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Military escalation
On 2 February less than a handful of Norwegian dailies briefly reported the signing of an agreement between the USA and the Norwegian government, according to which Norway grants the USA 8 new military bases, in addition to the four granted in 2021. All the dailies used the same wording, including the non-word “omforent”, which…
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Complicity
I have fantasies of Netanyahu and his co-thugs finding themselves in a modern version of Dante’s purgatory – Gaza, to be precise – alive, it is true, but injured: broken bones, burns, cuts and bruises, but no doctors, no pain killers, no food, no water, no clean clothes, no toilets, … Netanyahu and his cut-throats…
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Overstory
Things are not looking good for Ukraine, but at least the country seems able to strike Russian oil depots and refineries, thus in effect striking the rest of us. All our efforts day after day – yours and mine – to reduce our carbon footprints are derisory compared to the output of a few hours’…
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Whitherto
Where are we heading? I wonder. When the USA and the UK and Israel (attacks against Palestine, Lebanon and Syria) go around bombing countries they dislike, there is reason to fear anarchy in the worst sense of that word. For one thing: If they can do it, why can’t anyone else? One or more of…
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Not the first time
Many people in Europe are wondering why the Biden administration has not long since arrested Israel’s sadistic excesses in Palestine. The US propaganda machine has been running full speed since Eisenhower’s days, and we have all, in the USA and in Europe, been inculcated with a number of assumptions that simply don’t add up. Today,…
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Cartel
What’s the matter with those people? Running around the world shooting and killing as though they were a drug cartel…! The cartel barons in Washington take it into their heads to go off and bomb Jemen, and since self-gratification is Law for cartel barons, there is nothing to stop them from doing just that: bombing…
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Hail South Africa
Where I live, winter has been unusually severe so far. Temperatures have dropped to 24 below zero (centigrade), and dog walkers like me have had to wade in knee-deep snow. Yet, South Africa’s powerful response to the Israeli genocide and in defence of innocent Palestinian civilians, has warmed every last one of my frozen bones.…
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The News
As usual, every morning, I check Reuters, UPI, AP. What are they saying? What are they telling the US population and the press in the USA’s satellite states in Europe? Every morning I hope “this day will be different”. Every morning I muse: “Surely, somebody will say, ‘This is it! I can’t take anymore!’”, and…
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A Christmas Carol
I wept in front of Al Jazeera television for much of the holiday. That is the long and the short of it. I still feel numb and shaken. The horror of what we have witnessed – are still witnessing – the evil of it, is beyond anything I had been able to fathom. I check…
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A conversation
I recommend a conversation between 3 analysts about some objectives underlying the wars in Palestine and Ukraine. 1) John Mearsheimer is a prominent political scientist best known internationally for his theory of offensive realism, which describes the interaction between great powers as being primarily driven by the rational desire to achieve or maintain regional hegemony.…