It’s been a month since the story of the Cornell Seven case became national news. Ruby Cramer documents what she describes as “an ever-expanding blast radius of online abuse, threats, and vigilantism which has touched virtually every person connected to the case, along with people who have no immediate connection to it at all.” Among those closest to the center is the accuser herself:
Jane Doe explained to the police that her phone number and address had been leaked on the internet, and that she’d been receiving harassing phone calls, including that evening. She had recorded one such call. In the recording, the man says, “I’m probably just gonna, like, pull up to your house and shoot. . . .” The caller speaks in a deep, throaty voice that at times sounds almost garbled. In response, Jane Doe says nothing. The man says, “I can hear you breathing.”
While officers were still at the family’s house, dispatch reported that the initial caller was back on the line, saying that he had an AR-15 assault rifle and was going to kill everyone at the house, then himself. About an hour later, police reported another call, this one saying that the house was on fire. In yet another phone call, a man stated that he had explosives and that the family would die—“either now, midnight, or tomorrow.” Jane Doe was receiving additional threats via text message and D.M. Her phone had hundreds of unread messages on it, but some of them she opened. “Typical white btich whore crying ‘rape,’ ” one of the messages read. “Hopefully someone does the world a favor and 🔫🔫🔫 you, nothing of value would be lost.” Officers advised her to keep her phone turned off. The next day, according to her attorney, she started taping pieces of paper over the windows at the house.
Sadiq Khan's Culture Team has blocked Charlotte Gill on X after she flagged their bonkers £500,000 woke grants – funding queer birding, doll workshops and a solarpunk festival. Your money at work.
For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on Islam
To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Todaygang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair
For a slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of Books
To learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a Guardian column by Aditya
Phil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi Badenoch
Geoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:
For more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.
And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of England
Finally, on the Spectator, read Nesrine Malik’s recent Guardian column
STARK warnings from artificial intelligence researchers that advanced forms of the technology could wipe out humanity have raised questions over whether governments are moving fast enough to regulate it.
What are the potential dangers of “superintelligent” computer systems, and should we be worried?
AI experts have long described the threat as critical.
In 2023, hundreds of AI scientists and industry figures, including the heads of top US labs, signed a “statement on AI extinction risk” calling for the issue to be treated as seriously as pandemics or nuclear war.
If an out-of-control future AI deems that humans are obstructing its goals, it could use robots to “synthesise and spread novel pathogens”, said Stuart Russell, computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley.
Or it could “convince people to initiate nuclear war, including by hacking into early warning systems”, Russell, a prominent voice on AI safety, said.
Such existential fears do not concern current AI systems, he said. But as the technology improves, it could take lethal action beyond our understanding, such as by removing oxygen from the atmosphere.
“We are less intelligent than superintelligent AI. If you ask chimpanzees how humans could wipe them out, they probably wouldn’t be able to give you all the right answers.”
In the meantime, “in the next year or two, I think the risk is higher from human misuse”, Russell added, such as an AI-enabled terror attack.
“The stakes are well-understood,” Jacob Coxon, a 27-year-old researcher, wrote on X last week, announcing his resignation from US AI startup Anthropic.
“But they are locked in a race to get there first,” he added, saying that Anthropic “believes no one else will act responsibly, so they must do it themselves”.
Anthropic this year removed a pledge from its safety charter to halt development of its models if it failed to control their risks.
It argued that if it unilaterally paused its work, its less cautious rivals would dominate the industry, making it less safe overall.
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade,” said Coxon, who previously worked at ChatGPT maker Open-AI.
He accused both companies of “gambling with our lives” as they strive to develop AI models capable of self-improvement.
Fears are heightened over rogue AI after OpenAI technology operating outside human supervision hacked into Hugging Face, a repository of AI models.
“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans!” Anthropic safety executive Evan Hubinger chimed in on X, estimating the risk at more than 10 per cent over the next decade.
It’s important to remember that doom-laden percentage predictions are “absolutely unscientific”, said Hussein Abbass, a computing professor at UNSW Canberra.
“The situation is still controllable, and it can be managed,” Abbass said.
But governments should not sit on their hands when it comes to regulating AI, he added, urging an “agile” approach as AI development accelerates.
Both Anthropic and OpenAI are expected to go public soon, and some sceptics say scary warnings make AI appear powerful and worthy of large investments.
Others argue that focusing on the risk of extinction distracts from more pressing problems caused by AI, from job losses to machines discriminating against minorities.
In July, more than 1,000 tech employees, including Anthropic’s CEO, called on Washington to support a coordinated slowdown in the development of the most advanced AI systems.
OpenAI halted training of its latest models for two weeks in August before resuming it under tighter controls.
The United States has been firmly against global regulation of the sector that could stifle innovation.
But the hacking capabilities of the most cutting-edge models have given Washington pause, with recent Anthropic and OpenAI releases delayed over national security concerns.
Even then, “we don’t want to restrict them where all of a sudden we come in second to China”, President Donald Trump has said.
“Maybe it will take a massive, Chernobyl-scale disaster to get governments to act,” Russell said, urging them to establish a licensing regime for AI, as exists with aviation, medicine or water supply.
“Perhaps at some point governments will remember that their voters prefer not to be dead.”
If Douma, one of the highest-profile “proven” chemical attacks attributed to Syria’s former Bashar Assad government, has been shown to be fake, what does it say about new, undeclared Syrian chemical weapons that have supposedly been found?
It says we should be extremely skeptical about news of such discoveries.
I spent years compiling an insider’s analysis of the evolving Western narrative of Syrian chemical attacks while I was at the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as well as afterwards.
My conclusion was it is nigh impossible to prove a negative in this situation; to say there had never been a chemical attack by the Syrian government forces.
However, when it came to high-profile allegations of such attacks in the Syrian towns of East Ghouta, Khan Sheykhoun, Ltamenah, Saraqib and Douma, there were fatal flaws in the official narratives.
There were unmistakable signs, clear to us on the inside, of fabrication.
The Douma attack eight years ago appeared to be the last of a series of chemical allegations against the regime.
Yet the saga continues. The OPCW sent a new mission to Syria this May to try to find alleged, undeclared chemical weapons from the government of Bashar al-Assad, who was ousted in 2024.
Before examining the intentions and results of this mission, it is useful to review how the Western-backed OPCW handled its investigation into the 2018 chemical weapons attack in Douma, a suburb of Damascus.
I was an OPCW inspector on that mission and this is why I blew the whistle.
The Establishment Narrative
Just how much of the establishment narrative that blamed Assad for using chemical weapons be believed ?
Devised during the early part of the Western and Gulf-backed jihadist war to overthrow Assad a decade and a half ago – and built upon steadily by Western belligerents throughout the crisis – the story that Assad had “gassed his own people” was widely believed with mainstream media fully on board.
Doubters were glibly dismissed, including “official” dissenters such as some senior inspectors at the OPCW. I was among them.
The chemical allegations followed a well-oiled procedure. Armed opposition groups – who were seeking direct Western military intervention to support their effort to overthrow Assad – would raise the alarm online by posting slick images and videos of an alleged chemical attack.
These opposition groups, sometimes assisted by Western NGOs, would then bring supposed witnesses of these alleged attacks to Gaziantep in Turkey, where the OPCW would send fact-finding missions to interview them.
The OPCW would generally believe the opposition groups and their witnesses and accept items of supposed “evidence” handed over to them, sometimes months after the alleged attack. Until the Douma allegation in 2018, the fact-finding mission never got to the scene of any Syrian chemical attack after an initial attempt in 2014 went awry.
