Ms Nuland “retired” at the age of 62. I suppose she could afford it.
Few people noticed her until her famous 2014 “fuck the EU” in a dialogue with the US Ambassador in Ukraine was leaked. The dialogue exposed US involvement in Ukraine in 2014.
She was
acting Deputy Secretary of State
former CEO of the the “think tank” Center for a New American Security (CNAS) which, according to Wikipedia as at 14 March 2024, was funded by “[n]early 30 defence contractors, including Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon; NATO; several foreign governments, including Taiwan and United Arab Emirates; the oil companies BP and Chevron; investment banks including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase; technology firms, such as Facebook, Google, and Microsoft; the U.S. Department of State, and two different Pentagon offices.” (cf. Glenn Diesen’s book The Think Tank Racket.)
board member of National Endowment for Democracy (NED) which is frankly funded mainly by the US government. While CIA operations used to be entirely covert, they are now to some extent conducted through innocently sounding organisations such as the” National Endowment for Democracy”.
married to Robert Kagan.
The two of them were identified, already in 2015, as a dangerous duo devoted to the Military Industrial Complex.
I suggest you take a look at Robert Wright’s article in Responsible Statecraft: A case study in American propaganda (June 12, 2022). I am going to quote a single innocuous sentence from that article, which I think is very well worth reading:
But there are two things about the Institute for the Study of War that you may not know.
Search, please do, for the numerous occurrences of the word “Kagan” in that article. I have no insight into how much they have invested in the “military industrial complex” or how much money is paid out to them every time the USA engages in a new military project. I leave that to your imagination. Anyway, Victoria is gone.
Alas, neocon delusions of US global supremacy are not, so do not count our chickens …
She has been replaced by Kurt M. Campbell who,
for a time, was a vice president of the “think-tank” Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) which, according to Wikipedia as at 19.03.2024, has received major funding from defence contractors such as Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, General Dynamics, Raytheon Company and General Atomics, etc., etc….
co-founded and was CEO of the “think tank” Center for a New American Security (CNAS) which, as we know, was funded by “[n]early 30 defence contractors, including Boeing, General Dynamics, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, and Raytheon; NATO; several foreign governments, including Taiwan and United Arab Emirates; the oil companies BP and Chevron; investment banks including Bank of America and JPMorgan Chase; technology firms, such as Facebook, Google, and Microsoft; the U.S. Department of State, and two different Pentagon offices.”
The Wikipedia article about him suggests he might be more interested in China than in Russia. We shall soon see, I fear, when they step up the military pressure around Taiwan.
We are speaking, by the way, of the assistant, or “deputy” if you will, Foreign Minister, not the “Defence” Minister.
I definitely don’t like the way women are treated in Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. And I most emphatically do not approve of putting dissidents in prison, either. And as for torture… no! no! no! (If you tortured me to force me to endorse torture, I would probably give in, but those who love me, and their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren – and there may be many of them – would make sure that you and your lot (and offspring) never sleep easy.)
Nevertheless, the idea that a pompous king or emperor and his court should stride through the corridors of the world, passing judgements and rigorous sentences on “misbehaving” members of the global community is repugnant. All the more so, if said king or emperor is himself decadent and given to all sorts of vices (including torture!)
Vice President Harris is reputed to have been “tough on crime” in her past. (I gather she is not popular in her current position either.) Anybody who has had anything to do with miscreants will know that harsh punishments stimulate, rather than diminish, destructive urges. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are not the rule. Rather than tell you what you know – about US criminal justice, that is – I shall simply refer you to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report:
In the United Kingdom, reoffending rates also topped 70 per cent in some prisons, according to statistics from the Ministry of Justice. Many offenders, even after severe sentences of imprisonment, repeatedly fail to desist from crime and reintegrate into the community as law-abiding citizens. Imprisonment, in itself, is incapable of addressing the offenders’ social integration issues. [highlighted by me]
…
… In addition to the costs of law enforcement and investigating and prosecuting crimes, there are the costs of imprisonment, as well as the costs to the victims and the community.
Consider also the effects of prison overcrowding and smouldering community anger. Look at Haiti now!
