Kautilya The Contemplator, Substack, 8/28/25

Kautilya The Contemplator decodes power, empire and strategy through the lens of ancient statecraft and modern realism.

In the present age, it has become common to view the United States and Russia as irreconcilable adversaries, their fates locked in a perpetual contest for dominance. Commentators in the mainstream media speak of this rivalry as if it were an immutable law of geopolitics. Yet, the notion that hostility between Washington and Moscow is natural or eternal is a historical fiction. For most of its early life as a nation, the United States enjoyed a relationship of goodwill, respect and even quiet solidarity with Russia.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries, the young American republic was shaped by figures who looked favorably upon Russian leaders, while Russia in turn extended gestures, subtle but consequential, that strengthened America’s independence. From Catherine the Great’s refusal to send Cossack troops to suppress the American Revolution to Russia’s dramatic show of support for the Union during the Civil War, the history of Russian-American relations is filled with episodes of amity rather than antagonism.

This forgotten tradition of friendship contradicts the dominant trend of US foreign policy since the 20th century, which has cast Russia as a perpetual enemy. To recover this earlier history is not to indulge in nostalgia, but to remind ourselves that enmity is not inevitable and that geopolitics is shaped by choices, not fate.

Catherine the Great and the American Revolution

The earliest moment of Russian support for American independence came during the War of Independence itself. In 1775, when Britain sought to crush the colonial rebellion, it scoured Europe for mercenaries. Prussia and the German principalities obliged, sending thousands of Hessians to fight under the British flag. On September 1, 1775, London also appealed to Catherine II of Russia, requesting 20,000 Cossack troops to deploy against the insurgent colonies.1

Catherine refused categorically. Her reasoning was straightforward. Russia would not expend blood to defend Britain’s empire. As she saw it, the request was an affront to Russian sovereignty, an attempt to use Russia as a hired army for British colonial interests. By turning down Britain, Catherine not only preserved Russia’s independence of action, but indirectly aided the American cause. Had thousands of Russian Cossacks landed in America, the balance of forces might well have shifted in Britain’s favor.

Catherine’s stance was consistent with her broader diplomatic outlook. She was wary of Britain’s naval dominance and its capacity to coerce neutral powers. In 1780, she established the League of Armed Neutrality, declaring that neutral nations had the right to trade with belligerents without interference, unless goods were explicitly contraband. This challenged Britain’s efforts to blockade French and Spanish shipping and weakened London’s ability to isolate the American colonies.2

Though Russia never formally allied with the United States, Catherine’s refusal to send troops and her assertion of neutral rights amounted to an indirect but vital form of support. At America’s moment of birth, Russia acted not as an enemy, but as a power whose policies gave space to the Republic’s survival.

Thomas Jefferson’s Admiration for Tsar Alexander I

With independence secured, American leaders looked outward to cultivate relations with foreign powers. Thomas Jefferson, a principal author of the Declaration of Independence, founder of the University of Virginia and America’s third president, held Russia in particular high regard. Having entered office in 1801, he was a statesman steeped in Enlightenment ideals.

Deeply skeptical of monarchy, Jefferson nonetheless praised Tsar Alexander I as “the most virtuous of the sovereigns of Europe” in a December 1804 letter to Albert Gallatin.3 What Jefferson perceived in Alexander I was an earnest attempt at enlightened governance. Alexander had spoken of constitutional reform and sought to position Russia as a stabilizing, peace-oriented power after the Napoleonic Wars. Jefferson, ever sensitive to tyranny and abuse of power, saw in him a monarch who, if not republican, at least embodied restraint, reason and moral seriousness.

Jefferson’s respect was not only personal admiration but also rooted in strategic logic. For a young United States still wary of Britain, Russia appeared as a natural counterweight. Unlike France, whose revolution devolved into violence, or Britain, which continued to menace America’s sovereignty, Russia was a great power that neither threatened US independence nor sought to draw it into European intrigues. To Jefferson, cultivating cordial relations with Russia offered the Republic a powerful friend across the Atlantic who had little interest in curtailing American growth.

Diplomatic exchanges between Washington and St. Petersburg reflected this respect. In 1807, Alexander proposed a closer diplomatic relationship. His interest was not opportunistic. He viewed the United States as a novel political experiment whose success was worth encouraging. Jefferson supported the idea and just after he left office, President James Madison appointed John Quincy Adams as America’s first minister to St. Petersburg in 1809.