The fact-finding report would be secretly drafted under the direct control of OPCW top management, bypassing any procedural or technical oversight, and would conclude that it was “reasonable to believe” that a chemical attack had indeed taken place.
The follow-up investigations by the heavily politicized Joint Investigative Mechanism (J.I.M.), or by the later Investigation and Identification Team (I.I.T.), would suggest that “a reasonable person would believe” that the Syrian Armed Forces were responsible for the attack.
OPCW inspectors are not fools. Many of us saw what was going on, seeing the tight political control that the U.S. and to a lesser degree the U.K. exerted over anything to do with the Syrian file. But the draconian confidentiality regime in the OPCW kept everyone subdued.
The breakthrough came after the April 2018 Douma allegation.
For the first time, an OPCW team actually got to the scene of an alleged chemical attack, at the town of Douma, in southwestern Syria, about 10 kilometers (6 miles) northeast of Damascus.
We did our job thoroughly, and in doing so we identified serious flaws in the allegation.
OPCW Extreme Measures
The OPCW resorted to ever-escalating measures to bring things back on track. After trying to secretly modify the interim report by withdrawing it from publication and sneaking in the preordained conclusions that were required by influential delegations, senior OPCW officials went to extremes.
They removed all the team members who had gone to Douma and produced a flawed Fact Finding Mission report written by persons unknown, none of whom had much knowledge of what the Douma team had done.
The fact-finding report predictably found that “it was reasonable to believe” there had been an attack with chlorine in Douma. This was followed much later by the OPCW’s inevitable I.I.T. report that blamed the Syrian regime for the attack.
In reaching its conclusions, the drafters claimed, as usual, to have been informed by anonymous experts. The context in the reports was usually along the lines of the fact-finding mission (F.F.M.) “asked an expert about this and the expert said it was possible.” Many qualified experts and commentators, including me, consider this laughable.
The OPCW were going too far, and ultimately this led to the ongoing dispute where the two most senior and experienced inspectors in the F.F.M. team objected.
The drafter of the team’s interim report, Dr. Brendan Whelan (“Inspector B”), was one. I was the other. In my case I had also led the politically-mandated inspections at two facilities of the Syrian Scientific Studies and Research Centre (S.S.R.C.) suspected of harbouring illicit chemical weapons activities.
Here again, we did our work thoroughly and in drafting the S.S.R.C. inspection reports I made clear that there was nothing amiss in either of the facilities.
This didn’t stop the U.S., U.K. and France from conducting punitive missile strikes on Barzah S.S.R.C., on the basis of social media postings on the Douma allegation, even before the OPCW team had arrived at the incident scene.
Rather than another detailed analysis of the Douma scandal, suffice it to say, the official Douma narrative has been clearly and scientifically picked apart by many credible observers, including by Dr. Whelan and myself.
This has been widely reported, although predictably not much in the mainstream media.
The OPCW and Western delegations have been in crisis management mode ever since the first leak, that of an internal engineering summary that cast doubt on the allegation that chlorine cylinders had been dropped from aircraft, raising the possibility that militants had placed the cylinders to stage the scene of a chemical attack.
I was the author of that report.
Nose of chlorine cylinder alleged to have smashed through a steel-reinforced concrete roof, April. 21, 2018. (OPCW, courtesy former Syrian government)
Worse still for the prevailing Douma narrative, Dr. Whelan recently won a legal case against the OPCW for their charges against him of confidentiality breaches.
In their submissions, the OPCW inadvertently admitted to suppressing the key toxicology assessment (incidentally by NATO specialists) that dismissed chlorine as the likely cause of death of deceased victims shown in images posted from the scene.
The OPCW has refused to engage in any discussion on the facts and scientific substance of the case, ever since concerns were first raised by Dr. Whelan and myself.
This intransigence to re-open the file is likely dictated by the needs of the three belligerent governments that subjected Syria to punitive missile strikes in retaliation for the supposed Syrian chemical attack even before the Douma F.F.M. had started work.
Any updated or corrected findings on Douma would be inconvenient.
The New OPCW Mission
Still apparently seeking to prove its case, the OPCW formed a new Syria mission in May aimed at “finding” alleged missing, un-declared chemical weapons.
At the end of May the mission reported finding 42 empty chemical weapons munitions; a launcher; bomb-mixing units; precursor-type containers; a facility whose contents were not revealed and thousands of pages of documents that are still being reviewed.
The mission also found 650 kg of “a chemical compound known to have been used by the former government for the production of nerve agents,” which the report does not name. It says an unknown quantity of hexamine, a legal chemical with wide industrial use, was found but it is not clear if this is the same compound as in the 650 kg.
In September, the Syrian government, now under the leadership of a former al-Qaeda and ISIS leader, began destroying the empty bombs, but not any of the chemicals that were found, presumably meaning none were banned.
Despite all the fanfare of these results being presented at a U.N. Security Council meeting last month, it appears that the new OPCW mission came up as empty as those bombs.
None of these discoveries does anything to prove that Assad ever used a chemical weapon, in other words, nothing to prove that I, along with other OPCW officials and countless observers and commentators who challenged the Assad chemical weapons narrative were wrong.
Presumably after all the effort in creating that narrative, Western governments and mainstream media that promoted the Iraq war and then the Syrian conflict to achieve regime change in that country, require a tidier ending than the mess they made of the Iraqi WMD story.
An early press release from the OPCW is telling. It shows what they were attempting to prove with this May mission, in particular two rather flimsy suggestions.
They report the discovery of some of the empty munitions,
“including the same type of aerial bombs that were used in chemical attacks in Ltamenah in March 2017 and Khan Shaykhun in April 2017.”
This refers to empty M4000 aerial bombs, declared by the Syrians as part of their stockpile.
Aside from the questionable Douma-like irregularitiessurrounding “evidence” used by the OPCW to conclude that sarin-filled M4000 bombs were used in those attacks, it’s important to mention something else.
The Syrians had clearly explained to us that 2,000 of these bombs, never filled, had been set aside to be “repurposed,” in other words to be filled with high explosive to turn them into conventional munitions. These could turn up anywhere.
A second questionable statement in the press release is,
“Rockets were also found, of the same type as those that were used in the Ghouta chemical weapons attack in August 2013.”
This relates to artillery rockets crudely modified with a large cylindrical payload container added at the front.
For a start, the U.N./OPCW report of Ghouta did not attempt to identify the perpetrators of that sarin attack, since it was not part of their mandate. The accusations against the regime have always been political, something the mainstream media happily took up.
The Most Credible Analysis So Far
The Ghouta sarin attack took place on Aug. 21, 2013 and according to Western sources killed more than 1,000 people in the Damascus suburb.
The most serious investigation of the Ghouta incident to date points to the attack being launched from opposition-occupied positions, and remains the most credible analysis of the attack.
The opposition forces allegedly responsible were from the al-Nusra Front, which conducted joint operations in 2013 in the Damascus area with the Liwa Al Islam opposition group. Al-Nusra were known to be in possession of sarin, according to reporting by Seymour Hersh, who wrote:
“In the months before the [Aug. 21, 2013] attack [in Ghouta], the American intelligence agencies produced a series of highly classified reports, culminating in a formal Operations Order – a planning document that precedes a ground invasion – citing evidence that the al-Nusra Front, a jihadi group affiliated with al-Qaida, had mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity. When the attack occurred al-Nusra should have been a suspect, but the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify a strike against Assad.”
Indeed the U.N./OPCW team was in Damascus at the time of the attack in Ghouta because it was responding to an earlier request from the Syrian government to investigate chemical attacks against their forces.
The OPCW release also mentions a typical catch-all referring to “quantities of separately stored chemicals and related equipment, the nature of which is currently under technical analysis.”
