A Conspiracy of Trolls

posted by Oleg Atbashian at American Thinker 

Ah, the grand old art of making people hate one another. It’s as easy as telling Group A that Group B think they’re a bunch of lowbrows who wouldn’t know culture if it came up and bit them on their mass-market jeans.  Then you flip the script and inform Group B that Group A look down on them with the kind of disdain usually reserved for unflushed toilets.  Don’t even try to use logic; we’re dealing in the commodity of raw, unrefined emotions here.  Groups C, D, and E may also get involved, depending on the size of the conspiracy theory you’re spinning.  You can stir the pot or set the whole kitchen on fire.

Why make people hate one another?  Well, it’s either because you’re the type of person who believes that “divide and conquer” is a great strategy for a Tuesday afternoon, or you’re nursing a grudge against society so big that it needs its own ZIP code.  Sure, real conspiracies are out there, playing hide and seek.  But why not toss a few faux conspiracies into the mix?  It’s like adding a little glitter to the dust — distracts the eye while the real dirt gets swept under the rug.

Now let’s take Marxist ideology for a spin.  This is a conspiracy theory on steroids, jazzed up with academic jargon.  It’s a long and winding tale of how, since Adam and Eve decided to binge on a fruit diet, the rich have been conspiring against the poor, inventing such devious instruments of oppression as gods and religion, private property, family, the rule of law, and that pesky thing called morality.  Modern remixes include gender, race, ethnicity, and even flipping the bird at different species, climate, and the environment.

What’s the endgame?  You chop up society into neat little groups — A, B, C, and so on.  Feed them a steady diet of bile to turn them against one another, with each faction glaring suspiciously at their neighbors, as if everyone’s scheming to pilfer the biggest slice of the communal pie.  And then, with a flourish, you step in as the hero, promising to turn off this horror show if — and only if — they hand you the keys to the kingdom.  Classic.

The good old USSR wielded a playbook of divisive tactics so cunning, it could’ve made Machiavelli blush.  They weren’t just the masters of the “us vs. them” narrative; they were the grand puppeteers, pulling strings from the IRA to FARC to the PLO.  Every terrorist mob and communist outfit — the original “hate groups” — was their marionette.  When hate and violence around the world reached the boiling point, they’d point the finger at capitalist societies and say, “Look, they started it!”

Putin’s Russia not only inherited this delightful bag of tricks from the USSR, but also gave it a tech-savvy makeover.  Behold the infamous “troll factory“ in St. Petersburg, a veritable hive of digital discord, with subsidiaries in Venezuela and other client states in various geographical regions.  Picture hundreds of thousands of inflammatory social media posts, in every language under the sun, all crafted to whip up a frenzy of hate.  To land a gig at that illustrious establishment, you must be able to pretend you’re someone you’re not and cook up the juiciest, most divisive tales you can think of.

Remember the 2016 presidential elections?  Those trolls were like party-crashers on all social media platforms, posing alternatively as Trump- and as Hillary-supporters, with a mission to paint each side as so utterly ridiculous, so thoroughly despicable, that hate seemed like the only logical response.  And let’s not forget the cherry on top — the largest and most active BLM page on Facebook, also a Russian troll production.  If you thought they called it a day after the election, guess again.  These guys are the Energizer bunnies of social strife.

The internet and social media once seemed like places where everyone would hold hands in digital harmony.  But that utopian dream machine quickly devolved into a creepy masquerade, where everyone is invited, but nobody knows who’s behind the mask.  Take Quora.com, for instance. It used to be this cozy global campfire where anyone could toss in a question, and the rest of the world huddled around to offer answers. — a digital kumbaya moment, providing hours of delightful, informative banter.  Ah, the good old days.

Enter Russian trolls, the ever-enthusiastic interlopers in our global conversation.  They are paid to turn even the most innocuous platforms into battlegrounds by planting fake stories and allegations that could start a bar fight in a monastery.  They pit whites against blacks, women against men, Europeans against Americans, Christians against atheists, Hispanics against English-speakers, homo against hetero, and everyone against the Jews.  It’s like a twisted game of societal Jenga, where the aim is to pull out the right block and watch everything collapse.

For example, there is one user named “Siayox,” with a profile picture right out of Central Casting for “Hipster You’d Least Like to Have a Beer With.”  This supposedly English-speaking dude describes himself — using his original spelling and grammar — as “Writer, and proud white-man who care about science and logic.  With out white-men you wont able enjoy around fancy and save places.”

The grammatical horror show aside, he poses alternatively as a black boy, a white woman, or a Germanic neo-Nazi, with questions meant to incite anger and contempt.  These queries also serve as a place for fellow trolls to spew fake tales of oppression and hurl insults while masquerading as members of various ethnic and religious groups.

What’s the telltale sign of the Russian connection?  Amid the posts meant to demoralize Western societies, there’s a recurring theme, a narrative that is as subtle as a sledgehammer and about as nuanced.  Of all the world conflicts, and out of the 195 recognized countries in the world, these supposed “Americans” and “Europeans” chose to focus on Ukraine, praising the Russian invasion and branding the dispossessed Ukrainian refugees as “racist Nazis.”

