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Amazon, Israel, and the Occupation of Palestine

International Solidarity Movement | October 2, 2019

On September 22nd, Amazon quietly launched its operations in Israel, offering local delivery from a number of Israeli brands, with a Hebrew-language version of its Israel platform coming soon. Consumers in Israel now have faster and broader access to the world’s largest e-commerce marketplace, yet questions remained unanswered about Amazon’s ties with Israeli military, financial, and technology companies involved in the Occupation of Palestine as well as  accusations of anti-Palestinian bias against the platform and its founder Jeff Bezos.

Though Amazon Israel was launched barely two weeks ago, Amazon’s business operations with Israel go back much further. As early as 2015, Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) began servicing Amazon’s fleet of cargo planes, and now services 80% of Amazon’s aircraft. IAI is a wholly Israeli state owned aerospace and weapons manufacturer which supplies the Israeli army with aircraft, drones, missiles, armored vehicles, spy satellites and more. Its weapons have been used in assassinations and military invasions of Gaza. In the 1970s, IAI sold weapons to the Shah of Iran, and more recently, a UN report in August this year found IAI had sold weapons to Myanmar’s military after it began its genocide and ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya minority. IAI subsidiary Elta North America was recently commissioned to build a prototype of Donald Trump’s wall on the US-Mexico border. Amazon also works with Israeli technology firm NSLComm, which receives funding from the Israeli government, and builds network satellites “that will be used for… military applications”, according to Haaretz.

IAI, which services 80% of Amazon’s cargo planes, also provides aircraft, missiles, and other weapons to the Israeli government. Credit: MOHAMMED SALEM/ REUTERS

While Amazon’s ties with IAI and NSLComm are rarely reported in the media, its multi-million dollar contracts with another security firm has attracted widespread condemnation and protest. Amazon makes millions off providing web servers and database storage for Palantir, a private US data analysis firm which aids Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in identifying and deporting migrants. A petition this summer for Amazon to cut ties with Palantir and ICE gained over 270,000 signatures. Palantir also provides the Israeli government with so-called “predictive systems”, which analyze social media posts to identify Palestinians deemed a “threat”. The result of Palantir’s racially profiled analytics systems is that Palestinians are arrested and face long prison sentences for simply posting photos of family members killed by Israeli forces or in prison, citing Quranic verses, or calling for protests.

In the financial sector, Amazon signed agreements this year with Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi, two major Israeli banking institutions, to provide discounts to Amazon customers using Leumi and Hapoalim bank accounts. A 2018 report by Human Rights Watch found both banks guilty of financing construction and expansion of illegal settlements in the West Bank, while Bank Leumi also funds academic institutions in illegal settlements and programs for IDF recruits, even sponsoring gift packages and additional vacation days for Israeli soldiers during the 2014 invasion of Gaza, in which over 2,200 Palestinians, including more than 550 children, were killed. Pension funds and banks in Norway, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the UK have divested from Bank Leumi and Hapoalim due to their human rights violations, while Amazon signs new cooperation agreements with them.

Amazon’s dealings with Israeli companies supporting and profiting from the Occupation aside, many more questions remain. The most troubling of these questions surround how Amazon Israel will deal with realities on the ground in its operations. Will Amazon deliver to customers in illegal settlements? Will Amazon sell products manufactured or grown on Palestinian land seized by armed settlers and considered illegal by the UN and the international community? Will Amazon give Palestinian and Israeli sellers equal access to its platform?

A quick look at Amazon’s policies on its global site, amazon.com, give some indication as to how it might run its Israeli site. Last year, Amazon removed a top-selling T-shirt that reads “Make Israel Palestine Again”, on the grounds that it did not fulfill Amazon’s content policy. Amazon’s content policy prohibits the sale of “products that promote or glorify hatred, violence, racial, sexual, or religious intolerance or promote organizations with such views.” Amazon seems to have no problem, however, with selling “IDF” merchandise; at the time of writing this article, IDF T shirts, dresses, Halloween costumes, and even baby clothes were available on its global site. The occupation army has been accused of racism, sexism, religious intolerance, and countless acts of violence, torture, and human rights violations, not only by Palestinians but also by Israeli soldiers.

