on a daily basis using its militarised propaganda machine as well as paid-for stooges who earn a nice living out of promoting the Zionist State as a peace-loving nation and a victim of anti-Semitism.
They are given a free ride by organisations like the BBC.
Any journalist who calls out the egregious lies and victim blaming from the apartheid state’s representative of choice is likely to disappear from public view in what is a time of unprecedented censorship.
A few days ago, we got a close up view of the slick Zionist propaganda machine in action as the notorious Maccabi Tel Aviv football fans wreaked havoc in Amsterdam. Journalists and politicians lined up to condemn the violence in the city of Anne Frank, the Jewish girl who documented her life in hiding from the Nazis during the German occupation of the Netherlands before she was sent to Bergen-Belsen concentration camp where she died.
For two days, these football fans, who have a long and grubby history of violence and racism at home and abroad, took their vile, racist antics to the Arab community in the Dutch capital. The response was one of which any community under fire would be proud; they fought back and defended themselves. The global reaction to this, though, was perverse.
European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, aka “Frau Genocide”, expressed her outrage in the media without checking the facts. It was enough for her to know that Arabs had resisted Israeli abuse and violence in the home city of Anne Frank so it must be the fault of the immigrant community and not the foul-mouthed yobs from Tel Aviv.
The truth was just an inconvenient fact for von der Leyen and her deputy, as well as the reviled Dutch politician Geert Wilders and Free Press editor Barry Weiss. The latter two referred, somewhat hysterically, to the violence as a “pogrom” against Jews.
Even though elected members of Amsterdam’s city council confirmed to Al Jazeera that the Maccabi fans had ignited the violence, by that time British and European mainstream media were toeing the Tel Aviv line of “Jews under attack”. Words like “pogrom” were employed even though the Zionist narrative was far from the truth.
I am disgusted at the reaction of my colleagues from the mainstream media who fell for the Zionist propaganda.
While heroic Palestinian journalists are risking life and limb to bring cold hard facts to the table, their western counterparts are destroying their own integrity by putting out false information about what happened in Amsterdam last week (and what happens in Palestine under Israeli occupation).
Shameless politicians also sent out messages on social media, with bogus claims of anti-Semitism and helpless Jews under attack in Amsterdam. Investigative journalist and former Labour MP Chris Mullin saw through the lies, though, and asked: “How on earth did these people manage to present themselves as victims?”
The other question we need to ask is whether the Israeli-led violence in Amsterdam was a spillover from the impunity with which Israel is allowed to act in the occupied Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. Do the Israeli thugs in Maccabi Tel Aviv colours, around 80 per cent of whom are thought to be serving in the occupation army which stands accused of committing genocide and war crimes, now feel empowered and entitled to take their thuggery wherever they like? Many may well have mental health issues arising from their experiences in Gaza and the West Bank. Having thugs running amok in Europe boasting about killing Palestinian babies just adds to the evidence lawyers need to prosecute these lawless individuals.
This is something that Frau van der Leyen might want to consider because the more she excuses and justifies the violence of Israelis on Europe’s streets, the more we will be expected to accept such aggression from these psychopaths, and the more danger we will all face.
Predictably, political thugs like Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have weaponised anti-Semitism, ignoring the racism and violence of the Israeli football fans which kicked it all off in Amsterdam. When Netanyahu said that he would send the army and aircraft to get the violent Maccabi Tel Aviv fans out of Amsterdam as quickly as possible, it was an exercise in damage limitation, not out of concern for their safety in this bogus “pogrom”.
While I am sure that the 7 October Hamas-led cross-border incursion and its aftermath have had significant emotional and behavioural impacts on the Israeli public, the need for a psychological intervention has increased. If the Western media and politicians were true friends of Israel they’d realise that this is a nation with severe psychological problems that are easily triggered by the very sight of a Palestinian flag. Why else did they attack homes in Amsterdam which had such flags on display?
