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China’s Territorial Disputes Don’t Add Up to Rampant Expansionism

By Joseph Solis-Mullen | The Libertarian Institute | November 14, 2023

Having covered China’s ongoing territorial dispute with the Philippines last week, further details of China’s existing, and settled, territorial disputes seemed in order. For not only has Washington explicitly committed Americans to fight and die over several of these disputes, as in the cases of the Philippines and Japan, but understanding their wider context does much to inform and dispel the fake China threat narrative of a red wave poised to wash mercilessly over its weaker neighbors.

We’ll start with Japan. Like the dispute between China and the Philippines over the Spratly Islands or Scarborough Shoal, the origins of China’s dispute with Japan over the Senkaku or Diaoyu Islands stretch back over a century, and their claims are rooted in differing interpretations of vaguely worded treaties and conflicting historical accounts. Really, though, as then-Premier Zhou Enlai bluntly stated, it was the question of potential undersea oil reserves that made sovereignty over the islands worth disputing. And once the United States, which had been administering the territories in question since the end of World War II, gave up its administrative role, both Tokyo and Beijing got back to disputing possession between them.

For decades Washington took no part. From 2012 to 2014, however, as part of its pivot to Asia, the Barack Obama administration worked with the government of the late Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe to clarify that the United States’ 1960 mutual defense treaty obligations pertained to Japan’s claimed maritime possessions. As in the Philippines, then, Washington has deliberately expanded the possibility of direct conflict between the United States and China.

Meanwhile, while New Delhi and Beijing have several areas of overlapping territorial claims along their 2,000 mile border, the most contentious of these is in Ladakh, in the mountains and on the Depsang Plains. A short, ferocious war between India and China in 1962 established the present status quo, but things have been far from quiet. In 2020-2021 a series of melees resulted in deaths on both sides. Despite this, the most recent statements from both sides consist of pledges to maintain “peace and tranquility” along their shared border. This is well, because while Washington has no mutual defense treaty with India, it has formed an increasingly close security partnership. And the more adversarial relations between Beijing and New Delhi are perceived to be the more empowered to pursue its containment strategy Washington will feel.

Lastly, the complicated case of Vietnam. Like Japan and the Philippines, Hanoi’s disputes with Beijing are entirely maritime in nature. Like India, however, Vietnam shares a land border with its larger neighbor and has fought a relatively recent war against China, that in 1979. But then, like several of China’s smaller and less developed neighbors, Vietnam’s concern for the preservation of its sovereignty and autonomy have to be carefully balanced with its critical economic relations with Beijing. Indeed, the crux of the dispute between the two has to do almost exclusively with the economic benefits to be derived from sovereignty over the disputed islands in question; the Paracels and Spratly among them. While Hanoi is unlikely ever to be in Washington’s pocket, its apprehension over Beijing’s assertion of its privileges under the so-called “nine-dash line” means it will welcome Washington’s conduct of so-called “freedom of navigation” exercises in these disputed waters. Sailing U.S. warships into waters claimed by China and near its shores in the name of securing oil and fishing rights for Vietnam may not sound like it’s in the interest of America or Americans—but hey, that’s why you’re not in Washington making these decisions.

Despite its almost uniformly cartoonish depiction in the western corporate media as aggressively seeking to bestride the globe, and for all its outstanding border disputes, Beijing has already peacefully settled several such similar long-standing disputes with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Russia, Mongolia, the two Koreas, Laos, Myanmar, and Pakistan. In many of these cases, such as the Koreas, Tajikistan, and Kazakhstan, China accepted a far smaller portion of the territory for itself in the final settlement. In several others, such as the smaller states along its south and southwest, Beijing was equally generous in the terms it accepted.

Make no mistake: this was not because China or its leaders are “generous.” Rather, the logic of China’s position dictated its policies. Relations with Mongolia, for example, need be nothing but normal, for as things stand Mongolia is effectively an economic colony of China. In the cases of Laos and Myanmar, failure to pursue peaceful settlements on terms acceptable to its neighbors could have caused headaches for Beijing among its many potentially resistive minorities along its long, jungled frontier.

Finally, it is worth pointing out that the government in Taipei, Taiwan, also lays claim to many of the above disputed territories—including several that Beijing has already negotiated away. Further, that it was Chiang’s Republic of China that first produced the modern “nine dash line” map laying claim to sovereignty over the South and East China Seas—so the idea that a democratically transformed China would have been some peaceful, pliant good neighbor is oh so much more of Washington’s predictable balderdash.

As Joe Biden prepares to meet with Xi Jinping this week, we can only hope that more sensible heads will prevail when it comes to relations with China. The relationship need not be that of best friends, but that does not and should not mean that China is cast in the role of foe instead. Azerbaijan faces no consequences for its recent conquest, nor Egypt for its long and paltry human rights record. Washington needs some grownups at the wheel, ones who will deal pragmatically with the world as it is, not as they envision forcing it to be.

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Where are yesterday’s experts on the Crimea conquest?

BY PAWEŁ LISICKI | DORZECZY.PL | NOVEMBER 14, 2023

As reports of a stalemate in Ukraine emerge, Paweł Lisicki, the editor of the conservative weekly Do Rzeczy, asks where all the experts are who had predicted a swift Ukrainian victory and a Russian retreat.

I am reminding everyone, without naming names since I already have many adversaries, of the propaganda that saturated Poland and all media after February 2022. The narrative then seemed convinced that Ukraine would imminently crush a hapless and incompetently managed Russia. The Russians were portrayed as incapable of combat, with widespread desertion, malfunctioning rockets, and crumbling tanks, and their finest weapons humorously were said to originate from modified refrigerators or lawnmowers.

A sense of demoralization was said to pervade their army, and Putin was depicted as perpetually dying. Moreover, a fear of an impending military coup was rumored to haunt him. American and British generals, whose wisdom was parroted by Polish experts, forecasted the swift capture of Crimea, the total encirclement of Russian forces, and a great victory. Poland was promised greatness and a leading role in Eastern affairs.

We were to be America’s hub, a key ally, instantly replacing Germany. Analysts didn’t stop there. The boldest spoke of an emerging grand Polish-Ukrainian alliance, even hinting at a new joint statehood, a confederation that would reverse the historical curse of the 18th century and elevate Poland to superpower status.

Ukraine was to be forgiven for past grievances, having shed enough blood defending us from eastern hordes. Instead, Kyiv was seen as the West’s defender, a bastion of democracy, and its leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, was embraced by Polish leaders, including President Andrzej Duda, as a sage and flawless hero.

Now, it turns out these stories were worth less than nothing.

