Syrian Women Exploited in MI6 Propaganda Ops
By Kit Klarenberg | Global Delinquents | December 5, 2024
The propaganda value of women in conflicts has long-been cynically exploited by Western intelligence services. A leaked CIA memorandum from March 2010 on covert means of increasing flagging support for NATO’s Afghanistan mission noted women “could serve as ideal messengers” in “humanizing” the military occupation. This was due to their “ability to speak personally and credibly about their experiences under the Taliban, their aspirations for the future, and their fears of a Taliban victory”:
“Outreach initiatives that create media opportunities for Afghan women to share their stories… could help to overcome pervasive skepticism among women in Western Europe toward the mission. Media events that feature testimonials by Afghan women would probably be most effective if broadcast on programs that have large and disproportionately female audiences.”
Throughout the US occupation of course, Afghanistan remained one of the worst countries in the world to be a woman, by some margin. Roughly a year after that CIA memo was authored, Gay Girl in Damascus, a blog purportedly written by Syrian-American lesbian Amina Arraf, garnered significant mainstream attention. Widely hailed for her “fearless” and “inspiring” eyewitness reporting, she was lauded as a symbol of the “progressive” revolution erupting in the country.
In June 2011, Amina’s cousin announced on the blog Amina had been kidnapped by three armed men in the Syrian capital. In response, numerous Facebook pages were set up calling for Amina’s release and ‘liked’ by tens of thousands, #FreeAmina trended widely on Twitter, journalists and rights groups begged Western governments to demand her release, and the US State Department announced it was investigating Amina’s disappearance.
Six days later, it was revealed ‘Amina’ was in fact Tom MacMaster, a middle-aged American man living in Scotland, who had penned extensive lesbian literotica fantasies under that alter ego. While corporate news outlets quickly forgot all about the hoax they’d so comprehensively fallen for, their appetite for dubious human interest stories emanating from the crisis wasn’t diminished.
‘Huge Global Coverage’
In July 2019, an image of two young Syrian girls trapped in rubble in opposition-occupied Idlib attempting to haul their sister to safety as she dangled off the precipice of a dilapidated building, their father looking on in horror above, spread far and wide on social media.
The photo, snapped by a photographer for Syrian news service SY24, went viral the world over. Unbeknownst to viewers though, SY24 was created and funded by Global Strategy Network, a prominent British intelligence cutout founded by Richard Barrett, former MI6 counter-terrorism director. In leaked submissions to the British Foreign Office, Global Strategy boasted of how its propaganda “campaigns” broadcast via SY24 generated “huge global coverage,” having been seen by “many hundreds of millions of people,” and “attracting comment as far as the UN Security Council.”
SY24 content was produced by a network of ‘stringers’ in Syria that Global Strategy trained and provided with equipment, including “cameras and video editing software.” The firm drew particular attention to a team of female journalists it had tutored, “who provide about 40 percent of all SY content,” and were part of “a broad ‘network of networks’” enabling the company “to drive stories into the mainstream.”
Global Strategy also established a dedicated centre for training female journalists to produce content for SY24 in Idlib, “accessing stories that male journalists cannot,” which were then shared on social media. It boasted that almost half of SY24’s followers were women, “a remarkably high ratio for Syria-focused platforms.”
Carefully cultivating an entirely misleading image of an inclusive, credible ‘moderate’ Syrian opposition was of paramount importance to British inelligence. It helped whitewash the barbarous nature of the various ‘rebel’ factions London was backing in the region, while simultaneously engendering support among Western citizens for regime change.
In order to engage the “international community” to this end, Global Strategy, in conjunction with ARK – a shadowy “conflict transformation and stabilization consultancy” headed by veteran MI6 officer Alistair Harris – planned “communication surges” around “key dates” such as International Women’s Day.
In a particularly elaborate example of such a “surge”, the pair collaborated on “Back to School”, a campaign in which young Syrians returned to education. Idlib City Council, opposition commanders, and other elements on the ground concurrently engaged in a “unified” communications blitz, using “shared slogans, hashtags and branding.” Rebel fighters were sent to “clear roads” and “enable children and teachers to get to schools,” all the while filmed by the pair’s voluminous local journalist network, footage of which was then “disseminated online and on broadcast channels.”
Ensuring “female teachers” received sizeable coverage in the Western media was a key objective of the campaign. Furthermore, in many leaked files, ARK boasted of the huge network of journalists it had trained and funded in Syria, who would cover such PR stunts, secretly orchestrated by the organisation. Their reports in turn fed to the firm’s “well-established contacts” at major news outlets including Al Jazeera, BBC, CNN, The Guardian, New York Times, and Reuters, “further amplifying their effect.”
‘Thrust by Tragedy’
Other documents make clear ARK well-understood the immense difficulties of promoting the role of women internally and externally during the crisis. One file on “[incorporating] the role of women in the moderate opposition” notes Syrian women in rebel-occupied areas faced “an almost overwhelming variety of problems,” and “the space for women to participate in public life has contracted significantly as the conflict has progressed.”
As a result, ARK was “extremely aware of the risks of promoting women’s participation beyond currently accepted social norms… given the potential to hinder message resonance or result in a backlash against female participation.” It therefore proposed to “subtly reframe the narrative of women… increasing the amount of coverage of their initiatives and opinions as the context allows.”
One means of “subtle reframing” was Moubader (which translates to “person who takes initiative”), a media asset created by ARK in 2015, comprising a “high-quality hard copy monthly magazine with widespread distribution across opposition-held areas of Syria,” with a website and Facebook page boasting almost 200,000 likes. Moubader was established by ARK to achieve “behavioural change” in readers. “Given the importance of broadcast television as a trusted source” in Syria, ARK also sought British intelligence funding to develop a Moubader TV programme, to “leverage stories and values to maximum effect and reach an even wider audience.”
Documents submitted to the Foreign Office by another intelligence cutout, Albany, similarly noted women’s access to education, healthcare, and economic opportunity had “been debilitated” during the crisis, which issues such as early marriage, child military recruitment, and “transactional sex” exacerbated. The UN defines the latter as “non-commercial sexual relationships motivated by an implicit assumption that sex will be exchanged for material support or other benefits.”
Still, Albany considered so many Syrian women having been “thrust by tragedy into head of household and breadwinner positions” over the course of the crisis as a golden opportunity to propagandize them and, in turn, their families, while promoting the ‘inclusive’ nature of the opposition, by creating and partnering with female civil society organizations and journalists.
ARK likewise believed women to be a “critical audience”, given the number of Syrian households with female heads –“up to 70 percent”. So, the organisation sought to ensure they were well-represented in all its domestic and international “broadcast products”, as well as on social media.
‘Female Participation’
Unsurprisingly, the files do not acknowledge the increasingly hostile environment for women in Syria directly resulted from foreign efforts to destabilise and depose its government. ISIS and al-Nusra were and remain rightly notorious for their monstrous treatment of women in the areas they occupied, which included widespread rape, sexual violence and abduction.
However, many armed opposition groups backed by Britain and other foreign powers imposed stringent restrictions on women in the areas they occupied, requiring them to wear hijabs and abayas, doling out extreme punishments for failing to comply, imposing discriminatory measures prohibiting them from moving freely, working, attending school, and more.
There are indications British intelligence was in close quarters with such activities. For instance, in December 2017 BBC documentary Jihadis You Pay For alleged Foreign Office cash distributed on its behalf via contrator Adam Smith International in Syria ended up in the pockets of Free Syrian Police (FSP) officers who not only stood by while women were stoned to death, but closed surrounding roads to facilitate their murder.
The ‘Free Syria Police’ at work
FSP, an unarmed shadow civilian police force operating in opposition-controlled areas, was created, funded and trained under the auspices of the British intelligence-funded Access to Justice and Community Security (AJACS) program. In a perverse irony, leaked Adam Smith International files relating to the project indicate it too sought to exploit women for propaganda purposes, applying a gender policy “to encourage female participation in justice and policing.” The company boasted of how, of the 1,868 police officers it trained under the scheme, six – 0.32 percent – were female.