Below is a shortened list of Siayox’s greatest hits.  The full roster is here — a reminder that in the world of online manipulation, nothing is as it seems, and the person behind the keyboard could be anyone, anywhere — churning out discord like it’s going out of style.

• I’m a black kid. Do white people hate me?
• I’m white and I definitely believe that Cleopatra was African American. Why do we get angry about this?
• Why don’t women just go back to the kitchen?
• I’m a black man. I believe that Richard III was an African American. Why are white people denying this?
• I’m white and I dont like Jewish people. Am I racist?
• I’m black and I wonder when will we get our reparations from white people?
• I’m a black girl and I believe that Richard III was African American. Why do British people deny this if they have evidence supporting this claim?
• Why do people say that there’s no Nazi and racism in Ukraine while my self as a black person living in Ukraine faced the most disgusting treatments you can ever imagine as a human?
• Why are many anti-Nazi and non-white countries siding with Russia against “racists” in Ukraine? Why is that? Is it true that Ukrainians are Nazis?
• As a white Ukrainian refugee, I don’t want to live with blacks. Do you think that the British government should deport them into their countries?
• I’m a Ukrainian refugee but I don’t want to be around blacks and other inferior ones. Does that make me racist?
• I’m a white supremacist and support Ukraine. What is wrong with that?
• Is it appropriate to leave my fourteen-year-old daughter alone with her black stepfather when I go out?
• I’m a white woman and I’m so sorry, but why do I feel so disgusted when I see someone of another race?
• I’m a white boy and I feel some kind of superiority over my black mates in school. Where is this coming from?
• Why do people still deny white superiority with all actual scientific evidences around them?
• I’m proud being Germanic, man, gentle, and white. Does that offend other races?

This is just one troll.  There are many more in this circus, where the clowns change masks faster than a chameleon on a kaleidoscope.  Some have a better command of English than others, but all of them tend to switch their race, sex, age, or political views depending on the topic.  Now he’s a conservative grandpa lamenting women in the military, and moments later he’s a woke college feminist blaming all historical atrocities on white males.

The same spectacle unfolds on Facebook, X-Twitter, and other platforms.  Some trolls pose as “crazy liberals,” others as “angry conservatives.”  Spotting these shape-shifters isn’t always easy, especially when they occasionally echo your own thoughts.  A surge of blinding anger upon reading a post is usually a red flag.  These posts are crafted to dehumanize, to stir the pot of hatred with a big, invisible spoon.  It helps to check their profiles before sharing their musings.  Unfortunately, there’s no silver bullet for trolls — even if there were, they’d change their pattern, and we’d be left guessing again.

Reading this article may not turn you into a troll-resistant superhero, but it should at least boost your immunity.  The next time you see trolls singing your tune, remember that they’re not in your fan club.  Their mission is to weaken and split us apart as a nation.  If they can’t be as good as us, they’d settle for dragging us down to their level.  And yes, this is a real conspiracy — not to be confused with the fake ones, often spread by the same trolls.

For an ultimate piece of advice, let’s time-travel to pre-internet Tibet and consult Milarepa, a 12th-century yogi who lived without a smartphone or social media.  He warned not to be like the dog that chases every stick thrown its way.  Instead, be more like a lion, who goes after the thrower.  In the world of trolls, being a lion means seeing through the charade and refusing to play the game.  Don’t get caught up in every provocation, but focus on the source and understand the intent.  Nobody throws a stick at a lion twice.

X22, On the Fringe, and more- December 28

 

Avoiding America’s ‘Suez Moment’

It appears the Biden Administration is on the verge of failing at this critical moment in history

by James E. Fanell & Bradley A. Thayer for American Greatness

In the summer of 1956, the “Suez Crisis” began when Egyptian President Nassar nationalized the Suez Canal. By November England, France, and Israel invaded the Egyptian Sinai and Gaza Strip, effectively shutting down the canal and rendering useless to international shipping. During the ensuing negotiations between the United States and the Soviet Union it became apparent that the power and influence of the British pound and Great Britain had come to an end and was no longer a major player on the global stage. This period of history is known as the “Suez Moment” for the United Kingdom. It was an epochal event. Great Britain was no longer a great power. It could no longer act against the wishes of the U.S.

Today, the United States is facing its own Suez Moment because of attacks by Houthi rebels that have for all intents and purposes shut down the Suez Canal to international shipping.

Since November 19, dozens of commercial cargo ships have either been attacked or harassed by Houthi-rebels in or near the Bab al-Mandab Strait at the southern end of the Red Sea. As a result, American, French and British Navy ships have shot down Houthi-controlled drones and missiles attacking these commercial ships. These events are now disrupting the global supply chain. Hundreds of ships already having been diverted on the two-week longer journey south around the Cape of Good Hope and back up the west coast of Africa to reach European and American ports.

What is different about these new attacks is that they are being conducted as a proxy force backed by Iran of Houthi rebels who have been supplied with advanced anti-ship missiles, rockets, drone, and special forces.

