US democracy in crisis as election looms
By Uriel Araujo | February 19, 2024
American doctor Marty Makary, a John Hopkins University surgeon and professor, has claimed Joe Biden is undergoing “cognitive decline right in front of our eyes”, during an interview with conservative TV channel Fox News. Dr. Makary is not the only one to have noticed – as he says: “it’s not really a medical diagnosis as much as it is obvious to even a lawyer who essentially made the diagnosis in this report of age-related dementia… It’s very obvious how he’s performing today versus, say, five years ago, and it’s sad, really.”
More importantly, Makary is not the only voice saying that out loud, the said lawyer being attorney Robert Hur, who, on February 5, published a report on Biden’s controversial case (while he was Barack Obama’s vice president) of illegal storage and disclosure of US classified documents pertaining to American military and foreign policy in Afghanistan and other national security issues – the documents were recovered by FBI agents from Biden’s home in Delaware and private offices of his. Hur oversaw the 2023/2024 investigation into this alleged mishandling of classified documents, and, in his aforementioned report, he famously justified his decision to not recommend prosecution of Biden thusly: “We have also considered that, at trial, Mr. Biden would likely present himself to a jury, as he did during our interview of him, as a sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory… It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him – by then a former president well into his eighties – of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”
According to the same document, the US president could not remember when exactly his one son died. Ronny Jackson, Biden’s former personal physician, has also stated the president should pass a battery of cognitive health exams before running in the next presidential election.
In what appeared to be a collective case of “pluralistic ignorance”, also known in social psychology as collective illusion, for a while, everyone could in fact notice that the emperor is senile, while mistakenly believing that (almost) no one else did – even though this has been the subject of memes and tweets for years in face of Biden’s lapses and often incoherent speech visible in widely shared clips. Such was the case until now, when the topic is making national headlines almost everyday.
According to a NBC poll, 76% of US voters now have concerns about Biden being physically and mentally fit for the presidency. Less than half of voters had similar concerns about Trump’s mental and physical health, which, in any case, is still a quite large number. Unlike the incumbent president, Trump does not display obvious signs of senility but the man is 77 years old nonetheless (Biden being 81 years old). Again, it is quite remarkable that the political system of a “thriving” democratic superpower, in both the Republican and Democrat parties, simply cannot find viable alternatives to such over-aged politicians. The Democrats have to go with Biden, no matter how senile he is or how much his family is tangled up in Ukrainian controversies and, likewise, Trump remains the Republican favorite, even with all the coup attempt accusations and the several legal problems he currently faces. His recent arrests (on March 2023 in New York and on August 24 in Georgia) are, in any case, largely seen as politically motivated. All of that certainly undermines the credibility of the US institutions. Things will likely get worse, as the election looms.
US journalist Lee Fang writes that, by persisting on the ballot, Biden has in fact “effectively preempted the possibility of a credible Democratic challenger mounting a traditional bid for the nomination.” Moreover, should he abruptly exit the race for whatever reason within the next eight months, Fang speculates, then, voters arguably will have no direct say in his replacement because, in this scenario, Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials, “including lobbyists for companies like Google and UnitedHealth,” could “ultimately determine the party’s nominee.” Far from being a “solution” to a possible crisis, such a scenario could bring about further complications. This happened in 1968, when convention delegates (not voters) selected the Democratic presidential nominee, who was then-vice president Hubert Humphrey. The convention faced protests and riots while Humphrey won the nomination “without running as a candidate in a single primary.”
The overall US political crisis is also a crisis of its federalism: there is no unified national legislation on election procedures, there being different rules for each state. This brought chaos and uncertainty in the aftermath of the 2000 elections, when several Representatives filed objections to the Florida electoral votes. At the time, George W. Bush, like Donald Trump in 2016 (and like 3 other US presidents before them) won the election even though he actually lost the popular vote, due to the complexities of the US Electoral College.
As I wrote, Biden’s own inauguration, in January 2020, was not free from concerns about a major political crisis or even a coup, taking place, with Washington DC on high alert in the aftermath of the January 6 pro-Trump riot at the Capitol. Back then, there was a large nationwide political “conspiracy” to prevent Trump from being re-elected, as a 2021 Time magazine article detailed, with “shadow campaigners” getting states “to change voting systems and laws”, and recruiting “millions of people to vote by mail for the first time” (actually “half the electors”, in a “revolution in how people vote”). It is no wonder, then, that by June 2023 a third of US Americans had doubts about the 2020 election result itself.
The 2020 US presidential election was a peculiar one – and one should not expect the 2024 to be any different. Considering the unprecedented ongoing Texas border crisis, yet another instance of the federalist “contract” being questioned, with calls for secession on the rise, this year’s elections should in fact be even more “interesting” than the previous ones. Washington views itself as the champion of democracy worldwide. Domestically, however, things are not going smoothly.
Hungary snubs US senators – ambassador
RT | February 19, 2024
Senior Hungarian officials have refused to meet four US senators who arrived in Budapest on Sunday, Washington’s envoy to the country has said. The American lawmakers are attempting to press Prime Minister Viktor Orban into speeding up approval of Sweden’s accession to NATO.
The delegation sought to meet a range of senior government officials and representatives from the ruling Fidesz party, US Ambassador David Pressman stated. The Hungarians declined, however, despite the group being “the most senior US bipartisan congressional delegation” to visit the country in recent years, the diplomat added.
The senators intend to submit a joint resolution to the US Congress that would condemn Hungary for alleged democratic backsliding, the Associated Press reported. Thom Tillis, one of the visiting lawmakers, urged Orban to speed up Sweden’s accession, claiming at a news conference that doing so would be “a great service to freedom-loving nations worldwide.”
