foreign affairs
Chris Hedges: Israel’s Trojan Horse
Washington DC — (Scheerpost) — Piers allow things to come in. They allow things to go out. And Israel, which has no intention of halting its murderous siege of Gaza, including its policy of enforced starvation, appears to have found a solution to its problem of where to expel the 2.3 million Palestinians.
If the Arab world will not take them, as Secretary of State Antony Blinken proposed during his first round of visits after Oct. 7, the Palestinians will be cast adrift on ships. It worked in Beirut in 1982 when some eight and a half thousand Palestine Liberation Organization members were sent by sea to Tunisia, and another two and a half thousand ended up in other Arab states. Israel expects that the same forced deportation by sea will work in Gaza.
Israel, for this reason, supports the “temporary pier” the Biden administration is building to ostensibly deliver food and aid to Gaza – food and aid whose “distribution” will be overseen by the Israeli military.
“You need drivers that don’t exist, trucks that don’t exist feeding into a distribution system that doesn’t exist,” Jeremy Konyndyk, a former senior aid official in the Biden administration and now president of the Refugees International aid advocacy group, told The Guardian.
This “maritime corridor” is Israel’s Trojan Horse, a subterfuge to expel Palestinians. The small shipments of seaborne aid, like the food packets that have been air-dropped, will not alleviate the looming famine. They are not meant to.
Five Palestinians were killed and several others injured when a parachute carrying aid failed and crashed onto a crowd of people near Gaza City’s Shati refugee camp.
“Dropping aid in this way is flashy propaganda rather than a humanitarian service,” the media office of the local government in Gaza said. “We previously warned it poses a threat to the lives of citizens in the Gaza Strip, and this is what happened today when the parcels fell on the citizens’ heads.”
If the U.S. or Israel were serious about alleviating the humanitarian crisis, the thousands of trucks with food and aid currently at the southern border of Gaza would be allowed to enter any of its multiple crossings. They are not. The “temporary pier,” like the air drops, is ghoulish theater, a way to mask Washington’s complicity in the genocide.
Israeli media reported the building of the pier was due to pressure from the United Arab Emirates, which threatened Israel with ending a land corridor trade route it administers in collusion with Saudi Arabia and Jordan to bypass Yemen’s naval blockade.
The Jerusalem Post reported it was Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who proposed the construction of the “temporary pier” to the Biden administration.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, who has called Palestinians “human animals” and advocated a total siege of Gaza, including cutting off electricity, food, water and fuel, lauded the plan, saying, “it is designed to bring aid directly to the residents and thus continue the collapse of Hamas’s rule in Gaza.”
“Why would Israel, the engineer of the Gaza famine, endorse the idea of establishing a maritime corridor for aid to address a crisis it initiated and is now worsening?” writes Tamara Nassar in an article titled “What’s the Real Purpose of Biden’s Gaza Port?” in The Electronic Intifada. “This might appear paradoxical if one were to assume that the primary aim of the maritime corridor is to deliver aid.”
When Israel offers a gift to the Palestinians, you can be sure it is a poisoned apple. That Israel got the Biden administration to construct the pier is one more example of the inverted relationship between Washington and Jerusalem, where the Israel lobby has bought off elected officials in the two ruling parties.
Oxfam, in a March 15 report, accuses Israel of actively hindering aid operations in Gaza in defiance of the orders by the International Court of Justice. It notes that 1.7 million Palestinians, some 75 percent of the Gaza population, are facing famine, and two-thirds of the hospitals and over 80 percent of all health clinics in Gaza are no longer operable. The majority of people, the report reads, “have no access to clean drinking water” and “sanitation services are not functioning.”
The report reads:
The conditions we have observed in Gaza are beyond catastrophic, and we have not only seen failure by Israeli authorities to meet their responsibility to facilitate and support international aid efforts, but in fact seen active steps being taken to hinder and undermine such aid efforts. Israel’s control of Gaza continues to be characterized by deliberate restrictive actions that have led to a severe and systemic dysfunctionality in the delivery of aid. Humanitarian organizations operational in Gaza are reporting a worsening situation since the International Court of Justice imposed provisional measures in light of the plausible risk of genocide, with intensified Israeli barriers, restrictions and attacks against humanitarian personnel. Israel has maintained a ‘convenient illusion of a response’ in Gaza to serve its claim that it is allowing aid in and conducting the war in line with international laws.
Oxfam says Israel employs “a dysfunctional and undersized inspection system that keeps aid snarled up, subjected to onerous, repetitive and unpredictable bureaucratic procedures that are contributing to trucks being stranded in giant queues for 20 days on average.” Israel, Oxfam explains, rejects “items of aid as having ‘dual (military) use,’ banning vital fuel and generators entirely along with other items essential for a meaningful humanitarian response such as protective gear and communications kit.” Rejected aid, “must go through a complex ‘pre-approval’ system or end up being held in limbo at the Al Arish warehouse in Egypt.” Israel has also “cracked down on humanitarian missions, largely sealing off northern Gaza, and restricting international humanitarian workers’ access not only into Gaza but Israel and the West Bank including East Jerusalem too.”
Israel has allowed 15,413 trucks into Gaza during the past 157 days of war. Oxfam estimates that the population of Gaza needs five times that number. Israel allowed 2,874 trucks in February, a 44 percent reduction from the previous month. Before Oct. 7, 500 aid trucks entered Gaza daily.
Israeli soldiers have also killed scores of Palestinians attempting to receive aid from trucks in more than two dozen incidents. These attacks include the killing of at least 21 Palestinians and the wounding of 150 on March 14, when Israeli forces fired on thousands of people in Gaza City. The same area had been targeted by Israeli soldiers hours earlier.
“Israel’s assault has caught Gaza’s own aid workers and international agencies’ partners inside a ‘practically uninhabitable’ environment of mass displacement and deprivation, where 75 percent of solid waste is now being dumped in random sites, 97 percent of groundwater made unfit for human use, and the Israeli state using starvation as a weapon of war,” Oxfam says.
There is no place in Gaza, Oxfam notes, that is safe “amid the forcible and often multiple displacements of almost the entire population, which makes the principled distribution of aid unviable, including agencies’ ability to help repair vital public services at scale.”
Oxfam blasts Israel for its “disproportionate” and “indiscriminate” attacks on “civilian and humanitarian assets” as well as “solar, water, power and sanitation plants, UN premises, hospitals, roads, and aid convoys and warehouses, even when these assets are supposedly ‘deconflicted’ after their coordinates have been shared for protection.”
The health ministry in Gaza said Monday that at least 31,726 people have been killed since the Israeli assault began five months ago. The death toll includes at least 81 deaths in the previous 24 hours, a ministry statement said, adding that 73,792 people have been wounded in Gaza since Oct. 7. Thousands more are missing, many buried under the rubble.
None of these Israeli tactics will be altered with the building of a “temporary pier.” In fact, given the pending ground assault on Rafah, where 1.2 million displaced Palestinians are crowded in tent cities or camped out in the open air, Israel’s tactics will only get worse.
Israel, by design, is creating a humanitarian crisis of such catastrophic proportions, with thousands of Palestinians killed by bombs, shells, missiles, bullets, starvation and infectious diseases, that the only option will be death or deportation. The pier is where the last act in this gruesome genocidal campaign will be played out as Palestinians are herded by Israeli soldiers onto ships.
How appropriate that the Biden administration, without whom this genocide could not have been carried out, will facilitate it.
Feature photo | Israel’s Trojan Horse | Mr. Fish
Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for fifteen years for The New York Times, where he served as the Middle East Bureau Chief and Balkan Bureau Chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor, and NPR. He is the host of show The Chris Hedges Report.
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The Dark Reality Behind Israel’s Military PR Campaign: Genocide in Disguise
As the world is trying to come to terms with the catastrophic results of the creation of Israel, the actual executioners, those charged with committing the crimes, are hard at work to show themselves as heroic, caring, friendly and humane. The Israeli military public relations campaign on the different social media platforms is sickening. Young men just back from committing heinous crimes are asked by a young military reporter, “What is the first thing you will do when you get home?”
“Hug my mama,” one said. Another answered, “See my girlfriend,” while a third said he would get his hands on a juicy steak. How normal! In another scene, the Golani Brigade members compete to see who has the most Golani-loving family. Photos of generations of Israelis who served in the murderous brigade swell with pride as they all admit to having been part of the atrocities taking place for generations.
