regime change

No Good Guys Here: The Line Between Good and Evil Runs Through Every Heart

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Originally I had planned a blog on fostering unity between races based on mutual respect. Instead my attention was shifted to the war launched by Israel and the United States against Iran. 

I suppose that is how Satan works, he creates chaos, destroys our focus, and undermines the good we intend to do?  The hope of peaceful resolution and stability were wiped away by yet another ‘preemptive strike’ Pearl-Harbor-style surprise attack which this time has finally killed the elderly Shiite cleric.

Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, along with several members of his family, including his daughter and granddaughter, were killed in this violent opening assault. President Trump and administration officials—along with many other Americans—celebrate this as a big triumph. They don’t seem to understand that martyrdom plays right into the narrative of the Islamic Republic. What better way to prove that the US is led by a totally violent and lawless regime than to kill an 86-year-old man who said this in a speech before his death:

My body holds little value, my life bears no significance. Even if they kill me, do not count it as our loss as long as you remain steadfast on the principles of Imam Hussain (AS). We are winning this war as long as we do not bow before dictators, before power and greed, as long as we uphold the ideals of Imam Hussain.

And if immortalizing Ali Khamenei was not enough, for good measure the US struck a girl’s school in their initial salvo.  Images of bloodied backpacks and those awful stories of scattered limbs of children—175 innocent lives in just one strike—are justified as “collateral damage” (or just denied) here.  But this will only serve as a rallying call similar to “never forget” after 9/11 (when Sunnis from Saudi Arabia attacked us) or “remember the Alamo” is in US folklore. And you really can’t get a starker contrast between the hubris of the Zionist regime—along with our own self-indulgent child raping Epstein-class—and a man who offered himself as a symbol of values bigger than his own life.

Iran has long had the technical capability to make a nuclear weapon. But Ali Khamenei had upheld the fatwa against the development calling it un-Islamic. The “imminent threat” claims are really no different from the false WMD excuse to invade Iraq in 2003. Iran posed no threat to the US even if nuclear armed.  They lack a delivery vehicle to even hit Europe—let alone strike a city in the US. But what is abundantly clear is that Iran does strongly oppose the ethnic cleansing of West Bank and the Gaza genocide—and is the one regime Israel could not buy off or intimidate into silence and inaction.

Precious Zahra Mohammadi Golpayegani with her grandfather.

Iran’s religious leaders have appointed Mojtaba Khamenei as their new Supreme Leader. This is the son of the late Ali, and a man who also lost his wife Zahra Haddad-Adel, his mother, son, sister, a niece and a nephew in the ‘successful’ opening strike. It isn’t hard to imagine that this makes it all very personal to him. The US/Israel have just removed the very man who prevented the final assembly of a nuclear weapon and Iran replaced him with a man who has every reason to get vengeance. There’s no sense in negotiation to bring a temporary end, like last time, when they know they will just face another attack?

There Are No Good Guys—All Are Bad

I have an Iranian friend, very liberal, hates the Islamic Republic for basically the same reason she hates Donald Trump—she is a “down with the patriarchy” feminist who sees ‘red’ America similar to what she does the regime back home. And I believe her when she claims that tens of thousands of people were killed. She prefers Iran to have a secular government—and couldn’t care less about non-Persian people being slaughtered in Gaza.

MAGA only supports Iran’s feminists—millions of women protested Trump.

But it is funny when the exact same people who justified the killing of Renee Good and Alex Pretti, even make a joke of it, suddenly are showing solidarity with the far-leftists of another country who rose in defiance of the authorities there. Americans who would 100% be okay with BLM protesters being ran over for standing on public roads and love Trump’s no-mercy stance towards those who do not meet their standards would cheer if the blue haired leftists were gunned down here—and say they got what they deserved for defying the law and law enforcement.

That is why I do not buy into the narrative of it being about “freedom and democracy” for the Iranian people. No, this is about the US and Israel imposing their imperial will using any means possible. The CIA and Mossad have been plotting a counter-revolution for as long as the Islamic Republic has existed and at the cost of many lives. John McCain openly endorsed a terrorist organization in Iran, Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), responsible for thousands of Iranian deaths, and even my leftist Iranian friend was horrified when the late war-monger said this group should rule over her country.

