Paul Rigby

We welcome the views of others. We seek a free flow of information across national boundaries and oceans, across iron curtains and stone walls. We are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts, foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. John F. Kennedy: "Remarks on the 20th Anniversary of the Voice of America.," February 26, 1962.

Biden has often traced his unyielding support for Israel to dinner-table conversations with his father about the horrors of the Holocaust and to a 1973 meeting in Israel with Prime Minister Golda Meir during his first year as a senator. Even so, it took “a long, long discussion” with Henry “Scoop” Jackson, a famously hawkish Democratic senator from Washington state, for Biden to adopt a more hardline position. As Biden explained in a 1983 eulogy of Jackson, he had not felt “nearly as strongly” about backing Israel before his senior colleague encouraged him to make multiple visits to Israel and Nazi concentration camps. As a result, Biden said, Jackson “changed a major part of my political life and my attitude about a whole segment of society that I did not understand before.” Jackson was once seen as Israel’s strongest defender in the Senate. As a Saudi ambassador put it, he appeared “more Zionist than the Zionists,” despite being the Protestant son of Norwegian immigrants. That was reflected in extreme rhetoric that alienated some liberal American Jews and fellow Democrats. But many American Jews saw Jackson as their champion—in part because of his advocacy for Jews persecuted in the Soviet Union. (Jackson would later be called a “patron saint of neoconservatism”; his former aides Douglas Feith, Richard Perle, and Paul Wolfowitz were architects of George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq.) Under Jackson’s influence, Biden could similarly come across as a pro-Israel zealot. In 1982, the year Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu first met, Israel launched an invasion of Lebanon that caused massive civilian casualties. Israel’s tactics in Lebanon as it tried to destroy the Palestine Liberation Organization and empower the country’s Christian minority outraged people in the Arab world and were opposed by key American officials. How Joe Biden Became America’s Top Israel Hawk The president once said “Israel could get into a fistfight with this country and we’d still defend” it. That is now clearer than ever. NOAH LANARD DECEMBER 22, 2023 https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2023/12/how-joe-biden-became-americas-top-israel-hawk/

As ever, nil points for historical accuracy: It was precisely the Soviet Union that JFK urged America to negotiate with.

The world will end if Trump is elected... Jimmy Dore & crew scrutinise Deep State Dems' at their ghastly best:

Do tell, given that you mention this twice. Was this really ever a widely-held theory beyond David Lifton (and then only briefly)? If so, you shouldn’t have any difficulty in producing a list of adherents, who must have roamed the plains of JFK research, given the prominence you afford them, like eighteenth century herds of wild bison. Would, say, six be too many? Perhaps just three, then? You can go all the way back to 1966 if it helps. Of course, if you can’t produce any such evidence, we may reasonably conclude that this is just another gross caricature of the research community, one indistinguishable from those routinely provided by what was once the mainstream media, and is now little more than a fringe legacy. Quite why anyone should be concerned with the approval of such a mistrusted, embittered rump continues to elude me. And again, I ask, how does reproducing the vituperation of the establishment assist in any campaign to win round the declining media of that same establishment? Will, for instance, Jeff Bezos be won over by your insults and throw aside all those lucrative multi-million dollar contracts with the CIA for the sake of a one-off truthful WaPo investigation? If you believe that, you need immediate psychiatric intervention. Your reasoning is no less peculiar with respect to the general public. How does your obsessive need to insult researchers who don’t agree with you “influence[s] the attitudes of reasonable people who are not familiar with the facts of the JFK assassination”? The answer is obvious: In your own words, it “encourages those people not to take the case seriously.” Contrary to your purported goals, this seems to be your real aim.

What if the KGB had Joe? DrJLT Economics Jan 15, 2024 A humorous take on Joe's destructive term: If the Soviets had someone like Joe, would the Cold War not end differently? I examine 8 areas where Joe undermines American prestige, credibility, and viability. Disclaimer: No conspiracy here. Joe is an American patriot. This is only a critique of the results of his ineptitude.

But no more keen than you, for whom it is an apparently obligatory feature of just about every contribution to this forum that you make. An obvious question arises: why do you constantly share a legacy media strawman? It’s particularly egregious in this instance as you’re replying to someone who had nothing whatever to say on the matter in the course of his posts in this thread. You, yet again, introduced it. Might not your putative “reasonable, intelligent member of the public who has no particular interest in, knowledge of, or opinion about the assassination,” considering your obsession, reasonably conclude that you are either disturbed, or worse, that your real function is to attempt to police a debate in the service of the perpetrators? A second question occurs: Why on earth are you worried about the opinion of the legacy media? After all, it lied about the case long before Buzz Aldrin punched Bart Sibrel in the kisser, or Capricorn One hit cinemas. What exactly is the basis for your belief that if only other researchers fell into line with your strictures the legacy media would reverse its position on the assassination? The proposition is so full-moon unhinged that it brings nothing but discredit upon researchers of every stripe, gender, and headwear. Have a word with yourself - and bill for the full hour.