“Give Respect to the Nahal Brigade” is yet another campaign where one can see members of that particular terrorist unit committing crimes against humanity, attacking and destroying people and infrastructure like the genocidal maniacs that they are. At the same time, they are made to look heroic and friendly.
The campaign goes on and on, and another particularly cynical one shows young women in IDF uniform, ranging the entire racial spectrum and attractive to the Western eye, talking about their role in the genocide and terrorizing of Palestinians. They are commanders, teachers, clerks, observers in observation towers and on and on, and they pretend to take pride in their despicable work.
The Israeli military pages on the various platforms are all in violation of community guidelines because they promote hate and genocide. There needs to be a campaign to report these pages on a massive scale so that they are all taken down. A short list of names of these pages includes idfonline,idf_tsanhanim,idf, golani_1, shakedgdud424, idf_nahal, givati.official, shaytet_13, and sayeretgivati846.
Joe Biden’s comments on Gaza during the State of the Union address were nothing short of a grotesque attempt to claim the U.S. cares about the people of Gaza – who are subjected to genocide – while supplying weapons to the very perpetrators of the genocide. Israel is committing genocide throughout Palestine, and while the world’s attention is on Gaza, human rights abuses of Palestinians have reached unimaginable proportions. Mass murder, arrest, torture, sexual abuse in prisons, and other forms of abuse have become more commonplace than ever. Joe Biden, however, is focused on building a pier.
Never mind the fact that the pier will serve Israel and not the Palestinian people, the notion of a pier as the answer to the intentional starvation of millions of people who can access food and medicine within a five-minute drive but are denied access because of Israel, is nothing short of sadistic.
All of this is to emphasize that there is something every person can do. Social media platforms are there for us to consume, and sadistic Israeli perpetrators of genocide are right there trying to portray themselves as friendly fighters of evil. It is time to report these pages and their posts on a daily basis.
Miko Peled is a MintPress News contributing writer, published author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. His latest books are”The General’s Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine,” and “Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five.”
The post The Dark Reality Behind Israel’s Military PR Campaign: Genocide in Disguise appeared first on MintPress News.
Chancellor Scholz Must Change Course and Support Ukraine to Win
Chancellor Olaf Scholz is putting Germans and all Europeans in danger. His current policy seriously risks defeat in Ukraine, which would embolden Moscow and raise the likelihood of a wider war with Russia in which the missiles could be falling on Cologne rather than Kyiv.
Defeating Russia in Ukraine and deterring Moscow from further aggression would remove the single largest threat to European security but, instead of changing course and committing to victory, Mr Scholz is doubling down by positioning himself as a ‘Peace Chancellor’. Ignoring the clear need to win the war, which is openly proclaimed by key allies, he fixates on avoiding necessary steps – including sending Taurus cruise missiles to Ukraine – which he claims could make Germany a ‘war party’.
This is a fiction as previous weapons deliveries (including cruise missiles) have not made Western states war parties under international law; neither have they triggered the ‘escalation’ that advocates of timidity so fear. What is more, the distinction is pointless given that Vladimir Putin already considers Germany a war party, regardless of Mr Scholz’s view – or the law. Mr Putin’s declared goal is domination of Europe and he already sees Russia as being at war with the West, including Germany.
Mr Scholz’s so-called ‘peace’ posture risks becoming appeasement – shying away from necessary actions in the futile hope of placating an aggressive dictator. Even if this is targeted at his (SPD) party’s declining poll ratings, Germans should know that the real effect of playing domestic politics with our security is to harm our collective deterrence.
Deterrence works by having the capabilities to defend yourself and demonstrating the will to use them. This raises the cost of any attack and reduces the chance of the enemy succeeding, which decreases the chance of conflict. Failing to project strength and readiness has the opposite effect which is why Mr Scholz’s ‘peace’ campaign is so damaging: it makes a wider war more likely.
Germany may superficially appear a good ally by mirroring the current US position but, look deeper and this is revealed as folly. Berlin is falsely taking the US line as a boundary for acceptable action, whereas in reality, Washington would be happy for Europeans to push ahead. With main battle tanks as well as cruise missiles, the UK and France have demonstrated that it is not necessary to wait for a US lead to do what is needed to support Ukraine.
More concerningly, this mirroring ignores the fact that Germany is physically closer to the war than America and lacks the US’s nuclear weapons, which makes it more directly exposed and drastically more vulnerable to both military and non-military threats from Russia. German national security therefore demands a different policy.
Europe also now faces uncertainty over the future of the US security guarantee. Yet, while Europeans may currently lack the full range and depth of capabilities to defend ourselves, we are collectively re-arming and have many powerful weapons. We also have the economic might to defeat Russia in Ukraine – if we put it to the right purpose. Combining these capabilities with the right attitude and, crucially, by committing to winning in Ukraine, we could still deter Putin – and buy ourselves time to build our strength.
Instead, Mr Scholz is effectively broadcasting that Germany is afraid, can be bullied and blackmailed, and that it is not willing to stand up for its values and interests via victory in Ukraine. Nor is Germany’s re-armament going anywhere near as far or as fast as it should. Mr Putin is skilled at exploiting uncertainty and is emboldened by weakness, so the Chancellor’s approach both makes Kyiv’s defeat more likely – and makes Germany a more tempting target.
Rather than focusing on doing ‘whatever it takes’ to win in Ukraine, the Chancellor points to how much Germany has already promised to spend in comparison to allies. True, others also need to do more, but Mr Scholz’s excuses help no one. They ignore Germany’s massive economic heft as well as its self-declared ‘special responsibility’ for European security, and belittle the ways other allies have shown leadership: by sending more powerful weapons sooner, committing far higher proportions of their GDP to Ukraine or properly arming themselves.
The tragedy of this is that while Germany is spending a lot of money, Mr Scholz’s approach is the most expensive way to make Europe less safe.
The obvious frustration of key allies at Mr Scholz’s latest refusal to send Taurus missiles, despite the dismantling of his excuses, is part of a long pattern of foot-dragging on weapons Ukraine manifestly needs. Unfortunately, Mr Scholz has shown that he will not shift any other way and so the shaming will continue until policy improves.
Yet, such allied actions can only treat the symptoms (delivery of individual weapons systems), not the cause (Germany’s overall approach). Until sufficient pressure also comes from inside the country, there will not be a solution.
National Security is the irreducible function of the state. Leaders from across Germany’s major political parties – the Greens, Free Democrats, Christian Democratic Union, and Christian Social Union – must now fulfil their responsibility to ensure their country delivers. That starts with backing Ukraine to win, urgently and effectively demanding policy to match, and embracing their power to create the conditions for it to be implemented.
Initial Signatories
Hon Chris Alexander, PC, Distinguished Fellow, Macdonald-Laurier Institute
Diedre Berger, Tikvah Institut gUG, Berlin
Jonathan Berkshire Miller, Director of Foreign Affairs, National Security & National Defence, Macdonald Laurier Institute
Stephen Blank, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Research Institute, Washington D.C.
Prof Dr Sören Brinkmann, Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies, University of Wroclaw
Aaron Gasch Burnett, Journalist and Analyst, Co-host of BerlinsideOut podcast
Olga Byrska, Sciences Po, Paris and European University Institute, Florence
Edward Hunter Christie, Senior Research Fellow, Finnish Institute of International Affairs
Dr Ariel Cohen, Non-Resident Senior Fellow, Atlantic Council
Dr Franziska Davies, Ludwig-Maximilian-University Munich.
Gordon B Davis Jr, Senior Fellow, Center for European Policy Analysis
Dr Balkan Devlen, Director of the Transatlantic Program, Macdonald Laurier Institute
Dr Thomas Enders, President,German Council on Foreign Relations
Ralf Fücks, Managing Director, Centre for Liberal Modernity, Berlin
Dr Ian Garner, Queens University
Alyona Getmanchuk, Founder and Director, New Europe Center, Kyiv
Keir Giles, Consulting Fellow, Chatham House
Dr Gustav Gressel, Senior Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations
Dr Olena Halushka, Centre for Ukrainian Victory, Kyiv
Rebecca Harms, Former MEP and President of the Green Group in the European Parliament
Dr Pierre Haroche, Queen Mary University of London
François Heisbourg, European security expert, Paris
Valeriia Hesse, Central European University, Vienna
Fabian Hoffmann, University of Oslo
Toomas Hendrik Ilves, Former President of Estonia
Prof Dr Thomas Jäger, University of Cologne
Prof. Tomas Janeliūnas, Instutute of International Relations and Political Science, University of Vilnius
Jacob Kaarsbo, Senior Fellow, Think Tank Europa, Copenhagen
Dr Jochen Kleinschmidt, TU Dresden
Ambassador Pavlo Klimkin, former Foreign Minister of Ukraine & former Ambassador to Germany
Dr Valeria Korablyova, Ukraine in a Changing Europe Centre, Charles University Prague
Dr Bohdana Kurylo, University College London
Prof David Clay Large, Institute of European Studies, University of California Berkeley
John Lough, Associate Fellow, Russia & Eurasia Programme, Chatham House
Edward Lucas, Senior Advisor, Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA)
Paul Mason, London
Hanna Manoilenko, University of Melbourne
Oleksandra Matviichuk, Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Director, Centre for Civil Liberties, Kyiv
Dr Nona Mikhelidze, Senior Fellow, Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome.
