ប៉ុន្តែខ្ញុំបានរៀនកាន់តែច្រើនឡើងអំពីពាក្យ និងបរិបទ និងតួអក្សរ និងគ្រោង។ ខ្ញុំបានធ្វើតេស្តយ៉ាងល្អលើការធ្វើតេស្តស្ដង់ដារធំៗនៅក្នុងសាលា ហើយបានចូលសាលាប្រឡង Boston Public Schools។ ខ្ញុំចាប់ផ្ដើមរក្សាសៀវភៅកំណត់ហេតុនៅវិទ្យាល័យពេលខ្ញុំមានអាយុ១៦ឆ្នាំ។ ខ្ញុំត្រូវបានបំផុសគំនិតដោយ Winston Smith នៅក្នុងប្រលោមលោក ‘1984 ។’ ខ្ញុំក៏បានគិតថា Henry David Thoreau មានគំនិតគួរឱ្យចាប់អារម្មណ៍មួយចំនួនអំពីការរស់នៅ និងការសរសេរដោយសម្លឹងមើលពិភពលោកដែលមើលទៅហាក់ដូចជាមនុស្សជុំវិញខ្លួន។
I would never say I expected more from Arkansas Republican Senator Tom Cotton, as that would have required me to expect anything good from him. But I still found myself surprised when he referred to the Columbia University protests against Israel’s war on Gaza as a form of “pogroms.”
Nor did I expect more from The Wall Street Journal, which ran an op-ed arguing that Hamas and Hezbollah are “working with and grooming” pro-Palestine activists. Nor from Benjamin Netanyahu, who compared the campus protests to Nazi Germany. Nor from House Speaker Mike Johnson or Anti-Defamation League President Jonathan Greenblatt, both of whom called for the National Guard to be sent to Columbia.
Yet I have been consistently taken aback at just how ridiculous these and other claims from the media and politicians about the growing pro-Palestine movement have become recently.
Politicians and the mainstream media outlets that support them are consistently simplistic in their analyses, or flat-out wrong, or, well, stupid. But over the last few weeks, it feels like the stupidity has ramped up to a level previously unreached—a level that can no longer be described as misinterpretation or obfuscation or spin, but rather as a complete detachment from reality.
And this condition of near-psychosis appears to be spreading. It’s not just the far-right that’s responding to largely peaceful protests with extreme rhetoric and action. College administrations have sent in police in riot gear to arrest peacefully demonstrating students and faculty, suspended or expelled students, canceled graduations, and even hastily barricaded their campuses with plywood in a fashion that feels both barbaric and Wile-E.-Coyote-esque.
To understand this state of unreality, it’s important to understand that the United States and the elite media are nearly always, to some extent, in a state of unreality. We’ve known this for a while. Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman outlined the process by which Americans become unwilling or unable to confront the violence endemic in American life (whether the violence of US-backed wars in other countries or the violence of corporate-backed plutocracy at home) way back in 1988.
As they argued in Manufacturing Consent, a crucial step toward enabling war is the creation of groups of worthy and unworthy victims. Chomsky and Herman were writing about Vietnam and the lack of attention paid to the millions killed in that failed war, but the same is happening today.
Since October 7, politicians and leading media outlets have made it clear, over and over again, that they consider Israeli lives to be worthier than Palestinian ones. Now, the media’s relentless focus on Columbia and other college campuses is proof in itself that it cares, and, crucially, wants us to care, more about any perceived victims of the protests in the US (even if their victimization consists of not being able to teach a class on classical music as they’d prefer), especially if they are from elite institutions, than they do about the lives of Palestinians.
This distorted reality enabled by the media—in which the supposed dangers of student organizing get significantly more coverage than the thing the protests are actually about—partially explains the unhinged reactions of the last few weeks. If one consumes only mainstream US media, one gets a very hysterical version of reality. It’s the same reason Americans think crime is going up all the time even as it falls to historic lows. Feeling constantly under threat, while ignoring people who actually are constantly under threat, is a time-honored, mass-media-enabled, American tradition.
But, in a way, the propaganda model does not give the hysterics in this case enough credit. The average Fox News watcher can perhaps be excused for their histrionic view of the world, but American senators and presidents and highly educated op-ed page writers and university administrators should know better. And, of course, they do!
This is why it might be more useful to see their delusional rhetoric as not only a form of propagandistic misdirection but also a tool of linguistic power and control. By reframing disagreement and protest and discomfort as violence, those in power get to play victim, and thus feel righteous in their use of, or support for, actual violence—whether that’s the bombardment of Gaza or the brutality inflicted on US college students.
As Sarah Schulman brilliantly argues in her 2016 book Conflict Is Not Abuse, this strategy has been used for ages by those with privilege to hide their power over, and fear of, those they oppress. We can see it in, for example, the rape accusations leveled against Black men by white women that led to lynchings.
“Sometimes, when we are upset, we pretend or convince ourselves that Conflict is actually not only Abuse, but a crime,” Schulman writes. “When we have nowhere to go but inside ourselves, and when that self that we inhabit is convinced that it cannot bear to be seen, we call the police.”
The recent Congressional hearings leading to a bloodbath of university presidents brings back memories from my teen-age years in the 1950s when everyone’s eyes were glued to the TV broadcast of the McCarthy hearings. And the student revolts incited by vicious college presidents trying to stifle academic freedom when it opposes foreign unjust wars awakens memories of the 1960s protests against the Vietnam War and the campus clampdowns confronting police violence. I was the junior member of the “Columbia three” alongside Seymour Melman and my mentor Terence McCarthy (both of whom taught at Columbia’s Seeley Mudd School of Industrial Engineering; my job was mainly to handle publicity and publication). At the end of that decade, students occupied my office and all others at the New School’s graduate faculty in New York City – very peacefully, without disturbing any of my books and papers.
Only the epithets have changed. The invective “Communist” has been replaced by “anti-Semite,” and the renewal of police violence on campus has not yet led to a Kent State-style rifle barrage against protesters. But the common denominators are all here once again. A concerted effort has been organized to condemn and even to punish today’s nationwide student uprisings against the genocide occurring in Gaza and the West Bank. Just as the House Unamerican Activities Committee (HUAC) aimed to end the careers of progressive actors, directors, professors and State Department officials unsympathetic to Chiang Kai-Shek or sympathetic to the Soviet Union from 1947 to 1975, today’s version aims at ending what remains of academic freedom in the United States.
The epithet of “communism” from 75 years ago has been updated to “anti-Semitism.” Senator Joe McCarthy of Wisconsin has been replaced by Elise Stefanik, House Republican from upstate New York, and Senator “Scoop” Jackson upgraded to President Joe Biden. Harvard University President Claudine Gay (now forced to resign), former University of Pennsylvania President Elizabeth Magill (also given the boot), and Massachusetts Institute of Technology President Sally Kornbluth were called upon to abase themselves by promising to accuse peace advocates critical of U.S. foreign policy of anti-Semitism.
The most recent victim was Columbia’s president Nemat “Minouche” Shafik, a cosmopolitan opportunist with trilateral citizenship who enforced neoliberal economic policy as a high-ranking official at the IMF (where she was no stranger to the violence of “IMF riots) and the World Bank, and who brought her lawyers along to help her acquiesce in the Congressional Committee’s demands. She did that and more, all on her own. Despite being told not to by the faculty and student affairs committees, she called in the police to arrest peaceful demonstrators. This radical trespass of police violence against peaceful demonstrators (the police themselves attested to their peacefulness) triggered sympathetic revolts throughout the United States, met with even more violent police responses at Emory College in Atlanta and California State Polytechnic, where cell phone videos were quickly posted on various media platforms.
Just as intellectual freedom and free speech were attacked by HUAC 75 years ago, academic freedom is now under attack at these universities. The police have trespassed onto school grounds to accuse students themselves of trespassing, with violence reminiscent of the demonstrations that peaked in May 1970 when the Ohio National Guard shot Kent State students singing and speaking out against America’s war in Vietnam.
Today’s demonstrations are in opposition to the Biden-Netanyahu genocide in Gaza and the West Bank. The more underlying crisis can be boiled down to the insistence by Benjamin Netanyahu that to criticize Israel is anti-Semitic. That is the “enabling slur” of today’s assault on academic freedom.
By “Israel,” Biden and Netanyahu mean specifically the right-wing Likud Party and its theocratic supporters aiming to create “a land without a [non-Jewish] people.” They assert that Jews owe their loyalty not to their current nationality (or humanity) but to Israel and its policy of driving the Gaza Strip’s millions of Palestinians into the sea by bombing them out of their homes, hospitals and refugee camps.
. The implication is that to support the International Court of Justice’s accusations that Israel is plausibly committing genocide is an anti-Semitic act. Supporting the UN resolutions vetoed by the United States is anti-Semitic.
The claim is that Israel is defending itself and that protesting the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank frightens Jewish students. But research by students at Columbia’s School of Journalism found that the complaints cited by the New York Times and other pro-Israeli media were made by non-students trying to spread the story that Israel’s violence was in self-defense.
The student violence has been by Israeli nationals. Columbia has a student-exchange program with Israel for students who finish their compulsory training with the Israeli Defense Forces. It was some of these exchange students who attacked pro-Gaza demonstrators, spraying them with Skunk, a foul-smelling indelible Israeli army chemical weapon that marks demonstrators for subsequent arrest, torture or assassination. The only students endangered were the victims of this attack. Columbia under Shafik did nothing to protect or help the victims.
The hearings to which she submitted speak for themselves. Columbia’s president Shafik was able to avoid the first attack on universities not sufficiently pro-Likud by having meetings outside of the country. Yet she showed herself willing to submit to the same brow-beating that had led her two fellow presidents to be fired, hoping that her lawyers had prompted her to submit in a way that would be acceptable to the committee.
I found the most demagogic attack to be that of Republican Congressman Rick Allen from Georgia, asking Dr. Shafik whether she was familiar with the passage in Genesis 12.3. As he explained” “It was a covenant that God made with Abraham. And that covenant was real clear. … ‘If you bless Israel, I will bless you. If you curse Israel, I will curse you.’ … Do you consider that to be a serious issue? I mean, do you want Columbia University to be cursed by God of the Bible?”[1]
Shafik smiled and was friendly all the way through this bible thumping, and replied meekly, “Definitely not.”
She might have warded off this browbeating question by saying, “Your question is bizarre. This is 2024, and America is not a theocracy. And the Israel of the early 1st century BC was not Netanyahu’s Israel of today.” She accepted all the accusations that Allen and his fellow Congressional inquisitors threw at her.
Her main nemesis was Elise Stefanik, Chair of the House Republican Conference, who is on the House Armed Services Committee, and the Committee on Education and the Workforce.
Congresswoman Stefanik: You were asked were there any anti-Jewish protests and you said ‘No’.
President Shafik: So the protest was not labeled as an anti-Jewish protest. It was labeled as an anti-Israeli government. But antisemitic incidents happened or antisemitic things were said. So I just wanted to finish.
Congresswoman Stefanik: And you are aware that in that bill, that got 377 Members out of 435 Members of Congress, condemns ‘from the river to the sea’ as antisemitic?
Dr. Shafik: Yes, I am aware of that.
Congresswoman Stefanik: But you don’t believe ‘from the river to the sea’ is antisemitic?
Dr. Shafik: We have already issued a statement to our community saying that language is hurtful and we would prefer not to hear it on our campus.[2]
What an appropriate response to Stefanik’s browbeating might have been?
Shafik could have said, “The reason why students are protesting is against the Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, as the International Court of Justice has ruled, and most of the United Nations agree. I’m proud of them for taking a moral stand that most of the world supports but is under attack here in this room.”
Instead, Shafik seemed more willing than the leaders of Harvard or Penn to condemn and potentially discipline students and faculty for using the term “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” She could have said that it is absurd to say that this is a call to eliminate Israel’s Jewish population, but is a call to give Palestinians freedom instead of being treated as Untermenschen.
Asked explicitly whether calls for genocide violate Columbia’s code of conduct, Dr. Shafik answered in the affirmative — “Yes, it does.” So did the other Columbia leaders who accompanied her at the hearing. They did not say that this is not at all what the protests are about. Neither Shafik nor any other of the university officials say, “Our university is proud of our students taking an active political and social role in protesting the idea of ethnic cleansing and outright murder of families simply to grab the land that they live on. Standing up for that moral principle is what education is all about, and what civilization’s all about.”
The one highlight that I remember from the McCarthy hearings was the reply by Joseph Welch, the U.S. Army’s Special Council, on June 9, 1954 to Republican Senator Joe McCarthy’s charge that one of Welch’s attorneys had ties to a Communist front organization. “Until this moment, senator,” Welsh replied, “I think I never gauged your cruelty or your recklessness. … Have you no sense of decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?”
The audience broke into wild applause. Welch’s put-down has echoed for the past 70 years in the minds of those who were watching television then (as I was, at age 15). A similar answer by any of the three other college presidents would have shown Stefanik to be the vulgarian that she is. But none ventured to stand up against the abasement.
The Congressional attack accusing opponents of genocide in Gaza as anti-Semites supporting genocide against the Jews is bipartisan. Already in December, Rep. Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) helped cause Harvard and Penn’s presidents to be fired for their stumbling over her red-baiting. She repeated her question to Shafik on April 17: “Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Columbia’s code of conduct?” Bonamici asked the four new Columbia witnesses. All responded: “Yes.”
That was the moment when they should have said that the students were not calling for genocide of the Jews, but seeking to mobilize opposition to genocide being committed by the Likud government against the Palestinians with President Biden’s full support.
During a break in the proceedings Rep. Stefanik told the press that “the witnesses were overheard discussing how well they thought their testimony was going for Columbia.” This arrogance is eerily reminiscent to the previous three university presidents who believed when walking out of the hearing that their testimony was acceptable. “Columbia is in for a reckoning of accountability. If it takes a member of Congress to force a university president to fire a pro-terrorist, antisemitic faculty chair, then Columbia University leadership is failing Jewish students and its academic mission,” added Stefanik. “No amount of overlawyered, overprepped, and over-consulted testimony is going to cover up for failure to act.”[3]
Shafik could have pointedly corrected the implications by the House inquisitors that it was Jewish students who needed protection. The reality was just the opposite: The danger was from the Israeli IDF students who attacked the demonstrators with military Skunk, with no punishment by Columbia.
Despite being told not to by the faculty and student groups (which Shafik was officially bound to consult), she called in the police, who arrested 107 students, tied their hands behind their backs and kept them that way for many hours as punishment while charging them for trespassing on Columbia’s property. Shafik then suspended them from classes.
The clash between two kinds of Judaism: Zionist vs. assimilationist
A good number of these protestors being criticized were Jewish. Netanyahu and AIPAC have claimed – correctly, it seems – that the greatest danger to their current genocidal policies comes from the traditionally liberal Jewish middle-class population. Progressive Jewish groups have joined the uprisings at Columbia and other universities.
Early Zionism arose in late 19th-century Europe as a response to the violent pogroms killing Jews in Ukrainian cities such as Odessa and other Central European cities that were the center of anti-Semitism. Zionism promised to create a safe refuge. It made sense at a time when Jews were fleeing their countries to save their lives in countries that accepted them. They were the “Gazans” of their day.
After World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust anti-Semitism became passé. Most Jews in the United States and other countries were being assimilated and becoming prosperous, most successfully in the United States. The past century has seen this success enable them to assimilate, while retaining the moral standard that ethnic and religious discrimination such as that which their forbears had suffered is wrong in principle. Jewish activists were in the forefront of fighting for civil liberties, most visibly against anti-Black prejudice and violence in the 1960s and ‘70s, and against the Vietnam War. Many of my Jewish school friends in the 1950s bought Israel bonds, but thought of Israel as a socialist country and thought of volunteering to work on a kibbutz in the summer. There was no thought of antagonism, and I heard no mention of the Palestinian population when the phrase “a people without a land in a land without a people” was spoken.
But Zionism’s leaders have remained obsessed with the old antagonisms in the wake of Nazism’s murders of so many Jews. In many ways they have turned Nazism inside out, fearing a renewed attack from non-Jews. Driving the Arabs out of Israel and making it an apartheid state was just the opposite of what assimilationist Jews aimed at.
The moral stance of progressive Jews, and the ideal that Jews, blacks and members of all other religions and races should be treated equally, is the opposite of Israeli Zionism. In the hands of Netanyahu’s Likud Party and the influx of right-wing supporters, Zionism asserts a claim to set Jewish people apart from the rest of their national population, and even from the rest of the world, as we are seeing today.
Claiming to speak for all Jews, living and dead, Netanyahu asserts that to criticize his genocide and the Palestinian holocaust, the nakba, is anti-Semitic. This is the position of Stefanik and her fellow committee members. It is an assertion that Jews owe their first allegiance to Israel, and hence to its ethnic cleansing and mass murder since last October. President Biden also has labeled the student demonstrations “antisemitic protests.”
This claim in the circumstances of Israel’s ongoing genocide is causing more anti-Semitism than anyone since Hitler. If people throughout the world come to adopt Netanyahu’s and his cabinet’s definition of anti-Semitism, how many, being repulsed by Israel’s actions, will say, “If that is the case, then indeed I guess I’m anti-Semitic.”
Netanyahu’s slander against Judaism and what civilization should stand for
Netanyahu characterized the U.S. protests in an extremist speech on April 24 attacking American academic freedom.
What’s happening in America’s college campuses is horrific. Antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities. They call for the annihilation of Israel, they attack Jewish students, they attack Jewish faculty. This is reminiscent of what happened in German universities in the 1930s. We see this exponential rise of antisemitism throughout America and throughout Western societies as Israel tries to defend itself against genocidal terrorists, genocidal terrorists who hide behind civilians.
It’s unconscionable, it has to be stopped, it has to be condemned and condemned unequivocally. But that’s not what happened. The response of several university presidents was shameful. Now, fortunately, state, local, federal officials, many of them have responded differently but there has to be more. More has to be done.[4]
This is a call to make American universities into arms of a police state, imposing policies dictated by Israel’s settler state. That call is being funded by a circular flow: Congress gives enormous subsidies to Israel, which recycles some of this money back into the election campaigns of politicians willing to serve their donors. It is the same policy that Ukraine uses when it employs U.S. “aid” by setting up well-funded lobbying organizations to back client politicians.
What kind of student and academic protest expressions could oppose the Gaza and West Bank genocide without explicitly threatening Jewish students? How about “Palestinians are human being too!” That is not aggressive. To make it more ecumenical, one could add “And so are the Russians, despite what Ukrainian neo-Nazis say.”
I can understand why Israelis feel threatened by Palestinians. They know how many they have killed and brutalized to grab their land, killing just to “free” the land for themselves. They must think “If the Palestinians are like us, they must want to kill us, because of what we have done to them and there can never be a two-state solution and we can never live together, because this land was given to us by God.”
Netanyahu fanned the flames after his April 24 speech by raising today’s conflict to the level of a fight for civilization: “What is important now is for all of us, all of us who are interested and cherish our values and our civilization, to stand up together and to say enough is enough.”
Is what Israel is doing, and what the United Nations, the International Court of Justice and most of the Global Majority oppose, really “our civilization”? Ethnic cleansing, genocide and treating the Palestinian population as conquered and to be expelled as subhumans is an assault on the most basic principles of civilization.
Peaceful students defending that universal concept of civilization are called terrorists and anti-Semites – by the terrorist Israeli Prime Minister. He is following the tactics of Joseph Goebbels: The way to mobilize a population to fight the enemy is to depict yourself as under attack. That was the Nazi public relations strategy, and it is the PR strategy of Israel today – and of many in the American Congress, in AIPAC and many related institutions that proclaim a morally offensive idea of civilization as the ethnic supremacy of a group sanctioned by God.
The real focus of the protests is the U.S. policy that is backing Israel’s ethnic cleansing and genocide supported by last week’s foreign “aid.” It is also a protest against the corruption of Congressional politicians raising money from lobbyists representing foreign interests over those of the United States. Last week’s “aid” bill also backed Ukraine, that other country presently engaged in ethnic cleansing, with House members waved Ukrainian flags, not those of the United States. Shortly before that, one Congressman wore his Israeli army uniform into Congress to advertise his priorities.
Zionism has gone far beyond Judaism. I’ve read that there are nine Christian Zionists for every Jewish Zionists. It is as if both groups are calling for the End Time to arrive, while insisting that support for the United Nations and the International Court of Justice condemning Israel for genocide is anti-Semitic.
What CAN the students at Columbia ask for
Students at Columbia and other universities have called for universities to disinvest in Israeli stocks, and also those of U.S. arms makers exporting to Israel. Given the fact that universities have become business organizations, I don’t think that this is the most practical demand at present. Most important, it doesn’t go to the heart of the principles at work.
What really is the big public relations issue is the unconditional U.S. backing for Israel come what may, with “anti-Semitism” the current propaganda epithet to characterize those who oppose genocide and brutal land grabbing.
They should insist on a public announcement by Columbia (and also Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania, who were equally obsequious to Rep. Stefanik) that they recognize that it is not anti-Semitic to condemn genocide, support the United Nations and denounce the U.S. veto.
They should insist that Columbia and the other universities making a sacrosanct promise not to call police onto academic grounds over issues of free speech.
They should insist that the president be fired for her one-sided support of Israeli violence against her students. In that demand they are in agreement with Rep. Stefanik’s principle of protecting students, and that Dr. Shafik must go.
But there is one class of major offenders that should be held up for contempt: the donors who try to attack academic freedom by using their money to influence university policy and turn universities away from the role in supporting academic freedom and free speech. The students should insist that university administrators – the unpleasant opportunists standing above the faculty and students – must not only refuse such pressure but should join in publicly expressing shock over such covert political influence.
The problem is that American universities have become like Congress in basing their policy on attracting contributions from their donors. That is the academic equivalent of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United ruling. Numerous Zionist funders have threatened to withdraw their contributions to Harvard, Columbia and other schools not following Netanyahu’s demands to clamp down on opponents of genocide and defenders of the United Nations. These funders are the enemies of the students at such universities, and both students and faculty should insist on their removal. Just as Dr. Shafik’s International Monetary Fund fell subject to its economists’ protest that there must be “No more Argentinas,” perhaps the Columbia students could chant “No More Shafiks.”
Many Europeans would opt for making Europe competitive again; making Europe a diplomatic actor, rather than as a military one.
Theodore Postol, Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy at MIT, has provided a forensic analysis of the videos and evidence emerging from Iran’s 13th April swarm drone and missile ‘demonstration’ attack into Israel: A ‘message’, rather than an ‘assault’.
The leading Israeli daily, Yediot Ahoronot, has estimated the cost of attempting to down this Iranian flotilla at between $2-3 billion dollars. The implications of this single number are substantial.
Professor Postol writes:
“This indicates that the cost of defending against waves of attacks of this type is very likely to be unsustainable against an adequately armed and determined adversary”.
“The videos show an extremely important fact: All of the targets, whether drones or not, are shot down by air-to-air missiles”, [fired from mostly U.S. aircraft. Some 154 aircraft reportedly were aloft at the time] likely firing AIM-9x Sidewinder air to air missiles. The cost of a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is about $500,000”.
Furthermore:
“The fact that a very large number of unengaged ballistic missiles could be seen glowing as they reenter the atmosphere to lower altitudes [an indication of hyper-speed], indicates that whatever the effects of [Israel’s] David’s Sling and the Arrow missile defenses, they were not especially effective. Thus, the evidence at this point shows that essentially all or most of the arriving long-range ballistic missiles were not intercepted by any of the Israeli air and missile-defense systems”.
Postel adds,
“I have analyzed the situation, and have concluded that commercially available optical and computational technology is more than capable of being adapted to a cruise missile guidance system to give it very high precision homing capability … it is my conclusion that the Iranians have already developed precision guided cruise missiles and drones”.
“The implications of this are clear. The cost of shooting down cruise missiles and drones will be very high and might well be unsustainable unless extremely inexpensive and effective anti-air systems can be implemented. At this time, no one has demonstrated a cost-effective defense system that can intercept ballistic missiles with any reliability”.
Just to be clear, Postol is saying that neither the U.S. nor Israel has more than a partial defence to a potential attack of this nature – especially as Iran has dispersed and buried its ballistic missile silos across the entire terrain of Iran under the control of autonomous units which are capable of continuing a war, even were central command and communications to be completely lost.
This amounts to paradigm change – clearly for Israel, for one. The huge physical expenditure on air defence ordinance – 2-3 billion dollars worth – will not be repeated willy-nilly by the U.S. Netanyahu will not easily persuade the U.S. to engage with Israel in any joint venture against Iran, given these unsustainable air-defence costs.
But also, as a second important implication, these Air Defence assets are not just expensive in dollar terms, they simply are not there: i.e. the store cupboard is near empty! And the U.S. lacks the manufacturing capacity to replace these not particularly effective, high cost platforms speedily.
‘Yes, Ukraine’ … the Middle East paradigm interlinks directly with the Ukraine paradigm where Russia has succeeded in destroying so much of the western supplied, air-defence capabilities in Ukraine, giving Russia near complete air dominance over the skies.
Positioning scarce air defence ‘to save Israel’ therefore, exposes Ukraine (and slows the U.S. pivot to China, too). And given the recent passage of the funding Bill for Ukraine in Congress, clearly air defence assets are a priority for sending to Kiev – where the West looks increasingly trapped and rummaging for a way out that does not lead to humiliation.
But before leaving the Middle East paradigm shift, the implications for Netanyahu are already evident: He must therefore focus back to the ‘near enemy’ – the Palestinian sphere or to Lebanon – to provide Israel with the ‘Great Victory’ that his government craves.
In short, the ‘cost’ for Biden of saving Israel from the Iranian flotilla which had been pre-announced by Iran to be demonstrative and not destructive nor lethal is that the White House must put-up with the corollary – an attack on Rafah. But this implies a different form of cost – an electoral erosion through exacerbating domestic tensions arising from the on-going blatant slaughter of Palestinians.
It is not just Israel that bears the weight of the Iranian paradigm shift. Consider the Sunni Arab States that have been working in various forms of collaboration (normalisation) with Israel.
In the event of wider conflict embracing Iran, clearly Israel cannot protect them – as Professor Postol so clearly shows. And can they count on the U.S.? The U.S. faces competing demands for its scarce Air Defences and (for now) Ukraine, and the pivot to China, are higher on the White House priority ladder.
In September 2019, the Saudi Abqaiq oil facility was hit by cruise missiles, which Postol notes,
“had an effective accuracy of perhaps a few feet, much more precise than could be achieved with GPS guidance (suggesting an optical and computational guidance system, giving a very precise homing capability)”.
So, after the Iranian active deterrence paradigm shift, and the subsequent Air Defence depletion paradigm shock, the putative coming western paradigm shift (the Third Paradigm) is similarly interlinked with Ukraine.
For the western proxy war with Russia centred on Ukraine has made one thing abundantly clear: this is that the West’s off-shoring of its manufacturing base has left it uncompetitive, both in simple trade terms, and secondly, in limiting western defence manufacturing capacity. It finds (post-13 April) that it does not have the Air Defence assets to go round: ‘saving Israel’; ‘saving Ukraine’ and preparing for war with China.
The western maximalisation of shareholder returns model has not adapted readily to the logistical needs of the present ‘limited’ Ukraine/Russia war, let alone provided positioning for future wars – with Iran and China.
Put plainly, this ‘late stage’ global imperialism has been living a ‘false dawn’: With the economy shifting from manufacturing ‘things’, to the more lucrative sphere of imagining new financial products (such as derivatives) that make a lot of money quickly, but which destabilise society (through increasing disparities of wealth); and which ultimately, de-stabilise the global system itself (as the World Majority states recoil from the loss of sovereignty and autonomy that financialism entails).
More broadly, the global system is close to massive structural change. As the Financial Times warns,
“the U.S. and EU cannot embrace national-security “infant industry” arguments, seize key value chains to narrow inequality, and break the fiscal and monetary ‘rules’, while also using the IMF and World Bank – and the economics profession– to preach free-market best practice to EM ex-China. And China can’t expect others not to copy what it does”. As the FT concludes, “the shift to a new economic paradigm has begun. Where it will end is very much up for grabs.”
‘Up for grabs’: Well, for the FT the answer may be opaque, but for the Global Majority is plain enough – “We’re going back to basics”: A simpler, largely national economy, protected from foreign competition by customs barriers. Call it ‘old- fashioned’ (the concepts have been written about for the last 200 years); yet it is nothing extreme. The notions simply reflect the flip side of the coin to Adam Smith’s doctrines, and that which Friedrich List advanced in his critique of the laissez-faire individualist approach of the Anglo-Americans.
‘European leaders’, however, see the economic paradigm solution differently:
“The ECB’s Panetta gave a speech echoing Mario Draghi’s call for “radical change”: He stated for the EU to thrive it needs a de facto national-security focused POLITICAL economy centered around: reducing dependence on foreign demand; enhancing energy security (green protectionism); advancing production of technology (industrial policy); rethinking participation in global value chains (tariffs/subsidies); governing migration flows (so higher labour costs); enhancing external security (huge funds for defence); and joint investments in European public goods (via Eurobonds … to be bought by ECB QE)”.
The ‘false dawn’ boom in U.S. financial services began as its industrial base was rotting away, and as new wars began to be promoted.
It is easy to see that the U.S. economy now needs structural change. Its real economy has become globally uncompetitive – hence Yellen’s call on China to curb its over-capacity which is hurting western economies.
But is it realistic to think that Europe can manage a relaunch as a ‘defence and national security-led political economy’, as Draghi and Panetta advocate as a continuation of war with Russia? Launched from near ground zero?
Is it realistic to think that the American Security State will allow Europe to do this, having deliberately reduced Europe to economic vassalage through causing it to abandon its prior business model based on cheap energy and selling high-end engineering products to China?
This Draghi-ECB plan represents a huge structural change; one that would take a decade or two to implement and would cost trillions. It would occur too, at a time of inevitable European fiscal austerity. Is there evidence that ordinary Europeans support such radical structural change?
Why then is Europe pursuing a path that embraces huge risks – one that potentially could drag Europe into a whirlpool of tensions ending in war with Russia?
For one main reason: The EU leadership held hubristic ambitions to turn the EU into a ‘geo-political’ empire – a global actor with the heft to join the U.S. at Top Table. To this end, the EU unreservedly offered itself as the auxiliary of the White House Team for their Ukraine project, and acquiesced to the entry price of emptying their armouries and sanctioning the cheap energy on which the economy depended.
It was this decision that has been de-industrialising Europe; that has made what remains of a real economy uncompetitive and triggered the inflation that is undermining living standards. Falling into line with Washington’s failing Ukraine project has released a cascade of disastrous decisions by the EU.
Were this policy line to change, Europe could revert to what it was: a trading association formed of diverse sovereign states. Many Europeans would settle for that: Placing the focus on making Europe competitive again; making Europe a diplomatic actor, rather than as a military actor.
Do Europeans even want to be at the American ‘top table’?
Я люблю истории с самого детства. Мне нравилось повествование. Я любил закадровый голос в некоторых фильмах. Придавать смысл вещам. Приводить все в порядок. Начало, середина и конец, как заметил Аристотель. Я начал с комиксов. У друга, который жил напротив станции Эшмонт, был целый ящик бюро, заполненный комиксами, и я любил сидеть и читать. Одним из моих любимых видов комиксов была иллюстрированная классика, своего рода великие книги для детей. В средней и старшей школе чтение художественной литературы было для меня спасением. Я читал романы не потому, что хотел стать умнее, и не потому, что они были частью какого-то плана.
Я просто натыкался на книги в публичной библиотеке и читал из любопытства. Летними вечерами я читал до поздней ночи. Мама кричала мне с лестницы, чтобы я погасил свет и лег спать. Она видела, как свет в моей спальне отражается на кирпичах гаража за окном кухни. Иногда я читал под одеялом с фонариком, когда книга настолько увлекала меня, что мне просто необходимо было прочесть следующие строки. Но я узнавал все больше и больше о словах, контексте, характере и сюжете. В школе я хорошо сдавала большие стандартизированные тесты и поступила в экзаменационную школу Бостонских государственных школ. Я начал вести дневник в старших классах, когда мне было 16 лет.
Меня вдохновил Уинстон Смит и роман “1984”. Я также подумал, что у Генри Дэвида Торо есть интересные идеи о том, как жить и писать, обращая внимание на кажущийся обыденным мир вокруг человека. Когда я учился на подготовительном курсе Уэслианского университета, один из моих преподавателей сказал, что у меня есть способности к творческому письму. Ему понравился поток моих слов. Воодушевленная, я стала посещать занятия по творческому письму в колледже. Я работал с Тони и Ф.Д. Ривом, которые убеждали меня сосредоточиться и писать больше. Я написал пару десятков рассказов, а в качестве выпускного проекта – повесть о неспокойной Северной Ирландии. За работу над романом я получил диплом с отличием. После колледжа я написал еще один роман о работе в “Макдоналдсе” и отношениях с женой и маленьким ребенком.
Ancient old books on shelf in the library. Tiled Bookshelf background
На протяжении многих лет я продолжал вести свой дневник, иногда писал больше, иногда позволял неделям проходить без записей. Я связался с агентом в Бостоне по поводу моего романа о работе в “Макдоналдсе”, он проявил интерес и попросил показать рукопись. Но из этого ничего не вышло, и я не видел особых возможностей для продвижения своей работы. Я все больше и больше писал в журнале и просто не думал о публикации или о том, чтобы обратиться к какой-либо аудитории. Я писал, как и читал художественную литературу, исключительно для саморазвлечения и просвещения. Затем появился доступ к интернету, социальным сетям, онлайн-блогам и местам, где можно оставлять комментарии. Я был в ударе. Я мог написать пост из пяти абзацев за считанные минуты. Я научилась печатать на клавиатуре, когда училась в школе, летом, потому что считала свой почерк безнадежно уродливым. Я ходила на занятия по машинописи в летнюю школу, потому что училась в школе для мальчиков, и там не преподавали машинопись. Я была в восторге, когда увидела, что в классе машинописи в летней школе Берк Хай учатся одни девочки.
Но там почти не было общения, мы просто упражнялись в наборе текста, а не обсуждали художественную литературу и короткие рассказы. В двадцатые годы я печатала фантастические рассказы, работала над двумя своими романами и вела дневник. Я одолжила у сестры электрическую пишущую машинку и чувствовала себя скромным профессионалом. Время от времени я работала учителем английского языка, и у меня было немного ежедневного общения с художественной литературой. По ночам и по выходным я писал короткие рассказы и виньетки.
Но я начал продавать на улице леворадикальные газеты и ходить на общественные собрания. Идея вложить в вымышленную историю, которую в будущем прочтут несколько человек, которые, возможно, поймут смысл, потеряла для меня свою привлекательность. Лучше выйти в субботу на улицу и продать несколько номеров леворадикальной газеты, чем прятать смысл в заумной фантастике. Я по-прежнему читаю много художественной литературы, особенно произведения прошлого. Моей специальностью в бакалавриате была сравнительная литература в Колледже писем. Курсы были похожи на великие книги. Упор делался на западноевропейскую литературу, а американские произведения вставлялись в конце. Когда я учился в старших классах, я увидел рекламу “Великих книг западного мира” – серии из примерно 50 томов, выпущенной “Энциклопедией Британика”. Я заполнил открытку и объявление в журнале, написав, что заинтересован. Какой-то незадачливый продавец явился ко мне домой без предупреждения, когда я, как говорила моя мама, была в разъездах. Набор стоил тогда около 300 долларов.
Лет 10 назад я вспомнил об этом сериале и поискал его в Интернете. Набор все еще выпускался, но его стоимость составляла уже 1000 долларов. Я поговорил с компьютерным экспертом о своем желании приобрести “Великие книги”, и он сказал мне, что нам нужно переосмыслить то, как мы смотрим на книги. Все произведения этой серии находятся в общественном достоянии, и все они доступны бесплатно в Интернете на таких сайтах, как Project Gutenberg, а также в виде аудиокниг на LibriVox. Однажды я случайно заглянул на Craigslist в раздел “Книги на продажу”.
Там был выставлен на продажу комплект The Great Books – 49 долларов. Я немедленно позвонил и, к своему восторгу, обнаружил, что продавец находится в Ямайке Плейн, в 20 минутах езды от меня. Когда я отдавал деньги, увидев слегка потрепанный комплект 1954 года, я сказал продавцу: “У этих книг должна быть какая-то история, в чем она заключается? Он рассказал мне, что купил эти книги 20 лет назад у женщины, которая присоединилась к Саентологии и переехала в Швецию, чтобы работать в церкви. Значит ли это, что я присоединюсь к Саентологии, если прочитаю эти книги? Или она присоединилась к Саентологии только потому, что не читала эти книги? спросил я, смеясь. Я протянул ему сдачу, что его очень удивило. Вы собираетесь их читать? Или они для украшения полки? спросил он, пока мы несли книги к моей машине на соседней улице.
О, я собираюсь их прочитать, – ответила я. Мне нравятся эти истории. Когда я привез свою сокровищницу домой и мой 16-летний племянник увидел коробки с томами в коричневых переплетах и с позолоченными краями, он сказал: “Они похожи на те книги в библиотеке, к которым никто никогда не подходит. Лучше бы кто-нибудь подошел к ним, ведь вся ваша цивилизация основана на идеях, изложенных в этих книгах, – ответил я. Его замечание стоило 49 долларов. Мне нравилось видеть, как великие произведения художественной литературы прошлого превращались в фильмы или мультфильмы. Когда мои дети были маленькими, я записал серию мультфильмов по мотивам великих литературных произведений, которую показывали по воскресеньям утром на канале Nickelodeon. Там были рассказы Диккенса, такие как “Большие надежды” и “Повесть о двух городах”. Когда лет 10 назад я просматривал старую кассету VHS, там была реклама аудиокомплекта “100 величайших книг мира”.
