Sunday song

Updates: Trump, China, Russia, Iran, Britain, Ukraine, Turkey, Korea, Cambodia, Sudan & Brazil

CND in Britain last Saturday with protest at RAF Fairford where US bombers are deployed that have been used to attack Iran.

• Trump on Truth Social declares ‘economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale’ against Iran and anyone else worldwide doing business with Iran. The Chinese Foreign Ministry says it does not recognize US sanctions against Iran and that China will not comply with the ‘economic warfare’ campaign initiated by President Trump this week.

• Pepe Escobar on Empire of Chaos, Lies, Plunder, Piracy and Bribes: Mike Pompeo, former aspiring Tony Soprano, admitted: “We lie, we cheat, we steal.” And we bribe. A Transition Protocol source, as we revealed live, is unequivocal: The President of the US – despite having “won” the war on Iran countless times, at least in the Vociferation stakes – made a major attempt to induce IRGC Commander-in-Chief Gen. Ahmad Vahidi and senior Iranian military leadership to break with the government in Tehran through enormous financial inducements. So here we have POTUS playing good ol’ Divide and Rule – which the Brits learned from the Roman Empire – to fracture the IRGC from the inside. This was not a mere exploratory diplomatic contact. Trump did not merely want to determine whether Vahidi supported US-Iran negotiations. According to our source – placed in the tight inner circle of Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – this was a full leadership-buyout operation, modeled on the Venezuela playbook, to fracture the Iranian state. The attempt miserably failed. Because Ahmad Vahidi completely rejected it.

• The Turkish Ministry of Justice has issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu for Israel's attack on the Freedom Flotilla.
• According to sources from Iraq, the Iraqi Speaker of Parliament & his party are backed by the UAE. The UAE reportedly paid them $100 million in campaign support. A few days ago, the UAE had announced that it cut off all trade, commercial exchanges and financial transactions with Iran, reportedly due to pressure from the US and Israel. In response, the Parliament Speaker of Iran, Ghalibaf, said: “Every step that enemies have taken to drive Iran and Iraq apart, we have taken 2 steps closer together. History will record that we were 2 nations that refused to be footnotes in other people's narratives, and our destiny was not written in the capitals of Western governments.”
• The war has become "more expensive," Ukrainian dictator Volodymyr Zelensky stated. "We need to find the funds. This is the main challenge," he added. 

• Ukrainian dictator Volodymyr Zelensky on more ‘humane’ mobilization: “I am very much looking forward to a more humane and systematic approach to solving organizational issues in the military.” In Vinnitsa, Ukraine, speaking of ‘humane mobilization’, Zelensky’s meat hunters tried kidnapping another ‘Ukrainian patriot’. However, in a stunning twist, passers by strike back with pepper spray and the condemned man lives to see another day. 

• Die Zeit: Since 2022, more than 80 Ukrainian soldiers undergoing training in Germany to participate in the war in Ukraine have fled their training grounds in Saxony-Anhalt alone. Under Ukrainian law, these men are considered deserters. They face up to 12 years of imprisonment in their home country. “Many deserters in Ukraine did not join the army voluntarily; they were conscripted. When they were sent to the Altengrab military training ground in Saxony-Anhalt for training, they took the opportunity to flee,” the publication adds.

• Newsweek: A senior Russian official has warned that Trump's new defense plans, including for the vast Golden Dome missile shield currently in development, will lead to a new space "arms race" and could be "devastating." "The risks of turning outer space into an arena of armed confrontation have ceased to be hypothetical," Gennady Gatilov, Russia's envoy to the United Nations in Geneva, said in remarks reported by Russia's Tass state news agency on Thursday. "Its consequences will be devastating for all of humanity," he added. The Congressional Budget Office—the nonpartisan agency that advises American lawmakers on funding—said in May the "Golden Dome" will cost roughly $1.2 trillion over the next 20 years, far exceeding the initial $175 billion allocated to the project. 

• Pistol Pete Hegseth on ‘controlling space’: Secretary of War Hegseth speaking in Denver, Colorado as part of his recent 'Arsenal of Freedom Tour': “We’re leveraging the best and brightest, the most talented Americans to ensure that we do deliver space superiority and space dominance. We are running as fast as we can on Golden Dome to deliver for President Trump because we must defend our homeland. The fight for space is the fight for the future of the world as we know it. We cannot afford to have a fair fight in space — I’m not interested in orbital equity or orbital parity. We demand orbital dominance plain and simple. Whoever controls space controls the fight.”
• Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi’s 19–20 August visit to South Korea, the first by a Chinese foreign minister in five years, renewed efforts to strengthen bilateral ties amid tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Beijing and Seoul agreed to accelerate negotiations on the second phase of their Free Trade Agreement and expand cooperation in trade, supply chains, technology, and cultural exchanges. Wang called for South Korea to pursue external relations in an ‘independent, autonomous, balanced and non-conflicting manner’ and urged Washington to change its ‘hostile policy’ towards Pyongyang [North Korea]. China reaffirmed its commitment to peaceful resolution and regional stability; Seoul reiterated the one-China principle. Beijing is considering a Xi–Lee summit at November’s APEC in Shenzhen. 