Christoph Moosbauer, former Member of the German Bundestag
Mattia Nelles, German-Ukrainian Bureau, Berlin
Prof Dr Francesco Nicoli, Gent University
James Nixey, Director Russia and Eurasia Programme, Chatham House
Prof Jacob Oberg, Professor of EU Law, University of Southern Denmark
Dr Maciej Olejnik, Willy Brandt Centre for German and European Studies, University of Wroclaw
Alicia Montiel Oliveros, fmr Lecturer for International Relations, University of Caradobo-Valencia
Prof. Phillips P. O’Brien, Head of School of International Relations, University of St Andrews
Dr Artis Pabriks, former Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Defence Minister of Latvia
Prof Maria Popova, McGill University, Montreal
Dr Kristi Raik, Deputy Director, ICDS, Tallinn
Prof Dr Stephan Stetter, Universität der Bundeswehr, Munich
Julian Stöckle, Danube Youth Council
Alice Stollmayer, Founder and Director, Defend Democracy, Brussels
Edward Stringer, Retired Air Marshal (RAF), London
Dr Benjamin Tallis, Senior Research Fellow, German Council on Foreign Relations
Dr Maximilian Terhalle, Visiting Professor, London School of Economics (LSE IDEAS).
Dr Nathalie Tocci, Director, Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome.
Dr Andreas Umland, Stockholm Centre for East European Studies
Kataryna Vakarchuk, Odesa I.I. Mechnikov National University
Dr Alexander Vindman, Lieutenant Colonel (Retired),US Army
Ambassador Alexander Vershbow, Former NATO Deputy Secretary General, US Asst Secretary of Defense, US Ambassador to Russia
Dr Alexander Wolf, Hans Seidel Stiftung, Berlin
Marieluise Beck, Director for Eastern Europe, Centre for Liberal Modernity, Berlin
Tea for two: Preparing for talks with China’s Foreign Minister
We shall never get anywhere with the Australia-China relationship if we are not pragmatic, as Bismarck famously said. While we must avoid over-ambitious goals, forthcoming official talks with China’s top foreign affairs official Wang Yi will present a unique opportunity to test the government’s relationship reset. A two-day visit by Wang Yi later in March Continue reading »
Failed ICJ Case Against Russia Backfires, Paves Way for Genocide Charges Against Ukraine
As January became February, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) delivered a pair of legal body blows to Ukraine and its Western backers. First, on January 31, it ruled on a case brought by Kiev against Russia in 2017, which accused Moscow of presiding over a campaign of “terrorism” in Donbas, including the July 2014 downing of MH17. It also charged that Russia racially discriminated against Ukrainian and Tatar residents of Crimea following its reunification with Moscow.
The ICJ summarily rejected most charges. Then, on February 2, the Court made a preliminary judgment in a case where Kiev accused Moscow of exploiting false claims of an ongoing genocide of Russians and Russian speakers in Donbas to justify its invasion. Ukraine further charged the Special Military Operation breached the Genocide Convention despite not itself constituting genocide. Almost unanimously, ICJ judges rejected these arguments.
Western media universally ignored or distorted the substance of the ICJ rulings. When outlets did acknowledge the judgments, they misrepresented the first by focusing prominently on the accepted charges while downplaying all dismissed allegations. The second was wildly spun as a significant loss for Moscow. The BBC and others focused on how the Court agreed that “part” of Ukraine’s case could proceed. That this “part” is the question of whether Kiev itself committed genocide in Donbas post-2014 was unmentioned.
Ukraine’s failed lawfare effort was backed by 47 EU and NATO member states, leading to the farce of 32 separate international legal teams submitting representations to The Hague in September 2023. Among other things, they supported Kiev’s bizarre contention that the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics were comparable to Al-Qaeda. Judges comprehensively rejected that assertion. Markedly, in its submitted arguments, Russia drew attention to how the same countries backing Kiev justified their illegal, unilateral destruction of Yugoslavia under the “responsibility to protect” doctrine.
This may not be the only area where Ukraine and its overseas sponsors are in trouble moving forward. A closer inspection of the Court’s rulings comprehensively discredits the established mainstream narrative of what transpired in Crimea and Donbas following the Western-orchestrated Maidan coup in February 2014.
In sum, the judgments raise serious questions about Kiev’s eight-year-long “anti-terrorist operation” against “pro-Russian separatists,” following months of vast protests and violent clashes throughout eastern Ukraine between Russian-speaking pro-federal activists and authorities.
Damning finding after damning finding
In its first judgment, the ICJ ruled the Donbas and Lugansk People’s Republics were not “terrorist” entities, as “[neither] group has previously been characterized as being terrorist in nature by an organ of the United Nations” and could not be branded such simply because Kiev labeled them so. This gravely undermined Ukraine’s allegations of Russia “funding…terrorist groups” in Donbas, let alone committing “terrorist” acts there itself.
Other revelatory findings reinforced this bombshell. The ICJ held that Moscow wasn’t liable for committing or even failing to prevent terrorism, as the Kremlin had no “reasonable grounds to suspect” material provided by Ukraine, including details of “accounts, bank cards and other financial instruments” allegedly used by accused “terrorists” in Donbas, were used for such purposes. Moscow was also ruled to have launched investigations into “alleged offenders” but concluded they “d[id] not exist… or their location could not be identified”.
Nonetheless, the ICJ ruled that Moscow had failed “to investigate allegations of the commission of terrorism financing offenses by alleged offenders present in its territory.” This was due to the Kremlin not providing “additional information” upon Kiev’s request and failing to “specify to Ukraine what further information may have been required.” Ironically, judges conversely condemned Kiev’s allegations of “terrorism” by Russia as “vague and highly generalized,” based on highly dubious evidence and documentation, including – strikingly – Western media reports:
The Court has held that certain materials, such as press articles and extracts from publications, are regarded ‘not as evidence capable of proving facts.’
The ICJ was also highly condemnatory of the quality of witnesses and witness evidence produced by Kiev to support these charges. Judges were particularly scathing of Ukraine’s reliance on testimony supporting a systematic, state-sanctioned “pattern of racial discrimination” discrimination against Ukrainians and Tatars in Crimea since 2014. Statements attesting to this were “collected many years after the relevant events” and “not supported by corroborating documentation”:
The reports relied on by Ukraine are of limited value in confirming that the relevant measures are of a racially discriminatory character…Ukraine has not demonstrated… reasonable grounds to suspect that racial discrimination had taken place, which should have prompted the Russian authorities to investigate.
Elsewhere, Ukraine argued that “legal consequences” for residents of Crimea if they opted to maintain Ukrainian citizenship post-2014 and a “steep decline in the number of students receiving their school education in the Ukrainian language between 2014 and 2016,” amounting to an alleged 80% drop in the first year and a further 50% reduction in 2015, were signifiers of a discriminatory environment for non-Russians in the peninsula.
Ukrainian soldiers patrol alongsidethe Donbas Battalion, a Ukrainian militia, in Luhansk, July 26, 2014. Dmitry Lovetsky | AP
In support, Kiev submitted witness statements from parents claiming they were “subjected to harassment and manipulative conduct with a view to deterring” their children from receiving “instruction in Ukrainian,” which judges did not accept. By contrast, Moscow provided testimony not only demonstrating that parents made a “genuine” choice “not subject to pressure” to have their children taught in Russian but also “unresponsiveness on the part of parents to some teachers’ active encouragement [emphasis added] to continue having their children receive instruction in Ukrainian.”