Chris Murphy, another delegate, called the boycott “strange and concerning” and identified Orban as standing in the way of the ratification. Hungary is the only NATO country yet to approve Sweden’s membership of the US-led military bloc.
“We are wise enough about politics here to know that if Prime Minister Orban wants this to happen, then the parliament can move forward,” Murphy said.
Orban addressed the issue of NATO expansion during a rally on Saturday, saying Budapest and Stockholm were on a path to “rebuild trust.” A vote could happen during the parliamentary spring session, he suggested.
The prime minister previously cited Swedish criticism of his government and Hungary’s democratic credentials as the main reasons for skepticism among lawmakers in Budapest. NATO approved Sweden’s bid to join in June 2022.
The anti-Hungarian US resolution will criticize Orban for maintaining good relations with Russia and China, according to AP. Budapest has “resisted and diluted” the EU sanctions imposed on Moscow, the text reportedly states.
Orban is a vocal critic of the Western approach to the Ukraine crisis. He has argued that the arming of Kiev and the restrictions on Russia have failed to end the bloodshed and have caused major economic harm to the EU. He has also resisted Ukraine’s push to join NATO and the EU.
Hungarian Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto said it was “not worth trying to exert pressure on us, because we are a sovereign country,” as he expressed general approval of the American visit on Friday.
Washington, Pro-Democracy? Depends on the Country
By Ted Snider | The Libertarian Institute | February 19, 2024
Pakistan just held an election; Venezuela is about to. Both incumbent governments have banned the leading opposition figure from competing. The United States sanctioned one and was silent on the other. What was the difference? Not international law or responsible leadership, both of which require a consistent application of laws and a consistent response. The important difference was that the United States supported the incumbent coup government in one case and opposed the incumbent coup survivor in the other.
On January 30, the United States reversed the small and rare diplomatic progress it had made with Venezuela by revoking the sanction relief on gold mining and by promising to revoke the sanction relief on Venezuela’s oil and gas sector at the first opportunity. The State Department cited “Actions by Nicolas Maduro and his representatives in Venezuela, including the arrest of members of the democratic opposition and the barring of candidates from competing in this year’s presidential election” as the reason.
Of central concern to the United States was its choice of an opposition leader to run against Nicolás Maduro, Maria Corina Machado, who recently appeared before a roundtable organized by the U.S. House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs subcommittee. On January 26, Venezuela’s highest court upheld the decision to bar Machado from running for president in the upcoming election.
But Machado was banned for reasons that might be considered reasonable in some democracies. She has a long history of being involved in coups against the democratically elected government of Venezuela. During the failed 2002 coup against Hugo Chavez, Machado was a signatory to the Carmona Decree, which suspended democracy, revoked the constitution, and installed a coup president.
As if participation in a coup is not enough to be barred from running for president, Machado was stripped of her position in the National Assembly in 2014 for acting, according to Miguel Tinker Salas, Professor of Latin American History at Pomona College and one of the world’s leading experts on Venezuelan history and politics, as “a delegate of the Panamanian government” who “sought to testify before the Organization of American States.” She sought to testify against her own country.
That same year, Miguel Tinker Salas says, “hoping to precipitate a crisis,” Machado helped organize La Salida, The Exit, to push President Maduro out of power. She “sought to mobilize forces and take to the streets.”
The next year, in 2015, Venezuelan officials produced evidence in support of their claim of a U.S.-backed coup attempt. According to the officials, the day before the planned coup, Machado joined two other opposition leaders in signing a National Transition Agreement. They say weapons were found in the office of the opposition party.
Machado has endorsed economic sanctions on Venezuela and foreign military intervention to remove the government of Venezuela.
Despite this record, the United States reimposed sanctions for barring Machado. The European Parliament went even further, denying that the Venezuelan court has legal grounds and insisting that Machado “remains eligible to run for the elections.” It says “Unless María Corina Machado is allowed to participate in the elections… elections and election results will not be recognised.” The European Parliament then urged EU member states “to tighten existing sanctions” and to add new sanctions on judges of Venezuela’s Supreme Court.
In Pakistan, the story is very different. Former Prime Minister Imran Khan has been jailed and banned from running in the presidential election. His party, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), has been demolished by the Pakistani military, who arrested its senior members.
But the American response to the barring—and even jailing—of, perhaps, the most popular candidate has been very different from their reaction to the barring of Machado in Venezuela. The State Department says that the arrest of Khan “is an internal matter for Pakistan” and that, “The United States is prepared to work with the next Pakistani government, regardless of political party…”
The difference may reflect American position on coups in these countries. Whereas, the United States has supported multiple failed coup attempts to remove the current government in Venezuela and, so, opposes that government; it supported what seems to have been the coup that replaced Khan with the current government.
In April 2022, Khan was removed from office in a non-confidence vote. Khan has claimed that the non-confidence vote was a U.S.-backed coup in democratic disguise. He may not be wrong. A leaked Pakistani cable reveals a meeting between Asad Majeed Khan, then-Pakistani ambassador to the United States, and two State Department officials, one of whom was Donald Lu, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs
Lu begins the meeting by expressing that the United States and Europe “are quite concerned about why Pakistan is taking such an aggressively neutral position” on the war in Ukraine. He pins responsibility for Pakistan’s neutral defiance of the U.S. on Khan, saying, “it seems quite clear that this is the Prime Minister’s policy.” Lu informs the Pakistani ambassador that the trigger for the American concern was “the Prime Minister’s visit to Moscow.” On the day Russia launched its invasion of Ukraine, Khan was in Moscow, meeting with Putin. He defied the United States by refusing to cancel the meeting.