While it’s increasingly difficult to show any empathy or sympathy for Israeli citizens without comparing and contrasting the cause and effects of 75 years of brutality against the Palestinians, the world needs to open its eyes to the psychotic nature of the settler-colonial state and those who run its brutal military occupation. In the immediate aftermath of 7 October, there was a reported 30 per cent rise in demand for psychiatric drugs. As many as 35 per cent of war-related casualties were also found to be related to psychological issues. It is now clear that the individual mental health needs of Israelis have increased, with talk of an impending mental health “pandemic”.
Israeli Health Minister Uriel Buso has admitted that the rogue state is in the midst of its worst-ever mental health crisis since its establishment. Buso made the comment at the Enosh Mental Health 2024 Conference in Tel Aviv in September.
The crisis can be seen in Israeli football stadiums where, according to this report, the most violent fans come from Beitar Jerusalem, Hapoel Tel Aviv and Maccabi Haifa. While many hoped that 7 October would lead to a change in the mentality that had taken root on the terraces, the reality is completely opposite. Racism, violence and social polarisation have become commonplace in many football stadiums in Israel, says news journalist Ben Goldfriend. His eight-page report on the phenomenon, written in Hebrew, is depressing and strengthens the argument that Israeli football clubs should be banned from UEFA competitions and the national team should be banned from UEFA and FIFA international tournaments.
So far, 112,000 people have signed this petition calling for Israel to be suspended from all international sporting competitions. “In recent years, we have witnessed how the violent and racist atmosphere on the pitches is becoming more and more serious,” said Matan Segal, the director of the Israeli programme to kick racism and violence out of football. “The attempts to address the problems with the same means that were tried in the past have proven to be ineffective.”
The Israeli football season so far has been blighted with numerous incidents of racist chants, including — and this is astonishing — derogatory chants about the Holocaust.
I wonder what Frau Genocide or British Prime Minister Keir Starmer have to say about that.
If our leaders really are concerned about the safety of their own citizens in Europe then a travel ban should be imposed immediately on all Israeli teams and football fans, especially those serving in the rogue Israel Defence Forces. Editors across the media should instruct their best feature writers and investigative reporters to expose the violence of the Zionist State’s sports fans in exactly the same way that they exposed the true nature of English football hooliganism during the 1970s.
Israel’s National Security Council claimed on Sunday that pro-Palestinian groups were calling for attacks on Israelis and Jews in multiple European cities. Including some in the UK, “under the pretence of demonstrations and protests”. As usual, Israel has provided not one jot of evidence for its blatant lie and yet the UK Government and Sir Keir Starmer duly went along with it. “There is no place for anti-Semitism on our streets and we will not allow cultural and sporting events to be hijacked by those who seek to promote hate,” intoned Starmer. “Those who push this poison — offline and online — will face the full force of the law. Police and the security services continue to work to ensure the safety of every community in this country.”
If Starmer was genuine about protecting “every community in this country” he would ban every sporting event involving any team and fans from Israel.
Just consider this: if the Labour Home Secretary Yvette Cooper could ban the grandson of Nelson Mandela from speaking on a UK-wide speaking tour promoting peace and justice, then I’m sure that every legal mechanism is in place to crack down on Israel sports fans who feel emboldened enough to act with impunity and wreak havoc and violence on our streets.
Trump’s foreign policy team signals further drift from ‘America First’ to ‘Israel First’
MEMO | November 12, 2024
https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1855593982958379321
Israel fails to meet US aid demands to ease Gaza catastrophe, aid groups say
MEMO | November 12, 2024
Israel failed to meet a series of US demands intended to improve the humanitarian crisis in Gaza by a deadline set for today, aid groups have said according to Reuters.
The United States told its ally Israel in a letter on 13 October that it must take steps to improve the aid situation within 30 days. If not, it could face potential restrictions on US military aid.
“Israel not only failed to meet the US criteria that would indicate support to the humanitarian response, but concurrently took actions that dramatically worsened the situation on the ground, particularly in Northern Gaza,” a group of eight aid groups including Oxfam, Save the Children and the Norwegian Refugee Council said in 19-page report.