Despite hundreds of billions of dollars and euros and massive NATO military support, Ukraine’s counteroffensive has failed. Valery Zaluzhny, Ukraine’s top military commander, admitted as much recently. He stated in The Economist magazine that the war with Russia is at a stalemate and breaking it would require a significant technological breakthrough, which is unlikely. Zaluzhny also acknowledged that speculations about retaking Crimea, annexed in 2014, were a mistake.

These sober comments incited Zelensky’s anger, who retorted that without victory, the country wouldn’t exist, while his circle suggested that Zaluzhny’s statements serve only Russia. In mysterious circumstances, the general’s personal aide was recently found dead. Soon after, Zelensky dismissed another general, Viktor Khorenko, from the command of Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces.

All this points to a growing internal conflict, including comments from Zelensky’s former advisor, Oleksiy Arestovych, who speaks openly of the current president as a dictator and criticizes the ongoing war. President Zelensky has announced that due to the war with Russia, the 2024 presidential elections in Ukraine will not take place. It is undeniable that he is undertaking actions that can be seen as violations of fundamental rights and freedoms, such as harassment and now a ban on the activity of the church that recognizes the canonical authority of Moscow.

What’s happening is precisely what could have been assumed by anyone with reason and not swayed by the fanciful propaganda eagerly served by Western lobbyists.

The outbreak of conflict in the Middle East has decisively turned U.S. attention to that region. It’s also clear that Americans are tired of supporting Kyiv, evidenced by the rising support for Donald Trump, the main opponent of Joe Biden’s policies. The Americans have grown weary of Ukraine. The costs of aid are mounting, and the anticipated collapse of Russia has not occurred.

If a coup is to happen, it is likely to be in Kyiv rather than Moscow.

Worse, after an initial period of weakness and chaos, Russia has regained the initiative and is now more dangerous than at the conflict’s start. Back in March and April 2022, a beneficial truce for Ukraine was possible. However, as former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett indicated, talks were halted by the West. Americans and Britons encouraged Ukraine to continue the war, promising the crushing of Russia. Polish experts, predictably, echoed this. Today, it’s apparent what a grave mistake this was. The immense human costs borne by Ukraine may yield no results, and it now risks not only losing territory but also plunging into chaos.

November 14, 2023 Posted by | Corruption, Militarism, Russophobia | , | Leave a comment

Israel Will Lose. Here’s Why.

Western media are getting it wrong, just like in Ukraine

BY KEVIN BARRETT | NOVEMBER 8, 2023

Ever since February 2022, Western mainstream media has been telling us that Russia cannot possibly win its war in Ukraine. Zelensky, with his hundreds of billions of dollars’ backing from the West, would surely prevail. Russia has always been taking unbearably heavy losses. Putin is always about to keel over dead. A fresh shipment of US wonder-weapons will turn the tide. A crushing Ukrainian victory is always at hand.

Because they could not imagine Ukraine losing, Western pundits could not see that it was losing. They missed the fact that from the moment the non-Western world majority refused to accept US sanctions on Russia, it was effectively over. Virtually the entire war has been fought under the shadow of an inevitable Russian victory. It has always been just a matter of time.

Might a similar situation prevail in the war for Palestine? The non-Western world majority has turned sharply against Israel—even more sharply than it turned against the US in its war on Russia through Ukraine. Yet Western media continue to manufacture and inhabit a bubble completely divorced from moral and strategic reality. They can’t even imagine Israel being in the wrong, even though it obviously is. They can’t imagine Hamas being noble and chivalrous fighters, and Israelis being cowardly child-killing terrorists, though such is obviously the case. They can’t acknowledge that the vast majority of the world disagrees with them for very good reasons, not because of “anti-Semitism.” And above all they can’t imagine that Israel, despite (or because of) its genocidal assault on civilians, is losing the war.

Just as you had to read “pro-Russian” sources (like Col. Douglas MacGregor) to get the truth about the war in Ukraine, you need to stay abreast of the pro-Resistance global majority view to get an accurate picture of the war for Palestine. To that end, check out my quick, Google-translate-assisted rendition of an enlightening article published yesterday by Al-Jazeera.

–Kevin Barrett


The shock that produced the predicament… Israel between an “image of victory” and defeat

Zuhair Hamdani and Talal Mushati for Al-Jazeera

Israeli leaders are preparing a tense and frustrated Israeli public for unforeseen surprises in their war on Gaza, by talking about a long, costly, and cruel war. The high expectations they have set for their war will be difficult to achieve, lacking as they do a clear military or political plan.

Israeli Chief of Staff Herzi Halevy says, “We are waging a war with a cruel enemy, and this war has a painful and heavy price,” while Defense Minister Benny Gantz sums up the difficulty of the ground war: “The images coming from the ground battle are painful, and our tears are falling when we see our soldiers falling.”

The Israeli leadership has launched its war on Gaza at a time when it has the confidence of only 27% of the Israeli public, while only about 51% trust the Israeli army. Added to this are the burdens of 250,000 people seeking refuge from the Gaza region and the northern areas near Lebanon, as well as the more than 240 Israelis held prisoner by the resistance in Gaza.

Accordingly, for Israel, this war is not like previous wars. Israel is suffering huge daily losses and erosion of resources, including soldiers, equipment, time, money, and legitimacy (internal and external support). The cost will continue to rise as the war lengthens or expands.

Maariv newspaper comments on the conditions of the ground war taking place on the outskirts of Gaza, saying, “The resistance forces are very far from being broken. Despite the liquidations and assassinations, Hamas is succeeding in most cases in maintaining an organized method of fighting, based mainly on tunnel fighting, exiting from hiding places, and launching missiles at our armoured vehicles.”

Two overriding factors drive the fierce Israeli war on Gaza: the shock of the resounding military defeat and the security and intelligence failure that resulted from the Palestinian resistance’s launch of Operation “Al-Aqsa Storm” on October 7; and the predicament of the huge number of prisoners being held by the Al-Qassam Brigades and other Palestinian factions. Therefore, military action revolves around these two goals.

Under the psychological  influence of the “Black Saturday” events, the Israelis went directly to the ultimate goal of any war, which is “to destroy the enemy.” This was a high ceiling that they probably knew, by virtue of previous experience, could not be achieved. It cannot happen except at a price they could not afford to pay.

In this context, Defense Minister Yoav Galant said, “There is no place for Hamas in Gaza. At the end of our battle, there will be no Hamas.” That is an unrealistic goal based on past experience and the current realities on the ground.

Considering previous wars including 2008 and 2014, we find that “destroying Hamas” was always a basic goal that was never achievable. There is no reason to believe that it will be achievable this time, especially since the movement is now much stronger, with much deeper roots in the Gaza Strip, than before. Its military defenses and arsenal have been strengthened to the point of being difficult to penetrate, and in the end it is not a state or a regular army that can announce its surrender, but rather an extended popular resistance movement in the path of a protracted Palestinian struggle.