A screenshot of the “Make Israel Palestine Again” T-shirt removed by Amazon.

A screenshot of the “Make Israel Palestine Again” T-shirt removed by Amazon.

Amazon president, CEO, and largest shareholder Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world since 2017 (and according to Forbes, the richest man in history) has yet to speak publicly about Palestine or Israel; he rarely gives public comments on any political issues. But indications of the Amazon founder’s political stances can be seen in the Washington Post. Jeff Bezos purchased the US paper for $250 million USD and has been its sole owner since October 2013.

The Washington Post has published a wide range of articles on Israel and Palestine, and a quick look at their articles and editorials since Bezo’s takeover in October 2013 shows where its editorial staff and leadership stand. It describes the shooting of unarmed Palestinian protesters in Gaza by Israeli snipers as “clashes”, and Netanyahu as a “prudent, even cautious, statesman” who “quietly restrained the building of Jewish settlements”, even though during his last 10 years in office over 20,000 settlement units were built in the Occupied West Bank. One Washington Post article, titled “Palestinians Kill 3 Israelis as Violence Mounts in ‘Day of Rage’”, acknowledges only in the 6th paragraph that “28 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis.” Israelis are routinely described as “killed”, but Palestinians merely “die”. Another article on electricity cuts in Gaza makes sure to inform the readers in the headline that “it’s not all Israel’s fault”. Last year, the Washington Post ran a full page advert calling New Zealand artist Lorde a “bigot” for canceling a concert in Israel.

From the Washington Post (of which Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the sole owner) on May 6, 2019. Israelis are killed, but Palestinians just “die”

Jennifer Rubin, a journalist for the Washington post, once retweeted an article describing Palestinians as “death-worshiping, innocent-butchering, child-sacrificing savages”, “devils spawn”, and “unmanned animals” who should be thrown “into the sea, to float there, food for sharks”. Her writing in the Washington Post declared that endorsements of the one-state solution “amount to calls for genocide”, and called then–Secretary of State John Kerry “intentionally obtuse”–or a liar–for not denouncing the Palestinian right of return. The Washington Post has rejected calls to remove Rubin for promoting racism and Islamophobia.

Given Amazon’s record of involvement with corporations deeply entrenched in the Israeli Occupation of Palestine, there is a high possibility of Amazon Israel failing to comply with international and human rights law in its Israeli operations. Should it fail to respect international law and engage in operations directly normalizing, supporting, and profiting from violations of Palestinian rights, Amazon may face boycott calls similar to those taken by BDS against companies like HSBC, SodaStream, Airbnb, Caterpillar, and Hewlett Packard. It remains to be seen what kind of corporate values Amazon Israel will deliver.

October 4, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

Israel Has Murdered 500 Palestinians Since Trump Declared Jerusalem The Capital Of Israel

By Robert Inlakesh – 21rst Century Wire – October 4, 2019

Since December 2017, when Trump announced his recognition that “Jerusalem is Israel’s eternal capital”, at least 481 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli forces according to a new report.

The Centre for Jerusalem Studies, based in the old city of Jerusalem, provided documentation showing that of the 481 murders, 102 were children and 18 were women, 6 of those killed have been described having special needs.

Since the start of the Gaza’s Great Return March, on the 30th of March 2018, over 330 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli forces. No Israelis have been killed or sustained significant injuries, beyond scratches, from the demonstrators. Israel however, still insists that the protests have been non-stop riots which have been going on for nearly a year and a half straight.

Israel is now in the process of figuring out whether Benjamin Netanyahu, currently battling a corruption and bribery scandal, or Benny Gantz, who was summoned to the Hague during his election campaign for involvement in the execution of a family in Gaza, will be their next Prime Minister. But regardless of whom it is, Trump’s alleged ‘Deal of the Century’ seem to be looming on the horizon.

If the Trump administration goes ahead and attempts to implement his plan, which has been alleged to include the possible swallowing of sections of the West Bank by Jordan, as well as the “resettlement” of Gazans to the Egyptian Sinai, the violence will inevitably grow.

