Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Aljazeera:
"The Israeli military forced an 80-year-old Palestinian man to act as a human shield in Gaza by tying an explosive cord around his neck and threatening to have his head blown off, an investigation by the Israeli outlet The Hottest Place in Hell has found.

A senior officer from the army’s Nahal Brigade tied the explosive cord around the man’s neck before he was ordered to scout houses. After eight hours, soldiers ordered the man to flee with his wife from their home in Gaza City’s Zeitoun neighbourhood in May, said +972 magazine, which reported the piece. ...

The man was forced to act as a human shield for eight hours, before he was ordered, along with his wife, to walk towards the so-called 'humanitarian zone' in southern Gaza. But the soldiers did not care to tell nearby Israeli divisions that the couple was going to pass through the area, according to the testimonies. ... [W]hen another Israeli battalion spotted the elderly couple on the street, they were shot dead on the spot, according to Israeli soldiers present at the scene."
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/16/israeli-soldiers-used-80-year-old-palestinian-as-gaza-human-shield-report

-->The utter depravity of the IDF comes through when stories like this are reported. But you won't find these stories from our mainstream media, like the NYT. This is not a story that makes the Empire look very good.

=====          

The Times of India:
"Did the US government actively work to destabilize Bangladesh using taxpayer-funded programs? Former US State Department official Mike Benz has made explosive claims that USAID and affiliated organizations orchestrated efforts to undermine the Bangladeshi government in a bid to secure American strategic interests. [Was it] regime change for a military base?

Speaking about US foreign policy planning, Benz laid out a hypothetical—but eerily specific—scenario: 'Let’s say it is vital to US national interest to build a military base in Bangladesh to counter China, but the Bangladeshi Prime Minister refuses. Our foreign policy planners then decide that regime change is necessary.'

Benz explained that once such a decision is made, 'all options to destabilize the country' come into play. These range from backing opposition forces to orchestrating a color revolution, a reference to past US-backed uprisings where leaders have been ousted, sometimes fleeing in helicopters."
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/how-usaid-was-used-for-regime-change-in-bangladesh-former-us-state-dept-official-mike-benz-reveals/articleshow/118118878.cms

-->Is USAID used for CIA undercover operations in the Third World? Of course it is, but the US media is so lockstep that you will never read about it in the US. Now that is some control of the media! A whole week of talking about the USAID, but nothing said about its role is supporting the Empire.

=====

Common Dreams:
"U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders urged Europeans on Saturday to 'stand tall against right-wing extremism' after the American vice president scolded the continent's leaders for not accommodating parties like the neo-Nazi Alternative for Germany, which appears poised for a strong performance in the approaching general election.
 
'European friends: Do not accept lectures on democracy and freedom of speech from an administration that denies the 2020 election results and is now suing and intimidating news outlets whose reporting they don't like,' Sanders (I-Vt.) wrote in a social media post after U.S. Vice President JD Vance used his address at the Munich Security Conference to blast Germany's 'firewall' against Alternative for Germany, also known as AfD.

Vance's speech was praised by AfD leader Alice Weidel—with whom the vice president met on Friday—and U.S. President Donald Trump, who called his second-in-command's remarks 'very brilliant' as they sparked revulsion and open condemnation from European leaders."
https://www.commondreams.org/news/bernie-sanders-germany-far-right

-->Bernie Sanders, like Noam Chomsky, lives in perpetual censorship when it comes to the NYT. The best minds of our nation are are always kept from our corporate controlled media.