The war that Israel does not want

If war consists of combat operations that require mobilizing the resources and capabilities of the state to carry out a specific military campaign in order to implement military and political objectives, ranging from moving a front to achieving tactical successes and imposing certain conditions or carrying out a decisive battle that breaks the will of the “enemy,” then it requires an agreed-upon leadership that enjoys a degree of consensus. It requires a military apparatus that is trained, equipped, and at least minimally psychologically mobilized for combat; an appropriate confrontation plan; and a unified, cohesive internal political and social front directed toward that goal.

It also requires an economic mobilization that comprehends the circumstances and course of the war and its surprises, and an understanding or supportive international and regional front. Victory is difficult to achieve if any or all of these conditions are absent, especially in the case of long battles that require continuous mobilization. The results are also linked to the enemy’s reaction, the extent of its strength, and the tactics it chooses.

Was Israel ready?

In terms of military capabilities, Israel always seems prepared for war on several fronts. But technical military capabilities and weapons alone do not resolve wars, especially if they are not the kind of lighting wars that Israel favors. In practice Israel suffers from significant defects in almost all of the above-mentioned ingredients for winning a war.

At the leadership level: There is no agreed-upon leadership in Israel that enjoys consensus or the necessary charisma. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as polls show, is extremely unpopular. In a recent Israeli public opinion survey conducted by the Israeli newspaper Maariv, it was found that only 27% of Israelis support his political survival, and his political and military decisions are not accepted and are subject to widespread criticism. The course of the war has also proven that he is indecisive and does not have a clear and convincing plan for military or political action.

Netanyahu also refuses to accept responsibility for the security failure on October 7, which exposed him to severe internal criticism. Israeli opposition leader Yair Lapid, for example, warned that Netanyahu’s attempts to evade responsibility and blame the security establishment, thereby weakening the Israeli army, amounted to “crossing red lines.”

The Home Front: The home front appears to have disintegrated. Israelis are living in a state of severe division at the partisan, popular and political levels. Especially controversial is how to deal with the issue of prisoners held by the resistance, in light of the dangers of a ground war and the major losses it would entail.

Netanyahu and the extremist members of his government stand accused of dividing Israeli society. The leader of the opposition Labor Party, Merav Michaeli, has charged the Prime Minister with “fighting the army and the people of Israel.” The issue of prisoners held by the resistance has also sparked internal divisions, especially after Heritage Minister Amichai Eliyahu called for bombing Gaza with a nuclear weapon, saying, “What does hostage mean? In war, the price is paid. Why are the lives of hostages more precious than the lives of soldiers?” This was considered by Israelis to be “an abandonment by the government of its commitment to returning the hostages.”

Military front: The events of “Al-Aqsa Flood”, especially the first six hours of October 7, demonstrated that the Israeli army suffers from severe deficiencies, as do its many security services. Now the daily losses it is suffering in its ongoing ground operation have made it the object of suspicion within Israeli society, which was relying upon it to maintain an aura of safety and stability.

Economic situation: The Israeli economic situation is at its worst, with major sectors such as tourism paralyzed, travel declining, and the agricultural sector suffering damage. With the mobilization of about 360,000 reserve soldiers, most of them suddenly removed from the labor force, and the evacuation of about 250,000 settlers, the economy is witnessing a severe labor shortage in various fields. Israel recently announced that the last three weeks of war have cost about 7 billion dollars, without taking into account the direct and indirect damages. While this damage may cost about 3 billion dollars per month, preliminary estimates show that the war on Gaza will cost Israel’s budget 200 billion shekels ($51 billion), or about 10% of the gross domestic product, and as the war continues for a long period, the Israeli economy may be crippled according to Israeli estimates.

Diplomatic front: After last October 7, Western countries that were historically biased towards Israel rushed to support it, but this support quickly began to erode due to the impact of Israeli crimes and doubts about the ability of the Israeli army to resolve the war. Many countries condemned Israel or cut off their diplomatic relations with it (Colombia, Bolivia), while other countries recalled their ambassadors (Chile, Jordan, Bahrain, Turkey, Honduras…) Ever-increasing global popular pressure is pushing governments to take boycott measures, exposing Israel to isolation that has begun to worsen.

US Support for Israel Eroding?

In contrast to the direct support at the beginning, the administration of President Joe Biden began to re-assess its absolute support for Netanyahu for fear that things would spiral into a wider regional war. Washington fears the crazy scenarios that Netanyahu may create in an attempt to save his future at America expense.

After about a month, the Americans realized that the only constant in the Israeli plan was the use of massive destructive force targeting civilians and infrastructure in the Gaza Strip. It seemed Netanyahu was waiting for a solution to save himself from a harsh predicament in the sands of Gaza—and waiting for the illusion of the resistance’s surrender that wasn’t going to happen. They began to have doubts about Israel’s management of the war and its results.

CNN has indicated that US President Joe Biden and senior US administration officials have warned Israel that support is eroding as global anger intensifies over the extent of human suffering resulting from its crimes in Gaza.

What’s happening in the field?

Over the course of about a month of war, it does not appear that Israel has achieved any serious gains on the ground. Contradictory statements indicate confusion about how to manage the battle and set final goals in the face of severe resistance. The shock of the mismanaged October 7 battle, and the psychological scars it left on the entire Israeli military establishment, still haunt the course of the war.

This psychological atmosphere also looms over the soldiers, as they realize that their return from the sands of Gaza would require a miracle. They recall the experiences of their colleagues and their bitter memories of the 2014 war as they witness the elite of the Givati Brigade drowning in the sands of Gaza in a battle that is still in its infancy. In effect, the Israeli army advanced a few meters into open lands in the northern Gaza Strip and lost 30 soldiers—according to reports—meaning that it is possible that hundreds of soldiers would be lost if the army advanced a few kilometers, amid a complex network of tunnels and fortifications, minefields, snipers, explosive devices, and hand-to-hand combat in the streets facing the unlimited fighting will of the resistance.

Since Israel does not have a clear plan for the war, it has inclined toward slow, calculated progress inside Gaza. Thus, achieving the dubious final goal may take a long period and unbearably heavy losses. In the meantime, important military or political transformations may occur that will ravage the entire plan.

In its current operations, Israel is losing up to 5 soldiers every day on the outskirts of Gaza without a clear and effective military advance. Nahum Barnea, the Israeli journalist in the Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper, says, “A war of attrition on the outskirts of Gaza is the last thing the Israelis want to experience.”