There will always be suggestions of vague bits and pieces, rusty remnants that “may have been a part of” alleged undeclared elements of a chemical weapons program.
And, keep in mind, it’s been 22 months since the Assad government was ousted and their enemies in the opposition group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) have been running the country.
So far as I can see, the OPCW hasn’t found anything remotely close to the desired smoking gun. Anything real, I should say.
Partners in the Anti-Assad Chemical Narrative
Syrian President Ahmaad Al Shaara, former Al Nusra/HTS fighter, with Secretary of State Marco Rubio in New York City, September 2025. (State Department Photo, Wikimedia)
We need to keep in mind how this is working. There are three partners in this latest endeavour on the anti-Assad chemical narrative.
First, we have the Western governments, belligerents in the Syrian conflict, which worked hard on building the chemical narrative to delegitimise the regime.
The U.K. government offered specialists to check out suspected sites in Syria to prepare them for the May mission in order to “assist” the current government in finding evidence of hidden chemical weapons.
That leads us to the second group, the government in Syria, reportedly eager to please their Western sponsors in return for economic favours. They are the Al-Nusra/HTS extremists who, in the case of Douma, fabricated the scene to raise a chemical false flag allegation against the Assad.
The third partner is the OPCW.
That means the various groups who have been on this mission are a) those who staged scenes of chemical attacks; b) those who directed them to do so (including Western intelligence agents who allegedly coached and assisted them); and c) the organisation that went along with the narrative and dutifully produced reports damning the Assad regime.
It may appear to the reader that I’m suggesting that the OPCW reports on Syrian chemical weapons will continue to be little more than propaganda, the usual sexed-up nonsense. Perhaps so. In disputing this, these assertions will be dismissed as conspiracy theories.
However, this argument is weakened because the source of the alternative narrative is the scientists and senior inspectors (many “Western”) from within the OPCW teams, including the Douma fact-finding mission and Scientific Studies and Research Centre inspections.
This is why Douma remains a key element in the debate. If they did it once (and doggedly stuck to their guns), they probably did it before.
Many serious and eminent observers are imploring the OPCW to conduct a review of the Douma case, including by the OPCW’s own Scientific Advisory Board.
I see this being done by credible, independent and neutral experts in the fields of chemistry, toxicology, metallurgy and engineering, overseen by the relevant professional institutes.
These experts would report their findings transparently, putting their names and reputations behind their analysis. This will clear up the Douma controversy, either demonstrating that it could have actually happened as alleged, or demonstrating the flaws in the OPCW reports.
Exposing a clear and deliberate fraud would seriously weaken the Western narrative on alleged Syrian chemical attacks. Therefore, in my view, it is not going to happen under the purview of the OPCW.
Ever.
I don’t mean to suggest that those calling for a review are unrealistically hopeful. But the risks of such a review are perhaps too high for it ever to be envisaged by the Western group that was aligned with the efforts on regime change in Syria — chiefly the U.S., the U.K. and France.
This does not mean it can’t happen. There is more than enough open-source material, as well as now-unclassified facts, images, analysis results and information available from the OPCW itself, from former OPCW officials and inspectors, and held by Member States, that would support a credible in-depth review.
The basis for expert analysis would be the material used in the fact-finding mission and I.I.T. reports themselves.
By now we know there isn’t any “smoking gun” evidence. If there had been, it would have been cited in the mission and I.I.T. reports.
Trust me, this study will bear clear results. My hope is that someone sufficiently curious and responsible will commission and fund it.
Ian Henderson served as an OPCW inspector from the establishment of the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, and was appointed as one of the first Inspection Team Leaders. An experienced chemical engineer with military experience, he led many of the more complex missions to more than 55 countries. After returning to a career in the chemical industry for 10 years he rejoined the OPCW in 2016 as part of the “rehire” scheme aimed at bringing back experienced inspectors. It was during this time that he became involved in the Syrian chemical weapons operations and, along with others, objected to the apparent influences of political control in the organization. He was suspended from the OPCW in May 2019 after the leak (by unknown others) of his dissenting engineering report on the Douma cylinders.
For more than three decades, Michael Gove has been a leading figure in British Conservatism. As a journalist, government minister and now editor of the Tory bible, the Spectator, he has helped shape the right even as it has moved further rightwards. In the latest episode of Radical Thinking, Gove joins Aditya Chakrabortty to discuss the future of the right, his record on Brexit and austerity, and the Spectator’s position on Islam
To read the fruits of Michael Gove’s dalliance with the Marxism Today gang, look up his essay in a 1998 collection called The Moderniser’s Dilemma: Radical Politics in the Age of Blair
For slalom ride through Michael Gove’s years in power, read The Demented Dalek by the historian Richard J Evans in the London Review of Books
To learn more on what’s become of the British right, there’s a column by me for the Guardian
Phil also writes a very good blog on British politics, which keeps a close eye on how each party is trying to marshall a coalition of voters. Here he is on Kemi Badenoch
Geoffrey Wheatcroft does an entertaining short narrative in Bloody Panico!:
For more on the economics of the Cameron years, this paper is acute on how the Tories failed to move the UK away from being a country of renters towards a country of makers. Two of its authors will join us for a podcast later in the series.
And if you want to read how Brexit may have cost the UK 8% of GDP, there’s this paper based on data from the Bank of England
Finally, on the Spectator read Nesrine Malik’s recent column in The Guardian
As a free speech absolutist, Elon Musk is making a mistake going after Nitter, says Dr R P. He should instead be praising the site that helps users speak freely, uninhibited by login screens that undermine their privacy.
The Australian government has introduced its digital duty of care legislation to parliament today. The bill includes an “off switch” to allow social media users to opt out of recommender algorithms. If passed, Australians could choose to switch off their algorithmic recommendation and consume a news feed populated by the accounts they subscribe to. It’s […]
Yemeni missiles fired at Saudi Arabia are destroying oil facilities and airports across the country – drawing particular international outrage was the ballistic missile attack on Terminal 3 of King Khalid Intl. Airport, an attack that killed 13 and left another 307 injured. As is usually the case, the corporate media starts the clock where it chooses instead of looking at the context, a similar tactic that is used when reporting on Palestine.
On October 10, a missile fired by the Yemeni missile units of Sana’a’s Ansarallah-led government caused a mass casualty event at Riyadh’s main international airport. It then drew broad condemnation from governments around the world, grabbing headlines across the corporate media.
The Saudi-led coalition’s spokesman, Maj Gen Turki al-Maliki, then called the attack a “full-fledged war crime” and said that striking a civilian airport was a “cowardly terrorist attack”. The UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres also weighed in and expressed his shock at what he called a violation of international law, urging the attacks to stop.
However, Guterres and various government officials never commented on Saudi Arabia’s airstrikes against Sana’a Intl. Airport on July 13, which broke the years-long ceasefire between Yemen and Saudi Arabia. Nor did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who himself ordered airstrikes on Sana’a Intl. Airport in the Yemeni Capital of Sana’a last year.
Unpacking The Lies and Hypocrisy
While the Saudi leadership has attacked its airports to generate international sympathy, it has been launching airstrikes on Yemeni airports for over a decade.
On the first day of Saudi Arabia’s war against Yemen, on the 26th of March in 2015, airstrikes struck both Sana’a Intl. Airport and the neighboring Bani Hawat residential neighborhood, killing around 34 civilians, including children. Since then, the Saudi air force has carried out over 227 strikes targeting Yemeni airports.
The breakdown of the ceasefire, which was achieved through UN mediation back in 2022, came as a result of Saudi Arabia bombing the Yemeni Capital City’s main airport, in a bid to stop an Iranian civilian airliner from landing there. Riyadh has imposed a siege on Yemen – by land, air and sea – since 2015, even inflicting a man-made famine on the country.
