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Is ICC still relevant? Not so, says Brazil’s Lula da Silva. And he is not alone

By Uriel Araujo | December 14, 2023

On December 4, Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, the President of Brazil (which has taken G20 presidency) said, after meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz in Berlin, that he will invite Russian President Vladimir Putin to the G20 Summit that will take place in Brazil. Previously, Lula da Silva had stated Putin should not worry about being arrested, should he visit Brazil, despite the county’s membership in the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Brazilian leader later withdrew this promise but has maintained the invitation, thereby prompting a political controversy about the court in the Latin American country. On March 17, the Hague-based court issued a controversial arrest warrant for both Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, Presidential Commissioner for Children’s Rights (of Russia) and for Putin, a ruling that has been praised by US President Joe Biden, among others.

Whenever people hear about the “International Crime Court”, they often assume it is some essential part of the fabric of international law. The court’s name, however, should not be taken at face value. It is true that about 124 countries are ratified state parties to the Rome Statute, the treaty that established the ICC. It is also true, though, that 30 others have not yet ratified it, some of which have no intention of doing so. China, Russia, the US, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and Turkey are not states parties – no Great Power in fact is a party to the ICC, unless one considers France, the UK and Germany as such. South Africa and the Philippines have already given formal notice of their intention to withdraw from the Statute, and so have Gambia and Burundi. Many other countries are considering doing so – which is not surprising at all.

Consider this: having been formed in 2002, with the exception of the Putin/Lvova-Belova warrant and the investigation on Rodrigo Duterte (former President of the Philippines), all other cases thus far launched by the court have been against Africans, including prominent regional leaders such as Muammar Gaddafi of Libya. It is no wonder then that over the last years the African Union has often accused the ICC of being biased against the continent. William Schabas (professor of international law at Middlesex Universit) summarized it: “Why prosecute post-election violence in Kenya… but not murder and torture of prisoners in Iraq or illegal settlements in the West Bank? Tony Blair, the former British prime minister and George W. Bush, the former American president… were never indicted by the ICC… in spite of the ample evidence available to justify legal proceedings against the two.”

In September, Brazil’s aforementioned President Lula da Silva had already questioned the value of a Hague-based court that does not include the US, Russia, or China. In his reasoning, the ICC cannot be that relevant, considering the fact that major powers do not submit themselves to its jurisdiction. Similarly, Flavio Dino, then the Brazilian Minister of Justice, described the court as “unbalanced”, saying that “it makes no sense to have a court that is only to judge some and not others”, even adding that his country’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs could debate Brazil’s participation in the Statue.

As shown, Lula da Silva is not the only one who has doubts about the ICC and the controversies pertaining to the court have been around for a long time, way before its arrest warrant for Putin. Take the United States for instance. The US and the ICC have a peculiar record, to say the least. Back in 2002, President George W. Bush famously signed into law the so-called “Hague Invasion Act”, which in fact authorized the use of military force to liberate any American citizen being held by the ICC. More recently, it was described as a “kangaroo court” by former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo when President Donal Trump authorized sanctions against an ICC investigation into US war crimes in Afghanistan. Washington went so far as to threaten to arrest the court’s judges over the same issue.

However, in 2022, S.Res.546, a bipartisan, unanimous resolution by the US Senate (agreed to without amendment) came into being to support the ICC, which is quite remarkable, considering all the aforementioned record. It would seem the US is quite ready to applaud the Hague court, as long as it only persecutes its geopolitical rivals and never points its finger to any American war criminal – in this case Washington will literally threaten the court and its judges with arrest and invasion.

The ICC is predominantly funded by European states. The United Kingdom, France, Germany, Italy, Australia, Spain (and also Japan) have long been among the court’s top 10 contributors. Moreover, it also receives contributions from private donors, such as large corporations. All of that throws some doubts on its credibility and impartiality as an international organ often accused (justifiably so) of having a pro-Western bias.

I wrote before about the dangerous trend of employing international lawfare as a geopolitical tool – as seen in Germany, where local courts have been invoking “universal jurisdiction” (over some crimes) to convict Syrian authorities accused of having committed torture in Syria. This development was applauded by many, including Wolfgang Kaleck, founder of the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR), who described it as a step towards bigger  things.

One could very well ask how big it can get. We know that torture and sexual abuse were and have been common place in CIA-operated bases overseas as well as in places such as Guantánamo Bay (Cuba), and Abu Ghraib (Iraq). We also know Biden admittedly authorized the infamous August 29 drone strike in Kabul that killed civilians only. His predecessor Donald Trump in turn ordered the illegal assassination of Iranian General Qassem Soleimani, who was on a peace mission. Even so, it is hard to imagine a top CIA official (or Biden and Trump themselves for that matter) being investigated by a German court – or by the ICC.

From a perspective informed by legal realism and political realism, one could reason that the very way a country’s judicial systems’ “universal jurisdiction” can be exercised is limited by certain conditions regarding political, economic, and military power. The same limitations apply to the ICC. To sum it up, it is about geopolitics as much as it is about international law. The ICC today is a reflection of the inequalities between countries in today’s architecture of international law.

December 14, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

Iran: EU sanctions others, looks the other way on Gaza genocide, ethnic cleansing

Press TV – December 12, 2023

Iran has denounced the EU’s recent sanctions on its defense industry over “baseless” allegations of drone delivery to Russia, slamming the block for turning a blind eye on Israel’s “genocide” unfolding in the Gaza Strip.

In a statement on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kan’ani “strongly condemned” European Council’s “destructive actions” and imposing sanctions against 6 persons and 5 entities involved in Iran’s development and production of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV).

“The desperate efforts of some malicious actors with political motives in order to use the inefficient sanctions and spread of false information only create more self-made obstacles in the path of relations between the Islamic Republic and Europe and prove ineffective,” he said.

Kan’ani said the EU talks about international law and the United Nations Charter, while it is “practically turning a blind eye on Israel’s war crimes” and violation human rights and international humanitarian laws.

He further criticized EU for not making any tangible efforts to stop Israel’s “unquestionable genocide and ethnic cleansing” against the “oppressed Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank.”

Kan’ani also reaffirmed the Islamic Republic’s supports for efforts aimed at finding a solution to the Ukraine military conflict through peaceful means.

Tehran says it reserves the right to retaliate after the European Union imposed new sanctions against Iran in connection with the allegation, he concluded.

The European Union and the US have long accused Iran of supplying drones to Russia for use in Ukraine.

The Council’s sanctions, announced on Monday, imposed restrictive measures against the Shahed drone-maker Shakad Sanat Asmari, its CEO, deputy CEO and chief scientist.

The other companies hit were the Baharestan Kish Company, Saad Sazeh Faraz Sharif, the Sarmad Electronic Sepahan Company and the Kimia Part Sivan Company.

The US has also imposed similar sanctions on a number of entities and individuals based in Iran and other countries, accusing them of supporting Tehran’s drone development.

