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Reality means nothing to either the US or Israel, who launched an illegal and unprovoked war on Iran on February 28, and were then humiliated when Iran delivered devastating blows to the US’s outposts throughout the Gulf, pierced Israel’s defense systems, causing extensive damage that the Israeli authorities have desperately tried to hide, and dealt a massive blow to the world’s energy supplies by cutting off the transit of tankers in the Strait of Hormuz.

For the US, which had fallen for Israeli lies that the war would be swift, and that decapitating Iran’s leadership would lead to a popular uprising and the collapse of the government, this was a rude awakening, and after Donald Trump had spent days on his social media account posting increasingly unhinged threats against Iran, he suddenly backed down last Tuesday and announced a two-week ceasefire.

This was a tacit acknowledgement of defeat, but when a US delegation, led by Vice President JD Vance, headed to Pakistan for peace talks with their Iranian counterparts, they refused to leave their baggage of belligerent arrogance at home, and turned up with a delusional swagger, reflecting the depths of their leader’s derangement, and the extent to which their alleged “America First” policies has been entirely usurped by the tired old ghosts of the discredited neocon movement.

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The ever-growing shadow of depravity engulfing the world has grown so huge in recent weeks — since the unprovoked and illegal war launched by the US and Israel on Iran, and, simultaneously, Israel’s renewed assaults on Lebanon, and an increase in its violence in the occupied West Bank — that it’s easy to overlook the fact that the original sin that led to this situation — Israel’s ongoing genocide in the Gaza Strip — began 900 days ago today.

It’s also easy to overlook the fact that today also marks the first anniversary of Israel’s targeted assassination in Gaza of Hossam Shabat, the fearless 23-year old Palestinian journalist whose smile, and whose relentless energetic enthusiasm for recording Israel’s crimes, lit up phones and social media reports and news broadcasts around the world.

As he said in his final message to the world, written in anticipation that he would be killed, “If you’re reading this, it means I have been killed — most likely targeted — by the Israeli occupation forces. When this all began, I was only 21 years old — a college student with dreams like anyone else. For the past 18 months, I have dedicated every moment of my life to my people. I documented the horrors in northern Gaza minute by minute, determined to show the world the truth they tried to bury. I slept on pavements, in schools, in tents — anywhere I could. Each day was a battle for survival. I endured hunger for months, yet I never left my people’s side. By God, I fulfilled my duty as a journalist. I risked everything to report the truth, and now, I am finally at rest — something I haven’t known in the past 18 months. I did all this because I believe in the Palestinian cause. I believe this land is ours, and it has been the highest honor of my life to die defending it and serving its people. I ask you now: do not stop speaking about Gaza. Do not let the world look away. Keep fighting, keep telling our stories — until Palestine is free.”

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It’s worse than we thought.

While dirty, demented grandpa Donald, increasingly unhinged, keeps failing asleep and then waking up and indulging in bouts of incoherent ranting, he has already accomplished what his minders always intended: to bring together the two most twisted, delusional, genocidal, pseudo-religious movements in modern history —  Zionism and Christian Zionism — and to launch an apocalyptic war on their behalf.

Donald Trump, of course, as a malignant narcissist, has no God but himself, and the same is true of his chief Zionist manipulator, the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, a slippery devil of a being who has dominated Israeli politics for much of the last 40 years, and who has, over the last 29 months, finally emerged in his true colours, as the bearer of nothing but mass murder and destruction without restraint.

Using the Palestinian resistance movement’s attacks on southern Israel on October 7, 2023 as an excuse, Netanyahu, leading a political establishment and a population that are almost entirely supportive of his bleak vision, has drawn on violent Iron Age religious texts to finally manifest the true apocalyptic intent of the genocidal Zionist settler-colonial cult whose first victory was the blood-soaked establishment of the State of Israel in 1948.

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When Ancient Greek thinkers first began analyzing and categorizing the world around them, the role human beings play in it, and the workings of the human body and the human mind, one enduring concept they came up with was hubris, conceived as a dangerous revolt against the natural order, whereby those who became so caught up in their own sense of self-importance — via “extreme or excessive pride or dangerous overconfidence and complacency, often in combination with arrogance” — would be punished by the gods.

Last October, in a post on Medium, Manfred Kets de Vries, a Dutch psychoanalyst, described how, for the Greeks, hubris “wasn’t just poor judgment. It was a serious moral failing, a kind of arrogant blindness that led people to overstep human boundaries. Those caught in the grip of hubris begin to believe that the world should conform to their view of it. They overestimate what they can do, ignore the consequences, and often reject criticism entirely. Even when things go wrong, they remain convinced they were right all along.”

As the world reels from the decision by the United States and the State of Israel to launch an illegal and unprovoked “war” on Iran on Saturday, everything about the attacks screams ”hubris” at the highest amplification imaginable.

