Vanessa Beeley

1. The Lebanon Pager blasts - Forum for Democracy International

I hopped on this forum yesterday. You can follow Forum for Democracy International on X.

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2. The Israeli 'pager' massacre leaves an estimated 4200 injured, 11 dead including 2 children

Almost as I finished UK Column news today, I heard that a second wave of device explosions had struck in southern Beirut and close to the Al Qaim Mosque.

The Lebanese Civil Defence reported fires in 60 homes and shops and 15 cars after wireless devices exploded in Nabatieh. In the second wave of the Israeli intelligence operations, personal radios or walkie-talkies were detonated.

An explosion occurred during the funeral procession of Mahdi Ammar, the son of the Lebanese MP Ali Ammar, who was killed in yesterday's massacre. The funeral was being held in Sohmor, Lebanon.

The Lebanese Health Ministry reported 300 injuries and 9 deaths. Some of the devices that exploded were more than ten years old and bought from the civilian markets.

More to come on this developing tragedy tomorrow. The Hezbollah Secretary General Sayed Hasan Nasrallah will address the nation tomorrow (Thursday) at 5pm Beirut time ( 3pm UK time).

These are dark times for everyone.

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3. Zionist Hasbara is unravelling faster than Yemen's ballistic missile

I will be covering the extraordinary collapse of the mainstay Zionist propaganda since October 7th - on UK Column News this Wednesday. But for a taste of the Hasbara shambles:

Why did the UK Jewish Chronicle 'publish fake Israeli intelligence?'

This has been reported in a number of Israeli and UK media outlets, Al Mayadeen and The Cradle have also provided analysis.

I will take the report in 972 Magazine as an Israeli source. Their caption reads:

Israel's army suspects fabrications published in the Jewish Chronicle were part of a pro-Bibi influence campaign, while the article's author is not as he claims.

From the article - On Sept. 4, Benjamin Netanyahu called a press conference for foreign media in order to explain his stubborn insistence on keeping Israeli forces in Gaza's Philadelphi Corridor, even at the expense of a hostage deal. To his well-worn claim that the Gaza-Egypt border has historically been "porous" to the smuggling of weapons, the prime minister attached a new argument: if the Israeli army is not in control of the area, Hamas could "easily smuggle hostages out … to the Sinai desert," and from there to "Iran or … Yemen." After that, he added, "they're gone forever."

These fantastical claims are not substantiated until along comes the Jewish Chronicle and author Elon Perry to bring Netanyahu's imagined scenarios to reality:

Perry claims, according to 972Mag:

It [the article] purported to reveal evidence from Israeli "intelligence sources" proving not only that Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar intended to smuggle out the remaining hostages via the Philadelphi Corridor to Iran, but that Hamas' surviving leaders in Gaza, including Sinwar himself, would be going with them.

Such a plan, the article stated, "was reportedly revealed during the interrogation of a captured senior Hamas official, as well as by information obtained from documents seized on Thursday, August 29, the day the six bodies of the murdered hostages were retrieved." It went on: "To Sinwar, the Philadelphi corridor has turned out to be the only option available to fulfill his plan."

The story was picked up by right wing Zionist-aligned sites and social media influencers and swiftly gathered traction. Even Nethanyahu's son Yair ran with it.

The problem is, as 972Mag pointed out, the story was a lie.

The day after it was published, Israel's Channel 12 refuted the article's claims, stating that "all of the relevant sources in the security establishment" are unaware of the supposed intelligence, whether from an interrogation or a written document. Two days later, Ynet journalist Ronen Bergman quoted four sources from Israel's intelligence community and the Israeli army's prisoners and missing persons division, who described the Jewish Chronicle's claims as a "wild fabrication" and stated that no such document exists. Another described it as "one hundred percent lies." IDF Spokesperson Daniel Hagari also officially dismissed the story as being baseless.

Concurrently the German propaganda outlet BILD published another wild invention based on another "secret document" - so secret it doesn't actually exist:

…an exclusive report in Germany's most widely read daily newspaper, Bild, purported to reveal the contents of a secret document found on Sinwar's personal computer in Gaza earlier this year. That document, Bild claimed, contained Hamas' strategy vis-a-vis the hostage negotiations as approved by Sinwar himself, revealing how the group is "manipulating the international community, [psychologically] torturing the hostage families, and seeking to rearm." 

The purpose behind this "leak" was to convey the idea that Hamas was not serious about hostage or peace negotiations. Of course, the opposite is true. Netanyahu has systemically scuppered the peace agreements with final changes of proposals and the ever expanding Zionist list of demands in the knowledge that they will never be accepted by the Palestinian Resistance factions.

As 972Mag pointed out, a little falsehood did not prevent Netanyahu from parroting the tall tale during an Israeli Cabinet meeting:

Remarkably, that story — which was parroted by Netanyahu in an Israeli cabinet meeting on Sunday — was also based largely on fabrication. Israeli military sources told Ynet that the army did discover a document in Gaza earlier this year bearing some likeness to the one described by the German newspaper, but it was merely a proposal drafted by a junior operative. Contrary to Bild's claims, it was not an official strategy document, nor was it penned by Sinwar or any other senior Hamas leader. And as for the line about Hamas being willing to prolong the negotiations — that didn't appear in the real document at all.

So, what is going on? That is clearly a rhetorical question.

The Israeli army seems to be treating the two articles, in the Jewish Chronicle and Bild, as connected, and has opened an internal investigation to try and find the source of the leaks and fabrications. According to Bergman in Ynet, the military suspects that whoever is responsible is seeking to influence Israeli public opinion in favor of Netanyahu, just as mass Israeli protests for a hostage deal threaten to scuttle his attempts to keep the war raging.

From 972Mag:

It is widely inferred that Netanyahu has for months been selectively leaking information to the Israeli media under the guise of a "senior Israeli official," but this would mark a new stage in his attempts to deceive the public. The divisions in recent months between Netanyahu and the security establishment, including on the issue of the Philadelphi Corridor, have also been well documented. 

"How is it possible that right after the six living hostages came back dead and public outrage grew and the protests intensified, a letter was written that answers all of Netanyahu's problems?" the veteran Israeli journalist Shlomi Eldar tweeted, referring to the doctored document revealed by Bild. "For half a year, the 'Sinwar document' … was waiting on Sinwar's personal computer for publication? And surely it makes sense that Sinwar sits in a tunnel thinking and thinking and arrives precisely at a document that matches Netanyahu's slogans?"

While other reports in the UK have avoided putting author Elon Perry under any real scrutiny, 972Mag provides a humiliating view into Perry's fabrication about his own identity and CV. One might also ask why it has taken 972Mag so long to actually review the credentials of the senior writer at the Jewish Chronicle but that is another story.

Perry made the claim that the IOF had successfully assassinated Mohammed Deif in Gaza. A claim vociferously denied by regional actors such as Hamas commander Osama Hamdan. Again, this claim was picked up and widely promulgated by a wide range of Israeli and Western media outlets with very little verification.

The author of the Jewish Chronicle article is a man by the name of Elon Perry, who has published a series of scoops in the newspaper since the war began — including revealing new details about the Israeli army's recent assassinations of Hamas' military commander Mohammed Deif (whose death Hamas has denied) and political chief Ismail Haniyeh, in Gaza and Tehran respectively. 

Perry's bio on the Jewish Chronicle's website states that he served as a commando soldier in Israel's Golani Brigade for 28 years, that he has 25 years of journalism experience, and that he lectures on the Middle East in both the United States and the United Kingdom.

You can read the 972Mag article for the full extent of Perry's Walter Mitty leanings but here is a sample:

His website additionally claims that during his military service he was part of a unit of mista'arvim, or soldiers who go undercover as Palestinians, and that he also participated in Operation Entebbe, Israel's 1976 raid of a passenger plane hijacked by Palestinian and German militants. Perry also professes to be the author of two books, and is described by the publisher of the second, which came out in April of this year, as having been a professor at Tel Aviv University (TAU) for more than 15 years.

Except almost none of this is true. An investigation by Hazinor, a program on Israel's Channel 13, revealed on Sept. 9 that there was no record of Perry having worked at TAU, nor did he participate in Entebbe. What's more, the photo on his website purporting to show him undercover at a protest dressed as a Palestinian — which he labeled as being from 1992 — was actually taken in 2015.

