Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

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

Sputnik – 28.12.2023

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ex-Pentagon Analyst: Honest Audit of US’ Ukraine Funding Only Possible Without Team Biden

Sputnik – 28.12.2023

The US government has reportedly been able to trace just $1.5 billion of the $75.4 billion it has approved for Ukraine, as per an RT analysis of a newly declassified US State Department IG report.

RT has obtained and analyzed materials from a declassified report by the inspector general of the US State Department concerning the costs of military support for Ukraine.

As per the report, Kiev has received at least $44 billion from the State Department since the beginning of the Russian special military operation. This was the most significant part of the total flow of American funding into Ukraine which amounted to at least $75.4 billion during 2022 and 2023. For its part, the Pentagon has provided the Ukrainian defense industry with almost $13 billion annually since 2022.

However, the US State Department has so far managed to trace only $1.5 billion – i.e. less than 2% of all monies approved by American lawmakers for Ukraine – explaining that the audit of the remaining funds has been complicated by military conditions. The materials reviewed by RT also blamed the lack of transparency on endemic corruption in Ukraine’s public and private sectors.

“The way the bureaucracies work here is that each department (State, USAID, Pentagon, etc) gets funding, and they dole it out, engage contractors, and associate that money with one of their ‘mission goals’,” retired US Air Force Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski, a former analyst for the US Department of Defense, told Sputnik.

“There are at least three departmental channels, with the USAID paying for government salaries. The various channels by which US dollars are shipped into Ukraine probably contain overlap, especially in terms of Pentagon direct aid and foreign military sales activities, conducted by the State Department. While this creates more room for corruption in Kiev and elsewhere, in effect it simply broadens the field for people in the Ukrainian government and military to re-direct and misdirect those resources.”

Washington has routinely funded the Ukrainian military since 2014. Even though the US-funded 2021 Global Organized Crime Index called Ukraine one of the largest arms trafficking markets in Europe, military funding was considerably stepped up in 2022. Still, Ukraine corruption concerns related to an alleged waste of Western aid were openly articulated only at the end of 2023.

“As the US enters into a presidential campaign year, waste of money and fraud in Ukraine becomes an issue that is able to be leveraged by the Republicans and some Democrats who may be unhappy with Biden’s record of waste in Ukraine over the past several years,” explained Kwiatkowski. “Fraud and waste is always a hot-button voter issue, and it is today in the context of the severe drawdown and lack of supplies and munitions we have experienced in the US military, and NATO as well, since the Ukraine war started.”

Washington began on-site inspections in Ukraine to keep track of the arms it supplied around October 2022, following a series of reports alleging that US weapons were hard to trace in Ukraine and warning about potential arms smuggling. In 2023 several US government teams were dispatched to Ukraine to monitor ongoing US security assistance to Kiev.

In October, a confidential US strategy document obtained by Politico revealed that the Biden administration was far more concerned about Ukraine’s corruption than it publicly admitted. The document proposed a series of reforms to root out malfeasance in the US government and its numerous agencies, arguing that “perceptions of high-level corruption” could “undermine the Ukrainian public’s and foreign leaders’ confidence in the war-time government.”

So, will the latest effort to track US aid in Ukraine work?

“Audits take time, and are effective only when there is some institutional reward for cutting costs and exposing waste,” the former Pentagon analyst said.

“I have seen no reports of significance from past audit teams or these most recent efforts. The effective, more honest, audit will only occur after the Biden administration is displaced, whether at the end of 2024 or some later date, if Biden gains re-election. Until then, having ‘audits’ and audit teams in Ukraine are simply window dressing, designed to make Congress feel better about pouring more badly needed cash into the black hole of the Zelensky regime.”

