Veronica Shelford

Bio: non-existent. A genuine nobody watching the weirdnesses of the world from what I hope, no doubt falsely, will be a safe distance...

[Veronica Shelford @vshelford2]

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[Brian Berletic @BrianJBerletic]

🇺🇸🇮🇷US STRIKES IRAN - NOW DIRECT PARTY OF WAR IT USED ISRAELI PROXIES TO START - AS PER POLICY PAPERS FROM AS FAR BACK AS 2009

▪️Trump, after picking a cabinet of warmongering neocons and openly committing to policy verbatim out of the 2009 policy paper, "Which Path to Persia?" which included fake negotiations and using Israel to provoke the war, President Trump, VP Vance, and long-time warmonger/neocon Sec. of State Rubio announce unprovoked US strikes on Iran;

▪️The US will now escalate toward regime change, since this never had anything to do with a threat of nuclear weapons as the Trump administration's own intelligence noted Iran didn't have WMDs nor was pursuing them;

▪️WARNING: this is only one part of an even wider war still coming - keep in mind - this is about setting the stage for wider war with Russia and China every US admin from Bush, Obama, Trump, Biden and now. Trump again has set the stage for;

....

On a personal note - I have spent years trying to warn and educate people about the nature of US foreign policy, the continuity of agenda that takes place regardless of who Americans vote for - and I spent the last 6 months+ warning people that Trump was no exception and that THIS EXACT WAR WAS COMING!!!

I have been attacked and condemned for 6 months+ - told by many including long-time supporters and even friends I had "lost my mind," that "Trump's different," that "policy papers don't mean anything," that "Trump wants a multipolar world!" and the best one of all, "that Brookings paper is from 2009, things have changed!"

And yet the Trump administration went down the final options of the Brookings Institution's "Which Path to Perisa?" paper verbatim - using fake negotiations and an Israeli attack to provoke the war before the US joined.

It's not even that this paper exists and I based all analysis no it - it's the fact that the US policy establishment today continued preparing and implementing those very policies, month-after-month, year-after-year ever since it was published.

Those who couldn't see this coming CAN'T SEE.

And those still making excuses for Trump after the US-backed Israeli strikes are now complicit in failing to warn the public of this inevitable development.

I see people now even as US bombs drop on Iran, making excuses rather than admitting they have no idea what they're talking about or what is happening - and in turn - perpetuating ignorance among their audiences.

We will continue to indulge in ignorance and delusion (and in some cases, deliberate deceit) rather than face the truth at our own peril.

It's hard to say whether there is anything we can do to stop this - but one thing is for sure - if we can't even open our eyes and face the truth, we can do nothing else.

[Veronica Shelford @vshelford2]

@vshelford2 will not be posting any more. She succumbed to cancer yesterday.

[Jeremy Corbyn @jeremycorbyn]

80 years ago, the US dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

We remember the thousands who were killed in a crime against humanity, as well as the survivors who carried the pain of the past.

Today, let us honour them by vowing to rid our world of nuclear weapons once and for all.

[Will Schryver @imetatronink]

📜 US/Israel Versus Iran - Round One

My summary assessment of the missile war over Israel during the 12-day-long first act of the ongoing war between Israel et alia and Iran et alia:

The first Iranian counterstrike against Israel (14 June) began with a few hundred drones and relatively antiquated subsonic cruise missiles, whose primary mission was to soak up air to air and Iron Dome magazine depth.

Additionally, the IDF claims the Iranians fired over 200 ballistic missiles on 14 June. I think that is probably an exaggeration. But, in any case, the overwhelming majority were older Iranian missile stock and purpose-built decoys.

My sense is that no more than about three dozen strikes in the 14 June attack were carried out by later generation Iranian ballistic missile models. Most, if not all, got through unscathed.

Over the next week (15-21 June), in addition to continuing drone strikes, Iran fired, on average, ~25 ballistic missiles per day (again, according to the IDF).

By this time, reports began swirling in Israeli and western analytical circles that US/Israel air defenses had been severely attrited and were proving to be far less effective than advertised.