Мне стало интересно, существует ли еще эта серия, ведь кассете было около 20 лет. Я заглянул в Интернет и обнаружил, что серия все еще предлагается, и купил комплект из 50 компакт-дисков. На дисках есть примерно 10-минутное вступление о произведении и авторе, а затем краткое изложение сюжета. Эти диски – хорошее введение в старую пыльную работу, которую, возможно, трудно понять, просто открыв первую страницу и погрузившись в нее. Я записал видео с горящими свечами и аудиолекции и разместил их в Интернете, чтобы помочь другим людям, интересующимся старыми книгами, а также чтобы попрактиковаться в редактировании видео и аудио. Я слушаю аудиокниги с художественной литературой почти каждый день. Мой дом наполнен художественными книгами, видео, фильмами и анимацией.
В каждой комнате моей квартиры есть художественные книги. И все же у меня нет желания сочинять фантастику. Это даже не приходит мне в голову. Я пишу каждый день. Но я пытаюсь рассказать честные истины, честные чувства, я не пытаюсь выдать свои наблюдения за вымысел. Я не пытаюсь втиснуть реальную жизнь со всеми ее неувязками и сюжетными дырами в опрятный мир художественной литературы, коротких и длинных рассказов, повестей и романов. Я живу в такое время и в таком месте, где у меня есть относительная свобода просто открыто говорить то, что я думаю и что, по моему мнению, следует делать. Мне не нужно прятать свои мысли на воображаемых островах вроде Лилпута или в далекой-далекой галактике.
Мне не нужно уклоняться от цензуры с помощью вымысла. Итак. Я, любитель фантастики прошлого, не думаю о нынешней фантастике. Я понятия не имею, кто пишет нынешнюю фантастику. Я сидел в школьном кафетерии с молодой студенткой колледжа и разговаривал о старых книгах и классической литературе, когда она перешла к некоторым из своих нынешних фаворитов. Я никогда не слышал ни об одном из них, и мне было неинтересно узнавать, кто они такие. У меня есть гора классики прошлых лет, которую я до сих пор не прочитал. Когда я хочу узнать о современном обществе, я обращаюсь к новостям и комментариям в Интернете о том, как обстоят дела. Меня не интересует беллетризованная версия того, что находится прямо передо мной. Я всегда считал, что романная форма письма – это отличный способ привести все в порядок, чтобы придать смысл какому-то аспекту жизни. Итак, я вспоминаю некоторые моменты из своего дневника, который веду уже почти 50 лет.
Около 8 лет назад я работал преподавателем в колледже на полставки. Я хотел не пить и не курить и сосредоточиться на своем предмете. Я начал набирать трехлетний отрезок своего дневника, когда встречался с Эми Файнголд. В течение 5 месяцев я просматривал записи, сделанные от руки. Я печатала и добавляла фотографии и описания. Когда в дневнике говорилось о пребывании на Гарвардской площади, я добавлял фотографии площади 1970-х годов, когда мы с Эми были там. Но я обнаружил, что чувствую тревогу и боль, которые были в отношениях с той девушкой. За 5 месяцев работы над книгой у меня получилась 250-страничная рукопись. В ночь, когда я закончил работу, мне захотелось выпить, покурить и познакомиться с новой женщиной.
Я отправился в ночной клуб Vincent’s и познакомился с женщиной. Я разместил 250 страниц, которые написал, на Blogger. Вскоре после этого мой аккаунт на YouTube был аннулирован из-за нарушения авторских прав на музыку. Мой аккаунт в Blogger также был аннулирован, а 250 страниц исчезли. Примерно в то же время компьютер, на котором я набирал 250-страничную работу, умер, а вместе с ним и рукопись. Такова жизнь. У меня осталась распечатанная копия. Это почти как роман. Так что моя история художественной литературы сводится к дневнику с применением художественных приемов. В следующий раз мне стоит попробовать поместить свои работы в таблички из обожженной глины, как те, которым 6000 лет, из древнего Шумера. Глиняные таблички кажутся неразрушимыми. Я подумал о том, чтобы купить камнедробилку и выложить из камня несколько стихотворений или рассказов. Думаю, я также мог бы научиться сохранять свои работы на USB-накопителе. Что бы я ни делал, я не могу представить себя планирующим какие-либо художественные произведения. Почему бы просто не рассказать правду?
J’aime les histoires depuis mon enfance. J’aimais la narration. J’aimais la voix off dans certains films. Donner un sens aux choses. Mettre de l’ordre dans les choses. Un début, un milieu et une fin, comme le disait Aristote. J’ai commencé par les bandes dessinées. Un ami qui vivait en face de la gare d’Ashmont avait un bureau rempli de bandes dessinées et j’adorais m’asseoir et lire. L’une de mes bandes dessinées préférées était les classiques illustrés, une sorte de grands livres pour enfants. Au collège et au lycée, la lecture de romans me permettait de m’évader. Je ne lisais pas de romans parce que je voulais devenir plus intelligent ou parce qu’ils faisaient partie d’un plan.
Je tombais simplement sur des livres à la bibliothèque municipale et je lisais par curiosité. Les soirs d’été, je lisais jusque tard dans la nuit. Ma mère me criait dans l’escalier d’éteindre la lumière et d’aller dormir. Elle voyait la lumière de ma chambre se refléter sur les briques du garage derrière la fenêtre de la cuisine. Je lisais sous les couvertures de mon lit avec une lampe de poche, parfois lorsque j’étais tellement impliquée dans un livre que je devais lire les lignes suivantes. Mais j’ai appris de plus en plus de choses sur les mots, le contexte, les personnages et l’intrigue. J’ai obtenu de bons résultats aux grands tests standardisés de l’école et j’ai été admise à l’école d’examen des écoles publiques de Boston. J’ai commencé à tenir un journal au lycée, à l’âge de 16 ans.
J’ai été inspiré par Winston Smith et le roman 1984. J’ai également pensé que Henry David Thoreau avait des idées intéressantes sur le fait de vivre et d’écrire en s’intéressant au monde apparemment banal qui entoure toute personne. Lorsque je suivais un programme préuniversitaire à l’université de Wesleyan, l’un de mes professeurs m’a dit que j’avais un don pour l’écriture créative. Il aimait la fluidité de mes mots. Encouragée, j’ai suivi des cours d’écriture créative à l’université. J’ai travaillé avec Tony et F.D. Reeve qui m’ont incité à me concentrer et à écrire davantage.
J’ai écrit quelques douzaines de nouvelles et, comme projet de fin d’études, j’ai écrit une novella sur les troubles en Irlande du Nord. J’ai obtenu mon diplôme avec mention très bien pour mon travail sur la nouvelle. Après l’université, j’ai écrit un autre roman sur le travail chez McDonald’s et la gestion d’une femme et d’un jeune enfant. J’ai continué à écrire mon journal au fil des ans, parfois en écrivant davantage, parfois en laissant passer des semaines sans rien écrire. J’ai contacté un agent à Boston au sujet de mon roman sur McDonald’s. Il a exprimé son intérêt et a demandé à voir le manuscrit. Mais cela n’a rien donné et je n’ai pas vu beaucoup de possibilités d’exposition pour mon travail. J’ai écrit de plus en plus dans un journal et je n’ai tout simplement pas pensé à publier ou à atteindre un public.
Mon écriture, et mon écriture de fiction, étaient comme mes lectures de fiction, purement pour me divertir et m’éclairer. Puis vint l’accès à l’internet, aux médias sociaux, aux blogs en ligne et aux endroits où poster des commentaires. Je n’avais plus rien à faire. Je pouvais écrire un billet de cinq paragraphes en quelques minutes. J’avais appris à taper à la machine à écrire quand j’étais au lycée, pendant l’été, parce que je trouvais mon écriture désespérément laide. J’ai suivi les cours d’été de dactylographie parce que j’étais dans un lycée de garçons et qu’il n’y avait pas de cours de dactylographie. J’ai été ravie de voir que le cours de dactylographie des cours d’été du lycée Burke était réservé aux filles. Mais il n’y avait guère d’interaction, nous faisions des exercices de dactylographie, nous ne discutions pas de fiction et de nouvelles. Dans la vingtaine, j’ai dactylographié des histoires de fiction, travaillé sur mes deux romans et tenu un journal.
J’empruntais la machine à écrire électrique de ma sœur et je me sentais modestement professionnelle. À l’occasion, j’ai travaillé comme professeur d’anglais, ce qui m’a permis d’avoir une petite interaction quotidienne avec la fiction. J’écrivais des nouvelles et des vignettes le soir et le week-end. Mais j’ai commencé à vendre des journaux de la gauche radicale dans la rue et à participer à des réunions publiques. L’idée de donner un sens légèrement gauchiste à une histoire fictive qui pourrait être lue à une date ultérieure par quelques personnes susceptibles de comprendre le message a perdu de son attrait pour moi. Mieux vaut sortir un samedi et vendre quelques numéros d’un journal de gauche radicale que de cacher un sens dans une fiction obscure. Je continue à lire beaucoup de fiction, en particulier des œuvres du passé. J’ai étudié la littérature comparée à la faculté des lettres.
Les cours étaient comme de grands livres. L’accent était mis sur la littérature d’Europe occidentale, les œuvres américaines étant ajoutées à la fin. Lorsque j’étais au lycée, j’ai vu des publicités pour The Great Books of the Western World, une série d’environ 50 volumes publiée par l’Encyclopædia Britannica. J’ai rempli une carte postale et une annonce dans un magazine pour dire que j’étais intéressé. Un vendeur malchanceux s’est présenté chez moi à l’improviste alors que j’étais en voyage, comme le disait ma mère. La série coûtait environ 300 dollars à l’époque. Il y a une dizaine d’années, j’ai repensé à cette série et je l’ai recherchée en ligne. La série était toujours commercialisée, mais elle coûtait désormais 1 000 dollars. J’ai parlé à un informaticien de mon désir d’avoir les Grands Livres et il m’a dit que nous devions repenser notre façon de voir les livres. Tous les ouvrages de la série sont dans le domaine public, et tous sont en ligne gratuitement sur des sites comme le Projet Gutenberg et sous forme de livres audio sur LibriVox. Un jour, j’ai regardé par hasard sur Craigslist dans la section des livres à vendre.
J’ai appelé immédiatement et j’ai découvert avec joie que le vendeur se trouvait à Jamaica Plain, à environ 20 minutes de voiture de chez moi. Au moment de remettre l’argent, après avoir vu le coffret légèrement usé de 1954, j’ai dit au vendeur : “Ces livres doivent avoir une histoire, quelle est-elle ? Il m’a répondu qu’il les avait achetés 20 ans plus tôt à une femme qui avait rejoint la Scientologie et s’était installée en Suède pour travailler pour l’Église. Cela signifie-t-il que je rejoindrai la Scientologie si je lis ces livres ? Ou est-ce parce qu’elle n’a pas lu les livres qu’elle a rejoint la Scientologie ? ai-je demandé en riant. Je lui ai rendu la monnaie exacte, ce qui l’a surpris. Allez-vous les lire ? Ou est-ce qu’ils sont là pour décorer l’étagère ? m’a-t-il demandé alors que nous transportions les livres jusqu’à ma voiture, dans la rue en contrebas. Oh, je vais les lire, répondis-je. J’adore ces histoires.
Lorsque j’ai ramené mon trésor à la maison et que mon neveu de 16 ans a vu les boîtes de volumes aux reliures brunes et aux tranches dorées, il a dit : “On dirait les livres de la bibliothèque que personne n’approche jamais. Je lui ai répondu que quelqu’un ferait bien de s’en approcher, car toute votre civilisation est basée sur les idées contenues dans ces livres.
Sa remarque valait bien les 49 dollars. J’aimais voir comment les grandes œuvres de fiction du passé étaient transformées en films ou en dessins animés. Lorsque mes enfants étaient petits, j’ai enregistré une série de dessins animés basés sur de grandes œuvres littéraires qui passait sur Nickelodeon le dimanche matin. Il y avait des histoires de Dickens comme Les grandes espérances et Le conte de deux villes. Il y a une dizaine d’années, en regardant une vieille cassette VHS, j’ai vu une publicité pour un coffret audio des 100 plus grands livres du monde. Je me suis demandé si la série existait toujours, puisque la cassette avait environ 20 ans. J’ai regardé en ligne et j’ai découvert que la série était toujours proposée et j’ai acheté le coffret de 50 CD. Les CD contiennent une introduction d’environ 10 minutes sur l’œuvre et l’auteur, suivie d’un résumé de l’histoire sous forme de “cliff notes”.
Les CD constituent une bonne introduction à une œuvre ancienne et poussiéreuse qui pourrait être difficile à comprendre si l’on se contente d’ouvrir la première page et de se plonger dans l’histoire. J’ai enregistré des vidéos des bougies qui brûlent et de la conférence audio et je les ai mises en ligne pour aider d’autres personnes intéressées par les livres anciens et pour exercer mes compétences en matière d’édition vidéo et audio. J’écoute des livres audio de fiction presque tous les jours. Ma maison est remplie de livres de fiction, de vidéos, de films et d’animations.
Chaque pièce de mon appartement contient des livres de fiction. Pourtant, je n’ai aucune envie de composer de la fiction. Cela ne me vient même pas à l’esprit. J’écris des choses tous les jours. Mais j’essaie de dire des vérités honnêtes, des sentiments honnêtes, je n’essaie pas de faire passer mes observations pour de la fiction. Je n’essaie pas d’enfermer la vie réelle, avec tous ses détails et ses failles, dans le monde bien rangé de la fiction, des nouvelles et des récits, des novellas et des romans. Je vis à une époque et dans un lieu où j’ai la liberté relative de dire tout simplement ce que je pense et ce qui devrait être fait. Je n’ai pas à cacher des choses sur des îles imaginaires comme Lilput, ou dans une galaxie lointaine. Je n’ai pas besoin d’esquiver la censure par la fiction.
Donc. Moi qui aime la fiction du passé, je ne pense pas à la fiction actuelle. Je n’ai aucune idée de qui sont les auteurs de fiction actuels. J’étais dans une cafétéria d’école, assise avec une jeune étudiante qui parlait de livres anciens et de littérature classique, lorsqu’elle a commencé à parler de ses livres préférés du moment. Je n’avais jamais entendu parler d’aucun d’entre eux et je n’avais aucune envie de savoir qui ils étaient. J’ai une montagne d’anciens classiques que je n’ai toujours pas lus. Lorsque je veux en savoir plus sur la société actuelle, je consulte les nouvelles et les commentaires en ligne sur la situation actuelle. Je ne suis pas intéressé par une version romancée de ce qui se passe sous mes yeux.
J’ai toujours pensé que la forme romanesque de l’écriture était un excellent moyen de mettre de l’ordre dans les choses et de donner un sens à certains aspects de la vie. Je pense donc à certains éléments de mon journal que je tiens depuis près de 50 ans maintenant. Il y a environ 8 ans, je travaillais à temps partiel en tant que professeur d’université. Je voulais éviter de boire et de fumer et me concentrer sur mon sujet. J’ai commencé à taper une section de trois ans de mon journal lorsque je sortais avec Amy Feingold. Pendant cinq mois, j’ai épluché les entrées de mon journal écrites à la main.
J’ai dactylographié et ajouté des photos et d’autres descriptions. Lorsque le journal parlait d’un moment passé à Harvard Square, j’ajoutais des photos de la place datant des années 1970, lorsqu’Amy et moi y étions. Mais je me suis retrouvé à ressentir une partie de l’anxiété et de la douleur que j’avais eues dans ma relation avec cette petite amie. J’ai obtenu un manuscrit de 250 pages en cinq mois de travail. Le soir où j’ai terminé, j’ai ressenti le besoin de boire et de fumer et de rencontrer une nouvelle femme. Je suis allé au Vincent’s nightclub et j’ai rencontré une femme. J’ai publié les 250 pages que j’avais écrites sur Blogger. Peu de temps après, mon compte YouTube a été supprimé pour cause de violation des droits d’auteur. Mon compte Blogger a également été supprimé et les 250 pages ont disparu. À peu près au même moment, l’ordinateur sur lequel j’avais tapé les 250 pages est mort, et le manuscrit avec.
C’est la vie. J’avais une copie papier que j’avais imprimée. C’est presque un roman. Mon histoire de la fiction se résume donc à un journal dans lequel j’ai appliqué des techniques de fiction. Ensuite, je devrais essayer de mettre mon travail sur des tablettes d’argile cuite comme celles de l’ancienne Sumer, vieilles de 6000 ans. Les tablettes d’argile sont apparemment indestructibles.
J’ai pensé à me procurer un broyeur de pierre et à graver des poèmes ou des nouvelles dans la pierre. Je suppose que je pourrais aussi apprendre à sauvegarder mon travail sur une clé USB. Quoi qu’il en soit, je ne me vois pas planifier des œuvres de fiction. Pourquoi ne pas dire la vérité ?
There is very obviously an element of opposition to the ongoing protests on college campuses that is rooted in familiar partisan rhetoric. The political right’s hostility to college professors and insistences that students are brainwashed into holding liberal politics, for example, is a regular undercurrent to the discussion. There are real disputes at play, certainly, and a complex weave of First Amendment issues, but there are also familiar partisan disparagements and insinuations.
That includes one that is both ironic, given the context, and very misleading.
The New York Post offers the most useful distillation of the claim in the headline of a story it published on Friday: “George Soros is paying student radicals who are fueling nationwide explosion of Israel-hating protests.” This claim that the students are being funded by Soros — a Holocaust survivor who is a favorite boogeyman of the right thanks to his hefty donations to leftist groups — has been picked up and echoed elsewhere, too.
By itself, this is a reflection of the idea that student activism is necessarily insincere or a function of young people being hoodwinked. Claims about Soros being the engine behind political or social movements have also been identified as being intertwined with antisemitism or explicitly antisemitic, given historical tropes about wealthy Jewish people controlling the world.
Here, then, this antisemitic framework is being deployed to undermine protests on college campuses … that have been repeatedly cast as being antisemitic.
More importantly, it’s simply not true. Or, more accurately, the connection between the protests and funding from Soros’s Open Society Foundations (OSF) is so tenuous as to be obviously contrived.
One might begin by asking what Soros is theoretically paying for. After all, this is just kids setting up tents on a college campus. Is the allegation that Soros is planting students at Columbia University (for example) and fronting the $68,000 tuition?
No. The New York Post article suggests other ways this largesse is apparently manifested.
“The cash from Soros and his acolytes has been critical to the Columbia protests that set off the national copycat demonstrations,” it reads, later describing the scene at Columbia: “Students sleep in tents apparently ordered from Amazon and enjoy delivery pizza, coffee from Dunkin’, free sandwiches worth $12.50 from Pret a Manger, organic tortilla chips and $10 rotisserie chickens.”
The “tents from Amazon” bit is a nod to a theory floating around on right-wing social media that someone is buying all of these tents for students, as though it would be otherwise impossible for a student to buy a $20 tent on her own. Mind you, there’s no evidence that the other stuff mentioned was bought by some billionaire donor, but the New York Post has been having fun recently referring to the food as “luxurious” as it wonders “[w]ho or what organization is behind the food delivery.” Clearly no average individual could have bought Dunkin’ doughnuts.
But back to that “cash from Soros and his acolytes.” At no point does the Post article demonstrate how this purported cash has been critical, instead simply listing organizations that have been involved in the protests to some extent and tracing their funding back to OSF.
Take the group U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights. It, the New York Post alleges, has a fellowship program that includes three people who have been at rallies on college campuses. In an illustration, the three are identified as “paid protesters” — suggesting that their motivation for participation is the money and not the views that led them to seek the fellowship in the first place.
“George Soros and his hard-left acolytes are paying agitators who are fueling the explosion of radical anti-Israel protests at colleges across the country,” the story hyperventilates. Eventually, it describes how.
U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights is registered with the IRS as Education for Just Peace in the Middle East (EJP). And EJP has received grants from OSF.
The largest was $300,000, given in 2018. During that fiscal year, EJP took in just over $1 million in revenue. It spent about $1.3 million, meaning it operated at a loss. In fiscal 2019, it had net assets of about $165,000 — meaning that a big chunk of that OSF grant was already spent.
EJP also received a grant from OSF for $150,000 in 2021 and a two-year grant for $250,000 in 2022. The New York Post’s suggestion (echoing one published earlier in the week by the Wall Street Journal) is that this money went to those “paid protesters.” But money is fungible. During those years, the organization also spent $2.4 million, at least $2 million of which wasn’t OSF money.
If the campus fellows identified by the New York Post are being paid the same as those who can currently apply for those positions, the total one-time cost to the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights was about $10,000. Nor are the fellows identified in the article still fellows. A spokesperson for the organization confirmed in an email to The Washington Post that the individuals featured in the New York Post article were from last year’s class. In other words, they are no longer “paid” at all.
The New York Post story also accuses Students for Justice in Palestine of being “Soros-funded” and fundamentally involved in the protests. (That the protests metastasized nationally only after police raided the Columbia encampment undercuts the idea that this is driven from the top down, but so be it.) So where does the Soros money come from?
Well, the story alleges, Students for Justice in Palestine is funded by the Westchester People’s Action Coalition Foundation, or WESPAC. And WESPAC received $132,000 from the Tides Foundation at some point. And the Tides Foundation has received millions in funding from OSF over the years.
It’s true that the Tides Foundation has received more than $11 million in OSF grants since 2017. It is also true that the Tides Foundation reported $298 million in revenue … in fiscal 2017 alone. The reported grants from OSF total less that 0.3 percent of Tides’ revenue from 2017 to 2022.
Regardless, Students for Justice in Palestine denies that it receives any money from WESPAC, nor is there any public indication that it does. In a statement to The Washington Post, a representative for the group indicated that the foundation “neither funds nor influences our organization’s political activity but instead extends its legal tax-exempt status to us in order to support our mission.”
“We refuse to engage with baseless claims regarding our funding in the middle of a genocide funded, militarily supported, and politically backed by the United States,” the statement concluded.
The group Jewish Voice for Peace, also identified in the New York Post article, has received grants from OSF in recent years, both to its 501(c)(3) and 501(c)(4), the latter of which can engage in political advocacy. Here again, though, the issue is scale. From 2017 to 2022, the two organizations received $875,000 from OSF and, over that period, spent $19.6 million. The OSF money constituted less than 5 percent of the total spent.
All of this is very in the weeds, as we must be when assessing specific claims. Taking a step back, the allegations do not get more compelling. Soros (or, rather, the foundation he created) gave money to organizations a few years ago to influence protests that emerged in response to the six-month-old war in Gaza? Even if the money from OSF flowed directly into the $3,300 stipends of those three campus fellows, we’re meant to think, what? That although none of them attend Columbia, this is all their fault? That it’s intentional somehow?
What we’re meant to think, of course, is something simpler. That Soros is a nefarious figure bent on using his wealth to reshape the world in his image, an impulse manifested here in somehow being the engine of the protests (or, at least, somehow the doughnut donor). It’s just vague insinuations leveraging well-worn rhetoric and a preexisting visceral response to the Jewish billionaire.
This past weekend, April 20, 2024 the US House of Representatives passed a bill to provide Ukraine with another $61 billion in aid. Then the meassure quickly passed the Senate and was signed into law by Biden within days.
The funds, however, will make little difference to the outcome of the war on the ground as it appears most of the military hardware funded by the $61 billion has already been produced and much of it already shipped. Perhaps no more than $10 billion in additional new weapons and equipment will result from the latest $61 billion passed by Congress .
Subject to revision, initial reports of the composition of the $61 billion indicate $23.2 billion of it will go to pay US arms producers for weapons that have already been produced and delivered to Ukraine. Another $13.8 billion is earmarked to replace weapons from US military stocks that have been produced and are in the process of being shipped—but haven’t as yet—or are additional weapons still to be produced. The breakdown of this latter $13.8 amount is not yet clear in the initial reports. One might generously guess perhaps $10 billion at most represents weapons not yet produced, while $25-$30 billion represents weapons already shipped to Ukraine or in the current shipment pipeline.
In total, therefore, weapons already delivered to Ukraine, awaiting shipment, or yet to be produced amount to approximately $37 billion.
The remainder of the $61 billion includes $7.8 billion for financial assistance to Ukraine to pay for salaries of government employees through 2024. An additional $11.3 billion to finance current Pentagon operations in Ukraine—which sounds suspiciously like pay for US advisors, mercenaries, special ops, and US forces operating equipment like radars, advanced Patriot missile systems, etc. on the ground. Another $4.7 billion is for miscellaneous expenses, whatever that is.
In other words, only $13.8 billion of the $61 billion is for weapons Ukraine doesn’t already have!
And that $13.8 billion is all Ukraine will likely get in new weapons funding for the rest of 2024! Like the $23 billion already in theater, that will likely be burned up in a couple of weeks this summer once Russia’s coming major offensive—its largest of the war—is launched in late May or early June. So what does the US do in order to continue to fund Ukraine’s economy, government and military efforts this fall and thereafter?
In other words, what’s the Biden/NATO strategy for aiding Ukraine, militarily and economically, after the $37 billion is expended by late this summer? Where’s the money to come from?
To understand how the US/NATO plan to fund subsequent weapons production for Ukraine in late 2024 and early 2025, one must consider not only the $61 billion bill but a second bill also passed by Congress this past weekend that hasn’t been given much attention in the mainstream media.
That second bill may potentially provide up to $300 billion for Ukraine from USA and its G7 allies, especially NATO allies in Europe where reportedly $260 of the $300 billion resides in Eurozone banks.
Biden/US Short-Term Strategy 2024
The $61 billion is clearly only a stopgap measure to try to get the Ukraine army and government funded through the summer. Beyond that, the broader Biden strategy is to keep Ukraine afloat until after the US November elections. In addition to the $61 billion—which the US hopes will get Ukraine through the US November election (but likely won’t)—US strategy includes getting the Russians to agree to begin some kind of negotiations. The US will then use the discussions to raise a demand to freeze military operations on both sides while negotiations are underway. But Biden’s ‘freeze and negotiate’ strategy is dead on arrival, since it is abundantly clear to the Russians it is basically about US and NATO ‘buying time’ and Russia has already been played by that one. As the popular US saying goes: “fool me once shame on you; fool me twice shame on me”.
The Russians already fell for that ‘let’s suspend fighting and negotiation ploy’ with the Minsk II treaty back in 2015-16. It agreed to halt military operations in the Donbass back then but NATO and the Ukraine government used the Minsk agreement as cover to re-build Ukraine’s military force which it thereafter used to attack the Donbass provinces. European leaders Angela Merkel of Germany and Francois Holland of France thereafter publicly admitted in 2022 that Minsk II was just to ‘buy time’.
The Russian’s were again similarly snookered at the Istanbul peace discussions held in April 2022. They were asked by NATO to show good faith in negotiations by withdrawing their forces from around Kiev, which they did. Negotiations were then broken off by Zelensky, on NATO’s strong recommendation, and Ukraine launched an offensive chasing the withdrawing Russians all the way back to the Donbass borders.
Russia is therefore extremely unlikely to fall a third time for a Biden/NATO request to ‘freeze’ military operations and negotiate again.
Biden may want to ‘buy time’ once more, but that hand’s been played twice already and the West will be (is being) told by Russia they aren’t interested in buying anything from the West and its ‘money’ no longer has any value.
Speaker Johnson’s Volte Face
The passage of the stop-gap $61 billion for Ukraine by the US House of Representatives was the result of House Speaker, Johnson, doing an about-face and allowing the vote on the House floor after saying he wouldn’t for weeks. There’s been much speculation in the US mainstream media as to why Johnson reversed his position and allowed the Ukraine aid bill to the House floor for a vote. However, it’s not difficult to understand why he did reverse his view.
In recent weeks there was intense lobbying behind the scenes by US weapons companies with key Republican committee chairmen in the House. After all, at least $37 billion in payments for weapons—both already delivered and to be delivered—was involved. Not a minor sum even for super-profitable companies like Lockheed, Raytheon and the like. Rumors are that corporate lobbying had its desired effect on Republican committee chairs in the House, who then in turn pressured Johnson to allow the vote on the floor. The final vote in the House was 310 to 111 with 210 Democrats joining 100 Republicans to pass the measure—revealing that the core support for the US Military Industrial Complex in the House of Representatives is at least three-fourths (the US Senate likely even higher).
So the vote was the result of a ‘parliamentary maneuver’ in which all the Democrats crossed over to support the Republican Speaker of the House (who de factor switched parties for the moment). A minority of Republicans joined him. A slim majority of Republicans opposed the measure. Their opposition remains. Thus it is highly unlikely Congress will appropriate more funding for Ukraine for the rest of this year—even when the $61 billion for weapons and Ukraine’s government run out by this late summer.
So what happens if and when the $61 billion is exhausted well before the November elections?
A possible answer to that question lies in the passage of a second Ukraine funding measure this past weekend. The $61 billion was not the most important legislative action in the US House. While most of the media commentary has been on that Ukraine aid bill, hardly anything has been said in the mainstream media about another bill that the US House also passed over the weekend. This second measure has greater strategic implications for US global interests than the $37 billion in actual weapons shipments for Ukraine. This second measure is HR 8038, a 184-page bill misnamed the ‘21st Century Peace Through Strength Act’ which amounted to yet another package (the 16th?) of US sanctions.
Transferring Russia’s $300 Billion Assets to Ukraine
The first section of the bill arranges a procedure for the US to force the sale of the China company, Tik Tok, to a consortium of US financial investors, reportedly led by former US Treasury Secretary under Trump, Steve Mnuchin. This is part of the expanding list of sanctions on China. Also sanctioned are China’s purchases of Iranian oil, as well as a host of additional sanctions on Iran itself. However, the most significant measure related to sanctions on Russia.
The 21st Century Peace Through Strength Act calls for the US to transfer its $5 billion share of Russia’s $300 billion of seized assets in Western banks that were frozen in 2022 at the outset of the Ukraine war. It provides a procedure to hand over the $5 billion to Ukraine to further finance its war efforts! This move has been rumored and debated in the USA and Europe since the assets were seized two years ago. But now the process of actually transferring the seized funds to Ukraine has begun with the passage of this second bill by the US House.
The USA’s $5 billion share in US banks is just a drop in the bucket of the $300 billion. Russia could probably care less about it, i.e. a mere ‘rounding error’ in its total revenue from the sale of oil, gas and other commodities. But Europe holds $260 of the $300 billion, according to European Central Bank chair, Christine Lagarde. A tidy sum which Russia has threatened to retaliate against Europe should the EU follow the US/Biden lead and also begin to transfer its $260 billion to Ukraine.
The US bill is very clear that the transfer of the US’s $5 billion is imminent. The bill requires the Biden administration to establish a ‘Ukraine Defense Fund’ into which the US’s $5 billion will be deposited. If parts of the $5 billion are not in liquid asset form, the US president is further authorized by the bill to liquidate those assets and deposit the proceeds in the fund as well. So the seizure and transfer of the $5 billion to Ukraine is a done deal. And when it happens a legal precedent will be made that Europe may use to follow and transfer its $260 billion.
One can expect the US to pressure Europe strongly to do so. Biden is further authorized by the bill to ‘negotiate’ with Europe and other G7 partners to convince them to do the same—i.e. seize their share of the $300 billion, liquidate and then transfer the cash assets into the US ‘Ukraine Defense Fund’. And to date the US has been able to ‘convince’ Europe—via its control of NATO and influence over Europe’s economy and its umbrella political elites in the European Commission and European Parliament—to follow US policy without too much resistance. Europe is fast becoming an economic satrapy and political dependency of the USA in recent decades, more than willing to bend in whatever policy direction the USA wants.
It is clear the seizure & redistribution to Ukraine of the $300 billion via the Ukraine Defense Fund is the means by which the US/NATO plan longer term to continue to finance the Ukraine war after the $61 billion runs out sometime in 2024; and certainly in 2025 and beyond. For the US has no intention of ending its NATO-led proxy war in Ukraine anytime soon. It is just seeking to ‘buy time’ in the interim before its November elections.
For a majority of both parties in the US—Democrat and Republican—are united on continuing the war. It will matter little who wins the presidency or which party has majorities in Congress after November. Political elites on both sides of the aisle in Congress are united in pursuing the war in Ukraine—just as they are united in continuing to fund Israel as well as to continue the US’s steadily expanding economic war with China. In just the past week it is obvious more US sanctions on China are also coming soon, including possibly an announcement of financial sanctions on China for the first time after US Secretary of State, Blinken’s, most recent visit.
Failed Russian Sanctions: Past and Future
The geopolitical objectives of the US and its commitment to continuing its three wars are resulting in unintended, negative effects on the economies of the US and its G7 allies, especially Germany. But those same sanctions have had little to no negative impact on Russia’s economy.
The recently passed US transfer of its $5 billion share of Russia’s $300 billion will accelerate the negative consequences, especially for Europe should the latter follow the US lead and distribute its $260 billion share to Ukraine, which it eventually will.
As EBC chairperson, Lagarde, put it referring to the US plan and legislation: “It needs to be carefully considered”. UK political leaders are already on record advocating the confiscation and transfer of Europe’s $260 billion holdings of Russian assets to Ukraine. Europe in recent years has a strong history of capitulating to US economic policies and demands. It will be no different this time.
Should Europe join the USA in transferring its $260 billion share of Russian assets in European banks (most of which is in Belgium), it’s almost certain that Russia will reply similarly and seize at least an equal amount of European assets still in Russia. The Russian Parliament has officially recently said as much.
Part of the G7/NATO sanctions to date included forcing Western businesses in Russia to liquidate and leave Russia. Some have done so. But many have not. Russia’s response has been to arrange the transfer of those EU companies’ assets that have left to Russian companies. This has actually stimulated the Russian economy. It resulted in Russian government subsidies—and thus government spending—to Russian companies assuming the assets, as well as additional investment by those companies after their acquisition of the departed EU companies’ assets.
In short, the Western sanctions measure pressuring Western companies to leave Russia has backfired in its predicted result of reducing Russian government spending and business investment.
In contrast, the US/NATO’s fifteen or so sanctions packages to date have had little, if any, impact on Russia’s economy since the commencing of the war in February 2022. To cite just a few of the performance of Russia’s key economic indicators under the sanctions regime: (Note: all following data is from the US global research source https://tradingeconomics.com):
Russia’s GDP in the latest six months has risen between 4.9% (3rd quarter 2023) to 5.5% (4th quarter). Russia’s PMI statistics show robust expansion for both manufacturing and services during the same period while in most of the major European economies, both PMI indicators are contracting. Wage growth in Russia over the six months has averaged 8.5% for both quarters (whereas in the US is it less than half that and in Germany less than 1%). Russian government revenues rose from roughly 5 trillion rubles in the third quarter to 8.7 trillion in the 4th. Military expenditures are up from $69.5 billion (dollars) to $86.3 billion. Consumer spending is at record levels in the latest quarter. Russian household debt as a percent of GDP remains steady at around 22% (whereas in the USA it is 62.5%). Crude oil production and general exports continue to steadily rise. Gasoline remains at 60 cents a liter (whereas in US five to six times that and in Europe more than ten times). And the unemployment rate in Russia remains steady at 2.9% (whereas in the US and Europe it’s a quarter to a half higher). Interest rates and inflation are higher in Russia but that represents an economy firing on all economic cylinders and is not necessarily a negative.
In short, it’s hard to find a single statistic that shows the Russian economy has been negatively impacted by the US/NATO sanctions regime over the past two years. Indeed, an argument can even be made the sanctions have stimulated the Russian economy not undermined it.
The latest sanction in the form of the US and G7 transfer of the $300 billion in seized Russian assets in Western banks will almost for certain have a similar effect on Russia’s economy. Namely, distributing the $300 billion will result in the Russian government’s seizure of at least an equivalent of European companies’ assets still in Russia. And that will provide funding for still further government subsidy spending benefiting Russian companies followed by more private investment.
Is the US Empire Shooting Itself in the Foot?
But there is an even greater consequence to follow the US and Europe’s desperate act of transferring Russia’s $300 billion in assets in western banks to Ukraine.
Western bankers, economic policymakers, and many economists alike have warned against the seizure and transfer of the $300 billion. Heads of US and other central banks, CEOs of large commercial banks, and even mainstream economists like Shiller at Yale have continually warned publicly that transferring the assets will seriously undermine faith in the US dollar system which is the lynchpin of the US global economic empire.
What countries in the global South will now want to put (or leave) their assets in western banks, especially in Europe, if they think the assets could be seized should they disagree on policies promoted by the empire? It’s clear the US has now begun to impose ‘secondary’ sanctions on countries that don’t abide by its primary sanctions on Russia. Will the US also seize the assets of these ‘secondary’ countries now in western banks if they don’t go along with refusing to trade with Russia? And what about China, as the US has now begun to expand its sanctions—primary and secondary—on that country as well? Watch for unprecedented financial sanctions on China that may be forthcoming following Blinken’s visit to China this week.
