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A New Year’s Resolution Worth Keeping

By Ron Paul | January 2, 2024

In the closing days of 2023, the Biden Administration once again announced a large military aid package for Ukraine, this time a “mere” quarter of a billion dollars. Without a new authorization of funds from Congress, it is said to be the last bit of money left over from the more than $100 billion already authorized by Congress for the proxy war with Russia through Ukraine.

President Biden’s request for an additional $100 billion to spread around Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan was rejected by a Congress eager for its winter break, and with each passing day it looks like it’s going to be harder to push it through. Poll after poll show that Americans are increasingly opposed to more of their money being spent on the neocon’s lost-cause war to overthrow Putin in Russia.

For example, a recent Fox News poll revealed that more than 60 percent of Republican voters do not want any more money sent to Ukraine. As we enter an election year, it’s probably safe to predict that Republican candidates will be wary of crossing the wishes of the clear majority of voters.

That is why the Biden Administration has been desperately trying to re-frame its request for more Ukraine war money as anything but a request for more Ukraine war money. For example, they even brought back the old discredited “domino theory” used to justify US actions in the Vietnam war. If we don’t stop Putin in Ukraine, Biden said in December, then he will keep going into western Europe where we will be forced to fight him there.

On the one hand, supporters of the Ukraine war warn that Russia is about to reconstitute the Soviet empire in Europe, while at the same time the same people tell us Russia is out of missiles and on its last leg. One more infusion of US money will end the “Russian threat” once and for all. Both of these things cannot be true at once. In fact, neither of them is true.

But still the Administration, much of Congress, and an insatiable military-industrial complex keep selling the lies.

Last month Secretary of State Antony Blinken inadvertently revealed what exactly all the spending for war is about when he stated that as much as 90 percent of the aid for Ukraine is actually spent in the United States. The money is used “to the benefit of American business, local communities, and strengthening the US defense industrial base,” he said in an interview. In other words, the money “for Ukraine” is actually a massive welfare program for well-connected military contractors back home.

As we begin the year 2024, we need to home in on the real threat to the United States. It is not Russia or China or Iran. The true threat is closer to home: it is a corrupt system that bleeds the country dry to fight imaginary enemies while enriching the military-industrial complex.

For the New Year, Congress should resolve to end the stranglehold of the military-industrial complex by reining in out-of-control military spending. Members should simply vote “no” on military spending bills until they are drafted to benefit the American people rather than the Beltway elite. I don’t hold out much hope of this happening in the short run, but it only takes a few dedicated Members to make a real difference.

January 4, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

US and South Korea Conduct Training Simulating Assassination of Kim Jong Un

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 3, 2024

A top South Korean defense official said Washington and Seoul have considered assassinating the North Korean leader. The simulations have gone as far as joint special operations training missions.

South Korean Defense Minister Shin Won-sik explained to reporters last month that the deployment of US nuclear weapons or the assassination of North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un were options being discussed between Washington and Seoul.

“While it is difficult to openly discuss decapitation, the ROK-US special operation forces are… conducting training,” Won-sik said. “This training is for aerial maneuvers, raids on key facilities, and indoor mop-up.”

The Daily Beast first reported the US and South Korea would conduct the decapitation war games in August 2022.

Since President Joe Biden took office, tensions have risen sharply on the Korean Peninsula. The current administration has abandoned the Donald Trump-era diplomacy with Pyongyang. Biden has deployed some of America’s most advanced weapons to the region and ramped up military engagements with South Korea.

Pyongyang has responded to Washington’s provocations by stepping up its military capabilities. North Korea has conducted several missile tests, including with intercontinental ballistic missiles. Pyongyang successfully placed a military satellite into orbit in 2023 and plans three more this year.

Kim and other top North Korean officials warned several times last year that the US and South Korean military activities have put the Peninsula on the brink of a nuclear war. During a major address, Kim explained Pyongyang would further its nuclear weapons program during the coming year.

January 3, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

The enabler of our two concurrent world wars: Washington

By Gilbert Doctorow | January 2, 2024

It is only the second day of the New Year, but you turn on the morning news with a feeling of trepidation. Here in Western Europe, the lead stories are death and destruction reported from the front lines of the two conflagrations that some commentators have identified as ‘world wars,’ given the way countries across the globe have aligned themselves with or against the protagonists in each conflict. The outstanding commonality between these two world wars is the position of the United States as their enabler in terms of delivery of essential military and financial support to one side, as well as real-time military intelligence, tactical and strategic counseling by high level officers positioned on the ground and in nearby seas.  From the perspective of Washington, these are proxy wars which put at risk very few of its own men at arms, though some do come home in body bags without word to the press, while preparations proceed apace for the launch of a third proxy war in the South China Sea. The Philippines are the latest recruits to the prospective encirclement and assault on China.