The murky undertones of these two publications BILD and JC are not unknown - BILD journalist Julian Ropcke was instrumental in disseminating fake news about the regime change war waged against Syria since 2011, including the fabricated chemical weapon attacks staged by CIA/MI6 White Helmets.

To those familiar with the Jewish Chronicle's coverage in recent years, revelations that it has published inaccurate and politically motivated reporting will not come as much of a surprise. Following a murky takeover in 2020, the paper's output and editorial tone — which was already right-wing — has become increasingly sensationalist under the stewardship of editor Jake Wallis Simons, who is a frequent guest on Britain's biggest news and politics shows.

Perry's articles have been duly scrubbed from the Jewish Chronicle website and he has resigned, presumably pushed. The proverbial rats are also jumping ship. Four of the paper's most prominent columnists, David Baddiel, Jonathan Freedland, David Aaronovitch, and Hadley Freeman, announced their resignation in protest of the controversy.

Of course none of them had any major issue with the Zionist genocide and savagery in Gaza and the West Bank since October 7th basing their Zionist-partisan journalism on the proven fraudulent claims of Hamas baby ovens, rape and mass murder.

972Mag gives both BILD and Jewish Chronicle too much benefit of the doubt. I do however agree that "The result, whether wittingly or unwittingly, was to gift Netanyahu the perfect silver bullet to continue staving off public and international pressure for a hostage deal that would end the war.".

The Zionist Falsehoods keep coming

Other Zionist "feel good" tall tales have permeated Israeli media this week (I will also cover on Wednesday)

1: There is a Mission Impossible claim that IOF commandoes were helicoptered in to carry out a ground operation during the Israeli aggression against Syria last week. The Israeli forces used explosives they brought with them to blow up the underground facility from within, including advanced machinery, according to two sources who spoke to Axios - Jerusalem Post

Allegedly they managed to break through the security ring around the Masyaf Scientific Research and Development underground centre and blow up the blast-proof inner sanctum. Anyone else remember the Milk Tray adverts?

These claims have, of course, been strenuously denied by Iran and Syria and generally derided by analysts who know the extent of security around these underground development and technology facilities.

2: No, there are no Yemeni troops inside Syria. This is a rumour circulating, started by Iran Observer on X, known to be a disinformation portal.

There are more Zionist intelligence blunders but I will save those for my report on Wednesday. Suffice to say that the entire Zionist Hasbara apparatus is shaking from its very foundations for the first time since the establishment of the Zionist state on Palestinian land - a project that from its inception took control of the narrative and disappeared the Palestinian history and testimony.

It is worth pointing out a little known fact, that under Trump, in 2018, Netanyahu decreed that the Nakba archives be closed thus eradicating Palestinians from the bloody history of Zionist occupation and apartheid.

This Special Document File examines the closure of documents on the Nakba in the Israeli archives and argues that this closure must be juxtaposed with recent intensified U.S. and Israeli attempts to depoliticize the Palestine question and to delegitimize the Palestinian narrative in general, and that of 1948 in particular. The documents are important because they expose the systematic nature of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine, both in planning and execution. Many of these documents have been copied and scanned by scholars over the years, but they are now no longer accessible to the public or to researchers. Collating, digitizing, and archiving these documents is the best response to the attempt to cover up the crimes against the Palestinian people in 1948.

I will leave you with David Miller on Redpilled - 'the way to dismantle Zionism begins with a free Palestine':

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4. Israel targets Syrian arms development centre while increasing ethnic cleansing in Palestine

Apologes for the late publictaion of these reports.

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5. The experimental Polio Vaccine in Gaza - bioweapon or trusted roll-out?

A Palestinian girl is vaccinated against polio, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem

It's "the same old playbook, where a war or crisis is used to roll out a new, minimally tested vaccine.

Following my various reports on the Polio Vaccine roll-out in Gaza I am republishing this important article from ChildrensHealthDefense.

Over 187,000 children under age 10 this week were vaccinated against polio in central Gaza during the first phase of a two-round polio vaccination campaign, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported.

The campaign, continuing today in southern Gaza, is set to conclude next week in northern Gaza. It will target about 640,000 children. Israel and Hamas agreed to a daily eight-hour ceasefire in the places where the vaccines are being administered, Reuters reported.

The course of treatment requires the children to receive a second dose of the vaccine in four weeks.

The campaign was launched after vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2 was detected in wastewater samples in central Gaza in June, and four children were reported to have acute flaccid paralysis, a condition with many possible causes, including the poliovirus.

One of the four children — a 10-month-old unvaccinated baby — tested positive for circulating vaccine-derived poliovirus type 2.

Vaccine-derived polio occurs when the attenuated poliovirus used to make oral vaccines regains its virulence and begins circulating, according to the WHO.

The oral polio vaccine is commonly used because administrators argue it has several benefits for mass vaccination in low-resourced areas, Dr. Suzanne Humphries, co-author of "Dissolving Illusions: Diseases, Vaccines, and The Forgotten History," told CHD.TV host Polly Tommey in an interview today. (Humphries' book includes an extensive history of polio and the polio vaccine.)

Because the oral vaccine doesn't need refrigeration and doesn't need to be administered by professional healthcare providers, it's easier to use it for mass vaccination campaigns, Humphries said.

However, the oral vaccine also is responsible for creating the poliovirus now circulating and infecting hundreds of people globally each year.

Gazan children getting genetically modified vaccine developed by Gates Foundation

The vaccine now given to Palestinian children in Gaza is nOPV2, a novel oral polio vaccine, focusing on type 2 polio.

The nOPV2 vaccine is genetically modified to prevent it from mutating and regaining virulence. It is not fully licensed but was granted an emergency use listing by the WHO in 2023.

Nature reported that the nOPV2 vaccine — funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation — has already been shown to regain virulence in at least two countries.

Humphries said:

"Interestingly, we're going to stop a war that has had absolutely no regard for children whatsoever. Israel is all of a sudden humanitarian and is going to stop a war because the U.N. and the World Health Organization asked them to, so they can go in and save all these children that have been potentially infected by a vaccine-derived poliovirus, by giving them a new genetically modified oral polio vaccine that has never been fully tested, that is released on emergency use.

"And most of the testing early on was done on people who are already fully vaccinated so that their chances of having a mutation are less because of that."

Humphries said that, although the 10-month-old baby is partially paralyzed, he will likely recover the use of his limb. Most people who get polio recover the use of their limbs within 60 days, she said.

Poliomyelitis, the disease that affects the spinal cord and paralyzes the limbs, "can be induced with just toxins," she said. "And if a virus is involved, it becomes more invasive in the presence of certain chemicals."

Humphries said there's been little or no discussion about the bombs dropped across Gaza, which have been "melting buildings, melting plastic, melting electricity and chemicals — not to mention what was in the bombs," she said. "The amount of toxicity people in that region have had to endure is astronomical."

We don't even know most of the chemicals those people are being exposed to, she said. For example, "If they dropped bombs on any factories that were making pesticides, I mean, that's enough to cause paralysis in lots of people around that area right there."

Vaccine adverse events also aren't being discussed. "Who's going to follow up and look for adverse events?" Humphries asked. "Who is going to find problems in these kids if anything happens [with this novel vaccine]?"

It's "the same old playbook," she said, where a war or crisis is used to roll out a new, minimally tested vaccine.

"I just think that people in that region should be somewhat suspicious of what's going on here," she added.

Humphries, whose book details corruption within the WHO and the United Nations concerning disease and vaccines, also questioned why the agencies were focusing on vaccination rather than on more urgent and fundamental public health issues — created as a consequence of this war and across the country — in the refugee camps.

Gazans lack food, water and basic medical care, she said. And people are getting sick because the camps have no sewage systems, which could be remedied by digging latrines.

As of Aug. 19, at least 16,480 children have been killed as a direct result of the war, and thousands remain missing or dead, Common Dreams reported.

Many of those children starved to death and many others are facing hunger and malnutrition.

Watch CHD.TV's interview with Dr. Humphries:

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6. Mirages and Political Mind Control

Edward Curtin is a writer, researcher, and former professor of sociology. Poet, essayist, journalist, novelist….writer – beyond a cage of categories.

