Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial
Strategic Culture Foundation

Revenge served coldly and calmly is the best way. The Western criminal leaders have it coming.

The scenario is not hyperbole. Imagine a sunny beach in Florida crowded with families enjoying a holiday weekend. In a split second, mayhem and murder are unleashed as crowds flee in panic from a foreign missile exploding over the beach.

There is no doubt that the United States would go to war immediately against the perpetrator. Furious condemnations would ring out for days, weeks, and months among American politicians and their media.

But what is also obvious from this hypothetical scenario is the egregious double standard and hypocrisy of American and Western responses.

Last weekend, Russia was celebrating its annual Day of Remembrance and Sorrow. The day honors the dead of the Great Patriotic War instigated by Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941. That weekend also combines Trinity Sunday, a prominent religious holiday in the Orthodox calendar.

As Russian families were enjoying the festive weekend, the Kiev regime fired five U.S.-supplied ATACMS missiles at the Crimean city of Sevastopol. It was a deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure. Four missiles were shot down by Russian air defenses, but a fifth exploded over a nearby beach, where hundreds of people were enjoying sun-splashed sand and the gentle lapping of waves.

In the ensuing horror, four people including two children were killed. Over 150 were injured, dozens of them seriously, from the explosions caused by cluster bomblets released by the missile. Video footage clearly shows explosions and not merely ordnance shrapnel falling from the sky.

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Dmitry Medvedev (Дмитрий Медведев)
Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council
Дмитрий Медведев (Telegram)

Look who's here! — A wonderful trio at NATO and the European Commission. Mark Rutte, Ursula von der Leyen and Kaja Kallas. New and old leaders, each more handsome than the other.

Number one. Mark Rutte, former prime minister of the Netherlands and now NATO secretary general. Quite a peculiar guy. In a relatively short time, this moderate figure, whom I once met at summits, has turned into an inveterate Russophobe and a staunch Atlanticist. We will not speculate on what substances from Amsterdam coffeeshops caused such an abrupt change in his mood. The Dutch are peculiar people even against the background of the rest of free Europe. Ostentatious modesty in everyday life is combined with fury on the political podium. He has been hating our country fiercely for some time. An advocate of ever tougher sanctions. He will faithfully follow the course of the classics of paranoid Atlanticism.

Number two. A familiar old, haggard face - Ursula Gertrud von der Leyen. 65 years old. Bad Belgian-German political grandmother. Looks like a medium-sized Volga roach. During the pandemic, she made a good profit on overpriced Pfizer vaccines. Even the usual liberal "kind sort of men" in the European Commission are wary of her. Especially since her record includes her tenure as German Defense Minister, where she also became the heroine of a corruption scandal involving millions of dollars in contracts with "outside consultants".

Already in line for a disgraceful resignation, but the dried roach does not sink. Since 2019, Ursula has risen to the head of the European Commission, where she manically torments her commissioners with non-binary gender identities. At the same time, she is masochistically devoted to her overseas masters and ready to receive any form of approval offered by the gerontological playboys from Washington. She constantly spews malicious nonsense about Russia, without choosing her words.

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Jean-Joseph Boillot
iris-france.org

With Egypt, Ethiopia, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Iran joining the BRICS at the beginning of 2024, the group now embodies a group of influential states on the international stage, representing 46% of the world’s population and 29% of global GDP. While 2024 is synonymous with an important electoral year for several BRICS members, further enlargements could take place in the coming years. Are we heading for an alternative international order? What are the strategic advantages of the BRICS+? Can they embody the voice of the global South? Interview with Jean-Joseph Boillot, Associate Research Fellow at IRIS, specialised in the Indian economy and the emerging world.

A new mandate for Vladimir Putin in Russia, a historic setback for the African National Congress (ANC) in the South African elections, a narrow victory for Narendra Modi in India, new elections to come in Iran following the death of Ebrahim Raissi and in Ethiopia… 2024 is a pivotal electoral year for many BRICS+ countries. Should we expect any repercussions from these elections on the international agenda of the BRICS+ states?

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Carlo Maria Viganò, Archbishop
Life Site News

The following is a statement sent exclusively to LifeSiteNews by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò on Friday, June 21, 2024. It has since been published by Viganò himself on X.

'I therefore wish to make it clear that I did not go to the Vatican yesterday, and that I have no intention of going to the Holy Office on June 28, and that I have not delivered any statement or document in my defense to the Dicastery, whose authority I do not recognize,' Viganò wrote.