Israeli military officials realize that it is impossible to liberate the prisoners militarily, but they are proceeding nonetheless under political pressure, despite the fact that the families of the prisoners, as well as the countries that have nationals among the prisoners, want an exchange deal. Netanyahu believes that such a deal would be a final acknowledgment of defeat and a victory for Hamas and the Palestinian resistance.

The cohesion of the resistance and the Israeli non-plan

Israeli public opinion fears that the war will be lost on two or more fronts, by failing to liberate or release the prisoners (about 60 of them have already been killed in Israeli raids) and by failure to dismantle the capabilities of the Hamas movement and the Palestinian resistance. Worse, a large number of soldiers will be killed, perhaps in the hundreds.

In contrast to the Israeli non-plan, following the painful military blow directed at Israel on the morning of October 7, the plan of Hamas and the resistance seems clear: stop the war, carry out a comprehensive prisoner exchange, and lift the siege of Gaza. The resistance is waging a war of attrition on the Israeli army, inflicting ever-increasing daily losses, and appears prepared for a long war to erode the elements of Israeli power.

Time is not on Israel’s side, as it loses more money, men, and legitimacy, its internal crisis worsens, and the pressures and doubts surrounding it increase, with the possibility of the situation exploding regionally. Instead it is on the side of the Palestinian resistance, which believes that all of these internal and external military and political pressures will ultimately make Israel yield and accept its terms.

In that case, the war would not only end with the defeat of Netanyahu, but also with the defeat of the far-right government and its racist program. Israeli society has increasingly rejected this government’s policies at all levels, and the war has proven that it cannot impose surrender on the Palestinian people despite the tragedies caused by Israeli crimes in Gaza, whose repercussions have made the international community wary and inclined to reject Israeli narratives.

Netanyahu’s predicament

The international community has begun to realize that the campaign launched by Benjamin Netanyahu on Gaza is nothing more than a series of horrific daily massacres against civilians that has not achieved any significant military breakthrough. The prognosis: Israel will be forced to submit to defeat under internal and external pressures. Already serious movements have begun from the international community to stop the war in the wake of the horror of ongoing Israeli massacres.

Nadav Eyal asserts in his article in Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper that the Israeli army cannot be satisfied with the “image of victory” in its war on Gaza, and that the era of the policy of “mowing the grass” (reducing threats to an acceptable level) has ended. Instead, Israel needs a “real victory.” But this leaves Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a deeply distressing predicament

The main dilemma concerns Netanyahu himself, who does not want to come down from the heights of the tree into which he scrambled on the morning of October 7. He realizes that he is finished politically (due to Al-Aqsa Storm) yet dreams of a resurrection linked to the results of his campaign in Gaza.

Netanyahu and his war cabinet are acting impulsively under the influence of the shock of October 7, without a clear military plan for the war, which is mainly being fought as a mindless emotional reaction to the well-prepared resistance in Gaza. Israel lacks a clear plan to liberate or recover the prisoners, or to confront the huge and ever-escalating international protests, to the point that Netanyahu began addressing Israeli soldiers in Gaza with quotes from the Bible, telling them to “remember what Amalek did to you.” (Amalek represents the height of evil in Jewish tradition.) Netanyahu has used the Amalek reference more than once to motivate the Israeli army in its war against Gaza.

Netanyahu is accumulating losses on all fronts, trying to write off “Black Saturday,” ignoring that his leadership does not enjoy popular acceptance, and pretending not to notice Israel’s broken army, eroding economy, undermined international reputation, disintegrated home front, large daily military losses, and the United Nations’ condemnation of his crimes.

November 11, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Video | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US House Speaker Johnson Proposes Funding Government Without Aid to Ukraine and Israel

Sputnik – 12.11.2023

The speaker of the US House of Representatives, Mike Johnson (R-LA), has introduced a bill to temporarily fund the federal government. His proposal does not to include aid to Ukraine or Israel but does include funds for the defense of the US southern border.

According to the bill, part of the government programmes also related to transport, energy and military construction will be financed by 19 January, which would be the funding deadline for those programs and agencies which are covered under regular appropriations bills pertaining to agriculture, rural development, and Food and Drug Administration.

Funds for energy and water development, military construction and Veterans Affairs together with Transportation, Housing, and Urban Development will also be ceased.

The allocation of money for the rest of the government sectors will be calculated until 2 February.

Johnson expects some Republicans to vote against his bill, but in that case he expects Democrats to support it, Politico reports. However, even if approved in the House, the bill may not pass in the Senate.

“This two-step continuing resolution is a necessary bill to place House Republicans in the best position to fight for conservative victories… Separating out the CR from the supplemental funding debates places our conference in the best position to fight for fiscal responsibility, oversight over Ukraine aid, and meaningful policy changes at our Southern border,” Johnson said in a statement on Saturday.

White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre called the proposal “a recipe for more Republican chaos and more shutdowns”, claiming that Republicans were “wasting precious time with an unserious proposal that has been panned by members of both parties”. The statement urged Republicans to “work in a bipartisan way to prevent a shutdown”.

“My opposition to the clean CR just announced by the Speaker … cannot be overstated. Funding Pelosi level spending & policies for 75 days — for future ‘promises,'” House Freedom Caucus member Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) wrote on X, opposing the legislation.

Earlier this year, US President Joe Biden’s request to Congress for $24bln in aid to Ukraine almost caused a government shutdown after Republican congressmen refused to approve a budget that included those funds. As a result, a temporary budget was adopted without a clause on support for Ukraine.

Biden has already said that he would not sign the bill on allocating aid to Israel without Ukraine if it is approved by Congress.

November 11, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , , | Leave a comment

US sabotaged Ukraine peace plan – Orban

RT | November 10, 2023

US lobbying was instrumental in stopping Ukraine from signing a peace deal with Russia, shortly after the conlfict between the two countries  escalated last year, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban claimed on Friday.

Speaking with the national Radio Kossuth, Orban agreed with former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder that it was the US that scuttled the Istanbul peace talks in March 2022.

“What the former German chancellor said is a well-known fact in the world of diplomacy,” Orban said. “And we also know this from all kinds of reports and intelligence sources, that indeed in 2022 in Istanbul, where all kinds of covert negotiations took place, there was essentially an agreement, which – so says the diplomatic rumor – the Ukrainians did not sign on American instructions.”

The Ukrainians “were not allowed to” make peace, because they “first had to ask the Americans about everything,” Schroeder had told the newspaper Berliner Zeitung in an interview last month.

Speaking with Kossuth Radio on Friday, Orban pointed out that Europe tried to contain the Ukraine conflict starting with the Crimean crisis of 2014, through things such as the Minsk agreements.

