Russia is open to dialogue with the US, including on Ukraine, but has not yet received any “specific signals” from Washington’s new administration on resuming contacts, Moscow’s envoy to the UN, Vassily Nebenzia, said on Sunday. In an interview with RIA Novosti, the diplomat stressed that Moscow is actively monitoring Washington’s rhetoric on Ukraine and Russia.
Nebenzia’s remarks follow statements made by US President Donald Trump, who reportedly told the New York Post on Saturday that he recently held a phone conversation with his Russian counterpart, Vladimir Putin. Trump did not disclose any details of the reported call, but claimed that the conversation focused on the Ukraine conflict and that Putin “wants to see people stop dying.” He added that he had a plan for ending the hostilities, also without providing details. The Kremlin neither confirmed nor denied the phone call.
Nebenzia did not comment on the reported contact between Trump and Putin, but noted that despite the US president’s repeated pledges to swiftly end the Ukraine conflict, Moscow has yet to see a clearly formulated American plan.
“We are closely monitoring the rhetoric of US President Donald Trump and his team… As for specific signals on resuming contacts, including on the situation around Ukraine, they have not yet been received,” he stated, adding that “for now, we only hear slogans.”
Nebenzia reiterated Moscow’s position that any potential settlement should eliminate the root causes of the conflict, which he said were previously neglected by Washington, such as NATO’s eastward expansion.
“We heard Donald Trump’s statements that during [former President] Joe Biden’s tenure in office, grave mistakes were made in Ukraine… I hope that in the near future we will see whether the Trump administration is interested in eliminating these mistakes,” Nebenzia stated.
“We are open to contacts, but on an equal basis and with the obligatory consideration of Russian interests. We are waiting for the corresponding signals from the American side,” he added.
The diplomat stressed that regarding the Ukraine conflict, it is “fundamentally important” for Russia that any potential peace deal is legally binding and signed by the legitimate Ukrainian leadership. He noted that this could present a challenge given that Vladimir Zelensky’s term as president officially expired in May last year. Another problem hindering any diplomatic moves is Zelensky’s decree banning negotiations with Moscow, Nebenzia noted.
In an interview with Britain’s ITV news network on Sunday, Zelensky said he would agree to negotiations with Russia if the US and EU offer Kiev firm security guarantees. He earlier named Ukraine’s NATO membership as one of them, a notion Moscow has repeatedly opposed.
Trump’s national security adviser, Mike Waltz, on Sunday signaled that Washington plans to attempt to bring Russia and Ukraine to the negotiating table, but wants the EU to provide Kiev with security guarantees going forward. Waltz said the issue will be discussed later this week when top US officials visit Europe to attend the Munich Security Conference.
The wide mix of acts of resistance over the past week have made it clear that there is and will be widespread resistance to the Trump/MAGA regressive, racist, sexist, homophobic, transphobic and pro-billionaire plans, There have been actions in the streets in DC and all over the country. Congressional Democrats are speaking up, filibustering and organizing town meetings. Numerous creative social media postings have helped to keep up people’s morale. Rachel Maddow on MSNBC five nights a week is playing an important role as have other TV/podcast/written reports and commentaries. And there have been a number of federal court filings, a few of which have already led to positive, initial judicial decisions.
Here are my thoughts on an overall strategy and the tactics we should be prioritizing as we keep building the mass US resistance movement which has burst into public view during the first week of February.
Strategy: On a national level we are on the defensive; that has to be our starting point. We can win some victories over the next two years, even some big ones, at local and state levels, but it’s unrealistic to expect we can make major advances at the federal level given Trump/MAGA/billionaire dominance of the executive and congressional branches of government and a conservative majority on the Supreme Court. Our overall strategy must be one of making as many advances as we can on local and state levels while preventing as much damage as possible to the primary MAGA targets: US democracy, human and civil rights, including internationally, organized labor and programs that benefit low- and moderate-income working people, and the natural environment on which all life depends.
Tactics: I see five areas where we as a movement of movements need to be focused during these difficult years: street heat–local/state/federal government—courts—media and publicity—outreach.
Street heat: This is essential. Visibility is needed to strengthen morale and attract others to our resistance movement. Well-organized and/or big demonstrations can also have an impact on elected officials, judges and masses of people, including some who voted for Trump. Some people will be challenged, appreciative or moved to consider the issue(s) being addressed because of street heat and demonstrative actions.
Local/state/federal government: I’m very close to people who are big on calling or emailing elected officials at all levels of government to urge them to do the right thing. Honestly, this isn’t the form of action that I’m really into. However, the Associated Press reported a few days ago that there have been so many calls to Congress that phone systems in individual offices are overwhelmed. WE NEED TO KEEP THIS UP. Just as mass demos/street heat have an impact, there are numerous examples over the years of massive calls to Congress preventing or advancing legislation and motivating Senators and House members to be more outspoken about the immediate issue. This pressure is undoubtedly primarily responsible for Senate and House Democrats stepping it up both in word and action (filibuster, organizing town meetings) this past week.
I’ve put on my calendar for the month of February making at least three calls each day to my Senators and House rep, practicing what I’m preaching.
Courts: Without a judicial system which is charged with upholding the US Constitution (which includes the Bill of Rights and amendments prohibiting slavery, etc.), our chances for winning victories on the way to ultimately isolating and overcoming the MAGA’s would be much less. And that’s still true with the 6-3 dominance of conservatives, not all of them MAGA conservatives, however, on the Supreme Court.
Court cases usually take time, often a lot of it. When you are out of power and on the defensive legislatively and dealing with executive orders, this is helpful. Federal district court and court of appeals rulings are often good ones on many issues. These decisions can have political impacts, strengthen support for the positions our progressive movements are taking. And when the legal and extra-legal repression comes down from the Trumpists and MAGA, as it inevitably will, the courts are critical.
Media and publicity: Elon Musk may have his X, Fox News is what it is, and there are many other ways that the ultra-rightists can connect with each other and try to confuse masses of people about what is true and false, but there’s no question that we have our own ways to communicate and spread the truth. And there are non-electronic ways to communicate, like by mass in-person leafletting, draping banners over major highways or wheat-pasting posters, or doing multi-day or multi-week walks along the side of well-traveled roads and through towns and cities. Groups can organize community teach-ins and public meetings in churches, civic centers, universities, etc. Where there is a will to get out the word, there are definitely ways.
Outreach: Finally, it is not enough for us to do all of the above with only those who are already critical of Trump (half or a little more of the country, likely to grow as the MAGA policies do their damage). We need to do outreach to and with these many tens of millions, for sure, but we also need to look for opportunities or make specific organizing plans to interact with Trump voters, including in rural areas, and voters who didn’t vote because they’re turned off to both parties. I know from personal experience doing canvassing to defeat Trump last fall in eastern Pennsylvania that many of these folks have strong feelings, for example, about the dominance of the US economy by billionaires and the growing class divide. Another example is the opposition among many conservative landowners to oil, gas and CO2 pipeline companies being allowed by governments to use eminent domain to take their land. And there are other examples.
White male progressives have a particular responsibility to look for ways to have these discussions and interactions. Serious anti-racist/sexist/heterosexist practice must include a willingness/commitment to do this work. In my Burglar for Peace book I wrote about it this way: “It is critical that whites organizing whites take up the economic, health care, education or other issues impacting predominantly white communities, to show that they are concerned about all forms of inequality and want a just society for everyone. A good organizer knows that you need to start with people where they are, make connections on the basis of issues, experiences or other things held in common. As those connections are made, as people get to know and respect the organizer, they are more willing to listen and think about constructive criticism from her/him or ideas other than those they are ordinarily exposed to.” (p. 192)
Our situation is in no way hopeless. Trump is being called out publicly, like in a Wall Street Journal editorial last week, as “dumb,” which he is. His Canada and Mexico tariff proposals were pulled back one day after he made them, not exactly a way of leading that inspires confidence among followers. His insane proposal standing next to Netanyahu to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians was met with open disbelief by numerous Republican Senators. He will continue to say and do things like this for as long as he is President, and it will probably get worse as his advanced age combined with his other mental problems weaken his “governing” facilities going forward.
The independent and progressive movement of movements can give the leadership needed to win this battle. Si, se puede!
Many people who never liked Donald Trump are predictably outraged by many of his actual and potential foreign policy changes. These include new tariffs on goods from countries with which the US had, until the current administration, enjoyed free trade or Most Favored Nation status, including Mexico, Canada, and the European Union. In addition, he announced imposition or intended imposition of increased sanctions against Iran, Russia and potentially other nations. He also ordered the suspension of all foreign aid except to Israel and Egypt. (The order is currently blocked in federal court.) But his most outrageous proposals are undoubtedly to annex Canada and Greenland, “take back” the Panama Canal, and acquire and develop the Gaza Strip after removing its current Palestinian population.
All of this and more has understandably been used to justify the worst fears of those who predicted disaster. Panic and hysteria are not an uncommon response in some quarters of the press and social media. This is by no means entirely unjustified, but such reactions fail to appreciate what Trump himself perceives as the method behind his madness. He loves panic and hysteria, which he considers useful, if not essential, to his “art of the deal.”
Donald Trump is by nature a businessman, more specifically a salesperson. He makes deals by persuasion, coercion, temptation, reward, and the entire panoply of inducements to achieve an outcome that may or may not be what he or the other participants in the negotiation initially intended. If he makes an outrageous proposal, he expects a counterproposal, and if his outrageous proposal helps to shape the counterproposal, so much the better. If he issues a directive that results in disaster, he expects pushback and revision. That – for better or worse – is how he operates. He doesn’t feel that he needs a lot of analysis or expertise. He depends on others to push and pull the negotiation into the solution of the problem, which can be less or more, better or worse, than either of the negotiators initially intended. His role is to move things along and break the deadlocks. The result may not always be the perfect solution, but it’s often a solution of some kind.
One of the first successes of the Trump administration has been the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas. One can only imagine the threats and promises that were made for Trump to achieve this just prior to his inauguration. Did he promise Bibi that he could resume full or even intensified genocide after a short pause, which would allow Itamar Ben Gvir to reverse his resignation from the governing coalition and permit Netanyahu’s to further his own ambitions)? Perhaps. But now Trump’s aim seems to be to prolong the ceasefire by assuring that the US will transfer the Palestinians to other countries (mainly Egypt and Jordan). Never mind that Egypt and Jordan have refused to accept the Palestinians, who have themselves refused to go, and that most or all US allies also oppose the plan. The objective is to promise whatever is necessary to prolong the ceasefire, and to keep coming up with ways to do that, no matter how unrealistic. In this case, the promise is to rid Israel of the Palestinians without even having to use the Israeli military or resources. What more could they want? This buys Israel’s cooperation, and the problems and contradictions get kicked down the road. Donald Trump wants to be seen as someone who can do the impossible, even if his methods are highly, highly unorthodox and coercive, such as a proposal to cut off foreign aid to Egypt and Jordan if they don’t accept.