Ed is the author of Speaking Truth in a Country of Lies.

"A powerful exposé of the CIA and our secret state… Curtin is a passionate long-time reform advocate; his stories will rouse your heart." Oliver Stone, filmmaker, writer, and director

"Ed Curtin invites us to go deep sea diving—beyond the shallows of U.S. political and spiritual life where most researchers and writers paddle, into the dark realms of intelligence operatives, paid killers, and institutions of deception. It is a disturbing journey but a necessary one, and he is a brilliant guide." Graeme MacQueen, author of The 2001 Anthrax Deception.

Ed recently wrote a really profound article called Mirages and Political Mind Control. Here it is in full:

I am sitting on the beach at the National Seashore, a forty-mile long stretch of the Atlantic Ocean seashore on Outer Cape Cod, established in 1961 by President Kennedy.  The wind is whipping hard and the waves are running wildly high against the shore, and, to paraphrase Thoreau – the sand is rapidly drinking up the last wave that wets it.  I am looking far out to the horizon where the sun shimmers on what seems to be the world's watery edge, creating a strange mirage that I wonder at but find hard to describe. 

Earlier, I was rereading Thoreau's Cape Cod in which he mentioned this phenomenon 150 years ago, not just the mirages across the water but those here along the great stretches of sand.  Now I am confused and my mind wanders to other mirages that make me shake my head in wonderment.  It is hard to grasp what one is seeing these days.

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When Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., a presidential aspirant, folded his cards and conceded the current pot to Donald Trump – what he euphemistically called suspending his campaign for the presidency – he let his justifiable hatred of the Democratic Party, their undermining of his campaign, and their pro-war and genocidal agenda get the best of him.  His trust in Trump is naïve in the extreme.  With the issue that Kennedy has made central to his work in recent years – Covid and the "vaccines" – Trump is in the opposite camp.

The investigative journalist Whitney Webb has said:  "The inevitable embrace of the Trump campaign by RFK Jr. will see one of the Covid-era's most prominent (+ promoted) skeptics embrace the man whose administration established the early Covid policies and Military-run Op Warp Speed. What a world and what a disappointment."

Furthermore, Trump's campaign is backed by a host of people – Elon Musk, Peter Thiel, Joe Lonsdale, and Trump's vice-president sidekick, JD Vance, among others – who are big promoters and investors in mRNA and DNA vaccine technology.  Thiel and Lonsdale are cofounders of Palantir, a company that collects American's health data while it also works with the CIA.

Mirages?

And the independent journalist Vanessa Beeley, while being equally scathing of the Democratic Party's masters of war, has said the following of this odd coupling:

With Trump and Kennedy you have a combination that is 100 times more likely to lead us to Armageddon and idiots are saying Trump supplied less weapons to Israel. Of course he did because he was destroying Syria through unilateral collective punishment economic sanctions, assassinating Resistance leadership and paving the way for greater Israel, Clean Break through Abraham Accords and Jerusalem, giving Golan to Zionist occupation.

He didn't NEED to start wars, he certainly didn't end them, he increased the hybrid war strategy to pave the way for the final solution and Kennedy is fully on board, whatever his title.

It's astonishing to watch people whitewash the Trump role in the empowerment of the Zionist entity which has led to the genocide we are witnessing. There is no one or the other (Trump or Harris) they work as a tag team, oligarchs and deep dark state create the road map. We are already in WW3 and Trump will go to war with Iran, effectively with Russia and China.

Why continue supporting a putrid corpse of a US political system?

And, by the way, Kennedy support base is not anti-Zionist. They are generally apathetic and prepared to excuse Kennedy's criminal genocide denial and defence of Zionist apartheid and ethno-supremacism because "America first".

Genocide is the red line that Trump and Kennedy will erase and normalisation of genocide is a clandestine policy of this partnership. We are already in WW3. Trump will not end any wars, he never has. Iran and China are in his crosshair.

This too is true, and it runs counter to RFK, Jr.'s pledge to end all foreign wars.  One may have noticed that in his speech suspending his campaign Kennedy said that he disagreed with Trump on certain matters, but he did not conveniently mention that they were in accord with each other and the Democrats in supporting the Israeli slaughter of Palestinians and its push for war with Iran and therefore Iran's ally Russia.  That sounds like one big foreign war to this observer.

While the mainstream media relish ripping Kennedy, they rarely if ever mention his unequivocal support for Israel, for to do so would bind them to him (and Biden/ Harris, and Trump/Vance) in being full-fledged supporters of Israel's genocide of the Palestinians.  Indeed, there is one taboo that the mainstream corporate media, mouthpieces for the warfare state, assiduously maintain: it is to never report the truth about the power Israel maintains over U.S. Mideast policy through its Israel lobby, and their own complicity in Israel propaganda. 

Politicians of both parties are venal reprobates who parade with American flags on their chests as they betray their country.  They can only be described as traitors, as the current Biden/Harris administration's full-fledged proud military backing for Israel's ongoing slaughter of the Palestinians substantiates.  The recent Democratic Convention was a Hollywood spectacle directed by an American version of Nazi Germany's Leni Riefenstahl, replete with shouts for the destruction of Russia as well as the Palestinians.  (The Biden-Harris administration has just approved its 100th arms shipment to Israel since October 7, 2023.)  That they are pushing the world toward nuclear war didn't disturb them in the least, as they sang and laughed and acted out for a fan base deluded by mirages and auditory delusions produced Tinseltown style.

So American voters are offered a choice of a political alliance of an odd couple in Kennedy and Trump, along with Vance, and a conventional one in Harris and Walz, based on the fallacious assumption that a choice is being offered between the war parties whose raisons d'être are to wage foreign wars for the teetering American empire.  Hovering over and behind this pathetic travesty lies the controlling power of the national security state and its corporate media propaganda for these endless wars and corrupt politicians.  Only a skeptically acute mental knife, constantly sharpened, can cut through the propaganda campaign aimed, not at a foreign audience, but at the American people by its own government.  Mind control is the name of its game.

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What would Thoreau, a man who didn't vote and refused to his pay poll tax to support war and slavery, think of these strange alliances hiding behind glittering mirages?  Though written more than 150 years ago, his words are more than apropos today:

Men have an indistinct notion that if they keep up this activity of joint stocks and spades long enough all will at length ride somewhere, in next to no time, and for nothing; but a crowd rushes to the depot, and the conductor shouts 'all aboard' when the smoke blows away and the vapor condensed, it will be perceived that a few are riding, but the rest are run over – and it will be called, and will be, 'a melancholy accident.'

He made it very clear that one should not lend oneself to the wrongs which one condemns, such as the Israeli genocide of Palestinians or the US/NATO war against Russia through Ukraine that is leading toward nuclear war.  By voting for the so-called "lesser of two evils," one is voting for evil and lending oneself to the wrongs one condemns.  It is blatant hypocrisy and a vote for the warfare state.

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As synchronicity would have it, down the winding road a short walk from where we are staying, sits tiny Rock Harbor in Orleans where a fleet of fishing boats are docked on Cape Cod Bay.  Directly across the road rises a massive tower and huge stone basilica that is part of the compound for The Church of the Transfiguration.  It describes itself simply as the Community of Jesus and across its front is a long large sign in red, white, and blue emblazoned with a star and the word JOY.

Since I first saw this anomalous place a few of years ago, it struck me as more than strange and out of place, a ritzy "religious" enclave to a capitalist God.  I wondered how it was financed.  Intuition told me it was something more than a community of 275 members who claim to be an ecumenical Christian community in the Benedictine monastic tradition, but I didn't take time to investigate.  From the little that I did learn, I was reminded of the American Orthodox Catholic Church in the Little Italy section of the northern Bronx.  As Peter Levenda has reported in his trilogy, Sinister Forces, this church was a front for U.S. intelligence agencies in the Cold War with the U.S.S.R.  He says,

As it turns out, the AOCC was a front for American intelligence, specifically anti-communist activities in the United States and abroad. It was created by a Ukrainian Orthodox priest with impeccable credentials who ran anti-communist crusades in the States in the 1940s-1960s. Suspected Kennedy assassination conspirators David Ferrie and Jack Martin were members.

