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So sad! Israeli officials 'alarmed' by US withdrawal from Afghanistan

Philip Weiss
Mondoweiss
Fri, 03 Sep 2021 19:07 UTC
KOBI MARON

RETIRED COLONEL KOBI MARON SPEAKING ON I24 NEWS ABOUT THE DANGERS OF AMERICAN WITHDRAWAL FROM AFGHANISTAN IN PROJECTING “WEAKNESS” IN THE MIDDLE EAST. SEPT. 3, 2021.
Israeli officials have reacted with "alarm" to the images of the United States leaving Afghanistan, arguing that the U.S. has empowered Israel's enemies, according to an expert observer. Some say the withdrawal shows why Israel can never leave the occupied Palestinian territories.

Bottom line- The American "Forever war" is still getting raves in Israel.

Israeli government leaders have been careful not to be very vocal about that view. Though Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid said two days ago that the U.S. withdrawal could "hugely" impact the battle with al-Qaeda.

Officials speaking privately are more forthcoming. Neri Zilber, an Israeli journalist associated with the Israel lobby group the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, told the Israel Policy Forum yesterday that he had heard "surprise, shock, and alarm" from ordinary Israelis.
"Israelis don't like to regard their closest ally, the United States, as being defeated, as being almost humiliated. So that was the general vibe. You had Israelis texting me... quite shocked to see what happened- as I think all of us were."
"Israeli officials also viewed it with a bit of alarm but not hysteria," Zilber said. "There is concern in Israeli quarters about what it might mean for Israel's enemies and America's enemies." Israelis worry that the withdrawal will embolden Iran and Hezbollah, he said.
"The whole notion of deterrence and what lessons Iran and ISIS and other bad actors in the Middle East closer to Israel draw from the US Afghanistan story and the 20 year campaign that just ended .. it will be interesting to see if that's the lesson that bad actors actually draw from Afghanistan."
The same notion of "bad actors" and enemies was voiced today on the Israeli channel, i24 News. Retired Colonel Kobi Maron said the American withdrawal "projects weakness" and that Iranian officials "sense a lack of determination" on America's part.
"Those tough pictures [from the Kabul airport] affect Israeli deterrence and American deterrence across the Middle East."
These claims about the effectiveness of military prowess also touch on Israel's 54-year-long occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and Gaza.
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Chess

Taliban says 'China our most important partner, ready to invest"


NDTV
Fri, 03 Sep 2021 16:49 UTC
taliban press
Describing China as its "most important partner", the Afghan Taliban has said it looks to Beijing to rebuild Afghanistan and exploit its rich copper deposits as the war-ravaged country faces widespread hunger and fears of an economic collapse.

Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said the group supports China's One Belt, One Road initiative that seeks to link China with Africa, Asia and Europe through an enormous network of ports, railways, roads and industrial parks.

"China is our most important partner and represents a fundamental and extraordinary opportunity for us because it is ready to invest and rebuild our country," Geo News quoted Mujahid as saying in an interview to an Italian newspaper on Thursday.

There are "rich copper mines in the country, which, thanks to the Chinese, can be put back into operation and modernised. In addition, China is our pass to markets all over the world," said Zabihullah Mujahid.

China has been making some positive statements towards the Taliban and has expressed the hope that its dreaded cadre will follow moderate and prudent domestic and foreign policies, combat all forms of terrorist forces, live in harmony with other countries, and live up to the aspiration of its own people and the international community.
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Attention

Modern-day Mengele - Fauci must be removed

Martin Armstrong
Armstrong Economics
Fri, 03 Sep 2021 18:05 UTC
Mengele Fauci
© Armstrong Economics
Now the new Dr. Mengele of our time, Dr. Anthony Fauci, who does not actually practice medicine, has announced that the US is still planning for COVID-19 booster shots to continue. Everyone will be mandated to get one after 8 months. Biden said shots could be administered after 5 months. The entire story is that COVID will end once we vaccinate the world. But coronaviruses exist in animals, so it will NEVER be defeated — that is the TRUTH!