The US does not realize this is not the 1980s. The global south has developed massively in recent decades. They are insisting on more independence and more say in the rules of the empire—without which they will simply leave now that an alternative is beginning to appear in the expansion of the BRICS countries.
Recently expanded to 10 members (all of which in the Middle East and heavily oil producers), no fewer than 34 more countries have now petitioned to join the BRICS. Furthermore, it is reported that at the BRICS next conference in late 2024 an ‘alternative global financial framework’ will be announced! That will likely include some alternative currency arrangement as well as an alternative international payments system to replace the US SWIFT system (by which the USA via its banks can see who is violating its sanctions). Likely forthcoming will be something to replace the US-run IMF in order to ensure currency stability and an expansion of China’s Belt & Road as an alternative to the US-run World Bank. (Perhaps that is the real topic of Blinken’s forthcoming China visit?)
In short, the US global economic empire is entering its most unstable period. And yet US policy is to accelerate alternatives to it by seizing and transferring funds to Ukraine to continue the war! The blowback from the seizure and transfer will prove significant, both to US and European interests. It will render past resistance to US sanctions pale in comparison.
How to Crash an Empire!
History will show that US geopolitical objectives and strategies in the 21st century were the single greatest cause of the decline of US global economic hegemony over the last quarter century. Much of those objectives and strategies have been the work of the most economically ignorant foreign policy team in US history, who are generally referred to as the Neocons.
The seizure and transfer of the $300 billion may provide a way to continue funding Ukraine in the US/NATO proxy war against Russia through 2024 and beyond. But the timing could not be worse for US/Europe imperial interests, coming on the eve of the historic BRICS conference later this year. The desperate act of seizure and transfer will only convince more countries of the global South to seek another more independent alternative by joining the BRICS, or increasingly trade with that bloc.
History shows empires rest ultimately on economic foundations. And they collapse when those underlying economic foundations fracture and then crumble.
The longer run consequence of the $300 billion transfer and the exiting of the global South from the US empire can only be the decline in the use of the US dollar in global transactions and as a reserve currency. That sets in motion a series of events that in turn undermine the US domestic economy in turn: Less demand for the dollar results in a fall in the dollar’s value. That means less recycling of dollars back to the US, resulting in less purchases of US Treasuries from the Federal Reserve, which in turn will require the Fed to raise long term interest rates for years to come in order to cover rising US budget deficits. All this will happen to an intensifying fiscal crisis of the US state rapidly deteriorating already
In other words, blowback on the US economy from declining US global hegemony—exacerbated by sanctions in general and seizure of countries like Russia’s assets in particular—is almost certain in the longer run, just as it will be for Europe’s economy in the even more immediate term.
But such is the economic myopia of the US neocons and the incompetent political elite leadership in both parties in the USA in recent years. As that other American saying goes: ‘We have found the enemy and they are us!’
This is not a Whodunit. The serial killers are known to us, are friends of ours, are supported by us. ~ilana
The U.S. has undertaken the role of IDF deputy in advancing the genocide of Gazans. ~ilana
American foreign policy is a museum of horrors in which Gaza 2023/2024 is the main exhibit.
It is my conviction that Gaza is much more than just one more American foreign-policy failure, an event and topic to swill around like mouth wash, spit out and move on, once the usual “tsk, tsk” bromides have been disgorged.
Uncle Sam’s usual deathly mixture of ignorance, cruelty and superiority has been exceeded with respect to Gaza. It is my belief that the United States’ open, even-energetic support for genocide is a defining event in the annals of American foreign-policy aberrations—repeatedly and vigorously vetoing UN Security Council resolutions against Israel’s atrocities, justifying Israel’s violations of the law, as well as, alternatively, pretending these violations had never occurred and making like the laws of man and the laws of God don’t apply to Israel.
This American failure is probably qualitatively different from blunders that went before. What the United States has approved in Gaza is the crime of all crimes, appallingly carried out in broad daylight.
Duly, the annihilation of a community and the landmass that supports it has been achieved. The arteries of supplies that sustain this Palestinian society are all but closed. The mass murder of members of the targeted group proceeds apace. Daily. Shamelessly. Before our very eyes. And as I write.
It is the case of the senile (Joe Biden) supporting the criminally insane (Israel).
To press my point: Mass graves are uncovered near the ruins of the Nasser and al-Shifa hospitals. Therein hundreds of Palestinians have been interred, bodies stacked, some handcuffed, others still tethered to medical tubes. The White House’s response amounts to, “Where, what, who, and how can this possibly be? Who could have done this horrible thing? Yes, we, too, want answers right away. Let’s do the forensics. Let’s ask the Israelis to look into it, shall we? See you tomorrow.”
This is not a Whodunit, you feckless, malevolent morons.
The serial killers are known to us. We know who murdered over 34,183 Palestinians and maimed an estimated 77,143. The serial killers loosed on millions of Gazans—their guns at the ready, pointed at the civilians huddled in the southern tip of the Strip—these are friends of ours.
Empowered by Empire, Israeli serial killers are not on-the-lam, running from the Law. They are free to come-and-go, to travel, to hobnob; at liberty to enjoy undeserved freedoms, as their innocent victims are confined, held captive, catacombed, awaiting death by one or another diabolical means. In fact, the serial killers of the Palestinians of Gaza are proudly paraded as freedom fighters in their country of Israel, and are backed and exculpated by the powerful in our own country, the United States of America.
Support for Israel’s offensive against Gaza’s civilians comes courtesy of our carpetbagger representatives, left and right. Israel is lavished with munitions despite the fact that the American taxpayer’s endorsement of the carnage these cause began dropping in November of 2023. By late March of 2024, a Gallop poll reported that 74 percent of Americans were keenly engaged with the topic and a majority now opposed Israel’s excesses.
Even young Evangelicals might well be rethinking their allegiances.
Exquisitely sensitive to its Christian Zionist base in America, the Jerusalem Post, honestly if opportunistically, divulged that, “Young Evangelical support for Israel has plummeted. Seven out of 10 Evangelical and born-again young Evangelicals … surveyed as far back as 2021 adhere to the postmillennial and amillennial theological views, which see the Jewish people and the state of Israel as no longer necessary in the fulfillment of God’s plan for the second coming.”
So settled in their habits, indications are that the elders of the Zionist, Christian Right have failed to read their young.
Indeed, these are austere days for American leadership and reputation. By dint of undertaking the role of IDF deputy in advancing genocide in Gaza—the United States has crossed a threshold. In Gaza, Uncle Sam has finally achieved an official or formal inversion of all cherished, universal values. It has earned the “Great Satan” appellation it was once awarded.
There is a vast power differential in the US-Israel relationship. The colossus that is the American Hegemon appears helpless before the tiny Jewish State, leading one to wonder which country deserves the Great Satan moniker and which the Little One.
On the scale of national crimes and misdemeanors, Gaza is simply indefensible. And our young sense this and are incensed by it.
For now, the degenerative process in America is being halted by students. “[F]rom Massachusetts to California,” students have gathered from far and wide demanding an accounting from their representatives for the industrial-scale mass murder being carried out in their name.
“The demonstration, held one block away from the home of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, came just hours before the Senate overwhelmingly approved a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes about $17 billion in arms and security funding to Israel. ‘At the core of the Passover story is that we cannot be free until all people are free,’ Beth Miller, the political director of Jewish Voice for Peace, told Democracy Now! ‘The Israeli government and the United States government are carrying out a genocide of Palestinians in Gaza, over 34,000 people killed in six months in the name of Jewish safety, in the false name of Jewish freedom.”
To cover his wretchedness, a foreign country’s prime minister libeled these quintessentially American, anti-genocide campus protests—which, we hope, may swell to match those begun in Columbia University in 1968, against the Vietnam War—as antisemitic, even terroristic.
These “antisemitism” claims-makers aim to silence and sunder dissenting free speech, one of the most cherished American (Voltairean) values, clearly not shared by our serial-killer besties. Framing loud protest against Israel as “antisemitic” is intended, very plainly, to silence opposition to the mass murder and displacement of Gazans.
The protesters across American campuses are not antisemitic. But even if they were; in America, free speech refers to the words people shout, write, tweet; the beliefs they are known to hold, the flags they fly or burn, the symbolic, non-violent ceremonies and rituals they enact, the insignia, paraphernalia, even the goose-stepping and Hitler salutes they muck around with—all this is protected speech in our country. Genocide backers, stateside and abroad, may not like it; but this speech is both constitutional and licit in natural law.
Provided protesters are not engaged in acts of violence against others—then the words they emit are irrelevant. Antipathy to Jews qua Jews, if expressed—for which there is no good evidence whatsoever—amounts to a thought “crime.”
Thought crimes are the prerogative of a free people in a free country. Americans, left and right, must join libertarians in unapologetically rejecting the very idea of policing, purging, persecuting or prosecuting people for holding or expressing politically unpopular ideas.
Superlatives cannot capture the plight of these poor people. What is clear is that patience is native to their character. Palestinians might appear enslaved, but they cannot be brought into submission by any Pharaoh.
Deliverance is possible for a long-suffering people.
Here’s what everyone needs to understand about Ukraine:
The United States has already moved on to Plan B. No, the Biden administration has not issued an official statement on the matter, but the shift has already begun. The Washington Brain-trust has abandoned any hope of winning the war outright (Plan A) and has, thus, adopted a different strategy altogether. (Plan B)
Plan B is a combination of two main elements:
A—A Strategy of Denial, which is ‘a defensive approach designed to stop an adversary’ from achieving its goals. In this case, the objective is to prolong the conflict for as long as possible to prevent Russian from achieving a clear victory. That is the top priority.
B—To continue to increase and intensify asymmetrical attacks on vital infrastructure and civilian areas in Russia proper in order to inflict as much damage on Russia as possible.
This, in essence, is Plan B. Any concern for the Ukrainian people or the future viability of the Ukrainian state, have not been factored in to Washington’s cynical calculation. What matters is preventing a Russian victory and inflicting as much pain on Russia as possible. Those are the primary objectives. In practical terms, that means that more Ukrainian soldiers will be slaughtered wholesale in order to continue using Ukraine as a launching pad for attacks on Russia. In fact, UK warlords have already confirmed what we are saying here. Check out this excerpt from an article at Zero Hedge:
… UK defense chief, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, telling Financial Times that the West’s new infusion of military aid will help Ukraine increase its long-range strikes on Russian territory:
Ukraine is set to increase long-range attacks inside Russia as an influx of western military aid aims to help Kyiv shape the war “in much stronger ways”, the head of the UK military has said….
Adm. Radakin continued, “As Ukraine gains more capabilities for the long-range fight . . . its ability to continue deep operations will [increasingly] become a feature” of the war…… More of Radakin’s words point to escalation (and not negotiations) in the following… UK Defense Chief Says Ukraine To Increase Long-Range Strikes In Russia, Zero Hedge
See what I mean? This is Plan B spelled out in black and white. There is no longer any expectation that Ukraine will win the war. None. The country will merely be used as a platform for hectoring, harassing and terrorizing the Russian people. That’s Plan B in a nutshell.
But how can we be certain that Plan B has already begun?
First, consider the allocation of resources provided under the new “National Security Supplemental” that Biden signed into law earlier this week. The bill provides $61 billion for Ukraine, of which a mere $13 billion will be spent on weapons and weapons systems. How is that paltry sum going to help defeat the Russian Army?
Keep in mind, the US and NATO allies have already spent more than $200 billion funding the war in Ukraine, and the Ukrainians are losing. How is another $13 billion supposed to make a difference?
It won’t, nor is it intended to. As we said earlier, the real purpose of the money is to prevent a clear Russian victory by launching random attacks on critical infrastructure and civilian areas in Russia. Once you understand that the basic operational plan has changed, developments on the ground begin to make sense. The goal is to antagonize a geopolitical rival not to win a war. Capisce?
Here’s what the $61 billion aid package will not do: (According to political analyst Ted Snider)
It will not provide enough money. It will not provide the badly needed weapons, nor deliver them on time. It will not provide the even more badly needed troops. And it will not provide victory…..Though $61 billion is a massive amount of money, it is not massive enough to defeat Russia. What $61 Billion for Ukraine Won’t Do,The American Conservative
It’s worth noting, that most of Ukraine’s best-trained combat units have already been obliterated. They’re gone. That has forced the Zelensky regime to abduct men off the streets of Kiev and send them into battle with just two-weeks training, which is why casualties are so high. No one believes that these “green recruits” are going to rout the Russian Army or even slow its inexorable advance. No one. These men are simply being sacrificed so Washington can continue to launch its drone attacks on Russian oil facilities near Moscow or bomb civilian villages on the Russian border or conduct airstrikes on the Kerch Bridge . In other words, this ongoing orgy of carnage is being perpetuated so that deranged western elites can continue to deliver glancing blows that the Russian bear brushes off like a pesky mosquito. That is the value these billionaire elites place on human life. It means nothing to them. Check out this clip from an article by Scott Ritter:
US President Joe Biden recently signed a long-delayed $95 billion package, including $61 billion in aid for Ukraine, into law. At least $13.8 billion of this sum will be used to deliver weaponry, such as long-range ATACMS missiles and F-16 fighter jets….
“The $13.8 billion in military assistance that will be provided to Ukraine will be insufficient to basically halt the ongoing Russian advance,” and “to change the outcome on the battlefield,” he stated….
The American people who foolishly believe that the new supplemental aid package will help to expel the “evil” Russians from Ukraine are living in La la land. Nothing could be further from the truth. No one who follows events on the ground thinks Ukraine has any chance of beating a well-equipped and highly-motivated Russian Army that boasts nearly unlimited reserves, unlimited industrial capacity, unlimited resources and a firm conviction that the West is using Ukraine to break up their country and install its own puppet in Moscow. That’s what they are fighting for, and that’s why they’re going to win. Here’s more from Snider:
“$61 billion will not change the outcome of this war,” Nicolai Petro, Professor of Political Science at the University of Rhodes and the author of The Tragedy of Ukraine, (According to) Valery Zaluzhny…..That… would require five to seven times that amount, or $350-400 billion.” (But) Even if the money was sufficient, it would not provide Ukraine with the weapons it needs because the weapons are not available for purchase. (According to) Retired U.S. Army Colonel Daniel Davis, Senior Fellow at Defense Priorities: “even if you get the money, you’re not going to have the number of artillery shells, interceptor missiles for air defense. You can’t make the artillery shells any faster than we are right now. It’s a matter of physical capacity: we can’t do it.”…
Even if the West could provide Ukraine with the weapons on time, the “big problem for Ukraine,” Davis says, is not the provision of weapons, but the “manpower issue.” Ukraine’s losses on the battlefield, to death and injury, have left Ukraine with a bigger manpower problem than artillery problem…. even if the U.S. gave Ukraine all the weapons it needed, they “don’t have the men to use them.” What $61 Billion for Ukraine Won’t Do,The American Conservative
This is all pretty basic stuff. Obviously, if you don’t have the men or the money or the weapons, you’re going to lose. And, the maniacal stewards of this failed anti-Russia crusade KNOW that Ukraine is going to lose, but they’ve chosen to continue the war anyway. Why?
Because the lives, and the destruction, and the dissolution of the Ukrainian state don’t matter to them. All that matters is inflicting pain on Russia, whatever the cost. That is the ‘noble cause’ for which 500,000 Ukrainians have given their lives. And that is why this bloody debacle continues to drag on endlessly even though the outcome has never been in doubt.
(Boston, MA, Emerson College Student Released From Lock Up After Tent Protest Against The Israeli War Machine – 26 April 2024)
As more campuses join the protests against Israel’s continuing engagement in war crimes in Gaza, one common thread runs through the student demands – divest from supplying the Netanyahu government and the IDF with weapons of mass destruction. What compels many of these youthful demonstrators to occupy the public spaces and offices of their universities is the complicity of college portfolios with investments in US weapon manufacturers. They know that the products of defense contractors, like Lockheed Martin’s F-35 jet and General Dynamics MK 84 – 2000 pound bombs, are slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent civilians throughout Gaza.
They also understand that the US government, from President Biden to the Congress, is opposed to legislative efforts to hold Israel accountable to its violation of various on-the-books prohibitions for governments “engaged in gross human rights abuses” (Section 502 B of the US Foreign Assistance Act). Instead, they see the Biden Administration exploiting every loophole in any restrictions to supply Israel with unending transfers of bombs and military equipment. While countries, like Canada and numerous others, have stopped shipping weapons to Israel, the US seems oblivious to the suffering and devastation caused daily by the IDF in Gaza.
They are aware that Israeli state propaganda spreads constant disinformation about its war crimes in Gaza, from rationalizing its attacks on the staff and patients in hospitals to the murder of over 200 aid workers. They know that countless human rights agencies have condemned these kinds of war crimes in Gaza. (These same human rights agencies have also condemned the brutal killing of 1200 Israeli civilians and the taking of hostages on October 7). In order to justify the murder of so many innocent civilians, the Netanyahu government has insisted that they have actually killed 9000 Hamas militants. However, if they read one of the recent articles in the Israeli newspaper, Ha’aretz from March 31, they understand this figure is reflective of what the IDF calls “kill zones” (think “free-fire zones” in the US war on Vietnam) where anything in those zones, including women and children, were legitimate targets to then be counted as Hamas militants.
They are surely aware of what Netanyahu cabinet members have said about the Palestinians in Gaza and on the West Bank that they are just “human animals.” The Israeli Defense Minister, Yoav Gallant, has bragged about destroying the “electricity, food, and fuel” in Gaza. One of his advisers, a former IDF General, reflective of the targeting of aid workers, including those murdered seven from World Central Kitchen, acknowledged that “in order to make the siege effective, we have to prevent others from giving assistance to Gaza.” Such mass murder and wanton destruction of property in Gaza is part of a campaign of killing that one UN official has cited as “probably the highest kill ratio of any military killing anybody since the Rwandan genocide of 1994.”
When students see and hear about all of this, they are obviously motivated to express their moral outrage. On one hand, these expressions may not always comport with so-called civility. On the other hand, they are not prepared to remain silent and/or passive in the face of an unfolding genocide. In their adherence to Dr. King’s reference to the “fierce urgency of now,” they are committed, as Dr. King was, to disturbing the peace.
Indeed, we need to be reminded of another quote from Dr. King that was central to his famous Riverside Address (“A Time to Break Silence”) from April 4, 1967. He warned prophetically that “a nation that continues year after year to spend more on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.” Beyond the horrors in Gaza and the long tragic history of the oppression of Palestinians, these student protestors are trying to save their own nation from its bloated “defense” budget (now approaching almost one trillion dollars) and death-dealing spiral. What their protest ultimately signifies is their commitment to an authentic advocacy for peace and justice abroad and at home.
Fran Shor is a Michigan-based retired teacher, author, and political activist.
The Middle East will not be the same in the wake of 7 October 2023. More was breached on that day than the prison wall that Palestinian fighters burst through. The fantasy Israel has staged-managed, and the United States has parroted, for over seven decades has finally seen the light of day. The global community can no longer be gaslit.
Merriam-Webster defines gaslighting as “the act of grossly misleading someone especially for one’s own advantage.” The term has resonance for what Israel and the United States have successfully done over a number of generations—create a benign identity for Israel that has never corresponded with its ruthless settler-colonial reality.
The awful truth is that it has taken the death of over 34,000 Palestinians for many in the United States and the world to say “Free Palestine.” The mainstreamed Israeli “good guy” narrative that has colonized the U.S. body politic for so long is being whittled away by the horrific images of daily genocide and ecocide from Gaza.
A country does not become cruel overnight. It takes intent, years of practice and strategies to effectively hide the cruelty. Since it declared itself a state in 1948, the occupied territories known as Israel has relied on an elaborate state-run public relations industry to convince Western audiences, particularly Americans, of its bravery and noble intentions.
For over six months, Israel’s brutality has been brought into the living rooms of America. Until then, Israel had made certain that its foundational myths and beacon of democracy tale dominated American politics and government, religion, journalism, academia, cinema and television.
Those who have been successfully gaslit, whether consciously or unconsciously, and who wish to maintain existing power structures continue to deny the genocide being live-streamed before their eyes, and have galvanized to crush those opposed to Israel’s war on Palestinians.
American Politics and Government
For decades, Israel has manipulated U.S. politicians emotionally and financially to advance its expansionist ambitions. Israeli lobby groups, like the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), have poured billions into the coffers of receptive politicians.
Pro-Israel spending has fueled Congress’s overwhelming support for the apartheid regime. Rarely, if ever, do they question why aid is being given to the fourteenth richest (per capita) country in the world. From 1990 to 2024, for example, the “I am a Zionist,” president, Joe Biden has received$5,736,701 from pro-Israel lobbies.
In 2024, AIPAC plans to spend $100 million in an effort to unseat progressive members of Congress (eight in number) who have been critical of Israeli policy and who have called for a ceasefire in Gaza.
In January 2024, The Guardian newspaper published its analysis of campaign data. It found that congressional members supportive of the war received the most money from Israel lobby groups. It also revealed that 82 percent of its members support Israel; 9 percent are supportive of Palestine; and 8 percent were equally supportive of both.
Religion
Israel’s leaders have also capitalized on the powerful force of religion to whitewash their settler-colonial project. They have exploited the ideology of biblical chosenness and divinely sanctioned land ownership to legitimize land theft, to dispossess the Palestinians and to sell its genocidal war on Gaza.
An Israeli Democracy Index, 2013 survey revealed that two-thirds (64.3 percent) of Israeli Jews consider Jews to be the “chosen people.” The prominence of this belief has resulted in attitudes and government policies of exclusion, entitlement and ethnic chauvinism.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s war rhetoric has been suffused with violent biblical references. He has cynically ascribed the term Amalek—the staunch enemy of biblical Israelites—to Palestinians. The far-right in Israel has, for a long while, used such references to justify killing Palestinians.
The Evangelical right has stood solidly with Israel; even more so during its war on Gaza. The Israel, Zionist lobby and Christian Zionist (religious right) alliance have had enormous influence over U.S. Middle East policy. For every one Jewish Zionist, there are 30 Christian Zionists. Netanyahu has courted Evangelicals cognizant of the power they exert within Congress.
Christian Zionism demands of its followers absolute support for Israel, believing that the Rapture and Second Coming of Christ require the gathering of all Jews in Israel, and that supporting Israel will bring God’s blessing on them and on their nation.
Many American evangelicals, have been cheering Israel’s war on Gaza, believing it to be a prelude to the end times prophecy.
Christian Zionists have found powerful allies in the White House and in the U.S. Congress. In the Trump White House, for example, evangelicals held seats of power with the likes of former Vice President Mike Pence and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
There are at least 100 evangelicals currently serving in Congress, including the Republican Speaker of the House, Mike Johnson. It has become almost mandatory for members to attend AIPAC and Christian evangelical events, as well as excursions to Israel to assure the apartheid leaders of their continued loyalty.
Journalism
American public opinion has been molded to look with favor on Israel. Mainstream journalism has become largely a stenography service for U.S.-Israeli interests. Most of the pundits and so-called experts on television, for example, come from think tanks funded by pro-Israel groups: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, American Enterprise Institute, Foreign Policy Research Institute, The Heritage Foundation and Council on Foreign Relations.
Intellectually honest analysis or criticism of Israel is met with orchestrated pressure from Jewish lobby groups or with the dreaded label of antisemitism. Such tactics have been used to create a climate of intimidation, which has often led to self-censorship.
It is useful to look at a few examples to understand how alternative narratives regarding Palestine have been discouraged for decades.
Ariel Sharon, former Israeli defense minister, filed a libel suit after Time magazine ran a cover story in 1983 accusing him of encouraging the massacre of Palestinians at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Lebanon in September 1982. In 1984, Americans for a Safe Israel filed a petition requesting that NBC’s license be revoked over its reporting of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon. CBS faced similar criticism for airing veteran reporter, Bob Simon’s “60-Minutes” report about Christians living under Israeli occupation. A full-page ad in The Wall Street Journal excoriating Simon appeared soon after.
CNN’s founder, Ted Turner, caused an uproar when he told the Guardian in 2002 that Israel was engaging in terrorism against the Palestinians, resulting in threats to the networks revenue. Walter Isaacson, then CNN Chair, appeared on Israeli television to denounce Turner and the network’s chief news executive, Eason Jordan, flew to Israel to appease the regime.
Magazines such as The New Republic, The Atlantic and Commentary have also been influential in creating an Israel-centric worldview. Pro-Israel syndicated columnists Thomas Friedman, Bret Stephens, George Will and David Brooks—whose son has served in the Israeli army—dominate the op-ed pages of major newspapers.
Since the October assault, a number of journalists have faced censorship, retaliation or dismissal for presenting the Palestinian narrative or for criticizing Israeli violence. The firing in October of Michael Eisen, editor of eLife, a prominent academic science journal, after he retweeted an article from the satirical Onion titled, “Dying Gaza’s Crticized for Not Using Last Words to Condemn Hamas,”reflects how censorship has reached into all media platforms.
All foreign news organizations operating in Israel are subject to Israeli military censors. To suppress the horrors coming from Gaza, Israel has refused to permit foreign journalists independent access to that beleaguered Strip. Only Palestinian reporters already there have been able to report; for that, they and their families have been targeted. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, as of 25 April, at least 97 journalists and media staff have been killed and 16 injured since the war began.
Academia
For over two hundred days, Israel’s supporters have been straining to preserve their stranglehold over American universities. They are aware that people are losing their fear of Israel’s watchdogs like Canary Mission, Stand With Us and Hillel; groups that have made it their mission to suppress critical discussion around Israel on college campuses.
Academic freedom has been denied professors who have bravely challenged accepted Israeli renderings. Professors Rabab Abdulhadi, California State University, San Francisco, Steven Salaita, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Norman Finkelstein, De Paul are among the academics who have been intimidated or terminated.
Pro-Israel forces have stepped up their pressure on administrators, as demonstrations on university campuses have grown. Wealthy donors have used threats to withhold, or have withheld, donations if speech critical of Israel is allowed. Administrators have responded, dismissing professors, setting limits on free speech, conflating protests with antisemitism and using police to breakup demonstrations. More than 100 Columbia University students were arrested on 18 April after the university called in the New York Police Department to clear a protest encampment.
Students reported being sprayed with a putrid smelling chemical agent at a Columbia demonstration. They later learned that they were sprayed with a chemical called “skunk;” an agent developed by Israel and that has been used for years by the Israeli military against Palestinians in occupied Palestine.
Earlier in April, the University of Southern California, citing unspecified security concerns, cancelled plans for a graduation speech by this year’s valedictorian, Asna Tabassum, a Muslim student. Disappointed, Tabassum said the school had succumbed “to a campaign of hate meant to silence my voice.”
Pro-Israel groups have also looked to Congress to neutralize the growing pro-Palestinian protests. House Republicans have held hearings to “investigate” antisemitism at America’s prestigious universities. Thus far, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania have resigned following their appearances. And on 24 April, Speaker Johnson called for the president of Columbia University, Nemat Minouche Shafik, to step down.
Safety and antisemitism have been used as weapons to silence campus criticism of Israel. In November, after Jewish students complained of feeling unsafe upon hearing remarks critical of Israel, Columbia banned its chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace.
The intensity of Israeli indoctrination is reflected in the reaction of some Jewish students who believe that protests targeting Israel constitute personal attacks on them as Jews.
Many young American Jews have been raised with the idealized image of Israel as a righteous state, necessary for Jewish safety. A large number have made the free ten-day trip to Israel sponsored by Birthright Israel, an organization supported by the Israeli regime and wealthy philanthropists like the late Sheldon Adelson. Birthright, founded in 1999, has played a large role in shaping loyalty to Israel. Predictably, the reality of the occupation has never been a part of the group’s tour.
Cinema and Television
Israel loyalists have masterfully utilized the media to shape public perceptions and attitudes. Movie and television screens have been filled with an abundance of positive, sympathetic images of Israel that have shaped public perceptions.
Undoubtedly, the 1960 film, Exodus, firmly implanted the heroic image of Israel in the minds of many Americans. The heroism of the Palestinian people fighting to preserve their homeland from Israeli domination has yet to hit the big screen.
Beginning with the 1921silent film classic, The Sheik, filmmakers have cast Middle Easterners, Arabs and Muslims as exotic, uncultured, idiotic, lecherous and violent, indistinguishable from one another.
Although racist depictions of Arabs is not new to the film and television industry, media providers Showtime, Netflix and HBO have amped up the propaganda with series such as Homeland, Fauda (meaning chaos in Arabic), The Messiah, The Spy, and Our Boys. These dramas, from which many Americans draw their information, portray Israel’s secret police as virtuous defenders of law, hunting down threatening Arab “terrorists.”
Caricatures and negative cinematic imagery have contributed to the destructive dehumanization of Arabs, as witnessed today in Gaza. The powerful political narrative created around Arabs has allowed Israel’s genocide of Palestinians to become an image on a screen or just another news event.
For more than eight decades—from photoplay sheik movies of the 1920s to the elaborately produced films of the present—Hollywood filmmakers have perpetuated Middle Eastern stereotypes that have cultivated prejudice and division between peoples and nations. These stereotypes have created a pattern of socialization that has made the Middle Eastern world distant and vulnerable to attack.
Conclusion
Although the pro-Israel camp and their allies continue to dominate and influence Congress and the executive branch, they have slowly begun to lose control of the narrative.
President Joe Biden, however, remains dedicated to the Israeli fantasy. He has embraced and subsidized a racist supremacist Israeli regime; a 57-year apartheid occupation; squatter colonialism and genocide in Gaza.
While professing commitment to achieving a Palestinian state, the United States alone vetoed a 18 April Security Council resolution that would have allowed full United Nations membership for the state of Palestine. And while Israel continues its intense bombing in Gaza, Biden signed legislation on 24 April allocating another $26.4 billion for Tel Aviv to continue its atrocities.
Israeli gaslighting has reached into and exerted influence in almost every segment of American society. Consequently, Israel has grown into an entity unbound by borders, exempt from international law and able to commit genocide with impunity. The horrific images coming from Gaza are, however, are making it increasingly difficult for Israel and its U.S. allies to silence dissent and to continue gaslighting the American public.
The recent presence of police on the campus of Columbia University to stop pro- Palestinian protesters is reminiscent of turbulence on the same campus in 1968. While the past and present issues of contestation at Columbia are different, the issues of free speech and student activism reflect an ongoing tension between students and universities in general. Student/administrators differences, sometimes violent, are nonetheless healthy and necessary parts of a democratic society.
The current issue between students and university administrators focuses on the Middle East crisis. Protesting students have taken up the cause of Palestinians against Israel. Over one hundred student protesters were recently arrested by New York City police on Columbia’s campus. “It’s like there’s been a military coup on campus,” a student was quoted in Le Monde. “There are cops everywhere,” she said. At Columbia, on-campus classes have been cancelled; students were urged to stay home. Police have also intervened at New York University and Yale.
The fact that Columbia’s president and other university officials have called in the police “to restore order on campus” shows the gap between the students’ actions and how the university seeks to govern. In a larger context, the current campus turmoil highlights the failure to incorporate student idealism into university policies.
Threats to security and order are superficial excuses for calling in the police. Student idealism is the problem. “Columbia’s move to send in police so quickly after these demonstrations began chills student expression, marks a significant departure from past practice, and raises questions about the university’s disparate treatment of students based on their views,” Donna Lieberman, the executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union said in a statement.
A similar statement by the Columbia and Barnard chapters of the American Association of University Professors condemned Columbia president Minouche Shafik’s crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests: “We are shocked at her failure to mount any defense of the free inquiry central to the educational mission of a university in a democratic society and at her willingness to appease legislators seeking to interfere in university affairs.”
Chilling student expression by university administrators is part of an endless tug of war between youthful idealism and the conservative forces of law and order. University presidents, as representatives of what they perceive to be larger responsibilities, weigh student demands with their perceptions of societal interests. And the students usually lose, particularly in the current situation of academic institutions resembling bureaucratic corporations.
As eminent academic free speech expert Professor Stephen Rosow observes: “University administrations seem to view the relation of the university as a seat of knowledge to the public sphere as one of mirroring public opinion rather than leading public discussion and debate.” “They are,” he adds, “beholden to the ideological forces that stand behind donors, but their vision of the university as necessary to a robust democracy is at best in retreat.”
Student activism is part of an endemic conflict between students and authority, including university administrators, government, and society. While the conflict may manifest itself violently from time to time, it is part of a normal process. Eighteen-to-twenty-four-year-olds should be idealistic. The tension between the protesters and the university administrators is more than the question of the limits of freedom of speech; it’s about the freedom to think, the freedom to question, the freedom to create, the freedom to act. The incapacity of universities to incorporate student activism into their regular activities is threatened when administrators call onto campus the forces of law and order. It is indeed chilling when a campus is seen as the site of a military coup.
It is also chilling when universities are given government warnings of what the forces of law and order may do. As proof of how chilling society can be, witness Republican Congresswoman Elise Stefanik’s aggressive questioning of three university presidents about antisemitism on their campuses before a House of Representatives subcommittee. Stefanik’s political posturing sent a clear message to universities, both private and public, that the government will oversee what is happening on campuses. Stefanik and people like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis are attempting to thought-police higher education.
What happens on campus is thoroughly political in terms of the freedom given to students to express their opinions. In the classroom, questioning authority by critically examining iconic texts is naturally followed outside the classroom by students questioning campus authorities and beyond. Critical questioning is what higher education is all about.
But questioning does not necessarily lead to physical confrontation One of my fondest memories of college is the evening when Lyndon Johnson announced his steps to limit the bombing of North Vietnam and his decision not to seek re-election. I called the president of the college to say we should celebrate. (He was far from an anti-war radical.) He immediately invited me and a small group over to his residence where he opened his plentiful liquor cabinet, still in pyjamas, and discussions/celebrations began. Together.
If the latest Harvard Youth Poll shows that students in the 18-24 age range have different political opinions than those older, that is to be expected. University students are different from the general society. Some call students irresponsible; I prefer to call them idealistically positive, creative, and active. The reason to study at a university is to expand the mind and personal possibilities, not to limit one’s intellect and activities.
Creative thinking is messy. Questioning authority is inherently disruptive. Both can be found on campuses as part of a natural tension between students and administrators. If campuses become war zones, it is the result of the failure of administrators to engage with their constituents on the students’ terms. Unlike the endless wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, endless critical questioning of authority through political activism is the very foundation of a democratic society.
In striking at the Iranian consulate in Damascus on April 1 Bibi Netanyahu has made himself an April Fool. Israel has been bombing Syria for years with no provocation or retaliation by Syria. For years it has bombed its airports which disrupted humanitarian aid to Syria’s civilian population who were suffering in its long civil war. Iran responded to the Israeli strike on its Damascus consulate by asking its allies, the Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and Hamas in Gaza, to refrain from their retaliatory strikes on Israel and let Iran make a military retaliation by itself. This was to ensure that Israel got the message. In the future, Iran will not rely on its proxies but will itself attack Israel. Israel and the US intercepted all but a few of the Iranian drones, and Israel trumpeted this as a victory for it and a defeat for Iran. But in fact the Iranian response was a political and strategic victory.
Netanyahu has been spoiling for a war with Iran for a long time, and since October 7 he has seeking ways to drag the US into another war in the Middle East. While Biden said the US would fully back Israel in its confrontation with Iran, he also cautioned Netanyahu. A CNN story said this:
Biden sought to frame Israel’s successful interception of the Iranian onslaught as a major victory: — with the suggestion that further Israeli response was unnecessary…Biden told Netanyahu to consider Saturday a win because the US assessed Iran’s attacks had been largely unsuccessful and demonstrated Israel’s superior military capability, Biden made clear that the US will not participate in any offensive operations against Iran in response, a senior administration official told CNN.
In the meantime, US Senator Tim Kaine who was Hillary Clinton’s vice-presidential candidate has spoken up about the US relationship with Netanyahu and his rightwing government. Kaine is a close ally and is a member of the Senate foreign relations and armed services committees. Kaine said, “Joe Biden now understands that Benjamin Netanyahu ‘played’ him during the early months of the war in Gaza but ‘that ain’t going to happen anymore.’[i] Netanyahu’s strategic blunders in the Gaza war and now the strike in Damascus have got him in quite a pickle. His major concern is to stay in office to avoid looming criminal prosecution. His quandary is not unlike that of his friend Trump. If they are friends—if either really has any friends. Each in psychiatric terminology is mentally ill with what is diagnosed as ‘malignant narcissism.’ Each is willing to sacrifice anything to save himself. Kaine said as much of Netanyahu in his interview:
“He’s going to end up being one of the most successful politicians and most destructive public servants to be on the world stage in the last quarter century, because he’s successful if you measure it by maintaining his own position but, in terms of what he has done … has made Israel less safe and less secure.”[ii]
Benny Gantz, the ‘moderate’ Israeli politician who joined the war cabinet after October 7 has spoken of how the reaction to Iran’s attack showed the unity of Israel and its western allies. He said, “Israel against Iran, the world against Iran. This is the result. That is a strategic achievement which we must leverage for Israel’s security.” Whether he actually believes this I do not know. But if he does he is deluding himself. The key event was not Iran’s retaliation but the Israel’s strike on the Iranian consulate. That event only reinforced the view of its western ‘allies’ and almost all the other nations of Israel as a rogue state, whose now increasingly reckless actions in Gaza and Syria threaten to bring a wider war to the Middle East—which no one wants, except it seems Netanyahu and his neo-fascist cabinet.