Russia and the War of 1812

When the United States declared war on Britain in 1812, Russia was simultaneously facing Napoleon’s massive invasion. John Quincy Adams had established warm relations with the Russian court and observed the unfolding of Napoleon’s invasion. His dispatches to Washington praised Russian resilience and carried news of Moscow’s burning and the French retreat. American newspapers of the time expressed sympathy for Russia’s struggle against Napoleon, seeing in Alexander’s stand a defense of balance and liberty in Europe.

Russia also sought to play a constructive diplomatic role in the American conflict with Britain. Alexander offered to act as a mediator between the United States and Britain in the War of 1812. Although Britain declined the initial proposal, the Russian overture laid the groundwork for later peace negotiations. These efforts eventually culminated in the Treaty of Ghent in 1814, which ended the war on largely status quo terms.

Thus, during one of the most tumultuous years in both American and Russian history, the two countries’ foreign policies converged in a spirit of mutual respect, sympathy and potential cooperation.

Admiral John Paul Jones: America’s Naval Hero in Russian Service

Few episodes capture the unexpected friendship between Russia and America better than the career of Admiral John Paul Jones. As the celebrated “Father of the US Navy,” Jones won immortal fame by capturing HMS Serapis in 1779, becoming a legend of the Revolution.4 Yet his story did not end there. It took him into the service of the Russian Empire.

In 1788, Catherine the Great invited Jones to join the Russian Navy as a Rear Admiral in the Black Sea fleet during the Russo-Turkish War.5 Despite court intrigue, he commanded with distinction in operations against the Ottomans. The appointment symbolized Russia’s esteem for American military talent and the openness of both sides to cooperation.

Jones died in Paris in 1792. His remains were returned to the United States in 1905 with full honors and today lie at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis. Jefferson, then in Paris, admired Jones and supported his European ventures, further cementing Russian-American links.

Jefferson’s admiration endured long after Jones’s death. At his estate at Monticello, Jefferson displayed a bust of John Paul Jones in his Tea Room, alongside those of George Washington, Benjamin Franklin and the Marquis de Lafayette. This was a plaster copy of the famous Houdon bust, presented to Jefferson as a gift by Jones himself.6 The placement reflected Jefferson’s esteem, ranking Jones among the foremost heroes of America’s independence.

Jones’s Russian command, coupled with his honored memory at Monticello, demonstrated a level of mutual respect between the two nations that is almost unthinkable today. A founding figure of the American navy was also, for a time, a commander of the Russian fleet, and in Jefferson’s eyes, worthy of standing in symbolic company with Washington, Franklin and Lafayette.

Russia and the American Civil War

If Catherine’s refusal in the 18th century represented an indirect gesture of support, and Jones’s service embodied personal respect, Russia’s conduct during the American Civil War amounted to direct solidarity. When the Union faced an existential crisis, Russia emerged as one of its few reliable friends.

By 1862, Britain and France were seriously considering recognizing the Confederacy, drawn by their dependence on Southern cotton and their desire to see the Union fractured. Such recognition could have tilted the balance of the war, encouraging Confederate resistance and perhaps even prompting European military involvement.

Russia, however, stood firmly with the Union. Tsar Alexander II, who had emancipated the serfs in 1861, identified with the Union’s struggle against slavery. However, strategic calculation also played a role. Britain and France, Russia’s adversaries during the Crimean War of 1853-56, were considering aligning with the Confederacy. Supporting the Union gave Russia a chance to also frustrate its European adversaries.7

The most dramatic gesture came in 1863, when Russia dispatched its Baltic fleet to New York Harbor and its Pacific fleet to San Francisco. Officially, these deployments were to safeguard Russian vessels in the event of war with Britain. However, their presence was widely interpreted in America as a show of friendship and deterrence. Newspapers hailed Russia as “our only friend in Europe,”8 and the symbolism of Russian warships anchored in US ports during the nation’s darkest hour resonated deeply with the American public.

The Union never forgot this moment of solidarity. In an era when its very survival was at stake, Russia had extended a hand of friendship when others hesitated.

US Humanitarian Aid to Russia’s Famine of 1891-92

Friendship was not limited to diplomacy. It extended to humanitarian compassion. When famine struck Russia during 1891–92, triggered by crop failures and a harsh winter, the American people responded with extraordinary generosity.