Lu then advises Pakistan’s ambassador, “I think if the no-confidence vote against the Prime Minister succeeds, all will be forgiven in Washington because the Russia visit is being looked at as a decision by the Prime Minister. Otherwise, I think it will be tough going ahead… [H]onestly I think isolation of the Prime Minister will become very strong from Europe and the United States.”
As the polls closed in the Pakistani election, and the media began reporting stunning victories by independent candidates associated with Khan’s PTI party, the Election commission of Pakistan suddenly paused the announcement of results in remaining constituencies. By the time announcements restarted, PTI candidates who had been leading had suddenly lost.
The candidates associated with the PTI were running as independents because they were neither allowed to campaign under the PTI name nor even be identified by the PTI symbol on ballots, challenging voters’ ability to even identify PTI candidates. TV stations were banned from airing Khan’s speeches. Cell phone and internet services were cut, creating logistical confusion for voters. Voter suppression was widespread.
Despite all the obstacles, PTI candidates forced to run as independents won 102 seats. The second place party, the Pakistan Muslim League Nawaz Party of former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, came in second with 73 seats. Despite winning the most seats, Khan’s party did not win a majority in the 265 seat National Assembly and will have trouble forming the government.
The U.S. State Department assessed that the election featured “undue restrictions on freedoms of expression… electoral violence… attacks on media workers, and access to the internet and telecommunications services, and… allegations of interference in the electoral process.” Despite that assessment, it declared that it “is prepared to work with the next Pakistani government, regardless of political party.”
Yet again following a foreign policy guided by a rules-based order that only applies the law when it benefits the United States and its allies, instead of a foreign policy guided by international law that applies the same universal standard impartially, the U.S. has confirmed the worst suspicions of a global majority that is losing faith in American leadership. The U.S. sanctions Venezuela for banning a candidate from competing in elections but is willing to work with Pakistan who has done the same. “As consistency starts to be questioned,” S. Jaishankar, India’s Minister of External Affairs has said, “many more nations will start to do their own thinking and planning.”
What are the facts and reasons for Biden’s unconditional support for Israel

By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 17.02.2024
Joe Biden’s emotional embrace with Benjamin Netanyahu on 18 October on the tarmac of Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv was seen around the world and is still being commented on by the world media. The embrace, which took place 11 days after the shameful failure of Israel and its “famous” Mossad intelligence agency on October 7 in the south, gave the Israelis carte blanche to do whatever they wanted against not only the militant organisation Hamas, but also against peaceful Palestinians in the besieged Gaza Strip.
On that trip, Biden demonstrated his “ironclad” commitment to Israel, despite the crimes the Israeli army was committing in Gaza, cutting off access to food, water, medicine and other necessities for a population of 2.3 million and destroying homes, hospitals, universities, schools, churches, mosques, etc. And yet, the “Democrat-in-Chief” told Netanyahu, “I come to Israel with a single message: you are not alone. You are not alone.”
The unequivocal support for Israel, which has the most extremist government in power since its creation in 1948, has especially intensified since Biden and his pro-Israel administration took office. Not only has the U.S. begun supplying arms to Israel, but it has also gone against the will of the world at the United Nations, which has demanded an immediate ceasefire and the delivery of humanitarian aid to the besieged territory. On 3 November, the US House of Representatives also passed a Republican-drafted plan to provide $14.5 billion in military aid to Israel. The Pentagon also sent two aircraft carriers to the region as a sign of support for Israel.
Biden’s strong support for the right-wing party in Israel has even embarrassed some figures in his administration. On 19 October, Josh Paul, director of the State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, said he was resigning because of the White House’s “intellectually bankrupt” decision to increase military aid to Israel. He said the Biden administration is “repeating the same mistakes Washington has made for decades”.
Paul also said the administration’s “blind support for one side” led to policy decisions that were “shortsighted, destructive, unfair and contrary to the very values we publicly espouse”. In an interview with the New York Times, Paul also said that continuing to give Israel “carte blanche to destroy a ‘generation of enemies’ only to create a new one is ultimately not in the interest of the United States.”
It has come to the point where Biden openly states that he is a Zionist and is proud of it, “I don’t believe you have to be a Jew to be a Zionist, and I am a Zionist,” Reuters quoted Biden as telling an Israeli military cabinet. Politicians and generals gathered in a hotel ballroom in Tel Aviv nodded approvingly, according to a U.S. official with knowledge of the remarks behind closed doors.
This explains the unconditional US support for the Israeli state, its huge funding and the dispatch of the most modern weapons, which are now actively used by the IDF to destroy Palestinian civilians, the constant shelling of Lebanon’s borders, and the unpunished bombing of Syrian territory. Such remarks are made at a time when Israel’s 75-year history is associated with the theft of Palestinian land, the displacement of indigenous Palestinians, the destruction of their homes, the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees inside and outside Palestine, the building of homes on stolen land, the killing of children, the destruction of olive trees, the burning of agricultural land, the imprisonment of those who oppose the occupation, etc.
In his 26 October speech, Biden said: “I will say it 5,000 times in my career: The United States’ ironclad commitment to Israel is based on our principles, our ideas, our values.” The values of Israel stand for making a mockery of international law and qualify any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism. Of course, it’s no secret that the United States doesn’t care about international law when it comes to Israel’s crimes and illegal actions, and whenever it seems that its commitment to international law doesn’t match its desires, just like what it did regarding the 2015 Iran nuclear deal (JCPOA).