The ICJ lent weight to these submissions, noting, “It is undisputed that no such decline has taken place with respect to school education in other languages, including the Crimean Tatar language.” Judges attributed much of the drop in demand for Ukrainian language “school instruction” to “a dominant Russian cultural environment and the departure of thousands of pro-Ukrainian Crimean residents to mainland Ukraine.” Moscow moreover “produced evidence substantiating its attempts at preserving Ukrainian cultural heritage and… explanations for the measures undertaken with respect to that heritage.”
Russia supplied documentation showing that “Ukrainian and Crimean Tatar organizations have been successful in applying to hold events” in the peninsula. In contrast, “multiple events organized by ethnic Russians have been denied.” Evidently, Russian authorities are even-handed towards Crimea’s population – the color of someone’s passport and their mother tongue are immaterial. On the same grounds, judges rejected Kiev’s accusation that “measures taken against Crimean Tatar and Ukrainian media outlets were based on the ethnic origin of the persons affiliated with them.”
Still, the Court contradictorily concluded Russia “violated its obligations of the International Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination,” as Moscow “[did not demonstrate] that it complied with its duty to protect the rights of ethnic Ukrainians from a disparate adverse effect based on their ethnic origin.”
Kiev goes in for the kill
The ICJ has now effectively confirmed that the entire mainstream narrative of what happened in Crimea and Donbas over the previous decade was fraudulent. Some legal scholars have argued Ukraine’s acquittal on charges of genocide to be inevitable. Yet, many statements made by Ukrainian nationalists since Maidan unambiguously indicate such an intent.
Moreover, in June 2020, a British immigration court granted asylum to Ukrainian citizens who fled the country to avoid conscription. They successfully argued that military service in Donbas would necessarily entail perpetrating and being implicated in “acts contrary to the basic rules of human conduct” – in other words, war crimes – against the civilian population.
The Court’s ruling noted the Ukrainian military routinely engaged in “unlawful capture and detention of civilians with no legal or military justification…motivated by the need for ‘currency’ for prisoner exchanges.” It added there was “systemic mistreatment” of detainees during the “anti-terrorist operation” in Donbas. This included “torture and other conduct that is cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.” An “attitude and atmosphere of impunity for those involved in mistreating detainees” was observed.
The judgment also recorded “widespread civilian loss of life and the extensive destruction of residential property” in Donbas, “attributable to poorly targeted and disproportionate attacks carried out by the Ukrainian military.” Water installations, it recorded, “have been a particular and repeated target by Ukrainian armed forces, despite civilian maintenance and transport vehicles being clearly marked…and despite the protected status such installations enjoy” under international law.
All of this could quite reasonably be argued to constitute genocide. Regardless, the British asylum judgment amply underlines who Ukraine was truly fighting all along – its own citizens. Moscow could furthermore reasonably cite recent disclosures from Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande that the 2014-15 Minsk Accords were, in fact, a con, never intended to be implemented, buying Kiev time to bolster its stockpiles of Western weapons, vehicles, and ammunition, as yet further proof of Ukraine’s malign intentions in Donbas.
The Accords did not provide for secession or independence for the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics but for their full autonomy within Ukraine. Russia was named a mediator, not a party, to the conflict. Kiev was to resolve the dispute directly with rebel leaders. These were crucial legal distinctions about which Ukraine and its overseas backers were immensely displeased. They repeatedly attempted over subsequent years to compel Moscow to designate itself formally as a party to the conflict despite Russia’s minimal role in the conflict.
As a 2019 report published by the Soros-funded International Crisis Group (ICG), “Rebels Without A Cause” found, “the conflict in eastern Ukraine started as a grassroots movement… Demonstrations were led by local citizens claiming to represent the region’s Russian-speaking majority.” Moscow only began providing financial and material support to the rebels after Ukraine’s “counter-terror” operation in Donbas started in April 2014. And it was meager at that.
Volunteer pro-Russian fighters bring aid to civilians living in Donbas, February 01, 2022. Svetlana Kysilyova | Abaca | Sipa via AP
The ICG found that Russia’s position was consistent: the two breakaway republics remain autonomous subjects within Ukraine. This frequently put the Kremlin at significant odds with the rebel leadership, who acted in their own interests and rarely followed orders. The report concluded that Moscow was ultimately “beholden” to the breakaway republics, not vice versa. Rebel fighters wouldn’t put down their arms even if Vladimir Putin personally demanded them to.
Given present-day events, the report’s conclusions are eerie. The ICG declared the situation in Donbas “ought not to be narrowly defined as a matter of Russian occupation” and criticized Kiev’s “tendency to conflate” the Kremlin and the rebels. It expressed hope that newly-elected President Volodymyr Zelensky could “peacefully reunify with the rebel-held territories” and “[engage] the alienated east.”
The 2017 ICJ case explicitly concerned validating allegations of Russia’s direct, active involvement in Donbas. We are left to ponder whether this lawfare effort was intended to secure Kiev’s specious legal grounds for claiming it was invaded in 2014. After all, this could, in turn, have precipitated an all-out Western proxy war in Donbas of the kind that erupted in February 2022.
At the start of that month, French President Emmanuel Macron reaffirmed his commitment to Minsk, claiming he had Zelensky’s personal assurance it would be implemented. However, on February 11, talks between representatives of France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine collapsed after nine hours without tangible results. Notably, Kiev rejected demands for “direct dialogue” with the rebels, insisting Moscow formally designate itself a party to the conflict in keeping with its past obstructionist position.
Then, as documented in multiple contemporary eyewitness reports from OSCE observers, mass Ukrainian artillery shelling of Donbas erupted. On February 15, alarmed representatives of the Duma, led by Russia’s influential Communist Party, formally requested that the Kremlin recognize the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. Putin initially refused, reiterating his commitment to Minsk. The shelling intensified. A February 19 OSCE report recorded 591 ceasefire violations over the past 24 hours, including 553 explosions in rebel-held areas.
Civilians were harmed in the strikes, and civilian structures, including schools, were apparently targeted directly. Meanwhile, that same day, Donetsk rebels claimed they thwarted two sabotage attacks by Polish-speaking operatives on ammonia and oil reservoirs in their territory. Perhaps not coincidentally, in January 2022, it was revealed that the CIA had been training a secret paramilitary army in Ukraine to carry out precisely such strikes in the event of a Russian invasion since 2015.
So, on February 21, the Kremlin formally accepted the Duma’s plea from a week earlier to recognize Donetsk and Lugansk as independent republics. And now here we are.
Feature photo | Pro-Russian Serviceman with a heavy machine gun observing the movement of Ukrainian troops from the advanced trenches of the people’s militia of the Donetsk People’s Republic in the Yasne village area, Donbas, February 11, 2022. Svetlana Kysilyova | Abaca | Sipa via AP2022. Svetlana Kisileva/Abaca/Sipa USA(Sipa via AP Images)
Kit Klarenberg is an investigative journalist and MintPress News contributor exploring the role of intelligence services in shaping politics and perceptions. His work has previously appeared in The Cradle, Declassified UK, and Grayzone. Follow him on Twitter @KitKlarenberg.
The post Failed ICJ Case Against Russia Backfires, Paves Way for Genocide Charges Against Ukraine appeared first on MintPress News.
Ansar Allah Leader Dr. Hizam Al-Assad on Yemen’s Struggle, Naval Confrontations, and Global Alliances
Since the outbreak of the war on Gaza and subsequent tensions in the Red Sea, the Gulf of Aden, and the Arabian Sea, MintPress News has sought dialogue with the most important decision-makers in Ansar Allah, who are leading the charge in Yemen’s resistance against Israeli interests there in a bid to force Israel to accept a ceasefire and allow aid to enter the besieged Strip.
We aim to ask deep and fundamental questions that are of interest to Western readers and people around the world, particularly in the United States, where the media often fails to provide an alternative, let alone opposing, point of view.
MintPress News not only seeks to convey events from the ground in Yemen, but to break the unilateral narrative that has largely prevailed throughout the world about the explosive events in Bab al-Mandab, arguably the most important international strait and shipping corridor. It is in this context that MintPress News has reopened on-the-ground reporting in Yemen, bringing readers exclusive stories and interviews with prominent officials behind recent events like the sinking of a British cargo ship, American airstrikes on the Yemeni mainland, deadly attacks against commercial and military vessels belonging to the U.S., Britain, and Israel, allegations of sabotage of internet cables in the Red and Arabian Seas, the European military mission “Aspides,” and other thorny issues, including the Iranian agenda in the Red Sea, peace in the war-torn country, and an anticipated invasion of Yemen.