US land-based THAAD, SM-3 and SM-6 from US ships in the eastern Mediterranean, and Israeli Arrow anti-ballistic missile interceptors were being consumed at a prodigious rate, but achieving few, if any, interceptions of the few dozens of upper-tier ballistic missiles fired from Iran.

On 22 June, a large Iranian counterstrike took place, including ~100 ballistic missiles.

By this stage of the battle, the Iron Dome had been significantly depleted, and even the slow-flying Iranian drones were defeating it in many instances. THAAD had more or less disappeared, and the Israeli Arrow systems were attesting multiple “malfunctions” and what (based on OSINT video evidence) appeared to be almost frantic firing patterns against single-digit salvos of Iranian hypersonic missiles.

A half-dozen or more Israeli missiles were being fired without success against individual incoming Iranian missiles, which blew right through them, their plasma envelope glowing brightly in the night sky as they streaked down to their targets.

By the time a ceasefire was agreed on 24 June, Israeli and American air defense capability in the theater of battle had reached near-exhaustion, even as the Iranians had begun to employ modest but increasing numbers of impressively capable higher-end strike missiles.

There is no doubt the Iranians welcomed a break in the fighting in order to catch their breath and reorganize their own defenses. But it was the Israelis who were, by far, most desperate to stem the tide of events.

The Israelis suffered damage far in excess of anything inflicted upon them in their history. They also expended long-developed on-the-ground sabotage and intel assets within Iran, and the round-up of those exposed assets continues.

The Iranians have proven beyond dispute that they are capable of delivering large-warhead hypersonic strikes with high accuracy (<10m CEP). And while it remains to be seen how many of these top-shelf missiles they truly possess and what their rate of production is, the bottom line is that Iran has achieved a major strategic victory which carries a strong deterrence effect in its wake.

With each passing month, the Iranians will grow stronger – and the Israelis will become more desperate to try to do something about it.

I doubt making peace will be on their agenda.

(Originally published July 5, 2025)
https://t.co/vCAqHk8R4K

[Chay Bowes @BowesChay]

Slovak PM Robert Fico warns that an EU-wide ban on Russian gas is inevitable, claiming anti-Russian sentiment has grown so extreme it would pass "even if all in Europe were to die of hunger and cold."

[Chay Bowes @BowesChay]

Meet Leonid Stupnytsky, a General in the Nazi allied Ukrainian Insurgent Army who massacred hundreds of thousands Poles, Jews and political opponents in Ukraine and Poland in WW2.

Women, Children and Babies were Butchered

Zelensky just named a Ukrainian Army Brigade after him

[James Wood 武杰士 @commiepommie]

The crazy reality is that Google and Facebook, including the companies they’ve acquired, have repeatedly been shown to cooperate with U.S. intelligence agencies, giving the NSA access to user data through secretive programs like PRISM.

This initiative allowed the NSA to collect emails, chats, videos and documents directly from servers of major tech firms, including Google, Facebook, Apple, Microsoft and others, under loosely interpreted court orders. Worse still, under the MUSCULAR program, the NSA and UK’s GCHQ literally tapped into Google and Yahoo’s private data centres without any court oversight, siphoning off user information by the millions.

But surveillance is just the tip of the iceberg.

🔹 Facebook has knowingly manipulated user emotions. In 2012, it conducted a psychological experiment on nearly 700,000 users without their knowledge, filtering their news feeds to see if emotions were contagious. No warning, no consent, no apology.

🔹 The Cambridge Analytica scandal saw Facebook allowing the misuse of data from up to 87 million users, which was then used to influence elections, including the 2016 U.S. Presidential election and the Brexit vote.

🔹 Google was caught secretly tracking users’ locations, even after users had turned off “Location History.” In 2018, the Associated Press confirmed this, and lawsuits followed, yet the damage had already been done.

🔹 Both platforms have a history of shadow-banning, algorithmic censorship and political bias, often without transparency or user recourse. Content is curated, suppressed, or promoted based on opaque priorities that frequently align with U.S. government and corporate interests.