NBC News Admits 'Deep State' Exists... To Save Us From Trump's Return BY TYLER DURDEN SUNDAY, JAN 14, 2024 - 11:05 PM https://www.zerohedge.com/political/nbc-news-admits-deep-state-exists-save-us-trumps-return The last time Donald Trump got within striking distance of the Oval Office in 2016, the Clinton campaign, the Obama administration, and various foreign accomplices invented a hoax accusing the real estate tycoon of being a secret Russian agent, who would use the power of the United States to do Vladimir Putin's bidding (Which begs the question; why wouldn't Putin have just invaded Ukraine when his 'puppet' Trump wouldn't have waged a proxy war?). And when Donald Trump asked Ukraine about obvious corruption by the Biden family, one of the key 'deep state' players in his impeachment behind the scenes was none other than Mary McCord - who went from taking down Michael Flynn after the FBI set him up, to helping Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) to peddle a "whistleblower" complaint about Trump's Ukraine call. McCord is back with a new hoax to peddle, telling NBC News that the Deep State is preparing for Trump's return - and is taking action to limit his ability to 'become a dictator' and use the military to those ends. "We’re already starting to put together a team to think through the most damaging types of things that he [Trump] might do so that we’re ready to bring lawsuits if we have to," McCord - executive director of the Institution for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection at Georgetown Law - told the outlet. The quotes from this fine piece of yellow journalism from NBC are simply hilarious... "Donald Trump is sparking fears among those who understand the inner workings of the Pentagon that he would convert the nonpartisan U.S. military into the muscular arm of his political agenda as he makes comments about dictatorship and devalues the checks and balances that underpin the nation’s two-century-old democracy." "A circle of appointees independent of Trump’s political operation steered him away from ideas that would have pushed the limits of presidential power in his last term." "In a new term, many former officials worry that Trump would instead surround himself with loyalists unwilling to say no." "He’s a clear and present danger to our democracy." "His support is solid. And I don’t think people understand what living in a dictatorship would mean." "There are an array of horrors that could result from Donald Trump’s unrestricted use of the Insurrection Act." "The military is hundreds of thousands of people strong, and ultimately Trump will find people to follow his legal orders no matter what ... The Insurrection Act is a legal order, and if he orders it there will be military officers, especially younger men and women, who will follow that legal order." This one might be the best: "We’re about 30 seconds away from the Armageddon clock when it comes to democracy," said William Cohen, a former Republican senator from Maine and defense secretary in the Clinton administration. "I think that’s how close we’re coming to it when you have a presidential candidate who can be indicted on 91 counts, who can be [found liable for] sexual aggression, who we have seen lies pathologically, who has flouted every rule in the book." Wow! Narrative: Trump is going to appoint loyal peons to subvert democracy and declare himself a dictator. But wait, the deep state cavalry is here! "Now, bracing for Trump’s potential return, a loose-knit network of public interest groups and lawmakers is quietly devising plans to try to foil any efforts to expand presidential power, which could include pressuring the military to cater to his political needs." Part of the aim is to identify like-minded organizations and create a coalition to challenge Trump from day one, those taking part in the discussions said. Some participants are combing through policy papers being crafted for a future conservative administration. They’re also watching the interviews that Trump allies are giving to the press for clues to how a Trump sequel would look. Other participants include Democracy Forward, an organization that took the Trump administration to court more than 100 times during his administration, and Protect Democracy, an anti-authoritarian group. ... Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., is crafting a bill that would clarify the act and give Congress and the courts some say in its use. Its chances of passage are slim given that Republicans control the House and are largely loyal to Trump. You tell us what that sounds like... deep state noun a body of people, typically influential members of government agencies or the military, believed to be involved in the secret manipulation or control of government policy. "We are preparing for litigation and preparing to use every tool in the toolbox that our democracy provides to provide the American people an ability to fight back," according to Skye Perryman, president of Democracy Forward. "We believe this is an existential moment for American democracy and it’s incumbent on everybody to do their part." Ah yes, another 'existential moment.' Remember, the first rule of 'Deep State' is you do not talk about 'Deep State'.