Right now, the mainstream Western press is fixated on the Hong Kong protests. They are providing coverage to the anti-China demonstrators in an attempt to lionize groups, many of which have engaged in real violence and vandalism. Yet the demonstrations in Gaza are not only largely ignored, but are perpetually portrayed as violent and the narrative of the Israeli government is sometimes quoted almost word for word.

So a valid question, given the hypocrisy of mainstream media outlets coverage on Hong Kong when paralleled with Gaza, would be, why are they also still pretending to oppose US President Donald Trump? Clearly the agenda behind backing the Hong Kong protests, works hand in hand with President Trump’s plans for China and even more evident is it that channels such as the BBC, CNN, MSNBC etc., clearly are helping Trump get away with allowing the violence against Palestinians to continue.

The reason Palestinians can be executed in such large-scale attacks and massacres, is the fault of the media and international community. This includes the United Nations (UN), International Criminal Court (ICC), Human Rights Organizations and all the self-proclaimed “objective” media outlets. If there is no direct action against Israel for its crimes, we should expect another surge in constantly escalating cycle of violence, perpetuated upon the Palestinian people by the Israelis.

***

Author Robert Inlakesh is a special contributor to 21WIRE and European correspondent for Press TV. He has reported from on the ground in occupied Palestine

October 4, 2019 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , | 2 Comments

Western Zero-Sum Geopolitics is a Dead-End

Strategic Culture Foundation | October 4, 2019

The US and its Western allies are creating more international tensions and instability in a futile bid to carve the globe into “spheres of interest” and “exclusivity”. That’s the way Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov views it, and few objective observers of international relations could disagree with his admonishment.

Russia’s top diplomat says the only way forward is for multilateralism to prevail and for all states to abide by the principles of the United Nations’ Charter, to which they are signatories.

A prime example of the destructive US-led Western policy is seen in the Persian Gulf where tensions have reached an explosive pitch which could trigger an all-out war across the Middle East, possibly embroiling the entire world.

There can be little doubt that the precarious situation in the Gulf is extant because of Washington’s irresponsible provocations towards Iran. The unilateral abrogation of the landmark 2015 nuclear accord by the Trump administration and the militarization of an already dominant US presence in the Gulf over recent months is a brazen case of Washington going it alone in contravention of international law and norms. (Alas, has the US ever been different?, one might demur.)

In its unilateral initiative, the US has cobbled together a clique of nations to support its presumed military right to act as a policeman in the Persian Gulf: Britain, Australia and Saudi Arabia have indicated they are willing to join a US “coalition” to purportedly safeguard “freedom of navigation” through the vital chokepoint in global oil trade.

Declared intentions aside, the problem is Washington’s attempt to demarcate a “sphere of influence” in the strategically important Middle East. No matter, it seems, that this action is seriously aggravating tensions and instability in the region. Iran has every right to protest what it sees as a US-led campaign of aggression, piled on top of Washington’s bad faith regarding the UN-endorsed nuclear accord.

However, by contrast, a viable way out of the dead-end that Washington’s policy of unilateralism has created is the formation of a multilateral naval security system, which involves all nations in the Persian Gulf, including Iran, Saudi Arabia and others. Extra-regional nations can also be involved, including China, India, Japan, the European Union, as well as Russia and the US.

Such a proposal has been submitted to the UN by Russia earlier this year. This week during a meeting with Sergei Lavrov, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammed Javad Zarif gave his full support for such a multilateral security mechanism. The initiative is consistent with UN principles of respecting national sovereignties and non-aggression. It obviates the notion of nations presuming to have “spheres of influence”. The latter concept is a relic of colonialism and imperialism, and should be obsolete in today’s world.

Another contemporary example of destructive unilateralism is the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The country has been trapped in a nearly five-year war in which civilians in the eastern Donbass region have suffered greatly. Western governments and media accuse Russia of meddling in Ukraine. But the reality is that it was Washington and European states that interfered by illegally overthrowing an elected government in Kiev with a violent CIA-backed coup in February 2014.

Ukraine has been turned into a failed state because Washington and its Western allies wanted to impose a “sphere of influence” on Russia’s border.