Iran has repeatedly rejected the West’s claim, saying it has not sold any weapons to Russia for the the war against Ukraine, and asked the West to offer evidence for the allegation.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

FOI Request Reveals Bellingcat Collusion With Western Intelligence

By Kit Klarenberg | Strategic Culture Foundation | December 12, 2023

An email sent on November 12 2020 by an officer within Amsterdam’s National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism (NCTV) shows a Bellingcat investigation was intentionally shared with the agency prior to publication, so as to assist the Dutch spooks in shaping media strategies and messaging following its release. The revealing communication is irrefutable proof of the cozy relationship the self-styled “independent investigative collective of researchers, investigators and citizen journalists” enjoys with Western intelligence services.

In the message, marked “high importance,” the undisclosed author explained that Bellingcat would soon publish research amounting to a deeply libelous attack on independent journalists and researchers, who challenged the mainstream narrative surrounding Malaysia Airlines Flight 17. As such, the Dutch intelligence officer wrote, “it is probably smart to put together interdepartmental wording for this already”:

“Because the article highlights several sides (MH17 but also COVID19) it is probably wise to wait a while and see if; a. the mainstream media pick it up; b. from which angle the media pick up and highlight it (MH17 or COVID); c. from this angle to determine the wording and therefore which department is in the lead; d. coordinate the language as much as possible interdepartmentally.”

A ‘bonanza’ of Western intel propaganda

The article in question, entitled “The GRU’s MH17 Disinformation Operations Part 1: The Bonanza Media Project,” was framed as an investigation into a now-defunct independent media venture named Bonanza Media which was established by Russian journalist Yana Yerlashova with the help of freelance Dutch researcher Max Van der Werff.

Much of Bonanza’s work challenged Western assertions that separatist fighters in Donbass shot down MH17 with a Buk surface-to-air missile system provided to them by the Russian military. Ukrainian officials began pushing that narrative, citing audio recordings they claimed to have intercepted alongside material purportedly found on social media implicating the separatists, even before Malaysia Airlines publicly announced it had lost contact with the plane.

Bellingcat, which serendipitously launched just days before the downing of MH17, came to prominence by immediately seizing on this deluge of carefully-curated and potentially falsified information. With amazing speed, the organization claimed to have precisely mapped out what happened that fateful day, and exactly how it occurred. Despite its relative inexperience and opaque organizational structure, its findings were accepted without a shred of scrutiny by Western journalists, lawmakers, pundits, and the official Dutch MH17 tribunal, which concluded in November 2022.

Bonanza Media’s film, “MH17 – Call for Justice”, features interviews with witnesses on-the-ground that day and Malaysian government officials who did not accept the official story, but doesn’t rule out the possibility of Russian culpability altogether. However, the documentary presented a substantial challenge to Bellingcat’s version of events – which also happened to align neatly with the official narrative. In 2020, Bonanza also published leaked documents confidentially submitted to the tribunal. This included Dutch intelligence files recording that while many Ukrainian Buk systems had been spotted in eastern Ukraine, Russian equivalents were nowhere to be seen.

Evidently, Bellingcat and its founder, Eliot Higgins, were displeased with their results. As Dutch freelance journalist Eric van de Beek wrote in 2020, “because it was impossible for Bellingcat to discredit Van der Werff on the basis of the well-researched content featured on his blog and in his recent documentary, Eliot Higgins opted to wage a campaign of misinformation.”

Bellingcat’s 2020 investigation into the group strongly insinuated Bonanza was being run by Russia’s GRU, heavily implied their investigations were edited by the agency’s operatives before publication, and suggested its contributors were on the Kremlin’s payroll. The group claimed their conclusions were “based on emails from the mailboxes of two senior GRU officers obtained by a Russian hacktivist group and independently authenticated by us.”

Strict British libel laws may have prevented the group from making direct allegations to this effect, but the Dutch media had no such qualms, and the investigation triggered a wave of smears in major local publications. One daily newspaper headlined as fact: “Dutch MH17-blogger directed by Russian secret service.” Another, which directly asserted that “Van der Werff worked on the orders of the Russian military intelligence service GRU,” is currently being sued by the researcher regarding the unproven claim.

Strikingly, throughout this period not a single mainstream journalist questioned how Bellingcat acquired the highly sensitive trove of documents upon which its investigation depended. On top of confidential GRU emails, Bellingcat somehow apparently acquired phone data showing calls between purported Russian intelligence officials and cell tower data tracking their movements, which it claimed pinpointed their locations to GRU headquarters in Moscow. None of this information is remotely “open source,” and since it wasn’t shared publicly, it can’t be independently verified.

Oddly, in one passage, Bellingcat stated “it is not clear who requested or suggested” changes to a Bonanza article it alleged were made after the piece was submitted to the GRU, before publication. One might think ascertaining this would be simple, given the vast amount of highly incriminating evidence to which Bellingcat had exclusive access. Perhaps British libel laws were a deterrent to accusing the GRU — but why would this be the case if the material was authentic, and defending it in court was no issue?

MH17 verdict undermines Bellingcat

The newly-released NCTV email strongly suggests Bellingcat’s investigation into Bonanza was the product of a Western intelligence information operation, intended to steer the MH17 tribunal in a very specific direction — namely, towards the defendants’ guilt. Sure enough, Russian nationals Igor Girkin and Sergey Dubinskiy, and Donbas separatist Leonid Kharchenko, were convicted in absentia for the murder of MH17’s 283 passengers and 15 crew members, the court ruling they arranged the transfer of the Buk surface-to-air missile system that reportedly struck the plane.

Meanwhile, the only defendant to seek legal representation and give testimony during the trial, Oleg Pulatov, was acquitted on all charges. The court found there was “no indication” he was involved in obtaining the missile system, that he could have prevented its use, or that he was involved in transporting it to another location after the incident. Prosecutors announced they will not appeal the verdict.

The response by the normally brash Higgins to the Dutch court’s judgment was uncharacteristically muted. In an otherwise self-congratulatory Twitter thread, he merely noted that “Pulatov is acquitted, the rest are found guilty.” There was no explanation for why the defendant was found innocent, nor any analysis of the ruling’s potential implications for Bellingcat’s MH17 investigations.

Higgins and his crack squad of laptop jockeys were understandably embarrassed on these counts. Not least because the Bellingcat chief repeatedly mocked Pulatov and his lawyers during the tribunal, suggesting his conviction was a fait accompli, and sneering when the defendant testified accusations of responsibility for MH17 resulted in adverse personal consequences for him. A June 2020 Bellingcat investigation lambasted Pulatov’s testimony, suggesting his defense strategy was “unlikely to win Mr. Pulatov the court’s sympathies.”

A sordid history of smears

Bellingcat’s confirmed collusion with NCTV raises obvious questions about whether the organization’s relentless attacks on journalists and researchers who do not toe the official national security line are also directly coordinated with, and on behalf of, Western intelligence agencies. In many cases, Bellingcat’s attacks have had real-world consequences for its targets.

