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Author: Kim Petersen

  • Who is Captain Ibrahim Traoré?

    From Samori Touré to Thomas Sankara [left], our ancestors chose resistance. Now, we must choose: either we fight for sovereignty, or we remain slaves to neo-colonialism.

    — captain Ibrahim Traoré [right], Interview with Radio Omega FM, November 2023

    A young, by political standards, military captain, now an acting president has captured widespread admiration in Burkina Faso and across Africa. The legend of Ibrahim Traoré appears to be growing by leaps and bounds.

    But to understand from whence captain Traoré comes, one should be cognizant of the young revolutionary Marxist leader captain Thomas Sankara who served the people of Burkina Faso (Land of Upright People) before Traoré. Tragically, Sankara was assassinated in a hail of gunfire, betrayed by his close friend Blaise Compaore.

    African Hub calls Thomas Sankara the best president in Africa’s history. During Sanakara’s four years as leader he:

    Empowered women.

    Increased literacy from 13-73% refused aids and made his country self reliant.

    Renamed his country to Burkina Faso (meaning Land of the Upright People)

    Vaccinated 2M kids.

    Reduced all public servants salaries including his.

    Built 350 schools, roads, railways without foreign aid

    Increased literacy rate by 60%

    Banned forced marriages

    Gave poor people land

    Planted 10 million trees

    Appointed females to high governmental positions, encouraged them to work, recruited them into the military, and granted pregnancy leave

    Sold off the government fleet of Mercedes cars and made the Renault 5 (the cheapest car sold in Burkina Faso at that time) the official service car of the ministers.

    He reduced the salaries of all public servants, including his own, and forbade the use of government chauffeurs and 1st class airline tickets.

    As President, he lowered his salary to $450 a month and limited his possessions to a car, four bikes, three guitars, a fridge and a broken freezer.

    He opposed foreign aid, saying that “he who feeds you, controls you.”

    Drove out French imperialism & withdrew Burkina Faso from the IMF.

    He was later killed in a French backed coup in 1987.

    Thomas Sankara, the man, was killed, but his ideals live on. Into the fore another revolutionary has stepped. Ibrahim Traoré is serving the Burkinabé. African Hub calls Traoré, “The youngest and most loved President in the world.”

    Russia’s president Vladimir Putin seems to have recognized this appeal and invited Traoré to Moscow. Nigeria’s Igbere Television reported on the dignified transportation accorded to Burkina Faso’s acting president for the 80th Victory Day celebrations in Moscow on 9 May:

    Russia didn’t just invite President Ibrahim Traoré to Moscow — they sent a state aircraft to personally pick him up from Burkina Faso. That’s not diplomacy. That’s respect.

    That’s symbolism. In a world where African leaders are often summoned like subordinates, this moment flips the script. It tells a new story: of African sovereignty being recognized, of alliances built on mutual interest — not colonial residue.

    The security provided for the distinguished guest reportedly included two accompanying Su27 fighter jets.

    Given the history of what happened to Sankara and the threats posed by imperialist operatives, the high level of security is understandable, especially given that Traoré is said to have survived 19 assassination attempts.

    Traoré himself came to power through a coup against another coup leader Paul-Henri Sandaogo Damiba who fled to Togo. Traoré was disillusioned by Damiba’s failure at handling the “jihadist” insurgency in his country. Armed jihadist groups, purportedly linked to Al Qaeda, are fighting Burkinabè government forces.

    *****

    Since coming to power in 2022, Traoré has quickly burnished his anti-imperialist and socialist convictions. Burkina Faso is a resource-rich but economically impoverished country. Traoré seeks to overturn that economic contradiction by removing the colonialists who exploited Burkina Faso. Traoré is quoted as saying: “We have been receiving French aid for 63 years, yet our country has not developed, so cutting it off from us now will not kill us, rather it will motivate us to work and rely on ourselves.” (Quoted by Qiraat Africa, published by the South Sahara Research Center, UK)

    Yet the West still has strings to pull on. Burkina Faso, Niger, and Mali were suspended from the western-backed Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). Subsequently, the three countries formed their own anti-imperialist grouping as the Alliance of Sahel States (AES).

    It won’t be easy going, as the former French colonies use the CFA franc, an international currency set at a fixed rate against the euro. This renders the African states economically dependent on France which holds a veto over the monetary policies of the CFA franc.

    Aware of this currency bind, Africa Reloaded quotes Traoré saying, “Perhaps everything we’ve done has surprised you, hasn’t it? Don’t worry more changes are coming that might still surprise you. We will break every tie that has kept us in slavery.”

    In 2023, French troops were ordered to leave Burkina Faso. The French embassy in the capital Ouagadougou is closed and French diplomats have been expelled. Some French passport holders have been detained on suspicion of espionage.

    Russian troops have since arrived to help Burkina Faso bolster its security. Nigeria’s Afro Page also reports the “arrival of 1700 Russian commandos, armed, coordinated, and highly trained” in Burkina Faso “not in secret … but boldly in broad daylight…. This is a message from the Kremlin to Washington.” In addition, 700 North Korean troops are said to have arrived in Burkina Faso.

    Gaining control over the resources of Burkina Faso is also underway. Burkina Faso has started to nationalize resources, particularly its gold mining sector. Burkina Faso’s prime minister Jean Emmanuel Ouédraogo realizes, “Our gold represents our greatest opportunity for economic resilience during these challenging times.”

    Africa Hub quotes Traoré: “We will mine our gold ourselves not for France, but for our people!”

    To achieve this, Traoré’s proposal is: “Targeting foreign exploitation, particularly by France, Traore has pushed to nationalize gold mines, like Boungou and Wahgnion, and approved a state-owned gold refinery in 2023 to process 400 kg daily, aiming to retain profits for local development.”

    The national transformation planned by Traoré government includes:

    1. sweeping reforms redirecting government funds from inflated salaries to crucial development projects
    2. launching ambitious industrialization projects
    3. unprecedented mechanization of the agricultural sector, including introduction of modern farming techniques and equipment that have significantly increased crop yields and farmer incomes
    4. implementing rapid response protocols to counter security threats and dismantle terrorist networks
    5. bringing about unprecedented levels of national unity and mobilizing citizens behind a shared vision of progress
    6. demonstrating that African nations can chart their own paths to development
    7. a deep commitment to public service and national development that focuses on tangible results rather than procedural democracy

    Back in 2023, Traoré spoke of the aims of the AES partnership: “We really want to look at other horizons, because we want win-win partnerships.” Security was addressed as a need: “If we can’t afford to buy military equipment in one country, we’ll go to other countries to buy it.”

    *****

    Meanwhile, the United States stirs the imperialist pot against Burkina Faso. On 3 April, US general Michael Langley, commander of US Africa Command (AFRICOM), accused Traoré of misusing the country’s substantial gold reserves for the military instead of benefiting the nation’s 23 million citizens. If Langley (whose basic pay is estimated by Deepseek at $203,700 per year) had done his homework, instead of making unsubstantiated accusations, he would know that Traoré revealed his net worth at $128,566. He might also know that Traoré refused a presidential salary, continuing instead to receive the same salary he earned as a soldier. Malawi24 was impressed: “Traore’s decision is a stark contrast to the actions of his predecessors, signaling a new era of leadership focused on public service rather than personal enrichment.”

    Langley’s comments brought Burkinabé into the streets in support of Traoré and his government.

    It is abundantly evident that Traoré has the support of the people, as did Sankara. Despite Traoré having reportedly booted out French and American media from Burkina Faso, even the BCC, a media organ of empire, admits that Traoré “has captured hearts and minds around the world.”

    Traoré represents a tangible hope, a hope that is more than an abstraction, it is a hope that, given time and momentum, could ignite a revolution to topple an empire.

    Until defeated, empire will not rest. As long as revolutionary men and women are committed, above all, to serving the people, they will pose a threat to empire.

    The lives of humans are finite, but the ideals of good people can outlive them and continue to represent a threat to empires until they fall.

    The post Who is Captain Ibrahim Traoré? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Bratty Royal: Prince Harry and Bespoke Security Protection

    It has been unedifying, and, it should be said, far from noble. But being unedifying has become something of a day specialty for Prince Harry, Duke of Sussex, notably when giving interviews from commodious abodes in California. On taking a step down from the subsidised duties that characterise his position, the disgruntled Royal fled the stable and made for the United States. He had found love with Meghan Markle, but it proved to be that sort of noisy, declarative love that Buckingham Palace loathes, and his relatives generally try to sedate.

    The latest tremor of narcissistic display on the Duke’s part involved an interview with the BBC which could be billed as confession and advertisement: “I confess; I advertise”, with an afterthought of “Please Forgive Me Daddy” while funding my security detail on visits to the United Kingdom.

    The man, self-proclaimed victim, had been consistently sinned against. He felt that the courts had wronged him in not accepting the proposition that he needed as much security as other working Royals and public figures, despite seeking a pampered life in California and exiting the British orbit in 2020. The lack of a risk assessment post-2019 of his family was “not only a deviation from standard practice [but] a dereliction of duty.” His court failure was also a “good old fashioned establishment stitchup”.

    The legal proceedings so irking Harry centred on an appeal against the dismissal of his High Court claim against the UK Home Office. The interior ministry had accepted the decision of the executive committee for the protection of royalty and public figures (RAVEC) that he should receive a different, less hefty measure of protection when in the UK. The Court of Appeal was unconvinced by the Duke of Sussex’s claim that his “sense of grievance translated into a legal argument for the challenge to RAVEC’s decision.” Judge Geoffrey Vos appreciated that, from Harry’s view, “something may indeed have gone wrong” in that stepping back from Royal duties and spending most of his time abroad would lead to the provision of “more bespoke, and generally lesser, level of protection than when he was in the UK. But that does not, of itself, give rise to a legal complaint.”

    In a terse statement, Buckingham Palace reiterated the point: “All of these issues have been examined repeatedly and meticulously by the courts, with the same conclusion reached on each occasion.”

    Harry felt his family had not given him his due, certainly on the “sticking point” of security, but wished for “reconciliation”. As a plea, it was lamentable; as an effort, it could hardly have softened well hardened hearts.

    A bit of blackmail was also proffered. Not giving him the security assurances would mean depriving his children and wife of any chance of visiting Britain. It was the fault of Britain, its courts, and Buckingham Palace that the state had not provided the subsidised level of security he sought. Pompously, he was certain “there are some people out there, probably most likely wish me harm, [who] consider this a huge win.”

    Cringeworthy justifications flow, not least the shameless use of his dead mother, who died in a Paris tunnel with her lover because of the drunken actions of an intoxicated chauffeur. Blaming the insatiable paparazzi for what was otherwise an appalling lack of judgment on the part of Diana and her bit of fluff, Dodi Fayed, is all too convenient. Responsibility is found elsewhere. The levers of destiny lie in another realm. The best thing to do, as the duke demonstrates, is sentimentalise and exploit the situation.

    Unfortunately for him, sympathy for his arguments in the Sceptred Isle is not in abundant supply. Marina Hyde of The Guardian preferred to call him “His Rich Highness” who had changed his life but failed to appreciate the examples of others in the well heeled category. Beyoncé, for instance, was not complaining about splashing out on security knowing that such matters went “with the territory, and that you have to pay for it out of your riches.”

    In The Spectator, Alexander Larman made the pertinent observation that Harry, despite seeing himself as a “maverick” on the hunt for justice, sounded all too much like President Donald Trump. “Both men have talked passionately, if not always persuasively, about the shadowy forces that have frustrated their popular crusade for truth and justice”. One difference proved incontestable: Trump won.

    This hereditary figure of aristocracy cannot help his instincts on entitlement. He was “born” into the role, and for that birthright, he demands a degree of security protection exceptional, whatever his personal decisions and choices about career, location and Royal duties. Here is a figure who insists on not so much damaging the monarchy as an institution – as if more could be done to it – but by airing his public life as a new, celluloid royal, a figure happy to condemn the media and its violations of privacy on the one hand, yet reveal the rather disturbed contents of a private life he has cashed in on. The public arena has become the site of his ongoing, distinctly unattractive effort at raking in the cash and seeking therapy.

    The post Bratty Royal: Prince Harry and Bespoke Security Protection first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Escalating Think Tanks


    On 2 May Foreign Affairs published an article, “Will China Escalate?: Despite Short-Term Stability, the Risk of Military Crisis Is Rising,” by Tong Zhao, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP).

    There are many claims made in the article by Tony Zhao who seemingly looks at China, a 5000-year old Asian civilization, through a western lens (similar to the western-centric analysis made by John Mearsheimer).

    Zhao asserts that Beijing views itself vis-à-vis the United States as in a “strategic stalemate.”

    Comment: What exactly is meant by stalemate? And what statement emerging from Beijing attests to it viewing itself as in a stalemate? The chess metaphor applied to China is a cultural faux pas, as the popular strategizing board game the Chinese play is weiqi (go in English). Draws/stalemates are not a weiqi strategy and are rare.

    Zhao: “Trump’s early second-term actions have strengthened Beijing’s conviction that the United States is accelerating its own decline, bringing a new era of parity ever closer.”

    Comment: It is not just Beijing’s conviction. There are plenty of reputable economics/financial experts warning of a US economic decline (see Michael Hudson, Richard Wolff, Yanis Varoufakis, Peter Schiff, Ellen Brown, Sean Foo, Jeffrey Sachs, etc) as well as military experts speaking to a drop off in US military superiority (see Andrei Martyanov, colonel Douglas Macgregor, Scott Ritter, etc).

    Economic data reveal that the US has been overtaken by China on real GDP/PPP, and economic indicators point to the US potentially heading into recession with a -0.3% growth in Q1 2025, while China’s growth in Q1 2025 was 5.4%.

    Zhao warns that the current stalemate may not last and that over the next four years the “risk of a military crisis will likely rise as the two countries increasingly test each other’s resolve.”

    Comment: It is obvious how the US is testing China’s resolve. But how exactly is it that China is testing the US’ resolve — other than as a defensive response to US machinations? Zhao does not give any examples of this. Vague, unsubstantiated statements should be greeted with extreme skepticism, and such statements speak to a writer’s professionalism and credibility.

    Zhao: “The risk of a U.S.-Chinese military crisis could sharply escalate if Beijing further closes the capability gap with Washington and perceives international indifference to Taiwan’s status, grows frustrated with nonmilitary efforts to unite Taiwan with China, and foresees more pro-Taiwan leadership in Washington and Taipei.”

    Comment: The logic behind this sentence is perplexing. Is Zhao suggesting that China should maintain a capability gap so that it is inferior to the US? Furthermore, there is no international indifference to Taiwan’s status. As of June 2024, 183 countries have established diplomatic relations with China under the One China Principle, which acknowledges Taiwan as an inalienable part of China. Depicting China as “frustrated” is contrary to the longstanding stoic image that China usually projects. Xi Jinping is definitively not a fulminating, blustering politician as is commonly found in Washington. As for military efforts to “unite Taiwan with China,” the famous Chinese military strategist Sunzi (Sun Tzu) wrote in The Art of War (Chapter III- “Attack by Stratagem”): “In the practical art of war, the best thing of all is to take the enemy’s country whole and intact; to shatter and destroy it is not so good. So, too, it is better to recapture an army entire than to destroy it, to capture a regiment, a detachment or a company entire than to destroy them.”

    Zhao does admit, “Beijing has shown similarly little inclination to initiate near-term military conflict, even over issues of core national interest such as Taiwan.” He obviates this by following up with: “This restraint, however, has been underwritten by a military buildup, spanning conventional and nuclear forces, that Chinese officials see as critical to shifting the balance of power with the United States.”

    Comment: The Chinese military build-up is, arguably, a necessity given the belligerence of the US toward whichever nation does not adhere to its demands. That Taiwan has a form of de facto independence is attributable to the US inserting its 7th Fleet into a Chinese civil war to protect the losing KMT side from the Communist forces (see William Blum, “1. China 1945 to 1960s” in Killing Hope: US Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II). Moreover, the US has been unfaithful in its adherence to the One China Policy that it effectively ratified in the 1972 Shanghai Communique.

    Zhao: “[China’s] seemingly contradictory surges in economic and diplomatic outreach and its military muscle flexing, evident in high-profile drills near Australia and Japan in February, are, in China’s view, actions characteristic of the great power it believes it has become.”

    Comment: There have been no official reports of China conducting military drills near Australia in February 2025. The live-fire drills were held in international waters, 150 nautical miles far beyond Australia’s territorial waters. The Global Times noted the Chinese drills were “fully in accordance with international law and customary practices” and they were “completely different with the Australian military aircraft’s intrusion into China’s airspace” — a serious violation of international law. As for the “high profile drills … near Japan in February,” a web search only revealed China carrying out drills in the Gulf of Tonkin and off Taiwan’s southwest coast. Japanese media noted the drills off Taiwan, none near Japan.

    Zhao: “For its part, the Trump administration is beefing up the United States’ military deterrent against China amid growing concerns about Beijing’s aggressive actions in Asia.”

    Comment: This is farcical. How is it that China whose military spending is effectively 52% of US military spending would cause the US to increase its deterrence? (see table below) What are China’s “aggressive actions”? Backwards logic and unsubstantiated allegations.


    Chinese and US military spending compared Source: CEPR, 17 Dec 2024

    Zhao: “Senior Defense Department officials aren’t fully aligned on the importance of Taiwan to U.S. strategy. Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, for example, has said that ‘Americans could survive without it’ and is pushing instead to thwart China’s broader regional dominance.”

    Comment: What is the importance of Taiwan to the US besides as part of a military containment zone? Does the US’ military encirclement of China convey peaceful intent? Also, what evidence is there that China wants to dominate outside its borders? China rejects hegemony and seeks win-win relationships.

    Zhao writes of “the ratcheting up of tensions sparked by the trade war …”

    Comment: Which actor is primarily responsible for ratcheting up tensions? Which actor started the tariffing? This information is important and relevant and needs to be identified and conveyed to the reader

    *****

    It is clear who is the aggressor. China is not ringing the US with military bases. China is not stoking Hawaiian separatist sentiment from the continental US. Are Chinese warships plying US waters?

    Foreign Affairs is published by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) is a think tank and publisher described as an “influential ruling class organization” whose members come predominantly from the corporate business community which finances the CFR.

    Zhao is listed as a senior fellow at the CEIP, which was ranked as the world’s number one think tank in 2019. Imagine that: such ill-thought-out journalism from a high-ranking think-tank fellow.

    The post Escalating Think Tanks first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Jewish Settler-Colonialists


    The straightforward responses in the documentary The Settlers by Louis Theroux will not surprise anyone who has kept abreast of the long-running Zionist plan to create facts-on-the-ground in Palestine. What is surprising is that this documentary was produced and broadcast by the BBC, a broadcaster that is usually inimical to Palestinian suffering. The documentary (currently viewable at Rumble.com) has been noticed. [Editor’s Note: The documentary has been blown away already. And Rumble has posted no explanation. See 404 notice below.]

    Zionist-triggered Western censorship at its best.

    The Independent considers The Settlers to be a “masterpiece.”

    The Middle East Eye hails the documentary as “an unflinching look at the Israelis [sic] intent on stealing the West Bank.”

    The Islam Channel praises Theroux for “highlight[ing] the horrifying influence of the illegal Israeli settler movement.”

    The title of the Spectator’s review was rather enigmatic: “How come the only Palestinians Louis Theroux met were non-violent sweeties?” The Spectator granted, “In a program called The Settlers, it’s perhaps fair enough that the focus should be so squarely on these people and their intransigence.”

    And what about the documentary’s title?

    Dictionary.com defines settler innocuously as “a person who settles in a new region or colony.” Is this the proper appellation? Others would argue that the term settler-colonialist is more accurate. The Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School states, “Settler colonialism can be defined as a system of oppression based on genocide and colonialism, that aims to displace a population of a nation (oftentimes indigenous people) and replace it with a new settler population.”

    The documentary begins with the lanky, bespectacled Theroux asking a settler whether they are “deep inside the Palestinian territories”? The settler-colonialist Ari Abramowitz objected, calling it “the heart of Judea.” He further objected to a “jihadist Palestinian state” being located in the heart of Israel.

    Abramowitz is forthright in saying he aspires to win territory from Palestinians.

    The settler-colonialists are described as “religionist nationalists.” A young Jewish woman Ovi says, “I believe Gaza is ours … The Bible says this place was given to the Jews. This place is ours.”

    Throughout the documentary, the Zionist goal is clear: to remove Palestinians and repopulate the land with Jews.

    Theroux spends much time interviewing Daniella Weiss, the “godmother of the settler movement,” an unabashed Zionist, who claimed: “We do for governments what they cannot do for themselves… Netanyahu is very happy at what we do but he cannot say it.”

    Gaza fits what Netanyahu cannot say, Weiss states the goal of “the practical idea of establishing Jewish settlements in the entire Gaza Strip. We very much encourage and enable the population in Gaza to go to other countries. You will witness how Jews go to Gaza and Arabs disappear from Gaza. They lost their right to stay in this holy place.”

    But Jews are not a pure monolith. Theroux interviews a protesting Israeli man who says, “The question is: what kind of country do we want to be? Do we want to be a colonizing country or do we want to be a country that at least offers peace and wants to live in peace with Palestinians?”