And our next hardline FSB agent mulling much the same territory as Donald Courter is, er, Spectator columnist Lionel Shriver, who, as part of Putin's astonishingly cunning master-plan, voted for the corrupt psycho-geriatric - today better known as "Genocide Joe" - in 2020:

BIDEN IS EVERYTHING PEOPLE FEARED TRUMP WOULD BE https://www.therevolutionreport.org/news-1/biden-is-everything-people-feared-trump-would-be Biden has turned out to be everything we were warned Trump would be: a genocidal monster fueling racist violence and crimes against humanity while imperiling the world with insanely reckless foreign policy decisions. In an article titled “Joe Biden Risks A Major Middle East War If He Makes The Wrong Choices,” The Huffington Post cites anonymous US officials who fear the careless and chaotic behavior of their commander-in-chief is going to embroil the US in a hot war between Israel and Lebanon. HuffPost’s Akbar Shahid Ahmed writes the following: “American officials say the Biden administration is not doing all it can to reduce tensions, despite public commitments from senior officials to avoid a regional blow-up. “ ‘I’ve been trying to keep an avalanche from falling on Lebanon and so have a lot of people,’ one official told HuffPost, saying many national security personnel fear unchecked U.S. support for Israel will make it overly confident about expanding operations into Lebanon. ‘The problem is no one can rein in Biden, and if Biden has a policy, he’s the commander-in-chief - we have to carry it out. That’s what it comes down to, very, very, very unfortunately.’ ” Listening to the way people on the inside have been talking about Biden’s bull-in-a-China-shop behavior regarding middle east policy lately, one can’t help being reminded of the way the liberal press used to talk about the erratic and irresponsible behavior of Donald Trump when he was in office. The mood and tone feels like when Trump was exchanging verbal hostilities with North Korea in the first year of his term, which comedian John Mulaney famously likened to the disorder and discomfort of having a horse loose in the hospital. We’re all just standing here praying that this lunatic doesn’t ignite yet another horrific war in the middle east while watching him unapologetically sponsor a genocide in Gaza, and we’re still a ways off from emerging safely from the world-threatening nuclear brinkmanship his administration dragged everyone into with Russia in Ukraine. And it’s hard not to notice that this all sure looks an awful lot like what liberals were terrified would happen when Trump got into office. The lead-up to Trump winning the 2016 election and taking office was rife with some of the most vitriolic and emotionally intense rhetoric in the history of American politics, featuring frequent fears that Trump would start a nuclear war, that minorities would be fleeing in terror from violent persecution, that he’d be another Hitler and launch another holocaust, that he’d facilitate ethnic persecution and racist attacks. All of which were monstrous. But none of those crimes rise to the level of single-handedly facilitating a genocide in Gaza or taking the world closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis with his peace-killing efforts in Ukraine. Biden has turned out to be everything we were warned Trump would be: a genocidal monster fueling racist violence and crimes against humanity while imperiling the world with insanely reckless foreign policy decisions. None of this is to suggest that Trump would have handled Gaza any differently than Biden, or even that he’d have handled Ukraine any differently. It’s likely that the main reason Biden’s administration has been more warlike than Trump’s is by sheer timing and coincidence; the US empire tends to trudge onward in more or less the same direction regardless of who’s in office, with wars occurring not because of who happens to be president in any given instance but because of whatever the empire’s needs happen to be at that time. The lesson of Joe Biden’s depravity is not that it would be better to have Donald Trump in the White House, it’s that it doesn’t matter which one gets in, because only murderous monsters are allowed to play that role in the management of the US-centralized empire. The globe-spanning power structure which loosely revolves around Washington is held together by nonstop violence and abuse, and nobody who isn’t willing to inflict copious amounts of violence and abuse on human beings around the world will ever make it past the gatekeeping measures that have been placed between that office and the illusion of democracy that the American people have been deceived into believing is real. The atrocities will continue for as long as that empire exists. Humanity won’t ever have a chance at a healthy and peaceful world until that world is freed from the tyranny of a planet-dominating power structure that is fueled by human blood.

Ex-Ukraine, thank goodness, a Ukraine which no longer owns its own resources: On the day of Sunak’s visit, Ukraine made a generous gift to its British partners - Australian European Lithium closed a deal to acquire European Lithium Ukraine LLC (formerly Petro-Consulting) with lithium licenses in Ukraine. Now the sole owner of the European Lithium Ukraine company is European Lithium Limited (a British satellite), and the beneficiary is British businessman Anthony Sage who lives in Australia. The British received the right to develop the Dobroye and Shevchenkovskoye (https://t.me/ukraina_ru/181247) fields. Interestingly, last summer European Lithium Limited abandoned these deposits under the pretext that they were close to the front line. Well, now the opinion has changed and the front has “moved back” - it seems that the English pirates understand that the end of the war is near and they can safely lay their hands on the “gold mines” at a bargain price. You have to pay for the “security guarantees” of London – reminds (https://t.me/geonrgru) the telegram channel Geoenergetika INFO Join Slavyangrad chat. Your opinion matters. https://t.me/+5vjQfD5RwOgzMjgx

