Since the “ends justify the means” in their Machiavellian calculations, even the Crimean Bridge’s damage as a result of a likely suicide truck bomb terrorist attack is worthy of celebration according to Russia’s opponents. This position totally discredits everything that the US’ “rules-based order” claims to uphold.
Their stance is that this civilian infrastructure was dual-use in the sense of having military applications related to logistically supporting Russia’s specialoperation in Ukraine, which thus makes it a “legitimate target”. They also cite Kiev’s opposition to its construction on territory that it still claims as its own despite not controlling it after the locals overwhelmingly voted to reunify with their historical Russian homeland in spring 2014. Since the “ends justify the means” in their Machiavellian calculations, even the Crimean Bridge’s damage as a result of a likely suicide truck bomb terrorist attack is worthy of celebration. This position totally discredits everything that the US’ “rules-based order” claims to uphold.
To explain, that concept has always been nothing but high-sounding rhetoric to disguise the arbitrary implementation of double standards intended to advance American interests at everyone else’s expense, especially its geostrategic rivals’ like Russia’s, China’s, and Iran’s. In this context, the hypocrisy is evidenced by condemning ISIS-like terrorist attacks against dual-use civilian infrastructure (which technically refers to every bridge in the world to various extents) whenever they occur within the declining unipolar hegemony’s “sphere of influence” while simultaneously praising – and possibly orchestrating or even directly carrying out – such attacks whenever they harm its rivals’ interests.
By contrast, the countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO, which includes the US’ aforementioned three geostrategic rivals) are united through their group’s charter through their shared principled opposition to terrorism, separatism, and extremism. Even in the event that the entered into hostilities with another state and decided to target its dual-use civilian infrastructure to advance their military-strategic aims, they’d thus do so through non-terrorist means such as conventional attacks or sabotage without stooping to the Golden Billion’s level of a suicide truck bomb terrorist attack like what video footage very strongly suggests was responsible for damaging the Crimean Bridge.
Exacerbating the moral divide between both sides, the US-led West’s Golden Billion and the BRICS-/SCO-led Global South, the first-mentioned’s key influencers and their supporters aren’t even attempting to claim “plausible deniability” over this terrorist attack but are proudly celebrating it on social media. Realistically speaking, it’s not surprising that their side resorted to these means out of desperation to inflict military, soft power, and strategic damage to their Russian opponent, but it wasn’t expected that they’d so openly praise what just happened. This observation shows that even they know that the “rules-based order” concept is hollow and self-interested rhetoric designed to gaslight naïve audiences.
Recognizing this, it becomes clear that the NewColdWar between the unipolar and multipolar “camps” (for lack of a better description) is geostrategic at its core and not driven by “values” like the Golden Billion falsely claims. To be sure, the Global South still upholds its self-declared values in terms of how its members conduct themselves amidst this worldwide competition over the course of the global systemic transition to multipolarity, but their envisaged “ideological”/structural end game of a more democratic, equal, and just world order drives them much more than anything else. By publicly sacrificing their previously professed anti-terrorist values, the West showed that it doesn’t have any “moral superiority”.
What we are witnessing today is a natural reaction to the level to which Western systems and Western media have used ordinary people and their lives, their well-being, and even their subsistence in order to launch wars.
When the General Assembly was in session, the Italian elections came to prove that the Western rhetoric at the UN, especially that of Joe Biden and Liz Truss, has nothing to do with the reality and aspirations of their people.
Western rhetoric tried to show that the West is absolutely united and that the path they are treading is the one that their people want and are determined to tread. However, the Italian elections, preceded by elections in other European countries, proved that Western officials are in one place, and their people, who they are supposed to represent, are in a totally different place.
A lot of narratives and counter-narratives will prevail in the following weeks about the ascent of the right in Europe. Of course, the ruling oligarchy is trying to describe the right as the far right, the extreme right, perhaps verging on calling the right the terrorist right in an attempt to frighten people from the rise of right movements in Europe. These are nationalist movements saying that the aspirations and the lives of our people should precede liberal doctrine and liberal ideas, which have a frightening social agenda that may prove to be incompatible with the rights and happiness of people.
We all saw the danger of neo-liberalism, especially in the last two years, trying to define human nature by spreading concepts, arguments, and narratives that have nothing to do with the spontaneous lives and feelings of people everywhere. Besides, Covid-19 proved to most people that the solidarity required from them during wars to pay for armaments and to pay for raging wars anywhere in the globe is not matched by the solidarity these people receive at times of plague. Italy, in particular, was struck hard by Covid-19 but received hardly any help either from the US or from other European countries, with whom it is aligned at times of wars of aggression. In the meantime, it received great help from Cuba, China, and Russia. So the Italian people see and understand what is happening to them.
This was aggravated by the economic difficulties caused by the proxy war these countries are fighting in Ukraine against Russia and against the emergence of a multipolar world. Western reports show that inflation is rife and people are getting impoverished and suffering from huge expenses exacerbated by an unprecedented rise in prices and fall in their currencies. Why? Because they are required to feed a nonsensical war in Ukraine and destroy a country, which they have nothing to do with, in order to preserve the American hegemony on other countries and other people
So, for the first time, probably since the second world war, we are witnessing today a real rift between Western people and their true interests on the one hand and those who are supposed to represent them, on the other. In order to fight this trend, and perhaps to corner it, Western media, of course, dictated by Western policymakers, is giving these national trends in most European countries titles that have negative connotations with the aim of frightening people from these movements. They are accusing them of hatred of Muslims, hatred of refugees, wanting to establish Christian states, and being only interested in white and Christian countries. The funny thing about these claims is that they make it seem as if Europe now stands as a paradise for refugees and for Muslims and as if equality is absolutely prevalent and no racism can be traced whatsoever in Europe. When the Ukrainian refugees started to flee into Europe, European commentators and program anchors were saying: those are not Syrians, they are not Iraqis; those are white people with blue eyes. If this is not racism, I don’t know what is?!
I am not saying that the rising movements in Europe or right-wing movements or national movements in Europe do not have a negative attitude toward Arabs and Muslims, but I am saying even if they have, which is regrettable of course, there will be nothing new in that. We have been suffering from these attitudes for decades. But the difference between what Giorgia Meloni, the new Italian representative, and Liz Truss and Joe Biden, for example, is that the Italians say things as they are; honestly, clearly, and straight to the point; whereas Liz Truss and Joe Biden have a double-faced, hypocritical rhetoric that is supposed to address one reality, while brushing under the carpet a very different reality concerning the lives of people, both in the West and across the world.
When I read the Western narrative that is meant to frighten everyone from the emerging national movements in Europe, I remembered the importance of naming, and how sometimes naming things or trends or movements is meant to hide the essence of these entities rather than to express their real nature. I remember when I got my MA, I was offered a place to do my Ph.D. at Warwick University in the UK, where I met the head of the English Department. He asked me, “What is the subject you want to work on for a Ph.D.?” I said, “I want to work on the influence of Romantic poets, particularly Percy Bysshe Shelley on the Chartist Movement.” He was shocked and he immediately retorted: “What the hell do the Romantic poets have to do with the Chartist Movement?!” I said, “Well, that is what I want to find out.” The Chartist Movement is the first working-class movement in the world in 1848. It took place about 20 years after the death of Romantic poets; particularly: Percy Bysshe Shelley and Lord Byron.
Through four years of research in newspapers, books, philosophy, literature, and politics, I discovered that the name romantic has nothing to do with the reality of those poets, who were extremely active in the political domain. Lord Byron was killed fighting a war in Greece to liberate it from the Ottoman occupation, and Shelly spent his life trying to liberate Ireland from British rule. Shelly’s poem “Queen Mab” was called “The Chartist’s Bible.” I am relating this incident to show how important naming is and how much the West, particularly the UK, uses naming things or trends or people in order to project the reality it wants rather than the authentic reality that these names should truly reflect.
The war that is still raging in Ukraine is causing the impoverishment of Western people; it is causing great hardships for the majority of Western people. But there are beneficiaries of this war: arms industrialists and senior officials in all domains; whether army, intelligence, or politics… they are the ones who are increasing and multiplying their financial fortunes. Thus, what we are beginning to witness with the rise of the right movements or national movements in Europe are the first indications of real rebellion against these unfair and authoritarian autocratic systems that are calling themselves democracies. The upcoming winter may generate different means that people in Western countries are going to use in order to reach their objectives.
Besides Covid-19 and besides the war in Ukraine, I think that there is a third factor that is motivating people to think deeply about their lives, about the future of their children and their grandchildren. The third factor is the narrative of neo-liberalism that is ignoring all real issues – issues of families, working women, elderly people, poverty, education, childhood, and health – and focusing instead on issues that are almost invented and fabricated by a certain interest group for reasons that have nothing to do with the real lives of people. We all followed the huge concentration in the Western narratives on gay and lesbian relations and same-sex marriages, which in essence contradict human nature. Perhaps there are some people who find themselves in a different boat from most people, but to project this as a necessity and a subject to be forced on the throats of nine-year-olds at schools is something sinister and vicious.
There is no doubt that the destruction of the family nucleus in the West is a huge social problem that most people are suffering from, while yearning to restore the feeling of family and the normal feeling of affection and care among family members. This should be the case instead of putting such a huge stress on the individual and ignoring that the individual is always much happier and performs much better when he/she is raised by a loving family and a loving community and by a social matrix that provides him/her with all the support, love, and affection that help these individuals excel in their lives.
So, what we are witnessing today is a natural reaction to the level to which Western systems and Western media have used ordinary people and their lives, their well-being, and even their subsistence in order to launch wars and make the arms industry the best-thriving industry in the West, through conquering other countries and stealing their resources.
The antithesis for all this is what we read and hear of narratives coming from the East; from China, Russia, Iran, the BRIKS, member countries of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, especially the narrative expressed and confirmed by Xi Jinping over the last decade that we are all living on one planet and that we have to share the resources of this planet and jointly be responsible for the welfare of this planet, without any of us trying to impose things on the other. We have to establish security for all, integrity for all, and prosperity for all because we all share this earth and we should join ranks in order to make sure that people on this earth live well and have the right opportunities to express themselves, build their future, and work hand in hand for the welfare of everybody everywhere.
Of course, this does not suit systems that encourage apartheid and occupation in Palestine and elsewhere… this doesn’t suit racist systems that see white-skinned men and women as superior to black- or brown-skinned people and want to use brown or black-skinned people as slaves; i.e. modern slaves for accumulating more wealth at the expense of other people and other countries.
So, what most people in the world aspire to is a welfare system; a truly fair system. The people crave for justice and not for claims of democracies that have no positive effect on their lives. Democracies had been used as slogans in order to suppress both peoples of these countries and people of other countries as well. Perhaps the cycle of history has reached a point where change is absolutely imperative. People have reached a conviction that this road, which has been charted by Western powers, is an extremely dangerous road, and has led to a dead-end. So, we better stop here and make a U-turn in order to ensure that we restore the balance; the logical balance to human lives.
RUSSELS (THE GRAYZONE) — A French Member of European Parliament (MEP), Natalie Louiseau, has delivered a letter to EU High Representative of Foreign Affairs, Joseph Borrell, demanding the European Union place personal sanctions on all international observers of the recent votes in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and certain Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine.
Obtained by The Grayzone from an EU source, the letteEr is currently being circulated among European parliamentarians in hopes of securing a docket of supportive signatures.
“We, as elected members of the European Parliament, demand that all those who voluntarily assisted in any way the organization of these illegitimate referendums be individually targeted and sanctioned,” Louiseau declared.
The French MEP’s letter came after a group of formally Ukrainian territories held a vote on whether or not to officially incorporate themselves into the Russian Federation in late September. Through the popular referendum, the independent Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, which announced their respective successions from Ukraine in 2014 following a foreign-backed coup against the government Kiev, as well as the regions of Kherson and Zaporozhia, voted overwhelmingly in favor of joining the Russian Federation.
Louiseau singled out Vanessa Beeley, a British journalist who traveled to the region to monitor the vote. Extending her complaint well beyond the referendum, the French MEP accused Beeley of “continuously spreading fake news about Syria and acting as a mouthpiece for Vladimir Putin and Bashar el [sic] Assad for years.”
Louiseau, a close ally of French President Emanuel Macron, specifically demanded Beeley be “included in the list of those sanctioned.”
Beeley responded to Louiseau’s letter in a statement to The Grayzone: “Imposing sanctions on global citizens for bearing witness to a legal process that reflects the self-determination of the people of Donbass is fascism. Should the EU proceed with this campaign, I believe there will be serious consequences because the essence of freedom of speech and thought is under attack.
RUSSIA’S REFERENDUMS: DRAWING A LINE WITH NATO
In mid-September 2022, Beeley and around 100 other international delegates traveled to eastern Europe in order to observe a vote to join the Russian Federation in the regions of Kherson, Zaporozhia, and the independent republics of Lugansk and Donetsk.
Why did their presence trigger such an outraged response from Western governments? The answer lies in the recent history of these heavily contested areas.
The formally Ukrainian territories of Kherson and Zaporozhia fell under Russian control earlier this year as a result of the military campaign launched by Moscow in February, while the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics declared their independence from the government in Kiev in 2014.
Russia began its special military campaign in Ukrainian territory on February 24. The operation followed Moscow’s decision that same week to formally recognize the independence of the Donetsk People’s Republic and Lugansk People’s Republic (the Donbass Republics) in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region. Pro-Russian separatists in the Donbass have been embroiled in a bloody trench battle with the US-backed government in Kiev since 2014.
Ukraine’s civil conflict broke out in March 2014, after US and European forces sponsored a coup in the country that installed a decidedly pro-NATO nationalist regime in Kiev which proceeded to declare war on its minority, ethnically Russian population.
Following the 2014 putsch, Ukraine’s government officially marginalized the Russian language while extremist thugs backed by Kiev massacred and intimidated ethnic Russian citizens of Ukraine. In response, separatist protests swept Ukraine’s majority-Russian eastern regions.
The territory of Crimea formally voted to join Russia in March of that year, while the Donetsk and Lugansk Republics in Ukraine’s eastern Donbass region declared their unofficial independence from Kiev that same month. With support from the US military and NATO, Ukraine’s coup government officially declared war on the Donbass in April 2014, launching what it characterized as an “Anti-Terrorist Operation” in the region.
Russia trained and equipped separatist militias in Donetsk and Lugansk throughout the territories’ civil campaigns against Kiev, though Moscow did not officially recognize the independence of the Donbass republics until February 2022. By then, United Nations estimates placed the casualty count for Ukraine’s civil war at roughly 13,000 dead. While Moscow offered support to Donbass separatists throughout the 2014-2022 period, US and European governments invested billions to prop up a Ukrainian military that was heavily reliant on army and intelligence factions with direct links to the country’s historic anti-Soviet, pro-Nazi deep state born as a result of World War II.
Nothing to see here, just US embassy attaché Col. Brittany Stewart paying tribute to Ukrainian ultra-right neo-fascist Right Sector leader Vasily Slipak, and sporting a "Ukraine or Death" badge on her uniform https://t.co/7uuFfISNZlpic.twitter.com/Ym8CQQv1OD
Russia’s military formally entered the Ukraine conflict in February 2022, following Moscow’s recognition of the Donbass republics. While Russian President Vladimir Putin defined the liberation of the Donbass republics as the primary objective of the military operation, he also listed the “de-nazification” and “de-militarization” of Ukraine as a goals of the campaign. As such, Russian troops have since secured control of Ukrainian territories beyond the Donbass region, including the territories of Kherson and Zaporozhia.
Facing increased Western investment in the Kiev-aligned bloc of Ukraine’s civil war, authorities in the Donbass republics announced a referendum on membership in the Russian Federation in late September 2022, with Moscow-aligned officials in Kherson and Zaporozhia announcing similar ballot initiatives. Citizens in each territory proceeded to approve Russian membership by overwhelming majorities.