For that, MintPress News correspondent Ahmed Abdulkareem interviewed prominent member of the Ansar Allah movement, Dr. Hizam Al-Assad, who is an active member and plays a role in developments in the Red Sea and supporting the people of Gaza. A video showing Dr. Al-Assad along and his team performing the traditional Yemeni Buraa dance on the deck of the Israeli-linked ship, the Galaxy, after its seizure by Ansar Allah in the Red Sea on November 19, 2023, went viral last fall on Arab news and social media platforms, garnering millions of views. The seizure of the Galaxy was Ansar Allah’s first operation since the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza.
MintPress News: Since October 27, when Israel began the war on Gaza, Ansar Allah announced it would target Israel with missiles and drones and prevent Israeli ships from crossing the Red Sea in addition to targeting U.S. and UK ships. Does Ansar Allah intend to continue this campaign?
Dr. Hizam Al-Assad: Our attitude on the US-backed Israeli aggression and siege on our people in Gaza is a religious, humanitarian and moral attitude, especially when Zionists went too far in their crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza – genocidal crimes that have been committed against tens of thousands of children, women and civilians in a geographical area that is besieged from all sides.
Because of that, the Yemeni people, represented by their leadership and army, moved to support the oppressed people in Gaza by striking “Israeli” [territory] and targeting ships linked to Israel, or heading to its ports, until the aggression stops and the siege on the people in Gaza is lifted. And because of the American-British aggression against our country, our army had to respond by targeting Washington and London’s ships and military assets in the Red and Arabian Seas.
We confirm that as long as the aggression and siege on our brothers in Gaza continues, ships linked to the Israeli enemy entity will continue to be targeted, as well as targeting Israeli [territory], in addition to continuing to confront and respond to the British-American aggression over our country. Our response is a legitimate right guaranteed by all international and humanitarian systems and laws.
MintPress News: For the third month in a row, the United States and Britain continue to bomb Hodeidah Governorate and other Yemeni governorates, including the capital, Sana’a. Have these strikes undermined Ansar Allah’s capabilities, as is the stated goal of the attacks on Yemen?
Dr. Hizam Al-Assad: As for the American and British strikes on our country, they are considered an unjustified and blatant attack on the sovereignty of the Republic of Yemen, especially since the operations of our naval forces supporting the people of Gaza do not target international navigation but are limited to preventing or targeting ships linked to the Israeli enemy entity to pressure it to stop its aggression and crimes and to lift the siege on the residents of the Gaza Strip.
However, the American and British strikes on our country did not significantly undermine our army’s military capabilities. Rather, we increased the pace of confrontation and escalation in targeting U.S. and British ships, and we may go beyond that to target U.S. interests in the region, which is a legitimate and guaranteed right.
MintPress News: What is Ansar Allah’s position on potential escalatory steps that Israel may take in Gaza, especially an invasion of Rafah, as well as the potential for an expansion of U.S. and British attacks in the Red Sea or even a U.S.-led ground invasion of Yemen?
Dr. Hizam Al-Assad: Israel continues to carry out its crimes against the Palestinian people in Gaza with direct American support and participation. The body parts and blood of Gaza’s children have become a disgrace to America, especially as it not only continues to provide military support to the Israeli occupation entity in order to kill more women and children but also to use its veto power in the UN Security Council to thwart any draft resolution aimed to stop the war.
Any new Israeli approach to escalation in Rafah may expose more than one million, three hundred thousand people to certain death and will put international and humanitarian organizations and human rights laws to the test, especially since Washington, which always pays lip service to humanity and the protection of rights, is still insisting on continuing to support the Israeli army as it continues committing more crimes against a defenseless people, and American airlifts continues to supply the Israeli army with bombs, missiles, and deadly shells that kill hundreds of children, women, and civilians every day. It also destroys homes, hospitals, places of displacement, and civilian facilities.
All of this makes it necessary for us to continue supporting and escalating military operations. We have, thanks to God, options and major, powerful surprises that will be painful for Israel, America and the British.
We are waging an honorable battle to support the vulnerable and oppressed in the face of satanic and evil forces that spread devastation, destruction and blood. They also bomb, kill and commit genocide against tens of thousands of children, women and civilians in a narrow and besieged geographical area.
Regarding escalation by the United States, our response may be earth-shattering and severe. America’s interests will be harmed, and its soldiers will be killed. Their bodies may not return home because they are aggressors against our country and participating in the killing and siege of our brothers in Gaza.
If the American forces decide to enter into a ground war, this is what our Yemeni people, armed with faith, iron, and fire, aspire to and desire. The Yemeni citizen longs for the day when they can confront the American invaders and occupiers face to face.
As for our naval forces, they contribute to securing international navigation and have never been a source of danger or concern to maritime shipping lines. However, Washington is trying to use these flimsy excuses to justify its attacks to those who still believe it, as it claims that it secures international navigation. In reality, it participates with Israel in the killing and siege against our brothers in the Gaza Strip. They are trying to protect Israeli ships in the Red and Arab Seas and ignoring the interests of taxpayers. They are also carrying out aggression against Yemen.
MintPress News: Over the past few days, the roads closed between areas controlled by the National Salvation Government and those controlled by the Saudi coalition’s allies have been reopened. Can you tell MintPress more about this? What is the state of reconciliation efforts between opposing parties in Yemen?
Dr. Hizam Al-Assad: The path of Yemeni negotiations with the Saudi-led Coalition, especially Saudi Arabia, is ongoing and continued. There is a roadmap project that may be finalized and signed soon, despite continuing American pressure aimed at disrupting this path because of our positions rejecting the continuation of Israeli-American crimes against the residents of Gaza.
Regarding the reopening of roads in either some military contact areas or in some axes of the fronts, there has been a breakthrough in some areas after the Sanaa government’s [Ansar Allah] initiative to open them with local mediation and guarantees and far from American pressure trying to hinder peace in Yemen.
MintPress News: Ansar Allah announced the downing of a U.S. warplane and the sinking of a British ship, in addition to the targeting of U.S. and British warships. Do you consider this an escalation by Ansar Allah due to the war on Gaza, or is it related to Washington’s recent decision to classify Ansar Allah as a terrorist group?
Dr. Hizam Al-Assad: The Yemeni armed forces will continue to target ships linked to Israel until the aggression is stopped and the siege on our people in Gaza is lifted. Regarding the strike on US.. ships and military assets in the Red and Arabian Seas, [we have] an escalatory and strategic plan to target them and cleanse our territorial waters of them as a response to their aggression against Yemen.
Our goal is to bring security and peace to the region. The American forces that traveled a distance of more than ten thousand miles to reach our seas came to militarize the Red Sea and to spread problems, wars and aggression against our country and participate in the killing of Palestinian people.
The American people must know that their forces are not in a defensive position but are in an aggressive position. International navigation in the Red Sea is safe and proceeding normally and naturally. The evidence of this is the continuation of [maritime] traffic to all destinations except those heading to the Israeli enemy entity or the American and British ships, as they are still carrying out aggression against our country.
Regarding the Biden administration’s classification of us as terrorists, it is a political classification whose purpose is to blackmail us into abandoning our support of the Palestinian people in Gaza. We are not concerned about America’s classifications because it is an enemy that has already been defeated and will not hesitate to make accusations against its opponent.
In fact, the United States, given its criminal record, is considered the head of evil, terrorism, and criminality in the whole world, and throughout its bloody history, it is the mother of terrorism and its source. It is the one who practices oppression and terrorism against the peoples of the world under the same titles and justifications.
As for those who support just humanitarian and moral issues and support the oppressed Palestinian people in Gaza, they are those who fight terrorism and confront the forces of arrogance and global criminality.
MintPress News: On February 19, a European military mission led by Greece called Aspides was launched. The mission’s stated aim is to use battleships and frigates to protect navigation in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden. What is Ansar Allah’s position on Aspides?
Dr. Hizam Al-Assad: According to European officials who spoke to us, their mission is defensive, to accompany some European ships. It has nothing to do with American and British hostilities and will not represent a threat to the Republic of Yemen.
So far, we are still taking them for their word. If any country sides with the U.S. and Britain in the aggression against Yemen, the fate of its ships, navigational interests, and others will be the same fate that Washington’s and London’s ships are facing right now in the Red and Arabian Seas.
There is no threat posed by Asnar Allah to international navigation in the Red and Arabian Seas. Our naval forces have contributed greatly and for years to securing international navigation, while the imminent danger to the security and safety of international navigation lies in the American-British escalation: the attempt to militarize the Red Sea and the launching of missiles toward Yemen’s territory from the proximity of commercial ships, as well as threatening and forcing major shipping companies not to pass through Bab al-Mandab, and obliging ships sailing across the Gulf of Aden and the Red Sea to turn off their identification devices.