Some 17,000 ships transit the Suez Canal per year. This represents 12% of the world’s trade and a $1 trillion worth of products, including 21% of all refined oil shipped from the Persian Gulf and Asia to Europe, North America, and North Africa. The cost from the Suez Canal’s de facto closure to much of the world’s shipping has already driven up shipping costs by 4% and the price of oil by 2% in the past week – threatening to disrupt the global supply chain.

To combat this threat, nearly a month later, on December 18, the U.S. the Secretary of Defense announced the establishment of “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” a coalition of nations’ navies under the umbrella of the pre-existing Combined Maritime Forces and leadership by Task Force 153. The mission of this new multinational security initiative is to provide escort for commercial shipping through the Red Sea and Suez Canal. At this point, Operation Prosperity Guardian could also be called “Operation Blackmail” given that Iran is now holding the global economy hostage as part of its agenda of destroying Israel.

Alarmingly, on Christmas Eve weekend the targeting of international shipping expanded to the Indian Ocean, when the Liberia-flagged, Japanese-owned, and Netherlands-operated chemical tanker, Chem Pluto, was struck by a drone from Iran some 200 nautical miles southwest of the Indian city of Veraval. To make matters even more dire, on the same day a senior Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps member publicly threatened to shut down the Strait of Gibraltar and effectively close off the Mediterranean Sea.

As of Christmas Day, the threat to international shipping by Iran and its Houthi rebel proxies has placed the United States in the same position as Great Britain in 1956, a Suez Moment that will determine the future stature of the U.S. dollar and the power and influence of America as a world leader.

At this point it seems clear that instead of trying to play defense for the thousands of ships that transit the Suez and Red Sea, and other international waterways, it would make more sense to go after the origins of these attacks at the operational and strategic levels.

At the operational level, the U.S. military intelligence knows the location of Houthi camps and weapons caches along with Iranian drone and coastal anti-ship cruise missile batteries. Accordingly, instead of trying to protect each ship from the “arrows” of the Houthis, a more effective and less expensive strategy would be to go after the “archers” in Houthi camps in Yemen and the drone and ASCM batteries in Iran that are being used to attack international shipping.

At the strategic level, given Iran is the provider of funds to the Houthis, it is reasonable that the U.S. should resume the embargoes and tariffs that the Trump administration placed on Iran. This would suffocate their ability to fund Houthis, Hamas, and Hezbollah murderous actions. In addition to targeting Iran’s economy, the U.S. should also be targeting Chinese and Russians firms that are also supporting Iran. Suffocating Iran’s economy is less expensive, more effective and will benefit the entire world that is being blackmailed by these terrorists.

However, it appears that the Biden Administration is on the verge of failing at this critical moment in history. Specifically, there is a lack of maritime experience and leadership in the Biden administration that has diminished the number of nations willing to join the coalition.

According to reporting from maritime industry watcher Jon Konrad, on day one of the Biden administration, they closed the National Security Council’s maritime desk leaving the White House without any maritime experience. Combine this with an Army General as Secretary of Defense, and we see that Operation Prosperity Guardian has placed American and other coalition warships and sailors in a defensive position where the likelihood of a “leaker” missile or offensive weapon getting through has greatly increased.

The result of this passive approach is to emphasize to the world that the strategic messaging from Beijing—America is in decline and the People’s Republic of China is rising—is true.  As long as the Biden Administration sits back and allows the arrows to keep coming at civilian cargo and coalition naval ships, the global supply system will threaten to come undone with catastrophic consequences that could lead to starvation, freezing death in the winter months, and mass protests and open conflicts across the globe.

What is clear is that this challenge is not new for America. In 1803, President Thomas Jefferson had to deal with the Barbary pirates in North Africa. Interestingly, it was through that conflict more than 200 years ago that the USMC gained notoriety. At first, the U.S. tried to do what other states did, and that was to buy off the Sultans, which shows Mark Twain was right about history rhyming if not repeating. When that did not work, Jefferson sent in the Marines to restore our national sovereignty and ensure the peace and stability of this important region. Likewise, in the 1980s, the Reagan administration conducted Operation Praying Mantis to defeat Iran’s efforts to close the Persian Gulf to oil traffic during the Iran-Iraq war.

At present, the U.S. has two carrier strike groups and one expeditionary strike group in the region and as other military experts has noted, this is enough of a force to seek out and destroy not just the Houthi rebel camps, but to ensure Iran’s drone and missile batteries are dealt with.

However, as long as this administration refuses to use meaningful force to deal with Houthis and Iran directly at the source, then these attacks against international shipping will continue with devasting results for the global economy. Worse still will be the impact to the rest of the world. If the Iranians are emboldened to take such actions, then Kim Jong Un’s considerations regarding an attack against South Korea might be weighted in favor of such aggression. Equally, Xi Jinping’s calculus to attack Taiwan might be influenced in favor of an attack.