For more than a month, Israeli forces have been pushing deeper into north Gaza, surrounding hospitals and shelters and creating fresh waves of displacement.
On Friday, global food security experts released a rare warning of imminent famine in parts of northern Gaza unless immediate steps were taken to ease the situation.
Israel says measures, including the opening of a new crossing into Gaza, have been implemented, however others pertain to its security and have not been put in place.
Washington has not yet commented on whether its conditions have been met. Last week, the State Department said Israel had taken some measures to increase aid access to Gaza but had so far failed to significantly turn around the humanitarian situation.
Houthis claim attack on US aircraft carrier
RT | November 12, 2024
Yemen’s Houthis launched a “successful” missile attack on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier in the Arabian Sea on Tuesday, according to a statement posted on X by spokesman Yahya Saree. A second attack targeted two American naval destroyers in the Red Sea, he said.
The Houthis are a Shia group styling themselves as the Yemeni government and who control the capital Sanaa and northwest of the country. They have been disrupting Israeli and Western shipping in the Red Sea for almost a year, in an effort to pressure Israel to stop attacking Gaza.
Tuesday’s strikes involved “a number of cruise missiles and drones” and were conducted “while the American enemy was preparing to carry out hostile operations” targeting Yemen, the Houthi statement said.
According to Saree, the group “achieved its goals successfully” and an air attack by US forces was “thwarted.” The two operations lasted eight hours, he added.
Following recent escalations between Hezbollah and Israel, the Houthis have added to their list of demands an end to “Israeli aggression” against Lebanon. They also blamed the US and UK, which have launched large-scale attacks on the group, for “turning the Red Sea region into a zone of military tension” and for the subsequent “repercussions on maritime navigation.”
The US Navy has not yet issued any statements regarding the purported attack on its ship.
Earlier on Tuesday, China’s Xinhua news agency reported, citing Yemeni sources, that at least ten Houthis were killed in two separate US drone strikes in the country’s central Al-Bayda province.
The United States Central Command (Centcom) confirmed in a post on X that aircraft from the USS Abraham Lincoln had supported operations against the “Iran-backed Houthis.”
On Monday, Centcom said it had also carried out strikes against several targets in Syria that it believes are associated with Iran-backed groups. It said the strikes were in response to attacks on US forces, but did not confirm which groups had been targeted. The US has accused the Houthis of being a proxy of Iran, which the group has denied.
Kiev supports terrorist organizations – former SBU officer
RT | November 12, 2024
Ukraine has been working with terrorist groups in the Middle East due to a shortage of trained soldiers in its fight against Russia, former Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) officer Vasily Prozorov has stated.
Speaking to RT on Tuesday, the ex-SBU officer claimed Kiev was deploying servicemen to Syria to train terrorists, with the aim of recruiting them.
“When we were working in Syria studying arms smuggling between Ukraine and Islamic terrorist organizations, we already received information that representatives of the Ukrainian special services were sending their people to Syria, to areas not controlled by the official government, to train terrorists,” Prozorov recalled.
He elaborated that “First of all, they are training [terrorist organizations] to fly drones … and secondly, they are recruiting personnel there because Kiev has very big problems with trained personnel on their territory.”
Prozorov went on to say that there are fewer people willing to fight in Ukraine, which is why Kiev is “looking for everyone they can reach, including among terrorist militants in the Middle East.”
The former SBU officer indicated that during a series of interviews he had managed to record with several captured Ukrainian soldiers, one of them – from the nationalist unit Kraken – admitted that servicemen from his battalion were on a mission in Sudan and participated in military operations against Sudanese authorities on the side of separatists.
“They went there on direct orders from Ukrainian intelligence,” Prozorov claimed. “If we add to this the information about how Ukrainian intelligence responded to the clash in Mali between fighters of the African corps and local terrorist groups, then a clear line can be traced that Kiev supports terrorist organizations,” Prozorov insisted.