• Odessa, Ukraine: A woman saved a condemned man from a death sentence by kicking and punching Zelensky’s meat hunters until they fled like the cowards they are. [Don't believe the mainstream media when they say the people of Ukraine want the US-NATO war on Russia to continue.]

• The US is interfering in the Brazilian presidential elections, pressuring the Brazilian electorate into voting for right-wing candidate Flavio Bolsonaro, the son of disgraced former president, Jair Bolsonaro. If that does not work and President Lula da Silva secures a fourth term in office, the groundwork is already being laid for a potential military intervention. From sanctions and economic warfare, to coaching influencers and journalists on how best to attack the left-wing government, the Trump administration is doing everything it can to overthrow Lula. 
• The longtime publisher of Stars and Stripes announced he’s stepping down weeks after the Pentagon installed an active-duty Navy captain at the military newspaper, an atypical appointment. Max Lederer, who spent more than 30 years at Stars and Stripes, announced Tuesday he was stepping away after nearly two decades as publisher. His email to staff about his departure included a parting shot at the Defense Department. “It has become clear that my philosophy of leadership, and my understanding of the value and mission of Stars and Stripes, differ in fundamental ways from the direction the leadership of the Department of Defense has for the organization,” Lederer wrote in an email obtained by the Washington Post. He said his retirement is effective Sept. 30.

• As Andy Burnham continues to give Britain’s support to Donald Trump’s global wars, the public continues to feel the effects. So-called “Iran war inflation” is pushing up energy and household bills in Britain, with the Office for National Statistics noting the largest jump in gas prices since 2022. In the Ukraine war, the British government's continued strategy of supporting military escalation is making this devastating conflict even more dangerous. With the CND campaign to shut down US bases in Britain growing, the spotlight next shines on RAF Menwith Hill, near Harrogate, in Yorkshire. Menwith Hill is the largest US overseas spy base in the world, capable of monitoring communications globally. The base is also part of the US’s National Missile Defence system. The system is made up of a global network of bases, designed to enable the US to use its nuclear weapons pre-emptively without fear of retaliation. 

• Phnom Penh Post: The US is seeking to move its renewed defence relationship with Cambodia into a more “operational” phase, with senior officials discussing the revival of joint military exercises, expanded training and military reforms. In addition, Washington has signaled renewed interest in further US naval visits to the strategically significant Ream Naval Base. Minister of National Defence Tea Seiha met with US Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Elbridge Colby on August 15, as Washington seeks to deepen military-to-military engagement after years of strained defence relations. The US has shifted away from overt color revolution in Cambodia and now prefers participating in the nation-state-building process in an attempt to pull Cambodia away from China.     

• Yves Engler: Add Sudanese to Ottawa’s list of expendable people. Twenty-eight years ago today the US bombed a Sudanese pharmaceutical plant causing tens of thousands of deaths. Canada’s backing for that war crime and ongoing support for UAE highlights Ottawa’s indifference to Sudanese lives. Canadian officials defended the illegal August 20, 1998, US bombing of the Al- Shifa pharmaceutical facility in Khartoum. Washington claimed the plant produced the deadly nerve agent VX. It didn’t. In a rare move, CIA analyst Mary O’Neil McCarthy sent a letter to President Bill Clinton expressing doubts about the factory’s ties to chemical weapons production or Al Qaeda. “Eventually,” reported the New York Times, “Clinton administration officials conceded that the hardest evidence used to justify striking the plant was a single soil sample that seemed to indicate the presence of a chemical used in making VX gas.” One employee was killed and 11 were wounded when US cruise missiles blasted through the factory. The Al-Shifa plant produced half of Sudan’s medicines and most of the country’s supplies of chloroquine, the standard treatment for malaria. The resulting lack of medicines is believed to have led to tens of thousands of preventable deaths.  

Comparing NY City and Tehran subways

 

the funnies

Exclusive: How Trump tried to bribe the head of the IRGC

Empire of Chaos, Lies, Plunder, Piracy. And bribes.

By Pepe Escobar

Mike Pompeo, former aspiring Tony Soprano, admitted: “We lie, we cheat, we steal.” And we bribe.

A Transition Protocol source, as we revealed live, is unequivocal: The President of the United States – despite having “won” the war on Iran countless times, at least in the Vociferation stakes – made a major attempt to induce IRGC Commander-in-Chief Gen. Ahmad Vahidi and senior Iranian military leadership to break with the government in Tehran through enormous financial inducements.

