Month: January 2024

Authored by Robert Williams via The Gatestone Institute,

The pro-Hamas protests in London are not, apparently, as organic and spontaneous as their organizers would like them to seem.

At least four groups with links to Hamas are reportedly behind several of the marches: The Muslim Association of Britain (MAB), the Palestinian Forum for Britain, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, and the Friends of al-Aqsa. The same groups were behind the largest protest so far, on November 11 in London, where it is estimated that around 300,000 people participated.

Supporting Hamas, a proscribed terrorist organization in the UK, could lead to up to 14 years in prison.

The MAB was co-founded and directed for almost a decade by Muhammad Kathem Sawalha, who in the late 1980s was a Hamas leader in Samaria in the West Bank, where he reportedly “masterminded” Hamas’s terrorist strategy. He fled to the UK in the late 1990s and, incredibly, obtained British citizenship, despite being on Israel’s most-wanted list.

The US Department of Justice named Sawalha as a co-conspirator in the 2004 indictment of Hamas recruiter and financer Muhammad Salah, “for allegedly participating in a 15-year racketeering conspiracy in the United States and abroad to illegally finance terrorist activities in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including providing money for the purchase of weapons… “

“All three defendants allegedly used bank accounts in the United States to launder millions of dollars for disbursement to support Hamas, which has publicly claimed credit for engaging in suicide bombings that resulted in the deaths of Israeli military personnel and civilians, as well as American and other foreign nationals in Israel and the West Bank.”

According to Israeli authorities, his son, Obada Sawalha, is now the MAB’s vice-president.

The Muslim Association of Britain has links to the Muslim Brotherhood — of which Hamas is also an offshoot. A 2015 UK government review of the Muslim Brotherhood reported:

“In the 1990s the Muslim Brotherhood and their associates established public facing and apparently national organisations in the UK to promote their views. None were openly identified with the Muslim Brotherhood and membership of the Muslim Brotherhood remained (and still remains) a secret. But for some years the Muslim Brotherhood shaped the new Islamic Society of Britain (ISB), dominated the Muslim Association of Britain (MAB) and played an important role in establishing and then running the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB). MAB became politically active, notably in connection with Palestine and Iraq, and promoted candidates in national and local elections.”

According to the Telegraph:

“Another of the Muslim Association of Britain’s three directors, Dr Anas Altikriti, co-founded a group called the British Muslim Initiative with a senior commander in Hamas, Mohammed Sawalha, and Azzam Tamimi who has been described as a Hamas ‘special envoy’ in Britain.”

Another group behind the protest, the Palestinian Forum for Britain, is led by Zaher Birawi, who was designated by Israel as a terrorist in 2013. The Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center described Birawi as a “Hamas-affiliated Palestinian” in 2017, when Birawi was in charge of the so-called flotillas to Gaza, which he oversaw as part of Hamas’ propaganda effort.

The Meir Amit Center wrote in 2017:

“Birawi was recently interviewed by Felesteen, Hamas’ daily newspaper. He discussed, among other things, the many current difficulties in dispatching flotillas to the Gaza Strip, but tried to minimize their significance and importance. He said the flotillas’ main goal is propaganda aimed at keeping the Palestinians, the Gaza Strip and the ‘siege’ as ‘live’ topics in international public discourse. According to Birawi, the objectives of the flotillas are to defame Israel, and to increase the effect of the political and media campaigns accompanying the flotillas…

“[T]he real aim of the Mavi Marmara was not to bring humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip, but rather for propaganda and political capital: to demonstrate support for Hamas, to exert pressure on Israel to unilaterally change its policy of closure on the Gaza Strip; to create sympathy in the media for the suffering of the Palestinians resulting from the ‘siege’ and to deepen Israel’s isolation.”

Birawi met Ismail Haniyeh and other leaders of the terror group in Gaza in 2012.

The real reason for the Mavi Marmara flotilla, of course — the reason Israel stopped it — was not propaganda. Turkey’s supposedly humanitarian relief organization, the IHH, turned out to be secretly carrying weapons to Gaza. Israel had first offered the flotilla to dock in the port of Ashdod for inspection. There appear to be propaganda counter-efforts to suppress information about the attempted arms transfer.

Too often, unfortunately, those many propaganda goals evidently correspond to what the organizations behind the never-ending pro-Hamas protests in London — and around the world — seek to obtain: Creating sympathy for Hamas and the Gazans, demonizing Israel, which is fighting terrorism for all of us so that we will not have to, and increasing pressure for a permanent ceasefire that will enable Hamas to survive.

Two former leaders of the third group behind the protest, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, reportedly met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza in 2012.

The fourth group behind the protests, is the Friends of al-Aqsa (FOA). According to the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center:

“Is an anti-Israeli NGO established in Britain in 1997… the FOA qualifies Israel’s policy as ‘apartheid’, supports Hamas and the ‘resistance’ (i.e., terrorism), and seeks to put an end to Israel’s existence as the state of the Jewish people under the title of ‘liberation of Palestine’. Similarly to other organizations taking part in the delegitimization effort, the FOA attempts to conceal and play down its real objectives by fine-tuning its rhetoric for Western ears and using such terms as ‘peace in Palestine’, ‘respect for international law’, ‘respect for human rights, and ‘implementation of UN resolutions.'”

FOA’s leader, Ismail Patel, has met with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Gaza.