It is patently obvious that such unilateral policy is a violation of international law and democratic principles. It is a criminal assertion of geopolitical “interests” and “objectives”. Moreover, such misconduct inevitably leads to a morass of conflict, destruction and immense human suffering.

The disgraceful irony is that while Russia is constantly accused, without evidence, of interfering in other countries, the abundant, irrefutable proof is the opposite: Washington and its Western allies have an incessant habit of violating and destabilizing nations and regions in presumed zero-sum geopolitical games.

For the sake of world peace and progressive development, all nations must adhere to the concept of multilateralism, mutual respect and genuine cooperation, free of stereotyping and demonizing others for propaganda gains.

The question is though: can US corporate capitalism and its militarist machine abide by that reasonable, minimal demand for international cooperation?

If not, then the American political system and its coterie of Western minions are driving the world into an abysmal dead-end.

October 4, 2019 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | 2 Comments

Shot down? Testimony by Trump’s Ukraine envoy seems to skewer Democrats’ impeachment narrative

RT | October 4, 2019

Another transcript has poked a hole in the narrative of House Democrats trying to impeach President Donald Trump, as former US special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker testified he never pushed Kiev for ‘dirt’ on former VP Joe Biden.

Volker was grilled for nine hours in a closed-doors session of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence, and Oversight committees on Thursday. Democrats on the committees claimed that he was instrumental in pushing the Ukrainian government to reopen a corruption investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter’s business dealings in Ukraine.

House Intelligence chair Adam Schiff (D-California) – one of the loudest voices calling for impeachment on Capitol Hill – did not release a transcript of Volker’s testimony. Instead, the Democrats published a select few text messages provided by Volker, amid grim pronouncements that the envoy engaged in a “shadow shakedown,” and helped Trump pressure “a foreign power to investigate a political rival,” to quote Schiff and fellow Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-California).

However, a transcript of Volker’s testimony was obtained by investigative reporter John Solomon and the The Federalist on Friday, and the document paints a rather different picture. In the transcript, Volker describes providing more text messages than those released by Schiff and co, in which “Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion.”

Another Democrat claim – that Trump ordered military aid to Ukraine withheld in exchange for an investigation into the Bidens’ affairs – was also absent from Volker’s testimony, with the envoy stating that he was only made aware of the suspension of military aid through media reports.

Instead, he described facilitating talks between officials in Kiev and Washington to allow the Ukrainians a shot at refuting a “negative narrative” that had formed in the US on corruption in the country.

“I did so solely because I understood that the new Ukrainian leadership wanted to convince those… who believed such a negative narrative about Ukraine, that times have changed, and that, under President Zelensky, Ukraine is worthy of US support,” he told the hearing.

Volker abruptly resigned last week, after the Democrats announced they would be summoning him to testify.

Prior to the transcript’s release, House Republicans had called for it to be made public, and accused Schiff and his fellow Democrats of “releasing cherry-picked documents” to further his impeachment effort.

President Trump was more blunt, calling Schiff a “lowlife” and demanding he be “questioned at the highest level for Fraud & Treason.”

The transcript is the second such document to cast doubt on the argument for impeachment. Democrats accused Trump of pressuring Zelensky into reopening the investigation in a July phone call, using military aid as leverage. When the White House released a transcript of the call revealing no quid-pro-quo arrangement, that argument too began to look shaky.

Nevertheless, the party has pushed ahead with an impeachment inquiry, albeit without a full vote in the House of Representatives to make it official. Meanwhile, Ukraine’s top prosecutor announced on Friday that his office will reopen the investigation into Burisma, an energy firm whose board Hunter Biden sat on, but denied that the investigation was politically motivated.

October 4, 2019 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 6 Comments

Trumpenstein Must Be Destroyed!

By CJ Hopkins | Consent Factory, Inc. | October 4, 2019

So here we go. Like a 1960s straight-to-drive-in Hammer Film Production, the 2020 campaign season has begun. Dig into your bucket of popcorn, pop the flap on your box of Good & Plenty, turn off your mind, and enjoy the show. From the looks of the trailer, it’s going to be a doozy.

