ZIONCONS

GUY METTAN—I didn’t pay much attention to it when I arrived, because of my fatigue, and the intense emotions provoked by all I was seeing. But when I woke up at 3 a.m., I was suddenly struck by the sound of the cannon. Every two or three minutes, a shot goes off, rattling the windows and lighting up the sky with an orange glow: It’s Russian artillery firing on Ukrainian positions a few kilometres from the town centre. The Ukrainians retaliate with missiles, drones, or HIMARS rockets, which trigger Russian counter-battery fire, at a rate of one or two an hour, I believe. The next morning, I was taught to distinguish one from the other. The HIMARS rockets are silent until the final explosion, the French SCALP and British Storm Shadow missiles make an airplane-like hum, as do the Russian anti-missile batteries, while the ordinary shells fall with a whistling sound.

GARLAND NIXON—LAITH MAROUF—Garland and Laith discuss the repercussions of Iran’s “warning” (or “symbolic”) strike on Israel, an effort to serve notice to this lunatically criminal entity that its provocations and international murders will not be further tolerated. The Iranian drone and missile attack on Apr 13 was designed, as previously commented, to cause the fewest human casualties, and to gather intelligence on the Israeli/US AD network. Iran’s warning is also good for the “collective West”, including the constantly scheming Hegemon itself. In a new development, as Israel has continued its assassinations of Hezbollah commanders, Hezbollah itself has begun to target and destroy Israeli command centers. Laith also comments on the media blockade on the Israeli mass assassinations (and mass graves recently discovered) of Palestinian victims in various hospital settings—Al Shifa, etc., most of them either patients being cared for or hospital staff, a heinous crime under international law that should have made headlines all over the world, but which Western media has simply memory-holed. Of course, not a pip has been heard from the West’s top leadership, who are too busy supporting the depraved Zionist regime.

TNA—The New Arab also spoke to Michael, a 77-year-old former US veteran from Seattle, USA. He said his decision to participate in the flotilla was a way to atone for his involvement with the US army in Vietnam.

“This is a dangerous journey to undertake, and I do ask myself, why am I here? My wife asks me why I am here. I was drafted into the Vietnam War in 1965, I was just out of high school. At the time I understood what conscientious objection was, but I did not have the courage to fight against the US military and say, no!

“But now, I am older, and as I watch what is happening to the people of Gaza, I am appalled. It is not only the children, although that is what hits me the most. But now, it is the time to object to what my country, the US is doing. This is what conscientious objection is about. I am putting my body, my money, my time, my everything on the line to say, ‘I object to what my country is doing, we should not be doing this’. I want to stand up for those people in the US who agree with what I am doing and represent my country on this journey,” said Michael. Michael said he draws courage from the people of Gaza. 

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The Grayzone has a new report out featuring leaked slides from a private Israel lobby presentation teaching politicians and prominent figures how to talk about Gaza in ways the public will be receptive to, based on focus group-tested information gathered by Republican political operative Frank Luntz. Journalist Mark Ames tweeted of the report, “This is an incredible scoop, a direct window into how the genocide-propaganda sausage is made.”

My favorite part of the article is where the author Max Blumenthal writes that Republicans and Democrats were found to be receptive to different words used to describe Israel’s genocidal violence in Gaza, saying “Republican voters prefer phrases which imply maximalist violence, like ‘eradicate’ and ‘obliterate,’ while sanitized terms like ‘neutralize’ appeal more to Democrats.”

That’s pretty much the only difference between Republicans and Democrats right there. That’s it in a nutshell.

EDITOR—Lira holds forth on the origins of Ukraine’s astonishing corruption, and the deep-seated emotional motivations for Nuland’s hatred of Russia, which Lira traces back to injuries and persecution inflicted on her great-grandfather during Russian pogroms in Bessarabia almost 150 years ago, forcing his son’s emigration to America. This emotional scar, shared by many Jews in the US establishment (Blinken, and the Kagans and the rest of the neoconservatives, for example) may explain, to some extent, their deeply-held Russophobia. Victoria Nuland, says Lira, is not a nice person. She’s a suckup to those above her and a mean tyrant to those with less power. Meanwhile, as one of the key people in charge of “the Ukraine project”, she oversees the colossal grift taking place in that country by all kinds of US and Western business and political figures, much of it huge money-laundering operations, theft and illegal use of state assets, etc.