That means that if Israel goes to war against Iran it will go alone. If it continues to provoke the Hezbollah in south Lebanon, it will find itself fighting on two fronts which it doesn’t have the military capacity to do. The last time Israel confronted Hezbollah in 2006, it lost. Since then Hezbollah has acquired more advanced weaponry and, what is more, its soldiers are battle-hardened veterans from their combat in alliance with the Syrian army in the decade of civil war. The reservists Israel called up for the attack on Gaza would be no match for Hezbollah fighters. Netanyahu has painted himself into a corner with the Damascus strike. For a long time the EU—especially France—has tired of Israel’s aggressions in the Middle East. Now its last ally the US has apparently had enough too.
Israel was designed by its Zionist founders to be an aggressive state, a new Jewish ghetto really But an aggressive one. They saw it as a necessity. Israel needed to be at war lest the Jewish settlers be assimilated into the Arab people all around them.
The slogan ‘from the river to the sea’ now denounced by some people in the US as ‘anti-Semitic’ was actually also a part of the Likud Party’s original charter which Netanyahu helped write. It is rarely mentioned in the mainstream media that Israel helped start Hamas. It is well-documented that when Netanyahu became prime minister, he and others in Likud channeled money to it through Qatar in order to weaken Fatah with a fundamentalist party that wanted to obliterate Israel thus giving Netanyahu and his backers a way to claim that there was no one to negotiate with. This was simply a cynical delaying tactic while the Israeli settlements metastasized throughout the West Bank. But on October 7 the folly of Netanyahu’s connivance in the creation Hamas was apparent. How clever he was—until he wasn’t.
The foundation of Israel in 1948 was in a way the big bang of the post-war Middle East. The humiliating defeat of the states created out of colonial designs of Britain and France led to revolutions in the Arab world.
The two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been a non-starter for some years. Israel has stolen too much land in the West Bank for a viable Palestinian state. It is still touted by the US and most of the EU. It does serve one purpose, however. It makes apparent that the real obstacle to a peaceful settlement of the conflict is solely Israel. The only possible solution is a single secular state of Palestine where Arabs and Jews are equal citizens. Hamas and the radical Jewish fundamentalists in Netanyahu’s administration will have to deal with it from the sidelines—the majority of Israelis and Palestinians are not religious fundamentalists. The Turkish foreign minister Hakan Fidan met with Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Qatar. Fidan said according to Turkish news media. “In our political talks with Hamas for years, they have accepted a Palestinian state to be established within the 1967 borders.”[iii]
While Netanyahu is the driver behind Israel’s latest gambles in Gaza and elsewhere, he’s simply explicitly mouthing Israeli aims—expansion and ethnic cleansing. He has espoused and worked purposefully against the two-state option. He has tolerated and even collaborated with Hamas. He is the most arrogant and duplicitous politician in the world. Biden should never call him again. He should call for his arrest and imprisonment not only for fraud breach of trust and bribery—the charges pending in Israel—but for crimes against humanity.
That said, the miserable theocratic imams of Iran have done the world a favor. They have put the US between a rock and a hard place, and forced Biden to say, Enough, we won’t support any further action of Israel against Iran. Which will also increase greater anxiety in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and will expose them for the shits they are.[iv]
The strike on the Iranian consulate in Damascus was to distract the world press from the genocidal assault on Gaza. Israel responded with a missile attack on Iran itself. Iran’s retaliation to that attack that showed that Iran—is more cautious. It seems now not likely to retaliate to the Israeli strike.
On the other hand, Netanyahu has already drawn blunt criticism for the Israeli strike on Iran. Israel’s National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir—who was convicted by an Israeli court of supporting terrorism—said the Israeli attack on Iran was “lame.” after Tehran thwarted a small IDF drone strike early on Friday. Netanyahu is under attack even by members of his own cabinet. As they say down South, he’s up to his waist in alligators. Netanyahu is caught now in a vise of his own making between the assault on Gaza and the strike on Damascus. It was bound to happen ever since 1948. He is simply the catalyst who finally brought it on. With the US finally drawing a line, Israel’s last ally is saying enough is enough. AIPAC is now challenged by another Jewish lobby, J Street, and American politicians are taking note of AIPAC’s diminishing power. It’s power politics and Bibi is losing.
The American decision not to veto a UN Security Council resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire in Gaza was another shock to Netanyahu—it was a first for a US administration. Netanyahu’s response was to cancel a planned Israeli meeting with the Biden administration in Washington. Israel is now more isolated more isolated than ever in the international world. Hamas is outfoxing Israel at every step. Israel is learning the hard way that an empire will sacrifice the interests of a small piece of it to the greater interests of the empire.
Yair Lapid, who is the leader of the opposition Yesh Atid party, said the resolution was “dangerous, unfair, and Israel will not accept it.” Minister Hili Tropper, a close ally of Netanyahu’s rival Benny Gantz — who polls say would win handily if an election were held today —said, “The war must not stop.” These comments did not differ greatly from the angry reactions by extreme-right leaders such as Bezalel Smotrich or Itamar Ben Gvir.
More people in the Israeli security establishment are saying that eliminating Hamas is not an achievable goal. Former IDF spokesman Ronen Manelis was quoted recently saying. “To say that one day there will be a complete victory in Gaza — this is a complete lie. Israel cannot completely eliminate Hamas in an operation that lasts only a few months.”
The near-unanimous rejection of a ceasefire shows the cross-party support for an invasion of the Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip. But Netanyahu is holding off after the US allowed the resolution. Also figuring in his calculations is the call by thirty members of Congress including Nancy Pelosi for a suspension of military aid to Israel.
Likewise in the UK, opposition parties and parliamentarians from the governing Conservative Party, and hundreds of lawyers and judges have called on Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to stop the sale of weaponry to Israel.
At the same time the families of the Israeli hostages are becoming more critical of Netanyahu’s failure to cut a deal with Hamas to free the hostages. The futility of continuing the war has become clear—the goals of eliminating Hamas and freeing the hostages are conflicting. Hamas has politically won the war.
Before October 6, most Israelis thought that a resolution of the Palestinian issue could be put off indefinitely. October 6 shattered that illusion.
There are only two responses to the collapse of the status quo after October 6. One is to recognize the presence of Palestinians and their right to a state. The other is a genocidal war. Israel had chosen the latter. Its slaughter of over thirty-four thousand people, almost all of them innocent civilians (the IDF counts all adult males in Gaza as members of Hamas) its denial of food, water and medicine—all these acts have increased the anger and disgust with it all around the world. The recent murderous assault on the World Kitchen Central—the WKC—is the latest outrage. Israeli’s claim that it was an accident is not believable. It was intentional. The death of an American aid worker simply brought it to the attention of the mass media in America. Israel has been killing aid workers of such organizations as the International Rescue Committee and Médecins Sans Frontières since the beginning of its assault on Gaza—in the case of the WKC it didn’t reckon on one of the victims being an American. If all of these actions are not genocidal then the term has no meaning.
“WCK [aka WFK] is not just any relief organization,” wrote Jack Mirkinson in TheNation magazine. He said of José Andrés, “Andrés is a global celebrity with ties to the international political establishment. WCK had been working closely with the Israeli government both in Gaza and in Israel proper. It would be difficult to think of a more mainstream, well-connected group.” It was as if Israel were showing off, Mirkinson added, “flaunting its ability to cross every known line of international humanitarian law and get away with it.”[v]
Were more evidence needed to support Mirkinson’s description of Israel’s actions, a recent story in the Washington Post confirms it.
The story describes how on January 29 a six-year-old girl, Hind Rajab, was calling for help on her cell phone—when she was intermittently conscious—from the backseat of a car near a Gaza City gas station. She told the emergency dispatchers that ID tanks were getting closer. Her cousin Layan took the phone and told a cousin that Israeli soldiers and were firing at it. Everyone in the car was dead except her and Rajab. They told her that paramedics were on their way. Hind Rajab and all the paramedics were killed. The paramedics notified an IDF agency COGAT that they were going to rescue wounded children and COGAT told them the safest route to take. The paramedics never made it to Hind Rajab. Their ambulance was destroyed Israeli tank fire—they probably would have been safer if they had not notified COGAT. It was twelve days later that family members could make their way to the scene. The car was riddled with bullets as were the bodies of Hind Rajab and her family members. Again despite the statement of the IDF that they would ‘look into it,’ the story in the Washington Post makes it clear with a mass of forensic evidence that the IDF murdered the paramedics and Hind Rajab and her family in cold blood.[vi]
A video posted recently on various news sites showed an endless line Palestinians walking on al-Rashid Road next to the sea, returning to the north of Gaza defying the Israeli warning that they should remain near Rafa. Their home are mostly rubble now but one Palestinian woman said, “If I have to die I want to die in my home.”
As I write Monday April 22, The US has imposed sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has been accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinians in the West Bank. It’s now deployed in Gaza. What’s more, The Israeli paper Haaretz has reported that the US was also considering similar moves against other police and military units. What took so long?
When people mention Israel to me—“the Zionist Entity” as its Arab foes call it—I think of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem founded by the Crusaders in 1099. It lasted until 129I when Saladin took Jerusalem. I want to say to them, ‘Where is the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem?’ The Palestinians will win simply by staying in Palestine while Israel atrophies as the apartheid state of South Africa did. It won’t take two centuries as Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem did.
October 7 was a war crime but a relatively minor one when set in the context of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and the US invasion of Iraq—which caused the deaths of somewhere between half a million to a million Iraqis. But now Bibi’s blundering response to the Hamas assault has resulted in another Big Bang. Global condemnation of Israel.
Notes.
[i] “Tim Kaine: “Biden knows Netanyahu ‘played’ him in early months of Gaza war.” The Guardian, April 10, 2024.
[v] Ellen Cantorow: “Dead on Arrival.” AntiWar.com, April 17 2024. The Jack Mirkinson article, “The Ghoulish Ostentatiousness of Israel’s Latest War Crimes, cited by Ellen Cantorow appeared in The Nation on April 4, 2024.
[vi] Meg Kelly, Hajar Harb, Louise Loveluck, Miriam Berger and Cate Brown. “Palestinian paramedics said Israel gave them safe passage to save a 6-year-old girl in Gaza. They were all killed.” Washington Post, April 16, 2024.
We live in an age of increased disasters and encroaching fascism. This is a historical moment marked by a systemic attempt by an emerging authoritarianism to disable language and dissent of any substantive meaning, remove actions from the grammar of moral witnessing, and disassociate power from institutional justice. As all levels of society are hollowed out, notions of democratic community, the social contract, and compassion give way to a politics in which all matters of responsibility are individualized, privatized, and removed from broader systemic considerations. The habits of oligarchy are animated by fear and reproduced through relentless attacks on human possibilities, while “the disorder of real history is replaced by the orderliness of pseudo-history.”[1] In a time of widespread suffering and unrest, higher education is feared for its critical functions and students are expected to be silent, unresponsive to wider social issues, and ignore the relationship between the dynamics of power, marginality, and knowledge. Amid the expansion of the military-industrial complex and the carceral state, faculty and students are expected to look away or inward, unresponsive to the language of imagined futures.
This process of depoliticization is intensified by a frontal attack on dissent, free speech, academic freedom, and institutions that support and nurture these crucial democratic rights and practices. Increasingly, higher education, in particular, under the influence of right-wing billionaires, authoritarian politicians, and cravenly boards of trustees is attacked for its critical functions, reduced to morally dead zones of the imagination and a mind-numbing conformity. Disdained as a public good whose purpose should be to educate young people to be informed and critical citizens, higher education is under pressure by far-right members of the GOP to renounce its responsibility to teach students to question, challenge, and think against the grain. One model for this regressive form of education is on display in Florida where Gov. Ron DeSantis has transformed New College, a once progressive college, into a citadel for anti-woke ideology and pedagogy–cleansed of classes where faculty and students can think critically, test their opinions, and realize themselves as engaged citizens.
No longer considered a public good where ideas and important social issues are nurtured, debated. and interrogated, institutions of higher education are being transformed into indoctrination centers where critical ideas and empowering pedagogies are held in contempt, transformed into apparatuses of censorship and hopelessness. Derided as a haven for critically informed social criticism, the far-right wants to reduce teaching and learning to what might be called cloning pedagogies, designed to clone culture, knowledge, ideas, and extremist world views.
Even worse. Higher education is increasingly being attacked by the far-right for its liberal claim of equality and a common good. As an institution that aligns with a notion of “citizenship… equated with human dignity [and] equality on multiple fronts,” it has garnered the wrath of fascists for whom hostility to universal citizenship is a central element of its mobilizing passions.[2] This hatred of equality reinforced by the selective definition of who counts as an American now feeds both the attack on higher education and an increasingly vicious racist politics. As Eddie S. Claude notes, the fantasy of a “lily-white America” and the call to banish Black and brown people “from the nation’s moral conscience” create landscapes of illusion, enable white supremacy, while furthering racist violence and the logic of exclusion and annihilation.[3] The far-right views thinking as dangerous as is the notion that education is central to politics and must be defined through it claims on democracy and its role in a time of tyranny.
Moral restrictions seem obsolete as another colonial war rages in Gaza, during which thousands of Palestinians are killed, while attempts to criticize what various international organizations label as war crimes are summarily dismissed as antisemitism. This refusal to acknowledge the violence being waged against Palestinians has morphed into a war against critical journalists, cultural workers, and increasingly higher education, now viewed by the far-right as a citadel of pernicious socialist thought. Under such circumstances, those who react to the suffering of others are subject to the dehumanizing and morally cannibalistic, verbal orgies of hatred, and increasingly, state violence. They are also at risk of a society in which civic death leads state violence, domestic terrorism, and a politics of disposability.[4]
In this historical moment, attacks on higher education make clear that struggling for freedom, equality, and justice comes with great risks. Such attacks give credence to an emerging fascist politics both in the U.S. and abroad that mark students who question settler colonial dispossession and state violence as objects of disparagement and potential violence by a racist-criminogenic state. Displays of civic courage now qualify students as objects of critique, exclusion, and in some cases arrests. In the current repressive climate, this points to not only the egregious act of censorship, but also to the death of the university as a public good and civic institution, regardless of its flawed notions of equality and civic knowledge.
For Trump and his Vichy-like enablers, higher education is portrayed as a laboratory of left-wing ideologies whose ultimate purpose is “to destroy family, community, and national unity.”[5] These repressive policies represent the return of what Ellen Schrecker has called “the new McCarthyism,” which uses the smear of communism to attack critical education, teacher autonomy, and “real-world issues of race, gender, and social inequality.”[6] She writes:
The current [McCarthyite] campaign to limit what can be taught in high school and college classrooms is clearly designed to divert angry voters from the deeper structural problems that cloud their own personal futures. Yet it is also a new chapter in the decades-long campaign to roll back the changes that have brought the real world into those classrooms. In one state after another, reactionary and opportunistic politicians are joining that broader campaign to overturn the 1960s’ democratization of American life. By attacking the CRT bogeyman and demonizing contemporary academic culture and the critical perspectives that it can produce, the current limitations on what can be taught endanger teachers at every level, while the know-nothingism these measures encourage endangers us all.[7]
The right’s attack on universities as citadels of leftist ideology dates back further than the purge of academics by the rabid anti-communists under Senator Joe McCarthy in the 1950s. Authoritarian governments in the 1930s performed a similar task in order to control universities. As Professor Ruth Ben-Ghiat writes:
From the fascist years in Europe…right-wing leaders have accused universities of being incubators of left-wing ideologies and sought to mold them in the image of their own propaganda, policy, and policing aims. … Given the virulence the Nazis showed in silencing their critics in and out of the academy after Hitler took power in 1933, it is remarkable that this talking-point has retained traction for the right. It has done so thanks, largely, to the military juntas of the cold war era, which gave new life to fascism’s battles against the left.[8]
More recently, McCarthyite tactics became rampant during George W. Bush’s presidency. This was particularly evident when Vice President Cheney claimed that critics of the administration’s Iraq policy “abetted terrorists.”[9]Simultaneously, the Bush-era witnessed the emergence of McCarthyite institutions like Campus Watch, the David Project, Students for Academic Freedom, and other groups designed to police Middle East Studies and the liberal arts in general for any vestige of dissent against US domestic and foreign policies. Discoverthenetwork.org and other extremist organizations listed the names of professors considered un-American, similar to how ACTA listed the names of alleged unpatriotic professors after the 9/11 attacks.[10]
In an age dominated by feral social media platforms, a malignant form of censorship has emerged in even more virulent forms. For example, this is evident in the work of organizations such as StopAntisemitism, which engages in online vigilantism by doxing critics of Israel’s war on Gaza by “posting personal information online to encourage harassment — thereby chilling debate.”[11] Not only are such critics named, shamed, and harassed, but many of them are expelled from college and often terminated from their jobs.
At present, a more dangerous form of McCarthyism has returned with a vengeance. This authoritarian turn in higher education has been accelerated by the increasing suppression of dissent by critics of Israel’s war in Gaza. Against Israel’s historically based claim of ontological innocence and perpetual victimhood, a new generation of critics argue, as Pankaj Mishra makes clear, that “oppression does not improve moral character.”[12] Israel can no longer absolve its crimes by drawing upon its own tortured unfathomable history of repression and genocide. Federic Lordon goes further and argues that Israel’s brutal war of revenge on Gaza and its call to prevent a Palestinian state represent a form of “moral suicide.” He adds: “Never before has there been such a colossal squandering of symbolic capital that was thought to be unassailable, which had been built up in the wake of the Holocaust.”[13]
Netanyahu’s war on Gaza has intensified protests on university campuses against Israel’s brutal violence against Palestinians. In response, the mainstream media and a number of pundits, with the blessing of pro-Israeli interests, has weaponized antisemitism, a label which has been reduced to any critique of Israel’s military conduct in Gaza or the West Bank. As William I. Robinson observes, one consequence of this pernicious criticism by the far-right is that “academic freedom and free speech are under an all-out attack on university campuses in the United States, not just from college administrations and pro-Israeli groups, but also from the highest levels of the Israeli state.”[14]
Student activists who criticize Israel are facing harassment, monitoring, expulsion, public shaming, and, in some cases, mass arrest for disruptions, evidenced by recent events at Columbia and Yale University, and increasingly several other universities.[15] The protester’s call for colleges and universities to divest from corporations that profit from Israel’s war on Gaza along with their demand for “a complete ceasefire in Gaza” are buried in the blanket charge of antisemitism and the force of police violence.[16] These arrests serve as another indication of the collaboration between certain Ivy League colleges and the far-right in the assault on student voices.[17] Ari Paul observes that mainstream news has generally delighted in the crackdown, making clear “that campus safe spaces where speech is banned to protect the feelings of listeners are good, depending on the issue.” [18] This is not to suggest that attacks on Jewish and students supporting Palestinian rights should be overlooked, but the real objective of the war being waged on elite universities poses a far greater threat than generalized and undebated charges of antisemitism. The inquisition at work in the house committee hearings investigating campus antisemitism is heavily inundated with political theater displayed by Elise Stefanik and her GOP colleagues. What is obvious in this show trial, as David Bell notes, is that they “do not have any real interest in solving campus problems. Their goal is to expose liberal elites as corrupt, dangerous, and anti-American.”[19] The real objective of these hearings is to weaponize protests against the war in Gaza as components of a larger strategy aimed at exercising a defining role in the control of higher education. Robert Kuttner rightly notes in The American Prospect that this McCarthyite assault is part of a broader effort “to suppress fundamental freedoms of expression.”[20]
While the issue of campus antisemitism warrants discussion and debate, it is not within the purview of congresswomen, Elise Stefanik. Nor is any serious discussion of widespread Islamophobia and the squelching of dissent by various campus groups supporting Palestinian rights. By leading the charge in Congressional hearings on antisemitism on college campuses, Stefanik adopts a flame-throwing confrontational approach aimed at dictating “the academic mission of a university,” prescribing disciplinary measures against professors, and formulating guidelines “for acceptable campus speech.”[21] The irony and hypocrisy here are hard to overlook given Stefanik’s “Puritan superego,” belligerent stance, and self-assured role as an opponent of campus antisemitism.[22] This is especially noteworthy in light of her denial of elections results, characterization of individuals who attacked the Capitol as “January 6 hostages,” and her impassioned and staunch defense of Trump, who associates with prominent antisemites such as Kanye West and Nick Fuentes.[23]
The hypocrisy at work in criticism by far-right politicians is not limited to Stefanik. Senator Josh Hawley, Tom Cotton and other MAGA supporters of the insurrectionists who stormed the Capitol on January 6 have called for President Biden, whose election they refused to accept, to use the National Guard to arrest students on college campuses. For the MAGA group, violence waged by insurrections is legitimate, but students protesting against the massacre of Palestinians represent a threat to the state. On full display here is the irony of warmongers calling for violence against students who are calling for “the American government to stop sending military aid to Israel” and “for universities to stop investing in weapons manufacturers…who profit from Israel’s invasion of Gaza.”[24] Hypocrisy in the service of violence is perfectly aligned with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s characterization of student protesters on American university campuses as “”antisemitic mobs” that must be stopped.[25] Senator Bernie Sanders aptly criticized Netanyahu’s derogatory remarks as a ploy to use antisemitism “to distract us from the immoral and illegal war policies of your extremist and racist government.”[26] He further adds:
No, Mr. Netanyahu. It is not antisemitic or pro-Hamas to point out that in a little over six months, your extremist government has killed 34,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 77,000—70% of whom are women and children. It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more than one million people homeless—almost half the population.[27]
Of course, hypocrisy is important to point out but what really is at issue here is a political party and its far-right media apparatchiks who believe in using state force and the exercise of violence against their own people in order to shut down free speech. Yes, this is a form of domestic terrorism and it is a fundamental element of fascist regimes. Campus protests are not merely seen as unwelcome disruptions but are criminalized by far-right university administrators and politicians.
Compounding these crude attacks on students protesting against the war on Gaza and the corporations that provide them with military weapons is the aggressive involvement of pro-Israel groups, some with the backing of the Israel state, in a broad campaign to shame and publicly disclose information about pro-Palestinian protesters, including students and faculty. Commenting on the repressive nature of this intervention by the Israeli state, Robinson states that the Israeli government has initiated what appears to be a wide-ranging covert campaign and action plan “to harass and intimidate students, faculty, and administrators into silence.”[28] He elaborates on some of the chilling specifics of the plan:
The plan aims at ‘inflicting economic and employment consequences on antisemitic [read: pro-Palestinian/anti-genocide] students and compelling universities to distance them from their campuses.” The plan specifies that actions taken “should not have the signature of the State of Israel on it.’… It calls for ‘personal, economic and employment repercussions for the distributors of antisemitism.’ According to the plan, the inter-ministerial task force will carry out ‘naming and shaming’ by ‘publicizing the names of those generating antisemitism on campuses — both students and faculty and impacting the employment of those identified as the perpetrators of antisemitism.’ Those targeted ‘will struggle to find employment in the U.S. and will pay a significant economic price for their conduct.’[29]
Within this frigid climate of censorship, doxing, and punishment, faculty are being fired and students are being intimidated, harassed, and silenced. One egregious example took place when the University of Southern California’s campus canceled a valedictory commencement address by Asna Tabassum, a Muslim student—more than likely because of her expressed solidarity with the Palestinian people.[30] In another instance, which has become all too familiar, some “New York University students were hauled in for disciplinary hearings after staging a reading of poetry by the Palestinian author Refaat Alareer,” who was killed in an Israeli airstrike.[31] After students erected tents on the campus of Columbia University in protesting the slaughter of Palestinians taking place in Gaza, the university president, Nemat Shafik, called in the city’s Police Department to remove them. Over a hundred students were arrested, all of them were suspended, their student IDs were deactivated, and they were evicted from their dorms.[32] Such actions are reminiscent of the protests and arrests of over one thousand students that took place at Columbia University in 1968. It is worth noting, as Judd Legum states, “In 2018, on the 50th anniversary of the 1968 arrests, then-Columbia President — and noted First Amendment scholar — Lee Bollinger said the decision to call in the NYPD in 1968 was ‘a serious breach of the ethos of the university’.”[33] Clearly, this is a lesson that President Shafik has chosen to ignore and in doing so is complicit in supporting this new wave of McCarthyism and its intensifying attacks on free speech taking place on more and more college campuses.
Her moral vacuity in calling the police to arrest students–who should be celebrated for their courage not punished–is astonishing given her comment that she has initiated “this extraordinary step because these are extraordinary circumstances.”[34] What is extraordinary is that students are protesting the fact that over 34,000 Palestinians are dead, including more than 14,000 children, and that 80 percent of the population in Gaza are homeless, many of whom are starving in the midst of an intentionally imposed famine.
What is extraordinary is that students are opposing Columbia University’s investment and ties with corporations that profit from Israel’s war on Gaza. What is extraordinary is that students are calling for an end to obscene and morally reprehensible acts of violence, such as Israel‘s bombing of Rafah—”where more than half of Gaza’s population of 2.3 million has sought refuge from fighting elsewhere.”[35] Such attacks have resulted in the indiscriminate killing of women and children who have no place to escape.
What is extraordinary is that students are trying to stop an Israeli military attack on Gaza in which war crimes are being committed in violation of international law, as evidenced by the fact that over 300 bodies have been discovered in “a series of mass graves near Nasser Hospital in southern Gaza….The dead include men, women and children….Some were discovered handcuffed, indicating that victims were killed in mass summary executions.”[36] What Shafik willfully fails to acknowledge is that the real crime is not students demonstrating against the war–asserting their sense of moral agency—but the scale of human suffering in Gaza to which they are opposed. As an educator, Shafik is shamefully blind to the fact that Israel has not only destroyed or damaged all 12universities in Gaza but has engaged in a “wholesale destruction” of Gaza’s educational system, committing what UN experts have labeled as scholasticide.[37] In all of these matters, Shafik displays an astonishing degree of moral weightlessness, rooted in an appalling mix of ignorance and political irresponsibility.
While genuine antisemitism exists, it is now being used and maligned by the far-right—known for its own embrace of antisemitism–to engage in targeted harassment and shut down all criticism of the violence waged in Gaza against the Palestinian people, especially women and children. In this context, all criticism of Israel is being branded as antisemitic. This reflects more than a blind commitment to the Israeli state under a far-right leadership; it covers up an institutional machinery of state repression while reproducing a central tenet of authoritarianism, which is to silence those minds that dare to criticize its totalitarian ideology, policies, and anti-democratic tendencies. It is worth repeating that this far-right call for an “ecstasy of obedience” increasingly uses the charge of antisemitism on university campuses as a wedge issue to attack colleges and universities, which they claim are too liberal. It is worth noting that while the Biden white house condemned antisemitic incidents taking place at Columbia University, student journalists at the school stated that many of the incidents took place “on the fringe of campus, not involving students.”[38]
What is often forgotten by critics of the new McCarthyism is that this upgraded attack on higher education is worse than anything that took place in the 1950s. Ellen Schrecker, one of the great historians of McCarthyism, has written that the current assaults on higher education are “worse than McCarthyism.” She is worth quoting at length:
It’s worse than McCarthyism. The red scare of the 1950s marginalized dissent and chilled the nation’s campuses, but it did not interfere with such matters as curriculum or classroom teaching. Its goal was to eliminate communism (however loosely defined) and all the individuals, organizations, and ideas associated with it from any position of influence within American society. The witch hunters achieved that goal by firing people who had once been in or near the small, unpopular Communist party and/or refused to inform on their ex-comrades. They also relied on blacklists, loyalty oaths, speaker bans, and interference from the FBI and other anti-communist investigators. … the classroom was not targeted.[39]
History matters and it is crucial to remember that higher education since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980 has been under severe attack by the forces of neoliberalism intent on turning education at all levels into nothing less than adjuncts of the workplace and laboratories for ideological repression. As I have stated in another article:
Across the globe, a new historical conjuncture is emerging in which attacks on higher education as a democratic institution and on dissident public voices in general – whether journalists, whistleblowers, or academics – are intensifying with alarming consequences for both higher education and the formative public spheres that make democracy possible. Hyper-capitalism … has put higher education in its crosshairs and the result has been the ongoing transformation of higher education into an adjunct of the very rich and powerful corporate interests… In fact, the right-wing defense of the neoliberal dismantling of the university as a site of critical inquiry is more brazen and arrogant than anything we have seen in the past. [40]
Since 2016, with the election of Trump as president, the attack on higher education has increased in scope and intensity and resembles forms of education similar to what took place in Nazi Germany.[41] The attempts by conservatives “to deplore knowledge, deride academic inquiry for its own sake, and discourage intellectual curiosity in our children and the American public” has a long and sordid history.[42]
What is different today is that an emerging fascist politics driven by a range of far-right billionaires and groups have education in their crosshairs. For instance, as Judd Legum recently noted, college administrators are facing “substantial political pressure from the right,” and some like Columbia President Minouche Shafik are too willing to buckle under such intimidation.[43] As Irene Mulvey, the President of the American Association of University Professors observed, we are experiencing a “new era of McCarthyism where a House Committee is using college presidents and professors for political theater.”[44] The recent attacks by the far-right on higher education are designed to reach deep into the classroom in order to erase dangerous moments of history, eliminate criticism of systemic racism, banish subjects dealing with sexual orientation, shut down any discussions of social problems, and weaken any control teachers or faculty have over their classrooms. This is more than an airbrushing of what the far-fight considers unpalatable and dangerous.
This is an education that produces moral blindness, ignorance, and reveals contempt for empowering ideas, critical thinking and civil liberties. It is a war against history, memory, solidarity, and the dissolution of the social ties that bind us together in a set of shared values.[45] As Donald Howard argues, educators and others cannot risk failing to speak and act against the current right-wing assaults, especially at a time when a range of democratic educations are under assault and “the very fabric of our democracy is frayed, if not unraveling. We cannot risk silence.”[46] Silence in the face of an emerging fascist politics offers a warning of the danger to come and the lessons to be addressed.
Such attacks function as a massive disimagination machine and a tool of subjugation by enacting a pedagogy of obedience and repression. This type of education is about more than turning schools into indoctrination centers; it is about creating an educational system that normalizes fascist ideologies and denies critical modes of agency.[47] This is nothing less than a resurgence of a poisonous neo-McCarthyism that threatens not only free speech and academic freedom, but also the central principles of democracy itself.
The acts of civil disobedience currently taking place on campuses are imbibed with spirit of the 1960s Berkely Free Speech Movement. Then, as now, students are fighting for the right to be heard, overturn acts of social injustice, and to bring to an end what Mario Savio, one of the leaders of the movement, called “the operation of the machine [that has become] so odious [that] you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels … upon the levers, upon …the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop! And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”[48] What the students protesters at Columbia, Yale, New York University and other campuses throughout the U.S. are making clear is that power must be held accountable and that the plague of silence over the war on Palestinians has to be broken so as to inject the struggle for human rights back into the language of a politics built upon the values of equality, social justice, liberty, and human dignity. What young people are teaching the world today, heeding the words of the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass, is that freedom is an empty abstraction if people fail to act, and that “if there is no struggle, there is no progress.”[49] What they are fighting for is not just a call to end the war against the Palestinian people, a war that is a moral litmus test of our time, but what it means to imagine and fight for a more just and better world.
Damn right!
Notes.
[1] Vaclav Havel, Living in Truth, ed (Boston: faber and Faber, 1986), p. 26.
[4] Judith Butler’s various writings and books are brilliant on this issue. See, for instance, Judith Butler, The Force of Non-Violence (New York: Verso, 2024). Judith Butler, Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence, (London: Verso Press, 2004).
[5] Ruth Ben-Ghiat, “The Right’s War on Universities,” The New York Review of Books (October 15, 2020). Online: https://www.nybooks.com/online/2020/10/15/the-rights-war-on-universities; see also her larger work on authoritarianism, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Strongmen: Mussolini to the Present (New York: W. W. Norton, 2020).
[10] I have taken up this issue in detail in Henry A. Girox “Democracy, Freedom, and Justice after September 11th: Rethinking the Role of Educators and the Politics of Schooling,” Teachers College Record 104:6 (September 2002), pp. 1138-1162. Also on-line at www. TCRecord.Org (January 21, 2002), pp. 1-33.
[37] Press Release, “ UN experts deeply concerned over ‘scholasticide’ in Gaza,” United Nations Human Rights (April 18, 2024). Online: https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2024/04/un-experts-deeply-concerned-over-scholasticide-gaza The full comment is worth quoting: “After six months of military assault, more than 5,479 students, 261 teachers and 95 university professors have been killed in Gaza, and over 7,819 students and 756 teachers have been injured – with numbers growing each day. At least 60 per cent of educational facilities, including 13 public libraries, have been damaged or destroyed and at least 625,000 students have no access to education. Another 195 heritage sites, 227 mosques and three churches have also been damaged or destroyed, including the Central Archives of Gaza, containing 150 years of history. Israa University, the last remaining university in Gaza was demolished by the Israeli military on 17 January 2024.”
[49] Frederick Douglass, West India Emancipation, speech delivered at Canandaigua, New York, August 4, 1857, in Philip S. Foner, Ed., The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. 2 (New York: International, 1950), p. 437.
Henry A. Giroux currently holds the McMaster University Chair for Scholarship in the Public Interest in the English and Cultural Studies Department and is the Paulo Freire Distinguished Scholar in Critical Pedagogy.
Israel and its friends malign them as “antisemites”
• 1,700 WORDS •
If you were wondering why or how the mainstream media coverage of what is taking place in Gaza is so slanted as to make it look like a real war between two well-armed and competitive adversaries instead of a massacre of civilians, wonder no longer! A leak has exposed a New York Times internal document that provides editorial guidance about words that should not be used in any article relating to Gaza or to Palestine. They include “genocide,” “ethnic cleansing,” “occupied territory,” and even “Palestine” itself. The intent is clearly to eliminate any words with negative connotations what might be applied in some fashion to Israel and to what Israel is doing, even going so far as to not include any suggestion that Palestine itself might be considered a legitimate political entity. At the same time the media is letting be heard arguments that Israelis killing Palestinians is justified as they are all “terrorists,” even the little ones who will grow up to become enemies of Israel and Jews worldwide.
To a large extent, it is the Zionists themselves that created the need to censor the language being used to describe developments between Israel and its neighbors and that is because Israel, which de facto and illegally occupies all of historic Palestine, made itself de jure “the nation state of the Jewish people” back in 2018 in spite of its Christian and Muslim citizens which, at the time, amounted to something like 20% of the population. To put it simply, a Jewish state cannot also be a democracy for all of its citizens any more that the US can be a Christian state, so it is necessary to divert attention away from that paradox. And there are other degrees of unpleasantness that spring from that necessity, including the fact that devout Jewish believers actually do follow the ten commandments, including “Thou shall not kill!” while Israel has been doing nothing but killing since its foundation as well as plenty of violations of “Thou shall not steal” and “Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor!” So instead of behaving better and trying to live peaceably with its neighbors, the “Jewish state” opted instead to cultivate a partly mythical saga of victimhood referred to as the “Holocaust” and to label all of its lethal overreactions as legitimate “right to defend itself” responses. This in turn has spawned another line of defense, what has become the virtual industry which might be referred as the pursuit of “antisemitism.” And to make it really dangerous for the average American citizens who still believe that it is possible to criticize the behavior of foreign countries, the chant of “antisemitism” has been picked up wholeheartedly by the politicians and it is being turned into laws particularly at state levels to punish people who attempt to criticize Israel. National level politicians in Congress are also submitting draft laws that would apply similar restraints throughout the country so it will inevitably be goodbye the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech.
The current unrest of pro-Palestinian “encampments” and “liberated zones” at 33 college campuses in the US protesting against what is clearly a genocide taking place in Gaza by calling for a ceasefire and a halt to institutional investment in Israel as well as a suspension of ties to Israeli government educational bodies. The movement is, as a consequence, being assiduously labeled a manifestation of “antisemitism” by Congress, by Joe Biden in the White House and by nearly all of the mainstream media. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, responding to the unrest, is saying, inevitably, that “antisemitic mobs have taken over leading universities” similar to Nazi rallies in the 1930s and he called for a major security crackdown on the demonstrators. And it should be observed how the reaction by the universities has been fairly consistent, i.e. to shut down Palestinians groups or speakers on campus while leaving Jewish groups supporting Israel’s actions alone, indicating clearly that this has not been an even-handed response to political unrest. The House Speaker Mike Johnson, who has made his pro-Israel sentiments very clear, spoke at Columbia University, where the movement began, on Wednesday and dismissed suggestions that the protests were legally protected free speech. He was addressing what he thought were “Jewish students” but was nevertheless heckled by demonstrators as he said the university must restore order on campus and had “failed to protect Jewish students amid concerns about antisemitism on and around campus. This is dangerous. We respect free speech, we respect diversity of ideas, but there is a way to do that in a lawful manner and that’s not what this is.”
Speaking of the Columbia University administration, Johnson asked plaintively whether “They cannot even guarantee the safety of Jewish students? They’re expected to run for their lives and stay home from class? It’s just, it’s maddening.” If the Speaker had done a little more investigating he would have learned that nearly all alleged instances of “antisemitism” on campus have been greatly exaggerated by organizations like the Anti-Definition League (ADL), whose Director Jonathan Greenblatt has been a prime rabble rouser in calling for criminal charges against all those he accuses of “hating Jews.” Neither Greenblatt nor Johnson, himself a Christian Zionist, is evidently troubled at all by the fact that Israel has slaughtered likely well upwards of 40,000 unarmed civilians, including many children. It is a death toll that includes the torture and killing of prisoners execution style, mass graves of victims and the deliberate destruction of hospitals, schools and churches. It even encompasses the removal of organs from captives and cadavers for transplant, for which product Israel has a well-known and highly developed international clientele. But such details are regarded as unproven or even as an irrelevancy to Greenblatt and Johnson, as is the reality that many American Jews possessing consciences are participating in the demonstrations. They presumably will soon be labeled as “self-hating Jews” to make the approved narrative complete.