So, what is really going on is simple. They are gradually dripping out of their mouths the next objective little by little. First, a vaccine would restore the world to normal. Now, the vaccines will become a regular requirement even to move. They are slowly recreating the Berlin Wall to prevent movement in hopes of preventing an uprising.
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X

Early Canada election call backfires: Trudeau trailing in polls

David Ljunggren
OANN
Fri, 03 Sep 2021 17:34 UTC
justin trudeau
© REUTERS/Carlos Osorio
Canada's Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau makes an announcement inside the Sunwing Airlines hangar during his election campaign tour in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada, September 3, 2021.
Canada's Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finds himself behind in polls ahead of a snap election he called hoping his management of the COVID-19 crisis would propel him to victory.

Trudeau called the Sept. 20 election last month, two years ahead of schedule. At the time, his Liberals were well ahead and looked likely to regain the majority in parliament they lost in 2019. His main rival, Conservative leader Erin O'Toole, has repeatedly attacked him for calling a vote during the pandemic.

The latest polls by Nanos, Ekos and others show Liberal fortunes have faded as voters have grown fatigued with Trudeau, 49, who has been in power since 2015. One Liberal strategist said on Friday the early-vote call had backfired as it was seen as "wrong" and "greedy" by electors.

Comment: Hopefully Canada will take this opportunity to send ultra-woke soyboy Trudeau back to some obscure community college campus to teach a [fill-in-the-blank] 'studies' class. His leadership has been disastrous for Canada. It may just happen:





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Black Magic

Jen Psaki, brass-necked hypocrite: How far is Biden's official mouthpiece willing to go to protect her flailing boss?

Damian Wilson
RT
Sat, 04 Sep 2021 17:16 UTC
psaki
© Reuters
White House Press Secretary Psaki holds the daily press briefing at the White House in Washington
Being White House press secretary is hard. Particularly hard when your boss seemingly can't remember what he said last week. Even harder when he's caught trying to push a false narrative onto another world leader.

It must have something to do with all those TV lights, the undivided attention of the audience and the sheer power of being the intermediary between the President of the United States and the world's press that turns perfectly ordinary people into power-crazed monsters prepared to say or do anything to keep mud from sticking to their employer.

Comment: Par for the course:

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Info

Former Australian PM accuses Scott Morrison of leading country into 'cold war' with China to become US' 'fawning acolyte'


RT
Fri, 03 Sep 2021 16:24 UTC
keating morrison
© Scott Barbour/Getty Images; REUTERS/Henry Nicholls
(L) Paul Keating; (R) Scott Morrison
Former Australian Prime Minister Paul Keating has accused current leader Scott Morrison of pushing the country into a "cold war" with China and damaging relations with Beijing in a "fawning" effort to please Washington.

In an interview with the Australian Financial Review, Keating argued that the Morrison government's confrontational stance with China was absurd, given that Australia "is a continent sharing a border with no other state" and "has no territorial disputes with China."

Keating pointed out that China is "12 flying hours away from the Australian coast," yet the current government, "through its foreign policy incompetence and fawning compulsion to please America, effectively has us in a cold war with China." Keating served as prime minister and leader of the Australian Labor Party between December 1991 and March 1996.

Comment: See also:

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No Entry

Internet shutdowns: The new authoritarian weapon of choice?

Issie Lapowsky
protocol
Wed, 01 Sep 2021 00:00 UTC
prison wall
© Sigmund/Unsplash
A new report released Wednesday by Access Now and Jigsaw documents internet shutdowns.
Over the last decade, governments worldwide have intentionally shut down the internet at least 850 times, with a whopping 90% of those shutdowns taking place over just the last five years.

What's behind this troubling trend? "More people are getting online and getting access to the internet," said Marianne Díaz Hernández, a lawyer in Venezuela and a fellow with the nonprofit Access Now. "As governments see this as a threat, they start thinking the internet is something they need to control."

These staggering statistics come from a new report released Wednesday by Access Now and Jigsaw, a division of Alphabet that focuses on addressing societal threats with technology. The report documents the history of internet shutdowns over the last decade, the economic toll shutdowns take on the countries that impose them and what governments and the broader business and civil society community can do to stop what has fast become a widespread and grave human rights violation.