All of the above prompted critics to demand that the protests be cancelled. According to Sky News, half of all Britons wanted the march that took place on Remembrance Day, November 11, to be banned. Sir Mark Rowley, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, however, apparently saw no grounds to ban it.

This extremely lax relationship of the British police towards Hamas-affiliated groups in Britain is dangerous to the UK itself.

At the beginning of December, Israel sent personal letters to about 20 European leaders, including the UK, that included evidence of the terrorist activity of Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in European cities. The letter stated:

“Since the [October 7] massacre, calls for violence against Jews worldwide have increased by 120% – a shocking statistic. Unfortunately, Hamas’s bloodlust is not limited to Israel and Jews but also extends to Europe and Christians. I want to remind you that in the past, Hamas members expressed the Islamic intention to conquer Europe…”

Tzur Bar-Oz, Head of the Research and Foreign Relations Division at the Diaspora Affairs Ministry, added in the letter:

“Hamas has been operating for many years worldwide, mainly through covert humanitarian donations. It is a complex network of hatred operating in many countries, including Western and highly democratic ones. This phenomenon must be uprooted and eradicated as soon as possible.”

Uprooting Hamas in the UK anytime in the near future, given the lack of enthusiasm that the Met Police have shown in the wake of the pro-Hamas demonstrations, sadly seems unlikely.

“Speeches at pro-Palestinian rallies in the UK might have glorified terrorism” according to the UK government’s independent reviewer of terrorism.

UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, to his immense credit, as soon as the pro-Hamas demonstrations began in the UK, said:

“Inciting violence, racial hatred, is illegal. People who are acting in an abusive or threatening manner causing distress are breaking the law. The police have the power and the tools that they need to ensure they can stop that from happening and you will see that in full force in the coming days to make sure anyone who breaks the law meets the full force of that law.”

While the Met Police have made some arrests, they have overall allowed the chanting of terrorist slogans to continue at the many weekly protests. On one occasion, police even tried to explain away the meaning of chants of “jihad” that had occurred at one Hizb-ut Tahrir protest:

“The individual has not been arrested with the Met saying the word jihad has ‘a number of meanings’, and specialist counter-terrorism officers had not identified any offences arising from it. Instead, officers spoke to the man to ‘discourage any repeat of similar chanting.'”

In London, it is still appeasement time.

Authored by Kit Knightly via Off-Guardian.org,

Global government is the endgame. We know that.

Total control of every aspect of life for every single person on the planet, that’s the goal.

That’s been apparent to anyone paying attention for years, if not decades, and any tiny portion of remaining doubt was removed when Covid was rolled-out and members of the establishment started outright saying it.

Covid marked an acceleration of the globalist agenda, a mad dash to the finish line that seems to have lost momentum short of victory, but the race is still going. The goal has not changed, even if the years since may have seen the agenda retreat slightly back into the shadows.

We know what they want conceptually, but what does that mean practically?

What does a potential “global government” actually look like?

First off, let’s talk about what we’re NOT going to see.

1 – They are not going to declare themselves. No, there will almost certainly never be an official “world government”, at least not for a long time yet. That’s a lesson they learned from Covid — putting a name and a face on globalism only foments collective resistance to it.

2 – They’re not going to abolish nationhood. You can be sure Klaus Schwab (or whoever) isn’t ever going to appear simulcast on every television in the world announcing that we’re all citizens of ze vurld now and that nation states no longer exist.

In part because that is likely to focus resistance (see point 1), but mainly because tribalism and nationalism are just too useful to all would-be manipulators of public opinion. And, of course the continuing existence of nation states in no way precludes the existence of a supra-national control system, any more than the existence of Rhode Island, Florida or Texas precludes the existence of the Federal government.

3 – There will never be an overt declaration of a change of system. We will not be told we are united under a new model, instead the illusion of regionality & superficial variance will camouflage a lack of real choice across the political landscape. A thin polysystemic skin stretched tight over a monosystemic skeleton.

Capitalism, communism, socialism, democracy, tyranny, monarchy…these words will steadily dilute in meaning, even more than they have already, but they will never be abandoned.

What globalism will bring us – I suggest – is a collection of nation-states largely in name only, operating superficially different systems of government all built on the same underpinning assumptions and all answering to an unelected and undeclared higher authority.

…and if that sounds familiar, it’s because it’s essentially what we have already.

The only major aspects missing are the mechanisms by which this rough model can be transformed into a flowing network, where all corners are eroded and all genuine sovereign powers become entirely vestigial.

That’s where the three main pillars of global rule come in:

1. Digital Money

2. Digital ID

3. “Climate Action”

Let’s take a look at each one in turn.

1. DIGITAL MONEY

Over 90% of the nations of the world are currently in the process of introducing a new digital currency issued by their central bank. OffG – and others – have been covering the push for a Central Bank Digital Currencies (CBDCs) for years now, to the point where we don’t need to rehash old talking points here.

Simply put, entirely digital money enables total surveillance of every transaction. If the currency is programmable, it would also allow control of every transaction.

You can read our extensive back-catalogue on CBDCs for more detail.

Clearly CBDCs are a potentially dystopian nightmare which will infringe the rights of anyone forced to use them….but how are they a building block of global government?

The answer to that is “interoperability”.

While the world’s national CBDCs will notionally be separate from one another, the majority are being coded to recognize and interact with each other. They are almost all being developed along guidelines produced by the Bank of International Settlements and other globalist financial institutions, and they are all being programed by the same handful of tech giants.