I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but given it's you, I will just have to grin and bear it. The quotes in bold you attribute to me are actually your selections from Asher Orkaby's The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-1968 (2014, 314pp), the Harvard dissertation I recommended, not least because it's online and free, within a different thread. You selected them because you thought them of utility to your argument. A second piece of bad news: It's quite common for me to recommend books or articles containing conclusions from which I dissent. Why? Among other reasons, because such works contain evidence that subverts the conclusions, or offer important and/or interesting sources not readily available elsewhere. And so on and so forth. A small example of the value of Orkaby's work, as found within the expanded dissertation, Beyond the Arab Cold War – The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-68, published by the US arm of Oxford's UP in 2017, answers your opening question: Here's Orkaby on a Soviet example of this standard diplomatic gambit: "In 1955, the USSR signed a Treaty of Friendship with Yemen. Iman Ahmad received enough small arms to encourage more hostile anti-British action, but not enough to start a large-scale war that would drag Soviets into the conflict. Moscow’s logic in this agreement was that the continued use of Soviet weapons would increase Yemen’s dependence on Soviet technicians, spare parts, and additional shipments for the foreseeable future…” (Ibid, 16) JFK, in agreeing to the Hawk sale to Israel, was, I repeat, merely following a bog-standard gambit, one as familiar to a low-level drug-dealer as a senior diplomat: create dependence to secure control. Compare and contrast with LBJ, who, in 1965-66, sold Israel the planes and tanks it needed to launch a pre-emptive war on Egypt. Here, the dealer gave the addict an arsenal. The Hawk system was one chip in a lengthier game, one truncated by Kennedy's murder. The notion that by failing to tie the Hawk sale to a specific series of well-publicised and timetabled Israeli concessions, Kennedy effectively lost all hope of ever again influencing Tel Aviv on Dimona inspections or the refugee resettlement issue is belied by subsequent events and represents, on its face, an infantile understanding of dipomacy.

A Time To Cut Bait is the title of the concluding chapter of Warren Bass' Support Any Friend: Kennedy's Middle East & the Making of the US-Israel Alliance, his universally acclaimed tome on the subject. It opens with a page-long summary of the most significant pre-assassination events concerning the Middle East in the course of November 1963. Guess what? Yes, you got it: The UN vote cast by the US delegation on 20 November is entirely omitted. But then Bass' farrago is "A Council on Foreign Relations Book." Great quote, and a timely reminder of just how good Wiesak's book is.

The claim that Kennedy’s sale of Hawk missiles to Israel commenced the arms race in the Middle East is risible, and should be seen for what it always has been, a cynical addition to the self-serving narratives of Kennedy failure contrived and peddled by both the US and Israeli deep states. In the work of the CFR’s Warren Bass, Support Any Friend – Kennedy’s Middle –East & the Making of the US-Israel Alliance (2003), we see the fusion of these endeavours, not least in the minimisation of a striking example of an earlier, and arguably more consequential failure, of American diplomacy in the region, Foster Dulles’ Alpha initiative. The arms race in the Middle East started no later than the late 1940s. The Eisenhower administration’s efforts to restrict Israel’s acquisitions amounted, post the 1955 Egypt-Czech arms-for-cotton deal, to this: Buy what you need off the Europeans, most notably the French, and send us the tab. With the return of de Gaulle and the recentralization of power in the Elysee, this option was effectively foreclosed. In anticipation of this inevitability, Israel began, in February 1960, to push its case in Washington, and launched its first bid for the Hawk system. So why did Kennedy eventually acquiesce in the sale and then fail to explicitly link the sale to Israeli agreement to the Johnson Plan, even though the link was crystal clear in internal Washington deliberations on the matter? First, the sale of the Hawk system sought to restore the status quo prior to Moscow’s sale of substantial air assets to Egypt. As William Bundy explained in July 1962: (a) Israel is vulnerable to UAR air attack and is becoming increasingly so with the arrival of additional Soviet TU-16's. (b) The addition of the Hawk missile within Israel's air defense system would fill an important gap in their defense. (c) Acquisition of the Hawk missile system by Israel would not alone act to shift the balance of military power between Israel and its neighbors. Second, selling a surface-to-air defensive missile system to Israel was preferable to selling it offensive weaponry such as planes and tanks, the preferred armaments sought by the Israeli Air Force leadership, and those within the IDF, who pushed a much more aggressive strategy. Third, the deal ensured that US money went to US manufacturers (much to the angry frustration of the Macmillan government, which wanted to sell Israel the rival Bloodstone system). Fourth, the deal offered powerful political cover to Kennedy’s twin pushes to prevent nuclear proliferation and settle Palestinian refugees. Neither the Israeli state nor the American Zionist lobby could henceforth object that Kennedy was indifferent to Israel’s most fundamental security concerns. Fifth, it was essential to the above that the sale was NOT explicitly linked in negotiations with Israel, a crass move that would have exposed the White House to the charge of cynical calculation. Sixth, and finally, by attaching Israel directly to the American warfare state teat, Kennedy offered both himself – in the overwhelmingly likely event he won a second term – and his presidential successors the opportunity to strengthen its control of Israel’s military, and thus political, options. In summary, Kennedy’s choices with respect to the Hawk sale were rational, wise, and taken with an eye to the future. That his successors lacked the ability, resolve, and/or opportunities to steer US policy in the direction signposted by his decision was not his fault or responsibility.