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

Pentagon hyping of ‘decisive year’ in ‘Indo-Pacific’ exposes military hegemony, Cold War mentality toward China

By Liu Xuanzun | Global Times | December 28, 2023

The US Department of Defense’s hyping of 2023 being a “decisive year” in the “Indo-Pacific region” is filled with Cold War mentality and exposes its aggressiveness toward China, analysts said on Thursday, after the Pentagon on Wednesday released a fact sheet summarizing its work in the region.

“In this decisive decade, 2023 will be remembered as a decisive year for implementing US defense strategy in Asia,” US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin said in a news release by the Pentagon on Wednesday.

Taking the form of a fact sheet, the Pentagon release rounded up some of its “achievements” in the past year with allies and partners to make the US forces’ posture in the “Indo-Pacific region” “more mobile, distributed, resilient, and lethal,” including forward stationing key US military units to Japan, sending more submarines and warplanes to Australia, gaining access to four new military bases in the Philippines, concluding a defense cooperation agreement with Papua New Guinea, and increasing strategic asset rotations such as submarines and bombers to the Korean Peninsula.

The Pentagon outlined its billions of dollars of investments in procurement and development in military capabilities as well as in the Pacific Deterrence Initiative, its support of Japan’s decision to acquire missiles that can strike another country, an AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine and defense industrial base cooperation with Australia as well as bolstering of India’s defense modernization plans.

It also summarized some of its exchanges with countries in the region, including joint exercises with the Philippines, Indonesia, India, Japan, Australia and South Korea.

While the Pentagon did not mention China by name, most of the actions mentioned in the fact sheet target China, observers said.

“If you put the locations named in the list on a map, you can clearly see the US military is forming a strategic encirclement taking advantage of footholds in the form of its allies and partners,” a Chinese military expert who requested anonymity told the Global Times on Thursday.

Many of the so-called achievements are very sensitive and can lead to or have already resulted in serious consequences, the expert said, citing as examples the danger of Japan abandoning its post-war “self-defense only” principle, the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarine plan risking nuclear proliferation, and the US’ support for the Philippines inciting the Southeast Asian country to repeatedly provoke China over Chinese islands and reefs in the South China Sea, causing tensions in the region.

These aggressive moves are reflections of the US’ Cold War-mentality and its pursuit of military hegemony through bloc confrontation, which will only harm peace and stability in the region and the world, the expert said.

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

China Advocates Solving Red Sea Tensions Through Dialogue – Defense Ministry

Sputnik – 28.12.2023

BEIJING – Beijing advocates solving pressing regional problems, including the current tensions in the Red Sea, through dialogue and political consultations, Chinese Defense Ministry spokesman Wu Qian said on Thursday.

Earlier in December, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said Washington would like Beijing to join the US-led multinational operation to secure the Red Sea amid a surge in Houthis’ attacks on cargo ships.

“China has always stood for maintaining the security of international waterways, sought to address both symptoms and root causes, and advocated resolving pressing regional problems through dialogue, consultations and political means,” Wu told a press briefing.

The Red Sea is an important channel of international trade of goods and energy commodities, the spokesman said, adding that it was in the common interests of the international community to ensure security and stability in the region.

In November, Yemen’s Ansar Allah rebel movement, also known as the Houthis, announced its intention to attack any ships associated with Israel, urging other countries to recall their crews from the vessels. The Houthis vowed to continue the attacks until Israel ends its military actions in the Gaza Strip.

On December 19, US Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced the establishment of a multinational operation to secure the Red Sea, saying that the United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, and Spain would take part in the mission, although Madrid has not officially confirmed its participation yet. The Houthis vowed to attack any ships that join the US-led maritime coalition.

December 28, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US sending ‘bloody New Year’s gift to Kiev’ – Moscow

RT | December 28, 2023

The Russian ambassador to the US, Anatoly Antonov, has criticized Washington for its recent arms package to Ukraine, stating that it reflects an intention to fight Russia “to the last Ukrainian.”

The diplomat’s remarks came in response to the $250 million worth of military assistance, including air defense munitions, rockets, artillery shells, and small-arms rounds, approved on Wednesday by the administration of US President Joe Biden.