The results of the referendum not only threatened the government in Kiev, but its European and US backers. Western-aligned media leapt to characterize the votes as a sham, claiming Moscow’s troops had coerced citizens into joining the Russian Federation at the barrel of a gun. Their narrative would have reigned supreme if not for the hundred or so international observers who physically traveled to the regions in question to observe the referendum process.
Observers like Vanessa Beeley now face the threat of returning home to the West as wanted outlaws. But as Loiseau’s letter made clear, the British journalist was in the crosshairs long before the escalation in Ukraine.
BEELEY AMONG EUROPEAN JOURNALISTS TARGETED AND PROSECUTED FOR REPORTING FROM DONETSK
Vanessa Beeley was among the first independent journalists to expose the US and UK governments’ sponsorship of the Syrian White Helmets, a so-called “volunteer organization” that played frontline role in promoting the foreign-backed dirty war against Syria’s government through its coordination with Western and Gulf-sponsored media. Beeley also played an instrumental role in revealing the White Helmets’ strong ties to Al-Qaeda’s Syrian branch, as well as its members’ involvement in atrocities committed by Western-backed insurgents.
Beeley’s work on Syria drew harsh attacks from an array of NATO and arms industry-funded think tanks. In June 2022, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD), which receives funding from a variety of NATO states, corporations and billionaires, labeled Beeley “the most prolific spreader of disinformation” on Syria prior to 2020. (According to ISD, Beeley was somehow “overtaken” by The Grayzone’s Aaron Mate that year). The group did not provide a single piece of evidence to support its assertions.
Though Beeley has endured waves of smears, French MEP Natalie Loiseau’s call for the EU to sanction the journalist represents the first time a Western official has moved to formally criminalize her work. Indeed, Loiseau made no secret that she is targeting Beeley not only for her role as an observer of the referendum votes, but also on the basis of her opinions and reporting on Syria.
Loiseau’s push to issue personal sanctions against EU and US citizens comes on the heels of the German government’s prosecution of independent journalist Alina Lipp. In March 2020, Berlin launched a formal case against Lipp, who is a German citizen, claiming her reporting from the Donetsk People’s Republic violated newly authorized state speech codes.
W/o explanation, @YouTube has demonetized my interview w/ Alina Lipp, the only German journalist in Donetsk
Prior to Lipp’s prosecution, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue launched a media campaign portraying her as a disseminator of “disinformation” and “pro-Kremlin content.”
In London, meanwhile, the UK government has imposed individual sanctions on Graham Philips, a British citizen and independent journalist, for his reporting from Donetsk.
And in Brussels, Louiseau’s campaign against Beeley appears to have emerged from a deeply personal vendetta.
Nathalie Louiseau and French Pres. Macron
WHO IS NATALIE LOUISEAU?
In April 2021, Beeley published a detailed profile of Louiseau at her personal blog, The Wall Will Fall, painting the French MEP as a regime change ideologue committed to “defending global insecurity and perpetual war.” Beeley noted that Lousieau served as a minister in the government of French President Emanuel Macron when it authorized airstrikes in response to dubious allegations of a Syrian government chemical attack in Douma in April 2018.
Beeley also reported that Louiseau has enjoyed a close relationship with the Syria Campaign, the public relations arm of the White Helmets operation. This same organization, which is backed by British-Syrian billionaire Ayman Asfari, was the sponsor of the Institute for Strategic Dialogue report which branded Beeley a “top propagator of disinformation” on Syria.
Louiseau has taken her activism into the heart of the European parliament, using her position as chair of the European Parliament’s Subcommittee on Security and Defense to silence colleagues who ask to many questions about the Western campaign for regime change in Syria.
During an April 2021 hearing, MEP Mick Wallace attempted to question Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Director General Fernando Arias about allegations he personally aided the censorship of an OPCW investigation which concluded no chemical attack took place in Douma, Syria in April 2018.
Louiseau immediately descended into a fit of rage, interrupting Wallace and preventing him from speaking.
“I cannot accept that you can call into question the work of an international organization, and that you would call into question the word of the victims in the way you have just done,” Loiseau fulminated.
Wallace responded with indignation, asking, “Is there no freedom of speech being allowed in the European Parliament any more? Today you are denying me my opinion!”
If you need any more proof that the @OPCW censored its Syria chemical weapons probe & covered it up, watch what unfolded at @Europarl_EN today.
OPCW chief Fernando Arias was asked critical questions, including whether he will meet the dissenting investigators. He didn't answer.
A year later, Wallace and fellow Irish MEP Clare Daly sued the Irish network RTE for defamation after it broadcast an interview with Loiseau during which she baselessly branded them as liars who spread disinformation about Syria in parliament.
Now, Louiseau appears to be seeking revenge against Beeley, demanding that she be criminally prosecuted not just for serving as a referendum observer, but for her journalistic output.
While US and western mainstream and corporate media remain biased in favor of Israel, they often behave as if they are a third, neutral party. This is simply not the case.
Take the New York Times coverage of the latest Israeli war on Gaza as an example. Its article on August 6, “Israel-Gaza Fighting Flares for a Second Day” is the typical mainstream western reporting on Israel and Palestine, but with a distinct NYT flavor.
For the uninformed reader, the article succeeds in finding a balanced language between two equal sides. This misleading moral equivalence is one of the biggest intellectual blind spots for western journalists. If they do not outwardly champion Israel’s discourse on ‘security’ and ‘right to defend itself’, they create false parallels between Palestinians and Israelis, as if a military occupier and an occupied nation have comparable rights and responsibilities.
Obviously, this logic does not apply to the Russia-Ukraine war. For NYT and all mainstream western media, there is no question regarding who the good guys and the bad guys are in that bloody fight.
‘Palestinian militants’ and ‘terrorists’ have always been the West’s bad guys. Per the logic of their media coverage, Israel does not launch unprovoked wars on Palestinians, and is not an unrepentant military occupier, or a racist apartheid regime. This language can only be used by marginal ‘radical’ and ‘leftist’ media, never the mainstream.
The brief introduction of the NYT article spoke about the rising death toll, but did not initially mention that the 20 killed Palestinians include children, emphasizing, instead, that Israeli attacks have killed a ‘militant leader’.
When the six children killed by Israel are revealed in the second paragraph, the article immediately, and without starting a new sentence, clarifies that “Israel said some civilian deaths were the result of militants stashing weapons in residential areas”, and that others were killed by “misfired’ Palestinian rockets.
On August 16, the Israeli military finally admitted that it was behind the strikes that killed the 5 young Palestinian boys of Jabaliya. Whether the NYT reported on that or not matters little. The damage has been done, and that was Israel’s plan from the start.
The title of the BBC story of August 16, ‘Gaza’s children are used to the death and bombing’, does not immediately name those responsible for the ‘death and bombing’. Even Israeli military spokesmen, as we will discover later, would agree to such a statement, though they will always lay the blame squarely on the ‘Palestinian terrorists’.
When the story finally reveals that a little girl, Layan, was killed in an Israeli strike, the language was carefully crafted to lessen the blame on her Israeli murderers. The girl, we are told, was on her way to the beach with her family, when their tuk-tuk “passed by a military camp run by the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad”, which, “at the exact moment, (…) was targeted by Israeli fire”. The author says nothing of how she reached the conclusion that the family was not the target.
One can easily glean from the story that Israel’s intention was not to kill Layan – and logically, none of the 17 other children murdered during the three-day war on Gaza. Besides, Israel has, according to the BBC, tried to save the little girl; alas, “a week of treatment in an Israeli hospital couldn’t save her life”.
Though Israeli politicians have spoken blatantly about killing Palestinians children – and, in the case of former Israeli Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked, “the Palestinian mothers who give birth to ‘little snakes’” – the BBC report, and other reports on the latest war, have failed to mention this. Instead, it quoted Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, who reportedly said that “the death of innocent civilians, especially childr is heartbreaking.” Incidentally, Lapid ordered the latest war on Gaza, which killed a total of 49 Palestinians.
Even a human-interest story about a murdered Palestinian child somehow avoided the language that could fault Israel for the gruesome killing of a little girl. Furthermore, the BBC also labored to present Israel in a positive light, resorting to quote the occupation army’s statement that it was “devastated by (Layan’s) death and that of any civilians.”
The NYT and BBC have been selected here not because they are the worst examples of western media bias, but because they are often cited as ‘liberal’, if not ‘progressive’, media. Their reporting, however, represents an ongoing crisis in western journalism, especially relating to Palestine.
Books have been written about this subject, civil society organizations were formed to hold western media accountable and numerous editorial board meetings were organized to put some pressure on western editors, to no avail.
Desperate by the unchanging pro-Israel narratives in western media, some pro-Palestine human rights advocates often argue that there are greater margins within Israel’s own mainstream media than in the US, for example. This, too, is inaccurate.
The misnomer of the supposedly more balanced Israeli media is a direct outcome of the failure to influence western media coverage on Palestine and Israel. The erroneous notion is often buoyed by the fact that an Israeli newspaper, like Haaretz, gives marginal spaces to critical voices, like those of Israeli journalists Gideon Levy and Amira Hass.
Israeli propaganda, one of the most powerful and sophisticated in the world, however, can hardly be balanced by occasional columns written by a few dissenting journalists.
Additionally, Haaretz is often cited as an example of relatively fair journalism, simply because the alternatives – Times of Israel, the Jerusalem Post and other right-wing Israeli media – are exemplary in their callousness, biased language and misconstruing of facts.
The pro-Israel prejudices in western media often spill over to Palestine’s sympathetic media throughout the Middle East and the rest of the world, especially those reporting on the news in English and French.
Since many newspapers and online platforms utilize western news agencies, they, often inadvertently, adopt the same language used in western news sources, thus depicting Palestinian resisters or fighters, as ‘militants’, the Israeli occupation army as “Israeli Defense Forces” and the Israeli war on Gaza as ‘flare ups’ of violence.
In its totality, this language misinterprets the Palestinian struggle for freedom as random acts of violence within a protracted ‘conflict’ where innocent civilians, like Layan, are ‘caught in the crossfire.’
The deadly Israeli wars on Gaza are made possible, not only by western weapons and political support, but through an endless stream of media misinformation and misrepresentation. Though Israel has killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in recent years, western media remains as committed to defending Israel as if nothing has changed.
– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of six books. His latest book, co-edited with Ilan Pappé, is “Our Vision for Liberation: Engaged Palestinian Leaders and Intellectuals Speak out”. Dr. Baroud is a Non-resident Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA). His website iswww.ramzybaroud.net
I haven’t “blogged” consistently for many years, since my Gaza days really, and use this site as a place to re-post my writings and interviews, generally.
Today, because I’m strapped for time, still in the Donetsk People’s Republic, I’m doing a short blog post, to share this:
In June, actor Mark Ruffalo joined the campaign calling on online payments platform PayPal to offer its services to Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and Gaza.
“Paypal [sic] operates in Israel’s illegal settlements—but is refusing to provide service to Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank, in direct violation of UN guidelines,” the award-winning actor wrote on Twitter, sharing a link to corporate accountability non-profit SumOfUs’ petition advocating for Palestinian access to PayPal. Nearly 240,000 people have signed the petition thus far.
Friends: Paypal operates in Israel’s illegal settlements—but is refusing to provide service to Palestinians in Gaza and West Bank, in direct violation of UN guidelines.
Join the international call to Paypal to end its baseless discrimination now.https://t.co/TdWjNWuEMl
With a celebrity signature, activists spearheading the campaign have renewed their efforts to target PayPal for its economic censorship and discrimination against Palestinians.
On August 4, 7amleh, The Arab Center for the Advancement of Social Media, in collaboration with SumOfUs and the Muslim grassroots movement, MPower Change, hosted a webinar sharing insights and updates on the #PayPal4Palestine campaign. The panel included speakers Lara Friedman, the Foundation for Middle East Peace president, Mona Shtaya, 7amleh’s advocacy advisor, and MPower Change co-founder Linda Sarsour.
UNDER VIRTUAL SIEGE
Launched in 2016, the #PayPal4Palestine campaign is led by 7amleh along with a number of civil society organizations. According to the campaign’s website, PayPal provides its services to Israeli citizens (including Palestinian citizens of Israel), settlers living in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and Palestinian residents of occupied East Jerusalem. But it does not offer access to Palestinians with bank accounts in the West Bank and Gaza.
“PayPal claims that its services are unavailable to Palestinians on the basis of its ‘Prohibited Countries’ policy, which classifies Palestine and around 30 other countries as ‘high-risk’ areas,” the website reads. Yet the online payment platform operates in over 200 countries including states with human rights violations and political instability, such as Yemen, Egypt, Zimbabwe, Jordan, Somalia, and Venezuela.
During the August 4 panel, 7amleh’s Shtaya explained that PayPal justified the lack of access because high-risk countries must take certain measures to qualify for PayPal services, specifically amending their banking system. A 2018 7amleh report on Palestinian access to PayPal states Palestine implemented several procedures to authorize electronic transactions and combat money laundering and fraud, such as passing the Electronic Transactions Law. According to 7amleh’s communications with the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Monetary Authority, PayPal’s recommendations have been met in the last year, but the platform is still unavailable to Palestinians. PayPal did not respond to MintPress News inquiries on why it denies access to Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. Indeed, earlier this year, PayPal banned MintPress and a number of other alternative media outlets from using their services.
According to 7amleh’s report, SumOfUs, the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights, and Jewish Voice for Peace published an online petition in 2016 urging PayPal to provide services to Palestinians. The following year, activists delivered the petition to PayPal’s headquarters in San Jose, California.
“Company representatives that received the petition acknowledged that accusing PayPal of discriminating against Palestinians because of their identity put PayPal in a very uncomfortable situation and that the company never intended to deliberately exclude Palestinians from its services. However, they still refused to commit to any concrete steps to remedy the situation,” 7amleh wrote in their report.
Other groups have also demanded PayPal extend its services to Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territories, including the company’s own investors, Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy, and the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network. Yet these efforts were to no avail as PayPal continues to exclude Palestinians in the Occupied Palestinian Territories from its platform.
During the webinar, Shtaya described how PayPal barring access to Gazans had put the besieged enclave’s residents under a double blockade.
“Preventing them from accessing PayPal or from having PayPal services means that they also prevent them from having work opportunities beyond [the] Gaza Strip,” Shtaya said. “They are not only under siege on the ground but also under siege virtually.”
Nowhere was this ban felt more acutely than during Israel’s assault on Gaza in May 2021. Shtaya explained that while Israeli rocket fire rained down on Gaza, international activists were blocked from supporting humanitarian organizations in Gaza through Venmo, a subsidiary of PayPal. “In the time of crisis, we’ve seen a huge discrimination against Palestinians, unlike the case of Ukraine and Russia,” Shtaya said.
When war broke out between Ukraine and Russia, PayPal launched a fundraiser to support Ukraine while also suspending its services in Russia.
And while Palestinians in the West Bank cannot open a PayPal account, Israeli settlers just next door can. During the panel discussion, Friedman noted that,
The settlement movement has been dedicated really to taking as much land as possible, putting down an Israeli civilian presence protected by a military presence. And then, over the years, getting us to the point where the Israeli policy, the Israeli government, the Israeli law treats that civilian presence in the West Bank as absolutely indistinguishable from Israelis inside sovereign Israel,”
She explained how Israel’s efforts to normalize the settlements led multinational corporations to treat settlements as part of Israel then and maintain a status quo that is often overlooked.
“You’ve got this two-pronged effort to both isolate the Palestinians and to normalize and weave the settlers into the international communities, a community of nations. And the problem is that organizations or companies like PayPal, I would argue, unwittingly, are absolutely party to that,” she said, noting how the #PayPal4Palestine campaign is part of a larger, global effort to hold international companies responsible for legitimizing settlement activity such as the recent actions against Airbnb and Ben & Jerry’s.
LIMITED OPTIONS FOR PALESTINIANS
Without PayPal, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have few alternatives. PalPay, a local version of PayPal, was established in 2010 by the Bank of Palestine, the First National Bank, and PCNC IT Solutions. Jawwal, the West Bank and Gaza’s largest mobile network provider, partnered with National Electronic Payment Company in 2019 to create Jawwal Pay, an e-wallet allowing individuals to transfer money, pay bills, and shop online.