Imagine if a Chinese official gave a shout out to North Korean operatives “walking beside” a violent insurrection in the US?

The Zionists (Likud party terrorists and their Evangeli-con counterparts) do not care the slightest bit about democratic values. If they did they would be totally opposed to the Gulf State dictatorships and monarchies.  They would be speaking passionately about regime change in Saudi Arabia—where women have less rights than they do in Iran.  But they don’t.  So long as a brutal regime favors Zionist regional hegemony it can basically do anything to its own people—which is why I do not share the jubilation of my Iranian friend over the death of the man she views as an oppressor.

If the Islamic Republic falls it will be a “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” where maybe the progressives can wear less clothes or get to have a Pride parade in Tehran some day, while merely opposing genocide by Israel will get them yanked off the street and tortured. It will mean tens of thousands of children die in Gaza unopposed by world governments.

You do not free people by bombing them into oblivion. It’s insane how fast our ruling elites go from “I support the Iranian people” to days later announcing intent to “inflict punishment” when most in Iran choose to respect their own leaders instead of rebel on behalf of Israel and the US.

The reality is that this war is about who will control the region and resources of Iran, not a humanitarian mission. Will or consent of the Iranian people matters very little to our elites who make others die for them. The US and Israel have brutally bombed anyone who opposed their imperialism. The body count from the US wars post-1948 is somewhere between 8.25 to 11.8 million dead. For scale, this is enough killed to fill 77 to 110 of the largest college football stadiums. The vast majority of the war dead—from Korea to Gaza—the primary victims non-combatants and children.

We flattened North Korea, destroyed almost everything, and then wondered why they wouldn’t welcome us as liberators?!?

It is crazy we’re still talking about October 7th as if that excuses the devastation that the IDF inflicted on Gaza. We remember 9/11 (not remembering who called it “good” or that Iran had nothing to do with it) yet we forget the 290 killed by the US Navy in 1988, the dozens of scientists assassinated over the years the 436 confirmed civilian deaths from the Twelve-Day War. In the current US and Israel assault there have been 1,225—1,348 civilians slaughtered so far. For the sake of reference, approximately 828 of the victims of the October 7th attack were civilian and a significant portion of them were likely killed by panicked Israeli security forces.

The US—Israel have attacked 40 countries since 1948. Over the same period Iran has been defending itself from invasion, they’ve endured their key figures being murdered at home or abroad, and have only fired at the Gulf States who are hosting US-bases that aid the current assault on their sovereignty. It is unfathomable distortion that fighting back is being portrayed as aggression and surprise attack called defensive. Yes, Iran helps the axis of resistance, Hamas and Hezbollah, and yet Mossad and the CIA have operated inside Iran leading revolts.

Trump and war propagandists are claiming that Iran has been at war with us since 1979, and yet if you consider that it all started with the CIA removing a secular democratic leader in 1953 (for his daring to believe that Iran’s oil belonged to Iran) can we really say that? We were at war with Iran’s people at the behest of BP, installed the Shah who ran a brutal dictatorship, then we encouraged Iraq to invade after their revolution and even provided chemical weapons to Saddam Hussain to use against them.  Iran, in that war, suffered at least 200,000 combat deaths.  This all a direct result of US policies.

The US—Israeli foreign policy is blood-drenched and at least as evil as any other in the world. An honest person must be able to acknowledge this rather than pretend they are pure as wind-driven snow because they say so.

The Flaw of Good Versus Evil Narratives

People quickly fall into binary thinking. We want two simple categories. We prefer liberals versus conservatives, Republicans or Democrats, good guys and bad guys—and the falsely dichotomous framings of narratives. Why? Well, making it all black and white, ignoring the true color or stripes of reality, this simply requires far less effort and depth of knowledge. Why do good analysis when you can just believe they all need to be destroyed for peace to be possible?