For example, Bellingcat has over many years attempted to destroy the career of MIT emeritus professor Theodore Postol, who questioned official investigations into alleged chemical strikes in Syria. In 2019, Bellingcat pressured a science journal to prevent Postol from publishing an academic paper challenging the results of a UN probe into the alleged 2017 Khan Sheikhoun sarin attack which blamed the Syrian government on the basis of supposed “computational forensic analysis.”

Throughout the Syrian conflict, Bellingcat published investigations blaming government forces for chemical weapons attacks, typically within hours of them allegedly happening. These findings were invariably based in part on material provided to the organization by British intelligence constructs on-the-ground, such as the bogus humanitarian group known as the White Helmets. In the immediate aftermath of the notorious April 2018 Douma incident, which OPCW whistleblowers suggest was staged, Higgins tweeted an exclusive photo of one of the cylinders purportedly used in the strike.

The post was abruptly deleted though, perhaps because the White Helmets subsequently shared a photo of the same site in which the same cylinder was in a different position. Proof positive the scene had been manipulated by those staging it. Dissident British academics who have helped expose Douma and other chemical weapons strikes in Syria as opposition-executed false flags – in which British intelligence was frequently complicit – have likewise been relentlessly targeted by Bellingcat.

Elsewhere, Bellingcat fabricated and misrepresented evidence to smear independent Bulgarian journalist Dilyana Gaytandzhieva as a potential GRU asset. Meanwhile, the organization has played a lead role in disseminating and “verifying” dubious, if not outright fraudulent, material and claims related to the Ukraine conflict throughout its duration. Investigations by The Grayzone strongly suggest Bellingcat operatives were directly implicated in a Ukrainian intelligence operation gone wrong, which got Kiev’s forces killed.

CIA veterans have openly praised Bellingcat for stating publicly what spy agencies cannot. In a December 2020 Foreign Policy article entitled, “Bellingcat Can Say What U.S. Intelligence Can’t,” the CIA’s former deputy chief of operations for Europe and Eurasia was quoted as saying:

“I don’t want to be too dramatic, but we love this. Whenever we had to talk to our liaison partners… instead of trying to have things cleared or worry about classification issues, you could just reference their work.”

Accordingly, leaked files exposing the internal workings of Integrity Initiative, a British intelligence black propaganda operation tasked with ginning up conflict with Russia to pad the UK’s defense budget, were rife with references to Bellingcat. As an internal document which describes one of the group’s goals as “increasing the impact of effective organisations currently analysing Russian activities” notes, “we already do this [emphasis added] with… Bellingcat.”

As a result of such excerpts, this journalist repeatedly asked Higgins about the nature of his and his organization’s relationship with the Integrity Initiative. Though initially evasive, in March 2020 Higgins finally denied any association in an email that concluded with an ominous threat:

“The funny thing is your shitty reporting on the matter had [sic] proven quite useful to us, looking forward to you finding out how, try not to feel too bad.”

Almost four years later, this journalist is still waiting to learn what Higgins and his collaborators in Western spy agencies have cooked up to make me “feel bad.” Given the confirmed interest of British intelligence in sabotaging this outlet, and the crazed allegations put to me by the counter-terror police who detained me in London this May, he may have already made good on his threat.

December 12, 2023 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

What Sort of “Caring” Do Zionist Medical Faculty at U of T Teach?

By Yves Engler | Dissident Voice | December 11, 2023

An exaggerated sense of self-importance and entitlement, hubris, chutzpah, racism while claiming victimhood and massively flawed thinking are the descriptors that come to mind when considering the 555 doctors at the U of T who signed an Open Statement to the University of Toronto Faculty of Medicine (TFOM) from Jewish Physician Faculty.

The statement is an endorsement of Israel’s genocidal war against Palestinians in Gaza, which has been “catastrophic”, according to the WHO, for its healthcare system and killed 200 medical workers.

The opening declaration is: “We affirm the right of TFOM faculty to be openly Zionist and to support the right of Israel to exist and defend itself as a Jewish state and for those faculty to be free of public ostracism, recrimination, exclusion, and discrimination in the TFOM.”

In plain language, the doctors want to promote Israel’s slaughter in Gaza and not be challenged by (disproportionately) racialized and younger students and colleagues.

The statement effectively brands all criticism of Israel as antisemitic. It declares “that accusations against Israel as ‘apartheid’, ‘colonialist’, or ‘white supremacist’ or committing genocide are mendacious and aim to promote the argument that Israel should be dismantled as a Jewish state, making such accusations themselves antisemitic.” Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Al Haq, B’tselem and the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestinians have all labeled Israel an apartheid state. Many Zionist pioneers described their aims as “colonial” and hundreds of experts in the field believe Israel is currently committing genocide in Gaza.

While framing themselves as victims, the letter threatens colleagues. “We believe that academic freedom is not absolute. In particular, leaders in academic medicine with power over learners and faculty, who in some cases are the sole leader responsible for thousands of learners and faculty, should not be issuing statements which collide with equity, diversity and inclusion for Jews or which make Jews feel unsafe and unwelcome in the TFOM and which are unrelated or unessential to their core academic role, research, and publishing of results.”

But it’s the many openly racist signatories who have authority over students, as Ghada Sasa’s followers showed on X. The new medical collective Combat Online Harassment concluded, “1 in 5 signatories to the University of Toronto medical school’s proud Zionist letter with active Twitter accounts have posted racist, hateful, or harmful materials!”

This includes Sandy Buchman justifying massacres against Palestinians since Gaza is a “sociopathic society full of murderers”. Another Zionist letter signatory Gideon Hirschfield liked a tweet threatening all Palestinians in Gaza with “immediate and complete destruction” and Dr. Leslie Shulman called for deporting darker skinned teenagers who protested against genocide in Toronto. “Expel. Them. Now. Reason… failure to show evidence of being human.”

Combat Online Harassment, a group of North American healthcare workers, says it was formed in response to “increasing amounts of racist anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and Islamophobic behavior from our colleagues. Simultaneously, we’ve observed an unsettling trend where physicians expressing pro-Palestinian views find themselves unjustly targeted with baseless accusations of antisemitism, resulting in detrimental consequences for their careers. Our work aims to highlight the double standard in the policing of voices; clearly racist and hateful views (ones we post), if coming from Zionists, face little to no repercussions.”

Jewish Zionist doctors have succeeded in punishing anti-genocide voices for making them “feel” uncomfortable. The most high-profile and egregious case is University of Ottawa doctor Yoni Freedhoff who targeted resident Yipeng Ge, leading to his suspension. Over 95,000 people have signed a petition calling for Ge to be reinstated. Toronto Star columnist Shree Paradkar noted, “Several Ontario doctors tell me they are being hauled up for supporting Palestinian rights including for signing a ‘don’t bomb hospitals’ petition. Higher-ups have told them there were complaints and accused them of making Jewish colleagues feel unsafe.”

The Zionist letter highlights the power dynamic in medicine and TFOM. A year ago I wrote about a big Israel lobby and media brouhaha over a ‘report’ on purported antisemitism at TFOM. It concluded: “As Black and Indigenous — and to a lesser extent Latin American, South Asian and Arab — communities struggle for positions within the elite institution, many Jewish and politically Zionist faculty members complain that expressing solidarity with Palestinians discriminates against them. Their pressure led to the appointment of a Special Adviser on Anti-Semitism who published a spurious ‘report’, which outside groups amplified and the dominant media covered widely. This reflects power, not oppression.”