Across the United States, churches, charities and civic groups raised money and collected grain. The US government supported the effort and American ships carried thousands of tons of food to feed starving Russian peasants. One of the largest shipments came aboard the steamer Missouri, organized by the American Red Cross under the leadership of Clara Barton.9

Russian newspapers reported with gratitude on the American aid and Tsar Alexander III personally thanked the United States. This moment demonstrated that the bond between the two nations was not merely strategic but also human. Ordinary Americans, with no geopolitical agenda, gave to save lives in Russia.

This episode stands in sharp contrast to the hostility of today. Where sanctions now aim to impoverish ordinary Russians, in the late 19th century Americans mobilized to relieve their suffering. It is a powerful reminder of a different moral tradition in US-Russia relations.

The 20th Century Reversal

Given this history, the trajectory of US foreign policy toward Russia in the 20th century appears paradoxical. With the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, Washington’s perception shifted from cordiality to suspicion. The ideological gulf between American republicanism and Soviet communism deepened into outright hostility after the Second World War, culminating in the Cold War.

What is striking, however, is how completely the earlier record of friendship was erased from memory. The Grand Alliance during the Second World War, in which Americans and Russians fought shoulder-to-shoulder against Nazi Germany, was quickly overshadowed by postwar confrontation. By the 1950s, the narrative of Russia as a natural enemy had become entrenched in American political consciousness.

Even after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, this narrative persisted. Instead of building on Russia’s overtures for partnership, the United States pursued NATO expansion, economic encirclement and interventions in Russia’s near abroad.10 Russia’s desire to be integrated into a cooperative European security order was rebuffed. The earlier tradition of mutual respect, embodied by Jefferson’s admiration or Russia’s support during the Civil War, was forgotten.

Recovering Forgotten Lessons

The history of US–Russia relations reveals a tradition of friendship that challenges today’s assumptions. Catherine the Great refused to serve Britain’s empire against America, Jefferson praised Alexander I as a virtuous sovereign and Russia supported the Union during the Civil War with its fleets in American harbors. At key turning points, Russia acted not as America’s enemy, but as its friend.

To remember this history is to expose the contradiction in America’s present foreign policy. Enmity with Russia is not inevitable. It is a political construction sustained by choices that ignore a long record of amity. If the United States could once admire Russia’s leaders and welcome its support in times of crisis, there is no reason why it cannot again imagine a relationship built on respect rather than hostility.

History does not dictate the future, but it offers lessons. One lesson is unmistakably clear: the United States has thrived when it recognized Russia not as a threat to be contained, but as a power with which friendship was both possible and beneficial. To recover that tradition is not naïve nostalgia. It is the rediscovery of a truth America once knew but has since forgotten.

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1 Ragsdale, Hugh. Catherine the Great and the American Revolution. The William and Mary Quarterly, 1988.

2 Dull, Jonathan R. A Diplomatic History of the American Revolution. Yale University Press, 1985.

3 Jefferson to Gallatin, Dec. 1804. The Papers of Thomas Jefferson. Princeton University Press.

4 Morison, Samuel Eliot. John Paul Jones: A Sailor’s Biography. Little, Brown, 1959.

5 Thomas, Evan. John Paul Jones: Sailor, Hero, Father of the American Navy. Simon & Schuster, 1980.

6 Monticello.org. John Paul Jones Bust (Sculpture), Monticello Collections Database, 2024.

7 Lincoln, W. Bruce. The Great Reforms: Autocracy, Bureaucracy, and the Politics of Change in Imperial Russia. Northern Illinois University Press, 1979.

8 Curtis, George Ticknor. Life of James Buchanan: Fifteenth President of the United States, vol. 2. New York: Harper, 1869.

9 Barton, Clara. The Red Cross in Peace and War. American Historical Press, 1899.

10 Gaddis, John Lewis. The Cold War: A New History. Penguin, 2006.

By Caitlin Johnstone, Substack, 11/8/25

So it turns out Israel’s mistake was starting its genocide right after Palestinians gained the ability to quickly share video footage of what’s happening in Gaza, but right before the moment when any video footage shared online could easily be dismissed as AI.

Just today I saw two viral tweets that had received Community Notes from Twitter users warning that the posts featured AI-generated videos. Both were shared by right wing accounts with large followings, and both were used to spread Islamophobia.