So here we have POTUS playing good ol’ Divide and Rule – which the Brits learned from the Roman Empire – to fracture the IRGC from the inside.

This was not a mere exploratory diplomatic contact. Trump did not merely want to determine whether Vahidi supported U.S.-Iran negotiations.

According to our source – placed in the tight inner circle of Leader Mojtaba Khamenei – this was a full leadership-buyout operation, modeled on the Venezuela playbook, to fracture the Iranian state.

The attempt miserably failed.

Because Ahmad Vahidi completely rejected it.

The Trump administration had already created a somewhat direct conduit to Vahidi through Nechirvan Barzani, the President of the Kurdistan Region in Iraq, way back in May 2026. Then-DNI Tulsi Gabbard contacted Barzani – fully authorized by Trump and Vice-President JD Vance – and an encrypted connection to Vahidi was subsequently established through Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan.

The channel stayed dormant – or in coma, for nearly 3 months. This time though Trump attempted to turn the channel into a de facto fracturing of the Iranian leadership, employing the conceptual precedent in Venezuela: isolate the central command; handsomely bribe those immediately around it for “cooperation”; and create the internal conditions for regime decapitation.

The source describes “billions of dollars” being waved as inducements to several members of the senior IRGC leadership through Vahidi. All that while Trump was on Hardcore Vociferation mode threatening Tehran and spinning his “control” of the Strait of Hormuz.

Nothing so far has been independently confirmed in public. And probably will not. But that does not mean the source is not credible.

The source is part of Leader Mojtaba’s tight inner circle; heard all about it directly from Vahidi; and later was fully authorized to disclose the extremely sensitive information to Pakistani mediators, especially Field Marshal Asim Munir, who Trump keeps calling virtually every day asking for “help” getting the Iranians back at the negotiating table (when he in fact blew up the negotiating table).

I bribe, therefore I am

Vahidi is not a peripheral military figure. Far from it: he is the commander of the IRGC – the institutional center of gravity of Iranian hard power. The Trump administration wanted access to the top of the IRGC itself.

But they bet on the wrong man. The number two man in Iran right now, overseeing everything including top IRGC decisions, is Mohsen Rezaee: the new secretary of the Supreme National Security Council (SNSC) and personal representative of Leader Mojtaba Khamenei.

Mohsen Rezaee is a former IRGC commander and his leadership is uncontested – as proven by the trust placed in him by the Leader. The overarching framework guiding his decisions – and people like Vahidi – is the Shi’te sense of moral duty, ethics, self-sacrifice and the spirit of Sovereign Resistance, values completely alien to an Empire of Grifters.

It’s no wonder that a crass neo-Crassus in War-a-Lago/Washington actually believed that a battle-tested military leader – and those around him – could sell the fate of a civilization-state for a mere bribe, and induced to defect, stand aside or facilitate regime change.

Applying the exact same Venezuela methodology means that the Trump administration actually believed they could translate it to a Shi’ite Iran context. That proves once again an astonishing degree of cultural stupidity.

The methodology may work for corrupt Latin American political/military elites: History tells us it happened so many times.

But to believe that offering protection, political survival, loads of money and/or a future share of the spoils to an IRGC that is far from being a loose political entourage around a vulnerable presidential palace fully demonstrates how the Empire of Grifters has no clue about the institutional cohesion of the Iranian security state.

All across the Global South, this will be regarded for what it is: another episode of the neo-Crassus Art of the Deal.

Complementing another recent episode, where the capo fraternizes with the DPRK then asks South Korea – “I asked for $10 billion” – for protection money.

That’s the pizzo. Not to be confused with pizza. Pizzo is Sicilian slang for extortion money.

Mafia, piracy, bribing, extortion: talk about a flexible Empire at work.

~ Pepe Escobar is an Independent geopolitical analyst, writer and journalist.  

Our next monthly coalition rotating protest in Maine

Join us if you can. This spot at the foot of the Wiscasset bridge on US Hwy 1 is a tourist magnet where we will see license plates from all over the country and people from around the world.

Now more than ever we need to be as public as possible about our resistance to endless war$ and the genocide US-Israel are perpetrating on Palestine (Gaza & the West Bank), Lebanon, Yemen and across the African continent.

We've been holding these monthly protests at busy traffic spots all over Maine - north & south, east and west since early 2022.  