Biden’s alliance with Israel has dealt a serious blow to the image of the United States. People around the world now view the Biden administration as complicit in the crimes Israel is committing in Gaza. Israel has dropped more than 22,000 U.S.-supplied bombs on Gaza in the first month and a half of the war alone, according to intelligence data provided to Congress and revealed by The Washington Post.
It is quite obvious that Biden considers himself indebted to the Zionist lobby. During his 36 years in the Senate, Biden was the largest recipient of donations from pro-Israel groups in the chamber’s history, receiving $4.2 million, according to the Open Secrets database, Reuters reported on 21 October.
In a speech to the Senate on 5 June 1986, Biden defended annual military aid to Israel, saying: “This is the best three-billion-dollar investment we are making. If there were no Israel, the United States of America would have to invent Israel to ‘protect its interests in the region.’”
A 4 November 2023 report on the US news site Axios states: “While the timing of the new security package remains unclear, the U.S. is by far the largest provider of military aid to Israel, having provided some $130 billion since its founding.”
In addition, as vice president, Biden often mediated the testy relationship between Barack Obama and Netanyahu. Dennis Ross, a Middle East adviser during President Obama’s first term, recalled that Biden intervened to prevent Netanyahu from retaliating against him for a diplomatic outburst during a 2010 visit. According to Ross, Obama wanted to respond harshly to Israel’s announcement of a major expansion of housing for Jews in East Jerusalem. “Whenever the situation in Israel got out of control, Biden was the liaison,” Ross said. “His commitment to Israel was so strong … And that’s the instinct we’re seeing now.”
During a visit to the United States in July 2023, Israeli President Yitzhak Herzog gave a speech to Congress. He called the bond between Israel and the United States “sacred” and said that calling Israel a racist state is anti-Semitism. Describing the alliance between Israel and the US as sacred is ideological and extremely dangerous. Such a term resembles the language used by ideologically motivated terrorist groups who hold their vicious ideas sacred and others as enemies to be purged. Describing ties between Israel and the US as sacred inherently conveys the idea that any Israeli action is right. For example, Israel believes it has an inalienable right to steal Palestinian land, demolish their homes in the West Bank, ethnically cleanse the population in Gaza, and starve all Palestinians to death without facing any consequences because the US as the most powerful country in the world will protect you. It’s as if loyalty to Israel is carved in stone to the point that if any official dares to criticise Israel, they are forced to back down from their position.
Congresswoman Pramila Jayapal, chairwoman of the Congressional Progressives Caucus, who called Israel a “racist state,” came under pressure from both Democrats and Republicans. They called the comments anti-Semitic, forcing her to retract her remarks. The House of Representatives then overwhelmingly passed a resolution declaring that Israel “is not a racist or apartheid state” by a vote of 412 to 9. Aida Touma-Suleiman, a member of the Israeli Knesset, was also suspended after criticising the bombing in Gaza.
Democrats and Republicans are competing to win Zionist support in Israel and the US, regardless of American public opinion. Harsh criticism of senior American officials is tolerated in the US, but it is unacceptable when it comes to Israel. Furthermore, the decades-old repeated statements by Democrats and Republicans that they support a two-state solution in which Palestinians and Israelis live together peacefully are not genuine.
The West’s blind and unconditional support for Israel that its crimes in Gaza are unbelievable, astonishing and shocking, has also infuriated some officials on both sides of the Atlantic. More than 800 officials in the United States, Britain and the European Union published an open letter of dissent against their governments’ support for Israel on Friday. “The current policies of our governments weaken their moral character and undermine their ability to stand up for freedom, justice and human rights around the world,” the letter reads. It adds: “There is a real risk that our governments’ policies are contributing to serious violations of international humanitarian law, war crimes and even ethnic cleansing or genocide.”
Amid such crimes and protests against Israel’s behaviour in Gaza, it seems that Biden, who boasts of a 50-year political career, has lost touch with reality to the extent that his support for war criminals in Israel has brought shame to him and a bad reputation to the United States. Biden turned a blind eye to mass rallies around the world, especially in Western cities, against Israeli crimes in Gaza. No doubt, he has seen protesters carrying placards calling him “Genocide Joe.” Biden should also have read a book written by his colleague, Democratic President Jimmy Carter, entitled Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid.
A month after Russia launched a special military operation against the neo-Nazi regime in Ukraine, the US government was quick to accuse Russia of committing aggression. However, when South Africa submitted an 84-page document to the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of actions in Gaza that are “genocidal in nature because they are intended to destroy a significant portion of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic group,” the Biden administration dismissed the accusation as “baseless.” This is despite the fact that Russia’s behaviour in Ukraine is in no way comparable to what Israel is doing in Gaza.
In a 3 December article, The Washington Post stated: “The United States is making it clear that it will not stand up for international rules and norms if one of its closest allies violates them.”
And that is true. Nevertheless, it will take the United States many years, perhaps even decades, to regain the reputation it lost because of the ironclad commitment and ill-considered policies of Biden and his administration officials towards Israel.
Victor MIKHIN is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Science.
The West’s duplicitous stance and hypocrisy draw condemnation in the world
By Viktor Mikhin – New Eastern Outlook – 15.02.2024
Many politicians around the world strongly condemn not only Israel’s inhumane policy in the Gaza Strip, when peaceful Palestinians are being slaughtered, but also the hypocrisy, duplicity, pharisaism and arrogance of the West. In one case, the current worthless rulers of Europe condemn the defence of their citizens in Donbass by Russia, which is complying with all international rules of engagement. On the other, when Israel started to destroy civilians in the Gaza Strip (which according to international laws is considered a policy of genocide), the West welcomes and applauds, defending its protégé in the Middle East in every possible way.
