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Things are looking dire for the Ukrainian war effort. Promises of victory are becoming even hollower than they were last summer, when US President Joe Biden could state with breathtaking obliviousness that Russia had “already lost the war”. The worst offender in this regard remains the United States, which has been the most vocal proponent of fanciful victory over Russia, a message which reads increasingly as one of fighting to the last Ukrainian.
Such a victory is nigh fantasy, almost impossible to envisage. For one thing, domestic considerations about continued support for Kyiv have played a stalling part. In the US Congress, a large military aid package was stalled for six months. Among some Republicans, in particular, Ukraine was not a freedom loving despoiled figure needing props and crutches. “From our perspective,” opines Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul, “Ukraine should not and cannot be our problem to solve. It is not our place to defend them in a struggle with their longtime adversary, Russia.” The assessment, in this regard, was a matter of some clarity for Paul. “There is no national security interest for the United States.”
Despite this, the Washington foreign policy and military elite continue to make siren calls of seduction in Kyiv’s direction. On April 23, the Senate finally approved a $US95.3 billion aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, with the lion’s share – some US$61 billion – intended for Ukraine’s war effort.
On April 24, a press release from US Secretary State Antony Blinken announced a further US$1 billion package packed with “urgently needed capabilities including air defense missiles, munitions for HIMARS, artillery rounds, armored vehicles, precision aerial munitions, anti-armor weapons, and small arms, equipment, and spare parts to help Ukraine defend its territory and protect its people.”
On May 14, in his address to the Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute, Blinken described what could only be reasoned as a vast mirage. “Today, I’m here in Kyiv to speak about Ukraine’s strategic success. And to set out how, with our support, the Ukrainian people can and will achieve their vision for the near future: a free, prosperous, secure democracy – fully integrated into the Euro-Atlantic community – and fully in control of its own destiny.” This astonishingly irresponsible statement makes Washington’s security agenda clear and Kyiv’s fate bleak: Ukraine is to become a pro-US, anti-Russian bastion, with an open cheque book at the ready.
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has made the prevention of that vision an article of faith. While Russian forces, in men and material, have suffered horrendous losses, the attritive nature of the conflict is starting to tell. While Blinken was gulling his audience, the military realities show significant Russian advances, including a threatening push towards Kharkiv, reversing Ukrainian gains made in 2022.
There are also wounding advances being made in other areas of the conflict. US and NATO artillery and drones supplied to Ukraine’s military forces have been countered by Russian electronic warfare methods. GPS receivers, for instance, have been sufficiently deceived to misdirect missiles shot from HIMARS launchers. In a number of cases, the Russian forces have also identified and destroyed the launchers.
Russian air power has been brought to bear on critical infrastructure. Radar defying glide bombs have been used with considerable effect. On the production and deployment front, Colonel Ivan Pavlenko, chief of EW and cyber warfare at Ukraine’s general staff, lamented in February that Russia’s use of drones was also “becoming a huge threat”. Depleted stocks of weaponry are being replenished, and more soldiers are being called to the front.
Despite concerns, one need not scour far to find pundits who insist that such advances and gains can be neutralised. Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace admits to current Russian “material advantage” and holding “the strategic initiative,” though goes on to speculate that this “may not prove decisive”.
The gong of deceit and delusion must, however, go to Blinken. Americans, he claimed, understood “that our support for Ukraine strengthens the security of the United States and our allies.” Were Putin to win – and here, that old nag of appeasement makes an undesirable appearance – “he won’t stop with Ukraine; he’ll keep going. For when in history has an autocrat been satisfied with carving off just part, or even all, of a single country?”
Towards that end, “we do have a plan,” he coyly insisted. This entailed ensuring Ukraine had “the military that it needs to succeed on the battlefield”. Biden was encouraged by Ukrainian mobilisation efforts, skipping around the logistical delays that had marred it. Washington’s “joint task” was to “secure Ukraine’s sustained and permanent strategic advantage”, enabling it to win the current battles and “defend against future attacks. As President Biden said, we want Ukraine to win – and we’re committed to helping you do it.”