The reports spread by certain media outlets, stating that I presented myself yesterday, Thursday, June 20, at the Palace of the Holy Office, as intimated to me by the Decree of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, is devoid of any foundation. These reports are completely false.

The Jesuit magazine America, the media arm of the Society of Jesus in the United States and the megaphone of the “church of mercy” of the Jesuit Bergoglio, has rushed ahead, while Vatican News (here) was still totally unaware of the Decree sent to me on June 11, only by a simple email, without respecting those formalities necessary for the validity of the communication of a Decree, and which I myself published on X two hours before the meeting scheduled at the Dicastery. Although all the elements were clearly stated in my communiqué, inferences and speculations took precedence, in typical Jesuit style.

Haste is a bad counselor. Therefore, Gerard O’Connell’s article Archbishop Viganò charged with schism by the Vatican that appeared yesterday at America (here) seems to have been written even before I made the Vatican document public. This reveals the close contiguity between the Vatican apparatus and America magazine and confirms a very precise strategy, aimed at liquidating my trial with a condemnation that has already been decided by Bergoglio and his zealous collaborator Tucho Fernández, author of the scandalous pornographic pamphlet La Pasion mistica: Espiritualidad y Sensualidad, as well as Saname con tu boca: El arte de besar.

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Dr Vernon Coleman MB ChB DSc
VernonColeman.com

1. I cannot, I fear, join in the eulogies for Dr Michael Mosley, who worked for the BBC and the Daily Mail. Mosley was a keen advocate of the proven toxic and proven useless covid-19 vaccine. And the diet he advocated, which involved fasting on two days a week was, to say, the least unnatural. Mosley might have been a good egg to those around him but I suspect that as a media doctor he did far more harm than good. And did the covid-19 vaccine contribute to his death, I wonder? The one certainty is that neither the BBC nor the Daily Mail will ever ask the question. Mosley is being remembered (in hagiographic obituaries) as a doctor who searched for truth. But sadly he didn’t do that – in part, I suspect, because the BBC would not have let him. The BBC, remember, is an organisation which refuses to allow airtime to be squandered on anyone who questioned the value or safety of the covid-19 vaccine.

2. Sunak, the war criminal, has apparently put forward Dimon, the boss of JP Morgan Chase and Schmidt the former chairman of Google for knighthoods. Is it not enough that we give these tawdry honours to creeps and confidence tricksters in the UK? Must we now start doling them out to Americans who have done massive damage to the lives of ordinary people and who represent the very worst of the world’s executives? Oh, and it is still possible for people to pay money to obtain an `honour’. What a stupid system it is. The entire honours system, and the House of Lords, should be abandoned immediately.

3. Both Sunak and Starmer plan to spend another £75 billion of taxpayers’ hard earned money on buying arms to send to Ukraine and Israel – two countries which seem to hate us and which never even bother to say thank you. I can think of ways that £75 billion would improve life a great deal for Britons who are in abject poverty and who cannot afford to eat properly or to keep themselves warm.

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Uriel Araujo
InfoBrics

Inconvenient facts such as the significant presence of neo-Nazism amongst the ranks of Ukrainian military personnel especially within the Azov regiment), or, say, minority rights in Ukraine or NATO’s aggressive expansion, must be whitewashed or minimized or else “Russian propaganda!”.

Speaking to BBC’s “Panorama” on Friday evening, Reform UK leader Nigel Farage claimed the West provoked Russia into going into a full-scale military campaign against the Ukrainian government. This has triggered very strong-worded responses and has increased tensions in the British pre-election political climate. In Europe as well there is now a lot of alarmism about the rise of the “far-right” and supposed “Kremlin agents”.

In early 2022, Farage posted a comment on social media claiming the then-recent military campaign in Ukraine was “a consequence of EU and NATO expansion.” During the aforementioned Friday interview, the politician was asked whether he still held such views today, to which he replied that he had been warning about the risks of such an expansion for “decades”. He made the caveat that, “of course, it’s his [Putin’s] fault”, and added that “he’s used what we’ve done as an excuse.” Farage also said: “we have provoked this war.” The Eurosceptic politician and broadcaster claimed he dislikes Russian President Vladimir Putin personally, but admires him “as a political operator” only.

In addition, Farage summarized his view on the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict: “I stood up in the European parliament in 2014 and I said: ‘There will be a war in Ukraine.’ Why did I say that? It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving this man [Putin] a reason … to say: ‘They’re coming for us again,’ and to go to war.”