Our demands:      

•     End U.S. aid to racist apartheid Israel
•     Stop US-Israeli wars for 'Greater Israel' on Palestine, Iran, Lebanon, Yemen, & Syria        
•     U.S. hands off Latin America & Caribbean (Cuba, Venezuela, Columbia, Nicaragua, Puerto Rico, Haiti)     
•     Peace in Ukraine - No weapons, no money for the Ukraine War         
•     Abolish NATO/No expansion into Asia Pacific         
•     Fund people’s needs, not the war machine         
•     Stop Pentagon climate crimes         
•     Fight racism & bigotry not war        
•     End AFRICOM         
•     No new arms race in outer space

Co-sponsors: 

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, Maine Natural Guard, PeaceWorks of Greater Brunswick, Communist Party of Maine, Maine Green Independent Party, Citizens Opposing Active Sonar Threats (COAST), Party for Socialism & Liberation Maine, Peace & Justice Center of Eastern Maine, Veterans for Peace - National, United National Antiwar Coalition (UNAC), Maine Voices for Palestinian Rights (MVPR), and Diaspora Pa’lante Collective. 

Cleaning up Havana with solar

Havana has a garbage problem. El Rampeño has a solar-powered solution.

Meet the Cuban initiative using renewable energy to collect garbage with tricycles in the face of fuel shortages caused by the U.S. oil blockade. 

Trump's new sanctions on Iran, IDF rampages in West Bank and Lebanon

• Firefighters and residents of south Lebanon have accused the Israeli military of lighting wildfires in the region, as forested areas burned down in blazes sparked by Israeli bombing. Environmental groups said the fires in recent weeks were part of a longstanding Israeli practice of targeting Lebanon’s natural environment. On Tuesday, the Israeli military dropped flares in a wooded area outside Khiam, in south Lebanon, sparking blazes. When firefighters attempted to extinguish the flames, a drone struck close by, forcing them to withdraw, said the head of the civil defence in the Nabatieh region, Hussein Fakih. “Most of our missions are now related to fires,” he said. “There are enormous areas of woodland that have burned, I don’t have the exact figures, but in the areas close to the [frontline], around 30-40% of the land has been affected by fires.”
• Iran’s top negotiator & Parliament Speaker, Ghalibaf, says Strait of Hormoz will remain closed until US abides by its MoU responsibilities. 

• Francesca Albanese, UN Special Rapporteur: Apartheid Israel doesn't just fake content to cover its crimes; it now pays to launder them through AI with the pro-IDF feeds of the fake think tank "Hanover Institute". Legacy media enabled this inganno (deception) for decades. Will @OpenAI, @perplexity_ai, @claudeai, etc, do the same?

• The Gaza Holocaust will continue: Jared Kushner, after meeting with Netanyahu, says that the US won't "restrict Israel's right to defend itself." He says that if Hamas doesn't disarm over the next 60 to 90 days it'll show "they're not genuine about peace," and it'll give Israel cover to "go and finish the job."
• Yanis Varoufakis: The transformation of Greece into an Israeli satellite is proceeding at breakneck speed. This bodes ill for the majority of Greeks, for peace in our region and for Europe and West Asia more broadly. It must be resisted.

• Israeli forces raided the grounds of a hospital in the city of Bethlehem in the southern occupied West Bank on Monday evening and assaulted patients and visitors, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. In a statement, the ministry said that “Israeli forces raided the grounds of the Arab Society for Rehabilitation Hospital, terrorized patients and visitors and assaulted some of them.”  

• Former Israeli PM Naftali Bennett on Gaza: 'We will kick Qatar and Türkiye the hell out of Gaza and bring Egypt in instead. Anyone who allows Qatar and Türkiye to manage Gaza is preventing the disarmament of Hamas. Understand this basic point. You don’t have to be a genius. Egypt detests Hamas. It detests the Muslim Brotherhood. Deeply. If you bring Qatar and Türkiye in to manage the situation, they will strengthen Hamas. If you bring Egypt, together with Israel, in to manage the situation, we will eliminate Hamas.'