    What can Gazans expect if settler-colonialists create outposts in Gaza? The documentary examines the situation in the West Bank where outposts are set up to expand and become communities with the aim of becoming recognized as settlements by the Israeli government. These outposts and settlements are under the protection of the Israeli military.

    The Texan-raised Abramowitz denies Palestinians exist. When pressed by Theroux on this, Abramowitz replies, “They are Arabs.”

    The illegality of settlements is disregarded by Abramowitz. This is echoed by Weiss who shrugs off the commission of war crimes as a “lighter felony.”

    Such Zionist views point to the impunity of settler colonialists in dealing with the indigenous Palestinians. One common war crime is preventing Palestinian farmers from harvesting their produce, particularly olives. Israeli soldiers will arrive, demand identification, and send the farmers away from their land. And if a farmer is lucky, he will still be alive after the encounter.

    The filmmaker spoke of an “ideology of superiority of one group over another.” This even has rabbinical support.

    Rabbi Dove Leor said, “To my mind, there was never peace with these [Palestinian] savages. There is no peace and never will be…. This land belongs only to the people of Israel. All of Gaza, all of Lebanon should be cleansed of these ‘camel riders.’”

    To accomplish the disappearance of Palestinians, Weiss advocates using “the magic system of Zionism” to take over the land and repopulate it with Jews. “This will bring light instead of darkness,” says Weiss.

    Issa Amrou, a Palestinian activist, guides Theroux around occupied Hebron and explains the life of Palestinians under occupation. The system of encouraging Palestinians to leave is through fear of the Israeli soldiers, checkpoints, closing Palestinian businesses, making life intolerable, and fragmentation of Palestinian towns, leading to Jews taking more land.

    Near the end of the documentary, Theroux speaks again with the Texan-cum-settler-colonialist Abramowitz who makes known his feelings for Palestinians: “I don’t have tremendous compassion for a society that has an unquenchable genocidal, theological, bloodlust. It’s like a death cult.”

    Says Abramowitz, “I reject the real premise that these people [Palestinians] are actually a real nation for a lot of reasons.”

    “We know the righteousness of our cause. That’s what it means to be a Hebrew, what it means to be a Jew…”

    The Israeli government’s recognition of the Evyatar settlement in the lands of the Palestinian town of Beita spurred a celebration, and Weiss arrived to speak to a jubilating crowd.

    Theroux catches up with the settler-colonial godmother after her speech to the festive gathering. He asks what is wrong with a two-state solution?

    Says Weiss, “We want to have a Jewish state based on Jewish rules, on Jewish values. It is not a relationship of neighbors.”

    “Why not?” asks Theroux.

    “Because we are two nations.” At least Weiss admits to there being a Palestinian nation.

    Weiss makes clear that her overarching aim is Aliyah, bringing more settler-colonialists to the land. She does not think about the Palestinians because she is a Jew.

    Theroux says, “That seems sociopathic.”

    Weiss rejects this, saying, “It is normal.”

    In the settler-colonialist Zionist mindset, othering is normal.

    *****

    People who care about humans elsewhere and are unfamiliar or uninformed about the plight of Palestinians ought to watch The Settlers and become familiar and informed. Theroux probably presents the situation as close to the line as one could hope to have broadcast. Through the narrative, the viewer will hear that there is anti-Palestinian racism and violence against them, but the discussion will not be graphic, and visually the violence is downplayed.

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  • A Moral Imperative for the 2025 Canadian Election


    Prime Minister Mark Carney, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre and NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. Photo by Thomas Padilla/AP; Dave Chan/AFP via Getty Images

    Back in August 2014, the New Democratic Party (NDP) was led by Tom Mulcair whose Zionism was so extreme that a sitting MP, Sana Hassainia, of the Montreal-area riding of Vercheres-Les Patriotes, could not accept Mulcair’s position and chose to sit as an independent.

    The current NDP leader Jagmeet Singh forthrightly denounced the genocide in Gaza and questioned current Canadian prime minister Mark Carney (Liberal Party) about his position on Gaza.

    “Mr. Carney, why don’t you call it what it is? It’s a genocide,” said Singh.

    Carney replied, “This question is in front of the International Court of Justice. The situation is a horrible situation. I will not, and I will never politicize that word or this situation.”

    The Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre is a Trump-style politician in Canada. Poilievre promises to deport critics, move Canada’s embassy in Israel, and cut funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) and other international bodies assisting Palestinians.

    Poilievre accused UNRWA employees of being involved in the 7 October 2023 attacks on Israel.

    Singh demurred, “What you said about UNRWA was disgusting.… Calling it a terrorist organization is unacceptable. It’s hateful and it’s entirely inappropriate.”

    There was a choice in the United States election to vote against genocide, but people overwhelmingly voted for one of the two pro-Zionist presidential candidates in the 2024 election, despite there being presidential candidates who were opposed to the Zionist genocide.

    The leaders of the two major parties in Canada present as Zionist appeasers, as demonstrated by their own words. The difference from the 2024 US election is that in Canada there is a prominent political party, the NDP, whose leader calls genocide by what it is.

    Canadians have a choice to vote No to genocide on Monday, 28 April.

    The post A Moral Imperative for the 2025 Canadian Election first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Those Chinese Peasants

    Some would posit, “If you have nothing nice to say, don’t say anything.”

    US president Donald Trump is not beholden to that epithet and neither is his vice-president JD “I don’t like China” Vance.

    Previously, in January 2018, Trump was criticized for referring to Haiti and African countries as “shithole countries.”

    On 8 April 2025, Trump took pleasure in describing countries purportedly cowering at the prospect of US tariffs being levied on them:

    These countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are, they are dying to make a deal. Please, please sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything sir.

    The same lack of respectful discourse is followed by Vance. At a meeting in the White House on 28 February 2025, Volodomyr Zelenskyy found himself attacked on two sides. However unsavoury a character Zelenskyy is, and however improper his remarks might have been when he was at the White House, he was a guest. And the attack, in particular by Vance, on a guest was unbecoming.

    In March, Vance complained about Chinese oligarchs. Now it is Chinese peasants:

    We borrow money from Chinese peasants to buy the things those Chinese peasants manufacture.

    Decidedly, it was a boorish comment from the vice-president. China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian was not impressed:

    It is surprising and sad to hear such ignorant and impolite words from this vice president.

    Is Vance merely revealing his ignorance as well as rudeness? Is there any truth to the depiction Vance proffers on China?

    Today’s Chinese “peasants”

    China has eliminated extreme poverty. The US Census Bureau’s Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM) and official poverty data report 5.3% of Americans (around 17.5 million people) as living in “deep poverty” (with incomes below 50% of the federal poverty line) (source: Census.gov – Poverty Tables [Table B-1, B-2]).

    An end to extreme poverty posits an end to homelessness. In the US, homelessness is rising in recent years. Ecofact.org reports:

    There were 771,480 people recorded as homeless in 2024 — or about 23 per 10,000 people. This represented an increase of over 18% relative to the numbers recorded in 2023. The data show that  36 percent of the homeless were unsheltered — that is, they lived in places not considered fit for human habitation …

    Chinese peasants live in the world’s largest economy expressed as GDP (PPP). Chinese peasants put up a space station on their own. Cars produced by Chinese peasants are dominating the world market. And Chinese peasants have developed (Chinese tech is stolen according to Vance) flying cars for the markets, when the markets are ready. These peasants are great at innovating and manufacturing: Comac C919 narrow-body airliner, Long March rockets, 30-satellite Beidou positioning system, molten salt thorium reactors, HarmonyOS, 5.5G, 3nm chips, robotics, AI, hypersonic weapons, etc, etc.

    And pertinently for peasants, China’s agricultural sector is undergoing significant transformation through technological innovation, while in the US, farmers are worried about China’s retaliatory tariffs.

    Many Americans, if presented the choice, might well opt for Chinese peasant status.

    The post Those Chinese Peasants first appeared on Dissident Voice.

  • Should Iran Bend Knee to Donald Trump?

    Former UNSCOM weapons inspector Scott Ritter usually provides excellent analysis of geopolitical events and places them in a morally centered framework. However, in a recent X post, Ritter defends a controversial stance blaming Iran for US and Israeli machinations against Iran.

    Ritter opened, “I have assiduously detailed the nature of the threat perceived by the US that, if unresolved, would necessitate military action, as exclusively revolving around Iran’s nuclear program and, more specifically, that capacity that is excess to its declared peaceful program and, as such, conducive to a nuclear weapons program Iran has admitted is on the threshold of being actualized.”

    Threats perceived by the US. These threats range from North Korea, Viet Nam, Grenada, Panama, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Iran, China, and Russia. Question: Which of the aforementioned countries is about to — or ever was about to — attack the US? None. (Al Qaeda is not a country) So why does Ritter imply that military action would be necessitated? Is it a vestige of military indoctrination left over from his time as a marine? In this case, why is Ritter not focused on his own backyard and telling the US to butt out of the Middle East? The US, since it is situated on a continent far removed from Iran, should no more dictate to Iran what its defense posture should be in the region than Iran should dictate what the US’s defense posture should be in the northwestern hemisphere.

    Ritter: “In short, I have argued, the most realistic path forward regarding conflict avoidance would be for Iran to negotiate in good faith regarding the verifiable disposition of its excess nuclear enrichment capability.”

    Ritter places the onus for conflict avoidance on Iran. Why? Is Iran seeking conflict with the US? Is Iran making demands of the US? Is Iran sanctioning the US? Moreover, who gets to decide what is realistic or not? Is what is realistic for the US also realistic for Iran? When determining the path forward, one should be aware of who and what is stirring up conflict. Ritter addresses this when he writes, “Even when Trump alienated Iran with his ‘maximum pressure’ tactics, including an insulting letter to the Supreme Leader that all but eliminated the possibility of direct negotiations between the US and Iran…” But this did not alter Ritter’s stance. Iran must negotiate — again. According to Ritter negotiations are how to solve the crisis, a crisis of the US’s (and Israel’s) making.

    Iran had agreed to a deal — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — with the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States) and Germany — collectively known as the P5+1 — with the participation of the European Union. The JCPOA came into effect in 2016. During the course of the JCPOA, Iran was in compliance with the deal. Nonetheless, Trump pulled the US out of the deal in 2018.

    Backing out of agreements/deals is nothing new for Trump (or for that matter, the US). For example, Trump pulled out of the Paris Agreement on climate, the Trans-Pacific Partnership on trade, the United Nations cultural organization UNESCO, and the North American Free Trade Agreement, which was subsequently renegotiated under Trump to morph into the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement, which is now imperilled by the Trump administration’s tariff threats, as is the World Trade Organization that regulates international trade.

    Should Iran, therefore, expect adherence to any future agreement signed with the US?

    Ritter insists that he is promoting a reality-based process providing the only viable path toward peace. Many of those who disagree with Ritter’s assertion are lampooned by him as “the digital mob, comprised of new age philosophers, self-styled ‘peace activists’, and a troll class that opposes anything and everything it doesn’t understand (which is most factually-grounded argument), as well as people I had viewed as fellow travelers on a larger journey of conflict avoidance—podcasters, experts and pundits who did more than simply disagree with me (which is, of course, their right and duty as independent thinkers), traversing into the realm of insults and attacks against my intelligence, integrity and character.”

    Ritter continued, “The US-Iran crisis is grounded in the complexities, niceties and formalities of international law as set forth in the nuclear nonproliferation treaty (NPT), which Iran signed in 1970 as a non-nuclear weapons state. The NPT will be at the center of any negotiated settlement.”

    Is it accurate to characterize the crisis as a “US-Iran crisis”? It elides the fact that it is the US imposing a crisis on Iran. More accurately it should be stated as a “US crisis foisted on Iran.”

    Ritter argues, “… the fact remains that this crisis has been triggered by the very capabilities Iran admits to having—stocks of 60% enriched uranium with no link to Iran’s declared peaceful program, and excessive advanced centrifuge-based enrichment capability which leaves Iran days away from possessing sufficient weapons grade high enriched uranium to produce 3-5 nuclear weapons.”

    So, Ritter blames Iran for the crisis. This plays off Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who has long accused Iran of seeking nukes. But it ignores the situation in India and Pakistan. Although the relations between the two countries are tense, logic dictates that open warring must be avoided lest it lead to mutual nuclear conflagration. And if Iran dismantles its nuclear program? What happened when Libya dismantled its nuclear program? Destruction by the US-led NATO. As A.B. Abrams wrote, Libya paid the price for

    … having ignored direct warnings from both Tehran and Pyongyang not to pursue such a course [of unilaterally disarming], Libya’s leadership would later admit that disarmament, neglected military modernisation, and trust in Western good will proved to be their greatest mistake–leaving their country near defenceless when Western powers launched their offensive in 2011. (Immovable Object: North Korea’s 70 Years at War with American Power, Clarity Press, 2020: p 296)

    And North Korea has existed with a credible deterrence against any attack on it since it acquired nuclear weapons.

    Relevant background to the current crisis imposed on Iran

    1. The year 1953 is a suitable starting point. It was in this year that the US-UK (CIA and MI6) combined to engineer a coup against the democratically elected Iranian government under prime minister Mohammad Mossadegh. Mossadegh had committed the unpardonable sin of nationalizing the British-owned Anglo-Iranian Oil Company.
    1. What to replace the Iranian democracy with? A monarchy. In other words, a dictatorship because monarchs are not elected, they are usually born into power. Thus, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi would rule as the shah of Iran for 26 years protected by his secret police, the SAVAK. Eventually, the shah would be overthrown in the 1979 Iranian Revolution.
    1. In an attempt to force Iran to bend knee to US dictate, the US has imposed sanctions, issued threats, and fomented violence.
    1. Starting sometime after 2010, it is generally agreed among cybersecurity experts and intelligence leaks that the Iranian nuclear program was a target of cyberwarfare by the US and Israel — this in contravention of the United Nations Charter Article 2 (1-4):

    1. The Organization is based on the principle of the sovereign equality of all its Members.

    2. All Members, in order to ensure to all of them the rights and benefits resulting from membership, shall fulfill in good faith the obligations assumed by them in accordance with the present Charter.

    3. All Members shall settle their international disputes by peaceful means in such a manner that international peace and security, and justice, are not endangered.

    4. All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.

    1. The Stuxnet virus caused significant damage to Iran’s nuclear program, particularly at the Natanz uranium enrichment facility.
    1. Israel and the United States are also accused of being behind the assassinations of several Iranian nuclear scientists over the past decade.
    1. On 3 January 2020, Trump ordered a US drone strike at Baghdad International Airport in Iraq that assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani as well as Soleimani ally Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, a top Iraqi militia leader.
    1. On 7 October 7 2023, Hamas launched a resistance attack against Israel’s occupation. Since then, Israel has reportedly conducted several covert and overt strikes targeting Iran and its proxies across the region.
    1. Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu has accused Iran of seeking nukes for nearly 30 years, long before Iran reached 60% enrichment in 2021. In Netanyahu’s book Fighting Terrorism (1995) he described Iran as a “rogue state” pursuing nukes to destroy Israel. Given that a fanatical, expansionist Zionist map for Israel, the Oded-Yinon plan, draws a Jewish territory that touches on the Iranian frontier, a debilitated Iran is sought by Israel.

     

    Oded Yinon Plan

    Says Ritter, “This crisis isn’t about Israel or Israel’s own undeclared nuclear weapons capability. It is about Iran’s self-declared status as a threshold nuclear weapons state, something prohibited by the NPT. This is what the negotiations will focus on. And hopefully these negotiations will permit the verifiable dismantling of those aspects of its nuclear program the US (and Israel) find to present an existential threat.”

    Why isn’t it about Israel’s nuclear weapons capability? Why does the US and Ritter get to decide which crisis is preeminent?

    It is important to note that US intelligence has long said that no active Iranian nuclear weapon project exists.

    It is also important to note that Arab states have long supported a Middle East Zone Free of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMDFZ), particularly nuclear weapons, but Israel and the US oppose it.

    It is also important to note that, in 2021, the U.S. opposed a resolution demanding Israel join the NPT and that the US, in 2018, blocked an Arab-backed IAEA resolution on Israeli nukes. (UN Digital Library. Search: “Middle East WMDFZ”)

    As far as the NPT goes, it must be applied equally to all signatory states. The US as a nuclear-armed nation is bound by Article VI which demands:

    Each of the Parties to the Treaty undertakes to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament, and on a treaty on general and complete disarmament under strict and effective international control.

    Thus, hopefully negotiations will permit the verifiable dismantling of those aspects of the Iranian, US, and Israeli nuclear programs (as well as the nuclear programs of other nuclear-armed nations) that are found to present an existential threat.

    Ritter warns, “Peace is not guaranteed. But war is unless common sense and fact-based logic wins out over the self-important ignorance of the digital mob and their facilitators.”

    A peaceful solution is not achieved by assertions (i.e., not fact-based logic) or by ad hominem. That critics of Ritter’s stance resort to name-calling demeans them, but to respond likewise to one’s critics also taints the respondent.

    Logic dictates that peace is more-or-less guaranteed if UN member states adhere to the United Nations Charter. The US, Iran, and Israel are UN member states. A balanced and peaceful solution is found in the Purposes and Principles as stipulated in Article 1 (1-4) of the UN Charter:

    The Purposes of the United Nations are:

    1. To maintain international peace and security, and to that end: to take effective collective measures for the prevention and removal of threats to the peace, and for the suppression of acts of aggression or other breaches of the peace, and to bring about by peaceful means, and in conformity with the principles of justice and international law, adjustment or settlement of international disputes or situations which might lead to a breach of the peace;

    2. To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples, and to take other appropriate measures to strengthen universal peace;

    3. To achieve international co-operation in solving international problems of an economic, social, cultural, or humanitarian character, and in promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion; and

    4. To be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in the attainment of these common ends.

    It seems that only by refusing to abide by one’s obligations laid out the UN Charter and NPT that war looms larger.

    In Ritter’s reality, the US rules the roost against smaller countries. Is such a reality acceptable?

    It stirs up patriotism, but acquiescence is an affront to national dignity. Ritter will likely respond by asking what god is dignity when you are dead. Fair enough. But in the present crisis, if the US were to attack Iran, then whatever last shred of dignity (is there any last shred of dignity left when a country is supporting the genocide of human beings in Palestine?) that American patriots can cling to will have vanished.

    By placing the blame on Iran for a crisis triggered by destabilizing actions of the US and Israel, Ritter asks for Iran to pay for the violent events set in motion by US Israel. If Iran were to cave to Trump’s threats, they would be sacrificing sovereignty, dignity, and self-defense.

    North Korea continues on. Libya is still reeling from the NATO offensive against it. Iran is faced with a choice.

    The Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata knew his choice well: “I’d rather die on my feet, than live on my knees.”

    The post Should Iran Bend Knee to Donald Trump? first appeared on Dissident Voice.


    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Danger in Trump’s Mind

    On 7 April, a Mondoweiss headline ran as “Trump announces surprise Iran talks during Netanyahu meeting.”

    United States president Donald Trump had met with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to discuss “Gaza, tariffs, and the alleged nuclear threat of Iran.” As for the latter, Trump said that the US is having direct talks with Iran on nuclear weapons and announced that there would be a “very big meeting” with important officials on April 12.

    Said Trump: “I think everybody agrees that doing a deal would be preferable to doing the obvious.”

    What is the obvious? If one abhors war and wants to avoid it, then it seems the obvious thing to do is to stop bullying Iran, stop provoking it, and stop issuing threats and engaging in belligerent rhetoric.

    Trump continued: “And the obvious is not something that … we’re going to see if we can avoid it. But it’s getting to be very dangerous territory.”

    Dangerous? How so? Just on Trump’s say-so? One would presume that Iran having nuclear arms is what Trump considers dangerous. If so, then what is the nuclear-armed Israel that Trump openly courts, funds, and fetes compared to Iran whose supreme leader Ali Khamenei issued a never-rescinded fatwa against acquiring nuclear weapons decades ago? How dangerous is Iran, which has avoided war for several decades, in comparison to Israel which is perennially provoking and at war with its neighbors, and is in the midst of a scaled-up genocide? Professor Gideon Polya writes of the “the US-backed, Zionist Israeli mass murder of about 0.6 million Indigenous Palestinian[s]” — a number elided by legacy media. Why has Trump not described Israel as “dangerous”? And why isn’t the US dangerous since it has been constantly at war since its inception, and it is the only country that has used nukes against another nation?

    Trump: “If the talks aren’t successful with Iran …”

    But US nuclear talks with Iran already were successful. The Obama administration already achieved what constitutes a successful nuclear deal with Iran — the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) — since the deal was agreed to by both sides. It was the Trump administration which scuttled the deal, i.e., reversed a success. So the current situation exists because Trump undermined a previous deal, and the very fact that a deal was reached should be considered a success.

    “… I think Iran is going to be in great danger,” Trump continued. “And I hate to say it, great danger, because they can’t have a nuclear weapon. You know, it’s not a complicated formula. Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. That’s all there is.”

    That is hardly a compelling argument. Because Trump says so. He may point to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), but the US is also non-compliant with article 6 of the NPT.

    Which nation is dangerous?