“The Americans entered this game, and since then the direction is not isolation and localization, but expansion. More and more people are getting involved, more and more weapons are being delivered, more and more money is being spent, the Europeans are taking out more and more loans and sending them over to Ukraine, so I have to say that the conflict is becoming globalized,” the Hungarian prime minister said. “The Russian-Ukrainian war is destroying Europe. What we are doing now is unsustainable.”

Since the failure of the Turkish-hosted talks, bullets and bombs have done most of the talking between Moscow and Kiev. Ukraine has ruled out any negotiations with Russian President Vladimir Putin and insists on a set of demands that the Kremlin has dismissed as absurd.

The Kiev-based Ukrayinska Pravda reported in May 2022 that Boris Johnson, who was the British prime minister at the time, acted as a messenger for the West when he visited Kiev the month prior, “almost without warning.”

Johnson allegedly told President Vladimir Zelensky that there can be no negotiations with Putin and that even if Ukraine was ready to sign some kind of agreement with Russia, the West was not. Within two months of that visit, Johnson lost the premiership and later even his seat in the House of Commons, ostensibly over a scandal related to Covid-19 lockdowns. Last month he was hired by the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) – a Washington-based think tank funded by the US government, NATO, and Western military contractors – on account of his “commitment to Ukraine’s victory.”

November 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Washington “botched up” and now Kiev must accept worse peace conditions – retired US Colonel

By Ahmed Adel | November 10, 2023

Kiev will have to accept even worse conditions in peace negotiations because Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky put his faith in the United States, former Pentagon adviser and retired Colonel Douglas Macgregor said in an interview with the Judging Freedom YouTube channel. Macgregor’s voice is not alone in sharing this belief, especially now that the world’s attention has shifted from Eastern Europe to the Israel-Gaza conflict.

“When he halted the advance of his forces in response to a stated willingness on the Ukrainian side to accept neutrality, he was being very serious,” the former Pentagon adviser said of Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding that then Washington intervened in the dialogue between Moscow and Kiev, and “that was all botched badly.”

Macgregor agreed with independent commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano’s view that the conditions in the Ukraine negotiations will not be the same as two years ago. In addition, Western elites continue to lie, according to the retired US colonel.

“Zelensky was promised everything, and Zelensky believed it. He’s going to end up like everybody else that’s ever cooperated with us over time, out of a job and maybe lose his life in the process,” Macgregor pointed out.

Earlier, Macgregor highlighted that sooner or later, the US will have to admit the truth about defeat in the Ukrainian conflict publicly.

Russia has repeatedly expressed its readiness for negotiations, but the Ukrainian authorities have imposed a legal ban on them. The Kremlin also noted that there were no prerequisites for the situation to become peaceful now while achieving the objectives of the special operation remained an absolute priority for Moscow.

Macgregor’s comments echo what Karen Kwiatkowski, a former US Air Force lieutenant colonel, also said in an interview with Judging Freedom.

“I don’t think he’ll be in Ukraine. I don’t wish him ill, but I don’t think he’ll be in Ukraine, and if he is in Ukraine, he might be underground,” said the expert, adding that the Kiev regime “destroyed their country, lost half their population” but will still end up with a similar peace deal that was offered to them beforehand.

Kwiatkowski drew attention to the recent death of Major Yuri Chistyakov, assistant to the commander of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi. In her opinion, his apparent assassination signals the “collapse” of the Ukrainian political and military structure. She believes that Ukrainian politicians and generals are now worried about their survival.

The expert noted that reports about the West’s attempts to persuade Zelensky to conduct peaceful negotiations with Russia put him in a “terrible position he brought on himself in many ways. He’s done for.”

The entire world already sees Ukraine’s president as no more than a “US puppet,” she said. “The puppet master is done, the game was over, the show was over.”

Valerii Zaluzhnyi said in an article published on November 1 in The Economist magazine that Ukrainian forces have reached a stalemate and that “There will most likely be no deep and beautiful breakthrough.”

In the five months since launching its counter-offensive, Ukraine has advanced by just 17 kilometres in one section of the long front, which itself speaks of the catastrophic failure. More disturbingly, these measly gains in the much-lauded counteroffensive, with the propaganda behind it beginning in autumn 2022, have come at an immense cost.

Ukraine’s armed forces lost approximately 90,000 military troops killed and wounded during the counter-offensive it launched a few months ago without accomplishing any substantial tactical successes, Russian Defence Minister Sergey Shoigu announced on October 30.

“Only since June 4 – that is, since the start of the West’s widely publicised and generously funded Ukrainian counter-offensive – Kiev has lost over 90,000 military personnel killed or wounded, 600 tanks, and nearly 1,900 armoured vehicles of various classes. At the same time, no tactically significant successes were made on the battlefield,” Shoigu said.

With the world’s attention now nearly completely shifted to the Middle East, Kiev has an even weaker negotiating position than it already had because of the catastrophic failure of the counteroffensive and the near destruction of its military. For this reason, Zelensky, even if he continues to deny it, is under increased pressure to open negotiations with Moscow.

NBC News reported on November 4, citing one current US official and one former US official familiar with the discussions, that Washington and Brussels have begun talking with the Ukrainian government about possible peace negotiations with Russia, including what they might need to give up. Reportedly, the discussions started in October during a meeting including NATO members due to concerns that the Russia-Ukraine war had reached a stalemate.

However, this is a false belief since the war is only at a stalemate because Russia has been in a defensive position, except in Artemovsk (Bakhmut) and a few other locations, for over a year. Once Moscow launches its offensive, the stalemate will be broken in a way that will devastate Ukraine. For this reason, Macgregor and Kwiatkowski are urging Zelensky towards accepting a peace deal [to avert] the loss of more life and territory.

Ahmed Adel is a Cairo-based geopolitics and political economy researcher.

November 10, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Pax Americana delusion crumbles as American Empire is heading to a hopeless end

By Nebojsa Malic | Global Times | October 23, 2023

As US President Joe Biden argued for spending another $100 billion on Ukraine, Israel and the island of Taiwan in a televised speech last week, he made a curious claim that American leadership is what holds the world together.

This statement is obviously wrong. At best, American leadership is limited to what is known as the West, which basically amounts to NATO, Australia, Japan and South Korea, as well as a small number of countries in Latin America and Africa. The West’s military might was humiliated in Afghanistan two years ago, and on the fields of Ukraine since. Its economic prestige has been shaken as well. As for culture… the less said, the better.

Biden was articulating what the Western establishment desperately wants to cling to: the delusion of a Pax Americana that supposedly arose at the end of the Cold War, some 35 years ago. Everyone was supposed to embrace liberal democracy and usher in the end of history in which the rules-based world order would reign forever.

Take it from someone who was there at its founding: Pax Americana never really existed.