Antonov called the latest round of military aid a “bloody New Year’s gift to Kiev” in remarks published on social media. The Americans “are pushing the puppet regime to the abyss, dooming thousands of ordinary Ukrainians to certain death,” he warned.

On the other hand, the official emphasized Russia’s recent success in acquiring the town of Maryinka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, a strategic Ukrainian stronghold. According to Antonov, the US tends to ignore such developments and instead focuses on highlighting “Ukrainian fetish ‘victories.’”

The diplomat predicted that any arms provided by NATO nations to Ukraine would be “burned and destroyed” without altering the situation on the ground.

The White House could not appropriate more funding for Ukraine after Republican opposition in Congress blocked its request. The lawmakers have demanded major concessions on immigration reform and southern border security as a precondition for their approval of spending additional billions of taxpayers’ dollars on Ukraine support. US officials have indicated that this latest package would be the last under the current spending allowance.

US President Joe Biden has accused those lawmakers opposed to more Ukraine spending of jeopardizing national security by tying it to domestic policy issues. He suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin might attack a NATO member after dealing with Ukraine.

Putin dismissed this remark as “absolute nonsense,” saying that Biden was using exacerbated rhetoric to cover up his administration’s foreign policy failures. Moscow maintains that preventing NATO expansion into Ukraine is a key objective in the conflict.

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

Hesitation among US allies leaves Operation Prosperity Guardian in dire straits

The Cradle | December 28, 2023

Ten days after US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin announced the formation of an international task force to patrol the Red Sea, about half of the nations named as participants have yet to acknowledge their role, while others have pushed back against Austin’s declaration.

Under the name Operation Prosperity Guardian (OPG), Washington’s “coalition of the willing” was intended to confront attacks by the Yemeni armed forces against Israeli-linked ships attempting to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait.

However, only two US allies have deployed warships to the Yemeni coast to support the coalition: the UK, which sent the navy destroyer HMS Diamond, and Greece, which announced the deployment of a Hellenic navy frigate.

Canada, Norway, and the Netherlands confirmed their participation in OPG but have so far committed only a handful of staff officers. Similarly, the Seychelles ratified their support for the coalition but clarified: “Our participation will not include putting boats or military personnel to patrol in the Red Sea. Our role is to help in providing and receiving information since many things that happen close by can have an implication for us.”

Authorities in Bahrain – the only Gulf nation named as part of the pro-Israel alliance – have not commented on their role in OPG, despite the fact that the US war chief announced the coalition’s creation from the US Fifth Fleet headquarters in Manama. Last week, Bahraini police detained a prominent opposition figure who criticized the government for joining OPG.

Complicating matters further for the Pentagon, the last three NATO members named as part of the alliance – Spain, Italy, and France – have outright refused to hand over command of their ships to the US.

The French defense ministry said last week it supported efforts to “secure freedom of navigation in the Red Sea.” Still, it highlighted that its navy already operated in the region and its ships would stay under French command. Italy took a similar approach, committing the naval frigate Virginio Fasan to patrol the Red Sea but emphasizing that this was part of “existing operations” and not OPG.

Spain has been the most vocal in its rejection of being named part of the anti-Yemen alliance, vetoing a vote at the EU that called for support of the coalition and making it clear that its forces committed to Operation Atalanta – a counter-piracy operation off the Horn of Africa and in the Western Indian Ocean – would not join OPG.

“Spain is not opposed to creating another operation, in this case in the Red Sea. We have communicated to our allies, both in NATO and in the EU, that we consider Operation Atalanta does not have the characteristics nor the nature that is demanded and needed in the Red Sea,” President Pedro Sanchez said on 27 December.

While the Pentagon last week proclaimed “over 20 nations” had joined OPG, reports have shown that more of Washington’s closest partners are balking at the idea of joining war efforts in the Red Sea.

