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 I will see, in Reuters, the UPI or the AP, a great big headline: THIS IS GENOCIDE. STOP IT!
But this morning was just as every other morning:
Cat flees from owner at truck stop, turns up 670 miles away (UPI) This was not, I admit, the top headline, nor even one of them. But I assure you that GAZA was not mentioned in any of the headlines.
Israeli strike kills an elite Hezbollah commander in the latest escalation linked to the war in Gaza (AP) Yes, this was the top headline. It was meant to bring joy to those worried that Israel’s war against the terrorists was not going well. It was meant as joyful tidings.
US secretary of state rallies Mideast leaders to prepare for Gaza’s post-war future (AP) Note the word “post-war”. As though the ongoing war is just any old war, not an extermination campaign. Later today, several US outlets proudly declare that the “Mideast leaders” have committed to some post-war efforts, as though Blinken had achieved something, anything at all. Of course the “Mideast leaders” will help Gaza, as they always do! Nothing to do with Blinken.
US top diplomat urges Israel to avoid harming civilians in Gaza. (Reuters) Isn’t that just sweet: Do please be careful, when you bomb hospitals, ambulances and aid convoys. And do please avoid hurting children when you raise apartment buildings to the ground.
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 Associated Press, United Press International and Reuters every day! To the extent they report at all on the massacres taking place day after day after day in Gaza (and also the West Bank!!!) they all three refer to them offhandedly as to just any old, distant and – above all – minor event that is of little or no concern to us.
Ghastly! You find me for once tongue-tied. The nightmare is still going on, mind you, unchecked by moral scruples. Why hasn’t the corporate press voiced outrage? Because it is a puppet, an instrument of the US powers that be.
I feel like a child who has discovered that Santa Claus was just a fairytale. Worse, in fact, much worse. Santa Clause is in reality a very big, very black and immensely dangerous wolf. Worse, even: Santa is evil to the core.
Stunned, still, I really have nothing more to add other than a very warm recommendation for another book:
Except, oh yes, except that there is a sliver of light between the black clouds:
My own servile-to-the-USA country’s pusillanimous public broadcasting company dutifully reports, every day, the number of Palestinians massacred over the past 24 hours. And every day it presents us with new heart-wrenching photos and scenes. It is bravely reporting what the USA does not want reported.
Learning of my despair, a friend in Iceland sent me a picture of his Christmas tree this year. It is decked in the Palestinian colours and with Palestinian flags. Surprised and grateful I started watching the Icelandic evening news on television.
One of the headlines of yesterday’s evening news from Iceland was the arrival at Keflavik Airport of a young Palestinian woman, who had been “gifted” with Icelandic nationality. She had never been to Iceland, but a Palestinian refugee there – her brother – had mobilised sympathy for her, and the government had decided to offer her a home in Iceland. The footage of her arrival was very moving as she appeared in a wheelchair. She had no legs. So the Icelandic public broadcasting company is also doing its bit.
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.
(2) Alexander Mercouris har proved himself an extraordinarily prescient expert on the Ukraine issue, for which he has taken a particular interest for a decade or so. His acumen and determination in finding relevant information is astounding.
(3) Glenn Diesen is a young professor of political science who has had the courage to contradict the mainstream narrative regarding the Ukraine war and has written several interesting books.
In their conversation they try to understand why Israel and the USA are making such grave strategic mistakes in Gaza. They try to predict that war’s outcome. In the second half of the conversation they compare the Palestine issue with the debacle of Ukraine. Here they do not entirely agree as Alexander has noticed a few worrying signs.
It’s Christmas Eve. “Palestinian Christians refuse to celebrate Christmas.” “Churches in Bethlehem have cancelled activities.” Several churches and hospitals have been bombed.
Faithful to my promise to not look away, I go to the news to see what is happening in Gaza: UPI, AP and Reuters tell us virtually nothing. And yet, there is a genocide going on!
But most people living in the USA and Europe simply don’t know it.
Unless you watch Al Jazeera, you might not even know it. You might think I’m exaggerating. After all, Biden doesn’t recognise it, and most governments loyal to the US don’t recognise it either. Shame on them!