Yet 7amleh emphasizes in their 2020 report on e-commerce in Palestine that these local electronic payment alternatives remain limited. “In order for these solutions to be more widely adopted in the West Bank and Gaza, they have to be easy to integrate into widely-used international e-commerce platforms,” 7amleh wrote.
Sarsour added that Palestinian business owners also use Western Union or MoneyGram, especially for international transactions. But these wire transfers often cost the entrepreneurs hefty fees and are tracked by the U.S.Treasury Department. As she explained,
A business owner in the United States working with a business owner in occupied Palestine, these wire transfers are very monitored. And sometimes the accounts are stopped. Sometimes the payments are delayed because there’s some sort of investigation into these multiple wire transfers.”
According to 7amleh’s research, PayPal access would not only benefit Palestinians but would also benefit the company itself.
7amleh identified three scenarios where high, middle, and low-income Palestinian households with internet access would spend $644-$1,550 annually, generating about $90 million to $5 billion in payments via PayPal.
“It’s an economic justice issue for me and to be honest, what is PayPal losing?” Sarsour said, highlighting how PayPal is a tangible way for activists abroad to help Palestinians. “It would be a dream for [Palestinian business owners] to be able to participate in PayPal, to be able to have foreigners be able to pay them in a secure way.”
Yet ultimately, what Palestinians are asking for is simply the opportunity to use PayPal.
“In Europe and in the U.S., they are talking about how companies are making profits from their data while we Palestinians, we don’t have the privilege to think about how they are using our data,” Shtaya said. “We are still fighting to have access to PayPal. So, that means that Israel is working systematically to delay or to deny Palestinian access to the digital services and to restrict our activism, our digital engagement.”
Westerners have been indoctrinated into believing that the First Family is struggling just like their compatriots. Zelensky, for example, almost never changes his shirt so folks assumed that life must be very difficult for the Ukrainian President if he can’t even practice proper hygiene. The last thing that they could have expected is that he’s actually living a pretty swanky life with his wife, both of whom come off as totally carefree and relaxed.
The Zelenskys allowed Vogue to do a glamorous photoshoot of them the other day in a move that triggered surprisingly sharp criticisms among many Westerners, with even Newsweek (which can’t by any stretch of the imagination be described as so-called “Russian propaganda”) reporting on how many people considered it to be inappropriate. Up until this point, it was considered “taboo” in terms of Western “political correctness” to ever criticize anything that this wartime leader and his family does. Those who did so were condemned as so-called “Russian propagandists” who were supposedly seeking to “divide the West”. Now, however, it’s apparently alright to give him and his wife a tongue lashing.
It’s understandable why many Westerners were so upset by the Zelenskys’ Vogue photoshoot. After all, they’ve been indoctrinated into believing that the First Family is struggling just like their compatriots. Zelensky, for example, almost never changes his shirt so folks assumed that life must be very difficult for the Ukrainian President if he can’t even practice proper hygiene. People imagined that he’s toiling away in a secret bunker somewhere while leading the war with his generals, all of whom are supposedly targets of shadowy Russian assassins. The last thing that they could have expected is that he’s actually living a pretty swanky life with his wife, both of whom come off as totally carefree and relaxed.
Vogue went too far in their contribution to his cult of personality and thus inadvertently triggered an unprecedented backlash against the man who the West has painstakingly attempted to present to the public as a “secular god”. They’ve already failed to convince Africans to join their new cult as evidenced by only four of their leaders tuning in to listen to his virtual address to the African Union in late June, which was a major snubbing of the man whom the West demands that everyone pays their respects to without exception. Even so, American perception managers took for granted that their cult will continue to thrive among the Western masses, yet Vogue just messed everything up for them in a huge way.
Many Westerners have come to resent the tens of billions of dollars of taxpayer funds that have been given to Zelensky without them having a word in this process, let alone there being any oversight whatsoever regarding how he uses their money. Still, they mostly remained silent out of so-called “solidarity” with his “cause”, while those who spoke out were mercilessly smeared as “Russian agents” like was earlier explained. Now, however, the multitude of people who’d begun to resent Zelensky are finally speaking out after how disgusted they were with his and his wife’s Vogue photoshoot, which showed that he’s just another entitled member of the elite who isn’t struggling at all.
Any decent person would be furious to see a self-proclaimed wartime leader living the life of luxury that the Zelenskys enjoy, some of which is presumably funded by Western taxpayers. He’s supposed to be an icon of struggle, not elitism, yet he, his wife, and Vogue were so tone-deaf and caught up with taking his cult of personality to the next level that they didn’t think for a second how the Western masses would react to his photoshoot. All they wanted to do was make him and his wife out to be the most glamorous people on the planet, which incensed many Westerners who are openly disgusted with the easy life that they have at others’ expense while their own people are struggling.
This scandal is emblematic of what a charade the UkrainianConflict has become. Everything that Westers were told by their media has turned out to be false. From Snake Island to the Ghost of Kiev and now the “folk legend” of the Zelenskys supposedly “suffering in solidarity with their people”, the whole thing has been nothing but an unprecedented perception management operation waged by their own governments with the intent of misleading their people. Now that the Western masses are waking up and are no longer afraid to speak out and condemn the Zelenskys’ lavish excesses in life (some of which are presumably paid for with their tax dollars), other perceptions might soon change too.
For instance, it’s only a matter of time before some of these same newly enraged people start wondering why the conflict began in the first place if everything else that they’ve been told about it has proven to be false. Others might ask whether the Zelensky deserve any more of their taxes after seeing the life of luxury that they enjoy despite supposedly living under Russian missiles. All told, the “official narrative” over the Ukrainian Conflict is beginning to crumble after Vogue went too far in its attempts to take Zelensky’s cult of personality to the next level, which counterproductively inspired the Western masses to finally speak out against him and start asking uncomfortable questions about the conflict.
Though The European Union’s Strategic Compass for Security and Defence reads like Hitler penned it, the EU has recently formally approved this dangerous nonsense now that “we witness the return of war in Europe”, something the EU apparently did not witness when Serbia was put to NATO’s sword from 1992 to 1995.
Europe, these Eurocrats inform us, “needs to be able to protect its citizens and to contribute to international peace and security… following the unjustified and unprovoked Russian aggression against Ukraine, as well as of major geopolitical shifts”, which are not explicitly stated but which the EU’s Army will tackle alongside its “partners to safeguard its values and interests”.
So, besides teaching Russia some bloody lessons, Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Malta will also teach the wider world a thing or two about their shared values and interests, whatever they may be.
This is all good as a more assertive Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Malta “will contribute positively to global and transatlantic security and is complementary to NATO, which remains the foundation of collective defence for its members. It will also intensify support for the global rules-based order, with the United Nations at its core”.
Even though Lithuania and Luxembourg are NATO’s muscle, Ireland and Malta are not parties to that criminal conspiracy and long may that continue. Furthermore, as the United Nations is a body, which the United States liaises with only when it suits their own selfish interests, the EU should either find a better fig leaf to sheathe its self serving hypocrisy with, or just say it wants to be America’s unthinking vassal.
Not that the EU’s finest would ever consider themselves anybody’s vassals. They intend to strengthen cooperation with strategic partners such as NATO, the UN and regional partners, including the OSCE, the African Union (AU) and ASEAN; develop more tailored bilateral partnerships with like-minded countries and strategic partners, such as the U.S., Canada, Norway, the UK, Japan and others; develop tailored partnerships in the Western Balkans, the EU’s eastern and southern neighbourhood, Africa, Asia and Latin America, including through enhancing dialogue and cooperation, promoting participation in CSDP missions and operations and supporting capacity-building.
To see what the EU’s headless chickens are up to, let’s look at these partners in some more detail. As the African Union includes every country in Africa, bar the former French and Spanish protectorate of Morocco, one has to wonder what further devilment France, Africa’s favorite gendarme, has in store not only for Morocco but for all of that long exploited continent, which the EU continues to happily ravish.
One must also wonder why Australia and New Zealand are not included in the EU’s wish list of military partners and if an EU task force is already on its way to liberate Australia’s kangaroos and koala bears from whatever Putin or Assad happens to be ruling the roost there.
Not that koala bears and kangaroos are alone in being legitimate targets. If the EU is forming alliances with Norway and Japan, then not only Moby Dick but whales everywhere are in for a rough time.
Still, if we are to gang up with Latin America (given the Munroe Doctrine, with Uncle Sam’s permission, of course), that might result in a higher standard of samba and tango dancing in Ireland, Lithuania, Luxembourg and Malta, and I’d be the last to object to that (and I am fluent in Spanish and Portuguese but could do with a few samba pointers).
Still, outside of Russophones, that leaves us decidedly short of enemies; tiny Morocco hardly counts and we don’t want to hurt any kangaroos or koala bears.
But maybe panda bears are fair game as China is conspicuous by its absence on that list, as ASEAN is notable for being included on the list. The beauty of ASEAN, to me, is that it is composed of ten diverse South East Asian countries that are trying to plot a common future for themselves free from the economic, diplomatic and military meddling that are synonymous with the countries at the heart of the EU. All ten of those ASEAN countries live in the shadow of China and, though Vietnam in particular has had a chequered history with China, their future lies alongside China, not being used as an EU-NATO lever to upend China and themselves.
Stripped of its chaff, this is old European wine in new NATO bottles. It is to recreate the Wehrmacht with a gaggle of mini Napoleons to lead it and profit from it, along with whatever Irish, Lithuanian, Scottish and other satellite cheerleaders NATO have on the take.
Look at the Baltic pimple of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which is not content with oppressing its Russian speaking minority but is in a trade war with China and is hell bent on taking on Russia in a hot war because it thinks the EU, Ireland, Luxembourg and mighty Malta, in other words, has its back.
Ireland has nobody’s back, not even its own. Even as it howls to its Anglo American bosses that Russian ships passed within 500km of its coast, it allows British war ships moor in Cork, a city the British previously burned to the ground, and the Royal British Airforce violate its airspace on a daily base and even host air displays over its capital city.
Although the European peoples do indeed have some shared values, they are more benign than those their mercenary political class in pimple statelets like Ireland and Lithuania share. These satraps give China and Russia the finger because that is what their NATO masters require of them. Were those leaders adult, never mind independent, they would try to act as peace brokers and not pretend that their tiny, debt ravaged economies have anything more than a fig leaf to offer NATO’s war lords.
But that is not the Europe we have. Because ours is a continent beholden to NATO and its political puppets, we must all prepare for the deluge that is coming our way, and all because NATO’s Lithuanian satrap thinks she is a Moses, who can hold apart two parts of sovereign Russia to support the world’s richest clown who has NATO’s Kiev gig.
Europe, with its crocodile tears for kangaroos and koala bears, thinks those they target should forever stand beguiled by them, their French perfumes and their German colognes. Nothing stands still and China and the countries of ASEAN and the African Union do not. Europe should either holster its guns, sheathe its swords or prepare to use them and batten the hatches for the overwhelming incoming fire they, their French perfumes and their German colognes will get in return.
After the 2nd World War in 1945 the USA knew: There is no danger from the weakened Soviet Union. But with the pincer grip of the Marshall Plan and NATO, the USA integrated the Western, Northern and Southern European countries into its economic and military expansion. Ex-Nazis and ex-Nazi collaborators were promoted, on the other hand anti-fascist parties, movements, persons were eliminated, infiltrated, bought. At the same time, the U.S. also helped the governments to fight against liberation movements in the colonies – also because of raw materials for US corporations. After 1990, the founding lie and thus the military-capitalist pincer grip was continued with the “eastward expansion”: Always first NATO membership, then EU membership. This includes the dismantling of prosperity and freedom for the majority populations: The EU and more and more US corporations, investors and consultants are organizing Americanization with working poor, working sick as well as legalized and illegal labor migration – at the same time militarization and hostility against Russia is being expanded: Domination of Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok was the plan from the beginning.
We bring a chapter from the book by Werner Rügemer: Imperium EU – Labor Injustice, Crisis, New Resistances, tredition 2021. Of course, the war in Ukraine does not play a role in it yet, but it becomes explainable in some respects. Sources have been omitted.
“Russia” after World War 2: No danger
In the run-up to the founding of NATO, those responsible in the USA knew: The Soviet Union posed no military danger. The weakened power could not sustain an attack on Western Europe even if it wanted to: The Soviet Union’s economy is largely destroyed and technologically obsolete; its transportation system is too primitive; its oil industry is easy to attack. Nor does the Soviet Union have the atomic bomb. “The men in the Kremlin are clever tyrants who will not risk their internal power by military adventures abroad. They want to win the battle for Germany and Europe, but not by military action,” was the judgment of George Kennan, the chief planner in the State Department, for State Department chief Marshall, for President Truman, and for U.S. ambassadors in various memoranda in 1948.
But why did the U.S. and its then still few allies nonetheless establish NATO, a military alliance expressly directed against the Soviet Union?
The Legend of the “Cold War”
The legend states that NATO was a “product of the Cold War” after the end of World War 2. In reality, NATO is a product of U.S. expansion, which was already underway before U.S. military intervention in WWII.
The “cold war” is one of the most resourceful ideological constructs used by the U.S. opinion machine to disguise U.S. practices from WW2 to the present. The term was popularized by the most important US ideologue of the 20th century: Walter Lippmann, father of “neoliberalism.”
“Cold War” is supposed to mean: After WW2, the military war is over, and the phase of non-military confrontation between the “free West” and the “communist Eastern Bloc” begins. But during the “cold war” the USA and the first NATO countries waged hot, very hot wars, e.g. in Greece, Korea, the Philippines, in Africa and Indochina – this will have to be returned to.
In reality, the “cold” war began shortly after the war started, around 1941. Roosevelt and Churchill intervened militarily as late as possible in the war – despite repeated requests from their ally Stalin: The Red Army and the German Wehrmacht were to destroy each other as much as possible. The U.S. and British governments also rejected in principle to assist any internal resistance to Hitler. Wall Street lawyer Allen Dulles, as head of the intelligence agency Office of Stragic Services (OSS) based in Switzerland, did not want the assassins of July 20, 1944 to succeed – the U.S. military wanted to prevent an early armistice with the Soviet Union at all costs. The Red Army was to suffer as high losses as possible in the further fight against Hitler’s Wehrmacht.
Advancing the U.S. “defense” line to Europe
Walter Lippmann, a Harvard graduate who initially saw himself as a leftist and socialist, had helped organize the propaganda for the U.S. entry into the war for the U.S. War Department during World War I (Committee on Public Information, CPI): In 1917, the pacifist neutrality pledge of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson was to be reversed, and the U.S. entry into the war was now to be justified.
After that, Lippmann had theoretically justified and journalistically accompanied the global expansion of the USA in a prominent position – especially concerning Europe and Japan. In 1938, as an opponent of Roosevelt’s reform course (New Deal), he had brought together the later gurus of “neoliberal” economic theory such as Friedrich Hayek, Alexander Rüstow and Raymond Aron: It was here that the euphemistic term “neoliberalism” was coined for the global, anti-union, anti-communist sharpened doctrine of capitalism.
In March 1943, Lippmann wrote: After conquering North America, Central America, the Caribbean, the Philippines, and several islands in the Pacific (Wake, Guam, Hawai, Japanese Mandate Islands), the U.S. had been forced to “defend two-thirds of the earth’s surface from our continental base in North America.” Now, however, with the foreseeable defeat of the Axis powers of Germany, Japan, Italy, and their allies and collaborators, much broader access is opening up.
The U.S. will now no longer be able to “defend” its previously conquered territories, the geostrategist said, solely from its North American territory and scattered islands in the Pacific. Rather, America can and must now decisively expand its “defense” line “by basing our foreign policy on reliable alliances in the old world.” New U.S. bases could now be established in Europe and Japan. This would allow the U.S. to move from the previous passive to active “defense” of its national interests.