On 21 December, Australia announced it would be sending personnel to join OPG, but no warships or planes. India has also balked at the plan, with a senior military official revealing to Reuters that New Delhi is “unlikely to join” the US alliance.

Nonetheless, earlier this week, the Indian navy deployed several warships to the Arabian Sea in response to an alleged drone attack on an Israeli-linked vessel.

Saudi Arabia has also shown no interest in the venture, as the Gulf kingdom is reportedly more interested in ending its eight-year war in Yemen than in re-starting hostilities.

Yemen’s Red Sea operations in support of Palestinians in Gaza have significantly hurt the Israeli import sector, as the vital Port of Eilat has seen an 85 percent drop in activity. According to Bloomberg, half of the container ships that regularly transit the Red Sea and Suez Canal are avoiding the route now.

However, marine traffic data shows that the transit of non-western tankers through the Red Sea has surged since the Yemeni armed forces began targeting Israeli-linked vessels.

December 28, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Falling falling falling. The stock price of fake meat

Didn’t they say the substance derived from lab-grown blood that gives it a meat flavor was carcinogenic?

BY MERYL NASS | DECEMBER 27, 2023

The Impossible Burger company (Impossible Foods) has not gone public:

As of December 2023, Impossible Foods remains privately owned. Furthermore, while the company has stated that an IPO “will happen,” it seems not to be in a hurry, a state indicated by lukewarm statements and a lack of time references. Since the market curtailed its enthusiasm toward plant-based food alternatives during the second half of 2023, the current financial environment pushes the earliest likely Impossible Foods IPO date to 2024 or even 2025.

Beyond Meat isn’t worth much.

Even when its stock price was high, it never made any money. And now its cost of revenue exceeds its revenue. Better close up shop while it can.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Malthusian Ideology, Phony Scarcity | | Leave a comment

US Efforts to ‘Kill’ Arctic LNG 2 Could Sow Distrust Amidst Allies

By Andrei Dergalin – Sputnik – 27.12.2023

Several prominent companies from France, China and Japan have suspended their participation in Russia’s Arctic LNG 2 project after it was targeted by US sanctions.

US Assistant Secretary of State for Energy Resources Geoffrey Pyatt openly stated earlier this year that the United States’ goal is to “kill” the Arctic LNG 2 project, and that the US is “doing that through our sanctions, working with our partners in the Group of Seven and beyond.”

In response, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said this week that “The situation around Arctic LNG 2 once again confirms the destructive role of Washington for global economic security.”

US sanctions against Arctic LNG 2 may be an attempt by the Biden administration to garner support, argued Thomas W. Pauken II, a geopolitical commentator and consultant on Asia-Pacific affairs. Biden’s approval ratings in the US have been sagging amid the prospects of the American economy heading for a “downturn.”

“If he can get the energy exporters, the producers from the US to somehow support Biden, this could prove helpful. So it’s just politics more than anything else,” Pauken elaborated. “The US is headed in the direction of more trade protectionist measures. And this is just yet another example of that.”

According to Pauken, the Arctic LNG 2’s foreign stakeholders apparently participated in the project under the impression that their involvement would not incur repercussions in the form of US sanctions.

Now that the US imposed such sanctions, this is going to sow “mistrust” between the United States and the parties involved in the project, and this situation is going to “harm the US image.”

“This is a big story, that you have friends of America who are losing out big money in this deal,” Pauken observed.

He also suggested that as Russia realizes that it cannot rely on Europe and Japan for business partnership in light of the US sanctions pressure, it will likely forge closer economic relations with other countries such as India, Mongolia and Central Asian states, not to mention deepening its already close ties with China.

“I think the problem is Washington keeps thinking that they can do these things and sets sanctions and pushes these measures and thinks that everything’s going to have good results from them in the long run. But in reality, it just forces other countries to adapt to these circumstances in order to make new solutions. And Washington is very slow to figure it out,” Pauken mused.