It was not until earlier this year when I was contemplating and mourning the self-immolation of Adam Bushnell, the US airman who burnt himself to death outside the Israeli embassy in Washington, D.C. protesting the Israeli genocide in Gaza, that I thought again of The Church of the Transfiguration.  Bushnell, who was once a member of this church, left these words:

Many of us like to ask ourselves, 'What would I do if I was alive during slavery? Or the Jim Crow South? Or apartheid? What would I do if my country was committing genocide?' The answer is, you're doing it. Right now.

His powerful words and tragic death moved me deeply.  I thought of Roger LaPorte, a former seminarian and a Catholic Worker who in 1965 immolated himself in front of the United Nations building in New York City protesting the U.S. war against Vietnam, while the Catholic Church, led by Cardinal Spellman of New York supported the war with the vigor of John Wayne in The Green Berets.  Ruthless jingoism then and now, the lust for killing "others," such as Vietnamese and Palestinians over the decades.  Worthless people to the War Party.  And two young men whose consciences drove them to extreme acts of protest.

Yesterday I remembered what I read in The New York Post and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation investigation in February about Adam Bushnell and The Church of the Transfiguration.  These reports assert that the church is a cult and that Bushnell grew up here in the Rock Harbor community where his parents still live. The reports claim that members are mind-controlled and abused, and they are raised to strictly obey and follow some secret agenda.  The church says it stands with Israel, which is what Bushnell emphatically came to reject, for he stood with the Palestinians, even literally standing as he courageously took his life in flames.  Like all cults, money doesn't seem a problem for this strange community.  One thinks also of Jim Jones and the People's Temple and its strange intelligence connections.  As John Judge has documented in "The Black Hole of Guyana":

The connection of intelligence agencies to cults is nothing new. A simple but revealing example is the Unification Church, tied to both the Korean CIA (i.e., American CIA in Korea), and the international fascist network known as the World Anti-Communist League (WACL). The Moonies hosted WACL's first international conference.[217] What distinguished Jonestown was both the level of control and the openly sinister involvement. It was imperative that they cover their tracks.[218]

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The sky and ocean here on Cape Cod are very restless and constantly changing, even as people come here to rest, to be still for a while.  The movement of the waves and clouds, the shore birds flitting and floating before and above one, the constant breaking of the waves on the shore, and the long looks far out to where the ocean seems to disappear, create dreamy minds, if one allows it.  I am no exception, and this place no doubt increases my tendency to mental vagabonding.  Yet I am one with Thoreau when he says, "I fear chiefly lest my expression may not be extra-vagant enough."  For I began with mirages and will drift back to them.  They come in many forms, but all contain the sense of being deluded.  This is the lesson of Plato's Cave and Eastern philosophy's idea of maya, among many ancient warnings. "Shams and delusions are esteemed for soundest truths, while reality is fabulous," Thoreau said truly.  Yet when we turn to the realm of politics in our times, as we must when vacations cease, we are forced back to contemplate the insidious nature of the scoundrel politicians and leaders of all sorts who capture so many minds with lies and mirages of false hope on the horizon.

Most people don't like to see the summer end, but another Fall is approaching.  A different reality beckons.

End of article.

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7. Israel launches expanded strikes in Syria targeting military and civilian infrastructure

Last night at 23.20 local Damascus time Israel began one of the most extensive and destructive attacks against multiple civilian and military targets across Syria. It is described even by Zionist media as "unusual" in its ferocity and analysts in Syria have concluded that it is the most comprehensive aggression since 2011 when the regime change war against Syria began in earnest - backed by Israel, keen to break the spine of the Resistance Axis.

Watch one of the videos filmed during the Israeli aggression:

The assault on the night of September 8th marks a significant escalation amidst rising tensions in the region since October 7th.

Syrian Ministry of Defense Statement

According to an official statement from the Syrian Ministry of Defense, the attack began at 11:20 PM when Israeli warplanes launched airstrikes from northwest Lebanon, aimed at military installations in Syria's central region. Syrian air defense systems were activated immediately, successfully intercepting and destroying several incoming missiles. However, the attack resulted in three casualties and 15 injuries, in addition to extensive material damage.

Masyaf is to the west of Homs and Hama in the purple section.

According to the Director of the National Hospital - Dr Faisal Haidar - in Masyaf (north-west of Homs City) there are fourteen martyrs and forty-three injuries including six in critical condition.

At approximately 1.50 am Syrian Air Defence detected Israeli fighter jets over the Mediterranean sea and responded with a barrage of surface-to-air missiles. At approximately 2.35 am, a second Israeli aggression targeted the central region of Syria, prompting further defensive responses from the Syrian Air Defences.

The second attack involved Israeli suicide drones. During this attack, Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) photographer Azzam Al-Omar was injured and transported to the Masyaf National Hospital.

Targeted Sites and Consequences

Ibrahim Wahdi, Syrian journalist and military analyst with Press TV told me:

The primary target of the Israeli strikes was the Scientific Research Center in Masyaf, a facility that is responsible for military development, especially missile capabilities of all types. The attack triggered large fires across two mountainous areas, prompting the deployment of civil defense and firefighting units. Despite their efforts, the fires continued to rage into the night, causing further destruction.

In the first aggression, Israeli warplanes fired over 15 missiles in three coordinated waves, attacking from two different directions. One axis was from the Mediterranean Sea, passing over Idlib in northern Syria, a region with limited air defenses. [Idlib is the largest Al Qaeda haven since 9/11 -backed by Israel) The second axis was from northern Lebanon, where Syrian air defenses managed to neutralize and destroy the majority of the missiles.

Although Syrian air defenses initially thwarted the first wave of the attack, Israel responded by unleashing a "belt of fire" with an increased volume of missile launches. Unfortunately, some missiles managed to hit their targets.

The road from Masyaf to Wadi Al-Eyun.

The strikes severely affected local essential infrastructure - closed the Masyaf to Wadi Al-Eyun road and caused extensive damage to underground water pipes, destroying a major water storage tank. Heavy machinery was deployed to urgently clear debris from the road.

It is not suprising that Israel is targeting water supply infrastructure in Syria having already waged war on water in Gaza and West Bank - Oxfam report 'Water War Crimes'

This report establishes that the scale of the Israeli military operation in Gaza in response to Palestinian armed groups' attack on Israel on 7 October 2023 has resulted in the widespread and disproportionate destruction of civilian infrastructure essential for the provision of basic lifesaving water and sanitation services. Additionally, the 'total siege' imposed by the Government of Israel on Gaza, including restrictions on the provision of piped water and electricity, fuel deliveries, and entry of water and sanitation supplies, materials, equipment, tools and spare parts, compounded by the destruction of key roads and infrastructure and widespread insecurity, has severely undermined and debilitated efforts to save lives.

Statements by Israeli officials, such as the announcement of a 'total siege' by Defence Minister Yoav Gallant on 9 October 2023, may be evidence of the Government of Israel's use of water deprivation as a weapon of war. As noted above, experts who have reviewed the available evidence consider that the systematic attacks on water and sanitation infrastructure, including cutting off Mekorot water lines and destroying critical facilities, suggest a coordinated effort to cripple Gaza's water supply. Additionally, the imposed restrictions and bureaucratic obstacles preventing the entry of essential humanitarian supplies, as well as the destruction of infrastructure necessary for the operation, repair, and maintenance of water systems, have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis.

Syrian Air Defence Response

Syrian Air Defence teams put on an impressive display of coordination and expertise in response to the Israeli assault - despite the systematic efforts by the Israeli regime to destroy Syria's defence capability since 2011.

Syrian missiles were spotted over Haifa in the Palestinian Occupied Territories. This indicates the use of the S-200 missile defence system, capable of long-range interception. Additionally, falling debris was reported to have caused material damage in Al-Majd, a suburb of the Syrian coastal city of Tartous.

Ibrahim Wahdi:

The Syrian Air Defence Network demonstrated a professional collective performance under real war conditions. In the face of a premeditated Israeli attack on several key targets, the air defence forces responded with significant firepower, intercepting and downing the majority of incoming missiles.

Despite Israel's best efforts to conduct a Suppression of Enemy Air Defences (SEAD) operation, designed to neutralise hostile air defences, the Syrian forces held their ground under extremely difficult and testing circumstances.