Even by the standards of US Secretaries of States, Blinken’s conduct in Kyiv proved brazen and shameless. A perfect illustration of this came with his musical effort alongside local band, 19.99, involving a rendition of Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.”
Local indignation was quick to follow. “Six months of waiting for the decision of the American Congress” had, fumed Bohdan Yaremenko, legislator and former diplomat with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s party, “taken the lives of very, very many defenders of the free world”. What the US was performing “for the free world is not rock ’n’ roll, but some other music similar to Russian chanson.”
As for the performance itself, the crowd at Barman Dictat witnessed yet another misreading – naturally by a US politician – of an anthem intended to excoriate American failings, from homelessness to “a kinder, gentler machine gun hand”. Appropriately, the guitar, much like the performer, was out of tune.
The post Promising the Impossible: Blinken’s Out of Tune Performance in Kyiv first appeared on Dissident Voice.
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Istanbul, May 17, 2024—The Committee to Protect Journalists welcomes a Turkish court’s sentencing of seven people involved in the April 8, 2022 raid on Deniz Postası’s broadcast studio in the central Province of Kayseri, during which attackers beat journalist Azim Deniz and his guest, local businessman and politician Sedat Kılınç.
At least 50 people raided the studio, led by suspected members of a local branch of the Turkish nationalist group Ülkü Ocakları (Gray Wolves), according to reports.
On May 10, the 1st Kayseri High Criminal Court. sentenced seven defendants involved in the incident to 11 years and 4 months in prison each on numerous charges, including “causing simple bodily harm” and “depriving someone from his freedom by force”, according to news reports. All defendants remained free pending appeal, Deniz told CPJ via phone.
“The sentencing of some of the perpetrators of the raid on Deniz Postası’s broadcast studio is a welcome step in the right direction to fight violence impunity against Turkey’s media,” said Özgür Öğret, CPJ’s Turkey representative. “Turkish authorities should continue investigating the attack to identify and hold all those involved to account and ensure that members of the media are safe from such attacks.”
Deniz told CPJ that several other people allegedly involved in the attack were not charged by authorities, and he is considering appealing the verdict.
Deniz and his lawyers also said they believe that the sentences could have been higher. The court acquitted the defendants of the charge of “violating the right to the freedom of communication,” which carries up to 3 years in prison, because the attack happened minutes before the beginning of the broadcast instead of during it, Deniz said. He also noted that the defendants also received reduced sentences for good behavior in court.
But he also welcomed the ruling as a warning to others who would attack media offices. “The perception of impunity was broken, at the very least,” he said.
CPJ sent questions about the case to a lawyer for the defendants over messaging app but did not receive any reply by publication. CPJ also emailed the Chief Prosecutor’s Office in Kayseri for comment but didn’t receive a reply.
In a separate incident on February 5, 2024, Deniz was shot near his home in the central city of Kayseri. The shooter, who was quickly apprehended by the police, claimed that he acted on his own accord, but Deniz said that he believes there was an instigator in the attack.
This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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The Committee to Protect Journalists led a coalition of civil society organizations urging the United States Department of Justice to drop charges against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who is currently being held in the U.K. pending a hearing on May 20 that could determine whether Assange is extradited to the U.S.
In 2019, U.S. prosecutors indicted Assange on 17 criminal charges under the Espionage Act and a separate charge under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA) in connection to WikiLeaks’ publication of thousands of leaked military and diplomatic documents. Assange’s lawyers have said that Assange faces up to 175 years in prison, although U.S. prosecutors have said the sentence would be much shorter.
The prosecution of Assange under these charges would have a chilling effect on press freedom globally, the statement warned.
Read the full statement here:
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
- Mercedes workers reject UAW unionization drive in Alabama.
- Deadly storms slam into Houston knocking out power to thousands.
- Biden commemorates Brown v. Board 70th anniversary.
- Israel defends Rafah operation at ICJ.