Saudi Arabia is responsible for killing between 9,000 and 18,000 civilians inside Yemen. Schools, mosques, weddings, hospitals, and even funerals have been struck by the Saudi air force. In total, around 400,000 people have been killed as a result of the Saudi-led war on the country.
However, the international media coverage robs current events of both the historical and current context. Take, for example, the following headline published by Reuters, which is held up as the gold standard of Western journalism:
“Houthis fire missiles at Saudi Arabia, breaking years of calm,” read the headline. However, the story they were covering, admitted through their use of the video of Saudi Arabia’s strikes on Sana’a Intl. Airport, painted Yemen as the aggressor.
In reality, no political entity called the “Houthis” exists; the name of the Party that the corporate media refuses to correctly name is Ansarallah, which heads the government that rules over the majority of the Yemeni population and is based in the nation’s Capital City. Its opposition is called the Presidential Leadership Council (PLC), which was officially formed in the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, back in 2022. The PLC is a proxy of the Saudi government, and its leaders are all based inside Saudi territory, not Yemen.
The next obvious point to note here is that Yemen’s Armed Forces were responding with missile fire towards Saudi Arabia; they were not the aggressor. In retaliation for Riyadh’s decision to continue violently imposing its blockade on the country, it also declared a blockade on Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea ports.
To specifically address the point about the attacks on King Khalid Intl. Airport, it is important to note why this happened and that the Saudi authorities knew the dangers. In early October, Saudi Arabia conducted 1,000 airstrikes on Yemen, using 100 aircraft, while the forces back in Yemen attempted to launch a counter-offensive on the ground.
The Ansarallah-led government’s Armed Forces then announced, in response to the large-scale assault, that they would be imposing a no-fly zone over Saudi airspace. What proceeded to happen was a number of missile attacks on airports in order to shut them down; at first, these attacks caused no known casualties and were to serve as a warning.
As Saudi Arabia continued its airstrikes across Yemeni territory, the stakes were then raised and Riyadh’s main airport became the target. Missiles were at first fired into targets at the airport as a warning to close it down. The Saudi authorities ignored these warnings. On October 8, Yemeni missiles then struck aircraft while they were grounded at King Khalid International, which destroyed one commercial airliner, damaged two others, and killed 3 people.
Despite this attack and clear warnings to close the airport, the Saudis insisted upon keeping it open. On October 10, then came the mass casualty event that inflicted 13 fatalities along with hundreds of injuries amongst civilians.
Targeting a civilian airport is indeed a violation of international law. Yet, when Israel and Saudi Arabia bomb Yemeni airports, there is no outcry. Which brings us to the heart of this issue: why should it be expected that Ansarallah respect international law in this respect when there is no consequence for Saudi Arabia, Israel, or the United States, for that matter?
Riyadh is currently bombing targets throughout Yemen, using Israeli military intelligence support to do so. Meaning that the Saudis are being backed by a State that is committing genocide. On the other hand, the only State in the Arab World that invoked the Genocide Convention, imposing a blockade and firing munitions directly at Israel, was the Ansarallah-led government in Sana’a.
According to Western leaders, Israel and Saudi Arabia, Ansarallah is a terrorist organization. So why then did Saudi Arabia not close its airport as a precautionary measure, in order to protect civilians following the direct strikes on it and threats to go further? Does Riyadh not have the responsibility to protect civilian passengers?
Why is bombing a Saudi AirPort a terrorist act, but bombing Yemeni AirPorts hundreds of times is not even an issue capable of grabbing a headline? How can anyone expect international law to be respected, when the ones who claim to champion it the most selectively use it only when it favors them? These are simply common sense questions.
What Yemen is now doing is imposing the exact same reality on Saudi Arabia, as has been imposed upon it for over a decade. Only now, when the Israeli-backed Western ally is getting hit, is anyone even noticing.
In so many ways, the predicament of Yemen is like the situation in Palestine. Nobody batted an eye at the conditions in Gaza until the Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023. Then the media framed the Palestinians as the aggressors.
The corporate media spoke of a “Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry” in order to downplay the civilian death toll; similarly, in Yemen, they report on a “Houthi-run Yemeni Health Ministry”. Understanding the attacks on Saudi Arabia is simple if the context is applied. Either a negotiated settlement is to be reached to end this war, or it will continue until regime change on one side occurs.
– Robert Inlakesh is a journalist, writer, and documentary filmmaker. He focuses on the Middle East, specializing in Palestine.
In August, the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA) publicly took credit for shaping “multiple provisions” now in this year’s defense policy bill, stating that many were “impacted by prior JINSA policy recommendations,” including “proposals to strengthen U.S.-Israel defense industrial base integration” and “renew pre-existing joint U.S.-Israel programs.”
Among the provisions JINSA takes credit for is the controversial Section 219. In the House version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), this section mandates the creation of a single executive agent tasked with “synchronizing cooperative efforts” between the U.S. and Israel across nine basket categories, including AI, quantum technology, biotechnology, and virtually every category of weapons.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has argued that such provisions would transition the U.S.-Israel security relationship from aid to partnership. But pro-Israel advocates have emphasized the leverage it would provide over Washington’s military policy.
Mark Dubowitz, the CEO of the pro-Israel Foundation for Defense of Democracies, appeared to reference this provision in an article arguing that the U.S. and Israel must “deepen their military, technological, intelligence and economic integration to such an extent that inflicting financial harm on Israel would also carry a significant cost for Washington.”
Other initiatives JINSA has advocated for likewise read like an Israeli government wishlist. They include a pending provision to “extend the existing War Reserve Stockpile Authority for Israel,” which provides a secretive and high-speed pathway for funneling weapons to Israel, as well as Abraham Accords provisions including “Improvements to Air and Missile Defense Acquisition” and a “United States-Abraham Accords Defense Cooperation Initiative.”
The policy wins JINSA is trumpeting are a result of its strong foothold within the military-industrial complex, and are perhaps one of the most overlooked aspects of the pro-Israel lobby. The group says it achieves these goals “by conducting both educational programs that build ties among American, Israeli and other Middle Eastern partner military leaders, along with in-depth research and actionable recommendations to influence U.S. policy.” JINSA’s “Our People” webpage includes a long roster of retired U.S. military officials.
One of JINSA’s most important programs, which has existed for more than four decades, is its “Generals and Admirals Program.” The initiative involves flying recently retired U.S. military officials to Israel. Many of the trip’s participants were already sitting on defense-industry boards when they went, while others joined soon afterward. At least 55 of the 83 alumni from the 2019–2026 G&A program cohorts (about 66%) have held or currently hold positions in the defense industry spanning board seats, executive jobs or advisory roles at defense contractors and defense-tech firms, or posts at defense-focused investment funds, consultancies and lobbying shops.
JINSA hopes that, when these former military officials return from Israel, they will use their credentials and defense industry power to become Israel’s advocates.
JINSA describes the program, founded in 1981, as “designed to ensure that the delegation is well briefed on the security concerns of Israel, as well as the key role Israel plays as a friend and ally of the United States.” The Helmsley Charitable Trust, which provided a 13 month grant for the program in 2017 worth $237,846, similarly says the purpose of the program is in part for participants to “return home to share publicly what they learned.”
The itinerary for the Generals and Admirals program includes meetings with Israel’s prime minister, defense minister, IDF chief of staff and the Director of Mossad. According to JINSA, after completing the program, “participants often engage on important policy initiatives through JINSA’s Gemunder Center for Defense and Strategy that strengthen…the U.S.-Israel security relationship.” JINSA CEO Michael Makovsky highlighted the program’s influence in 2014, calling U.S. generals and admirals “America’s most admired leaders, who remain very influential even after retirement.”