USA 1947: “War” Department becomes “Defense” Department
This strategy included ideological artifices: The anti-liberal and anti-democratic intensified capitalism doctrine was called “neoliberalism.”
And the intensified military expansion was passed off as “defense.” From 1789, since its founding, the U.S. factually had a War Department: through wars, the North American continent was integrated into the national territory, then Central America, the Caribbean, Cuba, then the Philippines, Puerto Rico, China, etc. were militarily penetrated, temporarily occupied, vassal governments were installed, islands – or parts of islands like Guantanamo in Cuba – were occupied and developed as permanent military bases.
But just at the highest stage of its also military expansion up to then, the War Department was euphemistically and factlessly renamed to Defense Department in 1947. That is why the aggressive NATO was called the “defense” alliance.
The Twin: Marshall Plan and NATO
NATO, founded in 1949, was the twin of the Marshall Plan. The dual military-civilian character was embodied by George Marshall himself: During World War 2, as Chief of Staff, he coordinated the U.S. military in all theaters of war between North Africa, Europe and Asia. After the war, as Secretary of State from 1947 to 1949, he organized the Marshall Plan. And in 1950, the agile man slipped into the role of U.S. secretary of defense, organizing brutal interventions, including napalm bombings, against liberation movements around the globe, in Korea as well as in Greece.
From 1947 on, all later founding members of NATO received aid from the Marshall Plan: Great Britain, France, Portugal, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark, Iceland, Italy, Norway. This continued after NATO’s founding until the end of the Marshall Plan in 1952. In addition, in 1949, the U.S. Congress approved $1 billion in aid for the rearmament of NATO’s founding nations. In some cases, Marshall Plan aid was reallocated for military purposes.
All of these states – except Luxembourg, Italy and Norway – were also active colonial powers. Most of them were also monarchies and no paragon of democracy. The U.S. itself maintained numerous dependent territories around the globe in a neocolonial manner and dominated states in Central America and the Caribbean with the help of dictators – most famously in Cuba.
Preliminary Brussels Pact: “Germans” and “Communist Danger
Prior to NATO’s founding, the most reliable European countries slated to be founding members were allowed to make their prelude. In March 1948, the governments of Great Britain, France and the three small Benelux monarchies, highly subsidized by the Marshall Plan, adopted the “Brussels Pact.” It saw itself as a military alliance against renewed German aggression and against a threat of Soviet aggression.
These U.S.-led conspiracy practitioners simulated dangers that did not exist: Germany was fully disarmed and under military control of the Allies, including the Brussels Pact members themselves – France, Britain, Belgium, and the Netherlands were occupying powers in West Germany; and they could have a say in whether or not West Germany or the Federal Republic of Germany was rearmed. The Soviet Union was neither capable of nor willing to attack Western Europe, and even less willing to permanently occupy it – this assessment of the U.S. government was also familiar to the Brussels Pact states.
The Brussels Pact brought together, along with Great Britain, the states whose governments and economic elites had not resisted the occupation of the Wehrmacht, but had collaborated with Nazi Germany and also saw “communism” as the main danger. They all feared punishment, disentanglement or even expropriation after the war, the military and secret services feared loss of influence. But the U.S. held a protective hand over them.
On April 4, 1949 – a few months before the founding of the Federal Republic of Germany – the military alliance North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, was founded in Washington. It was billed as a “defense” alliance, following U.S. language. All other members were dependent on the U.S., not only through the Marshall Plan, but also through additional loans, military aid and investments. NATO’s headquarters were in Washington until 1952.
Also there: Dictator Franco with special status
The ruling circles of the USA had admired Mussolini’s fascism: He had shown how to defeat the “communist danger” in the West. Mussolini was showered with loans by Wall Street, and U.S. investors bought shares in Italian companies, such as Fiat. With Mussolini and Hitler, U.S. corporations supplied the fascist Franco, who destroyed the Republic in a brutal civil war.
Franco had declared victory on April 1, 1939 – just two weeks later, the Roosevelt administration had appointed its ambassador in Madrid. Only Mussolini, Hitler, Pope Pius XII and the British fascist promoters King George VI with Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain had been quicker to diplomatically recognize the dictatorship.
For cosmetic reasons, Spain initially did not become a NATO member while Franco ruled. But the United States included Spain in its European expansion even without formal membership. They operated military bases here and promoted economic development, such as tourism. Fascism was compatible with “freedom and democracy” and NATO.
War against liberation movements in European colonies
With NATO, with additional U.S. military bases in NATO member states and additional partnerships such as with Spain, the U.S. not only pushed its “defense” line into Western Europe in Lippmann’s sense. It also supported the wars waged by the European colonial powers against the liberation movements in the colonies that had gained strength after the war. And in the process, the U.S. also gained access to raw materials in those colonies.
Great Britain
Britain had been supplied by the U.S. with armaments, ships and food during the war and was now heavily indebted to the U.S. The U.S. saw to it that the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which it had founded and controlled in 1944, made its first major loan to Britain in 1947: this was used to conciliate and blackmail the Labour government.
Britain was also weakened in other respects: its most important colonies, such as India, were lost. Already during the war, Great Britain had ceded several military bases in the Commonwealth to the USA (land lease program). At the time of NATO’s founding, the Labour-led government fought the liberation movement in Ghana, calling the leader of the Convention People’s Party, Kwane Nkrumah, a “little local Hitler” and putting him in prison in 1950. Only in 1957 was Ghana able to become independent with Nkrumah.
The U.S., which had already been present in Greece and Turkey from 1943 with its secret service OSS, replaced Britain’s military and secret service there in 1948 and took over the war against the anti-fascist liberation movement in Greece.
Canada
Canada, as a member of the Commonwealth, was doubly dependent: Since the late 19th century, the country had been an economic colony of the United States. Canadian troops and their intelligence service had been under British command, and British troops and the entire British war economy had been subordinate to the United States.
France
The second most important NATO member after Britain was France. The U.S. Army, along with the British and Canadians, had liberated the country from the Nazis and the Vichy collaborationist government under Marshal Pétain in 1944. The leftist Resistance, which had been infiltrated by the U.S. intelligence agency OSS, was gradually eliminated.
The unpopular General Charles de Gaulle, who had fought against Hitler and represented an independent France, had to be allowed to walk in the victory parade on the Champs Elysées in Paris, and then a provisional government was formed by him; it included the Communist Party, which had led the Resistance. But this government was never recognized by the United States. The World Bank, under President John McCloy, granted a loan to France even before the Marshall Plan, on the condition: De Gaulle and the Communists must be out of the government! U.S. Secretary of State Byrnes, Marshall’s predecessor, promised a 650 million loan and the additional delivery of 500,000 tons of coal.
Christian lacquered politicians like George Bidault, close friend of CDU chairman and future West German chancellor Konrad Adenauer and like the latter in contact with CIA chief Allen Dulles, were maneuvered into the government. De Gaulle was thrown out. The loan was granted. In 1948, the U.S. also rearmed three French divisions so that France could even act as a serious occupying power in its occupied territory in West Germany.
Algeria was not only a French colony, but was considered part of France, albeit with a racist apartheid system. This did not bother NATO at all: Algeria was immediately included in the NATO treaty area. The French government’s brutal colonial war intensified. By independence, the French military had killed hundreds of thousands of independence fighters and civilians.
At the same time, the French government demanded military aid against “communism” in the colony of Indochina: the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, proclaimed in September 1945 by the Viet Minh independence movement under Ho Chi Minh, was to be destroyed – the U.S. helped France with military advisors, food and armaments. McCloy, as president of the World Bank, also approved a loan for this purpose in 1949, the year NATO was founded.
Belgium, Netherlands, Luxembourg
The three Benelux countries had made no military contribution against Hitler’s Germany. Their governments and corporations had collaborated with the Nazis in the war. But Belgium and the Netherlands became NATO members and were allowed to enter West Germany as occupying forces by U.S. grace.
McCloy also conceded a World Bank loan to the Kingdom of the Netherlands in 1949, NATO’s founding year, so that the independence movement in the colony of Indonesia could be fought. Against the Republic of Indonesia, established in 1945 after the Japanese occupation, the 145,000 Dutch military forces proceeded to bomb cities, murder tens of thousands of resistance fighters and other locals, and capture the government.
Belgium
The Kingdom of Belgium continued to hold its resource-rich colony of Congo under the gun after 1945 with U.S. approval. The U.S. had obtained uranium, crucial for its atomic bombs, from the Belgian colony. The mining company Union Minière du Haut Katanga – in which the Rockefellers had a stake – had already moved its headquarters from Brussels to New York in 1939.
After 1945, anti-colonial resistance in the Congo was fought mercilessly: trade unions were banned, strikers were shot or publicly flogged. Later, in 1961, in Belgian-U.S. complicity (King Baudouin, U.S. President Eisenhower, CIA, native collaborators), the first prime minister of the newly independent Congo, Patrice Lumumba, was bestially murdered after a short time.
Portugal
Fascist Portugal had remained neutral in the war and therefore had been all the more important economically to Nazi Germany: As the most important state, Portugal supplied tungsten, a precious metal crucial to the war, for steel hardening, necessary, for example, for rifle barrels and cannon barrels. In Portugal, pirated shares and pirated gold were laundered to finance the German war effort.
After 1945, the USA returned the Asian colonies of Timor and Macau, which had been occupied by Japan, to Portugal. In the African colonies of Mozambique and Angola, colonialist forced and plantation economies (coffee, cotton) prevailed. The Communist Party, the main liberation organization, was banned and persecuted.
And the U.S. and NATO could now use Portugal’s Atlantic islands, the Azores, as military bases.
Small states and later NATO members
Iceland, a Danish colony, had been occupied by Britain and the United States in 1940. The country had declared independence to Denmark in 1944. Therefore, Iceland received Marshall Plan funds and agreed to its NATO membership. The small country maintained no military of its own, but served as a U.S. and NATO base.
Denmark: An anti-fascist government was formed here after the Nazi era. It included the Communist Party, which had resisted the Nazis. Here, too, the U.S., with the help of social democracy and the Marshall Plan, drove out the non-alignment originally intended.
In the Danish colony of Greenland, the USA had already established military bases in 1941. The Danish government, which had reserved foreign and security policy rule over Greenland, agreed: Greenland was declared a NATO defense area in 1951. The U.S. military base at Thule in Greenland was developed into one of the largest foreign U.S. bases as a forward espionage site against the Soviet Union and then against Russia, determining Danish foreign policy.
Norway: Here, the Social Democratic government wanted to remain non-aligned after the German occupation. But with the help of the Marshall Plan and additional rearmament aid, the U.S. maneuvered Norway into NATO.
Greece: In NATO’s founding year, U.S. dive-bombers napalmed the positions of the already victorious anti-fascist liberation movement in Greece and equipped the military loyal to the monarchy, which had collaborated with the Nazis. This was the only way to defeat the liberation movement. When the U.S. had ensured a U.S.-dependent government here as in neighboring Turkey, it brought the two countries into NATO in 1952.
Federal Republic of Germany: Largest U.S. Fortress in Europe
The U.S. wanted above all to bring the western occupied zones of Germany into NATO. But first, this West Germany was not yet a state; and second, the governments of France and Great Britain initially opposed rearming the Germans because of critical public opinion in both states.
But shortly after the founding of the new state of the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), its Christian-painted chancellor Konrad Adenauer in 1950 agreed (secretly) to rearm. He had the peace and neutrality movements fought and incited as “communist”. The USA promoted arms production in the FRG for the needs of the war against the People’s Liberation Movement in Korea as early as 1950. The West German arms industrialists lobbied for NATO. And as early as September 1950, NATO included the FRG in the NATO defense area – five years before formally joining NATO.
Today in the 21st century, no other state on the planet hosts as many additional U.S. military bases – about 30 – as NATO member West Germany.
The USA invades the European colonies
NATO was thus an alliance against post-fascist and anti-fascist democratization in Europe and against national self-determination in the colonies. And the neo-colonial NATO leading state U.S. invaded the old colonies of the Europeans.
In the French colonies of Indochina (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) and Africa (a good dozen colonies, mainly of France, then also of Belgium and Portugal) important raw materials were stored. U.S. companies wanted to get their hands on them as cheaply as possible. Under Evan Just, the Marshall Plan authority in Paris maintained the “Strategic Raw Materials” department. It explored and inventoried in the colonies of the European colonial powers, for example, manganese and graphite in Madagascar; lead, cobalt and manganese in Morocco; cobalt, uranium and cadmium in the Congo; tin in Cameroon; chrome and nickel in New Caledonia; rubber in Indochina; oil in Indonesia; besides industrial diamonds, asbestos, beryllium, tantalite and colombit.
The Marshall Plan Authority and the State Department organized commodity purchase contracts beginning in 1948, for example, in favor of the U.S. corporations United Steel, Bethlehem Steel, and Newmont Mining. Investment banks such as Morgan Stanley and Lazard Frères formed joint holding companies to modernize mines in the colonies. For the atomic bombs, the U.S. needed even more uranium after the war than during the war anyway.
Finally, finally conquer Russia? Resistance!
For NATO, the founding was not about defeating “communism”, that was only a preliminary stage. It was and is about the U.S.-led conquest and exploitation of Europe, especially Russia, that is, all of Eurasia from Lisbon to Vladivostok (according to U.S. presidential adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in 1996) and regardless of whether it is communist or capitalist.
NATO has been and continues to be an alliance that has principally and permanently violated the UN Charter, Article 1 “Self-Determination of Nations,” from its inception. NATO members – and also associate members such as Switzerland and Austria – joined in various ways in the numerous U.S.-led wars of the wrongly so-called “Cold War,” beginning with the Korean War and most recently, for example, for two decades in Afghanistan, leaving behind impoverished, devastated countries, with high profits for the arms, energy, supply and private military services industries.
And even under the otherwise somewhat criticized President Donald Trump, NATO’s European partners followed NATO’s leading power in anti-Russian agitation and rearmament to conquer the Eurasian theater, finally, finally succeeding, if need be again with war, and this time with nuclear bombs.
With the eastward enlargement of NATO the founding lie was continued. The EU membership of the ex-socialist states always followed a few years after the NATO membership. The EU continues to be an appendage of NATO. The relative economic support provided by the Marshall Plan brought only relative prosperity – and it was only a temporary concession. That ended in 1990. The EU, together with U.S. corporations, investors and consultants, has been dismantling relative prosperity ever since, step by step, first in Eastern Europe but, at the latest since the 2008 “financial crisis,” ever more rapidly in the “rich” states of Western Europe as well.
The stakes are high. The NATO edifice of lies, nurtured for decades, is more fragile than ever. Resistance to it must and can take on a new strength, on all continents. The legal-political basis are the original UN international law and UN human rights, which include labor and social rights. And that the military harms the environment more than others, even environmentalists can still learn.
[…] O my brothers and sisters, the events happening around us in terms must strengthen our awareness, our lucidity and our understanding of things, the conclusions we draw from them for the current equations, as well as the lessons and teachings we learn from them. This brings me to the current events that are currently occupying all minds. I start with the events between Russia and Ukraine to state that these are very important events in terms of lessons and learning. As last time, I will just mention some brief points before I come to the internal Lebanese situation.
The first point is that the U.S. representative to the Security Council said in addressing Russia, “Any attack on civilians is considered a war crime, and we are recording all events.” In the sense that the US is monitoring everything closely, and will then try Russia for its (alleged) war crimes. That’s what she said to Russia. But what does she say about the massacres against civilians perpetrated by the US in all its wars? No war waged by the US happened without attacks on civilians, massacres, civilians killed, atrocities against civilians and civilian infrastructure, etc. From the nuclear bombing in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, whose environmental and health effects are still felt today, with traces and effects that persist to this day, to Iraq, the siege of Iraq, the starvation of Iraq and the death of tens of thousands of Iraqi children due to the siege, then the invasion (of Iraq in 2003), etc. According to the Americans themselves, they have killed tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians, and tens of thousands of Afghan civilians. How many times have American planes or drones bombed Afghan wedding ceremonies, turning them into funerals, and then claiming that they were training camps, despite the presence of women, children and old people? But they claimed that they were training camps. What about the Zionist massacres in Palestine for more than 70 years, and the massacres Israel regularly perpetrates? What about the Israeli-Zionist war crimes in Palestine? What about the siege of Gaza? Today, the whole world is shedding tears because this or that city in Ukraine has been under siege for 5, 6 or 7 days. But Gaza has been under siege for many years, for 15 years! But the world remains silent.