    It is Israel and the US that are committing genocide in Gaza; Iran is not committing a genocide. Moreover, if you try to stop the genocide, then Trump will bomb you, civilian housing or not, as is the case in Yemen.

    It is Israel murdering paramedics, covering up its crime, and lying about it.

    It is Trump and Netanyahu’s aggressive moves toward Iran that are dangerous.

    Indeed, an Israeli official said that Netanyahu wants “the Libya model” in Iran, which would require a complete tearing down of Iran’s nuclear program.

    What was the outcome of the Libya model? Libya was disarmed, and the US and its Nato followers destroyed Africa’s wealthiest country, turning it into a dysfunctional state. That is likeliest the result that Israel wants for Iran.

    Is the world to be based on inequality among its nations? If not, then a progressivist principle holds that each nation has an inalienable right to self-defense. One way to avert war is to balance the power. North Korea knows what happened to Libya. It is now nuclear armed and this serves as a deterrent to aggressive nations who might otherwise attack it. Iran knows this as well. Ask yourself: if Iran was nuclear armed would Israel and the US be foolish enough to attack Iran?

    The post Danger in Trump’s Mind first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • US Bullying in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland)

    United States vice president JD Vance traveled to Kalaallit Nunaat (colonial designation: Greenland) to join his wife. He issued a statement that speaks much to the imperialist mindset of the Trump administration:

    I’m going to visit some of our guardians in the Space Force on the northwest coast of Greenland and also just check out what is going on with the security there of Greenland. As you know, it is really important: a lot of other countries have threatened Greenland and threatened to use its territories and its waterways to threaten the United States, to threaten Canada and of course to threaten the people of Greenland, so we’re going to check out how things are going there. So speaking for President Trump, we want to reinvigorate the security of the people of Greenland because we think it is important to protecting the security of the entire world. Unfortunately, leaders in both America and in Denmark I think ignored Greenland for far too long. That has been bad for Greenland. That has also been bad for the security of the entire world. We think we can take things in a different direction, so I am going to go check it out.

    Vance says a lot of other countries have threatened Greenland (and Canada and the US). Trump points to Russia and China as threats to Greenland, without any evidence to back it up. It comes across clearly as blatant fearmongering, conjuring up a boogeyman and presenting the US as coming to the rescue.

    Do Greenlanders feel afraid? If Canadians are afraid, it is about the threats the US made against Canadian sovereignty. A poll reveals that Canadians feel angry (57%), betrayed (37%), and anxious (29%) toward the Trump administration.

    However, it is just silly to think Russia and China would risk world opprobrium to take over the world’s largest island, and for what? Resources and commodities that they can get by trading?

    But there is a country that threatens Greenland.

    Trump said to Greenland,

    We strongly support your right to determine your own future. And if you choose, to welcome you into the United States of America. We need Greenland for national security and even international security. We’re working with everybody involved to try and get it. But we need it really for international world security. And I think we are going to get it; one way or the other we are going to get it. [people can be heard laughing and booing] We will keep you safe. We will make you rich …

    Trump is clearly speaking out both sides of his mouth, saying he respects Greenlanders right to self-determination and then making threatening comments that the US “one way or the other we are going to get it.”

    Denmark’s prime minister Mette Frederiksen complained that the US is putting “unacceptable pressure” on Greenland and Denmark. During a DR broadcast, she stated, “It is pressure that we will resist.”

    Former Greenland prime minister Múte Egede realizes that the US dream to annex, own, and control Greenland is serious and calls upon allied countries to declare their support for Greenland.

    Jens-Frederik Nielsen who was sworn in as the prime minister of Greenland on Friday, 28 March responded to Trump: “President Trump says that the United States is getting Greenland. Let me be clear: the United States won’t get that. We do not belong to anyone else. We determine our own future.”

    On Saturday, 29 March, Trump responded about the potential use of force to take over Greenland: “I never take military force off the table. But I think there is a good chance that we could do it without military force.”

    Vance and Trump Criticize Denmark

    Vance criticized Denmark: “Denmark has not kept pace and devoted the resources necessary to keep this base, to keep our troops, and in my view, to keep the people of Greenland safe from a lot of very aggressive incursions from Russia, from China and other nations.” Trump echoes that sentiment, saying that the waters around Greenland have “Chinese and Russian ships all over the place” and that the US will handle the situation.

    Has anyone heard of any “very aggressive incursions” by Russia, China and other nations (presumably US-designated enemies, such as Iran and North Korea) into Greenland?

    Trump doubles down: “We need Greenland, very importantly, for international security. We have to have Greenland. It’s not a question of, ‘Do you think we can do without it?’ We can’t.”

    What Does US Investment and Security Look Like for Its Colonies?

    “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance said. “You have underinvested in the people of Greenland, and you have underinvested in the security architecture of this incredible, beautiful land mass filled with incredible people.”

    Does the US do right by its overseas territories? What about US investment in overseas territories it has previously annexed? About Puerto Rico, Ben Norton wrote, “Poverty is rising in one of the world’s oldest colonies: In Puerto Rico, 41.7% of people, including 57.6% of children, live in poverty. This is nearly four times the US rate. And Puerto Rican workers are getting poorer even while unemployment falls.” The US 2020 Census revealed that Guam has a poverty rate (20.2%) twice that of the US mainland. The same 2020 census indicated, “The percentage of families in poverty for the U.S. Virgin Islands showed a slight increase from 18.3% in 2009 to 18.6% in 2019. The same census reported a decrease for families in poverty in American Samoa; poverty declined to 50.7% in 2019 from 54.4% in 2009. Is this what Greenlanders can look forward to? In comparison, in 2023, the poverty rate in Greenland was 17.4%, as calculated at below 60% of the median equivalized income,1 which is slightly above the EU average of 16.2%. However, the poverty rate in recent years has been on the rise in Greenland.

    And what has US security meant for Puerto Ricans? From 1941 until 2001 the US Navy and US Marine Corps carried out bombing drills on nearby Vieques Island. Starting in 1999, protests drew attention to US militarism in its colonies. The departure of the US Navy “left the island peppered with remnants of undetonated bombs, PFAS chemicals, uranium, mercury, napalm and more. All of which are toxic materials known to have serious effects on human health along with generational impacts on the health of island youth.”

    For Hawaiians? After the attack on Pearl Harbor, the island of Kaho’olawe (known as the Pacific’s Battered Bullseye) became a bombing range for the US until president George HW Bush ordered it shut down in 1990. The bombing was massive, designed to simulate the effects of a nuclear detonation. Huge 500-ton TNT charges created shock waves, vapor clouds, and sent rock and soil high into the sky, and destroyed the island’s only fresh-water aquifer.

    For Micronesians? There is the ignominy of the 67 nuclear tests by the the United States in the Marshall Islands carried out between 1946 and 1958 with its concomitant fallout of radiation and the forced migration of tens of thousands of Marshall Islanders.

    Even Greenland has been affected by the use of nuclear weapons by the US. In 1968, a B-52 bomber carrying four 1.1-megaton bombs crashed on the ice 19 kilometers (12 miles) from Thule, killing one crew member and leaking radioactive plutonium into Greenland’s waters. Reports of cancer and other illnesses surfaced among Danish and Kalaallit Thule Air Base workers.2

    The Pentagon made a risible attempt at concealing the nuclear blunder at that time, even to the extent of one official stating: “I don’t know of any missing bomb, but we have not positively identified what I think you are looking for.”

    Many people, including former Thule Air Base workers and Danish parliamentarians, state that an unexploded American hydrogen bomb also disappeared — serial number 78252. Niels-Jørgen Nehring, head of the state-sponsored DUPI [Danish Institute of International Affairs now called the Danish Institute for International Studies (DIIS)], gave credence to the claim that a lost bomb remained off Thule.

    The US Thule Air Base (now Pituffik Space Base) led to the forced relocation of the Inughuit. Obedient to US dictate, colonial Danish authorities illegally exiled 650 Inuit in May 1953 from Uummannaq, Pituffik, and neighboring locales to a tent community about 100 kilometers (62 miles) north in Qaanaaq, away from their ancestral lands. “They were given four days to abandon a home that had been theirs for almost 4,000 years. They have never been allowed back,” wrote Jørgen Dragsdahl.3 The ethnic cleansing from Thule Air Base was a precursor to the subsequent ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Ilois from the erstwhile pristine coral atoll, Diego Garcia, in the Chagos archipelago by British and American governments to construct one of the largest US military bases outside the US.4

    Insultingly, Greenlanders are also required to clean up the mess left by US military installations. Then US secretary of state Colin Powell rejected US responsibility, saying it had been transferred to Greenland where it would stay.

    What do Greenlanders Want?

    Polling results from 29 January 2025 indicate that 85% of Greenlanders do not want to exchange their present status to become a part of the US. Six percent wish to join the US and 9% are unsure. However, on the question of Greenland independence, if a referendum were held, 56%  would vote in favor, 28% would vote no, and 7% didn’t know how they would vote.

    The US Track Record

    The US has a track record. Trump and his chosen team are operating straight out of the CIA playbook. They will lie and cheat in order to steal the homeland of the Kalaallit. The US has done this many times already. The Chagossians were shipped to Mauritius. The Chamorro continue to strive for self-determination. Palauans finally achieved it, at least partially, by agreeing to a Compact of Free Association with the US which allows the US to operate military bases in Palau and make decisions concerning external security. The Hawaiian monarchy was overthrown in a US corporate coup. Indeed, the continental US is established through the genocide of the Indigenous nations that had inhabited the landmass for millennia before Europeans reached its shores.

    As well, the US has a track record in Greenland. And as the current tariff war adduces, no ally (except, it seems, Israel) can feel secure in its relationship with the US.

    ENDNOTES:

    The post US Bullying in Kalaallit Nunaat (Greenland) first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    The OECD explains this jargon as: “People are classified as poor when their equivalised disposable household income is less than 50% of the median in each country.
    2    See Erik Erngaard, Grønland: I Tusinde År (Lademan Forlagsaktieselskab, 1973), 227.
    3    Jørgen Dragsdahl, “The Danish dilemma,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, September/October 2001.
    4    See Charles Judson Harwood Jr., “Diego Garcia: The ‘criminal question’ doctrine,” updated 16 June 2006). See also John Pilger’s documentary Stealing a Nation.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • What to Do When Faced with Tariffs? Diversify


    The New York Times yesterday (11 March 2025) headlined: “Trump Intensifies Statehood Threats in Attack on Canada.” What particularly stood out was the sub headline: “The U.S. president on Tuesday reiterated his claims on Canada’s territory as he increased tariffs, threatening to bring the country’s economy to its knees.”

    How are Canadians supposed to feel about being threatened? How are Canadians to feel about the indignity of being brought economically to their knees? It calls to mind the invocation of Mexican revolutionary Emilio Zapatista who stated: “It is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees!”

    The article opens:

    The fresh attacks President Donald Trump aimed at Canada on Tuesday extended beyond imposing more tariffs on America’s neighbor and NATO ally, and laid out in the clearest terms yet his vision for annexing Canada and making it part of the United States.

    Trump is a selfish, narcissistic, vain person (e.g., here and here), and that plays well to a certain audience. It is obvious from his pandering to the public, his name calling of others (e.g., referring to Canada’s prime minister Justin Trudeau as a governor of the 51st state), his preening with bold sharpie-signed documents held up for cameras, his declarations affecting others without first speaking to the others.

    It is about Trump’s vision for Canada. It’s an all stick and no carrot approach. That is what annexation is: “possession taken of a piece of land or a country, usually by force or without permission: The country’s annexation of its neighbor caused an outcry.”

    Past and present Canadian governments (and the Canadians who elect so-called representatives to the parliament) are responsible for Canada’s exports being so reliant on the US market rather than diversifying its trade into other world markets.

    It doesn’t have to stay that way. In fact, it is a rude wake-up call that Canada must not rely on the US to be a faithful and steadfast partner. Canada’s dignity and sovereignty1 demand a change in the status quo.

    Unlike China, Canada is unprepared for round two of a Trump administration.

    The US economy is forecast by many commentators to be heading for a recession, something that Trump does not deny. China, on the other hand, has set its 2025 GDP growth target at around 5%. It seems futile to tie one’s ship-of-state to another sinking ship.

    Canada says it will fight fire with fire, that it will reciprocate the US tariffs. This is a lose-lose proposition. Canada needs to get off its knees and seek a win-win, respectful relationship — something that China always promotes. No need to completely disengage with the US, but apply to BRICS and the BRI and develop relations with the Global South. Pursue a path that is best for Canadians.

    ENDNOTE:

    The post What to Do When Faced with Tariffs? Diversify first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    Canada’s dignity and sovereignty will always be morally challenged given that it exists on the dispossession of its Indigenous peoples — a lamentable criminality that Canada shares with the US.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • How about the US Becoming the 11th Province?

    While living in the Middle East, a Palestinian friend taught me about Arabic culture, which he said was still preserved in Yemen. Arabic etiquette, he told me, was that a guest was to be protected, housed, and otherwise looked after.

    White House etiquette is something else. I was quite taken aback by viewing how Donald Trump and JD Vance ganged up on their Ukrainian guest Volodymyr Zelenskyy. This is not to side with Zelenskyy who is a disagreeable personage to me; by refusing a security agreement, he set the stage for an unwinnable war against Russia which has condemned hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian men to death.

    Zelenskyy made some bizarre and distorted utterances during the videoed meeting. Nonetheless, there is a proper way for Trump and Vance to express disagreement. But diplomacy, etiquette, and niceties are often rare in the bullyverse of Trump.

    Moreover, an often heard complaint from Trump is that things are not fair. Was it fair to have two native English speakers against one non-native English speaker?

    Fairness

    A common saying tells us that bees are more attracted to honey than vinegar. Maybe the Trump-led administration doesn’t give credence to this saying, or it believes it can bully others into submission — probably the latter. Trump believes he can use tariffs as a big stick to gain an upper hand in trade. Given the size of the US economy and its willingness to resort to violence to back its demands, smaller countries find themselves in a precarious situation. Without another big country’s backing, smaller countries are susceptible to regime change operations. Witness was happened to the Syrian government in late 2024.

    Fortunately, China is willing to engage in win-win trade with other nations. The Chinese honey appears to be preferable for much of the Global South to the American vinegar. China is also a military power, and it can readily defend itself against any US military provocations. China is unlikely to let the US physically interfere in its trade arrangements with willing partners. Neither is Russia about to do this. This has led to a global realignment, one feature of which is the deepening relationships of China and Russia with African countries.

    But the record shows that Donald Trump does not limit himself to smaller countries. During his first administration, Trump began a trade war with China, and he does not look to be letting up this time. Trump, however, considers the world as his oyster, to deal with as he pleases. Even the US’s erstwhile allies are targeted, including its northern neighbor, Canada.

    Will Canada Supplicate Trump?

    United States President Donald Trump sounded off during the first cabinet meeting of his second term, among other topics was that of Canadian sovereignty:

    I say Canada should be our 51st state. There’s no tariffs, no nothing. And I say that we give them military protection. They have a very small military; they spend very little money on military. On NATO they are just about last in terms of payment because it’s not fair. It’s not fair that they’re not paying their way. And if they had to pay their way, they couldn’t exist.

    Upon what basis does Trump claim that the US is protecting Canada? Because Canada is a member of NATO and NORAD? The latter allows the US military access into Canada, the junior partner in the relationship. And just who are these enemies that the US is purportedly protecting Canada from? Is there any country posing a credible military threat to Canada? If so, it seems that the US would come first to mind. If Canada is a willing and uncoerced member of certain military organizations, then Canada should abide by its agreed upon commitments. Canada does come up short of the 2% minimum of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to defence spending in NATO, but that 2% minimum is a guideline and not a hard-and-fast obligation. Trump speaks about fairness, but how fair is it that one NATO member gripes about what it determines another member’s contribution should be?

    And why is Trump demanding 5% of each NATO member’s GDP as a contribution? This is alluded to by NATO:

    To carry out its missions and tasks, NATO needs Allies to invest in interoperable, cutting-edge and cost-effective equipment. To that end, NATO plays an important role in helping countries decide how and where to invest in their defence.

    Which country is best situated to reap the financial benefits of demanding interoperability among NATO members? According to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, the world’s leading seller of arms, the US, increased its arms sales from 34% in the period of 2014 to 2018 to 42% in the period of 2019 t0 2023. Adhering to the Trumpian definition of economic fairness, is it fair that the US with 4% of the world’s population should dominate arms sales, especially considering that interoperability is expected among NATO members?

    The National Post listed Trump’s fickle justifications for engulfing Canada:

    The rationale, at various points, have included: building up domestic American industry, preventing the illegal importation of fentanyl, stopping illegal border crossings, and reducing the United States’ modest trade deficit with Canada. Trump has also complained about the access of U.S. banks to Canadian markets and the amount of money the U.S. spends on continental defence.

    The National Post questioned Trump’s facts: “he often says the United States subsidizes Canada between $100 billion and $200 billion. The trade deficit, in fact, is more like $32 billion, while America’s global trade deficit [is] around $1 trillion.”

    Trump is unrestrained vis-à-vis the US’s biggest trade partner: “We don’t need them for the cars, we don’t need them for lumber. We don’t need them for anything. We don’t need them for energy, we have more energy than they do.”

    Although Trump has claimed the US doesn’t need Canadian oil, economics analyst Sean Foo makes the case that the threat of tariffs is about getting more Canadian cheap oil.

    A Snowball’s Chance in Hell

    Among the many reasons, there is one area of deep importance that suffices to emphatically underline why Canadians will never allow themselves to become Americans under present conditions. Canadians are very fond of their medical-care-for-all system. The system is not perfect, and Canadians will complain about when the governments (health is a provincial jurisdiction) curtail funding; long waiting times; and the shortages of doctors, nurses, and healthcare workers. However, many Canadians have heard about the financial horrors that can be visited upon susceptible Americans who are without medical coverage. That is something the vast majority of Canadians would never countenance in their country.

    Given the desire of most Americans for medical care for all (62% according to a Gallup poll conducted 6-20 November 2024) maybe they ought to clamor to become Canada’s 11th province.

    The post How about the US Becoming the 11th Province? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Ethnic Cleansing or Genocide?

    [A] coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups.

    — Raphael Lemkin describes genocide1

    Protesters in Australia urge the government to back South Africa’s court case against Israel. (AAP Photo)

    South Africa took leadership among the world’s nations by filing a request for the application of the Genocide Conventionn against Israel with the International Court of Justice. On 20 April 2024, The Lancet published an article that cited a “not implausible … 186 000 or more” dead Palestinians following the Israeli massacres on Gaza after Hamas stepped up its 7 October 2023 resistance to Israeli occupation and oppression. It must be noted that a group living under the conditions of occupation and oppression has a right of resistance. But apparently not for the US government.

    The US is Israel’s preeminent supplier of weapons. Since 7 October, the US has supplied Israel with F-15 jets, tank cartridges, explosive mortar cartridges, army vehicles, more than 10,000 2,000-pound bombs and thousands of Hellfire missiles. Obviously, the US is not a neutral party to the fighting between Israel and Palestine. In fact, the US’s involvement makes it a participant in a proxy war against the lightly armed Palestinian resistance, who have no fighter planes, no tanks, no Iron Dome.

    Seeing an opportunity, US president Donald Trump declared that the US would take over the Gaza Strip. So said Trump in a White House press conference with Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Of note is that Trump’s guest has an arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court for crimes against humanity and war crimes dating back to 8 October 2023.

    Trump boasted, “We’ll own it … We have an opportunity to do something that could be phenomenal … the Riviera of the Middle East.”

    Trump stated that the Gaza Strip has been “a symbol of death and destruction for so many decades” and “an unlucky place for a long time.” Trump called on “countries of interest with humanitarian hearts” to build “various domains that will ultimately be occupied by the 1.8 million Palestinians living in Gaza.”

    Though the US will own it, according to Trump, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt stated that there was no plan to put American boots on the ground in Gaza and that the US would not pay for Gaza reconstruction. Ownership without investment.

    One imagines that Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner, an investor who remarked in March 2024 that “Gaza’s waterfront property it could be very valuable,” must be rubbing his hands together with glee.

    Of course, there was widespread consternation and condemnation of Trump’s plan to take over Gaza. It is blatantly illegal. There are several UN Security Council resolutions on the borders of Palestine, and UN Security Council resolutions are binding upon UN member states. Moreover, Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibits the “individual or mass forcible transfers, as well as deportations of protected persons from occupied territory.”

    Curiously, writer Pepe Escobar in an interview described Trump’s taking over Gaza as “transforming a genocide into an ethnic cleansing operation.” (around 15:30)

    It seems that Escobar saw ethnic cleansing as diminishing the genocidal onslaught.

    The UN Genocide Convention states in Article II that

    genocide means any of the following acts committed with
    intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as
    such:

    (a) Killing members of the group;
    (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
    (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its
    physical destruction in whole or in part;
    (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
    (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.

    Obviously, (b) and (c) would factor in when it comes to determination of a genocide versus ethnic cleansing.

    Citing Trump’s figure of 1.8 million Palestinians to be transferred, whereas the Gaza population was given as 2.3 million prior to 7 October 2024, Escobar is among the analysts who have noted that the uncounted Palestinian population of 500 000 might portend a much higher fatality count that what is reported in the mass media.