The EU Is Willing to Go To War Over Lithium? By Phil Butler New Eastern Outlook January 3, 2024 https://www.lewrockwell.com/2024/01/no_author/the-eu-is-willing-to-go-to-war-over-lithium/ The riddle of unhinged EU support for the Zelensky regime in Kyiv is now solved. Anyone inclined can unravel why the Germans, in particular, backstabbed Russia in the Minsk peace boondoggle. Lithium. Energy Monitor’s parent company, GlobalData, recently released a report showing that Europe’s biggest lithium reserves lie in the Donbass region of Russia. The former Ukrainian Shevchenkivske field in the Donetsk region and the Kruta Balka block in the Zaporizhzhia region are now part of Russia. These reserves add tremendously to Russia’s humongous Lithium deposits (now 1.5M metric tons) and solidify the country’s top ten position globally. If we consider other BRICS nations’ reserves, including China (2M metric tons), EU industry is at a leverage point. What’s most significant about this is that the EU, and Germany in particular, desperately need the rare mineral to manufacture green energy technologies such as wind turbines, electric vehicles, and a wide variety of electronic devices. This text from the Critical Minerals Thematic Intelligence Report overview is telling: “Critical minerals are key to transitioning to a low-carbon world. There are over 70 countries globally that have set net-zero targets and pledged to lower their emissions. However, these widespread measures for a greener future are straining natural resources, especially the minerals required to produce energy transition technologies such as electric vehicles (EVs) and solar panels…” The report goes on to reveal how these rare minerals are monopolized by just a few regions and how supply chain problems affect their recovery and distribution. In short, if Europe does not procure more Lithium, the energy transition EU President Ursula von der Leyen toots her horn about every other day will either be delayed or made unfeasible because of demand shortages. While the United States, Australia, and a few Latin American countries hold the lion’s share of Lithium reserves, EU access to these supplies will be expensive. In addition, the U.S. and these emerging nations will surely use the biggest part of their reserves for domestic needs. The demand (need) for European Lithium supply is so intense, German CDU MP Roderich Kiesewetter came right out and admitted the Russia-Ukraine conflict is all about the 500,000 tons or more of the mineral under the ground of the Donbass region. Kiesewetter said, “The European Union supports Ukraine because of lithium deposits in the Donbass.” The politician also took note of the Donbass being part of Russia now, means Berlin’s dependence on Moscow. Kiesewetter, a retired colonel, is also suggesting that Germany provide Zelensky’s regime with the highly accurate Taurus cruise missiles, which have a 500km range. The Swedish/German air-launched missile carries a 1,100-pound warhead and is essentially a bunker-buster type weapon. The missiles would be far more useful for Zelensky’s remaining Nazi battalions than a few rusty old Leopard tanks. What the MP’s statements mean, however, is that Germany and the EU intend on taking Ukraine’s vast resources by force now. The Euromaidan Coup only got the Western elites’ feet in the door, and now the singular order has few options left since the failed Ukraine offensive. The EU commissars are in the process of slitting their own throats. Just the other day, the commission passed another round of sanctions aimed at Russia’s luxury diamond exports to the bloc. This will not affect the average EU citizen, but the upper-middle class and the wealthy will have to fork over more Euros to get pretty round diamonds. The Americans (or British) blowing up the gas pipelines, the potential for grain shortages in the EU, and other key minerals Russia and nations friendly to her export begin to take their toll on an already shaky confederation of member states. Consider what EU member states manufacture and export to elevate their GNP. In the lists here, you’ll click on two vital exports. Cars and/or refined petroleum are vital to every country. Cars are, by far, the biggest import and export commodities. So, when these autos finally go electric, just imagine how desperate EU industry and consumers will be for Lithium! The Europeans will flounder if forced to import quantities of this strategic mineral from distant sources that have their own batteries to make. If there is a WWIII over the Russia/Ukraine situation, I am sure we’ll be able to name it “The Great Lithium War.” See also: Before Invasion, Ukraine’s Lithium Wealth Was Drawing Global Attention (NYT https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/02/climate/ukraine-lithium.html