A commando regiment operating under the Ukrainian military intelligence agency HUR, Kraken was established in 2022 by former members of the neo-Nazi Azov Battalion and other intelligence officers.
Spokesman for HUR Andrey Yusov has previously admitted his agency’s involvement in July’s deadly raid in Mali, when Tuareg insurgents ambushed and killed dozens of Malian forces and personnel from Russia’s Wagner Group. Yusov has said that HUR had provided the rebels with “necessary information, and not just information, which enabled a successful military operation.” According to Le Monde, Ukrainian spies shared their drone warfare techniques to help the rebels kill Russian security contractors.
Yusov’s remarks then sparked outrage in Mali and several neighboring West African countries, which have accused Ukraine of supporting aggression. The Malian military government and its ally in Niger responded by breaking off diplomatic relations with Kiev.
“I think that the more problems Ukraine has at the front, the more we will see Ukrainian mercenaries in all sorts of hotspots under the auspices of Western intelligence services …” Prozorov concluded.
Iran, Russia, Turkey condemn Israeli atrocities in West Asia
Press TV – November 12, 2024
Iran, Russia, and Turkey have condemned the Israeli regime’s continuous atrocities in the West Asia region, calling for increased international efforts to secure an “immediate and permanent” ceasefire in Gaza.
A closing statement from the three countries following the 22nd international meeting on Syria in the Astana format, held in Kazakhstan’s capital, expressed their “strong condemnation and deep concern over the ongoing mass killings and criminal attacks by Israel in Gaza, as well as Israeli aggression in Lebanon and the West Bank.”
They called on the international community, in particular the UN Security Council, “to secure an immediate and permanent ceasefire and unhindered humanitarian access in Gaza.”
The trio also condemned Israeli military attacks on Syria, deeming such actions as violations of international law.
“[The sides] condemned all Israeli military strikes in Syria. [They] considered these actions as a violation of international law, international humanitarian law, the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Syria, and recognized them as destabilizing and exacerbating tensions in the region and called for the ceasing of these attacks,” the statement said.
The sides acknowledged the negative impact of the escalation of tensions in the region on Syria, underscoring the urgency for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), UN agencies, and all humanitarian actors to develop an emergency response for those who were forced to cross from Lebanon into Syria following the escalation of hostilities in Lebanon.
The Israeli regime has been conducting a genocide in Gaza for over a year, resulting in significant casualties. The regime has recently expanded its military aggression to Lebanon, causing numerous fatalities in the Arab country.
Israel has also conducted repeated attacks on Syria and others in the region as part of its escalated campaign of violence.
Call for Turkey-Syria normalization
The joint statement also stressed the importance of resumed contacts and continuing efforts to normalize relations between Ankara and Damascus.
They stressed the need to combat terrorism, facilitate the safe and voluntary return of Syrians with support from the UNHCR, advance the political process, and ensure that unrestricted humanitarian aid reaches all Syrians, as stated in the joint declaration.
The statement said that the sides “reaffirmed the importance of resuming contacts between Turkey and Syria on the basis of strict adherence to the principles of respect for the unity, territorial integrity and sovereignty of both countries.”
They “emphasized the importance of resuming contacts in this format,” it said.
The three parties agreed to hold the next round of the Astana talks on Syria in the first half of 2025.
Initiated in 2017, the Astana format is a series of negotiations aimed at resolving the conflict in Syria.
It involves Russia, Iran, and Turkey as guarantor countries, alongside representatives from the Syrian government and opposition, the United Nations, and observer nations such as Jordan, Lebanon, and Iraq.
The Astana process has been instrumental in facilitating dialogue among key stakeholders in the war on Syria, focusing on de-escalation zones, humanitarian aid, and political solutions.
Saudi crown prince demands Israel not attack Iran
MEMO | November 12, 2024
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman yesterday demanded Israel respect Iran’s sovereignty and refrain from attacking its territory, highlighting the friendly relations between Riyadh and Tehran.