But this is not a Gospel framework. Jesus frequently insulted his ethno-supremacist religious peers by sharing contrary stories about good Samaritans, and commending foreign enemies for having a faith that was beyond that of all Israel—specifically the Canaanite woman and Roman centurion. He also brought up the foreign widow who helped Elijah and the people of Nineveh as well, and all as part of a rebuke of an ethno-supremacist religious crowd that eventually killed him for his never letting them off the hook for their own evil pride and complete lack of repentance.

Fundamental attribution error is common—we make exemptions for ourselves or our own, while then assuming that negative actions of ‘others’ originate from an immutable character flaw only solved by their death.  There is this great quote of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn to help explain a different perspective:

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either — but right through every human heart — and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained.

The thought isn’t original to Solzhenitsyn, he’s paraphrasing St Paul:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

(Ephesians 6:12 NIV)

In both cases it is reframing the problem as being spiritual and external to a dividing line within ourselves. Rather than seeing the world as being our absolutely righteous side versus a bunch of irredeemable demons, we should turn first to look inward and consider that beam in our own eyes. If our own heart is full of hate, and we are wanting to see others judged, are we truly being merciful as our Father is merciful? No, and we invite judgment without mercy because of our judgement without mercy:

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment.

(James 2:12-13 NIV)

So how does this apply to the current war against Iran?

It means we recognize the unmerciful attitudes of those who claim to be forgiven and yet do not forgive others as Christ commanded. It means we see when we’re being encouraged to box others into a corner over the group they belong to (or we put them in) and judge them wholesale—as we exempt ourselves or our own from the same moral standard we have applied.

The US/Israel is led by a haughty spirit, this idea of our moral superiority and right to impose by any means, which is opposite anything we see in Scripture.

Once we stop assuming that everyone who fights us is just evil and cease believing that the US is just a faultless defender of the planet, there will finally be a possibility of a rational conversation that leads to peaceful resolution. No, the Iranian regime isn’t the “good guys” and yet nor are we.

I realize that a blog like this will not sway the religiously indoctrinated excited that the US is holy war against “America’s mortal enemy” that has supposedly waged a “savage, one-sided war against America” (see: Israel) and yet there’s plenty of reason to reflect on the evil we have done.  It’s amazing how fast we forget the coup we orchestrated, the chemical weapons we provided, the airlines shot down, the Gaza genocide and other aggression against the Iranians and population of this region.

The real tragedy lies in the binary thinking that paints entire nations or regimes as irredeemable evil while simultaneously excusing our excesses. As Solzhenitsyn observed, the dividing line of good and evil slices through every human heart, not between borders or ideologies. And Scripture echoes this: our struggle isn’t against flesh and blood, but spiritual forces—and mercy triumphs over merciless judgment.

Until we confront the beam in our own eye, and reject the haughty notion of our exceptionalism, and demand accountability from all powers (our own included), these cycles of vengeance and “collateral” horror will persist, burying more innocents and any hope for genuine peace. The call isn’t to pick a team—it’s to choose humility, mercy, and truth over the easy comfort of demonizing the “other.”

Postscript: Terrorism or a Human Response?

One last thing to reflect on.  The Temple Israel synagogue was attacked by Ayman Mohamed Ghazali and will no doubt be used to promote this idea of Muslims being evil savages.  But then consider that last week his two brothers (Kassim and Ibrahim) along with a niece and nephew (Ali and Fatima) were killed in an Israeli air strike in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley.  The synagogue he ran his vehicle into and opened fire on hosts Friends of the FIDF events and has raised funds for the benefit of the institution that slaughtered his loved ones.  When you understand ‘terrorism’ in that context, of a man wracked with grief and not having hope of justice—is he evil or just a human with the same feelings we would have if a foreign country killed our loved ones?

Victims of IDF terror bombing

What do you really expect them to do?  Roll over and let us do whatever we want with impunity?