That’s right, folks, it’s the final installment of the popular Trumpenstein horror movie series, TRUMPENSTEIN MUST BE DESTROYED! It will be playing, more or less around the clock, on more or less every screen in existence, until November 3, 2020 … or until Trump takes that lonely walk across the White House lawn to the Marine One chopper and flies off to Mar-a-Lago in disgrace.

Here’s a quick recap of the series so far, for those who may be joining us late.

When we last saw Trumpenstein he was out on the balcony of the White House South Portico in his Brioni boxers, ripped to the gills on Diet Coke and bellowing like a bull elephant seal. Having narrowly survived the Resistance’s attempts to expose him as a Russian intelligence asset (and the reanimated corpse of Adolf Hitler), he was pounding his chest and hollering angry gibberish at the liberal media like the Humongous in the second Mad Max movie.

The liberal mob was standing around with their torches and pitchforks in a state of shock. Doctor Mueller, the “monster hunter,” had let Trumpenstein slip through his fingers. The supposedly ironclad case against him had turned out to be a bunch of lies made up by the Intelligence Community, the Democratic Party, and the corporate media.

Russiagate was officially dead. The President of the United States was not a Russian secret agent. No one was blackmailing anyone with a videotape of Romanian prostitutes peeing on a bed where Obama once slept. All that had happened was, millions of liberals had been subjected to the most elaborate psyop in the history of elaborate deep state psyops … which, ironically, had only further strengthened Trumpenstein, who was out there on the Portico balcony, shotgunning Diet Cokes with one hand and shaking his junk at the mob with the other.

It wasn’t looking so good for “democracy.”

Fortunately, even though Russiagate had blown up in the Resistance’s faces and Trumpenstein could no longer be painted as a traitorous Russian intelligence asset (or as Vladimir Putin’s homosexual lover), he was still the reanimated corpse of Hitler, so they went balls out on the fascism hysteria, which kept the Resistance alive through the summer.

Which was all they really needed to do. Because these last three years were basically just a warm-up for the main event, which was always scheduled to begin this autumn. Russiagate, Hitlergate, and all the rest of it … it was all just a prelude to these impeachment hearings, and to the mass hysteria surrounding same, which the global capitalist ruling classes, the Intelligence Community, and the corporate media will be barraging us with until November 2020. The details don’t really matter that much. They were always going to impeach him for something, and they were always going to do it now, and throughout the 2020 campaign season.

You do not honestly believe they are going to let him serve a second term, do you? He took them by surprise in 2016. That isn’t going to happen again. Seriously, take a moment and reflect on everything we’ve been subjected to since Hillary Clinton lost the election … the unmitigated insanity of it all. The Russiagate hysteria. The Russian hacker hysteria. The Russian Facebook mind-control hysteria. The Hitler hysteria. The mass fascism hysteria. The anti-Semitism hysteria. The concentration camp hysteria. The white supremacist terrorism hysteria. Russian spy whales. Perfume assassins. The endless stream of fabricated “news” stories pumped out by the corporate media. Best-selling books, based on nothing. Comedians singing hymns to former FBI directors on national television. Celebrities demanding CIA coups. Papers of record like The New York Times coordinating blatant propaganda campaigns. The list goes on, and on, and on.

All of this because one billionaire ass clown won an election without their permission?

No, this was never just about Donald Trump, repulsive and corrupt as the man may be. The stakes have always been much higher than that. What we’ve witnessed over the the last three years (and what is about to reach its apogee) is a global capitalist counter-insurgency, the goal of which is (a) to put down the ongoing populist rebellion throughout the West, and (b) to crush any hope of resistance to the hegemony of global capitalism … in other words, a War on Populism.

Not that Donald Trump is a populist hero. Far from it. Trump is a narcissistic clown. He has always been a narcissistic clown. All he really cares about is seeing his face on television and plastering his name on everything in sight, preferably in huge gold letters. He got himself elected president by being cunning enough to recognize and ride the tsunami of populist anger that was building up in 2016, and that has continued to build throughout his presidency. It is not going away, that anger. The Western masses are no more thrilled about the global capitalist future today than they were when voted for Brexit, and Trump, and various other “populist” and reactionary figures.