Thus far, there is no doubt that the ceasefire is a success, if only a qualified one, with many violations (mostly by Israel, which is less than enthusiastic about it). However, the same cannot necessarily be said about Trump’s suspension of the operations and funding of the US Agency for International Development. The humanitarian aid and technological development provided by USAID is a real benefit to the societies that receive it, and it is plausible that people will die without it, especially the medical supplies, equipment and services that preserve life and health in underserved areas. On the other hand, that aid comes with strings attached. USAID, as well as many NGOs that are at least partly funded privately, are frequently a cover for CIA spying, black ops and regime change operations. The overthrow of Ukraine’s elected government in 2014 was largely funded and enabled by USAID funds directed by Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland. The suspension of the USAID program is therefore not entirely unwelcome.
In any case, we can expect such strange and risky moves to be part of the next four years. In Trump’s last administration, he came in largely unprepared. This time, he appears, for better or worse, to be taking charge. It is likely to be a learning experience for all concerned, and the results are likely to be less predictable for us all, as well.
President Donald J. Trump likes teasing out the unmentionable, and the Israel-Palestinian situation was hardly going to be any different. With a touch of horror and the grotesque, he offered a solution to the issue of what would happen to Gaza at the conclusion of hostilities. In a White House press conference with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he declared that the United States “take over and own the Gaza Strip”, in the process promising to “create an economic development that will supply an unlimited number of jobs and housing for people of the area.”
The strip, one of the most densely populated stretches of territory on the planet, would be reconstructed, redeveloped and turned, effectively, into a beach resort, “the Riviera of the Middle East.” Here was the double battering being dished out to an impoverished, tormented, tortured population: not only would any aspiration of political independence and Palestinian sovereignty be terminated, it would reach its terminus in the form of tourist capitalism and real estate transactions.
This development idea in Trumpland is not new. In October 2024, the then Republican presidential candidate told a radio interviewer that Gaza could be “better than Monaco”, provided it was built in the appropriate way. His son-in-law, Jared Kushner, conceded at an event held at Harvard in February last year that “waterfront property” in Gaza “could be very valuable”. Israel, he proposed, could “move the people out and then clean it up”.
The logistics of the plan remain inscrutable. Trump does not envisage using US troops in the endeavour (“No soldiers by the US would be needed!”), but Israel’s defence minister Israel Katz has already ordered the military to draft plans for Palestinians wishing to “voluntarily” leave. With heaped upon praise, Katz thought the plan would “allow a large population in Gaza to leave for various places in the world” via land crossings, sea and air. He also suggested that the Palestinians find abodes in such countries as Spain and Norway, countries critical of Israel’s war efforts. For those countries not to accept them would expose “their hypocrisy”.
Netanyahu, for his part, saw Trump’s Gaza plan as “completely different”, offering a “much better vision for Israel”. It would open “up many, many possibilities for us.” He was particularly delighted by the notion that Gazans could leave. “The actual idea of allowing Gazans who want to leave – I mean, what’s wrong with that?” he told Fox News. “They can leave, they can then come back.” Informed cynicism hardly permits such a view to be taken seriously, and a number of Israeli politicians would simply see such departures as a prelude to rebuilding Jewish settlements.
On Truth Social, Trump insisted that Palestinians would be duly “resettled in far safer and more beautiful communities, with new and modern homes, in the region.” Where in the region he does not say. He also makes no mention of Hamas as an obstacle, a group Israel has failed to eliminate despite various lofty claims.
For those in Congress, and for allies of the United States to agree with this, would be tantamount to signing off on a gross violation of international law. The phenomenon of ethnic cleansing, so aggressively evident in the redrawing of boundaries in Europe and the Indian subcontinent after the Second World War, came, in time, to be seen as a category almost as heinous as genocide.
It did not take too long for the human rights advocates to see through the plan’s inherent nastiness. To displace Palestinians from Gaza, argued Navi Pillay, chair of the United Nations Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, could not be seen as anything other than proposed ethnic cleansing. “Trump is woefully ignorant of international law and the law of occupation. Forcible displacement of an occupied group is an international crime, and amounts to ethnic cleansing,” she explained to Politico.
Other states that are expected to have some say in the political arrangements of post-war Gaza have been, in various measures, cold and aghast at the proposal. Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Ministry, for instance, stated that Palestinian statehood “is not the subject of negotiation or concessions”. Columnist Hamoud Abu Taleb, writing for Okaz, suggested that Trump believed “that countries are no different from his Mar-a-Lago resort and can be taken over in deals, and if necessary, by force.”
The attitude from certain Palestinians returning to their ruined homes captured the sentiment most acutely of all. Muhammad Abdel Majeed, a man in his mid-30s who returned to northern Gaza to find the family home in Jabalia refugee camp pulverised, felt that Trump was operating with “a thief’s mentality”. It was one that placed investments and money before “a person’s right to a decent life”.
Thieving it may well be, but the Trump formula may simply be a provocation designed to draw upon Arab involvement. A bluff is a possibility, insofar as a threat to occupy or displace the residents of Gaza prompts Arab states to supply forces while also considering the process of normalisation with Israel.
Much in law entails the twist and the crack that turns a benign expression into something sinister. It can also render the sinister benign. While greeted as “innovative” and an inducement for other states to put forth their own Gaza proposals, to execute with any seriousness a measure to displace a whole, brutalised population would not only be criminal but a further incitement to violence. It hardly matters that such violence will be exercised by Hamas or some successor organisation. What matters is that it will take place with relentless, retributive tenacity.
Local defence companies have chalked up more than $25 million in licence-free exports to the United States and United Kingdom in less than six months under Australia’s new export control regime. That’s according to Defence minister Richard Marles, who spruiked the apparent milestone just hours after a first meeting with US Defence secretary Pete Hegseth…
Following a legal response by organized labor, one of Trump’s early attacks against the US federal workforce have been temporarily halted. On Thursday, February 6, Trump’s deadline to furlough millions of federal workers if they did not accept a buyout offer was paused following an injunction by a federal judge in Boston. This pause came less than 11 hours before the deadline for workers to accept the buyout offer, which 65,000 federal workers did—agreeing to leave their jobs in exchange for eight months of pay and benefits through September.
As Trump’s administration escalates immigration enforcement raids across the United States, detaining around 1,000 immigrants on a daily basis in sweeping arrests, the movement against harsh measures has grown. Protests have been called for the weekend of February 7 through 9 to oppose Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Demonstrations have been scheduled in cities across the country including Riverside, California; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; San Antonio, Texas; Anchorage, Alaska; Chicago, Illinois; New York City; Phoenix, Arizona; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Indianapolis, Indiana.
During Netanyahu’s visit, Trump dropped Washington’s sugar coating of Israel’s 15-month genocidal destruction of Gaza. This was always about ethnic cleansing
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s visit to the White House this week tore the mask off 16 months of gaslighting by western leaders and by the entirety of the western establishment media.
United States President Donald Trump finally dropped Washington’s sugar coating of Israel’s genocidal destruction of Gaza.
This was always, he told us, a slaughter made in the US. In his words, Washington will now “take over” Gaza and be the one to develop it.
And the goal of the slaughter was always ethnic cleansing.
Palestinians, he said, would be “settled” in a place where they would not have to be “worried about dying every day” – that is, being murdered by Israel using US-supplied bombs.
Gaza, meanwhile, would become the “Riviera of the Middle East”, with the “world’s people” – he meant rich white people like himself – living in luxury beachfront properties in their stead.
If the US “owns” Gaza, as Trump insists, it will also own Gaza’s territorial waters, where there just happen to be fabulous quantities of untapped gas to enrich the enclave’s new “owner”. Palestinians have, of course, never been allowed to develop their gas fields.
Trump may even have let slip inadvertently the true death toll inflicted by Israel’s rampage. He referred to “all of them – there’s 1.7 million or maybe 1.8 million people” being forced out of Gaza.
The population count before 7 October 2023 was between 2.2 and 2.3 million. Where are the other half a million Palestinians? Under the rubble? In unmarked graves? Eaten by feral dogs? Vaporised by 2,000lb US bombs?
Wrecking spree
Trump presented his ethnic cleansing plan as if he had the best interests of the Palestinians at heart. As if he was saving them from a disaster-prone earthquake zone, not from a genocidal neighbour he counts as Washington’s closest ally.
His comments were greeted with shock and horror in western and Arab capitals. Everyone is distancing themselves from his blatant backing for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza’s population.
But these are the same leaders who kept silent through 15 months of Israel’s levelling of Gaza’s homes, hospitals, schools, universities, libraries, government buildings, mosques, churches and bakeries.
Then, they spoke of Israel’s right to “defend itself” even as Israel caused so much damage the United Nations warned it would take up to 80 years to rebuild the territory – that is, four generations.
What did they think would happen at the end of the wrecking spree they armed and fully supported? Did they imagine the people of Gaza could survive for years without homes, or hospitals, or schools, or water systems, or electricity?
They knew this was the outcome: destitute Palestinians would either risk death in the ruins or be forced to move out.
And western politicians not only let it happen, they told us it was “proportionate”, it was necessary. They smeared anyone who dissented, anyone who called for a ceasefire, anyone who went on a protest march as an antisemite and a Jew hater.
In the US and elsewhere, students – many of them Jewish – staged mass protests on their campuses. In response, university administrations sent in the riot police, beating them. Afterwards, the universities expelled the student organisers and denied them their degrees.
And yet western politicians and media outlets think now is the time to express shock at Trump’s statements?
Still dying
Trump’s appalling, savage honesty simply highlights the depths of mendacity over the preceding 16 months. After all, who did not understand that the three-phase Gaza ceasefire, which came into effect on 19 January, was a lie too.
It was a lie even before the ink dried on the page.
It was a lie because the ceasefire was officially intended not just to create a pause in the bloodshed. It was also supposed to allow for the mitigation of harm to the civilian population, bring the hostilities to an end, and lead to the reconstruction of Gaza.
None of that will happen – at least not for the Palestinians, as Trump has made clear.
Despite its claims, Israel has clearly not ceased firing munitions into Gaza. It has continued killing and maiming Palestinians, including children, even if the carpet bombing has ended for the time being.
In media coverage, these deaths and injuries are never referred to as what they are: violations of the ceasefire.