The first was shared by Israeli-American pundit Emily Schrader, who has 194,000 followers on Twitter. The tweet features a fake CCTV video of a man in Muslim garb approaching a non-Muslim woman on the street in a way that’s meant to look intimidating before getting attacked by a house cat. As of this writing Schrader’s tweet has more than 612,000 views, and carries a Community Note that reads “AI generated. Time at top is a telltale sign. Also she starts off with a white and black bag then only black.”

The second was from a right wing British account called Basil the Great, which has over 210,000 followers. Their tweet features a fake video of an English-speaking teacher showing white children how to pray a Muslim prayer, captioned “I‘ve been sent this footage twice today. It shows a Muslim Teacher instructing British children in the ways of Islam in school. I hope it’s fake but it wouldn’t surprise me if it was real. In fact the left will probably say they don’t see anything wrong with this.”

It is not real. As of this writing the tweet carries a Community Note which reads “Video is AI generated. The teacher ‘sits’ on an invisible chair at the end of the video, which was not there at the beginning.” The video has had 1.7 million views.

This is Twitter, not Facebook, which had already been ravaged by fake AI content that’s been duping older users for nearly two years now.

Fake AI videos are now getting so good that they’re able to fool younger people who are much more aware of what’s out there. Australia’s ABC recently ran a segment where they showed different video clips to teens and asked them to determine which ones were real and which ones were AI, and they couldn’t do much better than randomly guessing.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/8a5y8Hm0yYk?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

For decades, video footage was the gold standard for evidence that something had occurred. For a few sweet years there was a period when anything significant that happened in public would usually be recorded on video, because in any group there was bound to be a few people with a smartphone in their pocket, and then those videos could be shared with the world as evidence that the significant thing had occurred. Now whenever there’s footage of a crime, or an act of government tyranny, or just a famous person doing something ridiculous in public, people aren’t going to believe it happened unless it’s corroborated by eyewitness testimony.

So in that sense we’ve sort of backslid to where we were before the invention of photography, when eyewitness reports were the only thing we had to go by. A video can help illustrate what the eyewitness is talking about, but without a physical witness willing to attest to its veracity, it’s often not going to be worth much in terms of proving that something happened.

Which of course serves the powerful just fine. Videos of genocidal atrocities, police brutality, and authoritarian abuses have been causing a lot of headaches for our rulers these past few years, so they’ll be happy to see the information ecosystem entering a new era where inconvenient video footage can be dismissed with a scoff.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/hMHgZiS90kM?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Generative AI is making everything dumber. It’s crippling people’s ability to write, research, think critically and create art for themselves. It’s making it harder for us to discern truth from falsehood. It’s causing people to become divorced from their own humanity in weirder and weirder ways.

It’s getting harder and harder to know what’s real on the internet. That photo could be fake. That video could be fake. That song could have been made without any actual artist behind it. That essay could have been written by a chatbot. That social media account you’re interacting with could be a chatbot themselves. This is going to have a massively alienating effect on networking technologies whose initial promise was to help bring us all together.

When the internet first showed up people rejoiced at their ability to connect with others around the world who had the same interests and passions, saying “At long last, I’m not alone!” When AI showed up people started logging on to the internet and wondering, “Uhh… am I alone?”

Because you can’t be sure there’s anyone in there.

It reminds me of a passage from Charlotte Joko Beck’s “Everyday Zen”:

“Suppose we are out on a lake and it’s a bit foggy — not too foggy, but a bit foggy — and we’re rowing along in our little boat having a good time. And then, all of a sudden, coming out of the fog, there’s this other rowboat and it’s heading right at us. And…crash! Well, for a second we’re really angry — what is that fool doing? I just painted my boat! And here he comes — crash! — right into it. And then suddenly we notice that the rowboat is empty. What happens to our anger? Well, the anger collapses…I’ll just have to paint my boat again, that’s all. But if that rowboat that hit ours had another person in it, how would we react? You know what would happen!”

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/hYv6Ckg0gk0?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

Beck is touching on the Buddhist doctrine of no-self here, which is a discussion for another day, but this parable has so many layers that say so much about humanity and human connection. The only reason we put so much mental energy and attention into our day-to-day interactions and relationships is because we assume we’re relating to other human beings like ourselves. We assume there’s somebody in the other rowboat.

Nearly all of the love, lust, anger, hatred, shame, guilt, passion, enthusiasm, attraction, aversion, delight and disgust we feel from moment to moment throughout this human adventure has to do with other humans. We don’t experience those big feelings toward inanimate objects like rowboats, cars or shopping carts, because we know there’s nobody in them. There’s no real connection to be had with them. Our big feelings come from our meetings with real people, real family, real lovers, real enemies, and real art from real artists.