The Syrian Air Defence engaged Israeli warplanes and missiles in two successive waves and succeeded in maintaining their operational capability. They continued to intercept missiles throughout the night while maneuvering and switching locations during the onslaught to avoid attack.

I have been saying for some time that the Syrian Air Defence is probably one of the most experienced in the world today despite the equipment being old Soviet technology and despite facing some of the most sophisticated missiles supplied by the US alliance to Israel.

The Syrian Air Defenses confronted, with high proficiency, several waves of the most advanced Israeli bombs such as SPICE 1000 and GBU-39 using old tech Soviet air defenses. Ibrahim Wahdi

Drone Attacks and Israeli Strategy

As the crescendo to the aggression Israel deployed suicide drones, specifically high-precision 'Harop' drones to target the Syrian Air Defence batteries that had successfully countered the earlier waves of missiles. Syrian AD shot down 12 Israeli drones near Tartous, Banias and Jableh (on the coast) highlighting again the resilience of these AD teams despite their tech challenges.

The Israeli drones did not only target Syrian military assets but also civilian infrastructure including a bulldozer that was attempting to clear a road in the burning forests (as a result of the attacks), an ambulance and a vehicle belonging to Hama's Director of Technical Services - Engineer Hakam Al Sbahi - who was also injured in the attacks and taken to Masyaf National Hospital.

Attacks on Civil Defence, Ambulances and other public service workers is also not a novelty for the Zionist genocidal regime - attacks on these workers and equipment has been a signature of the genocide in Gaza and West Bank and the conflict in southern Lebanon.

Other Israeli strikes came perilously close to civilian areas. A missile landed near a religious shrine in the village of Samaka, causing minor damage and injuring a shrine official.

Russian and French Involvement

Russian warplanes were seen conducting air patrols off the Syrian coast, serving as a deterrent to Israeli fighter jets. However, during the Israeli raids, Russian aircraft refrained from active engagement due to the heavy Syrian air defense operations, which rendered the airspace hazardous for the Russian planes.

A French Air Force spy plane specializing in electronic warfare was also reported to be conducting reconnaissance over southern Syria from inside Jordanian airspace, further complicating the geopolitical dynamics in the region.

Military and Political Analysis

This strike represents one of the largest and most comprehensive Israeli attacks on Syria in recent years. Israel's strategy was multifaceted, combining conventional airstrikes with advanced drone warfare to attempt to overwhelm Syrian Air Defences and to target both military and civilian infrastructure in a show of force.

Ibrahim Wahdi:

The decision to attack the Masyaf Scientific Research Center highlights Israel's ongoing focus on preventing Syria from developing military capabilities, especially those related to missile technology, knowing that Syria has been the lifeline for the Resistance in Lebanon and the West Bank. In January 2023 the Jordanian authorities seized weapons from Syria and Iran, including RPG-22 anti-tank launchers, RPO launchers and 107mm rockets, that were on their way to the West Bank.

Syria's Air Defence Forces, despite being under continuous pressure, showcased a high level of coordination and resilience. The effective use of long-range S-200 missiles and seamless integration between radar battalions, air defence batteries, and electronic warfare units contributed to Syria's ability to fend off multiple waves of attacks.

The fact that Syrian missiles reached the skies over Haifa underscores the depth of Syria's air defence capabilities, even though they face significant limitations. That is why Israel consider the Syrian Scientific Research Facilities to be a significant threat. The development work by Syrian engineers and scientists has not ceased despite the 13 year war waged against the country by US-led external forces and their terrorist proxies.

A reminder of Israel's fear of Syrian military development - a report published by Tel-Aviv think thank - The Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University. The report (in Hebrew) is titled 'Strengthening the Syrian Army - a threat to Israel.

The INSS describes its mission on its English website:

The Institute for National Security Studies launches and engages in innovative, relevant, high-quality research that shapes the public discourse of issues on Israel's national security agenda, and provides policy analysis and recommendations to decision makers, public leaders, and the strategic community, both in Israel and abroad. As part of its mission, it is committed to encourage new ways of thinking and expand the traditional contours of establishment analysis. (Emphasis added)

The report begins:

After more than a decade of the Syrian Army being busy with the 'civil war', it is now increasingly turning its attention towards the old enemy – Israel – and is working to regain its power lost during the bloody war. How does the army – strengthen on the conventional and unconventional plane – and what should Israel do?

In the past year the Syrian Army which was severely damaged during the "civil war" has been undergoing accelerated rehabilitation, in parallel with the country's civilian reconstruction, and necessarily at its expense. Although the Syrian army faces many challenges and is still far from being a threat to Israel, this article examines its intensification efforts, which already present a potential for a strategic threat that must be recognized: In the conventional plane – missile capabilities, as UAVs and air defense; and in the unconventional plane – chemical weapons attack capability; and nuclear capabilities may be developed.

Finally, the article will be summarized in recommendations to Israel in view of these threats, mainly defining red lines for Syrian intensification, Incorporating the campaign activity war between the wars 

You can watch my discussion of this report with Syrian journalist Kevork Almassian here.

Ibrahim Wahdi on Israel's use of drones:

Israel's use of suicide drones to neutralize Syrian air defence positions marks a dangerous escalation. These drones, often equipped with precision-guided munitions, present a significant challenge to Syrian forces, who must now contend with both missile strikes and unmanned aerial assaults. However, the Syrian military's ability to shoot down 12 drones indicates a progressive proficiency in counter-drone operations.

Moving forward, it seems probable that Israel will continue with intermittent attacks on the Syrian Air Defence systems, forcing Syria to constantly shift and adapt its defence positions.

The ongoing Russian military presence in the region provides Syria with a strategic advantage although Russia has, to date, restricted involvement to weapons supply, training and surveillance rather than direct military intervention against Israeli forces which has potential to ignite an expanded regional war - something that Israel is trying to provoke and the Resistance alliance is trying to restrict and manage.

The Russian involvement does however have a shielding role which prevents the neutralisation of Syrian defence capability and strategic assets while Russia collaborates on systems development and training of the Syrian armed forces.

Ibrahim Wahdi:

This escalation signals that the conflict in Syria remains a focal point, as the geographical and geopolitical spine of the Resistance Axis, for broader competing interests in the Middle East. The future of the conflict will depend on how each side adapts to the evolving military and political landscape, but for now, the skies over Syria remain a contested battleground.

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Please do consider subscribing to my Substack for on the ground reports from Syria and the region. You will not find this information on the BBC. Thank you to all those already contributing, you are hugely appreciated. xx

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8. Gaza under siege and biowarfare in next phase of genocide - UK regime increases pressure on anti-genocide citizens

Oh look! Gaza journalist Bisan Owda is not allowed to voice her reservations about the Zionist Polio vaccine campaign on YouTube (I republished her video)

Bisan's full report is here:

And I will publish Crispin Flintoff's full interview with Sarah Wilkinson here in case anyone has not seen it yet:

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Vanessa Beeley is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

9. Was journalist who had tea with ISIS sacked from The Guardian for sexual assault and violence?

Martin Chulov, longstanding Middle East correspondent for The Guardian

According to a Daily Mail report, former Guardian journalist Martin Chulov is under investigation for allegedly sexually assaulting and hitting a woman. The Daily Mail report does now appear to have mysteriously disappeared.

Chulov also faces separate allegations of violence towards another woman and subjecting her to coercive control. After investigation Chulov was apparently cleared as no further action was taken against him.

Chulov has not reported for The Guardian since April. According to the Mail, he was sacked after internal complaints against him were "upheld". Chulov is denying all charges which include racist slurs against Arabs and Turks. You can read more here.

I did mention that the article at the Daily Mail does appear to have dematerialised. An investigation (February 2018) that I did into Chulov's work supporting regime change in Syria and the associated terrorist groups that he (and many other establishment media outlets) described as "rebels" - may just provide the answers as to why Chulov appears to be well protected:

SYRIA: The Guardian Journalist who takes 'Afternoon Tea' with ISIS and Survives.

A May 2014 Guardian headline from Martin Chulov whitewashing terrorist faction crimes in East Aleppo.