Israeli snipers may no longer be shooting Palestinian children in the head, as happenedroutinely for 15 months. But the young are still dying.
Without homes, without access to properly functioning hospitals and with only limited access to food and water, Gaza’s children are perishing – mostly out of view, mostly uncounted – from the cold, from disease, from starvation.
Even Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to the Middle East, says it will likely take 10-15 years to rebuild Gaza.
But the people of Gaza don’t have that much time.
This month Israel instituted a ban on the activities of the United Nation’s aid agency, Unrwa, in all of the Palestinian territories it occupies illegally.
Unrwa is the only agency capable of alleviating the worst excesses of the hellscape Israel has created in Gaza. Without it, the recovery process will be further hampered – and more of Gaza’s people will die waiting for help.
A blind eye
But in truth, Netanyahu has no intention of maintaining the “ceasefire” beyond the first stage, the exchange of hostages. Afterwards, he has all but promised to restart the slaughter.
When Israel decides to “go back in”, there will be no price to pay from the Trump administration, any more than there was a price to pay from the previous Biden administration.
Even now, as Israel breaks the ceasefire, shooting at civilian vehicles because the inhabitants are unaware of the tripwire restrictions on their movements imposed by Israel, western politicians and media turn a blind eye.
And when Israel finally tears up the agreement, as it will, the West will echo Israel in blaming Hamas for being the one to violate it.
The ceasefire is a lie too because, having made Gaza uninhabitable, a death camp, Israel has switched its primary genocidal focus to the Occupied West Bank, where it is gradually introducing the same tactics employed for 15 months in the tiny coastal enclave.
Note that Israel is now targeting the West Bank even though it is run not by Hamas but by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian leader who refers to his security forces’ collaboration with Israel in repressing all resistance to its illegal occupation as “sacred”.
Note too that the West Bank had nothing to do with the Hamas attack on 7 October 2023. But none of this should surprise us. These were only ever pretexts for the slaughter in Gaza.
And it breathes life into a new round of lies such as Biden’s suggestion last month that the ceasefire would allow the people of Gaza to “return to their neighbourhoods”. Except those neighbourhoods are gone. They don’t exist because the Biden administration sent billions of dollars worth of munitions to level Gaza.
Why, one might wonder, is the Trump administration seeking to send an additional $1bn worth of munitions to Israel, if not so it can continue the destruction and slaughter?
Blushes spared
The ceasefire is a lie because everything about the past 16 months has been a lie. It is the latest lie in a chain of lies, each meant to support the other lies to create a mendacious overarching narrative: the giant lie.
The giant lie tells of a decades-old “conflict” with the Palestinians, of Israel’s “war of survival” in the region. The giant lie obscures what is really at stake: the West’s last settler-colonial project to eradicate a native people, in this case in the strategically important oil-rich Middle East.
According to that giant lie, Hamas “started a war” on 7 October 2023 when it broke out of the concentration camp Palestinians in Gaza had been living in for at least 16 years, deprived of the essentials of life by their Israeli oppressors.
According to that giant lie, Hamas are the terrorists – not Israel, which has been illegally occupying, settling and besieging the Palestinians’ homeland for three-quarters of a century.
According to that giant lie, Israel’s slaughter of many tens of thousands of men, women and children and its maiming of many times that figure were necessary to “eliminate Hamas” rather than evidence of Israel’s genocidal intent, as every major human rights organisation has concluded.
Even Antony Blinken, Biden’s secretary of state, admitted – only, of course, as he was stepping down – that Israel’s extended killing spree had been entirely self-sabotaging. “We assess that Hamas has recruited almost as many new militants as it has lost,” he said. “That is a recipe for an enduring insurgency and perpetual war.”
This week officials in Gaza used the lull in Israeli attacks to reassess the death toll. They have revised it to nearly 62,000 after adding the names of those missing, presumed dead under the oceans of rubble. Many more deaths have doubtless still not been identified.
In the giant lie, the International Court of Justice’s ruling more than a year ago that there were “plausible” grounds for believing Israel was carrying out a genocide were airbrushed out of the picture by western politicians and media.
Not only that, but the West hurried to supply Israel with the bombs needed to carry out the very massacres that has led the World Court to put Israel on trial for genocide.
In that giant lie, Britain’s now-prime minister Keir Starmer presented Israel’s starvation of Gaza’s population as lawful – as “self-defence”.
Meanwhile, journalists and other politicians collude in avoiding mention of Starmer’s comments to spare his blushes, even after the International Criminal Court (ICC) charged Netanyahu and his defence minister, Yoav Gallant, with crimes against humanity for that very same starvation policy.
Supine media
According to the giant lie, Hamas is holding hostages, while the many thousands of Palestinians abducted by Israel to be used as bargaining chips in the current swaps – including hundreds of doctors, aid workers and children – are “prisoners”, legitimately “arrested” as terror suspects.
According to the same giant lie, Israel’s government had to destroy Gaza to bring home the hostages, even as it spent the last days before the ceasefire went into effect intensifying its bombardment of the enclave, clearly indifferent as to whether it killed the hostages in the process.
In the giant lie, Israel’s levelling of Gaza, the aid blockade and starvation of 2.3 million people were somehow justified and “proportionate” rather intended to make the enclave uninhabitable, with the goal of forcing Palestinians out and into the neighbouring Egyptianterritory of Sinai or other parts of the Arab world.
The “ceasefire” lie is perfectly of a piece with this giant lie.
The giant lie that claimed Biden had “worked tirelessly” for a ceasefire that he could have got days after 7 October 2023 with one call to Netanyahu. The “hard won” ceasefire that was available in exactly the same format last May, but had to be delayed because Israel needed longer to carry out its genocide.
The giant lie that hailed Biden and Trump for pulling off a diplomatic coup with the ceasefire when for more than a year millions of protesters in the West have been smeared, beaten by police and arrested as Jew haters for demanding precisely the same.
The giant lie that for decades has presented Washington as an “honest broker” when it is Israel’s biggest arms dealer, its most vociferous apologist, its most terrifying enforcer.
The grand lie that required physically hauling two reporters out of Blinken’s farewell press conference last month. Each tried to remind us that Emperor Biden had been naked all along.
For anyone wondering why the media have been so supine through the past 15 months – failing in the case of Gaza to summon up any of the passion and indignation they so readily evoked over Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – here was the answer.
The other journalists kept their heads down or looked away sheepishly, fearful that they might lose their access should they be tainted by any association with these rule-breakers. Decorum had to be maintained inside the royal court, even in the midst of a genocide.
The giant lie needed to be protected at all costs.
Snake-oil salesman
Whatever western politicians and the media claim, the ceasefire has brought nothing to an end. It offers only brief respite to the Palestinian people from their most immediate pain and misery.
We must not allow it to bolster the narrative of the giant lie. Which is exactly what Keir Starmer, Britain’s prime minister and the oiliest of snake-oil salesmen, sought to do.
In a statement on the prospect of the ceasefire last month, Starmer suggested that it would allow the people of Gaza what he called “a better future”, including the creation of “a sovereign and viable Palestinian state”.
Really?
No one wants to think through what the very best-case scenario for Gaza would mean – Starmer’s claim is based on the entirely fanciful notion that Israel actually wants a permanent ceasefire .
The reality is that it would take us back to 6 October 2023, when Israel was blockading Gaza, holding its 2.3 million people hostage. It was denying them the import of essential items while keeping them on a privation diet.
It was refusing the sick an exit to life-saving treatments they could only receive abroad. It was crushing the economy by denying businesses an export market. It was allowing the people of Gaza only a few hours of power a day, and surveilling them 24/7 through an army of airborne drones.
On the very best-case scenario, Gaza would return to this – plus all the devastation wrought by Israel since: no homes, schools, universities, hospitals, bakeries, mosques, churches; oceans of rubble to traverse; wrecked water and sewage systems; and vast swaths of the population needing medical treatment for serious injuries and disease; and nearly 40,000 orphans to care for.
Is that the “better future” Starmer was referring to?
What are the chances that Gaza will receive even this best-case scenario from hell when Israel is losing no time extending its genocidal policies to the West Bank?
The ceasefire is a lie because everything else we have been told is a lie: that Israel is a normal western liberal democracy, that Israel wants peace with its neighbours, that Israel’s army is the most moral in the world.
Israel is not just a standard-issue settler-colonial state – the kind that seeks to eradicate the native population whose lands it covets. Israel is the most lavishly armed, the most indulged settler-colonial state in history, and one addicted to its scorched-earth approach to the region it inhabits.
The truth is everything we have been told about Israel is a lie. Nothing can be repaired, nothing can heal, until the lies stop.
Following the Great Depression, Black working class women flocked to street corners in the Bronx, New York, forced to sell domestic labor for far below its value in order to make ends meet. “They come to the Bronx, not because of what it promises,” reads the renowned exposé by two Black radical activists, investigative journalist Marvel Cooke and civil rights leader Ella Baker. These informal domestic workers flocked to the infamous “Bronx Slave Market,” “largely in desperation,” Cooke and Baker wrote in 1935.
Desperation did indeed characterize the circumstances at the so-called slave markets, in which impoverished women braved the elements for hours, waiting to be exploited by wealthy families for a few cents and hour and risking all manner of dangerous working conditions and potential sexual abuse.
Since his second inauguration, the billionaire, known for his highly discriminatory anti-immigrant mentality and behavior, has taken the toughest measures in favor of a “cleansing” that will have terrible consequences, even for unborn children.
And here we go with a continual slide into fascism, and, yes, a fascist nation turns on its own people. Fascism can also come into the light of the 21st century as techno-feudalism, another form of elite billionaires and their ground troops strangling the working class, even professional managerial class, through digital tracking, surveillance and behavioral modificaton.
Trump’s hatred of diverse workforces, hatred of equitable hiring practices and his love of class inequities will bring the chickens home to roost.
Even this nation’s economic/literal hit men (and hit women), the CIA, is worried about recruitment now that Trump is bulldozing fairness and affirmative action which is in place to level some playing fields: “We’re going to strangle off talent pipelines that were already narrow to begin with. And that’s going to deprive our intelligence community and our national security establishment of critical knowledge, talent, skills, language … that might be valuable in trying to get somebody into a foreign country,”
Black History month should be transformed into a total curriculum revamp so youth can understand slavery then, followed by the Jim Crowe era, and now with the Racist in Chief and his goons calling for internment camps and tossing people who disagree with capitalism and him – this penury, predatory, parasitic, casino capitalism – out of the country.