What about the massacres of the Saudi-American aggression in Yemen, and the tens of thousands of civilian martyrs in Yemen, children, women, men, old and young? And the entire civilian infrastructure is destroyed in Yemen. What about the siege imposed on Yemen for the past 7 years? And currently, the siege is increasing on oil derivatives (fuels), and we saw yesterday the angry demonstrations in Yemeni cities. But the whole world remains silent about this. Why is this so? Simply, and don’t mind me saying it so bluntly, it’s because all these people are not White, they are not blond and they are not blue-eyed – even if in reality there are some blond and blue-eyed white people among them, but it doesn’t matter. These people do not belong to the world of the White man. I’ll go even further than that: for the United States, even those who belong to the White man’s world are only means, tools, instruments, and have no human value.
This is the case with Ukraine [the US has no hesitation in sacrificing the Ukrainian and European population in general to advance its interests]. Thus, based on the logic of the representative of the United States, it would have been necessary today, before threatening Russia or other countries with trials, to establish dozens and hundreds of sessions to judge the Americans, the British and the Western and European armies for their crimes in Algeria, Libya, Tunisia, Africa, in all corners of the world, in India, Pakistan… It is these files that we must start by examining if we want to base ourselves on these principles.
This hypocrisy and double standard is confirmed day after day. Last Friday, in Peshawar, Pakistan, during Friday prayers, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing dozens of people, including the Imam of the mosque, and injuring dozens more. And the whole world remained silent. This is natural. Because these takfiris suicide bombers are Made in CIA, Made in America. They serve the American project. The whole world must remain silent because it is the US and its tools in the region. Day after day, it is confirmed that the American “values” do not respect humanistic principles, morals, international law, fundamental rights, etc. Nothing matters to them but their political and economic interests and their hegemony. When their political interests ask them to condemn, they condemn. When their political interests ask them to support, they support. On the subject of the massacres perpetrated by Israel, the United States is not content with not condemning, they prevent the Security Council from condemning them! They prevent the whole world from condemning them! They defend the (Israeli) murderers and butchers who shed (Palestinian) blood! This is the truth of the United States, which we have known (for a long time), but we take advantage of the current events to remind it, so that those who have not yet opened their eyes do so, and that those who already know gain in awareness and lucidity, and in clarity of vision.
Also, and this is my second point, every day there is more evidence in the world that trusting the United States is an act of imbecility. I say this to get to Lebanon next. Trusting the United States is stupid and foolish. It is an act of ignorance that endangers the global Muslim community, the nation and the interests of the people. This is what it means to trust the Americans. A few months ago, we saw with our own eyes, and the whole world saw, the experience of the United States in Afghanistan, and how they abandoned and forsook the country. The images of the planes and the airport are still fresh in everyone’s mind.
Let’s not forget the statements of the Afghan officials who collaborated with the Americans for many years: the Afghan President on the run, who was 100% with the Americans, to the point that if they told him not to negotiate with the Taliban, he didn’t do it –while the United States themselves negotiated with them–, if they asked him not to go to Tehran, he didn’t go there, if they wanted him to go to such and such a country, he went there, and so on. He was 100% subservient to the US… So the former Afghan President says: “My mistake was to trust the United States and its international allies.” He claims that he gave them his opinion and thoughts, but they did not respond to him and did not take them into account, considering that it was their vision that was right, that they were the strategists, that the data was in their hands and that they had efficiently anticipated the consequences and results (of their actions), but the result is (the humiliating American debacle) that we saw in Afghanistan. They have abandoned (all their allies).
Our report from last night on the awful ISIS attack outside Kabul airport as families still search Kabul's morgues for their loved ones..
Many we spoke to, including eyewitnesses, said significant numbers of those killed were shot dead by US forces in the panic after the blast pic.twitter.com/ac5nUVeJ4x
Today, in Ukraine, the whole world knows that the United States and Great Britain in particular (are the main culprits of the crisis). The rest of the European countries are really poor wretches. It is clear that a number of European countries did not want this problem, like Germany for example, Germany in the first place, and also France to some extent. Other European countries felt that they would be trampled and sacrificed (on the altar of NATO’s aggression against Russia), that their interests were in great danger. The United States, and with them Great Britain, which has left the European Union, have aggravated the situation in Ukraine and pushed it into the lion’s den. But of course, they acted according to precise calculations. For Biden has announced in his strategy that his priority is the fight against Russia and China. With China, the confrontation has its own calculations and its own ways. And as for the confrontation against Russia, Biden is certainly not going to wage a world war against it, because he is not capable of it, and so he has thrown Ukraine against Russia to prevent any agreement between Ukraine and Russia and to provoke this war.
This is demonstrated by the fact that after the first few days (of war), we can all listen on television to the statements of the President of Ukraine, his head of government, his foreign minister and his deputy, and his advisers. What do they say? “They let us fight alone.” Because either (the U.S.) had promised Ukraine that they would fight with them in case of war (against Russia), or, because of the trust of Ukrainians in the U.S., they believed that they would fight alongside them. And that is why Ukrainian leaders are now expressing that their hopes have been dashed. They say they have been left alone to fight. It was the Ukrainian President who said so. Ukraine is calling on the United States (and NATO) to fight on its side, but they are responding that they cannot endanger their States and their people and risk a devastating world war for the sake of Ukraine. I just said that in their eyes, even the White man has no value. (They will not risk a nuclear war) for the sake of Ukraine, for the people of Ukraine, for the White man in Ukraine, in any case. They are not ready for that. “Fight on your own, dear friends. Because as far as we are concerned, we are not ready to fight.” And that’s why they say every day that they will not send any American soldiers to Ukraine, no American planes to Ukraine. But it is you, the United States, who caused this situation and called this catastrophe on Ukraine!
Of course, my statement is not an invitation to the United States to go and fight Russia in Ukraine. I say this only to draw lessons from the current situation, for all those who trust the United States and place their hopes in them. The Ukrainian President asks (the US) to establish a no-fly zone in the skies over Ukraine to prevent Russian planes from hitting them. But they reply he gets is “Sorry, we can’t, because that would mean shooting down Russian planes, which would lead to war, and we are not ready to go to war with Russia for the sake of Ukraine.” Ukraine is calling for a total Western embargo on (Russian) oil and gas, which some countries are ready for, but others have responded frankly that they cannot do without Russian gas. Russian gas is still being sold, and its price has risen. So look at (the inconsistency): on the one hand, they impose sanctions on Russia, and on the other hand, they buy gas from it at high prices. That’s a (telling) example. The same goes for the Ukrainian request to obtain warplanes: the West refuses, because this would make it participate directly in the war. Are there not lessons to be learned there? They let Ukraine fight alone, because they are not ready to go to war for its sake. At most, they impose sanctions, a blockade, consistent with the American objective of weakening Russia. The US is acting in its own interest, not in the interest of Ukraine. This is the truth.
Today, if we could enter the hearts and minds of Ukrainian officials, we would find a feeling of maximum abandonment and neglect. And that’s why (Zelensky) starts to come down from his pedestal: he announces that he is ready to negotiate, to discuss the neutrality of Ukraine and other Russian demands. Why is he starting to reconsider – if his American masters allow him, of course? Because he has realized that those who promised to stand by him, those in whom he trusted and in whom he placed all his hopes, those who put him in this situation, have abandoned him in the middle of the road. I and you have known this lesson (that the United States are treacherous) by heart for a very long time, but I repeat it because Biden is a new proof of it. And before coming to Lebanon, I conclude on the international situation by pointing out the moral collapse of the West. The West lectures us about Western civilization, morality, humanistic values, human rights, etc. But the situation shows their moral decay. Look at how they treat refugees. Black Africans are treated differently, as well as Asians, Muslims, etc. There is discrimination on the basis of religion, race, skin color. Is this the famous Western civilization that they harp on day and night, presenting it to us as a model to follow? Whole States are acting in this way, in an official way! One of the Presidents of these countries, in order to justify this decision (to discriminate in favor of the White Ukrainian refugees), answered that it was the will of his people, who had elected him on this basis. It is therefore a racist culture, which has no connection with humanism or morality!
As far as Lebanon is concerned, I would like to say to the (pro-Western) political forces that if they aspire to please the US, they will never succeed, because the American demands are unlimited and never stop. If anyone thinks that the US can be satisfied with this or that demand, they are deluding themselves, because tomorrow they will demand one, two, three, a hundred, a thousand other things. Their diktats do not stop at any limit. And satisfying them is detrimental to Lebanon’s interests without giving us any compensation. What did the Lebanese officials get in return for their submission? We are already deprived of electricity, gas and dollars by the American sanctions or vetoes, what more could they do?
Lebanon voted against Russia at the UN, when it could have chosen to abstain, as 35 countries did. This is what Lebanon’s national interest demanded: abstention. The Prime Minister of Pakistan said a few days ago, in the face of Western pressure for his country to take an anti-Russian position, “We are not your slaves.” This is an excellent position. It would be good if Lebanon would one day dare to stand up to the American embassy and say, “We are not your slaves.” This would be a proof of freedom, patriotism, sovereignty, independence. But the worst thing is the statement of the Lebanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Our level of submission is such that the US embassy demanded that this communiqué on Russia and Ukraine be amended to be more virulent against Russia, and this rewriting was made directly by the US embassy. […]
Oligarchs have been in the news lately, but in the generic mood of bias. Most function behind the scenes as financiers who pull strings that let working class folk get crushed in warehouse collapses because they weren’t allowed to seek appropriate shelter prior to a deadly tornado. Some have their names mentioned when their billions allow them to take old ladies on private space ship rides. Others get to be deified as godly philanthropists.
Oligarchs behind the scenes are the most hazardous, because, remaining anonymous, they get to engage in all kinds of seemingly low-level lying, looting, and crushing remnants of the sense of humor via censorship.
Syria News website was founded by an immigrant Syrian. It currently has two staff and unpaid writers: One is the Syrian immigrant who happens to be Muslim and the other is I, a US American who happens to be Jewish.
Syria News has just been notified that some anonymous oligarchs have stolen some fractions of pennies from us, by “disabled -” or “restricted ad serving.” Three of my reports — two recent and one over two years old — have been named as the causative factor for the Kafkaesque crimes of being “shocking,” “derogatory,” and/or “dangerous.”
According to the anonymous oligarchs’ warning, all of my writings (hundreds or thousands, I don’t know) are under complete “disabled ad serving” for “dangerous or derogatory content.”
According to a bona fide physical dictionary, dangerous means “1. Attended with danger; hazardous; perilous; unsafe. 2. Likely to, or capable of causing injury or harm.”
Shocking is an adjective meaning, “causing intense surprise, disgust, horror, etc.”
By what standard of human decency is it ok for Macron to mass enucleate Gilets Jaunes protesters, is it ok that MSM yellow journalists ignore the blinding of dozens of French citizens, while the secretive oligarchs steal pennies from a website because I verified the brutality, I condemned the savagery, and I shared photographs of some of his one-eyed victims, because so few of us stand on our hind legs to bear witness, while the snobs on the Hill and the snobs in the SC look the other way?
Contrary to the lies of the anonymous oligarchs, I have never written anything that could remotely be considered “likely to, or capable of causing injury or harm” to another.
Per the same physical dictionary, derogatory means “Harmful to the reputation or esteem of a person or thing; disparaging.”
Maybe if the media oligarchs and the diplomatic oligarchs and the corrupt politician wannabe oligarchs hadn’t tolerated Colin Powell’s scary ‘Show & Lie’ at the UN, 2003, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Afghanistan, & Yemen would be intact.
Instead, the cowards cowered and the liars got rich.
The three targeted reports the anonymous oligarchs have wrongfully targeted are Hollywood & Syria: The Uses of Enchantment in Crimes against Peace; NATO UN Junta Monthly anti-Syria Meeting ups Imperial Hypocrisy, and False Flag Chemical Plot Gets Nusra Front Terrorists Fried.
The Hollywood report explains how the use of moulage trauma in movies has been used on Syrian children to make journalists, diplomats, and politicians suspend disbelief in order to engage in war propaganda against a sovereign country — in this case, Syria. I made clear that none of the painted children — whose photographs were shared widely in mainstream media sources, without the threat of censorship — was physically injured. The writing was challenging as it was a challenge to be objective while imagining the fear and terror endured by the kidnapped children.
I also emphatically stated that there was no evidence that photographers had any part in the kidnappings, nor was there any evidence the photographers were skilled in the art of moulage trauma applications.
The March 2022 report on the NATO UN Junta meeting contains hyperlinks to the statements of various diplomats, the ones who appear to be oblivious to the fact that children are being kidnapped and marketed on the dark web. It includes photos of a motherless child, made up in ghoulish moulage, shared in transatlantic NATO media for purpose of war propaganda — which is a breach of International Law — and of the child further traumatized in a similar photo whose credit claimed it was taken years later, in another country.
Do I not have the moral duty to let our diplomats know about this? The “shocking content” is that they don’t, and that the first credited photographer had no complaint over his subject being moved from Syria to Yemen, in the same makeup but with her dress moved downward, and with her trying to calm another mother-less boy, screaming in terror.
THE SHOCK BELONGS TO OUR OVERPAID POLITICIANS, AND OUR FINELY COIFFED DIPLOMATS WHO ALL AVERT THEIR GAZE, SOME OF WHOM MAY BE TOO BUSY COUNTING THEIR STOCK DIVIDENDS FROM THEIR WAR INVESTMENTS.
Similarly, the False Flag Chemical Plot Gets Nusra Front Terrorists Fried report did not show photographs of the inbred terrorists’ burn injuries from spilling those poisonous substances they were going to bomb civilians with, onto themselves (am I supposed to apologize for the use of the word, “fried”? Am I supposed to hire a psychoanalyst to wipe out all shreds of unconscious humor? I once got a very bad burn from a crazed chef, which involved — really — a frying pan. Maybe I’ll stand myself in the corner, for using the self-defense humor mechanism, because the absurdity of that story is much more enjoyable than remembering the excruciating pain of the burn). Instead, I included two videos shared by the stethoscope-less, CPR-less, can’t use an Ambu bag White Helmets, using their own videos which show them engaged in kidnappings of Syrian children.
That report also includes a photograph never censored, a photograph of the White Helmets holding a near-term baby that was skillfully, surgically cut from its living mother’s womb.
HOW DARE OUR TAXES FUND THESE CRIMINAL PSYCHOPATHS? HOW DARE OUR PAID JOURNALISTS, OUR CORRUPT POLITICIANS, AND OUR MOSTLY LYING DIPLOMATS AVERT THEIR GAZE FROM THESE HORRORS, AND THEN LIE ABOUT THEM?
Hidden oligarchs cheat us out of pennies, claiming report on Hollywood techniques is “dangerous & derogatory.”
Hidden oligarchs claim this report contains “shocking content” though featured image of kidnapped kids in moulage trau
Oligarchs claim of ‘shocking content’ included videos not censored in social media, showing actual kidnappings of Syrian children.
There are few journalists — salaried or not — with the skills I bring to my reporting: Not only have I been involved in direct trauma care involving countless patients, but I have also been taking photographs since getting my first camera — a hand-me-down 1946 Brownie at the age of six.