Which is precisely why Trumpenstein must be destroyed, and why Brexit must not be allowed to happen … or, if it does, why the people of the United Kingdom must be mercilessly punished. It is also why the Gilets Jaunes are being brutally repressed by the French police, and disappeared by the corporate media (while the Hong Kong protesters garner daily headlines), and why Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party must be smeared as a hive of anti-Semites, and Tulsi Gabbard as an Assad-apologist, and why Julian Assange must be smeared and destroyed, and why Bernie Sanders must also be destroyed, and why anyone of any ilk (left, right, it doesn’t matter) riding that wave of populist anger or challenging the hegemony of global capitalism and its psychotic, smiley-face ideology in any other way must be destroyed.

2020 is for all the marbles. The global capitalist ruling classes either crush this ongoing populist insurgency or … God knows where we go from here. Try to see it through their eyes for a moment. Picture four more years of Trump … second-term Trump … Trump unleashed. Do you really believe they’re going to let that happen, that they are going to permit this populist insurgency to continue for another four years?

They are not. What they are going to do is use all their power to destroy the monster … not Trump the man, but Trump the symbol. They are going to drown us in impeachment minutiae, drip, drip, drip, for the next twelve months. The liberal corporate media are going to go full-Goebbels. They are going to whip up so much mass hysteria that people won’t be able to think. They are going to pit us one against the other, and force us onto one or the other side of a simulated conflict (Democracy versus the Putin-Nazis) to keep us from perceiving the actual conflict (Global Capitalism versus Populism). They are going to bring us to the brink of civil war in order to prevent civil war. And, if that doesn’t work, and Trump gets reelected (or if it looks like he’s going to get reelected), they’ll probably have to just go ahead and kill him.

One way or another, this is it. This is the part where the global capitalist ruling classes teach us all a lesson. The lesson they intend to teach us is the same old lesson that masters have been teaching slaves since the dawn of slavery. The lesson is, “abandon hope.” The lesson is, “resistance is futile.” The lesson is, “shut up, eat your tofu, get back to work at your three gig jobs, service your school loans and your credit card debt, vote for who and what we tell you, and be grateful we don’t fucking kill you. Oh, yeah … and if you want to rebel against something, feel free to take up identity politics, or to march around town with posters of Saint Greta demanding that we stop destroying the planet. We’ll get right on that, don’t you worry.”

What? You thought this had a happy ending, that Trumpenstein and the Bride of Trumpenstein were going to ride off into the orange sunrise at Mar-a-Lago in a Trump-branded golf cart, having made America great again … or that Bernie was going to storm the castle, vanquish Trumpenstein, and set up something resembling basic social democracy?

I told you it was a horror film, didn’t I?

October 4, 2019 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia, Timeless or most popular | | 3 Comments

The Duplicitous Agenda Endorsed by the UN and NATO

By Ramona Wadi | Strategic Culture Foundation | October 4, 2019

To the undiscerning, the United Nations (UN) and the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) perform different roles in the international arena. Yet both organisations have a common aim – the promotion of foreign intervention. While the UN promotes its humanitarian façade, NATO provides the militarisation of the UN’s purported human rights agenda.

NATO’s participation at the 74th session of the UN General Assembly in September provided an overview of the current collaboration the organisation has with the UN. Jens Stoltelberg, NATO’s Secretary-General, mentioned the organisations’ collaboration in “working closely to support Afghanistan and Iraq”.

Since the 1990s, the UN and NATO cooperation was based on a framework which included decision-making and strategy on “crisis management and in the fight against terrorism.” In 2001, US President George W Bush launched his ‘War on Terror’ which eventually expanded to leave the Middle East and North Africa in perpetual turmoil, as the coined euphemism morphed into the so-called Arab Spring.

While the invasions of Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003 were led by the US, it is worth remembering that the absence of the organisation at that time is not tantamount to the exclusion of warfare from NATO member states. Notably, the US invasion of Afghanistan invoked Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which stipulates that an attack on a NATO member state constitutes an attack on all member states.