Q & A - Gaza Is Starving The chief economist of the World Food Program explains how the scarcity of food may tip the territory into famine. By Isaac Chotiner January 3, 2024 https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/gaza-is-starving Last month, a United Nations report on hunger described a catastrophic situation in Gaza, where more than ninety per cent of the population has been facing “acute food insecurity,” and where “virtually all households are skipping meals every day.” Much of Gaza is at risk of famine in the next several months. Parents have been going without food to insure that their kids have at least something to eat; where food is available, moreover, prices have skyrocketed, making it inaccessible even for middle-class families. The report noted, “This is the highest share of people facing high levels of acute food insecurity” ever recorded “for any given area or country.” I recently spoke by phone with Arif Husain, the chief economist at the United Nations World Food Program, which was one of the partner organizations that compiled the report. The W.F.P. also collects data on hunger around the world and delivers food to needy people. During our conversation, which has been edited for length and clarity, we discussed what the people of Gaza are currently facing, the reasons many cannot access food, and why this crisis is so unprecedented. Could you describe the food-access situation in Gaza right now? The bottom line is that, in Gaza, pretty much everybody is hungry at the moment. In the food-security-analysis business, we do something called I.P.C., or Integrated Phase Classification. This is an exercise that has about twenty-three partners, including nineteen U.N. agencies and international N.G.O.s and about four donors. This group analyzes the food-security situation. And, on the basis of that, it presents a report, which is independent. It is not one agency or one entity. There’s a consensus-based analysis. This exercise is done in between forty and fifty countries worldwide that may have a food-security issue, whether it is because of conflict or climate or anything else. What an I.P.C. does in any given location is put people in five different classifications. I.P.C. Phase 1 is that everything is fine; I.P.C. Phase 2 is that people are stressed in terms of their food-security situation; I.P.C. Phase 3 is that people are, in fact, in a food-security crisis; I.P.C. Phase 4 is that people are in food-security emergencies; and the last phase is called the famine, or catastrophe, phase. Now, the same analysis was done for Gaza, which came out in December, and, according to that, pretty much the entire population of 2.2 million people is in a food-security crisis or a worse situation. Can you describe the difference between crisis, emergency, and famine? It is a scale that looks at people’s food security and consumption, how they’re able to access food, and what type of coping strategies they use. It also looks at other indicators, including socioeconomic indicators. We ask, what is the situation now, and, also, what would you expect in the next, let’s say, few months? Classification on those three thresholds, as the severity increases, is different: crisis; then, if it’s worse than crisis, it turns into emergency; and then, if it’s worse than emergency, it turns into famine or catastrophe. But let me give you the criteria for famine: It’s essentially that, in any given place in the geographic unit, twenty per cent of the population must be starving—that’s criteria No. 1. Criteria No. 2 is that thirty per cent of the children must be severely malnourished or wasted. And then the third criteria is that the mortality rate, the death rate, should be double the average, meaning, for adults, from one per ten thousand a day to two per ten thousand a day. And, for children, from two per ten thousand a day to four per ten thousand a day. When these three conditions come together in a single place, it’s a famine. So the bottom line is that you hope not to say, “O.K., let’s act because there is a famine.” You need to act to avoid a famine, right? Because if you say, “O.K., let’s act when there is a famine,” that means you’re saying people have already died, children are already wasted, people are already starving. That’s not the point. The point is that we should never let a population reach that state. Now, in the case of Gaza, a quarter of the population is already in that state, meaning they’re in catastrophic levels of hunger. We don’t call it a full famine. Why? Because they haven’t met the other two conditions, meaning it’s very hard to say whether thirty per cent of the children over there are already wasted or whether their death rate has doubled. Why? Because their health systems are broken. But what the report says is that, if what is happening continues or worsens, pretty soon—within the next six months—we will have a full-fledged famine. How does Gaza seem similar to other conflict zones, and how does it seem different? I’ve been doing this for the past two decades, and I’ve been to all kinds of conflicts and all kinds of crises. And, for me, this is unprecedented because of, one, the magnitude, the scale, the entire population of a particular place; second, the severity; and, third, the speed at which this is happening, at which this has unfolded, is unprecedented. In my life, I’ve never seen anything like this in terms of severity, in terms of scale, and then in terms of speed. There have been reports that in some places in Gaza food has become really expensive. Can you talk about what we’re seeing in Gaza specifically? Access comes in two types: one is physical access to food, and the other is economic access to food—food has to come, and supply chains need to work. And then, if the food is there, is it affordable? It’s always first and foremost about whether a population or community is able to access food. The same story is applicable in Gaza. What is happening in Gaza is that it’s reliant on imports of food and other essential commodities, right? That was the case before the war, and it is the case now.