It is difficult to ignore what a monster Israel has become under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his band of thugs. When Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir responded to reports that Israel has run out of jail room for its circa 10,000 Palestinian prisoners by saying the solution was to take some of them out and kill them to make more room, there was no response from Washington. Perhaps a better solution would be to free the majority of those prisoners, who are being detained without charges, since imprisoning people without due process is considered to be unacceptable in most “rule of law” civilized countries, which Israel and Joe Biden’s US consider themselves to be but manifestly are not.
So, I welcome the student rebellion against Israeli atrocities even though they have already been confronting a massive wave of oppression from the school authorities and even from alumni who are withholding donations and also forming groups that will advise prospective employers of the names of students who are regarded as anti-Israel, presumably denying them employment after graduation. The universities themselves are engaging in suspension or expulsion of the protesters, including an email sent by Princeton University to all students on Wednesday threatening that students participating in Pro-Palestinian protests like those at Columbia, Yale and other universities would be subject to “arrest and being immediately barred” from campus followed by expulsion. Meanwhile the civil authorities will be called upon to continue to arrest protesters, when necessary, using both police and the National Guard resources. It all recalls the shooting of nonviolent student demonstrators at Kent State University 54 years ago! Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas, a major recipient of Israel Lobby money, is advocating that demonstrators, whom he describes as “pro-Hamas criminals,” be confronted by angry citizens who ought to “take matters into [their] own hands” and directly punish the offenders.
And meanwhile the government of this fair country, which has become the full-time defender of Israel, will be bleating in unison that the demonstrators are “antisemites” and even Hamas-aligned “terrorists,” demeaning them to such an extent that anything done to them will be considered okay by the media and opinion makers. There will not be a critical word uttered about what Israel is doing apart from vague Biden-esque appeals to take some “humanitarian” steps to kill less, which are routinely ignored by Netanyahu. On the contrary, Congress and Biden are rewarding Israel for its behavior with their recent foreign aid grant of $26 billion to rearm the Jewish state, which an in-debt Washington can no longer afford even though Biden claims that the gift will “make the world safer” and be remembered as a “good day for world peace.” Ironically, part of the money is intended for “humanitarian aid” which might suggest something for the Palestinians, but as the US refuses to deal with the UN assistance agency (UNRWA) and most certainly will not work with what remains of existing formerly Hamas government in Gaza, Israel will no doubt limit and control the aid, just as it is doing now, before pocketing all of the leftover cash. How Israel treats the United States as a chattel, a source of money, weapons and unlimited political cover without providing anything at all in return apart from constant unrest and complicity in crimes against humanity is what the real tale should be all about. One can only hope that the courage of the students who have begun some pushback with their encampment at Columbia will produce some understanding among the American public of how uncritical deference to Israeli “needs” and interests has seriously corrupted the United States and might well lead to the brink of ruin for both countries.
EXCERPT FROM AN EMAIL WRITTEN IN RESPONSE TO A REQUEST FROM A FRIEND ASKING FOR HIS ASTUTE ANALYSIS OF IRAN’S DRONE AND MISSILE ATTACK ON ISRAEL.
Theodore Postol is Professor of Science, Technology and National Security Policy in the Program in Science, Technology, and Society at MIT.
I apologize for not getting back to you sooner with answers to your questions. I have been spending time trying to find any video data from the Iranian attacks on Israel that might be informative.
I have attached three video clips derived from some of the sources I found and have put them together in a way that will hopefully be helpful to you and your colleagues.
This clip shows two long-range Iranian missiles passing through the atmosphere, impacting, and exploding in Israel. The incoming missiles are bright spots in the video because they are traveling at a high enough speed (Mach 10 to 13) to be incandescent from atmospheric heating. For now, I will only give you several important highlights, but there is a lot more that can be derived from this particular video.
The video is cut into four sections.
The first section is simply the video as it appears in real time. The time-sequence is roughly 13 seconds long. The soundtrack has four sharp sounds like “gunfire,” which are simply the sounds from the ground-explosions delayed in time due to the speed of sound being much slower than the speed of light. Note that you can see only two ground-explosions, but the sound indicates there are two additional ground-explosions that occurred outside the field-of-view of the camera.
The second section is simply the first section repeated at one third speed, so you have a better chance of observing details.
The following two sections are simply a repeat of section 1 and section 2.
There are many other videos of unengaged ballistic missiles arriving, but all of them cut off before the warheads reach the ground. This is almost certainly due to Israeli classification rules that do not allow the press to publish videos of ground-explosions.
The second video clip titled:
Damage to Israeli Air Base In April 14, 2023 Iran Attack.
This clip shows some of the ground damage at one of the two Israeli airbases that were the direct targets of these ballistic missile attacks. The first sequence shows a crater that was probably from a 200 to 400 kilogram explosive warhead. There are also photographs of lower levels of damage and smaller craters that may possibly be from drones that were not intercepted. The drones are known to have 50 kg warheads and would thereby produce much lower levels of ground damage and smaller craters.
A very interesting section of the video shows the Israelis repairing a runway, which must have been hit by a munition, requiring that the airbase to quickly fill in the crater and cover it with fast-annealing concrete.
All military airports have this capability as it is expected that runways will be attacked so as to limit the ability for the airbase to handle combat aircraft for taking off and landing.
The last 10 seconds of the video shows a ballistic missile arriving, and no interceptors in the air attempting to engage it. If you look carefully at the dark sky immediately above the building the warhead passes behind, you should be able to see one or more faint flashes in the sky. These faint flashes are indications of intense light from a ground explosion that is being reflected by particles in the sky.
The third video titled:
Israeli Drone Shootdowns on April 14, 2024 (Normal and Slo Mo-P35)240.mp4 (1.1 MB)
This video shows aircraft “gun camera” images of drones and cruise missiles that are being shot down with air-to-air missiles.
The gun camera images show cruise missiles:
1.png 2.png and drones: 3.png The cruise missiles travel at a speed of roughly 500 to 600 km/h while the drones travel at a much slower speed, about 220 to 250 km/h.
The videos show an extremely important fact.
All of the targets, whether drones or not, are shot down by air-to-air missiles.
The workhorse air-to-air missile of the United States Air Force is a AIM-9x Sidewinder.
The cost of a single Sidewinder air-to-air missile is about $500,000.
The cost of a drone is perhaps 10,000 or $20,000, and the cost of an Iranian cruise missile is probably about $100,000.
An extremely important fact released by the Israeli government is that the cost of defending Israel from this particular Iranian attack was about $1.3 billion!
The implications of this single number are substantial.
This indicates that the cost of defending from waves of attacks of this type is very likely to be unsustainable against an adequately armed and determined adversary.
The actual scale of the attack is summarized according to CNN in the image below:
The clear and unambiguous evidence from all of the videos of ballistic missiles arriving over Israel show that Iron Dome interceptors were essentially not used in any attempts to engage the ballistic missiles.
The decision to not even try to engage the long-range Iranian ballistic missiles is completely sound.
The Iron Dome interceptor would have a good chance of intercepting either a cruise missile or a drone that had leaked through the very substantial aircraft implemented air-defense system.
This almost certainly means that the bulk of the $1.3 billion cost of the defense was almost certainly expended on shooting down drones and cruise missiles with fighter aircraft launching air-to-air missiles against targets.
Since there is essentially no evidence of long-range ballistic missiles being engaged by Iron Dome, it could only mean that they were not engaged at all, or there were attempts to engage them with the Arrow and David’s sling defense systems.
The fact that a very large number of unengaged ballistic missiles could be seen glowing as they reenter the atmosphere to lower altitudes, indicates that whatever the effects of David’s Sling and the Arrow missile defenses, they were not especially effective.
Thus, the evidence at this point shows that essentially all or most of the arriving long-range ballistic missiles were not intercepted by any of the Israeli air and missile-defense systems.
An additional observation that is relevant to the situation of Israel relative to South Korea is illustrated in the two maps below:
The maps indicate that the drones and cruise missiles had to travel distances of 1300 to 1500 km from Iran to Israel, and roughly 2000 km from Yemen to Israel.
This transit requires many hours allowing for fighter aircraft to engage drones and cruise missiles. There are now reports that the US Navy provided airborne warning and control systems (AWACS, specifically, Navy E-2 Hawkeyes)) which were extremely effective in vectoring fighter aircraft to targets that they could then quickly acquire and destroy.
Such an opportunity would be much more limited in the case of similar types of mass attacks from North Korea against South Korea. AWACS will certainly be tremendously helpful in the case of defending South Korea from this type of attack, but the engagement-rate limitations of combat aircraft against very large numbers of drones and cruise missiles would make the effectiveness of this kind of combat-air defense much lower than was the case for the Israeli defense against Iran.
Another very serious problem that analysts will need to consider is that commercially available technology is now good enough for constructing cruise missiles and drones that have limited but usefull capabilities to “recognize” their targets and home on them.
On September 14, 2019 Iranian produced cruise missiles were used to attack the Abqaiq Oil Facility in Saudi Arabia. The nature of the damage to the facility indicated that the cruise missiles had an effective accuracy of perhaps a few feet, much more precise than could be achieved with GPS guidance.
I have analyzed the situation, and have concluded that commercially available optical and computational technology is more than capable of being adapted to a cruise missile guidance system to give it very high precision homing capability. The proof of this conclusion is in the satellite photograph below:
as can be seen from this satellite image produced by the company Digital Globe and paid for and released by the US government. It shows that four cruise missiles struck four oil processing tanks at Abqaiq at essentially the same point on each of the tanks. Such precision could not possibly be achieved with GPS guidance alone.
In order to convince myself that my conclusion that the optical homing could be done with nothing more than satellite data, I stimulated the homing process by taking the satellite image of a single isolated oil processing tank,
I then performed a well-known procedure called “image cross-correlation” on the original satellite images of the tanks.
The correlation “functions” that were produced by this very simple computer experiment are shown below,
And the results are projected onto an actual satellite photograph of the tanks, showing that the correlation methodology provides very high precision in identifying the central location on a tank that is to be hit.
Since the optical and computational systems needed to perform these correlations in near-real-time on a homing missile are well within the capabilities of commercial cameras and computer chips (NVidia chips are well up to the job), it is my conclusion that the Iranians have already developed precision guided cruise missiles and drones.
The implications of this are clear.
The cost of shooting down cruise missiles and drones will be very high and might well be unsustainable unless extremely inexpensive and effective anti-air systems can be implemented.
It is certainly possible to shoot down drones and cruise missiles with antiaircraft guns, although these systems will be of limited range and will need to be relatively close to targets they are defending.
At this time, no one has demonstrated a cost-effective defense system that can intercept ballistic missiles with any reliability. So far, even Iron Dome has been a failure against artillery rockets, which are of quite short range and are of quite simple and inexpensive.
The Israelis claim an outrageous cost per Iron Dome interceptor of between $60,000 and $80,000 an interceptor. It seems that this claim must be untrue.
Similarly sophisticated interceptors, whether they are the Javelin antitank missile, which costs about $200,000 each or the AIM-9x air-to-air missile are tremendously more expensive.
The Israelis Iron Dome system has been to a very good first approximation completely funded by the US government. Any consideration for purchasing the system must be accompanied by proof it can work in combat and by accurate cost estimates of the different components.
Only then should any consideration be given to whether or not purchase Iron Dome.
I have a lot more I can say about these issues, but I fear I have probably already overwhelmed you with details that raise many more questions that I am not sure I can answer.
Those people who advocate buying these active defenses should be asked to provide data that shows what I have collected herein and elsewhere is not supported by the facts.
Anyone who advocates a defense approach for their country should be able to show that they have a fully reasoned argument, which includes information about the effectiveness of the strategy and its affordability.
Wishful thinking, like what has happened in Ukraine, will at best be a recipe for tremendous expenditures for little capability.
I would welcome to hear the arguments of those who want to make such purchases. I am open to learning and to obtaining data that could lead me to a different conclusion.
Persuading any Southern autoworkers to join a union had long been one of the U.S. labor movement’s most enduring challenges, despite persistent efforts by the UAW to organize this workforce.
The victory follows the UAW’s most successful strike in a generation against Detroit’s Big Three automakers, through which it won higher pay and better benefits for its members in 2023.
Volkswagen said it will await certification of the results by the National Labor Relations Board, the federal agency responsible for enforcing U.S. workers’ rights to organize. As long as neither side challenges the results within five business days, the NLRB will certify them – greenlighting the start of bargaining over a contract.
Based on my five decades of experience as a union organizer and labor historian, I anticipate that, recent momentum aside, the UAW will face resistance from the other foreign automakers that operate in the South. The pushback is also coming from Southern politicians, many of whom have expressed concern that UAW success would undermine the region’s carefully crafted approach to economic development.
But the outcome of this first election among Volkswagen’s more than 4,300 workers in Tennessee who were eligible to vote represents an impressive first step in the union’s ambitious campaign to organize foreign-owned automakers in the South and other nonunion factories across the country. With about 73% of the workers who voted choosing to say “yes,” according to the company and additional sources, I believe that this historic victory will boost UAW organizing in the South and will likely inspire other workers seeking to unionize their workplaces.
Lauding the ‘perfect three-legged stool’
After the region’s formerly robust textile industry imploded in the 1980s and 1990s because of an influx of cheap imports, Southern business and political leaders revived the region’s manufacturing base by successfully recruiting foreign automakers.
The strategy of those leaders reflects what the Business Council of Alabama has described as the “perfect three-legged stool for economic development.” It consists of “an eager and trainable workforce with a work ethic unparalleled anywhere in the nation,” accompanied by a “low-cost and business-friendly economic climate, and the lack of labor union activity and participation.”
The prospect of a low-wage and reliable workforce has lured the likes of Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Kia, Honda, Volkswagen and Hyundai to the South in recent decades.
Although many of those companies negotiate constructively with unions on their home turf, the lack of union membership and the protections that go with it have proved a draw for them in the United States.
Blaming unions for bad job prospects
One way automotive employers in the South have blocked unions is by portraying them as outdated institutions whose bloated contracts and rigid work rules destroy jobs by making domestic auto companies uncompetitive.
Automotive executives in the South argue the region has developed an alternative labor relations model that provides management with flexibility, offers wages and benefits superior to what local workers have earned previously and frees employees from any subordination to union directives.
With the UAW ramping up its organizing efforts again, Southern governors are sounding alarms once more.
On the eve of the Volkswagen election in Chattanooga, six of these governors issued a joint statement denouncing the UAW as a “special interest” that would “threaten our jobs and the values we live by.” They asserted that a vote for the UAW would undermine their ability to attract auto manufacturers and “stop growth in its tracks.”
Although these arguments from anti-union politicians haven’t changed much over the years, the context certainly has.
The UAW’s big wins on pay and benefits resulting from its 2023 strike against General Motors, Ford and Stellantis have increased its clout and credibility.
Many automakers with a U.S. workforce not covered by the UAW – including Volkswagen, Honda, Hyundai and other foreign transplants – responded by raising pay at their Southern plants. The union justifiably describes those raises as a “UAW bump.”
The UAW is citing these pay hikes in its outreach to workers at Tesla and other nonunion companies.
“Nonunion autoworkers are being left behind,” the UAW’s recruiting website warns. “Are you ready to stand up and win your fair share?”
The pitch continues: “It’s time for nonunion autoworkers to join the UAW and win economic justice at Toyota, Honda, Hyundai, Tesla, Nissan, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Subaru, Volkswagen, Mazda, Rivian, Lucid, Volvo and beyond.”
Some Southern autoworkers, meanwhile, have been expressing concerns over scheduling, safety, two-tier wage systems and workloads that they believe a union could help resolve.
It’s also clear they’ve been emboldened by the gains they have seen UAW members make.
Revving up
The UAW’s campaign is just starting to rev up. And the timing is ideal.
A 2023 National Labor Relations Board ruling provides unions with additional leverage in this process. If management refuses to grant the union’s request for recognition, the employer would then be required to seek an NLRB representation election.
To win, unions normally need a majority of those voting. But in accordance with the new ruling, if management is found to have interfered with workers’ rights during the election process, it could then be required to bargain with the union.
I believe that the stakes are high for all workers, not just those in the auto industry.
As D. Taylor, the president of Unite Here, a union that represents workers in a wide range of occupations, recently observed: “If you change the South, you change America.”
A recent survey from YouGov found that 61% of Americans think a world war within the next five to ten years is “very likely” or “somewhat likely,” while only 21% say that such a scenario is “not very likely” or “not likely at all.”
It’s notable that Democrats, who are much more likely to view Russia as the source of the world’s evils, are less likely than Republicans to believe a world war is coming by a strong margin; although it is still only 28% of Democrats in the two “unlikely” categories. At the same time, Republicans who may want rapprochement with Russia mostly see this as a way to free up resources to fight China. The reality is that our ruling class has decided that a global conflict is inevitable and as such are doing nothing to stop it. Further, they are actively hostile to anything which could reduce hostilities with Russia while also proactively antagonizing China.
Our ruling class is far along in creating a simplistic good vs evil narrative which they hope to get into the history books—should anyone survive to write them—but for those of us living through it, it’s obvious the only cause would be the madness of today’s rulers. The most devastating of wars do not commonly arise out of unsolvable problems, but from rulers who refuse to solve them. Further, the drive towards oblivion is usually obvious to many observers, even if the rulers and much of the public are caught in a jingoistic mania. Things are just the same today.
There is a modern perception that World War I took the powers of Europe by surprise and that the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was a spark which made war inevitable. Perhaps this is believed because of the human need to understand the degree of devastation from a war which more than others lacks a clear meaning. However, author Rebecca West, in her landmark text Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, which was written in the 1930s, tells a different story. West explains that all of Europe expected that the Central Powers were preparing for an aggressive war, writing, “It is said that both France and Russia were for some reason convinced that Germany and Austria would not make war until 1916, and certainly that alone would explain the freedom with which Russia announced to various interested parties in the early months of 1914 that she herself was not ready to fight.”1
According to West’s account, Austria then worked quite hard to make the assassination their pretext although the plot had almost no connection to the Kingdom of Serbia. This isn’t a perfect parallel to our moment, but it’s notable that no one was trying to stop the war; they simply wanted time to arm themselves. Similarly, Germany and other countries in Europe have not hidden their current lack of preparedness, but made it clear their interest isn’t avoiding war, but fighting one. In the classic satirical antiwar novel The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Havec, the author repeatedly includes the line “an empire this stupid shouldn’t exist” in regards to the Austro-Hungarian ruling class; because of the war they, launched it soon wouldn’t.
The closest parallel to the dangers arising from the war in Ukraine comes from the first book of Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War. The most immediate cause of the war was civil dissension within a colony leading to conflict with the mother city, and ultimately seeking the protection of that city’s enemy. However, what has gotten more notice recently about this text is one passage that is applied to China, which is now known as the Thucydides Trap. Thucydides wrote, “The real cause however, I consider to be the one which was formally most kept out of sight. The growth of the power of Athens, and the alarm which this inspired in Sparta, made war inevitable.” For all that people have commented on this, it is not that incisive to say that one country’s power growing would alarm another country. What is more commonly missed is that no one forced Athens to expand recklessly to the extent that it caused war with Sparta. It was an unforced error which caused them the briefest moment of greatness followed by utter devastation. On the other side, no one forced Sparta to respond with war, and Sparta’s post-war supremacy was also short-lived. Unfortunately the leaders on both sides chose conflict over co-existence, and in many ways Greece never recovered from that war and the ones which followed.
In America it is part of our founding mythology that War of Independence against the United Kingdom was inevitable because of conflicting interests between the Americans and the British. However, if one reads key British authors of the time, it is clear that the wiser men of the era knew that the British government was barreling towards a devastating and pointless war for no good reason. The reality is that the volume of trade in the British American colonies was growing so rapidly that peaceful reconciliation at any cost was in Britain’s self-interest; The Wealth of Nations was published in 1776 and contains some incredible statistics in this regard. Directly taxing the American public instead of levying taxes from their colonial governments was in no way a point worth proving, especially given the profitability of peace and trade.
Edmund Burke was a leader of the peace faction in the British Parliament and his timeless words about avoiding war should be remembered. Burke wrote, in March 1775, “The proposition is Peace. Not Peace through the medium of War; not Peace to be hunted through the labyrinth of intricate and endless negociations; not Peace to arise out of universal discord…not Peace to depend on the Juridical Determination of perplexing questions…it is simply Peace; sought in its natural course…laid in principles purely pacific”2 It is obvious in our current times that peace could be preserved with Russia and China if it was approached with this principle, but that is considered out of the question by our rulers.
The world is currently a tinderbox and every day we watch our rulers pour on more gasoline and throw out extinguishers. I have to wonder what our descendants will think of us and the war which seems to be coming. There is certainly no chance that they can create a clear World War II sort of narrative about this. I often think of the European Union Commission President Ursula von der Leyen saying, “Ukrainians are ready to die for the European perspective,” a statement which should only exist as a parody of the vapid state of Western “values.” They want us to believe Vladimir Putin is obsessed with rolling his tanks across Europe, but that makes no sense and clearly isn’t possible. They certainly can’t admit the lengths they went to in order to provoke Russia into war in Ukraine.
There is absolutely no justification for not doing the work necessary for a lasting and equitable peace with Russia and China. When all is said and done, if there are people left to comment on the causes of the Third World War that so many think we are about to experience, perhaps people will say the same as the famous character Captain Edmund Blackadder said of World War I, “the real reason for the whole thing was that it was too much effort not to have a war.” The majority of the American public thinks countless millions will die in a new world war, and if that comes to pass, it will be because our rulers found going to war easier than making peace.
គ្មានការសង្ស័យទេ នេះគឺនៅពីក្រោយការចាប់អារម្មណ៍ដ៏ពេញនិយមនៅក្នុងខ្សែភាពយន្តនេះ។ Civil War គឺជាភាពយន្តលេខមួយនៅ Box Office អាមេរិកខាងជើងកាលពីចុងសប្តាហ៍មុន ដោយវ៉ាដាច់ Godzilla x Kong ជាមួយនឹងការលក់សំបុត្រប្រមាណ 25.7 លានដុល្លារ។
Civil War ដើរតួជា Kirsten Dunst ជាអ្នកកាសែតរូបថត Lee Smith ដោយ Wagner Moura ដើរតួជាមិត្តរួមការងាររបស់ Lee គឺ Joel ។ Cailee Spaeny ដើរតួជា Jessie Cullen ដែលជាអ្នកកាសែតវ័យក្មេងដែលធ្វើអោយតួឯករបស់ Dunst ។ ‘អ្នកកាសែត’ នៅក្នុងភាពយន្តប្រើការថត មិនមែនវីដេអូទេ។ សាលាចាស់ត្រជាក់។ តួឯកប្រុសដ៏ឆ្នើម Stephen McKinley Henderson ប្រមូលផ្តុំតួសំខាន់ជា Sammy ដែលយើងត្រូវបានប្រាប់ថា គឺជាអ្នកកាសែតម្នាក់ក្នុងចំណោមអ្នកកាសែតមួយចំនួនដែលនៅសល់នៅ New York Times ។
ក្នុងលំដាប់មួយដែលមានអ្នកលបបាញ់ម្នាក់និងទាហានពីរនាក់ដែលគាត់បានខ្ទាស់នោះ Joel សួរទាហានថាពួកគេនៅខាងណា ហើយខាងណាដែលអ្នកលបបាញ់ប្រយុទ្ធដើម្បី។ Garland រៀបរាប់ពីលំដាប់ដែលជាផ្នែកមួយនៃការសម្ភាសន៍របស់ Times ដោយដកស្រង់ចេញពីការសន្ទនាដែលគាត់បានសរសេរ។
Iran’s unprecedented attack on Israeli military sites on April 13-14 signals a tectonic shift in the regional balance of power. While the media remains preoccupied with the number of outdated Iranian drones that were shot down during the onslaught, military analysts are far more focused on the way that Iran’s ballistic missiles cut through Israel’s vaunted air defense systems striking sites at the Nevatim and Negev Air Bases.
What the operation proved is that Israel’s “deterrents supremacy” is largely a fiction based on overly optimistic assumptions about the performance of their air defense capability. When put to the test, these systems failed to stop many of the larger and more destructive ballistic missiles from hitting their targets. This, in turn, revealed that Israel’s most heavily-defended and critically-important military sites remain overly-exposed to enemy attack.
More importantly, any future attack will not be announced days in advance nor will Iran attempt to avoid high-value targets or heavy casualties. Instead, they will use their most lethal and state-of-the-art hypersonic missiles to inflict as much death and destruction on Israel as is required to make sure that the Jewish state is unable to lift a hand against Iran in the future. In short, what Iran’s historic attack on Israel shows is that any future provocation by Israel will be met by an immediate and overwhelming response that will leave Israel battered, bloodied and broken. This is an excerpt from a recent article by former weapons inspector Scott Ritter:
Iran’s purpose in launching the attack was to establish a deterrence posture designed to put Israel and the United States on notice that any attack against Iran, whether on Iranian soil or on the territory of other nations, would trigger a retaliation which would inflict more damage on the attacker than the attacker could hope to inflict on Iran. To achieve this result, Iran had to prove itself capable of overcoming the ballistic missile defense systems of both Israel and the United States which were deployed in and around Israel at the time of the attack. This Iran was able to accomplish, with at least nine missiles striking two Israeli air bases that fell under the protective umbrella of the Israeli-US missile defense shield.
The Iranian deterrence posture has implications that reach far beyond the environs of Israel or the Middle East. By defeating the US-Israeli missile defense shield, Iran exposed the notion of US missile defense supremacy that serves as the heart of US force protection models used when projecting military power on a global scale. The US defensive posture vis-à-vis Russia, China, and North Korea hinges on assumptions made regarding the efficacy of US ballistic missile defense capabilities. By successfully attacking Israeli air bases which had the benefit of the full range of US anti-ballistic missile technology, Iran exposed the vulnerability of the US missile defense shield to modern missile technologies involving maneuverable warheads, decoys, and hypersonic speed. US bases in Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East once thought to be well-protected, have suddenly been revealed to be vulnerable to hostile attack. So, too, are US Navy ships operating at sea. Checkmate, Scott Ritter, Substack
Keep in mind, that the Iranian government has not officially confirmed that it used its most technologically-advanced hypersonic glide vehicles in the assault. Most weapons experts, like Ritter, believe they only used their older, less advanced missiles in order to conceal the dramatic improvements to their stockpile. Even so, Iran was able to put five ballistic missiles on their target at the Nevatim Air Base and another four at the Negev Air Base, arguably two of the most heavily-protected bases in the world today. In short, Iran was able to slip by Israel’s robust radar and air defense systems and deliver a blow at the heart of the Israeli war machine using second class munitions and technology. Imagine the damage they would inflict if they felt forced to use their unstoppable hypersonic missiles. This is why it is unlikely that Netanyahu will order a direct attack on Iranian territory. The consequences for Israel would be nothing short of catastrophic. Here’s more from Ritter:
“My understanding is that Iran used 3 types of ballistic missiles. One ballistic missile uses a warhead that separates and then burst-fires a number of decoys that are specifically designed to attract Iron Dome missiles. …so, Iron Dome will fire 25 interceptors…Meanwhile smaller more maneuverable warheads burst through those interceptors and hit the Israeli air defense systems… and that appears to be the case. So, they are telling the Israelis ‘How we are going to take you out’... The next thing we see, is missiles coming in that the warheads separate from the missile body and then there is a booster engine on the warhead that drives it down into the ground blowing away any ability for radar intercept hitting the target. And what this does is clear the space, clear all the air defense. and the final thing is these heavy warheads that come off the heavy missiles that hit the runways and blew the big craters in them. This was a three-layered ballistic missile attack that was specifically designed by the Iranians to destroy Israeli air defense to clear the way to show the Israelis that we can put the big warheads on the target anywhere in Israel we want to. This was successful, and the beauty of this is, they didn’t use their best missiles…. This was just a single strike-package. …Iran can repeat this process all day long and what they’ve showed Israel is that “This is what we can do.” And I guarantee you that their are intelligence officers like me writing reports right now telling Israel, “Stop all the nonsense. We can’t win this war. It’s over, guys. We have no defense here. If Iran wants to come in, we are powerless. Stop it now.” The Missiles of April, Scott Ritter, You Tube; 6:30 minute mark
Notice the difference between ‘weapons pro’ Ritter’s analysis and the nonsense in the western media. Here’s a short blurb from a piece at the Jerusalem Post which captures the flavor of most of the articles published in the MSM since the attack:
Iran’s weekend drone and missile attack on Israel was an “embarrassing failure,” the US said, stressing that it highlighted the IDF’s defensive prowess as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his war cabinet weighed reprisal actions.
“I’ve seen reporting that the Iranians meant to fail that this spectacular and embarrassing failure was all by design,” US National Security Communications Adviser John Kirby told reporters in Washington on Monday…
“Let’s be straight, given the scale of this attack, Iran’s intent was clearly to cause significant destruction and casualties,” Kirby said as he spoke of how a coalition of five armies — Israel, the US, Jordan, France, and Great Britain — repelled over 300 missiles and drone targeting the Jewish state. Iran’s attack is an ‘embarrassing failure,’ a success for Israel, says US, Jerusalem Post
If it was Iran’s intention to cause “significant destruction and casualties”, then why didn’t they bomb downtown Tel Aviv or Haifa? Wouldn’t that have made more sense? And why did Iran communicate their plans 72 hours in advance to everyone, including the United States via the Saudis? And, if the attack was such an “embarrassing failure”, then why is Israel still hesitating to strike back?
The fact is, the Israeli war cabinet has already met four times since the incident and has not yet decided how to respond. Why?
Because Iran’s deputy foreign minister Ali Bagheri has told Israel in no uncertain terms that if they launch another attack on Iran, they should expect to “get hit harder, faster, and with more immediacy.” So, the flexibility Israel has enjoyed for the last two decades, of bombing and assassinating its neighbors whenever it gets the urge, is over. Just like Israel’s long streak of impunity is over. Tehran has thrown down the gauntlet and let it be known that it if Israel crosses its red lines, there’s going to be a war.
Indeed, Iran will be better prepared and will do everything in their power to overwhelm the enemy and bring this decades-long confrontation to a swift and decisive end. We’ll let Ritter have the last word:
The failure of the combined US-Israeli defense systems in the face of a concerted Iranian missile attack exposed the short-comings of the US ballistic missile defense capabilities world-wide… This means that the US and NATO forces in Europe are vulnerable to attack from advanced Russian missile technologies which match or exceed those used by Iran to attack Israel. It also means that China would most likely be able to strike and sink US navy ships in the Pacific Ocean in the event of a conflict over Taiwan…. And that North Korea could do the same to US ships and forces ashore in the vicinity of Japan and South Korea… The global strategic implications of this stunning Iranian accomplishment are game-changing... Checkmate, Scott Ritter, Substack
It would be wise for the Israeli leadership to mull over what Ritter has to say before stumbling blindly into a war they will certainly lose.
Фильм без политики и социального контекста. «Гражданская война 19 апреля» — это боевик студии A24, действие которого происходит в ближайшем будущем Америки, в разгар продолжающейся междоусобной войны между федеральным правительством, несколькими штатами и конкурирующими силами ополчения.
Номинальная тема фильма — Соединенные Штаты на последних этапах гражданской войны, поставившей общество на грань варварства, — явно имеет огромную актуальность и интерес. Фильм был выпущен в разгар избирательной кампании 2024 года и чуть более трех лет спустя после беспорядков Джорджа Флойда в США летом 2020 года или предполагаемого невооруженного «переворота» 6 января 2021 года, в ходе которого действующий президент пытался заявить, что демократы будут обманывать и подтасовывать результаты выборов, а также пытался остановить передачу власти посредством юридического маневра, препятствующего сертификации. В Техасе произошли столкновения между вооруженными подразделениями Национальной гвардии Техаса и вооруженными агентами Федеральной таможни США, которые проводили иммигрантов через границу и открывали заборы для вновь прибывших. Нынешний лидер Республиканской партии в борьбе за выдвижение в президенты, Трамп, предстает перед судом во многих штатах демократами, а в некоторых штатах не участвует в голосовании.
Несомненно, именно это и стало причиной широкого общественного интереса к фильму. «Гражданская война» стала фильмом номер один по кассовым сборам в Северной Америке в прошлые выходные, обогнав «Годзиллу х Конг» с продажами билетов примерно в 25,7 миллиона долларов.
Однако Гражданская война в конечном итоге ничего не объясняет. Более того, он пытается сделать добродетелью даже не пытаться сделать это.
В фильме рассказывается о путешествии и внутренней борьбе горстки репортеров и фотожурналистов, направляющихся из Нью-Йорка в осажденный Белый дом, чтобы услышать последние слова и «последний выстрел» президента-диктатора перед его уходом. Да, собеседование требуется. Это похоже на поездку в Берлин, Германия, в апреле 1945 года, чтобы посмотреть, можно ли получить «интервью» с Гитлером, чтобы узнать его реакцию на текущие события.
В фильме «Гражданская война» Кирстен Данст играет фотожурналиста Ли Смита, а Вагнер Моура играет коллегу Ли-репортера Джоэла. Кейли Спэни играет Джесси Каллен, молодую фотожурналистку, которая боготворит персонажа Данст. «Фотожурналисты» в фильме используют кадры, а не видео. Старая школа крутая. Превосходный характерный актер Стивен МакКинли Хендерсон завершает основной состав в роли Сэмми, который, как нам говорят, является одним из немногих оставшихся журналистов в New York Times.
По пути журналисты в своих касках, бронежилетах и дорогих фотоаппаратах становятся свидетелями и фотографируют сцены суммарных казней, пыток, перестрелок и других форм насилия. Первые две трети фильма героиня Данст холодно фотографирует кровавую бойню, в то время как ее честолюбивая протеже Джесси, очевидно, все еще цепляющаяся за свою человечность, рушится и плачет. В последней трети фильма пара меняется ролями перед смертельным и крайне неудовлетворительным финалом.
Ник Офферман, известный по роли человеконенавистнического бюрократа-либертарианца в комедийном телешоу «Парки и зоны отдыха», имеет всего несколько минут экранного времени в роли неназванного президента Соединенных Штатов. Его политические мотивы, его политика и к какой партии он принадлежит, неизвестны, хотя его личность отдаленно напоминает Трампа, и, как говорят, он баллотировался на третий срок. Есть мимолетные упоминания о бомбардировках собственного народа, казнях журналистов на Южной лужайке Белого дома и роспуске ФБР.
Еще одним примечательным персонажем в фильме является Джесси Племонс, который в титрах не указан в роли нервирующего милиционера в розовых очках и с М-16. В своей единственной сцене Племонс угрожающе допрашивает журналистов, спрашивая каждого из них, что может иметь смертельные последствия: «Какой вы американец?»
Режиссером и сценаристом фильма выступил британский писатель, сценарист и режиссер Алекс Гарланд. Среди его предыдущих писательских работ — захватывающий зомби-фильм «28 дней спустя» (2002) и сверхжестокий «Дредд» (2012). В 2015 году состоялся режиссерский дебют Гарленда с интересным научно-фантастическим триллером «Из машины». В центре этого фильма – программист, его правый босс-миллиардер и реалистичные и умные роботы, созданные компанией.
В интервью Гарланд заявил, что завершил сценарий «Гражданской войны» до 6 января 2021 года. И хотя в фильме время от времени появляются кадры протестующих и ОМОН, сражающихся на улицах (которые прерываются взрывом бомбы), что больше всего в нем поражает это то, чего он не делает. В фильме нет никаких попыток каким-либо образом рассмотреть политические, социальные и исторические обстоятельства, вызвавшие гражданскую войну, которая является предметом фильма.
В интервью газете «Нью-Йорк Таймс», опубликованном на выходных, Гарланд заявляет: «Я думаю, что гражданская война — это просто продолжение ситуации… Эта ситуация — это поляризация и отсутствие ограничивающих сил для поляризации». Что касается того, что вызывает поляризацию и почему для нее нет ограничений, он молчит и, по-видимому, совершенно не размышляет, как и его интервьюер.
«Гражданская война» представляет собой серию изображений, демонстрирующих жестокое насилие, вспыхивающее не в какой-то далекой стране, а на городских улицах, в зеленых пригородных кварталах и, казалось бы, тихих сельских городках Соединенных Штатов. Но нет никакого «почему», нет даже намека на мотивы участников, не говоря уже о более фундаментальном «почему», исследующем социальные силы, которые порождают мотивы в сознании мужчин и женщин.
В одном из эпизодов, в котором участвуют снайпер и два солдата, которых он прижал, Джоэл спрашивает солдат, на чьей стороне они и на какой стороне сражается снайпер. Гарланд рассказывает этот эпизод в своем интервью Times, цитируя написанный им диалог.
На вопрос, на чьей они стороне, один солдат отвечает: «Вы не понимаете ни слова из того, что я говорю». Он поворачивается к Джесси: «Йоу. Что там, в этом доме?» Джесси отвечает: «Кто-то стреляет». Этот ответ удовлетворил солдата.