We are – I have many targets on my back – the Nobodies. It is instructive to read the following poem as a dirge for this country’s slide into despotism: By Eduardo Galeano
The Nobodies
Fleas dream of buying themselves a dog, and nobodies dream of escaping
poverty: that one magical day good luck will suddenly rain down on
them—will rain down in buckets. But good luck doesn’t rain down
yesterday, today, tomorrow, or ever. Good luck doesn’t even fall in a
fine drizzle, no matter how hard the nobodies summon it, even if their
left hand is tickling, or if they begin the new day with their right
foot, or start the new year with a change of brooms.
The nobodies: nobody’s children, owners of nothing. The nobodies: the
no ones, the nobodied, running like rabbits, dying through life,
screwed every which way.
Who are not, but could be.
Who don’t speak languages, but dialects.
Who don’t have religions, but superstitions.
Who don’t create art, but handicrafts.
Who don’t have culture, but folklore.
Who are not human beings, but human resources.
Who do not have faces, but arms.
Who do not have names, but numbers.
Who do not appear in the history of the world, but in the police
blotter of the local paper.
The nobodies, who are not worth the bullet that kills them.”
For Black History Month, we can see how disconnected our so-called elected officials are with the majority of working class people of all ethnicities: In a study done by Nicholas Carnes in his book “The Cash Ceiling,” he broke down how in 2018, millionaires make up only three percent of the public, yet they control all three branches of the federal government. While more than fifty percent of U.S. citizens hold working-class jobs, less than two percent of Congress has held a blue-collar job before their Congressional career.
So how can these people understand environmental racism when they are part of the problem?
Trump’s Team and many in MAGA can’t wrap their arms around the fact Black people face some of the highest cancer and asthma rates in the U.S. These rates are without a doubt linked to the environment in which someone lives, works and plays. When African-American Robert D. Bullard began collecting data in the 1970s, few understood how a person’s surroundings can affect their health. Bullard was even surprised how segregated the most polluted places really were.
Bullard was the first scientist to publish systematic research on the links between race and exposure to pollution, which he documented for a 1979 lawsuit.
“This is before everyone had [geographic information system] mapping, before iPads, iPhones, laptops, Google,” he said. “This is doing research way back with a hammer and a chisel.”
This is what Black History month means for many of my former Latino, Native American and Black college students: Highlighting and studying men like Bullard. With 18 books under his belt on this topic, Bullard’s work launched a movement, the environmental justice movement.
Imagine a presidential candidate or even president’s cabinet embracing this baseline — that everyone has the right to a clean and healthy environment, no matter their race or class.
Former vice presidential running mate with Jill Stein, Amaju Baraka states this new time strongly:
“It is Western imperialism, led by the U.S. that is responsible for the billions of human beings living in poverty, it is imperialism that degrades and destroys the earth, that makes water a commodity, food a luxury, education an impossibility and health care a distant dream. It is the rapacious greed and absolute disregard for human life by imperialism that drives the arms trade, turns human incarceration into a profitable enterprise and transforms millions into migrants and refugees because of war and economic plunder.”
Carter G. Woodson was the impetus behind today’s Black History month. In 1924, he was instrumental in the creation of Negro History and Literature Week, renamed Negro Achievement Week. The month of February has stuck, since the organizers of the first celebration picked this month because two valorized men’s birthdays fall in February: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass, the 12th and the 14th respectively.
Even those who pay attention to Africa-related news may not know how terrible the situation is in Africa, for example, that there are more conflicts on that continent now than at any point since at least 1946. Sudan is no exception. In mid-April of 2023, fighting broke out between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Khartoum, the capital city of Sudan, and the fighting then spread throughout the country.
Sudan is a rich country filled with gold, and that gold is causing much of the violence there. “Gold is destroying Sudan,” said Suliman Baldo, a Sudanese expert on the nation’s resources, “and it’s destroying the Sudanese.” “Indeed, billions of dollars in gold are flowing out of Sudan in virtually every direction, helping to turn the Sahel region of Africa into one of the world’s largest gold producers at a time when prices are hitting record highs.”
Members of the U.S. Congress from both parties agree. They worry that Sudan’s illicit gold trade enables “lucrative revenue streams” that perpetuate the humanitarian crisis in the country.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), the United States, Russia, Egypt, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and many other countries have been interfering in the internal political situation, attempting to grab what they can in a bloody free-for-all.
A Central Backer of the War: The United Arab Emirates (UAE)
There is a consensus among experts, including the United Nations, journalists from the Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and the New York Times, U.S. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, and peace organizations such as World BEYOND War that the UAE is one of the primary culprits. For example, in the Wall Street Journal: “the U.A.E.’s covert arms shipments are fueling a war that has plunged Sudan into a humanitarian catastrophe.”
That the UAE is involved in the violence has been known since at least August 2023. The UAE has been supporting Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, a Sudanese warlord and the commander of the RSF, and a camel-trader-turned-warlord whose forces grew especially powerful after they seized one of Sudan’s most lucrative gold mines in 2017. Although the UAE denies it, they have been supporting the RSF and making deals with the government. The UAE is supporting both sides in the war and pouring fuel on the “fire.” They are now the main recipients of “blood gold,” smuggled out of the country by both Sudan’s army and by the RSF in return for weapons and cash.
U.S. Support for the UAE’s Violence
The UAE in turn has been backed by the United States, specifically the Biden administration. (What Trump will do for Sudan has yet to be seen). The UAE is so important for the U.S. that it is the single largest export market in the Middle East and North Africa region, and more than one thousand firms operate in the country. The U.S. even directly supports the UAE militarily. As Caitlin Johnstone writes, the Biden administration “has been sending weapons to the United Arab Emirates while conveniently ignoring the fact that the UAE is sending money and weapons to the RSF to use for its atrocities in Sudan.”
Senator Van Hollen submitted legislation in November in the Senate to pause U.S. weapons sales to the UAE until the U.S. certifies that the UAE is not arming the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in Sudan. And Rep. Sara Jacobs submitted similar legislation to the House of Representatives in May.
On 23 September of last year President Biden recognized the “United Arab Emirates as a Major Defense Partner of the United States, joined by only India, to further enhance defense cooperation and security in the Middle East, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean regions. This unique designation as a Major Defense Partner will allow for unprecedented cooperation through joint training, exercises, and military-to-military collaboration, between the military forces of the United States, the UAE, and India, as well as other common military partners, in furtherance of regional stability.”
On 2 August 2022, the U.S. approved “$2.2 billion for high-altitude defense for the UAE.” And on October 11, 2024, the “U.S. State Department approved a potential $1.2 billion Foreign Military Sale (FMS) to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for advanced Guided Multiple Launch Rocket Systems (GMLRS) and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS).”
It is widely known that the “Emirates is a staunch American ally against Iran, a signatory of the Abraham Accords to establish diplomatic relations with Israel, a potential player in postwar Gaza, and has even facilitated prisoner swaps between Ukraine and Russia.” The U.S. has repeatedly called on foreign governments to stay out of the conflict, but as General Wesley Clark told us almost two decades ago, Sudan was one of the governments that the US was planning to overthrow, that about a month after 9/11, a U.S. general told him that according to a memo he had from the secretary of defense, there was a plan to “take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.”
Why Sudan?
According to Jeffrey Sachs, Israel believes that Sudan is their enemy, and the U.S. follows Israel when formulating a foreign policy in the Middle East. There is civil war in both Sudan and in South Sudan. (The U.S. backed South Sudan).
The U.S. support for the RSF should not be surprising as it has regularly supported violent Islamist groups. Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, the new leader of Syria, is a “former Al Qaeda leader and ISIS deputy,” as well as the founder of the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
U.S. Ambassador Linda Thomas-Greenfield retorted, “It is shocking that Russia has vetoed an effort to save lives, though perhaps it shouldn’t be.” She added that “for months, Russia has obstructed and obfuscated, standing in the way of council action to address the catastrophic situation in Sudan and playing … both sides of the conflict, to advance its own political objectives at the expense of Sudanese lives.”
But arguably, this has the same ultimate effect as the U.S. standing in the way of peace to advance our own political objectives at the expense of Sudanese lives.
There seems to be some truth to this claim that Russia has not taken a clear side in the conflict, but most reports are recently saying that Russia is leaning toward backing the SAF. Military analysts have explained that “Russia is acting to fill a power vacuum left by the US and to counter Ukraine’s military presence in Sudan—there are between 100 and 300 Ukrainian troops on the ground, operating mostly at night alongside the SAF.” According to the defence ministry of Ukraine, Ukrainian “civilians” who used to work for Ukraine’s air force are now serving as instructors of the Sudanese air force. (Andres Schipani, Christopher Miller, Polina Ivanova, and Chris Cook, “Russians and Ukrainians help train same side in Sudan’s War.” The Financial Times, 18 September 2024). Russia and Ukraine may be enemies, but when it comes to the precious metal gold, they are on the same side.
According to Abayomi Azikiwe, the U.S. has been “heavily involved” for decades in trying to “prevent any Left-wing government from coming to power” in Sudan. In in 1971, the U.S. began supporting Gaafar Nimeiry (1969-85) through military aid, after a “pro-communist” named Major Hashem al-Atta (1936-71) attempted to overthrow Nimeiry and seize power through a coup d’etat.
On 20 August 1998, as part of Operation Infinite Reach, the U.S. bombed a factory making pharmaceuticals for Sudan. The factory had provided over half of the country’s pharmaceuticals. As Noam Chomsky has written, the 9/11 attacks on the U.S. killed fewer people than this Operation, even if we do not count the people who died from lack of medicine in the subsequent years, but this atrocity is hardly remembered in the U.S.
(“The bombing of the Al Shifa pharmaceutical factory by Clinton on 20 August 1998 in retaliation for the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania was an act of terrorism. When Chomsky was asked to comment on the September 11th attacks, he is reported to have said that the damage caused by the ‘horrible crime’ of September 11, which was carried out with ‘evilness and terrible cruelty,’ may be comparable to the results of the bombing of the Al Shifa factory by Clinton in August 1998. Furthermore, it is said that not only the lives lost directly as a result of the bombing of the factory, but also the loss of the factory, which supplied over 50% of Sudan’s medical supplies, has indirectly resulted in the loss of many lives, as chloroquine [a medicine used to treat malaria], medicine for tuberculosis patients, and medicine to treat parasitic infections in cattle ranches [this parasite is one of the causes of Sudan’s high infant mortality rate] were no longer available. The German ambassador to Sudan estimated that the number of indirect deaths may be in the tens of thousands. Furthermore, the U.S. has withdrawn American staff from the U.N. aid organization in Sudan, resulting in a suspension of aid to Sudan, where the U.N. estimated that 2.4 million people were at risk of starvation”).