• Sovereignista on Mecca Defense Pact: Contradictions around Egypt expose rifts in the alliance. Just one day after the signing of the trilateral defense agreement in Mecca between Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan stated that Egypt could become the next participant. Later, President Erdogan made a similar statement in an interview with journalists. However, media reports suggested the opposite. Two versions emerged: Egypt itself does not want to join the alliance and has adopted a wait-and-see position. Reasons? Egypt avoids military blocs to maintain freedom of maneuver. Membership could allegedly harm its relations with the UAE and the US. But most importantly, there is a conflict with the 1979 peace treaty with Israel, which prioritizes obligations to Tel Aviv. Saudi Arabia is opposed. The Kingdom fears that Egypt is too close to the UAE—Saudi Arabia’s main regional rival. The Saudis also see Turkey’s haste as an attempt to seize leadership in the alliance. What does this mean? There are serious disagreements among the participants of the Mecca Defense Pact: Turkey wants Egypt to give the alliance Arab and religious legitimacy. Egypt is the historical center of the Arab world, and Cairo hosts Al-Azhar University, the main spiritual center of Sunni Islam. Without Egypt, the alliance is a “club of wealthy monarchies”; with Egypt, it becomes the “voice of the entire Arab nation.” Additionally, Egypt opens markets for Turkey’s military industry. Saudi Arabia does not want Egypt because it itself claims leadership in the Arab world. In recent years, Riyadh has surpassed Egypt in financial and diplomatic power and does not want to share authority. Egypt’s inclusion, especially in alliance with Turkey and the UAE, would weaken Saudi influence. Riyadh believes that money and military power (Pakistan and Turkey) matter more than Egypt’s cultural authority. Egypt has not yet decided, weighing all the risks, the main one being the legal conflict with the Israeli peace treaty. 
• Thirteen students were arrested (amongst the many at the protest) after occupying OpenAI’s new D.C. lobbying office. During the protest, the lobbyists fled the building in shame. They didn’t want to face a group of young people who demand a brighter future, where our elections aren’t bought by the very company destroying our communities. If politicians say they’re speaking for us, they need to stop accepting bribes from OpenAI’s super PAC “Leading the Future.” It is on track to spend $200 million in the 2026 midterms. Students like these are leading the future, NOT power hungry greedy corporations and their congressional lackies.

• BBC: Britain's new Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said London will continue "to support Ukraine 100%", after Moscow warned of "consequences" following confirmation that British-made drones were used in recent Ukrainian strikes inside Russia. "We are not fair-weather friends, we will be there in Ukraine's hour of need and that won't change," he said. The Russian embassy in the UK earlier accused Britain of "deliberately opting for an escalation of the Ukraine crisis", saying "the deeper its involvement in the conflict... the higher the price it will pay".

• Washington Post: US debt has hit $40 trillion months earlier than expected. Faster borrowing — driven in part by lost revenue from invalidated tariffs and endless war$ — means the next debt-limit fight is also likely to arrive ahead of schedule.  

• With a over a trillion-dollar Pentagon budget, serving our troops rotten food and making them use moldy bathrooms is a choice, not an unavoidable hardship, as are the other decisions made during Pistol Pete Hegseth’s command of the most expensive military on the planet. A picture from aboard the moldy old USS George Washington, which recently underwent an incredibly expensive “complex overhaul” that took six years to finish.  

• Strategic Culture Foundation: There is a fundamental irony that American economists and strategists struggle to acknowledge openly: the dollar’s main enemy is not the BRICS, nor is it China, nor is it the renminbi. It is the foreign policy of the US itself. Every time Washington imposes financial sanctions - on Russia, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, or hundreds of private entities - it reduces the dollar’s appeal as a neutral and reliable reserve currency. The dollar’s comparative advantage lay precisely in its apparent neutrality: everyone used it because no one expected Washington to prevent its use for legitimate trade purposes. That neutrality has been irreparably compromised. Trump, with his threat of 100 percent tariffs on countries that promote alternatives to the dollar, has made explicit a tension that had always been implicit: maintaining the dollar’s centrality now requires active coercion, no longer merely market forces.  

• Ukraine has derailed the planned August 20-21 visit of IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi to the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant and the town of Energodar, the Russian Foreign Ministry said. All details had been previously worked out by the IAEA Secretariat and the Russian side. Russia provided the necessary security guarantees, which fully satisfied the Agency. However, Ukraine cynically threatened Grossi, explicitly stating that it could not vouch for his safety if he entered the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant via Russian territory. The Ukrainian threats have once again exposed the true nature of the Kiev regime, the ministry emphasized.

• What is ‘Ukrainianism’?: Pot head Nazi (in video below) explains why the former Ukrainian relationship with Russia will cease to exist. The woman announces alliance with WW2 Ukrainian Nazi collaborator Stephan Bandera who lead the killing of tens of thousands of Jews, Poles, Russians and Gypsies alongside Hitler's forces. These current Nazis predominate in western Ukraine near the Poland border. They were used by the US-UK-EU to attack the Russian ethnic Ukrainians in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine - alongside the Russian border. The attacks began soon after the Obama-Biden-Hillary Clinton-Victoria Nuland orchestrated coup d'état in Kev in 2014. This terrorism, directed by CIA and MI6, has lasted to the present times. It is why Russia eventually went into Ukraine in 2022 after trying years of diplomatic efforts which included the Minsk 1 & 2 agreements that would have ended the war and kept the Donbass as part of Ukraine. Under those agreements (that were never honored by Kiev and its western backers) those in the Donbass would still speak Russian and have local autonomy. But that was not good enough for the US-UK-EU that instead wanted the break-up of Russia and the stealing of the vast resource base of Russia. Thus the war continues.