    Linguistic Accuracy

    Previously, I wrote an article about an academic paper by public health researchers Rony Blum, Gregory H. Stanton, Shira Sagi and Elihu D. Richter. Blum et al. called for the expunging of the term “ethnic cleansing” from official use, declaring that it “bleaches the atrocities of genocide and its continuing use undermines the prevention of genocide.” The researchers noted, “The term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is used as a euphemism for genocide despite it having no legal status.”

    The researchers considered that mislabeling a genocide as ethnic cleansing might well provide cover for further killing. Consequently, they advocated

    The researchers considered that mislabeling a genocide as ethnic cleansing might well provide cover for further killing. Consequently, they advocated linguistic accuracy so that agents of flagrant criminal actions will bear full culpability and responsibility. Blum et al. made a compelling case for ditching the term “ethnic cleansing” and calling genocide what it is. Given the abhorrence evoked by genocide, linguistic cleansing is required.

    Arguably, of greater importance than linguistic accuracy though is the recognition and identification of the genocidaires. Blum et al. focused on countries outside their backyards and overlooked genocides perpetrated by their own countries. This is not only intellectually dishonest, but it detracts from the morality that implicitly underlies their position.

    Ilan Pappe, author of The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, at first drew a distinction between genocide and ethnic cleansing.

    Did Pappe fudge on the question of genocide?

    Pappe writes, “Massacres accompany the operations [of ethnic cleansing], but where they occur they are not part of a genocidal plan: they are a key tactic to accelerate the flight of the population earmarked for expulsion. (p. 2) [italics added]

    “Ethnic cleansing is not genocide, but it does carry with it atrocious acts of mass killing and butchery.” (p. 197) [emphasis added] Pappe is generous with the definition of “ethnic cleansing” (e.g., “part of the essence of ethnic cleansing is the eradication, by all means available, of a region’s history”) but parsimonious with the definition of “genocide.”2

    My colleague Gary Zatzman wrote, in a personal communication (March 2007):

    Here’s the thing about ethnic cleansing: it’s not the same as genocide. The latter [genocide] is consciously aimed at destroying the people-hood of a people by attacking how, as well as where, they live, their ideas, their outlook, their culture etc etc. The former [ethnic cleansing] displaces people, but the question of whether there is a genocidal intention, or merely a desire to take over the land and property of others, is left moot.

    Ilan Pappe is one of those who fudges this question. He says what the Zionists do today in Gaza is genocide, but what they did in Mandate Palestine since 1947 and in the West Bank since 1967 was ethnic cleansing. DISINFORMATION ALERT! …

    It is ALL genocide. The intention of the Haganah was to genocide the Palestinians. It’s very convenient to say, à la Golda Meir, that the Zionists didn’t think of the Palestinians as a people or nationality, just an inconvenient obstacle. The FACT is they prepared and executed genocide. It doesn’t matter, either, that the Zionists didn’t get all the Palestinians in one fell swoop, but have dragged it out over the last 58 years. It is still genocide. To suggest the survivors of the Judeocide were incapable of such a thing, which seems to be the only substance at the heart of the liberal Zionists’ argument, is utter nonsense. Were these survivors not psychically damaged by what they experienced before they were “liberated”? Such people were the ideal human material to set upon the Palestinians like wild beasts.

    Perhaps the excellent analyst Escobar might reconsider his usage of the term “ethnic cleansing” — especially if referring to it as a lesser form of genocide.

    ENDNOTES:

    The post Ethnic Cleansing or Genocide? first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    Raphael Lemkin, “Genocide.” In Axis Rule in Occupied Europe: Laws of Occupation — Analysis of Government — Proposals for Redress (Washington, D.C.:  Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), 79-95. Available at prevent genocide international. 
    2    See Kim Petersen, “Nakba: The Israeli Holocaust Denial,” Dissident Voice, 18 March 2007.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • A Choice: Submit to Trump’s Ridicule and Tariffs or Seek Win-Win Trade Relations

    A widely known caution advises people not to put all their eggs in one basket.

    An exemplar is Canada. Has Canada put too many of its eggs in its basket of trade with the United States?

    Of course, Canada’s trade is not completely reliant on the United States, but it has cast its lot so much into the American camp that it has cut off or damaged opportunities to diversify its trade. As the junior partner, population-wise, in the trade partnership, Canada’s sovereignty and national dignity are being impugned in full view of Canadians and the rest of the world. US president Donald Trump, on the other hand comes off as a bully and a buffoon to the rest of the world, as well as critically thinking Americans.

    Trump demeans Canada’s current prime minister (which isn’t hard to do), and by extension Canadians, by referring to Justin Trudeau as a governor of the 51st US state. He says he is going to impose a 25% tariff starting on 1 February because he claims that Canada is an unfair trader.

    The accusation is absurd. Is the US forced to buy from Canada? Should Canada be required to buy items that it doesn’t need or want?

    Trump says that the US doesn’t need Canada’s oil, lumber, etc. If so, then that is fine. Then just don’t buy. But by imposing tariffs, it comes across as an admission that US producers can’t compete on price and quality. Is America being made great again by not competing in an open market? If Canada is unfairly subsidizing or skirting the stipulations of the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA, a “free” trade agreement proposed by Trump and reached during his first term as president that eliminated most tariffs) or the World Trade Organization (WTO) then grieve the purported unfair trade practices according to the agreed-to mechanism in the trade agreements.

    Canadian Relations with China

    Outside of trade disputes, just how sovereign is Canada. Justin’s father, former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, likened the Canada-America relationship as a mouse sleeping next to an elephant. Pierre, however, had an independent streak. He went to establish relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1970 — before Richard Nixon in 1979.

    Justin, though, has been reticent to stray from the American line.

    ·       Consequently, during the first Trump administration when Canada was asked/demanded to turn overMeng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei. Canada complied and held her under house arrest until the US agreed to drop the extradition request, with no charges forthcoming.

    ·       Canada even declined to engage with the world’s leading 5G provider Huawei, again at the behest of the US.

    ·       Even diplomatic niceties went by the wayside. Justin found himself confronted by People’s Republic of China chairman Xi Jinping about his divulging privileged discussion between the two of them. Trudeau didn’t have the decency at that time or afterwards to publicly apologize.

    ·       When the US pushed the narrative of a Chinese genocide being perpetrated by Han Chinese against Uyghurs in Xinjiang province, Canada joined in. The accusations were patently false and without evidence, rejected by the world’s Muslim-majority countries. Canada’s hypocrisy was revealed when Israel amplified its own genocide against Palestinians (as pointed to by the case brought to the World Court and the International Criminal Court). Canada continued to tout Israel’s right defend itself; i.e., in essence, supporting the right for an occupier to oppress and murderously deal with any resistance to occupation and oppression.

    ·       China is many thousands of kilometers across the Pacific Ocean from Canada. Yet, Canadian warships are engaged in provocative actions – what Canadian media calls “a high stakes global chess game” — in the Taiwan Strait.

    ·       After the US imposed 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, Canada followed suit with the same tariffs.

    Trade Diversification

    Fortunately, Chinese is not so pathetic as to hold a grudge. Besides, holding a grudge would be antithetical to developing good trading relations. Witness Argentina under Javier Milei leaving BRICS, and Milei’s undiplomatic remarks about communism. Nonetheless, China says it is ready to work with China despite Milei criticism such as likening China to an “assassin.” Eventually, Milei realized the economic necessity of deeper ties with China and Xi Jinpeng met with Milei. Milei’s about-face was described as “pragmatic collaboration.”

    Will Canada realize the same need for pragmatic collaboration? The door is open as “China says it is ready to work with Canada despite Trudeau criticism.”

    Although China is reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, China still desires energy, certain minerals, and other commodities that Canada can supply. Canada might best orient its economy to be accepting of opportunities that China (and other countries) might offer. It would be a seismic shift in orientation, but Canada might be best served by joining BRICS and considering what the Belt and Road Initiative has to offer.

    While Trump browbeats and disparages its trading partners to gain the US an upper hand in trade relations, China professes that it is about win-win relations. Such win-win relations are logical and conducive to continued business and greater profit to all sides. Win-win is more likely to preserve continued trade relations and build a good reputation for prospective trade relations elsewhere, whereas taking advantage of a trade partner might well endanger continued trade relations and not promote a positive image among other potential trade partners.

    Moreover, Chairman Xi will not demean Trudeau, or his successor, as a governor of China’s 24th province (China has 23 provinces sheng — which includes, of course, the island province of Taiwan — and the governor is a shengzhang. There are also five autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, and two special administrative regions). Chinese are skilled diplomats.

    China is assuredly interested in trade with Canada. China may well be a partner for Canadian commodities (which Trump ridicules): oil, gas, lumber, minerals, wheat, other agricultural products, Canadian technology, an end to Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola oil (enacted in response to Canadian tariffs on Chinese EVs), etc. China might even set up automobile plants to produce EVs for the Canadian market, preserving Canadian automobile jobs, and contributing to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

    The Chinese economy is ascendant while the US is getting bogged down by exploding debt. Much of the US economic fortunes are dependent on the dollar as a fiat currency. Yet, the pace of dedollarization is increasing. Many European economies are sputtering. Asia and the Global South are rising. Canada has a choice.

    Tit-for-tat is a common response to the erection of tariffs, but it harms consumers in all countries. Trade diversification is a superior strategy, and it is something that Canada trumpets and needs to act on. Much of the rest of the world is poised to diversify its trade away from US tariffs against them.

    The post A Choice: Submit to Trump’s Ridicule and Tariffs or Seek Win-Win Trade Relations first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • American Voters: Ignorant, Insouciant, or Both?

    In the US presidential election on 5 November 2024, American voters provided people in the United States and elsewhere a stupendous gift: the ouster of the Joe Biden-Kamala Harris administration. Simultaneously, the voters bequeathed fellow Americans and people of the world the nightmare of four more years of Donald Trump.

    Prior to the election, I asked whether Americans would vote for genocide? Clearly, if a voter was paying attention, which is, arguably, a sine qua non for a person about to responsibly cast a vote, then a voter would have been aware that a genocide was (and still is) being perpetrated by the Jewish State against Palestinians, and that this genocide was (and still is) being abetted by the US government. The Democratic administration headed by proud Zionist Joe Biden (aka Genocide Joe) and his partner in genocide, Kamala Harris, have been integral to the carrying out of the genocide. The main opponent, or the only opponent as the US monopoly media portrays it, was another arch Zionist, Donald Trump of the Republican Party who pledged to support Israeli war aims.

    Was it damned if you do and damned if you don’t?

    No. As pointed out previously, a voter could have selected a candidate opposed to horrific Israeli war crimes against Palestinians; for example, Cornel West, Libertarian Chase Oliver, and candidate Jill Stein.

    So, Americans did not have to cast a vote for a candidate who backs genocide.

    Given the overwhelming casting of votes for the genocide-abetting Harris and Trump, one possible conclusion is that Americans were ignorant of the consequences of what their vote would support. More sinister is that Americans knew that their vote would further the Jewish Israeli genocide of Palestinians. If so, this would, arguably, signify that Americans voters have a lack of compassion for other humans, insouciance for the Other, or a hatred of the Other. It might be argued that Americans merely voted for the candidate who they considered would be best for the economy and a better life at home in the US. However, were that so, it would still be damning, as it would indicate their personal economic fortunes take precedence over their country destroying the lives and economy of other human beings.

    The US election produced a damning result. And with Trump loading his incoming cabinet with Zionists this augurs poorly for a peaceful and loving world.

    Given the composition of many western governments which are indifferent to the plight of Palestinians, it can be surmised that the voting class of such countries display likewise, a lamentable ignorance or insouciance.

    The post American Voters: Ignorant, Insouciant, or Both? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Is Trump “the only hope we have”?

    RT ran a headline: “Putin must be ‘adult in the room’ on Ukraine conflict.” This is according to left-leaning comedian and political commentator Jimmy Dore.

    “Joe Biden and the neo-cons in his administration have been constantly escalating war… What they’re trying to do is start a war that Donald Trump can’t stop,” warns Dore about a potential WWIII.

    “The only hope we have is that Putin shows restraint, that he is the only adult in the room and that he can hold off somehow until Donald Trump becomes president,” Dore opined in an interview with Going Underground host Afshin Rattansi.

    Is that the only hope? One can certainly come up with many other hopes. For example, a mass mobilization by US citizenry in Washington, DC. A general strike carried out by Americans, Canadians, and Europeans repulsed by their neocon-affiliated politicians. Or that Pentagon generals speak out vociferously and publicly against such dangerous provocations against Russia. Or that people charged with inputting the coordinates for missiles targeting Russia refuse to do so.

    Far-fetched? Maybe so, but isn’t that what a hope is — something far outside of the realm of a certainty?

    Or is Trump the only feasible hope? And can Trump be trusted? How many promises did he fail to come through on during his first term as president?

    Dore asserts that “Trump is not a warmonger” and that he “got elected on ending our foreign regime-change interventionist wars.”

    Trump may very well have been elected on the basis of ending foreign interventions by the US. However, that does not excuse him from being a warmonger.

    Early in the first Trump presidency, he sent in US fighters who killed dozens of Yemeni civilians, including children. Trump was now a war criminal.

    Did Trump end the US war on Afghanistan? No, he sent more American troops to Afghanistan.

    Did Trump end the US war on Syria? No. In fact, Trump said the troops would remain because “We’re keeping the [Syrian] oil.”

    Did Trump seek peaceful relations with Iran? No. In fact, Trump pulled the US out of the JCPOA which was designed to halt Iran’s potential for becoming a nuclear-armed state. Trump’s strategy has set the stage for further nuclear proliferation. And if that was not enough, Trump ordered the assassination of Iranian general Qasem Soleimani.

    However woeful the Biden presidency has been, one ought not to forget the first Trump presidency. Trump has a track record. It seems prudent to remove the rose-colored glasses and take into consideration that track record.

    But Trump was pressured by those around him. Trump had mistakenly saddled himself with warmongering neocons in his previous administration like Nikki Haley, John Bolton, Mike Pompeo, etc. But is he different now?

    Trump’s new for Director of national security policy in the White House, Sebastian Gorka, exhibited his diplomatic decorum by referring to Russian president Vladimir Putin as a “murderous former KGB colonel, that thug.” According to Gorka, Trump is going to threaten Putin by telling him: “You will negotiate now or the aid that we have given to Ukraine thus far will look like peanuts.” Which serious-minded observers believe that Putin is now shaking in his pants?

    Does this inspire hope in Trump?

    Finally, does anyone have an iota of hope that Trump will do right in the Middle East when it comes to Israel?

    The post Is Trump “the only hope we have”? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • A Moral Imperative for the 2024 US Elections

    Is it acceptable for Israel to wipe Palestine and Palestinians off the map? On 5 November 2024, Americans have an opportunity to signal whether genocide is anathema for the majority of its citizens.

    So, how can Americans signal their abhorrence for genocide?

    Americans have been locked in a pattern of voting for the political duopoly: either wing of the business party. It is widely held that on most major matters there is little to separate the Democrats and Republicans. And this has led to many Americans voting based on whichever party is perceived to be the lesser evil.

    Despite this lesser evilest-inspired voting, the election results have resulted in the presidency and congressional majority rotating between the Democrats and Republicans with little change in the US trajectory. As far as the US economy is concerned, the country has continued to increase its debt burden. As far as US foreign policy is concerned, the US has continued to wage wars abroad. As far as support for democracy is concerned, the US has continued to initiate coups against governments it does not approve of. As far as Israel is concerned, it continues to enjoy steadfast support from the duopoly.

    One commonly heard refrain posits that continually resorting to the same action with expectation of a different result meets the definition of insanity. The expectation of lesser-evilist voting producing a significantly different outcome on the political scene given that such action has never brought about a change before speaks disparagingly to the strategy of lesser-evilist voting.

    Being considered insane, however, is less disparaging than being considered immoral. That would be shameful.

    Given the nugatory outcomes of lesser-evilist voting, another proposition comes to mind:

    Fool me once, shame on you;
    fool me twice, shame on me.

    There are two candidates seen as frontrunners for the presidency of the United States. However, the Democratic Party candidate, Kamala Harris, and the Republican Party candidate, Donald Trump. Both stand solidly behind the Zionist entity dba as the state of Israel, and neither of these candidates will exert pressure on Israel to cease and desist in its commission of war crimes. In fact, the US funds Israel, arms Israel, and has situated its military and armaments in the region in support of Israel. This is despite Israeli officials openly calling for the eradication of Palestinians, causing a case to be brought against Israel charging it with genocide in the International Court of Justice.

    The upshot of this is that a vote for either Harris or Trump must be considered as a vote for genocide. The only out for a voter to escape criticism for supporting genocide is, pathetic as it may be, ignorance.

    What can Americans do to avoid supporting genocide? One can always abstain from voting. That, however, would not be fighting against genocide. Moreover, abstaining would still allow the supporters of genocide to vote for a genocidaire as president.

    Strangely enough, many Americans seem oblivious to the existence of other presidential candidates that one can vote for. One can even cast a vote for a candidate opposed to Israeli crimes against Palestinians. To wit, there is candidate Cornel West who calls 7 October a “counter-terrorism response“; Libertarian Party candidate Chase Oliver has pledged to end the genocide; candidate Jill Stein has a platform Pledge to Stop Genocide.

    Unfortunately, in a winner-take-all voting system, one must consider how the strong individual desire to attain political office plays against a tactical and selfless decision to coalesce around one anti-genocide candidate to increase the chances of shutting down a genocide in progress.

    Voting in the US elections on 5 November 2024 is an opportunity to indicate one’s abhorrence to genocide. Elementary morality demands a vote for an opponent of genocide.

    The post A Moral Imperative for the 2024 US Elections first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Zelenskyy Joins the US Election

    Here he goes again, cap in hand, begging for the alms of war.  Ukraine’s Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been touring the United States, continuing his lengthy salesmanship for Ukraine’s ongoing military efforts against Russia.  The theme is familiar and constantly reiterated: the United States must continue to back Kyiv in its rearguard action for civilisation in the face of Russian barbarism.  By attempting, not always convincingly, to universalise his country’s plight, Zelenskyy hopes to keep some lustre on an increasingly fading project.

    The Ukrainian president has succeeded most brazenly in getting himself, and the war effort, into the innards of the US presidential election.  In doing so, he has become an unabashed campaigner for the Democrats and the Kamala Harris ticket while offering uncharitable views about the Republicans.  (Electoral interference, anyone?)  The Republican contender, Donald Trump, had good reason to make the following observation about Zelenskyy: “Every time he comes into the country he walks away with $60 billion … he wants them [the Democrats] to win this election so badly.”

    Even as a lame duck president, Joe Biden could still be wooed to advance another aid package.  This seemed to be done, as the White House records, on threadbare details about Zelenskyy’s “plan to achieve victory over Russia.”  According to the readout, diplomatic, economic and military aspects of the plan were discussed.  “President Biden is determined to provide Ukraine with the support it needs to win.”

    Detail was also scarce in a briefing given by White House national security spokesperson John Kirby.  Zelenskyy’s plan to end the war “contains a series of initiatives and steps and objectives that [he] believes will be important”.

    In a statement, Biden announced that he had directed the Department of Defense to allocate the rest of the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative funds by the end of the year along with US$5.5 billion in Presidential Drawdown Authority.  The US$2.4 billion from the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative is intended to supply Ukraine “with additional air defense, Unmanned Aerial Systems, and air-to-ground ammunitions, as well as strengthen Ukraine’s defense industrial base and support its maintenance and sustainment requirements.”

    In terms of materiel, an additional Patriot air defence battery is to be furnished to Ukraine’s air defences, along with additional Patriot missiles. Training for Ukrainian F-16 pilots is to be expanded.  The air-to-ground Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW), colloquially known as glide bombs, will also be supplied.

    Ukraine’s fate is being annexed to the US election campaign, with the Ukrainian president keen to make his own boisterous intervention in the election.  On September 22, Zelenskyy paid a visit to a military facility in Scranton, Pennsylvania.  It was calculated for maximum effect.  The facility is not only responsible for manufacturing some of the equipment being used in the war against Russia, notably 155-millimeter howitzer rounds, but is a crucial state for the presidential contenders.  On hand to join him was a full coterie of Democrats: Gov. Josh Shapiro, Senator Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Representative Matt Cartwright (D-8th District)

    Harris is clear that any administration she leads will see no deviation from current policy.  Peace proposals were to be scoffed at, while prospects for a Ukrainian victory had to be seriously entertained.  Stopping shy of playing the treason card in remarks made on September 26, Harris claimed that there were those “in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forgo security relationships with other nations.”  And such types had endorsed “proposals” identical to “those of [Russian President Vladimir] Putin.”

    That message of sanctimonious chest beating was also embraced by Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), who could only see Zelenskyy as a fighter “for freedom and the rule of law on behalf of democracies around the world” while “Trump and his craven MAGA followers side time and again with Vladimir Putin,” one responsible for a “filthy imperialist and irredentist invasion.”  Clearly, the Zelenskyy promotions tour has exercised some wizardry.

