Three days before U.S. President Joe Biden, Mexican President Andres Manuel López Obrador, and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau are set to meet in Mexico City, more than 100 grassroots groups from all three countries called on the leaders on Thursday to take action together to help solve the climate crisis, end gun violence, and address injustices facing migrants across North America.
Immigration is among the issues the leaders are expected to discuss at the North American Leaders’ Summit—also known as the “Tres Amigos” summit—and the groups noted that “North America is one of the deadliest regions in the world for migrants, with 2022 setting a record number of migrant deaths at the Mexico-U.S. border.”
” International agreements to protect migrants from violence have been ignored and undermined, leaving thousands of families stranded at borders as a result,” reads the letter, which was sent as Biden announced new U.S. immigration policies including an expansion of the Trump administration’s expulsions of migrants to Mexico under Title 42, under which Biden will expel up to 30,000 people per month unless they arrive in the U.S. via a humanitarian parole program.
“International agreements to protect migrants from violence have been ignored and undermined, leaving thousands of families stranded at borders.”
The groups called on Biden, Trudeau, and López Obrador—commonly known as AMLO—to “increase economic opportunities and cut violence in communities of origin” as well as respect the human rights of all migrants and asylum-seekers and end “policies that promote arbitrary and hostile action toward migrants.”
The letter, which was spearheaded by Global Exchange and signed by groups including March for Our Lives, Amazon Watch, and Witness at the Border, also came as Global Exchange co-executive director Marco Castillo wrote about the interlocking issues of gun violence, the climate emergency, and immigration in a Newsweek opinion piece on Thursday.
“I hope that addressing the underlying causes of immigration—including gun violence and climate change—will be discussed” at the Tres Amigos summit, Castillo wrote, adding:
The illegal flow of guns across borders mostly lands in the hands of Mexican paramilitary, corrupt police, and cartels. Roughly 70% of the firearms involved in homicides in Mexico can be traced back to the U.S….
The problem is so prolific, the Mexican government filed a $10 billion lawsuit against U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors in 2021 for damages caused by illegal gun trafficking. U.S. federal courts dismissed the lawsuit last year, thanks to America’s all but untouchable gun lobby. The immunity that American gun manufacturers have is offensive and needs to end.
[…]
Another issue driving forced migration across North America is climate change. From Guatemala to the Artic Circle, the increasing frequency and severity of forest fires, droughts, storms, and floods are displacing entire communities, threatening livelihoods and traditional ways of life. People of color, low-income communities, women, and Indigenous peoples are impacted most severely.
While Canada ranks far below the U.S. and Mexico in terms of gun violence and gun-related deaths, the letter sent to the three leaders noted, the country is not immune to injustices linked to the prevalence of firearms.
“In Canada, from 2007 to 2017, First Nations (Indigenous communities) accounted for one-third of people shot to death by national police officers,” reads the letter. “Black Canadians are 20 times more likely to be shot and killed by the police than white people.”
The Latin America Working Group called on the leaders “to work together for peace without guns.”
\u201c\ud83d\uddd3\ufe0f On Monday January 9th @lopezobrador_ @POTUS, and @CanadianPM will be meeting at the North American Leaders Summit in Mexico. \ud83c\uddf2\ud83c\uddfd\n\nWe need these leaders to work together for peace without guns.\u201d— Latin America Working Group (@Latin America Working Group) 1672931137
The grassroots groups also pointed to recent comments made by Trudeau’s government regarding the climate crisis in its 2022-23 development plan on environmental and climate change, which stated, “We are seeing the impacts of climate change including the increased frequency and severity of forest fires, extreme heat events, storms, and flooding… causing significant consequences to Canadian and First Nations communities, economies, and way of life.”
“We are among the first to feel the consequences of climate change in Canada,” said Melissa Iakowi:he’ne’ Oakes, a Mohawk woman and executive director of the North American Indigenous Center of New York, which signed the letter. “It affects our ancestral lands, which affects our food security, economies, culture, and identities, and worsens the health inequities we’re already experiencing.”
The letter includes a list of several demands ahead of the talks between Biden, Trudeau, and AMLO, including:
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
The General Assembly of the United Nations on Friday approved a resolution that asks the International Court of Justice to issue an opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s illegal occupation of the Palestinian territories.
The resolution passed with a final vote of 87 in favor, 26 opposed, and 53 nations abstaining. Among those opposed to the measure were the United States, Israel, the United Kingdom, and Germany.
Specifically, the resolution asks the ICJ to provide the United Nations with an advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel’s ongoing “occupation, settlement and annexation” of the Occupied Territories, “including measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Holy City of Jerusalem, and from its adoption of related discriminatory legislation and measures.”
The official request to the ICJ also asks the body, known broadly as the World Court, how specific Israeli policies and practices “affect the legal status of the occupation” and to characterize any legal consequences for all the United Nations and its member states that stem from this status.
\u201cA lot of embarrassing votes here from European countries which always have a lot to say about international law in Ukraine.\u201d— Yousef Munayyer (@Yousef Munayyer) 1672497884
Nabil Abu Rudeineh, a spokesperson for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, said Saturday that the vote signals that “the time has come for Israel to be a state subject to law, and to be held accountable for its ongoing crimes against our people.”
Ahead of the vote, Palestinian U.N. envoy Riyad Mansour said in an address to General Assembly members: “We trust that, regardless of your vote today, if you believe in international law and peace, you will uphold the opinion of the International Court of Justice when delivered and you will stand up to this Israeli government right now.”
As Al-Jazeera noted, “The ICJ last weighed in on the issue of Israel’s occupation in 2004, when it ruled that Israel’s wall in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem was illegal. Israel rejected that ruling, accusing the court of being politically motivated.”
The Israeli government made its displeasure with the resolution known prior to the vote, with its U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan saying “[a]ny decision from a judicial body which receives its mandate from the morally bankrupt and politicized U.N. is completely illegitimate.”
While the ICJ’s rulings have binding status, there is no legal mechanism to enforce its decisions and continued U.S. support for Israeli occupation means there is little hope for any consequences regardless of what the World Court puts forth.
Mansour noted that Friday’s vote arrived just days following the swearing-in of the new far-right Israeli government, once again headed by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but now backed by a coalition even more hostile to Palestinian rights than previous iterations.
Mansour warned that Netanyahu will now oversee an acceleration of the “colonial and racist policies” that have marked the Likud governments of the past.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
Kosovo shut down its largest border crossing with Serbia on Wednesday, underscoring the extent to which tensions between the two Balkan countries are rising.
Albanian-majority Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008 with Western support, roughly a decade after North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) forces intervened and carried out a bombing campaign on behalf of ethnic Albanians during a 1998-1999 civil war.
Serbia has refused to recognize the statehood of its former province, however. Instead, according to Agence France-Presse, Belgrade has encouraged 120,000 ethnic Serbs living in Kosovo to defy Pristina’s authority—especially in northern Kosovo where Serbs constitute the majority.
According to Al Jazeera: “About 50,000 Serbs living in ethnically divided northern Kosovo refuse to recognize the government in Pristina or the status of Kosovo as a country separate from Serbia. They have the support of many Serbs in Serbia and its government.”
As AFP reported:
The latest trouble erupted on December 10, when ethnic Serbs put up barricades to protest the arrest of an ex-policeman suspected of being involved in attacks against ethnic Albanian police officers—effectively sealing off traffic on two border crossings.
After the roadblocks were erected, Kosovar police and international peacekeepers were attacked in several shooting incidents, while the Serbian armed forces were put on heightened alert this week.
Late Tuesday, dozens of demonstrators on the Serbian side of the border used trucks and tractors to halt traffic leading to Merdare, the biggest crossing between the neighbors—a move which forced Kosovo police to close the entry point on Wednesday.
Due to recent border blockades and closures, just three entry points between the two countries remain open. The obstructions are “preventing thousands of Kosovars who work elsewhere in Europe from returning home for holidays,” Al Jazeera noted.
“Kosovo’s government has asked NATO’s peacekeeping force for the country, the approximately 4,000-strong KFOR, to clear the barricades” erected on its side of the border, the news outlet reported. “KFOR has no authority to act on Serbian soil.”
KFOR commander Major General Angelo Michele Ristuccia said Wednesday in a statement that “it is paramount that all involved avoid any rhetoric or actions that can cause tensions and escalate the situation.”
“Solutions should be sought through dialogue,” he added.
On Tuesday, Kosovo Interior Minister Xhelal Sveçla accused Serbia, under the influence of Russia, of trying to destabilize its former province by supporting ethnic Serbs who have been demonstrating for weeks in northern Kosovo.
According to Al Jazeera:
Serbia denies it is trying to destabilize its neighbor and says it only wants to protect the Serbian minority living in what is now Kosovan territory… not recognized by Belgrade.
Moscow said on Wednesday that it supported Serbia’s attempts to protect ethnic Serbs in northern Kosovo but denied Pristina’s accusation that Russia was somehow stoking tensions in an attempt to sow chaos across the Balkans.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called it “wrong” to blame Moscow for escalating tensions between Kosovo and Serbia.
“Serbia is a sovereign country, and naturally, it protects the rights of Serbs who live nearby in such difficult conditions, and naturally reacts harshly when these rights are violated,” said Peskov.
“Having very close allied relations, historical and spiritual relations with Serbia, Russia is very closely monitoring what is happening, how the rights of Serbs are respected and ensured,” he added. “And, of course, we support Belgrade in the actions that are being taken.”
In a joint statement released Wednesday, the European Union and the United States called on all parties “to exercise maximum restraint, to take immediate action to unconditionally de-escalate the situation, and to refrain from provocations, threats, or intimidation.”
Serbian Defense Minister Miloš Vučević on Wednesday described the barricades as a “democratic and peaceful” means of protest and said that Belgrade has “an open line of communication” with Western diplomats on resolving the issue.
“We are all worried about the situation and where all this is going,” said Vučević. “Serbia is ready for a deal.”
As AFP reported, “Northern Kosovo has been on edge since November when hundreds of ethnic Serb workers in the Kosovo police as well as the judicial branch, including judges and prosecutors, walked off the job.”
“They were protesting a controversial decision to ban Serbs living in Kosovo from using Belgrade-issued vehicle license plates—a policy that was eventually scrapped by Pristina,” the news agency noted. “The mass walkouts created a security vacuum in Kosovo, which Pristina tried to fill by deploying ethnic Albanian police officers in the region.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
Southwest Airlines is facing calls for accountability from organized labor and congressional Democrats after canceling thousands of flights over the past week, leaving tens of thousands of workers and customers in limbo during the holiday season.
Every airline has experienced disruptions during Winter Storm Elliott, the dangerous nationwide cold snap that began just days before Christmas. But while other major carriers have largely recovered, Southwest continues to struggle, canceling roughly two-thirds of its flights on Tuesday. United, Delta, American, and JetBlue, by contrast, all reported flight cancellation rates of 2% or less on Tuesday.
While Southwest chief operating officer Andrew Watterson said in a memo sent to employees on Monday night that the company’s current systems have been “overmatched” by extreme weather, the union representing Southwest flight attendants attributes ongoing operational failures and maltreatment of workers to the corporation’s yearslong refusal to invest in much-needed technological upgrades.
“The way Southwest Airlines has treated its flight crews can only be termed ‘despicable.’”
“The way Southwest Airlines has treated its flight crews can only be termed ‘despicable,’” Lyn Montgomery, a Dallas-based flight attendant and president of Transport Workers Union (TWU) Local 556, said Monday in a statement.
“We know the demands of holiday travel. We know winter storms. And believe me, we know about stepping up and putting in long work hours when we are called to do so; we are flight attendants,” said Montgomery. “But at this point, the many years of failure by management, despite many unions’ demands to modernize, has left flight attendants fatigued, stranded, hungry, and cold—on Christmas! This impacts lives and threatens safety for all.”
According to TWU Local 556, thousands of Southwest crew members have been “stranded across the country, some forced to sleep on cots in airports, some in hotels without power or water, and far too many working long hours well past acceptable duty days, and more.”
“Trying to get home for Christmas seems like a dream to flight attendants who are struggling with the nightmare of simply trying to secure appropriate shelter, food, and rest,” the union added.
Other Southwest employees have also been subjected to abuse. According to a leaked memo from last Wednesday, Southwest’s vice president for ground operations, Chris Johnson, told ramp agents at Denver International Airport (DIA) that they will be terminated if they refuse to work mandatory overtime or take a sick day without providing a doctor’s note immediately upon their return.
\u201cThe leaked memo from #southwest VP stated that #denver gate agents & staff will be fired if they deny overtime demands. This breaks @coloradogov labor laws. \nThis is a nightmare for corporate leadership, but learn from it. Take a financial hit. Hire more staff. #PeopleOverProfit\u201d— Ruth, MDiv (@Ruth, MDiv) 1672027971
Like other corporations, Southwest benefited from billions of dollars in federal aid during the first two years of the Covid-19 pandemic. Although there have been no noticeable improvements in conditions for workers or consumers, chief executive officer Bob Jordan saw his annual compensation package increase to $9.1 million in 2022.
\u201c.@SouthwestAir took $3.7B in federal aid from 2020-21.\n\nIt\u2019s CEO got a pay raise to a $9.1M package in 2022.\n\nYet Southwest employees are working 16 hour shifts & threatened w/termination if they refuse overtime or call in sick.\n\nSocialism for the wealthy. Capitalism for workers.\u201d— Qasim Rashid, Esq. (@Qasim Rashid, Esq.) 1672162847
Meanwhile, thousands of Southwest customers have been stranded in airports around the country in recent days, with little knowledge of where their luggage is or when they will be able to reach their destination.
Although the company said Monday in a statement that its agents are trying to re-accommodate as many passengers as possible, it also announced that it will “continue operating a reduced schedule by flying roughly one-third of our schedule for the next several days.”
“The plan was to get out of here by now,” Amenit Alvarez, who is trying to travel from DIA, told CBS News Colorado on Monday. “I was supposed to be home for Christmas.”
According to the outlet: “After two canceled flights since Thursday, Alvarez decided to wait and try rebooking later in the week. While she has friends to stay with, she knows other travelers don’t have the same luxury.”
\u201c#SOUTHWEST NIGHTMARE: All flights leaving San Diego tonight are canceled, announcement just now over the intercom says the airline is \u201cfrozen and not able to assist with rebooking.\u201d People are told find their bags in these piles. Several are in tears. @10News\u201d— Laura Acevedo (@Laura Acevedo) 1672110148
In a Tuesday statement, Democratic Sens. Ed Markey (Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (Conn.) called on Southwest to compensate customers for avoidable holiday flight cancellations.
“Southwest Airlines is failing consumers during the most important travel week of the year,” said Markey and Blumenthal. “Instead of a holiday spent celebrating with family and friends, passengers are sleeping in airports or desperately trying to reach customer service agents.”