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On day three of Donald Trump’s cataclysmically stupid decision to indulge Benjamin Netanyahu in his malignant 40-year dream of destroying Iran, it’s starting to look as though it will backfire on him spectacularly.

Today, it’s been reported that Pentagon officials told Congressional staff yesterday that “Iran was not planning to strike US forces or bases in the Middle East unless Israel attacked Iran first”, undercutting Trump’s fatuous claims, as “Operation Epic Fury” was launched, that the US’s attacks on Iran, in conjunction with Israel, were aimed at “eliminating imminent threats from the Iranian regime.”

It was already screamingly apparent that Trump’s claims of legitimacy were tenuous, because he had, typically, refused to seek approval from Congress, even though only Congress can approve US military action, and had also failed to seek approval from the UN Security Council.

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Beware the sick old men with hate in their hearts. As their earthly virility fades, they may well decide to take the whole world down with them.

As Israel and the US this morning launched massive and entirely unprovoked attacks on Iran, which has already led to retaliation against both the aggressors, and which may well destabilize the whole of the Middle East, both Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump — sick, old and full of perpetual rage against the dying of the light — may well have decided that, as their power fades, they will take vengeance on life itself.

23 years ago, it took many long months for George W. Bush and Tony Blair to manufacture a false case for the illegal invasion of Iraq. Dodgy dossiers were compiled, and Congress and the UN Security Council had to be convinced to approve an illegal war on the fictional basis that Iraq posed an existential threat to the west.

in the new world order of Benjamin Netanyahu and Donald Trump, however, none of these complicated webs of lies and deception are even needed anymore.

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In Iranian attacks on Israel yesterday, as part of its ongoing retaliation for Israel’s initial unprovoked attacks a week ago and its repeatedly ongoing aggression, an Iranian missile reportedly struck the Soroka Hospital in Beersheba, the largest hospital in southern Israel.

Iranian sources claimed that, rather than striking the hospital, they had struck two military targets nearby, “the Israeli Defense Forces’ Command and Intelligence (IDF C4I) headquarters, as well as a military intelligence facility located in the Gav-Yam Technology Park.” The hospital is located between the two sites, and, according to Iran, “sustained minor damage from the blast shockwave.”

Israel disputed this, claiming that it was a direct attack, and footage showing a plume of smoke rising from the caved-in top of the building would seem to vindicate their analysis.

However, even if the hospital was directly hit, a third possibility has not been addressed. According to reports, a barrage of 20 to 30 Iranian missiles were aimed at the Beersheba area and other targets, so it may be that, while targeting and hitting the military targets, another missile inadvertently fell on the hospital.

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In the last week, Benjamin Netanyahu has opened up a fifth front in his claimed efforts to ensure the safety of Israel, launching an unprovoked attack on Iran on the basis of claims — which he has been making for the last 30 years — that Iran was close to establishing a viable nuclear weapons program.

No evidence exists to suggest that Netanyahu is correct. Just three months ago, in testimony to the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Donald Trump’s Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, confirmed that the United States intelligence community “continues to assess that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon and Supreme Leader Khamenei has not authorized the nuclear weapons program he suspended in 2003.”

In addition, US negotiators were engaged in active discussions with the Iranians regarding their nuclear program when Israel launched its unprovoked attack. These had been taking place since April 12, with a sixth round of talks scheduled for Sunday June 15, but these talks were, of course, scuppered by Israel’s actions.

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So here’s a fascinating document from the trial of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith in New York — a 14-page statement by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, written in response to questions Abu Ghaith’s lawyers submitted to him at Guantánamo, where he has been held since September 2006, following three and half years in “black sites” run by the CIA, and where, notoriously, he was subjected on 183 occasions to waterboarding, an ancient torture technique that is a form of controlled drowning. I am posting a transcript of the statement below, as I believe it is significant, and it is, of course, rare to hear directly from any of the “high-value detainees” held at Guantánamo, because every word they speak or write is presumptively classified, and the authorities generally refuse to unclassify a single word.

Abu Ghaith (also identified as Sulaiman Abu Ghayth) is charged with conspiracy to kill United States nationals, conspiracy to provide material support and resources to terrorists, and providing material support and resources to terrorists, primarily for his alleged role as a spokesperson for Al-Qaeda immediately after the 9/11 attacks. Following the US-led invasion of Afghanistan, he fled to Iran, where he was held under a form of house arrest — and where he met and married one of Osama bin Laden’s daughters, who was also held under house arrest — until January 2013, when he was released to Turkey.

It was at this point that the US authorities became aware of his release from Iranian custody. At the request of the US, he was briefly detained, but soon released because he had not committed any crime on Turkish soil. The Turkish government then apparently decided to deport him to Kuwait, but on a stop-over in Amman, Jordan, he was arrested by Jordanian officials and turned over to US officials, who subsequently extradited him to the United States. Read the rest of this entry »