So, basically he said NATO played into the Russian President’s hands by providing him with a justification to carry out a military campaign in Ukraine. Such remarks (albeit critical of eastward NATO’s expansion) can hardly be described as “pro-Putin” or anything like that. The British politician in fact accused Putin of having used such an expansion as an “excuse”.

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Strategic Culture Foundation Editorial
Strategic Culture Foundation

The BRICS multipolar world order is a welcome alternative to the mayhem of the Western-dominated system. The principles of fairness and cooperation are laudable and necessary to implement.

For several years now, Russia, China and other members of the expanding BRICS alliance have been formulating progressive trade and financial relations of the emerging multipolar world order. That order is based on mutual respect and partnership grounded in international law and the UN Charter.

The BRICS concept is rightly the zeitgeist of our time. It is rallying more nations to its fold especially those of the so-called Global South which for decades have been subjected to the unilateralism of Western hegemony.

The trouble is that for a new world order based on equality and fairness to succeed in practice, it needs to be secure from arbitrary military aggression and imperialist tyranny. In other words, a new security architecture is required to underpin the development of a multipolar world.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has been advocating for a new indivisible international security system. This week saw the plan for a new security arrangement put into action.

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The state of the forests, deforestation, and what we can do about it
By Kersasp D. Shekhdar
The People's Voice

Amazon Forest: World watches wildfires lash through
'lungs of the earth'

Deforestation at warp speed

Up until about the Industrial Revolution, deforestation—if it could be called that—used to be a not unnatural consequence of man’s need for timber, the expansion of human settlements, and slash-and-burn agriculture which has been practised since the Neolithic Age and is still used by indigeous or nomadic peoples and settlers. Forests have been cleared “to make space for agriculture and animal grazing, and to obtain wood for fuel, manufacturing, and construction.” Further and other drivers of deforestation vary from one geographical region to another.

Fully a third of the planet’s forests, comprising two billion hectares, have been destroyed since the Great Ice Age but the pace of deforestation has not been even—far from it. The rate of deforestation has accelerated exponentially such that, according to the World Wildlife Fund, “the fastest rate of forest destruction has been in the past couple of centuries,” as “up to 15 billion trees are now being cut down every year.” While the first half of total deforestation took place over nearly 100 centuries (from 8,000 B.C. to 1900), the second half occurred in the blink of an eye within only the past one century, culminating in the 1980s with no let up (unless one is to fall for corporate-sponsored happy statistics).

So though only a few centuries ago an old man could take his grandchild for a walk in a nearby forestland or woodland, identifying tree species and small wildlife along the way, how many grandfathers can do so today? All too few, for how many human habitations are still blessed with nearby forestlands or woodlands? And when such is the reality in our time, what forests might a grandfather show his ten-year-old only a century from now?

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Pepe Escobar
Strategic Culture Foundation

The Swiss “peace” kabuki came and went – and the winner was Vladimir Putin. He didn’t even have to show up.

The Swiss “peace” kabuki came and went – and the winner was Vladimir Putin. He didn’t even have to show up.

None of the Big Players did. Or in case they sent their emissaries, there was significant refusal to sign the vacuous final declaration – as in BRICS members Brazil, India, Saudi Arabia, UAE and South Africa.

Without BRICS, there’s absolutely nothing the collective West – as in The Hegemon and assorted vassals – can do to alter the proxy war chessboard in Ukraine.

In his carefully calibrated speech to diplomats and the leadership of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Putin delineated an incredibly restrained and strategic approach to solve the Ukraine problem. In the context of the Hegemon’s escalatory green light – actually in practice for several months now – for Kiev to attack deeper into the Russian Federation, Putin’s offer was extremely generous.

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Alastair Crooke
Al Mayadeen English

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world.
— William Butler Yeats

Issues such as immigration, falling living standards, and anger at the Green Agenda played a big part in the election ‘mutiny’, but the Ukraine war is central (though its centrality is never explicitly admitted).

The dismay, confusion, and shock emanate from Europe as first the UK, then the French Establishments fall, and the German too is humiliated. What we are experiencing is the ‘noise’ from the outer defensive lines of the European Establishment folding, whilst -- for now -- the Centre stands defiant and unyielding.

Apart from the political mayhem that the Euro-elections wreaked across Europe, the key point is that Brussels’ first ‘defensive fortification lines’ were breached.