Quite some “revolution”. As Human Rights Watch noted in 2014, prior to the outbreak of civil war, women and girls across Syria were “largely able to participate in public life, including work and school, and exercise freedom of movement, religion, and conscience.” While the country’s penal code and laws governing issues such as marriage, divorce, and inheritance contained some discriminatory provisions, the country’s constitution guaranteed gender equality.
Ukrainians have stolen up to half of US aid – ex-Polish deputy minister
RT | November 22, 2024
Ukraine did not receive as much foreign aid as claimed by the administration of US President Joe Biden, and whatever help it did get was largely embezzled, a former Polish deputy minister has claimed. Up to a half of the funds that reached Kiev was stolen by Ukrainian officials, Piotr Kulpa has alleged.
The political commentator previously held several posts in the Polish government, serving as deputy labor minister in the mid-2000s, and is currently a regular contributor on Ukrainian online shows. Kulpa is a vocal supporter of US President-elect Donald Trump, as evidenced by his remarks to Ukrainian journalist Lana Shevchuk on Thursday.
“Everyone understands that war-related corruption is linked not only with Ukraine, but also the supplier nation,” he said. “Who would ever believe that the US burned through $2 trillion in Afghanistan? It’s delusional!”
US aid programs are a mechanism to “write off large sums of money that finance shady systems under the Democratic Party’s control,” he alleged. The incoming Trump administration could review government finances and discover the truth that “Ukraine got very little” compared to the amounts mentioned in public statements, Kulpa claimed.
“But they will also find something else: that a huge portion of the funds was stolen in Ukraine. From 30% to 50%, regardless of the nature of the aid,” he added.
If Kiev were to recover all the embezzled money for the Ukrainian budget, the country would have enough for a year, Kulpa said. He denounced senior Ukrainian officials, whose regular salaries and bonuses he believes are outrageously high.
“It’s a spit in the face of every Ukrainian,” the former minister asserted. “To every European and American taxpayer. This system is criminal from start to finish.”
Trump and his allies have been highly critical of the amount of assistance that the Biden administration has sent to Kiev. The president-elect has argued that EU nations should assume the burden of propping up Ukraine, while the American government should focus on its own priorities.
US concerns about graft in Kiev have been reflected in some government documents, such as a report that Pentagon Inspector General Robert Storch’s office released last week. It said corruption “continues to complicate Ukraine’s efforts to achieve its EU and NATO aspirations.”
Against Rubio
By Connor Freeman | The Libertarian Institute | November 17, 2024
Marco Rubio’s foreign policy vision is the antithesis of America First as he advocates for wars and increased military spending in Ukraine, the Middle East, and the Asia-Pacific. During the 2015/2016 GOP presidential primaries, Rubio was a fervent supporter along with Hillary Clinton, of a no-fly-zone in Syria which could have sparked World War III. “The United States should work with our allies, both Arab and European, to impose a no-fly zone over parts of Syria,” Rubio said.
Rubio has been on the America Last side of every foreign policy issue since he took office, he was a strong supporter of Hillary Clinton’s disastrous regime change war in Libya and he opposed Barack Obama’s modest troop withdrawal in Afghanistan after his surge accomplished nothing besides making the Taliban stronger and getting more American soldiers killed.
More recently, Rubio has insisted that Israel should attack Iran “disproportionately” which is a direct call for an all out war with Iran and risks the safety of US troops in the region.
Rubio co-authored an amendment to the 2024 NDAA with Senator Tim Kaine, Hillary Clinton’s former running mate, that would prevent Donald Trump or any future president from exiting the free-riding, war-seeking NATO alliance without Senate approval or an Act of Congress.
Regarding Beijing, he has boasted, “We need a military focused on blowing up Chinese aircraft carriers.”
Moreover, Rubio supports keeping American troops in harm’s way in Iraq indefinitely and even opposed repealing the outdated 2002 AUMF which unconstitutionally authorized the catastrophic Iraq War. Likewise, he backs the open-ended illegal US occupation of roughly a third of Syria, launched by Obama, which Trump attempted to end and finally bring our troops home.
Joe Biden Allowed His Friend Bibi to Destroy His Presidency and Legacy
By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | October 22, 2024
In 2020, amid lockdowns, Joe Biden prevailed in the election, running his campaign from his home. Biden was clearly experiencing significant cognitive decline, so the American people were presented with a carefully choreographed message that a vote for Biden was a return to normalcy.
Since Donald Trump descended the golden escalator, Americans have been subject to a non-stop barrage from establishment media and politicians wailing that we are in an existential battle for our country’s soul. We were told Russia hacked the election, Trump was Hitler, Democracy was on the ballot, and the sitting president was bowing to dictators around the world.
But Biden would save us: no more inflammatory rhetoric, no more prosecutions of the political opposition, and a more stable world.
While Biden was never going to return the US to a normal country in a normal time, he had the potential to significantly de-escalate America’s foreign entanglements. However, during his time in the Oval Office, 46 has done the opposite, starting wars and undermining international norms.
Upon taking office, Biden had two easy foreign policy victories he could have secured. Firstly, the current White House could have followed Trump’s deal with the Taliban and exited Afghanistan in a coordinated manner during May 2021.
Rather, the White House mishandled the situation, first by pushing back the exit from Afghanistan until September, the height of the Afghan fighting season. By then, the US-built government in Kabul had collapsed. This chaos culminated in an ISIS-K bombing at the Kabul airport that killed hundreds of desperate Afghans and 13 US soldiers.
Botching Iran Talks
The other easy win for the new president was returning to the Iran Nuclear Deal. Negotiated during the Barack Obama administration, the deal implemented additional safeguards on Iran’s civilian nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief.
Tehran was entirely in compliance with the deal in May of 2018 when Trump unilaterally pulled out of the agreement at Tel Aviv’s behest. Washington then placed crippling sanctions on Iran aimed at cutting the Islamic Republic’s oil output to a minimum.
Upon taking office, Biden could have easily negotiated with the moderate Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to return to the deal and lift the sanctions. But, the Biden team was determined to demand Tehran agree to a “longer and stronger” agreement, and at the same time, looked the other way as Israel began attacking Iranian shipping and nuclear facilities.
Over the following two years, US and Iranian officials would engage in several rounds of indirect talks while Israel continued to attack Iranian shipping and conducted assassinations and other sabotage inside Iran. Under those conditions, a deal was never reached, and talks were abandoned last year.
Pushing Tehran from the table and the crippling economic sanctions on Iran had an important impact on Biden’s Ukraine policy.
After Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Washington and its NATO partners engaged in a two-front strategy to use Ukrainian soldiers to bleed and “weaken” Russian invaders. The first was providing billions in weapons, training, and intelligence. The second was launching an economic war to cripple and isolate the Russian economy and bring the Kremlin’s war machine to a halt.
However, as the Iran Nuclear Deal is what ostensibly tied Tehran to Western economies, once the war broke out, the Islamic Republic saw no downside in strengthening its ties with Moscow. Additionally, as is the case with Iran, Russia’s main export is energy. The law of supply and demand says it would have been easier to push the Russian supply off the market if the US was not attempting to simultaneously remove the Iranian oil supply.
Genocide, War, Annexation
After a few years out of power, Netanyahu returned to his post as Prime Minister of Israel, leading a far-right-wing government in late 2022. That government included two extremist settlers in key positions who made clear a top priority was the annexation of the West Bank.
That government ushered in a brutal regime for the Palestinians, with 2023 killings in the West Bank before October 7 reaching a multi-year high.
Still, when Hamas broke the Israeli siege of Gaza on October 7, the White House pretended that Israel had been a normal democracy, not a declared Jewish state with apartheid oppression directed at the native Arab population.