Speaking at the Joint Arab-Islamic Extraordinary Summit in Riyadh, Bin Salman stressed that the international community must force Israel to “respect the sovereignty of the sisterly Islamic Republic of Iran and not attack its territory.”
Saudi Arabia and Iran have maintained high-level contact as part of efforts to contain Israel’s war on Gaza.
That diplomatic outreach led to the first phone call between Bin Salman and then-Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, just five days after the war broke out.
In October, Saudi Arabia announced it had conducted naval exercises with Iran and other countries in the Gulf of Oman.
Bin Salman and current Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian spoke on the phone on Sunday ahead of yesterday’s summit.
Evidence is Shaky For Iran’s ‘Trump Assassination Plot’
By Ken Silva | The Libertarian Institute | November 12, 2024
The Justice Department announced on Friday that it uncovered more evidence of an Iranian plot to assassinate President-elect Donald Trump—but the evidence of such a plot is the word of a criminal in Iran, who told the FBI about the conspiracy over the phone.
The DOJ’s announcement was included in charges against Farhad Shakeri, 51, of Iran; Carlisle Rivera, also known as Pop, 49, of Brooklyn, New York; and Jonathon Loadholt, 36, of Staten Island, New York—who are all accused of plotting to kill a U.S. journalist of Iranian origin.
While Shakeri is one of the defendants, the government’s criminal complaint shows that he appears to have been snitching to the FBI in recent months. According to the charging papers, Shakeri participated in phone interviews with the FBI from Iran on September 30, October 8, October 17, October 28 and November 7—ostensibly trading information in exchange for a sentence reduction for an unidentified individual.
In one of those interviews, Shakeri—who was deported from the United States in 2008 after serving fourteen years in prison for robbery—told the FBI that an Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps official was pushing him to assassinate Trump. The IRGC official is unidentified but appears to be known to the U.S. government.
“According to SHAKERI, in approximately mid-to-late September 2024, IRGC Official-I asked SHAKERI to put aside his other efforts on behalf of the IRGC and focus on surveilling, and, ultimately, assassinating, former President of the United States, Donald J. Trump (‘Victim-4’ herein),” the criminal complaint said.
It continues:
“SHAKERI indicated to IRGC Official-I that this would cost a ‘huge’ amount of money. In response, IRGC Official-I said that ‘we have already spent a lot of money…[s]o the money’s not an issue,’ which SHAKERI understood to mean that the IRGC previously had spent a significant sum of money on efforts to murder Victim-4 and was willing to continue spending a lot of money in its attempt to procure Victim-4’s assassination.”
Shakeri further told the FBI that the IRGC official told him on October 7 that he had to provide a plan to kill Trump within seven days. Shakeri said he was unable to do so, and so Iran has paused its plans to kill Trump until after he loses the election—which would have made it easier to kill him.
“During the interview, SHAKERI claimed to the FBI that he did not intend to propose a plan to murder Victim-4 within the timeframe set by IRGC Official-I,” the charging papers added.
The FBI admitted in the charging papers that Shakeri is a liar, but said his claims about Trump “appear to be truthful.”
Shakeri, Rivera, and Loadholt have all been charged with murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison; conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, which carries a maximum penalty of ten years in prison; and money laundering conspiracy, which carries a maximum penalty of twenty years in prison.
The DOJ said that at Shakeri’s instruction, Loadholt and Rivera have spent months surveilling a U.S. citizen of Iranian origin residing in the U.S.—likely, based on the description, Masih Alinejad, who has been an outspoken critic of Iran’s government.
Rivera and Loadholt were arrested in the New York area.
The DOJ’s charges against Shakeri, Rivera, and Loadholt mark the latest allegation of an Iranian conspiracy to assassinate Trump.
On July 12—the day before the attempted assassination of Trump in Butler, Pennsylvania—the FBI arrested a Pakistani man with Iranian ties named Asif Merchant, who was trying to hire hitmen to kill Trump.