Saudi Arabia, long an ally of the U.S., also supports the RSF, with the UAE. This is not surprising as it is widely recognized that, like the U.S., Saudi Arabia also promotes Islamist terrorism. According to Hillary Clinton in 2009 when she was the Secretary of State, “donors in Saudi Arabia constitute the most significant source of funding to Sunni terrorist groups worldwide.”
Conclusion
Sudan is rich in natural resources, and powerful states can easily steal those resources, so they are grabbing what they can during this crisis. And it is not difficult to imagine why people do not care about Sudan. “Africa’s current conflicts haven’t prompted the outpouring of sympathy in the West that accompanied Russia’s invasion of Ukraine or the outrage ignited by Israel’s war in Gaza. There has been no equivalent to the Live Aid concerts motivated by the Ethiopian famine in the 1980s, the protest marches over the genocide in Darfur in the early 2000s or even the #BringBackOurGirls campaign linked to the abduction of 276 schoolgirls from the Nigerian town of Chibok 10 years ago.”
People seeking help for African Muslims must compete with humanitarian missions that white, middle-class people already care about or work on, such as helping white Christians in Ukraine and helping people of various religions who are victims of the Gaza Genocide, in the “Holy Land,” a place of great historical significance for many Westerners.
Many thanks to Stephen Brivati for comments and suggestions.
This is a translation of our article in Japanese that was published at the website of Labornet Japan.
Trump’s executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America” isn’t just another absurd stunt or another example of his outlandish behavior. It signals a much deeper, more troubling agenda that seeks to erase historical identity and assert imperial domination over a region already suffering under a long history of interventionist policies. At its core, this is a move to expand the U.S. empire by erasing Mexico’s presence from a geographical feature recognized for centuries.
The name “Gulf of Mexico” has existed since the 16th century. Its recognition is supported by international organizations such as the International Hydrographic Organization (IHO) and the United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN). These organizations ensure that place names remain neutral and historically accurate, preventing nations from distorting or erasing cultural and historical ties to specific regions. Mexico has formally rejected this renaming, emphasizing that no country has the right to unilaterally change the identity of a shared natural resource that spans multiple borders. This is a matter of respect for international law and sovereignty, which the Trump administration has ignored in favor of pursuing nationalistic expansionism.
Erasing “Mexico” from our maps isn’t an aberration. It’s part of a long pattern of anti-Mexican racism in the U.S., ranging from political scapegoating and border militarization to violent rhetoric that fuels hate crimes. But this move goes beyond that. It fits into a much larger U.S. strategy of controlling the Western Hemisphere, which dates back to the Monroe Doctrine of 1823, which claimed the U.S. had the right to dictate who influences Latin America. Over time, this ideology has come to justify US-backed military interventions, coups, and economic manipulations in the region aimed at securing U.S. interests and ensuring that Latin America remains in a subordinate position.
Not only is the Gulf of Mexico a site of historical importance, but it is also rich in oil and natural resources. This fact is no coincidence. The United States has a long history of trying to control these resources including backing oil company boycotts against Mexico’s nationalized industry in the 1930s and signing trade agreements that favor U.S. companies over Mexican sovereignty. Renaming the Gulf of Mexico signals a territorial and economic claim over these waters and their resources further cementing U.S. imperial ambitions in the region.
Companies like Google Maps, which has announced plans to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America after Trump’s executive order, are just playing into the billionaire-fueled power grab that advances a racist, nationalist agenda of domination and imperialism. Even if Google only applies this change in the U.S., it still normalizes the idea that facts can be rewritten to serve a political agenda. At a time when diplomacy and mutual respect should be prioritized, honoring the internationally recognized name would send a clear message that Google values historical accuracy, global cooperation, and good neighborly relations.
The Gulf of Mexico is more than just a body of water; it is a shared resource of immense ecological, economic, and cultural significance for Mexico, the United States, and the world. It plays a critical role in regional trade, fisheries, and energy production, hosting some of North America’s most important offshore oil reserves. The United States has long considered Latin America its “backyard,” and this is another proof that its imperial ambitions are still alive.
The environmental devastation already occurring in the Gulf region is evidenced by devastating oil spills and the degradation of marine ecosystems. This destruction is further compounded as U.S. and foreign companies continue to exploit the region’s resources with no regard for the long-term damage.
The movement to rename the Gulf of Mexico fits into a broader pattern of anti-Mexican sentiment in the United States that has often manifested in political scapegoating, hateful rhetoric, and border militarization. Such rhetoric fuels violence and hate crimes against Mexican and Latino communities. While Trump’s attempt to erase “Mexico” from the Gulf of Mexico may appear symbolic, it could have devastating consequences. It reflects a disregard for historical truth, an aggressive assertion of U.S. superiority, and the continuation of exploitative colonialist practices that harm both the environment and Latin American people.
Waking up, day after day, and seeing continuous disasters visited upon the Palestinian people forecasts a day of facing the light at an increasingly dark level. It is impossible to be unaware of the genocide; yet an entire nation reinforces it. The American people are disposed to the sufferings its government inflicts upon others.
Election of an authoritarian to the highest office, who appoints cabinet positions with qualifications that require little experience in government affairs and extensive experience in extramarital affairs, completes the mystification. Elise Stefanik, selected as America’s representative to the United Nations, agrees to the proposition that “Israel has a biblical right to the West Bank.” Shuddering! Doesn’t qualification for a cabinet position require knowledge that the bible does not determine right and that the Earth is round and not flat? Hopefully, UN security guards will bar entry of her and other vocal terrorists into the UN building.
Maintaining the Declaration of Independence and Constitution will be a battle. Refusing to have the Old Testament on a night table and the Ten Commandments on the living room wall will be challenging . Knowing that America is in a dystopia, “livin’ a vida loca,” will be difficult to absorb. These are not the principal problems that prevent America from being great again. The principal problem in the United States is a government that has been unable to resolve its problems. For decades, a multitude of problems have surfaced, talked about, and been ignored. Suggestions for solutions are cast aside as empty words ─ U.S. governments are only interested in donor offerings and contributing lobbyists; attention to the people’s problems is time consuming and not remunerative.
Look at the extensive record of problems, which has been growing for decades and have some obvious solutions. After these crisp answers, I might elaborate on them in forthcoming articles.
(1) Social Security
The ready to collapse Social Security system has present earners paying for retired workers and closely resembles a national pension plan. Instead of having workers and corporations pay FICA taxes, why not collect revenue from income and corporation taxes and finance a real national pension plan?
(2) Gun Violence
Decades of gun violence and shootings in schools have been succeeded by decades of gun violence and shootings in schools. An idea ─ get rid of the guns; nobody will miss them.
(3) Climate Change
In the 1964 presidential contest between Senator Goldwater and President Johnson, Goldwater posed as the “war hawk,” ready to pounce on the North Vietnamese. Johnson’s famous phrase was, “I’ll not have American boys do what Vietnamese boys should do.” After Johnson won the presidency and had “American boys do what Vietnamese boys should do,” Goldwater voters reminded everyone, “They told me if I voted for Goldwater our military intervention in Vietnam would greatly increase. I voted for Goldwater and they were correct.”
In all elections, voters are reminded that voting Republican enhances global warming. In all elections that the Democrats won, those who voted Republican noted that global warming continued to increase.
(4) Government debt
Mention government debt and blood boils ─ another of those internalized issues, courtesy of the mind manipulators. Government debt is the result of problems and not the problem. The problems are (1) Income taxes are too low to finance meaningful government projects; (2) The military spending is too high and; (3) The economy runs on debt and government debt rescues a faltering economy. Give attention to the real problems and government debt will be greatly reduced.
(5) War
Since its official inception in 1789, the United States has attached itself to war in almost every day of its existence. Not widely mentioned and not widely apparent, U.S. forces are still shooting it up in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, and parts of Africa. U.S. arms explode throughout the world. U.S. involvement in the genocide of the Palestinian people is inescapable. Americans do not know they prosper on the degradation of others and they survive well because others do not survive at all. While intending to end all wars, President Trump may learn that the U.S. cannot progress without war; war is a preventive for economic and social collapse in all 50 states.
(6) Immigration
Immigration to the United States has become a political football. Political correctness, catering to voters, and ultra-Right nationalism vs. ultra-Left internationalism have strangled an intelligent and objective analysis of a major issue, which is not immigration. The major issue is that the U.S. has supported oligarchies in Latin American nations. These oligarchies have created significant social and economic problems, which the disenfranchised relieve by fleeing to America’s shores. Uncontrolled emigration to the United States skews nations from their natural growth and conveniently deters them from seeking approaches to resolve their problems. The U.S. contributes to the emigration problem and should resolve the problem and not perpetuate it. Wouldn’t it be beneficial for all countries, including the United States, if the Latinos did not have the urge to emigrate?
(7) International terrorism
The September 11, 2001 attack – the first aerial bombings on American soil – compelled the United States government to wage a War on Terrorism. After more than twenty years of this battle, the U.S. has neither won the war nor totally contained terrorism; just the opposite ─ terrorism has grown in size, geographical extent, and power. Observe Afghanistan, Syria, Pakistan, and all of North Africa. One reason for this contradiction is obvious; the initial source of international terrorism is Israel’s terrorism in the West Bank and Gaza. The U.S. blends its battle against terrorism with preservation of American global interests. Each blended component contradicts the other and creates confusing missions in the U.S. War on Terrorism.
(8) Economy
A roller coaster American economy of accelerated growth and gasping recessions flattened itself with slow but steady growth in the Democratic administrations that succeeded the George W. Bush recession. Now we have Donald J. Trump, who claims he had the greatest economy ever, when all presidents had, in their times, the greatest economy ever, and previous administrations had more rapid growth and captured much more of world production. By proposing lower taxes, lower interest rates, and blistering tariffs, Trump is heading the U.S. into massive speculation, heightened debt, increased inflation, a falling dollar, and a return to a 19th century economy of robber barons, boom-and-bust, financial bankruptcies, and a drastic “beggar thy neighbor” policy. His sink China policy will sink the United States. America will no longer have friendly neighbors and might become the beggar.
(9) Racism
The United States consists of a mixture of several cultures and has no unique culture. People feel comfortable in their own culture and attach themselves to others and to institutions that reflect that culture. In a competitive society, this extends to gaining economic advantage and security by dominating other cultures. Social, political, and economic agendas use racism to promote this strategy and maintain domination.
Competition between cultures, manifested as racism, is built into the American socio-economic system. Political, legal, and educational methods have ameliorated racism and have not abolished its corrosive effects. Slow progress to an integrated and unified culture, decades away, might finally resolve the problem of racism.