So it is, not only with individual delinquents, but also with nations.
The US should know that patriotic sentiment – nationalism, if you will – is something to be reckoned with. In spite of the near civil-war-situation in the USA, US Americans love their country passionately. Iranians do too. Iran was, after all, practically the cradle of civilisation. Iranians have a history and cultural heritage compared to which US history and cultural heritage is still in kindergarten. The same applies to China and even to Russia, where historical awareness and pride is a force that ignorant US politicians have disregarded. (That the US establishment is so unbelievably ignorant should terrify US voters.)
As for Cuba and Venezuela, relatively new countries, they have been heroic in the extreme: Like the USA they stood up to the colonial power, but they have since also stood up to the North American bully! And they are proud of their heroism. (Note, by the way, how many US Americans and Europeans have loved Cuba.)
By the time it was Venezuela’s turn to suffer the tightening of the sanction screws, the Western press was better prepared than they had been after the Cuban revolution to unleash defamation campaigns against Hugo Chavez. Even John Pilger could not save Chavez’ reputation in the West. But Venezuelans, and a very large (probably growing) proportion of Latin Americans warmly revere the late Hugo Chavez, which is one reason why Maduro is still comfortably seated.
Unfortunately, the USA has no respect for Democracy in Venezuela, or for that matter in any other country that resists US political and economic control, which is why they have applied sanctions that more or less kill off Venezuelans.
Quoting a CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy Research) report:
According to the National Survey on Living Conditions (ENCOVI by its acronym in Spanish), an annual survey of living conditions administered by three Venezuelan universities, there was a 31 percent increase in general mortality from 2017 to 2018. This would imply an increase of more than 40,000 deaths. This would be a large loss of civilian life even in an armed conflict, and it is virtually certain that the US economic sanctions made a substantial contribution to these deaths. … As noted above, the impact of the August 2017 sanctions on the collapse of oil production and therefore access to imports was quite immediate…[highlighted by me]
The United States first imposed sanctions targeting the Venezuelan government in 2015.
Since then, sanctions have multiplied to the point that millions of ragged Venezuelans have turned into unwelcome itinerant paupers roaming the rest of the South American continent where they constitute as seriously a destabilising demographic force as the Central American immigrants to the USA. Decades of US regime change operations and support for vicious dictatorships in all of Latin America are the root cause of all of this displacement.
Sanctions particularly affect health care (medicines and gear), cf. The Lancet
Soon after imposing economic sanctions on a country, many essential life-saving drugs become unavailable. Even production of some drugs being manufactured in a country is decreased, or even stopped, because of a shortage in basic ingredients or spare machine parts that are necessary for drug production. The price of drugs increases to a level that people with low income can barely afford. …Lack of spare parts affects not only medical devices but also other necessary infrastructures such as electric generators; frequent power cuts cause serious problems (loss of vaccines, drugs, ventilators, monitors, etc). Hundreds of thousands of people die in silence from diseases.
Have those who approve of sanctioning a country considered the surviving victims’ hatred, accumulated incrementally year by year? Have those who design US foreign policy any idea of the growing global contempt for the US “rules-based order”?
What rules?
Who made the rules?
And why do the so-called “rules” – whatever they are – not apply to the USA?
Why do NO rules apply to the USA?
Listen to this angry but extraordinarily knowledgeable young man, Ben Norton, explain Latin American anger.
The government in Caracas, however, somehow survived for reasons that differ, depending on the political position of the analysts. In Venezuela, much credence is being given to the country’s socialist values, the resilience of the people and to the Bolivarian movement. The anti-Maduro forces in the US, centred mostly in Florida, blame Maduro’s survival on Washington’s lack of resolve. A third factor, which is often overlooked, is Russia.
I would like to add, though, a detail that does not seem to interest the mainstream media or even Mintpress: The Venezuelan authorities prioritised food imports and food subsidies according to another CEPR report.