Echoes of Imperialism: From Pearl Harbor to Venezuela – Parallels in Desperation and Decline

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In the annals of history, empires often have become cornered by their ambitions and are forced into desperate acts that hasten their downfall. Imperial Japan in the lead-up to World War II provides a stark example: backed into an economic stranglehold by US oil embargoes, it launched a very daring attack on Pearl Harbor in a bid for survival. And, today, the United States faces a eerily similar predicament—not as the embargoes’ enforcer, but as a nation grappling with big resource dependencies, massive mounting debts, and quickly eroding global influence. This parallel becomes extremely vivid when examining U.S. policies toward Venezuela—where the act of desperate aggression of Imperial Japan echos Trump’s bold moves on Greenland and the kidnapping of Nicolás Maduro. Drawing on historical precedents and the current events, we see superpower teetering on the edge—actions driven more by vulnerability than strength.

To fully understand this analogy, recall the circumstances that propelled Japan toward Pearl Harbor. In the 1930s and early 1940s, Japan’s imperial expansion in Asia relied heavily on imported oil, much of it from the United States. When President Franklin D. Roosevelt imposed an oil embargo in 1941—as a response to Japan’s actions in China and Indochina—this act was a declaration of an economic war. And it also set a countdown timer on Japan’s military machine. Without fuel, their economy and war efforts would grind to a halt and within months. Faced with this dire situation—down seven points with a minute left on the clock, as one might say—Japan opted for a Hail Mary: a surprise attack on the US Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941. The hope was to cripple U.S. naval power long enough to negotiate a favorable peace deal and secure resource access. Tactically brilliant, the audacious strike was an amazing success, devastated battleships and caused enormous damage. However, not wanting to risk detection, the Japanese decided against a third wave and left fuel depots and repair facilities ready to use. Crucially, the U.S. aircraft carriers, that would prove decisive in the coming battles, were absent from moorings.

Perfectly planned and executed.

The Japanese leaders underestimated America’s resolve and their unmatched industrial capacity—which soon out-produced and overwhelmed them. What began as a bid for survival ended in their total humiliating defeat.

Fast-forward to the present, and the United States occupies the opposite seat at the table—or rather, a mirrored one. Once the architect of oil embargoes, America now imports much of its oil, and has refineries optimized for heavy crude from sources like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and Venezuela. Our economy ticks like a time bomb, burdened by dependencies on foreign production (notably China for manufacturing) and a military that, while formidable, also shows cracks of vulnerability. Recent simulations highlight this: in combined naval exercises, a relatively cheap ($100 million) diesel air-independent propulsion (AIP) submarine has “sunk” a powerful $6 billion nuclear U.S. Navy aircraft carrier, underscoring how newly arrived asymmetric threats could shatter the illusion of invincibility. This mirrors Japan’s overconfidence in its naval prowess, only to face industrial and logistical realities.

Nowhere is this desperation more apparent than in the US . dealings with Venezuela, a nation long in the shadow of the American empire.

Nobody comes close to the US in military capabilities.

South America’s history is riddled with bullying US interventions prioritizing corporate interests over national sovereignty—from the violence of CIA-orchestrated coups to those direct military incursions—a history that has birthed the term “Banana Republic.” For over a century, as long as resources flowed northward, Washington turned a blind eye to the most brutal regimes and their human rights abuses. The US military has often served solely as an enforcement arm of a handful billionaire oligarchs, who in turn fund politicians in DC in a corrupt cycle of public risk for private gain masquerading as Capitalism.

U.S.-Backed Kidnappings, Assassinations and Coups in Latin America Since 1950

1954 — Guatemala — President Jacobo Árbenz — Overthrown in CIA Operation PBSUCCESS

1960s, 70s, 80s — Cuba — Prime Minister Fidel Castro — The US tried to assassinate him about 634 times and invaded the country during the Bay of Pigs

1961 — Dominican Republic — Rafael Trujillo — US-backed coup and assassination

1964 — Brazil — President João Goulart — US-supported coup

1965 — Dominican Republic — President Juan Bosch — US-supported coup

1970 — Chile — General René Schneider — US-supported kidnapping and assassination