(10) Health Care
Health care is posed as a financial problem, insufficient funds to treat all equally. Health care is a socio-economic problem, where statistics show that nations having the most unequal distribution of income have the most maladjusted health care. More equal distribution of income is a key to adequate health care for all.
(11) Political Divide
Connie Morella, previous representative from Maryland’s 8th congressional district, enjoyed saying, “I sit and serve in the people’s house,” a phrase echoed by many congressionals. No people or sitters exist in the “people’s house.” Representatives stand for the special interest groups, Lobbies, and Political Action Committees (PAC) that donate to their campaigns and assure their return to office. The two political Parties stand united against the wants of the other and the political divide leads to political stagnation. Whatever Gilda wants, Gilda does not get. America coasts on a frictionless surface of contracting previous legislation and inaction, which is its preferred method of government.
(12) Foreign Policy
All administrations, the present included, have had foreign policies driven by two words, “empire expansion.” Until now, the U.S. has sought markets and resources and financed the expansion from its own banks. Donald trump seeks expansion by real estate maneuvers and seeks to have foreign sources finance the expansion. This emperor has no clothes and will bankrupt the U.S. in the same manner as he bankrupted his real estate enterprises.
(13) Drug Addiction
The epidemic drug addiction problem summarizes the attention given to most other national problems — despite a century of organized efforts to subdue the problem, “New numbers show drug abuse is getting worse across the country and in every community. Overdose deaths have never been higher and opioids and synthetic drugs are major contributors to the rising numbers.” President Nixon popularized the term “war on drugs,” but his administration’s Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act of 1970 had an antecedent in the Harrison Narcotics Tax Act of 1914.
Blaming China for supplying fentanyl ingredients to Mexican manufacturers, only one part of the total drug economy, does not change the source of the drug addiction and provides no resolution to the problem. Looking elsewhere, at nations where drug addiction is minor or has been alleviated is a start. Japan has a “strong social stigma against drug use, and some of the strictest drug laws globally; Iceland responded to high rates of teen substance abuse with “a comprehensive program that included increased funding for organized sports, music, and art programs, as well as a strictly enforced curfew for teens;” Singapore’s “notoriously strict drug laws have resulted in some of the lowest addiction rates in the world, including a zero-tolerance approach to drug use and trafficking, with mandatory death penalties for certain drug offenses;” Sweden “combines strict laws with a comprehensive rehabilitation approach in a ‘caring society’ model that emphasizes treatment and social support over punishment. Time Magazine recommends another approach.
…history exposes the truth: the drug war isn’t winnable, as the Global Commission on Drug Policy stated in 2011. And simply legalizing marijuana is not enough. Instead only a wholesale rethinking of drug policy—one that abandons criminalization and focuses on true harm reduction, not coercive rehabilitation—can begin to undo the damage of decades of a misguided “war.”
Skewing the GDP
Replacing a building destroyed in a catastrophe augments the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in four ways — housing and helping those affected by the catastrophe, responding to mitigating the catastrophe, tearing down the destroyed home, and building a new home. The GDP benefits from the continual and unresolved problems.
Opioid cases generated a cost estimated at $1.5 trillion in the United States for the year 2010.
Gun violence generates over $1 billion in direct health care costs for victims and their families each year.
Climate change during 2011-2020 decade cost $1.5T in losses (Ed: might be debatable).
Health care costs are almost 20 percent of GDP.
The Defense budget for 2025 is $850 billion.
In the disturbing world that is characterizing the United States, a combination of political stagnation, misdirection action, and low level of intellect and knowledge prevents solutions to recurring problems. American nationalists boast about having the highest GDP, not realizing that the boast uses tragedy to disguise more significant tragedies — moral, political, and economic decay of the once mighty USA.
Upside, inside, out
She’s livin’ la vida loca
She’ll push and pull you down
Livin’ la vida loca
Her lips are devil red
And her skin’s the color of mocha
She will wear you out
Livin’ la vida loca
It has become something of a fixation in the Donald Trump war chest of options that cowing, discomforting and baffling his various counterparts on the international scene with tariffs is bound to work at every corner. Certainly, when it comes to allies, the potency of such announcements is magnified. Nation states, confusing common interests with friendship, have dreams broken before the call of firm, sober diplomacy.
When it comes to dealing with Russia, though, the matter of tariffs sits oddly. In 2024, US imports of Russian goods came in at US$2.8 billion. What is imported from Russia is certainly of value: radioactive materials indispensable for US power stations, nitro fertilisers, platinum.
All this is modest enough, but Trump is convinced that the threat of economic bruising of his own flavour will work to influence Russia’s war policy against Ukraine. Soon after his inauguration, Trump declared that, were a deal to conclude the Russia-Ukraine war not reached soon, there would be “no other choice but to put high levels of taxes, tariffs and sanctions on anything being sold by Russia to the United States and various other participating countries.”
Instead of being dismissed out of hand as unworkable and ill-reasoned, the old idea that Russia will be brought to heel continues to tease a coterie of dreamers. The UK paper, The Telegraph, is very much with Trump on this, claiming that “redoubling efforts to cut off the revenue Russia generates from oil and gas imports” will drain Russia’s war effort. This could involve, for instance, targeting the now famous shadow fleet ships that continue to distribute oil and gas in global markets undetected. But importantly, those in the European Union would have to pull their weight in weaning themselves off a continued reliance on Russian fossil fuels, a reliance that has tended to make something of a mockery, not just of unity within the bloc, but of the very policy itself.
The reading by the US president on the state of the Russian economy is woefully ignorant about the coarsening of Moscow’s resilience since 2014, when Western governments began to impose a sequence of sanctions across Russian banking, defence, energy, manufacturing, technology and other sectors that eventually reached their peak after February 2022. That same month, US President Joe Biden was unwarrantedly confident that the sanctions regime would “impair [Russia’s] ability to compete in a high-tech 21st century economy.”
The Council of the European Union, also keeping in step with Washington’s financial excoriation of Moscow, understood that these moves would weaken the Russian war machine’s “ability to finance the war and specifically target the political, military and economic elite responsible for the invasion [of Ukraine].”
The immediate response was steady, if necessary, diversification. Alternative markets were sought, with willing participants. Russian oil found itself in Chinese and Indian markets. Alternative trade routes were pursued. Moscow was making use of the Global South with relish, and its war economy did not collapse. GDP grew by 3.6% in 2023 and made a similar performance the following year.
This is not to say that the Russian economy is a model of peak health, and certainly not one to emulate. It has been battered and boosted in equal measure, given heavy injections of stimulus. Alexandra Prokopenko of the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center describes the country’s economy as “like a marathoner on fiscal steroids – and now those steroids are wearing off.” The real troubles for President Vladimir Putin are more pressing in sustaining not just the war effort but domestic infrastructure and social programs. The juggling act, so far fortuitously favourable to him, is not a sustainable venture.
The broader lesson here is that economic weapons that seek to strangle, coerce and direct a nation state into action are blunt, inconsistent in their application and often counterproductive. The most telling response from the target state is adapting and adjusting to disruption, and Russia shows better signs than most in doing so. Shocks are eventually absorbed.
Furthermore, it seems that Trump’s threats are playing a splendidly inert role in the Kremlin. One public statement made by Russia’s deputy ambassador to the United Nations, Dmitry Polyanskiy, did suggest that Russia was merely waiting for something more concrete, exempting the president from any lashing words otherwise used for his predecessor. “We have to see what does the ‘deal’ mean in President Trump’s understanding,” the official reflected. “He is not responsible for what the US has been doing in Ukraine since 2014, making it ‘anti-Russia’ and preparing for the war with us, but it is in his power now to stop this malicious policy.”
There may be something in what Polyanskiy says, but in the meantime, Trump will focus on inflicting the most concerted damage that any indiscriminate tariff regimes can do: against countries with which the United States does extensive business with. Mexico and Canada have far more reason to worry than Russia, as do other US allies.
A widely known caution advises people not to put all their eggs in one basket.
An exemplar is Canada. Has Canada put too many of its eggs in its basket of trade with the United States?
Of course, Canada’s trade is not completely reliant on the United States, but it has cast its lot so much into the American camp that it has cut off or damaged opportunities to diversify its trade. As the junior partner, population-wise, in the trade partnership, Canada’s sovereignty and national dignity are being impugned in full view of Canadians and the rest of the world. US president Donald Trump, on the other hand comes off as a bully and a buffoon to the rest of the world, as well as critically thinking Americans.
Trump demeans Canada’s current prime minister (which isn’t hard to do), and by extension Canadians, by referring to Justin Trudeau as a governor of the 51st US state. He says he is going to impose a 25% tariff starting on 1 February because he claims that Canada is an unfair trader.
The accusation is absurd. Is the US forced to buy from Canada? Should Canada be required to buy items that it doesn’t need or want?
Trump says that the US doesn’t need Canada’s oil, lumber, etc. If so, then that is fine. Then just don’t buy. But by imposing tariffs, it comes across as an admission that US producers can’t compete on price and quality. Is America being made great again by not competing in an open market? If Canada is unfairly subsidizing or skirting the stipulations of the United States-Mexico-Canada Trade Agreement (USMCA, a “free” trade agreement proposed by Trump and reached during his first term as president that eliminated most tariffs) or the World Trade Organization (WTO) then grieve the purported unfair trade practices according to the agreed-to mechanism in the trade agreements.
Canadian Relations with China
Outside of trade disputes, just how sovereign is Canada. Justin’s father, former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau, likened the Canada-America relationship as a mouse sleeping next to an elephant. Pierre, however, had an independent streak. He went to establish relations with the People’s Republic of China in 1970 — before Richard Nixon in 1979.
Justin, though, has been reticent to stray from the American line.
· Consequently, during the first Trump administration when Canada was asked/demanded to turn overMeng Wanzhou, the CFO of Huawei. Canada complied and held her under house arrest until the US agreed to drop the extradition request, with no charges forthcoming.
· Even diplomatic niceties went by the wayside. Justin found himself confronted by People’s Republic of China chairman Xi Jinping about his divulging privileged discussion between the two of them. Trudeau didn’t have the decency at that time or afterwards to publicly apologize.
· China is many thousands of kilometers across the Pacific Ocean from Canada. Yet, Canadian warships are engaged in provocative actions – what Canadian media calls “a high stakes global chess game” — in the Taiwan Strait.
· After the US imposed 100 percent tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, Canada followed suit with the same tariffs.
Although China is reducing its dependence on fossil fuels, China still desires energy, certain minerals, and other commodities that Canada can supply. Canada might best orient its economy to be accepting of opportunities that China (and other countries) might offer. It would be a seismic shift in orientation, but Canada might be best served by joining BRICS and considering what the Belt and Road Initiative has to offer.