But go to Al Jazeera (television). What we are seeing there, what we are hearing stymies all logical thinking. In addition to the “more than 20 thousand” killed, “at least 50 thousand” have been maimed for life and there are almost no medical supplies, the health workers who haven’t yet been killed are working under impossible conditions. The hospitals have been bombed … and just look at the place! Rubble. All rubble. At least 101 journalists have been killed.
Such evil takes your breath away.
Two million people are starving and without sufficient water. What water there is, is unsafe and lots of people are vomiting and suffering from diarrhoea.
And of course the West Bank (not Gaza) saw at least 208 people killed this year by settlers or soldiers before October 7. Since then… do we even have any numbers. Nobody is watching the West Bank now because of Gaza. Many of the victims on the West Bank were Christians, by the way.
And the USA is letting it happen. I ask myself: How much of the US support and military aid to Israel’s campaign of ethnic cleansing is due to lobbying and political pressure from Christian Zionists (i.e. evangelicals)?
What will the world be like after this abhorrent deed? Will more nations start killing off minorities now that the USA with its “rule of law” condones such actions?
I have wondered how Hamas could even consider carrying out the October 7 attack, knowing as they did, as did I, how viciously Israel would retaliate. I thought: The Gazans will cease to support Hamas, will hate Hamas for having subjected them to Israeli viciousness.
How very wrong I was! According to Al Jazeera, support for Hamas has never been greater in Gaza.
I put to you: Better than even Al Jazeera documentaries, better than any book that has ever analysed the Palestine issue, Gazans’ support for Hamas reveal how unbearable the Israeli concentration camp was.
What we are seeing, the ongoing genocide, strenuously supported by the USA, tells us just how violent Israeli racism has been.
Much has been said and written about the ongoing genocide. Many of us have described our sense of impotent rage and despair.
Caitline Johnstone has done so particularly poignantly, I think, in an article titled I will not look away.Rather than waste your time on more of my rants, I urge you to read her article.
And if you, like her, feel honour-bound to not “look away”, to subject yourself to a tiny glimpse into the horror, I recommend a piece from Al Jazeera’s Listening Post, What we are seeing from Gaza. Al Jazeera has invested more in Palestine, lives even, than any other mainstream media outlet.
No, Mr Biden and his lot do not believe that “all men [and women] are created equal”. I have no doubt he says he does, but nobody should ever take the word of a man (or woman) in his position. Mr Biden may, however, believe that all men [and women] are created equal, but that some are more equal than others, while others are definitely less so.
Of course we always knew that the USA had a race issue, but the Democratic Party has lately been loudly shouting that “Black Lives Matter”, and we actually thought they meant it, but now Palestinians are being killed in the USA, and supporters of Palestinians are being hassled, expelled, fired and generally persecuted by some – I insist – some fellow US Americans and – again I insist – and Congress, which has declared anti-Zionism antisemitic. (Mr Biden isn’t alone: His Republican counterparts agree fully: “some are more equal than others, while others are definitely less so.”)
No, Mr Biden and his lot, including his Republican counterparts, no longer value one of the most important pillars of the Democracy they keep bragging about: freedom of expression. Mainstream US media – a grovelling troupe of cowardly verbal mercenaries – has effectively been gagged. Again and again, it merely regurgitates State Department talking points.
No, Mr Biden and his lot do not believe in “rule of law”. They are actively supporting the extermination of as many Gazans as possible. Actively. With bombs! With yet another Security Council veto! With warships all over the place. With military aircraft all over the place. In case you had forgotten, exterminating populations is – apart from each and every killing’s being a mortal sin according to most religions – the very most heinous crime in the book of most criminal codes.