A June 2023 report for the World Economic Forum noted the importance of “Central Bank Digital Currency Global Interoperability Principles” and concluded:

It is crucial for central banks to prioritize interoperability considerations early in the design process by adhering to a set of guiding principles. To facilitate global coordination and ensure harmonious implementation of CBDCs, the development of a comprehensive set of principles and standards becomes imperative. Drawing upon previous research and collaborative efforts, this set of principles can serve as a robust foundation, guiding central banks to proactively consider interoperability from the outset of their CBDC initiatives. By adopting these principles, central banks can work towards creating a cohesive and interconnected CBDC ecosystem.

Commenting on the report, the World Economic Forum website noted [emphasis added]:

To ensure successful implementation and promote interoperability, global coordination becomes paramount […] adhering to interoperability principles, CBDCs can advance harmoniously, leading to efficient and interconnected digital payment systems.

It doesn’t take a genius to decode “global coordination”, “cohesive ecosystem”, “harmonious advancement” and “interconnected payment systems”.

There is no practical difference between 195 “interoperable” and interconnected digital currencies, and one single global currency.

In fact “interoperability” is the watchword for all globalist power structures moving forward. Which leads us neatly onto…

2. DIGITAL IDENTITY

The global push for mandatory digital identities is even older than the digital currency agenda, dating back to the turn of the century and Tony Blair’s “national identity cards”.

For decades it has been a “solution” posited to every “problem”.

Terrorism? Digital identity will keep you safe.

Illegal immigration? Digital identity will secure the border.

Pandemic? Digital identity will keep track of who is vaccinated and who is not.

AI? Digital identity will prove who’s human.

Poverty? Digital identity will “promote financial inclusion”

Clearly, just as with CBDCs, a far-reaching digital identity service is a threat to human rights. And, just as with CBDCs, if you interconnect national digital identity platforms you can build a global system.

Again, it’s all about “interoperability”. They use the exact same language.

The World Bank’s Identity4Development program claims:

Interoperability is crucial for developing efficient, sustainable, and useful identity ecosystems.

The Nordic and Baltic Ministers for Digitalization publicly called for “cross-border” operational digital IDs.

NGOs like Open Identity Exchange(OIX) are publishing reports on “the need for data standards to enable interoperability of Digital IDs both in federations within an ID ecosystem, and across ID ecosystems.”.

The list of national governments introducing digital IDs, “partnering” with corporate giants to do so and/or promoting “cross border interoperability” is long, and growing longer all the time.

In October 2023 the United Nations Development Program published their “guidelines” for the design and use of digital identities.

There is no practical difference between 195 networked digital identity platforms and one single global identity program.

OK, so they have global currency and identity programs in place. Now they can control and monitor everyone’s movements, financial transactions, health and more. That’s surveillance and control mechanism, all handled in a distributed model designed to obfuscate the very existence of a global government.

But what about policy?

How does this global government hand down policy and legislation without giving away its existence?

Climate change, that’s how.

3. “CLIMATE ACTION”

Climate Change has been at the forefront of the globalist agenda for years. It is the Trojan horse of the antihuman technocrat.

As long ago as 2010, noted Climate Change “experts” were suggesting that “humans are not evolved enough” to combat climate change and that “It may be necessary to put democracy on hold for a while.”

More recently, in 2019, Bloomberg was publishing articles with headlines like “Climate Change Will Kill National Sovereignty As We Know It”, and academics are telling us:

States will remain unable to solve global crises like climate change until they let go of their sovereignty

For years climate change has been sold as the reason we might be “forced” to abandon democracy or sovereignty.

Alongside this, there is a prolonged propaganda narrative dedicated to changing “climate change” from an environmental issue into an everything issue.

At this point all national governments agree “climate change” is an urgent problem requiring global cooperation to solve. They host massive summits at which they sign international agreements, binding nation states to certain policies, for the sake of the planet.

Having established that model, they are now widening the “climate change” purview. Changing “climate change” into the answer to every question:

Obviously, “climate change” was always going to impact energy and transport.

Following Covid, “climate change” has already been re-branded a “health crisis”.

Now we’re being told “climate change” is generating a food crisis.

We’re being told that international trade needs to be climate conscious.

We’re being told by the World Bank that education reform will help the fight against climate change.

We’re being told by the IMF that every country in the world should tax carbon and, in a recent cross-over episode, that CBDCs can be good for the environment.

See how it works?

Agriculture & food, public health, energy & transport, trade, fiscal & taxation policy, even education. Almost every area of government is now potentially covered by the “climate change” umbrella.

They no longer need a one-world government, they just need a single panel of “impartial international climate change experts” working to save the planet.

Through the lens of “climate change”, these experts would be empowered to dictate – sorry, recommend – government policy in almost every area of life to every nation on the planet.

Do you see it yet?

This is global government in the modern world, not centralised but distributed. Cloud computing. A supranational corporate-technocrat hivemind. With no official existence or authority, and therefore no accountability, and funneling all their policy decisions through one filter – climate change.

There won’t be a single global currency, there will be dozens and dozens of “interoperable” digital currencies creating an “harmonious payment ecosystem”.

There won’t be a single global digital identity service, there will be a series of “interconnected identity networks” engaging in the “free flow of data to promote security”.

There won’t be a global government, there will be international panels of “impartial experts”, appointed by the UN who make “policy recommendations”.