For example, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan called the West’s position on Gaza, which differs from its position on Ukraine, “the height of hypocrisy.” “What happened in Gaza, has caused the West and the Europeans to lose all their reputation, all their accumulated credits (of trust). They have squandered all their political capital in the eyes of humanity, especially in the eyes of our generations,” Turkish daily Hürriyet quoted Hakan Fidan as saying. According to him, it will not be easy for the West to regain the lost trust. “It will not be easy for them to regain it. Unlike their stance on Ukraine and Russia, their stance on Gaza is the height of hypocrisy. They cannot talk about principles, virtue and morality. They ignore them completely. I see that all this is preparing the ground for a huge geostrategic rupture,” the minister said.
A huge swath of the Global South sees and criticises the double standards that guide the West’s actions in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine, as the New York Times (NYT) reluctantly reported through gritted teeth. The publication notes that for the past 20 months, US authorities have actively criticised Moscow for its special military operation in Ukraine, but now that the IDF has carried out a bloodbath in Gaza, full American support for Israel risks creating new and complex obstacles in Washington’s efforts to win over world public opinion.
The war in the Middle East, the piece says, is driving a wedge between the West and leading nations of the Global South such as Brazil and Indonesia. In addition, the West’s unconscionable double standard in defence of Israelis has been sharply criticised by leaders of the Arab world. The fact that the West treats Ukraine as a special case because it is in Europe, against the backdrop of Middle East escalation, has only increased discontent in Africa, Asia and Latin America. There, the impression is that the West is more concerned about refugees from Ukraine than about those affected by the conflicts in Arab countries. The publication has to admit that the West has failed to convince countries such as India and Turkey to support sanctions against Russia. Given the bloody events in the Gaza Strip, “Western efforts to widen the front against Russia are unlikely to be successful in the near future.”
Earlier, American businessman Vivek Ramaswamy, who was seeking the nomination as the country’s presidential candidate from the Republican Party (he ended his campaign and supported Donald Trump’s candidacy in the presidential election), said that the United States should seek an early settlement of the conflict in Ukraine, which would provide for the transition of Russian-speaking regions into Russia. And he is not alone in the US, where questions are increasingly being asked as to why it is the Americans who should bear the brunt of the financial burden and supply vast quantities of weapons to the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev.
Irish MEP Mick Wallace has rightly stated that the Ukrainian conflict is still going on because of the unwillingness of the United States to end it. He expressed the same opinion with regard to the situation in the Gaza Strip. The world media also noted that the International Criminal Court, at the behest of the United States, has ignored many years of genocide in Palestine, Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan, and therefore the ICC is “unfair in its choice of topics to explore” and has turned into “an unscrupulous legal body of the West.”
Russia’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations Vasily Nebenzya has accused the United States of its position preventing the Security Council from adopting resolutions aimed at stopping the violence in the Gaza Strip, RIA Novosti reported. “It is regrettable that under these circumstances the UN Security Council has so far failed to adopt a single resolution demanding a halt to the violence because of the position of one delegation, the United States, which is blocking all efforts and initiatives to stop the bloodshed,” the diplomat said. He noted that this gave Israel carte blanche to further destroy the Palestinians.
The huge difference in the West’s attitude to the Palestinian-Israeli and Ukrainian conflicts points to hypocritical double standards, one of the goals of which is to interpret international law exactly as it suits the US. In this case, the fate of the Palestinian population is much less interesting to the hardened Western officials in terms of “domestic political points.” How many times have Western delegations requested UN Security Council meetings on Ukraine? The answer is at least twice a month, while how many times the said delegations have requested Security Council meetings on the Middle East issue – zero. Apparently, in this case comments are unnecessary, the conclusion is already on the surface. The West’s double standards “in all their glory” were also observed in the situation with the migration crisis in the EU. While Ukrainian refugees have been given all sorts of benefits, refugees from Africa and the Middle East are being “kept in camps in inhumane conditions.”
The State Department has after all decided to explain the difference in its approaches to the situation in Gaza and Ukraine in the way that yesterday’s hegemon considers, rather than in accordance with the generally accepted laws of international law. Thus, the deputy head of the State Department’s press service, Vedant Patel, responded to a journalist’s question about the difference in the approaches of the US authorities to the situation in the Gaza Strip and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The official said that Washington sees no grounds to accuse Israel of genocide of Palestinians, and “one should be very careful when making such statements.” At the same time, when Patel was asked why US President Joe Biden “very quickly” called the events in Ukraine “genocide” in 2022, the State Department official could not give more specific explanations. He only noted that “such definitions must be made with a careful consideration of the law and the facts”, without specifying which facts he had in mind. He simply did not have a reasonable answer, and in the current circumstances he did not dare to say that this was Washington’s wish and favourable.
Incidentally, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said earlier that international law must be respected in all conflicts. This is a correct observation, but according to the Secretary General’s personal interpretation, the conflicts in the Gaza Strip and Ukraine have differences. And he personally believes that Israel, which destroys peaceful Palestinians, strictly observes international law, while Russia, which fights against the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev only on the battlefields, violates this law. Apparently, in Stoltenberg’s “enlightened” opinion, Russia will respect international law only when it, like Israel, destroys the peaceful population of our brother nation. A strange opinion worthy of a schizophrenic from a psychiatric hospital. On this occasion, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called the statement by the head of European diplomacy, Josep Borrell, about the “senselessness of humanitarian aid supplies to the Gaza Strip” if hostilities continue there an apologetic of transhumanism. She asked her colleague whether he also considered it pointless to provide medical assistance and love “someone who will die tomorrow”. There was, of course, no reply.