I know the anatomy and physiology of bleeds, including arterial ones. I know that violent psychopaths who rip a kidnapped child’s deltoid and scapular muscles until he’s unconscious from pain, and his arm is only still attached because of his skin, is caused by the degenerate violence perpetrated against the little boy, and I recognize it is not a crushing injury (ffs, even The Guardiancouldn’t hide the obvious, and was forced to change its featured image of the child, whose attackers should be locked up permanently in a psychiatric facility for violent criminals).
I have attempted to put reality in the faces of our phony diplomats and corrupt politicians. In every instance, I have utilized Tort Law & Journalistic Ethics. I am mindful in my writing, to adhere to the highest of ethical standards, and I have neverbreached irresponsibility in doing the work of UN diplomats, work they get paid for, for free.
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منذ بدء العملية العسكرية الروسية في مواجهة تقدم حلف الناتو نحو الحدود الروسية، وتحول أوكرانيا إلى ساحة حرب، وتحول الشعب الأوكراني والجيش الأوكراني والاقتصاد الأوكراني إلى وقود لحرب ميؤوس منها، وتفاديها وقف على قبول صيغة الحياد بدلاً من وهم الانضمام إلى حلف الناتو الذي تقوم عقيدته على إعلان روسيا عدواً أول، ويعني انضمام أوكرانيا إليه اعلان حرب على روسيا، وخطة الناتو تقوم على خوض حرب إعلامية على جبهتين بدلاً من الحرب العسكرية التي يخشى خوضها، الجبهة الأولى هي إقناع الأوكرانيين بمواصلة القتال وحدهم رغم تخلّي الناتو عنهم، والتوهم بأن العقوبات المفروضة على روسيا من جهة، والأسلحة والأموال التي يتم شحنها عبر الحدود إلى أوكرانيا من جهة أخرى، تكفيان لإفشال العملية العسكرية الروسية. أما الجبهة الثانية فهي موجهة للعالم وللأوكرانيين معاً، ومضمونها إقناع الرأي العام بأن معيار النجاح والفشل، ليس التقدم في الجغرافيا، ولا تجاوز تأثير العقوبات، بل عدم تحقيق ذلك بسرعة، ومعيار السرعة وضعت له معادلة النجاح بدخول كييف في يومين أو ثلاثة، وهو أمر يحتاج لإثبات واقعيته قبل تسويقه، لكن تسويقه هو المهم، للمضي قدماً في الحديث عن الفشل، ومن بعده الدخول في حرب نفسية مضمونها تفسير الفشل، الذي لم يقع إلا في الإعلام، لكنه صار حقيقة في وعي الكثيرين، وصار ممكناً نقلهم للتساؤل عن السبب وتقديم سردية مناسبة للتلاعب بعقولهم حول سبب وقوع الفشل.
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القطبة المخفيّة كلها في جملة نسبت زوراً للرئيس الروسي فلاديمير بوتين، الذي قال نبدأ عملية عسكرية خاصة في أوكرانيا، فأضيفت إليها من مكان مجهول معلوم كلمة سريعة، وسرت كالنار في الهشيم، وصار الحديث عن سريعة قبل أي شيء آخر، ثم صارت السريعة بيومين او ثلاثة، فهل توقع العملية السريعة واقعي بالأساس، كي يقبل الاستنتاج بأن تسويقها لم يكن ضمن خطة مبرمجة لخوض حرب إفشال العملية العسكرية في عقول الرأي العام من بوابة هذه الفرضية المستحيلة، حتى لو نجحت في الواقع الميداني، والمعيار للقياس هو ببساطة، حيث واجهت أميركا التي تعتبر أنها قوة عظمى أشد قوة من روسيا، خصماً مشابهاً أقل قوة من أوكرانيا، وأخذ الزمن الذي احتاجته أميركا لفرض سيطرتها قياساً لما يحدث مع روسيا، التي امتلأت الصحف والتقارير الغربية والقنوات الفضائية الأجنبية والعربية بتحليلات الخبراء، والضباط المتقاعدين الفاشلين عسكرياً، ليبيعوا نظرية الفشل، ويدخلوا في استصناع أسباب مفترضة له، مستنسخة عما كتبه خبراء البنتاغون، مرة بالحديث عن مشاكل لوجستية، وأخرى بالحديث عن ضعف السيطرة والقيادة، وثالثة بالحديث عن نقص المحروقات، ورابعة عن ضعف استخباري، ودائماً بفعل المقاومة الأوكرانية، وصولاً لآخر المبتكرات بالحديث عن نقص في عدد الجنود الروس اللازمين للفوز بالنجاح، وكلها عناصر يمكن قبول نقاشها اذا ثبتت القطبة المخفية الأصلية، وهي أن العملية العسكرية الروسية فشلت، وأن معيار الفشل هو السرعة؟
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بالقياس أمامنا تجربة أميركية في حرب يوغوسلافيا، عام 1999، بعد عشر سنوات حرب أهلية مدمّرة، لبلد مساحته لا تعادل 15% من مساحة أوكرانيا، وعدد سكانها كذلك 15% من عدد سكان أوكرانيا، وليس لها حدود مع أي دعم تتلقاه، وحكومة معزولة سياسياً داخل أوروبا وخارجها، وفي زمن السطوة الأميركية الأحادية على العالم، وفي ظل غطاء نسبيّ من قرار أممي بفرض وقف النار وحماية المدنيين، ولم تحسم معركة بلغراد العاصمة الصربية واليوغوسلافية أساساً، إلا بعد 78 يوماً من القصف المدمّر، ما يعني ان الخبرة الأميركية اذا قامت على اعتبار روسيا بالقدرة الأميركية ذاتها وبوضعيتها ذاتها في ظل الأحادية، واعتبرت أن أوكرانيا في ظروف دولية وداخلية مشابهة لظروف صربيا، وحصرت المقارنة بالمساحة وعدد السكان، فإن المدة التي يجب أن تحاسب روسيا على أساسها في حسم معركة كييف يجب أن تكون ستة اضعاف الـ 78 يوماً، اي سنة ونصف، وهناك تجربة أخرى خاضتها أميركا وهي في ذروة سطوتها، بغزو أفغانستان والعراق، ونجحت خلالها بدخول كابول بعد شهرين وبغداد بعد عشرين يوماً، وأعلن الرئيس الأميركي نهاية العملية العسكرية في العراق بعد 40 يوماً، وكانت الحصيلة الاعتراف الأميركي بعد أقل من سنة عن فشل ذريع، وعن تحول العراق الى مستنقع يغرق فيه الأميركيون، وصولاً للقبول بالانسحاب دون تحقيق الهدف، أي بناء نظام حكم حليف لواشنطن، او كما قال الرئيس جو بايدن عن مبررات الانسحاب من أفغانستان بعد عشرين عاماً، رغم إعلان النجاح بعد عشرين يوماً، أنه لو بقينا عشرين عاماً اخرى فلن يتغير شيء، سنفشل، لكننا سندفع آلافاً أخرى من الضحايا وتريلينوات أخرى من الأموال.
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بالمقارنة يبدو واضحاً أن الأميركيين بخوضهم حربا إعلامية تحت عنوان «السرعة معيار النجاح»، يريدون عبرها للروس مصيراً لعمليتهم مشابهاً لمصير العمليتين الأميركيتين في العراق وأفغانستان، الغرق حتى الأذنين بالفشل، وسلوك الطريق الذي سلكه الأميركيون، وهو البحث عن نصر سريع عنوانه احتلال العاصمة وتنصيب حكم بديل تابع، والدخول في مواجهة مقاومة شعبية تنطلق من رفض الاحتلال، بينما يحرص الروس على خوض عملية عسكرية تنتهي باتفاق سياسي مع الحكم الأوكراني الحالي، تعرف موسكو أنه لن يحدث إلا إذا اقتنع الغرب بلا جدوى حملاتهم المالية والإعلامية ومساندتهم العسكرية للحكومة الأوكرانية، لجعل روسيا تقع في فخ القطبة المخفية، وتتحول الى قوة احتلال لا تعرف ماذا تفعل بالدولة التي تحتلها، ولا كيف تحمي نظاماً تابعاً تقيمه فيها، وموسكو تعرف كيف تدير عناصر اليأس الغربي، انطلاقاً من النجاح في احتواء الصدمة الأولى للعقوبات، وتمتين تحالفاتها مع الصين وإيران، ومواصلة التقدم الثابت والهادئ في الجغرافيا الأوكرانية، مع الحذر الشديد من التورط في أعمال قتل جماعيّ للمدنيين، ومواصلة السعي التفاوضي لجعل خيار الحياد الأوكراني نموذجاً لمناطق عازلة تفصل روسيا عن حلف الناتو منعاً للاحتكاكات التي يمكن أن تؤدي لنشوب حرب عالمية.
But it feels like such an uneven and lopsided battle…
How are we, private individuals with no government or corporate support supposed to beat this?
I guess we will fight for as long as God gives us strength.
Anyway,
There were a few cities liberated today, here is the machine translation of Boris Rozhin’s report:
1. Mariupol. The cleanup of the city continues successfully. Advanced units reach the central areas, the enemy is gradually pushed back to Azovstal. Civilians continue to leave the city. The military on the ground are talking about the timing of the liberation of Mariupol – 4-7 days.
2. Ugledar. The village has not yet been officially taken, but to the north of it the troops are already advancing to Bogoyavlenka, with a subsequent movement to Kurakhovo. Prechistovka is taken from the west of Ugledar, which creates prerequisites for both movement to the north and for a U-turn to Velikaya Novoselka.
3. Maryinka-Avdiivka. There are no particularly serious advances yet. It is impossible to overcome the enemy’s powerful fortified areas with a rush. Aviation and artillery are trying to make the task easier, but so far the cumulative effect of multi-day strikes has not yet been achieved.
4. Gorlovka. Novotoretsk remained for the DPR. The APU counterattacks to retake the village were repulsed. Tomorrow, perhaps, the advance will begin either to Novoselka-2, or in the direction of New York.
5. LNR. They took Rubezhnoye, the enemy withdrew to Severodonetsk, where persistent street fighting continues. Lisichansk is not being actively stormed yet. The liberation of these cities is a matter of time. Fighting continues in the western part of Popasnaya, the city is not yet fully controlled by the LPR, the enemy stubbornly clings to it.
6. Kharkiv. Active fighting to the east of the city. There is no information confirming the occupation of even a part of Chuguev by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation yet. In Izyum, the enemy continues to defend themselves in the southern part of the city and tries to unblock the road in the Kamenka area, where the fighting is going on near the Izyum-Slavyansk highway. The front from the north is gradually shifting towards Slavyansk.
7. Kiev. Attempts of the APU to be active on the Vyshgorod-Gostomel-Bucha line ended with serious losses of the APU in people and equipment. A serious counteroffensive failed. It is noted that the western grouping of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation continues to methodically press south, trying to get out and gain a foothold in the Vasilkov area. In the east, Ukrainian sources report the occupation of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation of several villages on the outskirts of Brovary. There is no confirmation of this from our side yet.
8. Sumy and Chernihiv. Without major changes.
9. Nikolaev. Fighting north of the city. The city itself is blocked from three sides, but there is no assault. The transfer of reinforcements for the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation through Kherson is noted. The Armed Forces of Ukraine expect the activation of operations of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation in this direction in the coming days.
10. Odessa. The ships of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation work on targets on the coast, complementing the work of aviation. There are no landing events, but the enemy is forced to keep serious forces here, for fear of missing the moment of the exhibition. The Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Federation, having won complete dominance at sea, now performs a binding role, forcing the enemy to keep troops near Odessa that would be useful in the area of Nikolaev or Krivoy Rog.
Finally, no map today (I am too tired to wait for Readovka)
A final comment:
A mini-Banderastan next?
I think that we are headed for a partition of the Ukraine.
The Poles, who are currently feeling very heroic (as they always do when there is a civil war in Russia), will probably take the western Ukraine.
The pretext will be some kind of “Russian atrocity”.
NATO will call it a peacekeeping/peacemaking operation.
Question1: in your opinion, can Russia afford to have a non-demilitarized and non-denazified (landlocked) mini-Banderastan if the rest of the Ukraine is liberated?
I guess is that the devil would be in the details.
For one thing, we need to keep in mind that Russia’s goal is a fundamental change in the European collective security environment. How likely is that?
I would say that not likely at all for the foreseeable future. First, the full magnitude of the economic suicide of the Eurolemmings has to become self-evidently clear, visible, undeniable and obvious. This will take weeks and even months to become fully obvious.
Second, right now the USA, Poland and the UK want war. Thus any mini-Banderastan will be fully NATO-run (as much as Poland or Estonia). If that mini-Banderastan can be veritably disarmed from any weapon systems capable of threatening Russian, then maybe something can be negotiated. If all the Ukie Nazis want to live there, well that fine by me, as long as the rest of the Ukraine can truly and firmly lock that border. That might require Russian to create a Russian military base somewhere west/southwest of Kiev with a function similar to the 201st base in Tadjikistan. And no, this is not a “good” solution, but that assumes better options.
Question2: is there a better option? Do you think that the Russian tanks should drive all the way to the western Ukraine and, if yes, how long do you want them to say?
Lastly, there is the issue of border.
Question3: If a NATO “peacekeeping force” is detected approaching the Ukrainian border, should Russia wait until they cross to strike, or shall Russia repeat what she just did in Iavorov but inside Poland?
To tell you the truth, I am increasingly becoming convinced that until Russia fires a few Iskanders/Kalibrs into NATO territory (Poland or Romania for example) the Eurolemmings will not come back to their senses.
Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah delivered on Tuesday a speech in which he tackled various issues.
Addressing thousands of Resistance supporters celebrating the “Day of the Wounded”, which falls on the birth anniversary of Abul Fadl Al-Abbas, the brother of third Shia Imam Hussein Bin Ali [AS], Sayyed Nasrallah congratulated the Muslims on the auspicious occasions in the Hijri months of Shaaban.
His Eminence congratulated the wounded on their day: “It is a day for all the wounded men and women of the Islamic Resistance, all those who sacrificed and remained patient, among whom is the wounded Leader Imam Sayyed Ali Khamenei.”
“We celebrate you today to express our pride in you, your struggle, sacrifices, patience, steadfastness, and to admit this. We celebrate today all the blessings of safety and security thanks to your sacrifices,” he added.
To the wounded, the Resistance Leader said: “You chose this path, and you were present in the battles of jihad and resistance; you defended this nation, its security and stability, and you made victory.”
“Abbas [AS] is the patron who remained despite his wounds; you are like him, you defended us and held the banner that thanks to you remained high,” he mentioned, telling the wounded: “You are the true witnesses on the sacrifices and the victories of the Islamic Resistance since 4 decades.”
In parallel, Sayyed Nasrallah viewed that “Insight is to know what is taking place in your country, region, and what is happening around; it is to know your enemy, the threats and opportunities facing you, and to remain unwavering.”
Regarding the Ukrainian crisis, Hezbollah Secretary General underscored that “The developments taking place in Ukraine are very critical on the level of taking lessons.”
“The US threatens Russia against committing crimes against civilians but forgets the heinous crimes it committed against civilians in all its wars,” he stressed, pointing out that “The US committed crimes from Japan to Somalia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, in addition to the Zionists’ crimes in Gaza, against the Palestinians, and the Saudi-American aggression against the Yemeni people.”
On this level, His Eminence recalled that “The US warplanes have long bombed Afghan weddings turning them into funerals.”
“Thousands of trials for American and European armies should be held for the crimes committed in Algeria, Libya, among other countries,” Sayyed Nasrallah emphasized, wondering: “What about the massacres of the Saudi-American aggression in Yemen? What about the siege of Yemen? What about the massacres of the Zionists in Palestine and “Israel’s” war crimes? What about the siege of Gaza?”
“We’ve all seen how the US fled Afghanistan and abandoned those who trusted it there,” he detailed.
Denouncing the latest terrorist bombing that targeted civilians in a Pakistani mosque, His Eminence highlighted that “The Takfiri suicide bombers who detonated themselves in Peshawar are the servants of the US scheme and they are the US’ products.”