Most or all of the countries of the world will follow most or all of the recommendations, but anyone who calls these panels global governments will be forwarded fact-checks from Snopes or Politifact  highlighting that “UN expert panels do NOT constitute a global government because they have no legislative power”.

This, I suggest, is how  global government will take shape in 2024 and beyond.

Compartmentalized, utterly deniable…but very, very real.

Israel’s influential former defense minister, Avigdor Lieberman, who has long been known as an outspoken hawk aligned with the hardline political opposition, is calling for the Israeli army to occupy southern Lebanon with a goal toward creating a permanent security buffer zone.

Lieberman is the founder and chairman of Yisrael Beiteinu, a right-wing secular nationalist party which is most influential among Israel’s million-plus Russian-speaking immigrant community. Lieberman said in the fresh, controversial comments that the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) must “close off” a broad swath of southern Lebanon in order to force Hezbollah to relocate north of the Litani river.

He said this must be done even if it means the IDF must occupy Lebanon for 50 years. Hezbollah must “pay in territory” he said, referencing the now daily rocket and drone attacks on northern Israeli communities which forced some 80,000 residents to flee their homes.

“It can’t be that there are entire towns where close to half of the buildings were simply destroyed,” he said during Yisrael Beytenu party’s weekly meeting.

“We will not annex anything, and we will not build settlements, but we will release the territory only when there is a government in Beirut that knows how to exercise its sovereignty.”

“Everything between the Litani and Israel must be under the control of the IDF,” he emphasized. “If Lebanon won’t pay in territory we haven’t done anything.”

Israeli media then cited his words further as follows:

[This buffer zone] could be there “until a government is established in Beirut that is able to exercise its sovereignty over the entire territory” which could take up to 50 years.

But if Israeli forces were to initiate such a plan, it would surely open up a full war with Iran-backed Hezbollah, which in the 2006 Lebanese war was proved a formidable guerilla force against the IDF. 

On Tuesday, Israel conducted a strike against a Hamas office in a Beirut suburb, killing Hamas’s deputy leader abroad Saleh al-Arouri, which marks a major escalation. This has sparked new fears of Hezbollah heightening its attacks, also with the possibility of deepened Iranian involvement against Israel. The Houthis in Yemen, which have been attacking ships in the Red Sea, also warn this act “won’t go unpunished”. 

Authored by John J. Waters via RealClear Wire,

I wrote earlier this month about the “final class” of Marine Corps Scout Snipers. The Marine Corps is in process of discontinuing its infantry Scout Sniper platoons in favor of something called “scout platoons.” Undoubtedly, many meetings and opinions went into the final decision, including consideration of an incident that occurred in Afghanistan in 2011, when a few Scout Snipers from Third Battalion, Second Marines (3/2) were videotaped urinating on Taliban corpses in Helmand Province. The Marines identified in that video were swiftly condemned, punished and made outcasts by the press, politicians and senior military officers. Among the foot soldiers, however, those same Marines were highly regarded for courage demonstrated on many, many combat missions. I pick up my conversation about the Iliad with classicist Emily Wilson on this particular episode from the War on Terror. You can find part one of our conversation here.

After the video became public, one of the Marines who participated was questioned about why he did it. “[Because] killing these assholes was not enough,” he said. Can you situate this story of the 3/2 Scout Snipers into an ancient context?

There is a focus on honoring the dead. It’s a clear line that is constantly crossed even in the first lines of the poem, when we find that, after their death, men become food for dogs and birds, and are eaten off the battlefield. Later, Hector begs Achilles that if he is killed, Hector’s body will at least be returned to his parents, but Achilles says “no,” that Hector is an idiot to think he will return the body. Achilles wants only to punish Hector more and more and even more. I can see how you can be in that mindset, how you want not to treat the enemy as human and not allow for these rituals or humane treatments across boundaries. What happens at the end of The Iliad, when Priam crosses over to the camp of Achilles and both men grieve, is that we recognize we need the common rituals, that we all lose something in war.

Those Scout Snipers believed they had killed Taliban fighters who laid IEDs against their brothers. They sought vengeance, in other words. Once, in the months and years after 9/11, we all had sought vengeance. A combat veteran who won the Medal of Honor told me “Nothing flips a man’s dial back to ready like telling him, ‘This one took our boy.’” Why do we need vengeance?

Vengeance, in a way, is proof that people love each other. People love each other so much that they become so close, like second selves, and when your person dies, it’s understandable to want payback for that terrible loss. We see that kind of intimate love most obviously between Achilles and Patroclus. They’ve been fighting together for almost 10 years. Achilles refuses to fight, when his honor is violated by Agamemnon, but all that changes when Hector takes Achilles’ boy, so to speak. That flips his switch. Achilles mutates and no longer cares about his grievance against Agamemnon; he cares only about obliterating Hector and obliterating the whole city because he has infinite rage and grief.  The most special person in the world has been killed.

Michael Monsoor was killed in Ramadi in 2006. He was given the Medal of Honor for sacrificing himself when he smothered a grenade and saved the lives of his teammates. His father wanted only the truth about his death. He wanted to know the facts. Many parents want to know if we killed the one who did it to their boy. Michael’s father only wanted to know the truth. Can you reconcile those interests? 

That’s such a difficult story. I don’t know exactly where to go in The Iliad. It’s making me think about particular characters who want to be the subject of song, the subject of a song by a person who sings about glory and heroics. Is The Iliad focused on telling everything that happened or just the heroic things that happened? Clearly, it’s not a literal telling. And yet it is focused on telling you more than just Achilles was great and this is why he was great.