The White House was a key amplifier of the atrocity propaganda put out by Tel Aviv following the Hamas attack. This gave Israel an unlimited blank check for killing in Gaza.
Netanyahu has cashed in that check for $23 billion in military aid from the US, Washington’s protection from UN resolutions at the Security Council, and the killings of tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza, thousands of Lebanese civilians, and hundreds of Palestinians in the West Bank.
The killing has intentionally targeted civilians and civilian targets such as hospitals, schools, shelters, and aid convoys. After each Israeli war crime, the US State Department acts as an Israeli PR firm and insists the world must blame Hamas, not Israel.
What Happened to International Law?
So now President Biden has spent the final year of his presidency providing arms to Netanyahu so his government can commit war crimes every day. This is the same president who has insisted to every American that we must send nearly $200 billion to Ukraine to defend international law.
If Russia was wrong to invade Ukraine, why can Israel invade Lebanon?
If Russia is violating international law to extend its border, why is Israel allowed to continue settlement expansion in the West Bank?
If Russia was wrong to detain American journalists in Russia, why has Israel been allowed to kill at least 170 Palestinian journalists, including Shireen Abu Akleh, an American citizen?
If Russia is wrong to attack civilian targets in Ukraine, why has Israel been allowed to destroy nearly every hospital, school, and shelter in Gaza?
One could go on at some length citing the myriad hypocrisies intrinsic to Biden’s murderous foreign policy. When it comes to starving the people of Gaza, assassinations in Iran, bombing diplomatic facilities in Syria, and attacking UN Peacekeepers in Lebanon, it’s clear that Netanyahu wipes his ass with the international “rules-based order” that Joe Biden claims to love so much on a daily basis.
Currently, Americans care more about domestic issues, but history will evaluate Biden by his elective and catastrophic wars. The x-rays of Israeli bullets lodged into the brains of Palestine’s pre-teen children will define the legacy of Biden and his good pal Bibi during the coming decades.
The US House of Representatives, where Only the Ending of the Afghanistan War is Condemned
By Adam Dick | Ron Paul Institute | October 11, 2024
A majority of United States House of Representatives members voted on September 25 to approve a resolution (H.Res. 1469) condemning 15 members of the executive branch “for their role in the Biden-Harris administration’s withdrawal from Afghanistan and noncombatant evacuation operation, which led to the injury and death of United States servicemembers, injury and death of Afghan civilians, abandonment of American civilians and our Afghan allies, and harm to the national security and international stature of the United States.”
Sure, the withdrawal of the US from its war in Afghanistan could have been done better. But, where is the similar condemnatory resolution regarding the people in the US government who started, ramped up, and pursued year after year this long US war? The resolution focuses on deaths in the withdrawal. Yet, those deaths were a small fraction of the overall deaths from the war. The Costs of War project at the Watson Institute for international & Public Affairs tallies 176,000 people were killed directly in the violence of the Afghanistan War, plus several times that many more “killed as a reverberating effect of the wars — because, for example, of water loss, sewage and other infrastructural issues, and war-related disease.” Of course, had there not been a withdrawal, the war deaths total would have increased.
The resolution complains of “a chaotic, precipitous withdrawal that resulted in the death of 13 servicemembers.” But, included in those 176,000 deaths from the Afghanistan War that the Costs of War project reports there were the deaths of 2,324 US military members. If you want to condemn people for deaths of American military members in the Afghanistan War, focusing on the withdrawal seems a peculiar choice.
Of course, death and destruction of the Afghanistan war was mainly inflicted on the people of Afghanistan. That is in line with the usual outcome with US wars abroad.
Americans, though, did pay a large bill via taxes and inflation for the expedition of destruction that redounded no net benefit to the public. For the military-industrial complex, in contrast, the gains were grand.
The failure to condemn the Afghanistan War itself should be no surprise. The US House funded it year after year. Then, it has proceeded to fund the ongoing Ukraine and Israel wars with their combined death toll far exceeding that or the Afghanistan War. War is a big part of the legislative agenda.
Maybe years after the Ukraine and Israel wars finally end, a majority of House members will vote to approve resolutions criticizing how peace was achieved. That will call for some backslapping and other expressions of mutual approval.
The US House of Representatives is sometimes referred to by the nickname of the People’s House. A more appropriate nickname is the War House.
The stunning audacity of Yemen’s drone strike on Tel Aviv
The Cradle | July 24, 2024
On 19 July, a low-altitude drone breached Tel Aviv’s airspace from the sea and detonated, causing one fatality and injuring ten others.
The incident sent shockwaves through the occupation state, with a panicked populace and bewildered policymakers grappling with the Israeli army’s “mega-failure” to intercept a single drone amid prolonged aggression against Gaza and the mounting tensions with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
The attack’s impact was magnified by its direct hit on Tel Aviv, the heart of Israel’s governmental and economic power, starkly exposing inadequacies in its defense strategies and further alarming a population that has for months been questioning the effectiveness of its military preparedness.
It wasn’t long before the de facto Yemeni authorities in Sanaa claimed responsibility for the attack, calling the strike a retaliation for Israeli massacres and threatening more to come.
But how did a Yemeni drone reach the heart of Israel’s most fortified region and strike a blow to Israeli military pride?
Tactical evolution of suicide drones
Suicide drones, as they are known, are a relatively modern weapon, posing significant challenges even for technologically advanced states like the US and Israel. These drones vary in range, warhead size, speed, and guidance methods.
Analysis of the wreckage revealed that the “Yaffa” drone, an enhanced version of Yemen’s Sammad drones, was employed in the operation. The name is deeply symbolic as it references the ancient port city of Jaffa, also known as Yaffa in Arabic, which now forms part of modern-day Tel Aviv.
Yaffa Drone
Its rectangular wing shape and V-shaped tail distinguish it, but it is notably the more powerful 275 cc (16 kW) engine that sets it apart. This engine enables the drone to cover distances exceeding 2000 kilometers – sufficient to reach Tel Aviv from Yemen.
Unlike with ballistic missiles, the difficulty in tracking drones lies in their ability to take unconventional paths, maneuver through winding routes, and hide behind terrain features, making them hard to detect by radar systems.
This detection challenge is a daily issue in northern occupied Palestine, where drones operated by Lebanese resistance groups often go unseen by the increasingly blinded occupation army.
Moreover, drones are typically constructed from lightweight materials such as fiberglass, carbon fiber, or various reinforced plastics that do not reflect radar waves effectively, which is crucial for detection and tracking.
Their low speeds reduce the need for the metallic compositions necessary in constructing conventional military hardware like missiles and fighter jets. Consequently, drones can be mistaken for birds by radar systems. This confusion has occurred regularly in northern occupied Palestine since the war’s onset, with Israel’s Iron Dome defense system spotted expending its limited supply of $50,000 projectiles shooting at birds during this conflict.
Yaffa’s route to Tel Aviv
The suicide drone likely took an unconventional path to evade detection. Previous Yemeni attempts have been intercepted in Egyptian Sinai airspace, with Israeli-allied Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt contributing to these detection and interception efforts.
On the night of the attack, however, no US aircraft carrier groups were in the Red Sea, and the nearest carrier, the USS Theodore Roosevelt, was positioned in the Indian Ocean. Israel’s air force has suggested that the drone may have taken a non-traditional route via Eritrea, Sudan, and Egypt, crossing near the Suez Canal before entering the Mediterranean and turning east toward Tel Aviv.
Possible path of Yaffa drone that targeted a building in Tel Aviv
Some aspects of that route seem unlikely: the Suez Canal area is heavily patrolled by Egyptian air defense, with its 8th Brigade stationed there, so the Israeli announcement may have been an attempt to pressure Egypt.