The JINSA program trains retired military leaders, many of whom go on to work in the defense industry, to be advocates for Israeli interests, both in their public writing and in their work behind the scenes.
A 2023 Quincy Institute report found that 80% of four-star officers who retired between June 2018 and July 2023 went on to work for the defense industry. Of the 32 officers tracked in the report, nine appear on JINSA’s participant lists, and seven of those nine retired officers hold industry lobbying or defense-tech roles. Gen. Joseph Dunford, the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, joined Lockheed Martin’s board five months after leaving the military and went on JINSA’s Israel junket the following year, 2021. Adm. Michael S. Rogers, the former NSA director and head of U.S. Cyber Command, retired in 2018, became a senior adviser at the lobbying and public relations firm Brunswick Group in 2019 and went on the JINSA trip in 2021.
Gen. Hawk Carlisle participated in the 2019 delegation while serving as president and CEO of the National Defense Industrial Association, the war lobby’s leading trade group, and has served on the board of the U.S. subsidiary of Israel’s largest defense contractor, Elbit Systems of America, which was renamed Twenty-Six Defense in September. Some participants, such as retired Gen. Robert Magnus and Gen. Duncan McNabb, joined the board of Elbit America after their JINSA trips.
Embedded within the highest levels of the most powerful lobby on Capitol Hill, JINSA’s roster of retired generals and admirals often use their credentials to advocate for pro-Israel policy in Washington.
In 2010, when then-head of U.S. Central Command Gen. David Petraeus testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee that the Israel-Palestine conflict “foments anti-American sentiment, due to a perception of U.S. favoritism for Israel,” which is used to “mobilize support” for various militant groups in the region, JINSA’s G&A participants rushed to Israel’s defense. Responding to Petraeus, 30 ex-military leaders associated with the program put out an ad claiming that “a strong, secure Israel is an asset,” labeling the country, which has been deemed an apartheid state by numerous human rights groups, as “a democracy” that “shares our commitment to freedom, personal liberty and rule of law.”
In May 2018, a JINSA task force of retired senior officers chaired by Adm. James Stavridis released “Atlas Supported,” urging Washington to elevate Israel to “a top-tier ally” and invest jointly in next-generation military technology — the latter now a central purpose of Section 219. JINSA says the report was also the first to recommend moving Israel from the U.S. European Command to U.S. Central Command, which Trump then ordered on January 15, 2021. JINSA celebrated the fifth anniversary of Israel’s shift into CENTCOM this January by noting that the “Wall Street Journal recognized” it as “the only organization promoting this move,” and by featuring glowing tributes from JINSA G&A participants.
JINSA’s roster of retired military officials was once again mobilized in October 2026 to deny the findings of a trifecta of human rights groups and the U.N. that Israel committed a genocide in Gaza, praising what it called a “pattern of law-abiding IDF conduct in Gaza.”
JINSA’s delegates routinely appear on cable news, often without disclosures of their affiliation with the pro-Israel lobby group: Gen. Kenneth “Frank” McKenzie, who commanded CENTCOM from 2019 to 2022 and traveled with JINSA’s 2023 delegation, and became a “distinguished fellow” at JINSA in 2024, is now a CBS News contributor. In July, McKenzie appeared on Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan, who introduced McKenzie as a retired CENTCOM commander but omitted his fellowship with JINSA. In that appearance, McKenzie recommended Washington consider seizing Kharg Island. Ret. Vice Admiral Robert Harward, a member of JINSA’s “Iran Policy Project,” frequently appears on Fox News too, though his affiliation is generally disclosed.
One of the group’s most consequential efforts was to push the Trump administration to start a war with Iran, with a group of JINSA-aligned military leaders writing a March 2025 letter arguing that “U.S. support for Israeli action to prevent a nuclear Iran should be a top priority,” adding that “time is running out to stop its march to the bomb.” Sixty-six of the 79 signers of that letter appear on JINSA’s Generals and Admirals participant lists. Members of JINSA’s roster of retired military officials subsequently wrote open letters of support for the 12-Day War and the current months-long Iran War.
Harrison Berger is an independent journalist who has contributed to Drop Site News, The American Conservative, and The Nation. Previously, he was a researcher and producer for System Update with Glenn Greenwald. His work focuses on civil liberties and U.S. foreign policy. He holds a BA in Political Science and Russian Studies from Union College (NY).
A todos nos resultan familiares determinadas dinastías europeas; Borbón, Habsburgo, Avis, Plantagenet, Trastámara, Lancaster, Romanov, Bernadotte, Estuardo o Windsor, por citar sólo una pequeña parte. Pero es curioso que una de las que han dejado una huella más profunda y duradera no sea tan conocida; nos referimos a la Casa de Oldemburgo, que a través […]
60 Minutes cut Leslie Stahl’s interview with a a Palestinian American recently beaten by Israeli settlers and ignored by the U.S. Embassy; the segment barely mentioned Palestinians killed by settlers, and said nothing about US citizens killed.
Israeli forces have detained more than 600 Palestinians over social media content, including 215 since the beginning of 2026, while carrying out more than 1,000 raids, interrogations and summonses
It’s hard to know whether to break the TV set or throw up when listening to the European governments rushing to condemn the air strike by Yemeni forces on Saudi Arabia’s King Khalid international airport.
The blast from a ballistic missile that slammed into the airport at the weekend, October 12, killed at least 13 civilians and injured scores of other travellers. Horrific video footage shows the moment the missile explosion ripped through a terminal lounge.
European leaders immediately in a coordinated fashion trotted out condemnations of Yemeni “terrorism” and vowed solidarity and support for Saudi Arabia. U.S. President Donald Trump called it “a terrible thing.” (As if bombing schoolchildren is not quite a terrible thing.)
Britain, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Austria, the Netherlands, and Spain all issued strident denunciations of the Yemeni attack.
The strike on the Saudi capital came after the Ansar Allah-led Yemen Armed Forces had given ample warning to the Saudis that their airports would be targeted and for civilians to avoid the areas. The airports were kept open for business as usual. The Yemenis have said that the attack on Riyadh and other Saudi airports are retaliation for weeks of multiple air strikes by the Saudis on Yemeni civilian centers.
Hundreds of Yemeni civilians have been killed since Saudi Arabia broke a four-year truce with an air strike on the international airport in Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, on July 13. Saudi warplanes, U.S.-supplied F-15s and European Typhoon jets, have been continously bombing homes across Yemen. This week, two days after the Riyadh strike, at least nine people including five children were killed in air raids on houses in Taiz city and in northern al Jawf province. Al Masirah TV footage showed a distraught father holding up a child’s shredded body amid rubble. There was no condemnation of that atrocity from any European leader.
As Mick Wallace and Clare Daly, former Irish Members of the European Parliament, point out in their podcast this week, the official European reaction is utter hypocrisy and a cynical distortion of the conflict on the Arabian Peninsula.
Britain and France in particular, along with the United States, have backed the Saudi aggression against Yemen beginning in 2015. Over seven years, that aggression killed up to 400,000 Yemenis through air strikes and a blockade on humanitarian needs.
The European Union remained largely silent for seven years. No protests were made to Washington, Paris or London. Ambassadors were not summoned, sanctions were not imposed.
The return to hostilities that began with Saudi air strikes on Sanaa in July have been enabled by U.S. and Britain supplying warplanes, military advisors and intelligence.
None of the European governments have bothered to condemn this recent U.S. and UK-backed slaughter.
So, it is nauseating when one hears British Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband saying he is “appalled” by the strike on Riyadh airport. And other European leaders vowing “full solidarity with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.”