- State water officials release Delta conservancy report.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – May 17, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
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Our guest is the Haaretz correspondent Amira Hass, the only Israeli Jewish journalist to have spent 30 years living in and reporting from Gaza and the West Bank. She is the recipient of the 2024 Columbia Journalism Award, and on Wednesday she addressed the graduating class of the Columbia Journalism School in New York City. Hass discusses the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza, why journalists should “resist the normalization of evil and injustice,” Israel’s recent censorship of Al Jazeera, its maintenance of a strict apartheid system, its complete rejection of the prospect of Palestinian statehood and more. “Israel took Palestinian life, liberty and freedom as hostage for the past 75 years,” says Hass. “You go to Tel Aviv, you think you are in New York or you are in London — and 40, 50 kilometers away, Palestinians live in cages.”
We also play an excerpt from the student and faculty-led “People’s Graduation” held Thursday at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City in response to Columbia University’s crackdown on student protest, which culminated in the administration’s cancellation of university-wide commencement. Centering Palestinian solidarity, the People’s Graduation featured speakers including the Pulitzer Prize-winning data journalist and illustrator Mona Chalabi, who praised the work of student journalists. While “our institutions have failed us these past seven months, … we listened to your radio stations if we wanted the truth,” she said.
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The Iran-Israel attacks and the prospects of a wider Middle East war have dominated the news. Meanwhile, the bloodbath in Gaza continues. Genocide is the crime of crimes. We are witnessing it in real time in Gaza. The UN says, “The entire population of Gaza is enduring destruction at a scale and speed without parallel in recent history. Nothing can justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people.” Israeli Prime Minster Netanyahu’s promised “mighty vengeance” quickly became genocide. As Chris Hedges points out racism enables genocide. He says, “Arabs, like all those with darker skin, are worth less in this moral calculus. This explains the outrage over the murder of seven employees from the World Central Kitchen and the silence over the killing of over 175 UN” Palestinian aid workers. Those who remain silent in the face of genocide are complicit.
This content originally appeared on AlternativeRadio and was authored by info@alternativeradio.org.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
- Cohen wraps up testimony in New York Trump hush money trial, Trump lawyers attempt to paint him as untrustworthy.
- Hard right GOP lawmakers show up at Manhattan courtroom to support Trump.
- US military finishes temporary floating pier off coast of Gaza, say aid shipments can begin immediately.
- Biden Administration ends all new coal leases on Powder River region of Montana and Wyoming.
- Shooter charged with attempted murder of Slovak Prime Minister, leader listed in critical condition.
- Biden Administration blocks release of interview audio with special counsel in classified documents probe.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – May 16, 2024 Cohen wraps up testimony in New York Trump hush money trial, Trump lawyers attempt to paint him as untrustworthy. appeared first on KPFA.
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
- Slovak PM in critical condition after being shot several times, police say attack politically motivated.
- US approves more than $1 billion in new aid to Israel.
- Biden and Trump to hold presidential debates this summer.
- Inflation numbers continue to cool says new report.
- UC Merced protesters call for Board of Regents to disinvest from Israel.
- Family of Antioch man killed by police settles with city for $7.5 million.
- Alameda County DA Pamela Price’s recall election will be on November ballot.
The post The Pacifica Evening News, Weekdays – May 15, 2024 appeared first on KPFA.
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Students and workers at the City University of New York held a peaceful occupation Tuesday of the school’s Graduate Center in solidarity with Palestine and renamed its library “The Al Aqsa University Library,” after Gaza’s oldest public university, which was destroyed by Israel’s bombardment. This comes as over 500 faculty and staff at CUNY have signed a letter demanding the charges be dropped against at least 173 people arrested in April when NYPD violently raided a peaceful Gaza solidarity encampment on the City College campus. “This is really the most egregious example we’ve seen of violent repression of pro-Palestinian organizing,” says pro-Palestine activist and CUNY alumni Musabika Nabiha, who says the crackdown wasn’t in response to the tents, rallies or free food, but because the “encampment’s demands themselves proved a threat to the constant accumulation of profit and profiting off of genocide that CUNY is engaged in.” Alex Vitale, coordinator of the Policing and Social Justice Project at CUNY’s Brooklyn College, criticizes the school administration for being relatively harsh on student activists. ”CUNY is spending millions of dollars for a security apparatus that fails to address the real security needs of students and is really there in moments like this to be a tool, a kind of private army, for the administration to suppress student dissent.”