Israel’s response: Bombing Hodeidah
On 20 July, Israeli aircraft launched punishing airstrikes on the besieged Yemeni port of Hodeidah, specifically targeting areas designated for fuel and oil storage, as well as destroying port cranes used for loading and unloading cargo and a power station.
But these were civilian targets in a country already suffering from the effects of the Saudi-led coalition blockade, which has caused severe shortages of fuel and essential resources needed for power generation and transportation.
The strike at these particular target banks, which killed at least six and wounded dozens of others, appears to be primarily aimed at creating significant explosions and large fires to help Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu score points at home.
But the Israeli response against civilian targets also reveals that Tel Aviv suffers from a dearth of intelligence on potential Yemeni military targets. It was also evident that the selected targets were ones that Saudi Arabia and the US have refrained from striking due to fears of Yemeni retaliation, which could strike Saudi commercial ports or oil exports in one of the world’s most vital energy passages.
Indeed, Riyadh was quick to deny any involvement in the assault, fearing reprisals from Sanaa, although reports that Israeli jets used Saudi airspace for this attack suggest otherwise.
Video footage shows that Israel used F-35 and F-15 fighter jets, as well as Boeing 707 tanker aircraft, due to the distance involved – a range exceeding 4,000 kilometers round trip. Israeli-released footage suggests that the strikes were carried out using Spice guided missiles launched from outside the Yemeni air defense range.
Some of these missiles are equipped with boosters that extend their range up to 150 kilometers, which only showcased Israeli operational limitations against Yemen in a broader conflict, in which Sanaa’s air defenses will be surely activated against enemy aircraft, drones, and projectiles.
Yemen’s retaliation
Yemeni officials, led by Ansarallah leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi and Yemeni Armed Forces Spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Saree, quickly announced a decision to launch retaliatory strikes against Israel, in which they declared Tel Aviv to be an “unsafe zone” and warned of Yemen’s readiness for a “long war” against the occupation state.
Given the targeting of vital civilian infrastructure, this places several Israeli targets on the list of potential Yemeni target banks. These include fuel tanks in Haifa, clearly shown in video footage taken by a Hezbollah drone weeks ago, as well as fuel tanks in Ashkelon and the power stations adjacent to these tanks.
What concerns Israelis the most, however, is Yemen’s potential targeting of vital gas platforms in the Mediterranean Sea, stationary targets highly susceptible to significant ignition and explosion. While there are currently only three active Israeli gas fields – Karish, Tamar, and Leviathan – in operation, these fields have become essential to Israel’s energy independence.
Underestimating Sanaa’s resolve
The damaging Israeli strike on Hodeidah Port was based on an assumption by Tel Aviv that it would deter a Yemeni counterstrike. But Yemen’s Ansarallah Movement, which has endured years of punishing Saudi, Emirati – and now US and UK – military attacks, has shown no inclination whatsoever to halt its operations in support of Gaza.
While the Israelis may have felt an obligation for a quick military fix by striking Hodeidah – the port, incidentally, has already reopened for business – it comes at the expense of any logical assessments of losses and gains. Already facing strategic defeat in Gaza and unable to follow through with its threats against Lebanon, Tel Aviv has cracked open a new front with Yemen, the most fearless component of West Asia’s Axis of Resistance.
The Israelis are between a rock and a hard place, desperately trying to cleave to old narratives of regional military superiority to keep domestic faith in the Zionist project, yet unable to score victories anywhere.
Based on Yemen’s oft-declared resolve not to retreat from any escalation, it is expected that the outcome of the Hodeidah strike will lead to a compounded retaliatory operation against the occupation state. Israel, however, has limited operational freedom due to issues related to geographic distance – such as the airspace and uninterrupted refueling access required – which makes waging war against Yemen a nonstarter.
Harsher strikes on critical Israeli centers are likely to drive Israel into greater missteps and strategic errors, especially at a time when escalation and the further weakening of its deterrence are counterproductive to its interests.
By targeting the Yemenis directly, Israel has underestimated the resolve and capabilities of a formidable adversary, potentially choosing the worst possible opponents in this round of conflict.
Putin affirms Taliban as allies against terrorism
Al Mayadeen | July 4, 2024
Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed the Taliban’s role as allies in the fight against terrorism during a press briefing on Thursday.
Despite the Taliban being under UN sanctions for terrorism, Putin acknowledged their control over Afghanistan and stressed the necessity of maintaining relations with the country’s real political forces.
“The Taliban movement have made certain commitments … but in general we have to assume that the Taliban control the power in the country. And in that sense, the Taliban are certainly allies for us in fight against terrorism,” Putin stated, noting ongoing signals of cooperation from the Taliban on counterterrorism efforts.
Regarding Afghanistan’s potential full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), Putin remarked that this decision concerns all SCO members, and not solely Russia.
Russia-Belarus Union State Unified Parliament
Switching focus, Putin addressed internal matters, including the creation of a unified parliament for the Union State of Russia and Belarus.
He described it as a matter of time, suggesting readiness for deeper integration, potentially including a common currency in the future.
“We also have intra-parliamentary structures and intergovernmental ones. Is it necessary now to move, as it was initially stated, to the creation of a unified parliament? It is a matter of time,” Putin told reporters.
Turko-Russian Relations
Furthermore, Putin expressed Russia’s keen interest in developing relations with Turkey, despite challenges.
“In general, on both sides there is interest in this… natural [interest], related not to the fact that someone is standing in our way, but to the real development of events in Turkey,” Putin told reporters, acknowledging Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s political will as conducive to strengthening Ankara-Moscow ties.
Ending Ukraine Conflict
Conclusively, on the topic of resolving the Ukraine conflict through mediators, Putin asserted that while Russia remains open to negotiations, a resolution solely through mediation appears unlikely due to the complexities involved.
“We have always been in favor of negotiations, you know it well, we have never given up on them. The question of finalizing the conflict with the help of mediators and only through them seems to me unlikely. First of all, because it is unlikely that a mediator will be empowered to sign final documents,” Putin told reporters.
Ukraine’s highly unpopular military conscription produces ‘ghost soldiers’ and widespread corruption
By Dmitri Kovalevich | Al Mayadeen | June 27, 2024
The end of June marked one month since Ukraine adopted a new law on military conscription that significantly limits the rights of Ukrainians. During this time, Ukrainian media has been full of reports, daily and even hourly, of ‘kidnappings’, as many Ukrainians put it, by military conscription officers from the streets and neighborhoods of the country of military-age men (25 and older) deemed fit for battle. Fighting between enlistment officers and civilians resisting their work is increasing, as is the publicizing of it all in Ukraine media.
Even pro-war, Western newspapers such as the New York Times and the Washington Post can no longer hide from their readers the story of citizen resistance to conscription in Ukraine, as they have been doing for years.
Tension in Ukraine over forced conscription is growing daily. The Ukrainian military is promoting (and enforcing through conscription) its idea that justice demands that all Ukrainian men submit to the horrors of war, just as its soldiers have done for more than two years in direct confrontation with the Russian armed forces and in direct confrontation with the self-defense forces in Donbass for eight years before that. The Kiev regime launched a civil war against the people of Donbass (today the Russian Federation republics of Donetsk and Lugansk) in the spring of 2014, seeking to crush the deep-going opposition there to the far-right paramilitary coup of February 2014 that overthrew Ukraine’s elected president and legislature.
In response to the conscription terror unfolding daily in the streets and neighborhoods of the country, Ukrainian military vehicles are now being set on fire every day in various cities. Local residents believe the targeted vehicles to be transporting military enlistment officers, not ordinary soldiers. One result is that rank-and-file military personnel are increasingly placing notices on their transport vehicles reading ‘Not military recruiters’. As they conduct their work, lone military enlistment officers are coming under attack far to the rear of the front lines, even in western Ukraine.
