Useful Idiots
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How Biden and Netanyahu PROVOKED the War in the Middle East – with Lebanese Political Scientists Bashir Saade and Karim Makdisi
Hezbollah's leader agreed to a 21-day ceasefire. Then Israel killed him.
October 04, 2024
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“It's very bloody and very violent and very dangerous.”

Lebanese political scientists Bashir Saade and Karim Makdisi shed light on Israel’s attacks on Lebanon, Hezbollah, Hasan Nasrallah and more.

Since the situation is so volatile, news is constantly breaking: after we recorded the interview, Lebanon’s Foreign Minister told CNN that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah had agreed to a 21-day ceasefire just before he was assassinated by Israel. The temporary ceasefire, he claimed, was called for by President Biden, President Macron and other allies during the UN General Assembly. 

During the interview Karim and Bashir predict what is to come. “The cost is going to be very high,” warns Karim. “It’s going to be very bloody.” They also reflect on why Israel’s attack on Lebanon was inevitable, but not because of Hezbollah. 

“I think this is a war that has been coming,” Karim explains. “It's a war that was going to happen. And if it wasn't going to happen now, it would have happened a year from now. You have an expansionist Israel. It has always been expansionist.” And, Bashir adds, “Hezbollah is prepared for this.”

They discuss the double standards faced by the IDF, which is called the most moral army in the world, and Hezbollah, which is described by western media and politicians as terrorist. As Karim explains:

“Hezbollah could target civilian areas. But it's just not in their doctrine, in a sense, to hit civilian areas for the sake of it. In the way that for the Israelis, with the Dahiya Doctrine, you can level the entire civilian area if you think there's some kind of military target inside. This is something the Israelis have been doing since 1948.” Coming tragically full circle, Israel’s Dahiya Doctrine, which calls for disproportionate military responses and the targeting of civilians (war crimes), was named after a Beirut neighborhood where Nasrallah wound up being murdered. 

The West justifies Israel’s war crimes by claiming that Hamas uses civilians as human shields. But this week, when Iran launched a missile attack on a Mossad weapons base, CNN itself admitted that the base was embedded in a civilian area.

“The Mossad headquarters and military and defense ministry,” Karim explains, “are in various very civilian areas inside main Israeli cities. So does that mean they’re targets? Does that mean all the civilians working there and around there are targets? Does that mean that it's legitimate under self-defense or any other kind of doctrine? Does it mean that Hezbollah can blow up cell phones and pagers?”

Notably, the very same western politicians and media who accuse Hamas of using human shields are absolutely silent when it comes to Israel’s documented use of Palestinian and Israeli human shields.

Subscribe for the full interview with Bashir and Karim on the state of Hezbollah after the assassination of its leader Hassan Nasrallah, how corporate media is constantly working to cover up Israel’s crimes, how martyrdom is portrayed differently based on who does it, and what Bashir and Karim are calling “political suicide” for the Democratic Party.

Plus, catch this week’s Thursday Throwdown: John Kerry Wants to Save Democracy (By Ending Democracy)

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“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”

Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.

“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”

But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:

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"Shameful" New York Times Changes Headline to Protect Sanctions

“Sanctions are a form of war. They’re economic warfare. And they destroy people’s lives.”

Joshua Landis (https://twitter.com/joshua_landis), Sandra Mackey Chair in Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, is one of the foremost experts on Syria. This week, as Syria, along with neighbor Turkiye, grapples with the aftermath of the devastating earthquake, Professor Landis joins the Useful Idiots to explain the deadly consequences that sanctions pile on to the damage.

“America likes to talk about all its precision bombing and hitting someone with a drone to avoid collateral damage,” Landis explains. “But sanctions? It’s all about collateral damage. Very little of it is targeted.”

But if you read corporate media outlets like the New York Times or Washington Post, you’d find a much different story. Both papers this week published headlines that were hastily changed when they realized they were being a little too truthful. See if you can tell the difference:

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March 26, 2024

Good to be part of the community. I think that Aaron and Katie do a brilliant job in these hellish times when such great in - depth research and reporting are essential.

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Somebody check in on Pete Hegseth...
The Secretary of War begs for $1.5 trillion more for war in a weird preschool-style cartoon

From a weird empty void, surrounded by cartoon drawings of guns and moneybags, with hand-drawn and number-free graphs floating by, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth makes a plea for $1.5 trillion to be added to the Pentagon budget to fuel Trump’s endless wars.

