Tell Congress to stop the Biden administration from funding wars in Ukraine and Israel
Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a three-part series. Part 2 can be read HERE.
(LifeSiteNews) — On Tuesday, October 2, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken stated that “the Biden administration’s strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago.”
In an argument against reality, Blinken claimed the administration he served was promoting “America’s strategy of renewal.” He said the Biden-Harris government had faced down Iran and was countering the influence of an informal alliance of nations outside the U.S. system.
“A small number of countries – principally Russia, with the partnership of Iran and North Korea, as well as China – are determined to alter the foundational principles of the international system,” he explained.
Blinken was keen to present Kamala Harris and Biden as the agents of the “renewal” of American power and prestige.
READ: US announces staggering $8.7 billion ‘aid package’ for Israel
“President Biden and Vice President Harris pursued a strategy of renewal, pairing historic investments in competitiveness at home with an intensive diplomatic campaign to revitalize partnerships abroad,” he wrote.
Hours later, in retaliation for a series of massive terrorist assassinations and bombings carried out by Israel, Iran launched almost 200 advanced missiles, which the joint U.S.-Israeli security umbrella was unable to counter. Though some of the older generation missiles were intercepted, the hypersonic ones were not. Many were recorded on video striking their intended Israeli military targets.
Unlike many Israeli attacks, Iran did not deliberately target civilians and avoided causing civilian collateral deaths from the military attacks.
United Kingdom Prime Minister Keir Starmer falsely claimed that Iran had launched an attack targeting “Israeli civilians.”
Israel has confirmed several airforce bases were hit by Iran while civilian damage was "only minor" & caused by shrapnel from interception missiles.
But Keir Starmer said: "The Iranian regime has launched over 200 ballistic missiles at civilian targets in Israel."
A grave lie. pic.twitter.com/WT6w4F3hm1
— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) October 2, 2024
In fact, Israel had bombed civilians all weekend, and continues to do so. It has dropped hundreds of 2000-pound U.S.-supplied special Mark 84 bombs on the Lebanese capital Beirut, taking down large apartment buildings as it has done in Gaza.
At least 1,700 innocent civilians were killed, justified by Israel to ensure the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and several other leaders who were meeting deep below one of the buildings.
Israel again killed civilians in bombing Gaza last Tuesday night, and on Wednesday bombed a Palestinian orphanage and schools. Whilst writing this piece, reports came in of children killed in an Israeli airstrike whilst playing football.
The currently outdated Gaza death toll stands at over 41,000 identified victims, many of them women and children. The Gaza Health Ministry has not been able to update the full death count for months because of the total destruction of all Gaza hospitals and the entire health infrastructure some time ago.
U.S. surgeons returning from medical humanitarian missions in Gaza have claimed that Israel is intentionally killing civilians in an effort to “eliminate” the Palestinian population. Dr. Mark Perlmutter, a Jewish-American surgeon, wrote to President Biden and VP Harris to alert them to what he called a “U.S. taxpayer-funded … genocide,” reporting that toddlers were routinely shot dead by sniper fire, with over 90 percent of the casualties he saw being children.
Media reports described the Iranian missile strike as evidence of its “humiliation.” The IDF censor in Israel prohibited reports of any damage from the strikes. At least one U.S. outlet, CNN, “runs Gaza coverage past Jerusalem team operating under shadow of IDF censor,” reports The Intercept, since an Israeli order of December 2023 aimed at censoring Western media reports in Israel was discovered.
The U.S. president appeared to be holding the IDF censor’s line.
According to CNN, “President Joe Biden praised the US’ role in thwarting Iran’s missiles, calling the attack ‘defeated and ineffective.’”
Yet Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) has proven that videos showing the impact of many Iranian missiles at multiple military sites were genuine.
Round-up of verified Iran ballistic missile strike videos:
1. A strike in Glilot, Tel Aviv, possibly near Mossad headquarters, verified by @TwistyCB (POV: 32.162814, 34.814391)pic.twitter.com/lOesMJnfar
— Evan Hill (@evanhill) October 1, 2024
Iran strikes reported as a failure
Despite Biden and the media insisting the operation had failed, CNN later claimed to have confirmed, through geolocation, that “at least three apparent targets have emerged” – two Israeli airbases and the Tel Aviv headquarters of Mossad, the Israeli military intelligence service.
CNN reported from the Israeli capital, saying Mossad’s HQ was located in a “densely populated civilian area,” despite it likely “being seen as a military target by Iran.”