This defensive ‘line’ (known colloquially as the ‘Cordon Sanitare’) represents the understanding that the political Right -- invariably denigrated as the ‘Far Right’ -- must be ‘walled off’ from mainstream politics. It has been a forbidden act to allow any coalition, or partnership, to cohabit with non-Centrist parties of the Right. All contrarian parties were to be ostracised.

In Italy, the Cordon ‘trenches and tank traps’ were already being breached by Georgia Meloni. In France, Le Pen’s Rassemblement National drove a tank across the Cordon lines. And the AfD and Sara Wagenkecht’s party punched another hole, too, in Germany. However, ‘the Centre’ -- a bloc of Left-Centrist Brussels-linked MEPs -- may still (just) have the majority in the European parliament. Their narrative is that the ‘Centre has held’.

Translated: they are saying, ‘no compromise’; we’re still on top. Brussels will try to ignore these recent events -- ‘nothing changes’; but a ‘window has opened’ nonetheless in Brussels, and fresh air is pouring in upon the fusty habitual fug. Coalitions across a wider political spectrum will happen. New parliamentary ‘blocs’ are already emerging, and settled institutional EU politics will be challenged.

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Harold Turner
Hal Turner Show

As reported on this site earlier today, the President of Poland publicly proposed the forcible break-up of Russia into "200 ethnic states." He did this in Switzerland in front of 78 other countries attending the "Peace Conference" for Ukraine. So that's 78 countries against Russia . . . i.e. "world war."

This idea of breaking-up Russia was first proposed by Gunther Fehlinger, Chairman of the Austria NATO non-governmental organization (NGO) of Austria, in April of 2023 (Original Story Here). His idea called for breaking-up Russia into 41 separate countries, and he was traveling here in the United States at the time (Hudson Institute in Manhattan) to push his idea. He even created a "map" showing how he envisioned Russia being broken apart. [Image to the right]

At the time, I thought his idea was so ridiculous as to be laughable. Now, I see it has gained official traction, with the President of Poland formally proposing to 78 other nations at the ongoing Switzerland "peace conference" that Russia be divided not into 41 countries, but into 200 ethnic countries. Gunther Fehlinger's idea has not only gained traction, it has gotten far worse!

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Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin, President of Russia
Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow, June 14, 2024

Vladimir Putin: Colleagues, good afternoon.

I am pleased to welcome all of you and express my gratitude for your active work in the interests of Russia and our people.

We last met in this extended format in November 2021, and since then, there have been many pivotal and even fateful events, without exaggeration, both in Russia and around the world. Therefore, I think it is important to assess the current situation in global and regional affairs, as well as set the appropriate tasks for the Foreign Ministry. All of these tasks are aimed at achieving our main goal: creating conditions for Russia’s sustainable development, ensuring its security, and improving the well-being of Russian families.

In today’s challenging and unpredictable conditions, our work in this area demands that we concentrate our efforts, initiative, perseverance, and abilities not only to respond to current challenges, but also to set our own long-term agenda. We should propose possible solutions to fundamental issues that concern not only us, but also the entire international community. It is crucial to discuss them with our partners in an open and constructive manner.

Let me repeat: the world is changing rapidly. Global politics, the economy, and technological competition will never be the same as before. More countries are striving to strengthen their sovereignty, self-sufficiency, and national and cultural identity. The countries of the Global South and East are gaining prominence, and the role of Africa and Latin America is growing. Since the Soviet times, we have always acknowledged the importance of these regions, but today the dynamics have completely shifted, and this is becoming increasingly evident. The pace of transformation in Eurasia, where many significant integration projects are underway, has also accelerated significantly.

This new political and economic reality now serves as the foundation for the emerging multipolar and multilateral world order, and this is an inevitable process. It reflects the cultural and civilisational diversity that is inherently part of humanity, despite all attempts at artificial unification.

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Evangelos L. (Ευάγγελος Λ.)
War News 24/7

Russia delivers to all EU countries a humiliating ultimatum of unconditional surrender of Ukraine: Its rejection opens "Pandora's box" (Text in Greek)

President of Russia Vladimir Putin’s speech at the meeting with senior staff of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Moscow, June 14, 2024 (Text in English below)

Events are unfolding according to a catastrophic scenario before one's eyes. Ukraine has rejected Russian President Vladimir Putin's ultimatum. Russian officials "reacted with anger" to Kyiv's expected decision.

State Duma Deputy Chairman Pyotr Tolstoy said that "this is the last peace proposal from Moscow's side, the next one will be a demand for Ukraine's capitulation ( or whatever is left)" while Lavrov said:

💬 "President Vladimir Putin is a patient person. He who has ears will hear. He who has brains will know what this is all about. I’m not sure these people have these organs functioning properly, but hope dies last."