Food imports in 2020 are similar to those in 2017 ($2.0 billion in 2017, $1.8 billion in 2020) despite total imports and GDP falling by around 50 percent during that period. The decline in import capacity that occurred after 2016 did not lead to lower food import levels because the government found a way to prioritize food imports. An overhaul of public sector food assistance policies, and in particular the launch of a system of nationwide distribution of food packages (known by the acronym CLAP, for Local Committees of Supply and Production) to families in need in 2016, appears to have played an important role in addressing food insecurity. In 2020, the subsidy received by families through the CLAP system was $855 million, or almost 50 percent of the country’s total food imports. [highlighted by me]
Venezuela is not the only country whose population is being castigated by the USA. The above CEPR report which examines the effect of “sanctions”, includes three detailed “case studies”: Iran, Afghanistan and Venezuela.
The so-called “Democratic” USA arrogantly disregards the global majority of countries that condemn the imposition of sanctions all over the place.
Yes, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was in contravention of International Law. Yes, yes and yes.
ButUS unilateral sanctions are also in contravention of International Law!
Articles 39 and 41 of the United Nations Charter empower the UN Security Council to adopt “measures not involving the use of armed force” in response to the existence of “any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”:
Article 39: The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.
Venezuela represented no “threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”. Ever. The USA just didn’t like the Venezuelan administration.
I have been, and am still, stunned by the sadism of the Israeli government and its military — as well as by the US, UK, and German governments’ enthusiastic endorsement of genocide. Good heavens, what a bunch of psychopaths makes up the top echelons of our western societies! The events in Gaza recently prompted Craig Murray to write that he had now understood that his “belief in some kind of inherent decency in the Western political Establishment was naive.”
Bush was once the laughing stock of the world when he ranted about the potentially “nukiller” country, Iran’s, being part of “the axis of evil”. I’m afraid I’m tempted to backslide to that particular Bushism. No adjectives in any dictionary I know of can adequately describe the depravity of the acts being carried out in Gaza with energetic western support.
Meanwhile, however, many other issues go unheeded. Take for instance the current troubles in Haiti, a failed state since the USA finally broke that country’s back in 2004.
The extraordinary idea nurtured by successive US governments that they may – indeed must – play the role of Global Top Gun is absolutely mind-boggling. The oddest thing of all is that most citizens in NATO countries don’t seem to mind. Not for nothing are US citizens taught the US catechism: “We are the biggest and the best.” Not for nothing have the rest of us been force-fed Hollywood films night after night, decade after decade.
Most US Americans don’t know, of course, what damage their country wrecks everywhere it goes, and are therefore completely innocent, because corporate media is not “free” to tell them. Nor is the UK mainstream media (MSM) free to tell its citizens. Or the Norwegian MSM, for that matter. There are, admittedly, a few independent sources of journalism, but we are instructed to consider them Russian propaganda outlets and their journalists are – we are told – conspiracy theorists.
So aggressively opposed are our governments to freedom of information, that they are even willing to dismantle fundamental principles of Democracy (with, e.g., the Patriot Act in the US and, in the UK, the National Security Act of 2023 and the updated Official Secrets Act.) Moreover, the Julian Assange case illustrates just how far the UK is willing to go in order to block exposure of UK/US crimes against their own and other countries’ citizens. His case is, from a legal point of view, a travesty of the British legal system, which turns out to be no more committed to justice than judiciaries in countries with which Western countries do not care to be likened.
So that was the good news, not that the dying people of Gaza will know of it, I’m afraid.
The bad news is that Galloway’s party, which could in theory rally quite a large proportion of badly deceived British voters, will be hounded by the MSM and government spokespersons and will be the butt of ceaseless defamation campaigns, the first of which started the moment his victory was announced.
As for Haiti, the US is not the only country to have defiled what must once have been a land of milk and honey. The French economist Thomas Piketty writes in Chapter 6 of Capitalism and Ideology about the blood money exacted by the French Government from its former Haitian slaves between 1849 and 1915, after which the “debt” was taken over by the USA which occupied (and virtually again enslaved) Haiti from 1915 to 1934 and continued to demand payment from its victims until 1950! (My translation of the titles of the two relevant sections in Piketty’s book is France: the double abolition of 1794-1848 and Haiti: When slavery is converted into public debt,) They explain the background of Haitian demands towards the French government.