On their talk shows, the Russians speculate on when a mutual defense pact with Iran, China and North Korea will be announced. This will not be a bloc, like NATO, but will enshrine the key principle of ‘one for all and all for one’ in case of attack by outside forces. To its backers in Moscow, this formulation would ensure that NATO generals understand they are up against an enemy of over two billion if we include a few other fellow travelers, not just the 145 million Russians whom they see across the border.

But that is what they say on talk shows. It is not the official voice of the Kremlin, which we find on Vesti television. Vesti maintains a near blackout of news on the Israel-Hamas war in broadcasts to its home audience. Why? Because Russia does not want to get embroiled in that war when it needs all its human and materiel resources to defeat the Ukrainians and their NATO backers. Moreover, Russia can be satisfied that the Iranians and their Houthi proxies have the situation in the Middle East under control, restraining the United States from region-wide escalation by engaging directly on Israeli’s side.

For that matter, Iran is doing just fine in shoring up Russia’s southern borders in the Caucasus. For more than a year, Armenia’s prime minister Nikol Pashinyan has been sitting on two stools: holding consultations with the French and intermittently attending gatherings of the Former Soviet Union republics called by Moscow. A week ago, Iranian leaders issued a direct warning to Armenia not to even think about pursuing the military and political rapprochement that France’s president Macron has been proposing. Said President Raisi: ‘No powers from outside the region are welcome in the Caucasus.’ This warning serves Russian security very well, though it is surely motivated by self-interest in Teheran, because any future French military presence in Armenia could also threaten them.

In Russian news, all attention is on the one conflict in which the Russians are themselves deeply engaged, and there news from the line of contact, news from the home front which a day ago experienced a murderous attack on the border town of Belgorod that killed 25 civilians and gravely injured another fifty or so, news from the United Nations Security Council deliberations of the same, more than fill the time allotted to 14.00 o’clock and 20.00 o’clock wrap-ups.

Anyone following developments of the Ukrainian war these past few days will note the tit for tat nature of the strikes dealt out by the warring parties day after day. The chain of events began early on the morning of Wednesday, 26 December, when the Ukrainians deployed air-launched Storm Shadow cruise missiles to destroy the Novocherkassk, a large landing ship of Russia’s Black Sea Fleet parked in the harbor of Feodosia, on the eastern shores of the Crimea. The ship was said to be loaded with drones and the missile strike set off a fire and explosions that may have killed as many as 74, both on the ship and in the port.

However, the outstanding feature of the attack was not the numbers of the dead or the loss of the ship itself: it was the demonstration that Kiev had now been given a Storm Shadow variant with much greater flight range than the initial shipments from the U.K. and France.

From the perspective of the Russian high command, this new ability of the Ukrainians to strike far deeper into Russian territory represented a serious escalation of the conflict which required mirror-image escalation from Russia. The Russian response was not long in coming: on the 27th, Russia launched the largest missile attack on Ukraine since the start of the Special Military Operation, more than 150 ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and armed drones, directed at cities across the Ukraine, including Kiev. Some of these were shot down by Ukrainian air defense, but the Zelensky regime admitted that all 20 Russian ballistic missiles evaded their fire and hit their targets.

From the partial information released by the Russian military, it would appear that their main interest was to destroy caches of the Storm Shadow and also the most advanced Western ground to air missiles. They claim to have destroyed a Patriot complex in the Lvov region, killing a substantial number of French military who were in charge of the installation. This is the sort of information which flits by in a second and is not repeated, so I can say no more.

The Ukrainian response the next day was a concentrated attack on the Russian border city of Belgorod, capital of an oblast of the same name. Belgorod is not more than 20 km from Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, and it first made international news about six months ago when a Ukrainian team of saboteurs claiming to be anti-Putin Russians crossed into the oblast and attacked residential neighborhoods.  This time missiles were sent into apartment blocks and other civilian structures, killing some 25 Russians and gravely wounding perhaps 50 more, some of whom were evacuated to Moscow by plane on life support.

Yesterday and today the Russians avenged this serious loss by renewed missile attacks, now concentrated on Kharkiv, whence the attack on Belgorod had come. They demolished the headquarters of military intelligence in the city, claiming to have killed many foreign advisers, probably British and Americans, who were guiding the attacks. They also struck air fields across Ukraine which could be used to service planes carrying the Storm Shadow.

I end this overview with the remark that American-British escalation of the weaponry deployed against Russia was at the start of what we have witnessed these past six days. And that can be no accident. It follows from the news of the war in the immediately preceding period, which unequivocally demonstrated that on the ground, along the line of contact, the Russian forces were moving steadily to overrun Ukrainian positions and force a retreat. The storming of Mariinka was emblematic in this sense. The overall impression was depressing for the Ukrainian cause at the very time that Congress was in recess after rejecting efforts by the Administration to pass legislation ensuring continued financial and military aid to Kiev. Now these Ukrainian missile attacks on the Black Sea fleet in the Feodosia harbor and the attack on civilians in what is properly speaking Russian Federation territory of Belgorod oblast would give luster to the Ukrainian cause while prodding the Russians to escalate and perform what Washington would showcase as war crimes.