Why, you ask? Why get rid of the Gazans? What’s in it for him, you ask? Why indeed. Well you see, Mr Biden is just a puppet of the monstrous machinery that is US hegemony, which now desperately needs to nurture the loyalty of Israel. All the other countries of the Middle East are turning away from the USA, not because of Gaza, by the way, though Gaza certainly does not improve USA’s standing. Israel is the last outcrop of US-support in that part of the world. To put it differently: The USA is slipping, losing its grip. Even Israel is on good terms with Russia (as was demonstrated by Naftali Bennett’s role in the peace agreement reached between Zelensky and Putin in March 2022 – an agreement that NATO, represented by Boris Johnson, put a stop to). So Mr Biden must outbid the Russians. Biden must go all the way for Israel’s “self-defence”.
No, Israel is not engaged in self-defence. Israel really does need to get rid of as many Gazans as possible, not least children – who will grow up hating Israel – and not least women – who hate Israel and will bear more children who will hate Israel. All Gazans are traumatised, many must be nearly insane with grief and pain. Gazans are truly dangerous for Israel.
No, Hamas is not the problem. Israel is the problem! Israel that has sabotaged a two-state solution all the way and is still adamantly opposed to a two-state solution (though you will never hear or see the grovelling troupe of cowardly verbal mercenaries – US mainstream media – list the details of that sabotage), Israel that for decades has beaten, tortured, imprisoned and randomly killed Palestinians all over the West Bank, Israel that has imprisoned all of Gaza. Why, you ask? Why make life on the West Bank and Gaza a nightmare for Palestinians? Why of course: to make Palestinians flee. Israel is determined to take over the West Bank and Gaza, though that grovelling troupe of cowardly verbal mercenaries will never admit it.
No, Gaza is just the epicentre of decades of unfathomable Israeli violence against a people that Bin Laden insisted were more Semitic than the Israelis themselves. (So according to him, the real antisemites are the Israelis.) But the grovelling troupe of you-know-what that makes up the US mainstream media has unfortunately failed to inform the public: The public in the USA and its satellites has deliberately been prevented from making informed decisions about what to demand from their elected representatives.
***
So what will happen? Here is my favourite scenario: Even with US help, Israel won’t succeed in killing all Gazans. Even disease and starvation won’t finish off the Gazans. The maimed, nearly insane with grief and pain and hate survivors will have to be air-lifted out of Palestine, while their dwellings are being rebuilt. The international community will demand that the perpetrators of the genocide pay a price: Israelis must rebuild Gaza for the Gazans. The spirit of the Kibbutzes will resurface as Israeli men and women also plant orchards and vines between the new buildings, and make sure that each and every one of the dead they find in the rubble has a grave which they will water with their tears, muttering “I’m so so sorry … so terribly sorry …”
In Israeli schools, each child will be encouraged to adopt a dead Gazan sister or brother. Parents will try to reach out to surviving family members. Maybe photos can be sent, memories of the dead shared. Who knows? Many Israelis earnestly long for peace. I think that lasting peace without understanding, without humility and sympathy is not possible.
Meanwhile, the airlifted, maimed, nearly insane with grief and pain and hate survivors will be cared for in the very best US hospitals and clinics. All the US citizens who had the courage to oppose the genocide will welcome them joyously, bring them flowers, ask for their autographs and tell their children, “they survived hell on earth. They are heroes!”
***
Alas, I am not a Christian and I’m not an optimist. I want justice to be done. I want the evildoers to be punished. Period.
Alas, in real life, justice is seldom done.
The Israeli settlers will, however, have to leave the West Bank. All of them! Those of them who have also committed crimes against Palestinians will have to be tried and sentenced as harshly as they would have been had they been Palestinians committing the same crimes against Jews. Of course. Reasonable by any standard.
The ongoing US-abetted, US-aided crimes are so heinous that even science fiction baulks at describing them. And all we can do, we who live in “Democratic” countries is promise to spit on the future graves of the perpetrators.
The US, Israel and Hamas all have God on their side. Now as far as Hamas is concerned, God is all they have, so I earnestly hope he does not forsake them.
As for the Israeli God and the blond US God, they will probably collaborate in making a total hash of what remains of this planet.
A lof of what has happened these past two years has not surprised me. What has, however, astounded and shocked me has been 1) the silencing in the press of all criticism of the US and NATO’s handling of the war in Ukraine and 2) the US and UK crackdown on criticism of Israel post October 7.