When Hector is dead, we have three different laments. One comes from his mother, Hecuba. She wants that version of him that many people want, which is how glorious Hector had been. She wants people to tell her the story about how her son never flinched in combat, even though the reader of the poem knows that’s not true and in fact, he ran from Achilles. Her grief inspires her need to idealize her son in death. Hector’s wife, Andromache, thinks of his courage but also his rashness, how his decision to leave the city has caused her son to be killed. She sees his sacrifice as debatable. Finally, there is Helen. She gives a narrative about how Hector was a kind man when nobody else was kind to her. The poem gives us all these alternative ways of grieving and remembering.

I have read Homer’s poems at different points in my life, and my reading has raised a personal question that I explore in a novel called River City One. The question is whether a soldier ever comes home from war. What do you think?

Yes, whether the nostos (home-coming journey) is ever fully complete. Both The Iliad and The Odyssey show soldiers coming home from war. Odysseus comes home geographically but is he home just because he is in that same physical space? No — that happens halfway through the poem and the story isn’t over. Is he home once he reestablishes relationships with Telemachus and Penelope? Many people including in antiquity thought the story should end right there in Book 23, after he kills the suitors and makes love to his wife – but the poem continues, and the story actually ends when Odysseus keeps slaughtering people before he is stopped by Athena. So, has he really come home? The poem seems to show that he has several selves and several homes to come back to – and one of them, paradoxically, is the battlefield, and the warrior self that he might seem to have left behind. In The Iliad, Hector feels compelled to leave home. Family members are repeatedly begging him not to leave the city, but he leaves and comes home only when he’s dead, to be wept over by the women. We know Achilles will never go home geographically; he knows he’ll die if he stays to fight at Troy, so once he rejoins the battle, we know that’s a choice not to go home again. One can say there is a kind of homecoming in the moment he has with Priam at the end of the poem, such that there is a moment to mourn and eat and not perform in his role as killer and avenger. Is that a kind of temporary “home”?   I don’t know. Both of the Homeric poems wrestle with the question, whether warriors ever go home again. The answer is uncertain.

John J. Waters is the author of the postwar novel River City One (Simon and Schuster), and a former deputy assistant secretary of homeland security.

The US Treasury has a morbid habit of revealing big, round numbers of debt around major calendar milestones, and the new 2024 year was no different because according to the latest Treasury Daily Statement published after the close today and reflecting the US Treasury’s financial statements as of Dec 29, 2023, total US debt as of the end of the year was – drumroll – just over $34 trillion for the first time ever, or $34,001,493,655,565.48 to be precise.

Since this is a topic we have covered more or less daily for our 15 year existence, we don’t need to say much suffice to show a chart of total US debt since zerohedge launched in Jan 2009, when total US debt was only $10.6 trillion. We sure have gone a long way since then.

Some context: US debt increased by…

• $1 trillion in the past 3 months
• $2 trillion in the past 6 months
• $4 trillion in the past 2 years
• $11 trillion in the past 4 years

… and so on. You get the exponential picture. At this point everyone knows how this ends – certainly the CBO does…

… but since there is no way to reverse the catastrophic outcome, there is no point in even talking about it. At best, one may only prepare for the inevitable hyperinflationary outcome, which would be good news to what is now over $1 trillion in interest expense: after all, someone has to devalue the currency all that interest is payable in.

And since there is no longer a way out, we may as well joke about it so consider this: in the third quarter when US GDP supposedly grew at a 4.9% annualized rate – hardly the stuff of recessions – rising $547 billion in nominal (not real) dollars, the US budget deficit increased by a whopping $622 billion.

This not only explains where US “growth” has come from, but begs the question just how much debt will be needed when the US falls into an official recession.

Or actually not, because at this point the best anyone can do is polish the brass on the titanic while waiting for the inevitable, captures so vividly by the following endgame chart.

Submitted by James Durso, a regular commentator on foreign policy and national security matters. Mr. Durso served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and has worked in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

The Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation and Institute recently released the results of the 2023 Reagan National Defense Survey.

The survey found that Americans support increased spending for a strong national defense, engagement with the world, and strong support for Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan.

However, in may key areas, the preferences of young Americans (under 30 years old AKA Gen Z) diverged from those of older Americans, and these differences were highlighted by the Hamas attack on Israel.

Overall, Americans support increased military spending by 77%, but support for an engaged foreign policy is at 42%, down from 51% in 2019. (Americans under 30 want the U.S. to be more engaged and “take the lead” at 29%.) There is consistent, stable support for maintaining bases overseas at 66%, but declining confidence U.S. would win against a nuclear power at 44% (65% in 2018.)

China seen as greatest nation-state threat to U.S. at 51%, up from 21% in 2018, and there is strong majority strong majority support for security assistance (weapons sales) to Israel, Ukraine, and Taiwan at 71%. 51% would encourage a family member to join the military, falling to 44% for the under 30s.

The military remains America’s most trusted institution in that 46% express a “great deal of confidence,” but that falls to 30% for those under 30. The survey points out that is down from 70% in 2018 and has been holding steady in the high 40s for the last three years, that is, “under water.”

Perhaps reflecting this, “about one-in-ten Americans under the age of 30 are extremely or very willing to serve in the U.S. military.” This aligns with the Pentagon’s surveys that found, among youth aged 16 to 21, about 10% are interested in military service.