Breaking: CNN’s @jimsciutto confirms Israel is using human shields, strategically positioning its command and control center in densely populated civilian areas pic.twitter.com/ApaA1KArau
— Adam Johnson (@adamjohnsonCHI) October 1, 2024
The location of military establishments in civilian residential areas is routinely denounced as “human shielding,” but not in this exceptional case. Many Israeli accounts online boasted of the failure of the attack, citing the fact that no Israelis were killed as proof of this claim.
That no Israelis were killed by Iran’s attack – whether military or civilian – appears to support the Iranian statement that “we only targeted military bases.” Satellite imagery has now confirmed “extensive damage” to one Israeli military airbase.
CNN reported on Wednesday that Major General Mohammad Bagheri, “Iran’s military chief,” said, “We had the capability to attack the regime’s economic infrastructure, but we only targeted military bases.”
He added a warning to Israel and its supporters, reported in Iranian media:
“If the Zionist regime, which has reached madness, was not controlled by the United States and Europe, and sought to either continue its atrocities or take action against our territorial integrity and sovereignty, tonight’s operation would be repeated with multiple magnitude and all of their infrastructures would be struck.”
The Iranians warned that U.S. bases in the region, as well as those of any power intervening to help Israel strike Iran, can and will be targeted should Israel escalate in response with U.S.-backed assistance.
Jake Sullivan, senior policy advisor for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, said the “defeated and ineffective” attack will see “severe consequences” for Iran.
As Biden’s current national security advisor, Sullivan’s concern appears to reflect his experience in managing candidates for elections – and not the American national interest. Of course, he has shaped U.S. policy on Libya and Syria, which have been described by Dennis L. Fritz as simply “proxy wars for Israel.” Sullivan, while working for Hillary Clinton, was named in 2012 as “policy player on Iran” under Obama.
A game of perception management appears to be in play, with Sullivan and Blinken striving to present the Biden-Harris administration being in control of the situation, with its diplomacy and security guarantees delivering results for the many billions in taxpayer money that U.S. “aid” to Israel consumes.
The cost of Israel’s missile shield
At 2012 prices, shooting down one rocket barrage costs up to $30 million. Since August 2024, the U.S. has given Israel over $11 billion for its defensive and offensive actions.
This does not include the enormous cost of stationing U.S. aircraft carrier groups in the region, whose launch of a “dozen interceptor missiles” did not prevent Iran from striking Israeli military targets this last time.
These 12 SM-131B missiles cost over $9.5 million each. One Iron Dome Tamir missile costs up to $100,000, a system described as effective only against unsophisticated missiles by Forbes in 2021. Israel also uses the U.S./Israeli Arrow 3 missile, developed with U.S. funding and costing $78 million for each launch unit.
The IDF claimed that each Arrow missile launched usually costs $3.5 million, according to The Guardian, reporting in addition that another “joint” U.S./Israeli funded missile system, David’s Sling, costs around $1 million per launch.
By comparison, $1.3 billion was spent overnight to shoot down the previous wave of non-hypersonic Iranian drones and missiles in April. Brig. Gen. Reem Aminoach, economic advisor to the former IDF chief of staff, reported a breakdown of this cost to Israel’s Ynet News on April 14.
READ: The world cannot ignore Israel’s continued attacks on civilians in Gaza
Who in the U.S. ‘backed’ Israel’s invasion of Lebanon?
Yet even the Washington Post has admitted, quietly, that Iran’s claims are true: its hypersonic missiles struck their targets. This is not only a strategic weakness, but a financial embarrassment for the Israeli government and the U.S. politicians who fund it.
A generous view of the denial of the Iranian strikes’ effectiveness may be towards de-escalation, undermining demands for a response from Israel that may provoke a major regional war.
However, this presumes that the United States is influencing Israeli decisions when the evidence suggests the reverse.
The U.S. government “quietly backed” Israel’s sixth invasion of Lebanon, which a NATO member state has warned could trigger the intervention of its military. Turkey, which borders the region, has the largest army in NATO and is home to the U.S. nuclear deterrent at Incirlik. That the U.S. would agree to a move which threatens war with a NATO member suggests it is under an influence so powerful that it will risk the fracture of the U.S.-led military alliance.
Who in the U.S. government did this? “Presidential adviser Amos Hochstein” is named by Politico as leading, with “Brett McGurk, the White House coordinator for the Middle East,” the U.S. mission to reassure Israel that its invasion of Lebanon is supported by the U.S.