An important factor in the near total suppression of dissent regarding US foreign policy, not only in the USA but also in US satellite states – has finally been made clear to me thanks to a book:
The Think Tank Racket by Glenn Diesen, Clarity Press, 2023.
According to Wikipedia as at 01.12.2023:
A think tank is a research institute that performs research and advocacy on topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_tank
That sounds promising enough: Politicians are, after all, initially just people like you and me who have been asked to represent us. They are not experts on “social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture”, etc. They rely on experts who can tell them all about it. Think tanks supposedly serve just that purpose: to inform politicians. Yes, and also to inform the media.
Now, as you will of course immediately point out: All these researchers will have to be paid. Who pays them?
Just so. And please notice the two warning words in Wikipedia’s definition: “and advocacy“
Unsurprisingly, they are paid by those who can afford to pay them and who stand to gain by doing so.
While most of us know a lot about all sorts of things, the matter of “national security” in a big and dangerous world full of threats – cyber threats, WMDs, long distance missiles, AI threats – is not for novices and could easily fill a telephone directory. So yes, I do understand the need for experts. Not only to advise politicians, but also to advise the press.
But there is, again, the issue of funding. The relationship between 1) those who provide the funding, 2) the experts and 3) the government – i.e. the decision makers. Diesen has taken a closer look at some of the think tanks, their funders, to the extent they are known, and the vested interests of some of the “experts”. I would be understating matters by saying that much of what comes to light in his book is extremely disturbing.
I shall not divulge his dramatic revelations though I will quote him a couple of times.
The first quote:
From the start, let’s be clear, the term “think tank” essentially amounts to a more polite way of saying “lobby group.” They exist to serve—and promote—the agendas of their funders. However, particularly in the United States, the field has become increasingly shady and disingenuous, with lobbyists being given faux academic titles like “Senior Non-Resident Fellow” and “Junior Adjunct Fellow” to distinguish them from honest registered lobbyists.
We have all heard the expression “military-industrial complex”, apparently coined by Eisenhower who, in his farewell address warned:
[W]e must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
There are those who claim that US warmongering not only benefits the likes of Lockhead Martin, Raytheon and Boing, but is driven by them. Since I do not have the skills to asses the weight of US defence contractors in the national economy, I leave you with a link so you can judge for yourself.
Surely the defence contractors would not advocate involving their own country in a war for pecuniary reasons? True enough, none of the very numerous wars engaged in by the USA since WWII – not one – was fought on US soil. (Not WWII either.) Admittedly many of “our boys” lost their lives in Vietnam and some, mostly from disadvantaged backgrounds, died in Iraq, just as quite a few disadvantaged US women famously lose their lives every year “while pregnant or within 42 days of termination of pregnancy, irrespective of the duration and the site of the pregnancy, ….” (maternal mortality) largely due to inadequate health care. It is tempting to deduce that from the point of view of US policy makers, these disadvantaged young men and women are dispensable.
Jenny Erpenbeck wrote in Gehen, ging, gegangen: “there’s no better way to make history disappear than to unleash money. Money on the loose is fiercer than a fighting dog.” [My translation]. And the evidence presented in Glenn Diesen’s book seems to indicate that profit might well be a driving force for continuous US warmongering. I give you none of his examples because I think you should read the book.
One of the think tanks discussed by Diesen is the Atlantic Council, basically a NATO propaganda wing.
Here is my second quotation from Diesen, about the Atlantic Council:
[I]n the decade 2006–2016, its annual revenue grew from $2 million to $21 million, a more than a ten-fold increase.”
Not bad for a team of “experts”, I’d say. Most scientific researchers here in OSLO can not even afford a simple 2-room flat. From my perspective, in Norway, the Atlantic Council is definitely a target of study, since NATO-criticism has been totally silenced here on Torvald Stoltenberg’s watch. In view of the war crimes recently committed in LIBYA by NATO, including not least Norway, the silence suggests suppression.
Here is what we find on the Atlantic Council “About” page.