    The full soldering of Ukrainian matters to US electoral politics has received a frosty response from various Republicans.  House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) demanded nothing less than Zelenskyy’s dismissal of the Ukrainian Ambassador to the United States, Oksana Markarova.  “Ambassador Markarova organised an event in which you toured an American manufacturing site.”  The tour took place “in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because – on purpose – no Republicans were invited.”

    Those on the House Oversight and Accountability Committee, seething at Zelenskyy’s electoral caper, have launched an investigation into the possibility that taxpayer funds had been misused to the benefit of the Harris presidential campaign.  Chairman James Comer (R-Ky.), in a letter to Attorney General Merrick B. Garland, noted that, as the Department of Justice was “highly focused on combatting electoral interference, the Committee requests DOJ review the Biden-Harris Administration’s coordination with the Ukrainian government regarding President Zelensky’s itinerary while in America.”

    Comer could not resist a pertinent reminder that the Democrats had made much the same charge against Trump while in office in 2019. That occasion also featured Zelenskyy, only that time, the accusation was that Trump had used him “to benefit his 2020 presidential campaign, despite a lack of any evidence of wrongdoing on the part of President Trump.”

    GOP dissatisfaction is far from unreasonable.  Zelenskyy’s sojourn is nothing less than a sustained effort at electoral meddling, the sort of thing that normally turns US exceptionalists into rabid hyenas complaining of virtue despoiled.  Only this time, there are politicians and officials in freedom’s land happy to tolerate and even endorse it.  At stake is a war to prolong.

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    This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Kim Petersen.

    This post was originally published on Radio Free.

  • Should We Obey Bad Laws?


    A guest on Judging Freedom, Dr Gilbert Doctorow, took a contrarian stance to Scott Ritter’s journalism work on Russia, which seemingly aligns Doctorow’s stance with the official government stance.

    Doctorow accused Ritter (starting about 21:30) of stomping across redlines that any person familiar with Russia should have been aware of. Doctorow didn’t specifically state what any of these redlines might be.

    He also accused Ritter of violating FARA (the Foreign Agents Registration Act), albeit he conceded that was not for him to judge.

    Says Doctorow,

    My concern is [that] two generations of Americans have not understood the Cold War and how you behave in circumstances when you are backing the cause or at least sympathetic to the cause or even understanding the cause of an [US] adversary. How do you avoid becoming Tokyo Rose [as English-speaking female radio propagandists for Japan were called]?

    In other words, Doctorow is accusing Ritter of being a (perhaps unwitting) propagandist for Russia as well as not knowing how to behave in certain circumstances. In other words, Doctorow (who has his academic credentials highlighted as “Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, Ph.D.”) comes across as questioning the intellectual rigor of Ritter.

    An additional redline, according to Doctorow,

    And, you do not accept payments of any kind, or of favors, like travel. That is air travel, hotels, and the rest of it. You do not touch that. If it is being offered to you by a country, by a foreign country, particularly a foreign country that is in such hostile relations with the United States. (23:50)

    … Ritter has “exposed himself to [violating FARA] charges by admitting he received money from RT and so forth.” (29:45)

    Such an argument is problematic for many reasons. According to Doctorow, any journalistic work with a hostile country must be unpaid. Journalism, for many, is a paying job. It is a means to be reimbursed for one’s time, effort, training, and skill. Yet Doctorow proffers that in certain circumstances a journalist should forgo payment.

    If US authorities do not explicitly decree that journalism relaying the situation or views of a certain foreign country is prohibited, then how is one to know?

    Besides, do Americans not have an inalienable right to know? Or is knowledge/information/data to be solely the prerogative of the US government to determine what citizens can be exposed to? Is gaining insight to what the other side is saying to be prohibited? Americans will just have to trust that their government knows best; for instance, that Viet Nam had fired missiles at US ships in the Gulf of Tonkin, that Iraq had weapons-of-mass-destruction, that Syrian government forces had carried out chemical weapon attacks, that there is no genocide in Palestine.

    Does the First Amendment in the US not protect freedom of speech and the press? Because if one has to pay to fly to Russia, pay for hotels, transportation, and meals in Russia, then only those with the means to self-finance such an endeavor are likely to provide information — with potential for bias from the well-to-do perspective. If reporting on Russia has to be done out of the pocket of a journalist, this sounds like a good way to censor journalism. It is censorship that limits the rights of those who want to work as a journalist and also denies the rights of readers/viewers of such journalism.

    If it wasn’t largely for Ritter then how many people would have known about Iraq having been “fundamentally disarmed”? More recently, if not for Ritter, how many people would have heard that the Bucha massacre of scores of civilians blamed on Russia and reported as such by the stenographers in western monopoly media was a fabrication for killings carried out by Ukrainians?

    People and the interests behind them seek to control information. They want to prevent certain information from reaching an audience and they’d like a certain narrative, even disinformation, to reach that audience.

    If knowledge is power (not a corrupting power, it is hoped), then it should not be controlled by the already powerful, it should be a liberatory force to empower the masses.

    Don’t Be a Yes Man

    There are different types of contrarians depending on whether those who we are talking to are in agreement or disagreement.

    We are encouraged to be critical thinkers. We are taught to value leadership. However, there is a type of person called a Yes Man (or Yes Woman). This is a weak person who always supports whoever is in a position of power, rightly or wrongly. Yes Men are dangerous.

    There are plenty of bad laws on the books. One aphorism holds that laws are meant to be broken. This is too simplistic. But some bad laws should be broken and taken off the books.

    Don’t follow bad leaders or bad laws. Ritter is a contrarian to the fetid state. He has the courage to oppose censorship, bad thinking, and following bad laws.

  • Image from fractal enlightenment.

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  • On Being a Patriot

    Journalist and political analyst Caleb Maupin put out a video “Scott Ritter’s home raided by the FBI.” Maupin affirmed his solidarity with Ritter, a staunch opponent of US militaristic support for Ukraine and Israel.

    Ritter’s anti-imperialist stand is nothing new. He first came to wider attention with his opposition to US plans to attack Iraq for having weapons-of-mass-destruction. Ritter, the then United Nations weapons inspector, said that Iraq was “fundamentally disarmed.” History has proven Ritter correct. The US government was wrong.

    Nonetheless, many patriots often trot out the canard “my country, right or wrong.”

    Scott Ritter, a former US marine intelligence officer and UN weapons inspector, is a fierce critic of US militarism. Yet, he does not equivocate when it comes to his patriotism: “I’m an American Patriot who puts my country and its security first.”

    This fidelity called patriotism is universal. For example, it is one of the 12 goals of socialism in China. Generally, it is understood to mean “love of country.” Thus, the Chinese characters for love and country.

    Patriotism: “devotion to and vigorous support for one’s country.”

    To vigorously support one’s country? Right or wrong? And what exactly is a country? Is it specific to a geographically defined dimension?

    Country: “a nation with its own government, occupying a particular territory.”

    This definition of country does not clarify precisely the orbit of patriotism. Is it government? It couldn’t be that because people, who consider themselves to be patriots, in countries with elections are often voting governments out. And one can often hear citizens venting displeasure with their government. Does this mean they are not patriots? Ritter, undeniably, does not hide his displeasure with government.

    Nation: “a large body of people united by common descent, history, culture, or language, inhabiting a particular country or territory.”

    Well, the United States often describes itself as a melting pot: “a term that was used to describe Americanization in which immigrants adopt American culture and abandon culture from their home country.”

    So, US culture is the result of abandoned cultures?

    Previously, I asked why people like Scott Ritter and colonel Douglas Macgregor keep professing their love of the US while pointing out its dishonesty, bullying, war crimes, warmaking, corruption, etc. Why love such a country?

    Ritter points out the multitudinous crimes of US empire, the racism, the crimes against whistleblowers and publishers (e.g., Julian Assange), the crimes of US allies (e.g., Israel; it took him a while to realize the evil of Zionism, but credit to him that he rejected a previously held position that he later found to be intellectually and morally untenable), the unfair “trade” practices (e.g., sanctions, theft of another country’s assets), the deterioration of US infrastructure (e.g., water in Flint, MI), the destruction of the environment, the inequality, homelessness, poverty, etc. Yet, he always says he is an American patriot and that he loves his country.

    The logical disconnect seems huge, but it is also understandable. Why? If Ritter didn’t praise his American citizenship to the heavens, then he would likely be dismissed as anti-American, and people who swallow the patriotism Kool-aid would tune him out. A sad state of affairs.

    If Ritter, Macgregor, and other American voices that speak in opposition to the imperialist agenda did not profess their love of the US of America, an entity that came into existence because of a massive genocide, then they all know that they would be silenced.

    The world needs contrarian voices to be free to speak, and not just contrarian voices, all voices. People must have the opportunity to consider what the voices say. Are their facts verifiable, is their logic sound, and is their message morally based?

    Ritter educates many of us about US militarism, what the fighting in Ukraine is about, who the actors are and why they are involved.

    Back to Maupin

    I do not always agree with Ritter, and I have expressed some of my reservations and my reasons for them. Likeliest, Ritter would like to revisit and amend some of his formulations, as most of us would. But Ritter is a cut above; he is experienced; he does his homework; he talks straight and extemporaneously.

    A friend who started checking out Ritter’s geopolitical views on my recommendation, came across disturbing news about Ritter and asked me about it. The news of the FBI raid on Ritter’s domicile, has provided the monopoly media the opportunity to dredge up his past indiscretions and criminal activities. However, these should not just be brushed aside or dismissed. And neither should Ritter’s views be brushed aside. Whatever the facts are of the unsavory matter, Ritter had been punished. Now the state is piling on. Because past actions are past, we cannot undo them; the best we can do is atone.

    Some might question whether a person with certain criminal deficiencies could be trusted about their reporting on geopolitics and militarism? The answer seems obvious. The focus ought to be on whatever information, from whoever. By all means, take into account the source; regarding the information, take what is good and factual and relegate what is bad and dubious to a lesser file.

    Ritter is an important voice. The assumption is that the FBI raid was only about Ritter’s expressing his first amendment rights. Regardless, I have no problem to standing in solidarity with Ritter against imperialism, warring, and Zionism.

    The common refrain “I love my country…” is almost mandatory in the US if uttering any criticism of the state. As ex-military and a declared patriot, Ritter had created a space to function as a critic of the international crimes of America. That space appears to have severely narrowed. To express non-allegiance with America – despite it being a moral abomination – would invite the wrath of the state. For one, these critics would be slandered and have their communication platforms targeted, as Maupin knows well since his book Kamala Harris & the Future of America was banned by Amazon. This is another example of the government and its allies undermining free speech.

    As Maupin said in the video, an injustice to one is an injustice to all. It is a call for the free speech rights of Ritter, and it emphasizes the same rights for all of us.

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  • Solidarity as a Monolith of Love against Zionist Evil

    Jews are not a monolith. There are plenty of Jews who abhor the racism and violence of the Zionist faction of Jewry. Yet, many uninformed people consider Zionism to express the ethos of Jewishness. And it is clear that Israeli Jews are overwhelmingly supportive of Zionism. (See “Israeli Views of the Israel-Hamas War, “Polls Show Broad Support in Israel for Gaza’s Destruction and Starvation,” and for those who may have read Haaretz and the NYT, “Don’t believe Haaretz and the NYT. Israeli society fully supports the Gaza genocide.”)

    In this era of internet and instant communication, information on the monstrous crimes of Zionism is available for people who make an effort to be aware. Take that information and apply open-minded skepticism. Ask whether the evidence substantiates the information and its narrative.

    Israeli Jews are carrying out genocide against Palestinians (something that has been ongoing for decades). Eliminating a grouping of people from existence is heinous enough, but there is also the horrific matter of what happens to the victims of Zionists before they are killed.

    Redacted interviewed Dan Cohen of Uncaptured Media to report a bloodlust where Israelis are torturing and raping Palestinian prisoners, and that Israeli protestors are in the streets claiming Israelis have a right to rape these prisoners.

    Cohen is in Israel telling of “the shock and trauma and hate and racism pulsing through the veins of Israeli society ….” This is exemplified by the fact that the Israeli military-run prison with its Palestinian captives:

    …is not about gaining intelligence, at all. It is not about finding Israeli captives in Gaza, at all. What happens there [in the prisons] is about the most cruel punishment. It is torture with electric shock, beating, severe beatings, where if you talk to someone you are beaten until your teeth break, until your bones break, if you fall asleep, these kinds of things. People are, as we know, anally raped. Prisoners are killed. There are many who are murdered. They just never come out…. These are just [Palestinian] civilians, cause all their fighters are underground. So they take civilians from the neighborhoods, and just take them there and torture them and kill them, even top doctors. I think it is 39 medical professionals from Gaza have ah, I believe, been killed in there… (5:30 to 7:15)

    Non-Zionist Jews, Jews opposed to the crimes of Zionists, must speak out against the evil, otherwise their silence may be criticised as complicity. The non-Zionist Jews are faced with the challenge of how to get their humanist message widely disseminated in opposition to Zionism.

    One grouping of Jews that opposes Zionism and supports Palestinian rights is Jewish Voices for Peace. Rebecca Vilkomerson and Rabbi Alissa Wise, two leaders and former staff of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) have written Solidarity Is the Political Version of Love: Lessons from Jewish Anti-Zionist Organizing (Haymarket Books, 14 May 2024), which covers the period from 2010-2020.

    Omar Barghouti, Palestinian human rights defender and cofounder of the non-violent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights, wrote the foreword to the book. Barghouti notes the difference of JVP from other progressivist Jewish organizations:

    Instead of the typical Jewish American PEP (progressive except on Palestine) culture, JVP has helped a PIP culture—progressive including on Palestine …

    In the face of overwhelming Jewish American support for Zionism and Israeli apartheid, JVP has insisted on growing the anti-Zionist movement to dismantle the myth of Israel’s representation of all Jews and, along with it, the complicity of the Jewish Zionist establishment in securing mainstream support in the US for funding, arming, and enabling Israel’s regime of oppression.

    As Solidarity Is the Political Version of Love relates, JVP has grown and morphed over time from the “first mass Jewish civil disobedience in the Rotunda of the US Congress” to later “large-scale protests at a level none of us can remember.” (p 2) “JVP grew larger as it shifted to the left and altered the public narrative about Palestinian liberation while creating a space for Judaism beyond Zionism.” (p 2-3) JVP did not declare itself anti-Zionist until early in 2019; however, it was noted that the proportion of anti-Zionist members and staff has grown over time. (p 13)

    When Haymarket Books shared the e-galley, I was informed that the authors are available for interviews. With that in mind, seven days ago I sent some questions.

    The first question was based on Vilkomerson and Wise’s definition of solidarity: “as when people outside a specific community dedicate themselves to supporting the rights and aspirations of that community, taking direction on what actions to take from the community itself.” (9) Since solidarity is the leitmotif for the book, why is it that JVP identifies as Jewish voices rather than, for example, Human Voices for Peace? The name seems to set limits on solidarizing with non-Jews within its organization?

    However, there is something of a work around in the book: “What did it mean to be a member if you weren’t Jewish? … So, we relied on people self-identifying as members and didn’t spend time gatekeeping peoples’ Jewishness.” (p 55) “We believe movement building is the only way to realize the world all people deserve.” (p 80)

    I also asked about the propriety of donating to JVP as opposed to donating to Palestinian movements.

    The Zionist NGO Monitor complains that “JVP’s funding sources are not transparent.” NGO Monitor further criticizes JVP, saying that the JVP “regards the organized Jewish community as its ‘enemy’ and ‘opponent,’ …. The strategy, as stated by JVP’s executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson, is to create ‘a wedge’ within the American Jewish community to generate the impression of polarization over Israel.” For those who are opposed to Zionist oppression of Palestinians such criticism ought to be considered as a badge of honor by the JVP.

    Moreover, JVP criticizes

    Israel’s ongoing apartheid policies of administrative detention—holding Palestinians without charge or trial—left Palestinians stranded in prison indefinitely. At the same time, home demolitions are a daily occurrence, with more than nine thousand structures destroyed since 2009.1 In addition to the daily indignities faced by Palestinians at checkpoints, Jewish-only settlements proliferated in the West Bank, siphoning water, developing a network of Jewish-only roads connecting the settlements to Israel, and bringing into Palestinian communities thousands of armed settler vigilantes, who regularly harassed and violently attacked Palestinians, vandalizing their property with the blessing of the Israeli army, felling ancient olive trees, and shooting at Palestinians that need to cross Jewish-only roads to reach their farms or graze their flocks. In Gaza, the situation became even more dire for Palestinians after Jewish settlers were removed in 2005, when Israel turned Gaza into an open-air prison, maintaining an illegal siege by controlling what goes in and out by air, land, and sea. (p 6)

    Sounds good, sounds progressivist.

    I wondered about the JVP stance on two-state vs one-state. The authors wrote, “… as a group of people in the US it was not JVP’s place to determine the number of states at all, but instead to do what we could to support a liberatory future.” (p 14)

    That’s fine. But what about whether Palestine should be recognized as a state, something Israel is vehemently opposed to? An online search reveals that JVP often refers to the “state of Palestine.” This earned JVP further scorn from the NGO Monitor.

    JVP takes many progressivist positions.

    JVP acknowledges overwhelming Jewish communal support for Israel but sees its role as “just one prong in a multifaceted movement, led by Palestinians in the US and Palestine.” (p 16)

    JVP questions its own Jewish composition: “Ashkenazi Jews colluded with and assimilated into whiteness, Jewish voices (whether Ashkenazi or not) were routinely privileged above Palestinian voices” (p 40) and its hierarchical structure. (p 61)

    JVP recognizes “the weaponization of antisemitism, specifically in connection with anti-Zionism,” (p 99) and sees solidarity as the key to overcoming the Zionism that Palestinians endure drives them into isolation from violent domination. (p 102) “JVP, from the very start, has been guided by the exact opposite principle, that writ large we live in an interdependent world, that we all deserve safety, and that the way to gain safety is through solidarity.” (p 103)

    Paradoxically, solidarity in a worthy cause might require splittism. Vilkomerson and Wise write, “Decoupling Jews from Israel and Jewishness from Zionism are therefore essential to the struggle against real antisemitism, toward realizing Jewish safety, and, of course, for Palestinian liberation.” (p 108)

    The authors see solidarity as an expression of love:

    Whatever your version of solidarity, may you practice it as an expression of love. A love that manifests as raging at the world as it is, and at the same time developing smart, intentional plans to realize the world as it should be. (p 215)

    The ways in which Israel’s assault on Palestinians in Gaza exceeds the horror of nearly all wars in recent memory are too long to list: more children killed, more journalists killed, more bombs dropped, more homes destroyed, more internally displaced people, more targeting of hospitals, schools, mosques, churches and refugee camps. That’s because it’s simply not a war – it’s a genocide. (p 218)

    The genocide of 186,000 Palestinians (likeliest a depressingly higher number in the three-and-a-half weeks since the Lancet article was published), requires an utmost expression of love through solidarity with the entirety of humanity. This comes through clearly and forthrightly in Solidarity Is the Political Version of Love.

    There are few (or none) sizeable groupings of people who form a monolith. JVP is one Jewish grouping that deviates from Zionist Jews by upholding morality in solidarity with a shared humanity.

    Israel is not alone in its evil. It is backed by governments in the West. The US is a staunch supporter of Zionism, funding it, arming it, and providing media and diplomatic cover for Israel. It points to the sine qua non of a monolith of humans united by love for fellow humans. This guiding principle would elevate humanity to the stratosphere.

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  • Why Care about Palestinians?

    A man who goes by the online moniker of @Travelingisraelinfo headlines his short video very curiously: Why do you care about Palestinians?

    Even before listening to the video, the answer is so obvious. The Palestinians are humans aren’t they? Shouldn’t humans care for each other? Palestinians are being genocided. Genocide is a monstrous war crime. Caring humans should want to stop genocide.

    Why would this dude ask such a question? I’ll call him dude because his name is not revealed, and being a dude is “cool.” His About page at his Youtube Traveling Israel Channel tells that he has a website that “is all about helping travelers to travel in Israel. You can find here info about planning your trip, sights in Israel and the Israeli society.” It seems he is an Israeli and that he has a business tied to encouraging travelers to Israel (i.e., historical Palestine). If people don’t want to travel to Israel anymore, then his business will presumably suffer.

    He relates that there are so many demonstrations going on around the world in support of Palestinians, which leads him to pose a question: “Nobody is marching for the people of Yemen and Syria, and I’m asking you why?”

    I want to ask this dude why he is deflecting attention away from genocide committed by Israelis?

    He goes on to claim, “There are 800,000 dead in Syria and Yemen, and you are silent. Do you expect more from Israel than you expect from the Arabs? If so, that makes you a racist…. Another option is that you are a hypocrite. It is ‘cool’ to be pro-Palestinian, so although you know there are far greater atrocities happening in Muslim countries, you choose to ignore them. By the way, you don’t have to limit yourself, you can be both a hypocrite and a racist.”

    If this dude wants to draw attention away from Israeli slaughtering Palestinians, then is he not a racist — or even worse, an accomplice to genocide?

    Dude is so sure of himself that he invites viewers: “Have a better answer? Comment below and I will respond.”

    A rebuttal hardly seems challenging.