1971 — Bolivia — President Juan José Torres — US-supported coup

1973 — Chile — President Salvador Allende — US-backed coup and “suicide” of Allende

1976 — Argentina — President Isabel Perón — US-backed coup

1976 — Bolivia (in exile in Argentina) — former President Juan José Torres — US-supported assassination

1981 — Panama — General Omar Torrijos — Death in suspicious plane crash with likely US support

1981 — Ecuador — President Jaime Roldós — Death in suspicious plane crash with likely US support

1983 — Grenada — Prime Minister Maurice Bishop — US invasion and removal of Bishop in Operation Urgent Fury

1980s — Nicaragua — Sandinista government — Sustained covert regime-change war

1989 — Panama — Gen. Manuel Noriega — Invasion, kidnapping and transfer to US custody in Operation Just Cause

2002 — Venezuela — President Hugo Chávez — Kidnapped by US-backed military forces for less than 48 hours before being restored to power

2004 — Haiti — President Jean-Bertrand Aristide — Kidnapped and flown to Africa on a US military plane

2009 — Honduras — President Manuel Zelaya — US-backed kidnapping and coup

Venezuela’s “crime” was simple: asserting control over its vast oil reserves. When the government nationalized assets for sake of their people, the U.S. corporations and their political allies responded with their crippling sanctions—akin to thugs blocking shoppers from a well-stocked store. These measures aren’t about justice; they’re punishment for defying the empire. Claims that Venezuela “stole” oil infrastructure built by U.S. firms ignore offers to compensate, which were rebuffed. Why accept a fair payment when gross exploitation of resources is far more profitable? Recent actions under President Trump, including the controversial removal of the Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro to face a US judge, smack of desperation: a bid to seize assets and bolster a faltering balance sheet. It’s framed as liberating a people from Socialism, but the real reason is resource control.

US propaganda blames Venezuelan suffering on internal policies—like universal healthcare—ignoring how our sanctions starve their economy. Socialism is not a problem in Israel—why only here?

Judge Alvin Hellerstein will decide Maduro’s fate.

Meanwhile, alternative oil sources like Saudi Arabia or Russia remain volatile and keeping access is an increasingly risky proposition.

And, while I firmly believe mutual respect could yield great prosperity for the US and Venezuela—would both allow the migrants fleeing poverty to stay home and secure stable energy for the US without war—that is a peaceful solution that is far less profitable for US-based oil billionaires.  Maduro had also taken a strong stance against the killing in Gaza.  The country of Venezuela—under Hugo Chávez—banned usery and enforced a regime of conservative morals (US pornography banned and on gay marriage) all of which defies US banking and business interests.

This imperial overreach extends to the broader economic woes in the US, painting a picture of a nation painting itself into a corner. The US national debt, which first hit $1 trillion in 1981, now ballooned to $38 trillion and now they add a nearly trillion dollars every other month in an unsustainable parabolic ascent.  The US currency debasement, endless printing of money, punishes global holders, and is fueling the rise of BRICS as the safer alternative to the dollar’s long abused “exorbitant privilege.” Worse, all this government spending, regardless of the party, simply funnels wealth to oligarchs via their political connections—a trickle-down economics by another name. So called “tax cuts for the rich” are derided, and yet inflation achieves this exact same redistribution upward. The weaponization of the dollar, more importantly, erodes faith in its reserve currency status, undermining the very foundations of the post-World War II systems on which US strength rests—like Bretton Woods and the Petrodollar.

Our creditors can yank the rug at any time.

Compounding this loss of US reputation is a propaganda machine straight out of George Orwell’s 1984. No, show trials and kangaroo courts aren’t relics of Soviet excess; they’re very much alive in US actions against the figures like Maduro, tried in a rigged system far from impartiality. Maduro’s criticism of Gaza violence preceded his ouster, timed suspiciously after meetings between Trump and Israeli leaders. Media manipulates the narratives—vanishing massive supporting rallies or amplifying astroturf campaigns—much like the staged toppling of Saddam Hussein’s statue in Iraq, later regretted by participants who longed for pre-invasion stability. Skepticism abounds: those who saw through Russian collusion hoaxes or Trump’s prosecutions as lawfare suddenly swallow anti-Venezuela propaganda whole, revealing partisan blindness over principle. Lady Justice’s blindfold is absent at the top, swayed by partisan politics and payments. We endure psyops, cancel culture, thought policing, and memory holes, us screaming “2+2=5” at our cult leaders’ behest.