Some useful background: Youtube channel - Strange History X Discovering the photographic evidence of Where John Lennon Was Shot https://youtu.be/CXmu7XjV_tI?si=aMnrmiqy7i5Vypmj The Shocking Truth Behind John Lennon's Tragic End https://youtu.be/95yoMNx88WY?si=ud0iLxEND5EwiTav Exploring The Dakota, NYC's Most Famous Apartment Building https://youtu.be/ASIVlthXzVA?si=EExN_GfcrPP0awo_ John Lennon's Home. The Dakota's Ground Floor Blueprint. https://youtu.be/6dDuU793U1Y?si=hO2mLBplpWM1RMtV

Yes, Palmerston offered the same rational, in 1839, for seizing the Yemen port of Aden as he did for arming Caucasus terror groups at much the same time: Specifically, the protection of India, the jewel in the crown, not forgetting lines of imperial communication and trade with Britain's other colonial possessions in Asia. Yemen was to be used as the primary impediment to Kennedy's further engagement with Nasser following the coup there of 26th September 1962. The received wisdom in the West is that this was the work of Nasser's agents, local and imported, but it looks much more likely to me that it was a CIA operation designed, a la Laos in late 1960, to foment precisely that cleavage. The subsequent Western response had the happy, and in my view, entirely intentional outcome, of reuniting British imperialists (the "Suez group") with their US counterparts in a way not seen since the overthrow of Mossadeq in 1953. For an excellent overview of the Yemen coup and its aftermath, try the following. There's a rich cast of characters encompassed, not least Allen Dulles with a vintage cameo, US oil men who fail to discover oil fields subsequently located decades later, and not a few names familiar to students of the JFK assassination: 140000 A Orkaby, The International History of the Yemen Civil War, 1962-1968 (Doctoral dissertation, Harvard University, 314pp) https://dash.harvard.edu/handle/1/12269828

Dreyfuss's book is full of good things, but British financing of Islamists originates earlier, with Russian expansion into the Persian Caucuses. There are some fascinating details in Craig Murray's biography of the legendary Scottish spook Alexander Burnes, among them, this passage: Palmerston sent a British ship, the Vixen, into the Black Sea in 1836 to run arms to Dagestani rebels, under cover of a cargo of salt. It caused a diplomatic incident when the ship was intercepted by Russian forces, but Palmerston sent an assurance to the Russian Foreign Minister Nesselrode that the British government had no knowledge of the venture. Palmerston was an accomplished xxxx. The Vixen was part of widespread activity by the British secret service in sending arms and advisers to the Chechen, Dagestani and Circassian rebels, which has modern echoes. The operation had been organised by David Urquhart ‘who had brought all the scattered mujahedin units together and even created a single command structure for them to direct their military action against the Russian army’ (10). Urquhart then took up his appointment as First Secretary at the British Embassy in Constantinople. Four years earlier Palmerston had organised secret smuggling of arms for the Polish uprising. Colin Mackenzie, who served in Kabul with Burnes, had taken part (11). The anti-Russian mood of the British establishment went well beyond rhetoric. Craig Murray, Sikunder Burnes – Master of the Great Game (Birlinn, 2016)

“The seriousness of Kennedy’s Egyptian policy is well evident in the dramatic increase of economic aid which flowed into the U.A.R. during the period when JFK occupied the Oval Office. From the end of the Second World War to the final days of the Eisenhower administration, American assistance to Egypt amounted to slightly more than $250 million. During Kennedy’s tenure in the White House, that amount exceeded $500 million – a dramatic increase by any standard of measurement,” Andre G. Kuczewski, Kennedy and the Middle East [rev of Modechai Gazit’s President Kennedy’s Policy Toward the Arab States and Israel], Journal of Palestine Studies, V15 N1, (Autumn 1985), 130-131

The Assassination of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme - The Police Trail Jun 24, 2022 The murder of Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was a shock to all of Scandinavia, it was the first time in 200 years a Scandinavian head of state was murdered and it changed Scandinavian security and it also changed the Scandinavian innocence forever. The Police trail is a trail that leads into, not only the Swedish police and the Palme investigation, but into the extreme right-wing police within the police district of Norremalm in Stockholm. It leads into the military, into Sweden's security police sæpo, and it leads to South Africa. It's a trail that has its origin long before the murder and it’s a trail that has never been investigated. This is the police trail.