The U.S. is paying the price for 30 years of forgetting the importance of why it is that America was a maritime power for much of our history. For decades the Navy and Marines have been relegated to second tier status in the Department of Defense and we are now seeing the result of a fleet that is too small and is being stretched to the limit from the Black Sea, Mediterranean, Indian and Pacific Oceans.

The U.S. must defend its national interests by going on the offense against the threat from the Houthis and Iranian presence in Yemen to ensure freedom of navigation. By so doing, it will convey to the PRC that the U.S. will not tolerate interdiction of freedom of navigation in any waters, including the East and South China Seas, and so prevent America’s “Suez Moment.”

'Acceptance' Is Not a Virtue

posted by Brandon Morse at RedStateVIP 

The evolution to "acceptance" has been a slippery slope scenario. 

At first, it was "tolerance," which most people could get on board with since, at least at the time, the thing society was asked to tolerate was equal rights for any given group. Most of America was fine with that, which is why LGBT couples, for instance, can now get married in America. 

However, as most activist groups do, once the initial goal was achieved, they didn't stop. The goal went from being equal rights to supremacy. The LGBT activist community began attempting to force themselves on society, proclaiming that any resistance to their desires is discrimination and hate. While there is an endless number of examples of the LGBT activist community attempting to force itself on our country, the most prominent example remains a simple baker in Colorado who refused to make a gay wedding cake. 

To this day, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop is still fending off lawsuits and attacks by the LGBT community after initially refusing to bake a gay wedding cake over his Christian beliefs. 

This is no longer about tolerance; this is about forced acceptance. In fact, "acceptance" became the new battle cry of the LGBT activist community, making the word something of a modern virtue. 

But acceptance is not a virtue. Acceptance is a trap. 

Acceptance is a loaded word primarily because it's a one-way street. Using Phillips as an example again, the LGBT activist community will not accept that the baker's Christianity stops him from participating in LGBT ceremonies of any kind. They accuse him of being bigoted and hateful because of this, yet if you asked many of these activists to bake a cake celebrating a Christian, they'd likely scoff at the idea. 

They certainly don't want to accept the idea that parents should have control over their own children, yet we're supposed to accept the idea that they should be able to guide our children in the ways of the LGBT community, and they try to pass us off as bigots if we don't. 

It's "acceptance for me, but none for thee." 

This is why acceptance isn't really a virtue. It's a form of submission and one that has brought us closer and closer to societal collapse. 

The line at which we accept things should be very shallow. For instance, I don't accept the idea that shoplifting and thievery are a form of recompense for some wrong that no person today ever experienced. I don't accept that we should be looking at identity before skill or merit in the workplace brd on some misguided DEI nonsense. 

Acceptance is sold as a quality for a strong moral character, but, in truth, it's just a way to feed the monster that will eventually eat society. 

Tolerance for other's lifestyles, so long as they don't impact yours, is perfectly fine. I am not my brother's keeper, and what my neighbor does within the confines of his own home is his business, as mine is mine. I'm not necessarily just tolerating his lifestyle that I may disagree with, but I am agreeing to a mutual form of privacy and freedom. 

But acceptance is the idea that my neighbor should not only be able to do what he does in full view of me but that I should applaud and rejoice in what he does in public. It's the idea that, if he so chooses, he should be able to teach my kid about what he does with or without my consent, and I should sit and let it happen in the name of "acceptance."

This is not a virtuous action. As I said before, this is actually a submission to another. 

When you hear someone talk about acceptance, understand that this is what they really mean. Their true aim is to get you to submit to their ideas and agendas. 

As in all things of this context, do not comply. 

Fight This Information War with KISSes

posted by J.B. Shurk at American Thinker 

I believe in the KISS principle: keep it simple, stupid.  I do my best to boil events down to their essential truths and then hammer those truths again and again.  Repetition is my weapon of choice.

The reason I stick to this strategy has nothing to do with who is reading.  It has to do with the nature of the war we are already fighting.  Never before in human history have people been so bombarded by lies and propaganda from their own political leaders.  The information warfare that the U.S. government and other Western nations use against their own peoples is meant to conquer minds with direct programming instead of directed bullets.

How do you counter-program people who have been indoctrinated for years, if not decades?  You KISS them, so that they’ll KISS others, and a steady flow of simple truths can begin to crack the glass of our invisible cage.  The whole thing sounds quite dirty and promiscuous, but constantly reminding ourselves what is actually true in a blizzard of lies is an admirable pursuit.  Crafty French diplomat Talleyrand, who managed to keep his head through both the French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon, observed, “Speech was given to man to conceal his thoughts.”  The Marxist globalists who use censorship and propaganda as shield and sword are Talleyrand’s ardent disciples.

The size of the information war being conducted against us is astounding, and because the formerly free press has been conquered and conditioned to support the State, news outlets willing to report the truth are few.  When the corporate news cartel controls 95% of the information flow and the Department of Homeland Security is effectively censoring the remaining 5%, it becomes essential for those of us who see this war as it really is to sound a little like broken records.  Using labels such as “Deep State,” “Uniparty,” “Marxist globalists,” “ruling class,” and “elites” is a form of subversive branding meant to align us against a common enemy.  “Make American Great Again” is more than a jingle or campaign slogan; it is an attempt to cut through artificial political divisions so that abused citizens can find common purpose.  Rejecting “woke” dogma, “political correctness,” and other Marxist distortions of truth is a form of mental armor that defends against the government’s unabating propaganda.  Repetition of simple truths must meet the repetition of outrageous lies head-on.