All of these evil measures, which I mentioned, are an attempt to create confusion around the security of international navigation and an attempt to portray the operations of our naval forces against Israeli ships as posing a threat to the security of navigation for the purpose of inciting world opinion against us. The Biden administration is deceiving its people who pay taxes as it spends their money to harm them and cause damage to their interests, not to service them or protect their interests, such as the well-being of commercial ships.
MintPress News: What is your response to claims Ansar Allah threatens international navigation in the Red Sea, that it poses a danger to underwater internet cables and that it exposes the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden to environmental danger by targeting oil tankers such as the recent sinking of the MV Rubymar?
Dr. Hizam Al-Assad: Regarding the sinking of the British Rubymar, we are committed to our people and our nation, and we will continue to target and sink all American and British ships within the right of response to their aggression against our country. It is the least we can do in the face of the brutality, crime, and arrogance practiced by Washington and London towards our country and our nation. I can confirm to MintPress News that there are major, powerful, and unexpected surprises for our enemy if the attacks against our country continue.
Regarding optical internet lines and cables in the Red and Arabian Seas, over the past month, Washington has sought to sabotage them after raising the issue in the media. This was a preemptive move intended to blame our naval forces.
We affirm our commitment to contribute to protecting and securing international shipping lines and internet cables in the Red and Arabian Seas. Furthermore, we will protect it from the danger posed by the aggressing American and British forces. For us, this is a religious, moral and humanitarian obligation and is consistent with international laws and treaties, as our country is one of the most important riparian countries and has the right to do so. The United States, which came to the region for one goal only, to protect Israel, will not hesitate to harm the interests of the world in favor of Israel.
MintPress News: Ansar Allah is accused of implementing Tehran’s agenda in the Red Sea. First, is the characterization true? Second, what is the relationship between Ansar Allah and Iran?
Dr. Hizam Al-Assad: Our positions and decisions are completely independent. Our relationship with Iran is a brotherly and equal relationship. We agree and meet with Tehran and all the free people of the region and the world on humanitarian stances that support the right of the Palestinian people to live and remain on their land and to defend their threatened existence.
Feature photo | Dr. Hizam Al-Assad
Ahmed AbdulKareem is a Yemeni journalist based in Sana’a. He covers the war in Yemen for MintPress News as well as local Yemeni media.
The post Ansar Allah Leader Dr. Hizam Al-Assad on Yemen’s Struggle, Naval Confrontations, and Global Alliances appeared first on MintPress News.
Source Claims DoD Covered-up Deaths of US Special Forces Soldiers in 2020 Iranian Strike on US Airbase
The United States government covered up the cause of death of two U.S. military personnel killed in Iranian retaliatory strikes on Ain Al-Asad, a U.S. military base in Western Iraq, in January 2020, following the assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani by the United States, according to claims made to MintPress News by a source close to the family of the deceased soldiers.
On January 3, 2020, then-U.S. President Donald Trump signed off on the ‘targeted assassination’ of General Qassem Soleimani of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) ‘s Quds Force, sparking a round of Iranian retaliatory strikes on bases in Iraq that house U.S. military personnel.
The primary target of the IRGC retaliatory ‘Operation Martyr Soleimani’ was the most significant military base housing U.S. troops in Iraq, the Ain Al-Asad base. Although the extent of the destruction caused by the ballistic missile strikes has been previously outlined by the IRGC using satellite imagery to confirm the impacts caused, Iran has not given an official estimation as to the number of casualties that resulted, nor did they respond to MintPress’ inquiries regarding the matter.
U.S. President Donald Trump delivered a speech on the day of Soleimani’s assassination in which he stated that “Iran appeared to be backing down” and claimed that there were no injuries or fatalities from Iran’s strikes on Al-Asad. This was a far cry from Trump’s previous statements made over Twitter (now X), in which he claimed that the U.S. would respond to an Iranian attack with strikes on 52 sites in Iran, including cultural targets.
Unraveling Discrepancies
Despite Trump’s claim that no casualties had occurred, speculation began to arise following the release of satellite imagery and videos from the scene, which appeared to show massive destruction inside the base. Weeks later, the U.S. military revealed that 11 service members had suffered concussions or traumatic brain injuries (TBI) and were being treated as a result. On January 24, that number jumped to 34, according to the Pentagon.
Nearly a week later, that number changed again. This time, the Pentagon placed the number of TBIs sustained at 50. Days later, it was updated to 64. In February, the statistics were again changed, with the Pentagon revealing that 109 service members had endured TBI’s as a result of Iran’s attack.
On condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the matter and out of respect for the victim’s families, a source who intimately knew the two deceased U.S. special operations soldiers in question told MintPress that the pair were killed in Iran’s attack on Ain Al-Asad on January 8 and that the Department of Defense (DoD) intentionally covered up their deaths.
The source claims that Gunnery Sgt. Diego D. Pongo, a critical skills operator, and Capt. Moises A. Navas, a special operations officer, was killed in the attack, but the Department of Defense intentionally mischaracterized their cause of death to the public.
Pongo and Navas reportedly belonged to the ‘2nd Marine Raider Battalion’ and were 34 years old. According to a statement made to MintPress by its source, family members of Pongo and Navas informed him that they were killed while inside a barracks that was struck by Iranian missiles at Ain al-Asad airbase on January 8, 2020.
The families of Pongo and Navas were made to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements, standard practice when special operations soldiers are involved, related to the nature of their deaths, according to MintPress’ source.
Left, Capt. Moises A. Navas, a special operations officer from Germantown, Md. Right, gunnery Sgt. Diego D. Pongo, a critical skills operator from Simi Valley, Calif.
According to U.S. Marine Forces Special Operations Command, the pair were killed in combat on March 8, 2020, while ostensibly on a mission fighting ISIS in North-Central Iraq.
MintPress independently reviewed all available statements and news updates released by Amaq and ISIS-affiliated media and found no mention of a conflict with U.S. military personnel at that time, nor was there mention of a clash in which ISIS operatives successfully inflicted casualties on U.S. troops.
On January 9, 2021, Amaq – the official ISIS news agency – published an infographic in which they categorized 1,422 offensive actions that the group committed in Iraq during 2020. In it, meticulous note was made of attacks on the Iraqi army, tribal forces, Kurdish Peshmerga soldiers and militiamen from the Popular Mobilization Units, yet no mention is made of attacks or clashes with U.S. troops.
Amaq has never shied away from claiming credit for attacks, sometimes even attacks it did not commit. The successful elimination of U.S. military personnel, especially elite U.S. special operations soldiers, would be seen as a massive public relations victory for the group.
Covert Conflicts
The U.S. launched Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) in 2014, losing 17 soldiers in action from 2014 to March 2020, when the deaths of Pongo and Navas were announced, bringing the death toll to 19.
According to U.S. officials at the time, Pongo and Navas were accompanying Iraqi anti-terrorism special forces while attached to the 2nd Marine Raider Battalion’, in an operation against a well-defended cave complex near the town of Makhmur. A report published on the incident by the New York Times stated that no Iraqi counter-terrorism fighters were killed or injured in the clashes despite an hours-long gun battle with ISIS militants. The article goes on to say that the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment, known more commonly as Delta Force, was among those sent in to retrieve the bodies of fallen Americans.
Reports from Iraqi officials at the time detail weeks of on-and-off clashes with militants from late February into March. A review of those reports indicates that they cannot corroborate details released by the Department of Defense surrounding the official story on the deaths of Pongo and Navas.
It is plausible that U.S. military brass did not provide sufficient detail when reporting the deaths of Pongo and Navas, as is sometimes the case when special operations is involved, but a source with intimate knowledge of U.S. special operations explained to MintPress that the families of special operations fighters are required to sign Non-Disclosure Agreements and said that it is easier to cover up the circumstances surrounding the deaths of special forces fighters.
A Crisis in Credibility
If Pongo and Navas were indeed killed during Iran’s ballistic missile barrage, it would not be the first time the U.S. military has covered up the circumstances of soldiers’ deaths. In 2021, ABC News published an investigative documentary that revealed inconsistencies in the Pentagon’s narrative surrounding a 2017 clash with ISIS fighters in Niger, which resulted in the deaths of four U.S. Green Berets.