The Ukrainian telegram channel ‘Skeptic‘ comments on the confrontations, writing, “People do not understand who, exactly, is appearing before them in uniform: is it a simple military man, or is it military enlistment officer? The forced conscription being carried out by the authorities at the hands of military recruiters leads people to take illegal actions. Along with simple efforts to avoid the conscription officers, people are increasingly fighting back with their bare hands when cornered, risking their lives or their freedom in order to do everything possible to avoid going to the war front and suffering the fate of so many before them who have lost their lives or their health.
“The number of disabled people in Ukraine now exceeds three million, and their number is growing by more than 30,000 people every month through the losses of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU),” the Skeptic channel writes.
On June 11, Ukrainians were stirred by media broadcasting a mass brawl in the city of Odessa between ambulance drivers and the military enlistment officers who were trying to conscript one of them. Dozens of ambulance drivers from all over the city came to the aid of their colleague, at which point several civilian vigilantes joined with the recruiters in beating the ambulance drivers with baseball bats.
According to a report in the widely-read, Ukraine media outlet Strana, the vigilantes were members of voluntary police assistance squads. These have been established since 2022. Private security companies often enroll their employees in such units. In fact, these are paramilitary formations dedicated to assisting military enlistment officers and police to seize eligible conscripts. A ‘bonus’ for the members of such vigilante groups is that they are accorded protection against conscription.
The Strana report explains, “In addition, cooperation with military enlistment officers and the police gives the members of the ‘assistance detachments’ many ways for illegal earnings. For example, they often act as intermediaries in giving bribes to the enlistment officers – naturally, for a certain percentage. There are also schemes to issue, for a fee, taxi cab passes for nighttime travel [which is supposed to be forbidden]. The struggle for such financial flows periodically causes serious clashes between the ‘assistance detachments’ in Odessa.”
The terror inflicted by military recruiters against civilians is dictated not so much by the desire for ‘justice’ on the military front [equality in military service] as by common corruption. ‘Failures’ to issue conscription notices and erasing of computerized conscription data on Ukrainians liable for military service can cost several thousand dollars. Even some children of military commissars are involved in such illegal business in order to avoid service. In mid-June, for example, the son of the head of one of the military enlistment offices in the Vinnytsia region was detained after he was found to be arranging travel abroad for men seeking to escape the country at prices approaching the equivalent of US$20,000. During searches of the son’s premises, authorities found conscription notices and copies of passports of more than a dozen men of the age of military service, plus a lot of cash, including US dollars. He is now facing a possible jail sentence of eight years and the loss of his personal property. It is illegal for men of military age to leave Ukraine unless they have special permission (care of a frail elder, for example).
Ukrainians also know that military recruiters are choosing not to patrol and raid certain vacation spots or shopping locations frequented by wealthy Ukrainians. One restaurant owner told Strana on condition of anonymity, that this is happening largely due to large bribes. A restaurant owner in Odessa told the publication, “Each chain of shopping malls negotiates independently with military recruiters; not directly but through the mediation of the regional governing administration. Naturally, for large payoffs. I can’t tell you the amount of payment for the ‘security zone’, but the sums start from 5-10 thousand dollars and more, per month, depending on the size of the shopping center and its popularity.”
“Each network of shopping and entertainment centers negotiates independently with the military registration and enlistment offices, but not directly. They negotiate through mediation by the regional city administration. Naturally, for large payoffs I cannot say what is the exact fee for protection in a ‘security zone’, but the amounts start at 5,000 to 10,000 [U$] each month, depending on the size of the shopping complex and its popularity.”
Despite all the uproar taking place in Ukraine over conscription, the results on the front line are barely visible, writes a correspondent on Telegram from the ‘Kholodnyi Yar ‘unit of the AFU. “This is partly due to the fact that newly conscripted soldiers are merely replacing the dead and wounded. Corruption and fictitious servicemen who exist only on paper are partly to blame.”
The ‘First War News’ Telegram channel writes on June 18, “In Donetsk region, the accountant of one of the military units along with two other unit members organized a scheme to enter fictitious data about the participation of soldiers in combat operations in order to collect the bonuses for direct military action for all three participants in the scheme.”
A similar scheme operated in Afghanistan during the U.S.-led occupation of the country from 2001-2012. Al Jazeera reported back in 2021 why the Afghan army that was built up painstakingly for years by the occupation forces fell apart so quickly. Its report explained, “First, there was widespread corruption in Afghanistan’s defense and interior ministries, where funds, ammunition, and food deliveries were stolen before reaching the soldiers on the ground… Furthermore, some commanders embezzled money by submitting fund requests for the salaries of ‘ghost soldiers’; that is, soldiers who had never actually signed up for the military. As all this was happening, the soldiers of the Afghan comprador army were left unpaid and frequently denied for months at a time permission to visit their families on leave.
Unsurprisingly, the Afghan armed forces under Western tutelage had one of the highest desertion and casualty rates of armies in the world. One estimate placed the army’s monthly attrition rate at 5,000, while the monthly recruitment rate was 300 to 500.
The Ukrainian telegram channel ‘Kartel’ describes how similar schemes are taking place in the AFU. “The simplest schemes are those involving ghost soldiers. Fictitious recruits are enrolled and sent to the frontline and the salaries and bonuses go into the commanders’ pockets. Secondly, commanders record of non-existent ‘destruction’ of enemy equipment in order to earn bonuses. Thirdly, they sell places in the rear and in reserve units, and fourthly, they sell vacations and sick leaves to soldiers”.
The underground Ukrainian Marxist organization Workers’ Front of Ukraine (WFU) wrote on Telegram on June 13 about the corruption that has permeated much of the AFU. “If you want to be dismissed, you must pay up. If you are found guilty of a crime or misdemeanor, you must pay up. If you don’t want any trouble, you must pay up. Tens of millions of hryvnias are leaking out of the state budget through payments to so-called ‘gray souls’ [ghost soldier] schemes, for which the military unit receives allowances.
“The alcohol trade is also blossoming. If you are caught drinking too much vodka sold to you by your officers, you are fined, further boosting corrupt earnings. And so on. In one of the buildings of the ‘second headquarters’ a mining farm has been organized, the electricity bills of which are covered by our taxes.”
The Ukrainian Telegram channel ‘Resident‘ writes on June 17 that, in essence, the ever-tightening law on military conscription is transforming military recruiters into a new economic elite, and a deeply corrupt elite at that. The already tense atmosphere in Ukrainian society due to conscription is being aggravated by all the reports of corruption and bribery. And despite the corruption scandals, military enlistment officers actually remain quite untouchable in Ukraine. They have become the unspoken and unassigned decision-makers of the fates of tens, hundreds of thousands of human beings in Ukraine. They are assigned the power to manage this diminishing number of potential military recruits, and they are managing this ‘resource’ in their own, personal interest.
In earlier times, Ukrainians paid bribes to officials for any old certificate or license. They would pay bribes for the right to receive medical care from doctors or even for a necessary conveyance in an ambulance. They would pay bribes to the police to avoid a fine for a traffic violation. Now they are paying bribes for the simple act of walking down the street, working, shopping, getting married, or adopting a child–all in order not to end up in a bombed-out foxhole at the frontline.
Recently, fugitive conscription evaders have begun to stage mass breakthroughs in large groups through the Transcarpathia region in western Ukraine and across the border. The region is Ukraine’s gateway westward into the European Union.
On June 9, 32 people traveling in a transport truck bearing fake military license plates broke through the border to Hungary. The truck was full of fugitives and simply drove off-road at top speed into the neighboring territory. The truck was tracked down by Hungarian border guards and soon after, the fugitives surrendered to the Hungarian authorities near the village of Barabash. Local residents claimed in comments to local media that the fugitives were various Ukraine law enforcement officers who were facing assignments to the war front.