The name itself is a reference to Pax Romana, the order imposed by the Roman Empire – with fire and sword – over much of Europe, North Africa and the Levant 2,000 years ago. The Romans were harsh; Tacitus famously described it in the famous epigram, stating that they created a desert and called it peace. Yet a peace it was, with lands under Roman rule enjoying technology and a level of civilization that would not be seen again for hundreds of years after the empire’s demise.

Has the American empire, such as it is, created anything of the kind? Hardly. Take the current situation in West Asia, where Washington is not only unable to stop the carnage between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but unwilling to even try. The historic Abraham Accords of the previous presidency may as well not exist at all.

Africa is in turmoil, with country after country in the Sahel rejecting the West and its never-ending anti-terrorism operations that somehow never get rid of terrorists. Latin America also seems to have spurned Washington. Venezuela has defeated the US plot to install an interim president. When El Salvador demonstrated that restoring law and order is not just possible but practical, the US NGOs actually protested about the human rights of organized criminals.

The historic nuclear deal with Iran that was torn up within a couple of years showed that the US does not keep their side of the bargain. The scramble to flee Afghanistan, as the US-backed regime crumbled before the Taliban, even before American boots were off the ground, ended up seared into the eyes of the world back in August 2021.

Russia had offered the West a partnership, but was rejected. To ensure that countries in the post-Soviet space did not get out of line, the West created “color revolutions,” once described as a sophisticated and brilliantly conceived exercise in Western branding and mass marketing. In reality, this was a template for winning other people’s elections.

A euphoric British reporter wrote those words about the 2004 coup in Ukraine. A decade later, the US-backed another – leading to the separation of Crimea, the rebellion in Donbass and the war that Moscow finally openly joined in 2022, when all other choices had been exhausted.

A “color revolution” was carried out in 2000, in Serbia, after NATO failed to achieve regime change with the 1999 air war. NATO occupied Kosovo and declared the Serbian province an “independent state” in 2008. Contrary to Western pronouncements, that did not resolve the conflict, nor did it make the people there more prosperous.

Then in 2003, the US led the illegal invasion of Iraq. Weakened by a decade of war, the US-backed Iraqi government then almost collapsed to ISIS, which arose on the winds of the Arab Spring – a chain of “color revolutions” in North Africa and West Asia that promised prosperity and peace, but brought only war and suffering. Just ask the Libyans and the Syrians.

The fraud of Pax Americana began in the 1990s, in the ruins of Yugoslavia – my country of birth. The US had backed the Muslims of Bosnia-Herzegovina to reject a political deal with the Serbs and Croats, plunging that former republic into civil war. Then they repeatedly sabotaged the UN and EU attempts to broker a peace, so that NATO could make a grand entrance in 1995 and save the day like the cavalry, just like in an old Western movie.

As it turned out, the American Empire was not indispensable. It could not create peace or prosperity around the world, only chaos and strife. These days, others have taken up the job of making people’s lives better, for example the BRICS+ group, who are not so much opposed to the West as determined to leave it behind in the blood-soaked mud of its own imperial failure.

The author is a Serbian-American journalist. opinion@globaltimes.com.cn

November 8, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , | Leave a comment

Russia Exits Cold War-era Pact, NATO Suspends Participation

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | November 7, 2023

Moscow formally exited the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), and NATO announced it has suspended its participation in the agreement. The Cold War-era pact limited deployments of weaponry in Europe. The treaty has been on life support for over a decade as the North Atlantic alliance violated the agreement, and Russia suspended its participation in 2007.

On Tuesday, Russia declared the treaty was null and void. “Taking into account the direct responsibility of NATO countries for inciting the conflict in Ukraine, as well as the admission of Finland to the alliance and the ongoing consideration of a similar application from Sweden, even the formal preservation of the CFE Treaty has become unacceptable from the point of view of Russia’s fundamental security interests,” the Russian Foreign Ministry explained.

Shortly after, NATO said it responded by suspending participation in the agreement. “Allies condemn Russia’s decision to withdraw from the CFE, and its war of aggression against Ukraine which is contrary to the Treaty’s objectives.” The NATO statement continued, “Therefore, as a consequence, Allied States Parties intend to suspend the operation of the CFE Treaty for as long as necessary, in accordance with their rights under international law. This is a decision fully supported by all NATO Allies.”

The CFE was negotiated in the last years of the Soviet Union between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. The agreement was meant to cap the deployment of conventional military weapons by both alliances. The treaty intended to reduce tensions on the continent by shrinking military forces to prevent large-scale operations.

After the USSR and Warsaw Pact dissolved, the North Atlantic alliance added former countries from both blocs as members. In 2007, the agreement suffered a major setback after the US announced plans to open military bases in Romania and Bulgaria that violated the pact. In response, Russia suspended its participation in the deal.

November 7, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

U.S. Out of Africa Now!

By Brad Pearce | The Libertarian Institute | November 7, 2023

On October 26, Senator Rand Paul (R-KY) forced a debate and vote on the U.S. military presence in Niger. The Senate overwhelmingly voted to keep our troops in that troubled country. There has been an increased focus on Africa due to widespread instability and a contest between superpowers for the continent. The presence of U.S. troops puts Americans in danger while failing to solve any of Africa’s problems.

During the Cold War era, the United States mostly relied on “soft power” in Africa, but U.S. military presence has continued to increase over the past 30 years. It is time to acknowledge that the U.S. military presence in Africa is a failure, bring our troops home, and replace violence with diplomacy and commerce. It is the right thing for America and the best thing for Africa.

Prior to the advent of the Global War on Terrorism, U.S. military actions in Africa were primarily evacuating American nationals in times of crisis, something which they did on many occasions due to frequent volatility. The first major U.S. deployment was the United Nations Operation in Somalia, which has transformed into one of the longest conflicts in American history while failing to make Somalia secure. The U.S. footprint has continued to expand; currently the largest U.S. base in Africa is in the small Red Sea nation of Djibouti, while there is also an enormous and expensive drone base in Agadez, Niger in the central Sahel. Further, the United States trains troops around the continent, having commandos deployed to at least 22 African nations in 2022.

When U.S. troops were first permanently deployed to Africa following 9/11 there were no known transnational terrorist organizations on the continent. The United States got a better excuse for its presence after the Islamic Courts Union took control of Somalia in 2006. The ICU were then expelled by an Ethiopian-led invasion, leaving in their wake an offshoot known as Al-Shabab which later pledged allegiance to Al Qaeda. Following the Ethiopian invasion, the United Nations authorized the African Union Mission in Somalia [ANISOM] which the United States has supported since it began in 2007 with a large air and ground presence.