“For those travelers whose holidays have been ruined, there is no real way for Southwest to make this right,” the pair continued. “But the company can start by fairly compensating passengers whose flights were canceled, including not only rebooked tickets, ticket refunds, and hotel, meal, and transportation reimbursement, but significant monetary compensation for the disruption to their holiday plans.”
“Southwest is planning to issue a $428 million dividend next year,” the lawmakers added. “The company can afford to do right by the consumers it has harmed. Southwest should focus first on its customers stranded at airports and stuck on interminable hold.”
As Bloomberg reported Tuesday:
The chaos will prove costly to the airline, with Citi analysts estimating it could shave 3% to 5% from Southwest’s fourth-quarter earnings. There’s a reputational cost as well, with angry travelers stranded over the holiday season and the airline having to apologize, much as it did in a similar collapse after storms in October 2021.
[…]
Dallas-based Southwest’s shares declined as much as 6.3% Tuesday and were down 4.8% at 12:53 pm, while United rose and American and Delta declined less than 1%.
The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) said late Monday that it “is concerned by Southwest’s unacceptable rate of cancellations and delays and reports of lack of prompt customer service.” The agency announced that it “will examine whether cancellations were controllable and if Southwest is complying with its customer service plan.”
Without naming Southwest, U.S. President Joe Biden wrote Tuesday on Twitter that “our administration is working to ensure airlines are held accountable” and pointed consumers to a DOT dashboard where they can see if they are entitled to compensation.
U.S. Rep. Jesús “Chuy” Garcia (D-Ill.) welcomed the DOT’s probe of Southwest, arguing that what the company’s CEO calls a “tough day” is better understood as a manifestation of “corporate greed.”
\u201cThe CEO called it a \u201ctough day.\u201d\n\nI call it corporate greed.\n\n@SouthwestAir underinvested in operations, canceled thousands of flights, and created a nightmare for customers and employees. \n\nI support the @USDOT investigation of Southwest.https://t.co/nZ8r1Oe7st\u201d— Congressman Chuy Garc\u00eda (@Congressman Chuy Garc\u00eda) 1672160011
Southwest “hurt itself with an aggressive schedule and by underinvesting in its operations,” CNN reported Tuesday. “Stranded customers have been unable to get through to Southwest’s customer service lines to rebook flights or find lost baggage. Employees also said they have not been able to communicate with the airline.”
Montgomery, the president of TWU Local 556, told the outlet that “the phone system the company uses is just not working.”
“They’re just not manned with enough manpower in order to give the scheduling changes to flight attendants, and that’s created a ripple effect that is creating chaos throughout the nation,” she added.
Southwest’s current issues have been brewing for a long time, according to captain Casey Murray, president of the Southwest Airlines Pilots Association.
“Southwest is planning to issue a $428 million dividend next year. The company can afford to do right by the consumers it has harmed.”
“We’ve been having these issues for the past 20 months,” he told CNN. “We’ve seen these sorts of meltdowns occur on a much more regular basis and it really just has to do with outdated processes and outdated IT.”
“It’s phones, it’s computers, it’s processing power, it’s the programs used to connect us to airplanes—that’s where the problem lies, and it’s systemic throughout the whole airline,” said Murray.
Southwest CEO Jordan, in a memo to employees obtained by CNN, acknowledged many of Murray’s concerns and pledged to invest in better systems.
“Part of what we’re suffering is a lack of tools,” Jordan told employees. “We’ve talked an awful lot about modernizing the operation, and the need to do that.”
Markey and Blumenthal argued that “Southwest cannot avoid compensating passengers by claiming these flight cancellations were caused by recent winter storms.”
“As Southwest executives have acknowledged,” the airline’s recent mass cancellations have been “largely due to the failure of its own internal systems,” said the lawmakers. “As such, those cancellations should be categorized as ‘controllable,’ and Southwest should compensate passengers accordingly.”
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
U.S. Sen Ed Markey on Wednesday led a group of upper chamber lawmakers who urged the Biden administration “to fulfill its commitment in the Glasgow Statement by publicly releasing a plan for ending public financing of unabated international fossil fuel projects by the end of 2022.”
“To date, the United States has not made public its plan for meeting these pledges by the end of the year.”
Last year, dozens of countries and institutions including the United States pledged at COP26 in Glasgow, Scotland to end public financing of the overseas unabated fossil fuel sector by the end of this year and fully prioritize a shift to clean energy investment.
“To date, the United States has not made public its plan for meeting these pledges by the end of the year,” wrote Markey (D-Mass.)–who chairs the Senate Environment and Public Works Subcommittee on Clean Air, Climate, and Nuclear Safety–along with Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.).
“In order to assess whether the United States will succeed in meeting them, we must understand the steps the country is planning to take to achieve them,” the senators explained. “That is why we are asking you to release your plan for how the United States will fulfill its Glasgow Statement commitments.”
“To strengthen our position as a global leader on climate change, enable effective oversight of U.S. public finance, and catalyze similar efforts from multilateral banks and other countries, the United States must demonstrate in transparent and concrete terms how it intends to fulfill this crucial climate pledge,” the lawmakers asserted.
\u201cWe’re calling on @POTUS to meet his administration\u2019s international climate commitments and publicly release a plan before the end of the year to lay out how the U.S. will end public financing of international fossil fuel projects.\u201d— Ed Markey (@Ed Markey) 1671660194
The letter continues:
The public release of our plan to implement the Glasgow Statement commitments will help the United States encourage other governments and their institutions, as well as public finance institutions, to hold themselves accountable to their pledge. A clear indication of our move away from public finance for international fossil fuel projects can also spur more climate-friendly financing decisions in other international bodies such as multilateral development banks.
A transparent, open plan will also enable the United States to apply pressure to fossil fuel-financing countries such as China and Russia, which are glaringly absent from the list of Glasgow Statement signatories.
Markey’s request–which is not his first such ask of Biden–came weeks after a report published by Oil Change International and Friends of the Earth U.S. revealing that Group of 20 member governments and multilateral development banks spent nearly twice as much financing international fossil fuel projects as they did on clean energy alternatives during a recent two-year period.
This post was originally published on Common Dreams.
Yes, it’s difficult for people to think it’s dry in Oregon, along the coast, along the Central Coast range. But it is, and it’s wet in the winter, too. Breweries, shrimp industries, hotels, they use a lot of fresh water.
But the reality is clear — America is so dysfunctional, that those trillions thrown at billionaires and military et al., well, not for the people, by the people, because of the people. Remember, this story about Newport, around 10,000 folk, with a swelling of 20,000 or more visitors during any fun given weekend of summer beach activity, is also your story in San Francisco or Boise or Hope, Arkansas. The very debilitating aspect of predatory capitalism is tremendous — so your flagging infrastructure should be our flagging infrastructure, and it all should be taken care of by taxing billionaires, millionaires and ending war economies and the Complex.
The earthen dam is failing, and will fail completely, with some earthquakes that will hit our coast. This is the reality anywhere in the USA — wildfires, tornadoes, dust storms, droughts, blizzards, deluges, heat waves. We have money for trillionaires, for the mercenaries of Military-Pharma-Chem-Mining-Ag-Oil-Energy-Media-Education-Medical-Legal-Prison-Education-AI-Surveillance-Mining-Finance-Banking Complex, but not $$ for a few million-dollar water tank, or a $20/$80 million dam for Newport, which will also give water security to other places around Newport for which we call this area “home.”
We are a third world, banana republic —
On a recent visit to the upper dam, Newport city manager Spencer Nebel pointed to a large pipe sticking out of the facility. He explained how crews just fixed one leak there and said it will need more work next year.
“(I) hate to make this kind of investment here for a facility that we’re planning to replace,” he said. “But it is a legitimate safety concern. And the security of the system is critical for the community and for the folks that live downstream.”
Now the city plans to build another, concrete dam halfway between the two older ones.
“So if we can build a higher dam and build a bigger basin, that’s going to reduce our reliance on the Siletz River, which is a really important environmental consideration here,” Nebel said. “And we’ve been working closely with the Siletz Tribe.”
Historically, Pacific Northwest tribes have often not been supportive of government-built dams, because of their propensity to block fish runs. But Robert Kentta with the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians said pumping water out of the Siletz River every summer is really bad for salmon, lampreys, crayfish and river mussels.
“We had the lowest flows that I can remember and I’ve lived here for nearly 60 years,” Kentta said. “It was scary low and scary warm. It was like bathwater, and we’re just not used to those kinds of temperatures in our river.”
Kentta said a new, larger dam and reservoir on Big Creek would mean more water could stay in the Siletz River and more fish would likely survive. (Source)
In this broken land, where the coroporations have huge lobbying outfits, huge industry coalitions, have huge organized protection rackets, we the people are up shit creek since living in the USA is all about paying for it, paying for water, air, all of it, through regressive and quadruple taxation. Through taxes, fines, code violations, penalties, late fees, pre-fees, tolls, service charges, disposal charges, recycle fees, surcharges, add-ons, restrictions, eminent domain, externalities, we are left to the devices of elected officials and state agencies and this hyper-competition looking for grants, lobbying bucks, pork barrel.
Oh, those hog blood-shit-guts-urine lagoons —
Oh, those feedlots —
Oh, those thousand-plus chemicals —
Oh, those oil companies —
Oh, those tornados —
Oh, those wildfires —
Oh, that Guantanamo —
Oh, America, the Banana Republic: Nearly 40% of Americans Live in Constant Risk of Catastrophic Explosion or Poison Gas Exposure – People of Color, the Poor, Schools, and Medical Facilities at Even Greater Risk!
So we are here, with the most broken society ever, as we have smug lockdown forced vaccine (sic) pro-incarceration people advocating all manner of illegal, unconstitutional and inhumane measures, and yet, and yet — never holding the billionaires who are war-pandemic-planned-demic profiteers accountable. It is ugly, that Biden thing, all his Neoliberal War Hawk Handlers, all the same old same old. Embarassing to see the Republicans in their racist zeal hold onto their KKK robes, and singing Dixie in their million-dollar bathrooms.
Here’s that coronavirus map, well, the one that should be part and parcel in this bullshit manic narrative:
Those drug overdoses, man —
It’s the war profiteering, man, and the trillions shipped to war lords, mining lords, Zionist lords, ag lords, chemical lords, all those lords of punishment-theft-disease-pollution-societal collapses
The post It’s the Water, Stupid! It’s the Infrastructure, Stupid! first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
On December 6, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin hosted Australia’s Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles. It was the 32nd occasion the countries had met in this setting.
The Australia-US Ministerial Consultations (AUSMIN) is really a chat fest held between Australian Ministers for Defence and Foreign Affairs along with the US Secretaries of State and Defense, accompanied by officials of touted seniority. Advertised as an occasion for the states “to discuss and share perspectives and approaches on major global and regional political issues, and to deepen bilateral foreign security and defence cooperation,” it is more accurately an occasion for Washington to keep an eye on its satellite.
The occasion would have been a disappointment for sceptics of the US-Australian alliance, one that has seen Australians join, with somnambulistic facility, failed distant, needless wars. Even with a change of government in Canberra, it is clear that the US security lobby remains ascendant, tranquilising Australian politicians with the virtues of the alliance.
The joint statement from Blinken, Austin, Wong and Marles was filled with the gruel of banality: rules-based order, as they understood it; the importance of the relationship to “regional peace and prosperity”, despite signs it is becoming increasingly dangerous to that cause; and utterances about human rights and fundamental freedoms.
For keen watchers of encroaching militarism, the following would have stood out: “The principals also decided to evolve their defense and security cooperation to ensure they are equipped to deter aggression, counter coercion, and make space for sovereign decision making.”
This could hardly be a reference to Australian sovereignty, given its whittling down over the years to the decisions of an increasingly more engaged US in the Indo-Pacific region. While Canberra decries any moves by Pacific Island neighbours to exercise their own rights of sovereignty to seal security arrangements with Beijing, it ignores its own subordinate, increasingly garrisoned role in the US imperium.
China comes in for a predictable mauling, given its actions in the South China Sea and the making of “excessive maritime claims that are inconsistent with international law.” Wishing to enrage the Yellow Devil further, the parties also reiterate “Taiwan’s role as a leading democracy in the Indo-Pacific region, an important regional economy, and a key contributor to critical supply chains.”
Strategic competition, as a concept, was fine in principle, but to be pursued “responsibly,” a word that has little meaning in the thuggery of international politics. The parties also agreed to “work together to ensure competition does not escalate into conflict” and looked to the PRC “to do the same and to engage Beijing on risk reduction and transparency measures.” More could be done on the issue of transparency and China’s nuclear arsenal, for instance.
The statement then goes on to raise the importance of cooperation with Beijing in some areas of mutual concern followed by a sharp backhanded serve. Cooperation with China on “issues of shared interest, including climate change, pandemic threats, non-proliferation, countering illicit and illegal narcotics, the global food crisis, and macroeconomic issues” was important, but so was “enhancing deterrence and resilience through coordinated efforts to offer Indo-Pacific nations support to resist subversion and coercion of any kind.”
There is also more poking with the expression of “serious concerns about severe human rights violations in Xinjiang, the human rights situation in Tibet, and the systematic erosion of Hong Kong’s autonomy, democratic institutions, and processes undermining commitments made by the PRC before the handover.”
Australia’s promised submarines under the AUKUS security pact, almost as credible as the Loch Ness monster, receives an airing. Giving nothing away, the statement “commended the significant progress AUKUS partners have made on developing the optimal pathway for Australia to acquire a conventionally armed, nuclear-powered submarine capability at the earliest possible date.” No date is provided, but a year on when that optimal pathway will be miraculously revealed is 2023. Best not wait up.
The joint statement does little to dissuade the idea that Australia is moving, inexorably, towards a satellite, garrison state to be disposed of and used by the US imperium. Under the “Forced Posture Initiatives” – the wording is telling – the US will further integrate Australia into its military operations via Enhanced Land Cooperation, Enhanced Maritime Cooperation, and the Combined, Logistics, Sustainment, and Maintenance Enterprise.
The US armed forces would continue its “rotational presence” in Australia across air, land and sea including “US Bomber Task Force rotations, fighters, and future rotations of US Navy and US Army capabilities.” The emphasis, in other words, is entirely US-centric, with Australia’s posture being rather supine, even as it aids “US force posture with associated infrastructure, including runway improvements, parking aprons, fuel infrastructure, explosive storage infrastructure, and facilities to support the workforce.”
What a wonderful list of targets for any future foe, and bound to become even juicier with Austin’s promise to “find ways to further integrate our defense industrial bases in the years ahead.”
While they do not tend to make regular appearances on uncritical mainstream news outlets, Australian civil society members have been alarmed by such moves. The 280 submissions to the Independent and Peaceful Australian Network (IPAN) addressing the high cost of Australia’s relationship with the United States attest to a very different narrative.