Escalation is the game Washington is playing. In Ukraine. In the Red Sea. In the Eastern Mediterranean off the coast of Lebanon. Washington seems oblivious to the possibility that the proxy wars it is fanning may yet invite a Russian, or Iranian, or North Korean strike directly on U.S. assets, whether overseas or on the Continental United States.

January 2, 2024 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

Ukrainians Turn Against War But Are Afraid to Speak Out

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | January 2, 2024

As the war in Ukraine nears the end of its second year, Ukrainians are turning against fighting and towards diplomacy. One former official said that Ukrainian soldiers are currently fighting and dying for nothing.

The Times reports, “Many Ukrainians are growing tired and weary of the war. One Ukrainian military source admitted that average Ukrainians were talking of a truce yet there were questions around what the price of the truce would be.”

Most people in Ukraine wanted a truce but were “afraid to admit it to themselves,” Mykhailo Chaplyha, a political commentator and former vice-ombudsman of Ukraine, said. There was an atmosphere of “total mistrust and fear” in Ukraine and anyone who dared to think of a truce would immediately become an “outcast and a traitor.”

After Russia invaded Ukraine, President Zelensky targeted dissidents using the security state. The Ukrainian media and Zelensky’s main political opposition has been outlawed. Kiev has targeted branches of the Orthodox church perceived to be too close to Moscow.

A former Ukrainian official said that Zelensky was losing support. He said the West told Kiev not to give up, but there was no war strategy and soldiers were “sent to the front line to die.” The official continued, “It is nonsense to send in our soldiers to die if we don’t have enough armament and resources to win militarily. What is the strategy, to keep us dying for what? And not less important — where is our diplomacy?”

In the early months of the war in Ukraine, the West pushed Kiev to abandon talks with Moscow. The US and its allies promised Ukraine that it would provide Kiev with all the support it needs to win the war.

However, as the war nears its third year, the Western weapons stockpiles are approaching depletion. The White House has run out of funds for arming Ukraine, while future aid is being used as leverage in an immigration debate.

Since October 7, the Biden administration has started to prioritize arming Israel over Ukraine. Israel has received tens of thousands of 155 mm shells, a high-demand weapon for both Kiev and Tel Aviv.

January 2, 2024 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Ukraine and Palestine: A double threat to US hegemony

The outcome of US-led conflicts in Ukraine and West Asia will have a profound impact on the developing world order

By MK Bhadrakumar | The Cradle | January 2, 2024

Geopolitical analysts broadly agree that the war in Ukraine and the West Asian crisis will dictate the trajectory of world politics in 2024. But a reductionist thesis appears alongside that views the Israel-Palestine conflict narrowly in terms of what it entails for the resilience of the US proxy war in Ukraine – the assumption being that the locus of world politics lies in Eurasia.

The reality is more complex. Each of these two conflicts has a raison d’être and dynamics of its own, while at the same time also being intertwined.

Washington’s neck-deep involvement in the current phase of the West Asian crisis can turn into a quagmire, since it is also tangled up with domestic politics in a way that the Ukraine war never has been. But then, the outcome of the Ukraine war is already a foregone conclusion, and the US and its allies have realized that Russia cannot be defeated militarily; the endgame narrows down to an agreement to end the conflict on Russia’s terms.

To be sure, the outcome of the Ukraine war and the denouement of the Israel-Palestine conflict, which is at the root of the West Asian crisis, will have a profound impact on the new world order, and the two processes reinforce each other.

Russia realizes this fully. President Vladimir Putin’s stunning ‘year-enders’ in the run-up to the New Year speak for themselves: daylong visits to Abu Dhabi and Riyadh (watched by a shell-shocked US President Joe Biden), followed by talks with Iran’s president and rounded off with a telephone conversation with the Egyptian president.

In the space of 48 hours or so, Putin touched base with his Emirati, Saudi, Iranian, and Egyptian colleagues who officially entered the portals of the BRICS on 1 January.

The evolving US intervention in the West Asian crisis can be understood from a geopolitical perspective only by factoring in Biden’s visceral hostility toward Russia. BRICS is in Washington’s crosshairs. The US understands perfectly well that the extra large presence of West Asian and Arab nations in BRICS — four out of ten member states — is central to Putin’s grand project to re-structure the world order and bury US exceptionalism and hegemony.

Saudi Arabia, the UAE, and Iran are major oil producing countries. Russia has been rather explicit that during its 2024 chairmanship of BRICS, it will push for the creation of a currency to challenge the petrodollar. Without doubt, the BRICS currency will be at the center stage of the grouping’s summit due to be hosted by Putin in Kazan, Russia in October.