When 555 Jewish doctors openly support Israel’s killing of 17,000 Palestinians this confirms that analysis.

And it makes one wonder what sort of education the ‘caring professions’ at U of T are receiving.

December 11, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , | Leave a comment

US Ruling Class Fears Trump Would Withdraw from NATO

Sputnik – 11.12.2023

The New York Times – generally considered a mouthpiece for US militarism and ruling class interests – published an article Saturday agonizing over the possibility that former President Trump would withdraw from NATO in a second term.

The report, although rife with opinion and speculation, was published as a news item in the Saturday edition of the controversial newspaper.

“For 74 years, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been America’s most important military alliance,” read the article. The authors went on to suggest there is “enormous uncertainty and anxiety” throughout Europe and among “American supporters of the country’s traditional foreign-policy role” (which has resulted in the death of at least 4.5 million since 2001).

“There is great fear in Europe that a second Trump presidency would result in an actual pullout of the United States from NATO,” said James G. Stavridis, a former NATO supreme allied commander. “That would be an enormous strategic and historic failure on the part of our nation.”

Despite NATO’s ostensible existence as an “alliance” between the United States and European countries Stavridis, like every other NATO supreme commander, is American.

Benjamin Norton, the founder and editor-in-chief of Geopolitical Economy Report, has derisively labeled the alliance as the “Nazi Arming and Training Organization” for their support of Nazi elements. Historically, the alliance elevated former German Nazis to key positions of power throughout the Cold War and supported terrorism, assassinations, psychological warfare, and false flag operations through a covert effort known as Operation Gladio.

The strategy was duplicated in Latin America where the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) utilized and provided safe haven for former Nazis like Klaus Barbie.

Despite ostensibly existing as an anticommunist alliance, NATO remained hostile to Russia after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and continued expanding east in violation of the agreement with the country during the final days of the Cold War. Recently the US government-backed Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe laid bare the country’s intention to balkanize Russia in a conference advocating for “decolonization” even as the United States continues to support the “colonization” of the Gaza Strip.

Recently the consequences of US hegemony in Europe have been made clear as Germany endures a deep economic crisis brought about by the country’s participation in US-led sanctions on Russia.

December 11, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | Leave a comment

Doha Summit: US Risks Alienating Muslim World by Vetoing Gaza Ceasefire Resolutions

By Ekaterina Blinova – Sputnik – 10.12.2023

A DC think tank has pointed out that Washington could lose influence in the Arab and Muslim world by killing off the UN ceasefire resolutions.

The US was the only country that vetoed a UN Security Council Gaza ceasefire resolution on Friday. The 15-member gathering voted 13-1 in favor of the initiative – with the United Kingdom abstaining.

Israel’s military operation in the strip has already claimed the lives of more than 17,700 people with 70% of them estimated to be women and children, per Gaza’s Ministry of Health.

Judging from the opening remarks at the 21st Doha Forum in Qatar on Sunday, the Arab world is deeply frustrated by Washington’s veto, DC think tank The Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft pointed out.

In particular, Foreign Minister of Qatar Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani said that Washington’s move to kill the resolution exposed the “great gap between East and West… and double standards in the international community.”

He placed emphasis on the necessity to create a new multipolar world order that “respects justice and equality between the people where no people are more powerful than the other.” The Qatari leadership vowed to continue exerting pressure on Tel Aviv and Hamas to implement a new truce despite “narrowing” chances.

Palestine Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh argued that the US gave the “greenest of green lights” to Israel’s brutal methods of waging war in Gaza. Per him, Washington should be held responsible for Israel’s attacks and the loss of Palestinian lives.

For his part, Jordan’s Foreign Minister Ayman Safadi accused Tel Aviv of implementing a policy of expelling Palestinians out of Gaza by military actions.

Addressing the forum, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres stated that the humanitarian system is currently under threat: “We are facing a severe risk of collapse of the humanitarian system. The situation is fast deteriorating into a catastrophe with potentially irreversible implications for Palestinians as a whole and for peace and security in the region.”

“Last week, I delivered a letter to the President of the UN Security Council invoking Article 99 of the Charter of the UN for the first time since I became Secretary General in 2017,” said Guterres. “I wrote that there is no effective protection of civilians in Gaza. As a matter of fact, during my mandate, the number of civilian casualties in Gaza in such a short period is totally unprecedented.”

Article 99 of the UN Charter states: “The Secretary-General may bring to the attention of the Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten the maintenance of international peace and security.”

Meanwhile, DC think tank The Quincy Institute of Responsible Statecraft highlighted that humanitarian advocates repeatedly called the situation in Gaza “unprecedented”, adding that UN agencies are continuing to lose people in the war zone. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has lost 134 relief workers in Gaza since Tel Aviv’s military operation began.

The Quincy scholars also warn about the growing anti-American sentiment in the Arab world, as Washington is seen as the major obstacle on the way to peace in Gaza due to its repeated vetoes of ceasefire resolutions in the UN.

Khaled Saffuri, executive director of the National Interest Foundation in Washington, told the think tank that he was “struck by the backlash against American brands” during his travels in Kuwait and Qatar over the last week. Per him, Arab customers and restaurants are boycotting Coke, Pepsi, McDonald’s, and Starbucks. Saffuri called Washington’s latest veto in the UNSC “horrible.” “America is losing a lot in the Muslim world,” he told the think tank.

December 10, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite, Solidarity and Activism | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Why Is the Liberal Media Inciting Genocide?

By Kevin Barrett | December 9, 2023

In case you hadn’t noticed, the liberal media, and the liberal Establishment behind it, hates “right-wing extremists.” Since 2016, when Trump was elected on a control-the-borders platform, “right-wing extremism” has replaced “Islamic terrorism” as the new bogeyman. Don’t like mandatory vaccines and COVID lockdowns? You’re a “right-wing extremist” and deserve to be censored. Don’t like censorship? You’re defending “right-wing extremists” so you must be one yourself. Don’t like the war on Russia? You must be a “right-wing extremist” like Putin, who is the new Hitler because he doesn’t like LGBTQ indoctrination and mandatory sex change surgery for toddlers.

In the past, being antiwar, pro-free-speech, pro-civil-liberties, and pro-alternative-medicine put you on the left side of the spectrum. Now those are all signs of “right-wing extremism.”

What’s so terrible about all this “right-wing extremism”? Ultimately, it’s all about the Nazis. If you are pro-free-speech, you’re giving a platform to Nazis. If you support the COVID dissidents, you must like that one guy with the swastika tattoo at the rally where RFK Jr. spoke. And if you don’t support the war on Russia, and refuse to click your heels and sig heil for Zelensky, it must be because you are a follower of the new Hitler, Vladimir Putin.