The accusations against the Russian side on the subject of “indiscriminate strikes” against Ukrainian cities can best be assessed by comparing “two realities” – the situation in Ukraine and in the Gaza Strip. In this regard, we can recommend that opponents go to the Internet and familiarise themselves with Ukrainian news or watch local TV channels. On Ukrainian websites one can easily find a large number of reports on club and restaurant life in such cities as Kiev, Kharkov, Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk and others. Ukrainian state institutions and other municipal buildings are functioning normally almost everywhere, transport continues to operate, schools and hospitals are open. This situation can be observed almost two years after Russia launched a special operation aimed at protecting the population of Donbas from the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv. All of this shows, as has been repeatedly confirmed by independent observers, that the Russian Armed Forces are conducting exclusively precision strikes against military facilities and infrastructure related to military capabilities. This policy is in sharp contrast to the crimes against humanity committed by the neo-Nazi regime in Kyiv, which is deliberately firing Western-made missiles at civilians in Donbas. And there are numerous facts and evidence to this effect, which at the very least would make for a new Nuremberg process.
The current leaders of the West should look at what their lackey Israel is doing in the Gaza Strip, which for three months now has sought to raze the territory and destroy the Palestinians living there. Not only have hospitals and schools been burned to the ground, but entire towns have been destroyed, and the death toll, including a large number of children, is appalling. And all this is happening before the eyes of the world in the 21st century, to the hooting and applause of the Biden administration and the current rulers of Europe, who have finally lost shame, conscience and simple human compassion. “Comparing these two realities, ask yourself a question: how many times have you condemned the methodical annihilation of peaceful Palestinians?” – noted Russia’s UN representative Nebenzya, when asking Western representatives whether they had ever supported calls for a ceasefire in the Middle East conflict, whether they had condemned Israel’s anti-human crimes. The answer would be only negative. Not only has the West done nothing to stop Israel’s current massacre of Palestinian civilians, it has encouraged them even more by supplying the latest lethal weapons, financially pumping in huge sums of money and defending them on the international stage. Suffice it to say that the US representative at the UN has twice vetoed Security Council resolutions to stop the deadly slaughter in the Gaza Strip, unleashing the Israeli military for even more atrocious crimes, rightly assessed by the International Criminal Court in The Hague.
In the current circumstances, when the former hegemon has lost its power and authority, it has to resort more and more to hypocrisy and double standards to somehow camouflage its bankrupt policy. But no matter how hard the West, led by the U.S., tries, they will no longer be able to fundamentally influence events in the world. And the events in Ukraine, where Russia is successfully conducting a special military operation to protect the Russian population, and the bloody events in the Gaza Strip are the best evidence of this.
Victor MIKHIN is a Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences.
Made-in-India ‘killer’ drones fly in Gaza sky as Israeli genocide rages on: Report
Press TV – February 13, 2024
An Indian conglomerate has dispatched Hermes 900 killer drones to Israel as the UAVS are extensively used in the regime’s indiscriminate bombing campaign in the Gaza strip amid the genocidal war, a report says.
The sale of more of than 20 Hermes 900 medium-altitude, long-endurance (MALE) UAVs delivered by Adani-Elbit Advanced Systems India Ltd to Israel was first reported on February 2 by Neelam Mathews for the defense-related website Shephard Media.
The Wire report said it has not yet been publicly acknowledged by either Tel Aviv or New Delhi.
In 2018, Israel’s Elbit Systems entered into a joint venture with Adani group with a 49% share and opened a $15-million facility in Hyderabad to manufacture UAVs for the first time outside of Israel.
The Wire said when it contacted Israel’s Elbit Systems a spokesperson responded that they could “confirm that Elbit Systems collaborates with Adani, which is a supplier to our UAS [Unmanned Aerial Systems] supply chain.”
Haaretz reported last February that the vice president of UAV systems in the Aerospace Division at Elbit Systems, Vered Haimovich, said the Hermes 900 has been Elbit System’s flagship drone, which has been operationally used by the Israeli Air Force since 2015. It has also taken part “in all rounds of conflict in recent years.”
Indian activists have criticized the Indian government for its double standards against Palestine, as on one hand, New Delhi backs the Palestinian cause while advocating for a free Palestinian state, but on the other, its actions suggest it supported Israel’s actions in Gaza.
After Israel unleashed a war on Gaza on October 7 following Hamas Operation Al-Aqsa Strom into the occupied territories, India initially expressed unconditional solidarity with Israel.
New Delhi had even abstained on a resolution in the UN General Assembly calling for a humanitarian pause in October 2023. However, two months later, it voted in favor of an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
The role of an Indian conglomerate in supplying drones, which are extensively used by the IOF for attacks in densely populated urban areas in Gaza, came as the prime minister Narendra Modi government’s official position is seeking an immediate ceasefire.
Shir Hever, the coordinator responsible for enforcing the military embargo on behalf of the Palestinian BDS National Committee, expressed his disapproval of India’s current alliance with Israel, deeming it disgraceful considering India’s extensive past under colonial domination.
“This moment is a test of the international law system, and instead of siding with Israel’s genocide and its enabling of Western powers, India should take inspiration from South Africa’s global-south leadership and end its complicity with genocide,” Hever told Middle East Eye.