Ukrainian soldiers and officers are also, increasingly, complaining about the ineffective military tactics of their high command. The soldiers are reduced to fighting for every house and every scrap of forested land, even in the most unfavorable situations. This is due to the extreme pressure on military authorities to demonstrate ‘effectiveness’ to the U.S. and NATO military leadership in order for Ukraine may continue receiving military funding and weapons from them.
Ukrainian battalion commander Ivan Mateyko stated in an interview with the Focus newsmagazine that military units are being severely punished for abandoning their positions. For the sake of its public relations, the AFU does not withdraw people even from the last, surrounded house in a village so that the village may still be said by superior officers to be under ‘Ukrainian’ control. “Losing a military position is punished, even when you are holding the last house in a village because as long as you are in that house, the village is considered ours. It doesn’t matter how many people die for the sake of holding that house. It doesn’t matter that that house has been surrounded for a week, cannot safely receive supplies, and cannot safely evacuate the wounded and dead,” he said.
According to Mateyko, when the situation is a stalemate and there are not enough soldiers to mount an adequate defense, commanders decide to indiscriminately send everyone into battle. He believes that commanders are sending people to their deaths in such circumstances out of fear of losing their positions or fear of being penalized.
Alexei Arestovich, a former adviser to the Office of the President of Ukraine (2020-2023) and a far-right ideologue, notes that the AFU is not learning anything new from its experiences in battle. He compares this to the army of the Soviet Union in Crimea during World War Two. He writes on Telegram, “They tried different methods, from mechanical to moral and psychological from 1941 onward. [Nazi Germany occupied Crimea, after bitter struggle, from late 1941 until liberation in 1944.] By 1943-1944, they had learned to fight. The difference between the Red Army of 1941 compared to the Red Army of 1944 is the difference between heaven and earth. They tried, tried, and tried again. After 30 unsuccessful attempts, the 31st attempt would succeed.”
Arestovich asks, “How does Ukraine’s army today compare? Our valiant armed forces do not want to learn, nothing happens. I am looking at this and asking myself, ‘During two and a half years of struggle against our original [sic] enemy, what changes have occurred in the armed forces? Even organizational changes, reflecting accumulated experience? This army has long been driven by inertia and is simply wearing itself out without trying to make sense of events, without trying to draw any conclusions.”
A leader of the neo-Nazi paramilitary battalion ‘Azov’, Dmytro Kukharchuk, believes that Kiev is losing its war. He believes the Russian Federation has no need at all to sue for peace as it is in a much more favorable position. “Yes, we are losing this war now. It’s obvious. We are losing territories, we are losing the best people. Many people say: ‘Everything is going fine and soon we will conclude a peace treaty with Russia.’ But the main question is, why does the Russian Federation need to negotiate peace?” According to him, the strategy of a creeping offensive (war of attrition) which the Russian army has chosen is serving it very well, while the consequences for Ukraine are not only unpleasant, they are critical.
Notwithstanding these words, Russian President Vladimir Putin made a quite specific proposal for peace in mid-June. It would require the withdrawal of Ukrainian troops from the regions of Donetsk, Lugansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson, renunciation by Kiev of Ukraine’s specious claim over Crimea, and renunciation by Kiev of present or future NATO membership.
The U.S. administration and then Ukraine quickly rejected this proposal, as if on cue. The key stumbling block is not so much control of the regions presently under Russia’s control, but future NATO membership for Ukraine. NATO is using Ukraine as a proxy force in this war and toward the goal of NATO membership.
Former Ukrainian journalist and today a political exile, Rostyslav Ishchenko, comments on June 18: “Russia has declared the need to create a unified security system in Eurasia, without the participation of non-Eurasian states. For the first time, albeit indirectly, Moscow has raised the issue of NATO’s liquidation, since without the U.S. military presence in Europe, the bloc loses its meaning and the USA becomes a non-Eurasian power.”
For his part, NATO head Jens Stoltenberg is promising that Ukraine will join NATO as soon as it defeats Russia, which is to say ‘never’. Despite the grim military situation facing the Ukraine regime, Western leaders are instructing Kiev to refrain from any negotiations with Russia.
Oleh Soskin, a former adviser to Leonid Kuchma (the second, post-Soviet Ukraine president from 1995 to 2004 and today a political analyst) has recently written on Telegram that the West is quite satisfied with the killing of Ukrainian citizens at the hands of the country’s capitalist elite. “They are all very satisfied with the fact that this Zelensky, A.Yermak [head of the Office of the President of Ukraine], D.Arahamiya [head of the legislature faction of Zelensky’s political machine], R.Stefanchuk [speaker of the legislature] and, naturally, D. Shmygal [prime minister since 2020] are very good at using Ukrainians as weapons and cannon fodder.”
Indeed, the Ukraine regime is acquiring yet more funding and weapons from the West and sending yet more Ukrainians to their deaths in order to please the elites of the NATO countries.
From time to time, I personally witness clashes taking place between civilians and Ukrainian military enlistment officers. I have witnessed outraged women trying to wrestle their sons and husbands out of the clutches of military conscriptors. “Let Zelensky go to the trenches!,” they shout. “Let him send his own children off to war! Let Biden himself fight the Russians!” Needless to say, this sharp, civilian erosion of support for Kiev’s and NATO’s war does not bode well for either.
US-Waged Middle East Wars Were ‘Pointless and Genocidal,’ Reflects Navy Veteran
By Svetlana Ekimenko – Sputnik – 08.06.2024
Whether it is Joe Biden, the current incumbent of the White House, or those preceding him, like 44th president Barack Obama, manipulative militaristic rhetoric results in senseless wars waged and paid for by the US, a US Navy veteran told Sputnik, recalling his own rueful experience.
Joe Biden slipped into his default mode of manipulating historical facts and crowd emotions in his D-Day anniversary remarks on Friday.
Russia was typically presented as ‘the enemy’, while the US on the ‘right side of history’ as it continues to fuel the Ukraine proxy conflict.
Biden had no qualms about drawing a cynical comparison: if we do not help Ukraine against Russia, we will betray the memory of our grandfathers who fought the Nazis.
“We will not walk away. Because if we do, Ukraine will be subjugated and it will not end there. Ukraine’s neighbors will be threatened, all of Europe will be threatened,” claimed Biden. The Democrat added that to “surrender” would mean “forgetting what happened here on these hallowed beaches. Make no mistake, we will not bow down. We will not forget.”
At the same ceremony, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was more blunt, saying that, “if the troops of the world’s democracies could risk their lives for freedom then surely the citizens of the world’s democracy can risk our comfort for freedom now.”
Austin is an old hand at dissimulating when it comes to Washington’s true goals in pursuing the Ukraine ‘project.’ Testifying in front of the House Armed services Committee, he claimed the long-term strategy for propping up the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev was to make sure Ukraine remains “a democratic, independent, sovereign country.” He served up the batch of outright lies without batting an eye.
With his recent rhetoric, Biden may as well have taken a page from the pretentious and meaningless language used by former president Barack Obama in his speech at West Point Military Academy in May 2010. Obama explained why it was necessary to send 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan without any clear strategy.
“We toppled the Taliban regime, now we must break the momentum of a Taliban insurgency and train Afghan security forces. We have supported the election of a sovereign government, now we must strengthen its capacities,” he said. We know only too well when and how the Afghan debacle ended for the US, with America’s humiliating withdrawal from Kabul in August 2021.
The US launched its invasion of Afghanistan in October 2001, weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. At the time, Washington justified the move on the basis that Osama bin Laden had masterminded the attacks, and that the Taliban had offered sanctuary to members of al-Qaeda. The US invasion and occupation claimed the lives of thousands of US soldiers, and more than 100,000 Afghan troops, police, and civilians.
Before entering the White House, then-Senator Obama had campaigned on a vow to give the US military a new mission: ending the war in Iraq.
The US-led coalition invaded Iraq in 2003 without a UN mandate, falsely accusing then-Iraqi president Saddam Hussein of possessing weapons of mass destruction. That war cost the lives of over 4,700 US and allied servicemen, and hundreds of thousands — or even millions — of Iraqis.