The logic goes something like this: Right-wing extremists are Nazis. Nazis, as we all know, commit genocide. Therefore if we allow extremists to support border control, oppose war on Russia, speak their minds without censorship, and practice alternative medicine instead of masking and jabbing, one thing will lead to another and pretty soon they’ll be committing genocide.

You might say it’s the new domino theory.

What makes the whole thing even crazier is that there are really only two places on Earth where “right-wing extremist Nazis” are committing genocide: Israel under fuhrer Netanyahu, and Ukraine under fuhrer Zelenksy. But the liberal media, despite its ostensible hatred of right-wing extremist Nazis, supports both genocides! Zelinsky’s effort to murder and expel the Russian-speaking people of Eastern Ukraine, and obliterate the culture of any who remain, is a textbook case of genocide, and a direct descendant of Hitler’s lebensraum project with its planned murder and expulsion of millions of Slavs. And Netanyahu’s even bloodier attempt to murder and expel the Palestinians is orders of magnitude worse—probably worse than anything Hitler ever did.

Both Zelensky’s Ukraine and Netanyahu’s Israel are fanatical right-wing ultra-nationalist regimes, built on exaltation of a “master race” (Ukrainians/Jews in one case, and just plain Jews in the other) and the genocidal demonization of the untermenschen (Russian-speaking Christians in Ukraine, Palestinians in Palestine). These two regimes are the apotheosis of everything pro-tolerance, anti-racist, pro-multiculturalism liberals profess to hate. And yet the liberal Establishment loves them, and even runs nonstop pro-genocide propaganda on their behalf. Whatever can those liberals be thinking?

The Cosmopolitan Empire

When we peel back the veneer of increasingly threadbare liberalism, we find that the so-called liberal Establishment isn’t very liberal at all. Its real roots are in Trotskyism and illuminism, not classical Enlightenment liberalism, and its end-game is totalitarian global dictatorship. That, at least, is the argument of Peter Myers’ new book The Cosmopolitan Empire.

The way Myers tells it, since the Enlightenment exploded into the French Revolution, non-conservative forces have basically been divided into two camps. The first camp, the reformists, includes classical liberals, democratic socialists, moderate libertarians, and others seeking gradual, peaceful change. The second camp consists of nihilists, meaning those who seek a clean break with the current order via creative destruction so they can build a global dictatorship on the ruins. Myers traces this group from the Illuminati of Adam Weishaupt through Marxian communism and finally to the neo-Trotskyism that he sees as the real animating force behind today’s pseudo-liberal Establishment.

To his credit, Myers is not afraid of mentioning the elephant in the room: the Jewish connection to the nihilist camp. If Jews have traditionally scorned the goyim societies that hosted them, and occasionally sought to undermine those societies, it seems natural that some would participate in, or even lead, modern movements that sought to destroy traditional societies in service to a utopian vision not unlike the one that has long inspired the many flavors of Jewish messianic millenarianism. That utopian vision posits a Messiah who conquers the world and subjugates the goyim to the Jews, making the world a paradise for Jews, each of whom will own 2800 goyim slaves.

Ostensibly secular nihilist radicals, from Weishaupt to Lenin and Trotsky to H.G. Wells and George Soros, have led disproportionately secular-Jewish movements to destroy traditional religions and cultures in order to create a world state, meaning a technocratic global dictatorship ruled by a privileged elite. This one-world project, not classical liberalism, appears to be the driving force behind today’s Establishment. And that is why the “liberal” establishment supports genocidal uber-nationalists in Ukraine and Occupied Palestine. The Ukrainian Nazis (financed by Jewish oligarchs) have been weaponized against the rebirth of Russia, with its patriotism and Orthodox religion and family values; while the Zio-Nazis have been weaponized against traditional Islamicate civilization.

The faux-liberal Establishment propagandizes for such genocides and bloodbaths not because its highest value is individual freedom and dignity, as classical liberalism would have it, but because its liberal bromides are just a smokescreen for a totalitarian world domination project. In other words, it isn’t the “freedom” of two-year-olds to have their genders re-assigned that motivates them. Instead, the faux-liberals are waging war on the traditional family, the basis of organic traditional social life, because it stands in the way of their totalitarian world state. Likewise they hate Putin not because he disapproves of rainbow flags, but because he is rallying Russia to stand as a sovereign Christian-Muslim nation against impending global dictatorship.

Myers’ schema helps explain why so many atheist Jews have “transitioned” from Trotskyite to neoconservative. Max Shpak wrote:

Perhaps even more significant a factor in the origins of neoconservatism was the emergence of an independent Israeli state. While many Jewish Marxists eagerly supported the Zionist state, the more intellectually consistent Left opposed Zionism on the grounds that all nationalisms, including Jewish ones, are enemies of global proletarian revolution. Thus, Jewish leftists who once advocated internationalism for gentile nations were forced to come to terms with the implications of this ideology for their own nationalist sentiments. Thus, they needed an ideology which would let them have their cake (opposing gentile nationalism) and eat it too (by supporting Israel), and they found just such a worldview with neoconservatism.

The neocons have inherited Trotsky’s project of destroying the nations, and the religions and families on which they are based, in hopes that utopia will emerge from the rubble. By posing as liberals — as in Kagan’s veiled call for Trump’s assassination on the pretext that Trump threatens liberal democracy — the neocons have succeeded in remaking what passes for liberalism in their own image.

No wonder today’s “liberalism” is totalitarian and genocidal.

December 9, 2023 Posted by | Book Review, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Everything you hate about climate change virtue signaling in the most absurd story you’ll read this year

The NYT somehow casts Massachusetts couple who spent $7 million building an oceanfront (second) home as environmental activists

By Alex Berenson | Unreported Truths | December 1, 2023

Twenty-six times a year, The New York Times shows its commitment to the environment by offering readers “Living Small.”

No, Living Small isn’t about the joys and trials of being height-challenged. It’s “a biweekly column exploring what it takes to lead a simpler, more sustainable or more compact life.”

Seems the Times defines “sustainable” somewhat broadly, though.

Thus today’s Living Small:

Their Cape Cod Home Isn’t Small, but Its Carbon Footprint Is

When I saw that headline, I paused to pull on my Tyvek suit before clicking through. I knew the unintentional irony and hypocrisy were about to get thick. But I had no idea how thick.

In 2019, Michael and Jennifer Monteiro dropped $2.6 million on an oceanfront vacation house in Harwich, Massachusetts. Good for them! Michael was just about to sell Buildium, a cutely named software company he had cofounded, for $580 million.

The Monteiros didn’t just want a oceanfront second home, though.

They wanted a oceanfront second home they could feel good about. A oceanfront second home that would tell the world (and themselves) they weren’t merely rich people who owned an oceanfront second home, but thoughtful wealthy people who brought an ethos of sustainability wherever they went, even to their oceanfront second home.

The kind of people who say We’re so lucky. We’re just so lucky, and almost mean it.

So the Monteiros spent the next three years working to make their oceanfront second home more energy efficient.

Turns out this was quite the project.

First, they had to demolish it!