Russian analysts note that "with this peace proposal by Vladimir Putin, Ukraine would hold Kharkiv and Odesa. Ukraine lost the opportunity to preserve its statehood."

Ukraine has rejected the ultimatum announced today by Russian President Vladimir Putin as "absurd". Ukraine's Foreign Ministry described his words as "manipulative statements aimed at misleading the international community (and) undermining diplomatic efforts to achieve a just peace".

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Eric Zuesse
Oriental Review

U.S.-Saudi Petrodollar Pact Ends after 50 Years

“U.S.-Saudi Petrodollar Pact Ends after 50 Years”
T. 11 June 2024, analysis by Paul Hoffman:

The 50-year-old petrodollar agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia was just allowed to expire. The term “petrodollar” refers to the U.S. dollar’s role as the currency used for crude oil transactions on the world market. This arrangement has its roots in the 1970s when the United States and Saudi Arabia struck a deal shortly after the U.S. went off the gold standard that would go on to have far-reaching consequences for the global economy. In the history of global finance, few agreements have wielded as many benefits as the petrodollar pact did for the U.S. economy.

A Boon to U.S. Bonds—The petrodollar agreement, formalized after the 1973 oil crisis, stipulated that Saudi Arabia would price its oil exports exclusively in U.S. dollars and invest its surplus oil revenues in U.S. Treasury bonds. In return, the U.S. provided military support and protection to the kingdom. This arrangement was a win-win situation for both; the U.S. gained a stable source of oil and a captive market for its debt, while Saudi Arabia secured its economic and overall security.

Status as the Reserve Currency—Oil being denominated in U.S. dollars alone has significance beyond the categories of oil and finance. By mandating that oil be sold in U.S. dollars (DXY), the agreement elevated the dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency. This, in turn, has profoundly impacted the U.S. economy. The global demand for dollars to purchase oil has helped to keep the currency strong, making imports relatively cheap for American consumers. Additionally, the influx of foreign capital into U.S. Treasury bonds has supported low interest rates and a robust bond market.

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Ahmad Karakira
Al Mayadeen English

“Israel’s” actions and numerous violations since October 7 have dealt the occupation entity mighty blows, one of which is that the world, including its allies, can no longer tolerate its crimes, at least nominally.

“Israel” is losing the battle of public opinion as its ongoing atrocities against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip are being exposed daily, reflected in a plummeting approval rate of its actions by citizens of its biggest ally, the United States.

A March survey conducted by Gallup found that the majority of people in the US (55%) now disapprove of “Israel’s” actions in Gaza, compared with 45% in November 2023, while the approval percentage has significantly dropped from 50% to 36%.

This comes as the Israeli occupation forces have so far killed almost 39,000 people since the start of the genocidal war on Gaza on October 7, 2023.

But the results of the aforementioned survey are not just figures posted online. In fact, they can be attributed to “Israel’s” diplomatic, legal, and military failure in the now-eight-months war.

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Patrick Poppel
InfoBrics

Since the 1990s, Western structures have gained great influence in the Balkans and the Caucasus. Many different peoples and cultures live together in a small territory there. This has been a very good playground for geostrategic experiments. With various actions of soft power and provocations, the Western secret services very often succeeded in organizing disorder and problems.

Currently, Armenia and Georgia in particular are victims of the West's political influence.

The aim is to integrate these two states ever more closely into Western structures and to indoctrinate the population against Russia.

To achieve this goal, a large number of non-governmental organizations with close ties to the EU and the USA are working in these two states. They are working towards these goals at all levels and in all areas. Education, culture and politics are being infiltrated by these "Western agents" and this is intended to bring society in these countries totally in line with the West in the long term.

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Artem, Emergency Physician
Readovka.ru (Original in Russian)

We were at war...and I slept. — I'm from Belgorod. I was born, grew up, and studied here. I am 24 years old, I have been working for six months as an ambulance doctor, and at the same time I am doing my residency training as an anesthesiologist and resuscitator.

February 23 was the birthday of a friend. We went and congratulated her. We discussed the subject of war because we had all sorts of thoughts and conversations during that week. I said at the time: "Come on, what war, it's the ravings of a madman", I went to bed and woke up at about 7-8 in the morning. My mom calls me and says, "Tom, the war has started. When I woke up, I said, "What war? What? With whom?!" My parents saw and heard it all, they live in Razumnoye, and it was loud enough. I slept through it all safely, and then I saw it on the news.