Sayyed Nasrallah went on to slam the US tools: “Those who are classified to be belonging to the ‘white man’ are tools of the US; there are daily evidence that trusting the US is folly and ignorance.”
On the latest events in Ukraine, His Eminence viewed that “Many European countries, including Germany, didn’t want things in Ukraine to reach this level. However, the US and the UK pushed Ukraine to the war.”
“Washington affirms on daily basis that it sends American planes and soldiers to Ukraine,” he added, affirming that “Trusting the Americans is stupidity, foolishness and ignorance.”
Lamenting the fact that “The Ukrainians have been let down by those they counted on and they have started to announce their readiness for concessions,” Sayyed Nasrallah explaining that “Ukrainian officials feel abandoned and disappointed and president Zelensky is ready to discuss Moscow’s demands.”
“The treatment of the refugees exposes discrimination based on religion, race, and color; is this the Western civilization?” he asked.
Moving to the internal Lebanese front, Hezbollah Secretary General reiterated that “Submitting to US diktats won’t save Lebanon; it will increase its problems. The US demands are unlimited; what will the officials obtain in return for their submission?”
On this level, Sayyed Nasrallah underscored that “Lebanon voted against Russia at the UN, although it could have chosen to abstain. The US embassy demanded that the Lebanese Foreign Ministry statement on Russia and Ukraine be stricter and this statement was written at the US embassy.”
To the Lebanese supporting the US in Lebanon, His Eminence asked: “If Hezbollah had controlled the decision of the Lebanese state, would you have voted for the US?”
“Lebanon is requested to say “NO” to the American; the Lebanese are not slaves of the US and this is what sovereignty implies,” he elaborated, noting that “When it comes to the US, some sides talk about neutrality and non-alignment disappears.”
According to the Resistance Leader, “All of what we heard about neutrality was a mere pretext to avoid responsibilities regarding the Palestinian cause, and the wars on Syria and Yemen.”
Moreover, he slammed the fact that “Some political forces don’t have any electoral program other than lying about Hezbollah’s dominance.”
To these, the Resistance Leader underlined that “Some political forces don’t have any electoral program other than lying about Hezbollah’s dominance. Let them tell us what the US has offered them.”
Sayyed Nasrallah also called for rescuing all the Lebanese citizens stuck in Ukraine and taking care of those who managed to escape until they arrive in Lebanon.
On another level, Sayyed Nasrallah unveiled that “A Russian Company offered building an oil refinery in Lebanon with Russian funding and readiness to provide Lebanon with all its oil derivatives needs; stressing that it can sell it with the Lebanese currency, but didn’t receive a response yet.”
In addition, His Eminence unveiled that “A year and a half ago, a Russian company offered to establish an oil refinery, costing one billion and 200 million or 2 billion dollars. The crude oil will be refined into Lebanese oil derivatives.”
“Have the Lebanese officials obtained from the Americans who are only offering false promises? Until this moment, the US State Department has not given Egypt and Jordan documents exempting them from the Caesar Act. The company offered to refine 160,000 barrels of oil, or 200,000 barrels, through the large refinery. This would cover the Lebanese it needs. Lebanon would export oil derivatives, and the company sells the state in Lebanese pounds” he mentioned.
He also underscored that “The Americans prevent Lebanon from accepting the Russian offer without presenting an alternative. If Hezbollah dominated the Lebanese state’s decisions, the Russian proposal would have been accepted a year and a half ago.”
According to His Eminence, “All what the American says is a lie and a deception. Lebanon is supposed to tell the Americans that the Lebanese are not their slaves and this is what sovereignty calls for.”
“The remarks about neutrality are an excuse to evade responsibilities regarding the Palestinian cause and the wars on Syria and Yemen,” he said, pointing out that “Some Lebanese officials assume that the American wants a certain thing. Thus, they implement it even without being asked to do so.”
Urging that “The Lebanese state practice a minimum level of freedom, independence and patriotism, as well as to think about the country’s interest,” Sayyed Nasrallah wondered: “What have the Lebanese officials obtained from the Americans who are only offering false promises?”
“Submitting to the American dictates with this mentality, this country will get poorer
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I consider it necessary today to speak again about the tragic events in Donbass and the key aspects of ensuring the security of Russia.
I will begin with what I said in my address on February 21, 2022. I spoke about our biggest concerns and worries, and about the fundamental threats which irresponsible Western politicians created for Russia consistently, rudely and unceremoniously from year to year. I am referring to the eastward expansion of NATO, which is moving its military infrastructure ever closer to the Russian border.
It is a fact that over the past 30 years we have been patiently trying to come to an agreement with the leading NATO countries regarding the principles of equal and indivisible security in Europe. In response to our proposals, we invariably faced either cynical deception and lies or attempts at pressure and blackmail, while the North Atlantic alliance continued to expand despite our protests and concerns. Its military machine is moving and, as I said, is approaching our very border.
Why is this happening? Where did this insolent manner of talking down from the height of their exceptionalism, infallibility and all-permissiveness come from? What is the explanation for this contemptuous and disdainful attitude to our interests and absolutely legitimate demands?
The answer is simple. Everything is clear and obvious. In the late 1980s, the Soviet Union grew weaker and subsequently broke apart. That experience should serve as a good lesson for us, because it has shown us that the paralysis of power and will is the first step towards complete degradation and oblivion. We lost confidence for only one moment, but it was enough to disrupt the balance of forces in the world.
As a result, the old treaties and agreements are no longer effective. Entreaties and requests do not help. Anything that does not suit the dominant state, the powers that be, is denounced as archaic, obsolete and useless. At the same time, everything it regards as useful is presented as the ultimate truth and forced on others regardless of the cost, abusively and by any means available. Those who refuse to comply are subjected to strong-arm tactics.
What I am saying now does not concerns only Russia, and Russia is not the only country that is worried about this. This has to do with the entire system of international relations, and sometimes even US allies. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to a redivision of the world, and the norms of international law that developed by that time – and the most important of them, the fundamental norms that were adopted following WWII and largely formalised its outcome – came in the way of those who declared themselves the winners of the Cold War.
Of course, practice, international relations and the rules regulating them had to take into account the changes that took place in the world and in the balance of forces. However, this should have been done professionally, smoothly, patiently, and with due regard and respect for the interests of all states and one’s own responsibility. Instead, we saw a state of euphoria created by the feeling of absolute superiority, a kind of modern absolutism, coupled with the low cultural standards and arrogance of those who formulated and pushed through decisions that suited only themselves. The situation took a different turn.
There are many examples of this. First a bloody military operation was waged against Belgrade, without the UN Security Council’s sanction but with combat aircraft and missiles used in the heart of Europe. The bombing of peaceful cities and vital infrastructure went on for several weeks. I have to recall these facts, because some Western colleagues prefer to forget them, and when we mentioned the event, they prefer to avoid speaking about international law, instead emphasising the circumstances which they interpret as they think necessary.
Then came the turn of Iraq, Libya and Syria. The illegal use of military power against Libya and the distortion of all the UN Security Council decisions on Libya ruined the state, created a huge seat of international terrorism, and pushed the country towards a humanitarian catastrophe, into the vortex of a civil war, which has continued there for years. The tragedy, which was created for hundreds of thousands and even millions of people not only in Libya but in the whole region, has led to a large-scale exodus from the Middle East and North Africa to Europe.
A similar fate was also prepared for Syria. The combat operations conducted by the Western coalition in that country without the Syrian government’s approval or UN Security Council’s sanction can only be defined as aggression and intervention.
But the example that stands apart from the above events is, of course, the invasion of Iraq without any legal grounds. They used the pretext of allegedly reliable information available in the United States about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. To prove that allegation, the US Secretary of State held up a vial with white power, publicly, for the whole world to see, assuring the international community that it was a chemical warfare agent created in Iraq. It later turned out that all of that was a fake and a sham, and that Iraq did not have any chemical weapons. Incredible and shocking but true. We witnessed lies made at the highest state level and voiced from the high UN rostrum. As a result we see a tremendous loss in human life, damage, destruction, and a colossal upsurge of terrorism.
Overall, it appears that nearly everywhere, in many regions of the world where the United States brought its law and order, this created bloody, non-healing wounds and the curse of international terrorism and extremism. I have only mentioned the most glaring but far from only examples of disregard for international law.
This array includes promises not to expand NATO eastwards even by an inch. To reiterate: they have deceived us, or, to put it simply, they have played us. Sure, one often hears that politics is a dirty business. It could be, but it shouldn’t be as dirty as it is now, not to such an extent. This type of con-artist behaviour is contrary not only to the principles of international relations but also and above all to the generally accepted norms of morality and ethics. Where is justice and truth here? Just lies and hypocrisy all around.
Incidentally, US politicians, political scientists and journalists write and say that a veritable “empire of lies” has been created inside the United States in recent years. It is hard to disagree with this – it is really so. But one should not be modest about it: the United States is still a great country and a system-forming power. All its satellites not only humbly and obediently say yes to and parrot it at the slightest pretext but also imitate its behaviour and enthusiastically accept the rules it is offering them. Therefore, one can say with good reason and confidence that the whole so-called Western bloc formed by the United States in its own image and likeness is, in its entirety, the very same “empire of lies.”
As for our country, after the disintegration of the USSR, given the entire unprecedented openness of the new, modern Russia, its readiness to work honestly with the United States and other Western partners, and its practically unilateral disarmament, they immediately tried to put the final squeeze on us, finish us off, and utterly destroy us. This is how it was in the 1990s and the early 2000s, when the so-called collective West was actively supporting separatism and gangs of mercenaries in southern Russia. What victims, what losses we had to sustain and what trials we had to go through at that time before we broke the back of international terrorism in the Caucasus! We remember this and will never forget.
Properly speaking, the attempts to use us in their own interests never ceased until quite recently: they sought to destroy our traditional values and force on us their false values that would erode us, our people from within, the attitudes they have been aggressively imposing on their countries, attitudes that are directly leading to degradation and degeneration, because they are contrary to human nature. This is not going to happen. No one has ever succeeded in doing this, nor will they succeed now.
Despite all that, in December 2021, we made yet another attempt to reach agreement with the United States and its allies on the principles of European security and NATO’s non-expansion. Our efforts were in vain. The United States has not changed its position. It does not believe it necessary to agree with Russia on a matter that is critical for us. The United States is pursuing its own objectives, while neglecting our interests.
Of course, this situation begs a question: what next, what are we to expect? If history is any guide, we know that in 1940 and early 1941 the Soviet Union went to great lengths to prevent war or at least delay its outbreak. To this end, the USSR sought not to provoke the potential aggressor until the very end by refraining or postponing the most urgent and obvious preparations it had to make to defend itself from an imminent attack. When it finally acted, it was too late.
As a result, the country was not prepared to counter the invasion by Nazi Germany, which attacked our Motherland on June 22, 1941, without declaring war. The country stopped the enemy and went on to defeat it, but this came at a tremendous cost. The attempt to appease the aggressor ahead of the Great Patriotic War proved to be a mistake which came at a high cost for our people. In the first months after the hostilities broke out, we lost vast territories of strategic importance, as well as millions of lives. We will not make this mistake the second time. We have no right to do so.
Those who aspire to global dominance have publicly designated Russia as their enemy. They did so with impunity. Make no mistake, they had no reason to act this way. It is true that they have considerable financial, scientific, technological, and military capabilities. We are aware of this and have an objective view of the economic threats we have been hearing, just as our ability to counter this brash and never-ending blackmail. Let me reiterate that we have no illusions in this regard and are extremely realistic in our assessments.
As for military affairs, even after the dissolution of the USSR and losing a considerable part of its capabilities, today’s Russia remains one of the most powerful nuclear states. Moreover, it has a certain advantage in several cutting-edge weapons. In this context, there should be no doubt for anyone that any potential aggressor will face defeat and ominous consequences should it directly attack our country.
At the same time, technology, including in the defence sector, is changing rapidly. One day there is one leader, and tomorrow another, but a military presence in territories bordering on Russia, if we permit it to go ahead, will stay for decades to come or maybe forever, creating an ever mounting and totally unacceptable threat for Russia.
Even now, with NATO’s eastward expansion the situation for Russia has been becoming worse and more dangerous by the year. Moreover, these past days NATO leadership has been blunt in its statements that they need to accelerate and step up efforts to bring the alliance’s infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders. In other words, they have been toughening their position. We cannot stay idle and passively observe these developments. This would be an absolutely irresponsible thing to do for us.
Any further expansion of the North Atlantic alliance’s infrastructure or the ongoing efforts to gain a military foothold of the Ukrainian territory are unacceptable for us. Of course, the question is not about NATO itself. It merely serves as a tool of US foreign policy. The problem is that in territories adjacent to Russia, which I have to note is our historical land, a hostile “anti-Russia” is taking shape. Fully controlled from the outside, it is doing everything to attract NATO armed forces and obtain cutting-edge weapons.
For the United States and its allies, it is a policy of containing Russia, with obvious geopolitical dividends. For our country, it is a matter of life and death, a matter of our historical future as a nation. This is not an exaggeration; this is a fact. It is not only a very real threat to our interests but to the very existence of our state and to its sovereignty. It is the red line which we have spoken about on numerous occasions. They have crossed it.
This brings me to the situation in Donbass. We can see that the forces that staged the coup in Ukraine in 2014 have seized power, are keeping it with the help of ornamental election procedures and have abandoned the path of a peaceful conflict settlement. For eight years, for eight endless years we have been doing everything possible to settle the situation by peaceful political means. Everything was in vain.
As I said in my previous address, you cannot look without compassion at what is happening there. It became impossible to tolerate it. We had to stop that atrocity, that genocide of the millions of people who live there and who pinned their hopes on Russia, on all of us. It is their aspirations, the feelings and pain of these people that were the main motivating force behind our decision to recognise the independence of the Donbass people’s republics.
I would like to additionally emphasise the following. Focused on their own goals, the leading NATO countries are supporting the far-right nationalists and neo-Nazis in Ukraine, those who will never forgive the people of Crimea and Sevastopol for freely making a choice to reunite with Russia.
They will undoubtedly try to bring war to Crimea just as they have done in Donbass, to kill innocent people just as members of the punitive units of Ukrainian nationalists and Hitler’s accomplices did during the Great Patriotic War. They have also openly laid claim to several other Russian regions.
If we look at the sequence of events and the incoming reports, the showdown between Russia and these forces cannot be avoided. It is only a matter of time. They are getting ready and waiting for the right moment. Moreover, they went as far as aspire to acquire nuclear weapons. We will not let this happen.
I have already said that Russia accepted the new geopolitical reality after the dissolution of the USSR. We have been treating all new post-Soviet states with respect and will continue to act this way. We respect and will respect their sovereignty, as proven by the assistance we provided to Kazakhstan when it faced tragic events and a challenge in terms of its statehood and integrity. However, Russia cannot feel safe, develop, and exist while facing a permanent threat from the territory of today’s Ukraine.
Let me remind you that in 2000–2005 we used our military to push back against terrorists in the Caucasus and stood up for the integrity of our state. We preserved Russia. In 2014, we supported the people of Crimea and Sevastopol. In 2015, we used our Armed Forces to create a reliable shield that prevented terrorists from Syria from penetrating Russia. This was a matter of defending ourselves. We had no other choice.
The same is happening today. They did not leave us any other option for defending Russia and our people, other than the one we are forced to use today. In these circumstances, we have to take bold and immediate action. The people’s republics of Donbass have asked Russia for help.
In this context, in accordance with Article 51 (Chapter VII) of the UN Charter, with permission of Russia’s Federation Council, and in execution of the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the Donetsk People’s Republic and the Lugansk People’s Republic, ratified by the Federal Assembly on February 22, I made a decision to carry out a special military operation.
The purpose of this operation is to protect people who, for eight years now, have been facing humiliation and genocide perpetrated by the Kiev regime. To this end, we will seek to demilitarise and denazify Ukraine, as well as bring to trial those who perpetrated numerous bloody crimes against civilians, including against citizens of the Russian Federation.