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As Israel drives the Palestinians deeper into another Nakba in Gaza with its assault on Rafah, the Palestine Youth Aotearoa (PYA) and solidarity supporters in Aotearoa New Zealand tonight commemorated the original Nakba — “the Catastrophe” — of 1948.
- READ MORE: As Israel bombs Gaza, sirens echo in West Bank marking 76 years since Nakba
- Fiji abstains from new UN vote on Palestinian membership bid
- 1000 protest in Auckland over Israel’s war on Gaza, honour Nakba victims
- Other War on Gaza reports
The 1948 Nakba . . . more than 750,000 Palestinians were forced to leave their homeland and become exiles in neighbouring states. Many dream of their UN-recognised right to return. Image: Wikipedia This was when Israeli militias slaughtered more than 15,000 people, perpetrated more than 70 massacres and occupied more than three quarters of Palestine, with 750,000 of the Palestinian population forced into becoming refugees from their own land.
The Nakba was a massive campaign of ethnic cleansing followed by the destruction of hundreds of villages, to prevent the return of the refugees — similar to what is being wrought now in Gaza.
The Nakba lies at the heart of 76 years of injustice for the Palestinians — and for the latest injustice, the seven-month long war on Gaza.
Participants told through their stories, poetry and songs by candlelight, they would not forget 1948 — “and we will not forget the genocide under way in Gaza.”
Photographs: David Robie
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Comprehensive coverage of the day’s news with a focus on war and peace; social, environmental and economic justice.
- Michael Cohen’s second day on witness stand at Trump hush money trial details his role in Daniels pay off.
- Secretary of State Blinken makes surprise trip to Ukraine to bolster US support for ally.
- Self driving taxi service Waymo comes in for federal safety investigation.
- Nobel prize winning Canadian writer Alice Munro dies aged 92.
- Pro-Palestinian activists crash Google developer conference in Mountain View.
- Oakland youths and their supporters call on city officials to reject airport expansion, citing environmental impacts.
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More than four years after the 2020 violent police raid on Hanoi’s Dong Tam commune, two more people that were arrested that night were released from prison for good behavior.
Le Dinh Quan, 48, and Bui Van Tien, 45, had been in the fourth year of their five-year sentences, but were allowed to return home ahead of schedule.
Quan told Radio Free Asia that during interrogations after his arrest, he was beaten into signing an inaccurate confession.
“They beat me a lot, breaking all of my front teeth,” he told RFA Vietnamese over the phone. “They used their limbs and batons to hit me. They knew how to torture, leaving no trace, but the victims still suffer. Now I still endure the pain and I am not healthy at all.”
The two men were among 29 who were arrested on Jan. 9, 2020, during the attack on land rights protesters in the commune by 3,000 riot police.
The raid resulted in the death of Le Dinh Kinh, the commune’s elderly spiritual leader, and three officers. Of these, 19 were initially charged with murder, though for some, the charges were lowered to resisting police officers on duty.
Three others were released early in April.
Forced confessions
Two days before the attack, Quan had returned home from a distant province where he worked to celebrate Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, with his family.
When the police started to attack the village, he got out of his home to sound the alarm and then was arrested on the way to Kinh’s home.
Quan said that at the detention facility, he was forced to admit that he was a member of the protesting faction and in charge of defending the land that was central to the dispute.
Investigators also coerced him into stating that Kinh had received money from overseas which he had shared with others, including himself.
He said he did not know the names of the investigators beating him but said that almost all defendants in this case were beaten and forced to make statements. He saw others return to their cells with bruises and other signs of torture.
This picture taken and released by the Vietnam News Agency on September 14, 2020 shows defendants involved in a land dispute attending a court trial in Hanoi. – Two villagers were sentenced to death for murder on September 14 by a Vietnam court, after a long-running land dispute spiralled into rare violence which left three police officers and a villager dead. (Vietnam News Agency/Vietnam News Agency/AFP) During his trial, he denounced the police’s use of physical violence against him but the presiding judge ignored the accusations.
Quan said that both he and his lawyers had strongly opposed the indictment. On the fifth day, his charges were surprisingly changed from “murder” to “resisting officers on official duty.”