IPAN’s report drawn from its People’s Inquiry into “Exploring the Case for an Independent and Peaceful Australia,” informed by those submissions and released last month, should be mandatory reading for Canberra’s insular policy hacks. In his contribution to the report covering the defence and military aspects of the alliance, Vince Scappatura took note of the most pressing concern among the submissions: “that the alliance makes Australia an unnecessary target of America’s foes.”
The alliance has also seen Australia committed to “several needless and costly wars and is likely to do so again in the future, with especially grave consequences in the context of the great power rivalry between the US and China.” Unfortunately for the industrious Scappatura and those honourable souls determined to force a revision of the relationship, the sleepwalkers are in charge. And when that happens, wars are rarely far away.
The post The US Imperium Garrisons Australia first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The United States has unveiled its latest deadly weapon of aggression in the Indo-Pacific, reports Binoy Kampmark.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
The United States Supreme Court struck down a state law in June that restricted the carrying of guns in public, reports Barry Sheppard. Since then, 38 states have legislated some form of “open carry” laws, and others are preparing to do the same.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
The United States House of Representatives passed legislation on November 30 to block a national rail strike planned for December 9, reports Malik Miah.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
For the right-wing press, Elon Musk — who backed the Republicans in the recent midterm elections — is a social media saviour, writes Ari Paul.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
As western countries are floating the theory that Russia could escalate its conflict with Ukraine to a nuclear war, many western governments continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s own nuclear weapons capabilities. Luckily, many countries around the world do not subscribe to this endemic western hypocrisy.
‘The Conference on the Establishment of a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons and Other Weapons of Mass Destruction’ was held between November 14-18, with the sole purpose of creating new standards of accountability that, as should have always been the case, be applied equally to all Middle Eastern countries.
The debate regarding nuclear weapons in the Middle East could not possibly be any more pertinent or urgent. International observers rightly note that the period following the Russia-Ukraine war is likely to accelerate the quest for nuclear weapons throughout the world. Considering the seemingly perpetual state of conflict in the Middle East, the region is likely to witness nuclear rivalry as well.
For years, Arab and other countries attempted to raise the issue that accountability regarding the development and acquisition of nuclear weapons cannot be confined to states that are perceived to be enemies of Israel and the West.
The latest of these efforts was a United Nations resolution that called on Israel to dispose of its nuclear weapons, and to place its nuclear facilities under the monitoring of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Resolution number A/C.1/77/L.2, which was drafted by Egypt with the support of other Arab countries, passed with an initial vote of 152-5. Unsurprisingly, among the five countries that voted against the draft were the United States, Canada and, of course, Israel itself.
US and Canadian blind support of Tel Aviv notwithstanding, what compels Washington and Ottawa to vote against a draft entitled: “The risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East”? Keeping in mind the successive right-wing extremist governments that have ruled over Israel for many years,Washington must understand that the risk of using nuclear weapons under the guise of fending off an ‘existential threat’ is a real possibility.
Since its inception, Israel has resorted to and utilized the phrase ‘existential threat’ countless times. Various Arab governments, later Iran and even individual Palestinian resistance movements were accused of endangering Israel’s very existence. Even the non-violent Palestinian civil society-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement was accused by then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in 2015 of being an existential threat to Israel. Netanyahu claimed that the boycott movement was “not connected to our actions; it is connected to our very existence.”
This should worry everyone, not just in the Middle East, but the whole world. A country with such hyped sensitivity about imagined ‘existential threats’ should not be allowed to acquire the kind of weapons that could destroy the entire Middle East, several times over.
Some may argue that Israel’s nuclear arsenal was intrinsically linked to real fears resulting from its historical conflict with the Arabs. However, this is not the case. As soon as Israel finalized its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their historic homeland, and long before any serious Arab or Palestinian resistance was carried out in response, Israel was already on the lookout for nuclear weapons.
As early as 1949, the Israeli army had found uranium deposits in the Negev Desert, leading to the establishment, in 1952, of the very secretive Israel Atomic Energy Commission (IAEC).
In 1955, the US government sold Israel a nuclear research reactor. But that was not enough. Eager to become a full nuclear power, Tel Aviv resorted to Paris in 1957. The latter became a major partner in Israel’s sinister nuclear activities when it helped the Israeli government construct a clandestine nuclear reactor near Dimona in the Negev Desert.
The father of the Israeli nuclear program at the time was none other than Shimon Peres who, ironically, was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1994. The Dimona Nuclear Reactor is now named ‘Shimon Peres Nuclear Research Center-Negev’.
With no international monitoring whatsoever, thus with zero legal accountability, Israel’s nuclear quest continues until this day. In 1963, Israel purchased 100 tons of uranium ore from Argentina, and it is strongly believed that during the October 1973 Israel-Arab war, Israel “came close to making a nuclear preemptive strike”, according to Richard Sale, writing in United Press International (UPI).
Currently, Israel is believed to have “enough fissionable material to fabricate 60-300 nuclear weapons,” according to former US Army Officer Edwin S. Cochran.
Estimates vary, but the facts about Israel’s weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) are hardly contested. Israel itself practices what is known as ‘deliberate ambiguity’, as to send a message to its enemies of its lethal power, without revealing anything that may hold it accountable to international inspection.
What we know about Israel’s nuclear weapons has been made possible partly because of the bravery of a former Israeli nuclear technician Mordechai Vanunu, a whistleblower who was held in solitary confinement for a decade due to his courage in exposing Israel’s darkest secrets.
Still, Israel refuses to sign the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT), endorsed by 191 countries.
Israeli leaders adhere to what is known as the ‘Begin Doctrine’, in reference to Menachem Begin, the right-wing Israeli prime minister who invaded Lebanon in 1982, resulting in the killing of thousands. The doctrine is formulated around the idea that, while Israel gives itself the right to own nuclear weapons, its enemies in the Middle East must not. This belief continues to direct Israeli actions to this day.
The US support for Israel is not confined to ensuring the latter has ‘military edge’ over its neighbors in terms of traditional weapons, but to also ensure Israel remains the region’s only superpower, even if that entails escaping international accountability for the development of WMDs.
The collective efforts by Arab and other countries at the UNGA to create a Middle East Zone Free of Nuclear Weapons are welcomed initiatives. It behooves everyone, Washington included, to join the rest of the world in finally forcing Israel to join the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a first but critical step towards long-delayed accountability.
The post “Deliberate Ambiguity”: Israel’s Nuclear Weapons Are Greatest Threat to Middle East first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Gérard Araud was not mincing his words. As France’s former ambassador to Washington, he had seen enough. At a November 14 panel hosted by the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft titled “Is America Ready for a Multipolar Word?”, Araud decried the “economic warfare” being waged by the United States against China, expressing the view that Europe was concerned by the evident “containment policy” being pursued.
Araud is very much the diplomat establishment figure, having also served as French representative to the United Nations from 2009 to 2014. But despite his pedigree, he was most keen to fire off a few salvos against such concepts as the “rules-based order” so treasured by the Anglosphere and the “West” more broadly defined. “To be frank, I’ve always been extremely sceptical about this idea of a ‘rules-based order’.” Both he and the French in general loved the United Nations, “but the Americans not too much”.
With unerring frankness, he also noted that the UN and broader international hierarchy was dominated by the US-European bloc. The undersecretaries to the organisation reflected that fact, as did the stewardship of the World Bank and the IMF. “So that’s the first element: this order is our order.”
The second element was historical: the balance of power as it was in the war-ruined world of 1945. “Really people forget that, if China and Russia are obliged to oppose [with] their veto, it is because frankly the Security Council is most of the time, 95% of the time, has a Western-oriented majority.”
French President Emmanuel Macron has adopted elements of Araud’s thinking, notably regarding the problems and limits of US domination, while still reasserting the value of France’s own global imprint. Such actions and sombre strategizing are taking place in the shadow of the West’s decline. In a recent closed-door meeting with his top diplomats, Macron remarked that “the international order is being upended in a whole new way. It is a transformation of the international order. I must admit that Western hegemony may be coming to an end”.
This theme of decline in Macron’s is an ongoing Spenglerian motif. It surfaced at the end of the G-7 summit in 2019, where he reflected on the decline of Western dominance while pondering the finance-obsessed nature of the global market economy. This was pretty rich coming from a banker, though he was certainly right on the issue of greater multipolarity.
To his diplomats, Macron paddled in the waters of history, reflecting on French power in the 18th century, the Industrial Revolution led by Britain in the 19th century, and the brute dominance of the United States from the 20th century. With typically Gallic, broad stroke synthesis, he suggested that “France is culture, England is industry, and America is war.”
Then came the finger pointing, sharply directed at the biggest of culprits and the underminers of the West. “Within Western countries, many wrong choices the United States has made in the face of crises have deeply shaken our hegemony.” It was not something that began with the Trump administration; previous US presidents “made other wrong choices long before Trump, Clinton’s China policy, Bush’s war policy, Obama’s world financial crisis, and quantitative easing policy.”
To this swipe at Washington could be added the role of emerging powers, which were underestimated by the West “not just two years ago, but as early as ten or twenty years ago.” He admitted that “China and Russia have achieved great success over the years under different leadership styles.”
Despite such rueful admissions about decline, Macron is still keen to pursue a form of geopolitical balancing, notably in the Indo-Pacific. This is code for the pursuing French interests in a region that is increasingly looking like exploding into a folly-driven conflict between the Chinese and US camps. But Paris is hardly going to miss out pushing the credentials of its defence industry, which took a bruising with the scuppering of the Attack Class submarine deal with the Australian government in September last year.
In February, Macron convinced Jakarta to ink a deal worth $8.1 billion for 42 Rafale fighter jets produced by Dassault Aviation. Two diesel-electric Scorpène-class attack submarines produced by the Naval Group have also been added to the mix, along with ammunition, making the arrangements with Jakarta some of the most lucrative for France in Southeast Asia.
On his current visit to Washington, Macron is facing those old problems of US power. While Australia was designated assassin in killing off the submarine contract, the ammunition came from Washington as part of the AUKUS security pact, a spear pointing at China in the Indo-Pacific. President Joe Biden has merely described the handling of the whole matter as “clumsy”.
Then come such issues as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which gives advantageous climate subsidies to US companies over their European counterparts, and how the Ukraine War is to be addressed. Biden has no inclination to speak to Vladimir Putin in the Kremlin, content to let the war rage as long as it bleeds Russia; Macron has been more than willing to keep the lines open, acknowledging that diplomacy, however frail, must at least be drip-fed.
In his own reflections on what could be done regarding the US-Western parochialism of the rules-based order, Araud made the obvious point. Any genuine international system purporting to be undergirded by rules had to integrate “all the major stakeholders into managing of the world, you know, really bringing in the Chinese, the Indians, and really other countries, and trying to build with them, on an equal basis, the world of tomorrow.” What a daring idea, and one that is bound to avoid a global conflict. For that reason, it won’t be embraced.
The post Gallic Rebuke: France and the US Rules-based Order first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
On November 14, 2022, the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) passed a resolution (A/ES-11/L.6) calling for Russia to pay war reparations to Ukraine:
[The General Assembly…]
93 IN FAVOR
14 AGAINST
73 ABSTENTION
12 NOT VOTING
Western media report these results as vast international support for the resolution. But measured by world population, this resolution, as well as its predecessors, was decisively rejected by the UNGA.2
First, a minor point: the majority of the world’s countries simply did not support this resolution:
99 NOT VOTING IN FAVOR (AGAINST, ABSTENTION or NOT VOTING)
93 IN FAVOR
Something much more important to notice is that UN General Assembly votes are extremely undemocratic. The UNGA consists of 193 countries representing over eight billion people, each country having a single vote, no matter the size of its population. For example, Tuvalu (population 11,792), Iceland (pop. 341,243), India (pop. 1,380,004,385) and China (pop. 1,439,323,776) each have a one vote. So voting in the UNGA is wildly disproportionate to population.
We can correct this disproportion by ignoring the country-by-country tally and treating the result as if it were a popular referendum. Here is the tally of percentages of world population represented in the vote:
IN FAVOR 26.94%
AGAINST 24.36%
ABSTENTION 44.92%
NOT VOTING 3.78%
Or, simpler:
NOT VOTING IN FAVOR OF THE RESOLUTION: 73.06%
VOTING IN FAVOR OF THE RESOLUTION: 26.94%
By this measure, only 27% of the world’s population supported the resolution; 73% did not. This is a resounding defeat for US/NATO “soft power.” It can only be explained by global antipathy toward the US/NATO side in this war and sympathy for Russia.
Consider that the US has long used bribes and threats to engineer UNGA votes; it controls the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank; it imposes illegal unilateral coercive measures (“sanctions”) on a quarter of the world’s population; it is prolific and virtually alone in its constant coups and destabilization campaigns against uncooperative governments around the world. So it is not surprising that the US has mustered as many votes as it has for this and previous Ukraine/Russia resolutions. What is surprising is that it could not get more.
The UNGA’s previous resolutions condemning Russia show similarly lopsided votes. On March 2, 2002 59% of the world’s population would not support a resolution condemning Russia’s intervention on February 24. On April 7, 2022 76% of the world’s population would not support a resolution to remove Russia from its seat on the UN Human Rights Council (UNHRC). On October 12, 2022 55% of the world’s population would not support a resolution rejecting the accession to Russia of Donetsk, Kherson, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions in Ukraine. (See fn. 2.)
To Western eyes, red with Ukraine War fever and alleged Russian atrocities, these results may surprise, but they shouldn’t. For one thing, the Western narrative about the war itself, atrocity allegations against Russia, the history of the conflict since the 2014 Maidan coup (or “revolution” in Western eyes), are not necessarily believed by the rest of the world.3 After all, Western media sources recounting Russian atrocities also report with straight faces accusations that Russia blew up the Nordstream pipelines, and that it repeatedly shelled the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant while simultaneously occupying it.
More important, to many non-West European countries, this war is not seen in isolation from the history of North American and Western European aggression, exploitation, plunder and genocide, as shown by these quotes from opponents of the resolution speaking in the General Assembly:4
Cuba: Will Cuba be compensated for the damage accumulated over six decades of an economic, commercial and financial blockade; the lives lost; and the illegal occupation of its national territory? What about Mexico, Viet Nam, the Pacific Islands, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Syria and the State of Palestine?
Eritrea: States suffering from foreign interference, colonialism, slavery, oppression, unilateral coercive measures, illegal blockades and other internationally wrongful acts also deserve the right for remedy, reparation and justice. As national positions must be respected, the Assembly must play a positive role in ensuring the conflict in Ukraine is resolved through diplomatic efforts and means while avoiding any initiative that might further aggravate the situation on the ground and escalate tensions.