Actually, you don’t have to read those two sections (though I do recommend that you read the entire book), but you really should read the excellent article in Responsible Statecraft: “From couptochaos: 20 years after the US ousted Haiti’s president”. It explains how the US with its visceral loathing of Articles 25 and 26 in the Declaration of Humans Rights plotted and organised the demise of the extremely popular and democratically elected Aristide.
In the article you will also find a link to the story of how the Haitian slaves heroically defeated and drove away their French owners and how they, the former slaves, subsequently had to pay the former owners (and later also the USA) compensation for loss of property, i.e. them – the former slaves.
For many countries all over the planet, the USA has been and is still the serpent in Paradise (I’m expanding on the above referenced Bushism). USA does believe in some human rights, such as the right to chose between Scylla and Charybdis during elections, provided, of course, the voters chose the candidate previously groomed for them by the USA (e.g. Guaido in Venezuela). This last proviso does not, admittedly, apply to NATO countries (on which the USA occasionally has to rely for its nefarious military operations all over the planet, currently off the coast of Yemen). USA also believes in the right to carry a gun, though I’m uncertain as to where in the Declaration of Human Rights that right is enshrined.
So you see, there has never really been any reason to suspect the upper echelons of society of even a sliver of what Craig Murray calls “decency”. We have just been docilely led by the nose.
The events immediately preceding Russia’s entry into Ukraine have been the subject of furious debate (not in my country, true enough, where any scepticism regarding the dominant narrative is fiercely cancelled.)
I think those events have been made sufficiently clear, by now, for us to understand what happened and why it happened.
What has not been discussed much is: Just what is Ukraine? What is the history of Ukraine? Putin tried to give Tucker Carlson a crash course on the subject, but of course the powers-that-be define “whatever Putin says” as intrinsically wrong.
Now I happen to have read quite a lot of Russian history these past months, but rather than share my views with you, I warmly recommend an article by Craig Murrey who cogently explains a few salient points. In addition to touching upon historical aspects, he also has some refreshing advice regarding a solution to the conflict. I think some of us — myself included — have what you might call an attitude problem. So having read his article, I stand chastened.
The Munich Security Conference, held annually, is allegedly the world’s leading forum for debating – guess what – international security. In other words, it is not the opera and it is not open to the public. I add for the record that it makes no headway safeguarding international security, but that is another matter. Its participants are not boy scouts – cf. this year’s list of participants. (Russia, of course, was not invited.)
So why was Yulia Navalnaya attending the Munich Security Conference on 16 February, the day the conference opened?
Yulia Navalnaya was attending the Munich Security Conference on 16 February, the very day Alexei Nalvany died. Now wasn’t that remarkably convenient? She was already there and ready to hold an impassioned speech for which she received a standing ovation. I’d call that divine intervention, if ever there was such a thing. But again: What on earth was Julia Navalnaya doing there in the first place? She’s not a security expert, for Pete’s sake
So who, or rather what is she?
Which begs the question: Who, or rather what was Alexei Navalny?
That Julia Navalnaya is furious is, of course, only as it should be. That the late prisoner’s mother is distraught, likewise. That those who care for Navalny are deeply upset is, to say the least, more than natural.
For my part, I am, however, more concerned about the conditions endured by other prisoners in Russia.
The word “Siberia” tends to send shudders down people’s spines, and we were told that Navalny was sent to a “penal colony” in Siberia.
Now most of Russia is actually in Siberia. Novosibirsk is the third most populously city in all of Russia. Look at images of the Siberian towns of Omsk, Tobolsk and Tomsk: Much beauty there, apparently. Some places in the world are simply very cold, others are very hot, some very wet and some desperately dry. That is how things are. Much of my country is also very cold 6 months a year.
I must admit, though, that the penal colony Kharp in Yamalo-Nenets is far to the north of Novosibirsk. Nor is it a particularly pretty place. That does not mean, however, that conditions are comparable to those so eloquently described by Dostoevskij in House of the Dead or by Solzhenitsyn in The First Circle. The problem remains, though, that we don’t know much about conditions in penal colonies in Russia.