Because tearing down a house that’s less than 40 years old is far more environmentally friendly than renovating it. Don’t worry, though, the Monteiros brought in a “material reuse organization to salvage everything worth keeping, and recycled as much of the rest as possible.” (Not including the foundation, they needed a new foundation.)

Then they had to build a new house. And not just any house, “a modern, sustainable house disguised as a traditional shingled cottage.”

Disguised indeed. For the Monteiros wanted their new, eco-friendly house to be 6,000-square feet, a mere three times the size of the average American home.

This wasn’t going to be one those 7,000-square foot McMansion monstrosities, people! It would be 6,000, and not a square foot more.

And it was gonna look like a shingled cottage, because that’s classy, even though classy is a word that rich people in blue states never use, never never never, because classy is not actually a classy word. Hey, I don’t make the rules.

And this new house needed hemp insulation, because Mr. Monteiro doesn’t like regular insulation. Alas, Americans don’t usually use hemp insulation. (Red-state savages!)

But the Monteiros found a solution:

They couldn’t find an American installer with the necessary expertise and equipment. Their solution was to assemble a team of French, Canadian and American specialists and import the spray rig from France.

Yes, this family was so committed to saving carbon, it insisted on bringing its own specialized equipment and contractors from thousands of miles away instead of hiring local workers! The Times doesn’t say, but I presume the equipment was flown across the Atlantic on a carbon-free magic carpet.

A mere two years later, the Monteiros had their dream 6,000-foot disguised cottage.

And how much did all this efficiency cost?

The Times – and the Monteiros – are too modest (too classy!) to give us an exact figure. But they do drop a hint: the project cost about $1,200 a square foot.

So, let’s see, $1,200/square foot * 6,000 square feet = $7.2 million, give or take.

Not counting the furnishings. Because the Monteiros had to buy a bunch of new stuff for their new house! I guess the “material reuse organization” didn’t find much “worth keeping” from the old house.

Never fear, though, they used “renewable, natural materials — cotton, linen, wool, hemp — ” yep, more hemp — and “worked with local manufacturers and craftspeople to produce many of the furnishings, including rugs and sculptural furniture.”

Sculptural furniture?

So it was sculpture? Or it was furniture?

Let’s just hope the “local manufacturers” rode this gravy train for all it was worth.

Astonishingly, no one at the Times appears to have been in on the joke.

The article contains not even a hint of the fact that with the possible exception of flying private, nothing is more environmentally ruinous than building a second house. It ends on a high note, as Monteiro shares his heroic dream of leading the masses to hemp-filled homes:

“I don’t expect everybody’s going to want to build with hemp,” he said. “But I hope it causes people to think more about the choices that go into building a house.”

Let’s all hope so.

Because the only thing better than gazing at the ocean from the deck of your brand-new $7 million disguised cottage is –

Gazing at the ocean with the satisfaction that comes from knowing that you made all the right choices in building it.

Actually there is one thing even better than luxuriating in your own virtue: letting the world see it, too.

December 3, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , | 1 Comment

North Korea Says Space Program Is a Sovereign Right, Vows to Defend Satellite

By Kyle Anzalone | The Libertarian Institute | December 3, 2023

The North Korean Defense Ministry said the nation would go to war if its satellite was attacked. Pyongyang placed a surveillance satellite into orbit last month, declaring that having a space program is a sovereign right. The North Korean government refuses to negotiate over the existence of its space program.

A statement from the Defense Ministry released on Saturday asserted, “Any attack on space [assets] of the DPRK will be deemed a declaration of war against it.” North Korean state media, KCNA, added, “The US Space Force’s deplorable hostility toward the DPRK’s reconnaissance satellite can never be overlooked as it is just a challenge to the sovereignty of the DPRK, and more exactly, a declaration of war against it.”

“Article 8 of the Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies, stipulates that any object launched into outer space definitely falls under the jurisdiction of the launcher state and the ownership of it never changes no matter it remains in outer space or returned to the earth.” The KCNA Article continued, “This means that the reconnaissance satellite “Malligyong-1” is a part of the territory of the DPRK where its sovereignty is exercised.”

After Pyongyang successfully launched the satellite, Seoul retaliated by announcing it would resume surveillance flights along the DMZ, a violation of a 2018 demilitarization pact between North and South Korea. Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un responded by completely withdrawing from the agreement. Pyongyang has started to rebuild outposts along the DMZ that were destroyed during a recent period of warming relations.

Washington responded to Pyongtang’s success by blasting North Korea at the UN Security Council. The US Ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, called the satellite launch a “reckless, unlawful” action threatening its neighbors.

Kim Yo Jong, the sister of Supreme Leader Kim, issued a sharp rebuke to Thomas-Greenfield. “I deplore the fact that the UNSC, at which the purpose and principle of the UN Charter have to be strictly respected, is being turned into a land of lawlessness where the sovereignty of independent states is wantonly violated, extreme double standards are imprudently applied and injustice and high-handed practices are rampant due to the US and some forces following it, and strongly denounce and reject it,” she said according to KCNA.

“The whole course of the open meeting of the UNSC over the DPRK’s reconnaissance satellite launch, convened at the gangster-like demand of the US and its followers, clearly proves how weak, false, and absurd are the unreasonable arguments of some UN member states denying the DPRK’s sovereign rights,” Kim protested.

During her speech to the UNSC, Thomas Greenfield also said Washington was open to talks with Pyongyang. “I took heed to the trivial explanation of Thomas Greenfield who described the US as a “victim” of the present situation while illustrating their stand for “meaningful dialogue” and efforts for “peaceful solution,” out of the lack of justifiable ground for branding the irrefragable DPRK’s right to space development as “illegal.” She continued, “The sovereignty of an independent state can never be an agenda item for negotiations, and therefore, the DPRK will never sit face-to-face with the US for that purpose.”

December 3, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite | , | Leave a comment

Those Who Cry “Far Right” Have No Comprehension of What Just Happened in Dublin

BY DAVID THUNDER | THE FREEDOM BLOG | November 24, 2023

You might think that a government faced with a barbaric public stabbing of schoolchildren and an unprecedented night of rioting in its capital city would extend condolences to the victims, take a deep breath, and try to figure out how a city managed to spiral out of control on its watch. But instead, Thursday’s riots in Dublin were met by a shallow, one-dimensional analysis by all of the key authorities involved: to blame the “far right.”

For example, Garda Commissioner Drew Harris blamed the violence on the streets on a “hooligan faction driven by far right ideology.” Taoiseach Leo Varadkar pledged at a news conference to “modernise our laws against incitement to hatred and hatred in general.” And Minister for Justice Helen McEntee said that a “thuggish and manipulative element” was using the earlier incident to “wreak havoc”.

The Irish government would have us believe that the most destructive riot in Dublin in living memory was not a symptom of failed governance, but the result of an ideological fringe group going on a looting spree. That is a suspiciously convenient narrative for the powers that be, for it absolves them of all responsibility for losing control of the city. By fingering a Far Right fringe, public officials can wash their hands of any role they themselves may have played in bringing the city to the brink of anarchy.