And what happened after all this?

No jail time. No bans. No international outrage. Just a slap on the wrist, a fine or two and business as usual.

Yet people still defend them, while accusing other countries of “surveillance” and “censorship.” If anyone wonders why China doesn't want U.S. big tech within their borders, these are just a few examples.

The hypocrisy from people in the West isn’t just glaring, it’s institutionalised.

[Veronica Shelford @vshelford2]

@Fidias0 @Kathleen_Tyson_ She must go!

[Furkan Gözükara @FurkanGozukara]

*I don’t know what to say anymore. As doctors, we can’t stop a genocide and we can’t end a famine.

We provided a diagnosis - genocide. *

[Veronica Shelford @vshelford2]

Excellent and deeply saddening piece by Patrick Lawrence
https://t.co/6aDppOJ0XN

[Johnny miller @johnnyjmils]

In a few years time. The British government will have designated everyone in Britain who actually cares about anything, as criminals, terrorists or far right extremists.

[Johnny miller @johnnyjmils]

The three major thought crimes in the UK are:

Promoting peace with Russia
Criticizing Israel
Fear of immigration and the loss of British culture

Disobey. Become prominant enough. And you'll end up in jail. Or they'll ruin your career.

The British government is not acting in the interests of the British people. Its not even acting in the interests of the British state.

[Drop Site @DropSiteNews]

BREAKING: Haaretz Confirms Israeli Soldiers Ordered to Fire on Unarmed Starving Civilians at Aid Sites

A major Haaretz investigation confirms Israeli soldiers in Gaza were ordered to shoot at unarmed Palestinians gathering near food distribution sites — even when they posed no threat. Soldiers described the areas as a “killing field,” noting: “There’s no enemy, no weapons.”

Here are some of the most important findings from the report:

➛ IDF officers say the killings aren’t isolated mistakes but part of a pattern dubbed “Operation Salted Fish” — the Israeli version of Red Light, Green Light. “We shoot, they run, we shoot again,” one soldier said. “This is our communication.”

➛ At least 549 Palestinians have been killed and over 4,000 wounded near these aid centers since May 27, according to Gaza’s Health Ministry. Many were waiting for UN food trucks.

➛ Testimonies reveal Israeli commanders instructed troops to open fire on civilians approaching aid sites before they opened or after they closed — using machine guns, mortars, and grenades. Soldiers described systematic live fire, including from tanks.

➛ One officer said they fire “to signal to the population that this is a combat zone.” Soldiers reported casualties every day. Another soldier recalled being told to fire a shell at a crowd “to send a message.”

➛ Israeli soldiers said demolition crews are often present at aid sites — and that private contractors are being paid to level homes nearby. One fighter said, “People are being killed so someone can knock down a house and get paid.”

➛ IDF officers told Haaretz the army suppresses footage from these sites, believing the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) helps preserve “international legitimacy” for the war.

➛ Israel’s military prosecution has ordered the General Staff’s Fact-Finding Assessment Mechanism to investigate the shootings for possible war crimes.

➛ The aid centers are run by the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which was set up by Israel with help from pro-Trump evangelical figures in the U.S.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

By the way, this is what an actual environmentalist looks like 👇

No Ted talk, no holding signs or blocking traffic, she just quietly spent 20 years planting 2 million trees in a brutal desert.

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

You really couldn't make it up: with all that's going on in the world right now, the main title on the front page of The Guardian right now is that a Chinese diplomat ran a red light in Prague last year.

They describe it as a "China planned collision" but if you read the article that's literally all that happened: an unnamed Chinese diplomat ran a red light during the ROC's vice-president visit. That's it, nothing more happened. And if you read the original Czech media story about it (my 3rd screenshot: https://t.co/THI5JgeWcj), there wasn't even a risk of an accident with the vice-president's motorcade.

The fact that they choose to tell you that this non-event - just a traffic violation that occurred a year ago - is the single most important news today is all you need to know about the insane lengths Western media will go to maintain their China-threat narrative.