Radical Islamic terrorism did not spread across Africa in earnest until the 2010s, when it was greatly spurred by U.S. and NATO actions across North Africa and the Middle East. Most notably, when a NATO coalition overthrew Libya’s longtime leader Gadaffi in 2011 fighters he had been employing looted his armory and returned to their home countries, restarting dormant rebellions. The war in Syria began around the same time, and ultimately led to the Islamic State and Al Qaeda gaining a great deal of power and territory in the Middle East. This was simultaneous to the increasing popularity of drone warfare within the Obama Administration, who saw it as a “cheap” way to conduct counter-terror operations throughout the Muslim world. When they were chased out of some of their strongholds by airstrikes, Al Qaeda and the Islamic State expanded rapidly in West Africa, giving the United States yet more of a justification to increase its military presence in the region, most notably in Niger.

For a time, the presence of U.S. combat troops in West Africa was such a well-kept secret that when four U.S. servicemen were killed in an ambush in Niger in 2017, multiple prominent legislators in charge of overseeing the U.S. military, including noted warmongers Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and the late Senator John McCain (R-AZ), acknowledged that they were not aware there were U.S. troops in the country. One exception to this was Representative Charlie Dent, who told CNN’s Chris Cuomo:

“With respect to Niger, I serve on the appropriations committee. I oversee military construction projects. We have a presence there. Not just there, but within that whole Lake Chad region, supporting local troops to support fight Boko Haram, support operations in West Africa and the operation in Mali. So we have all sorts of people in that region fighting a very dangerous foe, and ISIS in West Africa, especially.”

This is a stunning insight into the lack of thought the United States was putting into its military presence in Africa at the time—the civilian leadership in charge of overseeing military activity were unaware of the military’s presence in West Africa. The only oversight from Congress related to spending the money, which at the time included the construction of the Agadez drone base.

Persistent failure in Africa has not deterred U.S. policy makers from continuing the same strategies. Writing for The Intercept, journalist Nick Turse reports that in 2002 and 2003 the U.S. State Department reported just nine terrorist attacks in all of Africa, whereas in 2022 there were 2,737 in Mali, Burkina Faso, and Niger alone. The source for these statistics is the Africa Center for Strategic Studies, run by the U.S. Department of Defense which released a devastating report in early 2023 about security in the region following 20 years of heavy U.S. counter-terror involvement. The report states that terrorism fatalities across Africa rose by 48% in 2022 alone; the report notes the irony that terrorism has spiked since the Mali coup, for which poor security was used as a justification, but doesn’t mention the fact that there was almost no terrorism at all before the United States got involved in counter-terror operations in the region.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the training programs which are a key component of U.S. Africa policy have a proven track record of overthrowing the very governments they are meant to prop up. At least 12 coups by U.S. trained personnel have occurred since 2008, as of August 2023. A 2022 study showed that U.S. training makes soldiers more supportive of one-party states and less interested in preserving human rights. Following training, they see the value of reducing conflict within a state by taking sole power and also have been trained in skill sets conducive to conducting successful coups. Don’t worry though, AFRICOM commander General Michael Langley has full faith and confidence in our “curriculum” of telling them “please don’t do coups.”

Nowhere in Africa has U.S. troop presence achieved its goals. After 20 years, Africa has much more terrorism and fewer democratic governments. Both of those things are supposed to be key American objectives. The most important thing for the United States to have a productive future in Africa is to shed the Global War on Terror. Abukar Arman, a Somali geopolitical analyst and former diplomat, argued earlier this year that, “so long as U.S.’ policy toward Africa remains one driven by counter-terrorism and is implemented by AFRICOM drones that are accountable to no one, there will never be a sustainable strategic partnership with key countries such as Somalia.” He is correct that both the men running U.S. Africa policy and the machines which they use are drones and neither are producing desired results.

The U.S. Senate has shown that it intends to continue zombie policies by voting to stay in Niger and put our troops at unacceptable levels of risk without the potential of achieving any goals. The only wise path forward is to end our African terror war and engage with African nations as genuine partners in commerce and development.

November 7, 2023 Posted by | Militarism | , | Leave a comment

Barcelona dock workers refuse to deal with weapons ships heading to Israel

MEMO | November 7, 2023

Workers at the Spanish port of Barcelona announced their refusal to allow any ships carrying weapons to operate inside the port, rejecting the violence practiced by Israel in the occupied territories, and accusing the UN of failing to carry out its role.

The workers said in a statement to their association that it is their duty to adhere to and defend the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, at a time when the signatory countries have forgotten about it.

The statement continued: “We decided within the association not to allow ships containing war materials to operate in our port, for the sole purpose of protecting any civilian population, regardless of their location, as there is no justification for sacrificing civilians.”

The statement called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, the search for peaceful solutions to conflicts, and for the UN to stop its complicit and negligent behaviour in order to maintain international peace and security and defend international law.

Earlier last week, the Belgian transport workers’ unions called on their members to refuse to load or unload arms shipments being sent to Israel.

“While genocide is under way in Palestine, workers at various airports in Belgium are seeing arms shipments in the direction of the war zone,” the trade unions said in a joint statement.

A Belgian government spokesman declined to comment on whether weapons were being shipped to the region via Belgium.

The unions said that loading or unloading these weapons means contributing to supplying regimes that kill innocent people.

The unions added: “We, several unions active in ground logistics, call on our members not to handle any flights that ship military equipment to Palestine/Israel, like there were clear agreements and rules at the start of the conflict with Russia and Ukraine.”

November 7, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US, Israel to open second front in Lebanon

BY M. K. BHADRAKUMAR | INDIAN PUNCHLINE | NOVEMBER 6, 2023

The announcement late Sunday night by the US Central Command [CENTCOM] headquartered in Doha about the arrival of an Ohio-class American nuclear submarine in its “area of responsibility” presages a significant escalation of the situation around the Palestine-Israel conflict.

It is very rare that the use of these submarines is publicised. CENTCOM provided no additional details but it posted an image that showed an Ohio-class submarine in Egypt’s Suez Canal. Interestingly, CENTCOM also separately shared an image of a nuclear-capable B-1 bomber operating in the Middle East. 

Taken together, these US deployments, coming on top of the formidable presence of two aircraft carriers and warships hundreds of advanced jet fighters, are with an eye on “the other side of the equation,” as Secretary of State Antony Blinken quaintly described Hamas, Hezbullah, and Iran during his latest visit to Tel Aviv on Friday.

In a related development, perhaps, the CIA director, William Burns arrived in Israel on Sunday for urgent consultations. The New York Times reported that the US is “looking to expand its intelligence sharing with Israel.” 