Meanwhile, Nikita Lipunov, an analyst at the Institute for International Studies, pointed out that Arctic LNG 2 foreign stakeholders have so far only suspended their participation in the project and are now mulling the associated risks. US sanctions are expected to come into effect on January 31.

“Foreign participants of Arctic LNG 2 [deem] there will be losses either way: if they give up their share in the venture and future LNG shipments or if they ignore the US’ secondary sanctions and suffer the consequences,” he said.

Lipunov also deemed as “unlikely” the odds of the US destroying the Arctic LNG 2 project, considering Russia’s “vast experience in running large international economic projects while under sanction pressure.”

He noted that, while the French and Japanese participants of the project may end up pulling out of the venture under pressure from the US, there is still a chance that the Chinese companies involved may not follow suit.

“In light of the 12th package of the EU sanctions that, among other things, include a ban on liquefied petroleum gas imports from Russia, Moscow should reorient shipments to the east where the demand is growing, and to seek new markets in other regions. That will take time, but Russian commodities will definitely find their buyers,” Lipunov added.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Economics, Russophobia | , , , | Leave a comment

20 years in the making: Daszak creates the narrative structure to move people off their land

Nathan Wolfe, Jonathan Epstein and others helped out in 2004.

BY MERYL NASS | DECEMBER 27, 2023

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1247383/pdf/ehp0112-001092.pdf

I just pulled out some of the high-sounding claptrap in this article, below, to give you its flavor. You can see how a small cadre of immoral ‘scientists’ funded by an evil cabal can create an “intellectual” infrastructure to justify stealing land in the name of pandemic prevention.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Science and Pseudo-Science, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

‘Take what you want and we’ll sort it out later’: US weapons stash fuels Gaza carnage

The Cradle | December 27, 2023

A stockpile of weapons owned by the US government and hidden inside Israel – known as the War Reserve Stocks for Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) – is back in the limelight, as former US officials believe the White House has dipped into it to restock quickly-depleting munitions dropped inside the Gaza Strip.

“Officially, it’s US equipment for US use,” a former senior Pentagon official told The Guardian. “But on the other hand, in an emergency, who’s to say we’re not going to give them the keys to the warehouses?” he added.

Another senior US official familiar with WRSA-I told the British news outlet that, when it comes to air-to-ground munitions, “we’ll give [Israel] whatever they need.”

Created in the 1980s to supply the US army in case of a regional war, the WRSA-I is the largest node in a global network of US weapons caches.

Although Tel Aviv is not legally allowed to make free use of WRSA-I – the full contents of which are not publicly disclosed – the former defense officials say transfers from the stockpile “differ from regular arms sales between the US and another country,” as the munitions can be withdrawn by the Israeli army “before the processes that account for the transferred equipment are fully completed.”

“We sort of retroactively build a foreign military sales case, which may or may not need to be notified to Congress, depending on what they took and what quantities,” said Josh Paul, a former state department official who resigned in October in protest at Washington’s unbridled support for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.

“There’s no review of human rights, there’s no review of regional balance, there’s none of the conventional arms transfer policy review that would normally happen […] Essentially, it’s take what you can and we’ll sort it out later,” Paul added.

Furthermore, in late October, the White House sent a supplemental budget request to Congress that included the removal of restrictions on all categories of weapons and ammunition Israel is allowed to access from WRSA-I.

​“A proposal in a legislative request to Congress to waive Congressional notification entirely for FMF-funded Foreign Military Sales or Direct Commercial Contracts is unprecedented in my experience […] Frankly, [it’s] an insult to Congressional oversight prerogatives,” Josh Paul said about the legal loophole, which was buried after more than 40 pages of legislative legalese.

Although there’s little to no transparency about the categories and quantities of weapons the US is providing Israel, in October, Axios reported that Washington would give their allies 155mm artillery shells.

These unguided munitions, held in large quantities in WRSA-I, are considered particularly hazardous as “their accuracy degrades over distance, increasing the likelihood of civilians and civilian infrastructure getting hit by errant shells,” according to Marc Garlasco, a former UN war crimes investigator.