In historic parallel, the US supported Gaza genocide also evokes a direct comparison to Japan’s Nanjing Massacre, the unverified casualties now dwarfing historical horrors. America’s “Zionist” alignment only isolates us further on a world stage, very similar to Japan’s Axis ties. Trump’s tactical “success” in Venezuela may prove a strategic blunder, like Pearl Harbor: a short-term victory that awakens global resistance. And forcing the Danes to relinquish Greenland only drives a wedge deeper. Other nations witnessing another blatant disrespect of sovereignty—applying US laws extraterritorially, flouting the “rules based order” precedents—will only serve accelerate de-dollarization or even lead to alliances against us.

Stephen Miller: “only power and the willingness to use it matters.”

In conclusion, expansion oriented Zionist America, much like the Soviet Union of old, now perpetrates atrocities and abuses—from the bloodshed in Gaza to the brazen seizure of foreign leaders and threats—that erode our moral foundation and alienate the world. This path of treating partner nations like a pimp does a prostitute—the extracting resources through coercion and sanctions—is unsustainable. There are far better ways to achieve our goals beyond application of brute force—unlike the recent assertion by Zionist Trump adviser Stephen Miller saying “only power and the willingness to use it matters.” Embracing mutual respect, fair negotiations, and genuine diplomacy could foster true alliances, allowing us to secure resources without conflict, and also restore America’s standing. History warns that all empires built on military domination crumble; it’s time to choose a different course before our own Hail Mary seals our fate.

State of Hasbara: Unveiling Opportunism in the Crises of 9/11, Iraq, and October 7th

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I’m not a big conspiracy theory guy. 

What I mean by that is that I don’t see everything as orchestrated or part of a secret global plot.  I believe accidents can happen and that people can do terrible things unaided or completely of their own volition.  But, all that said, I also believe that the rule “never let a crisis go to waste” is not an invention of Rahm Emanuel. 

Political opportunism is rampant on all sides.  And then there’s the just plain letting something bad happen to use for advancing agenda.

What I’m about to detail is all verifiable facts and not conjecture.  I’m just going to lay it out then let you reach your own reasonable conclusions.  I’ll also prime this topic with a response to 9/11 that has made less sense in retrospect and that is the invasion of Iraq that followed.  Saddam Hussain was not at all involved in the attacks.  The war cost the US trillions of dollars, 4,419 Americans lost their lives, 31,993 wounded, and that is not to mention the Iraqi losses.  We traded that much blood and treasure for claims of there being WMDs—which our government knew were mostly or completely destroyed.

So what was the actual reason for regime change in Iraq?

But, before we answer, let’s get to some of the facts on 9/11.  And, again, I’ll stick only to what is verified and not speculate beyond what is very easily corroborated with videos and news articles from the time.  This is all things known according to official records, eyewitness accounts, and confessions on foreign television.

While the rest of the country watched 9/11 unfold in horror, five men were seen filming the burning World Trade Center towers from a white van, they were seen high-fiving, and appearing jovially celebratory from the New Jersey side.  Their behavior was so totally alarming, and in contrast to what one may expect seeing the US under attack and with people literally being forced to jump to their deaths, that a concerned citizen reported it to authorities.

Trump said Muslims were celebrating in Jersey City.  Not true.  What he should have said is Mossad.

Later in the day the van was stopped by the police and these five men, Sivan Kurzberg, Paul Kurzberg, Yaron Shmuel, Oded Ellner, and Omer Marmari—dubbed the “Dancing Israelis”—were arrested.