The Pentagon found the top reasons for lack of interest in enlisting are “Possibility of physical injury/death” and “Possibility of PTSD or other emotional/psychological issues.”

These have been issues in every war ever, but young Americans may be sensitive to them now because the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were failures, and the attention given to “wounded warrior” organizations that highlight the life-changing injuries suffered by fighting men and women, which may discourage enlistments.

Is it worth losing your legs just to get the GI Bill especially when there is a lot of scholarship money out there?

And half of those polled would encourage a friend/family member to join the military 51%, falling to 44% for those under 30.

Youth indifference to military service may present the Pentagon with a future dilemma: If it gets all the money it wants for ships, aircraft, and armored vehicles, who will maintain and operate them?

And it’s not a hypothetical that may happen tomorrow.

Over the course of 2023, the Navy reduced the crew size of the newest aircraft carrier, the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), by 500 to 600 sailors who have not been replaced, even though the ship is currently deplored to the Mediterranean and close to the action in Gaza.

Taken to an extreme, a shortage of people may affect the country’s military options and, in a crisis, the Pentagon may advise the president to adopt a high-risk strategy early as the country cannot afford an extended conflict unless it institutes conscription, which is unlikely unless the Congress declares war.

Letter to America

In November 2023, TikTokers discovered Osama bin Laden’s “Letter to America” which was al-Qaeda’s justification for attacking America on 11 September 2001.

A video about the letter was apparently first shared on TikTok and it got about 800,000 views and over 80,000 likes. Some other TikTokers also posted about the letter with similar results. Soon the hashtag #lettertoamerica was born, but it only took off when journalist Yashar Ali tweeted about it and it soon secured 14 million views, though some were critical of the posting.

Among the reactions to the letter were, “everything we learned about the Middle East, 9/11, and ‘terrorism’ was a lie,” “I will never look at life the same. I will never look at this country the same,” “Osama bin Laden’s letter is not as crazy and threatening as I expected, is well written, and makes some objectively true points,” and “Osama bin Laden was good. Even better than us.”

After young Americans on TikTok expressed sympathy for Osama bin Laden, the White House had to remind everyone that Osama bin Laden was a bad, bad man.

How could young Americans ever think “maybe this bin Laden guy has something to say!” after he murdered almost 3,000 of their countrymen? Why not trust government figures or establishment journalism on what bin Laden was?

Well, because the establishment hasn’t given them any reason to be trusted. The government and its media acolytes promoted the 2003 invasion of on Iraq which was based on lies: that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, and that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was cooperating with bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist group.

Then there’s Afghanistan. According to the Afghanistan Papers exposé senior American officials knew the U.S.-led NATO campaign was failing, but they kept it going for almost 20 years until the Taliban victoriously entered Kabul on 15 August 2021.

In 2011, the U.S. led the attack on Libya and destroyed the functioning government that was cooperating with Washington, and kicked off a migrant wave that upended politics in Europe. U.S. troops are still in Syria because mumble-mumble terrorism, though the Islamic State was defeated in 2018. Then it was All Aboard! to fight the Russians in Ukraine, but then the U.S. political class and media dropped Ukraine when Israel was attacked by Hamas.

Young Americans are likely realizing that their country is led by unserious people who lie to them as a matter of course.

Hamas and Israel

After the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October, a Quinnipiac University poll found that American voters sympathizing with the Palestinians increased from 13 percent to 24 percent.

According to Quinnipiac, “The shift is largely driven by respondents under 35 years old, who overwhelmingly said they disapprove of Israel’s response to the Oct. 7 Hamas attack (66 percent), have greater sympathy for Palestinians in the conflict than Israelis (52 percent) and believe the U.S. is too supportive of Israel (50 percent).”

According to a CNN poll, when asked whether Israel’s response to the Hamas attack was fully justified, only 27 percent of Americans aged 18-34 agreed, as opposed to 81 percent of Americans over age 65.

A recent Harvard/Harris poll found most Americans believe Israel “is trying to avoid civilian casualties” but also “the vast majority of young American adults believe Jews are oppressors, that the 10/7 attack is justified by Jews’ prior actions.” The poll also found 78% of Americans aged 18-34 believe Israel has a right to exist.

A December Quinnipiac University poll found “voters 18 – 34 years old (72 – 21 percent) and voters 35 – 49 years old (53 – 38 percent) oppose [sending more military aid to Israel],” though all voters polled were more evenly split with 45 percent supporting and 46 percent opposing military aid.

And a new Economist/YouGov survey found that 1 in 5 Americans between the ages of 18 and 29 believe the Holocaust is a “myth.” The results led to a lot of excited commentary and a suggestion that the feds provide funding for Holocaust education.

A more likely explanation, according to Ilya Somin, is young Americans’ ignorance of history, and “ambiguities in the survey question.” Somin says, “…most surveys of political and historical knowledge find that it is inversely correlated with age; that is, younger people tend to know less than older ones.”

Also, Israel can no longer “control to a significant degree the flow of information and the moral framing of its wars” due to what is known as “networked tribalism” which “bypasses traditional media by directly delivering information and moral framing to people using social networks” and has emerged to wage moral warfare in opposition to Israel.

An example is the 31 billion #freepalestine posts on TikTok, or the mobile phone-ready video of Hamas fighters on the Telegram app, in contrast to the official spokesman if the Israeli Defense Forces standing at a podium briefing reports from legacy media.