Why do I bring this up?  Because the information warfare leveled against us is going to become much worse.  A Canadian court recently ruled that describing drag queens who perform in front of children as “groomers” is not “protected speech.”  Western governments’ war against moral virtue has become so obscene that those who abuse children have become a legally protected class.  “Hate speech” laws — that novel approach by Marxist globalists to criminalize all dissent — are silencing people throughout the West.  

Before you assume that the First Amendment will prevent Canada’s love for depravity over free speech from fully metastasizing down here, remember this: the U.S. government’s terrorist watch list is now over two million people worldwide, including thousands of Americans here at home.  Although the O’Biden administration has made it clear that Iran (the world’s leading State sponsor of terrorism) and Hamas (a bunch of vile murderers and rapists) are its friends, it has gone out of its way to use the FBI to hunt Christians, concerned parents, pro-life Americans, and Trump-supporters as “domestic terrorists.”  Since when has the federal government ever worried about a suspected (non-leftist) terrorist’s free speech?  What happens when a hundred and fifty million Americans discover that they are now seen as “terrorists”?  With enough intimidation, the national security surveillance State expects that dissent will disappear like a puff of smoke.  As Brandon Smith wrote recently in an essay dissecting information warfare, “The globalists view public manipulation and social engineering as their birthright.  They think it’s their manifest destiny, and they suggest often that humanity would somehow decay and self-destruct without their influence.”  Those who keep it simple and stand their ground, though, may force the Marxist globalists to one day face their Waterloo.

I have met few people with a perfect track record of seeing through the government’s propaganda over the last twenty years.  Not everyone saw the PATRIOT Act as a dangerous step toward an all-powerful surveillance State.  Not everyone saw through the Russia collusion hoax.  Not everyone recognized the early steps of the federal government’s manipulation of social media as a mass censorship campaign against the American people.  Not everyone recognized the mass hysteria over COVID as a complex, multi-pronged battle plan meant to manipulate the 2020 election and convince terrified people to surrender their own liberties.  Not everyone recognized the war in Ukraine as a money-laundering operation for politicos, bankers, and industrialists.  Be patient with those who do not clearly see things as quickly as you do, because we have all had the wool pulled over our eyes at some point in life.

The government is exceedingly effective in its information warfare because it, too, keeps it simple.  Diplomats of the “woke” faith repeat dopey lies — such as “men can menstruate” — with such gusto that even religious leaders who should know better begin spreading those same lies as “truths.”  Politicians use our morality against us when they say things such as, “We’re all in this together,” and good people can get caught in those empathy traps.  Military spokespeople use our patriotism against us when they insist, “If we don’t fight them over there, we’ll fight them over here,” and it is easy for warriors to end up volunteering for the wrong wars.  My point is this: however much you think you know, chances are that the U.S. government has conditioned you to believe at least some damaging lie in the course of your life.  Have compassion for those who are just now waking up to the reality of our situation, and state the truth calmly and simply, again and again.

NYU professor Mark Crispin Miller, a scholar who has written much about propaganda, says bluntly:

The media has been crucial to this entire operation, and ... I would say since the beginning of 2020, we have been subjected to a “Rolling Thunder of Propaganda.”  First, there was the virus panic.  Then, there was the George Floyd moment. ... There was the 2020 Election.  There was the so-called “insurrection.”  That was a wave of crackpot hysteria. ... Then, there was Ukraine, and the entire backstory of Russia’s invasion was completely missing from all the coverage. ... To say the press has failed abysmally is actually giving them too much credit.

While you see through the media’s obvious lies, too many Americans still see them as obvious truths.  It is far easier to accept outrageous deceptions than to accept that our most trusted institutions habitually distort reality.  The only way out of this psychological war is to confront falsehoods, mock propaganda, and speak honestly — again and again, until you break the government’s spell over the enchanted.  

As the great James Howard Kunstler wisely advises: “Remember, you are a sovereign individual and the blob in our nation’s capital city is an undifferentiated mass of feckless protoplasm.  You contain a cosmos of ideas and aspirations.  The blob is an agglomeration of sham and failure.  The blob stands for itself, not for our country.  You and I can stand for our country.”

My advice for emancipating others from their mental straitjackets is straightforward: acknowledge that there is good and evil in this world, and commit yourself to fighting evil.  Because we are in an information war, recognize that every lie must be confronted before it is allowed to subvert important truths.  Repeat what is true often.  And always keep it simple.

Silence In The Face Of Hamas’ Hospital Atrocities Will Ensure More Civilians Die

Few of the facts seem to matter as international organizations and the press ignore documented evidence of al-Shifa Hospital’s military use.