Readovka note: the village of Razumnoye is located to the southeast of Belgorod, closer to the border.

The emotions that I had at that moment about the war were a lack of understanding of what it was about, and why we were invading the territory of the nearest state. Belgorod is a city where most people have relatives or close friends close by. Accordingly, there was incomprehension and denial.

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Editor thepeoplesvoice.org
The People's Voice

An excerpt of the Naomi Wolf interview conducted by blckbx.tv about her new book- Facing the Beast: Courage, Faith, and Resistance in a New Dark Age.

Naomi Wolf What I'm trying to say is at the very top you have to sell your soul to Satan or in the case of the Biden family take $3 million from a Chinese government asset which is what the Hunter Biden laptop shows, and I voted for that Administration. So I'm thoroughly unbiased in my criticism, and then down the chain people get bribed or threatened and we see it all the way down to local public health officials, local police, the police in New York City. When I tried to sit in an area cordoned off for the vaccinated in Grand Central Station, I was surrounded by cops. They didn't want to keep me from making use of a public bench you know. They certainly didn't want to when I pointed out the history of keeping people from sitting down in public places in the United States, our Jim Crow laws. But they were bound by the governor, they were bound by the police commissioner, so it's rippling down, it's ripping down.

blckbx.tv But do you still take in consideration that there might be an option that these people are deep down acting with the best intentions, but we just don't know what their goal is?

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Khalil Nasrallah
The Cradle

The Resistance Axis has effectively thwarted US distraction tactics in Syria meant to put pressure on local factions and support Israeli interests as the war on Gaza rages on.

Western-backed terrorist strongholds in Syria have not remained untouched by the Israeli military assault on Gaza. With the broad activation of the Axis of Resistance in support of Gaza, particularly in Lebanon, it didn’t take too long before Washington began to mobilize its extremist foot soldiers in Syria’s north.

Soon after the 7 October Al-Aqsa Flood Palestinian resistance operation – and even before the war’s trajectory became clear and Hezbollah’s intentions were understood – terrorists in Syria began to escalate their operations. Terror attacks were recorded in northern Latakia and the western Aleppo region, where Hezbollah, Iranian advisors, and the Syrian army are concentrated, as well as along the demarcation line between areas controlled by the state and those controlled by the militants.

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Daphné Richemond-Barak
Foreign Affairs

An Israeli soldier securing a tunnel in the northern Gaza
Strip, November 2023. (Img. © Ronen Zvulun/Reuters)

Israel underestimated the strategic ramifications of tunnel warfare. The Group’s Gaza Tunnels Will Inspire Others.

When Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, it dragged Israel into one of the worst underground wars ever. By now it is abundantly clear that the scale of Hamas’s subterranean complex is unprecedented and that the use of tunnels has contributed to casualties among civilians and soldiers. More consequentially, by sustaining underground operations over months, Hamas has delayed an Israeli victory, causing unimaginable diplomatic and political costs along the way.

In terms of tunnel warfare, the only war that compares is World War I, where countless British and German soldiers died trying to expose, mine, and dig tunnels. No other use of tunnels in warfare comes close—neither the entrenchment of Osama bin Laden in the mountains of Afghanistan that enabled him to evade U.S. forces and plan attacks undetected; nor that of al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in Mali, where tunnels were used in launching attacks from nearly impregnable underground hideouts; nor that of the Islamic State (also known as ISIS), which used tunnels to conduct attacks on U.S.-led multinational forces in Iraq and Syria. Hamas’s use of tunnels is so advanced that it more closely resembles how states use underground structures to protect command-and-control centers than what is typical for nonstate actors.

Hamas’s buildup of below-ground capabilities has shaken Israel’s assessment of subterranean threats. Israel never imagined becoming embroiled in an underground war of such proportions. If anything, Israel had been focused on eliminating the Hamas tunnels that cross into Israeli territory. The war in the Gaza Strip will likely spur the development of new doctrine and new methods to deal with this unique type of war. Hamas’s tunnel system has no doubt caught the attention of other militaries and nonstate actors, all of which are noting how effective they have been for Hamas’s survival in Gaza.

Now that Hamas has overcome most of the hurdles inherent to underground warfare—communication, navigation, low oxygen levels, and claustrophobia, among others—there is every reason to believe that the tactic will continue to spread. Hamas’s innovative use of the underground has redefined the strategic value of the surface, altered military encounters, and transformed the use human shields.

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