Eric Goldman's Jewish Cinémathèque: "Tantura" Dec 6, 2022 Director Alon Schwarz discusses “Tantura,” his documentary as it investigates controversial events at the Palestinian village of Tantura in 1948, where survivors claimed to witness a massacre of civilians by Israeli troops. https://youtu.be/KALneGG2n_I?si=5_XSDF98luUXSNNF You can pay to watch the full documentary here: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/tantura2 Executions and Mass Graves in Tantura May 30, 2023 Commissioned by Adalah Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel, this investigation reveals new evidence about massacres conducted in the Palestinian village of Tantura by Israeli forces after its occupation on 22-23 May 1948 and subsequent depopulation. Launched on the 75th anniversary of the Nakba, it brings together testimonies and photographic evidence to locate several mass graves in which the victims were buried—including one previously unidentified. https://youtu.be/rteB5T4hwVY?si=5ND6pdaoDDIOLdC3 To read more: https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/executions-and-mass-graves-in-tantura-23-may-1948

Cold Case Hammarskjöld (2019) Danish director Mads Brügger and Swedish private investigator Göran Björkdahl are trying to solve the mysterious death of Dag Hammarskjöld. As their investigation closes in, they discover a crime far worse than killing the Secretary-General of the United Nations.

11. Hyperbolic Cinematic Similes & Metaphors (HCSMs) In the wake of at least three high-profile assassinations, American intelligence bureaucracies have selectively deployed HCSMs when substituting fabricated eyewitness (or, in one instance, eyewitness-participant) testimony for original statements adjudged significantly inconvenient. Three examples follow, from assassinations in 1963, 1968 and 1980, respectively. In each instance, we find the original testimony unmentioned, thus denying the casual reader the ability to compare and contrast; and the import of the fictional testimony, to reinforce the official narrative. HCSMs are used to bolster the credibility of the falsifications by suggesting that the selected eyewitnesses’ refashioned recollections are to be relied upon because their memories functioned as if a camera loaded with film. That such an absurdly mechanical conception of how human memory works*, a proposition ordinarily anathema to opponents of Zapruder film alteration, has not, to the best of my knowledge, encountered a single objection from this source, suggests HCSMs also function as a sign to intelligence assets within research communities to refrain from offering the standard objections to eyewitness testimony. a) JFK, 1963: Norman Similas In mid-1964, the CIA used two editions of a short-lived magazine Canadian magazine – entitled, with characteristic irony, Liberty - to rewrite the eyewitness testimony of an Elm Street eyewitness called Norman Similas. His initial testimony had appeared in late editions of the Toronto Star on the evening of November 22. The original follows. It bore no relation whatever to the Liberty version. “More than seven months have passed since the horrors of Dallas. Never a day passes but what the projector has not flipped in my mind, and the scenes tumble out in sequence after sequence…There is a fade out and I’m next standing…” [Extracts from Norman Similas, as told to Ken Armstrong, “The Dallas Puzzle: Part 1,” Liberty, July 15, 1964, p.20, as reproduced in Harold Weisberg’s Photographic Whitewash: Suppressed Kennedy Assassination Pictures (Self-published: Frederick, Md., 1976, 226)] b) RFK, 1968: Nina Rhodes A particularly fine specimen is to be found in the FBI version of the testimony of Nina Rhodes, an eyewitness to the murder of RFK. Interviewed on July 8, 1968, Rhodes only discovered in 1992 the extent to which her G-man interlocutor had falsified her observations. In amongst the fabrications, we find this little gem: “Everything appeared to her like still frames in a stop-action movie…” “When shown her FBI summary in 1992, Nina Rhodes took issue with no fewer than 15 items as stated in the report, some minor, some not. Most relevant, Rhodes claimed in writing : “ I never said I heard 8 distinct shots. From the moment the tragedy began I knew that there was at least 10-14 shots and that there had to be more than one assailant. The shots were to the left and [emphasis added] right from where I was.” [William Klaber & Philip H. Melanson. Shadow Play: The Untold Story of the Robert F. Kennedy Assassination (NY: St. Martin’s Press, 1997), p.127] c) John Lennon, 1980: Mark Chapman “In 1992, Mark Chapman gave further insight into the murder to the mysterious journalist, Jack Jones, for his Chapman book, Let Me Take You Down: ‘I aimed at his back. I pulled the trigger five times. It was like everything had been stripped away. It wasn’t a make-believe world anymore. The movie strip broke. I took the Catcher in the Rye book out and started reading it…I tried to read the book, but the words were crawling all over the pages. Nothing made any sense. I just wanted the police to come and take me away from there.’” [Dave Whelan, Mind Games: The Assassination of John Lennon, Orwell Books, 2023, 131-132] *Dr James Orr, a psychologist at the University of Portsmouth: “Memories are not like videotape you can rewind and replay for perfect recall,” K Hilpern, Is your memory playing tricks on you? (The Guardian, G2, 16 September 2008, 19)

Congratulations to Dave Whelan on the publication of his ground-breaker. From a few days ago, his most recent appearance on Out of the Blank: https://youtu.be/7CRPZni9DXc?si=tnrmh5q1PGzVddCS