And the worst is that people are numb to it, they don't even realize just how bizarre this is. Imagine if it were a Western diplomat: how weird we'd find it if the front page of major international newspapers proclaimed "France planned collision? Diplomat ran red light last year" - we'd immediately recognize it as absolutely absurd.

Especially in today's context when there are so many actually important stories happening, like the fact that Israel literally killed another 60 people in Gaza yesterday... But no, what really matters is year-old traffic violations by Chinese diplomats 🤦‍♂️

[Arnaud Bertrand @RnaudBertrand]

The curse of the "former" strikes again. https://t.co/S6C4NpMxjq

Former head of the IAEA Hans Blix says "it's quite clear" that Israel and the US's on Iran is "a straight violation of the UN Charter" and that "there is no evidence that Iran was moving towards a nuclear weapon."

The same IAEA whose current head, Rafael Grossi, issued a report, coincidentally (🤔) released the day before the attack, that found Iran "non-compliant with its nuclear obligations for the first time in 20 years", essentially giving Israel and the US diplomatic cover for the attack.

[Veronica Shelford @vshelford2]

This lot is All joke - the west is embarrassingly infantile these days.

[Olga Bazova @OlgaBazova]

We often joke that it's easier to name things that Putin has not yet weaponized, but as we say in Russia "every joke is only partly a joke, everything else is the truth"

Let's deep-dive into the history of actual media articles about the master of weaponization.

Mega 🧵

[Mel @Villgecrazylady]

Translation: We got our asses handed to us by Iran so we’re going to go back to bombing unarmed civilians instead.

[Jason Hickel @jasonhickel]

Israeli soldiers are now regularly and systematically massacring Palestinians at their "aid" sites. They do it nearly every day and more than 400 people have now been murdered this way. It is sincerely one of the most evil things I have ever seen.

[🅰pocalypsis 🅰pocalypseos 🇷🇺 🇨🇳 🅉 @apocalypseos]

🇷🇺🇮🇷 The Enemies of Russia and Iran Are One and the Same Forces

By Elena Panina

“Those who say we should have done more—what exactly do they mean by ‘more’? Start some military operations—is that it? We are already engaged in military operations against those we consider to be adversaries of the ideas we stand for, and against those who pose a threat to the Russian Federation. And these, essentially, are the same forces—whether in Iran’s case or in Russia’s—they’re somewhere in the rear, behind the front lines. But they’re not even those on the line of contact,” said Vladimir Putin during the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) on June 20, commenting on the claim that “Russia is an unreliable ally because it didn’t stand up for Iran.” Notably, the Russian president chose his words very carefully and spoke with great precision.
[Source: https://t.co/PqeTRfJdvU]

▪️ In simple terms: everyone has their own front in the global battlefield. For Russia, it’s Ukraine; for Iran, it’s its own territory. But the enemy is the same. You can call it “the West” or, more specifically, the global “Finintern”—a financial international elite dreaming of flipping the chessboard of world politics to preserve its so-called “rules-based order.”

Interestingly, Putin began his response by quoting a book on military strategy by the President of Indonesia, published in Russia: “Each country bears its own responsibility for what happens on its territory.”

▪️ In Iran’s case, the voluntary retreat from its zones of influence in Lebanon and Syria, and the failure to respond strongly to Israel’s strikes on Iranian diplomatic missions and Iranian territory, eventually led to direct Israeli aggression with U.S. support.

The law ratifying the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership Treaty between the Russian Federation and the Islamic Republic of Iran was signed by Vladimir Putin on April 21. But the Speaker of Iran’s Majlis, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, only sent the ratified treaty to Iran’s new President, Masoud Pezeshkian, on June 16—almost two months later. That delay is a highly significant nuance for understanding the current internal situation in Iran.

[John McEvoy @jmcevoy_2]

Terrorism:
- spraying paint on RAF planes

Not terrorism:
- shooting children in the head
- creating largest cohort of child amputees in the world
- leaving babies to die in ICU beds
- starving an entire population
- bombing hospitals and universities
- assassinating journalists