These Israeli men were employed by Urban Moving Systems, a company that was also owned by Israeli national, Dominik Suter, and the men possessed items like $4,700 in cash stuffed in a sock, they carried multiple foreign passports, maps highlighting New York City, and a box cutter like those used in the 9/11 hijackings, further FBI searches of this firm’s Weehawken offices uncovered a fraudulent operation with minimal evidence that it was a legitimate business.  Add to it, 16 seized computers, and reports of anti-American sentiment among staff, including boasts about subverting U.S. media. Suter’s abrupt flight to Israel just before a second FBI interview, abandoning the premises with client property and phones left behind, only amplified suspicions.

Perhaps most damningly, in a 2001 Israeli TV interview on LaHadashot, one of the five men, Oded Ellner, chillingly stated they were placed in the U.S. specifically “to document the event,” a strange phrasing implying their prior awareness of the impending attacks.  Which the FBI could not conclusively prove or disprove despite the months of detention and polygraphs, such led to the speculation—backed by a 2002 Forward report citing U.S. officials—that at least two of the five Israelis were Mossad operatives using the firm as a front.  And officially to keep tabs on Arab extremists.  I’ll let you judge if that is just a cover story or the truth.

Why we would ever believe him again, after the Iraq WMD lie…

Enter Benjamin Netanyahu.  The day after the attacks, he was quoted in the NY Times as saying “it was very good” before he corrected himself and explained what he meant is that it would “generate immediate sympathy” that would benefit Israel.  And it was a year to the day after this that he was pitching a war with Iraq to Congress, calling himself an “expert witness” and warning the legislative body of something that sounds so awfully familiar:

“There is no question whatsoever that Saddam is seeking, is working, is advancing towards the development of nuclear weapons—no question whatsoever.”

Netanyahu continued his case:

“If you take out Saddam, Saddam’s regime, I guarantee you that it will have enormous positive reverberations on the region.”

There was zero evidence found to support Netanyahu’s dire warnings about WMDs.  I will let you decide if regime change in Iraq was an amazing success that has only led to peace and prosperity for the region.  But 9/11 was used as an excuse to invade Iraq and Netanyahu was cheering this on—much like the Dancing Israelis.  None of this says for certain that Mossad had foreknowledge or withheld vital intelligence so the attacks could continue and draw the US into Israel’s conflicts.  But we did spend trillions for a war that did absolutely nothing to advance our national security interests.  

Many of these men may do it all over again, but would they if they knew what they were actually fighting for?

And then there’s October 7th.  Netanyahu has called this Israel’s 9/11 and maybe this an admission.  Recently, before his untimely death, Charlie Kirk made an observation in a discussion with Patrick Bet-David about the incredible security perimeter around Gaza and surveillance, expressing disbelief that it could be breeched and openly pondering if an order given to stand down.  This, wasn’t just speculation.  Israeli intelligence had the Hamas incursion plan a full year before and didn’t act, according to the New York Times, and on the night of the attacks former IDF guards have said they were told not to do their routine patrols.

So was the terrorist attack on 9/11 allowed to happen to generate sympathy to later be exploited to further Netanyahu’s agenda as far as Iraq?  And as an order given to stand down on October 7th, likewise, benefits the ultimate aim of Likud which is written in the original 1977 party platform, “between the Sea and the Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty.”  Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the first Israeli Prime Minister born in what had been called Mandatory Palestine, was assassinated by a radical Zionist settler for seeking a peaceful resolution.

Maybe some see terrorists.  I see a mother and a child, their lives as important as any other.

Israel brazenly attacked the USS Liberty for reasons never appropriately explained.  The Lavon Affair exposes a level of deception and indifference to civilian casualties that shocked the international community—only surpassed in Gaza now the child amputee capital of the world with bombs paid for by the US taxpayers.  Do we really need to speculate—with all of the facts above—if the Netanyahu regime is willing to sacrifice a few American lives in pursuit of their regional or political ambitions?  With calculus as cold is there any limiting factor?

The recurring exploitation of crises like 9/11 and October 7th, paired with a history of deceptive hasbara, casts doubt on the credibility of official explanations, urging us to further scrutinize the manipulative tactics of those who may prioritize self-serving agendas over truth.