Army base in Georgia offers bribe to reenlist

This reveals how desperate the US military is these days to keep their war mongering ranks up to snuff. (Especially after the recent debacle onboard the USS Abe Lincoln. That story is enough to scare anyone away from joining the military.)

Personnel in the 9th Engineer Battalion though are being offered four days off in 'honor' of the release of the 'Grand Theft Auto VI'.

This 'deal' only applies to those within the battalion who 'are eligible for reenlistment'. 

Having been in the US Air Force during the US war on Vietnam, I saw my share of reenlistment gimmicks by the command structure. But this one tops the list.

The US is not backing down from its quest to take down Iran, Russia, China, Brazil, Cuba, Greenland and many other nations. The capitalist loving globalists, and their zionist pals, want to dominate the world and intend to keep the terror fires burning as long as they can.

Thus they need all the troops and sailors they can get their grubby hands on.

So they come up with these lame recruitment and reenlistment schemes in order to bribe unemployed, poor, and down and out men and women to join the military and to stay in for the long haul.

And if that doesn't work out they will likely return to a draft or they can take the ugly path that the Ukrainian government has chosen, where they just grab men off the streets.

Think about all the immigrants now being grabbed off the streets by ICE these days. I'd not be surprised if they began offering them 'citizenship' if they join the war machine. We know that many men from Mexico in the past were offered that deal, went to war for the US, and when they'd done their time, expecting to be citizens, were deported anyway. Breaking the promise of 'citizenship' made by Washington. 

The video below shows one man in Kharkov, Ukraine trying to disguise himself as previously injured. Will it work? 

Likely not since Zelensky’s goons now scroll social media for such things as they desperately have quotas to reach or likely be sent to the front themselves.

One other example, sad and horrifying, is the 2nd video below of the Zelensky goons trying to grab a kid who looks about 12 years old in Odessa, Ukraine. The kid fights back against the 'recruitment specialist'.

Bruce 

“Why can’t we see ourselves as we are?”

 

The ‘apocalyptic blindness’ of Americans

By Patrick Lawrence

The other night I watched a documentary called Coup 53, a brilliant treatment of the coup that deposed Mohammad Mossadegh as prime minister of Iran in the year the film notes in its title. Taghi Amirani, the director, has produced a superb piece of work, narrated in part by the estimable Steve Kinzer. Today, 19 August, marks the 73rd anniversary of Operation Ajax, as M.I.–6 and the C.I.A. named their covert assault on Iran’s first democratically elected government. 

How well I recall learning of the Iran coup during my teenage years, when my eyes were just opening upon how, by the mid–1960s, the United States (and in this case Britain) treated those in foreign lands whose misfortune was to possess resources the world’s newest imperium sought compulsively to control. And how well I recall discovering at the same time the remarkably pervasive ignorance of this conduct among all but a very few Americans.

Late one evening, I must have been 18 or so, this topic came up in conversation with my dear mother. “But no, we wouldn’t do that!” she exclaimed in a tone of anxious disbelief.

“But we did, Mother. If you know where to find the record, what we did is in it.”

My mother lowered her eyes and glanced away. I could see her mind was simply incapable of absorbing the information I had put before her. There was a sort of psycho-emotional blockage. The subject never again came up.

I have long been preoccupied, maybe since those days, indeed, with the question of seeing. And just as much if not more, with the question of not-seeing. This is only natural, it seems to me, given that seeing and not-seeing, the latter vastly more prevalent than the former, is so defining of who Americans are and what makes them so different from other peoples. In a recent interview in Consortium News, Patrik Baab, the conscientious and beleaguered-because-conscientious Berlin correspondent, writer, and podcaster, referred to the “apocalyptic blindness” he finds among Germans. I know this is so, especially among West Germans, having traveled among them recently. But in the way of collective blindness, I must suggest to my friend and colleague, no people are more addicted to total darkness than Americans.

What I saw in my mother all those years ago was a refusal—a refusal to see that could not even understand itself as an act of refusal. I cannot say whether this condition has worsened in the decades since the conversation I had with her in the mid–1960s, but I don’t think this matters much one way or the other. If I have to offer an answer, I think it is both: People see more now than then, people see less now than then. The though requires explanation, obviously.

Among those who watch Taghi Amirani’s film, and I hope many do, I imagine few will be as surprised to learn of Operation Ajax as my mother was. America’s lawless barbarism and all its messes are easier to see now. The plain-as-day defeats of April 1975 have something to do with this. So do digital technologies and the emergence of independent media. The invasion of Venezuela and the blockade of Cuba, the killings-from-the-air of fishermen in the Caribbean and the eastern Pacific, the installation of a murderous jihadist in Syria, the genocides in Gaza and the West Bank, the illegal bombing of Iran: There is no missing any of this.