AI is an empty rowboat, and the more it takes over the internet, the emptier it’s going to feel. People won’t feel like they can find the connection they’re craving in any of the areas that are dominated by artificial intelligence, and they’re going to go looking for it elsewhere. Maybe they’ll start going looking for it in places where there are physical people in physical bodies they can touch and make eye contact with, who they know for a fact are real people with real feelings and hopes and dreams like themselves.

And maybe that would be a good thing. Humanity is becoming too disconnected and dissociated as it is. We could all benefit from digging our roots into reality a bit deeper.

There are some technological developments where as an individual you have to draw a line for yourself. Modern civilization has made it possible to work from home and eat ten thousand calories a day without ever exercising or leaving your apartment, but most of us have the good sense not to do this because we know it would be very bad for our health. We’re going to have to start looking at AI the same way we look at McDonald’s: sure it’s there, but that doesn’t mean you have to consume it, because it’s really not good for you.

_______________

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Intellinews, 11/10/25

Nearly 37% of Ukrainians are now living in poverty as the war continues to devastate the country’s economy, according to humanitarian groups, a fourfold increase compared with pre-war levels that highlights the scale of the crisis as another winter approaches, according to Hope for Ukraine, a major humanitarian organisation operating in the country.

The sustained fighting and large-scale displacement have pushed millions into hardship, with more than a quarter of Ukrainian households now including an internally displaced person (IDP), a veteran, or a family member disabled by the war. Over 65% of children are living below the poverty line, leaving the country’s social fabric under severe strain as dependence on public transfers and humanitarian aid deepens.

“The situation has become systemic — not a temporary shock,” said Yuriy Boyechko, CEO of Hope For Ukraine. “Low-income families are suffering the most, and inequality is widening fast.”

Regional disparities have also intensified. In front-line and recently liberated areas, nearly half of all households report damage to homes or assets, while many struggle with severe food insecurity and limited access to basic services. By contrast, wages in safer, higher-skilled sectors in western and central Ukraine have continued to rise, fuelling what analysts describe as a “two-tier recovery” that risks further marginalising war-affected communities.

As Ukraine braces for another harsh winter and continued hostilities, humanitarian groups warn that the deepening poverty crisis — especially among children and displaced families — could have long-lasting consequences for the country’s recovery and stability.

By Kit Klarenberg, Substack, 11/10/25

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This year’s anniversary of 9/11 passed without mainstream mention. Almost two-and-a-half decades on, the media appears to have lost all interest in that fateful, world-changing day. This is despite the April 2023 release of a bombshell court filing by the Office of Military Commissions, which concluded at least two of the alleged hijackers were CIA assets, having been recruited “via a liaison relationship” with Saudi intelligence. The same document offers illuminating insight into how the 9/11 Commission buried this, among other inconvenient truths.

Central to the coverup was Commission chief Philip Zelikow. Commission investigator Dana Leseman, dubbed “CS-2” in the filing, told representatives of the Office of Military Commissions – the legal body overseeing the prosecution of 9/11 defendants – Zelikow consistently sought “to blunt” inquiries “into Saudi involvement with the hijackers.” Leseman was formally charged with investigating “the possible link” between Riyadh and the 9/11 attacks, but Zelikow was determined they would not succeed.

His wrecking efforts included blocking Leseman’s requests to conduct interviews with certain individuals of interest, and obtain documents that could shed light on Riyadh’s foreknowledge of, if not active participation in, 9/11 – and the CIA’s by extension. More widely, Zelikow had exclusive control over who the Commission did and did not interview, and on what topics, strictly limiting which witnesses were grilled, and the evidence heard.

Leseman was fired by Zelikow in April 2003, after obtaining a classified index to the House and Senate’s joint inquiry into 9/11, “from a source other than official channels.” The index listed sensitive documents possessed by the FBI and other US government agencies, detailing “suspected Saudi involvement in the 9/11 attacks.” While “a minor security violation”, Zelikow summarily terminated Leseman and seized the index. News of her defenestration didn’t leak at the time. No other staffer was permitted to view the document thereafter.