One of those who fell for Obama’s campaign rhetoric has regretted it for the rest of his life.
Mike James, a navy veteran and a Mass Communication Specialist Petty Officer who served in Iraq in 2008, told Sputnik he was “inspired by all of Obama’s rhetoric” to join the military.
“I was 25 years old when I joined the military. So I was a little bit older than most of my peers,” he recalled.
“Leading up to that time was the end of the Bush presidency, and Obama was campaigning as the president who was going to end the wars, … on drawing down the war [in Iraq],” James said. “So I thought that it would be a good time to join the military. And I was inspired by all of Obama’s rhetoric. I joined the military.”
The gullible young man who set off to boot camp in 2008 was in for a rude awakening. He ended up witnessing both of the “pointless, genocidal wars.”
“I thought, man, both of these wars that I participated in were stupid and pointless,” James said. “And all the Iraqis and all the Afghans that I met were nice people, gracious people, hospitable people. And for me to show up as an Imperial stormtrooper was wholly inappropriate and, frankly, genocidal.”
While he “never fired a shot in combat,” instead using his camera to document what was going on around him, the former naval officer said he felt “complacent,” an “actor in these imperial genocidal projects.”
“I fundamentally regret it. It’s embarrassing. I don’t brag that I’m a veteran. I don’t talk to people about my veteran status unless they ask,” said James.
‘Complacent actor’ in US’ ‘imperial genocidal projects’
To this day, Navy veteran Mike James regrets ending up being complacent in senseless wars waged by the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Turning to Washington’s current belligerent stance amid the ongoing NATO proxy war in Ukraine, James speculated that the “age of the American military hegemony is over”. Furthermore, he noted that from what he could see around him, the Western economy, “built on its ability to inflict violence anywhere in the world at any given time” was on a cliff edge.
“Everything is propped up on that… I mean, there’s very little industry around me of all the people I know. I don’t see factory workers like I don’t see people going out and getting jobs and doing well,” James noted. “Everybody I know, everybody I see is, is just barely hanging on in this economy. Everybody’s piled on with debt with loans and car bills and just trying to get by.”
“The true believers within the Pentagon and the military brass and the contractors, all these fascistic private contractors that are ruling the world right now, once they realize… that it’s over, I can just see the bottom dropping out on this thing and the economy really changing for the worse,” he concluded.
Australia jails whistleblowers for telling the truth
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD and Magdalene L. D’Silva, BA/LLB, LLM, MA | May 15, 2024
On May 14, 2024, David McBride, a 60-year-old former military lawyer, was sentenced to five years and eight months in prison with a non-parole period of 27 months, for ultimately blowing the whistle on alleged war crimes committed by other Australian soldiers in 2013.
McBride initially tried to raise his concerns internally with the Australian Defence Force (ADF), but became unsatisfied with the process, so he set up a website and uploaded a trove of secret documents.
Former military lawyer David McBride
When ADF officials found the website containing classified material, they wrote to McBride reminding him of his duty not to disclose it, prompting him to take it down. No action was taken against McBride for his website leak and the Court noted in sentencing that those leaks gave rise to very little risk.
It was only after McBride leaked the material to ABC journalists who aired them in the ‘Afghan Files’ story alleging Australian soldiers did ‘kill people unnecessarily’ that McBride was arrested, interviewed and charged.
Federal police raided the ABC’s Sydney headquarters in 2019, searching for evidence of a leak, but decided against charging the journalists.
In 2023, McBride pleaded guilty to several charges, including stealing secret classified military documents and leaking them to journalists. However McBride couldn’t rely on those documents in his legal defence when the Australian government stopped them from being adduced as evidence on national security grounds.
McBride argued there was a “culture of cover-up” at the command level of the Australian Army. While most soldiers acted ethically, he said some were needlessly investigated and others were protected after allegedly, “put(ting) a gun to someone’s head and blow(ing) their head away” even if they were unarmed or handcuffed.
McBride says he felt a moral obligation to bring these issues to light, believing the Australian public deserved to know the truth about their country’s military actions.
The years-long legal battle which has now landed McBride in prison, has sparked acrimonious debates about the need for an independent Whistleblower Protection Authority in Australia, and the media’s vital role in making powerful institutions accountable.
Human rights whistleblower lawyers said McBride’s punishment sends a chilling message to potential whistleblowers. They contend the Australian government should protect those who expose wrongdoing, not punish them.
Critics argued, however, that McBride was entitled and self-interested. Prosecutors suggested McBride had abandoned the internal investigation he initiated without waiting for the result, violated his signed confidentiality acknowledgments as a military lawyer, and compromised the lives of soldiers and their families while potentially harming Australia’s national security and international relations.
The Brereton Inquiry, commenced by the ADF before McBride’s whistleblowing leaks, found credible information that Australian Special Forces had unlawfully killed people in Afghanistan.
It also appears no harm has been demonstrated because of McBride’s actions, though the ACT Supreme Court said in sentencing, that potential harm to Australia’s defence personnel, their families, Australia’s national security and international relations, still exists.
In sentencing McBride, ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop said that while he was a person of good character strongly devoted to duty, from his time in Afghanistan he was unable to accept that his opinions about the ADF may be incorrect.
Justice Mossop considered McBride knew he was committing a criminal offence when disclosing the information but hoped he would have a (public interest) defence. McBride had legal duties and constraints as a soldier and lawyer serving the Army, but no specific duty to disclose the secret information to outsiders when there were other legitimate ways he could have raised his concerns.
ACT Supreme Court Justice David Mossop
Justice Mossop also said McBride had no remorse and still believed he did the right thing, so he sentenced McBride to prison to deter him from disclosing anymore military information and to deter other people ‘with strong opinions’ who are also under a legal duty not to disclose information, from doing so.
McBride abandoned his defence of a higher duty to act in the public interest even if it involves disobeying orders, when the Court ruled this out. Yet he remained defiant, justifying his actions saying, “I served my country. I stand tall and I believe I did my duty and I see this as a beginning to a better Australia.”
In the lead up to his sentencing, he added “So long as people believe I stood up for what I believed in, I can go to jail with my head held high.”
Independent MP Andrew Wilkie was outraged by McBride’s prison sentence, saying that governments “hate people shining a light on official misconduct.”
He added, “They consistently want to punish the whistleblower, and they consistently want to send a signal to would be whistleblowers to shut up, to not break ranks, to not cause problems for governments.”
AAP: Independent MP Andrew Wilkie
Daniela Gavshon, Australian Director of Human Rights Watch, said McBride’s sentencing shows that Australia’s whistleblowing laws need exemptions in the public interest.
“It is a stain on Australia’s reputation that some of its soldiers have been accused of war crimes in Afghanistan, and yet the first person convicted in relation to these crimes is a whistleblower not the abusers,” Gavshon said in a statement.
Many regard whistleblowing as morally courageous, especially when done in the public interest, as McBride claimed he did. But whistleblowing is a dangerous endeavour in Australia because of the significant legal and personal risks.
Compared to the US, where whistleblower protections are considered more robust, McBride’s case demonstrates the protracted and costly legal battles faced by whistleblowers in Australia, when up against institutions with unlimited resources.
It’s now feared McBride’s prosecution and sentencing will deter other whistleblowers from disclosing information because Australia’s laws arguably do not protect whistleblowers like McBride, who try internal reporting channels first but then find them inadequate.
While there must be a balance between national security concerns and the public’s right to know about the actions of their government and military, McBride’s case means other Australians thinking about whistleblowing, risk imprisonment too, especially where there is low trust in internal reporting channels and no alternative external reporting channel.
Australia’s Government has already announced plans to bolster public whistleblowing protections. But that won’t help McBride whose imprisonment highlights the urgent need for clear guidance and protection when disclosing information to prevent more serious harms, and the vital need for a free press if and when internal whistleblowing channels, fail.