Even the very expression “penal colony” has unpleasant connotations. I assume that most prisons are unpleasant. They are not supposed to be vacation camps. However, I beg to differ emphatically from those who would “punish” criminals by subjecting them to physical discomfort. Deprivation of liberty is bad enough, and very many prisoners are suicidal.
In other words, I wish we knew more about conditions endured by prisoners in Russia. Certainly, the death of a 47-year-old whom we in the West – myself included – have considered a “political prisoner” is highly suspect, to say the least. The rabidly Russo-phobic Western press obviously considers his death a smoking gun.
Putin will have known that this would be the line taken by the Western press in the event of Navalny’s death. Thus, he is probably the least likely person to have ordered any extra-judicial killing of Navalny. That does not, however, exonerate him if conditions in Russian prisons are such that people die from untreated conditions, not to mention torture, undernourishment, etc., as was the case for the US journalist Gonzalo Lira in Ukraine, whose death was hardly mentioned in the press at all.
Why did the case of Gonzalo Lira – incarcerated in a Ukrainian prison and sadistically tortured at length – attract so little attention in the Freedom-and-Justice-loving Western press? Because he had criticised Zelensky’s Ukraine, just as Navalny had criticised Putin’s Russia. Lira barely made it from his cell to a hospital in time to die there, after he had sent futile pleas for help to the US Consulate in Kiev. Gonzalo Lira was no threat to Zelensky, whom he had, however, ridiculed.
Like Gonzalo Lira in Ukraine, the imprisoned Navalny represented no threat to the Russian powers- that-be prior to his death. Putin does face some opposition in Russia, yes – primarily, I believe, from old-time Communists, less from the EU-leaning liberal party Yabloko from which Navalny was expelled in 2007. There is also disparate opposition from nonconformist groups of young people – whom Navalny tried to rally. After his death, however, Navalny is a far greater threat to Putin than he ever was alive. Since time immemorial martyrs have been a tremendous rallying point for opposition.
There are those who hypocritically stand to gain by Navalny’s death: primarily Western warmongers and, of course the Zelenski-regime.
Leaving all that aside, what are conditions in Russian prisons? What are conditions in any prisons, for that matter. If relations between the West and Russia had been anywhere near “healthy”, we in the west could have asked to inspect their prisons and they could have asked to inspect ours.
Because, let’s face it, we have political prisoners as well. The most famous is, of course, Julian Assange who is currently too ill, after goodness knows how many years’ incarceration without a trial, to attend his ongoing – possibly last – hearing in UK.
P.S: I recommend a film, a French film, the English title of which is “All your Faces”. To quote Wikipedia:
The film explores the practice of restorative justice, which was introduced into the French criminal justice system in 2014. Restorative justice offers victims and perpetrators of offences to engage in mediated dialogue, supervised by professionals and volunteers.
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 no normal person outside law-enforcement circles would ever use. (The word merely means “agreed upon” – nothing wrong about that. What is wrong is that the word is never used by journalists. So these dailies are citing their government source verbatim.)
Indeed, since 2 February, there has been no public debate about this dramatic turn of events in any news medium. No anti-war protests. Nothing. The “left” – whatever is left of it – has been silent. The national assembly will obediently ratify the agreement.
Yet, according to the deal, the USA will store weapons and equipment in locations to which Norwegian inspectors have no right of access. Norwegian authorities will not be apprised of what is stored there, i.e. will not be informed if the USA stores nuclear weapons on Norwegian soil. The USA may attack Russia from Norway, if they find it serves their interests.
Norway has, de facto, handed itself over to the USA (not even NATO).
The idiots – pardon my French – who have been bamboozled into this hare-brained, treasonous agreement will have imagined that they are gratefully accepting US protection against the big bad bear on the other side of our northernmost border (with whom we have, by the way, until now had amicable relations. That will of course change: In future Russia will, for all practical purposes, no longer be bordering little old Norway, but the USA.)