In a special address on 1 January, marking the start of Russia’s BRICS Chairmanship, Putin stated his commitment to “enhancing the role of BRICS in the international monetary system, expanding both interbank cooperation and the use of national currencies in mutual trade.”

If a BRICS currency is used instead of the dollar, there could be significant impact on several financial sectors of the US economy, such as energy and commodity markets, international trade and investment, capital markets, technology and fintech, consumer goods and retail, travel and tourism, and so on.

The banking sector could take the first hit that might eventually spill over to the markets. And if Washington fails to fund its mammoth deficit, prices of all commodities could skyrocket or even reach hyperinflation triggering a crash of the US economy.

Meanwhile, the eruption of the Israel-Palestine conflict has given the US an alibi — ‘Israel’s self-defense’ — to claw its way back on the greasy pole of West Asian politics. Washington has multiple concerns, but at its core are the twin objectives of resuscitating the Abraham Accords (anchored on Saudi-Israeli proximity) and the concurrent sabotage of the Beijing-mediated Saudi-Iranian rapprochement.

The Biden administration was counting on the fact that an Israeli-Saudi deal would provide legitimacy to Tel Aviv and proclaim to the Islamic world that there was no religious justification for hostility towards Israel. But Washington senses that post-7 October it would not be able to secure a Saudi-Israel deal during this Biden term, and all that could be coaxed out of Riyadh is a door left ajar for future discussion on the topic. No doubt, it is a major blow to the US strategy to liquidate the Palestinian question.

In a medium term perspective, if the Russian-Saudi mechanism known as OPEC+ liberates the world oil market from US control, BRICS drives a dagger into the heart of US hegemony which is anchored on the dollar being the ‘world currency.’

Saudi Arabia recently signed a currency swap deal worth $7 billion with China in an attempt to shift more of their trade away from the dollar. The People’s Bank of China said in a statement that the swap arrangement will “help strengthen financial cooperation” and “facilitate more convenient trade and investment” between the countries.

Going forward, sensitive Saudi-Chinese transactions in strategic areas such as defense, nuclear technology, among others, will henceforth take place below the US radar. From a Chinese perspective, if its strategic trade is sufficiently insulated from any US-led program of anti-China sanctions, Beijing can position itself confidently to confront US power in the Indo-Pacific. This is a telling example of how the US strategy for the Indo-Pacific will lose traction as a result of its waning influence in West Asia.

The conventional wisdom is that preoccupation in volatile West Asia distracts Washington from paying attention to the Indo-Pacific and China. In reality, though, the waning influence in West Asia is complicating the capacity of the US to counter China both in the region as well as in the Indo-Pacific. The developments are moving in a direction where the credentials of the US as a great power are at an inflection point in West Asia – and that realization has leaked into other geographic regions around the world.

Way back in 2007, the distinguished political scientists John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen Walt of the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, wrote with great prescience in their famous 34,000-word essay entitled The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy that Israel has become a ‘strategic liability’ for the United States, but retains its strong support because of a wealthy, well-organized, and bewitching lobby that has a ‘stranglehold’ on Congress and US elites.

The authors warned that Israel and its lobby bear outsized their responsibility for persuading the Bush Administration to invade Iraq and, perhaps one day soon, to attack the nuclear facilities of Iran.

Interestingly, on New Year’s Eve, in a special report based on extensive briefing by top US officials, the New York Times highlighted that “No other episode [as the war in Gaza] in the past half-century has tested the ties between the United States and Israel in such an intense and consequential way.”

Clearly, even as Israel’s barbaric actions in Gaza and its colonial project in the occupied West Bank are exposed and laid bare, and the Israeli state’s campaign to force Palestinian population migration are in full view, two of the US strategic objectives in the region are unravelling: first, the restoration of Israel’s military superiority in the balance of forces regionally and vis-a-vis the Axis of Resistance, in particular; and second, the resuscitation of the Abraham Accords where the crown jewels would have been a Saudi-Israeli treaty.

Viewed from another angle, the directions in which West Asia’s crisis unfolds are being keenly watched by the world community, especially those in the Asia-Pacific region. Most notable here is that Russia and China have given the US a free hand to navigate its military moves – unchallenged, so far, in the Red Sea. This means that any conflagration in the region will be synonymous with a catastrophic breakdown of US strategy.

Soon after the US defeat in Afghanistan in Central Asia, and coinciding with an ignominious ending of the US-led proxy war by NATO against Russia in Eurasia, a violent, grotesque setback in West Asia will send a resounding message across all of Asia that the US-led bandwagon has run out of steam. Among the end users of this startling message, the countries of ASEAN stand at the forefront. The bottom line is that the overlapping tumultuous events in Eurasia and West Asia are poised to coalesce into a climactic moment for world politics.