Perhaps one of the most infamous incidents, a U.S. military coverup, occurred in 2004 when U.S. Army Ranger Pat Tillman was shot dead by a fellow soldier. When Tillman’s death was initially reported, an elaborate coverup story was produced by the U.S. military in which Tillman had engaged in an epic battle with the Taliban and was ultimately killed by militants.
When it later emerged that Tillman was actually killed in a friendly fire incident, many started questioning the true nature of his death. Tillman was shot in the head three times at close range at a time when no reported enemy fire was occurring. To this day, there have been no conclusive findings in the case. However, some allege that Tillman, who had begun to speak out against the moral stances of his fellow soldiers and military brass, was killed intentionally in a bid to silence him.
Also in 2004, U.S. Marines Rob Zurheide, Brad Shuder, and an Iraqi interpreter were killed in another incident of friendly fire that was covered up for years. After more than a decade, immense pressure from the families of the deceased and a heated congressional hearing, the U.S. military finally admitted that the trio were not killed fighting militants in Iraq’s Fallujah but were killed by an errant 81mm mortar that was fired by fellow American forces.
The following year, in 2005, the Department of Defence (DoD) reported on the death of E3 Private Class LaVena Johnson, announcing she had committed suicide while stationed at the Balad military base in Iraq. At first, the military refused to provide further information, but details later obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request revealed that she was found dead in a burning tent with acid burns on her genitals, a broken nose, black eyes and loose teeth. The official conclusion of the now-closed U.S. Army investigation is that she committed suicide, despite photographic and an autopsy report indicating that her wounds were inconsistent with this finding. A petition remains online calling for the military to reopen the case, and LaVena Johnson’s family conducted their own investigation, which concluded she was beaten, raped and then murdered.
The U.S. military has a long and sordid history of covering up the truth surrounding its soldiers’ deaths, particularly when such incidents are of a sensitive nature. In the case of Iran’s retaliatory strikes against U.S. forces stationed in the Ain al-Assad base, the implications of American fatalities could have meant a wider confrontation between Iran and the U.S. This could explain why the U.S. military refused to admit to any casualties before eventually drip feeding reports of TBI’s to the public weeks later.
Feature photo | U.S. soldiers and journalists inspect the rubble at a site of Iranian bombing, in Ain al-Asad air base, Anbar, Iraq, January 13, 2020. Qassim Abdul-Zahra | AP
Editor’s note: MintPress News could not independently verify the accuracy of the statements from its source for this story. U.S. officials declined to comment on the allegations. Iranian government officials made off-the-record statements to MintPress suggesting that the source’s claims were accurate but did not respond with an on-the-record statement by the time this article was published.
Robert Inlakesh is a political analyst, journalist and documentary filmmaker based in London, UK. He has reported from and lived in the occupied Palestinian territories and hosts the show’ Palestine Files’. Director of ‘Steal of the Century: Trump’s Palestine-Israel Catastrophe.’ Follow him on Twitter @falasteen47
The post Source Claims DoD Covered-up Deaths of US Special Forces Soldiers in 2020 Iranian Strike on US Airbase appeared first on MintPress News.
Mask March Ban Has a Chilling Precedent for Hong Kong Pro-Democracy Activists in the UK
A former Hong Kong district councillor has blasted Home Office plans to crack down on protestors wearing masks at demonstrations.
Carmen Lau, now the International Advocacy and Programme Associate of Hong Kong Democracy Council, warned that rules restricting protesters’ ability to wear face coverings could risk the safety of pro-democracy activists amid increased transnational repression from Beijing.
The proposed new protest rules could see demonstrators face up to a month behind bars and a £1,000 fine for flouting an order to remove their mask.
But Carmen told the Byline Times the measures reminded her of crackdowns on protest in her own home city.
She said: “It was almost the same as these new rules in the UK. I remember back in 2019 when the law passed, there was a massive protest where Hong Kongers wore the mask of Guy Fawkes to protest against these laws.
“The Hong Kong community in the UK, especially those who are politically active, are really aware of these rules. We protested against the face-covering law in Hong Kong, I don’t think we thought the UK government would pass this law here as well.”
Mass protests started in Hong Kong in 2019 following the introduction of a proposed bill that would have allowed extradition from the region to mainland China.
While this bill was later shelved, the protests continued into 2020 – the same year in which a controversial Beijing-imposed National Security Law was introduced, which many pro-democracy activists said would roll back civil liberties in Hong Kong.
Carmen, who was elected as a district councillor amid the pro-democracy movement in 2019, had to flee her home city in 2021 and come to the UK because of the growing repression.
She said: “In Hong Kong, there was a good reason why we didn’t trust the police or the government. But here it could assist in the transnational repression that the Chinese government is conducting in the UK.”
Authorities in both mainland China and Hong Kong have claimed the National Security Law was needed to maintain order and stability in the region. US-based NGO Freedom House claims China has conducted a “sophisticated, global, and comprehensive” transnational repression campaign.
Hong Kong authorities have also issued arrest warrants for high-profile activists including Nathan Law for alleged violations of the National Security Law – many of whom are now based overseas.
Fears of Reprisal
Carmen also told Byline Times that many Hong Kongers in the UK are wary of being photographed or identified at protests out of fear their families in Hong Kong might face reprisal.
“That is why many of us cover our faces, even though we are protesting in a democratic and relatively safe country,” she said. “All of us, not just the activists, are really afraid of their identity being exposed or traced by the Chinese Communist Party’s agents.”
The Hong Kong government is expected to implement its own domestic national security legislation this Spring under constitutional requirements.
A Foreign Office spokesperson said: “The Foreign Secretary has made the UK’s concerns clear – legislation should align with international standards and uphold basic rights and freedoms. We urge the Hong Kong authorities to allow time for proper legislative scrutiny.”
Pro-democracy activists have raised fears the new legislation will see further deepen repression in Hong Kong.
Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee said in January: “We will be respecting and safeguarding the freedoms and rights lawfully enjoyed by the people of Hong Kong and by the organisations in Hong Kong.”
But British Foreign Secretary David Cameron has claimed the new law “will have a negative impact on the people of Hong Kong in the exercise of their rights and freedoms.”
Hong Kong was formerly under British rule, but it was handed over to China in 1997 under the “One Country, Two Systems” policy, which granted the territory a degree of autonomy from the mainland.
Carmen added: “What we need is to push our democratic movement forward, and we do need help from governments like the UK and the US. I hope the UK government becomes more assertive in its actions and statements towards the situation in Hong Kong.
“I am grateful that the UK government has spoken out, but there is more to do – such as sanctioning those responsible for human rights abuses and providing a safe space for us to protest against the CCP.”
A Home Office spokesperson said: “The right to protest is a fundamental part of our democracy but we must also protect the law-abiding majority’s right to go about their daily lives.
“It is unacceptable that people can commit offences and evade justice through wearing a face covering and the new measures, which will be introduced in the Criminal Justice Bill, will prevent protesters from covering their face wholly or mainly for the purpose of avoiding conviction for criminal behaviour within the designated area.”
They added that nearly 200,000 visas have been granted to Hong Kongers under the bespoke BN(O) scheme.
US Soldier Reveals Why Aaron Bushnell Self-Immolated, with Mike Prysner
One week after Aaron Bushnell set himself on fire in an extreme act of Protest for Palestine – the world has been awe-struck by his galvanizing act of courage, with his last words being Free Palestine. Across the world, including in Yemen and Gaza, Bushnell is being memorialized as a martyr for Palestine as Israel continues its genocide in Gaza that has left over 30,000 people dead.
His protest was not only moving but stood in stark contrast to the empty rhetoric given by so-called liberal politicians who’ve done very little to stop Israel from continuing its war on civilians. Bushnell was horrified not only by Israel’s actions but also by his own air force. It was recently revealed that Bushnell had classified information about the U.S. Air Force aiding Israel in bombing Gaza.
Yet media searches of Bushnell’s name produce headlines and articles framing his protest as a mental health issue, inferring that he may have been suicidal. YouTube even includes “suicide hotline” messages under videos discussing Bushnell.
So, who was Aaron Bushnell, and how was his extreme act of protest actually in line with a long history of active military servicemembers who had a conscious awakening during their service, including in the Vietnam War era? To talk more about this, we are joined by Mike Prysner, a former Iraq war veteran turned antiwar activist and organizer. Prysner is also a producer and journalist with the Empire Files. He openly calls on military members to refuse to serve in the U.S. military and draws attention to the global class war.
Don’t miss this episode of the MintCast, and remember to subscribe on whichever platform you view us on.