The war in Syria has resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands, the majority are most likely to be from among the Syrian Arab Army soldiers, defending their country and their people against the wave of terrorism that has been unleashed upon Syria by a cabal of over seventy UN member states. Another regime change war under the familiar banner of "humanitarian" intervention on behalf of the "people" who are, again, dying in droves thanks entirely to this latest US/UK/EU-Coalition proxy military intervention. 

Who created that war, fuelled it, armed it and maintained it? The US/UK/EU Coalition supported by its client states in Saudi Arabia and Israel. Who ensured that the public in the West only received notification of a remote "humanitarian" crisis that we must prevent, at all costs? Who produced the villains, manufactured the heroes?  The corporate and state media in the West, that's who.

As a senior British intelligence official noted of the 2001 US-led invasion of Afghanistan – 'It is always helpful for governments who want to get the Guardian readers of the world on board, to have a humanitarian logic.' ~ MediaLens

In this series of articles I would like to raise specific questions with reference to The Guardian and its journalists who have played a crucial role in the maintenance of a narrative that whitewashes the crimes that 'Global Britain' is committing against the sovereign nation of Syria and its people. I will look at the roles of individual journalists and The Guardian as a whole in gatekeeping truth and protecting power during the almost seven year conflict that has raged inside Syria.

The Guardian August 2012.

Back in 2012, The Guardian began its campaign to justify "humanitarian" intervention in Syria, by global players such as the UK, US and EU. One of its earliest "summaries of the latest developments" headlined with the execution of "Shabiha" by "rebels in Aleppo". So, The Guardian left us in no doubt as to the direction its bias was going to take. Shabiha is the derogatory term employed by all terrorist & "moderate" extremist factions inside Syria, to describe anyone who does not adhere to their sectarian ideology and who, by default, must be a "Syrian regime supporter" – eligible for extra-judicial execution. The executioners, violating all rules of law concerning war, are glorified as "rebels". The Guardian has rarely, if ever, deviated from this portrayal of the Syrian conflict and has fed images of "good rebel" versus "bad Shabiha" to its liberal/left 'moderate' readership for the last seven years, with very few exceptions.

This headline was produced after a phone call between The Guardian and the Liwa Al Tawhid Brigade (ATB) financed by Qatar, France and Turkey. ATB were formed in preparation for the invasion of Aleppo in 2012, with one objective, to take Syria's industrial capital by force. Like so many of the so-called "moderate" groups, they have escaped classification as an 'official' terrorist faction:

"Since December 2015, the UN Security Council has been trying to assemble a list of terrorist groups in Syria. Russia, Lebanon, Egypt, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates support classifying Liwa al-Tawhid as a terrorist group, but they have not been able to achieve a unanimous consensus." ~ Stanford.edu

The Guardian does not allude to ATB's terrorist leanings, instead they convey the concept of a 'unifying force' to their readership:

"In a telephone interview with the Guardian, a spokesman for the Tawheed ("Unification") Brigade in Aleppo has described "field trials" of shabiha suspects. He said those believed to have been involved in killing were executed, while others are being kept for trial "after the collapse of the regime"."

I do not advise watching some of the videos that circulated around the same time as The Guardian presented this misleading headline. They depict the massacres of SAA soldiers & police officers, some beheaded, many bodies mutilated beyond recognition, hands tied behind their backs, twisted, broken corpses piled up against a wall. It is inhumanity on a grotesque scale but according to The Guardian's misrepresentation, entirely justifiable, because, after all, they are suspected "Shabiha".

The capture of a "suspected" Shabiha. July 31st 2012. Aleppo.

"The footage shows several bloodied men stripped down to their underwear being forced to kneel by a wall amidst a throng of excited, machine gun-touting men. Once their captors open fire, the camera jerks away as the crowd momentarily disperses, seemingly unprepared for the nearly 40 seconds of uninterrupted shooting that follows. As the gunfire dies down, shouts of "Allahu Akbar!" resound as the once skittish onlookers victoriously raise their guns in the air, approaching what appears to be a pile of stripped-down corpses. Clive Baldwin, a senior legal adviser for Human Rights Watch (HRW), told BBC News: "What it looks like is execution of detainees and if that is the case, that would be a war crime." ~ War Crime?

So, The Guardian dehumanisation of the Syrian Arab Army began, and has continued until today. "The Syrian Arab Army belongs to the people and the Syrian people belong to the Army" – is the description most frequently given to me by the families of SAA martyrs, inside Syria, but The Guardian has steadfastly denied this fact. It does not compute with their "humanitarian" war narrative that must have a tangible villain for it to be effective.

From the beginning of the conflict, The Guardian and its journalists have effectively colluded with terrorist factions inside Syria. They have presented their version of the facts as truth almost without question and have failed in their journalistic duty to fully explore diverging views that might drammatically alter public perception of the Syrian conflict, in the West. The Guardian has sensationalised the Syrian conflict, paid no heed to its multi-layered complexities and has regularly presented the terrorist factions as conservative "freedom fighters".

Martin Chulov

According to Martin Chulov's Guardian biography, he "covers the Middle East for the Guardian, won the Orwell prize for journalism in 2015″. 

In a 2016 article, entitled "Ground down by savagery – the agony of Aleppo" Chulov informs his readers that:

"In more than 10 journeys to Aleppo, from that first visit in 2012 until my last in December 2014, I have chronicled the decline of one of the world's oldest continually inhabited cities as it has been ground down by savagery. Modern warfare has done what uprising and invasion have failed to do throughout the ages, transforming half the city into a shell of its prewar self, and imperilling an ancient core that has weathered centuries of conflict and even a devastating earthquake." (emphasis added)

Chulov also mentions:

"The rebel-held east was the focus of all my visits; west Aleppo has remained off-limits, functioning with little disruption and firmly under the control of the Syrian regime, which refuses visa requests." (emphasis added)

From these two statements it can be ascertained that it is extremely unlikely that Chulov has ever entered Syria legally. He has most probably entered East Aleppo via Turkey, with some degree of terrorist facilitation along the route and during his time in East Aleppo. It is worth asking The Guardian if Chulov has ever applied for a visa with the correct authorities in Damascus, a process that all foreign journalists must follow in order to enter Syria and one that most legitimate journalists respect.

I took the liberty of making such enquiries with the Media Ministry in Damascus who informed me that they have no record of any such application from Chulov during the timespan he describes in his article – from 2012-2014, nor in the years following his initial exploration of the Nusra Front/Al Qaeda dominated eastern suburbs of Aleppo.

Chulov's claim that the Syrian government 'refuse visa requests' appears dishonest on the basis that there is no record of Chulov ever having applied for one. The fact that Chulov has entered Syria illegally and has spent time with terrorist factions in East Aleppo would be basis enough for any self-respecting government to refuse him access to the areas most under threat from those same terrorist factions.

Any sane human being would have no problem grasping that logical reaction, but the fact remains, Chulov has never attempted to report on the Syrian conflict from the perspective of those who support the Syrian state, the Syrian Arab Army and its allies in their battle against international terrorism. In other words, Chulov has failed to address the concerns of 80% of the Syrian population in West Aleppo in favour of a terrorist controlled narrative of 20% of civilians in East Aleppo. Civilians who were largely being held hostage, starved, imprisoned, executed, or used as human shields by the terrorist factions that Chulov associated with.

For further insight into the disingenuity of many western journalists' claims of "no visa", I highly recommend reading Sharmine Narwani's article  in Al Akhbar – Western Journalist, Visa Denied.

In his "Ground down by savagery" article, Chulov describes Aleppo as:

"Aleppo had been a focal point of the initial civic protests, and was now an epicentre of a rebel push, the scars of which were everywhere." 

Tony Sayegh is a surgeon registered with the Aleppo Medical Association in West Aleppo. A surgeon who stayed in West Aleppo to help civilians during the five year occupation of East Aleppo by Nusra Front and allied extremist factions. Sayegh categorically disagrees with Chulov's version of events.

"The people of Aleppo lived a normal life like in any city. It was a quiet town. Aleppo is Syria's economic and industrial capital. During the first year of the Syrian crisis many people moved here from other cities, because in Aleppo it was quiet and the economical situation was good.