January 2, 2024 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

More discomfort awaits the West in 2024 if it doesn’t adapt to new reality

Illustration: Liu Rui/GT
Global Times | January 1, 2024

What kind of experience did 2023 bring to Western countries? According to mainstream Western media, the most apt term to encapsulate the Western sentiment is “uncomfortable.”

An article from the BBC suggests that the past 12 months have seen a number of setbacks for the US, Europe and other major democracies on the international politics stage. Although none has been disastrous for now, they point to a shifting balance of power away from the US-dominated, Western values that have held sway for years, the article claimed. The mentioned setbacks include regional conflicts such as the Russia-Ukraine war and the Israel-Palestine conflict. Challenges posed by countries perceived as adversarial by the US and the West, such as China, Iran, and North Korea, were also highlighted.

The Ukraine crisis has continued on, and the Israel-Palestine conflict has reignited, while the responses from the international community don’t align with the preferences of the US and its Western allies. All of this has made them feel “uncomfortable.”

When it comes to the Russia-Ukraine conflict, despite receiving support from the West, Ukraine has faced difficulties and failed to progress as expected in its conflict with Russia. This has led to Western fatigue and frustration. Due to partisan divisions in the US, providing aid to Ukraine has become problematic. In contrast, Russia has managed to stabilize its frontlines and handle the prolonged war effectively, Lü Xiang, a research fellow at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times. He noted that sanctions against Russia, with only around 30 countries participating in condemning Russia’s actions, have failed to significantly impact the Russian economy, instead, Russia has demonstrated remarkable resilience, contrary to Western expectations.

In the case of the Israel-Palestine conflict, most developing countries held positions inconsistent with those of the US. Many countries expressed disappointment and regret over the US veto of the Gaza-related drafts demanding an immediate humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza, distancing themselves from the US pro-Israel stance.

The BBC states that Arab ministers believe there are double standards in Western approaches to the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the Israel-Palestine conflict, accusing the Western governments of hypocrisy. This reflects a growing opposition from Global South and developing countries against the values advocated by the US and the West in various events, and the Western influence is diminishing, said Yang Xiyu, a senior research fellow at the China Institute of International Studies.

Issues such as the Ukraine crisis and the Israel-Palestine conflict increasingly demonstrate that the West, particularly Europe and the US, can no longer bring positive values to the world. More and more countries and their people in the Global South have become aware of this and refuse to accept Western double standards.

Today, an increasing number of developing countries are expressing clear opposition to irresponsible actions by the US and Europe. The major demand of these countries is to have a peaceful and stable international environment for national development. However, Western countries, the US in particular, are acting as the world’s largest disruptor of peace and creator of conflicts. In the cases of the Ukraine crisis and the Israel-Palestine conflict, the US not only fuels the flames but also opposes proposals for peace talks raised by other countries. In pursuit of its selfish interests, the US has caused suffering to the people of Ukraine and the Gaza Strip, hindering the resolution of other urgent global issues. In such circumstances, more and more developing countries are becoming courageous enough to say no to the US and the West.

In 2024, the influence and dominance of the West, whether in the Russia-Ukraine conflict or the Israel-Palestine conflict, will continue to decline. If 2023 did not unfold according to their expectations, 2024 is likely to deviate even further. This will bring more discomfort for them. Washington now has to adapt to a new reality: Global South countries are becoming more mature and gaining more decision-making autonomy. US politicians, who are used to dictating terms to countries worldwide and expecting developments to revolve around US interests, must reflect on and adapt to this new change. Otherwise, when the media summarizes 2024, it may not be as simple as just feeling uncomfortable; the experience might be more agonizing.

January 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Western War Machine is in Panic Mode

By Salman Rafi Sheikh – New Eastern Outlook – 01.01.2024 

The sheer inability of the collective West to force Russia into submission in Ukraine plus the fast-changing global opinion about the West in the context of the latter’s support for Israel’s brutal war on the Gazans has put the so-called ‘liberal-democratic’ world into a panic mode. The White House has already said that it will run out of money to fund Ukraine into 2024 unless the US Congress gives approval for more funding. This has led the Western war machine – primarily led by the US – to anticipate a possible defeat. “There is no guarantee of success with us, but they are certain to fail without us”, a senior US military official told CNN recently. Without the military support, US officials now estimate, Ukraine would fall by the summer of 2024. But, in Western calculations, Ukraine’s fall does not just mean Russia’s victory; it also implies a possible collapse of NATO and the eventual downfall of the Western-dominated global political, economic, and security order.

A recent piece in the Wall Street Journal said,

“Even more important, Russia’s success in Ukraine would increase a threat to NATO’s Eastern flank—in particular the Baltic states and Poland. Outside of Europe it would embolden Moscow’s allies Iran and North Korea and provide a template for China for the military solution of the Taiwan dispute. In all those cases, the U.S. and NATO troops could find themselves in the midst of a military conflict of the sort that Ukraine fights today without direct involvement of NATO”.