He also said that ever since the International Court of Justice said it’s “plausible” Israel committed genocide in Gaza, two Japanese firms ended their MoUs with Elbit, while, a Dutch high court banned the Netherlands from continuing its export of F-35 parts to Israel, “citing a clear risk of violations of international law.”
In another such instance, on Monday, the European Union foreign policy Chief Josep Borrell called on the US to cut arms supplies to Israel due to high civilian casualties in its war in Gaza.
Adani, a 60-year-old multi billionaire and one of the richest persons in the world, was accused in a report by a US investment research firm, Hindenburg’s Research LLC, of stock manipulation and accounting fraud last year, and is seen by many as someone very close to Modi and his government.
Biden’s Justification For Hitting Iran ‘Would Justify Russian Attacks on NATO’
By Ian DeMartino – Sputnik – 03.02.2024
On Friday, US President Joe Biden fulfilled his promise to strike Iranian targets in Syria and Iraq, further escalating the region even as the White House insists that it does not seek war with Iran.
Michael Maloof, a former senior security policy analyst for the Office of the Secretary of Defense with nearly 30 years of experience, told Sputnik’s Fault Lines that the justification used by the White House could easily be applied by Russia to NATO countries supporting Ukraine.
“You’re hearing from congressmen and senators saying ‘but we need to hit Iran for supplying the Houthis and Hamas and Hezbollah,” Maloof explained. “Well, does Russia then have a right to hit US and NATO allies, as a result of supplying weapons to Ukraine to battle Russians?”
The United States has placed the blame on Iran for the Sunday drone attack that killed three US service members and injured dozens more on the border of Syria and Jordan. While the US admits that it has no evidence Iran helped plan the attack, the Biden administration has been clear it blames Iran because the country allegedly funds those groups and other militants.
“This afternoon, at my direction, U.S. military forces struck targets at facilities in Iraq and Syria that the IRGC and affiliated militia use to attack U.S. forces,” US President Joe Biden said in a statement released Friday by the White House.
“I think that if Biden were to follow through, then that raises a whole new specter of opening up NATO countries to potential attack,” Maloof continued, adding that the US is simply hoping Russian President Vladimir Putin “doesn’t follow through” with that justification.
Maloof argued that the US should reevaluate the situation in the Middle East but it’s difficult because the US looks “at the Middle East through the prism of Israel all the time.”
“We’ve got to somehow figure a way out of it. Instead, we’re digging that hole deeper and even though there might be some attempts to try and persuade [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu to calm down and have a ceasefire and try to resolve things, it’s doing just the opposite.
“The problem is that Biden has left the conduct of the war up to Netanyahu, and Netanyahu knows this and he’s basically dragging us along – we’re captives of Netanyahu,” Maloof explained.
“You don’t have any, there’s no leadership [the US] left it up to Netanyahu. He’s the tail wagging the dog,” he added later.
Maloof further argued that Israel has been getting the United States to do its dirty work for decades. “We always hear Netanyahu wanting the United States involved, or us to bomb the sites… This is the way we’ve been conducting ourselves since… 2003 when we invaded Iraq.”
Asked by Co-host Melik Abdul how the US should have responded to the attack, Maloof argued that the US should leave the region.
“I think we shouldn’t even be in those locations. And I think we should have gotten out some time ago.”
Otherwise, Maloof warns “This thing has unlimited possibilities of escalation very rapidly.”
The ICJ Ruling: Who Will Drain the Swamp of Injustice?
By Christopher Black – New Eastern Outlook – 01.02.2024
On January 26, the International Court of Justice proved once again that it is mired in the putrid fermenting swamp of Western corruption, decay and injustice with its pro-Israeli ruling in the legal case South Africa brought against Israel for committing genocide in its attacks on the people of Gaza.
The Western commentators, everyone, left or right, to cover up the real meaning of the ruling, to justify it, claimed that Israel had been ordered to stop genocide. The Court did nothing of the kind. It simply reminded Israel to obey the laws of war but refused to grant the South African request for an order compelling Israel to stop its operations and to withdraw its forces. The Court did the opposite and allowed Israel to continue its campaign of genocide. Essentially, the Court said, “Your genocide attack can continue, just behave yourselves as you commit genocide.”
The logic is lost on everyone except the deluded talking heads of the West. Russian and Chinese media largely ignored the ruling. And for good reason, because the ICJ and the commentators ignored the important fact that the ICJ, just 22 months before, issued a ruling in the case that Ukraine brought against Russia regarding its military operations in Ukraine. The Kiev regime, with the help of its masters in Washington, filed a case with the ICJ against Russia alleging that Russia was committing genocide. Unlike the Israeli case, Ukraine filed no evidence before the ICJ to back up its false allegations. Russia refused to take part as the ICJ had no jurisdiction since there was no dispute between Russia and Ukraine on the issue, that is, no formal dispute about genocide or no genocide, and further because Russia’s action were purely military in nature, and there was and has been no attack on the civilian population of Ukraine except by the Kiev Nazis attacking the civilians of the Donbass Republics and Russia. Russia told the ICJ it had no jurisdiction and refused to take part in a farce.
But despite the fact there was no jurisdiction for the ICJ to act, and no evidence of genocide or any war crimes were presented to the Court by Ukraine except simple assertions, the ICJ on March 16, 2022 made a provisional order that Russia must stop its military operations and withdraw its forces.
The double standard is stunning. The more so since even in the ICJ ruling on the 26th of January 2023, the judges of the Court cited the compelling evidence presented by South Africa that proved that Israel was and is committing genocide against the Palestinians, Yet, the judges of the ICJ ignored their own references to this evidence and instead accepted the Israeli sophistry that Israel has a right to defend itself and that it was trying to obey the laws of war.