Denise Cohen reporting for The Federalist 

For weeks, Hamas has denied it was using al-Shifa Hospital, Gaza’s largest medical complex, as a base of operations. Captured Hamas terrorists tell a different story. They admit to using hospitals for military purposes as well as hiding places for their superiors.

Ahmed Kahlot, the arrested director of the Kamal Edwan hospital in Gaza, recently confessed to Israel’s domestic security agency, “Hamas has offices inside the hospitals. There are places for senior officials, they also brought a kidnapped soldier there. There is a designated place for investigations, internal security, and special security. They all have private phone lines inside the hospital.” Still, many in the media, and especially the United Nations and International Red Cross, supposedly designed to protect civilian lives, have yet to offer an unequivocal condemnation of the usage.

When it comes to Hamas’ usage of al-Shifa and other commandeered hospitals, the international community has abdicated its responsibility. Indeed, the effective silence of the rest of the world only ensures that Hamas will continue to rely on civilian structures.

Despite corporate news outlets, such as The New York Times, attempting to portray Hamas’ usage of hospitals as a contested matter, it is not. Hamas has a long and storied history of utilizing civilian facilities — such as hospitals, schools, and mosques — for its military and terrorism operations. As the military engagement continues, rife with accusatory misreporting, it is worth recalling the illustrative instance of al-Shifa Hospital in particular, a civilian medical complex that has served as the headquarters for Hamas’ operations.

There is nothing novel about Hamas using al-Shifa as a base of operations. During the 2014 Gaza War, The Washington Post’s London bureau chief William Booth asserted that al-Shifa Hospital had become a “de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.” Even Amnesty International, amid its virulent anti-Israel sentiment, managed to cobble together an accusation in 2014 that Hamas was torturing Palestinians in certain sections of the hospital.

Initially, al-Shifa Hospital was an army barracks during the British Mandate of Palestine. It became a small health facility in 1946 and was converted into a central hospital while Gaza was under Egyptian rule. After the 1967 Six-Day War, Egyptian forces surrendered at the hospital, and Israeli architects Gershon Zippor and Benjamin Idelson modernized the complex in the 1980s. One of the enhancements included the installation of a secure, underground operating room. This basement was the starting point for Hamas’ conversion of the medical facility into a military complex. 

Law Regarding Hospitals During War

The Geneva Conventions that regulate the conduct of war state that civilian hospitals and medical establishments are protected from combat to ensure the safety of medical personnel, helpless patients, and enemy forces unable to engage in combat. That protection is internationally respected and codified in Article 18 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 19 of the First Geneva Convention. However, that protection is not absolute and ceases to exist if hospitals “are used to commit, outside their humanitarian duties, acts harmful to the enemy.”

From the beginning of its reign of terror in 2007, Hamas used al-Shifa Hospital, among others, to terrorize civilians, torture and kill “Israeli collaborators,” and shield Hamas operatives from legitimate military objectives. Countless journalists from outlets hostile to Israel have reported Hamas activity within, around, and below the hospital. The hospital also served as a weapons arsenal, a launching point for rockets targeting Israel, and the headquarters of Hamas leadership. Its denial of these documented facts is as false as its original claim that it did not kidnap Israelis, one of whom was seen being dragged through al-Shifa. Rather than situate al-Shifa “as far as possible from [military objectives],” as recommended by the Geneva Conventions, Hamas has situated a central hub for its terror activities inside the hospital.

In the current war, and despite the many nay-sayers, there is ample evidence that al-Shifa Hospital is not simply a medical facility, used only for humanitarian purposes and deserving of full protection under international law. The basement Israel built was confirmed by captured Hamas terrorists to be a critical site in Hamas’ underground tunnel network.

Both Israeli and U.S. intelligence confirmed Hamas’ use of the hospital as part of its military campaign. In fact, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had enough evidence of Hamas’ abusive use of al-Shifa to arrest its director, Muhammed Abu Salmiya, for permitting Hamas to exploit the hospital while under his supervision. Israel established this hospital is being used for military purposes. It also met the next criteria of international law regarding its conduct in targeting the hospital as a military site.

Protections afforded a hospital during war “cease only after due warning has been given” with a “reasonable time limit, and after such warning has remained unheeded.” Israel adhered to international law in providing sufficient warnings and three weeks to evacuate the hospital. By the time the IDF entered the hospital, most of the civilians had been evacuated. The IDF brought in incubators, medical teams, and Arabic speakers to minimize danger to civilians who could be used as human shields by Hamas. The IDF also created a humanitarian corridor to enable Red Crescent ambulances to transport patients, including babies, to southern Gaza and Egypt for medical care.

Purveying Hamas’ Lies

Few of the facts seem to matter as international organizations and the press ignore al-Shifa’s heinous history and documented evidence of its continued military use. Pundits and other purveyors of sloppy information will likely continue to favor slogans and often fake graphic images from Hamas’ public relations arm over Israel’s adherence to both treaty and customary international law. Those accusing Israel of war crimes fail to distinguish between deliberate and incidental harm to civilians as they parrot the Gaza Health Ministry’s historically faulty casualty numbers.