Felicia Anthonio leads Access Now's #KeepItOn campaign, which has been documenting internet shutdowns since 2016. "Internet shutdowns don't ensure stability or resolve crises that are happening," Anthonio said. "It's actually endangering people's lives."

Comment: Perhaps the Cyberpolygon exercises were in "preparation" for just such a time when a partial shutdown (or reconfiguration) of the internet may be implemented - and justified - by a cyber false flag attack. Too bad the author didn't include that possibility in her article.

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Cardboard Box

Afghanistan: Drug Trade and Belt and Road

Peter Koenig
Dissident Voice
Tue, 31 Aug 2021 00:00 UTC
opium afghanistan
All flags are on half-mast in the US of A. The cause is the 13 American soldiers killed in this huge suicide bombing outside Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul on Thursday, 26 August.

As it stands, at least 150 people - Afghans, including at least 30 Taliban, plus 13 American military - were killed and at least 1,300 injured, according to the Afghan Health Ministry.

The Islamic State (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the bombing via Amaq Media, the official Islamic State (ISIS) news agency. The perpetrators, the message says, were members of the ISIS-Khorasan, or ISIS-K.

As reported by RT, US military leaders knew "hours in advance" that a "mass casualty event" was planned at Kabul airport. However, accounts from the troops in harm's way suggest that nothing was done to protect them or the airport. See here.

RT further reports: "The bombing provoked the US into launching two drone strikes, one targeting an alleged "planner" and "facilitator" with the group responsible, and another supposedly wiping out "multiple" would-be suicide bombers but reportedly annihilating a family and children alongside them.
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Clipboard

130 retired generals, admirals demand resignations from Milley and Austin over Afghanistan disaster

Ryan Saavedra
The Daily Wire
Thu, 02 Sep 2021 00:00 UTC
Milley
© Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley
The list of retired admirals and generals demanding resignations from Secretary of Defense (SECDEF) Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) Mark Milley has grown significantly in the last few days, going from under 90 just a few days ago to ballooning to 130 by Thursday.

The retired admirals and generals said that both Milley and Austin need to resign "based on negligence in performing their duties primarily involving events surrounding the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan."

The letter noted the numerous U.S. citizens and Afghan allies, including the man who helped rescue then-Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE) in 2008 when his helicopter was forced to land in a dangerous area in Afghanistan due to severe weather, who had been left behind by the administration when they pulled out of the country earlier this week.

The Flag Officers said that Milley and Austin should have strongly pushed back on Biden's plans and, if Biden refused to heed their warnings about what would happen, they should have immediately resigned and made a public statement about the matter.

The letter continued:

Comment: Strong wording emphasizes the depth and breadth of this fiasco as seen by those qualified to judge.

See also:

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Target

Biden wants an end to US foreign adventures, but multi-billion dollar death & destruction industry still has him in its grip

Glenn Diesen
RT
Fri, 03 Sep 2021 11:03 UTC
BidenSoldiers
© AP/Getty Images/John Moore/KJN
US President Joe Biden • US soldiers of the 10th Mountain Division in Afghanistan
The two-decades long US occupation of Afghanistan has ended in humiliating defeat, with President Joe Biden seemingly betraying his globalist liberal-international instincts by saying Washington won't again pursue nation-building.

With Kabul falling before even American troops could get out, let alone those Afghans unfortunate enough to have put their lives on the line to support them, Biden sought to defend his unilateral withdrawal.
"As we turn the page on the foreign policy that has guided our nation the last two decades, we've got to learn from our mistakes. This decision about Afghanistan is not just about Afghanistan. It's about ending an era of major military operations to remake other countries."
The US, it seems, has sworn off foreign intervention, for the time being. The change, if it holds up, couldn't be more drastic. America was at the height of its power when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001, but now, 20 years later, the age of global hegemony has evidently come to an end.


Comment: Or has it just gone 'underground'? As they say, leopards don't change their spots.


Comment: Who knows 'what Biden wants'? He's a pass through, the unelected sticker face for the public.

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