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Mnar Adley is an award-winning journalist and editor and is the founder and director of MintPress News. She is also president and director of the non-profit media organization Behind the Headlines. Adley also co-hosts the MintCast podcast and is a producer and host of the video series Behind The Headlines. Contact Mnar at mnar@mintpressnews.com or follow her on Twitter at @mnarmuh.
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After George Galloway’s Rochdale Victory: What Does His Workers’ Party Actually Stand for?
On Monday, George Galloway was sworn into Parliament as the MP for Rochdale. His victory in the by-election, on a ticket supporting Palestine, sent shockwaves through the political establishment, resulting in Rishi Sunak’s impromptu speech describing his victory as “beyond alarming” and calling for further restrictions on protest in the UK.
Few will fail to recognise Galloway due to his contentious headline-grabbing political career, but for many, this will be the first time they’ve heard of The Workers Party of Britain (WPB).
So, what do they stand for, and what does their victory hold for Rochdalians? Galloway is a founding member and current leader of the WPB, which was set up as a left- wing alternative to Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour following their defeat in the 2019 general election.
You might suspect a left-wing party would primarily be campaigning against the Tories, but topping the WPB’s hit list is the Labour Party. Galloway, a former Labour MP, was ejected from the party in 2003 for bringing the party into disrepute over his comments on the Iraq war.
The 2023 WPB manifesto states, “the greatest block to working-class aspirations is not the Conservative Party but the Labour Party”, and it calls for trade unions, the primary source of funding, to disaffiliate from Labour.
Galloway emphasised the WPB’s enmity towards Labour by declaring he wanted to oust Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner from her Ashton-under-Lyne constituency following his swearing-in as an MP. The 69-year-old from Dundee has also branded Labour the “greater of two evils” out of them and the Conservatives.
Many in Rochdale’s significant Muslim community, who swung away from Labour due to their initial failure to demand a ceasefire in Gaza, are celebrating the Workers’ Party win. Many voted for Galloway due to his long-standing support for Palestine during this latest episode in the long-running humanitarian disaster. Not everyone will be familiar with the WPB’s background or wider ideas however.
The Ideology
The socialist and anti-imperialist credentials of the WPB are laid out in their manifesto, as is the support setting-up they received from the Stalinist Communist Party of Great Britain Marxist-Leninist (CPGB-ML).
As with many communist-inspired groups, the WPB steer clear of criticising communist parties and countries who they state “have attempted to break free of imperialist domination and build a different kind of world.” “We defend the achievements of the USSR, China, Cuba etc.” the Workers’ Party adds.
The WPG and Galloway have often sung Russia and China’s praises, while failing to acknowledge Russia’s alleged war crimes in Ukraine and a global assassination programme killing dissidents to Putin’s regime.
The communist chops of the WPG are also evidenced by the factionalism and splits that often afflict left-wing organisations. The Workers’ Party and the CPGB-ML are no longer affiliated.
Intriguely, the WPG accounts for 2022 lodged with the Electoral Commission document a further split within the party caused by a group of “self-proclaimed revolutionary socialists” playing the “role of a Fifth column” (an enemy within), accusing the internal group of trying to create a social democratic party “in the same mould as the imperialist Labour Party.” The WPG’s apologist response to Putin’s war on Ukraine is understood to have played a role in the split.
On Russia
The Ukrainian community in Rochdale stretches back to refugees arriving during the Second World War. Their numbers have since been bolstered by refugees forced from the country by the Russian invasion in January 2022. They have some reason to question their new MP - who refuses to criticise Russia or Putin’s actions.
In 2016, Galloway conducted an interview with former UKIP leader Nigel Farage on his Russia Today television show, Sputnik. The then-RT presenter said he believed the EU had incited Vladimir Putin to annex Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, adding: “I respect Putin and I think he's very popular in Russia and that's the point, he's the leader of Russia” (Farage responded with “of course”, HuffPost reported).
The Kremlin-funded Russia Today channel had its terrestrial TV broadcast licence revoked by Ofcom in 2022 for breaching the impartiality rules in its coverage of the war in Ukraine. Galloway went on to stream his own ‘Mother of All Talk Shows’ online and via Russian-funded Sputnik radio.
On X/Twitter, Galloway has been accused of producing a stream of misinformation since the war in Ukraine began. He claimed Ukraine was “importing hundreds of Islamist fighters from Syria” into the conflict,” which they hadn’t.
The Kremlin itself later boasted Russia was recruiting Syrian soldiers to fight in Ukraine, with the blessing of Putin’s ally President Bashar al-Assad, who owed his survival as President to the intervention of Russian forces helping defeat the Syrian freedom fighters who rose against Assad’s brutal dictatorship during the civil war.
Galloway’s has backed Putin’s stated reason for invading, which he claimed was to “demilitarise and de-Nazify Ukraine.” Ukraine’s democratically-elected President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, is Jewish, which makes the ‘Nazi’ claim laughable.
The WPB and Galloway are long-time critics of NATO, the military alliance which countries bordering Russia have been scrambling to join since Ukraine’s invasion. The WPG’s manifesto calls for a referendum on NATO membership, saying the alliance is a “clear and present danger to the security of the British population” and that they will “seek new collective security arrangements.”
These new security arrangements would be with rising powers “led by China”, according to a report on Galloways No2Nato campaign’s initial meeting in London last year. It suggests a fundamental shift in diplomatic relations and alliances away from Europe and the US towards China and Russia.
The new MP for Rochdale is poles apart from the previous incumbent, the late Sir Tony Lloyd, whose death in January triggered the by-election. In parliament, Lloyd expressed his admiration for the Ukrainian armed forces in opposing the Russian invasion, shortly after it occurred, and requested adequate arms supplies be sent to the Ukraine. He also called for a fast track visa scheme to be implemented to help displaced Ukrainian students and academics continue their work in the UK.
One Ukrainian in Rochdale, who did not wish to be named, told Byline Times the late MP was “very supportive of the Ukrainian community in Rochdale” and would be “very sadly missed.”
On Galloway and his stance regarding Putin and Ukraine, she added: “As to how we feel about him as Ukrainians, we’re sad that he is pro-Putin, obviously, and we don’t know what, if any, influence he can have for or against the war in Ukraine. It's just a wait-and-see. And I am not very happy about that wait-and-see.
“We’re obviously not going to be supportive of anyone who is pro-Putin: Putin has invaded Ukrainian territory for no reason at all, apart from his wanting to erase the Ukrainian nation as he has said on a number of occasions.”
Manifesto Medley
The WPB’s ten-point programme boils down most of the party’s major manifesto pledges, which include rebuilding British industry, cheap housing for all, free preschool childcare and education, free lifelong education and educational training, free provision of social care for the elderly and disabled, and nationalisation of essential utilities.
The one flagship policy in the manifesto to raise revenue is a one-off 5% per cent wealth tax, which they estimate would raise a £17 billion windfall to kick-start a national social and investment strategy.
The WPB’s socialism has an anti-woke twist. The manifesto rails against “the hysteria of university-based cultural engineering” and the “weird theories of university theoreticians and the neuroses of American progressivism.”
The criticism of intellectuals’ echoes of Mao’s demonisation of the educated during the Cultural Revolution. Indeed, shortly after setting up the WPG, Galloway visited Beijing to speak at a Chinese state-sponsored forum on democracy, where he criticised Western democracies.
When it comes to environmental issues, the WPG’s can be characterised as ‘climate sceptical’. Its website states: “Climate change is constantly taking place. It has done so for thousands of years” - in other words, strongly downplaying the human impact of two hundred years of industrialisation and greenhouse gas emissions.
The WPG calls for a Net Zero referendum so people can have an “informed debate” of whether they want to bear the costs of Net Zero. There is no mention of the costs of not striving for Net Zero.
And on migration, policy statements on their site point to clamping down on “mass migration.” “We will undertake investment in border security and in fair and equitable visa and citizenship arrangements that discourage organised crime,” one party figure writes on the site. Other party documents rail against “mass migration”.
The party is also opposed to clean air initiatives like London’s Ultra Low Emissions Zone, and state they will “not be seduced by the more apocalyptic Green hysteria that floods our media.” The environmental statements in the manifesto clash with point ten of their programme which promises a government committed to the, “solving of urgent problems such as the need to live sustainably and protect our natural environment.”
With whispers of an early election appearing in the media, Galloway's tenure as the MP for Rochdale could be limited. Whatever time he does have serving Rochdale is sure to be filled with controversy.
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