“For NATO-UN cooperation and dialogue to remain meaningful, it must continue to evolve.” The statement on NATO’s website is a bureaucratic approach which detaches itself from the human rights violations created and maintained by both parties, which form the premise of such collaboration.

UN Security Council Resolution 1373 (2001), upon which NATO based its collaboration with the UN, reaffirms, “the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence as recognised by the Charter of the United Nations.” The resolution provides impunity for member-states and other collaborators with the UN, including NATO, to define what constitutes terrorism while eliminating foreign intervention as a terror act, despite the ramifications which last long after the aggression has been terminated or minimised.

The UN-NATO duplicity is exposed in Stoltenberg’s speech when he states, “NATO has also contributed to developing UN disposal standards to counter improvised explosive devices, which remain one of the greatest threats to peacekeepers.” Why are the UN and NATO selecting rudimentary forms of warfare over precision bombing which has killed thousands of civilians in the name of fighting terror or bringing democracy?

In 2011, the UNSC’s arms embargo was supposed to prevent the proliferation of weapons to the rebels in Libya – a contradiction given the UNSC’s authorisation for NATO to bomb Libya. France, however, defied the resolution by publicly declaring its proliferation of weapons to rebels in Libya, on the pretext of their necessity to protect Libyan civilians. NATO denied its involvement as an organisation in providing arms to the rebels, despite the fact that action was taken by a NATO member. With the UN endorsing foreign intervention and NATO implementing the atrocities, the UN can fall back on its alleged peace-building and humanitarian roles, of which there is never a decline due to the irreparable damage both organisations have wreaked upon exploited, colonised and ravaged countries. The cooperation lauded by NATO does not rest on a division of roles but rather on blurring the differentiation between war and humanitarianism, in order to generate both as a duplicitous agenda.

NATO maintains that the UNSC holds “primary responsibility” for maintaining international peace and security. What the statement evades is the individual interest of each member, as well as their collective framework as NATO members. To satisfy the UNSC, individual interests and NATO membership, a common denominator is imperative. For the perpetrators of foreign intervention, war constitutes the binding legacy.

October 4, 2019 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

If urgent climate action is needed, then let’s #BanPrivateJets

By Mark Jeftovik | Guerrilla Capitalism | October 4, 2019

As the din of climate hysteria grows ever louder, the eco-pious and super-rich call for urgent and drastic action on climate change. Justin Trudeau, still licking his wounds from being outed for his multiple episodes of blackface and brownface, took more heat today as he’s criss-crossing the country ahead of the forthcoming federal election with not one, but two private jets.

As these calls for immediate climate action are accelerating, in fact we’ve seen numerous trial balloons floated from a complicit mainsteam media (or as Canada’a reigning Liberals call it “Approved Media”).

These trial balloons / admonitions include:

And of course:

  • Fly less. Let’s have fewer planes in the air, to reduce carbon output.

These guidelines are understandably hard sells for Joe Public, as many common people like to eat meat, or need a car to get to-and-from work, and children, as demanding as they can be, eventually grow up and can mow our lawns and do chores around the house.

So if we’re serious about drastic climate action, right now, before the world ends, we need to do something that has maximum bang for the buck, while disrupting as few lives as possible. This way, the rabble masses will see that our leaders and elites are serious and they have the will to take whatever action necessary to make this happen.

#BanPrivateJets

The top 50 countries in the world in terms of private jet ownership have a total fleet of nearly 18,000 jets. According to Statista, private jet ownership is soaring in most developed countries (as wealth inequality accelerates thanks to central bank interventions and 10 years of Cantillon Effects).

According to The Independent, the most popular private jet is the Cessna Citation XLS, which I believe climate alarmist Leonardo Di Caprio may be boarding in the picture below, having been shunted to the runway via a private helicopter…

A Cessna Citation XLS burns approximately 6,030kg of CO2 per three hour flight.

It’s back-of-the-napkin, but let’s say a typical jet does 4 legs per week, at 3 hour legs. We get:

17,947 jets X  6,030 kg CO2/flight X 4 flights/week  X 52 weeks = 22,509,845,280 kilograms of Co2.