The hitmen turned out to be undercover FBI agents, and the whole case appears to be a highly controlled sting operation. While the DOJ claims Merchant has connections to the Iranian government, leaked FBI records show that he had to have his family wire him $5,000 from Pakistan to pay the “hitmen.”
The Merchant case looks similar to the supposed 2022 Iran plot to kill former national security adviser John Bolton. In that case, the FBI claimed that a member of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps tried assassinating Bolton, but the Iranian was never confirmed to be an IRGC-QF member, and the “assassin” he was trying to hire was an FBI informant.
Threats to Provide Ukraine With German Cruise Missiles Are Merely ‘Paper Tiger’ Moves
Sputnik – 12.11.2024
CDU party leader Friedrich Merz, who seeks to become Germany’s new chancellor, has boasted that, if he gets the job, he would present Russia with an ultimatum: cease all combat operations in the Ukrainian conflict zone in 24 hours or Kiev gets German Taurus cruise missiles along with permission to use them to strike deep into Russian territory.
Merz’s bellicose rhetoric seems to be a product of the current political instability in Germany where the ruling coalition collapsed amid a “deep economic recession” and the loss of “residual hopes of good transatlantic relations” due to Donald Trump’s victory in the US election, says Paolo Raffone, a strategic analyst and director of the CIPI Foundation in Brussels.
“Merz understands that the heavyweights of Germany are the financial-industrial conglomerates who are openly against the war against Russia in Ukraine and the crazy sanctions against Russia and China. However, Merz must appease the war-minded Green [Party] who are also ideologically anti-Russian and anti-Chinese, to embark them in a possible government coalition,” he explains.
However, forming a new government might necessitate forming a coalition with the SPD, who, Raffone points out, “would not support Merz’s intent to lift restrictions on long-range armaments supplied to Ukraine and even less the idea of issuing an ultimatum to Russia.”
“Merz’s harsh rhetoric is a paper tiger – a desperate attempt to have a role in Ukraine after Trump’s win – that would probably also irritate the new US administration that has signaled the intention to de-escalate the confrontation,” the analyst remarks.
NATO support of Merz’s ultimatum initiative also seems unlikely as it would require unanimous approval of the military bloc’s members who would probably first wait for the United States, their “real ‘tutor’,” to weigh in on the matter.
“Trump (as also his predecessors and some EU leaders) is not a fan of NATO playing any direct concrete role in the war or post-war in Ukraine. Even Poland, that is genetically anti-Russian, would be very careful to support any Ukrainian capacity to strike inside Russia with West-provided missiles,” Raffone suggests.
He also warns that, with all the serious “domestic confusion” in Germany, “anything that any German leader says may just be reversed in the blink of an eye.”
“Moreover, the US, that is still occupying Germany with military bases and personnel and nuclear capacities, would not like to be dragged in any direct military confrontation with Russia,” Raffone adds. “None of the EU countries can be taken seriously without the consent of the US.”
EU Now Has Two Choices: New Arms Race or Mend Fences With Russia – Swedish Military Veteran
By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 12.11.2024
The European Commission may redirect some €392 billion ($416 billion) from the 2021-2027 cohesion funds to support their defense industries and military mobility projects, The Financial Times reported on November 11.
The Ukraine conflict and Donald Trump’s return to the White House are likely to impose pressure on the EU to boost defense investments, according to the newspaper.
“After Trump’s victory, European leaders no longer can rely on a secure US backing and only have two choices, either rapprochement and resumption of good neighborly towards Russia or continued belligerence with its following an arms race and risk for escalation,” Mikael Valtersson, former Swedish military officer and ex-chief of staff with the Sweden Democrats, tells Sputnik. “Unfortunately most of the European leaders are supporting the second alternative.”
Many in the bloc would love to become more independent from the US in terms of defense, but it would require gargantuan military budgets which European countries are unable to afford, Valtersson argues.
“Without the US the EU has very limited power projection capabilities and even less nuclear deterrence capability,” he explains. “Building and keeping a strong nuclear capability will be extremely expensive for the limited European defense budgets.”