But there is one failure to see that remains, and its persistence is symptomatic, it seems to me, of an empire in its late, desperate phase. This is the steadfast refusal among most Americans to see their complicity in the imperium’s conduct. The two phenomena, the seeing and the not-seeing, go together in this case. People see more, but few are able to see, are honest enough to see, themselves—to see that Americans comprise “a perpetrator population,” a term I cite with admiration and which I will shortly explain.

~ The rest of this interesting article is pay-walled and found here

Israel & AI

We are all in grave danger if we humans let Israel and it's AI technology get away with murder.

zionists are buying up books and destroying them. They are privatizing source material.

Tools of power and control. Colonization of our minds.

Pay attention.

Spread the resistance.

Large protest at U.S. bomber base in UK that hits Iran

Hundreds united together in protest on Saturday, 15 August, at RAF Fairford (30 miles from Oxford), where the British government has been letting the US carry out brutal bombing raids of Iran.

We're calling on new UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham to stand up to Trump and end the use of British bases for this illegal war.

There are huge risks that this war will escalate again - and it is dragging the world deeper into economic crisis.

Burnham needs to redirect the hundreds of billions away from war and nukes into climate action, rebuilding our health service, our education system, our transport network and our emergency services. These are the solutions to the real threats we face today.

The Fairford base hosts US B-1 and B-2 bombers as well as U-2 spy planes.  

History lesson: 'Greater Israel' expansion across Latin America

For years Israel has been successfully expanding its influence in Latin America. 

Its trade volume with the region is growing, and the number of the countries that plan to transfer their embassies from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem is expected to increase in the near future. 

This video is a good background primer on 'Greater Israel' operations.

Zionist Argentinian President Javier Milei is sadly just one example among many how Israel has their hooks into the region.

Trump discussing use of Tactical nukes on Iran

RT: Tehran and Muscat (Oman) are discussing a parallel Hormuz deal as talks with Washington stall. US President Trump has threatened to 'bomb the shit out of Oman' if it strikes a separate deal with Iran on control of the Strait of Hormuz, despite Oman’s key role as a mediator between Washington and Tehran. 

• The USS Abraham Lincoln has gone nearly nine months without a port call after Iran's strike destroyed the Navy's Bahrain supply base. Resupply now comes from Diego Garcia, an island 2,200 miles away. Critics says the crew is facing shortages and worsening mental health. Trump dismissed the concerns, saying the carrier would move 'very shortly'. Nine months stranded at sea for a war Israel wanted and America is stuck fighting.  New York Times details how the ailing USS Lincoln will now be replaced by the USS George Washington, hobbling over from INDOPACOM, leaving the 7th Fleet with no forward deployed carriers on the critical ‘Chinese front’. 

• Some have begun to debate the utility of continuing to host large US military installations on their territory. “Trump started this war,” one Gulf official said, “and we are paying the price.” Like others he spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive subject. Anger with the US, the official said, was at its highest point since the US and Israel attacked Iran in February. The Gulf states have relied on Washington as a close security partner and major arms supplier, and Qatar and Bahrain have hosted large US bases. But the frustration is leading some states to consider new arrangements. 

Ben Gvir: "There are people there who are not alive. They don't need to live. They are not people. I'm doing them a favor by calling them people." He is calling for the killing of 30 to 50 people in Gaza every night, pushing Palestinians to emigrate, so zionists can begin building Jewish settlements across Gaza.

 

• Officials in Washington are allegedly discussing the possible use of nuclear weapons against Iran as the months-long conflict continues to escalate, former US Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene has claimed. Greene, once a prominent MAGA ally, made the allegation in a post on X on Sunday. She said the issue had been raised during strategy meetings, but did not identify those involved. “They are discussing using nuclear weapons on Iran in strategy meetings,” she wrote. “I’m not speculating, I know. And it’s pure evil.” Her warning comes amid reports that Washington has been weighing further escalation in the conflict. The Washington Post reported last month that the US was preparing for a wider war, while the Pentagon has reportedly examined a major ground operation to seize Iran’s enriched uranium.

• A recent YouTube interview with Ukrainian pop star Olya Polyakova has caused national uproar. Famous, outspoken, and uninhibited, Polyakova deplored Ukraine’s oppressive and stifling atmosphere. “Are we in a concentration camp, in a camp for political prisoners?” she asked and predicted that “soon, we will all be terrified, frightened mice that sit in their holes and do not even dare stick out their nose.” Polyakova also fearlessly pushed the Zelensky regime’s single most painful button: “They’ll grab someone from your family, or anyone, in the street and you’ll just walk past” pretending not to see anything out of fear, just to be left alone. The conversation quickly turned to Ukraine’s institutionalized manhunts to feed the meat-grinder war.  