The poll results may also be colored by the tendency for youth to reflexively oppose anything their elders insist on, but many of them sincerely support the Palestinians. After all, Israel has nuclear weapons, the most modern military in the region, and carte blanche from Washington so, many students will ask, who is the real underdog here?

The Brookings Institution recently reported, “Even before the Hamas invasion, there were distinct generational differences in Americans’ attitudes towards Israel,” and, “…only 41% of those aged 18-29 had a favorable view of Israel, compared to 69% of those aged 65 or older,” so  U.S. Middle East policy may change as they ascend to positions of power, which should be an incentive to Israel to make an equitable deal with the Palestinians before its patron starts leaning in the other direction.

Another metric on youth sentiment may be seen on TikTok where #freepalestine has 31 billion posts compared to 590 million for #standwithisrael, which lead The New Arab to claim, “Palestinian solidarity won the internet.” The U.S. has the most TikTok users – 116.5 million – so the overall number may reflect young Americans’ thinking.

The Causes

The Reagan Foundation says many Americans favor a forward-leaning national security posture, but young Americans appear less interested in that idea.

The military, key to those visions of “American leadership,” is not an attractive option when the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is reporting a labor shortage, and UPS drivers recently secured a $170,000 in pay and benefits package. And why risk life and limb for college tuition money when much scholarship money goes begging? In fact, UPS will pay your college tuition and you won’t have to get shot at to earn it.

The Hamas attack on Israel has created a febrile atmosphere where you are with Israel or you are a Hamas apologist. Young Americans may be less seized with Jerusalem’s problems due to their immediate economic concerns and a lack of confidence in the country’s leaders who lied about Iraq and Afghanistan with no consequences.

But it’s not just the liars in Washington, D.C. who made a hash of things. Parents and teachers must shoulder some of the blame for the lack of critical thinking skills in many young Americans.

American students have been in the care of “anti-imperialist” educators with less interest in civic education than in the “anti-racist” 1619 Project and  “decolonizing the curriculum” instead of teaching the three Rs.

The result: American students are falling behind the rest of the world and their test scores lag the global average. It is no surprise that a bad education would combine with a lack of trust in institutions to make some young Americans interested in reading with interest the words of Osama bin laden – the greatest mass murderer in American history.

And knowing they were lied to may explain the failure of the military to attract enough qualified recruits, which is part of a long-term trend of “historically low faith in U.S. institutions” reported by Gallup. Who wants to be the cannon fodder in the next war fought for nebulous “American interests” when you can be sure no one named Bush or Obama will be in that foxhole with you?

Gen Z members suffer from high levels of depression and anxiety and are most likely to report their mental health as being poor. Young Americans are waiting longer to get married, and women aged 25 to 34 are increasingly likely to die in the late 20s to early 30s than at any time since the 1940s. They believe the world is more dangerous than at any point in modern history. Poor mental health, a bad education, a lack of trust in institutions, and the sense their economic prospects are limited and the American Dream is out of reach, are what’s needed to create a population that will withdraw from civic life, further weakening the country.

In other words, the kids aren’t alright, and the country’s leaders must decide how to put them right if they want to rebuild trust.

You could blame a lack of civic education in America, but young Americans are rightly dubious when they see retired military officers on TV demanding the U.S. be all-in defending a wealthy country with the most advanced military in the Middle East, if for no other reason that it disqualifies Washington as a future mediator of a Middle East peace agreement, and will probably isolate the U.S. and make it unable to summon a coalition when one is needed to defend U.S. interests.

With the attack on Gaza is still in process, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant is promoting what may turn into another overseas (mis)adventure for the U.S. (and France) – peacekeeping duty separating the Israelis and the Iran-backed Hezbollah militia in Lebanon. The usual cable TV “military analysts” will probably be all for this, claiming America’s “credibility” is at stake, but forgetting what happened the last time U.S. and French troops were in close proximity to a Lebanese militia sponsored by Iran.

The Challenging Way Ahead

So, how can the U.S. political class build trust with young Americans?

It will take longer than one election cycle, and will tax Washington’s discipline as it will have to execute consistently over the long term, and display the focus and application usually only found in modernizing authoritarian governments. But the priority should be to put the country’s financial house in order which benefits all Americans young and old.

America is about $34 Trillion in debt, over $100,000 per citizen; its bond rating was recently cut to AA+; borrowing costs are climbing and debt service will soon be bigger than the Defense Department budget by 2024, and interest payments on the debt are currently on “track to nearly double between 2020 and 2023 and projected to double again by 2032,” the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget notes, partly because the U.S. government now has to roll over money it borrowed for cheap at much higher rates.

Washington should be less casual about committing troops abroad, because isn’t 750 bases in 80 countries enough?

And Congress must insist on carrying out its constitutional responsibility to declare war, rather than proffering an Authorization for Use of Military Force fig leaf, which relieves it of responsibility but allows the president to set the terms and duration of a conflict.

America should reconsider what it means to be “engaged” – warfare and sanctions, or trade and diplomacy – because the military’s recruiting woes and the latest tension in the Middle East will pass, because young Americans may have a different vision and, pretty soon, they’re going to be in charge.

James Durso (@james_durso) is a regular commentator on foreign policy and national security matters. Mr. Durso served in the U.S. Navy for 20 years and has worked in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

What do the employees at America’s largest companies think of the leadership?