Although the Biden administration is skeptical about the numbers of Palestinians killed in this war, the number is likely to be very high. But the number of casualties is not the foundation of war crimes, despite how emotionally triggering it is. What matters, under international law, is the conduct of those engaged in battle. The principle of proportionality addresses harm to civilians and requires that “expected incidental harm is not excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage.” Proportionality is not an “eye for an eye” concept but one that allows a response in which incidental harm to civilians is commensurate with the actual scope of a lawful military goal, such as destroying Hamas and the unlawful equipment it hides in civilian complexes like al-Shifa.

Israel is entitled to win this war, morally and legally. The horrible reality is that many combatants and innocent people have died, largely due to the nature of urban warfare combined with Hamas’ abuse of Palestinian civilians. In 2016-2017, when the U.S.-backed Iraqi army liberated the city of Mosul from the Islamic State, the world witnessed a similar loss of life as that terrorist group, like Hamas, hid weapons in civilian facilities, used innocent people as human shields, and killed civilians trying to flee.  

In this current war, neither attacks on terror facilities masquerading as humanitarian facilities nor the number of casualties should detract from Israel’s lawful and just effort to liberate the region from this stain on humanity.

Nut Says Addressing Rural Americans' Anger Is Like 'Fighting Terrorism'

Jeff Charles reporting for RedState 

It never ceases to amaze me how members of the left-wing chattering class have no idea why regular folks despise them. Former MSNBC host Chris Matthews recently illustrated the type of condescending attitude towards a wide swath of Americans that is typical of progressive elites who remain insulated in their comfy echo chambers.

During a Tuesday appearance on “Morning Joe,” he chimed in on the anger displayed by rural Americans towards members of the media and liberal establishment, claiming that dealing with these individuals was somehow akin to fighting terrorists.

Matthews began his comments by pointing out that “people that didn’t go to college have a pretty good rage on their hands,” and noted that those living in rural America “are so angry at the liberal establishment, the coastal elite.”

The former MSNBC host went on to describe how rural folks feel about “those people on Saturday Night Live.”

“And the regular guy in the country goes, there they are snarling and making fun of us again. And every time we make fun of Trump, we're making fun of them. That's the weird... It's a weird thing, but in a way, it's like fighting terrorism. We think we just put the army in or Israel just puts the IDF and they're going to solve the problem. It never solves the problem because you enrage people. And we did it with Afghanistan and we did it with Iraq. We enraged the enemy to the point where they were more fiery than ever and they hate us more than ever."

So, in essence, Matthews, from his ivory tower, believes it is weird that many Americans identify with former President Donald Trump to the point that they take attacks against him as attacks against his supporters. But he knows better. He knows his ilk doesn’t only have a problem with the Orange Man What Is Bad™. Their enmity is also directed at those who support him. Indeed, these people have looked down on rural folks for ages.

On Monday Ned Resinkoff, a senior editor for the progressive ThinkProgress, wrote in detail about how rattled he was that his plumber, “a middle-aged white guy with a southern accent,” may have voted for Donald Trump.

The idea that his plumber may have different political beliefs left Resnikoff so rattled he “couldn’t shake the sense of potential danger.”

Two days earlier Melinda Byerley, founder of a Silicon Valley-based tech startup that does “free-range, artisanal, organic, customized marketing” with “Birkenstocks-on-the-ground expertise,” tweeted her expert opinion on Middle America’s jobs-`attraction problem.

It wasn’t very nice.

First she said Middle America needs to realize “no educated person wants to live in a s- -t-hole with stupid people,” which is why she said more big corporations don’t move to the Heartland: “Those towns have nothing going for them,” with “no infrastructure, just a few bars and a terrible school system.”

Educated people such as herself wouldn’t live in rural areas because they won’t sacrifice their superior tolerance and diversity to do so. Nor do her highly educated friends want to live in states where the majority of residents “don’t want brown people to thrive.”

The only “weird” thing about this issue is that people like Chris Matthews can display utter contempt for rural folks whose politics don’t align with theirs and then turn around and wonder why these people dislike the liberal elites.

The notion that folks living in rural America are somehow akin to violent terrorists is the exact type of language that alienates them in the first place. Yet Matthews, like most of his contemporaries, believes they can somehow shame these folks into embracing their way of thinking. Either that, or they simply don’t care about offending them and are only playing to their audience, many of whom may very well share their beliefs about flyover country.

Poland puts state media into liquidation amid political row

 Donald Tusk's new government says liquidation would ensure “continued operation” of state-run media as they try to free them from political influence. The reform faces fierce resistance from Tusk’s conservative rivals.   

Poland's new culture minister announced the liquidation of all public media on Wednesday, deepening a political rift over the state-run broadcasters. The move, however, does not mean public broadcasters will be dissolved.

After taking power earlier this month, the new pro-EU government of Prime Minister Donald Tusk started an overhaul of state media outlets. Many critics of the previous government, which was led by the nationalist Law and Justice party (PiS), claim the broadcasters were reduced to the mouthpieces of the PiS and its allies during their eight-year rule.