While Trump browbeats and disparages its trading partners to gain the US an upper hand in trade relations, China professes that it is about win-win relations. Such win-win relations are logical and conducive to continued business and greater profit to all sides. Win-win is more likely to preserve continued trade relations and build a good reputation for prospective trade relations elsewhere, whereas taking advantage of a trade partner might well endanger continued trade relations and not promote a positive image among other potential trade partners.
Moreover, Chairman Xi will not demean Trudeau, or his successor, as a governor of China’s 24th province (China has 23 provinces sheng — which includes, of course, the island province of Taiwan — and the governor is a shengzhang. There are also five autonomous regions, 4 municipalities, and two special administrative regions). Chinese are skilled diplomats.
China is assuredly interested in trade with Canada. China may well be a partner for Canadian commodities (which Trump ridicules): oil, gas, lumber, minerals, wheat, other agricultural products, Canadian technology, an end to Chinese tariffs on Canadian canola oil (enacted in response to Canadian tariffs on Chinese EVs), etc. China might even set up automobile plants to produce EVs for the Canadian market, preserving Canadian automobile jobs, and contributing to lower greenhouse gas emissions.
The Chinese economy is ascendant while the US is getting bogged down by exploding debt. Much of the US economic fortunes are dependent on the dollar as a fiat currency. Yet, the pace of dedollarization is increasing. Many European economies are sputtering. Asia and the Global South are rising. Canada has a choice.
Tit-for-tat is a common response to the erection of tariffs, but it harms consumers in all countries. Trade diversification is a superior strategy, and it is something that Canada trumpets and needs to act on. Much of the rest of the world is poised to diversify its trade away from US tariffs against them.
In the course of two Senate hearings this week, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Donald Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), faced a long list of questions, ranging from immunization to chronic diseases to the functioning of the United States health system in general. Having observed him spreading vaccine misinformation for years, most senators were prepared for a very long conversation—and that’s exactly what they got.
During his marathon testimonies, Kennedy largely struggled to provide definite and clear answers. One of the most concerning moments came when he failed to differentiate between the basic functions and workings of Medicare and Medicaid, two of the most important health programs in the US.
The US Senate is set to begin voting on Tuesday on a bill that would impose sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), according to a report by The Washington Post.
The move has reportedly sparked concerns among some prominent European allies who warn it could undermine international law.
“U.S. lawmakers are moving to pass a law that some of Washington’s top European allies fear will ‘cripple’ the world’s preeminent international court, enable war criminals to act with impunity, and degrade the West’s moral authority,” the Washington Post reported.
In January 2026, the World Health Organization (WHO) is poised to lose a member state, following US President Donald Trump’s executive order to withdraw from the UN health agency. Should this plan go ahead, it will mark the end of US participation in the world’s main global health forum and bring budgetary headaches to the WHO, given that the US remains its top financial contributor.
The WHO’s rather dry response to the announcement suggests it was expected and that the agency has likely begun preparing to navigate a second Trump presidency on reduced resources.
American doctors are accusing US health insurance giants of causing deadly delays to vital medical procedures and care – and putting profits ahead of their patients’ health.
Firms including United Healthcare have denied basic scans, and taken months to reconsider, according to physicians who spoke to the Guardian.
“There’s good evidence that these kinds of delays literally kill people,” said Dr Ed Weisbart, former chief medical officer for Express Scripts, one of the largest prescription benefits managers in the US. “For some people, this isn’t just an inconvenience and an annoyance and an aggravation.
Through racist, anti-migrant claims, falsehoods, and fearmongering, the Colorado suburb of Aurora has emerged as the right-wing’s potential staging ground for US President Donald Trump’s mass deportation agenda. Trump has pledged to launch the largest mass deportation operation in US history, expelling between 15 to 20 million migrants in an effort that will have ripple effects across working class communities and the entire US economy. The current US President has dubbed his mass deportation effort “Operation Aurora,” after a town that has become the epicenter of anti-migrant hysteria.
US President Donald Trump’s promise to deliver a national AI plan in just 180 days is a clear signal of the country’s ambitions for the technology, and what’s at stake for the world’s largest economy. That’s if there was any doubt after Mr Trump days earlier had announced the Stargate Project, a US$500 billion (A$792…
On Monday, January 20, as thousands were taking to the streets to protest Donald Trump’s inauguration, Trump himself signed a barrage of executive orders with broad implications. These orders were largely an attempt to reverse many of the moves of the Biden administration, in particular Biden’s most progressive policies on immigration, racial justice, LGBTQ rights, and efforts to combat climate change.
The US government is the largest employer in the country. Some of Trump’s executive orders followed through on the right-wing promise to attack the federal work force, as mentioned in both the 2024 Republican Party platform, which pledges to “fire corrupt employees” and the infamous Project 2025.
46th US President Joe Biden officially leaves office Monday, January 20, to be succeeded by former President Donald Trump. Trump’s promises in the name of “saving American workers” have raised alarm for people across sectors of society, including migrant workers who are gearing up for mass deportations, and unionized workers who are preparing for Trump’s attacks on labor rights. Trump’s loyalty to multi-billionaires has also given the working class of the US great cause for concern. Meanwhile, in contrast, the Democrats have attempted to position themselves as the real defenders of working people.
Conveners of the demonstrations have spoken to the variety of Trump’s promised attacks on working people. “Trump is planning to wage war on immigrant families through a brutal mass deportation campaign,” said Claudia De La Cruz, who ran on a socialist platform in her campaign for president against both Harris and Trump, on the ticket of the Party for Socialism and Liberation. “We will stand up and say NO to these attacks. Trump is a billionaire, was elected with the help of other billionaires, and runs the government on behalf of the billionaire class.
United States President Biden has announced that he will remove Cuba from the US’s list of State Sponsors of Terrorism in his final days as President, reversing Donald Trump’s addition of Cuba to the list in 2021. The Biden administration said on Tuesday, January 14, that this move is meant to facilitate the release of individuals detained in Cuba. “I transmit herewith a report to the Congress with respect to the proposed recission of Cuba’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism,” Biden announced.
Countries are added to the US’s State Sponsors of Terrorism list by the State Department that have allegedly “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism”.
It cost the American taxpayer $24 million to find out what we knew all along: politics is corrupt.
After four years of being subjected to special prosecutor Jack Smith’s dogged investigation into alleged election interference by Donald Trump, the Justice Department has concluded that Trump would have been convicted of breaking the lawif only he hadn’t gotten re-elected.
In other words, the Deep State wins again.
The revelation here is not that Trump broke the law but the extent to which sitting presidents get a free pass when it comes to misconduct.
None of this is news.
The Deep State has been operating from this exact same playbook for decades, regardless of which party has occupied the White House.
This is how we ended up with an imperial president—empowered to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability—and why “we the people” keep finding ourselves mired in a political swamp of lies, graft, cronyism and corruption.
George Orwell, who died 75 years ago on Jan. 21, 1950, must be rolling in his grave.
In the 75 years since George Orwell died, his works of dystopian fiction—which warn against rampant abuse of power, mind control and mass manipulation coupled with the rise of ubiquitous technology, fascism and totalitarianism—have become operation manuals for power-hungry political regimes wedded to the corporate state.
While Orwell’s novel 1984 foreshadowed the rise of an omnipresent, modern-day surveillance state, his novel Animal Farm aptly sums up the state of politics today, propped up by a two-party system designed to maintain the illusion that voting matters.
Orwell understood what many Americans, caught up in their partisan flag-waving, are still struggling to come to terms with: that there is no such thing as a government organized for the good of the people—even the best intentions among those in government inevitably give way to the desire to maintain power and control at all costs.
As Orwell explains:
The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power, pure power… We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship.
No doubt about it: the revolution was successful.
That January 6, 2021 attempt by President Trump and his followers to overturn the election results was not the revolution, however.
Those who answered President Trump’s call to march on the Capitol were merely the fall guys, manipulated into creating the perfect crisis for the Deep State—a.k.a. the Police State a.k.a. the Military Industrial Complex a.k.a. the Techno-Corporate State a.k.a. the Surveillance State—to amass even greater powers.
It was a set-up, folks.
The Justice Department’s policy of not prosecuting a sitting president was the tell.
The only coup d’etat to undermine the will of the people happened when our government “of the people, by the people, for the people” was overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic, techno-corporate state that is in cahoots with a government “of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations.”
This swamp is of the Deep State’s making to such an extent that every successive president starting with Franklin D. Roosevelt has been bought lock, stock and barrel and made to dance to the Deep State’s tune.
Joe Biden was no different: his job was to keep the Deep State in power.
Trump’s return to the White House has already thrown wide the gates to all manner of swampiness.
Follow the money. It always points the way.
This brings us back to Orwell’s Animal Farm, which turns 80 this year.
Originally titled a fairy story, the satirical allegory recounts the revolutionary struggle of a group of farm animals living in squalor and neglect on a poorly run farm managed by a derelict farmer.
Hoping to create a society where all animals are equal, the farm animals mount a revolution, ejecting the farmer, taking control of the farm, establishing their own Bill of Rights, and operating under the mantra “four legs good, two legs bad.” Not surprisingly, as is the case with most revolutions, the new boss—a pig named Napoleon—turns out to be no different from their old human oppressor. Over time, a ruling class of pigs comes to dominate on the farm, which is policed by dogs, with the pigs starting to dress, walk and talk like their human counterparts. Eventually, the pigs forge an alliance with their former two-legged adversaries in order to maintain their power over the rest of the farm animals. Before long, the pigs’ transformation into two-legged overlords is complete: “they were all alike.”
“No question, now, what had happened to the faces of the pigs,” writes Orwell. “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
Much like the gullible, easily led creatures of Animal Farm, we find ourselves being brainwashed into believing that the tyrannies meted out against us are for our own good; that the trials are tribulations we experience at the hands of the ruling elite are privileges for which we should feel grateful; and that our bondage to the Deep State is actually, appearances to the contrary, freedom.
Over time, without their realizing it, the Seven Commandments of liberation and equality that were so central to Animal Farm’s revolutionary movement are whittled down to a single commandment: “ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL BUT SOME ANIMALS ARE MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS.”
Australia is one of a select few countries exempt from sweeping new controls to limit the export of US-developed advanced computing chips and sharing of closed-weight AI models as the AI arms race heats up. The outgoing Biden Administration announced the rules on Monday in an 11th-hour bid to bolster AI hegemony, leading to immediate…
Peter Ford served in the UK Foreign Ministry for many years including being UK Ambassador to Bahrein (1999-2003) and then Syria (2003-2006). Following that, he was representative to the Arab world for the Commissioner General of United Nations Relief and Works Agency. He was interviewed by Rick Stering on Jan 6, 2025.