Germany’s Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul condemned Yemen’s “terrorist act.”
His French counterpart said France stood with Saudi Arabia “in defending its territory and infrastructue.” (No mention of what the Saudis have been doing for years to Yemen’s territory.)
Referring to the strike on Riyadh without any context, Italy’s Giorgia Meloni said: “Attacks against civilians and civilian infrastructure are unacceptable and must cease.” (Yes, indeed, so why not tell that to the Saudis who are doing it deliberately on a massive scale with support from Washington and London?)
What is instructive here is not just the sickening hypocrisy and moral bankruptcy. It is the manifestation of a systematic corruption and criminal responsibility. This is not just one more example of a flawed European political class whose judgement is suspect. What is increasingly apparent is the totality of the corruption.
The same European supporters of Saudi monarchs waging a genocidal war on Yemen are also contemporaneously supporting the Israeli Zionist regime in its extermination of Palestinians. They are complicit in enabling the U.S. aggression against Iran, Cuba and Venezuela. They are sponsors of the NeoNazi regime in Kiev to keep fighting a proxy war against Russia despite more than one million Ukrainian military casualties and the risk of nuclear conflagration.
The death cult of Western capitalism is on full display in multiple theaters, exposing the organic evil at work. There is sense that all of Western imperialist history is now on display in one final orgy of barbarity.
In previous times, the death cult operated discreetly in seemingly disparate conflict scenarios. Wars on different continents seemed somehow unconnected. The Western media would in the past reliably cover up the crimes by distorting the motives and objectives with false narratives and (laughable) claims of noble purpose. The West was “defending democracy,” “fighting communism,” “protecting human rights,” or “waging war on terrorism,” or some other pretext that in isolation and with loads of media propaganda managed to fool a lot of people as somehow plausible.
What’s happening now, it seems, is a concatenation of wars that ultimately exposes the essential system that drives the violence, and its insatiable lust for human suffering.
It is impossible to work for such a vile system, the death cult of capitalism, without also being oblivious to its evil ways. To remain oblivious necessitates denial or lies. That deception might be tenable for occasional and seemingly disparate scenarios. But not when the system is exposed in its infernal entirety.
American and European wars in the past might have succeeded in being sold to the Western public as one-off wars and misadventures. We think of the wars in Korea, Vietnam, Latin American, Africa, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and more recently Libya.
In more recent years, as consciousness evolved, the public began discerning and decrying “endless wars”.
But now the world is witnessing a totalizing of the war machine that goes by the name of “Western democracy”.
What’s happening in Ukraine, Gaza, Iran and Yemen is not coincidence. It is the death cult on display and unable to hide itself. It manifests too in attacking and locking up Western citizens who condemn genocide or who simply call for peace.
Capitalism, fascism, wars, the Epstein class, endemic poverty and suffering – it’s a death cult in a theater near you.
The politicians, governments, media and pundits who promote it or serve it are seen for what they are.
Cuando se piensa en la Galia de los siglos V al VII suelen venir a la cabeza los pueblos bárbaros, las ciudades en declive y unos reyes merovingios tan poco activos que la historiografía posterior los bautizó como «reyes holgazanes». Lo que está saliendo a la luz en lo alto de un monte de Borgoña […]
Moxie Media will host its first dedicated user event, Moxie Connect: User Conference 2026, a complimentary event open to all maritime professionals, on Wednesday, December 2, at the Ernest N....
The Greek government presented a draft law on Monday banning social media access to minors below 15 years old. The ban will be implemented as of January 1, 2027. Greece seeks to address the problems associated with use of social media by minors ahead of an equivalent European regulation that is still progressing through the […]
Quando si torna indietro e si osserva davvero la rappresentazione storica delle «realtà russe» nei media di lingua inglese, si nota che Putin è sull’orlo della destituzione dal 2000 e da allora anche l’economia russa è sull’orlo del collasso. Tutto ciò che viene scritto sulla Russia in inglese in Occidente è una menzogna.
Parleremo dei vari aspetti della presunta “epidemia” in Russia, ma emerge una tendenza più ampia quando si esamina l’interpretazione data dai media a questo evento, che sia reale, falso o una sorta di enigma. Chiunque abbia familiarità con il mio lavoro mi avrà sentito affermare qualcosa del tipo: «Tutto ciò che sapete sulla Russia, scritto in inglese, è una menzogna», e continuo a credere in questa affermazione. Quando i politici occidentali dichiarano che «la Russia ha il potenziale economico della Spagna» o che «la Russia è la Nigeria con la neve», o fanno altre affermazioni simili, non stanno mentendo in modo diretto e consapevole.
Sulla base di tutti i dati e le informazioni di cui dispongono «laggiù» riguardo all’economia russa, questa visione era logicamente «vera». Se si analizzano i numeri basandosi sui dati occidentali, immagino che la Russia sia semplicemente un’economia enigmatica avvolta nel mistero, delle dimensioni di una nazione dell’UE di secondo piano, ma ovviamente nella realtà non è così. La Russia è terribilmente draconiana e repressiva, perché ovunque si legge che è proprio così. I calcoli secondo cui la Russia avrebbe ceduto immediatamente e il «rublo sarebbe crollato» dopo l’inizio dell’Operazione Militare Speciale non erano falsi, erano semplicemente basati su dati errati. Se si esaminano le informazioni occidentali sulla Russia, sembrerebbe davvero che l’economia del Paese poggi esclusivamente sui prezzi del petrolio, che la popolazione attenda una sola scintilla per ribellarsi al tiranno e che, nel complesso, il castello di carte sia pronto a crollare da un momento all’altro. Ma, come hanno dimostrato gli anni di guerra, non è stato così; tuttavia, le stime iniziali erano «corrette» sulla base dei dati su cui si fondavano.
Persino la famosa citazione di Lenin secondo cui «una menzogna ripetuta abbastanza spesso diventa verità» – ironia della sorte – potrebbe non essere mai stata pronunciata da lui, ma questa pseudo-affermazione getta un’ombra negativa sulla Russia, per cui l’Occidente continua a ripeterla. In Russia, poiché alcune persone sono state arrestate per attività online dall’inizio dell’Operazione Militare Speciale – tra cui l’organizzazione di atti terroristici – ciò viene considerato «negativo»; tuttavia, il fatto che nel Regno Unito vi siano 70 volte più persone dietro le sbarre per ciò che hanno espresso online non viene preso in considerazione, poiché si tratta di una situazione diversa e non è mai stata nemmeno presa in esame da un giornalista britannico. Gli arresti per dichiarazioni e azioni online si applicano solo a coloro che sono considerati «cattivi», a riprova della loro cattiveria.
Se l’esercito russo è forte, si tratta di militarismo; se l’esercito russo è debole, è prova di corruzione e inettitudine. Se vi sono processi per corruzione, ciò dimostra che il regime autoritario di Putin sta eliminando i propri nemici; se invece non vi fossero processi per corruzione, ciò costituirebbe prova della corruzione e del controllo totalitario del regime. Non esiste alcuna possibilità di vittoria per la Russia nella stampa occidentale; persino durante il presunto trattamento mediatico favorevole riservato a Eltsin nei «bei vecchi tempi», l’intero establishment si è abbandonato a un’orgia di schadenfreude per la caduta dell’URSS e per lo stato di umiliazione della Russia degli anni ’90.
Per dirla senza mezzi termini: se accade qualcosa o si dice che sia accaduto qualcosa in relazione alla Russia:
– Se i media russi lo avallano, ciò è prova che la Russia è cattiva
– Se i media russi si oppongono, ciò è prova di un insabbiamento del misfatto che dimostra che la Russia è cattiva
– In definitiva, qualsiasi azione o inazione da parte della Russia è negativa e costituisce prova della sua malvagità.