Conspiracy Central

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Conspiracies happen all of the time. It is not a surprise that people plot evil schemes and would be more strange if they did not.  But it doesn’t mean that everything that happens is a conspiracy.  Being old enough to recall the black helicopter theories and warnings of imminent UN takeover.  Who can forget the FEMA camp claims and those pictures of ‘coffins’ Barack Obama’s administration would soon be loading us into?  Strangely many dates come and go, but none of those who push these wild global plots come forward later and say, “You know, I may have been wrong about JFK being the Antichrist… “

Wild conspiracy theories are about political ideology more than evidence.  It is oftentimes a product of those who feel disempowered and seek uncomplicated explanations.  The left, for example, hallucinates nebulous things like systemic racism or white privilege.  Not entirely claims without any merit and yet if it is used to explain every outcome—if you see it lurking behind everything people do—then stop, get some help!  The fringe right likewise, turns to fantasy when reality is too hard for their simple minds to understand.  Inflation can’t just be about the Fed printing trillions of dollars devaluing currency, no it must be fires at food processing facilities! 

There is always a motivated misunderstanding of evidence that is involved beneath this kind of claim—a misuse of statistics and facts to form grandiose theories.

The common thread of conspiracy theories is that they can’t be disproven.  They are all established on faith, firm belief evidence connecting all the dots can be found and can shape-shift as needed.  If one part can be disproven they can simply move the goalposts or deny the evidence is legitimate.  If someone does not want to believe that the moon landing happened you could show a Saturn V rocket, introduce them to one of the astronauts, thoroughly explain all of the alleged irregularities they see and they’ll still believe that it was faked. 

It is a matter of political orientation, not facts or plausibility, and stems from assumptions and a general mistrust of the system.

To the conspiracy-minded folks, everything becomes a conspiracy, there can never be an accident, or a lone wolf attack, no such thing as coincidence in their world. Sandy Hook couldn’t be a deranged (drugged out) Adam Lanza.   No, to Alex Jones it must’ve been a false flag with the casualties being crisis actors rather than real people.  And some of those hunch I understand, this is what happens when every tragedy is treated cynically as an opportunity by control-freak politicians. 

Why did we go to war with Iraq after 9/11? 

Is it so hard to believe that the CIA may have played some role in the JFK assassination when they do regime change all around the world?

The real issue I have with Q-Anon, where all is a hidden criminal plot (and everything is going according to the plan) is how it sucks the oxygen out of the room for discussion of real observable corruption.  The far-flung theories, worse, are used to discredit those reasonable concerns about the expansion of government power and proliferation of unaccountable agencies.  We should be far more concerned with what those with power are ‘legally’ doing in plain sight—and not giving them cover of cockamamie theories they happily use to dismiss us all as crackpots.

That’s the irony here, the conspiracy theorist is aiding the conspiracy.  For example, fact-checks of “Covid is a bioweapon” were used to strawman the reasonable questions about a possible Wuhan lab-leak.  This is why we couldn’t have a serious conversation.  

So why do the kooks need to speculate so far beyond the evidence?  Why can’t they stick to what is known or factual, the most plausible explanation, rather than always having to gallop to the craziest possible conclusion?  In some cases it might just be stupidity, that they simply aren’t very good at tracking normal human motivation.  But in many cases, it is just a form of resentment, they are unserious people—with a massive inferiority complex—who both need to distinguish themselves and also discredit those who did attain more.

It is basically the working-class equivalent of pulling the race-card.  

And yet this is not entirely without cause.

They’ve endured globalism, they have seen their jobs outsourced, prices rise and wages stagnate.  This was not the America that was promised to them.  A place where their own dreams would be the limit.  They see things going the wrong way, opportunities drying up for people like them, as a flood of new faces replace the familiar.  There has been a sort of conspiracy against them, but not in the way they imagine.  Yes, in many ways, they have been screwed over by their betters—so perhaps that is where the deep suspicion originates?