A possible way out is a shift from the expensive militarization and growing dependence on the US to resuming working relations with Russia, the pundit alleges. Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly called for discussing common European security for all.
“A wise European policy in this environment would be to seek better relations with Russia,” Valtersson says. “Better relations with Russia is also a sentiment with growing support among the European population. It’s not improbable that several new governments will be elected in the next years that will share the will of a rapprochement with Russia.”
Trump’s war on “woke” ideology could trigger mass exit of Pentagon staff
By Ahmed Adel | November 12, 2024
If President-elect Donald Trump follows through on his campaign promises in his victory speech, the Pentagon could see personnel fired, especially “woke” generals who have embraced progressive movements associated with racial and social issues.
In his last term, Trump faced numerous forms of resistance, especially from the Pentagon, largely due to his position on security issues such as NATO or his willingness to put troops on the streets to suppress protests in the US. Former generals and defence secretaries have been some of the former president’s fiercest critics, labelling him a fascist and saying he was unfit to be president, a Reuters investigation found.
Having gained experience in his first term, Trump is expected to prioritise loyalty in key elements of his administration, which could lead to the removal of military officers and career civil servants he deems disloyal.
In June, when questioned by Fox News, Trump said he would fire generals described as “woke.”
“I would fire them. You can’t have (a) woke military,” Trump said.
According to the Reuters investigation, sources believe that the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr, a former fighter pilot and widely respected black military commander, is in Trump’s crosshairs after he spoke out on racial discrimination in the US following the May 2020 killing of George Floyd.
During the election campaign, Vice President-elect JD Vance expressed his opinion during an interview by stating that political leaders have to “get rid of them and replace” the people who are not aligned with the political vision that the head of state is trying to implement.
This speech corroborates the fear of some of the American elite who understand that this anti-woke movement by Trump could become broad.
Trump’s strongest anti-woke messaging during the election campaign aimed at transgender troops, and it is recalled that he had previously banned transgender service members, posting a campaign ad on X portraying them as weak, with the vow that “WE WILL NOT HAVE A WOKE MILITARY!”
Removing woke ideology from the US military is seen as imperative by Trump, especially after US News & World Report ranked Russia, and not the US, as having the world’s “strongest military.” Therefore, Trump will not only purge woke ideologues from the military but also those responsible for the war in Ukraine since, as it turns out, the war is responsible for strengthing Russia instead of weakening it.
US military figures facing repercussions for their fervent support for the war in Ukraine is something welcomed by Moscow, which has consistently called for peace negotiations, while the Kiev regime has consistently rejected them despite losing the war and experiencing catastrophic economic decay and demographic decline.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump’s statements in favour of peace in Ukraine differentiate him from other political figures in the US.
“At least [Trump] is talking about peace [in Ukraine]. He is not talking about confrontation, about the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia. This distinguishes him favourably from the current US administration. It is difficult to predict what will come next,” Peskov told Rossiya 1 television.
At the same time, Peskov noted that Trump is “less predictable” than current US President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, the failed Democratic candidate and rival in the presidential race. According to the Kremlin spokesman, it is not possible to say now whether Trump will stick to the pacifist statements he made during his election campaign.
However, what is certainly predictable is that Trump’s war on “woke” ideology in the US military will not be limited to the purging of generals but also career civil servants at the Pentagon, who could be subjected to loyalty tests, according to current and former officials.
A senior US defence official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was increasing concern within the Pentagon that Trump would purge career civilian employees from the department.
“I’m deeply concerned about their ranks,” the official said, adding that several colleagues had expressed concern about the future of their jobs.
“This will be 2016 on steroids and the fear is that he will hollow out the ranks and expertise in a way that will do irreparable damage to the Pentagon,” the official predicted.
In effect, it appears that great changes are coming to the Pentagon and US military once Trump enters the White House on January 20. How this reflects on policy remains to be seen, but it can be expected that the president-elect will focus more on challenging China and supporting Israel against Iran than the current administration’s priority of challenging Russia and supporting Ukraine.
Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.