It is not our plan to occupy the Ukrainian territory. We do not intend to impose anything on anyone by force. At the same time, we have been hearing an increasing number of statements coming from the West that there is no need any more to abide by the documents setting forth the outcomes of World War II, as signed by the totalitarian Soviet regime. How can we respond to that?
The outcomes of World War II and the sacrifices our people had to make to defeat Nazism are sacred. This does not contradict the high values of human rights and freedoms in the reality that emerged over the post-war decades. This does not mean that nations cannot enjoy the right to self-determination, which is enshrined in Article 1 of the UN Charter.
Let me remind you that the people living in territories which are part of today’s Ukraine were not asked how they want to build their lives when the USSR was created or after World War II. Freedom guides our policy, the freedom to choose independently our future and the future of our children. We believe that all the peoples living in today’s Ukraine, anyone who want to do this, must be able to enjoy this right to make a free choice.
In this context I would like to address the citizens of Ukraine. In 2014, Russia was obliged to protect the people of Crimea and Sevastopol from those who you yourself call “nats.” The people of Crimea and Sevastopol made their choice in favour of being with their historical homeland, Russia, and we supported their choice. As I said, we could not act otherwise.
The current events have nothing to do with a desire to infringe on the interests of Ukraine and the Ukrainian people. They are connected with the defending Russia from those who have taken Ukraine hostage and are trying to use it against our country and our people.
I reiterate: we are acting to defend ourselves from the threats created for us and from a worse peril than what is happening now. I am asking you, however hard this may be, to understand this and to work together with us so as to turn this tragic page as soon as possible and to move forward together, without allowing anyone to interfere in our affairs and our relations but developing them independently, so as to create favourable conditions for overcoming all these problems and to strengthen us from within as a single whole, despite the existence of state borders. I believe in this, in our common future.
I would also like to address the military personnel of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.
Comrade officers,
Your fathers, grandfathers and great-grandfathers did not fight the Nazi occupiers and did not defend our common Motherland to allow today’s neo-Nazis to seize power in Ukraine. You swore the oath of allegiance to the Ukrainian people and not to the junta, the people’s adversary which is plundering Ukraine and humiliating the Ukrainian people.
I urge you to refuse to carry out their criminal orders. I urge you to immediately lay down arms and go home. I will explain what this means: the military personnel of the Ukrainian army who do this will be able to freely leave the zone of hostilities and return to their families.
I want to emphasise again that all responsibility for the possible bloodshed will lie fully and wholly with the ruling Ukrainian regime.
I would now like to say something very important for those who may be tempted to interfere in these developments from the outside. No matter who tries to stand in our way or all the more so create threats for our country and our people, they must know that Russia will respond immediately, and the consequences will be such as you have never seen in your entire history. No matter how the events unfold, we are ready. All the necessary decisions in this regard have been taken. I hope that my words will be heard.
Citizens of Russia,
The culture and values, experience and traditions of our ancestors invariably provided a powerful underpinning for the wellbeing and the very existence of entire states and nations, their success and viability. Of course, this directly depends on the ability to quickly adapt to constant change, maintain social cohesion, and readiness to consolidate and summon all the available forces in order to move forward.
We always need to be strong, but this strength can take on different forms. The “empire of lies,” which I mentioned in the beginning of my speech, proceeds in its policy primarily from rough, direct force. This is when our saying on being “all brawn and no brains” applies.
We all know that having justice and truth on our side is what makes us truly strong. If this is the case, it would be hard to disagree with the fact that it is our strength and our readiness to fight that are the bedrock of independence and sovereignty and provide the necessary foundation for building a reliable future for your home, your family, and your Motherland.
Dear compatriots,
I am certain that devoted soldiers and officers of Russia’s Armed Forces will perform their duty with professionalism and courage. I have no doubt that the government institutions at all levels and specialists will work effectively to guarantee the stability of our economy, financial system and social wellbeing, and the same applies to corporate executives and the entire business community. I hope that all parliamentary parties and civil society take a consolidated, patriotic position.
At the end of the day, the future of Russia is in the hands of its multi-ethnic people, as has always been the case in our history. This means that the decisions that I made will be executed, that we will achieve the goals we have set, and reliably guarantee the security of our Motherland.
I believe in your support and the invincible force rooted in the love for our Fatherland.
Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council [SNSC] Rear Admiral Ali Shamkhani said the US has acted deceptively towards the issue of peace in Afghanistan, stressing that it has no plan for peace in the country.
Addressing the Delhi Regional Security Dialogue on Afghanistan on Wednesday, Shamkhani spoke about the previous summits hosted by Tehran.
A number of issues related to Afghanistan such as tackling the threat of terrorism, and helping to develop the country were discussed in the summits, he said, adding that all participants agreed that peace, security, and prosperity in Afghanistan are in the common interest of the regional countries.
Peace is the general will of all people in Afghanistan, Shamkhani also noted, adding, “But the United States acted deceptively towards the issue of peace in Afghanistan.”
Twenty years ago, the United States occupied Afghanistan under the pretext of fighting against terrorism and establishing peace in this country, he said.
However, what Americans brought to Afghanistan was the growing terrorism, drug trafficking, migration, poverty, and massacre of a large number of innocent people in Afghanistan.
Eventually, the United States was forced to flee the country with a tragic defeat, he added.
Today, the Islamic Republic of Iran, regional countries, and Afghan parties are trying to move toward programs that are in the benefit of all oppressed people in Afghanistan
The United Nations also should focus on consulting and assisting Afghanistan in this field, Shamkhani stressed.
According to the Iranian official, the attempt of some countries to transfer takfiri terrorist groups into Afghanistan, poverty, and the humanitarian crisis, as well as the immigration crisis, are three major problems that today Afghanistan is facing.
In the end, Iran’s Secretary of Supreme National Security Council stressed that everyone must make a concerted effort to establish an inclusive government in Afghanistan, to help solve the problems of the Afghan people, and to address the humanitarian crisis in this country.
In this regard, Iran is ready to provide all its facilities such as communication routes and port facilities, including Chabahar Port, to solve this problem.
Forming an inclusive national government with the participation of all ethnic groups is the way to save Afghanistan, he said, underscoring that Iran will also spare no effort for the benefit of the Afghan government and people.
After I wrote about media finally covering the horrific issue of “residential schools”, I was contacted by Roland Chrisjohn, who is Onyota’a:ka of the Haudenaushaunee (Oneida of the Six Nations Confederacy), originally from the Oneida of the Thames reserve in southern Ontario and now living/working in New Brunswick.Chrisjohn is a clinical psychologist and a university Professor. He heads the Native Studies department at St. Thomas University in Fredericton.
He author of numerous studies and books, notably “The Circle Game: Shadows and Substance in the Indian Residential School Experience in Canada.”
On the day of the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), President Xi Jinping, in Tiananmen square, amid all the pomp and circumstance, delivered a stark geopolitical message:
The Chinese people will never allow foreign forces to intimidate, oppress or subjugate them. Anyone who tries to do this will find themselves on a collision course with a large steel wall forged by more than 1.4 billion Chinese.
I have offered a concise version of the modern Chinese miracle – which has nothing to do with divine intervention, but “searching truth from facts” (copyright Deng Xiaoping), inspired by a solid cultural and historical tradition.
The “large steel wall” evoked by Xi now permeates a dynamic “moderately prosperous society” – a goal achieved by the CCP on the eve of the centennial. Lifting over 800 million people out of poverty is a historical first – in every aspect.
As in all things China, the past informs the future. This is all about xiaokang – which may be loosely translated as “moderately prosperous society”.
The concept first appeared no less than 2,500 years ago, in the classic Shijing (“The Book of Poetry”). The Little Helmsman Deng, with his historical eagle eye, revived it in 1979, right at the start of the “opening up” economic reforms.
Now compare the breakthrough celebrated in Tiananmen – which will be interpreted all across the Global South as evidence of the success of a Chinese model for economic development – with footage being circulated of the Taliban riding captured T-55 tanks across impoverished villages in northern Afghanistan.
History Repeating: this is something I saw with my own eyes over twenty years ago.
The Taliban now control nearly the same amount of Afghan territory they did immediately before 9/11. They control the border with Tajikistan and are closing in on the border with Uzbekistan.
Exactly twenty years ago I was deep into yet another epic journey across Karachi, Peshawar, the Pakistan tribal areas, Tajikistan and finally the Panjshir valley, where I interviewed Commander Masoud – who told me the Taliban at the time were controlling 85% of Afghanistan.
Three weeks later Masoud was assassinated by an al-Qaeda-linked commando disguised as “journalists” – two days before 9/11. The empire – at the height of the unipolar moment – went into Forever Wars on overdrive, while China – and Russia – went deep into consolidating their emergence, geopolitically and geoeconomically.
We are now living the consequences of these opposed strategies.
That strategic partnership
President Putin has just spent three hours and fifty minutes answering non-pre-screened questions, live, from Russian citizens during his annual ‘Direct Line’ session. The notion that Western “leaders” of the Biden, BoJo, Merkel and Macron kind would be able to handle something even remotely similar, non-scripted, is laughable.
The key takeaway: Putin stressed US elites understand that the world is changing but still want to preserve their dominant position. He illustrated it with the recent British caper in Crimea straight out of a Monty Python fail, a “complex provocation” that was in fact Anglo-American: a NATO aircraft had previously conducted a reconnaissance flight. Putin: “It was obvious that the destroyer entered [Crimean waters] pursuing military goals.”
Earlier this week Putin and Xi held a videoconference. One of the key items was quite significant: the extension of the China-Russia Treaty of Good Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, originally signed 20 years ago.
A key provision: “When a situation arises in which one of the contracting parties deems that…it is confronted with the threat of aggression, the contracting parties shall immediately hold contacts and consultations in order to eliminate such threats.”
This treaty is at the heart of what is now officially described – by Moscow and Beijing – as a “comprehensive strategic partnership of coordination for a new era”. Such a broad definition is warranted because this is a complex multi-level partnership, not an “alliance”, designed as a counterbalance and viable alternative to hegemony and unilateralism.
A graphic example is provided by the progressive interpolation of two trade/development strategies, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which Putin and Xi again discussed, in connection with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which was founded only three months before 9/11.
It’s no wonder that one of the highlights in Beijing this week were trade talks between the Chinese and four Central Asia “stans” – all of them SCO members.
“Law” and “rule”
The defining multipolarity road map has been sketched in an essay by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that deserves careful examination.
Lavrov surveys the results of the recent G7, NATO and US-EU summits prior to Putin-Biden in Geneva:
These meetings were carefully prepared in a way that leaves no doubt that the West wanted to send a clear message: it stands united like never before and will do what it believes to be right in international affairs, while forcing others, primarily Russia and China, to follow its lead. The documents adopted at the Cornwall and Brussels summits cemented the rules-based world order concept as a counterweight to the universal principles of international law with the UN Charter as its primary source. In doing so, the West deliberately shies away from spelling out the rules it purports to follow, just as it refrains from explaining why they are needed.
As he dismisses how Russia and China have been labeled as “authoritarian powers” (or “illiberal”, according to the favorite New York-Paris-London mantra), Lavrov smashes Western hypocrisy:
While proclaiming the ‘right’ to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries for the sake of promoting democracy as it understands it, the West instantly loses all interest when we raise the prospect of making international relations more democratic, including renouncing arrogant behavior and committing to abide by the universally recognized tenets of international law instead of ‘rules’.
That provides Lavrov with an opening for a linguistic analysis of “law” and “rule”:
In Russian, the words “law” and “rule” share a single root. To us, a rule that is genuine and just is inseparable from the law. This is not the case for Western languages. For instance, in English, the words “law” and “rule” do not share any resemblance. See the difference? “Rule” is not so much about the law, in the sense of generally accepted laws, as it is about the decisions taken by the one who rules or governs. It is also worth noting that “rule” shares a single root with “ruler,” with the latter’s meanings including the commonplace device for measuring and drawing straight lines. It can be inferred that through its concept of “rules” the West seeks to align everyone around its vision or apply the same yardstick to everybody, so that everyone falls into a single file.
In a nutshell: the road to multipolarity will not follow “ultimatums”. The G20, where the BRICS are represented, is a “natural platform” for “mutually accepted agreements”. Russia for its part is driving a Greater Eurasia Partnership. And a “polycentric world order” implies the necessary reform of the UN Security Council, “strengthening it with Asian, African and Latin American countries”.
Will the Unilateral Masters ply this road? Over their dead bodies: after all, Russia and China are “existential threats”. Hence our collective angst, spectators under the volcano.
As a Canadian journalist, I could be subject to a censorship bill which, if passed in Senate, means the government in Canada can effectively shadow-ban and censor my voice into oblivion, along with other dissenting voices.
After seeing his tweet on the issue of Bill C-10, recently passed in the House of Commons, I spoke with Canadian journalist Dan Dicks about this. He explained that the bill is being presented as being about Canada bringing Big Tech companies under the regulation of the CRTC (Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission), to have them display more Canadian content.
“But what people are missing,” he cautioned, “is that there were clauses put into this bill, protections for certain publishers and content creators that would protect people like myself and yourself.”
Those clauses, he said, were recently removed from the bill, leading many content-creating Canadians aware of the bill to worry they will be treated the same as a broadcaster or a programmer, subject to the regulations of the CRTC.
The bottom line is that, beyond the mumbo jumbo of the government, this is the latest attack on freedom of expression, and on dissent.
“It really appears that it’s a backdoor to be able to control the free flow of information online, and to begin to silence voices that go against the status quo,” Dicks said, warning that fines for violators could follow.
“It’s not looking good for individual content creators. Anybody who has any kind of a voice or a significant audience, where they have the ability to affect the minds of the masses, to reach millions of people, they are going to be the ones who are on the chopping block moving forward.”
Names like James Corbett come to mind. Although based in Japan, as a Canadian he would be subject to the bill. And with his very harsh criticisms of many issues pertaining to the Canadian government, he is a thorn they would surely be happy to remove under the pretext of this bill.
Or Dicks, who likewise creates videos often critiquing Canadian government actions.
An article on the Law & Liberty website, which describes itself as focussing on “the classical liberal tradition of law and how it shapes a society of free and responsible persons,” notes the bill enables “ample discretion to filter out content made by Canadians that doesn’t carry a desirable ideological posture and [to] prioritize content that does.”
The article emphasizes that the bill violates Canadians’ right to free expression, as well as “the right to express oneself through artistic and political creations, and the right to not be unfairly suppressed by a nebulous government algorithm.”
It noted that Canadians with large followings, like Jordan Peterson, Gad Saad and Steven Crowder, “each enjoy audiences which far exceed any cable television program.”
As with my examples above, these prominent Canadian voices likewise risk shadow-banning under this bill.
But, worse, there is another bill, C-36, that also portends heavy censorship: the “Reducing Online Harms” bill. This one not only involves censorship, but hefty fines and house arrests for violators
The same Law & Liberty article notes, “Canada is also expected to follow the template of Germany’s NetzDG law, which mandates that platforms take down posts that are determined to constitute hate speech—which requires no actual demonstrated discrimination or potential harm, and is thus mostly subjective—within 24 hours or to face hefty fines. This obviously will incentivize platforms to remove content liberally and avoid paying up.”
The Canadian Constitution Foundation (CCF), rightly, contests this bill, noting, “the proposed definition of hate speech as speech that is ‘likely’ to foment detestation or vilification is vague and subjective.”
Maxime Bernier, leader of the People’s Party of Canada, is likewise extremely critical of the bills.
Trudeau has made every issue about race, gender and religion since his election. Now he wants to criminalize everyone who disagrees with his tribalist vision.C-36 is the worst attack ever against free speech in Canada.https://t.co/6Z5EefmviP— Maxime Bernier (@MaximeBernier) June 25, 2021
The CCF points out the potential complete loss of Canadians’ fundamental rights with these bills.
It should be common sense that these bills are extremely dangerous to Canadians, however cloaked in talk of levelling playing fields and of combating hate speech they may be.
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 