In July 2012 everything changed. But it was not the residents of Aleppo who rebelled against the rulers. Parts of the city were invaded by armed groups with fighters from other areas of Syria and from other countries. Tony Sayegh believes that the interests at stake of the invasion was much bigger than the control of a single city.

The attempt to overthrow the government of Syria with weapons and riots had failed. Then they decided to focus on Aleppo, to turn against the whole Syrian economy. The armed groups took over the water utilitys and power plants to stop the supplys to the residents, and they focused on the industries. Entire factorys were taken down and driven to Turkey. They stole everything. That was when everything turned upside down and the bad days of Aleppo began." ~ Aleppo been under fire from Terrorists for four years.

Sayegh's testimony is echoed not only by other doctors and medical staff in West Aleppo, like Dr Nabil Antaki (gastroenterologist), Dr Zahar Buttal (Director of Aleppo Medical Association), Dr Bassem Hayak (Director of Ibn Khaldoun Psychiatric Hospital)  but it was also confirmed, almost universally, by civilians in both West and East Aleppo prior to and after liberation of East Aleppo by the SAA and allies in December 2016.

Chulov chose to embed himself with the extremist and terrorist factions that ruled East Aleppo with violence, brutality and sectarian elitism for almost five years. This choice resulted in The Guardian effectively lionising terrorism to its readers, while denigrating the Syrian Arab Army who were both victims of the terrorist brutality and ultimate victors against their forces during the final liberation of East Aleppo in December 2016.

Chulov mentions the occupation of the hospitals in East Aleppo by "rebel" factions "We drove past a hospital complex that rebel groups were busy commandeering as a headquarters", yet he later condemns the targeting of those hospitals by Russian planes during final months of the Syrian military campaign to drive out the many brigades of cross border militants and terrorists: 

"…taking to more than 40 the number of hospitals and medical clinics that had been destroyed and damaged in east Aleppo since the Russian intervention to support the Syrian leader one year ago."

Chulov also hugely exaggerated the targeting of hospitals in East Aleppo as did the majority of mainstream media and UN affiliated NGOs. After Aleppo's liberation, I personally visited and walked around many of the original hospitals in East Aleppo, that had been occupied in the main by Nusra Front and were most definitely not treating Syrian civilians except on rare occasions.

I can hear the chorus of "not everyone is a terrorist" from the defenders of the "humanitarian war" narrative, even as I write this article. So I will present a little more evidence of Chulov's affinity with the terrorist community during his ten clandestine trips to East Aleppo:

I start with the image in Chulov's 2016 "savagery" article with the caption "A wounded rebel fighter is carried to safety, October 2012."  What an emotive image and with the "rebel" moniker attached, I am sure it pulled on a few heart strings back at base in the UK. These militants have been identified as Nusra Front, Al Qaeda in Syria – from the headbands. Do we suppose that in 2012, Chulov was ignorant of the symbols, flags and logos that differentiated the various terrorist factions from their marginally less extremist counterparts?

Image from The Guardian.

Chulov – Aleppo August 2012

The 'kittenization' of the "rebels":

"As they do they need to avoid trampling on the only other thing that seems to be living at ground zero of the battle for Syria – kittens. Rebels have taken in many of them, and it's not uncommon to find a gnarled, sweaty guerrilla sleeping on the floor of a commandeered flat with an abandoned kitten asleep on his chest."

Chulov – Aleppo August 2012

"Were Aleppo to fall it would almost certainly be followed by Damascus, amplifying the 1500 [sic] schism between Shia Islam, whose leaders are backing the regime and the region's Sunnis, whom mostly oppose it."

Bring in the false sectarian narrative, one that is palpably misleading. Most moderate Sunnis in Syria support the Syrian state and Army. All Syrians that I have spoken to inside Syria would be horrified to hear such a sectarian statement being made on their behalf. Syrians consider themselves to be Syrian first, their religion is secondary. Aside from that, the Syrian government and the Syrian Arab Army are majority Sunni Muslim in their make up.

Chulov then reiterates the "no visa" canard – "It is difficult to gauge though; any reporter found by an official without a regime-issued visa for entering Syria would quickly experience life on the inside of the feared police state, the pillars of which are in an administrative district only two miles away." I am pretty sure that if  a US or UK security official discovered a foreign agent in their country, having tea with a known terrorist organisation, without an entry Visa, they would also take the individual in for questioning – even in peace time.

Throughout his series of East Aleppo or Idlib reports, Chulov moves unhindered and safely among terrorist factions that include ISIS and Nusra Front:

"(Chulov) writes from a roadhouse near Aleppo where jihadists and al-Qaida affiliates prepare to face the US enemy. […] Abu Abid was speaking inside a roadhouse east of Aleppo, where he and other jihadists whom he says "come from every country you could imagine" gather to eat, and drink tea or coffee.

The black banner of al-Qaida, adopted by ISIS, is more prominent in al-Bab than the gold-edged flag of the other al-Qaida-linked group, Jabhat al-Nusra, or the regular units of the Free Syrian Army. Behind two wrought-iron gates was the ISIS command centre, emptied of most of its men before the anticipated air strikes." ~ American threats widen fault lines among Syria's rebels

In September 2013 (in the same article) Chulov is interviewing an ISIS leader in Al Bab:

"ISIS's leader, Abu Ismail sees little threat from an Awakening Movement in Syria. Himself an Iraqi, a veteran of al-Qaida's operations in his homeland, he said:

"We are good with the people here. If an emir does something wrong he will be punished according to the sharia too. There is not one rule for us and one for the people. A Sahawa is not something that we think about."

This discussion with the ISIS leader is not a one off. Chulov had also previously communicated with Abu Ismael in November 2012:

"Abu Ismael made no secret of his wish for Syria to be the heartland of an al-Qaida-led renaissance. Nor, unusually, did he hide what he had done in Iraq, or what he planned to do in the new war. In a candid hour-long discussion, he offered a rare insight into the terror group's designs on Syria and the organisation's fraught battle to assert itself. "I was a member of the al-Qaida organisation from 2005-11," he said, his black eyes set in an unflinching stare. "I joined them with my father when I was 16 and apart from one and a half months in prison, I was very active in every way."

While Chulov was talking with Ismael, American journalist, Theo Padnos (photo above) was being tortured and beaten, imprisoned in the East Aleppo Eye & Childrens Hospital in Qadi Askar, East Aleppo. The Eye Hospital and Childrens Hospital was a huge complex, at that time partially under control of ISIS, later taken over fully by Nusra Front in 2014.

Padnos, according to his testimony had been captured by Nusra Front and brought to the Childrens Hospital in East Aleppo.  These hospitals were used as a Sharia Court, prisons, torture chambers and an execution centre for Syrian civilians who did not capitulate to the extremist ideology of their occupiers, the US coalition-funded, armed and supported terrorist factions.  The video below was filmed during my visit to these premises in April/May 2017. Watch:

Somehow, while in the company of Ismael for an hour in November 2012 and again, one year later in 2013, Chulov seemingly failed to mention the kidnapping and detention of Padnos. Chulov also didnt bring up the US photojournalist, Matthew Schrier, who joined Padnos in his East Aleppo cell in January 2013.

Then there is Steven Sotloff, kidnapped by ISIS, in Aleppo,  in August 2013, allegedly beheaded in September 2014. Remember that Chulov was sat taking tea with ISIS in Al Bab, one month after Sotloff's kidnapping. Rather than address the terrorist misdemeanours against other media colleagues  in The Guardian, Chulov, prefers to convey a quaint sense of camaraderie and conviviality among terrorists.

"Kalashnikovs are laid across tables next to salt and pepper shakers, which the waiters gently rearrange to serve plates of grilled chicken and salads." ~ Chulov in Al Bab

John Cantile with armed "moderate" extremist in Aleppo 2012. Photo: Daily Mail

In November 2012, John Henry Cantile, a British journalist and James Foley, an American "journalist" were kidnapped in Idlib. Foley was later allegedly beheaded by ISIS in 2014. Cantile is still missing and it has never been reliably confirmed if he is dead or alive.