Canestraro Declaration Dated 20 July 2021

7.53MB ∙ PDF file

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Elsewhere in the filing, Bill Clinton’s counter-terror czar Richard Clarke, who has long-charged the CIA had a relationship of some kind with some of the alleged hijackers, told investigators Zelikow was explicitly selected by George W Bush’s National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice “to prevent damage to the Bush Administration by blocking the Commission’s line of inquiry into the Saudi connection.”

Clarke further asserted his belief the Saudi-led effort to penetrate Al Qaeda “may have [been] organized by high level employees at the CIA,” and “most of the records” of the top-secret mission “were destroyed in an effort to cover up the operation.” Tellingly, Clarke relayed how after he expressed his opinion the CIA “was running a ‘false flag’ operation to recruit the hijackers” publicly, “he received an ‘angry call’ from George Tenet,” CIA Director during 9/11. Despite his wrath, Tenet “did not deny the allegation.”

‘Act Preemptively’

Philip Zelikow’s appointment to head the 9/11 Commission was the culmination of the body’s thoroughly troubled gestation. Initially, the Bush administration vehemently rejected mass public demand for any official investigation into the attacks. It was not until November 2002 the Commission was begrudgingly established at long last. Its initial chief, Henry Kissinger, resigned within mere weeks due to conflicts of interest. This included awkward questions over whether he counted any Saudi Arabians – particularly individuals with the surname bin Laden – as clients.

Zelikow had a panoply of conflicts of interest of his own, some of which were well-established at the time. Others only emerged when the Commission was well-underway. For one, he enjoyed a long-running relationship with Condoleezza Rice, and was part of George W Bush’s transition team, overseeing the new administration’s National Security Council taking office. This process led to the White House’s Counterterrorism Security Group being downgraded, and its chief Richard Clarke demoted, creating layers of bureaucracy between him and senior government officials.

A secret report produced by Clarke’s team in January 2000 concluded US intelligence was ill-equipped to respond to a major, ever-growing domestic terror threat. It outlined 18 recommendations, with 16 accompanying funding proposals, to “seriously weaken” Al Qaeda. Its findings were ignored by the Bush administration. Numerous memos authored subsequently by Clarke, urgently requesting high-level meetings to discuss Al Qaeda and outline strategies for combating the group at home and abroad, were similarly disregarded.

Meanwhile, in September 2002, the Bush administration submitted a 31-page document, The National Security Strategy of the United States, to Congress. It set out a very clear blueprint for the looming War On Terror, calling for a massive buildup in US military spending, and Washington to “act preemptively” against “rogue states”, such as Iraq. While it bore the President’s signature, the incendiary document was secretly written by none other than Zelikow.

His authorship only became known by the Commission when the investigation was almost over, prompting several key staffers and a commissioner to threaten to quit. The body’s chiefs Thomas Kean and Lee Hamilton were apparently unaware when Zelikow was appointed. The pair subsequently charged the Commission was set up to fail. Its investigations got off to a glacial start, in part due to funding issues. The Commission was initially given only $3 million dollars to complete its work.

By contrast, a concurrent probe of the space shuttle Columbia’s crash, in which just seven people died, was granted $50 million. In March 2003, due to repeated demands from its staffers, the Commission was allocated a further $9 million – $2 million less than requested. Despite these grave teething problems, that same month – three months into the 16-month-long probe, and before a single hearing had even been convened – Zelikow produced a complete outline of the Commission’s final report.

The finished article, released in July 2004, followed Zelikow’s preordained design very closely. In the intervening time, he personally rewrote several statements submitted by staffers, which informed the report’s findings. In one instance, he amended a statement to strongly insinuate, without making the direct accusation, Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda had a relationship of some kind, horrifying its authors. This false claim was frequently peddled by White House officials to justify the criminal 2003 Anglo-American invasion of Iraq.

In October that year, the Commission determined NORAD – which coincidentally ran a training exercise on 9/11 almost exactly simulating the real-life attacks – was withholding information. Investigators sought to subpoena the Department of Defense, but Zelikow intervened to prevent one being issued. The next spring, commissioners had become so frustrated with Federal Aviation Authority and Pentagon officials brazenly lying to them, they mulled pursuing criminal charges for obstruction of justice. Zelikow again connived to ensure this didn’t happen.