Such prospects are causing severe problems. Germany, for instance, is considering shelving voluntary force and making a return to conscription. “I believe that a nation that needs to become more resilient in times like these will have a higher level of awareness if it is mixed through with soldiers,” said Jan Christian Kaack, the chief of the German Navy. This is in addition to the fact that the German army is too small to defend itself against any threat; hence, the renewed emphasis on conscription.

But Germany is not an exceptional case. In fact, it mirrors developments in the rest of Europe. The UK, otherwise known to possess one of the best fighting forces in the world, is running into some problems of a fundamental nature. The Sky News reported earlier in the year that, a senior US general “privately told Defence Secretary Ben Wallace the British Army is no longer regarded as a top-level fighting force”. It was further reported that the “The armed forces would run out of ammunition in a few days if called upon to fight” and that “The UK lacks the ability to defend its skies against the level of missile and drone strikes that Ukraine is enduring”.

On top of it is the fact that the Russian military position in Ukraine remains strong, making it a lot harder for the West to provide enough funding. The Biden administration is facing its own challenges vis-à-vis more funding for Ukraine. As far as Europe is concerned, a recent report showed that pledges for funding made in August 2023 fell by almost 90 percent compared to the same period last year.

This is war fatigue that is being compounded by a well-sustained Russian resolve to achieve its objectives. For the West, Vladimir Putin remains “stubborn”. As Putin recently reiterated, “There will be peace when we achieve our goals… Now let’s return to these goals – they have not changed. I would like to remind you how we formulated them: denazification, demilitarisation, and a neutral status for Ukraine.”

Speaking from a position of strength – and keeping in mind the war fatigue in the West – Putin further said that Russian forces are “improving their position almost along the entire line of contact. Almost all of them are engaged in active combat. And the position of our troops is improving along [the entire line of contact.]”. This being the case, Putin conveyed no ideas of making a compromise with the West over Ukraine. Speaking from the Russian perspective, it would make no sense to offer negotiations and, thus, turn Russian tactical victories into unsustainable settlements.

Clearly, Russia has no intention of withdrawing from its victories, which is why there is a panic, especially in Europe. If Russia continues to win and the US funding stalls, Europe will be left to fend for itself. Germany’s defence minister minced no words to express this fear last Saturday when he said that the US “was losing interest in European affairs and that security tensions in the Pacific would likely leave the European Union having to fend for itself”, adding that “One can assume that the USA will be more involved in the Pacific region in the next decade than it is today – regardless of who becomes the next president,” he said. His conclusion is: “This means that we Europeans must increase our commitment to ensure security on our continent.”

In a nutshell, for the US, if the war in Ukraine was to unify the West, it is beginning to have an exactly opposite effect. There lies a very strong reason for the US to reconsider its strategy. This reconsideration can go in two directions. First, the US can withdraw from its obsession with expanding NATO to include Ukraine. Second, the US can make one last push and make Ukraine fight for as long as it can, hoping that this might break Russia. The Biden administration favours the second option, which is why it is pushing for the US$61 billion aid package. But will a Republican victory allow this to happen? A Republican victory could not only end support for Ukraine but also leave Europe in a total lurch. Tough times ahead.

Salman Rafi Sheikh is a research-analyst of International Relations and Pakistan’s foreign and domestic affairs.

January 1, 2024 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

PFLP announces death of captive Israeli soldier in Gaza after failed rescue

The Cradle | December 31, 2023

An Israeli soldier held captive by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) in Gaza was killed in an Israeli air strike, the spokesman for the armed wing of the Palestinian resistance group announced on 30 December.

In his first speech since the beginning of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation, Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades spokesman Abu Jamal announced the death of the Israeli captive, adding that the air strike took place following a failed attempt by Israeli special forces to free him and which was confronted by the PLFP fighters.

Abu Jamal said the airstrike was called in to cover the retreat of the Israeli forces, and lightly wounded the PLFP fighters who were responsible for the captive.

The spokesperson gave no details of when the soldier had been taken captive, or where he was being held in Gaza. He said the group is still holding the soldier’s body.

Abu Jamal also announced the PLFP had destroyed or disabled 95 Israeli army vehicles during the ongoing ground invasion of Gaza. He also announced the group obtained a laptop and flash drives with sensitive information and private data during the attack on 7 October on Israeli military bases and settlements surrounding Gaza. He said Martyr Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades continue to benefit from this information in their operations.

Because the Israeli airstrike killed the Israeli soldier, it is possible the Israeli military may have invoked a controversial policy known as the “Hannibal Directive.”

The policy was established in 1986 following the capture of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Times of Israel described how the “directive allows soldiers to use potentially massive amounts of force to prevent a soldier from falling into the hands of the enemy. This includes the possibility of endangering the life of the soldier in question in order to prevent his capture.”