    Imagine that white people (I assume the dude’s remarks are primarily directed at westerners, who are preponderently white folk) who take the time and effort to oppose the genocide of brown people in Palestine are called racists! Why does he not vent his rage at Israelis who are genociding the Palestinians? This is going on in his backyard. He has, thereby, engaged in misdirection, otherwise known as the logical fallacy commonly referred to as a red herring.

    The next logical fallacy that the dude is guilty of committing is the false dilemma. He says people people who do not oppose all grave crimes (notice that the dude does not deny the Israeli genocide or Israeli racism against Palestinians) must then be racists, hypocrites, or both. There are plenty of reasons that might well explain why there aren’t as many demos for Syrians and Yemenis as for Palestinians. For one, not everybody knows what is going on in the world. This is especially true if people are only relying on legacy media. Some people may only have found out about the genocide of Palestinians because they walked past a demo at the local university, became informed, and protested.

    Presumably, the people who are protesting all the war crimes around the world are not racist or hypocrites; therefore, their criticism of Israeli war crimes is justified. However, is everybody protesting all wars and violence around the world? Is it possible? Ergo, by the dude’s illogic, no one should be protesting war and war crimes.

    It is patently preposterous that one would be branded a racist/hypocrite for not being in attendance at demos against every cruelty meted out everywhere in the world.

    Racism is defined as “prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism by an individual, community, or institution against a person or people on the basis of their membership in a particular racial or ethnic group, typically one that is a minority or marginalized.”

    The demonstrations against the killing of Palestinians are not based on the race of either the killers or those who are being killed, so this is a false premise; i.e., another red herring. Another logical fallacy is that he is attempting to shift the meaning of “racism”; in this case, he is guilty of the logical fallacy known as moving the goalposts.

    Another false premise is that war crimes and genocide are based on the numbers killed. War crimes are based on the commission of outrages against humans; and in the case of genocide, the intention to disappear all members of a group.

    Furthermore, the dude has set up a false comparison. Palestinians have been subjected to Zionist genocidaires for many decades as well as having their land usurped, whereas the war crimes against Syrians and Yemenis is more recent. The Palestinians are rendered stateless, whereas, the Syrians and Yemenis are not stateless. So the comparison is false. Nonetheless, Syrians and Yemenis have been victims of warring, and humans everywhere should care about humans in Syria and Yemen. It is also important to note that Israel is involved in the violence against Syria and Yemen, which the dude is unaware of or neglects to mention.

    The dude also commits the logical fallacy of ad hominem, and in doing so he comes across as a supporter of Zionism and the grotesque crimes carried out by Zionists. He is, in fact, in the process of clearing a path for genocide.

    A false premise is an incorrect proposition that forms the basis of an argument. The dude may have sounded convincing, but since the premise is incorrect nothing can be deduced about the validity of the argument.

    Be open-minded and skeptical. Analyze what is being claimed, and question everything. This will stand one in good stead to see through false arguments.

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  • What is the “Horrible and Evil Thing” in Historical Palestine?

    Last month, the Jimmy Dore Show invited investigative reporter Ben Swann to speak to the myriad facts and evidence uncovered that point to the Israeli government and Israeli intelligence having known well in advance of the planned 7 October Hamas attack and welcoming it. It should be an explosive news piece if not for the self-censorship of the US legacy media. Swann, thankfully, has put together a 7-part series on this with his team at Truth in Media.

    Nonetheless, aside from the otherwise splendid investigative reporting by Swann, the interview raised a question: Why is a legitimate Palestinian resistance against Israeli occupation (the borders are sealed to Gaza and the seas are closed to Palestinian fishermen) and oppression described by Swann as an “horrible and evil thing”?

    Is not the Israeli slow-motion genocide (since 7 October it has been accelerated), occupation, racism, discrimination, and oppression not the “horrible and evil thing”? Is the horrible and evil theft of historical Palestine by European Jews not the cause of Palestinian resistance? Is it not, per se, horrible and evil to deride a legitimate resistance against the evil of Zionism?

    Back in 2008 when Israel was on an earlier mass murder binge against Palestinians and Hamas resisted, I wrote about “The Inalienable Right to Resist Occupation”:

    Complicitly, the Whitehouse blamed Hamas, as did Canada’s government. Government officials in the US, Canada, and Europe spoke the same lame phrase, “Israel has a right to defend itself,” as if the slaughter being carried out by a world military power against a starving population could be construed as some kind of defense. Israel, the world’s most frequently cited violator of international law, a racist state, an occupation state built through violence and slow-motion genocide is being acknowledged as having the right to defend its criminality. This is preposterous; there is no right of an occupation regime to defend its occupation. Palestine, however, has a right to resist occupation!

    Frequent guest of the Dore Show, comedian Kurt Metzger realizes the situation that Israel forces the Palestinians to live under: a “concentration camp.” The Palestinians in Gaza are presented with a choice to either live on bended knee or to resist.

    However, Swann would double down on his vitriol against the Hamas resistance saying: “The Hamas attacks were violent and brutal.” The language is leading and unnecessary. Attacks by their very nature are usually violent and brutal. But why are these adjectives not applied to the violent and brutal Israeli occupation by Swann?

    If there wer no occupation of historical Palestine, if there were not millions of Palestinians living outside their homeland as refugees, if Palestinians were not being systematically humiliated by Israelis, if Palestinians were not being weeded out of existence by Israelis, if Palestinians were thrown the crumb of the decency to live peacefully alongside their racist usurpers in their historical homeland, would not the rise of a resistance have been obviated?

    A progressivist principle should hold that: The oppressor bears responsibility for all casualties because without the oppression, there would be no need for resistance. Ergo, criticism of the resistance of Hamas is unprincipled.

    As the show’s cast rummaged over whether Israel was now carrying out a genocide, Jimmy Dore felt it necessary to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization. Hello! There are likeliest over a 100,000 Palestinians slaughtered resulting from this bogus intelligence failure, so who are the terrorists?

    Ed Herman, the first author of the acclaimed media analysis, Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media, noted:

    For decades it has been the standard practice of the U.S. mainstream media to designate Palestinian attacks on Israelis as acts of “terrorism,” whereas acts of Israeli violence against Palestinians are described as “retaliation” and “counter-terror.” This linguistic asymmetry has been based entirely on political bias. Virtually all definitions of terrorism, if applied on a nonpolitical basis, would find a wide array of Israeli operations and acts of violence straightforward terrorism. (p 119)

    The commonly bandied about death toll of 30 something thousand Palestinians is atrocious, but serious voices point to a serious undercount.

    On 5 July 2024, the Lancet ran its numbers: “Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza.”

    Ralph Nader had written months earlier: “From accounts of people on the ground, videos and photographs of deadly episode after episode, plus the resultant mortalities from blocking or smashing the crucial necessities of life, a more likely estimate, in my appraisal, is that at least 200,000 Palestinians must have perished by now and the toll is accelerating by the hour.” [emphasis added]

    This time, it appears that Zionist connivance has blown up in the connivers faces and the faces of the supporters of Zionism in western governments.

    There has been a catastrophic blowback against the genocidaires. Houthis in Yemen have caused disruptions to Zionist-aligned shipping in the Red Sea and Indian Ocean. Even US and UK aircraft carriers fear Houthi attacks.

    Former US Marine intelligence officer Scott Ritter sourced inactive Israeli generals: “Israel can’t win this war. Not only Israel can’t win this war, Israel is losing this war.”

    Would an outcome where Zionist occupation, oppression, racism, genocide is defeated be a horrible and evil thing?

    The post What is the “Horrible and Evil Thing” in Historical Palestine? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • Realism and Ipse Dixit


    In a 3 July interview, judge Andrew Napolitano asked the University of Chicago political scientist, John Mearsheimer: “Why would the United States be putting missiles in the Philippines but to be provocative toward China?”

    Mearsheimer: “I don’t think that the United States is trying to be provocative. I think what the United States is interested to do, doing is improving its deterrence capability in East Asia. The fact is that if you put the United States up against China in East Asia, and if you include the United States’ allies with the United States, right, you are up against a very formidable adversary. China is effectively a giant aircraft carrier. It has thousands and thousands of missiles, and the United States feels that it is at something of a disadvantage, and for that reason it is increasing its missile capability and other capabilities in Asia as well.”

    If China were to put missiles in Cuba and Mexico, then that is not provocative? The US should have no problem because China is only improving its deterrence, yes? What is good for the goose is also good for the gander, no?

    And why does Mearsheimer resort to using US government propaganda by referring to China as an “adversary”? Does China call the US an adversary? Is China looking for confrontation with the US?

    If China is “effectively a giant aircraft carrier,” then is not the US also effectively a giant aircraft carrier? It is obvious that Mearsheimer is taking a page from the US propaganda booklet on the threat of China, in this case a militaristic threat. Mearsheimer, however, avoids referring to China as a “threat.”

    From the FBI website: “Chinese Government Poses ‘Broad and Unrelenting’ Threat to U.S. Critical Infrastructure, FBI Director Says.” The drumbeat is effective. According to a 2023 Pew Research Center survey, half of Americans name China as the US’s greatest threat.

    The question raised by Mearsheimer and left unanswered is whether China is a militaristic adversary? China, for its part, publicly eschews militarism and seeks peaceful relations.

    Mearsheimer: “We pushed the Russians and the Chinese closer together which makes no sense at all.”

    Even if there were no United States, it is extremely rational for Russia and China to form a friendly and close relationship. They are neighbors. They are well suited to be trade partners. It is a win-win relationship that China and Russia seek from trading partners. No push was needed from the US, although US belligerence assuredly was another point in favor of a deepening Russia-China rapprochement.

    Mearsheimer: I am one of a number of people who would defend Taiwan if China attacked it because I think Taiwan is of great strategic importance.

    Isn’t the US aircraft carrier known as Israel considered of great strategic importance because of its location amid the Middle Eastern oil patch? Yet Mearsheimer says there is no geopolitical benefit from US support of Israel. In fact, the professor says Israel is an albatross around the US neck. What, then, is the great strategic importance Mearsheimer sees in Taiwan? It hardly seems sufficient to just state that his view is realist. In Mearsheimer’s mind moralism does not factor in.

    The US has signed on to the One China Policy. Ergo, realistically, Taiwan is de jure a province of one China.

    *****

    When coming across analysis expressed by personalities, whether they be professors, news anchors, or lay persons consider how these persons support their views.

    Ipse Dixit refers to the logical fallacy of making unsubstantiated assertions. It is arguably more difficult to substantiate one’s arguments in an interview, but to merely state that something is realist is hardly compelling, especially when that realism seems rooted in opinion. Question everything.

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  • Julian Assange Is Released from Prison: What Does it Mean?

    Lifesize bronze sculpture featuring (L-R) former National Security Agency (NSA) contractor and whistleblower Edward Snowden, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and former US soldier Chelsea Manning convicted of violations of the Espionage Act, on May 1, 2015 at Alexanderplatz square in Berlin. (AFP Photo / Tobias Schwarz) © AFP

    The WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, will at long last taste freedom again. He should never have been imprisoned. Nevertheless, the release is conditional on his accepting to plead guilty to espionage in the United States — in the far-flung US territory of Saipan. There he is to be sentenced to 62 months of time already served. However, it is much longer that 62 months. Since Sweden ordered an arrest of Assange over rape allegations in 2010, Assange has found himself under some form of incarceration until his current release.

    There are some important takeaways from this gross dereliction of justice.

    One: The rape allegations, that continue to appear in lazy media, were false, and this was attested to by the two women in the case. The allegations were a political construction between Sweden acting on behalf of the US. The United Kingdom abetted the US’s scheming against Assange. No western nations stepped forward to criticize the treatment. Graciously, president  Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador offered asylum for Assange in Mexico.

    Why was Assange being targetted? Because WikiLeaks has released scads of classified US military documents on the US wars in Afghanistan and Iraq,  diplomatic cables, and the devastating video Collateral Murder. When US citizen Daniel Ellsberg released the “Pentagon Papers” for publication, he was charged with theft on top of espionage, but government chicanery caused it to end up in a mistrial. Whereas president Richard Nixon failed miserably against Ellsberg, Donald Trump and Joe Biden persevered and kept Assange under some form of lock-and-key.

    Two: Assange is not guilty. He is guilty of journalism, which is not a crime. He did not commit treason against the US. He is an Australian citizen and not a US citizen. He did not commit espionage. Assange is not a spy and neither was he a thief. He is a publisher, and when WikiLeaks published the leaks, Assange was doing what the New York Times did when they published the “Pentagon Papers.”

    Nonetheless, Assange is human. He has parents, a wife, and kids. Assange realizes that he was up against the state machinery of the US, UK, Sweden, and the collusion of Ecuador under president Lenin Moreno. Crucial was the unwillingness of pre-Albanese Australian administrations to fight for one of its citizens.

    If the Deep State in the US can have its own president assassinated without consequences, then it can easily have a single person put in some form of incarceration for as long as it intends.

    After years and years of incarceration — especially in the notorious Belmarsh prison, his health diminishing, missing his family — that Assange would have accepted the release terms of a rogue empire is completely understandable.

    Three: Justice is all too often not just. Justice delayed is justice denied goes the legal maxim. Unfortunately, Assange is not an isolated example. Edward Snowden cannot return stateside. Seeing what has happened to Assange reinforces that the US government will mete out injustice to him.

    Four: Monopoly media continues to evince that it is an organ of government and corporations. Why so? First, because they are instruments of power. Second, they found themselves all too often scooped by WikiLeaks on major stories.

    Five: The bad: this is a blow to freedom of speech and the right of the public to know what their government is doing.

    Six: More bad: it is too easy to demonize a hero, to torture a hero, and to do this even though there is a significant (although arguably not numerous enough) global movement in support of a hero.

    Seven: Even more bad: people must keep in mind the other heroes out there who brought corruption, war crimes, crimes against peace and humanity to the public consciousness and as a consequence face persecution, imprisonment, assassination, and whatever sordid punishments the machinery of rogue states can cook up. People like Daniel Ellsberg, William Binney, Ray McGovern, Scott Ritter, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, George Galloway, conscientious objectors, truth tellers, resistance fighters, among others.

    Eight: Assange is a hero. Heroes tend to be too loosely defined. Scoring a boatload of goals does not one a hero make, neither does crooning a hit song make one a hero, nor does attaining ultra wealth. Heroes are embued with a highly developed sense of morality and transcend themselves by working for the greater good of humanity and the world.

    Nine: It is a Pyrrhic victory for Empire. Yes, Assange was brought to the point of having to confess guilt, but who knows what Assange and WikiLeaks will do for exposing crimes of state from here on.

    Ten: Whatever Assange decides to do in the future, his decision is earned. He has already done so much for the people who want transparency and who want their governments held to account.

    The post Julian Assange Is Released from Prison: What Does it Mean? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

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  • A Philippines-China Clash in the South China Sea


    Donald Trump was likeliest correct when he told a CNN reporter: “Your organization’s terrible. … You are fake news.”

    The bias is so blatantly obvious in the 20 June 2024 CNN headline: “‘Only pirates do this’: Philippines accuses China of using bladed weapons in major South China Sea escalation.” To adduce that it is a bias is simple. Consider that this current news story could have been titled: “Only imperialist lackeys do this: China accuses Philippines of hiding behind the US in its attempt to violate China’s ‘indisputable sovereignty’ in the South China Sea escalation.” That would provide a different perspective to consider in a headline. But it would still be biased. It is a bias because it does not dedicate itself to providing verifiable and relevant facts and background from all perspectives to allow readers to reach their own conclusions. Mind you, one of those seemingly biased headlines may have been accurate. This is because a person may well be biased to factual reporting whatever those facts reveal themselves to be. To strike a headline that does not prejudice the reader, consider: “Clash in the South China Sea between China and the Philippines.” Then consider the factuality of what is argued in an article as each side makes its case.

    Of primary consideration in the Philippines-China conflict is which country is supported by evidence in its claims of sovereignty over the shoal known as Ren’ai Jiao in China and Second Thomas Shoal in the West.

    CNN writes,

    In 2016, an international tribunal in The Hague ruled in favor of the Philippines’ claims in a landmark maritime dispute, which concluded that China has no legal basis to assert historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.

    But Beijing has ignored the ruling.

    What is conceded by CNN is that China has “historic rights to the bulk of the South China Sea.” What CNN asserts is that “historic rights” have no “legal basis.” Historic rights are nonetheless considered nebulous by some scholars. (see Justin D. Nankivell, “The Role of History and Law in the South China Sea and Arctic Ocean,” National Bureau of Asian Research, 7 August 2017. “… many states have different interpretive understandings of the authority of the law of the sea, which invariably lead to different strategic outcomes in foreign policy decision-making and maritime practice.” And Clive R. Symmons, “Historic Rights and the ‘Nine-Dash Line’ in Relation to UNCLOS in the Light of the Award in the Philippines v. China Arbitration (2016) concerning the Supposed Historic Claims of China in the South China Sea: Whatnow Remains of the Doctrine?” wherein it was acknowledged that clarification was needed for “… the meaning of various formerly interchangeably-used terms relating to historic maritime claims [as used in customary international law] : such as ‘historic rights’ [which now can be seen to have both a broad and narrow meaning, …,] p 27.)

    On 7 July 2016, I noted that China’s claim of sovereignty for the entirety of the South China Sea preceded the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. China claims its activities in the South China Sea date back to over 2,000 years ago having conferred sovereignty and maritime rights.

    China has been the first to discover, name and develop the group of islands in the South China Sea, which have been known as the Nanhai Islands in China. For centuries, the Chinese government had been the administrator of the islands by putting them under the administration of local governments, conducting military patrols and providing rescue services.The Nansha [Spratly] and Xisha [Paracel] Islands, occupied by Japan during World War II, were returned to China as part of the territories stolen from China. This has been clearly set out in international documents such as the Cairo Declaration and the Potsdam Proclamation. China sent government and military officials to recover the islands and deployed troops there.

    KJ Noh compellingly refuted the UNCLOS ruling in his article “Making a Mockery of International Law.”

    The key issue is over territorial sovereignty–who owns the islands…

    The Chinese claim these islands back to the 2nd century BCE, to the Han Dynasty. They claim constant usage, fishing, habitation, travel, mapping of the Islands, intensifying from the Ming Dynasty onwards, and produce historical documents to that effect.

    Other countries make other various historical claims: the Vietnamese claim usage from the 17th century onwards.

    The Philippines claim that the lands were terra nullius–uninhabited land–and therefore belong to them, as they fall within their maritime Exclusive Economic Zone of 200nm. They also claim that Tomas Cloma, a businessman and adventurer discovered, and then claimed for himself these islands in the 1956, before selling them to the Filipino Government for a single dollar.

    CNN writes, “What happens in the South China Sea has profound implications for the US, which has a mutual defense treaty with the Philippines that dates back decades.”

    The US (which has not ratified UNCLOS) insists on China respecting international law and backed the Philippines seeking international arbitration. One wonders what the world would be like if the US insisted on Israel adhering to international law or, for that matter, that the US respect international law. The US rejected the 1986 World Court judgment against the US’s unlawful use of force in Nicaragua.

    Furthermore,

    It is farcical for Americans to push for purported liberation of lands for other peoples. Why? Because if one grouping of people is entitled to country status in a delimited territory, then that same principle must apply to all peoples in similar circumstances. The US would have to recognize Palestinian statehood in historical Palestine. The same would apply to the Kurds, the Kashmiris, the Basques in France and Spain, the Catalans in Spain, etc. National liberation can not be seriously considered as just a pick-and-choose principle among peoples seeking liberation in a homeland.

    Even worse, not only is it farcical, it is hypocritical for Americans. If Americans (and let’s be specific to certain Americans because here we are mainly discussing Americans derived from European migrants) are to be regarded as earnest and sincere in advocating the liberation of peoples elsewhere, then one should first look in one’s own backyard before calling for an overhaul of a neighbor’s backyard. To express fidelity with H.R. 6948, the US would have to turn over Puerto Rico to Puerto Ricans, Guam to the Chamorros, the Chagos archipelago to the Chagossians (yes, Britain lays claim, but the Chagossians were expelled at the request of the US military), and others.

    And let’s not forget the conquered islands of Hawai’i, 3860 km (2400 miles) from the US mainland. Or that the entirety of the country known as the USA is based on the genocide of the Original Peoples.

    *****

    There was a confrontation between Filipino forces and Chinese forces. The Philippines charge that the Chinese Coast Guard used bladed weapons appears to be corroborated by video footage. However, a snippet of video is hard to draw any pertinent conclusions from. What is required is a release of all the footage. Nonetheless, if China used excessive force compared to the Philippines and some Filipinos were subsequently injured, then China deserves some criticism for that.


    An undated photo of the amphibious BRP Sierra Madre the Philippines have used as an outpost in the South China Sea. (Getty Images/Jay Directo)

    CNN informs that the Philippine mission was to resupply its soldiers stationed on a beached World War II-era warship, BRP Sierra Madre, that asserts Manila’s territorial claims over the atoll. China holds that the vessel was illegally beached.

    “Let me stress that what directly led to this situation is the Philippines’ ignoring of China’s dissuasion and deliberate intrusion into the waters of Ren’ai Jiao which is part of China’s Nansha Qundao,” Chinese foreign ministry spokesperson Lin Jian said.