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/DYBhgEm3j7A?rel=0&autoplay=0&showinfo=0&enablejsapi=0

‘Saudi Individuals’

Despite Zelikow’s obstruction, 9/11 Commission investigators uncovered several leads tying Saudi Arabia – and thus the CIA – to the attacks. The Office of Military Commissions filing reveals how one investigator – “CS-1” – twice interviewed radical cleric and Saudi diplomat Fahad Thumairy, at government complexes in Riyadh. He was interrogated about his relationship with Nawaf Hazmi and Khalid Mihdhar, hijackers confirmed to have been recruited by the CIA, and Omar Bayoumi, widely suspected to have been their handler.

Saudi security service operatives were present at both interviews, and CS-1 felt Thumairy was “less than 100% forthcoming” under examination. While he spoke English fluently, he asked for “controversial” questions to be translated into Arabic. CS-1 believed this indicated Thumairy “was being deceptive.” He also “seemed to react” when quizzed about his relationship with Omar Bayoumi.

Bayoumi met Hazmi and Midhar at a restaurant at Los Angeles airport immediately upon arrival in the US, then struck up a close bond with them. Dana Leseman asserts in the filing the FBI had Bayoumi “under investigation prior to the 9/11 attacks,” and he “was receiving substantial sums of money from the Saudi Embassy in Washington DC.” Funds were surreptitiously “funneled from accounts” belonging to Haifa bin Faisal, wife of Bandar bin Sultan, Riyadh’s ambassador to the US.

Before her firing, Leseman’s investigation showed Bayoumi had several “no show” jobs while residing Stateside – “where an employee is paid by a given employer but not required to actually show up for work.” One “no show” role was with Saudi company Ercan, the offices of which he visited “rarely”. The filing notes how two months after Bayoumi’s meeting with Hazmi and Midhar, his monthly salary from Ercan rose from $465 to $3,700.

Leseman was convinced Fahad Thumairy “was an intelligence officer working for the Saudi government.” In May 2003, Thumairy was denied entry to the US on suspicion of links to terrorism, although neither arrested nor questioned over the matter. It was not until 13 years later former 9/11 commissioner John Lehman broke cover, admitting the investigation uncovered “an awful lot of participation by Saudi individuals” – some of them government employees – “in supporting the hijackers.”

In ensuring Riyadh’s wide-ranging involvement in 9/11 remained hidden from public view, Zelikow was very effectively insulating Alec Station – the CIA’s Osama bin Laden tracking unit – which ultimately ran the operation to recruit Hazmi and Midhar if not other hijackers via the Saudis, from scrutiny or consequence. Concurrently, members of that unit were assisting in Zelikow’s coverup, having been promoted since the attacks to oversee the CIA’s post-9/11 torture program.

‘Draconian Measures’

The Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into the torture program found CIA “enhanced interrogation” yielded no worthwhile intelligence whatsoever. In many cases, detainees “fabricated” information, telling their interrogators what they wanted to hear to limit their abuse. The use of techniques honed under the Agency’s MKULTRA mind control program suggests eliciting false testimony may have been a deliberate objective of the CIA. Such bogus disclosures could be used to justify the War on Terror, while obscuring Alec Station’s recruitment of alleged 9/11 hijackers.

Zelikow was also in a position to influence what CIA detainees were asked – and in turn, the answers they gave. In 2008, an anonymous US intelligence official revealed the Commission was permitted to give the Agency questions to pose to prisoners. Its final report relied heavily on CIA interrogations, with Zelikow admitting “quite a bit, if not most” of the official narrative of the 9/11 attacks was based on information acquired via torture. In other words, politically convenient fabrications and falsehoods.

This fraudulent narrative endures today, unquestioned by news outlets and much of the public. Universal mainstream omertà on the court filing’s explosive contents amply indicates the 9/11 coverup remains in place, with the media active conspirators. Since the Commission report’s release, Zelikow has largely faded into obscurity, the many public controversies around his role as executive director forgotten. Yet, there are grounds to believe he may know even more than he suppressed while heading the Commission.

In November 1998, Zelikow coauthored an article for the Council on Foreign Relations’ journal Foreign Affairs. In it, he predicted a devastating terror attack in the US in the near future – such as the World Trade Center’s destruction. “Such an act of catastrophic terrorism would be a watershed event in American history,” Zelikow forecast. “Like Pearl Harbor, this event would divide our past and future into a before and after.” He went on to precisely outline all that followed 9/11:

“The United States might respond with draconian measures, scaling back civil liberties, allowing wider surveillance of citizens, detention of suspects, and use of deadly force. More violence could follow, either further terrorist attacks or US counterattacks. Belatedly, Americans would judge their leaders negligent for not addressing terrorism more urgently…The greatest danger may arise if the threat falls into one of the crevasses in the government’s overlapping jurisdictions, such as the divide between ‘foreign’ and ‘domestic’ terrorism or ‘law enforcement versus ‘national security’.”