The Norwegian public has heard, day in and day out, relentlessly and from all channels, that Russia wishes to engulf us, that all arguments to the contrary are Putin’s talking points, and that everything Biden and the New York Times say is God’s solemn truth. The ground has been carefully prepared in advance and resistance to the agreement is inconceivable because my compatriots are — alas — sleep-walking.
It is true that Norway’s long North Atlantic coastline is attractive to players in the current geopolitical contest, including our neighbour Russia.
It is also true that an arrest warrant was issued the other day against one of my favourite authors, the Russian Boris Akunin, who emigrated from Russia in 2014 and who calls Putin a Caligula. Apparently Akunin has urged Ukrainians to bomb Russian cities. If he returns to Russia, he will probably be put behind bars for years. Obviously, I strongly disapprove of keeping dissidents behind bars!! And Akunin is certainly not the only one.
On the other hand, what is our “protector” other than the most trigger-happy country in the world; a country that specialises in murderous regime changes; a country whose raison d’être is to wage disastrous wars; a country that leaves a trail of failed states wherever it turns its attention; a country that is blissfully indifferent to the plight of a greater part of its own population.
Using Europe as its now (already) enfeebled hostage, the USA wishes to see Russia reduced to the palaeolithic condition in which the country found itself under the rule of the US puppet Yeltsin.
How many vicious Latin American (e.g. Pinochet), African (e.g. Mobuto), East Asian (e.g. Suharto) and Middle Eastern (e.g. the Shah) dictators must the USA support? How many failed states must it create, and how many torture victims and corpses must it leave in its wake before my confounded compatriots understand the nature of US foreign policy since WWII? CIA-supported coups and/or military interventions and/or paralysing economic sanctions have targeted and sometimes utterly destroyed countries such as Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, Congo, Cuba, Ghana, Grenada, Haiti, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Laos, Libya, Nicaragua, Niger, North Korea, Panama, Serbia, Somalia, Syria, Vietnam, Yemen. How many more countries must suffer the deadly attention of the CIA and US enforced sanctions before my disoriented compatriots as well as Five-Eye citizens realise what “rule of Law” actually means? Most recently:
The USA probably forced the non-confidence vote against Pakistan’s Imran Khan in 2022, and happily sees him imprisoned after Khan “leaked” the cypher exposing the source of his ouster. (Of course the USA denies any wrongdoing, as always.)
The USA is still making a determined effort to prevent developing countries from developing (via its instruments: the IMF, WTO and the World Bank).
The USA is leading a propaganda campaign that has strangled all Western mainstream media, thus ensuring that bewildered citizens have no idea of what is going on.
The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has found there are plausible grounds to suspect Israel is committing a genocide that the USA is actively supporting.
The USA has vowed to support Ukraine with “all it takes”. We see that the outcome so far is a dramatic depletion of the Ukrainian male population and a 23 % reduction in Ukrainian territory.
My stunned compatriots have definitely forgotten about Laos and Cambodia. They have possibly not even learnt in school why North Korea became what it is? Even the RAND Corporation points out that “operations… such as those in Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and elsewhere—were disappointments or outright failures”. I put to you that failures on that scale are simply indefensible.
I fear that when my discombobulated compatriots belatedly discover that the USA cares not a hoot for “international Law”, for “freedom”, or for “democracy”, it will be too late.
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 have just bamboozled 11 nations into discontinuing support to UNRWA. There can be absolutely no earthly reason for doing so, other than to make an even more concerted effort to prevent Gazans from surviving the hell they are in. There are tens of thousands of people working for UNRWA. Using the crimes that may possibly have been committed by a few individuals as a pretext to hasten the demise of the Gazans seems sleazy, to say the least.
The UN agency has long been under attack from Israel. …
Gunness, the former UNRWA spokesman, said there is a “coordinated political attack” on the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees. “The Israelis have said they cannot win the war on Gaza unless UNRWA is disbanded. So what clearer signal do you want?” he told Al Jazeera on Sunday.