    Lin asserts that China’s action was professional and restrained and aimed at stopping the illegal “resupply mission,” and that the China Coast Guard didn’t take direct measures against the Philippine personnel.

    “The Philippine operation was not for humanitarian supplies at all. The Philippine vessels carried not only construction materials but also smuggled weapons. They also intentionally rammed into Chinese vessels and splashed water and threw things on Chinese law-enforcement personnel,” said Lin. “These actions have obviously aggravated tensions at sea and seriously threatened the safety of Chinese personnel and ships.”

    US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the “United States stands with its ally the Philippines and condemns the escalatory and irresponsible actions” by China.

    That the US did not come to the aid of the Philippines, as per 1951 mutual defense treaty commitments, seems condemnatory of the US. “However,” said Derek Grossman, a senior defense analyst at the RAND Corporation, “in practical terms, the Philippines itself would have to initiate a move to activate (it) before the US would intervene militarily.”

    A Global Times editorial scoffed at this.

    Washington is distorting the truth. The facts of this conflict are clear, and the China Coast Guard (CCG) has responded: the Philippines broke its promise by sending a supply ship and two inflatable boats to illegally enter the waters adjacent to the Ren’ai Jiao of China’s Nansha Islands on Monday, in an attempt to deliver supplies to its illegally grounded warship. What’s worse, the Philippine supply ship deliberately and dangerously approached and collided with normally sailing Chinese vessels. CCG took control measures in accordance with the law, including issuing warnings, intercepting, boarding and conducting inspections, and forcibly driving them away, actions which were reasonable, lawful, professional and standardized.

    There was indeed a physical confrontation. What the US — which supports the Israeli amped-up genocide in historical Palestine — thinks is obviated by its callous disregard for human life. Right or wrong will be determined by which country has the better claim to sovereignty over the South China Sea, its islands, and its islets.

    Lastly, it would be prudent if the Philippines more carefully considered who their friends really are.

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  • Much of the World Awakens to a Decades Long Genocide

    Several times over the past two decades, I have written about the malevolence of Israel (and by that I mean Zionist Israel, which is predominantly Jewish, although there are likeliest quislings among the Palestinian ranks, e.g., Mahmoud Abbas). Israel is part of Historical Palestine. However, the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine wrested a chunk of Historical Palestine away from Palestinians.

    Since its inception, Israel, the self-declared Jewish State, has been staunchly backed by the US with the tacit support of other western nations. Israel, indeed, has a powerful lobby.

    Israel has managed to chip away at the original 1947 UN partition plan map, that set borders for Jews and Arabs in Historical Palestine, until Palestinians were left with a fractional land base. Yet, when many so-called pundits speak of a two-state solution, they invariably speak of the 1967 borders and not the 1947 borders. Meanwhile, Israel, which acknowledges no borders for itself, has become ensconced in Syria’s Golan Heights, Lebanon’s Shebaa farms, and chunks of the West Bank.

    Many Palestinians have been forced to live their entire lives outside their homeland. Ilan Pappe wrote a book called The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine which relates the plight of 800,000 Palestinians pushed outside Historical Palestine.  In my review of Pappe’s book in 2007, I credited him with putting words to the Zionist crimes against Palestinians, but I (and my colleague Gary Zatzman) took issue with Pappe’s reluctance to call the “Israel-Palestine conflict” (Pappe’s wording) genocide.

    I concluded,

    Why is it an “Israel-Palestine conflict”? It implies an equivalency between the two sides. There is no equivalency. It is a Zionist genocide perpetrated against Palestinians, abetted by much of the bystanding world. This is what it has always been and continues to be.

    Finally, in 2009, Pappe demurred and called ethnic cleansing a “genocide in slow motion.”

    Israeli academics had already argued that ethnic cleansing is genocide, although they eluded mention of the Nakba.

    Following 7 October, Israel amped up its destruction of hospitals, schools, mosques, homes, etc; committed several massacres and war crimes; to which Israeli officials uttered openly racist epithets dehumanizing Palestinians which is just more of the same from Israeli officials, as racism and apartheid are Israeli policy. (See “Israeli Zionist Racism Unmasked”  and the series: “Defining Israeli Zionist Racism” Parts: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12.).

    Now, with the amping up of the destruction, massacres, and openly racist epithets by Israeli officials against Palestinians and Palestinian society, much of the fence-sitting world has recognized what this has always been: a genocide perpetrated by Israeli Jews (with polls indicating support by a majority of Israeli Jews, a stable sentiment over the years). Nonetheless, many western governments continue to provide cover for Israeli war crimes; for instance, sending in the gendarmes to crack down on the free speech rights of morally centered students opposed to the genocide against Palestinians. Or, in the US case, sending arms to Israel.

    It took South Africa to have the fortitude to haul Israel before the International Court of Justice in the Hague.

    And it seems the ICJ directives for Israel to halt further aggressions against Palestinians gave the International Criminal Court (ICC) the gumption to issue warrants for the arrest of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu and defense minister Yoav Gallant. For good measure, three Palestinians — Yahya Sinwar (Hamas leader), Mohammed Diab Ibrahim Al-Masri (commander-in-chief of the military wing of Hamas), and Ismail Haniyeh — were also indicted, for alleged involvement in the October 7 attacks, even though  Palestinians have the inalienable right to resist occupation and oppression.

    They say justice delayed is justice denied; only time will tell if the international legal deliberations to protect Palestinians from Israeli war crimes will be successful.

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  • Is US Officialdom Insane?

    Chinese President Xi Jinping meets with U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, April 26, 2024. Photo: Xinhua

    A foreboding article was published on April 24. It was pointed out that China had provided a berth to a Russian ship Angara that is purportedly “tied to North Korea-Russia arms transfers.”

    Reuters cited Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) – that boasts of itself to be “the world’s oldest and the UK’s leading defence and security think tank” – which claims Angara, since August 2023, has transported “thousands of containers believed to contain North Korean munitions,” [italics added] to Russian ports.

    Container ships transport containers, and along the way they dock in certain harbors. Until satellite photos have X-ray capability any speculation about what is inside a container will be just that: speculation. Discerning readers will readily pick up on this.

    Despite China repeatedly coming out in favor of peace, Reuters, nonetheless, plays up US concerns over perceived support by Beijing for “Moscow’s war” (what Moscow calls a “special military operation”) in Ukraine.

    And right on cue, US secretary-of-state Antony Blinken shows up in Beijing echoing a list of US concerns vis-à-vis China.

    Blinken had public words for China: “In my meetings with NATO Allies earlier this month and with our G7 partners just last week, I heard that same message: fueling Russia’s defense industrial base not only threatens Ukrainian security; it threatens European security. Beijing cannot achieve better relations with Europe while supporting the greatest threat to European security since the end of the Cold War. As we’ve told China for some time, ensuring transatlantic security is a core US interest. In our discussions today, I made clear that if China does not address this problem, we will.”

    It would seem clear that the Taiwan Straits is a core China interest, no? Or is it only US core interests that matter?

    Blinken: “I also expressed our concern about the PRC’s unfair trade practices and the potential consequences of industrial overcapacity to global and US markets, especially in a number of key industries that will drive the 21st century economy, like solar panels, electric vehicles, and the batteries that power them. China alone is producing more than 100 percent of global demand for these products, flooding markets, undermining competition, putting at risk livelihoods and businesses around the world.”

    It sounds like sour grapes from the US that China’s R&D and manufacturing is out-competing the US. Take, for example, that the US sanctions Huawei while China allows Apple to sell its products unhindered in China. China has hit back at the rhetoric of “overcapacity.”

    Blinken complained of “PRC’s dangerous actions in the South China Sea, including against routine Philippine maintenance operations and maritime operations near the Second Thomas Shoal. Freedom of navigation and commerce in these waterways is not only critical to the Philippines, but to the US and to every other nation in the Indo-Pacific and indeed around the world.”

    Mentioning freedom of navigation implies that China is preventing such. Why is freedom of navigation in the South China Sea critical to the US? Second Thomas Shoal is a colonial designation otherwise known as Renai Jiao in China. The “routine Philippine maintenance operations and maritime operations” that Blinken speaks of are for a navy landing craft that was intentionally grounded by the Philippines in 1999. Since then, the Philippines has been intermittently resupplying its soldiers stationed there.

    Blinken: “I reaffirmed the US’s ‘one China’ policy and stressed the critical importance of maintaining peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.”

    How does the US stationing US soldiers on the Chinese territory of Taiwan without approval from Beijing reaffirm the US’s commitment to a one-China policy? The Shanghai Communiqué of 1972 states “the United States acknowledges that Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States does not challenge that position.”

    Blinken: “I also raised concerns about the erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy and democratic institutions as well as transnational repression, ongoing human rights abuses in Xinjiang and Tibet, and a number of individual human rights cases.”

    Evidence of human rights abuses in Xinjiang? This is a definitive downplay from the previous allegations of a genocide against Uyghurs. It would be embarrassing to continue to accuse China of a genocide in Xinjiang due to a paucity of bodies which is a sine qua non for such a serious allegation as a genocide; meanwhile the US-armed Israel is blowing up hospitals and schools with ten-of-thousands of confirmed Palestinian civilian bodies. Even if there are human rights abuses in Xinjiang (which should be deplored were there condemnatory evidence), the US would still be morally assailable for its selective outrage.

    Blinken: “I encouraged China to use its influence to discourage Iran and its proxies from expanding the conflict in the Middle East, and to press Pyongyang to end its dangerous behavior and engage in dialogue.”

    Is the US militarily backing a genocide of Palestinians a “conflict.” Are US military maneuvers in the waters near North Korea “safe behavior”?

    Blinken responded to a question: “But now it is absolutely critical that the support that [China’s] providing – not in terms of weapons but components for the defense industrial base – again, things like machine tools, microelectronics, where it is overwhelmingly the number-one supplier to Russia. That’s having a material effect in Ukraine and against Ukraine, but it’s also having a material effect in creating a growing [sic] that Russia poses to countries in Europe and something that has captured their attention in a very intense way.”

    Are the ATACMS, Javelins, HIMARS, Leopard tanks, drones, artillery, Patriot missile defense, etc supposed to be absolutely uncritical and have no material effect on the fighting in Ukraine? And who is posing a threat to who? European countries are funding and arming Ukraine and sanctioning Russia not vice versa? It sounds perversely Orwellian.

    *****

    From Biden to Harris to Yellen to Raimondo to Sullivan to Blinken, US officials again and again try to browbeat and put down their Chinese colleagues.

    At the opening meeting on 18 March 2021 of the US-China talks in Anchorage, Alaska, the arrogance of Blinken and the US was put on notice by the rebuke of Chinese foreign affairs official Yang Jiechi: “[T]he US does not have the qualification to say it wants to speak to China from a position of strength.” It doesn’t seem to have sunk in for the American side.

    The Russia-China relationship is solid. China’s economy is growing strongly. Scores of countries are clamoring to join BRICS+ and dedollarization is well underway. Yet, the US continues to try to bully the world’s largest – and still rapidly growing – economy. This strategy appears to affirm the commonly referred to aphorism about the definition of insanity: trying the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

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  • Is Geopolitics Deterministic?


    In an online video interview, libertarian judge Andrew Napolitano asked University of Chicago political scientist and international relations professor John Mearsheimer to “translate” president Xi’s remarks in his New Year speech.

    The professor answered, “There is no question that the Chinese want Taiwan back. They want to make Taiwan part of China…. There is also no question that the Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China. They want to be a sovereign state. These are two irreconcilable goals.”

    First, it must be stated that much of what Mearsheimer says about geopolitical issues (particularly, with respect to the United States’ agenda in the world) comes across as arrived at by honest, factual, realistic appraisal.

    It is axiomatic that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) would like the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan) fully back in the fold. As far as the PRC is concerned, Taiwan is de jure a part of China, and the United Nations and 181 countries concur that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. This includes the United States. Mearsheimer’s words elide this reality. His words also appear in contradiction since he admits that Taiwan is not sovereign. Taiwan is not a country. Mearsheimer’s wording aligns with the oleaginous US position toward the PRC and Taiwan.

    In US diplomacy, words too often do not match facts or deeds. The US signed on to the One China policy. However, because of the increasing alarm that the economic, technological, military advancement of the PRC is eclipsing the US’s arrogant claim to full spectrum dominance, the US has precipitated, what looks on its face to be, an abject desperation to maintain its place in at the top of the world order, as it defines this order.

    As for Mearsheimer’s evidence-free claim of there being “no question that the Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China.” That is disputable. Legacy media will point to the recent presidential victory of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Lai Ching-te to buttress this claim of Taiwan’s desire for sovereignty.

    While Lai led with 40.05% of the vote, the opposition Guomindang (KMT) presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih received 33.49% of the votes, and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je received 26.45%. So roughly 60% of the electorate’s votes did not go to the DPP. Earlier Ko had proposed a failed KMT-TPP alliance, which suggests something other than a sovereignist agenda for 60% of Taiwanese voters.

    Looking at the voting results might, therefore, lead one to refute the “no question” Taiwan wants to be separate from the PRC claim to be itself questionable.

    Mearsheimer continued, “The interesting question, at this point in time, is whether or not the Chinese are going to try to conquer Taiwan by military force.”

    To most of the world Taiwan is a part of One China. It is obvious that the PRC is not bent on militarily conquering Taiwan. It need not unless Taiwan crosses its red lines. Approaching these red lines is usually done in collusion with the US. This points to a historical fact that the reason Taiwan is in a sovereignty limbo to this day is because the US used its naval might to back the KMT and Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) at the time of a militarily exhausted China. One ought to consider that Taiwan has been a part of China much, much longer (since 230 CE) than the geopolitical entity called the United States of America has existed based on its dispossession and genocide of the Original Peoples. Therefore, American proclamations about the PRC and Taiwan must be skeptically scrutinized since they are based in hypocrisy and desperation, with crucial facts confined to the memory hole, to anchor in place the US conception of a world order. Mearsheimer does not dwell on the relevancy of this reality when discussing the PRC and Taiwan.

    Mearsheimer reveals his patriotic realism: “We [the US] are not only concerned about maintaining Taiwan as an independent state because it is a democracy and we have long had good relations with it, but we also think keeping Taiwan on our side of the ledger is very important for strategic reasons…”

    Mearsheimer needs to define democracy and support his contention that the US is supportive of democracy, let alone whether the US is a legitimate democracy. Genuine democracy represents the will of the people.

    Taiwan was for decades a KMT military dictatorship which resorted to mass murder to consolidate its power. Finally, in 1996, the electoral vote came to Taiwan. Yet, does a vote every few years mean a country is a democracy? Is that all it takes?

    Does Mearsheimer really believe that the US supports democracy? Is supporting so-called color revolutions indicative of an adherence to democracy? Did the US backing of the Maidan coup to overthrow the elected president Viktor Yanukovych indicate a support of democracy? The examples are myriad.

    Is blocking a presidential contender from receiving votes in certain states (from Ralph Nader to Donald Trump) indicative of a fidelity to democracy? Or when a government ignores the will of a majority to follow a policy rejected by the masses, such as the US government’s vindictive agenda against publisher Julian Assange? So what does Mearsheimer mean when he posits an American support for Taiwan predicated on it being a democracy?

    Does the PRC not have a claim to being a democracy? Does China not pursue policies for the good of the masses of Chinese? In his compellingly argued book, Democracy: What the West Can Learn from China, Wei Ling Chua makes the case for China as a democracy based on its devotion to the well-being of all its citizens. Harvard University’s Ash Center found in its last survey in 2016 that 95.5% of those surveyed reported being either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with the Communist Party of China government.

    Even if China attempted to take Taiwan back now, Mearsheimer opined, “I think Xi Jinping has lots of domestic problems that are more important to deal with at this juncture, and furthermore, I don’t think the Taiwanese [he meant Chinese] have the military capability to take Taiwan back at the this point in time.” (Read “How Does Technology Factor in for US Militarism Toward China?”)

    Mearsheimer is opining through most of the interview. This is adduced by framing many opinions with “I think.” Even non-nuclear war simulations that predict a US victory point out that it would come at a staggering price. Would the US citizenry be willing to pay the price?

    Mearsheimer is convinced that regardless of the cost of a military confrontation between China and the US that “… the United States is definitely committed to containing China and keeping Taiwan out of China’s hands, then the United States would axiomatically fight war with China over Taiwan.”

    He predicates this commitment on the comments of, with all due respect, a brain addled president.

    Napolitano asks, “Is China a threat to the United States of America?”

    Mearsheimer sidesteps the “threat” and states “the Chinese are a serious competitor.”

    “Furthermore, the Chinese are interested not only in taking back Taiwan, they are interested in dominating the South China Sea and the East China Sea; and the South China Sea is of immense importance to the United States and to the world economy. And the United States does not want China to take the South China Sea back or take control of it, or take control of the East China Sea. We’re opposed to that. More generally, we do not want China to be the dominant power in Asia.”

    “Taking back,” says Mearsheimer. In so stating, Mearsheimer is acknowledging Taiwan was removed from China. It was removed by Japanese imperialism. And that removal was enforced after World War II by the US against its WWII ally, China.

    And what does the professor mean by “dominate”? How is China dominating these waters? Is that not what the US attempts by sending war ships into the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, South China Sea, and the East China Sea? (Read “Who has Sovereignty in the South China Sea?”) Does China prevent innocent passage of shipping through these waters?
    Does China prevent innocent passage of shipping through these waters? Noteworthy is a legal position that holds that military transit requires China’s approval.

    Mearsheimer: “But China naturally wants to be the dominant power in Asia just like we want to be the dominant power in our backyard…”

    Naturally, as if this is ineluctable. And again, this word dominate? The US dominates by having other countries adhere to its coercive demands, especially commercial demands, (read John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by for elaboration), by situating its preferred people in charge in targeted countries (e.g., splitting Korea and transplanting the dictator Syngman Rhee from the US to South Korea, supporting Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam before later abandoning him, and the installment of the unpopular Ayad Allawi as prime minister in Iraq).

    The US is ensconced on ethnically cleansed Indigenous territory. It supported a corporate coup against the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and apologized for this in 1993, but still the US continues to occupy Hawai’i. There are also the cases of Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, Palau, the Chagos archipelago, the Marshall Islands, and others.

    According to the reasoning proffered by Mearsheimer, the US was predetermined to pursue building an empire. And in his reasoning the US is unexceptional in this regard because China’s eventual imperialist path is also likewise predetermined.

    Mearsheimer acknowledges that “China is ambitious for good reasons on their part, and the United States is committed to limiting China’s ambitions for good strategic reasons on its part.”

    Usually to be ambitious is considered in a positive vein: learn all you can, develop, become independent, become a leader. However, in Mearsheimer’s wording one assumes ambition to be negative, as in dominating others and halting the ambitions of others, as the US wants to do to China. Limiting China’s ambitions — so much for win-win, as China is committed to. And why is limiting China good strategic reasoning by the US? Doesn’t the US trumpet so-called free markets?

    Napolitano picks up on this and asks: “What are the reasons for limiting China’s ambitions if the ambitions are commercial in nature?”

    Mearsheimer points to determinism,

    And you know how the United States behaves. The United States is a highly aggressive state that runs around the world using its power quite liberally. Why do you think that if China had a powerful military that it wouldn’t do the same thing? The United States just doesn’t want any other power on the planet to be more powerful than it is. I think that any other country on the planet, if it had its druthers, would want to be the most powerful state in the system. And the reason is that the international system [Which system is Mearsheimer referring to: that overseen by the United Nations or the so-called rules based order? — KP] is a really dangerous place. It is in many ways a brutal jungle. All you have to do is look at what is happening to the Palestinians. If you were the Palestinians, wouldn’t you want your own state, and wouldn’t you want that your state to be really powerful, so that nobody, in effect, could mess around with you? I think the Chinese are driven by this mentality? [italics added]

    Mearsheimer rejects that China’s reasons are just commercial. He posits instead a geopolitical determinism. Freedom for a country to choose its direction in the world apparently does not exist. Nation states are bound to follow a determined trajectory.

    Mearsheimer assumes China will follow the US trajectory. He asks, “Why do you think that if China had a powerful military that it wouldn’t do the same thing?” [italics added]

    Why did the Soviet Union dissolve? A commonly heard answer is that the military power that the Soviet Union once was was brought to its economic knees due to military overspending. Why is the US’s economic preeminence challenged by a serious competitor now? Does China have 700 to 900 foreign military bases (numbers vary according to source, but a lot)? This must cause a serious outpouring of money. Maybe that is why China wouldn’t pursue the same folly as the US? Moreover, China is steadfastly promoting peaceful win-win relations between and among countries. China’s economic success is based on these win-win relationships. By engaging in win-win relations, China wins and the other country wins. There is no need to dominate. China is able to receive the commodities, materials, and services that it desires (except when a competitor decides to limit “free trade”), and it continues to prosper as does its partner country.

    Of course the Chinese don’t want to suffer another century of humiliation (but does that mean the Chinese want to oppress others as the West have been doing?) Besides, wasn’t Vietnam syndrome humiliating? Wasn’t the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan humiliating?