Гарланд продолжает своим собственным голосом: «Это связано с тем фактом, что, когда ситуация становится экстремальной, причины, по которым ситуация дошла до крайности, больше не становятся актуальными, и острие проблемы — это все, что действительно остается актуальным. Так что в этом контексте на самом деле не имеет значения, за какую сторону они сражаются или за что сражается другой человек. Это просто сводится к выживанию».
Здесь буквальное бездумие является предполагаемым эффектом.
По ходу фильма героиня Данст объясняет, что она отправила обратно свои фотографии из заграничных конфликтов, чтобы сказать американцам: не делайте этого. Как на уроках безопасного вождения, когда показывают кадры автокатастроф, чтобы предупредить новых водителей об опасности.
Режиссер Гарленд, очевидно, придерживается такого же отношения к фильму в целом: «Не устраивайте гражданской войны, потому что это было бы ужасно». Но без какого-либо изучения причин такое предупреждение, каким бы благим оно ни было, не имеет смысла.
Отказ принять чью-либо сторону или изображение обеих сторон как по сути эквивалентных не служит никакой цели, художественной или иной. В отличие от Гарленда, гражданская война – это не просто вопрос неспособности людей контролировать свои разногласия. Чтобы общество раскололось на враждующие лагеря, должны быть более глубокие причины, и кинорежиссер не может избежать своей позиции.
Представьте себе, что вы изображаете Гражданскую войну в США 1861–1865 годов, не занимая при этом позиции по вопросу рабства. Кровопролития будет много, но все это будет бессмысленная резня. Такое отношение в конечном итоге привело бы к описанию конфликта как «Войны между штатами», как ее назвали апологеты Конфедерации, в которой не было ни исторического права, ни морального превосходства, занимаемого Линкольном и силами Союза. Предполагаемый нейтралитет на самом деле будет маскировать проконфедеративную позицию.
В фильме Гарленда столько дыр в сюжете, что это скорее дыра, чем сюжет.
Нет никаких объяснений, почему «западные силы», очевидно, состоящие из техасцев и калифорнийцев всех рас и классов, решили поднять оружие против правительства США. Можно подумать, что правительство Калифорнии более пролиберально-демократическое, а правительство Техаса — республиканское и популистское. Зачем этим двум штатам быть вместе? Не думайте об этом слишком много.
Также нет объяснений по поводу других фракций, которые кратко упоминаются в фильме, включая «Флоридский альянс», включающий несколько южных штатов, и «Новую народную армию», состоящую из нескольких штатов на северо-западе Тихого океана. Очевидно, существуют «лоялистские» территории, простирающиеся через Средний Запад и в Новую Англию, хотя в таком случае, почему президент остается в Вашингтоне, а не отступает на более безопасную территорию?
В одной из сцен оператор заправочной станции отвергает американские доллары как бесполезные, но охотно принимает канадские счета. Таким образом, очевидно, что гражданская война, бушующая в Соединенных Штатах, не оказала существенного влияния на их северного соседа. Это лишь самый очевидный геополитический абсурд в представлении гражданской войны в США – в XXI веке! – как чисто национального события.
Отказ принять чью-либо сторону или даже дать связное описание сторон, возможно, был, как говорит Гарланд, художественным выбором, каким бы ошибочным он ни был. Но, скорее всего, продюсеры и дистрибьюторы поддержали его по другим, гораздо более корыстным причинам. В конце концов, вы не хотите снимать фильм, который может оттолкнуть часть публики, которая ходит в кино и покупает билеты.
Этот неудачный вывод подтверждается, когда персонаж фильма говорит, что Ли Смит (Данст) впервые оставила свой след фотографиями «резни против антифа». Отсылка настолько намеренно эллиптическая, что зритель понятия не имеет, была ли это резня, устроенная «антифа» против незадачливых автомобилистов, сигналивших протестующим, блокирующим улицы, или антифашисты сами были убиты враждебными элементами.
Важно отметить, что фильм не дает ни малейшего намека на роль огромной американской военной машины в гражданской войне, которая ведется в основном с использованием стрелкового оружия и ручных ракетных установок, с последующим добавлением джипов и вертолетов. Никакой артиллерии, никаких крылатых ракет, никакого воздушного боя и, очевидно, никакого ядерного оружия малой мощности.
В отличие от превосходного американского фильма 1964 года «Семь дней в мае», в котором изображен военный переворот в США, «Гражданская война» не углубляется в ту решающую роль, которую американские военные должны будут сыграть в поддержке диктатуры в США. Революция — это не борьба против армии, революция — это борьба за армию.
Вместо серьезного исследования того, как гражданское общество и власть разумных социальных законов могут и разрушаются в Соединенных Штатах, в фильме чередуются напряженные моменты крайнего или потенциального насилия, за которыми следуют сцены путешествий под аккомпанемент поп-песен. и дискуссии о роли «объективной» фотожурналистики во время войны.
После шести месяцев геноцида в секторе Газа, в ходе которого героические журналисты рисковали своей жизнью, подробно описывая ежедневные преступления израильского правительства, поддерживаемого Соединенными Штатами и их союзниками, заявление персонажа Данст о нейтралитете и объективности, когда он фотографировал массовых захоронений мирных жителей могилы или взорваны во время выпрашивания воды для некоторых изнашиваются.
В целом, «Гражданская война» совершенно не способна реализовать то, что могло бы стать убедительной предпосылкой.
Civil War est un film d’action des studios A24 qui se déroule dans le futur proche d’une Amérique au milieu d’une guerre intestine en cours entre le gouvernement fédéral, plusieurs États et les milices rivales.
Le sujet nominal du film – les États-Unis dans les dernières étapes d’une guerre civile qui a amené la société au bord de la barbarie – est clairement d’une immense pertinence et d’un immense intérêt. Le film est sorti en pleine campagne électorale de 2024 et un peu plus de trois ans après les émeutes de George Floyd aux États-Unis à l’été 2020, ou le prétendu « coup d’État » non armé du 6 janvier 2021, au cours duquel le président sortant a tenté de prétendre que les démocrates tricheraient et voleraient une élection et a tenté d’arrêter le transfert de pouvoir par une manœuvre légale empêchant la certification. Au Texas, des affrontements ont eu lieu entre les troupes armées de la Garde nationale du Texas et les agents armés des douanes fédérales américaines qui guident les immigrants à travers la frontière et ouvrent les barrières aux nouveaux arrivants. L’actuel favori du Parti républicain à l’investiture présidentielle, Trump, est traduit en justice dans de nombreux États par les démocrates et exclu du scrutin dans certains États.
C’est sans aucun doute ce qui explique l’intérêt populaire généralisé pour le film. Civil War a été le film numéro un au box-office nord-américain le week-end dernier, dépassant Godzilla x Kong, avec des ventes de billets estimées à 25,7 millions de dollars.
Cependant, Civil War ne fournit finalement aucune explication. En fait, il tente de faire valoir le fait de ne même pas essayer de le faire.
Le film se concentre sur le voyage et les luttes internes d’une poignée de journalistes et de photojournalistes alors qu’ils se dirigent de New York vers la Maison Blanche assiégée pour obtenir les derniers mots et le « dernier plan » d’un président-dictateur sur sa sortie. Oui, un entretien est demandé. Un peu comme aller à Berlin, en Allemagne, en avril 1945, pour voir si l’on pouvait obtenir « une interview » avec Hitler pour connaître ses réactions aux événements actuels.
Civil War met en vedette Kirsten Dunst dans le rôle du photojournaliste Lee Smith, avec Wagner Moura dans le rôle du collègue journaliste de Lee, Joel. Cailee Spaeny incarne Jessie Cullen, une jeune photojournaliste qui idolâtre le personnage de Dunst. Les « photojournalistes » du film utilisent des images fixes et non des vidéos. C’est cool la vieille école. L’excellent acteur Stephen McKinley Henderson complète le casting principal dans le rôle de Sammy, qui, nous dit-on, est l’un des rares journalistes restants du New York Times.
Tout au long du trajet, les journalistes, avec leurs casques de presse, leurs gilets pare-balles et leurs coûteux appareils photo, assistent et photographient des scènes d’exécutions sommaires, de torture, d’échanges de tirs et d’autres violences. Pendant les deux premiers tiers du film, le personnage de Dunst photographie froidement le carnage tandis que son aspirante protégée Jessie, apparemment toujours accrochée à son humanité, s’effondre et pleure. Dans le dernier tiers du film, les deux hommes inversent les rôles, avant la conclusion mortelle et profondément insatisfaisante.
Nick Offerman, célèbre pour avoir joué un bureaucrate libertaire misanthrope dans la série télévisée comique Parks and Recreation, ne dispose que de quelques minutes à l’écran dans le rôle du président anonyme des États-Unis. Ses motivations politiques, sa politique et le parti auquel il appartient sont inconnus, bien que sa personnalité soit vaguement trumpienne et qu’il se soit présenté pour un troisième mandat. Il y a des références passagères au bombardement de son propre peuple, à l’exécution de journalistes sur la pelouse sud de la Maison Blanche et à la dissolution du FBI.
Une autre performance notable du film est celle de Jesse Plemons, qui fait une apparition non crédité en tant que milicien déconcertant arborant des lunettes teintées en rose et un M-16. Dans son unique scène, Plemons interroge les journalistes de manière menaçante, leur demandant à chacun, avec des conséquences potentiellement mortelles : « Quel genre d’Américain êtes-vous ?
Le film a été écrit et réalisé par l’auteur, scénariste et réalisateur britannique Alex Garland. Ses précédents crédits d’écriture incluent le film de zombies captivant 28 jours plus tard (2002) et l’hyper-violent Dredd (2012). En 2015, Garland a fait ses débuts en tant que réalisateur avec l’intéressant thriller de science-fiction Ex Machina. Ce film est centré sur un programmeur informatique, son patron milliardaire de droite et les robots réalistes et intelligents créés par l’entreprise.
Dans des interviews, Garland a déclaré avoir terminé le scénario de Civil War avant le 6 janvier 2021. Et bien que le film présente occasionnellement des images de manifestants et de policiers anti-émeutes combattant dans les rues (interrompus par l’explosion d’une bombe), ce qui est le plus frappant c’est ce qu’il ne fait pas. Il n’y a aucune tentative d’aborder de quelque manière que ce soit les circonstances politiques, sociales et historiques qui ont produit la guerre civile qui fait l’objet du film.
Dans une interview accordée au New York Times publiée ce week-end, Garland déclare : « Je pense que la guerre civile n’est qu’une extension d’une situation… Cette situation est la polarisation et l’absence de forces limitantes sur la polarisation. » Quant aux causes de la polarisation et aux raisons pour lesquelles il n’y a pas de limites, il reste silencieux et apparemment totalement inconscient, tout comme son intervieweur.
Civil War propose une série d’images montrant une violence brutale qui explose, non pas dans un pays lointain, mais dans les rues des villes, les quartiers verdoyants des banlieues et les villes rurales apparemment calmes des États-Unis. Mais il n’y a pas de « pourquoi », pas même une allusion aux motivations des participants, sans parler du « pourquoi » plus fondamental, qui examine les forces sociales qui génèrent les motivations dans l’esprit des hommes et des femmes.
Dans une séquence impliquant un tireur d’élite et deux soldats qu’il a coincés, Joël demande aux soldats de quel côté ils se trouvent et pour quel camp le tireur d’élite se bat. Garland raconte la séquence dans le cadre de son interview au Times, citant le dialogue qu’il a écrit.
Un soldat répond à la question de savoir de quel côté ils sont : « Vous ne comprenez pas un mot de ce que je dis. » Il se tourne vers Jessie : « Yo. Qu’y a-t-il là-bas, dans cette maison ? Jessie répond: “Quelqu’un tire.” Cette réponse satisfait le soldat.
Garland poursuit, de sa propre voix : « Cela est dû au fait que lorsque les choses deviennent extrêmes, les raisons pour lesquelles les choses sont devenues extrêmes ne deviennent plus pertinentes et le tranchant du problème est tout ce qui reste vraiment pertinent. Dans ce contexte, peu importe donc peu importe pour quel camp on se bat ou pour quoi l’autre se bat. C’est juste réduit à une survie.
Ici, l’effet escompté est l’inconscience littérale.
Au cours du film, le personnage de Dunst explique qu’elle a renvoyé ses photos de conflits à l’étranger pour dire aux Américains de ne pas faire ça. Comme dans un cours de conduite sécuritaire, où ils montrent des images fixes d’accidents de voiture pour avertir les nouveaux conducteurs du danger.
Le réalisateur Garland adopte évidemment la même attitude à l’égard du film dans son ensemble : « Ne faites pas de guerre civile car ce serait terrible. » Mais sans examen des causes, un tel avertissement, aussi bien intentionné soit-il, n’a aucune substance.
Le refus de prendre parti, ou la représentation des deux côtés comme étant essentiellement équivalents, ne sert à rien, artistique ou autre. Une guerre civile n’est pas, contrairement à Garland, simplement une question d’incapacité des gens à contrôler leurs désaccords. Pour que la société se divise en camps belligérants, il doit y avoir des causes plus profondes, et le cinéaste ne peut éviter de prendre position.
Imaginez décrire la guerre civile américaine de 1861-1865 sans prendre position sur l’esclavage. Il y aurait beaucoup d’effusion de sang, mais ce serait un massacre inutile. Une telle attitude aboutirait finalement à une description du conflit comme « la guerre entre les États », comme l’ont qualifié les apologistes confédérés, dans laquelle il n’y avait aucun droit historique ni aucune hauteur morale occupée par Lincoln et les forces de l’Union. Une prétendue neutralité masquerait en réalité une position pro-confédérée.
Le film de Garland a tellement de trous dans l’intrigue qu’il est plus un trou qu’une intrigue.
Il n’y a aucune explication pour laquelle les « Forces occidentales », apparemment composées de Texans et de Californiens de toutes races et classes sociales, ont décidé de prendre les armes contre le gouvernement américain. On pourrait penser que le gouvernement de Californie est plus pro-libéral-démocrate et que le gouvernement du Texas est républicain et populiste, pourquoi ces deux États seraient-ils ensemble ? N’y pensez pas trop.
Il n’y a pas non plus d’explication pour les autres factions brièvement mentionnées dans le film, notamment « l’Alliance de Floride » qui comprend plusieurs États du sud, et la « Nouvelle Armée populaire », composée de plusieurs États du nord-ouest du Pacifique. Il existe apparemment des zones « loyalistes » qui s’étendent à travers le Midwest et jusqu’en Nouvelle-Angleterre, mais dans ce cas, pourquoi le président reste-t-il à Washington plutôt que de se retirer vers un territoire plus sûr ?
Dans une scène, un exploitant de station-service rejette les dollars américains comme étant sans valeur, mais accepte avec enthousiasme les factures canadiennes. Il est donc évident que la guerre civile qui fait rage aux États-Unis n’a eu aucun effet significatif sur son voisin du nord. Ce n’est là que l’absurdité géopolitique la plus évidente dans la présentation d’une guerre civile américaine – au XXIe siècle ! – comme un événement purement national.
Le refus de prendre parti ou même de fournir une description cohérente des deux côtés a peut-être été, comme le dit Garland, un choix artistique, aussi erroné soit-il. Mais il est probable que les producteurs et les distributeurs l’ont adopté pour d’autres raisons, bien plus mercantiles. Après tout, vous ne voulez pas faire un film qui pourrait aliéner une partie du public qui va au cinéma et achète des billets.
Cette conclusion malheureuse est renforcée lorsqu’un personnage du film affirme que Lee Smith (Dunst) a d’abord fait sa marque avec des photos du « massacre d’Antifa ». La référence est si délibérément elliptique que le spectateur ne sait pas s’il s’agit d’un massacre mené par des « antifas » contre de malheureux automobilistes klaxonnant contre les manifestants bloquant les rues ou si les antifascistes ont eux-mêmes été tués par des éléments hostiles.
Surtout, le film ne donne pas la moindre allusion au rôle de la vaste machine militaire américaine dans la guerre civile, qui est menée en grande partie avec des armes légères et des lance-roquettes portatifs, auxquels s’ajoutent ultérieurement des jeeps et des hélicoptères. Pas d’artillerie, pas de missiles de croisière, pas de combat aérien et, évidemment, pas d’armes nucléaires de faible puissance.
Contrairement à l’excellent film américain de 1964, Seven Days in May, qui dépeint un coup d’État militaire aux États-Unis, Civil War n’aborde pas le rôle critique que l’armée américaine devrait jouer dans le soutien d’une dictature aux États-Unis. Une révolution n’est pas une lutte contre l’armée, une révolution est une lutte pour l’armée.
Au lieu d’un examen sérieux de la façon dont la société civile et l’État de lois sociales raisonnables peuvent s’effondrer aux États-Unis, le film alterne des moments tendus de violence extrême ou potentielle, suivis de scènes de voyage accompagnées de chansons pop, et des discussions sur le rôle du photojournalisme « objectif » pendant la guerre.
Après six mois de génocide à Gaza, au cours desquels des journalistes héroïques ont risqué leur vie pour détailler les crimes quotidiens du gouvernement israélien, soutenu par les États-Unis et leurs alliés, la revendication de neutralité et d’objectivité du personnage de Dunst lorsqu’il photographie des civils enterrés en masse les tombes ou les explosions en mendiant de l’eau sont minces pour certains.
Dans l’ensemble, Civil War ne parvient pas complètement à répondre à ce qui pourrait être une prémisse convaincante.
The Second Round of Retaliation Between Israel and Iran Has Just Begun
Joe Biden is caught in a trap caused by his own weakness
• 2,200 WORDS •
Given the lying and fact twisting that have routinely been part and parcel of accounts of what is occurring in the Middle East, the past several weeks have nevertheless been shocking in terms of how an abysmally low standard of truth can be reduced even farther. Looking at developments objectively, one comes up with a series of facts. First of all, Israel was not at war with either Syria or Iran during the first weeks in April. Iran had never attacked Israel prior to that point and Syria last fought Israel in 1973, over fifty years ago. Israel, however, has regularly been assassinating Iranian officials and scientists and it has been frequently been bombing Syria since 2017, increasing the pace to weekly and sometimes even daily attacks over the past six months paralleling the Gaza fighting. A particularly devastating attack took place on March 29th when the Israeli military launched massive strikes against a weapons storage depot in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo which killed at least 40 people, most of them Syrian soldiers. The air strikes produced a series of explosions that also killed six Lebanese Hezbollah fighters.
But three days later on April 1st a very damaging and unprovoked attack was directed against the Iranian Embassy’s Consulate General, which was located in an upscale neighborhood in Damascus, Syria’s capital. The building was completely destroyed by missiles fired from F-35 fighter planes that had crossed over the Syrian border from Israel, killing Iranian diplomats as well as Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi, and also Brigadier General Hossein Amirollah, the chief of general staff for the al-Quds force in Syria and Lebanon. Syria subsequently confirmed that a total of 13 people were killed in the attack, including six Syrians and a Lebanese Hezbollah militiaman. Both Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge.
Attacking a diplomatic mission is considered a major war crime according to the Vienna Convention, but there was no condemnation of the incident coming from the US and the usual suspects in Western Europe. Instead of doing what was right by pressuring Israel to stop attacking its neighbors and thereby possibly preventing a major war in the Middle East, President Joe Biden repeated his pledge that the United States would regard as “ironclad” its commitment to guarantee Israel’s security if Iran were to strike back. This guaranteed to Israel that any action taken by it would be supported by Washington. The Biden Administration also predictably voted against a Russian and Chinese drafted UN Security Council resolution to condemn the Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate, which was a clear violation of international law and an act of war committed by Israel. The US reportedly cast its veto vote “no” after “Diplomats said the US told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear.” What was actually unclear was the fog that generally surrounds the Biden foreign policy and national security team since it was pretty transparent who was the aggressor in terms of means, motive and outcome.
When Iran did retaliate on April 13th, it carried out a carefully calibrated moderate strike against military targets intended to do damage but not cause a large number of casualties. It reportedly hit several airbases from which the Israeli fighter bombers had begun their attack on Damascus as well as an Israeli Air Force intelligence center in the formerly Syrian Golan Heights. No one was killed in spite of the 300 estimated drones and missiles that were launched, most being intercepted by Israel and its allies. But the attack nevertheless sent a message from Tehran that next time it could be much worse, both immediate in timing and “considerably more severe” than its response on Saturday night had been. Iran also claims that it attempted to prevent an escalation by warning the US about their plans, which would be passed on to Israel, that a “controlled” retaliation was coming. The Pentagon denied that it had been told anything, which may mean that Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was asleep at his desk once again.
Not content with the outcome, Israel inevitably struck back on Friday, hitting a major airbase near Isfahan, and, to make sure no one was missed, targets in both Iraq and Syria. Iranian military sources advise however that the loud explosions heard by local residents were Iranian air defenses shooting at some flying objects, presumably drones. Per the New York Times and other accommodating media, the strike was a warning that Israel could penetrate Iranian airspace and not intended to do serious damage. The Pentagon was apparently informed shortly before the Israeli action. Iran’s counter-counter retaliation is now pending, but it is clear that Netanyahu will not be deterred by electoral considerations in the United States to stay his hand in his own counter-counter response.
And how does the United States fit into the story? The White House response to the Iranian attack on Israeli territory was inevitably completely unlike the previous uncritical response to Israel’s Consulate General attack, namely condemnation of Iran and the repetition of the usual tripe about “Israel has a right to defend itself” and the sanctity of the “ironclad” defense arrangement. Biden also attempted to cover himself against political blowback due to his licking Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s shoes in the upcoming November election by making it known that he had spoken with and advised Netanyahu, recommending not carrying out a reprisal of the reprisal, which Washington would be unable to support as it could/would lead to major escalation. Netanyahu, not fearing Biden’s displeasure, blew the advice off and he and his war cabinet made clear that they were working on a response as well as setting a timetable for invading Rafah in south Gaza, which Biden had also recommended against.
The White House completed its groveling to Netanyahu by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution on April 18th that would have advocated full UN membership status for the state of Palestine, demonstrating that kicking the Palestinians is always a good way to maintain Israeli favor! The vote was 12 (including France, Japan and South Korea) in favor, two abstentions (the shameless United Kingdom and, surprisingly, Switzerland) and an American veto. The US insisted that elevation of Palestine’s diplomatic status can only be obtained after negotiations between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield absurdly raised another objection: “Right now, the Palestinians don’t have control over a significant portion of what is supposed to be their state. It’s being controlled by a terrorist organization.” She was referring to Hamas but the comment actually more correctly is applicable to Israel. In any event, a leaked White House memo had previously revealed that Biden opposes full UN membership and statehood for the Palestinians without Israel’s approval, which, of course, will not be forthcoming.
So we have Israel as the aggressor against two countries that were not declared enemies and had not attacked the Jewish state in any way in many, many years. But when Israel attacked them, committing a major war crime Joe Biden and company preferred to sit on their hands and mumble, saving their vituperation for when Iran staged a deliberately mild counter-attack as a warning. That is called hypocrisy, to turn things on their head to provide the answer that one wants to see and it applies equally to Biden accusing the Russians of “illegal occupation” in Ukraine while Israel’s theft of Syria’s Golan Heights and ongoing seizure of the West Bank goes unchallenged by Washington. And the pushback against Iran is unlikely to diminish very soon as the Jewish controlled US Congress also has the bit between its teeth to demonstrate how much it loves Israel. Congressman Steve Scalise, GOP House Majority Leader, has announced that “In light of Iran’s unjustified attack on Israel, the House will move from its previously announced legislative schedule next week to instead consider legislation that supports our ally Israel and holds Iran and its terrorist proxies accountable. The House of Representatives stands strongly with Israel, and there must be consequences for this unprovoked attack.” Over at the Senate Senator Tom Cotton of Arkansas is advocating punishing Iran by beating on its possible friends in the US, physically attacking folks who are demonstrating in support of the Palestinians. Cotton said that the “pro-Hamas criminals” should be confronted by angry citizens who “take matters into [their] own hands” and confront the offenders, endorsing the use of force against peaceful demonstrators.
But there is also the back story behind why Israel likely attacked the Iranians in Syria in the first place. I and a number of other observers immediately after the Israeli attack assumed that the Jewish state had staged a deliberate over-the-top provocation to draw Washington into its wars. Just as in the case of the October 7th Gaza attack by Hamas, which Israel had full knowledge of and let happen, Netanyahu sought to create a situation in which it would goad Iran into being forced to retaliate to force an “ironclad” Biden to protect its “ally” by taking on Iran directly.
Why did Israel do it beyond the obvious desire to destroy Iran just like it is destroying the Palestinians? It was done because Israel has likely become aware that it is viewed as the world’s greatest pariah state due to its genocide in Gaza, to include the recent horrific killing of hundreds of Palestinians in the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as well as the targeted assassination of seven employees of a charity that was bringing in food to those starving due to Israel’s blocking the entry of relief supplies. And also because Israel is actually not winning its war against Hamas, it needed to shift the narrative to something different. That would be using its time-honored technique of making itself once again the “victim” in confronting a powerful new enemy, Iran, which would make the problem of bad public relations with the world over Gaza be in part mitigated.
A shift in the story would also presumably bring with it the expected help from the United States and its European allies to do the hard work in killing Iranians. And the trick seems to have worked, predictably. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of Britain has been recently facing demands to cut off arms shipments to Israel because of the devastating death toll in Gaza, but on the following Monday, he was able to salute the British warplanes that had shot down some Iranian drones sent by Iran to attack Israel. It was a telling example of how Israel has been able to scramble the equation in the Middle East. Faced with a intensively publicized barrage of Iranian missiles, Britain, the United States, France and others rushed to help the Israelis who had in fact started the conflict. The United States is also currently planning on increasing the pressure on Iran through a series of tough new sanctions being prepared by Treasury Secretary Janice Yellen, saying “Treasury will not hesitate to work with our allies to use our sanctions authority to continue disrupting the Iranian regime’s malign and destabilizing activity.” Yellen notably did nothing when Israel committed a major war crime in its attack on the Iranian Consulate General in Damascus, nor has she supported sanctions over the Israeli Gaza genocide. She is, of course, Jewish. More aid for the Jewish state is also still waiting for a congressional vote to approve the $14 billion currently in the pipeline, with Washington Reportclaiming that this year’s total US aid to Netanyahu will likely exceed $25 billion “in direct costs related to its fervent support for Israel.”
Right now, the dilemma for the US government will be that it must pull out all the stops in supporting Israel or face inter alia retaliation by the Israel Lobby working through its donors and media resources to defeat Biden in November. And there hovers in the peripheries of one’s mind the worse grim possibility that Israel, if rebuffed by its “allies,” will use its secret nuclear arsenal to blow up the Middle East and presumably a large chunk of adjacent areas in Europe and Asia as well. There are stories already circulating suggesting that the Israeli nuclear reactor at Dimona might have been an Iranian target and that Israel is right now preparing to take out Iranian nuclear research sites. Netanyahu is calling the shots while a befuddled White House looks on. Israel has baited a trap and Joe Biden has stepped right into it.
Civil War is an action film from A24 studios set in the near-future of an America in the midst of an ongoing internecine war between the federal government, several states and rival militia forces.
The nominal subject of the film—the United States in the last stages of a civil war that has brought society to the brink of barbarism—is clearly of immense relevance and interest. The movie has been released in the midst of the 2024 election campaign and just over three years since the George Floyd Riots across the US in the summer of 2020, or the supposed unarmed ‘coup’ of January 6, 2021, in which the incumbent president attempted to claim that Democrats would cheat and steal an election and attempted to stop the transfer of power through a legal maneuver preventing certification. In Texas there have been confrontations between Texas National Guard armed troops and US Federal Customs armed agents guiding immigrants across the border and opening fences for the newcomers. The current Republican Party front runner for the presidential nomination, Trump, is being brought to trial in numerous states by Democrats and kept off the ballot in some states.
No doubt this is behind the widespread popular interest in the film. Civil War was the number one movie at the North American box office this past weekend, surpassing Godzilla x Kong, with an estimated $25.7 million in ticket sales.
However, Civil War provides in the end no explanation of anything. Indeed, it attempts to make a virtue of not even trying to do so.
The movie focuses on the journey and internal struggles of a handful of reporters and photojournalists as they make their way from New York City to the besieged White House to get the last words and “final shot” of a president-dictator on his way out. Yes, an interview is sought. Kind of like going to Berlin, Germany in April 1945 to see if one can get ‘an interview’ with Hitler to get his reactions to current events.
Civil War stars Kirsten Dunst as photojournalist Lee Smith, with Wagner Moura playing Lee’s reporter colleague, Joel. Cailee Spaeny plays Jessie Cullen, a young photojournalist who idolizes the Dunst character. The ‘photojournalists’ in the movie use still shots, not video. Old school cool. The excellent character actor Stephen McKinley Henderson rounds out the main cast as Sammy, who we’re told is one of the few remaining journalists at the New York Times.
Along the journey, the journalists, with their press helmets, body armor and expensive cameras, witness and photograph scenes of summary executions, torture, firefights and other violence. For the first two-thirds of the movie, the Dunst character coldly photographs the carnage while her aspiring protege Jessie, apparently still clinging to her humanity, crumbles and cries. In the final third of the movie, the pair reverse roles, before the deadly, and deeply unsatisfying, conclusion.
Nick Offerman, famous for playing a misanthropic libertarian bureaucrat on the comedy television show Parks and Recreation, has only a few minutes screen time as the unnamed President of the United States. His political motivations, his policies, and what party he belongs to are unknown, although his persona is vaguely Trumpian and he is said to have run for a third term. There are passing references to bombing his own people, executing journalists on the South Lawn of the White House, and disbanding the FBI.
One other notable performance in the movie is that of Jesse Plemons, who makes an uncredited appearance as an unnerving militiaman sporting rose-tinted glasses and an M-16. In his only scene, Plemons menacingly interrogates the journalists, asking them each, with potentially lethal consequences: “What kind of American are you?”
Jesse Plemons
The movie was written and directed by British author, screenwriter, and director Alex Garland. His previous writing credits include the gripping zombie film 28 Days Later (2002) and the hyper-violent Dredd (2012). In 2015, Garland made his directorial debut with the interesting science fiction thriller Ex Machina. That movie centers around a computer programmer, his right-wing billionaire boss, and the lifelike and intelligent robots created by the company.
Alex Garland Director of ‘Civil War’
In interviews, Garland said he completed the script of Civil War before January 6, 2021. And while the film occasionally features images of protesters and riot police fighting in the streets (to be interrupted by a bomb explosion), what is most striking about it is what it does not do. There is no attempt to address in any fashion the political, social and historical circumstances that have produced the civil war that is the subject of the movie.
In an interview with the New York Times published over the weekend, Garland declares, “I think civil war is just an extension of a situation … That situation is polarization and the lack of limiting forces on polarization.” As to what causes the polarization and why there are no limits on it, he is silent, and apparently entirely unreflective, as is his interviewer.
Wagner Moura as Joel and Cailee Spaeny as Jessie Cullen in A24’s Civil War.
Civil War provides a series of images showing brutal violence exploding, not in some distant land, but in the city streets, leafy suburban neighborhoods and seemingly quiet rural towns of the United States. But there is no “why,” not even a hint as to the motives of the participants, let alone the more fundamental “why,” examining the social forces which generate the motives in the minds of men and women.
In one sequence, involving a sniper and two soldiers he has pinned down, Joel ask the soldiers which side they are on and which side the sniper fights for. Garland narrates the sequence as part of his Times interview, quoting from the dialogue he wrote.
One soldier replies to the question, what side are they on, saying, “You don’t understand a word I say.” He turns to Jessie, “Yo. What’s over there in that house?” Jessie replies, “Someone shooting.” That answer satisfies the soldier.
Garland continues, in his own voice, “It’s to do with the fact that when things get extreme, the reasons why things got extreme no longer become relevant and the knife edge of the problem is all that really remains relevant. So it doesn’t actually matter, as it were, in this context, what side they’re fighting for or what the other person’s fighting for. It’s just reduced to a survival.”
Here, literal thoughtlessness is the intended effect.
In the course of the movie, Dunst’s character explains that she sent back her still photo images from overseas conflicts to tell Americans, don’t do this. Like in a safe driving class when they show car crash stills to warn new drivers about danger.
Movie director Garland evidently adopts the same attitude to the movie as a whole: “Don’t have a civil war because it would be terrible.” But without any examination of the causes, such a warning, however well-intentioned, has no substance.
Nor does the refusal to take sides, or the depiction of both sides as essentially equivalent, serve any purpose, artistic or otherwise. A civil war is not, contrary to Garland, just a matter of people being unable to control their disagreements. For society to split into warring camps, there must be more profound causes, and the moviemaker cannot avoid taking a position.
Imagine portraying the American Civil War of 1861-1865 without taking a position on slavery. There would be plenty of bloodshed, but it would all be pointless slaughter. Such an attitude would ultimately resolve into a description of the conflict as “The war between the states,” as the Confederate apologists have labeled it, in which there was no historical right and no moral high ground, occupied by Lincoln and the Union forces. Supposed neutrality would actually mask a pro-Confederate position.
Nick Offerman as the President of the United States in A24’s Civil War.
Garland’s film has so many holes in the plot that it is more hole than plot.
There is no explanation why the “Western Forces,” apparently comprised of Texans and Californians of every race and class, decided to take up arms against the US government. One might think the government of California is more pro-Liberal Democrat, and the government of Texas is Republican and populist, why would those two states be together? Don’t think about it too much.
There is likewise no explanation for the other factions which are briefly mentioned in the movie, including the “Florida Alliance” which includes several southern states, and the “New People’s Army,” comprised of several states in the Pacific Northwest. There are apparently “Loyalist” areas stretching across the Midwest and into New England, although in that case, why does the president remain in Washington rather than retreat to safer territory?
In one scene, a gas station operator rejects American dollars as worthless but eagerly accepts Canadian bills. So evidently, a civil war raging across the United States has had no significant effect on its northern neighbor. That is only the most obvious geopolitical absurdity in the presentation of an American civil war—in the 21st century!— as a purely national event.
The refusal to take a side or even provide a coherent description of the sides may have been, as Garland says, an artistic choice, however misguided. But it was likely embraced by producers and distributors for other, far more mercenary reasons. You don’t want to make a film which might alienate a portion of the movie-going, ticket-buying public, after all.
This unfortunate conclusion is reinforced when a character in the film says that Lee Smith (Dunst) first made her mark with photos of the “Antifa massacre.” The reference is so deliberately elliptical that the viewer has no idea if this was a massacre conducted by “antifa” against hapless motorists honking at protesters blocking streets or if the anti-fascists were themselves killed by hostile elements.
Crucially, the movie gives not the slightest hint of the role of the vast American military machine in the civil war, which is conducted largely with small arms and hand-held rocket launchers, with a later addition of jeeps and helicopters. No artillery, no cruise missiles, no aerial combat, and, obviously, no small yield nuclear weapons.
In contrast to the excellent 1964 American film Seven Days in May, which depicts a military coup in the US, Civil War does not delve into the critical role the US military would have to play in supporting a dictatorship in the US. A revolution is not a struggle against the army, a revolution is a struggle for the army.
Instead of a serious examination of how civil society and the rule of reasonable social laws can, and are, breaking down in the United States, the movie alternates tense moments of extreme or potential violence, followed by travel scenes to the accompaniment of pop songs, and discussions about the role of “objective” photojournalism during war.
After six months of genocide in Gaza, in which heroic journalists have risked their lives to detail the daily crimes of the Israeli government, backed by the United States and its allies, the Dunst character’s claim of neutrality and objectivity while photographing civilians being buried in mass graves or blown up while begging for water wears thin for some.
Overall, Civil War fails completely to deliver on what could be a compelling premise.
A Holy of the Holies was shattered in the Holy Land as Iran staged a quite measured, heavily choreographed response to the Israeli terror attack against its consulate/ambassador residence in Damascus, a de facto evisceration of the Vienna Convention on diplomatic immunity.
This game-changer will directly interfere on how the Anglo-American system manages its simultaneous conflagration with Russia, China and Iran – three top BRICS members.
The key problem is escalations are already built in – and will be hard to remove. The Total Cancel War against Russia; the genocide in Gaza – with its explicit policy masterfully decoded by Prof. Michael Hudson; and the decoupling/shaping the terrain against China won’t simply vanish – as all communication bridges with the Global Majority keep being torched.
Yet the Iranian message indeed establishes a “New Equation” – as Tehran christened it, and prefigures many other surprises to come from West Asia.
Iran wanted to – and did send – a clear message. New equation: if the biblical psychopathic entity keeps attacking Iranian interests, from henceforth it will be counter-attacked inside Israel. All that in a matter of “seconds” – as the Security Council in Tehran has already cleared all the procedures.
Escalation though seems inevitable. Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak: “Netanyahu is influenced by his [fundamentalist] political partners to go into an escalation so he can hold onto power and accelerate the coming of the Messiah.”
Compare it to Iranian President Raisi: “The smallest act against Tehran’s interests will be met with a massive, extensive, and painful response against all its operations.”
Goodbye to Your ‘Invincible’ Defense Maze
For Tehran, regulating the intensity of the clash in West Asia between Israel and the Axis of Resistance while simultaneously establishing strategic deterrence to replace “strategic patience” was a matter of launching a triple wave: a drone swarm opening the path for cruise missiles and ballistic missiles.