Can you read the text? This is it:
Driven by our mission of “shaping the global future together,” the Atlantic Council is a nonpartisan organization that galvanizes US leadership and engagement in the world, in partnership with allies and partners, to shape solutions to global challenges.
“Global future”? NATO countries make up roughly 11.87 % of the global population! But this “nonpartisan” instrument nevertheless intends to shape the global future, having “galvanized” US leadership? Good luck with that. And as for the “engagement“, a common collocation of the word is “military”, i.e. miiitary engagement, so that word, at least, is apt.
A report referred to by Diesen was produced by the think tank RAND in April 2019. The report, Overextending and unbalancing Russia can be downloaded in its entirety, but you will find a summary of it here. The preface tells us that the report is “sponsored by the Army Quadrennial Defense Review Office, Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff G-8, Headquarters, Department of the Army”.
Please note that the preface does not exclude other sponsors.
The goal in this report is to weaken (“overextend and unbalance”) “Russia’s economy and armed forces and the regime’s political standing at home and abroad” notwithstanding the fact that
unlike the Soviet Union, Russia is not overextended geographically. Other than in Syria, its foreign commitments in Ukraine and the Caucasus are relatively compact, contiguous to Russia, and in locales where at least some of the local population is friendly and geography provides Russia with military advantages.
The report mentions a number of Russian vulnerabilities, and sees its economy as relatively weak compared to that of the USA. More importantly: not once in the report do I find any suggestion that Russia poses a military threat to a NATO country.
I cannot quite put my finger on just what it is that gets up the US nose until I come to Chapter 5, Ideological and Informational Measures: “Russia has orchestrated a series of efforts … to undermine Western political institutions and increase Russia’s standing and influence …” Ah!
At any rate, you can see for yourself what measures to weaken Russia were assessed by RAND in 2019 and how they were rated. You will see that among the measures that were highly rated were several “Air and Space Cost-Imposing Measures” e.g. “Invest more in long-range strike aircraft and missiles” – all presumably lucrative for the defence contractors.
What I found most interesting, however, were the following paragraphs:
Expanding U.S. assistance to Ukraine, including lethal military assistance, would likely increase the costs to Russia, in both blood and treasure, of holding the Donbass region. More Russian aid to the separatists and an additional Russian troop presence would likely be required, leading to larger expenditures, equipment losses, and Russian casualties.
Alternatively, Russia might counter-escalate, committing more troops and pushing them deeper into Ukraine. Russia might even pre-empt U.S. action, escalating before any additional U.S. aid arrives. Such escalation might extend Russia; Eastern Ukraine is already a drain. Taking more of Ukraine might only increase the burden, albeit at the expense of the Ukrainian people. However, such a move might also come at a significant cost to Ukraine and to U.S. prestige and credibility. This could produce disproportionately large Ukrainian casualties, territorial losses, and refugee flows. It might even lead Ukraine into a disadvantageous peace.
Some analysts maintain that Russia lacks the resources to escalate the conflict. Ivan Medynskyi of the Kyiv-based Institute for WorldPolicy argued, “War is expensive. Falling oil prices, economic decline, sanctions, and a campaign in Syria (all of which are likely to continue in 2016) leave little room for another large-scale military maneuver by Russia.” According to this view, Russia simply cannot afford to maintain a proxy war in Ukraine, although, given Russia’s size and the importance it places on Ukraine, this might be an overly optimistic assumption.
There is also some risk of weapons supplied to the Ukrainians winding up in the wrong hands. A RAND study conducted for the President of Ukraine found reasons for concern about the potential misuse of Western military aid.
bold highlights are mine
RAND seems to have been more prescient than most other policy advisers pushing for war “to the last Ukrainian” and “what it takes” etc. Those of us who have been accused of being Putin acolytes – i.e. all who have warned about the consequences of the “proxywar” – find support in, of all things, a RAND document from 2019. Would you believe it?