Over 22 billion kilos of C02. Per year.

Of course, that estimate of 4 legs per week could be low. Elon Musk has a private jet that logged 150,000 miles in 2018. Enough to circle the globe 6 times.

But if we banned private jets, with immediate effect, no exceptions, very few working class and middle class people would be affected. In fact even upper class, lower-tier wealthy would be relatively unscathed. It would only affect the tiny sliver at the top of the wealth pyramid, the same ones who seem most vociferously adamant on drastic climate action now and who could best afford to make alternate arrangements for attending climate summits or other important events. The annual Davos summit could be held via Skype, for example.

Taking the important step now will set the tone for the coming, rapid and drastic restructuring of every aspect of our lives, and it will be an easier pill to swallow when the elitists driving this change are leading the charge by example. Be the change you wish to see! #BanPrivateJets

My forthcoming book, Unassailable: Defend Your Content Against Deplatform Attacks, Cancel-Culture and Other Online Disasters will be out soon. If you want to be notified when it’s ready, sign up for my mailing list and I’ll let you know (I may even give a copy away for free to everybody on my list).

October 4, 2019 Posted by | Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity, Progressive Hypocrite, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 5 Comments

New study finds slim evidence for apocalyptic warnings about red meat

RT | October 4, 2019

A new study has found slim to nonexistent evidence for apocalyptic warnings about red meat consumption causing cancer, and the scientific establishment hell-bent on turning humanity vegan for environment’s sake is now outraged.

A team of 14 researchers from seven countries looked at over 130 articles and a dozen randomized trials, concluding that evidence linking the consumption of red and processed meat to cancer, heart disease, and mortality was of low quality and unreliable. Their findings were published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, a publication of the American College of Physicians, last week – to howls of protest from the scientific and nutritional establishment.

“This report has layers of flaws and is the most egregious abuse of evidence that I have ever seen,” declared Walter Willett, professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Harsh words, to be sure, especially since one of the study’s authors is Gordon Guyatt, a professor of medicine at McMaster University in Canada and one of the creators of GRADE, a strict methodology for assessing the certainty of scientific evidence.

Guyatt said the reactions to the study are approaching levels of what he would call “hysteria.”

“If you’re the emperor, and somebody points out that you haven’t any clothes, this is not going to be a very appealing situation,” he said. “It’s very threatening, and people are defending their territory.”

Indeed, Willett is a leading member of the EAT-Lancet Commission, which advocates for a plant-based diet for the sake of the environment – and Harvard is the institution behind the infamous “food pyramid,” used for decades by the US government to advise its citizens to eat less meat and fat in favor of grains and carbohydrates.

Those guidelines have been a smashing success – in driving up the rates of obesity and diabetes, that is. If you want to see a real “hockey stick” graph, look at the percentage of overweight Americans skyrocket since 1980, when the US government began promoting the Harvard food pyramid.

The study also comes at the worst possible time for the scientific establishment, right amid its global crusade against farming and ranching in the name of saving the planet. One after another, scientists have argued that raising cattle destroys forests and releases carbon, so humanity must change its way of eating to focus on vegetables and insects – by force, if need be.

Some governments have already imposed a “meat tax” on behalf of the environment, and there has even been talk of outlawing meat for promoting “ecocide” and being as dangerous to public health as smoking.

No surprise, then, that Harvard has attacked the study as ignoring the environmental impact of meat, because “climate change and environmental degradation have serious effects on human health” and are therefore “important to consider when making recommendations.”

One California public health official echoed the same line of reasoning in a comment to the Annals of Internal Medicine, arguing the research shouldn’t have been written, let alone published, “without concern for the environmental effects of food choices.”

“Please let us, as physicians, wake up to the fact, that our climate crisis poses the most profound risk to individuals and public health and that we have a responsibility in guiding the public on how to confront this threat: in part, with food choices,” wrote Henning Ansor of Santa Barbara.

In other words, it doesn’t matter if the science is solid, the higher moral calling demands that the scientists lie – or stay silent – in the name of Mother Earth? That’s not how science works. That’s not how any of this works.

October 4, 2019 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | | 2 Comments