The performance of the much-vaunted Iron Dome, Arrow-3 and David’s Sling – aided by F-35 fighter jets and the US and the UK naval force – was not exactly stellar. There’s no video of the “outer-layer” Arrow-3 system shooting down anything in space.
At least 9 ballistic missiles penetrated the dense Israeli defense network and hit the Nevatim and Ramon bases. Israel is absolutely mum on the fate of its Golan Heights intel installation – hit by cruise missiles.
Amidst classic fog of war, it’s irrelevant whether Tehran launched hundreds or dozens of drones and missiles. Regardless of NATOstan media hype, what’s proven beyond the shadow of a doubt is that the supposedly “invincible” Israeli defense maze – ranging from US-made AD/ABM systems to Israeli knockoffs – is helpless in real war against a technologically advanced adversary.
What was accomplished by a single operation did raise quite a few professional eyebrows. Iran forced Israel to furiously deplete its stock of interceptors and spend at least $1.35 billion – while having its escalatory dominance and deterrence strategy completely shattered.
The psychological blow was even fiercer.
What if Iran had unleashed a series of strikes without a generous previous warning lasting several days? What if US, UK, France and – traitorous – Jordan were not ready for coordinated defense? (The – startling – fact they were all directly dispensing firepower on Tel Aviv’s behalf was not analyzed at all). What if Iran had hit serious industrial and infrastructural targets?
Establishing an Equation Without Disturbing a Pivot
Predictably, there has been less than zero debate across NATOstan about the sudden collapse of the Fortress Israel Myth – which underpins the larger myth of Zionism offering Impregnable Security for those living in Israel. No more. This narrative spin is D.O.A.
Iran, for its part, could not care less about what NATOstan spins. The shift towards the New Equation in fact was generous enough to offer Tel Aviv a de-escalation escape route – which will not be taken, at Israel’s peril.
For Tel Aviv, everything that happened so far spells out Strategic Defeat across the spectrum: in Gaza, in Lebanon, with the economy tanking, totally losing legitimacy around the world, and now with the added painful loss of deterrence.
Israeli Counterattack: decision made, but timing uncertain
The Israel Defense Forces have finalized their decision on how to respond to Iran’s attack, however, they have not yet determined the timing, as reported by The Jerusalem Post, citing sources.
All eyes are now on what may happen next: will it finally become clear whether the Hegemon prevails or whether Israel runs the “wag the dog” show?
It’s essential to consider the Russia-China strategic partnership view. The consensus among Chinese scholars is that the Hegemon prefers not to commit too many resources to West Asia, as this would affect the – already collapsing – Project Ukraine and the strategic planning to counter China in the Asia-Pacific.
Additionally, later this week Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani – who said Iran will respond “within seconds” to any new Israeli attack – visits Moscow for the Conference on Nonproliferation and will also meet with the top echelons of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
It’s quite remarkable that Iran managed to establish the New Equation without disturbing its own pivot to Eurasia – after the collapse of the 2015 nuclear deal – while protecting the complex framework engaged in the defense of Palestine.
The Hegemon’s options are dire. They run from being eventually expelled from West Asia and the Persian Gulf to an unwinnable existential clash against three civilization-states – Russia, China, Iran.
What’s left as the number one feasible scenario is a carefully calculated retreat to an easily controlled backyard: Latin America, especially South America, manipulating new, convenient, sovereign-deprived asset Argentina.
That does not change the fact that US power projection on the wane, globally, is the way the wind is blowing. The Straussian neocon psycho-dementia is unsustainable. The question is whether they can be progressively purged from the US power structure before they attempt to plunge the Global Majority into their irrational depths of doom.
And Don’t Forget the New BRICS Equation
By contrast, on the Global Majority front, over 40 nations want to join BRICS – and counting, according to the head of the Russian Council Committee on International Affairs, Grigory Karasin.
After a meeting of the chairmen of the international affairs committees of BRICS Parliaments last week in Moscow, Karasin noted how many BRICS member-nations understand that they should not rush to create a rigid charter, “seeing how counterproductive and even provocative the European Union is acting.” The name of the game is flexibility.
Nigeria’s intent to join BRICS is in line with its interest in a more equitable global financial and development system, Ben Akabueze, the director general of the country’s Budget Office, told Sputnik.
Alastair Crooke has touched on a key theme that runs through my new book, Eurasia v. NATOstan: “Anything that was good and true about Western civilization is preserved and thriving in Russia. This is the unspoken insight that so infuriates the western elites. And it is also why, in part, BRICS states so evidently look to Russia for leadership.”
The New Equation established by Iran, a sovereign BRICS member, will do wonders to solidify this – multilateral, multicultural – state of cooperation as the Empire and its “aircraft carrier” in West Asia, except in the covert ops department, are increasingly reduced to the role of a paper tiger.
Israeli military expert Or Fialkov said on 17 April that authorities gave false information about the rate of interception of Iranian drones and missiles during Tehran’s operation against Israel over the weekend.
Israel had claimed on 14 April following Iran’s Operation True Promise that 99 percent of the projectiles fired during the operation were intercepted.
“The interception percentage of the missiles is about 84 percent, a very high percentage but not comparable to the numbers that the IDF provided, which gave the feeling that there had been an absolute interception of all Iranian threats,” Fialkov told Hebrew newspaper Maariv in an interview released Wednesday.
“When they publish crazy success rates (99 percent) and create a [false] state of perfection, it can cause complacency in the citizens as well as in the military,” the Israeli researcher added.
He also said that an Iranian attack on settlements would have resulted in “significantly higher casualties.”
Iran chose to target military sites instead. Following the Iranian operation, Tel Aviv admitted that the Nevatim airbase in southern Israel was damaged in the attack. Iran’s Armed Forces said the Nevatim base was the site from which Israeli jets took off to attack the Iranian consulate in Damascus.
Tehran also targeted intelligence sites in the Jabal al-Sheikh mountains between Syria and Israeli territory, which “provided the intelligence for the Israeli airstrike on Iran’s diplomatic mission in Damascus,” Iranian army chief Major General Mohammad Hossein Baqeri said on Sunday.
Authorities in Iran also said that their operation was purposefully limited and measured, and aimed to send a strong message that Tehran is capable of much more.
Several Iranian officials have vowed a much harsher attack if Israel escalates the situation with a response.
“This operation showed that our armed forces are ready,” Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi said in a speech on 17 April, adding that Operation True Promise “brought down the glory of the Zionist regime.”
“The slightest act of aggression” by Israel will lead to “a fierce and severe response,” he warned.
The Iranian defeat of the US-Israeli missile defense architecture has global security consequences.
The world’s attention has, rightfully so, been focused on the fallout from Iran’s retaliatory strike against Israel on April 13-14, 2024. Iran’s purpose in launching the attack was to establish a deterrence posture designed to put Israel and the United States on notice that any attack against Iran, whether on Iranian soil or on the territory of other nations, would trigger a retaliation which would inflict more damage on the attacker than the attacker could hope to inflict on Iran. To achieve this result, Iran had to prove itself capable of overcoming the ballistic missile defense systems of both Israel and the United States which were deployed in and around Israel at the time of the attack. This Iran was able to accomplish, with at least nine missiles striking two Israeli air bases that fell under the protective umbrella of the Israeli-US missile defense shield.Defending Dixieu2019s …Bishop, Isaac C.Buy New $16.49(as of 04:31 UTC – Details)
The Iranian deterrence posture has implications that reach far beyond the environs of Israel or the Middle East. By defeating the US-Israeli missile defense shield, Iran exposed the notion of US missile defense supremacy that serves as the heart of US force protection models used when projecting military power on a global scale. The US defensive posture vis-à-vis Russia, China, and North Korea hinges on assumptions made regarding the efficacy of US ballistic missile defense capabilities. By successfully attacking Israeli air bases which had the benefit of the full range of US anti-ballistic missile technology, Iran exposed the vulnerability of the US missile defense shield to modern missile technologies involving maneuverable warheads, decoys, and hypersonic speed. US bases in Europe, the Pacific and the Middle East once thought to be well-protected, have suddenly been revealed to be vulnerable to hostile attack. So, too, are US Navy ships operating at sea.
Israel’s ballistic missile defenses were given a supercharged boost by the deployment of an advanced AN/TPY-2 X band radar on Israeli soil. The radar, operated by the US Army’s 13th Missile Defense Battery, is located on Har Qeren, a height which rises out of the Negev Desert near the city of Be’er Sheva. The AN/TPY-2 is a missile defense radar that can detect, track and discriminate ballistic missiles, discriminating between threats and non-threats (i.e., incoming missiles and space debris).
The AN/TPY-2 operates in two different modes. The first, known as the “forward-based mode,” detects and tracks ballistic missiles as they are launched. The second—“terminal mode”—is used to guide interceptors toward a descending missile. The AN/TPY-2 is optimized to work with the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) ballistic missile defense system by guiding the THAAD missile to its target.
The US had deployed at least one, and possibly two, THAAD missile batteries to Israel at the time of the Iranian missile attack. In addition to assisting the THAAD missiles in shooting down incoming threats, the AN/TPY-2 radar data was integrated with Israeli radar data and other technical intelligence collected by the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization’s (BMDO) network of early warning satellites deployed for the sole purpose of monitoring and reporting Iranian ballistic missile launches. This integrated early warning/surveillance/tracking system was tied into a multi-layered missile defense architecture which included the US THAAD and Israeli Arrow 2, Arrow 3, advanced Patriot, and David’s Sling anti-ballistic missile interceptor systems.
Adding to the capability and lethality of the US-Israeli ballistic missile defense architecture was the presence of at least two US Navy ballistic missile defense (BMD) system-capable Aegis-class destroyers equipped with the SPY-1 S band radar and SM-3/SM-6 interceptor missiles. The Navy BMD-capable ships are configured to tie into the ground-based AN/TPY-2 X band radar as well as the broader BMD system through the Command and Control, Battle management, and Communications (C2BMC) system. The combination of ground-based radars and interceptors with the US Navy BMD system provides US military commanders with theater-wide protection from hostile ballistic missile threats. This integrated system is designed to detect, acquire, and track incoming threats and, using complex computer-drive algorithms, discriminate targets and destroy them using hit-to-kill kinetic warheads (i.e., a “bullet hitting a bullet”).The Kids’ Money …McGillian, Jamie KyleBest Price: $12.99Buy New $48.14(as of 04:45 UTC – Details)
On April 13-14, 2023, this system failed. In short, the combination of US and Israeli anti-ballistic missile defense capabilities deployed in and around the Negev desert made the Israeli air bases located there the most protected locations in the world from threats posed by ballistic missiles.
And yet Iran successfully struck both locations with multiple missiles.
The global strategic implications of this stunning Iranian accomplishment are game-changing—the US has long struggled conceptually with the notion of what is referred to as “A2/AD” (anti-access/area denial) threats posed by hostile ballistic missiles. However, the US had sought to mitigate against this AA/A2 threat by overlaying theater ballistic missile defense architecture like that that had been employed in Israel. The failure of the combined US-Israeli defense systems in the face of a concerted Iranian missile attack exposed the short-comings of the US ballistic missile defense capabilities world-wide.
In short, this means that the US and NATO forces in Europe are vulnerable to attack from advanced Russian missile technologies which match or exceed those used by Iran to attack Israel. It also means that China would most likely be able to strike and sink US navy ships in the Pacific Ocean in the event of a conflict over Taiwan. And that North Korea could do the same to US ships and forces ashore in the vicinity of Japan and South Korea.
Until which time the US can develop, produce and deploy missile defense systems capable of defeating the new missile technology being deployed by nations like Iran, Russia, China, and North Korea, US military power projection capabilities are in a state of checkmate by America’s potential adversaries.
The Middle East is on the brink of war precisely because western politicians indulged for decades every military excess by Israel
Suddenly, western politicians from US President Joe Biden to British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak have become ardent champions of “restraint” – in a very last-minute scramble to avoid regional conflagration.
Iran launched a salvo of drones and missiles at Israel at the weekend in what amounted a largely symbolic show of strength. Many appear to have been shot down, either by Israel’s layers of US-funded interception systems or by US, British and Jordanian fighter jets. No one was killed.
It was the first direct attack by a state on Israel since Iraq fired Scud missiles during the Gulf war of 1991.
The United Nations Security Council was hurriedly pressed into session on Sunday, with Washington and its allies calling for a de-escalation of tensions that could all too easily lead to the outbreak of war across the Middle East and beyond.
“Neither the region nor the world can afford more war,” the UN’s secretary general, Antonio Guterres, told the meeting. “Now is the time to defuse and de-escalate.”
Israel, meanwhile, vowed to “exact the price” against Iran at a time of its choosing.
But the West’s abrupt conversion to “restraint” needs some explaining.
After all, western leaders showed no restraint when Israel bombed Iran’s consulate in Damascus two weeks ago, killing a senior general and more than a dozen other Iranians – the proximate cause of Tehran’s retaliation on Saturday night.
Under the Vienna Convention, the consulate is not only a protected diplomatic mission but is viewed as sovereign Iranian territory. Israel’s attack on it was an unbridled act of aggression – the “supreme international crime”, as the Nuremberg tribunal ruled at the end of the Second World War.
For that reason, Tehran invoked article 51 of the United Nations charter, which allows it to act in self-defence.
Shielding Israel
And yet, rather than condemning Israel’s dangerous belligerence – a flagrant attack on the so-called “rules-based order” so revered by the US – western leaders lined up behind Washington’s favourite client state.
At a Security Council meeting on 4 April, the US, Britain and France intentionally spurned restraint by blocking a resolution that would have condemned Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate – a vote that, had it not been stymied, might have sufficed to placate Tehran.
At the weekend, British Foreign Secretary David Cameron still gave the thumbs-up to Israel’s flattening of Iran’s diplomatic premises, saying he could “completely understand the frustration Israel feels” – though he added, without any hint of awareness of his own hypocrisy, that the UK “would take very strong action” if a country bombed a British consulate.
By shielding Israel from any diplomatic consequences for its act of war against Iran, the western powers ensured Tehran would have to pursue a military response instead.
But it did not end there. Having stoked Iran’s sense of grievance at the UN, Biden vowed “iron-clad” support for Israel – and grave consequences for Tehran – should it dare to respond to the attack on its consulate.
Iran ignored those threats. On Saturday night, it launched some 300 drones and missiles, at the same time protesting vociferously about the Security Council’s “inaction and silence, coupled with its failure to condemn the Israeli regime’s aggressions”.
Western leaders failed to take note. They again sided with Israel and denounced Tehran. At Sunday’s Security Council meeting, the same three states – the US, UK and France – that had earlier blocked a statement condemning Israel’s attack on Iran’s diplomatic mission, sought a formal condemnation of Tehran for its response.
Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vasily Nebenzya, ridiculed what he called “a parade of Western hypocrisy and double standards”. He added: “You know very well that an attack on a diplomatic mission is a casus belli under international law. And if Western missions were attacked, you would not hesitate to retaliate and prove your case in this room.”
There was no restraint visible either as the West publicly celebrated its collusion with Israel in foiling Iran’s attack.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak praised RAF pilots for their “bravery and professionalism” in helping to “protect civilians” in Israel.
In a statement, Keir Starmer, leader of the supposedly opposition Labour party, condemned Iran for generating “fear and instability”, rather than “peace and security”, that risked stoking a “wider regional war”. His party, he said, would “stand up for Israel’s security”.
The “restraint” the West demands relates only, it seems, to Iran’s efforts to defend itself.
Starving to death
Given the West’s new-found recognition of the need for caution, and the obvious dangers of military excess, now may be the time for its leaders to consider demanding restraint more generally – and not just to avoid a further escalation between Iran and Israel.
Over the past six months Israel has bombed Gaza into rubble, destroyed its medical facilities and government offices, and killed and maimed many, many tens of thousands of Palestinians. In truth, such is the devastation that Gaza some time ago lost the ability to count its dead and wounded.
At the same time, Israel has intensified its 17-year blockade of the tiny enclave to the point where, so little food and water are getting through, the population are in the grip of famine. People, especially children, are literally starving to death.
The International Court of Justice, the world’s highest court, chaired by an American judge, ruled back in January – when the situation was far less dire than it is now – that a “plausible” case had been made Israel was committing genocide, a crime against humanity strictly defined in international law.
And yet there were no calls by western leaders for “restraint” as Israel bombed Gaza into ruins week after week, striking its hospitals, levelling its government offices, blowing up its universities, mosques and churches, and destroying its bakeries.
Rather, President Biden has repeatedly rushed through emergency arms sales, bypassing Congress, to make sure Israel has enough bombs to keep destroying Gaza and killing its children.
When Israeli leaders vowed to treat Gaza’s population like “human animals”, denying them all food, water and power, western politicians gave their assent.
Sunak was not interested in recruiting his brave RAF pilots to “protect civilians” in Gaza from Israel, and Starmer showed no concern about the “fear and instability” felt by Palestinians from Israel’s reign of terror.
Quite the reverse. Starmer, famed as a human rights lawyer, even gave his approval to Israel’s collective punishment of the people of Gaza, its “complete siege”, as integral to a supposed Israeli “right of self-defence”.
In doing so, he overturned one of the most fundamental principles of international law that civilians should not be targeted for the actions of their leaders. As is now all too apparent, he conferred a death sentence on the people of Gaza.
Where was “restraint” then?
Missing in action
Similarly, restraint went out of the window when Israel fabricated a pretext for eradicating the UN aid agency UNRWA, the last lifeline for Gaza’s starving population.
Even though Israel was unable to offer any evidence for its claim that a handful of UNRWA staff were implicated in an attack on Israel on 7 October, western leaders hurriedly cut off funding to the agency. In doing so, they became actively complicit in what the World Court already feared was a genocide.
Where was the restraint when Israeli officials – with a long history of lying to advance their state’s military agenda – made up stories about Hamas beheading babies, or carrying out systematic rapes on 7 October? All of this was debunked by an Al Jazeera investigation drawing largely on Israeli sources.
Those genocide-justifying deceptions were all too readily amplified by western politicians and media.
Israel showed no restraint in destroying Gaza’s hospitals, or taking hostage and torturing thousands of Palestinians it grabbed off the street.
All of that got a quiet nod from western politicians.
Where was the restraint in western capitals when protesters took to the streets to call for a ceasefire, to stop Israel’s bloodletting of women and children, the majority of Gaza’s dead? The demonstrators were smeared – are still smeared – by western politicians as supporters of terrorism and antisemites.
And where was the demand for restraint when Israel tore up the rulebook on the laws of war, allowing every would-be strongman to cite the West’s indulgence of Israeli atrocities as the precedent justifying their own crimes?
On each occasion, when it favoured Israel’s malevolent goals, the West’s commitment to “restraint” went missing in action.
Top-dog client state
There is a reason why Israel has been so ostentatious in its savaging of Gaza and its people. And it is the very same reason Israel felt emboldened to violate the diplomatic sanctity of Iran’s consulate in Damascus.
Because for decades Israel has been guaranteed protection and assistance from the West, whatever crimes it commits.
Israel’s founders ethnically cleansed much of Palestine in 1948, far beyond the terms of partition set out by the UN a year earlier. It imposed a military occupation on the remnants of historic Palestine in 1967, driving out yet more of the native population. It then imposed a regime of apartheid on the few areas where Palestinians remained.
In their West Bank reservations, Palestinians have been systematically brutalised, their homes demolished, and illegal Jewish settlements built on their land. The Palestinians’ holy places have been gradually surrounded and taken from them.
Separately, Gaza has been sealed off for 17 years, and its population denied freedom of movement, employment and the basics of life.
Israel’s reign of terror to maintain its absolute control has meant imprisonment and torture are a rite of passage for most Palestinian men. Any protest is ruthlessly crushed.
Now Israel has added mass slaughter in Gaza – genocide – to its long list of crimes.
Israel’s displacements of Palestinians to neighbouring states caused by its ethnic cleansing operations and slaughter have destabilised the wider region. And to secure its militarised settler-colonial project in the Middle East – and its place as Washington’s top-dog client state in the region – Israel has intimidated, bombed and invaded its neighbours on a regular basis.
Its attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus was just the latest of serial humiliations faced by Arab states.
And through all of this, Washington and its vassal states have directed no more than occasional, lip-service calls for restraint towards Israel. There were never any consequences, but instead rewards from the West in the form of endless billions in aid and special trading status.
‘Something rash’
So why, after decades of debauched violence from Israel, has the West suddenly become so interested in “restraint”? Because on this rare occasion it serves western interests to calm the fires Israel is so determined to stoke.
The Israeli strike on Iran’s consulate came just as the Biden administration was finally running out of excuses for providing the weapons and diplomatic cover that has allowed Israel to slaughter, maim and orphan tens of thousands of Palestinian children in Gaza over six months.
Demands for a ceasefire and arms embargo on Israel have been reaching fever pitch, with Biden haemorrhaging support among parts of his Democratic base as he faces a re-run presidential election later this year against a resurgent rival, Donald Trump.
Small numbers of votes could be the difference between victory and defeat.
Israel had every reason to fear that its patron might soon pull the rug from under its campaign of mass slaughter in Gaza.
But having destroyed the entire infrastructure needed to support life in the enclave, Israel needs time for the consequences to play out: either mass starvation there, or a relocation of the population elsewhere on supposedly “humanitarian” grounds.
A wider war, centred on Iran, would both distract from Gaza’s desperate plight and force Biden to back Israel unconditionally – to make good on his “iron-clad” commitment to Israel’s protection.
And to top it all, with the US drawn directly into a war against Iran, Washington would have little choice but to assist Israel in its long campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear energy programme.
Israel wants to remove any potential for Iran to develop a bomb, one that would level the military playing field between the two in ways that would make Israel far less certain that it can continue to act as it pleases across the region with impunity.
That is why Biden officials are airing concerns to the US media that Israel is ready to “do something rash” in an attempt to drag the administration into a wider war.
The truth is, however, that Washington long ago cultivated Israel as its military Frankenstein’s monster. Israel’s role was precisely to project US power ruthlessly into the oil-rich Middle East. The price Washington was more than willing to accept was Israel’s eradication of the Palestinian people, replaced by a fortress “Jewish state”.
Calling for Israel to exercise “restraint” now, as its entrenched lobbies flex their muscles meddling in western politics, and self-confessed fascists rule Israel’s government, is beyond parody.
If the West really prized restraint, they should have insisted on it from Israel decades ago.
Dr. Melina Abdullah, center, Co-Founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles at the “#BLM Turns 10 People’s Justice Festival” on Saturday, July 15, 2023, at the Leimert Park neighborhood in Los Angeles. [AP Photo/Damian Dovarganes]
In an appearance on the Wednesday morning edition of The Tavis Smiley Show, independent presidential candidate Cornel West revealed that his running mate will be Melina Abdullah, a tenured professor at California State University, Los Angeles, co-founder of the Los Angeles chapter of Black Lives Matter (BLM), and founder of Black Lives Matter Grassroots (BLMGR).
West and Abdullah have placed their racial identity and religion front and center. In a campaign statement announcing his selection, West cited Abdullah’s “unique Black analysis,” which he claimed “helps us confront our crumbling era of empire, white supremacy, and patriarchy.”
In his interview with Smiley, West declared, “I’m running for Jesus, she’s running for Allah!” Abdullah said in the same interview that after West invited her to be his running mate, it “felt as if God was speaking to me.”
Unlike the two official ruling class parties, West, like all third-party candidates, is obligated to name a running mate before he can begin petitioning for signatures to be on the ballot in November in many states. In one of the many anti-democratic obstacles placed in front of third parties by the Democrats and Republicans, over half of US states (26), and the District of Columbia, require third-party candidates to name a running mate before petitioning for ballot access.
In choosing Abdullah, (née Reimann), West is deliberately amplifying the politics of racial division, practiced and propagated by the upper-middle class and the Democratic Party.
While presenting herself almost exclusively as a “Black woman,” Abdullah is the daughter of John Reimann, a non-practicing Jewish person born in New York in 1946.
Adbullah’s paternal grandfather, and John’s father, was Günter Reimann (born Hans Steinicke), a German-Jewish Marxist economist who fled Germany during the rise of Adolf Hitler. As a teenager, Günter wrote for Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht’s Die Rote Fahne (The Red Banner), the press organ of the Spartacus League in Germany. Following the January 1919 assassinations of Liebknecht and Luxemburg, the paper continued to be published by the Communist Party of Germany until Hitler came to power in 1933.
Günter died in 2005. John is still a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, with which Abdullah also has close relations. On his personal blog, Reimann advocates US funding for the US/NATO war against Russia in Ukraine.
Unlike her grandfather, Abdullah rejects a class-based analysis. Prior to founding BLM-Los Angeles, Abdullah chaired the Pan-African Studies Department at California State University. In her 2003 dissertation, titled, “Greater than the sum of her parts: A multi-axis analysis of Black women and political representation,” Abdullah advanced the “intersectional” and post-modernist framework that has served as the bedrock of Democratic Party ideology for decades.
Arguing for politics based on racialism and mysticism, Abdullah claimed:
Black women stand at the intersection of race and gender, their identity cannot be wholly defined simply by the sum total of race disadvantage and gender disadvantage; a third position of disadvantage is birthed at the intersection which cannot be divided out and attributed to either the race axis or the gender axis alone.
“Thus,” Abdullah postulated, “Black women are in the unique position of being full members of their gender group, their racial group and the group of Black women.” Ergo:
Black women representatives are uniquely qualified to serve as authentic representatives for Blacks (regardless of gender), women (regardless of race), and Black women.
Ten years after writing her dissertation, Abdullah would go on to become a leading member and organizer of the Black Lives Matter organization. From the 2013 police murder of Trayvon Martin to today, BLM leaders, including Abdullah, have repeatedly intervened in protests against police violence to sow illusions in reforming the police by “defunding” them and appealing to Democratic Party politicians. At the same time, BLM falsely presents police violence, which affects workers and poor people of all ethnicities, in purely racial terms.
By deliberately covering up the class role of police in capitalist society, Abdullah and BLM seek to block the development of a class-based movement against police violence, which is an international phenomenon.
Abdullah and the reactionary and self-centered politics that dominate BLM found expression in the scandal that engulfed the leadership of the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation (BLMGNF) following the resignation of co-founder Patrisse Cullors in 2021.
In 2022, Abdullah sued BLMGNF, claiming the organization pilfered money and misused donations. This included the purchase of a $6 million mansion in Los Angeles, which served as the setting for an infamous video featuring Adbullah and fellow BLM leaders Alicia Garza and Cullors. In the video, Cullors, Garza and Abdullah dine on hors d’oeuvres and sip champagne while complaining about the hardships they endured collecting some $90 million in donations between 2020 and 2021.
In 2023, a Los Angeles judge dismissed Abdullah’s lawsuit against BLMGNF and ordered her to pay Shalomyah Bowers, an executive of the organization, over $100,000 in legal fees.
Abdullah is almost a caricature of identity politics. If one didn’t know any better, one would think her entire public persona was performance art. For years on her Twitter/X account, Adbullah, posting under the handle @DocMellyMel, has advanced reactionary Black nationalist, pro-capitalist and, frankly, racist conceptions.
A sample of some of Abdullah’s inane and racist tweets. [Photo: @DocMellyMel]
Abdullah has repeatedly tweeted in favor of “Black liberation” via the boycotting of “white corporations.” Last November, she tweeted the hashtag, “Build Black, Buy Black, Bank Black.”
Abdullah makes a practice of tweeting in favor of racial separatism despite the fact much of her family is white. In a July 6, 2019 tweet, Abdullah complained that she was “compelled to step off the sidewalk three times during my 30-minute walk so that White folks and their dogs could pass.” She continued: “Got me feeling like #gentrification is #JimCrow revisited.”
In a June 18, 2021 tweet, Abdullah wrote that “White folks don’t get to come to the #Juneteenth barbecue,” which she clarified in a later tweet was a “CELEBRATION DAY for Black people” and “PAY REPARATIONS DAY for white folks…”
During the 2020 Democratic presidential debates, Abdullah declared, “Nobody White should ever refer to the nation of Niger. Periodt. (sic)”
Just over two months ago, on February 11, Abduallah tweeted, “Why do I feel like it’s slightly racist to be a Taylor Swift fan?” When a user responded that “everything and everyone is racist,” Abdullah responded, “Nope. Only white people can be racist.”
Predictably, Abdullah is a fan of the New York Times’ “1619 Project,” a racialist falsification of American history. The project postulated, among many falsehoods, that “Black people alone” fought back against racism and slavery. In January 2023, Abdullah favorably tweeted quotes from the main author of the “1619 Project,” Nikole Hannah-Jones, when Jones was promoting the Hulu television adaptation of the project in Los Angeles.
Like West, Abdullah has abandoned any fight against the ongoing spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, and has even expressed anti-vaccine sentiments. In September 2020, she tweeted, “Who’s gonna be first in line to get the rushed, untested COVID-19 vaccine? #NotIt #PresidentialDebate2020.”
There is nothing remotely progressive, let alone left-wing, in the black nationalist and anti-Marxist campaign of West and Abdullah. Workers and youth interested in ending police violence and the genocide in Gaza must be armed with a political perspective that is aimed not at racial division, but at uniting the international working class is a mass movement against the source of police violence, war, inequality, racism and fascism—the capitalist system.
Iran’s retaliatory strikes against Israel were not conducted alone. Strategic partners Russia and China have Tehran’s back, and their role in West Asia’s conflict will only grow if the US doesn’t keep Israel in check.
A little over 48 hours before Iran’s aerial message to Israel across the skies of West Asia, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov confirmed, on the record, what so far had been, at best, hush-hush diplomatic talk:
The Russian side keeps in contact with Iranian partners on the situation in the Middle East after the Israeli strike on the Iranian consulate in Syria.
Ryabkov added, “We stay in constant touch [with Iran]. New in-depth discussions on the whole range of issues related to the Middle East are also expected in the near future in BRICS.”
He then sketched The Big Picture:
Connivance with Israeli actions in the Middle East, which are at the core of Washington’s policy, is in many ways becoming the root cause of new tragedies.
Here, concisely, we had Russia’s top diplomatic coordinator with BRICS – in the year of the multipolar organization’s Russian presidency – indirectly messaging that Russia has Iran’s back. Iran, it should be noted, just became a full-fledged BRICS+ member in January.
Iran’s aerial message this weekend confirmed this in practice: their missile guidance systems used the Chinese Beidou satellite navigation system as well as the Russian GLONASS system.
This is Russia–China intel leading from behind and a graphic example of BRICS+ on the move.
Ryabkov’s “we stay in constant touch” plus the satellite navigation intel confirms the deeply interlocked cooperation between the Russia–China strategic partnership and their mutual strategic partner Iran. Based on vast experience in Ukraine, Moscow knew that the biblical psychopathic genocidal entity would keep escalating if Iran only continued to exercise “strategic patience.”
The morphing of “strategic patience” into a new strategic balance had to take some time – including high-level exchanges with the Russian side. After all, the risk remained that the Israeli attack against the Iranian consulate/ambassador’s residence in Damascus could well prove to be the 2024 remix of the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand.
And don’t forget the Strait of Hormuz
Tehran did manage to upend the massive Western psychological operations aimed at pushing it into a strategic misstep.
Iran started with a misdirecting masterstroke. As US–Israeli fear porn went off the charts, fueled by dodgy western “intel,” the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) made a quick sideways move, seizing an Israeli-owned container ship near the Strait of Hormuz.
That was an eminently elegant manoeuvre – reminding the collective west of Tehran’s hold on the Strait of Hormuz, a fact immeasurably more dangerous to the whole western economic house of cards than any limited strike on their “aircraft carrier” in West Asia. That did happen anyway.
And once again, with a degree of elegance. Unlike that ‘moral’ army specialized in killing women, children, and the elderly and bombing hospitals, mosques, schools, universities, and humanitarian convoys, the Iranian attack targeted key Israeli military sites such as the Nevatim and Ramon airbases in the Negev and an intel center in the occupied Golan Heights – the three centers used by Tel Aviv in its strike on Iran’s Damascus consulate.
This was a highly choreographed show. Multiple early warning signs gifted Tel Aviv with plenty of time to profit from US intel and evacuate fighter jets and personnel, which was duly followed by a plethora of US military radars coordinating the defense strategy.
It was American firepower that smashed the bulk of what may have been a swarm of 185 Shahed-136 drones – using everything from ship-mounted air defense to fighter jets. The rest was shot down over Jordan by The Little King’s military – the Arab street will never forget his treachery – and then by dozens of Israeli jets.
Israel’s defenses were de facto saturated by the suicide drone-ballistic missile combo. On the ballistic missile front, several pierced the dense maze of Israel’s air defenses, with Israel officially claiming nine successful hits – interestingly enough, all of them hitting super relevant military targets.
The whole show had the budget of a mega blockbuster. For Israel – without even counting the price of US, UK, and Israeli jets – just the multi-layered interception system set it back at least $1.35 billion, according to an Israeli official. Iranian military sources tally the cost of their drone and missile salvos at only $35 million – 2.5 percent of Tel Aviv’s expenditure – made with full indigenous technology.
A new West Asian chessboard
It took only a few hours for Iran to finally metastasize strategic patience into serious deterrence, sending an extremely powerful and multi-layered message to its adversaries and masterfully changing the game across the whole West Asian chessboard.
Were the biblical psychopaths to engage in a real Hot War against Iran, there’s no chance in hell Tel Aviv can intercept hundreds of Iranian missiles – the state-of-the-art ones excluded from the current show – without an early warning mechanism spread over several days. Without the Pentagon’s umbrella of weaponry and funds, Israeli defense is unsustainable.
It will be fascinating to see what lessons Moscow will glean from this profusion of lights in the West Asian sky, its sly eyes taking in the frantic Israeli, political, and military scene as the heat continues to rise on the slowly boiling – and now screaming – frog.
As for the US, a West Asian war – one it hasn’t scripted itself – does not suit its immediate interests, as an old-school Deep State stalwart confirmed by email:
That could permanently end the area as an oil-producing region and astronomically raise the oil price to levels that will crash the world financial structure. It is conceivable that the United States banking system could similarly collapse if the oil price rises to $900 a barrel should Middle East oil be cut off or destroyed.
It’s no wonder that the Biden combo, days before the Iranian response, was frantically begging Beijing, Riyadh, and Ankara, among others, to hold Tehran back. The Iranians might have even agreed – had the UN Security Council imposed a permanent ceasefire in Gaza to calm the regional storm. Washington was mute.
The question now is whether it will remain mute. Mohammad Bagheri, chief of the General Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces, went straight to the point:
We have conveyed a message to America through the Swiss Embassy that American bases will become a military target if they are used in future aggressive actions of the Zionist regime. We will consider this as aggression and will act accordingly.
The US dilemma is confirmed by former Pentagon analyst Michael Maloof:
We have got some 35 bases that surround Iran, and they thereby become vulnerable. They were meant to be a deterrence. Clearly, deterrence is no longer on the table here. Now they become the American’ Achilles heel’ because of their vulnerabilities to attack.
All bets are off on how the US–Israel combo will adapt to the new Iranian-crafted deterrence reality. What remains, for the historic moment, is the pregnant-with-meaning aerial show of Muslim Iran singlehandedly unleashing hundreds of drones and missiles on Israel, a feat feted all across the lands of Islam. And especially by the battered Arab street, subjugated by decrepit monarchies that keep doing business with Israel over the dead bodies of the Palestinians of Gaza.
Most Western analysts were popping champagne corks today proclaiming Israel’s “massive” victory over Iran’s 14 April combined drone, cruise missile and ballistic missile attack on targets in Israel. I don’t know if they are really this blind to what happened or are willing participants in a psychological operation to persuade Israel that it had a victory and does not need to escalate. Regardless, let’s deal with the facts.
Iran told the United States and several neighboring countries exactly what it was going to do. We know this thanks to an article in the Financial Times published on April 12 — 36 hours before Iran launched.
Iran has signalled to allies and western nations that it will retaliate against a suspected Israeli air strike on its Damascus consulate in a “calibrated” manner to keep an all-out regional conflict at bay, according to officials briefed on the talks.
Tehran is unlikely to target Israeli diplomatic facilities in the region, said an official briefed on talks between Iran and Oman, the Gulf state that has often facilitated back-channel diplomacy between Tehran and Washington.
US intelligence on any impending attack appears to be detailed and specific, according to the officials briefed on the situation, giving Israel a window to prepare its defences. . . .
Even a direct attack in Israeli territory would probably be “calibrated” in a manner that would show a robust response, without triggering an Israeli retaliation that would lead to Iranian assets in Lebanon and Syria being decimated, the western official said, while warning that a miscalculation is possible.
Iran’s goal was to demonstrate it could hit Israel if it wanted to, but was providing advance warning to give the Israelis time to protect personnel in order to minimize casualties. Iran was not trying to cause mass casualties.
Turkish, Jordanian and Iraqi officials said on Sunday that Iran gave wide notice days before its drone and missile attack on Israel, but U.S. officials said Tehran did not warn Washington and that it was aiming to cause significant damage. . . .
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian said on Sunday that Iran gave neighbouring countries and Israel’s ally the United States 72 hours’ notice it would launch the strikes.
Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said it had spoken to both Washington and Tehran before the attack, adding it had conveyed messages as an intermediary to be sure reactions were proportionate.