By Eva Bartlett, RT, 11/5/25

A shocking video recently published on Russian media and in Telegram channels shows the last moments of two civilians before they were killed by Ukrainian drones in Kupyansk region east of the city of Kharkov.

The drone observed the first man, carrying a white flag – a universal sign for surrender, or in the case of civilians, that they pose no threat – before flying right at him, blowing him apart and injuring the dog walking beside him, who presumably died as well.

The second civilian, upon reaching the body of the first, crossed himself and walked on. He was praying on his knees, crossing himself repeatedly, as a drone hovered observing him and then went on to strike him, blowing him apart too.

Ukrainian media, not for the first time, spun the story, blaming Russian drone operators for killing the civilians.

Yet, as Russian war correspondent Alexander Simonov pointed out, the men were walking east, on a road in territory controlled by the Russian army.

“There are no targets for our drones on our rear roads. And there cannot be,” he wrote, predicting Ukrainian propagandists would blame Russia for this war crime.

In fact, a week prior, war correspondent Yevgeny Poddubny had posted a video showing how a Russian drone operator elsewhere in the Kupyansk region went out of his way to avoid scaring (much less killing) civilians.

“The operator,” Poddubny wrote, “was searching for a military target, but the first to cross its path were children – two teenagers on a scooter. In a second, the drone stops moving to avoid frightening the children. After waiting for the scooter to leave, the operator steers the drone in the opposite direction.”

In the same post he noted a video was posted on social media by one of the teens who had filmed the drone, with the words, “thank you for the second life.”

In September, RIA Novosti published a video of the Ukrainian army killing a woman with a drone in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) village of Shandrigolovo. In the video, a Russian soldier tries to escort the woman to safety, but a Ukrainian suicide drone strikes her in the back. Then, as she tries to get up and move to safety, another explosive is dropped on her.

Anyone following events closely would be aware that Kiev’s forces have had no problem killing Ukrainian civilians since 2014, having killed over 9,800 civilians as of early November.

Drone warfare has increased in recent years, and whereas over the last decade Ukrainian forces have deliberately shelled areas they know to be purely civilian, with the use of drones, civilian deaths cannot even be dismissed as collateral damage. They are precise and deliberate assassinations.

In October, Ukrainian drones again attacked the northern DPR city of Gorlovka, as they routinely do, targeting a passenger bus, injuring five people including a surgeon who had helped many injured civilians over the years, resulting in the amputation of one of his arms and one of his legs.

Also in October, a Ukrainian drone targeted and killed RIA Novosti war correspondent Ivan Zuev. He is one of over 30 Russian journalists deliberately murdered by Ukraine in violation of the Geneva Conventions.

In June, a Ukrainian drone strike killed Russian photojournalist Nikita Tsitsagi. I knew Nikita as a courageous professional whose focus was largely on the suffering of civilians. When he was murdered, he was preparing to do another report from St. Nicholas Monastery near Ugledar – a monastery heavily targeted by Ukrainian shelling over the years which still shelters civilians.

Also in June, a Ukrainian drone targeted Russian NTV journalists filming in the extremely hard-hit village of Golmovsky, east of Gorlovka, killing cameraman Valery Kozhin and seriously injuring war correspondent Alexey Ivliyev.

These are by no means the only instances of Russian journalists and civilians targeted and killed or injured by Ukrainian drones. So, the notion that – as Ukrainian media have spun it – Russian drones targeted the two civilians fleeing towards the Russian military presence is not only illogical, it has been preceded by a long list of Ukrainian drone terrorism incidents and murders of civilians.

Aiden Minnis, a UK citizen fighting on the Russian side, told me, “They also routinely attack our evacuation teams the same way here. They don’t discriminate when they attack with drones. If civilians are walking towards Russian lines, they are perceived to be collaborators and will be hit.”

As for Ukrainian and Western media blaming Russia for Ukraine’s war crimes, the list is long: think Bucha, the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, and the many instances of Western media using footage from Donbass cities targeted by Ukraine and depicting them as Ukrainian cities targeted by Russia.