Syria: [The draft resolution is part of a series of] unbalanced, biased and provocative resolutions pushed by the United States and its Western partners. [I]ts real objective is to pay for the increasing purchases of weapons by Ukraine. … Who will compensate my country for the destruction of the Syrian infrastructure by the so‐called international coalition?
Nicaragua: The resolution is an example of the hypocrisy and double standards of certain countries. …. [It] ignores the painful history that imperialist countries have left behind. It does not recognize the genocide against the original peoples of countries. [Nicaragua supports its] brethren in the Caribbean and Africa that are seeking reparations for these losses…
Rich vs. Poor/US vs. the World
Beyond these denunciations, global rejection of the UNGA resolution has deeper implications. This war is a battle in a far older, longer war of Western European aggression against the poorer nations of the world, the vast majority of humanity. Since World War II, this global war has been largely directed by a single hegemon, the United States. Europe is only one battlefront in this larger war.
Rich vs. Poor: Core vs. Periphery and Semi-Periphery5
This vote falls (although imperfectly) along the global divide of “core” nations vs. nations of the “periphery” and “semi-periphery.”
According to world-systems analysis, “core” countries are those that draw a disproportionate amount of the world’s labor surplus value through possession of monopolized and semi-monopolized high-value production processes. This production is girded by patents, copyrights, and various advantageous economic, military and political arrangements. 6 “Peripheral” and “semi-peripheral” countries, on the other hand, have many fewer of these high-value production processes and rely on the production of commodities and more generic manufactured goods.7 Samir Amin calls this absorption of the surplus value by core countries “imperialist rent” which sums it up nicely.
In other words, the global class struggle tells in the vote on the reparations resolution: poorer countries that pay imperialist rent tended to reject the resolution, while countries that collect imperialist rent have, with near perfect discipline, supported it.8
And by the way, Western media often give the misleading impression that China and Russia have economies comparable to the rich countries of the imperial core nations. Not so. China and Russia are peripheral or semi-peripheral countries. While the poverty of the Global South is well known, less well known is the relative poverty of both Russia and China. Nominal GDPs per capita (in US dollars) of the two countries are just fractions of that of the US: US ($69,287.5), Russia($12,172.8), China ($12,556.3). Thus the China-Russia alliance, and their alliance with the Global South generally, is an alliance of commonality.
The global divide is also racial, since countries of the imperial core are nearly all dominated by whites while the rest are populated largely by people of color.9 This racial imbalance results from the construction of the global system over half a millenium of European colonialism, neo-colonialism and imperialism, accompanied by ideologies of white ethnic, nationalist, cultural and racial supremacy.
US vs. The World: A Global Military Occupation
The geography of the war is not confined to Ukraine. The US asserted that it is waging a war against Russia through Ukraine. Beyond this, the collective West, led entirely by the US, is on one side of the war, and large parts of the East and Global South are on the other, as shown by this UNGA vote plus the overwhelming lack of global support for the sanctions on Russia.
If from a bird’s eye view we could see the surface of the whole world at once, this war and the global divisions it exposes would be obvious. The US would appear as the primary belligerent since its occupation forces cover the world.
And the US is quite forthright about its military occupation of the globe. It officially maps the occupation into six zones of US military “command”: Northern (North America); Southern (South America); European; Central (West Asia, aka “Middle East”); Africa; U.S. Indo-Pacific (Asia, Australia and the Pacific).10
Within each zone US military bases enforce this occupation against friend, vassal, and potential foe alike. 800 to 1,000 of these overseas military bases and installations dot the globe.11 Almost half of these bases are arrayed like a necklace, or garrote, around Russia and China.12
Ukraine has long been a battlefront in this global occupation. Ukraine’s military integration into NATO began years before the Russian intervention of February 24, 2022. Indeed, Ukraine’s fusion with NATO has been part of the 14-nation, three-decade eastward march of US/NATO toward Russia ever since the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Conclusion
The war in Ukraine is a world war, dividing the world’s nations by wealth, core/periphery status, and race, as revealed in the vote on the November 12th reparations resolution. To prosecute the war the West sends troops, weapons, and money to Ukraine, and sanctions Russsia. Gas pipelines far from the battlefield are blown up to keep Europe under the sanctions regime.13 And the war and sanctions affect the Global South as well as the Global North.14
The world’s historic failure to contain US aggression has produced the dead, wounded, displaced, and grief-stricken of Ukraine and Russia, and condemned hundreds of millions in the Global South to destitution and hunger. Little wonder that so many around the world see as a tragic necessity Russia’s determined resistance to the US eastward push in Europe.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The Biden administration’s efforts to support renewables through the landmark Inflation Reduction Act presents a significant critical minerals processing and export opportunity for Australia, according to Arthur Sinodinos, Australia’s Ambassador to the United States. Legislated in August, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) introduced and expanded several tax credits to accelerate the transition to clean energy…
The post Sinodinos on Australia’s US critical minerals opportunity appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
This post was originally published on InnovationAus.com.
Soon after arriving in Oslo, my taxi zigzagged through the city’s well-organized streets and state-of-the-art infrastructure. Large billboards advertised the world’s leading brands in fashion, cars, and perfumes. Amid all the expressions of wealth and plenty, an electronic sign by a bus stop flashed the images of poor looking African children needing help.
Over the years, Norway has served as a relatively good model of meaningful humanitarian and medical aid. This is especially true if compared to other self-serving western countries, where aid is often linked to direct political and military interests. Still, the public humiliation of poor, hungry and diseased Africa is still disquieting.
The same images and TV ads are omnipresent everywhere in the West. The actual tangible value of such charity aside, campaigns to help poor Africa do more than perpetuate a stereotype, they also mask the actual responsibility of why natural resource-rich Africa remains poor, and why the supposed generosity of the West over the decades has done little to achieve a paradigm shift in terms of the Continent’s economic health and prosperity.
News from Africa is almost always grim. A recent ‘Save the Children’ report sums up Africa’s woes in alarming numbers: 150 million children in East and Southern Africa are facing the double threat of grinding poverty and the disastrous impact of climate change. The greatest harm affects the children population in South Sudan, with 87 percent, followed by Mozambique (80 percent), then Madagascar (73 percent).
The bad news from Africa, illustrated in the Save the Children report, was released soon after another report, this time by the World Bank, indicating that the international community’s hope to end extreme poverty by 2030 will not be met.
Consequently, by 2030, around 574 million people, estimated at 7 percent of the world’s total population, will continue to live in extreme poverty, relying on about two dollars a day.
Sub-Saharan Africa currently serves as the epicenter of global extreme poverty. The rate of extreme poverty in that region is about 35 percent, representing 60 percent of all extreme poverty anywhere in the world.
The World Bank suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic, and the Russia-Ukraine war are the main catalysts behind the grim estimates.
Growing global inflation and the slow growth of large economies in Asia are also culprits.
But what these reports don’t tell us, and what images of starving African children don’t convey is that much of Africa’s poverty is linked to the ongoing exploitation of the continent by its former – or current – colonial masters.
This is not to suggest that African nations have no agency of their own, in contributing to their worsening situation or in challenging intervention and exploitation. Without a united front and major change in geopolitical global balances, pushing back against neocolonialism is not an easy feat.
The Russia-Ukraine war and the global rivalry between Russia and China, on the one hand, and western countries on the other have encouraged some African leaders to speak out against the exploitation of Africa, and the use of Africa as a political fodder for global conflicts. The food crisis has been at the center of this fight.
In the late October Dakar International Forum on Peace and Security, some African leaders resisted pressure from western diplomats to toe the West’s line on the war in Ukraine.
Ironically, French minister of state Chrysoula Zacharopoulou sought “solidarity from Africa”, alleging that Russia poses an “existential threat” to Europe.
Though France continues to effectively control the currencies, thus economies of 14 different African countries – mostly in West Africa – Zacharopoulou declared that “Russia is solely responsible for this economic, energy and food crisis.”
President of Senegal, Macky Sall was one of several African leaders and top diplomats who challenged the duplicitous and polarizing language.
“This is 2022, this is no longer the colonial period… so countries, even if they are poor, have equal dignity. Their problems have to be handled with respect,” he said.
It is this coveted ‘respect’ by the West that Africa lacks. The US and Europe simply expect African nations to abandon their neutral approach to global conflicts and join the West’s continued campaign for global dominance.
But why should Africa, one of the richest and most exploited continents, obey the West’s diktats?
The West’s insincerity is glaring. Its double standard didn’t escape African leaders, including Nigeria’s former president Mahamadou Issoufou. “It’s shocking for Africans to see the billions that have rained down on Ukraine while attention has been diverted from the situation in the Sahel (region),” he said in Dakar.
Following the elevated political discourse emanating from African leaders and intellectuals gives one hope that the supposedly ‘poor’ Continent is plotting an escape from the grip of western domination, though many variables would have to work in their favor to make this happen.
Africa’s existent wealth alone can fuel global growth for many years to come. But the beneficiaries of this wealth should be Africa’s sons and daughters, not the deep pockets of the West’s wealthy classes. Indeed, the time has come that Africa’s children are not paraded as charity cases in Europe, a notion that only feeds into the long-distorted power relations between Africa and the West.
The post Liberating Africa from Poverty Requires Changing Power Relations with the West first appeared on Dissident Voice.
The author with Pyatnashka commanders at outpost near Avdeevka, Donetsk People’s Republic. [ Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]
America is widely understood to be a key instigator behind conflict in Ukraine that has pitted brother against brother
Smeared, stigmatized, and lied about in Western media propaganda, the mostly Russian-speaking people of the Donbass region were being slaughtered by the thousands in a brutal war of “ethnic cleansing” launched against them by the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, which the U.S. installed after the CIA overthrew Ukraine’s legally elected president in a 2014 coup.
Although the Donbass people had been pleading for Russian military aid to defend them against the increasingly murderous military assaults by the Ukraine government forces, which killed more than 14,000 of their people, Russian President Vladimir Putin declined to intervene. Instead, he tried to broker a peace agreement between the warring parties.
But the U.S. and Britain secretly colluded to sabotage peace negotiations, persuading president Zelenksy to ignore the Minsk II peace agreement that the Ukraine government had previously signed, and which had been countersigned by Russia, France and Germany.
Realizing that the U.S. and its NATO allies would never permit peace negotiations to succeed, Putin finally invaded Ukraine on February 24. Russian troops went in to support and reinforce the outnumbered and outgunned Donbass Special Forces who had been defending their land against attacks by the Kyiv government for nearly eight years.
Voices From the Frontlines of Eastern Ukraine
In the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) in October, I went to a frontline outpost 70 meters from Ukrainian forces in Avdeevka (north and west of Donetsk), according to the Donbass commanders I spoke with there.
To reach that position, I went with two other journalists to a meeting point with two commanders of Pyatnashka—volunteer fighters, including Abkhazi, Slovak, Russian, Ossetian and other nationalities, including locals from Donbass.
From there, they drove us to a point as far as they could drive before walking the rest of the way, several minutes through brush and trenches, eventually coming to their sandbagged wood and cement fortified outpost.
It has changed hands over the years, Ukrainian forces sometimes occupying it, Donbass forces now controlling it.
One soldier, a unit commander who goes by the call sign “Vydra” (Otter), was formerly a miner from the DPR who had been living in Russia with his family. In 2014, he returned to the Donbass to defend his mother and relatives still there. He spoke of the outpost.
We dug and built this with our hands. Several times over the years, the Ukrainians have taken these positions. We pushed them back, they stormed us…Well, we have been fighting each other for eight years.
There, artillery fire is the biggest danger they face. “You can hide from a sniper, but not from artillery, and they’re using large caliber.”
“Vydra,” a unit commander of the Pyatnashka fighters. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]
His living quarters is a dank, cramped, room with a tiny improvised bed, with another small room and bed for others at the outpost.
A sign reads: “If shelling occurs, go to the shelter.” The kind of sign you see all over Donetsk and cities of the Donbass, due to Ukraine’s incessant shelling of civilian, residential areas. In a frontline outpost where incoming artillery is the norm, the sign is slightly absurd, clearly a joke.
An Orthodox icon sits atop the sign. Ukrainian nationalists hang and spray Nazi graffiti and slogans of death; these fighters revere their faith.
A poster, with the DPR flag, reads: “We have never known defeat, and it’s clear that this has been decided from above. Donbas has never been forced to its knees, and no one will ever be allowed to.”
The only things decorating the space are tins of tuna and canned meat, instant noodles, and washing powder. Their existence is bare minimum, nothing glamorous about it; they volunteer because, as they told me, this is their land and they will protect it.
Perhaps surprising to some, when Vydra was asked whether he hates Ukrainians, he replied emphatically no, he has friends and relatives in Ukraine.
“We have no hatred for Ukraine. We hate those nationalists who came to power. But ordinary Ukrainians? Why? Many of us speak Ukrainian. We understand them, they understand us. Many of them speak Russian.
I’ve been involved in sports a lot of time, wrestling. So, I’ve got a lot of friends in Dnepropetrovsk, Kharkov, Kirovograd, Odessa, Lvov, Ivano-Frankivsk, Transcarpathia.
I have relatives in western Ukraine, and we still communicate. Yes, they say one thing on the street, but when we talk to each other, they say, ‘Well, you have to, because the SBU is listening.’
Ukraine shouts about democracy, then puts people in handcuffs for no reason. My aunt got in trouble because they found my photo on her Skype.
And I’m on the Myrotvorets [kill list] website.” [As is the author, see this article.]
He spoke of Ukraine’s shelling from 2014, when the people of the Donbass were unarmed and not expecting to be bombed by their own country.
When the artillery hit the city of Yenakievo, east of Gorlovka, we were defenseless. We went with hunting rifles and torches to fight them. Most of the weapons we had later were captured from them. We had to go to the battlefield without weapons in order to get the weapons.
When asked if he was concerned that Ukrainian forces might take Donetsk he replied no, of course not, they didn’t succeed in 2014, they won’t now.
When asked whether he had a message for soldiers of the Ukrainian army, Vydra replied without hesitating,
Go home! We’ve been saying that since 2014: Go home. Unequivocally, we don’t want them here, but we don’t want to kill them. I’m not speaking about nationalists, I’m speaking about Ukrainian soldiers, who are drafted or forcefully employed in the Ukrainian army. Guys, go home, either surrender or go. This is our land. We’re not leaving, we’re not going anywhere.
I asked how he felt to be treated and described as sub-human, to be called dehumanizing names, a part of the Ukrainian nationalists’ brainwashing propaganda. As I wrote previously:
“Ukrainian nationalists openly declare they view Russians as sub-human. School books teach this warped ideology. Videos show the extent of this mentality: Teaching children not only to also hate Russians and see them as not humans, but also brainwashing them to believe killing Donbas residents is acceptable. The Ukrainian government itself funds neo-Nazi-run indoctrination camps for youths.”