“Some officers, however, understand the order to mean that soldiers ought to deliberately kill their comrade in order to stop him from being taken prisoner, not that they may accidentally injure or kill him in their attempt,” the paper added.

The directive is meant to prevent Israel’s enemies from gaining leverage and forcing concessions from it in the form of prisoner exchanges.

Following the launch of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation on 7 October, the PFLP announced that, “This is the day when the nature of the struggle and the dignity of the Arab nation are reclaimed,” while declaring the resistance is “determined to achieve a strategic victory over this enemy in a battle that will open the door to return and redefine the history of Palestine and the region.”

December 31, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Why are Canadian taxpayers subsidizing Israel’s military?

By Yves Engler | December 29, 2023

Critics say Israel is an army with a country, but it is the apartheid state’s supporters who confirm it. Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University has once again launched an initiative to promote the Israeli military even though it violates charity regulations and risks the group’s special tax status.

In a recent end of year fundraising appeal, a group officially dedicated to the “Advancement of Education” sent its members “Supporting Our Student Soldiers”. The CFHU appeal notes: “The We Are One campaign provides scholarships and academic assistance to our returning IDF soldiers who are courageously fighting in the ongoing war. … Let’s unite to provide education and healing for our IDF warriors, demonstrating our unwavering commitment to their success and recovery.”

With branches in seven Canadian cities, CFHU has instigated a number of other initiatives to support the apartheid state’s military. In 2018 the CFHU branch in the nation’s capital “launched the Ottawa Scholarship Fund in support of reserve duty soldiers studying at The Hebrew University.” At the event, according to CFHU’s annual report, “four students shared their inspiring stories from their military service and explained what it means to be a reserve duty soldier in the IDF.”

A 2019 story on the website of an organization set up by famed liquor bootlegger Alan Bronfman in 1944 noted, “Help CFHU send former IDF combat soldiers to university” while an ongoing funding pitch says, “Donate in support of CFHU’s scholarship campaign for soldiers studying at Hebrew University”. In July 2021 wealthy Calgarian Lenny Shapiro financed a number of CFHU “scholarships for students who have served in the IDF.” CFHU and Hebrew University (HU) matched a portion of Shapiro’s unspecified contribution.

CFHU has partnered with the Duvdevan Foundation on a number of scholarships and public relations initiatives. According to the Duvdevan Foundation, “the Duvdevan Unit was established in June 1986, with the understanding that a specific and intelligent warfare method needed to be developed to deal with Judea and Samaria’s [West Bank] security incidents.” CFHU has organized a number of fundraisers centered on presentations by former soldiers in a unit that regularly kills Palestinians.

To get a sense of how deeply the “charity” is enmeshed with the Israeli military, CFHU meetings have begun with messages from top Israeli Generals.

Beyond instigating initiatives that assist the Israeli military, CFHU funnels many millions of dollars in tax deductible donations to a university that has significant and long-standing ties to the occupation force. A month ago it launched an “Enhanced Extensive Aid Package to HU students serving in the IDF” and a few weeks earlier released a video “message from some our students who are on the front lines” killing Palestinians. During Israel’s violent outburst in 2002 the Jerusalem based school awarded scholarships to students who signed up for IDF combat units and it operates a training centre for military intelligence officers. To maintain the IDF’s technological edge, cadets have studied for degrees in physics, math or computer science at HU for over 40 years. The university provides the IDF with academic information on students enrolled in the Talpiot program. In a story on Talpiot Jason Gewirtz writes, “the opening years of the program saw the students first and foremost as soldiers…. They wore uniforms to their classes at Hebrew University and took shifts guarding Talpiot’s section of the Hebrew University campus.”

In 2019 HU began offering a three-year training for future IDF intelligence officers. Students in the Havatzalot program live in a former university residence only accessible by biometric identification. Regular university employees need advanced permission to enter the area.

Assisting a foreign military violates Canada Revenue Agency rules. According to CRA guidelines, “increasing the effectiveness and efficiency of Canada’s armed forces is charitable, but supporting the armed forces of another country is not.”

Yet between 2017 and 2021 CFHU raised $75 million in tax deductible donations. According to Blumbergs’ list of Canadian charities with the “largest assets in 2019” CFHU had $77 million.

The Canada Revenue Agency must revoke Canadian Friends of the Hebrew University’s charitable status. The public shouldn’t be subsidizing a group illegally supporting a military slaughtering tens of thousands.

December 30, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Report: Number of wounded Israeli soldiers approaching 20,000

Israel evacuates soldiers who were wounded in battles in Gaza on December 18, 2023. [Nir Keidar – Anadolu Agency]
MEMO | December 29, 2023

The number of wounded Israeli soldiers is likely to reach approximately 20,000 once those diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder are included, AP reported citing an Israeli activist.