The countries who have availed themselves of the sleazy pretext are: Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland, as well as, of course, the USA
This ruling may also boost those arguing that all states that are party to the Genocide Convention have a positive obligation to prevent genocide. The Houthis, for instance, have justified their attacks against ships heading to Israeli ports in the Red Sea, citing this positive obligation. What legal implications will the court’s ruling have as a result on the U.S. and UK’s military action against the Houthis?
The implications for Europe will also be considerable. The U.S. is rather accustomed to and comfortable with setting aside international law and ignoring international institutions. Europe is not.
International law and institutions play a much more central role in European security thinking. The decision will continue to split Europe. But the fact that some key EU states will reject the ICJ’s ruling will profoundly contradict and undermine Europe’s broader security paradigm.
Meanwhile back in the mainstream media today:
Reuters: Nothing about Gaza. But “Three US service members killed, 34 wounded in Jordan drone attack linked to Iran”.
AFP: “Israeli protesters blocked humanitarian aid trucks from entering the war-torn Gaza Strip on Sunday, forcing the lorries to turn around at a crossing with the Palestinian territory.”
UPI: “Crews safe, fire extinguished on British oil tanker after Houthi rebel attack” “Thousands mark Holocaust Remembrance Day amid marches in Germany, Italy” “Israelis lay siege to Khan Younis“
That last one looks promising. But no, not a word about civilians.
AP, however, is picking up now. They are highlighting the importance of UNRWA’s humanitarian work. However AP still has a long way to go as it despairs over disruption to trade due to the Houthi attacks. They just don’t get the picture, do they.
However, one group shines a small but very bright light, from the USA, no less:
The letter from American rabbis to President Biden, which urgently demands “a ceasefire now”, starts with the following words: “Dear President Biden, As American rabbis, we write to you with deep sorrow and fury.” [my highlight]
It’s an important letter, and a brave one. I take the liberty of quoting parts of it:
We support and uplift South Africa’s recent application to the International Court of Justice claiming Israel is in breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. And now, Palestinian human rights organizations, together with Palestinians in the US and Gaza, are bringing a case against your administration for failure to prevent, and complicity in, the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide against them, their families, and the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. We stand in support of their action as well.
…
On this day of remembrance in 2021, you noted that, “The Holocaust was no accident of history.” As you stated, “It occurred because too many governments cold-bloodedly adopted and implemented hate-fueled laws, policies, and practices to vilify and dehumanize entire groups of people, and too many individuals stood by silently. Silence is complicity.”
President Biden, what is happening right now in Gaza is no accident of history — and your complicity has been anything but silent. We call upon you to be true to your word and end U.S. complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.
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’ conflagration in a refinery, be it Russian, Ukrainian or Middle Eastern.
Clinging to hope
In the Northern hemisphere, most of us make at least some effort to “help save our planet”. Many of us forego heating our dwellings in winter. We loyally wait for buses and trains rather than drive, cut back on meat consumption and plane trips … All for nothing, when all that oil goes up in flames.
The other day, I found myself admiring a beautiful website advocating ecologically sound policies for all of mankind, no less. It is unfinished, true, and some of the links go nowhere, but others convey earnest commitment and innocence. Whoever the “we” is, these people appear to believe that what they are doing makes a difference. In a sense they are right, inasmuch as I, least, was moved by their site.
However, I lack their faith. I believe that with the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza and USA’s complicity in it, very few people retain much faith in establishment. People grimly go about their business, look after each other as best they can, share a beer or three on Saturday night, but shake their heads when asked about the future.
All the same, grimness is not without strong points. Have you heard of VIPS, VETERAN INTELLIGENCE PROFESSIONALS FOR SANITY? It was founded, it seems by Ray McGovern, a brave man. I recommend the Wikipedia article about him (as at 27 Jan 2024). And, as we see when reading the wry
Mr McGovern is not alone. I strongly recommend the VIPS MEMO (and I reproduce all the capital letters with great pleasure, as they are well-deserved by VIPS). I haven’t had such a good, healthy laugh for a long time as when I first read it.There might be something “rotten in the state of Denmark”, but fortunately, there are – in spite of mainstream media – forces for the good there, as well.