La posizione della CNN su questa questione è la classica russofobia
E, puntuale come un orologio, ecco che la CNN interviene per sostenere questa narrativa sulla peste che sembra essere fondamentalmente falsa. Parleremo di ciò che sta realmente accadendo con questa «epidemia» un po’ più avanti, ma per ora concentriamoci sull’aspetto mediatico della questione. Già nel titolo dell’articolo della CNN in questione «Liste di controllo, mascherine e mistero: cosa sappiamo sull’allarme peste in Russia» si nota chiaramente come la propaganda stia prendendo piede.
«Le autorità russe hanno cercato di placare le preoccupazioni globali in merito alla morte di una giovane donna che lavorava in un laboratorio siberiano specializzato nella lotta alla peste. Tuttavia, le misure adottate per isolare i suoi contatti e introdurre nuove misure di controllo della malattia negli ospedali locali hanno suscitato preoccupazioni tra le persone che temono di non essere informate su tutta la verità.»
Per quanto riguarda il paragrafo precedente, come potete vedere, la parte russa è vista in modo negativo perché presenta una versione dei fatti diversa e ha l’audacia di condividerla con il mondo. Tuttavia, se i media russi avessero taciuto su questa vicenda, ciò sarebbe stato ugualmente negativo, in quanto avrebbe costituito una prova di colpevolezza per omissione. Il fatto che le autorità russe stiano adottando alcune misure per cercare di fermare un’epidemia è negativo perché tali misure generano paura o qualcosa del genere, ma quantomeno ciò è sufficiente per giustificare una condanna. Tuttavia, se il governo adottasse misure estreme, queste sarebbero «draconiane», mentre se non adottasse alcuna misura, ciò sarebbe «terribilmente irresponsabile». Pertanto, adottare misure di livello medio «induce paura» o qualcosa del genere e, naturalmente, ciò è negativo e assolutamente inaccettabile.
«Ulyana Gavryunina, una blogger ventinovenne di Angarsk, città della regione di Irkutsk, ha dichiarato alla CNN di aver dovuto cambiare ospedale ostetrico alla quarantesima settimana di gravidanza, poiché le restrizioni di quarantena appena imposte impedivano a suo marito di stare con lei durante il travaglio.»
Pertanto, poiché l’amministrazione locale dispone di strutture limitate, purtroppo questa donna ha dovuto partorire in condizioni tutt’altro che ideali. È una situazione spiacevole per lei e sono certo che sia stata piuttosto frustrante, ma ancora una volta la CNN sostiene che l’intervento delle autorità russe sia negativo perché ha avuto ripercussioni negative sulle persone; tuttavia, se non avessero fatto nulla, sarebbe stato altrettanto grave. Se le persone non fossero state messe in quarantena in quella struttura, ciò sarebbe stato «pericoloso e irresponsabile» o qualcosa del genere.
«Mercoledì l’autorità sanitaria russa ha affermato che non sussiste alcun rischio epidemico a seguito della morte della donna e che sta riducendo gradualmente l’intervento. Rospotrebnadzor ha dichiarato che il monitoraggio medico è stato completato per “oltre il 90%” dei contatti della ricercatrice deceduta e che non sono stati rilevati agenti patogeni “pericolosi”. Tuttavia, permangono alcune domande senza risposta».
L’espressione «ma rimangono domande senza risposta» è stata utilizzata in questo contesto per negare l’opinione del governo russo. Se questo paragrafo si fosse concluso senza queste parole, avrebbe fatto apparire pienamente legittime le opinioni delle autorità locali. Quando «rimangono domande», si allude a una cospirazione, al fatto che la versione ufficiale non corrisponda alla realtà. Ancora una volta, indipendentemente da ciò che le autorità russe avrebbero dichiarato pubblicamente, la reazione sarebbe stata negativa perché la CNN le considera nemiche. Il nemico non può fare nulla di giusto. E le azioni della Russia sono quelle di un nemico e, pertanto, sono universalmente negative agli occhi di qualsiasi giornalista che si rispetti.
“Secondo il proprio sito web, l’Istituto Antipeste impiega circa 95 ricercatori ed è un’importante struttura sanitaria pubblica responsabile del monitoraggio e della prevenzione dei focolai di infezioni batteriche e virali ad alto rischio in tutta la Siberia e nell’Estremo Oriente russo.
L’istituto è stato fondato nel 1934 per combattere la peste e continua a studiare la malattia poiché la Yersinia pestis, il batterio che causa la peste, circola ancora naturalmente nella fauna selvatica in alcune zone della Siberia e nelle regioni limitrofe».
Sorprendentemente, la CNN non ha definito la struttura di ricerca in cui lavorava la signora Shipilova come un «laboratorio biologico» né ha utilizzato altri termini infamanti. In realtà, si è limitata a «crederle sulla parola» e a riportare semplicemente le informazioni presenti sul sito web. Ciò è risultato veritiero e piacevole da leggere.
Cosa è realmente accaduto, quindi?
Passiamo ora ad analizzare la situazione reale relativa a una potenziale epidemia di peste e alla misteriosa morte della ricercatrice che stava lavorando per combatterla. Esiste un video realizzato da una donna americana anonima residente a Irkutsk (nome del canale: American in the Motherland) sull’intera vicenda che, in meno di 15 minuti, analizza l’intera storia con fonti, fatti e filmati provenienti direttamente dalla regione. Per brevità, condividerò i punti salienti delle sue argomentazioni. Come potete vedere, ancora una volta una sola giornalista cittadina smonta punto per punto la versione dei media mainstream. L’immagine qui sotto è tratta dal video e mostra la «genialità» della stampa internazionale e le sue reazioni affrettate su questo tema.
I punti chiave del video erano:
Non vi sono lockdown di massa a Irkutsk né in nessun’altra parte della Russia; le uniche persone sottoposte a quarantena hanno avuto contatto diretto con la donna deceduta (Daria Shipilova) e il loro numero è inferiore a 200.
La Shipilova non lavorava in un laboratorio biologico militare, bensì in un istituto di ricerca sulle epidemie e sulle malattie, progettato per combattere le patologie. La sua ubicazione e la sua attività non erano né segrete né di natura militare.
La signora Shipilova è stata ricoverata in un ospedale fuori da Irkutsk perché in quella sede era presente una struttura progettata per gestire questo tipo di focolai epidemici dell’era Covid, e non nell’ambito di una qualche cospirazione.
Non si è verificato nessun altro decesso per la stessa causa di quello della signora Shipilova.
La causa della morte di Daria Shipilova è stata una «polmonite di origine sconosciuta».
La storia della «provetta rotta» è un mito, poiché è stata inventata da un blogger russo. Quando si lavora con malattie gravi, non si va in giro in un ambiente simile a un ufficio con provette fragili. La Russia non opera secondo la stessa metodologia della Umbrella Corporation, agitando a casaccio fiale fragili contenenti agenti patogeni.
La parte russa non ha trovato alcuna prova di un incidente presso la struttura di ricerca.
La ricercatrice non si era recata in Buriazia prima della sua morte. Pertanto, non ha contratto la malattia da marmotte locali o da altri tipi di roditori.
Al momento della stesura di questo articolo o della realizzazione del video collegato sopra, non si sono verificati altri casi simili a quello che ha causato la morte della signora Shipilova.
La peste è curabile, poiché è causata da un batterio che continua a esistere in tutto il mondo. Ogni anno, negli Stati Uniti e in altri paesi, una manciata di persone la contrae ancora. Gli antibiotici rappresentano una contromisura efficace contro questa malattia; pertanto, ciò non sembra costituire motivo di panico internazionale.