Rick Sterling: Why do you think the Syrian military and government collapsed so rapidly?
Peter Ford: Everybody was surprised but with hindsight, we shouldn’t have been. Over more than a decade, the Syrian army had been hollowed out by the extremely dire economic situation in Syria, mainly caused by western sanctions. Syria only had a few hours of electricity a day, no money to buy weapons and no ability to use the international banking system to buy anything whatsoever. It’s no surprise that the Army was run down. With hindsight, you might say the surprise is that the Syrian government and Army were successful in driving back the Islamists. The Syrian Army forced them into the redoubt of Idlib four or five years ago.But after that point, the Syrian army deteriorated, became less battle ready on the technical level and also morale.
Syrian soldiers are mainly conscripts and they suffer as much as any ordinary Syrian from the really dreadful economic situation in Syria. I hesitate to admit it, but the Western sanctions were extremely effectively in doing what they were designed to do: to bring the Syrian economy down to its knees. So we have to say, and I say this with deep regret, the sanctions worked. The sanctions did exactly what they were designed to do to make the Syrian people suffer, and thereby to bring about discontent with what they call the regime.
Ordinary Syrians didn’t understand the complexities of geopolitics, and they blamed the Syrian government for everything: not having electricity, not having food, not having gas, oil, high inflation. Everything that came from being cut off from the world economy and not having supporters with bottomless pockets.
Syria was being attacked and occupied by major military powers (Turkey, USA, Israel). Plus thousands of foreign jihadis. The Syrian army was so demoralized that they really were a paper tiger by the end of the day.
RS: Do you think the UK and the US were involved in training the jihadis prior to the December attack on Aleppo?
PF: Absolutely. The Israelis also. The leader of Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS), Ahmed Hussein al Sharaa (formerly known as Mohammad abu Jolani) almost certainly has British advisors in the background. In fact, I detected the hand of such advisors in some of the statements made in impeccable English. The statements had Americanized spelling, so the CIA are in there too. Jolani is a puppet, a marionette saying what they want him to say.
RS: What’s is the current situation, a month after the collapse?
PF: There are skirmishes here and there, but broadly, the Islamists and foreign fighters are ruling the roost. There are pockets of resistance in Latakia where the Alawite are literally fighting for their lives. Much of the fighting is about the attempts by HTF, the present rulers to confiscate weapons. The Alawites are resisting and there are pockets of resistance in the South where there are local Druze militias.
HTS is spread thinly on the ground. They are facing problems in asserting themselves. Although they had a walkover against the Syrian army, they never actually had to do much fighting. I would guess they only have about 30,000 fighting men and spread across Syria, that is not a lot. There’s an important pocket of resistance in the Northeast where the Kurds are. The Kurdish American allies are resisting. The so-called Syrian National Army, which is a front for the Turkish army, may go into a fully fledged war against the Kurdish forces. But that’s going to depend partly on what happens after the inauguration of the new US president, how Trump deals with the situation.
RS: What are you hearing from people in Syria?
It is not a pretty story. HTS and their allies have been parading showing their dominance, flying ISIS and Al-Qaeda flags. They have been bullying, intimidating, confiscating and looting. Surrendering Christian as well as Alawite soldiers have been given summary justice, roadside executions being the norm. Christians in their towns and villages are just trying to hunker down and pray. Literally. I’m sorry to say the senior Christian clerics, with one or two noble exceptions, have opted for appeasement and effectively betrayed their communities. The senior leadership at the Orthodox Church, in particular Greek Catholic church, have had themselves photographed with dignitaries of the jihadi regime.
They are turning the other cheek. It’s quite a contrast with the Alawite. But they have no choice. You may remember that the slogan of the jihadi armies during the conflict was, “Christians to Beirut, Alawite to the grave.” HTS is going through the motions of having meetings with clerics and making soothing noises. All the while their henchmen are driving around in trucks flying ISIS flags. What I’m hearing is very depressing.
The regime is leaving the Alawites totally abandoned. You barely read a word in the west in media about the plight of the Alawite and not much more about the Christians.
RS: Western media have demonized Bashar al Assad and even Asma Assad. What was your impression of Bashar and Asma when you met them? What do you think of accusations they accumulated billions of dollars?
PF: The accusations are completely spurious. I know some members of the Assad family, some of them have lived for many years in Britain. They lived in very modest personal circumstances. If Assad had been a billionaire, like they’re saying, some of that would’ve trickled down. I can guarantee you that has not been the case. These accusations also go against the impressions that I picked up when I was seeing the Assads when I was an ambassador there. They appreciated the good things of life the same as everybody else, but they didn’t come across as the Marcos type. Nothing at all like that. It is all lies, made up to serve the deeper agenda.
The media kicking of Bashar and Asma is really distasteful. It’s pointless.He’s disappointed his few remaining followers, although it was unrealistic, I believe, for them to expect more. But the fact is that he ran when others were not able to run, and many of those have been killed, or they’re hiding or they’ve escaped to Lebanon in some cases where they’re also hiding. He did get out with his skin, but to beat up on him as the media are doing is really distasteful and pointless. It is akin to this new genre of political pornography, Assad porn, the torture stories, the hyped up narrative about prison and graves being opened up. Actually, by the way, most of those graves are war dead. They were not people who’d been tortured to death as the media pretends. Hundreds of thousands of people died in the conflict over more than a decade, and many of them were buried in unmarked graves. But the western media are reveling in this new genre of Assad porn.
This is all being whipped up to make Western audiences more accepting of the way the West is getting into bed with Al-Qaeda. The more they demonize Assad and harp on the misdeeds of the Assad regime, and the more likely we are to swallow and be distracted away from the hideous atrocities being carried out right now.
Western leaders are kissing the feet of a guy who’s still a wanted terrorist and who has been a founder member of ISIS for God’s sake, as well as a founder member of Al-Qaeda in Syria. It is morally distasteful and shaming.
Joulani needs the west desperately now. Otherwise, he will face the same fate as Bashar Asad. If the economy continues on its trajectory of the years, then Joulani will be dead meat in fairly short order. He has to deliver massive rapid economic improvement to survive as leader. And this is what it’s all about. His strategy, obviously, is to milk his status as a puppet of the West in order to secure not just reconstruction aid, but that’s for the long term, but more immediately sanctions relief, the electricity flowing again, the oil.
Let”s not forget that the oil and gas of Syria is still effectively in the hands of the United States, which through its Kurdish puppets, controls a segment of the economy, which used to be worth, I think, 20% of serious GDP and provide essential oil for fuel, cooking, everything. He’s got to get his hands on that and get sanctions lifted. That’s what so much of it is about. But he has one major problem: Israel. Israel’s not buying it. Israel is the exception. All the western front is tumbling over itself to go and kiss the feet of the sultan of Damascus. But the Israelis are sucking their teeth, saying they don’t trust the guy.
Israel is destroying the remnants of the Syrian army and its infrastructure. Meanwhile they grab more Syrian land. They want to keep Syria on its knees indefinitely by insisting that Western sanctions not be lifted. I sense there’s a battle royal going on in Washington between what we might call the deep state, which would favor lifting sanctions and the Israel lobby, which is resisting that for selfish Israeli reasons. Given that the Israeli lobby wins these tussles nine times out of 10 , the outlook may not be that great for the Jolani regime.
RS: What are your hopes and fears for Syria? What’s the nightmare scenario and what’s the best possible?
PF: I’m very pessimistic. It is very hard to see a silver lining in what has happened. Syria has been taken off the table as a Middle East player. The old Syria has died effectively. Syria was the last man standing among the Arab countries that supported the Palestinians. There was no other. There were militias like Hezbollah plus Yemen but there were no states other than Syria. Syria is now gone, and the jihadis are saying, telling the world they don’t care. By the way, this is an example of how the Israelis will not take yes for an answer. The jihadis keep telling the world, “We love Israel. We don’t care about the Palestinians. Please accept us. We love you.” And the Israelis won’t take yes for an answer.
The best hope for the Syrian people is that they may get some respite. It is possible to imagine a scenario where the Syrian people are able to recover, at least economically a scenario under which sanctions are lifted, under which Syria, the central government recovers control of its oil and grain, where fighting has stopped, where it doesn’t have to pay anything to keep up an army because it’s not trying.They might be able to put everything into reconstruction.
So it is possible to imagine a scenario where Syria loses its soul, but gains more hours of electricity. That is possibly the most likely scenario. But there are major obstacles as we discussed, Israel standing in the way of sanctions, lifting pockets of resistance in discipline among the jihadi ranks, Turkey rampaging against the Kurds and ISIS which is still not a completely spent force. So the outlook is obviously cloudy. We should take stock in a month’s time when we see the early days of the new regime in Washington on which so much will depend.
RS: In Trump’s first term he tried to remove all US troops from east Syria but his efforts were ignored. Perhaps that could have made a big difference?
PF: Yes, it could have been a total game changer. If Syria had access to its oil, it wouldn’t have had the fuel problem, the electricity problem. It could have changed the history of the region.
Now, the US is increasing the number of soldiers and bases in Syria. And they recently assassinated a ISIS leader which might have played a role in sparking the recent terrorist attack in the US. All of this makes it much harder now for Trump to withdraw US forces because it will seen as a retreat, a reward for ISIS.
I argued for years that the sanctions were manifestly not working. But in the end they did. It’s like a bridge. It gets undermined and then suddenly it breaks. There was no single cause. It was just the culmination and things reached a tipping point.
Sanaa, Yemen – Israel, the US, and Britain on Friday carried out their first coordinated attack on Houthi targets in Yemen, the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation reported.
Houthi-affiliated Al-Masirah TV also reported that a series of airstrikes targeted the vicinity of the Al-Sabeen Square in the Yemeni capital Sanaa.
The attack coincided with a rally in support of Palestine amid Israel’s 16-month-old continuing genocidal war on Gaza.
Additionally, the Houthis reported six airstrikes on the port city of Al-Hudaydah in western Yemen.
Al-Masirah later reported: “An American-British assault targeted the Harf Sufyan district in the governorate of Amran with 12 airstrikes.”
The week before Christmas, Amazon workers at facilities across the US, organized by the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, took on the world’s most profitable third party logistics corporation by walking off the job by the hundreds. Although this pre-holiday strike represented a minority of the Amazon workforce, it represented the largest strike against Amazon in US history.
Amazon’s profits keep breaking records, even within the context of a logistics industry that as a whole is experiencing a difficult freight market due to an oversupply of truck capacity.