But blaming these riots on the “far right” only serves as an excuse for not engaging in serious reflection about the deeper causes of this incendiary atmosphere, and the ensuing events. These events did not come out of nowhere and cannot be simplistically reduced to the work of a fringe “far right” mob. “Far right” talk is an excuse for not thinking hard about what led up to this and how public authorities lost control of Dublin’s city centre.

Of course, any sane and sensible person would recognise that going on a looting spree and setting fire to trams and buses is an absolutely destructive, anti-social and counterproductive way to react to a horrible crime. And given that there is documentary evidence that some of the rioters used explicitly anti-immigrant rhetoric, yes, there was undeniably an element of “Far Right” sentiment at work in these riots, if, by that, we mean indiscriminate hatred and anger directed toward immigrants in general.

Nonetheless, to suggest that Thursday’s chaotic scenes can be blamed exclusively on the “Far Right” would be profoundly disingenuous. To begin with, many of the “hooligans” that joined the riots seemed at least as interested in looting shops and finding an excuse to set something on fire as in joining a political movement. Secondly, even if there were important xenophobic elements among the rioters, this does not explain how a city can be so fragile as to succumb to chaos and looting in a few hours.

The attempt to scapegoat the “Far Right” for the breakdown in public order that we saw on Thursday conveniently ignores the fact that successive Irish governments have allowed criminals to wander the streets of Dublin with relative ease. Budding criminals know they will face lenient sentences, partly because there is simply no room in Irish jails to hold them for long, leading to a “revolving door” scenario in our prisons, as pointed out five months ago by the Irish Prison Services.

People feel less safe in Dublin city than ever before, and there is a widespread belief that criminals in Dublin can act with impunity, or else will not suffer a prison sentence proportionate to their crimes. The government most certainly must answer for failing to address this problem over the years. This failure most certainly cannot be blamed on “far right” ideology.

Thirdly, while there is no excuse for attacking police officers or setting vehicles alight, the Irish government has undoubtedly paved the way for these riots by refusing to listen to its citizens for years. Ireland’s political establishment has consistently been dismissive toward reasonable concerns about its immigration and refugee policies, reducing them to the rantings of a “Far Right” fringe. This has created an atmosphere of pent-up resentment and frustration, and it was only a matter of time before this frustration erupted onto the streets.

Many aspects of Ireland’s immigration policies strike people as profoundly unfair and destructive, including allowing very large numbers of asylum-seekers to avail of free or cheap housing on the taxpayer’s dime while Irish citizens are frozen out of the housing market; and flooding local communities with large numbers of refugees with no prior consultation whatsoever. In response to complaints, the Irish government has just doubled down, and given us more of the same “open door” immigration policies.

So when a city is taken over by thugs for a night, we should be less worried about whether there were “far right” elements among them, and more worried about why they felt they could openly engage in this level of brazen violence and destruction and get away with it; and how the atmosphere in Dublin become so tense and angry that a single stabbing incident, however unspeakable, could spark riots on a level we have not seen in generations.

December 2, 2023 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Comparing Coverage: Dublin riots vs Black Lives Matter

By Gavin O’Reilly | OffGuardian | November 30, 2023

Last Thursday afternoon, news would spread throughout Ireland of a horrific knife attack on three young schoolchildren and their teacher outside a Gaelscoil (Irish-language school) in Dublin city centre. At the time of writing, the youngest of the victims, a five year old girl, remains gravely ill in hospital.

With it soon emerging that the suspect was an immigrant who had previously been served a deportation order in 2003, tensions that had been building across the country over the past year in response to the immigration policy of Leinster House, which has seen large amounts of male migrants placed into wildly unsuitable locations such as an inner city office block and a children’s school, would come to a head. Calls for a protest in Dublin later that night would rapidly spread throughout social media.

Such protests have become a mainstay across Ireland over the past year, with the government of WEF ‘Young Global Leader’ Leo Varadkar labelling protesters as ‘’far-right’’ and carrying out surveillance of organisers in response, a strategy that has served only to exacerbate tensions even further.

Last year in Canada, under the rule of fellow WEF ‘Young Global Leader’ Justin Trudeau, a similar response would take place to the Freedom Convoy, a protest movement launched by Canadian truckers following the decision to mandate jab passports for drivers returning from the US, the largest land-border in the world and a key component of the Canadian economy.

Just as open borders policies serve the interests of the global elites that the WEF represents, via the undermining of national sovereignty and the devaluing of labour, jab passports served their interests by acting as conditioning for the introduction of an eventual mandatory digital ID, which in line with the Great Reset initiative would allow the government-corporate alliance to have an unprecedented level of control over its citizens’ finances in a cashless society.

The fraught tensions that had spurred on Thursday’s planned protest however, would seemingly attract an opportunistic element, one that had engaged in looting and the burning of vehicles in Dublin on the night.

Unsavoury scenes, though it cannot be understated that, in terms of magnitude, they are a universe apart from the stabbing of children.

The establishment media however, did not hold the same view; with the unrest that swept Dublin dominating newspaper headlines alongside accusations that it had been “organised by the far-right”, the brutal attack on the children and their teacher being consigned to a mere afterthought.

Security Minister for the southern Irish state, Helen McEntee announced that legislation would be fast tracked to introduce Facial Recognition Technology – another key component of the Great Reset – in response to the riots, and it was announced that MMA star Conor McGregor was being investigated for ‘’inciting hate’’ over a post on X that he had sent the night BEFORE the stabbings.

A lockstep response of condemnation, though one that lies in stark contrast to the response towards the riots that swept the United States following the death of George Floyd in May 2020, for which a minutes silence was held in the southern Irish Parliament, something that has so far not occurred for the victims of last Thursday’s mass-stabbing.

To understand why, one must look at the wider political context at the time of George Floyd’s death.

Four days prior to the footage of Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin kneeling on Floyd’s neck going viral, Joe Biden, the then-Democrat candidate for that years US Presidential election, infamously declared that whoever voted for the incumbent Donald Trump over him ‘’Ain’t black’’ in an attempt to garner support amongst the black community of the United States for his Presidential campaign. A PR disaster, and one that confirmed he was in need of the black vote in order to guarantee an electoral victory.

Thus, the death of George Floyd was weaponised to guarantee such a result, with violent riots sweeping the United States in the aftermath. In contrast to the one night of looting and arson that took place in Dublin however, the mainstream media would provide cover for the months-long unrest in the US, with corporate outlet CNN notoriously describing it as ‘’fiery but mostly peaceful’’ at one stage.

Key to this was the involvement of George Soros, a significant donor to both the Democrat Party and the Black Lives Matter organisation via his Open Society Foundations, a globalist support-network that has sponsored colour revolutions from as far afield as Ukraine and China.

It is also why last week’s night of unrest in Dublin, carried out amidst a wider political context of opposition to globalist policies in Ireland, came in for far more media condemnation than the months of BLM-led riots that took place in the United States in 2020.