“It’s offensive,” Vydra said, “We are saddened: There are sick people. We need to heal them, slowly.”
I asked whether he thought friendship between Ukrainians and Russians would be possible.
“It will take years for any friendship. Take Chechnya, one region of Russia, it was at war. But slowly, slowly…We must all live together. We are one people.” Indeed, now Chechen fighters are one of the most effective forces fighting alongside Donbass and Russian soldiers to liberate Donbass areas from Ukrainian forces.
He opened a zippered trousers pocket and proudly brandished a small plastic sleeve containing children’s drawings, also containing icons of saints and Christ, and prayers…
“This is very personal, it’s like my guardian angel. I put it in plastic, I don’t even keep my ID in plastic. I’ve been carrying this one in my pocket since February. I’ve been in all sorts of hot spots. A child drew this, we receive letters from children. It’s very nice to look at them when it’s hard and we are under fire.”
He read one letter:
“We are waiting for you. Thank you for risking your lives to defend Donbas. Yulia and Ira.”
“I don’t even know who are Yulia and Ira,” he said smiling.
Showing the icons, he said, “This is Saint Ushakov, our great commander. This is Jesus Christ, our Heavenly Protector. This Abkhazi icon was given to me by the guys. This is a prayer book. And here is a prayer,” he said of one page prayer.
These words are to support when times are very hard. When there is heavy shelling, it can go on for hours. So, while you’re sitting there, you can read this.
Especially for the younger guys, 22, 23 years old, just finished college. This is new to them.
Commanders Speak of Geopolitical Reasons for Ukraine’s War
Outside, sitting in front of an Orthodox banner and a collection of collected munitions—including Western ones—two platoon commanders, “Kabar” and “Kamaz,” spoke of the bigger geopolitical picture. [See video]
“America is running the show here,” Kabar said. “It builds foreign policy on the basis of how its domestic policy is built, which is through conflicts with external countries. They are accustomed to proving their power to their people through terrorism around the world, inciting fires in Syria, in the east. They played the card of radical Islam there.
And now they are playing the card of fascism. They do not see themselves on the other side of good. They need wars, blood, cruelty, and they signed Europe up for this.
However, they’ve missed one point: Russia, since the days of the Soviet Union, has never retreated in large scale wars. They took Europe and pushed it to slaughter Russia, and they put Russia in such a position that it must secure its national interests. Europe needs to understand this, to pay attention to history, to stop being led by the United States.”
“Kabar,” a commander of the Pyatnashka fighters. [Source: Photo courtesy of Eva Bartlett]
When asked about his feeling regarding Ukrainians, “Kabar” replied similarly to Vydra.
We don’t blame the whole Ukrainian people. Ukrainians are our friends, they are our relatives. They’ve been struck by evil, and it’s not their fault, ordinary people are not to blame for this. We will liberate them from fascism, we’ll show them brotherhood, and we’ll make friends.
This is a good opportunity for us to defeat evil. God has honored us with this right to fight evil.
Kamaz, when asked why he is fighting, replied that this is his homeland, he was born here, and that he has a son who he doesn’t want to inherit Ukraine’s war on the Donbass.
I myself am Greek by nationality. Ukrainians are Slavs, they are our brothers, their grandfathers fought together shoulder to shoulder with our grandfathers against Nazism and fascism. We are here to finish it, so that our children live a normal happy life. We are fighting for the future.
He spoke of America’s continuous need for war.
We’ve seen it in Syria and Yugoslavia, where they destroyed everything and then set everything up their own way, so the people must submit, almost like slaves.
I asked whether he thought peace between Ukraine and Russia is possible.
Yes, possibly, why not? But at the moment, the President of Ukraine said there will be no negotiations.
Negotiations are possible, but I think not with this president. When he comes to his senses, he will not be able to negotiate, because he took a lot of money.
Before leaving the outpost, we chatted a bit with the commanders. A puppy sought the attention of a young soldier. Another puppy ran around our feet. The outpost commanders and soldiers take care of the dogs. Their presence added a somewhat surreal touch to the scene: an outpost which is routinely shelled, where life can cease to exist at any moment, and these happy, well-cared for puppies running around like dogs anywhere.
Western Media Inverted Reality, Lauding Nazis and Demonizing Defenders
While many in the West think that this conflict started in February 2022, those following events since 2014 are aware that, following the Maidan coup and Odessa massacre, and the rise of fascism in Ukraine against the Ukrainian people, the Donbass republics wanted to distance themselves from Ukraine’s Nazis and fascism.
The sacrifices which the people of the Donbass republics have endured, particularly those fighting to protect their families and loved ones, have been and continue to be immense.
Just as the heroes of the Syrian Arab Army were maligned, so too have Donbass forces have been maligned by Western media, though both are defending their homelands from terrorist forces trained and funded by the West. Terrorists given the freedom to commit endless atrocities against Donbass civilians.
These defenders, many living in dank trench conditions didn’t choose war, they responded to it, to protect their loved ones and their future. In spite of more than eight years of being warred upon by Ukraine, they retain their humanity.
• First published at CovertAction Magazine
The post Maligned in Western Media, Donbass Forces are Defending their Future from Ukrainian Shelling and Fascism first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
In Bliss Montage, Ling Ma seeks to re-enchant a world whose catastrophes have grown monotonously real.
This post was originally published on Dissent MagazineDissent Magazine.
Wars tend to bury facts. What comes out of them is often a furiously untidy mix of accounts that, when considered later, constitute wisps of fantasy and presumption. Rarely accepted in the heat of battle is the concept of mistake: that a weapon was wrongly discharged or errantly hit an unintended target; a deployment that went awry; or that the general was drunk when an order was given. Wars invite ludicrous tall tales and lies with sprinting legs.
In the Ukraine War, where accurate information has almost ceased to be relevant (unless you believe the sludge from any one side), the latest shock and shudder came in the form of a missile that fell on Polish territory. As a result, two farmers lost their lives in the village of Przewodów.
The farmers, as the pencilled in victims of a broader power play, almost ceased to be relevant. Discussions moved on to a potential violation of Polish territory and the prospect of NATO engagement. The missile had been “Russian-made”, which tickled those keen to push a widening of the conflict. Never mind that Ukraine has its own share of Russian and Soviet-era weapons systems.
The Ukrainian side, ever keen to bring in more military assistance against Moscow, was clear from the outset: it could not have been from their side. “Russia now promotes a conspiracy theory that it was allegedly a missile of Ukrainian air defense that fell on the Polish theory [sic],” raged the country’s Foreign Affairs Minister Dmytro Kuleba. “Which is not true. No one should buy Russian propaganda or amplify its messages. This lesson should have been long learnt since the downing of #MH17.”
The Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelensky, was also keen to capitalise. There was little doubt, in his mind, who was responsible. It could never be a Ukrainian missile battery; never be a deflection arising from the aerial tussle of projectiles. “I have no doubt that this was not our missile,” he mentioned in televised remarks. “I believe that this was a Russian missile based on our military reports.”
Then came a slight qualification, if only one phrased in a typically non-qualified manner. “Let’s say openly, if, God forbid, some remnant (of Ukraine’s air-defences) killed a person, these people, then we need to apologise. But first there needs to be a probe, access – we want to get the data you have.”
But even Ukraine’s allies and sponsors found this a bit salty and impulsive. Yes, there was much theatre in rushed emergency meetings as the G20 summit broke into a G7 conclave, but a brake seemed to have been brought to bear. The NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg was left having to explain that the missile was unlikely to have been fired from Russian territory. The Russian denial of direct responsibility might well be disliked, but it was probably true. Mistake or not, however, the guilty party for all and sundry was clear: the Polish missile strike was “likely caused by Ukraine but not Ukraine’s fault”.
Poland’s own leaders also began to release statements suggesting that this was not, in fact, a missile released from Russian territory. Poland’s President Andrzej Duda made an unreserved observation. “From the information that we and our allies have, it was a S-300 rocket made in the Soviet Union, an old rocket and there is no evidence that it was launched by the Russian side.”
He also conceded that the missile may have fallen on Polish territory in the course of Ukraine “launching their missiles in various directions”. There was “nothing, absolutely nothing, to suggest that it was an intentional attack on Poland.”
Knowing the political sensitivity of it all, especially if it might cast a poor light on Ukraine’s heroism, he preferred to rationalise the mistake. Had Russia not attacked Ukraine and initiated the war, there would have been no reason to fire the deviant missile in the first place. The law of causality dictated its dark tune, and things followed. Moscow bore “the ultimate responsibility, because this would not have happened hadn’t Russia waged a brutal war of aggression against Ukraine.”
The US ambassador to the UN, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, went even further, happy to not bother about what she dismissively called the “facts”. Such circumstances would “never have happened but for Russia’s needless invasion of Ukraine and its recent missile assaults against Ukraine’s civilian infrastructure. The UN Charter is clear. Ukraine has every right to defend itself against this barrage.”
The US National Security Council spokesperson Adrienne Watson also added to the argument that, even if the lethal result had been from a Ukrainian launch, it was all in the course of self-defence. “[W]hatever the final conclusions may be, it is clear that the party ultimately responsible for this tragic incident is Russia, which launched a barrage of missiles on Ukraine specifically intended to target civilian infrastructure. Ukraine had – and has – every right to defend itself.”
The only question now remains how the next misfiring goes. On this occasion, the reins were pulled just before the precipice. Facts or no fact, NATO did not want to be engaged – at least for now. Poland, despite its past bravura to get a hack at the Russian bear, kept a sense of troubled composure. Ukrainian officials, however, wished to push the matter further, egging on a NATO trigger for deeper, military commitment. The grounds for a further expansion of the war are evident; the powder keg is ready.
The post The Polish Missile Narrative first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
The right to abortion became a deciding factor in limiting the predicted Republican “sweep” in the United States midterm elections, writes Barry Sheppard.
For the 30th year in a row, the United Nations General Assembly (GA) overwhelmingly condemned the United States’ embargo on Cuba and called on Washington to end its wide-ranging punitive sanctions, reports Ian Ellis-Jones.
This post was originally published on Green Left.
Soon, the US government may be making waves regarding another extradition request for a figure connected with that oft exaggerated notion of national security. While the high profile and insidious effort to extradite Julian Assange from the United Kingdom continues, the case of former US pilot, Marine Corps major and flight instructor Daniel Edmund Duggan has crossed the radar of reporters and international lawyers.
On October 21, Duggan was arrested by Australian authorities in the New South Wales town of Orange at the request of Washington. He appeared in Orange Local Court and was refused bail.
After his formal tenure as a military pilot, Duggan moved into the field of aviation consultancy, running AVIBIZ Limited, “a comprehensive consultancy company with a focus on the fast growing and dynamic Chinese Aviation Industry.” He moved to Australia in 2005, where he founded Top Gun Tasmania, providing customers flights in the British military jet trainer, the BAC Jet Provost, and the CJ-6A Nanchang, a Chinese propeller-driven trainer. His staff consisted of former US and UK military pilots.
From Australia, he moved to Beijing in 2014 after selling Top Gun Tasmania, working with a Chinese businessman, Stephen Su, also known as Su Bin. Su had been convicted for hacking charges in the US, having been arrested in Canada in July 2014 regarding the theft of US military aircraft designs. Duggan’s residential address from December 2013, an apartment in Beijing’s Chaoyang district, was also of interest given that it appears on the US Entity List in August 2014 as belonging to Su and his technology company, Nuodian Technology.
Duggan’s own expertise is being babbled about in some circles: as a former Harrier pilot, his expertise in vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) fighters such as the F-35B and AV-8B is considered of interest to some powers.
That same week, a stir had been made of Chinese mischief regarding certain pilots keen to make some post-retirement cash. British intelligence had flagged the issue of 30 ex-RAF pilots working with the PRC military, though a South African flying school damped matters in claiming that no classified information had passed hands.
According to a statement from the Test Flying Academy of South Africa (TFASA), “none of its trainers are in possession of legally or operationally sensitive information relating to the national security interest of any country, whether those from where its employees are drawn or in which it provides training”. Since 2013, “British tutors have been in direct contact on an individual basis with the UK MoD and other UK government agencies prior” regarding training duties, including Chinese clients. No objection had been raised.
The whirligig of time is, however, a strange thing. UK Armed Forces Minister James Heappey thought that enough smoke had risen to warrant a comment on loyalties. “It certainly doesn’t match my understanding of service of our nation – even in retirement – to then go and work with a foreign power, especially one that challenges the UK interest so keenly.”
Much of this is stringent codswallop, given the vast array of consultancies and training connected to old military hands and a multitude of foreign powers. Such old dogs rarely go quietly in retirement, and are, at the best of times, happy to offer their services at a consultative level. That surprise should even register at this point suggests that something more is afoot.
Without a wisp of evidence and basis, Duggan, a former US marine and naturalised Australian citizen, is already being treated as a target for extradition. He has been advised that he will be moved to Goulburn Supermax, described by his lawyer Dennis Miralis as “dramatic and aggressive” and “without any proper foundation”. “There is no factual material that has been provided supporting the way he was indicted secretly in the US.”
The authorities have been disturbingly reticent. “As the matter is before the courts, it would not be appropriate to comment further,” claim the Australian Attorney-General’s department and police authorities. Beijing has also decided to shed little light on the matter. “I’m not aware of the situation you mentioned,” came the response of Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesperson Wang Wenbin to a query on the issue.
The US Navy has also stated that it was “not aware” of the pending arrest of Duggan, while the US Marine Corps would only confirm Duggan’s service record. In a response to Forbes, the US Air Force noted that, “At this time, we aren’t aware of any ex-Air Force pilots working with the Chinese.”
Former USN captain Bill Hamlet was more forthcoming, noting that the issue of having former US military pilots working with Chinese authorities had never made an appearance between the sacrosanct covers of the Naval Institute’s journal Proceedings. “There’s growing concern that this is a problem and people are wondering to what extent. How many NATO pilots have been helping the Chinese improve the proficiency of their airforce?”
Miralis has made it clear that a complaint will be filed with the Australian Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security, which should leave little room for optimism. Duggan had returned from China “a few weeks prior to his arrest and in the intervening period a number of interactions occurred with those agencies that the inspector-general of intelligence has the capacity to investigate.”
The will is there, but the flesh is weak; the IGIS, as with many other oversight bodies in the Australian bureaucratic canon, is scandalously understaffed. The 2020-21 annual report is unreserved about the nature of the staffing problems, unable to achieve “well-developed and effective complaint and PID [Public Interest Disclosure] management processes”. As of June 30, the office has 33 working individuals, which is 22 short of what is recommended.
The US Justice Department, for its part, has 60 days from the date of Duggan’s arrest to request extradition. Miralis is cognisant about what this case entails. Throw out the legal protocols and the jurisprudence: brute power is at stake. “This has nothing to do with law, this has everything to do with international politics and international relations.”