RFA called Hanoi Police and its Security Investigation Agency, using the numbers provided on their website to seek their comments on the allegations but no one answered the phone.
In a recent interview with RFA, Dang Dinh Manh, one of the defense attorneys for the Dong Tam case, said that numerous defendants reported being tortured and forced to give coerced confessions during their pre-trial detention but the judging panel did not pay attention to their allegations.
In addition, Quan said, throughout his stay in prison, he was forced to do hard labor continuously without pay or adequate food.
He was released eight months early for working diligently and adhering to prison rules, he said.
Six others who were initially charged with murder remain in prison. Of these, Le Dinh Cong and Le Dinh Chuc were sentenced to death.
Le Dinh Doanh has a life sentence. Bui Viet Hieu was sentenced to 16 years. Bui Quoc Tien was given 13 years and Nguyen Van Tuyen 12 years.
Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese Service.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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More than four years after the 2020 violent police raid on Hanoi’s Dong Tam commune, two more people that were arrested that night were released from prison for good behavior.
Le Dinh Quan, 48, and Bui Van Tien, 45, had been in the fourth year of their five-year sentences, but were allowed to return home ahead of schedule.
Quan told Radio Free Asia that during interrogations after his arrest, he was beaten into signing an inaccurate confession.
“They beat me a lot, breaking all of my front teeth,” he told RFA Vietnamese over the phone. “They used their limbs and batons to hit me. They knew how to torture, leaving no trace, but the victims still suffer. Now I still endure the pain and I am not healthy at all.”
The two men were among 29 who were arrested on Jan. 9, 2020, during the attack on land rights protesters in the commune by 3,000 riot police.
The raid resulted in the death of Le Dinh Kinh, the commune’s elderly spiritual leader, and three officers. Of these, 19 were initially charged with murder, though for some, the charges were lowered to resisting police officers on duty.
Three others were released early in April.
Forced confessions
Two days before the attack, Quan had returned home from a distant province where he worked to celebrate Tet, the Vietnamese Lunar New Year, with his family.
When the police started to attack the village, he got out of his home to sound the alarm and then was arrested on the way to Kinh’s home.
Quan said that at the detention facility, he was forced to admit that he was a member of the protesting faction and in charge of defending the land that was central to the dispute.
Investigators also coerced him into stating that Kinh had received money from overseas which he had shared with others, including himself.
He said he did not know the names of the investigators beating him but said that almost all defendants in this case were beaten and forced to make statements. He saw others return to their cells with bruises and other signs of torture.
This picture taken and released by the Vietnam News Agency on September 14, 2020 shows defendants involved in a land dispute attending a court trial in Hanoi. – Two villagers were sentenced to death for murder on September 14 by a Vietnam court, after a long-running land dispute spiralled into rare violence which left three police officers and a villager dead. (Vietnam News Agency/Vietnam News Agency/AFP) During his trial, he denounced the police’s use of physical violence against him but the presiding judge ignored the accusations.
Quan said that both he and his lawyers had strongly opposed the indictment. On the fifth day, his charges were surprisingly changed from “murder” to “resisting officers on official duty.”
RFA called Hanoi Police and its Security Investigation Agency, using the numbers provided on their website to seek their comments on the allegations but no one answered the phone.
In a recent interview with RFA, Dang Dinh Manh, one of the defense attorneys for the Dong Tam case, said that numerous defendants reported being tortured and forced to give coerced confessions during their pre-trial detention but the judging panel did not pay attention to their allegations.
In addition, Quan said, throughout his stay in prison, he was forced to do hard labor continuously without pay or adequate food.
He was released eight months early for working diligently and adhering to prison rules, he said.
Six others who were initially charged with murder remain in prison. Of these, Le Dinh Cong and Le Dinh Chuc were sentenced to death.
Le Dinh Doanh has a life sentence. Bui Viet Hieu was sentenced to 16 years. Bui Quoc Tien was given 13 years and Nguyen Van Tuyen 12 years.
Translated by Anna Vu. Edited by Eugene Whong and Malcolm Foster.
This content originally appeared on Radio Free Asia and was authored by By RFA Vietnamese Service.This post was originally published on Radio Free.
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