But the law is very clear Israel has no right to self defence under international law against legitimate attacks by resistance forces on its forces engaged in the illegal occupation of Palestinian territories. The Hamas attack of October 7, 2022 was an attack against the Israel occupation forces. Israel has no legal right to retaliate whatsoever. Its only legal recourse in the face of such an attack is to withdraw its forces.
No only did the Court display vividly its hypocrisy and double standards by ruling that Russia must stop its military actions in defence of the Donbass peoples and Russia, while permitting Israel to continue its campaign of slaughter, and by ignoring the law that Israel has no right to self defence, it even purported to make an order, or to “urge” Hamas to release the Israeli hostages it holds, even though Hamas is not a party to the South African-Israeli case and even though the Court refused to order the Israelis to release the thousands of Palestinian hostages it has held for years, including women and children, some of the then born in Israeli prisons.
Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel rightly scoffed at the ICJ ruling, stating the Israeli war will continue and that Israel is already complying with the laws of war. Washington, London, Ottawa and the rest all welcomed the decision and that it upheld Israel’s right to self-defence. Commentators, trying to put a brave face on the ruling to save face for South Africa, wrung their hands and moaned there was no ceasefire order but whimpered at least the Israelis were told to watch their behaviour and that the ruling confirmed Israel was committing genocide.
Well, twist the ruling anyway they want, it does not say that at all, The judges said South Africa had presented evidence that made that claim of genocide plausible, but did not affirm it was taking place. That remains to be determined when the main case is argued some time in the unknown future and unless these commentators can collapse Time and have a future decision now, they are stuck with what they have, a loss for South Africa, a win for Israel and a continuing tragedy for Palestine.
But the lawyers for South Africa have some explaining to do themselves, as they left the door open for this injustice. Their opening remarks in the oral hearings of the case began with a recitation of the Israeli propaganda version of the October 7 Hamas attack. There was no need for them to have done that. They should have instead simply stated the fact that Hamas attacked Israeli forces illegally occupying Palestinian territory in a legitimate resistance attack. They should have stated firmly that Israel has no right of self-defence against such an attack. But they did not state that. In fact, they evaded the issue entirely and when the British lawyer for Israel stated in his opening remarks that Hamas attacked “Israeli sovereign territory, the lawyers should have risen immediately and objected that was a lie. But they did nothing, said nothing.”
And despite the fact the Irish lawyer for South Africa referenced Russia’s military operations in Ukraine and, by the way, in a disparaging manner, never once reminded the Court that just 22 months prior they had ordered Russia to stop its military operations where no evidence was presented of crimes so that the Court now had no choice but to order Israel to stop its military operations in Gaza, It was not mentioned at all. The failure to do so was fatal to their case and as a lawyer, can only be explained by negligence and incompetence, or a deliberate decision was made to not refer to that precedent. And one made so recently.
Why their legal team would decide such a thing I will leave for readers to ponder. But it seems to this writer that South Africa was trying to please two sides at the same time, the global south by filing the action in the first place, which we all commend, and the West, that is Washington, by providing the Court with space to make a decision which would allow Israel to get away with the very thing South Africa brought the case to prevent-genocide.
Once again we observe the injustice of the international legal justice system, the corruption of and within that system, and, once again, that international justice is just a tool of power politics and instead of serving to stop war, does its best to enable it, justify it and encourage it. The fumes from the swamp have become overwhelming. But who is going to drain that swamp before we all die from suffocation from the stench?
Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook”.
Transparency troubles: The Global Disinformation Index faces scrutiny over government ties and biased practices
More controversy surrounding the pro-censorship group
By Christina Maas | Reclaim The Net | January 31, 2024
The Global Disinformation Index (GDI), a US government-funded pro-censorship organization, has come under fire for lacking transparency, ironically the same issue it labels non-mainstream websites for.
Despite hypocritically casting aspersions on sites that reject the mainstream narrative on many issues, the GDI, as per a report by the Washington Examiner, exhibits a conspicuous absence of this very transparency in its operations.
Billing itself as nonpartisan and objective while routinely favoring leftist narratives, the GDI has received over $100k from the State Department’s Global Engagement Center. Part of the score it assigns to online platforms stems from the possibility of controversial interests emerging from shadowy ownership structures—a principle it doesn’t appear to abide by itself.
According to Mike Davis, founder and president of the Internet Accountability Project, the GDI is in breach of the law by keeping its disclosures hidden. The Washington Examiner also mentioned that the GDI is currently under congressional investigation. Adding to the mystery is the GDI’s refusal to disclose its “dynamic exclusion list,” a tool reportedly used by businesses like Microsoft and Oracle to hamstring ad placements on right-leaning outlets, thereby achieving a sort of financial strangulation of these sites.
Despite providing heavily concealed tax information for its two U.S. subsidiaries, Disinformation Index Inc. and the AN Foundation, upon request from the Examiner, details from the GDI’s tax filings on ProPublica reveal a closer relationship between the organization, the US Government, and left-wing donors.
The report discloses that the State Department-funded National Endowment for Democracy and the billionaire George Soros together donated a grand total of $465,750 to the GDI in 2022.
In 2023, Texas along with media outlets The Daily Wire and The Federalist started legal proceedings against the State Department’s Global Engagement Center, alleging governmental attempts to silence the American press through funding the GDI. The action taken was based on GDI’s activities which reportedly included blacklisting conservative media.