To answer that, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu and Pallavi Rao visualize CEO approval ratings gathered by professional social network Blind.

The results are based on a survey of 13,171 verified professionals in the U.S., conducted between August 18th–23rd, 2023. Respondents were asked if they approve or disapprove of the way their CEO is handling their job.

Top 10 Popular CEOs By Their Employees’ Approval Ratings

By far, the most popular CEO right now (according to Blind’s respondents anyway) is Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, with an astonishing 96% approval rating.

Huang’s numbers point to a theme in the data. Blind notes that there is a correlation between company stock performance and CEO approval rating. Nvidia’s critical role in the artificial intelligence hype train has sent shares up nearly 3x year-on-year. Their financials for the last three quarters show that profit is already up more than four-fold from last year.

Crucially, Huang also avoided layoffs that were otherwise rampant in the tech industry, helping his popularity amongst the staff.

Here are the top 10 most popular CEOs according to Blind’s poll.

In fact, the Blind survey uncovered that all of the 10 most popular CEOs, with the exception of Andrew Anag from AutoDesk, did not cut jobs in the last year.

The opposite is true for some of the lowest-rated CEOs.

The Least Popular CEOs By Employee Approval Ratings

Eric Nordstrom (Nordstrom) and David Goeckeler (Western Digital) shared the lowest approval rating possible in the poll: 0%. From Blind’s methodology section, this means not a single surveyed employee answered “strongly approve” or “somewhat approve” to the question.

Both companies cut nearly 200 jobs in 2023, with Nordstrom also responsible for the job losses amongst the company’s wage workers, who staffed the many retail stores the company shuttered.

Here’s the top 10 least popular CEOs according to Blind’s poll.

Also featuring on this list of least-liked CEOs: Evan Spiegel (3%), who reduced Snap’s workforce by a fifth and Linda Yaccarino (4%), who heads X (formerly Twitter) that has been in turmoil since Elon Musk acquired the company in October, 2022.

Authored by Zachary Stieber via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors uncovered problems at a Moderna plant used to manufacture a substance that is part of the company’s COVID-19 vaccine, according to a newly released document.

Moderna failed to meet multiple requirements, including rules aimed at minimizing the potential for contamination, according to the document.

FDA inspectors performed inspections at the plant in Norwood, Massachusetts from, Sept. 11 to Sept. 21, visiting nine times in total.

They found that equipment used to manufacture the substance was not cleaned properly before usage, that a mock cleaning done for manufacturing did not adequately simulate the actual process, that written alarm procedures were not followed, and that neither the equipment nor the plant were designed in a way that would make contamination less likely.

Inspectors also learned that Moderna used materials beyond their expiration date.

“There are more than two thousand expired items stored in your … warehouse and cold storage at time of inspection,” Unnee Ranjan, the FDA’s lead investigator, wrote in a summary of the inspections.

The Epoch Times obtained the 6-page document, an FDA Form 483, through a Freedom of Information Act request after the FDA’s media office refused to release it.

The FDA under federal law has the power to inspect facilities and deliver a report setting forth any item produced in a facility that seems to “consist in whole or in part of any filthy, putrid, or decomposed substance” or “has been prepared, packed, or held under insanitary conditions whereby it may have become contaminated with filth, or whereby it may have been rendered injurious to health.”

A Form 483 is a type of agency report containing “observations” that FDA inspectors “deem to be objectionable.” The observations are delivered to help companies comply with federal law and FDA regulations.

The substance in question was used in Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine, mRNA-1273, the company’s sole product available to the public, according to the form.

Moderna released eight batches of the substance as it violated manufacturing rules, FDA inspectors said.

It was not clear whether any of the vaccines distributed commercially contained the substance in question.

“The FDA does not discuss compliance matters, except with the company involved,” an FDA spokesperson told The Epoch Times in an email.

“Upon receipt of the FDA’s findings, Moderna immediately and comprehensively updated the specific procedures identified and is confident that the actions taken will be satisfactory to regulators,” Moderna said in a statement.

Moderna said all product released by the company was tested and meets product specifications and international regulatory requirements.

Steven Lynn, a former head of the FDA’s Office of Manufacturing and Product Quality who is now a regulatory compliance consultant, said using the drug substance in question was a serious matter but that it was unclear whether the batches were released to consumers.

The FDA has not issued a recall of any Moderna vaccines, according to its recalls, market withdrawals, and safety alerts database.

In 2021, Japan suspended the use of 1.63 million doses of Moderna’s COVID vaccine after contaminates were found in some vials produced by Rovi, a contract manufacturer based in Spain. No manufacturing problems have previously been reported in any of Moderna’s own facilities.

Another part of the FDA report, dated Sept. 21, described how the Norwood facility did not have adequately designed air handling systems to “assure appropriate air quality in the … cleanroom in which the mRNA drug substance is manufactured.”

Inspectors also said they found positive air pressure was not “consistently maintained” between cleanrooms and airlocks and that monitoring data showed the cleanroom pressure turned negative between January and September. That development was “not assessed for potential impact,” they said.

“At face value, it appears multiple controls designed to prevent contamination were deficient,” Mr. Lynn said.

Another recently released document, produced by the nonprofit Informed Consent Action Network on orders from a federal judge, showed the FDA detected in Andover, Massachusetts, issues with the manufacture of a substance used in the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine. Pfizer said in response it had taken actions to correct the issues.

Reuters contributed to this report.