You might think that Chulov would be deterred by all these kidnappings and beheadings of media personnel. At least two experienced journalists have later expressed a reluctance to enter such terrorist strongholds as East Aleppo or Idlib:

PATRICK COCKBURN: "One factor making the sieges of east Aleppo and east Mosul so similar, and different, from past sieges in the Middle East, such as the Israeli [sic] siege of Beirut in 1982 or of Gaza in 2014, is that there are no independent foreign journalists present. They are not there for the very good reason that Isis imprisons and beheads foreigners while Jabhat al-Nusra, until recently the al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, is only a shade less bloodthirsty and generally holds them for ransom." ~ Patrick Cockburn for the Independent, December 2016.

PETER OBORNE: "I met one schoolmistress who had just made a terrifying journey from her home in an Islamic State-controlled area just east of Aleppo to collect her monthly salary of 30,000 Syrian pounds (about £50) from the education directorate in the city centre.  Before the war, this journey had taken barely 40 minutes. Hers had taken five days as she made her away across Al-Nusra and Islamic State road blocks.  The teacher told me that in her home town she was made to dress entirely in black. She said simply: 'They will kill me if I show any flesh.'  She was forced to live indoors, except when being ordered into the public square to witness the frequent beheadings and crucifixions." ~ Peter Oborne,  in West Aleppo, February 2016.

View from inside the Citadel in the Old City, 8 hours after its liberation from Nusra Front. December 2016. (Photo: Vanessa Beeley)

Chulov appears oblivious or impervious to such risks. In May 2014, he was back in East Aleppo, among his "rebel" hosts who had just tunneled under and detonated one of the most iconic buildings in Aleppo City, the Carlton Hotel, which was nestled at the base of the City's ancient Citadel. Apart from the wanton destruction – the attack, which used 25T of explosives, massacred the Syrian Arab Army soldiers who used the hotel as a barracks on the front lines with the terrorist factions. These soldiers were preventing terrorist advances deeper into the civilian areas of West Aleppo, they were murdered while defending Syrian civilians yet Chulov's description is far from condemnatory:.

"The giant plumes of dirt and rubble that ballooned several hundred metres skyward as the hotel crumbled, killing 30-50 Syrian troops, have fast become one of the most jaw-dropping images of Syria's civil war […] Flush with the success of the bomb, Assad chose to reveal himself to the Guardian as the leader of Aleppo's tunnellers. He claimed not to be bothered by the fact that showing his face would give an already furious military even more reason to hunt him down. "I want them to be scared of me," he said. "They need to know I am coming for them." ~ Aleppo's Most Wanted Man

This is the distressing video of the destruction of the Carlton Hotel: 

"Medieval savagery" is one of the terms that Chulov applies liberally to the SAA and its allies but never to the terrorist atrocities, in fact, I have not found one
reference in Chulov's articles from East Aleppo, to the daily mortar & hell cannon attacks, suicide bombings, sniping of Syrian civilians on the "other side" in West Aleppo. During over four years, more than 11,000 civilians were brutally killed, countless more maimed or mutilated as a result of those attacks on densely populated residential areas of West Aleppo. The majority of those innocent victims were children.

In October 2014, Chulov is back in the terrorist occupied Old City of Aleppo, right on the West-East frontlines between the SAA and Nusra Front/ISIS-led terrorist factions. Chulov is unapologetically mingling with ISIS fighters:

"Nearby, the Islamic Front maintains a field clinic, where its fighters are treated for wounds sustained in clashes with regime troops around the ancient citadel less than a mile away. Islamic Front fighters move slowly through the heart of the Old City's streets; some shelter in a giant atrium near a soap factory that a dog-eared sign says is heritage listed" ~ Chulov, Aleppo – Hell is Never Far Away.

Conclusions

The ease with which Chulov associates with members of Syria's terrorist classes is worthy of some serious investigation. The Guardian has apparently endorsed the embedding of journalists inside Syria's borders without the permission or knowledge of the Syrian government. Were there to be another Baba Amr incident when Marie Colvin was killed in 2012, having illegally ventured deep inside "moderate" extremist territory in Homs, would The Guardian be crying "casus belli" and expressing outrage that the Syrian government has not assured the safety of their "spooks" in Aleppo or Idlib?

Chulov has very possibly entered Syria under the protection of cross border militants or terrorists, he has entered exclusively into terrorist controlled areas of Syria. As a recent BBC Panorama report – Jihadis You Pay For – pointed out:

"The money of British tax payers is being spent very poorly, it is unfortunately strengthening the extremists and Islamic groups, currently in control of the majority of "opposition" areas"

Extremist and Islamic groups are in control of the majority of opposition areas and Chulov is unaffected, on the contrary his rhetoric suggests he is comfortable with this close association. Certainly, he has emerged unscathed by any of the attacks or kidnappings that have affected so many other 'undercover' media agents or 'humanitarian' actors operating inside the terrorist controlled zones.

Chulov could argue that he is covertly gathering information on the terrorist groups but his articles do not substantiate that claim, if it exists. He effectively amplifies their justifications for the crimes those terrorist factions commit against the Syrian people and Army. These are not indigenous or misguided Syrian "rebels", they are recognised terrorist or terrorist sub-groups who have a documented record of committing atrocities, not only in Syria.

Chulov depicts the Syrian conflict as a deeply sectarian one, he magnifies that narrative at every opportunity:

"All around the edges of Aleppo, yellow and green Shia flags flutter in the wind." 

This description is taken from a September 2016 article co-written by Chulov and another of The Guardian's 'undercover-in-Syria' journalists, Kareem Shaheen. My experience is completely the opposite. I entered West Aleppo in August 2016 and Nov/December 2016, when I also entered East Aleppo once the various districts were empty of terrorists. I passed one checkpoint where Iranian flags were flying and that was on the Khanasser road, nowhere near the centre of Aleppo. This was a deliberate heightening of sectarian tensions by Chulov and Shaheen at a pivotal point in the Syrian military campaign and no prizes for guessing who might have fed them that line.

The portrayal of war as such a simplistic and mercilessly black and white affair is deceptive at best, deliberate misrepresentation at worst. Chulov's and the colonial media role is to ensure the closure of all doors that may just lead to a peaceful, diplomatic resolution of this conflict by whitewashing the US Coalition-backed foreign mercenaries who have invaded Syria and demonizing the forces who are preventing Syria being overrun by Islamist zealots who would show no mercy to anyone suspected of "Shabiha-ism".

Serena Shim was killed in Turkey, in October 2014, after she had the exceptional courage to report on the transferral of not only, terrorist fighters –  also, equipment, weapons and chemical weapon ingredients via the Turkish borders into the hands of the extremist militant groups in Syria. Chulov has survived seven years working among the same terrorist groups. Terrorist groups also accused of carrying out attacks in Europe. To what extent was Chulov's reporting compromised? What did he do in order to manage his immersion into this terrorist culture, when so many others perished, even those who were also portraying the "rebels" in a sympathetic light?

Did the Guardian or Chulov investigate Shim's death? A google search reveals nothing more than a typically Iran-phobic, dismissive headline (above photo) putting the responsibility for any investigation into Iran's court, despite the fact that Shim was a US citizen.

A year after Shim's death, Chulov finally reported the connection between Turkey and ISIS but has never mentioned the evident collaboration between the UK Government and terrorist affiliated groups inside Syria, such as the White Helmets, better known (by Syrian civilians) as Nusra Front's Civil Defence.

The Guardian is following a well know recipe for "Humanitarian" war, and Chulov appears to have been dispatched to bring home the ingredients from among the paid mercenaries and terrorist groups that are known to be armed and bankrolled by the US/UK coalition and architects of chaos. Recent revelations that the UK FCO may well be financing the terrorist groups via a number of outreach agents created outside & inside Syria, brings The Guardian's role into even sharper focus. Chulov is just one of a team of Guardian 'infiltrators', who appear to be working closely with those mercenaries and terrorists and whose own motives must surely be questioned.

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10. WARNING: Another Israeli Plot Against Gaza?

Last night I had a conversation with my dear friend and colleague Kevork Almassian for Syriana Analysis. We covered the growing totalitarianism in the UK and EU and the looming bankruptcy while politics goes insane. We also talked about the Israeli biowarfare in Gaza with the introduction of the oral Polio vaccine for immune suppressed Gazan children.

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Please do consider subscribing to my Substack. Your kind contributions help me to continue doing the work I do from the region. Many thanks xxx

Vanessa Beeley is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.