But the push to reform them faced an obstacle when Poland's conservative President Andrzej Duda, a PiS ally, vetoed the new government's budget for public media.

"Due to the decision of the President of the Republic of Poland to suspend financing of public media, I decided to put into liquidation the companies Telewizja Polska SA, Polskie Radio SA and Polska Agencja Prasowa SA," Culture Minister Bartlomiej Sienkiewicz said on social media on Wednesday.

"In the current situation, such action will ensure the continued operation of these companies, carry out the necessary restructuring and prevent layoffs of employees in the above-mentioned companies."    

Why is Poland's public media being put into liquidation?

Putting the public TV, radio and news agency into liquidation helps protect the organizations as they are deprived of funding due to the ongoing political dispute, the minister said. Specifically, it secures workers' jobs and allows for restructuring, according to the official.

Sienkiewicz also noted that the lengthy liquidation process can be revoked as needed.

Poland's state-owned media outlets have become the first battleground between Tusk's coalition government and PiS and its allies.

The head of Duda's office, Marin Mastalerek, accused the new culture minister of behaving like "a typical aggressor."

Separately, PiS lawmaker Joanna Lichocka claimed that "Tusk's government is destroying the Polish media."

But the new government has defended its agenda.  

https://www.dw.com/en/poland-puts-state-media-into-liquidation-amid-political-row/a-67836396

REPORT: Western Banks Drop 60,000 Employees in 2023

posted by Sundance at Conservative Treehouse 

If you followed my research on banking and the reality of the Russian sanction regime, this report takes on an entirely new dimension.  The article is from ZeroHedge, and the topline is not the real story.

ZEROHEDGE – The collapse of three US regional banks – First Republic Bank, Silicon Valley Bank, and Signature Bank – marked some of the largest failures in the banking system since 2008. Central banks contained the “mini-crisis” earlier this year with forced interventions and the mega-merger of Credit Suisse and UBS. Despite the interventions, global banks still axed the most jobs since the global financial crisis. 

A new report from the Financial Times shows twenty of the world’s largest banks slashed 61,905 jobs in 2023, a move to protect profit margins in a period of high interest rates amid a slump in dealmaking and equity and debt sales. This compared with the 140,000 lost during the GFC of 2007-08. (more) 

Look carefully at the graphic labeled “global banks.”  What do they all have in common?

These are not global banks, they are all “western banks.”  Do you remember a key component of my trip to eastern EU {Password Protected}.   That part of my research trip was specifically to understand the contradiction between what the west says about the Russian financial sanctions, and the reality of the irrelevance of those sanctions in Russia.

I didn’t talk, I watched; I listened.

Here’s how it really looks from the outside looking at the USA.  The same way the Patriot Act was not designed to stop terrorism but rather to create a domestic surveillance system. So too were the “Russian Sanctions” not designed to sanction Russia, but rather to create the financial control system that will lead to a dollar-based western digital currency.

BRICS+ was creating a non-dollar-based currency alternative for trade. Then comes the western financial sanctions, under the auspices of punishment for the Ukraine conflict. However, think “stopgap.” The sanctions didn’t block Russia, they walled-in the WEST.

The sanctions were not designed to keep Russia out of western banking, they were designed to keep us in.  Start thinking from that perspective, and all of the downstream activity, including the aggressive USA govt/banking response to crypto markets, makes total sense.

♦GROUND REPORT – You might ask how I know the Russian sanctions are ineffective – here’s an example.  After doing advanced research, I went to three separate banks as a random and innocuous customer.  I put my reason in the kiosk at each bank, got my ticket number and sat down to listen to the conversations. When my ticket number came up on the digital board, I just ignored it and sat for hours listening to conversations.  No one ever noticed or questioned me – not once.

At every one of the banks, the majority of the customers, at the “new account” desk, were foreign nationals asking about setting up business accounts to trade with Russia. In every bank the conversations were friendly and helpful, with the bank staff telling the customers exactly how to set up their account to accomplish the transactions.  No one was saying no; instead, they were explaining how to do it in very helpful detail.

Within Russia, there are now 3rd party brokers with international accounts, an entirely new industry, which creates a layer of transactional capability for the outside company to sell goods into Russia.  A Samsung TV travels from South Korea to the destination in the RU with the financial transaction between manufacturer and retailer now passing through the new ‘broker’ intermediary. Essentially, that process is what was happening in the banks for small to medium sized companies.

The USA led “western” sanctions against Russian interests were not designed to keep Russia isolated financially, they were designed to keep USA and Western banking customers walled in.  The end goal?  To create a dollar based CBDC for western finance.

In order to accomplish that goal, WESTERN govt/banking needs full control.  Any alternative (BRICS+ currency/trade) is a threat.

The Western sanctions created a financial wall around the USA, not to keep Russia out, but to keep us in.  The Western sanction regime, the financial mechanisms they created and authorized, creates the control gate that leads to a “dollar based” digital currency.

In essence, the Ukraine war response justified a system that creates a digital dollar.

The loss in “western banking” jobs, the downsizing within the banking system, is a feature – not a flaw.