Prior to being imprisoned, McBride recorded the following video:
Iran, India move forward with port deal in face of US sanctions
The Cradle | May 13, 2024
India expects to secure a “long-term arrangement” with Iran to manage the Iranian port of Chabahar, Reuters reported on 13 May, as India seeks to expand exports to central Asia and Europe.
India has been developing part of the port in Chabahar on Iran’s southeastern coast to export goods to Iran, Afghanistan, and central Asian countries while bypassing Pakistani ports in Karachi and Gwadar. India and Pakistan have been enemies since the partition of British-occupied India created the Muslim state of Pakistan in 1947.
Thus far, India has managed the Chabahar port under short-term contracts, which must be renewed regularly. The uncertainty about future operations this has caused, and the complications of engaging in trade with Iran due to US sanctions, has discouraged significant investment in the port.
“As and when a long-term arrangement is concluded, it will clear the pathway for bigger investments to be made in the port,” Indian Foreign Minister S Jaishankar told reporters in Mumbai.
A source speaking with Reuters said Indian Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal is traveling to Iran to witness the signing of a “crucial contract” that would ensure a long-term lease of the port to India.
The contract is expected to last ten years and will give India management control over a part of the port.
Expanded trade via the Chabahar port will help India expand trade to both central Asia and Europe.
Business Standard reports that Chabahar is also part of the proposed International North–South Transport Corridor (INSTC), a mixed sea and land transport route linking the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf to the Caspian Sea via Iran and onward to northern Europe via Saint Petersburg in Russia.
Exporting goods through the INSTC via Chabahar Port is expected to reduce transit times between India and Europe by 15 days compared to the Suez Canal route.
Chabahar will also allow Iran to bypass US sanctions and allow Afghanistan better access to the Indian Ocean.
US sanctions on Iran have similarly delayed construction of a pipeline to transport Iranian natural gas to energy-stricken Pakistan.
The stalled pipeline deal, signed in 2010, envisaged the supply of 750 million to a billion cubic feet per day of natural gas from Iran’s South Pars gas field to Pakistan for 25 years.
Last month, Islamabad said it would seek a US sanctions waiver to proceed with the pipeline. However, US officials publicly said they did not support the project and warned Pakistan about the risk of sanctions in doing business with Tehran.
A Warped View of Patriotism on Pat Tillman
By Jacob G. Hornberger | FFF | April 24, 2024
A recent op-ed in the Los Angeles Times demonstrates what is a warped interpretation of the term “patriotism.” The op-ed is about former football player Pat Tillman, who was killed in Afghanistan twenty years ago. It’s written by Bill Dwyre, a former sports editor for the Times.
Dwyre reminds us that Tillman was motivated to join the military after the 9/11 attacks. He gave up a $3.6 million football contract to join the U.S. military and was hoping to be sent to Afghanistan to fight the terrorists.
Dwyre writes, “It was a can’t-miss story of patriotism. Americans applauded from the safety and comfort of our homes and communities.” (Since he uses the pronoun “our,” presumably Dwyre fell into the “safety and comfort” group rather than the “patriot” group.)
Unfortunately, however, Dwyre doesn’t explain why Tillman’s act was one of “can’t miss” patriotism. Apparently for him it’s a self-evident truth.
No declaration of war
The U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land. It is the higher law that we the people impose on government officials. We are expected to obey their laws, and they punish us when we fail to do so. By the same token, they are supposed to obey our law, the Constitution.
The Constitution requires a congressional declaration of war as a prerequisite to a president’s waging war against any other nation-state. If a president and his army wage war without a congressional declaration of war, they are acting in violation of the law.
It is undisputed that President Bush did not secure a congressional declaration of war from Congress before he ordered his military to invade Afghanistan. That made their war illegal under our form of government.
How can participating in an illegal war be considered “patriotic”? Dwyre doesn’t explain that.
The U.S. was the aggressor under Nuremberg
Moreover, the common perception is that Bush invaded Afghanistan because the Taliban regime, which was governing the country, had been complicit in the 9/11 attacks by having knowingly harbored Osama bin Laden, who U.S. officials suspected had orchestrated the attacks.
Not so. Bush initiated his war because the Taliban regime refused to comply with his unconditional demand to deliver bin Laden into the hands of the Pentagon and the CIA. Yet, there was no extradition treaty between Afghanistan and the United States and, therefore, Afghanistan was operating within its rights under international law to refuse Bush’s unconditional extradition demand.
Nonetheless, knowing that the Pentagon and the CIA would torture bin Laden into confessing to the crime, Afghanistan offered to deliver him to an independent nation for a fair trial. In making the offer, Afghanistan sought the same amount of proof that would be required in a normal extradition hearing. The U.S. government refused the offer, perhaps because it was unable to provide such proof.
Therefore, given that Afghanistan had the authority under international law to refuse Bush’s extradition demand, that makes Bush’s invasion illegal under the war-of-aggression provision of the Nuremberg War Crimes Tribunal.
How can participation in an unconstitutional and illegal war be considered “patriotic”? Unfortunately, Dwyre fails to explain.
If one assumes that the 9/11 attackers were the ones who did the attacking (as compared to the attacks being an “inside job,” as some believe), it’s worth pointing out that they were motivated by the death and destruction that the U.S. government’s foreign policy had wreaked in the Middle East. But of course, a real “patriot” does not bring up that discomforting fact and instead blindly supports the government’s claim that the terrorists attacked us out of hatred for our “freedom and values.”
Tillman’s opposition to the Iraq War
One of the fascinating aspects of Dwyre’s op-ed glorifying Tillman’s patriotism is what he leaves out of the op-ed. Tillman was an outspoken opponent of Bush’s invasion and war of aggression against Iraq. Dwyre doesn’t even mention that, which is revealing.
Keep in mind, after all, that Bush’s war on Iraq was also waged without a congressional declaration of war, making it illegal under our form of government. Bush’s claim that he was waging to war to enforce UN resolutions falls flat because only the UN can enforce its resolutions. The fact is that the U.S. war on Iraq was an even clearer case of a war of aggression under the Nuremberg principles than the U.S. war on Afghanistan.
Despite Tillman’s fierce objections to the U.S. war on Iraq, the U.S. military nonetheless ordered him to “serve” in Iraq, which he did. Keep in mind though that every U.S. soldier takes an oath to support and defend the Constitution and is under a legal and moral obligation to refuse to obey unlawful orders. Tillman chose to obey the unlawful order to deploy to Iraq.
U.S. government lies
After his “service” in Iraq, Tillman was deployed to Afghanistan, where he continued to speak out against the U.S. war on Iraq. It was there that he was killed. As Dwyre points out, the U.S. military initially lied about his death, claiming falsely that he was killed by enemy fire. In fact, what actually happened is that he was killed by his own men in what was described as “friendly fire.”
In 2006, Tillman’s brother, Kevin Tillman, wrote a scathing op-ed on truthdig.com, in which he echoed his brother Pat’s view of the Iraq war: “Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.”
Why would’t Dwyre mention Pat Tillman’s (and his brother’s) fierce opposition to the U.S. war on Iraq in his op-ed? My hunch is that it’s because he considers opposition to U.S. wars to be unpatriotic and, therefore, Tillman’s apparent lack of “patriotism” with respect to Iraq doesn’t fit conveniently within his patriotism narrative. Under Dwyre’s warped interpretation of patriotism, apparently it’s only those who blindly support the U.S. national-security state’s foreign wars and its interventionist foreign policy who should be considered “patriots.” Apparently, those who reject such wars and choose instead to remain in the “safety and comfort” of their homes instead of fighting them should be considered non-patriots.
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Book Excerpt
The Case for Dismantling the Rules-Based International Order
By Professor Glenn Diesen | December 23, 2024
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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