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 the global south countries that nurture well-founded grudges against neo-colonialism, perhaps?
Admittedly, the Houthis targeted ships entering the Red Sea. But those ships were potentially carrying military supplies to Israel, a nation in the process of committing a genocide. Moreover most European nations are vassals of the USA and therefore support the said genocide, so to the extent trade to Europe is blocked – the effect is intentional. (The EU has made their support to the genocide all the more clear by introducing additional “sanctions” this week against Hamas, that is to say against the Gazans and Palestinians in the entire area.)
Moreover, Houtis were operating in their own back yard, as it were. Look at the map:
Has Eritrea asked the USA /UK to intervene? Has Saudi Arabia?
Has Sudan?
Has Egypt?
There are those who maintain that the Biden administration has violated the US Constitution by attacking a country without Congressional permission.
(I admit for the record that Jens Stoltenberg did not ask the Norwegian National Assembly for permission when he decided, possibly already then vying for the position he now holds – who knows? – that Norway should bomb Libya to kingdom come.)
I don’t much care about the US Constitution. True, the famous first amendment protects free speech, but the second guarantees the right to bear arms. However, I do understand that most citizens of any state, mine or yours, do not want to be dragged into a war, not to mention a World War, without being asked. And US / UK actions with regard to Ukraine, Palestine and Yemen are supremely reckless. Those boys upstairs, evidently just love war games. After all, their own children in prep schools will not be the ones to get killed.
Since the USA, and its lapdog the UK, are attacking the distant and relatively poor country Yemen, lets look at international law, the UN Charter. Take a look at Articles 33 through 51, snippets of which I include below:
The parties to any dispute, the continuance of which is likely to endanger the maintenance of international peace and security, shall, first of all, seek a solution by negotiation, enquiry, mediation, conciliation, arbitration, judicial settlement, resort to regional agencies or arrangements, or other peaceful means of their own choice.
Article 33
Should the parties to a dispute of the nature referred to in Article 33 fail to settle it by the means indicated in that Article, they shall refer it to the Security Council.
Article 37
The Security Council may decide what measures not involving the use of armed force are to be employed to give effect to its decisions, ….
Article 41
Should the Security Council consider that measures provided for in Article 41 would be inadequate or have proved to be inadequate, it may take such action by air, sea, or land forces as may be necessary to maintain or restore international peace and security. Such action may include demonstrations, blockade, and other operations by air, sea, or land forces of Members of the United Nations.
Article 42
And, finally:
Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.
Article 51
I cannot see that the USA / the UK have been attacked by Yemen or by any other country. Declarations issued by their top guns, according to which they are “not at war with Yemen” amount to no more than a play with words. They have repeatedly bombed Yemen, and though Yemen cannot harm the USA / UK, powerful allies of Yemen might take it into their heads that enough is enough. And frankly, can you blame them? After all, the one party to all these disputes that systematically disregards “rule of Law” is the USA. Oh yes, and Israel, of course.
Where does all this lead us? I’m just a human without powers of any kind. I have no gun, no powerful friends in high positions. I don’t adhere to any religious or political group, but my blood seethes. I am impotently furious!
In the USA, however, fury could take on an altogether different dimension, and there is quite a scenario straddling the horizon: It appears that the winner of the next presidential election would under normal circumstances be Donald Trump. It also appears that they are trying convict and sentence the said Donald Trump to a prison sentence. Regardless of whether they convict him to prevent his election or after, people – possibly more than half the population – will be furious.
One furious person can be disregarded. The interesting question here is whether loyal supporters of the Democratic Party will be in favour of applying the same measures against furious Trump voters as their government is applying in the Middle East. Something like the Jakarta Method, perhaps?
The idea that, under the pretext that a country is democratic, its citizens, after an internal debate, can legitimately decide to bomb the citizens of another country is an idea that will end up killing democracy. The United States is a greater danger to peace than Iran.
Wikipedia as at 19 January 2024
For those of you who read French, his last book La Défaite de l’Occident was published last week. Not unexpectedly, Le Monde assassinates the book. All the more reason to read it.