Perché la peste si diffuse nella Russia medievale?
Un aspetto importante da sottolineare a questo proposito è che, storicamente, sebbene la peste bubbonica abbia mietuto vittime anche al di fuori dell’Europa occidentale, ha avuto effetti devastanti solo all’interno di quest’ultima. I russi continuano ancora oggi ad andare fieri di possedere un elevato livello di igiene culturale che risale al Medioevo. I russi del Medioevo e altri popoli al di fuori dell’Occidente sembravano aver «capito da soli» la necessità di lavarsi regolarmente e di lavarsi le mani. Si ritiene che questa cultura igienica sia la ragione per cui la Russia, nel XIX secolo, vantasse una popolazione così numerosa rispetto alle nazioni circostanti. Molti in Russia ritengono che, se non fosse stato per errori madornali quali la Prima guerra mondiale, la Rivoluzione, la Seconda guerra mondiale e gli anni ’90, la popolazione attuale sarebbe molto più vicina a quella della Cina o dell’India.
Pertanto, da un punto di vista culturale russo, ciò appare chiaramente come un’altra campagna di proiezione: un terzo della popolazione inglese morì a causa della peste, mentre in Russia ne morirono solo pochi. Di conseguenza, la peste nera non ebbe in realtà alcun impatto culturale sulla Russia e, a giudicare dagli scritti del XIX secolo, la tubercolosi sembra essere stata un problema molto più persistente e fastidioso per questa società, che ancora oggi riveste una certa rilevanza. In tutta la Russia esistono strutture antitubercolari e non è possibile immigrare nel Paese se si presentano sintomi della malattia. L’intera questione del «vivere con i parassiti» non era una realtà quotidiana per i russi né nel Medioevo né in epoca moderna; tale primato spetta all’Occidente liberale e illuminato.
I media sono il vero problema.Abbiamo esaminato solo un particolare articolo su questo tema, ma vi sono numerose riflessioni assurde da parte della stampa occidentale che seguono la formula «maledetti i russi se lo fanno, maledetti se non lo fanno». Titoli come questo del Daily Mail ne sono l’esempio perfetto:
«Trump offre a Putin un’ancora di salvezza mentre la Russia si affanna a contenere una mortale epidemia trasmessa per via aerea dopo la morte di un ricercatore di laboratorio».
Ancora una volta, se «Putin» non facesse nulla sarebbe cattivo, ma sta facendo qualcosa, quindi si sta «affannando» in preda al panico, il che è altrettanto negativo. Il fatto che Trump gli offra un «ancora di salvezza» implica che Putin non abbia altra scelta se non quella di accettare questo aiuto, qualunque esso sia, altrimenti sarebbe cattivo. Ma indovinate un po’? Se accetta l’ancora di salvezza, ciò significa sicuramente che è debole o qualcosa del genere, il che significa che è cattivo.
Quando si torna indietro e si osserva davvero la rappresentazione storica delle «realtà russe» nei media di lingua inglese, si nota ovunque questa manipolazione narrativa isterica e nietzschiana da «untermensch». Putin è sull’orlo della destituzione dal 2000 e da allora anche l’economia russa è sull’orlo del collasso. Tutto ciò che viene scritto sulla Russia in inglese in Occidente è una menzogna.
Poland has launched a nationwide security operation after three knife attacks at educational institutions left one woman dead and more than a dozen people injured. Police have detained 117 people amid a wave of online threats, while intelligence officials are examining whether Russian disinformation networks exploited the violence to spread panic.
Poland is confronting an unprecedented school security crisis after a succession of violent attacks by young people triggered widespread fear, school closures and a nationwide police mobilisation. By Sunday, 11 October, officers had detained 117 people and conducted nearly 64,000 security checks at educational establishments, as the authorities attempted to contain both genuine threats and an escalating campaign of intimidation on social media.
The crisis reached its height on Friday, 9 October, when warnings circulated about a supposed nationwide killing campaign known as “Bloody Friday”. Videos, threatening messages and lists of potential targets spread through TikTok, messaging platforms and school discussion groups, prompting parents to keep children at home and several local authorities to suspend classroom teaching.
Although police have found no evidence of an organised nationwide conspiracy, the violence that preceded the rumours was real. Three separate attacks took place between 7 and 10 October, while investigators are examining hundreds of other incidents involving threats or suspected criminal activity.
Two attacks that triggered nationwide panic
The first major incident occurred on Wednesday, 7 October, at a vocational school in Ostrołęka, north-east of Warsaw. A 19-year-old student armed with a machete attacked pupils, teachers and other people in and around the building, injuring nine victims before harming himself.
Investigators subsequently discovered a homemade explosive device inside his backpack. The suspect was arrested, and prosecutors brought nine charges against him, including attempted murder. The discovery of explosives raised further questions about the extent of his preparations and the possibility of a substantially higher death toll.
The following day, a 15-year-old former pupil entered a primary school in Leszczydół-Nowiny, near Wyszków, and attacked three members of staff with a knife. A 37-year-old caretaker died from her injuries, while two teachers, including the headteacher, were wounded.
According to investigators, the teenager wore a helmet-mounted camera, raising suspicions that he intended to record the assault. The official prosecution statement confirmed the victim’s death and the detention of the suspect.
The attacks were followed by threatening messages from other teenagers, including a video attributed to a 17-year-old in the Przasnysz district who claimed to be participating in a competition involving killings. Police subsequently detained him. In Sierpc, another 17-year-old was arrested after allegedly discussing plans for violence at school; officers discovered two knives.
Thousands of schools under police surveillance
The rumours produced an immediate reaction. Schools in Wyszków, Ciechanów, Pułtusk and other municipalities cancelled classroom teaching or introduced remote lessons. Elsewhere, parents independently withdrew their children, leaving some classrooms largely empty.
Police launched an extensive preventive operation, deploying additional officers around schools and investigating online threats.
According to the figures released on 11 October, the authorities had recorded 275 incidents requiring investigation, detained 117 people and carried out nearly 64,000 checks at schools, nurseries and other educational facilities.
The situation deteriorated further on Saturday, 10 October, when a 21-year-old student attacked three people at a post-secondary educational institution in Warsaw. Two 17-year-old girls and a 24-year-old woman were injured. One victim required hospital treatment, although none of the injuries was considered life-threatening.
Interior Minister Marcin Kierwiński subsequently stated that investigators had established no links between the recent attacks. The authorities nevertheless remain concerned about imitation offences, particularly where threatening material circulates among teenagers through closed online communities.
Russia’s possible role in spreading panic
The events have also raised questions about whether hostile foreign actors deliberately amplified the crisis. Tomasz Siemoniak, Poland’s minister responsible for coordinating the intelligence services, warned that Russian organisations routinely exploit domestic emergencies to spread disinformation and undermine confidence in public institutions.
In his statement on 9 October, Siemoniak acknowledged the possibility of foreign involvement but stressed the need for evidence before assigning responsibility.
There is, at present, no publicly established evidence that Moscow organised the school attacks or directed the subsequent threats. Nevertheless, the rapid circulation of alarming videos, fabricated warnings and unverified target lists illustrates how genuine violent incidents can be exploited to disrupt everyday life without further physical attacks.
The episode also presents a challenge for European regulators. Poland is examining measures against dangerous online content, while its existing obligations under the EU Digital Services Act provide a framework for addressing systemic risks associated with major platforms.
For Donald Tusk’s government, the immediate priority is preventing further attacks as schools reopen under heightened security. The longer-term challenge concerns the interaction between online radicalisation, copycat violence and disinformation capable of transforming isolated crimes into a national emergency.
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