The post Extradition Clouds: The Duggan Case and the Chinese Angle first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
First things first: as I write, so-called peace talks are underway between the democratically elected government of Ethiopia and The Terrorist TPLF. That in itself is a bizarre sentence, and prompts an array of related questions, and issues around law and order, justice, national governance. To be clear, the TPLF have never wanted peace, and are not in South Africa (where the talks are taking place) to find a way to end the conflict that they started and perpetuated for two long and deeply painful years. They want power, they have engaged in talks because they have been defeated, but talks about what?
Holding hands with the TPLF men at, or more likely, under the table — out of sight — are US/UN ‘observers’. The reason for their attendance is, one assumes, to ensure TPLF bosses are kept out of prison and allowed to slip away in the night and find amnesty somewhere. Canada has been mentioned as a possible destination, although why the Canadians (or anyone else, in fact) would want them is a mystery. A cell in the Hague would be my choice as they eke out their days waiting to be tried in the International Criminal Court.
In the days and weeks leading up to the negotiations, the Ethiopian National Defence Force (ENDF) has taken control of remaining towns in Tigray, has surrounded the capital Mekelle, and, for the time being at least, fighting appears to have subsided. The only thing left to negotiate, then, is what to do with the TPLF leaders; this is not a difficult conundrum that requires hours or diplomatic chit-chat, and foreign advisers. They, the TPLF, are terrorists, and should be treated in the same way that say, ISIS commanders would be; i.e., like criminals — arrested, imprisoned and tried. Their foreign assets (they stole an estimated $30 billion when in office) frozen and seized, and the monies utilized to fund rebuilding work.
The TPLF may have a few members of the “international community” rubbing up against them in Pretoria, but the Ethiopian government sits proud with millions and millions of Ethiopians and friends of Ethiopia packed into the room, and they are roaring! Wide-ranging support for the government, and love for their countrymen and women, of all ethnic backgrounds, was displayed on 22 October, when, in cities throughout the land people, young and old, assembled, marched, sang and danced. Massive crowds demanded an end to foreign intervention in the internal affairs of the nation, and wrapped their arms around the government as it prepared for the African Union convened ‘peace talks’.
No US support no war
Throughout their destructive 27 year reign, the TPLF worked relentlessly to divide communities; systematically setting ethnic groups, that had for generations lived together harmoniously, against one another. But nothing unites a nation more than a shared enemy, and Ethiopia has had two since November 2020 – the TPLF and America/The West, three if we include corporate media. The people are now united, and that sense of fellowship includes the people of Tigray – all are Ethiopians, all share the pain of the nation and all long for peace. The TPLF is the enemy, the US is the enemy, corporate media is the enemy, not Tigrayans.
Without US support — militarily and politically — the TPLF would have been unable to wage war on the Ethiopian State; no war, no death, no rape, no displacement of persons, no destruction of property burning of land, killing of livestock, no national trauma. The US is not simply complicit in the terrorism carried out by the TPLF over the last two years, and indeed during their 27 years in office, they are the enabler. The US Policy of Aggression and Derision directed against the Ethiopian government and the people, the economic sanctions, against one of the poorest nations in the world, the conspiring and duplicity, the misleading briefings and media dis/misinformation campaign emboldened the TPLF and granted them false legitimacy.
And where the US goes her allies and puppets, follow, including corporate media, which has been integral to the mis-dis information campaign, as have, somewhat bizarrely, the US Holocaust Museum, which has recently joined the party. And as talks go on these forces of duplicity and confusion continue to treat the TPLF as if they were an equivalent party to the government, rather than the monsters they are. It is shameful, but when truth and facts become a matter of opinion to be spun according to motive and self-interest it is extremely dangerous. Groups like the TPLF can only exist in the shadows, within Caves of Deceit; throw the light of truth upon them, and like the Many Headed Hydra, they shrivel up and die.
Looking for real friends
The US-supported war in Ethiopia has revealed, if demonstration were needed, in the most vivid manner, the fabric of US foreign policy and where American/Western loyalties lie. Unsurprisingly it’s with their own vested interests, or what they perceive these to be; geo-political reach, regional power, no matter the cost — human, environmental and/or social.
So, the lesson loud and clear, and perhaps this is something worth articulating in Pretoria, is the realization that, the US and ‘the West’ more broadly, including media and some institution are not to be trusted. This fact and the hurt caused by what Ethiopians rightly regard as a betrayal, will no doubt influence how Ethiopia moves forward, who it sees as ‘friends’ and allies, where it looks for support, and who it can trust and depend on.
Outrage has been felt, not just in Ethiopia but across Africa, both at the terrorist attack on their neighbour, and the response of the US/West. This will strengthen pre-existing suspicions and further energise Pan Africanism, already strengthened in recent years, and foster greater unity across the region and continent.
African nations have long been exploited by colonial powers, post-colonial institutions — the International Monetary Fund, World Bank etc, and imposed financial systems (the scandalous Structural Adjustment Programmes e.g.), which, while masquerading as ‘aid’ and/or ‘development programmes’, have ensured countries remain more or less poor, dependent and therefore malleable.
Former colonial bodies of repression and violence (US, European countries, UK), are now in crisis themselves. Economic and political instability, ideological failure and cultural insecurity abound. And as the socio-economic model that has dominated policy making (including foreign affairs) for decades disintegrates in front of our eyes, politicians, lacking humility and vision, wedded to the past, have no answers and continually stack failure upon failure.
The legacy of the global Neo-Liberal experiment is deeply divided societies of largely unhealthy people, and a man-made environmental catastrophe. Mental health illness is at epidemic proportions and climate change/ecological breakdown caused by reckless consumerism threatens the very survival of the race.
A development model, shaped around the same socio-economic paradigm that has caused the chaos has been forced on Ethiopia and all Sub-Sharan African nations. Countries are not seen as nation states with rich individual cultures, but potential marketplaces and natural resource banks.
The model is inherently unjust, benefitting a few at the expense of the many, and is made more so when applied to so-called developing nations (such terms, like the ideals they refer to and the divisions they strengthen should be consigned to the past). It is a corrupt model that, as Ethiopia moves forward and African nations look increasingly towards one another, needs to be closely examined, and in the light of need, not exploitation and profit, re-defined.
Discussions around theses issues, as well as the nature of development, democracy, environmental concerns and regional/continental unity can slowly begin to be taken up, nationally and regionally. Platforms for debate and participation established throughout the country and a vibrant space created in which people from all ethnic groups can contribute. For now though, as Ethiopia gently emerges from the violent shadow of the TPLF, united but scarred, the focus must firstly be on healing and re-construction.
Many will be traumatized and recovery will take time; the rebuilding work will be immense (construction/repair of schools, health services, housing etc), and government will require substantial support, both financial, technical and practical.
But there is no limit to what can be achieved by a united populace, building upon a platform of peace and brotherhood. The people are resolute, weary yes, but strong, supportive of one another and deeply kind, and this is potentially (we must add that caveat), the beginning of a new chapter in the life of the country. An ancient nation with a rich diverse culture that has suffered much and for far too long; a new day, quiet and full of joy let us pray, a time free from conflict and the vile poison of the TPLF.
The post A Loud and Clear Lesson For Ethiopia and the World first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
No one took responsibility for the explosion over the weekend that ripped through a section of the Kerch Bridge that links Russia to Crimea and was built by Moscow after it annexed the peninsula back in 2014.
But it was not just Kyiv’s gleeful celebrations that indicated the main suspect. Within hours, the Ukrainian authorities had released a set of commemorative stamps depicting the destruction.
Russian President Vladimir Putin was under no illusions either. On Monday, he struck out with a torrent of missiles that hit major Ukrainian cities such as Kyiv and Lviv. It was a pale, Slavic echo of Israel’s intermittent bombardments of Gaza, which are expressly intended to send the Palestinian enclave “back to the Stone Age“.
If the scenes looked familiar – an attack by one party, followed by a massive retaliatory strike from the other – the mood and language that greeted the Ukrainian attack and the Russian counter-attack felt noticeably different from what passes for normal western commentary about Israel and Palestine.
The blast on the Kerch Bridge was welcomed with barely concealed excitement from western journalists, politicians and analysts, while Moscow’s strikes on Kyiv were uniformly denounced as Russian brutality and state terrorism. That is not the way things work when Israel and Palestinian factions engage in their own rounds of fighting.
Had the Palestinians openly celebrated blowing up a bridge in East Jerusalem, a territory illegally annexed by Israel in the 1960s, and killed Israeli civilians as collateral damage in the process, who can really imagine western media reports being similarly supportive?
Nor would western academics have lined up, as they did for Ukraine, to explain in detail why destroying a bridge was a proportionate act and fully in accordance with the rights in international law of a people under belligerent occupation to resist.
Instead, there would have been thunderous denunciations of Palestinian savagery and “terrorism”.
In reality, Palestinian resistance nowadays is far more modest – and yet still receives western censure. Palestinians need only to fire a home-made rocket, or launch an “incendiary balloon”, usually ineffectually out of their cage in Gaza – where they have been besieged for years by their Israeli persecutors – to incur the wrath of Israel and the western powers that claim to constitute the “international community”.
Even more perversely, when Palestinians solely target Israeli soldiers, as they are unambiguously entitled to do under international law, they are similarly reviled as criminals.
Regular rampages
But the double standards do not end there. Western media and politicians were unreservedly appalled by Moscow’s retaliatory strikes on the Ukrainian capital. Despite the media’s emphasis on Russia’s targeting of civilian infrastructure, the number of civilians killed across Ukraine by the wave of missile hits on Monday was reported to be low.
Western media are far less horrified when it comes to Israel’s regular rampages across Gaza – even when Israel “retaliates” after much less provocation and when its strikes inflict far greater suffering and damage.
And, of course, it is not just Israel that is benefiting from this hypocrisy. The United States’ “Shock and Awe” bombing campaign that initiated the war on Iraq in 2003 – and so impressed western commentators – killed many thousands of Iraqi civilians. Russia’s strikes on Kyiv pale in comparison.
There are other glaring inconsistencies. After Russia’s missile strikes, Ukraine is gaining an even more receptive ear in western capitals to its demands for additional weaponry to help regain the eastern territories Moscow has annexed.
By contrast, no one in the West is suggesting that the Palestinians should be armed to help them fight off decades of Israeli occupation and siege. Quite the reverse. It is invariably western weapons that rain down on Gaza, supplied to the belligerent Israeli occupier by the very parties now condemning Russia.
And in stark contrast to Britain’s whole-hearted support as Ukraine battles to stop Russia’s annexation of its eastern territories, the UK’s prime minister Liz Truss stated only last month that she may reward Israel for its illegal annexation of Jerusalem by moving the British embassy there.
Whereas Palestinians are constantly inveigled to postpone their liberation struggle and wait for their occupier to agree to peace talks, even when Israel openly scorns engagement, Ukrainians are pushed by the West to do the exact opposite. They are expected to delay any negotiations with Russia and focus on the battlefield.
Similarly, those who promote talks between Israel and Palestine that are never going to take place are praised as peacemakers. Those who advocate for talks between Ukraine and Russia – when Moscow has expressed a repeated willingness to negotiate, even if its overtures are disparaged by the West – are rounded on as appeasers.
Russia, meanwhile, faces sustained and comprehensive sanctions imposed by western states to bring it to heel.
By contrast, those proposing a far weaker tool – grassroots boycotts – to pressure Israel to loosen its choke-hold on Gaza are smeared as antisemites and face legislation to outlaw their activities by the same western states sanctioning Moscow.
It is almost as if the “freedom-loving” West has an entirely inconsistent agenda when it comes to the plights of Ukraine and Palestine. Israel’s hold on Palestine is unfortunate but justified; Russia’s over Ukraine is emphatically not.
Ukrainian resistance to Russia’s “unprovoked aggression” is heroic. Palestinian resistance to Israel’s violence – invariably presented as self-defence – is terrorism.
Double standards
Western news at the moment is a litany of these double standards and legal and ethical contradictions – and yet barely anyone seems to notice.
Westerners, for example, are currently cheering the protests in Iran, where women and girls have taken to the streets and created mass disturbances in schools. Their protests were sparked by the death of Mahsa Amini after she was taken into custody for wearing her hijab head covering too loosely.
Western media celebrate these young women casting aside the hijab in defiance of the unaccountable clerics who rule over them. The West bewails the beatings and attacks they receive from a tyrannous, patriarchal Iranian theocracy.
And yet there is no comparable solidarity with Palestinians when they collectively defy an unaccountable Israeli occupation army that rules over them. When they turn out to protest at the fence Israel has built all around Gaza to imprison them, preventing them from leaving for work or to see family overseas, or to reach hospitals much better equipped than their own that have been under Israeli blockade for years, they are shot down by Israeli snipers.
Where is the applause for those brave Palestinian protesters standing up to their oppressors? Where are the denunciations of Israel for compelling Palestinians to endure a tyrannous, apartheid-enforcing Israeli military?
Why is it entirely unremarkable that Palestinians – young and old, men and women – are regularly beaten or killed by Israel, while the death of a single Iranian woman is enough to reduce the western media to paroxysms of outrage?
And why, just as pertinently, does the West care so much about the lives of young Iranian women and their hijab protests when it appears not to give a damn about these women’s lives, or those of their brothers, when it comes to enforcing decades of western sanctions? Those restrictions have plunged parts of Iranian society into deep and sustained poverty that puts Iranian lives at risk.
Such is the reflexive hypocrisy that Israeli women who have shown no solidarity with Palestinian women abused and killed by the Israeli army turned out last week to cut their hair in a public act of sisterhood with Iranian women.
Western dictates
There is nothing new about these double standards. They are entrenched in western thinking, based on a profoundly racist, colonial worldview – one that sees “the West” as the good guys and everyone else as morally compromised, or irredeemably evil, if they refuse to bow to western dictates.
That is highlighted by the current battle of an 88-year-old Palestinian businessman, Munib al-Masri, to win an apology from Britain.
At his instruction, two eminent lawyers – Luis Moreno Ocampo, a former chief prosecutor at the International Criminal Court, and Ben Emmerson, a former United Nations expert on human rights – have been reviewing evidence of crimes committed by British forces in the years before 1948, when the UK ruled Palestine under a mandate.
When Britain withdrew, it effectively allowed Zionist institutions to take its place and create a self-declared Jewish state of Israel on the ruins of the Palestinians’ homeland.
The evidence documented by Ocampo and Emmerson – which they describe as “shocking” – includes crimes such as arbitrary killings and detentions, torture, use of human shields, and home demolitions weaponised as collective punishment.
If that all sounds familiar, it should. Israel has been terrorising Palestinians with these same exact policies over the past 74 years. That is because Israel incorporated the British mandate’s “emergency regulations” permitting such crimes into its legal and administrative codes. It simply continued what Britain had started.