• Yemen military: Saudi Arabia has imported Ukrainian and Colombian mercenaries to operate drones against our forces.  They will all fail, and we will teach them a lesson they will never forget, God willing.

• The Sunday Times in UK reports that Ukraine has used British-made drones to strike targets deep inside Russian territory. The attacks targeted oil refineries in Volgograd and Yaroslavl, marking a "new stage" in military cooperation between London and Kiev. However, retired Air Marshal Greg Bagwell warned that using British drones against Russia could provide Moscow with grounds to consider UK manufacturing plants as legitimate military targets.

• Mysl Polska reported: Zelensky will lose power if the EU stops giving money to Ukraine: “Zelensky will not stop stealing; he has built himself an ideal world in which his corruption goes unpunished,” claims the Polish publication. Zelensky’s political position depends directly on the European Union continuing to provide financial support to Ukraine, adds Mysl Polska. 

• Labor Notes: News broke last week of a sweeping undercover investigation by the Department of Homeland Security in Minnesota early this year to infiltrate and surveil meetings and obtain the financial records of nonprofit groups and two of the country’s largest unions, the Communications Workers (CWA) and the Service Employees (SEIU). This investigation was behind the indictments of 15 people in June. Minnesota AFL-CIO President Bernie Burnham called the targeting of the labor movement an “unhinged conspiracy theory. Instead of holding federal agents accountable for shooting and killing Renée Good and our union brother Alex Pretti, or addressing the dangerous and deadly conditions within immigration detention facilities,” Burnham said, “the Trump administration continues to weaponize our federal government to intimidate our unions, our communities, and anyone who peacefully opposes their radical authoritarian agenda…They are now bringing back McCarthyism to paint unions and organizations that advocate for workers and families as threats to the nation. It didn’t work in the 1950s when Joseph McCarthy accused anyone he didn’t like of being unamerican and it won’t work for Donald Trump.” 

• US rejected a UN vote last spring to recognize slavery as a crime against humanity, joining only Israel and Argentina. (52 western nations abstained.) The UN General Assembly adopted the resolution with broad international support. US officials said they had concerns about the wording and possible legal or policy implications. The vote has renewed discussion about historical responsibility, education, human rights, and how countries address the lasting effects of past injustice.

• South Korean President Lee Jae Myung on Saturday called for dialogue with the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea) aimed at achieving peaceful coexistence and eventually replacing the armistice that ended active fighting in the Korean War with a permanent peace treaty. Speaking in a speech marking Korea’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule, Lee said the two Koreas should engage in talks to establish mechanisms that could prevent renewed conflict and reduce tensions on the Korean Peninsula. Lee urged the DPRK and other concerned parties to pursue negotiations to formally end the 1950-53 Korean War, which concluded with a ceasefire rather than a peace treaty.

Israelis rampage on Philippine island of Siargao

Island Locals Raise Alarm Over Israeli Tourists 'Colonizing' Protected Land

Israeli tourists are reportedly flocking to the Philippine island of Siargao, and locals are not happy. 

Sharon Reed discusses on Indisputable. 

"Manila: When reports of an assault by Israeli tourists at a restaurant in Siargao made headlines nationwide, it was not the first such incident to take place on the southern Philippine island in recent months.

This time, however, it went viral, with an increasing number of Filipino influencers calling for a crackdown on visitors from Israel to stop harassment and abuse of local businesses and rules."

81 Years After Hiroshima and Nagasaki: A Call to Abolish Nuclear Weapons

People from faith-based groups in Washington, D.C. commemorated the 81st anniversary of the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They called on the U.S. government to "repent for the nuclear sin," abolish its nuclear arsenal, and ratify the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons which deems nuclear weapons are now illegal under international law.

At 8:15 a.m. on August 6, 1945, the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. A second atomic bomb was dropped on Nagasaki just a few days later, on August 9, at 11:02 a.m. The bombs killed over 200,000 people, mostly civilians. 

Commemoration actions calling for nuclear abolition were held on August 6th, on the perimeter of the Pentagon, where 17 peacemakers conducted a prayer service and two people were arrested as they processed with a banner onto the Pentagon property, and on August 8th in proximity to the White House, where about 40 people gathered for a prayer service and peace witness. 

The commemoration witness near the White House was coordinated by Art Laffin of the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker and John Whitehead from Consistent Life Ethic, and co-sponsored by Dorothy Day Catholic Worker, Pax Christi Metro DC-Baltimore, Consistent Life Network, American Solidarity Party of DC-Maryland, Rehumanize International, Pax Christi USA, Maryknoll Office for Global Concerns, Sisters of Mercy of the Americas Justice Team, Little Friends for Peace, Isaiah Project, Assisi Community, and Franciscan Action Network.