    Relationships of domination and humiliation are not win-win. One side will be aggrieved in such a relationship and will seek another relationship, and more likely elsewhere with a trustworthy partner. It seems that China is aware of this dynamic.

    Mearsheimer posits how the US should deal with China:

    “I think the United States should go to great lengths to contain China.” Contain, meaning “to prevent China from dominating the South China Sea, to prevent China from taking Taiwan, and to prevent China from dominating the East China Sea,” and to make good relations with China’s neighbors in furtherance of this US objective; and avoid provoking a war with China.

    Said the professor, “We should try to roll back Chinese military power; the United States should manage China-US relations to avoid war.” In other words, the US should dominate China, as is natural, according to the professor.

    Given the multitude of wars carried out by the US abroad, it is surely self-evident that if a nation state wants to avoid wars and does not have a powerful ally, then a certain level of a defensive capability is a sine qua non. For the aggressive US, by far the highest spending military-industrial complex on the planet, to call out the strengthening of another country’s military, especially a country frequently excoriated and threatened by US government officials, must be viewed as blatant hypocrisy.

    Hence, it is quite a conundrum Mearsheimer lays out: avoiding war by rolling back another country’s military power by virtue of it having greater military power. Supposedly, in this scenario, China will accede to the US curtailment (“rolling back”) of Chinese military might and not be provoked to war; it will give up its national aspiration to bring Taiwan fully back into the Chinese nation; it will allow itself to be humiliated once again by a foreign nation. Paradoxically, this scenario also calls on China to reject geopolitical determinism? It sounds a lot like Mearsheimer has constructed a pretzel of contradictions. How sensible, how probable is what the professor proffers?

    Mearsheimer asserts that China seeks power that is self-serving – that is, power that is not shared as in a win-win scenario: “… We have a vested interest in not letting China shift the balance of power in its favor, and, therefore against us, in a major way.”

    This raises many questions and requires elucidation. Who is the “we” here? One assumes Mearsheimer means the US. Is it in the “vested interest” of the masses in the US? It must be because to be vested otherwise would be undemocratic. While in the US millions sleep in their cars or under bridges each night, scrape through garbage receptacles for sustenance during the day, and beg for handouts, China has eliminated such extreme poverty. Shouldn’t that be a signal for the impoverished strata in other societies?

    China is not the enemy. China is not perfect, and it doesn’t profess to be. It does not profess to be an indispensable nation. It does not proclaim to be a beacon on the hill. It does not list as a goal full spectrum dominance. Mearsheimer apparently thinks that the evolution of the capitalist US must also apply to socialist China. Nonetheless, it would seem more accurate to portray China, which in the earliest stage of socialism, as an alternative model to US capitalism, militarism, imperialism, and dominance.

    Other nations state should seriously consider how socialism matched with their country’s characteristics might function for them.

    The post Is Geopolitics Deterministic? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • Is Geopolitics Deterministic?


    In an online video interview, libertarian judge Andrew Napolitano asked University of Chicago political scientist and international relations professor John Mearsheimer to “translate” president Xi’s remarks in his New Year speech.

    The professor answered, “There is no question that the Chinese want Taiwan back. They want to make Taiwan part of China…. There is also no question that the Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China. They want to be a sovereign state. These are two irreconcilable goals.”

    First, it must be stated that much of what Mearsheimer says about geopolitical issues (particularly, with respect to the United States’ agenda in the world) comes across as arrived at by honest, factual, realistic appraisal.

    It is axiomatic that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) would like the Republic of China (ROC/Taiwan) fully back in the fold. As far as the PRC is concerned, Taiwan is de jure a part of China, and the United Nations and 181 countries concur that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. This includes the United States. Mearsheimer’s words elide this reality. His words also appear in contradiction since he admits that Taiwan is not sovereign. Taiwan is not a country. Mearsheimer’s wording aligns with the oleaginous US position toward the PRC and Taiwan.

    In US diplomacy, words too often do not match facts or deeds. The US signed on to the One China policy. However, because of the increasing alarm that the economic, technological, military advancement of the PRC is eclipsing the US’s arrogant claim to full spectrum dominance, the US has precipitated, what looks on its face to be, an abject desperation to maintain its place in at the top of the world order, as it defines this order.

    As for Mearsheimer’s evidence-free claim of there being “no question that the Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China.” That is disputable. Legacy media will point to the recent presidential victory of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP)’s Lai Ching-te to buttress this claim of Taiwan’s desire for sovereignty.

    While Lai led with 40.05% of the vote, the opposition Guomindang (KMT) presidential candidate Hou Yu-ih received 33.49% of the votes, and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) candidate Ko Wen-je received 26.45%. So roughly 60% of the electorate’s votes did not go to the DPP. Earlier Ko had proposed a failed KMT-TPP alliance, which suggests something other than a sovereignist agenda for 60% of Taiwanese voters.

    Looking at the voting results might, therefore, lead one to refute the “no question” Taiwan wants to be separate from the PRC claim to be itself questionable.

    Mearsheimer continued, “The interesting question, at this point in time, is whether or not the Chinese are going to try to conquer Taiwan by military force.”

    To most of the world Taiwan is a part of One China. It is obvious that the PRC is not bent on militarily conquering Taiwan. It need not unless Taiwan crosses its red lines. Approaching these red lines is usually done in collusion with the US. This points to a historical fact that the reason Taiwan is in a sovereignty limbo to this day is because the US used its naval might to back the KMT and Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) at the time of a militarily exhausted China. One ought to consider that Taiwan has been a part of China much, much longer (since 230 CE) than the geopolitical entity called the United States of America has existed based on its dispossession and genocide of the Original Peoples. Therefore, American proclamations about the PRC and Taiwan must be skeptically scrutinized since they are based in hypocrisy and desperation, with crucial facts confined to the memory hole, to anchor in place the US conception of a world order. Mearsheimer does not dwell on the relevancy of this reality when discussing the PRC and Taiwan.

    Mearsheimer reveals his patriotic realism: “We [the US] are not only concerned about maintaining Taiwan as an independent state because it is a democracy and we have long had good relations with it, but we also think keeping Taiwan on our side of the ledger is very important for strategic reasons…”

    Mearsheimer needs to define democracy and support his contention that the US is supportive of democracy, let alone whether the US is a legitimate democracy. Genuine democracy represents the will of the people.

    Taiwan was for decades a KMT military dictatorship which resorted to mass murder to consolidate its power. Finally, in 1996, the electoral vote came to Taiwan. Yet, does a vote every few years mean a country is a democracy? Is that all it takes?

    Does Mearsheimer really believe that the US supports democracy? Is supporting so-called color revolutions indicative of an adherence to democracy? Did the US backing of the Maidan coup to overthrow the elected president Viktor Yanukovych indicate a support of democracy? The examples are myriad.

    Is blocking a presidential contender from receiving votes in certain states (from Ralph Nader to Donald Trump) indicative of a fidelity to democracy? Or when a government ignores the will of a majority to follow a policy rejected by the masses, such as the US government’s vindictive agenda against publisher Julian Assange? So what does Mearsheimer mean when he posits an American support for Taiwan predicated on it being a democracy?

    Does the PRC not have a claim to being a democracy? Does China not pursue policies for the good of the masses of Chinese? In his compellingly argued book, Democracy: What the West Can Learn from China, Wei Ling Chua makes the case for China as a democracy based on its devotion to the well-being of all its citizens. Harvard University’s Ash Center found in its last survey in 2016 that 95.5% of those surveyed reported being either “relatively satisfied” or “highly satisfied” with the Communist Party of China government.

    Even if China attempted to take Taiwan back now, Mearsheimer opined, “I think Xi Jinping has lots of domestic problems that are more important to deal with at this juncture, and furthermore, I don’t think the Taiwanese [he meant Chinese] have the military capability to take Taiwan back at the this point in time.” (Read “How Does Technology Factor in for US Militarism Toward China?”)

    Mearsheimer is opining through most of the interview. This is adduced by framing many opinions with “I think.” Even non-nuclear war simulations that predict a US victory point out that it would come at a staggering price. Would the US citizenry be willing to pay the price?

    Mearsheimer is convinced that regardless of the cost of a military confrontation between China and the US that “… the United States is definitely committed to containing China and keeping Taiwan out of China’s hands, then the United States would axiomatically fight war with China over Taiwan.”

    He predicates this commitment on the comments of, with all due respect, a brain addled president.

    Napolitano asks, “Is China a threat to the United States of America?”

    Mearsheimer sidesteps the “threat” and states “the Chinese are a serious competitor.”

    “Furthermore, the Chinese are interested not only in taking back Taiwan, they are interested in dominating the South China Sea and the East China Sea; and the South China Sea is of immense importance to the United States and to the world economy. And the United States does not want China to take the South China Sea back or take control of it, or take control of the East China Sea. We’re opposed to that. More generally, we do not want China to be the dominant power in Asia.”

    “Taking back,” says Mearsheimer. In so stating, Mearsheimer is acknowledging Taiwan was removed from China. It was removed by Japanese imperialism. And that removal was enforced after World War II by the US against its WWII ally, China.

    And what does the professor mean by “dominate”? How is China dominating these waters? Is that not what the US attempts by sending war ships into the Mediterranean, Red Sea, Persian Gulf, South China Sea, and the East China Sea? (Read “Who has Sovereignty in the South China Sea?”) Does China prevent innocent passage of shipping through these waters?
    Does China prevent innocent passage of shipping through these waters? Noteworthy is a legal position that holds that military transit requires China’s approval.

    Mearsheimer: “But China naturally wants to be the dominant power in Asia just like we want to be the dominant power in our backyard…”

    Naturally, as if this is ineluctable. And again, this word dominate? The US dominates by having other countries adhere to its coercive demands, especially commercial demands, (read John Perkins’ Confessions of an Economic Hit Man by for elaboration), by situating its preferred people in charge in targeted countries (e.g., splitting Korea and transplanting the dictator Syngman Rhee from the US to South Korea, supporting Ngo Dinh Diem in South Vietnam before later abandoning him, and the installment of the unpopular Ayad Allawi as prime minister in Iraq).

    The US is ensconced on ethnically cleansed Indigenous territory. It supported a corporate coup against the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and apologized for this in 1993, but still the US continues to occupy Hawai’i. There are also the cases of Puerto Rico, Guam, Saipan, Palau, the Chagos archipelago, the Marshall Islands, and others.

    According to the reasoning proffered by Mearsheimer, the US was predetermined to pursue building an empire. And in his reasoning the US is unexceptional in this regard because China’s eventual imperialist path is also likewise predetermined.

    Mearsheimer acknowledges that “China is ambitious for good reasons on their part, and the United States is committed to limiting China’s ambitions for good strategic reasons on its part.”

    Usually to be ambitious is considered in a positive vein: learn all you can, develop, become independent, become a leader. However, in Mearsheimer’s wording one assumes ambition to be negative, as in dominating others and halting the ambitions of others, as the US wants to do to China. Limiting China’s ambitions — so much for win-win, as China is committed to. And why is limiting China good strategic reasoning by the US? Doesn’t the US trumpet so-called free markets?

    Napolitano picks up on this and asks: “What are the reasons for limiting China’s ambitions if the ambitions are commercial in nature?”

    Mearsheimer points to determinism,

    And you know how the United States behaves. The United States is a highly aggressive state that runs around the world using its power quite liberally. Why do you think that if China had a powerful military that it wouldn’t do the same thing? The United States just doesn’t want any other power on the planet to be more powerful than it is. I think that any other country on the planet, if it had its druthers, would want to be the most powerful state in the system. And the reason is that the international system [Which system is Mearsheimer referring to: that overseen by the United Nations or the so-called rules based order? — KP] is a really dangerous place. It is in many ways a brutal jungle. All you have to do is look at what is happening to the Palestinians. If you were the Palestinians, wouldn’t you want your own state, and wouldn’t you want that your state to be really powerful, so that nobody, in effect, could mess around with you? I think the Chinese are driven by this mentality? [italics added]

    Mearsheimer rejects that China’s reasons are just commercial. He posits instead a geopolitical determinism. Freedom for a country to choose its direction in the world apparently does not exist. Nation states are bound to follow a determined trajectory.

    Mearsheimer assumes China will follow the US trajectory. He asks, “Why do you think that if China had a powerful military that it wouldn’t do the same thing?” [italics added]

    Why did the Soviet Union dissolve? A commonly heard answer is that the military power that the Soviet Union once was was brought to its economic knees due to military overspending. Why is the US’s economic preeminence challenged by a serious competitor now? Does China have 700 to 900 foreign military bases (numbers vary according to source, but a lot)? This must cause a serious outpouring of money. Maybe that is why China wouldn’t pursue the same folly as the US? Moreover, China is steadfastly promoting peaceful win-win relations between and among countries. China’s economic success is based on these win-win relationships. By engaging in win-win relations, China wins and the other country wins. There is no need to dominate. China is able to receive the commodities, materials, and services that it desires (except when a competitor decides to limit “free trade”), and it continues to prosper as does its partner country.

    Of course the Chinese don’t want to suffer another century of humiliation (but does that mean the Chinese want to oppress others as the West have been doing?) Besides, wasn’t Vietnam syndrome humiliating? Wasn’t the US military withdrawal from Afghanistan humiliating?

    Relationships of domination and humiliation are not win-win. One side will be aggrieved in such a relationship and will seek another relationship, and more likely elsewhere with a trustworthy partner. It seems that China is aware of this dynamic.

    Mearsheimer posits how the US should deal with China:

    “I think the United States should go to great lengths to contain China.” Contain, meaning “to prevent China from dominating the South China Sea, to prevent China from taking Taiwan, and to prevent China from dominating the East China Sea,” and to make good relations with China’s neighbors in furtherance of this US objective; and avoid provoking a war with China.

    Said the professor, “We should try to roll back Chinese military power; the United States should manage China-US relations to avoid war.” In other words, the US should dominate China, as is natural, according to the professor.

    Given the multitude of wars carried out by the US abroad, it is surely self-evident that if a nation state wants to avoid wars and does not have a powerful ally, then a certain level of a defensive capability is a sine qua non. For the aggressive US, by far the highest spending military-industrial complex on the planet, to call out the strengthening of another country’s military, especially a country frequently excoriated and threatened by US government officials, must be viewed as blatant hypocrisy.

    Hence, it is quite a conundrum Mearsheimer lays out: avoiding war by rolling back another country’s military power by virtue of it having greater military power. Supposedly, in this scenario, China will accede to the US curtailment (“rolling back”) of Chinese military might and not be provoked to war; it will give up its national aspiration to bring Taiwan fully back into the Chinese nation; it will allow itself to be humiliated once again by a foreign nation. Paradoxically, this scenario also calls on China to reject geopolitical determinism? It sounds a lot like Mearsheimer has constructed a pretzel of contradictions. How sensible, how probable is what the professor proffers?

    Mearsheimer asserts that China seeks power that is self-serving – that is, power that is not shared as in a win-win scenario: “… We have a vested interest in not letting China shift the balance of power in its favor, and, therefore against us, in a major way.”

    This raises many questions and requires elucidation. Who is the “we” here? One assumes Mearsheimer means the US. Is it in the “vested interest” of the masses in the US? It must be because to be vested otherwise would be undemocratic. While in the US millions sleep in their cars or under bridges each night, scrape through garbage receptacles for sustenance during the day, and beg for handouts, China has eliminated such extreme poverty. Shouldn’t that be a signal for the impoverished strata in other societies?

    China is not the enemy. China is not perfect, and it doesn’t profess to be. It does not profess to be an indispensable nation. It does not proclaim to be a beacon on the hill. It does not list as a goal full spectrum dominance. Mearsheimer apparently thinks that the evolution of the capitalist US must also apply to socialist China. Nonetheless, it would seem more accurate to portray China, which in the earliest stage of socialism, as an alternative model to US capitalism, militarism, imperialism, and dominance.

    Other nations state should seriously consider how socialism matched with their country’s characteristics might function for them.

    The post Is Geopolitics Deterministic? first appeared on Dissident Voice.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.

  • There are Human Beings in Palestine

    Against Erasure (Haymarket Books) is a book, edited by Teresa Aranguren and Sandra Barrilaro, that presents a pictorial history of Palestinians. The photos refute the often-heard canard that Palestine was a land without people. More importantly, the historicity of the photos humanizes the Palestinians. It seems ludicrous to anyone familiar with Palestinians that they would require humanization. Nonetheless, the humanity of Palestinians is denied by many prominent Israeli Jews.

    Take, for instance, Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant who besmirched Palestinians as “human animals.” Jerusalem deputy mayor Arieh King upped the ante, stating that Palestinians are not “human animals”; they are not “human beings”; they are “subhuman.”

    Such quotations by Israeli officials are serial and nothing new.1

    Following the rescindment of the British Mandate, the United Nations forced partition upon the Indigenous people of historical Palestine. The outcome birthed the Jewish State of Israel. The land allotted to the Palestinians has had its sovereignty in limbo. Palestine was, as evidenced by decades without formal statehood recognition by the United Nations, a de jure non-state. It was, however, conferred “observer entity” by the UN General Assembly in 1974. That status was upped to a “non-member observer state” in 2012 by a 138-9 UN General Assembly vote, and that is the situation today.

    The sovereignty question, however, pales in significance to the genocide that Israel has magnified in Palestine.

    “Thanks to the shameful indifference of the West and the international community, the Nakba of 1948 has become a permanent Nakba,” lamented Bichara Khader, a professor at the Catholic University of Leuven. (p 14)

    It seems permanent in the mind of Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu who said in Hebrew: “They [the Israeli troops] are committed to completely eliminating this evil from the world.” He then added: “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.”

    The god of the Bible had commanded the Hebrews to carry out a genocide: “Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.” (1 Shmuel/Samuel 15:3)

    According to Mother Jones: “The lesson, when read literally, is clear: Saul’s failure to kill every Amalekite posed an existential threat to the Jewish people.”

    Khader termed the Nakba a sociocide. This was made clear by the Zionist movement’s stated intention

     … to establish a Jewish state in Palestine—which clearly and emphatically meant the “de-Arabization” of Palestine or, in other words, the “invisibilization” of its people to facilitate the Judaization of the country.

    The early twentieth century propaganda slogan “a land without a people for a people without a land” represents the hard nucleus of Zionist ideology. (p 8)

    The malevolence of the Nakba has been laid bare during the current Israeli onslaught where 20,000 Palestinians (70% percent women and children) have been murdered by Zionist Jews. It must be noted that it is not a minuscule sect of Israeli Jewry. It is a military incursion into Gaza supported by more than 90 percent of Israeli Jews. It is abetted by the United States with the acquiescence of many western countries, and it is being carried out before the eyes of much of the world.

    Back in 2014 when Israel was bombing Gaza, Israeli Jews in the nearby town of Sderot would bring out their sofas and chairs to sit and cheer the destruction, rather gleefully as the Buzzfeed News headline made clear: “Israelis Seen Clapping And Eating Popcorn While Watching Bombs Drop On Gaza.”

    Photos posted on Twitter (now X) by Danish Middle East correspondent Allan Sørensen prompted  outrage at Israeli inhumanity by many commenters.

    Aliya Nazki: “I’m sorry but people, any people, celebrating death anywhere is abominable.”

    Syed-Makki Shah: “morality of a people so skewed that murder is a public spectle [sic].  an astonishing thing to see in this day/age?”

    It would seem obvious that the inhumanity is an attribute embraced by a plurality of a people who seemingly internalized a perverse lesson from World War II.

    Nonetheless, the historical collection of photos of Palestinians and the portrayal of their lives is an irrefutable testimony to the humanity of these people. While there is a national commonality shared among Palestinians, there is also diversity among them, such as the Bedouins, Druze, Muslims, Christians, and also Jews.

    The Palestinians are mothers, fathers, children; they have families. They jubilate at weddings and mourn at funerals. The farmers grow olives, oranges, and melons. They are fishermen, police, seamstresses, musicians, teachers, postal workers, crafts people, engineers, boatmen, stevedores, doctors, nurses, shopkeepers, and politicians. The existence of organized political institutions attests to indigenous administration despite Ottoman, British, and Israeli attempts to quash Palestinian self-government and sovereignty.

    Gaze at the photos and see Palestinians at the bazaar, at work, in school, in boy-scout troops. They play basketball, soccer, and swim. The Palestinian transportation network allowed them to travel by car, train, plane, and boat. They attended churches and mosques. For leisure they’d go on picnics, watch open-air cinema, listen to Palestinian orchestras, eat in restaurants, and go to the beach.

    Palestinians have all the trappings of what constitutes humanity. The photos in Against Erasure bring forth that Palestinians are humans like us. The humanity of Palestinians ought to have been unquestionable for everyone, and for those who doubted this, give your head a hard shake. But as they say: better late than never. If you are curious about what Palestinians were like before the Nakba, before the 2014 Gaza massacres, and before the current Israeli genocide or, more importantly, if for some peculiar reason, you need further affirmation of Palestinian humanity get Against Erasure and humanize yourself.

    ENDNOTE:

    The post There are Human Beings in Palestine first appeared on Dissident Voice.
    1    See Kim Petersen and BJ Sabri, “Defining Israeli Zionist Racism,” Dissident Voice, in particular parts 8, 9, and 10.

    This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.