CNN revealed earlier this month that a US intelligence assessment determined about 40-45 percent of over 29,000 air-to-ground munitions Israel has used in Gaza have been unguided.

Israel’s unrestrained use of these munitions inside one of the most densely populated places on earth has quickly turned Gaza into the deadliest military campaign in modern history, with a death rate of no less than 355 civilians per day – roughly 70 percent of whom are women and children.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Militarism | , , , | Leave a comment

Decrepit Biden Props Up Decrepit Abbas

The “PA will run Gaza solution” is a non-starter

BY KEVIN BARRETT | DECEMBER 27, 2023

Interview for IRIB

1) Despite Gazans’ demand and desire, the USA is trying to impose the Palestinian authority to rule over Gaza in substitution for Hamas. How do you assess this policy? 

The Palestinian Authority (PA) is universally despised. Palestinians hate it because it’s a tool of the Occupation. Netanyahu’s government also hates it because it carries the torch, however feebly, of the two-state solution.

So why is the USA trying to unite Gaza and the West Bank under the authority of a group that everyone loathes? A humorist might answer: “Because the PA resembles Biden: A walking corpse with no meaningful support. When Biden looks at the unpopular, decrepit, sold-out-to-Israel, monumentally corrupt 88-year-old Abbas, he sees himself in the mirror.”

Aside from Biden’s narcissistic projection, there are also political considerations. To assuage both wings of his party—the pro-Palestine and pro-peace forces on the left, and his Zionist billionaire donors on the right—Biden has to pretend to be both pro-peace and pro-Israel. And that is impossible. Israel’s very existence and identity rests on its nonstop war of extermination against the Palestinian people. Indeed, “Israel” is just a euphemism for the genocide of Palestine. And its population and government have steadily gotten more extremist and openly genocidal.

Since it is impossible to be pro-peace and pro-Israel at the same time, Biden has to deal in vague impressions rather than hard realities. Most Americans don’t know much about Palestine, and have a general sense that the Palestinian Authority is “moderate” and “supports the two-state solution.” So Biden uses rhetorical support for the PA to stake out a supposedly centrist position that he hopes will mollify both the activists to his left and the Jewish billionaires to his right. He hopes the former will say: “Well, at least Biden isn’t as bad as Trump.” Since the latter realize that the PA is dead in the water, they know that Biden’s apparent support for it is only rhetorical, and doesn’t pose any meaningful obstacle to Zionist genocide. So the billionaires have no problem with Biden’s position, and will continue to fund him.

2) Americans always emphasize democracy and free elections. Then why (in practice) are they doing the opposite in Gaza? And moreover, why is Hamas so popular in Gaza?

American support for democracy is purely rhetorical. In reality, the US empire has been, since World War II, the world’s biggest enemy of democracy. Why? Because the US empire wants every other country on Earth to be its vassal. And it wants the vassal states run by obedient puppets who obey the empire’s orders to plunder their own people and hand over their nations’ wealth to the empire and the banks that own it. Naturally this program isn’t popular with ordinary people, who generally vote against Washington’s puppets and in favor of “anti-American” candidates who want to serve their own people rather than the empire. So to keep its puppets in power, the US has to prevent, corrupt, and sabotage free and fair elections.

The best-known quote illustrating the US empire’s opposition to democracy was a bon mot from the late Henry Kissinger: “I don’t see why we need to stand by and watch a country go communist due to the irresponsibility of its people. The issues are much too important for the Chilean voters to be left to decide for themselves.” So Kissinger’s US murdered  democratically-elected president Allende and installed a vicious dictator, Pinochet, to obey the empire’s orders.