Meanwhile the disgraceful Wikipedia article vilifying Glenn Diesen is an example of just how “lethal” the stand-off between the USA and everybody who does not vocally support “our” foreign policy has become. Glenn Diesen is a political science professor at a Norwegian university. As a Norwegian, I resent the innuendo that university professors here are employed by virtue of anything but outstanding academic qualifications. I may disagree with our professors and frequently do, but academic debate has until recently been allowed, even welcomed. Controversial views are no exception! The information Glenn Diesen brings to the table is based on research – an example of which is the book I so warmly recommend, a result of assiduous and time-consuming work. It is, moreover, written in an easy, often ironical, conversational tone.
Most of the year I’ll be complaining about the weather. It’s never right, as it were. Too mild in winter, too wet or too dry in summer. “Climate change,” I’ll sigh, pointedly nodding towards the window.
So now, I should rejoice and tell anybody who is willing to listen to me, that here where I live, the weather is for once just right, just the way it should be in late November: The temperature drops and drops, precipitation stops, the winds stall, fogs slither in and out, to and from goodness knows where, and all of nature seems to be holding its breath pending the arrival of loads of snow. Said arrival will without doubt be briefly prefaced by a marked rise of the mercury in the thermometer. Let us enjoy these days of climatic normality for all they are worth. We may or may not know such normality ever again.
In Gaza, the temperature is now 15 degrees. At 7 AM tomorrow the temperature will be 11 degrees. I’ve never been to Gaza, so I cannot tell you whether or not the cool 11 degrees are normal for this time of year. But I’m sure of one thing: Climate change will not enter into the equations to be solved by the displaced survivors of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, wherever they catch a couple of hours’ sleep now and then.
Here in Europe we have suffered due to the sanctions war against Russia (which deprived continental Europe of NLG) from lack of energy to heat our dwellings in winter. In Norway, we had always had more than enough hydro-electric power until our energy was commodified and put on the stock market (and sold to poor continental Europe) at which point we could no longer afford to buy our own electricity. We had to adapt to a drop of indoor temperatures from 23º C. I have managed to adapt to 20.5 º by wearing thermal underwear and woollen sweaters. I can cope with 18º by being in constant activity, cleaning house, etc. But at 16º… Let me tell you that at 16 degrees, I wish I were dead.
Of course, some of us can adapt. Some of us are made of tougher stuff. But 11 degrees without a roof over your head! When I am frozen stiff, I take a hot bath. I can still afford to take a hot bath a couple of times a week. But for the barely surviving people of Gaza, I assume there is no such thing as a bath, let alone a hot bath or a big warm towel and clean underwear.
I dare not even think of what it must be like to have to pee for a woman in Gaza, not to mention to menstruate! Good God what humiliations they must endure! And bowel movements for men and women; where do they go? There must be an unbelievable stench everywhere.
And the dead! Oh Lord, the dead! Not only the thousands and thousands who are known; also those who are simply “missing”, decomposing under the ruins of the bombed buildings.
I have never been to Gaza, never been to the West Bank, far less to Israel. Having written what I have written I will probably never be allowed anywhere near occupied Palestine. (Not that I shall ever humiliate myself or the Palestinians by asking for Israeli permission!)
But I must ask Israelis: You maintain that we, those of us who criticise you, do not understand your “plight”. But have you even tried to imagine what life has been like for the population you maintain is trying to eradicate you?
I used to love The Guardian. You could find discussions about just about anything there, views right left and centre, philosophical musings, analyses of books, films and even a magnificent series in which Andras Schiff presented each and every one of Beethoven’s piano sonatas. It was a site that continued where school education left off, a newspaper that kept us informed and on our toes. You would, not least, also find plenty of articles analysing USA’s miscellaneous wars and implanted dictators.
Alas, The Guardian I knew is no more. But the Guardian is not alone in abdicating as a joyfully dissenting source of analysis. Everywhere I turn to look – Le Monde, the New York Times, El Pais – all once proud publishers of the Wikileaks documents that exposed US crimes against humanity in Iraq – are now servile minions. Since dissent is no longer recognised, as such, but is redefined as “conspiracy theory”, I shall refrain from suggesting whose minions those formerly great newspapers have become.