Masri hopes to present the 300-page dossier to the UK government later this year. According to the media, it will be “reviewed thoroughly” by the Ministry of Defence. But do not hold your breath waiting for an apology.
The reality is that Ocampo and Emmerson did not need to conduct their research. Nothing they tell the UK government will be a revelation. British officials already know about these crimes. And there is no remorse – as demonstrated by, if nothing else, the fact that Britain continues to back Israel to the hilt even while the Israeli military continues the same reign of state terror.
Israel’s task was to rebrand as a “western-style democracy” the British mandate’s brutal colonial rule over the Palestinian population. It is the reason Israel receives billions of dollars in aid from the US every year, and why it never faces consequences for any of the crimes it commits.
The ugly truth is that westerners dwell permanently inside their own bubble of disinformation, one puffed up by their leaders and the media, that allows them to imagine themselves as the good guys – whatever the evidence actually proves.
The double standards in the West’s treatment of Ukraine compared to Palestine should be a moment when that harsh realisation finally dawns. Sadly, western publics just seem to sink ever deeper into the comforting illusion of self-righteousness.
The post Westerners live in denial, convinced they’re the good guys first appeared on Dissident Voice.This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Australia will chair a taskforce of like-minded countries set on tackling ransomware through greater intelligence sharing and coordination between law enforcement and cyber security agencies. The International Counter Ransomware Task Force (ICRTF) is one of several “concrete, cooperative actions” to emerge from the two-day Countering Ransomware Initiative (CRI) summit in Washington D.C. this week. The…
The post Australia to lead global ransomware taskforce appeared first on InnovationAus.com.
One of several multiple million criminals, but he keeps on ticking like that Times watch:
My previous post, “Incredible, Unbearable, Incomprehensible Lightness of Wanting to Be Human . . . That Way!” was much more holistically positive, but we need to talk straight sometimes. Is this even on a scale of what is inhumane, or is this way beyond that, combined with a god complex, and, really, who would Allah-Moses-Jesus-Buddha starve?
Ah, “Food as a weapon: Bucharest, Rome and the politics of starvation,” that’s 1974, and old Kissinger was at it, as were those US eugenics lovers:
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger hoped to use the conference as a forum to link food shortages to overpopulation. Kissinger tried to put the blame for the food crisis on the oil producing nations and the “energy crisis” they brought about and made it clear that the U.S. no longer plans to provide most of the world’s food aid. The underdeveloped nations did not accept this. They still blame the crisis on the U.S., which they say controls more food than the fuel the oil producing nations control. The U.S. has historically used food as a tool of foreign policy, and with the increasing dependency of the U.S. on the raw supplies of the underdeveloped world, there is growing talk of using food to blackmail nations into adopting population control programs. One such proposal came in Rome by former U.S. government official Richard Gardner, who suggested a “global survival pact” under which rich nations would conserve food, energy, and raw materials in return for commitments by Third World nations to change their suicidal demographic, agricultural and environmental practices. Another proposal was made by Congressman Jerry Litton who said he would introduce legislation banning food aid to any country with above average population growth and which was not doing anything to reduce it. (source)
And, what was the Agent Orange’s gift that keeps on giving?
From 1962 to 1971, the U.S. Air Force sprayed nearly 19 million gallons of herbicides in Vietnam, of which at least 11 million gallons was Agent Orange, in a military project called Operation Ranch Hand. An additional quantity (1.6 million gallons has been documented) of herbicides was applied to base perimeters, roadways, and communication lines by helicopter and surface sprayings from riverboats, trucks, or backpacks. Herbicide operations in Vietnam had two primary military objectives: (1) defoliation of trees and plants to improve observation, and (2) destruction of enemy crops. (Veterans and Agent Orange: Health Effects of Herbicides Used in Vietnam)
Check out the Dissident Voice piece I did on that issue: “Eternal Impunity of Capitalism’s Crimes/ Agent Orange, a fifty-fifty mix of the n-butyl esters 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4-D) and 2,4,5-trichlorophenoxyacetic acid (2,4,5-T)”
Then, before Indochina, we have old ideas from the 20th century (1948) from the apartheid terrorist state, Israel:
The Israeli army used chemical and biological weapons during the 1948 war, including poisoning water wells in several Palestinian towns, original documents stored in the Israel State Archive, as well as other archives revealed.
The documents showed that Israeli political and military leaders and some scholars were partners in the decision, and had even planned to poison the waters in Cairo and Beirut, but changed their mind at the last minute. (source)
[Nakba]
More, though, recently, with AI machine guns pointed on Palestinians:
Palestinians argue the remote-controlled gun has a more sinister intention than the army is letting on. “Israeli security companies use Palestinians as training objects,” Amro said. “The Israeli army practices their new technology [on Palestinians] to check if it’s working or not, then they sell it to other countries.” (Mint Press News)
Then those Skunk weapons, using stink chemicals:
Israeli security forces have been using the stink bomb — named Skunk – on Palestinian protesters since 2008 and sell the material to armies and law implementation organizations around the globe.
Skunk is mixed with water and fired through water cannons for crowd control. While the bomb is harmless, it has a smell that can remain for days, even after rainfalls.
A Reuters reporter described the smell as follows: “Imagine taking a lump of rotten carcass from the sewer, placing it in a blender and spraying the filthy liquid on your face. Your gag reflex goes off the charts and you can’t escape, because the nauseating stench persists for days.” (source)
One man’s stink is another country’s crapper issues, so shall we send in the clowns, and ask: What Toilet Would ZioLensky Beg For?
San Francisco’s local government expects to spend up to $1.7 million to build just one public toilet – hardly a drop in the bucket for a city that gets thousands of complaints annually of feces on its sidewalks – and the project will take an estimated three years to complete.
Imagine how the Zionists in Israel must feel about this fact: “After a three-and-a-half-year legal battle waged by the Gisha human rights organization, the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories has finally released a 2008 document that detailed its “red lines” for “food consumption in the Gaza Strip.”
The document calculates the minimum number of calories necessary, in COGAT’s view, to keep Gaza residents from malnutrition at a time when Israel was tightening its restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of the Strip, including food products and raw materials. The document states that Health Ministry officials were involved in drafting it, and the calculations were based on “a model formulated by the Ministry of Health … according to average Israeli consumption,” though the figures were then “adjusted to culture and experience” in Gaza.” (source)
Oh, the horror, the heart of darkness, those ZioLensky followers and facilitators. How’s that food going to taste when another Chernobyl is unleashed by these crazy, insane, misanthrope Ukrainians? Sick.
The Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant, the largest facility of its kind in Europe, is located on the shore of the Dnepr just outside the city. Ukraine wants it bombed.
These monsters in the Collective West, man, will do anything, just anything: The Pentagon has modelled a situation in which the Kakhovka dam would be blown up and what consequences it would have for the region.
“Bankova took these calculations into account and agreed to missile attacks on it (the dam),” write Ukro experts who have access to the political backstage of the Ukrainian authorities.
In 1985, specialists of the All-Union Design and Research Institute “Gidroproekt” analyzed the consequences of a hypothetical failure of the Kakhovka reservoir dam. Naturally, in Soviet times these data were kept behind seven seals.
In 2004, the Kherson newspaper “Hryvna” published an article “We are not ready for local apocalypse”, which revealed details of the secret report of the Hydro project. If the dam explodes, millions of tons of water will hit Kherson with a speed of 24.4 kilometers hour and a wave height of 1 meter. In as little as 2.5 hours, a fairly sharp rise in level to 4.8 meters would follow. The flooding will last for three days and will completely destroy the regional center.
[A Dam in Syria Was on a ‘No-Strike’ List. The U.S. Bombed It Anyway]
Stop/blow up/shoot at the clean drinking water, as was always Israel’s plan:
How about a poetry interlude here, folks?
there are birds
dropping from the sky
black birds and cranes
no more storks
the bees and moths died
years ago
+–+
but men with guns
short actors like Zelensky
barrel chested Azov Nazis
they will photo shop
birds in the air
holograms of themselves
fighting with hunting
rifles scary Russian soldiers
+–+
those Ukrainians kill brothers,
sisters, children who eat
the handouts of war
with Russian labels
this is the new abnormal
in the 21st Century
+–+
as if the Declaration of Human
rights were burned with books
now, murdering civilians
placing them in a C.I.S.
TV production, film at 10
ZioLensky, thespian general
+–+
begging for more murder
he will appear on the cover of Time
inside Vogue, will write his memoir
when he sends Ukrainians, Goyim
one and all, to the meat grinder
+–+
there are no shitters working
in Ukraine, and food is measly
since planting is circumvented
by the dark art of
propaganda, and war
+–+
no birds to peck out eyes
just the Ukrainian sky
that shitty flag, blue
on top of yellow
flying in my neighborhood
tattered, ridiculous
even the Jews in Oregon
root for the Nazis
+–+
no more sparrows
no more ducks
all avian species of note
grabbed up by dirty
Ukrainian soldiers
cooked over diesel fires
the sky sooty
like the minds of ZioLensky
and his Western handlers
#–#
Back to the shit: Weapons of diarrhea:
“This conflict will have more people dying from water treatment plants going down than from the war itself,” says Geoff Keele, a spokesman for UNICEF, in a telephone interview from Amman, Jordan. He was based in Baghdad until the start of the war. (source)
And, alas, Mission Accomplished in Iraq? The gift that keeps on giving,
In the event of war, the breakdown of power supplies to hospitals, together with the shortage of medical equipment, medicines and drugs resulting from sanctions, would make it impossible for Iraq to treat, let alone contain, cholera, typhoid, dysentery and other diseases associated with contaminated water and untreated sewage.
According to one veteran UN aid official in Baghdad, 11 years of deprivation caused by the 1991 war and UN sanctions have seriously undermined the general health of people and their ability to ward off sickness. “People will be far more vulnerable to future attack than before; they are weaker, and they have little resistance,” he said. “It (war) is going to be horrendous for lots and lots of people.” (source)
The other gifts of USA?
More than a decade and a half after the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq, a new study found that babies are being born today with gruesome birth defects connected to the ongoing American military presence there. The report, issued by a team of independent medical researchers and published in the journal Environmental Pollution, examined congenital anomalies recorded in Iraqi babies born near Tallil Air Base, a base operated by the U.S.-led foreign military coalition. According to the study, babies showing severe birth defects — including neurological problems, congenital heart disease, and paralyzed or missing limbs — also had corresponding elevated levels of a radioactive compound known as thorium in their bodies.
This is just the tip of the deadly iceberg of America’s wars, and it’s going to get ugly in Ukraine with dams bursting in air and nuclear plants going boom boom boom.
In 1991, during the first Gulf War, the breaking began. U.S. planes and artillery delivered more than 300 tons of uranium tipped bombs and shells to targets in southern Iraq alone. Residue from these weapons turned into particles that people – including U.S. troops – inhaled. In 2003, more U.S. toxic material rained down on the Iraqi environment.
In September 2002, I saw dying kids in the Baghdad Children’s Hospital. Iraqi doctors had already surmised that only the presence of depleted uranium could have caused such a profound spike in the cancer rates among children.
In June 2005, Dr. Thomas Fasy of the Mt. Sinai School of Medicine concluded that data from Iraqi hospitals indicated that depleted uranium’s effect had shown up dramatically in a more than 400% rise in children’s cancer in just over a decade. Uranium ions bond with DNA and this, he said, has also caused a notable leap in children’s leukemia rates along with sharply elevated incidences of congenital birth defects. The United States literally released cancer-causing material into Iraqi air, soil and water. (Mission Accomplished: Iraq is Broken, Saul Landau)
What more can they say, Blinken, Nuland, Kagan, Biden, Bush, Obama, Lloyd Austin, Colin Powell, even Scott Ritter, that ex-Marine who just loves to talk about war, say about weapons and buildings and dams and toxins? Alas, Ritter loves to talk about what is, and what isn’t off limits in war time, and from Ritter’s interpretation, pretty much everything is ON-Limits for a war: hospitals, news outlets, dams, bridges, warehouses, electric transformers, anything, man, grocery stores and pharmacies.
The post Food and Toilets: The Collective West’s Weapons first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
In Part 1, we described how state-corporate media non-reporting of evidence relating to the sabotage of the Nord Stream natural gas pipelines on September 26 was an example of how the truth on key issues is increasingly being quarantined from public awareness by ‘mainstream’ media.
At first sight, our second example might appear to contradict this claim.
To its credit, in several news reports, and in an hour-long film, ‘Under Poisoned Skies’, the BBC provided news from Iraq that will have shocked many readers and viewers (in truth, it is a shock to read any UK media news on life in Iraq):
‘Communities living close to oil fields, where gas is openly burned, are at elevated risk of leukaemia, a BBC News Arabic investigation has revealed.’
By BBC standards, the report was absolutely damning:
‘The UN told the BBC it considers these areas, in Iraq, to be “modern sacrifice zones” – where profit has been prioritised over human rights.
‘Gas flaring is the “wasteful” burning of gas released in oil drilling, which produces cancer-linked pollutants.’
Some of the worst ‘modern sacrifice zones’ are found on the outskirts of Basra, in the south-east of Iraq, ‘some of the country’s biggest oil exploration areas’. Flared gases from these sites are dangerous because they emit a mix of carbon dioxide, methane and black soot which is carcinogenic.
If this sounds bad, it gets worse when we consider just who has been subordinating Iraqi human welfare to profit in this way:
‘BP and Eni are major oil companies we identified as working on these sites.’
Eni is an Italian multinational energy company. BP, of course, is one of the world’s oil and gas ‘supermajors’, and is British.
In other words, these BBC reports highlighted the rarely discussed fact that a British oil giant is deeply involved in a country that was illegally invaded in 2003, at the cost of one million Iraqi lives, on a pack of bogus claims relating to ‘national security’ and ‘human rights’. The 2003 war was, of course, waged by a coalition led by the United States and Britain. Italy was part of the coalition.
Not only did this US-UK war crime secure substantial quantities of Iraq’s oil for US and UK corporations, but BP has now been accused of creating environmental mayhem in Iraq. The BBC reported:
‘A leaked Iraq Health Ministry report, seen by BBC Arabic, blames air pollution for a 20% rise in cancer in Basra between 2015 and 2018.
‘As part of this investigation, the BBC undertook the first pollution monitoring testing amongst the exposed communities. The results indicated high levels of exposure to cancer-causing chemicals.
‘Using satellite data we found that the largest of Basra’s oil fields, Rumaila, flares more gas than any other site in the world. The Iraqi government owns this field, and BP is the lead contractor.
‘On the field is a town called North Rumaila – which locals call “the cemetery”. Teenagers coined the phrase after they observed high levels of leukaemia amongst their friends, which they suspect is from the flaring.
‘Prof Shukri Al Hassan, a local environmental scientist, told us that cancer here is so rife it is “like the flu”.’