The report continued with a note that, “Not everyone in the administration was on board with Israel’s shift, despite support inside the White House, the officials said.”
Who opposed the Lebanon ground invasion? “[P]eople inside the Pentagon, State Department and intelligence community.”
Why did they “oppose” the invasion? They reportedly “believed Israel’s move … could drag American forces into yet another Middle East conflict.”
Yet Hochstein told the Israelis to go ahead. Who is he to speak for American interests? Amos Hochstein, who was born in Israel, gainsaid President Biden himself. When asked whether he was “comfortable” with Israel’s fresh ground war in Lebanon, Biden said, “I am comfortable with them stopping. We should have a cease-fire now.”
Hochstein is a former IDF soldier. His visit to Netanyahu in September was framed as a peace mission. Hochstein, wrote the Jerusalem Post, was “pushing to find a diplomatic solution to the contained IDF-Hezbollah war to prevent it from breaking out into a more wide-scale conflict.”
Yet Politico’s report says Hochstein was, at the same time, reassuring the Israelis that the U.S. would support this outbreak. It was McGurk, who was not born in Israel and did not serve in its army, who said he was opposed to war and wanted a diplomatic solution. His views were ignored.
Mossad-style ‘war by deception’?
There is certainly a controlling power at play, and at first glance this appears to be the United States government. Is this power serving the U.S. national interest? Or is this “war by way of deception,” as the former motto of Israeli intelligence service Mossad reads?
A 1990 book reveals a dark history of this signature practice, claiming that “Israel could have prevented the bombing that killed 241 Marines in Lebanon in 1983 – but it chose not to give the Americans details of the plot.”
By Way of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer is the account of Victor Ostrovsky, the “former Mossad officer” of the title.
The reason he gives for Mossad’s failure to inform the U.S. of the Lebanon massacre is that the resulting outrage could be used to generate U.S. support for Israel’s actions.
That was similar to Mossad’s response to their advance knowledge of the impending 9/11 attack, as we learned from the five dancing Israelis who travelled to New York to “document the attack” on the Twin Towers. They were observed joyously celebrating as it was occurring.
Israel greatly benefitted from the 9/11 attack since it led to massive US military actions against Israel’s perceived enemies of Iraq and Libya, which Netanyahu had long been advocating. Iran has been the main target in the list of nations that Israel has needed the US military to attack to ensure success of its Greater Israel expansionist plans.
The Washington Post, reporting on the ruling of a U.S. judge to ban the Ostrovsky book, said:
Newspapers have reported that Ostrovsky’s book says Mossad officials knew in advance about the terrorist bombing that killed 240 U.S. Marines in Beirut in 1983 but said nothing because it wanted relations between the United States and Arab nations to worsen.
The book also reportedly describes Mossad spying inside the United States.
This book was number one on the New York Times bestseller list on October 7, 1990. Almost 43 years ago, the Israeli government tried to suppress its publication entirely, claiming its disclosure of Mossad’s assassinations and actions, including espionage in and against the U.S. would lead to a “detrimental” view of Israel. It was a view informed by news reports on Israel’s many wars, which has all but disappeared from U.S. media, as this astonishing CBS News report on Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon shows:
During Israel's 1982 invasion of Lebanon, amazing to see US media shine a light on the sheer brutality of the invasion & openly blast Israel as an imperial bully. Far cry from the stenographers to power posing as "journalists" in corporate media today. https://t.co/Q2Yk84NNHO pic.twitter.com/DauJVibta5
— Occupation Movie (@OccupationMovie) October 2, 2024
The view of Israel in the U.S. now appears to be anything but “detrimental,” despite its ongoing assault in Gaza, and its actions threatening to involve the U.S. in yet another very costly major war. It likely will result in another eventual defeat or at least a stalemate and many thousands of dead innocent civilians and U.S., Israeli, Lebanese, and Iranian soldiers – or far worse, involving Russia, China, other surrounding Muslim nations and even nuclear weapons.
Russia has already warned of regional escalation, urging Israel to withdraw immediately from Lebanon, as the Times of Israel reported Tuesday. How can Israel be viewed with such fervent sympathy by Americans, whose perception in 1982 was “no longer of Israel as little David, but as Goliath steamrolling across the map”?
We will answer that question in an upcoming Part 2…
Tell Congress to stop the Biden administration from funding wars in Ukraine and Israel