And his pitch? The US will actually be saving money with the Pentagon having its most inflated budget of all time. This is because, uh, it’s going to be run like a business, not bureaucracy, and um, instead of the bureaucrats from before it’s now going to be cool, cigar-smoking old businessmen who call themselves Deal Team Six and probably have a cool secret handshake.

“It’s simple,” Hegseth claims, “we now move at the speed of business.”

Ohh, we move at the speed of business.

So, since it’s run like a business, does that mean it will have profits? And will those profits go to the services that Trump gutted, like childcare, Medicaid, and Medicare? (An answer to this question was not covered in Pete’s cartoon).

Katie and Aaron pick apart Hegseth’s incredibly disingenuous cartoon slop, showing why it’s not just wrong, but dumb too. Plus, the Fraudfather, aka the ADL’s Jonathan Greenblatt released an annual report of antisemitic incidents, and Aaron and Katie struggle not to laugh while reading through some of them.

It’s a lot of the same vibe as this gem:

 

There’s so much madness: watch with Katie and Aaron so you can laugh instead of cry at it all. Thanks for supporting independent media, subscribe to watch the full episode here:

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"Gas prices may be up, but you'll be happy to know that Iranians can't feed themselves."
National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett has a solution for Americans who can't pay their bills

When even the Fox Business host thinks your economic plan stinks, you know something’s very wrong.

After gas prices have shot up and Americans face an affordability crisis due to Trump’s disastrous war-of-choice on Iran, National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett somehow argues that this will help Republicans in upcoming elections.

“People vote their wallets,” he tells Fox Business host Stuart Varney. “I don’t really trust surveys.”

“But you gotta look at the numbers,” Varney says, doing his best to hide his concern in an effort to make Hassett look good, an apparently impossible and thankless job. “I mean, you got an average of regular [gas] of $4.35 a gallon. It's up 7 cents overnight. Diesel is $5.60. That hits voters hard. Can you give us any idea about when they’re going to come down?”

And to this, the always-grinning Hassett gives one of the most psychopathic and out-of-touch answers we’ve heard yet on a Friday Free-for-All:

“Well,” he smirks, thinking he has the perfect solution for Americans who are struggling to pay for gas and feed their children. “It you look at the situation in Iran, the Iranian economy is completely on the ropes, they’re running out of food, and a huge amount of the feed that goes to their animals is having trouble getting through the gulf.”

So the next time you’re stressed about your bills, Americans, just remember, Iranians can’t feed themselves because of murderous sanctions imposed on them by the US. Kevin Hassett thinks that’ll make you feel all better.

Plus, Bill Maher gives the most snowflake answer imaginable for why he thinks he’s been “soft canceled,” EU President Ursula von der Leyen says she’s stopping human rights abuses against Iranian women (by killing them), Pete Hegseth gets destroyed by Useful Idiots guest Rep. Ro Khanna, and so much more madness.

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Washington Post Columnist: "Kill the Iranian Leaders That Don't Want a Deal."
Plus, a Congressional candidate thinks saying "genocide" is as bad as the N-word

“What should happen if the Iranians don’t come to the table after 72 hours?”

This was asked to Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen, author of such lines as “Iran is a death cult running a country,” who has previously campaigned for the use of enhanced interrogation techniques (AKA torture). You know, a real Washington Post type.

His answer: “If there are two factions in Iran, one that wants a deal and one that doesn’t, let’s kill the ones that don’t want a deal.” He pauses to laugh, and continues, “It’s that simple! We’ve killed over 50 Iranian leaders so far, let’s end the ceasefire and finish the job.”

It’s mafia-boss mentality with a war crime twist. When the New Nuremberg Trials begin, remember to add Thiessen to the list of complicit journalists, under T next to Tapper.

Katie and Aaron are all over this, plus about a million other war-crime whispers strewn across corporate media this week: Bill Maher is devastated over Democrats turning on his beloved Israel, former Biden National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan can’t believe anyone (other than himself) would help Israel commit mass murder, a Congressman grossly refers to the US as a “dominant predator,” and more skincrawllers all over mainstream media.

It’s dirty work watching all this news. If you want to support the show, please consider subscribing. You can watch the full episode here:

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