Arguably, the most charitable explanation for the deployment of a US nuclear submarine, which form part of the Pentagon’s “nuclear triad”, near the war zone is that the Biden Administration is preparing for an Israeli escalation into Lebanon to draw out Hezbollah, which may in turn trigger an Iranian reaction. 

In his speech on Friday, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrullah seemed to anticipate precisely such a turn of events when he warned the US explicitly of consequences that couldn’t be any different from the catastrophic American involvement in Lebanon’s civil war in the early 1980s. Ironically, this is also the 40th anniversary year of the suicide bombing of the barracks housing US forces in Beirut International Airport in October 1983 in which 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers were killed forcing a US withdrawal from Lebanon. 

Clearly, the locus of the US strategy in the present Middle situation may be shifting from diplomacy, which has lost traction. Blinken’s desperate attempts to address the mounting international criticism of Israel’s horrific war crimes by diverting attention to a “humanitarian pause” in the fighting has been unceremoniously shot down by Netanyahu. 

The point is, after bombarding Gaza and its people with artillery and bombs, the Israeli army moved in on Friday. So far, it has reportedly advanced to the outskirts of Gaza City but not entered the Hamas stronghold. Fierce urban fighting is expected when it does. 

Equally, the Biden administration’s clumsy attempt to promote a vague outline for a post-war Gaza that might include a combination of a revitalised Palestinian Authority, a peacekeeping force, etc. has been met with a distinct lack of enthusiasm at Blinken’s meeting in the weekend in Amman with the Arab foreign ministers – from Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates – who instead demanded an immediate ceasefire, while Blinken said the US would not push for one. 

Blinken travelled to Ramallah from Amman where the head of the Palestine Authority Mahmoud Abbas apparently gave him short shrift saying that the PA would only be ready to shoulder full responsibility for the Gaza Strip in the framework of a “comprehensive political solution” that would include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza — and, furthermore, that security and peace can only be achieved by ending the occupation of the territories of the “State of Palestine,” and by recognising East Jerusalem as its capital. The meeting lasted for less than an hour and ended without public statements. 

Meanwhile, China and the UAE (by the way, Israel’s Abraham Accords partner) have since called for a closed-door meeting of the UN Security Council in another attempt to seek an immediate ceasefire, which the Biden Administration will certainly oppose. Suffice to say, the Biden Administration feels boxed in and the only way out is for something to give way through the exercise of coercive means.

The US is watching with frustration as new regional equations are appearing among Muslim nations. The foreign ministers of Iran and Saudi Arabia held another phone conversation today. The OIC later announced that an extraordinary summit will be held in Riyadh on November 12 at the request of the current chairman, Saudi Arabia, to discuss Israel’s attacks on the Palestinian people. 

As the death toll in Gaza crosses 10,000, feelings are indeed running high in the Muslim world. Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei said today that “all the evidence and indications show the direct involvement of the Americans in running the war” in Gaza. Khamenei added that as the war goes on, the reasons behind the US’s direct role would become more explicit.

The Fars News Agency, which is close to the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, also disclosed that Khamenei held a “recent meeting in Tehran” with the Head of Hamas political bureau Ismail Haniyeh where he told the latter that Tehran’s support for the resistance groups is its “permanent policy.”   

Evidently, Tehran no longer sees a problem in acknowledging its dealings with the resistance groups. This is a paradigm shift indicative of the shift in the power dynamic, which the US and Israel seem to have decided to counter through use of force where diplomacy failed to make headway to isolate Iran. 

The Chief of the Israeli General Staff, Herzi Halevi, said on Sunday during a meeting in the Northern Command, “We are ready to strike in the north at any moment. We understand that it can happen… We have a clear goal of restoring a significantly better security situation at the borders [with Lebanon], not only in the Gaza Strip.” 

No power on earth can stop Israel in its tracks now. Its existence is inextricably linked to this war which will ensure abiding US commitment to its security as a key template of American global strategies for the foreseeable future. Therefore, Israel’s best chance of survival lies in expanding the scope of the war in Gaza into Lebanon — and possibly even into Syria — shoulder to shoulder with the Americans. 

There is no question that the location of the US nuclear submarine to the east of Suez is an attempt to intimidate Iran from intervening, as Israel, with US backing, proceed to open a second front. The Israeli authorities have announced evacuation of people from settlements located in a zone up to five kms from the border with Lebanon. 

A prolonged war of indeterminate timeline is set to begin in the Middle East. The Middle East that emerged after World War II is breaking loose and drifting away into the chronicles of history. As the call of the jihad begins, there is no knowing how the 80-year old American president will respond. 

No, this won’t turn into a world war. It will be fought in the Middle East itself, but its outcome will decisively impact the making of a new world order.

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What Message Does US Tomahawk-Carrying Submarine Send Amid Gaza War?

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 06.11.2023

An Ohio-class guided missile submarine arrived in the Middle East on Sunday, as per a social media post by the US Central Command.

The Ohio-class guided missile submarine (SSGN) – depicted entering the Suez Canal northeast of Cairo by the US Central Command – is one of the four US underwater craft of this type converted to fire Tomahawk cruise missiles rather than nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles.

Per the US press, each SSGN sub can carry 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles, which is 50% more than a US guided-missile destroyer and nearly four times what the US Navy’s newest attack submarines are equipped with.

The Tomahawk cruise missile can strike targets precisely from 1,000 miles away and has been used in combat more than 2,300 times by the US and its allies. Most recently, US Navy warships and subs fired 66 Tomahawk missiles at Syrian government facilities in 2018.

According to the US press, the heavily armed submarine sends “a message of deterrence” to Israel’s “regional adversaries, as the Biden administration “tries to avoid a broader conflict amid the Israel-Hamas war.”

The deployment of the submarine is triggering concerns, as per the DC-based think tank Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft. The crux of the matter is that the US has already amassed a huge military force in the Middle East over the unfolding Gaza war.

The think tank particularly refers to:

· two aircraft carrier strike groups, with roughly 7,500 personnel on each;
· two guided-missile destroyers;
· nine air squadrons (deployed in the Eastern Mediterranean and Red Sea region);
· 4,000 troops dispatched to the region, with another 2,000 on standby, in addition to roughly 30,000 troops already stationed in the region.

These figures do not include “several dozen” commandos deployed to Israel in order to “actively help the Israelis to do a number of things,” as per Christopher P. Maier, an assistant secretary of defense.

On top of that there are US top military advisers on the ground in Israel to work out strategies to defeat Hamas together with the Israel Defense Forces.

“The United States is barreling toward another war in the Middle East,” Jon Hoffman, a policy analyst in defense and foreign policy at the Cato Institute, wrote for RS on Monday. “The conflict between Israel and Hamas is rapidly escalating across the region and risks dragging the United States directly into the fray.”

November 6, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | Leave a comment