This was a truly shocking comment; no wonder the BBC initially used it as the headline for its report:
‘BP in oil field where “cancer is like the flu”’
The News Sniffer website, which tracks edits made to media articles, found that this headline only lasted a few hours before being toned down to:
‘BP in oil field where “cancer is rife”’
Remarkably, the less dramatic headline and citation was actually fake. The relevant part of the text reads:
‘Prof Shukri Al Hassan, a local environmental scientist, told us that cancer here is so rife it is “like the flu”.’
Professor Al Hassan was not quoted as using the word ‘rife’, nor was anyone else quoted in the article. The edited headline was simply made up.
The BBC quoted Dr Manuela Orjuela-Grimm, professor of childhood cancer at Columbia University:
‘The children have strikingly high levels [of cancer-causing chemicals]… this is concerning for [their] health and suggests they should be monitored closely.’
The BBC report also gave us an idea of the nature of the ‘democracy’ installed in Iraq by the 2003 US-UK invasion and occupation. The leaked Iraqi health ministry report shows the government is aware of the region’s health issues:
‘But Iraq’s own prime minister issued a confidential order – which was also seen by BBC Arabic – banning its employees from speaking about health damage caused by pollution.’
David Boyd, UN Special Rapporteur on human rights and the environment, told the BBC that people living near oil fields are ‘the victims of state-business collusion, and lack the political power in most cases to achieve change’.
Ali Hussein, a 19-year-old childhood leukaemia survivor, from North Rumaila, said:
‘Here in Rumaila nobody speaks out, they say they’re scared to speak in case they get removed.’
Indeed, the BBC reported:
‘Until now health researchers have been prevented from entering the oil fields to carry out air quality tests.’
As the BBC noted, their reports also revealed ‘millions of tonnes of undeclared emissions from gas flaring at oil fields where BP, Eni, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell work’. Major oil companies are not declaring this significant source of greenhouse gas emissions.
These were important exposés by the BBC, but what is simultaneously so shocking, and yet so normal for the media strategy of quarantine over inoculation, is that our search of the ProQuest media database for terms like ‘Iraq’ and ‘cancer’ found no articles mentioning or following-up the BBC reports in any UK national newspaper. This important story involving harm caused by powerful British interests was deemed unworthy even of mention.
In a free media environment, the report would have triggered serious reflection on whether the Iraq war really was, in fact, about oil, as honest commentators have long claimed, albeit at the margins of ‘respectable’ discourse. What does it say about Western ‘civilisation’ and its ‘rules-based order’ that UK and US oil companies like BP and Exxon have been able to profit from the vast crimes of their governments in Iraq? And what does it say that they’re able to do so without any state-corporate journalists noticing any controversy, or feeling any need to comment at all?
In a recent alert, we described how the Al Jazeera documentary series, The Labour Files, has been effectively quarantined by ‘mainstream’ media. The ban on discussion is so extreme that a caller to journalist Matt Frei’s talk show on LBC was simply cut off when he mentioned the series. More than 1,200 people supported our polite request for an explanation from Frei on Twitter, but he simply ignored them and us.
In previous alerts, we have described how whistle-blowers from within the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) challenging claims of chemical weapons attacks allegedly committed by Assad’s forces in Syria have been quarantined by ‘mainstream’ media. The silence has been overwhelming. News on the grim fate of Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, imprisoned in Belmarsh maximum security prison, has been similarly quarantined. Other examples abound.
Agony is piled on agony for anyone who knows and cares about the torment inflicted by the West on Iraq over the last 30 years, when we recognise the strong echoes in the latest devastation of earlier horrors inflicted in the process of conquering Iraq.
In 2010, the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, a leading medical journal, published a study, ‘Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009’. Noam Chomsky described the study’s findings as ‘vastly more significant’ than the Wikileaks Afghan ‘War Diary’ leaks.
The survey of 4,800 individuals in Fallujah showed a four-fold increase in all cancers and a 12-fold increase in childhood cancer in under-14s. It found a 10-fold increase in female breast cancer and significant increases in lymphoma and brain tumours in adults. Researchers found a 38-fold increase in leukaemia. By contrast, Hiroshima survivors showed a 17-fold increase in leukaemia. According to the study, the types of cancer are ‘similar to that in the Hiroshima survivors who were exposed to ionising radiation from the bomb and uranium in the fallout’.
The extent of genetic damage suffered by residents in Fallujah suggested the use of uranium in some form. Dr Chris Busby, a visiting professor at the University of Ulster and one of the authors of the survey, said:
‘My guess is that they used a new weapon against buildings to break through walls and kill those inside.’
The truth on Nord Stream and on cancer in Iraq has been effectively quarantined – journalists are deeply reluctant to point the finger of blame at the state-corporate Establishment of which they are a part and by which they are richly rewarded.
We are not supposed to notice that the same British media endlessly packing their pages with realpolitik-friendly ‘concern’ for the plight of Ukrainian people suffering invasion and bombardment by Russia have no interest whatever in massive environmental damage and mass human suffering caused by US and British corporations profiting from the crimes of their governments. Latest media reports predict that ‘2022 profits at Britain’s BP could break the $20bn mark’ in the next week. ExxonMobil is ‘expected to report year-to-date earnings approaching $70bn’.
By contrast, all ‘mainstream’ media gave high-profile coverage over several days to allegations that a policeman in oil-rich Iran had been caught on camera committing ‘sexual abuse’. The BBC analysed video footage of the incident: ‘officer approaches her from behind and puts his left hand on her bottom’.
Former Guardian journalist Jonathan Cook asked: why does the West not ‘give a damn about these women’s lives, or those of their brothers, when it comes to enforcing decades of western sanctions?’
The answer: for the same reason the West doesn’t give a damn about its victims in Libya, Palestine, Iraq, or anywhere else. Western state-corporate ‘concern’ for human rights is a function of power, not of compassion.
This post was originally published on Dissident Voice.
Coups-d’etat, U.N. “humanitarian” massacres, a President assassinated by U.S.-trained, Colombian mercenaries, earthquakes, cholera… and even the “aid” of the Clinton Foundation! Now, the country ravaged by decades of natural and man-made disasters braces itself for a new “humanitarian” military invasion.
*****
In a recent speech, Josep Borrel, High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, explained to the world how “Europe is a garden”, while the rest of the world is a “jungle” that “could invade the garden”. This is his solution:
…gardeners have to go to the jungle. Europeans have to be much more engaged with the rest of the world. Otherwise, the rest of the world will invade us, by different ways and means.
In reality, racist “gardeners” have been invading the “jungle” for centuries, plundering and scheming genocidal massacres, and Haiti knows it better than most countries. Their “gardening” has also ensured that the so-called jungle remains underdeveloped.
In another recent speech, this time at the United Nations General Assembly, Colombian president Gustavo Petro apologized to Haiti. The first leftist head of state of the South American country – also ravaged by decades of hypocritical U.S. “war on drugs”– was referring to the assassination of Jovenel Moise during a July 2021 attack, perpetrated by a group of mostly Colombian ex-soldiers. It also included 2 Haitian-Americans. The foreign gang, trained in part by the U.S. Army, posed as a team of DEA officers to gain entry to the presidential compound.
Since then, social unrest has severely increased all over the country, and there’s an almost complete breakdown of the rule of law and many basic social services. The Haitian elite — including its U.S.-approved, de facto President, Ariel Henry — is calling for another foreign “humanitarian intervention” (a.k.a. “gardening”). Western corporate media argue that Haiti is calling for such an intervention. By “Haiti”, they mean its corrupted and U.S.-aligned political and oligarchic elite. What many people on the streets of the convulsed country really demand — besides the ousting of Henry — is that foreign forces stay the hell out of Haiti.
Regarding Western (U.S. and vassal states) support for Henry, who already received armored vehicles, let’s read what the U.S. representative to Haiti said after renouncing his post on September 22, 2021:
Last week, the U.S. and other embassies in Port-au-Prince issued another public statement of support for the unelected, de facto President Dr. Ariel Henry as interim leader of Haiti, and have continued to tout his ‘political agreement’ over another broader, earlier accord shepherded by civil society.
The embassies referred to in his quote, as Canadian writer Yves Engler explains, compose the U.N.-approved Core Group, “made up of ambassadors from Germany, Brazil, Canada, Spain, the United States, France, and the European Union.” The group, he adds:
…has heavily shaped Haitian affairs ever since American, French and Canadian troops assisted in the overthrow of the country’s elected government in 2004 and installed a United Nations occupation force.
What President Henry, himself a suspect in the killing of Moise, intend is for a foreign military or U.N. “peace-keeping” mission to enter the country and neutralize the gangs, particularly those not armed and directed by the government itself, as they currently control parts of the country and, most importantly, many vital highways and a sequestered oil refinery. Haitian gangs kidnap people to ask for ransom money, which then finances their criminal exploits, including the illegal trafficking of arms manufactured in the U.S. They have turned Haiti into the new kidnapping capital of the world. Murder and rape are widespread as well (more detail below).
Despite the many suspects arrested so far, the situation surrounding Moise’s killing remains obscure: there’s still no mastermind identified as responsible for ordering the assassination.
From the Brazilian Favelas to the Haitian Shantytowns
The United Nations Stabilization Mission in Haiti (MINUSTAH, 2004-2017) was purportedly intended to ameliorate the chaos that overtook the country after the aftermath of the foreign coup against the first democratically elected President of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, which happened in February 2004, two hundred years after Haiti’s heroic independence from France. In 2004, as mentioned above, the U.S., Canada, and France collaborated in the ousting of the popular leftist politician and priest from the Fanmi Lavalas party.
Conveniently, a group of Brazilian Army generals, many of them tied to the dictatorship that controlled their country until 1985, were placed in command of the U.N. mission, which was quickly associated with a handful of civilian massacres, particularly in the overpopulated slums of Cité Soleil, in Port-au-Prince, where around 300,000 people live in extremely precarious conditions. Cité Soleil is also where thousands of Fanmi Lavalas Party supporters live. These criminal raids resembled police and military incursions into many Sao Paulo and Rio favelas. There, under the cover of fighting criminal gangs, racist state actors killed innocent civilians, including boys, and unleashed terror over thousands of mostly black men, women, and children.
While the Haitian massacres were occurring, as documents released through the Freedom of Information Act attest, the U.S. and its intelligence services were aware of the brutality being unleashed over Cité Soleil. On their part, the most important human rights organizations –like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Organization of American States– “remained conspicuously disinterested and silent about the evidence”.
Some of the pictures of the chaos and murderous actions of the MINUSTAH –comprised of soldiers from 13 countries– are too explicit to be shown here, but the reader can visit HaitiAction.net to understand the extent of the cruelty exerted by these “peace-keepers”, who didn’t care to shoot at women and children with high caliber guns, even from helicopters, another terrorist tactic used by Brazilian police and military over the favelas.
The idea behind raiding Cité Soleil and other shantytowns around Port-au-Prince in reality was to eliminate and terrorize Aristide supporters, rightly infuriated by the 2004 brazen postcolonial coup d’etat ordained and executed by the usual “gardeners”. They demanded the return of their democratically elected President, forcefully exiled to Africa. Those demands would be a regular feature for many years after the coup.
Only between July 8 and July 17 of this year, 209 people were murdered in Cité Soleil. Half of them were innocent bystanders, without ties to any gang, and the rest, according to the BBC, were gang members “or people with links” to them (whatever that means). Other sources refer to many of these gangs as “paramilitary forces”, a regular feature when the Western “gardeners” control a puppet third-world government immersed in violent conflict. Between January and March of this year, 225 persons were kidnapped, 58% more than during the same three months of 2021.
The U.N. mission in Haiti was also accused of unleashing a plague of cholera by dumping infected waste into the tributary of an important river, killing more than 10,000 people. The U.N. blue helmets also stand accused of raping Haitian girls and women –or trading food for sex– leaving behind many “petit-MINUSTAH” as their abandoned offspring is often referred to.
The Montana Accord
Last September 29, in line with the Western “gardener” tradition, U.S. ambassador Pamela A. White said before the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, referring to Haiti, that her country must put “boots on the ground right now!”
If history offers any kind of lesson, her declaration should be more than enough to understand that nothing good is coming toward Haiti in the next months or years of foreign occupation, now a very probable outcome as the U.N. Security Council has unanimously adopted a resolution “demanding an immediate end to violence and criminal activity in Haiti and imposing sanctions on individuals and groups threatening peace and stability in the Western Hemisphere’s poorest nation — starting with a powerful gang leader.”
The gang leader referred to is the former police officer and “G9” gang boss Jimmy Cherizier, sanctioned by the U.S. and, now, also by the U.N. Despite the presence of many other gangs and their leaders, Cherizier, linked to various human rights violations he denies, is the only one to receive such sanctions so far. He is also the gang leader calling for revolution against the Henry regime.
The U.N. Security Council resolution (October 21) opens the door for a second resolution, already in the making by the U.S. and Mexico, to authorize a “non-U.N. International Security Assistance Mission”, which is what the “gardeners” are desperately pushing for.
The Washington Post Editorial Board, on its part, recently stated that the Montana Accord is “the right move for Haiti”. To be clear, the boots on the ground “right now!” option, in the form of a non-U.N. security mission, doesn’t exclude the Montana Accord, an assortment of Haitian political groups that include some shady characters. In fact, they are probably meant to work together, hand in glove.
The putative leader of the Montana Accord is Magali Comeau-Denis, Minister of Culture under Gerard Latortue, de facto President of Haiti from 2004 to 2006 (right after the coup that ousted Aristide). As Haiti Liberté reported, she was harshly criticized for starting unilateral negotiations –after the U.S. pressured her to do so– with Ariel Henry, which led to other participants leaving the Montana Accord. According to the leader of the Movement for Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity (MOLEGHAF), a revolutionary and progressive party from Port-au-Prince that left the coalition:
MOLEGHAF agreed to sign and join the Montana Accord because we were supposed to find this ‘Haitian solution,’ without bowing to the dictates of (then U.S. Chargé d’Affaires) Kenneth Merten, (and former) U.S. State Department officer and current head of the U.N. Office in Haiti, Helen La Lime, or the French, Canadian, and U.S. Embassies.
In other words, the accord supported by the Washington Post, a mouthpiece in the service of Western elites, marches on behind the façade of a “Haitian-led” solution but is nothing of the sort.
Certainly, the Haitian gangs –some of them substantially supported by the Haitian government as a way to control society, and armed with guns that the U.S. seems surprisingly incapable of controlling– must be stopped. But thinking that the way to achieve this is by allowing another occupation of the country goes stubbornly (and disingenuously) against, at least, a few hundred years of recorded history. The racist and colonial mentality of the “gardeners” imply that Haiti cannot rule itself, so it must be controlled from Washington.
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