Edan Kleiman, who heads the non-profit Disabled Veterans Organisation, said: “I have never seen a scope like this and an intensity like this.”

“We must rehabilitate these people,” he added, warning that the Israeli authorities are not grasping the severity of the situation.

There is a large and growing segment of the wounded, who are also afflicted with deep psychological trauma, and whose suffering appears as a hidden cost of war, the Times of Israel reported.

According to Limor Luria, the head of the Israeli Defence Ministry’s Rehabilitation Department, 58 per cent of soldiers have sustained injuries to their limbs, including amputation.

The Defence Ministry said in mid-December that over 6,000 Israeli occupation forces and police members have been wounded since 7 October.

December 29, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Caracas says UK’s dispatch of warship violated the deal with Guyana over disputed Essequibo

RT | December 28, 2023

Britain’s decision to dispatch a warship to Guyana breaches the “spirit” of the agreement to resolve the Essequibo dispute peacefully and will be met with “defensive action,” Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Thursday.

Earlier this week, the UK announced it would send the offshore patrol vessel HMS Trent, currently deployed in the Caribbean, to visit the “regional ally and Commonwealth partner.”

Maduro called the move “practically a military threat from London” that violates the “spirit of dialogue, diplomacy and peace of the agreements” made with Guyana.

“I have ordered the activation of joint defensive action by the Bolivarian National Armed Forces in response to the UK provocation and threat to the peace and sovereignty of our country,” the Venezuelan president said in a televised speech.

Venezuela “reserves all actions, within the framework of the Constitution and International Law, to defend its maritime and territorial integrity,” the Foreign Ministry in Caracas said in a statement.

Following a national referendum at the beginning of December, Caracas laid claim on “Guayana Esequiba,” a mostly forested region rich in mineral resources that Venezuela has claimed for over a century. Guyana has protested, noting that the area amounts to two-thirds of its internationally recognized territory and asked the “international community” for help.

Brazil and several Caribbean countries offered to mediate the dispute, resulting in Maduro and Guyanese President Irfaan Ali signing the Declaration of Argyle on December 14, at a meeting in St. Vincent. Both sides pledged to refrain from escalation by “words or deeds,” and established a joint commission to discuss the dispute.

Four days later, Britain’s Undersecretary for the Americas David Rutley visited Georgetown and promised Guyana “unequivocal backing,” vowing to “ensure the territorial integrity of Guyana is upheld.”

St. Vincent and the Grenadines Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves, who has taken on the role of the mediator in the dispute, told the island radio on Thursday that he read the Venezuelan statement “very carefully,” describing it as “firm but… not particularly belligerent.”

Gonsalves said he has reached out to both Georgetown and Caracas, and received assurances from both of their “commitment to peace and continued dialogue.”

December 28, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Maduro Orders ‘Defensive’ Military Drills After UK Deploys British Warship Off Guyana Coast

Sputnik – 28.12.2023

CARACAS – Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro ordered on Thursday the armed forces to launch “the activation of a joint defensive action” in response to the deployment of a British warship off the coast of Guyana.

“I have ordered the activation of a joint defensive action of the Bolivarian National Armed Forces” off the coast of Essequibo, he said in a state televised broadcast, but did not provide more information.

Earlier this month, the British media reported, citing a British defense ministry spokesman, that the United Kingdom would deploy a patrol ship off Guyana’s coast as a sign of support for the state in the territorial dispute over Essequibo. The head of Venezuela’s defense ministry, Vladimir Padrino Lopez, called it a provocation.

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Ivan Gil had previously called on his British counterpart David Cameron not to interfere in the affairs of Latin American and Caribbean countries, and to mind his own business.

“From Venezuela, we ask the infamous failure David Cameron, foreign minister of the former imperial power of the United Kingdom, to take his hands off our Latin America and the Caribbean and to take care of his own affairs, which are very complicated,” Gil wrote on social media.

Venezuela’s territorial dispute with Britain and Guyana, a former British colony, has been ongoing since the 19th century. The Bolivarian government stepped up its actions after Guyanese authorities began handing over fossil-rich areas of the disputed shelf to oil companies for development.

Caracas held a referendum on December 3 in which an absolute majority of participants supported the annexation of the territory west of the Essequibo River, and began legislative work to legally back its actions.

Guyana’s President Irfaan Ali has since said that the country views Caracas’ actions as a threat to national security and intends to appeal to the UN Security Council as well as its international partners. During a recent news conference, Ali did not rule out that Guyana may go for a military base for its allies in the region, and on December 7, the US Army’s Southern Command carried out “flight operations” in the country.

The leaders of Venezuela and Guyana, following recent talks on the territorial dispute over Essequibo, pledged not to use force under any circumstances and to resolve it in accordance with the 1966 Geneva Agreement.

December 28, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

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