Gavin O’Reilly is an Irish Republican activist from Dublin, Ireland, with a strong interest in the effects of British and US Imperialism; he was a writer for the American Herald Tribune from January 2018 up until their seizure by the FBI in 2021, with his work also appearing on The Duran, Al-Masdar, MintPress News, Global Research and SouthFront. He can be reached through Twitter and Facebook and supported on Patreon.

December 1, 2023 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite | , , | 1 Comment

NATO Chief Puts Hypocrisy on Full Display

By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | November 29, 2023

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg put NATO’s hypocrisy on display while talking to reporters ahead of the meeting of NATO foreign ministers in Brussels on November 28.

Asked by a reporter about American and European struggles to continue providing Ukraine with weapons and ammunition, Stoltenberg replied, “It’s our obligation to ensure that we provide Ukraine with the weapons they need. Because it will be a tragedy for Ukrainians if President Putin wins.”

The tragedy for Ukrainians has already happened. Their infrastructure and economy are destroyed, their population is dispersed, their relatives are dead or injured and their land is lost. The greater tragedy to come is not the war ending, but the war continuing. In the first weeks of the war, Ukrainians could have kept almost all of their land and lost almost none of their lives for a promise not to join NATO. The political West ordered them to walk away from the negotiating table and onto the battlefield. They promised them—directly or indirectly—as much military and financial support as it takes for as long as it takes. Nearly two years later, Ukraine will likely have to make the same promise, but they have lost that land and they have lost those lives.

Russia brought tragedy to Ukraine; the United States, United Kingdom, and their NATO allies bloated and magnified that tragedy. The tragedy now would not be ending the war even if it means “Putin wins.” The tragedy now is that NATO is willing to continue feeding a war that they know Ukraine can’t win. “When Ukraine launched its big counteroffensive this spring,” The Wall Street Journal reported, “Western military officials knew Kyiv didn’t have all the training or weapons—from shells to warplanes—that it needed to dislodge Russian forces.” Ukrainian Commander-in-Chief Valery Zaluzhny has said that the war has reached a “stalemate” that over time can only favor Russia.

The tragedy for Ukrainians would not be negotiating an end to the war, it would be NATO exercising the “obligation” to continue the war.

Stoltenberg gave a second reason for continuing to provide Ukraine with the weapons they need; so that Ukrainians can go on dying for NATO goals and NATO security. If the war ends now, “it will be dangerous for us,” Stoltenberg said. The United States “will continue to provide support” to Ukraine “because it is in the security interest of the United States to do so.” NATO must “stay the course” because “[t]his is about also about our security interests.”

Stoltenberg knows this war is not being fought because Russia wanted to conquer other territory; Stoltenberg knows this war is being fought because Russia wanted to defend its territory. This war did not happen because Russia was a threat to NATO territory, it happened because NATO was a threat to Russian territory. How do we know that Stoltenberg knows this? Because he said so.

Putin “sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement,” Stoltenberg said on September 7, 2023. “That… was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine.” He then said that when “we didn’t sign that… he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders.”

“President Putin,” Stoltenberg concluded, “invaded a European country to prevent more NATO.”

Stoltenberg has publicly stated his awareness that this war was fought, not over American or NATO security concerns, but over Russian security concerns.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin also recently said that the United States must go on supporting Ukraine or Russia would win and steamroll on over the Baltic countries, Poland, and beyond. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov mocked Austin, saying, “This comes from a man who holds a high-ranking position and cannot but receive expert views… and who cannot but understand what is going on in Ukraine and that Russia has never had and can never have any aggressive or expansionist plans.”

Ukraine’s chief negotiator in the Belarus and Istanbul talks with Russia has also recently said that stopping NATO from expanding to Ukraine and Russia’s borders was the “key point” for Russia and that “[e]verything else was simply rhetoric and political ‘seasoning.’”

Stoltenberg says that if Russia is allowed to win “the message to all authoritarian leaders—not only in Moscow, but also in Beijing—is that when they violate international law, when they invade another country when they use force, they get what they want. So this is about the whole idea of a rules-based international order, where territorial borders are respected.”

Stoltenberg transitions from “international law” to “rules-based order” because his case cannot be made without hypocrisy on the former. International law applies equally to everybody. But the United States or NATO have frequently invaded other countries by force and disrespected their territorial borders: Panama, Grenada, Libya, Kosovo, Iraq and Syria. Before Ukraine, modern Russia had not. But the rules-based order, unlike international law, allows Stoltenberg to make the case that Russia has violated the rules but the U.S. and NATO have not because the rules are made up as you go along so that the United States is always within them and Russia is always without. Under the unwritten rules-based order, rules are applied when they benefit the U.S. while the U.S. is exempt when they don’t.

American and NATO support for Ukraine may be about U.S. insistence on enforcing the rules-based system, but the United States is not an enforcer of international law.

Stoltenberg’s third reason for continuing to press the war in Ukraine is read right off the U.S. script; “… we need to continue to support them also knowing that the stronger Ukraine is on the battlefield, the stronger the handle will be on the negotiating table.” That point has passed. Ukraine is in a weaker position on the battlefield than they were before the counteroffensive. Russia is winning the war of land, the war of attrition on weapons, the war of attrition on lives, and the technological war. Ukraine had a better seat at the negotiating table in the first weeks after the invasion when the political West ordered them to stop negotiating. They were in a better position a year ago when they recaptured areas of Kherson before the counteroffensive. Far from strengthening Ukraine’s position on the battlefield or at the negotiating table, supporting the continuation of the war seems to be putting Ukraine in a weaker and weaker position. The terms that will be offered Ukraine today are likely much worse than the terms they were offered at the start of the war. And they will likely be worse tomorrow.

Stoltenberg says that “if you want a negotiated, peaceful solution, which ensures that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation, then the best way to get there is to continue to provide military support to Ukraine.” But it is not war that will guarantee Ukraine sovereignty. As Lavrov recently pointed out, Russia recognized the sovereignty of Ukraine based on a declaration of independence and a constitution that declared Ukraine’s neutrality and non-membership in NATO, and Russia will continue to when those conditions are reinstated. The best way to ensure Ukraine’s territorial integrity and sovereignty is not to help it fight for the right to be in NATO but to encourage it to promise not to join NATO.

Finally, Stoltenberg put NATO’s hypocrisy on display not only by what he said, but by what he did not say. If the words that Stoltenberg said were meant to rally Western ears, the words he did not say will be the loudest in Ukrainian ears. Though Ukraine is fighting, in part, for the right to be in NATO, that is the one thing that Stoltenberg, hypocritically, did not offer Ukraine. The “Allies have stated again and again the last time at the NATO Summit with all the leaders present in Vilnius” that they will “provide support to Ukraine,” that they “will step up” their support for Ukraine, that they will “help them… to modernize their army” and that they will “ensure full interoperability between the Ukrainian forces and the NATO forces.” The one thing Stoltenberg did not say that NATO has offered Ukraine is membership in NATO.

Ukraine should fight to defend NATO’s insistence on the right of a country to choose its own alliances and to join NATO without being offered membership in NATO. That is the final hypocrisy put on full display in Stoltenberg’s comments to reporters.

November 30, 2023 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

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