The same situation happened in Gaza in 2006, when Hamas won the Palestinian legislative elections in a landslide, despite US and Israeli vote-rigging and chicanery. Like Kissinger in 1973 with respect to Chile, the Bush Administration, and later the Obama Administration, tried to kill Hamas’s leaders and overthrow the democratically-elected government. But they failed miserably, because Hamas has widespread support in Palestine and throughout the region. Due to Hamas’s popularity in the West Bank as well as Gaza, the Americans, the international bodies they control, and the Israelis have not allowed any more elections since 2006. They know that if they did, Hamas would win, take over all of Palestine, and administer it in the interests of the Palestinian people rather than the Zionist occupation.

Hamas’s popularity stems from its reputation for honesty and competence. Unlike the ultra-corrupt PA, Hamas does not take bribes from America and Israel to participate in the slow-motion genocide of its own people. And unlike the PA, Hamas gets things done—whether it’s feeding the poor, taking care of the sick, or organizing armed resistance to genocide.

Additionally, Hamas, unlike the PA, is living in the real world. The PA inhabits an illusory world in which we all pretend that Israel is a benign entity that will withdraw from all the land it stole in 1967 and allow a viable Palestinian state to come into being. Hamas honestly faces the stark reality that “Israel” is an illegitimate and inherently genocidal entity that has zero interest in any “two-state solution” and will continue to grow like a malignant tumor on the region, eliminating not just the Palestinians but ultimately all the peoples between the Nile and the Euphrates, if the tumor is not forcibly excised.

A final reason for Hamas’s popularity is its religiosity. Palestinian Christians as well as Muslims respect the piety and selfless devotion to doing good “in the path of God” that they see among the members and leaders of Hamas. And they love and respect Hamas fighters for their willingness to put their lives on the line against a much more powerful and cruel enemy. As Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida says:

“Disgrace, shame and defeat for the Zionist Nazi enemy. Indeed it is a struggle of victory or martyrdom.”

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel a ‘terrorist state’ – Cuba

RT | December 27, 2023

Israel is a terrorist state committing genocide in Gaza, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel said on social media on Tuesday. He was commenting on the ongoing military operation that West Jerusalem launched against Hamas in retaliation following the militant group’s deadly October 7 surprise attack, in which approximately 1,200 were killed in the south of the country.

The Caribbean nation, which has no formal diplomatic relations with Israel, has been highly critical of Israel’s war on the militants, which maintain de facto rule over Gaza. During the military operation, large swathes of the enclave have been devastated and more than 20,400 Palestinians have been killed, according to local officials.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter) Diaz-Canel called Israel’s actions “a humiliation for all humanity” and lamented that the nation was getting away with it.

“Cuba, which will never be among the indifferent, raises its voice for Palestine again and again,” he added.

Last week, the Cuban parliament passed a declaration expressing support for the Palestinian people and its aspiration for statehood. The document branded Israel’s conduct “genocide,” condemning its “barbaric acts” that highlight the failures of international diplomacy.

“We denounce in the strongest terms the responsibility and complicity of the government of the United States in this genocide,” the declaration said, referring to Washington’s use of its veto power at the UN Security Council on Israel’s behalf.

“The impunity with which Israel has historically acted can only be explained by its confidence that there will be no consequences due to the backing of the US government,” the lawmakers stated.

The administration of US President Joe Biden has expressed discontent due to the high number of civilian casualties in Gaza and claims that behind closed doors it is pressuring Israel to correct its approach.

Senior Israeli officials have repeatedly denied being under US pressure. Tal Heinrich, the spokesperson for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, told MSNBC last Friday that the two nations are “in lockstep.”

Israel claims that it is doing everything possible to minimize risks for civilians and argues that Hamas is ultimately responsible for every such death.

A report published by the Tel Aviv-based +972 Magazine in late November claimed that the Israeli military is purposefully bombing “power targets” in Gaza, such as public buildings and high-rise blocks, in order to “create a shock” in the general population. The rationale is that it will somehow turn Palestinians against Hamas.

December 27, 2023 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

« Previous Entries     Next Entries »