To my knowledge, not one of them has mentioned even the abstract of the Schulenburg report, item 3 of which reads:
Contrary to Western interpretations, Ukraine and Russia agreed at the time [March 2022] that the planned NATO expansion was the reason for the war. They therefore focused their peace negotiations on Ukraine’s neutrality and its renunciation of NATO membership. In return, Ukraine would have retained its territorial integrity except for Crimea.
The report quotes the Washington Post, from April 5 2022:
For some in NATO, it’s better for Ukrainians to keep fighting and dying than to achieve a peace that comes too soon or at too high a price for Kiev and the rest of Europe. Zelensky, [they] said, should “keep fighting until Russia is completely defeated.”
Looking back, the hubris of the USA and the European NATO states has been mind-boggling. Not only has the war NOT saved Ukraine; it has NOT weakened Russia, which was, of course, the purpose of extending NATO to Ukrainian soil.
That the mainstream press is too pusillanimous now to disclose that there actually was a peace settlement ready to be signed by both parties at the very outset of the war, would have shocked me two years ago. No more. If you follow Glenn Greenwald’s tireless razor-sharp analysis of how civil liberties in the USA have been eroded year by year by decade, you will know not only that Dog does what Master commands: (As a dog owner, I can tell you a lot about how to make your dog happily obey you.) Glenn Greenwald also tells you how and why legions of intelligent, highly educated journalists are bamboozled into systematically peddling untruths.
What Glenn Greenwald does not tell you is how that same Dog versus Master relationship applies also here in Europe. Take, for instance, the UK, where the Guardian, presumably at somebody’s orders, recently removed – physically erased, stamped out – Bin Laden’s historic 2002 “Letter to America”, which in the wake of the ongoing genocide, has attracted enormous interest.
It is true that the letter seems disagreeably dogmatic and religiously authoritarian. I had to resort to self-discipline to even get past the first paragraphs. But once you do get through them, you are served a whole litany of accusations against our way of life that are thought-provoking. I put to you that “thought” is healthy, i.e. not “bad”, noxious or harmful…. (I find I need to stress the point under the assumption that the Guardian now appears to disapprove of “thought”.)
Although Bin Laden’s Letter to America (or here) is anything but an enjoyable read, much of his criticism of the USA is distressingly on the mark. It should have been published on the first page of every Western newspaper as soon as it was addressed to the US population in 2002. Had US voters been able to read that letter back then, they might have demanded a change to their country’s destructive foreign policy, hence also to the growing (and well-deserved) hatred against the West.
Allow me to quote an old nursery rhyme:
Mary had a little lamb, Little lamb, little lamb. Mary had a little lamb, Its fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went, Mary went, Mary went, Everywhere that Mary went, The lamb was sure to go.
“Why does the lamb love Mary so? Mary so, Mary so? Why does the lamb love Mary so?” The eager children cry.
“Why, Mary loves the lamb, you know, Lamb, you know, lamb, you know, Mary loves the lamb, you know,” The teacher did reply.
It’s actually a US American nursery rhyme. I sometimes find myself humming to myself.
Everywhere the US went, the US went, the US went Everywhere the US went, doom was sure to go.
In any case, it is safe to say that I no longer seek wisdom from any of the above-mentioned formerly outstanding newspapers, although I am sure they still provide interesting reviews about films and books. Somehow, in view of what sort of future is in store for us, I no longer care for their reviews.
I do, still, however care very much about the mess superpowers are making of the world. At the moment, the USA is still the hegemon, albeit a hegemon in its death-throes, hence all the more desperate and very dangerous. You may not agree with me that US hegemony is in its “death throes”. If so, I can only hope that you are mistaken and that I am not, because nothing good ever seems to come of US interventions.
It is quite possible, even probable, that if and when the USA is incapacitated, I shall be more critical of China and Russia. Obviously, they, too, want to exploit foreign lands for natural resources and cheep labour, but so far they are making a point of promising far better returns for the countries in which they “invest” than the collective west ever did.
I think the moral of this story is multi-polar: If there are three or more Masters, Dog can at all times obey the one who gives the most juicy reward.