“Iran said the reaction would be a response to Israel’s attack on its embassy in Damascus and that it would not go beyond this. We were aware of the possibilities. The developments were not a surprise,” said a Turkish diplomatic source.
Not surprisingly, Biden officials are vehemently denying they had advanced warning according to the Reuters report:
“That is absolutely not true,” the official said. “They did not give a notification, nor did they give any sense of … ‘these will be the targets, so evacuate them.’”
Tehran sent the United States a message only after the strikes began and the intent was to be “highly destructive” said the official, adding that Iran’s claim of a widespread warning may be an attempt to compensate for the lack of any major damage from the attack.
“We received a message from the Iranians as this was ongoing, through the Swiss. This was basically suggesting that they were finished after this, but it was still an ongoing attack. So that was (their) message to us,” the U.S. official said.
Statements from U.S. officials can no longer be accepted as accurate given their established history of lying. This is a “cover-my-ass” denial. Can you imagine the political outrage that would ensue if the Biden team copped to the fact that they had forewarning from Iran? Do you think that the Turkish and Jordanian officials did not communicate to Washington what they had been told? Of course not.
Iran’s attack in the early morning hours of Sunday was symbolic retaliation. The mullahs and IRGC commanders put Israel on notice that any further attacks on Iran, especially Iranian territory, will be answered by Iranian attacks on Israel. Iran demonstrated a remarkably sophisticated attack using three different weapon systems — drones, cruise missiles and ballistic missiles. They did not use their most advanced, sophisticated weaponry.
The drones were used in the same way that pawns are employed in a chess match — draw out the opponent and create vulnerabilities. Israel used up over 700 Iron Dome missiles in countering Iran’s 300 plus drones. Why? You normally fire two Iron Dome missiles per target to ensure a hit. Ditto for the cruise missiles.
What we know for a fact is that most of the ballistic missiles hit their targets in Israel. Here is a video of one of the strikes. Iran demonstrated a remarkably sophisticated capabilitiy — i.e., a maneuverable warhead. Notice that the inbound Iranian missile evades the Israeli interceptor and strikes the target. Wow!!
Scott Ritter summed it up best with this Xwitter (pronounced Shitter):
The U.S. has an advanced AN/TPY-2 X-band radar stationed at Har Qeren, in the Negev desert. Its mission is to detect Iranian missile launches, and pass targeting data to Israeli Arrow and David’s Sling and U.S. THAAD ABM batteries deployed to protect sensitive Israeli sites, including Dimona and the Nevatim and Ramon air bases.
Iranian missiles struck both Nevatim and Ramon air bases. The best surveillance radar in the world, working in concert with the most sophisticated anti-missile defenses in the world, were impotent in the face of the Iranian attack.
For all those trying to spin yesterday’s events as an Israeli victory, chew on that fact: The best missile defense system in the world could not protect the sites they were tasked with protecting from attacks by Iranian missiles.
Who has deterrence supremacy? It ain’t Israel.
I agree with Scott. While Israel and its Western allies proved adept at shooting down slow moving drones, they failed when it came to defeating ballistic missiles armed with a conventional explosive warhead.
We are now in the wait-and-see mode. There are contradictory signals out of Israel. Some insist Israel’s retaliation is imminent. Others suggest there will be no retaliation. I believe Israel is under the control of some genuine crazies and will try to hit an Iranian oil facility or military installation in Iran. When they do that Iran will make good on its promise and will launch a much larger, more devastating attack on Israeli military and intelligence targets. This is a fight Israel cannot win. If it chooses to pursue this course of action it will lead to the unraveling of its military effort to defeat Hamas and rescue any hostages still alive.
I discussed the aftermath of Israel’s attack with the Judge during our regularly scheduled Monday morning chat.
Iran made history yesterday by launching “Operation True Promise”. In our usual style here, let’s cut through all the noise currently clogging up social networks and incisively demonstrate the facts as thoroughly as possible, while also pointing out how this was a game-changing and historic event which has brought Iran onto the world stage in a big way.
Firstly, as establishment, Iran’s stated goal for the operation was to strike back at the bases from which the Israeli consular attack was launched on April 1:
IRGC has listed its objectives for last nights missile attack: Ramon and Nevatim airbases (where attack on Iran Consulate was conducted from). Israeli Air Force intelligence HQ in Tel Aviv (where attack on Iran Consulate was planned) and degrading of Israeli air defence radars and assets.
The footage is of the Intelligence HQ getting hit. I have yet to see evidence of 99% interception. Ramon has been badly hit. Nevatim was hit by more than 7 missiles. Air Force Intelligence HQ completely leveled. Other strikes on air defence installations obviously not close to population centres and out of view but I’m sure sat intel will show extent of damage.
And another:
➖Nevatim Airbase in the south of occupied Palestine
➖Ramon Airbase in the south of occupied Palestine
➖The Israeli top-secret intelligence-spy base in Jabal al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon) in the north of the occupied Golan
It should be noted that the rest of the explosions or hits in other areas of the occupied territories are related to the confrontation of the Israeli air defense systems with the projectiles in the sky or the falling of the wreckage of the interceptor missiles or the wreckage of Iranian missiles.
Now, let’s get down to the nuts and bolts.
This strike was unprecedented for several important reasons. Firstly, it was of course the first Iranian strike on Israeli soil directly from Iranian soil itself, rather than utilizing proxies from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Yemen, etc. This alone was a big watershed milestone that has opened up all sorts of potentials for escalation.
Secondly, it was one of the most advanced and longest range peer-to-peer style exchanges in history. Even in Russia, where I have noted we’ve seen the first ever truly modern near-peer conflict, with unprecedented scenes never before witnessed like when highly advanced NATO Storm Shadow missiles flew to Crimea while literally in the same moments, advanced Russian Kalibrs flew past them in the opposite direction—such an exchange has never been witnessed before, as we’ve become accustomed to watching NATO pound on weaker, unarmed opponents over the last few decades. But no, last night Iran upped the ante even more. Because even in Russia, such exchanges at least happen directly over the Russian border onto its neighbor, where logistics and ISR is for obvious reasons much simpler.
But Iran did something unprecedented. They conducted the first ever modern, potentially hypersonic, assault on an enemy with SRBMs and MRBMs across a vast multi-domain space covering several countries and timezones, and potentially as much as 1200-2000km.
Additionally, Iran did all this with potentially hypersonic weapons, which peeled back another layer of sophistication that included such things as possible endoatmospheric interception attempts with Israeli Arrow-3 ABM missiles.
But let’s step back for a moment to state that Iran’s operation in general was modeled after the sophisticated paradigm set by Russia in Ukraine: it began with the launch of various types of drones, which included some Shahed-136s (Geran-2 in Russia) as well as others. We can see that from the Israeli-released footage of some of the drone interceptions:
At the 0:49 mark you can see what looks like a Shahed, though it appears similar to the jet-engine-equippedShahed-238 variety.
After a certain pre-timed span, Iran then released cruise missiles so that they could strike roughly in a similar window as the drones. One video from last night confirmed the low-flying cruise missile presence:
It’s not known for certain, but it appears it could be the new Abu Mahdi missile which has the appropriate ~1000km range. Here’s some other possibilities:
Then, following the appropriate time interval, Iran launched the coup de grace, its vaunted ballistic missiles. Here’s Iran’s own released footage of the start of Operation True Promise, which includes the ballistic launches:
As stated, all three layers of the attack were timed to coincide, with the slowest (drones) going first, then next fastest (cruise missiles), followed by the fastest time-to-target, the ballistic missiles.
The U.S. scrambled a large coalition to shoot the threats down, which included the U.S. itself, UK flying from Cyprus, France, and, controversially, Jordan which allowed them all to also use its airspace and even partook in the shoot downs.
Dozens of images proclaimed the “successful” shoot downs of Iranian ballistic missiles, like the following:
The problem is, all of those are the ejected booster stages of two-stage rockets. There is no conclusive proof that any ballistic missiles were shot down, and in fact all the evidence points to the opposite: direct footage of the missiles penetrating the AD net and striking targets. But we’ll get to that.
Missile Types
First: what kinds of ballistic missiles did Iran use?
There are speculations and then there’s what can be dutifully confirmed.
As for the confirmed, with my own eyes from the actual longer released launch video we can see the following:
Which appears to match what is likely the Shahab-3 below:
Here’s another photo from a Shahab-3 test:
In the launch photo, the very top warhead nose cone does appear slightly shorter and may match the Sejjil rocket better. The Sejjil is in fact a much newer evolution of and upgrade to the Shahab that has both a two-stage and three-stage variety for an extremely long range of 2500km+. And some also claim it might be the Ghadr-110, but this is also an evolution and similar ‘upgrade’ of the Shahab-3 system, which likewise looks almost identical.
There are some other launch videos that appear to show possible Zolfagher or the updated Dezfulsystems as well.
Then there is the closest shot of the launch video, which gives us the most accurate confirmation of one of the missile types:
On the fuselage you can see what appears to be EMA written, and the same can be seen on this photo from today of a “downed missile” somewhere in Iraq:
This comes closest to confirming that missile to be an Emad from the chart above, which is one of Iran’s most advanced and can feature a MaRV (Maneuverable Re-entry Vehicle) warhead. This is where it starts getting interesting, because the hits we saw in Israel appeared to potentially utilize some form of MaRV or hypersonic glide vehicle, which would mean Iran could have made history even beyond what we thought.
So let’s get there by first mentioning the other controversial claimthat Iran possibly used its most advanced new hypersonic Fattah-2 system:
In none of the launch videos was this visible, but that doesn’t necessarily preclude Iran having secretly launched and tested some of the above. An Iranian academic stated the following:
“Iran has not fired its hypersonic missiles. In fact, most of the drones and missiles that were fired were older drones and missiles. They were very inexpensive and were used as decoys. So Iran spent a couple of million dollars to force the Israelis to spend $1.3 billion in anti-missile missiles, which was itself a big achievement by the Iranians. And then a number of other missiles that the Iranians fired…cut through and struck their targets,” the academic and geopolitical affairs commentator told Sputnik.
And lastly, there are some experts who believe Iran utilized its elusive hypersonic Kheybar Shekan missile, which also features a highly maneuverable MaRV.
These are two shots from last night’s launch video:
And here is a stock photo of the Kheybar nosecone and warhead:
This is where it gets most interesting, and why I’ve prefaced it so thoroughly.
In short: while Israel and the U.S. claim they shot down 100% of everything, and while it’s possible that the drone and cruise missile lures were mostly shot down—though we have no strong evidence one way or the other—we do have evidence that the ballistic missiles largely went unopposed, slicing through what’s claimed to be the densest air defense in the world. Not only Israel’s itself, comprised of a layered defense of David Slings, Arrow-3s, Patriots, and Iron Dome, but also the aforementioned allied airforces, as well as what’s now been reported to be a U.S. Arleigh Burke warship firing upwards of 70+ SM-3 missiles from the Mediterranean shore.
The hits that we saw were spectacular in one profound way: the terminal velocity of the Iranian ballistic missiles appeared stunningly fast. Let’s review some of the most exemplary videos.
Here’s by far the most revealing one, which totally refutes Israeli claims of 100% shoot downs. Note the massive swarm of air-defense missiles going up at the onset, then at the middle mark, watch as Iranian ballistics crash through the AD net totally unopposed at high speed, slamming into the ground:
As a quick aside, this next video was claimed by many to show Israeli Arrow-3 missiles shooting down Iranian ballistics in the exoatmosphere, i.e. in space:
But in reality, all it shows is the stage separation of the Arrow missiles as they climb toward the exoatmospheric zone. It does not show any actual successful interceptions, nor is there any evidence of a single ballistic missile being shot down.
But here’s where we get down to business. The next video is the most eye-opening in terms of the capabilities of these missiles. The two most important things to note are: 1) the terminal velocity right before impact and 2) note how some of the missiles strike very precisely onto the same location in groups.
First video, note the terminal speed here:
Here note the speed but also the grouping accuracy:
In particular at 0:31 above what looks like a runway on the rightside of the screen can be seen, which could indicate this to be the Nevatim airbase in the Negev desert—where Arabic speaking Bedouins live, which explains the Arabic in the video.
Not all the impacts exhibit the high speed of a potentially hypersonic re-entry vehicle. For instance, this video shows perhaps somewhat slower missiles that nevertheless are easily bypassing the joint Israeli-Western AD net:
But getting back to the hypersonic question. Here’s a video showing one of Iran’s missile tests, which appears to show one of the hypersonic glide vehicle style warheads from the Ghadr missile:
A new video of the moment one of the IRGC’s ballistic missiles was hit during last year’s solar exercise near Chabahar has been released with 60 frames per second, where you can clearly see the impact of the Ghadr missile warhead for the first time. This warhead also has a very good final speed around Mach 7 and will be very strategic. The three-cone body of this cap is completely and severely melted, and you can also see the burning marks on the small parts of this cap in the first frame of entering the frame.
Photo:
The speed appears to coincide with the videos of the faster strikes, and you can see the vehicle looks like it may be glowing white-hot, which could explain the somewhat odd fact that in all the strike videos, the Iranian missiles appear ‘red’ as if they are still burning their engines. But we know most ballistic missiles like the Iskander have a burn-out phase after which the engine stops burning. Thus the red-hot nature of the strikes could potentially indicate not a burning engine, but rather the heat of the vehicle’s outer skin from hypersonic re-entry.
Further, most ballistics strike on a pretty steep or straight down decline, while many of the Iranian hits are on a shallower trajectory which could indicate a glide-style vehicle, though in the above ‘test’ it clearly shows it coming down at a 90 degree angle, so it’s likely capable of both.
That being said, it may not be an unpowered glide vehicle but one of the thrust-capable re-entry vehicles like so:
Unfortunately, we just don’t know the exact details—like construction material for instance—that would allow us to fully confirm its terminal speed. However, based on visual eye-balling, some of the strikes appear to be landing at minimum Mach 3.5-5 if not higher, which according to some, is even higher than Iskander terminal velocity.
That being said, while the Iranian MRBMs feature very complex propulsion systems, given that they are two and even three stage for extra-long range, while Russia and the U.S. lacks these because of their previous adherence to the Intermediate Range Ballistic Missile Treaty, the guidance aspect of Iranian MRBMs remains a question mark. We don’t know how accurate they are, and in the end, how effective the strikes actually were in hitting their targets. That’s because beyond the general macro objective of “hitting Nevatim airbase”, for instance, we don’t know what precisely inside that giant airbase Iran may have targeted.
However, Israel did confirm the base was hit upwards of 7 times, but claims the damage was minor. In fact, they’ve now released footage showing them repairing one of the hit runways:
And some satellite photos have been released showing what appears to be possible strike damage throughout the base:
And another before and after timelapse, though unclear, shows possible damage to a hangar. Keep in mind this is the base which housed F-35s:
Could Israel be downplaying serious damage by releasing the video of a minor runway hole? For instance, they posted another video of an F-35 landing back at Nevatim base as a demonstration that the base is unharmed, but some have alleged that it is old footage:
That’s not to mention the official Israeli account tried to pass off old footage of Russian MLRS launches from Ukraine as Iranian ballistic launches last night:
Thus it’s clear that truth is no obstacle for Israel, which means we certainly cannot take their word on anything regarding last night’s operation.
Conclusion?
What can we conclude about last night? We don’t have any definitive ‘final words’ on how effective Iran’s strikes were because:
We don’t know Iran’s exact granular targets
We don’t know Iran’s exact intentions
For the second, what I mean is that many now believe Iran merely strove to provide a ‘demonstration en force’, as Will Schryver puts it. A show merely as a ‘warning’ to Israel, and to create deterrence from future Israeli escalations. In fact, Iranian officials have now warned that Iran will respond similarly to all future Israeli attacks:
They call this the New Equation. Anytime Israel attacks them, Iran now intends to strike them ‘head on’, i.e. directly from its soil as is their newly demonstrated capability.
Beyond this, Iran broke new ground in setting new milestones for missile technology and modern warfare, as stated in the outset. Iran demonstrated the capacity to bypass the most powerful and advanced anti-missile systems in the world—ones that have no built-in excuse as is the case in Ukraine. In Ukraine, the excuse is that the Patriots and other systems are manned by under-trained Ukrainians, and are not reinforced and integrated as wholly into layered Western systems as they would be in Western hands.
But last night, Iran penetrated every missile shield manned and operated by NATO itself, with all the trappings and advanced C4ISR and SIGINT capabilities inherent to the entire Western alliance; from THAAD, to Patriot, David’s Sling, Arrow-3, SM-3, Iron Dome, and even ‘C-Dome’ from Israeli corvettes—not to mention the entire complement of the West’s most advanced A2A defenses flown from F-35s, Typhoons, Eurofighters, and likely much more.
One must understand that ballistic missiles are precisely the apex predator that these most advanced Western AD systems were created to handle—and last night, they failed spectacularly in the same way the Patriots did in Desert Storm before them:
This sends a signal that Iran is now truly capable of striking any of the most high profile, high value targets of the West’s, in the entire sphere of the Middle East, within a radius of 2000-4000km. That is a significant capability that dwarfs even anything Russia or the U.S. itself is capable of in the same efficient way. Sure, Russia can send Avangards (very few, and highly expensive) and far slower long range cruise missiles, but due to the Treaty, no other country can match Iran’s cheap and immediate ballistic missile capability. The U.S. would have to send up a load of slow planes and do the traditional long range stand off attacks with slow munitions to hit targets at such distances.
As I said, the only question that remains is still of effectiveness by way of accuracy. It’s one thing to develop long range rockets via the luxury of a two-stage allowance, but there’s far more technology that goes into making such objects critically accurate—and I suspect here Iran may fall short of Russia and the U.S.’ capabilities, given that there’s a whole host of special electronics (signal boosting, EW reflecting, etc.) and guidance redundancies that are required for extreme accuracy. This is where Russia’s systems shine. Iran’s missiles have been shown to be quite accurate during tests in Iran under ideal conditions—but in highly contested EW environments, when the GPS/Beidou/Glonass signals are jammed, it could be a completely different story. Furthermore, the science behind signal retention in hypersonic plasma bubbles is quite extreme and no country has yet even proven the capability to consistently do this—but we won’t get into that for now, as I may cover that in an upcoming article focusing on the Russian Zircon.
The optics of seeing Iranian missiles flying over the Israeli Knesset surely sends chills down Israel’s spine because it states: we could have easily destroyed your Knesset, and much else, but we chose to be lenient, for now:
Who came out the winner?
There are now two chief competing ‘takes’ on the situation.
One says that Iran was ‘humiliated’ as Israel intercepted everything, and more importantly, that Iran has now blown its only advantage of surprise and strategic uncertainty/ambiguity by ‘showing its hand’ and not achieving much. They argue that Iran’s one true advantage over Israel was the threat that it could effect a mass launch of its feared ballistic missiles, wiping out huge swathes of Israel. But now that the perceived ‘damage’ from the attack was low, Iran has shown itself to be weaker than expected, which could imbue Israel with even more courage and motivation to continue striking and provoking Iran, as they might see they have nothing to fear from Iran’s long-touted missiles.
This is certainly a reasonable argument. I’m not saying it’s totally wrong—we simply don’t know for a fact because of the aforementioned reasons that:
We don’t actually know how much damage the strikes caused, due to Israel’s obvious lies of “100% interceptions” and disproved fakes.
We don’t know whether it was merely Iran’s goal to do a ‘light’ showing in the interest of ‘escalation management’. I.e. they may not have wanted to cause too much damage deliberately, simply to send a message but keep from provoking Israel to respond too aggressively.
Iran is said to have thousands of such missiles, so obviously having launched only 70+ or so is likely not indicative of a major attack tasked with actually causing serious destruction to Israeli infrastructure.
Then there’s the converse side: Iran came out the big winner by demonstrating all the previously-outlined abilities of bypassing the West’s densest AD shields.
Here’s why I think in some ways this conclusion to be the more correct in the long term.
Firstly, one of the common counterarguments is that Israel possesses nuclear weapons, which ultimately trumps anything Iran can throw at them. But in reality, now that Iran has proven the ability to penetrate Israel, Iran too can cause nuclear devastation by striking the Israeli Dimona nuclear power plant. Destroyed nuclear plants would produce far more radioactive chaos than the relatively ‘clean’ modern nuclear weapons. Furthermore, Israel is much smaller than the comparatively gigantic Iran. Iran can take many nuclear hits and survive; but a single mass nuclear event in Israel could irradiate the entire country, making it uninhabitable.
Secondly, recall the main fear of Iraqi Scarabs and Scuds back in the day: that they could contain chemical/biological warheads. Iran too could technically load its missiles with all kinds of nasty goodies of this sort: either chem-bio or even unenriched Uranium—which it has aplenty—to create a ‘dirty bomb’. Now that we know it can penetrate Israel easily, Iran could actually wipe the country out with a mass un-enriched nuclear, chemical, or biological attack with these now-proven hyper- or quasi-hypersonic ballistics. That threat alone now presents a psychological Damocles Sword that will act as asymmetrical deterrent or counter to any Israeli Samson Option threat.
Thirdly, this was Iran’s very first foray into such a direct strike. It can be argued that they gained critical data and metrics from the entire Western alliance’s defensive capabilities as well as Israeli defensive vulnerabilities. This means that there is an implied threat that any future attack of this scale could be far more effective, as Iran may now ‘calibrate’ said attack to maximize what it saw were any failings or weaknesses on its part last night. Russia has had two years of launching such strikes, and it has only been semi-recently that they’ve calibrated and finetuned the precise timings of the sophisticated multi-layered drone-ALCM-ballistic triple threat attack. Iran can improve with each iteration as well and maximize/streamline the effectiveness with each attempt.
Fourthly, there is the now-confirmed mass discrepancy of operational costs:
Israel’s defense of last night’s Iranian missile and drone attack is estimated to have costed over $1.3 billion in jet fuel, surface-to-air missile interceptors, air-to-air missiles, and other military equipment utilized by the Israeli air defense array; with an “Arrow 3” hypersonic anti-ballistic missile alone believed to cost between $5-20 million.
One unconfirmed source claimed Iran’s attack cost as little as $30M, while the number floated for the West’s interceptions is around $1B to $1.3B.
Given that the average interceptor missile is minimum from about $1M to upwards of $15-20M for the SM-6s, this total price is plausible. Given that Iran was said to have fired a total of ~350+ drones/missiles, and that the standard procedure is to fire 2 interceptors at each threat, one can clearly see the math: 350 x 2 = 700 x $1-15M.
The point is that, just as we’re in the midst of the Houthis having proven the West’s total inability to sustain defense against mass persistent drone swarms, here too Iran may have just proven an absolutely lethal inability of Israel and the West to sustain against a potential long drawn-out Iranian strike campaign; i.e. one prosecuted over the course of days or weeks, with consistent daily mass-barrages. Such a campaign would likely critically deplete the West’s ability to shoot down even the lowest scale Shahed drone threat. Just look at Ukraine—it is going through the same lesson as we speak.
Lastly, what does this mean?
One neglected consequence of this is that Iran now stands to field the ability to totally disrupt Israel’s economic way of life. If Iran were to engage in a committed campaign of mass strikes, it could totally paralyze the Israeli economy by making entire areas uninhabitable, causing mass migrations in the same way the Hamas attack led thousands of Israelis to flee.
Unlike Israel’s barbaric and savage genocide aimed primarily at civilians, last night’s Iranian attack exclusively targeted military sites. But if Iran wanted to, they could launch mass infrastructure attacks in the way Russia has now done to Ukraine’s energy grids, further compounding the economic damage. In short: Iran could mire Israel in months’ and years’ long economic malaise or outright devastation.
Don’t forget this attack was still relatively limited to Iran alone. Sure, the Houthis and even Kata’ib Hezbollah reportedly sent a few drones, but it was minor. That means in the future, should Israel choose to escalate, Iran still reserves several levels of its own escalatory advantage. If push came to shove, imagine Hezbollah, Ansar Allah, Hamas, Syria, and Iran all launching full-fledged attacks on Israel in all out war. Maybe that’s what Israel wants, some would argue. After all, there are echoes of the various Arab-Israeli wars where Israel ‘triumphed’ against such large Arab coalitions. But times have changed, the calculus is slightly different now. Short of using nuclear weapons, how would Israel survive a full-scale war against Hezbollah in the north while Iran rains daily barrages of hypersonic missiles, drones, and everything in between on Israel’s industries, crippling its economy?
Of course, at that point the question of the U.S. coming to help is brought up, but, clearly desperate for an off-ramp, Biden just stated:
An Important Overlooked Point
The final aspect for consideration is to remember that all of the preceding and ensuing events could very well be part of the Israeli plan. Recall, Israel didn’t choose to blow up the Iranian embassy—a huge, unprecedented maneuver—and slaughter Iranian generals just for its health. This appeared part of a clear strategy of escalation aimed at baiting Iran into an escalatory spiral, presumably with the end goal of drawing the U.S. into a large scale war to cut down Iran once and for all.
In light of that, some experts now speculate that Iran foolishly “fell into the trap”. However, as stated earlier, Iran can be said to have wisely ‘managed’ the escalation for precisely this reason: to show its strength while not going too far in a way that would invite a wider American response—or even an Israeli one for that matter.
But I simply mention this to temper any ‘celebratory’ touts from the resistance sphere. While Iran’s strikes may inspire some chest-beating chauvinism, in reality it may very well have played into Israel’s hand. However, the U.S.’ unwillingness to support Israel into further escalation could very well deflate Netanyahu’s goals and simply leave Israel with egg on its face with Iran coming out the winner in the exchange.
We’ll have to wait and see where it leads: as of this writing, the story has changed three separate times; the last two being that Israel decided not to respond, with news now claiming that Israel not only has chosen to retaliate, but will even do so as early as tonight, perhaps within minutes or hours of this publication’s release. If that turns out to be the case, then we’ll have to see if Israel chooses its own ‘face-saving’ off-ramp ‘light touch’ attack just for damage control’s sake, or whether it truly aims to keep climbing that escalatory ladder in force. Any major action without American backing is risky: not only because it could fail, and Israeli planes could be shot down, but also because Iran could make good on its word and unleash another far more devastating attack.
Final Thoughts
Why now? Why did Israel bait Iran into such an action at this precise moment?
The clue to the answer lies in the news from several days ago that Israel totally withdrew its forces from Khan Younis:
I suspect that Israel—or Netanyahu in particular—is facing failure, after not having accomplished any of the stated objectives, and thus is desperate to create a new distraction as a vector for continuing the war in some way that could keep the world, and Israelis, from reaching the conclusion that the war has been totally lost.
We’ve lost. Truth must be told. The inability to admit it encapsulates everything you need to know about Israel’s individual and mass psychology. There’s a clear, sharp, predictable reality that we should begin to fathom, to process, to understand and to draw conclusions from for the future. It’s no fun to admit that we’ve lost, so we lie to ourselves.
Some of us maliciously lie. Others innocently. It would be better to find solace in some airy carb with a total-victory crust. But it might just be a bagel. When the solace ends, the hole remains. There’s no way around it. The good guys don’t always win.
The astonishing article, which jibes with the sentiments of many Israelis, goes on:
After half a year, we could have been in a totally different place, but we’re being held hostage by the worst leadership in the country’s history – and a decent contender for the title of worst leadership anywhere, ever. Every military undertaking is supposed to have a diplomatic exit – the military action should lead to a better diplomatic reality. Israel has no diplomatic exit.
The article concludes that the calculus has changed, and that Israelis may now never be able to return to the northern border, given the situation with Hezbollah.
Another classic line:
No cabinet minister will restore our sense of personal security. Every Iranian threat will make us tremble. Our international standing was dealt a beating. Our leadership’s weakness was revealed to the outside. For years we managed to fool them into thinking we were a strong country, a wise people and a powerful army. In truth, we’re a shtetl with an air force, and that’s on the condition that its awakened in time.
The author then focuses his condemnation on the upcoming ‘Rafah operation’:
Rafah is the newest bluff that the mouthpieces are plying to fool us and make us think that victory is just moments away. By the time they enter Rafah, the actual event will have lost its significance. There may be an incursion, perhaps a tiny one, sometime – say in May. After that, they’ll peddle the next lie, that all we have to do is ________ (fill in the blank), and victory will be on its way. The reality is that the war’s aims will not be achieved. Hamas will not be eradicated. The hostages will not be returned through military pressure. Security will not be reestablished.
In short: this is why Netanyahu needed an escalation. It’s to divert attention from the ongoing catastrophe of Israel’s potential defeat to Hamas, the catastrophic loss of standing of Israel’s image in the world community, the complete turning against Israel by the entire world. Rather than admit defeat and face the end of his career, as well as the coming trials and tribunals that would put Bibi in jail, he chose to take the only remaining option: to continue escalating in the hopes that a wider-scale war could wash away his sins and undo the past mistakes. Unfortunately, just like the ill-fated Zelensky, Netanyahu’s doomed plan appears destined to coincide with the U.S.’ historic decline, reaching its zenith now in this pivotal year of 2024.
At the critical moment when Israel needed the strongest possible America, they got the weakest America in its history. That is Israel’s blunder, which may be its ultimate, calamitous undoing. But Bibi will likely have no choice but to continue escalating, or at least keep a strategy of tension a constant presence in order to survive.
Only last quick postscript note is to say that the ensuing events could affect the Ukrainian aid bill, as there is now talk of ramming through an emergency Israeli aid package, in light of events, which could have Ukrainian aid attached; but we’ll have to see what happens, as there is still strong opposition among some Republicans.
‘Democrats see ordinary Americans as the great unwashed’
Who would vote for the Democrats now? Certainly not working-class Americans. Once the voice of the union man, the Democratic Party is now more interested in acting as a mouthpiece for the college-educated elites. These supposed progressives care more about imposing woke ideology and Net Zero penury on ordinary people, than they do about improving their lives. And yet Democrats remain baffled as to why working-class voters are turning to Donald Trump.
Ruy Teixeira, co-author of Where Have All the Democrats Gone?, joined Brendan O’Neill on the latest episode of The Brendan O’Neill Show to discuss all this and more. What follows is an edited extract from their conversation. Listen to the full episode here.
Brendan O’Neill: How did the Democrats lose so much of their working-class voter base so quickly?
Ruy Teixeira: On a raw, empirical level, the Democrats are rapidly losing the support of working-class Americans. In 2020, Biden lost non-college-educated and working-class voters, which was very unusual for the Democrats until recently.
Now there’s been an even greater deterioration of working-class support for Biden and the Democrats. Trump is beating Biden by 14 points among working-class voters in the polls – that’s a 10-point increase compared with 2020. But Biden is up more than 15 points among college-educated voters. We’re seeing this kind of educational polarisation not just among white voters, but also among other racial groups.
In a pure, nose-counting sense, the Republicans have indeed replaced the Democrats as the party of the working classes. And there’s a very simple reason for this. The Democratic Party lost a lot of white working-class voters in the last half of the 20th century, because it embraced soft neoliberalism. Slowly but surely, working-class voters became less convinced that the Democrats were on their side when it came to economic issues. In fact, the Democrats began adopting what economists called the ‘compensate the losers’ strategy, which promised to transfer the benefits of neoliberal globalisation to the masses. But this never really happened.
More recently, we’ve seen the Democrats become increasingly responsive to an ever-more important part of their base. That is, the liberal, college-educated, incredibly sensitive white voter. These voters are interested in social, cultural and political issues that are utterly alien to what most working-class voters care about – be they black, white or Hispanic. It’s almost unimaginable that the Democratic Party of 30 years ago would have been on board with radical attitudes toward defunding the police, gender-affirming care, relaxed border controls and the endless hectoring about racial ‘equity’.
Back then, the Democratic Party had enough common sense, and enough anchoring in the working classes, to avoid these divisive ideas. But nowadays, the party is steered by voters from the commanding heights of cultural production. The party is particularly responsive to these voters because, quite frankly, they need their money and support.
Obviously, Democrats in competitive districts aren’t going to run on platforms like ‘defunding the police’ and providing gender-affirming care – but the party is still the party. And its image is antithetical to what a lot of working-class people are comfortable with or believe in.
These days, you could reasonably argue that the Democrats are actually anti-working-class. Of course, the party will always argue that it still pursues policies in the economic interests of the working classes. But in a lot of ways, Democrats really don’t like working people. They treat ordinary Americans as the great unwashed. In books like White Rural Rage, which are popular in Democratic circles, rural Americans are painted as xenophobic, authoritarian troglodytes opposed to everything that decent people stand for. The Democrats are meant to be the party of the working classes, and yet its members outright resent them.
O’Neill: Would you say that working-class voters turned their backs on the Democrats for cultural reasons or are the economic factors more important?
Teixeira: It’s definitely a combination of the two. There’s an old, well-known Gallup poll that asks voters which party will do the best job of keeping America prosperous and secure in the next few years. Democrats used to have a huge advantage on this issue, particularly among working-class voters. In the 70s and 80s, however, that advantage really started disappearing – and it’s never come back. To this day, Democrats are rated below the Republicans on which party can keep the country prosperous.
More recently, the Democrats have gone far beyond the popular ideals of tolerance, opposing discrimination and supporting equality of opportunity. These common-sense positions have been replaced with boutique ideas in support of ‘reverse discrimination’ and the non-existence of the gender binary. This radical push has led to the ‘culturalisation’ of important economic and political issues in the US. The climate issue is a perfect example of this.
The culture of the Democratic Party has evolved in a way that makes achieving a sensible industrial policy quite difficult. Instead of propping up competitive industries, like oil and gas, the Democrats have adopted this green-oriented approach favouring renewable energy and electric vehicles. Working-class people simply aren’t interested in this. And they especially aren’t interested when their energy bills start rising. Fundamentally, environmentalism has evolved from protecting the environment and reducing pollution into an apocalyptic crusade against global warming.
None of this makes economic sense and it doesn’t do a lot of good for the working class. But when the party culture is constructed in such a way that the highly educated and hyper-liberal have all the power, this is exactly the kind of nonsense you’re going to get. The climate, after all, is a huge issue for the elites. They don’t care if it ranks 17th on the list of priorities for ordinary, working-class people. They’re going to pursue radical climate policies anyway. It’s just one example of how cultural radicalism has completely infected the Democrats’ approach to economic issues.
Democrats have ceased asking themselves the fundamental question: ‘How are we going to make the lives of working-class people better?’ Sensing this, working Americans are looking elsewhere.
The whole planet awaits with bated breath the avowedly inevitable Iranian response to the attack against its consulate/ambassador residence in Damascus by the biblical psychopaths responsible for the Gaza genocide.
Enveloped in an aura of secrecy, each passing day betrays the immensity of the challenge: the possibly asymmetrical response must be, simultaneously, symbolic, substantive, cogent, convincing, reasonable and rational. That is driving Tel Aviv totally hysterical and the deciding instances of the Hegemon extremely itchy.
Everyone with a functioning brain knows this wet dream of a stunt from the point of view of hardcore Zionists and US Christian zio-cons was a serious provocation, designed to draw the US to the long-cherished Israeli plan of striking a decisive blow against both Hezbollah and Tehran.
The IDF’s Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi all but gave away the game, when he said this past Sunday that “we are operating in cooperation with the USA and strategic partners in the region.”
Translation: never trust the Hegemon even as the notion is floated – via Swiss mediators – that Washington won’t interfere with Tehran’s response to Tel Aviv. One just needs to remember Washington’s “assurances” to Saddam Hussein before the first Gulf War.
It’s impossible to take Hegemon back-channel assurances at face value. The White House and the Pentagon occasionally dispense these “assurances” to Moscow every time Kiev strikes deep inside the Russian Federation using US-UK satellite intel, logistics, weaponry and with NATO in de-facto operational control.
The state terror attack on Damascus, which shredded the Vienna convention on diplomatic immunity, crucially was also an attack on both the expanded BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). Iran is a member of both multilateral bodies, and on top of it is engaged in strategic partnerships with both Russia and China.
So it’s no wonder the leadership in both Beijing in Moscow is carefully considering all possible repercussions of the next Iranian move.
Tel Aviv’s purposeful escalation – when it comes to expanding war in West Asia – happens to mirror another escalation: NATO’s no way out in Ukraine except by doubling down, with no end in sight.
That started with the invariably out of his depth Secretary of State Little Tony Blinken affirming, on the record, that Ukraine will (italics mine) join NATO. Which any functioning brain knows is translatable as the road map towards a Russia-NATO hot war with unbelievably dire consequences.
Little Blinkie’s criminal irresponsibility was duly picked up and reverberated by the Franco-British duo, as expressed by British FM David “of Arabia” Cameron and French FM Stephane Sejourne: “If Ukraine loses, we all lose”.
At least they got that (italics mine) right – although that took ages, when it comes to framing NATO’s approaching cosmic humiliation.
“Dual Opposition” to “Dual Deterrence”
Now let’s switch from clownish bit players to the adults in the room. As in Russian FM Sergei Lavrov and Chinese FM Wang Yi discussing literally every incandescent dossier together earlier this week in Beijing.
Add to it the confirmation that President Putin and President Xi will hold at least two bilaterals in 2024: at the SCO summit in June and at the BRICS summit in October.
In a nutshell: the dogs of Forever Wars bark while the Eurasian integration caravan marches on.
Both Lavrov and Wang made it very clear that while steering through “the natural course of history”, the Russia-China strategic partnership will keep seeking a way to resolve the Ukraine tragedy, taking into account Russia’s interests.
Translation: NATO better wake up and smell the coffee.
This bilateral at the FM level in Beijing is yet another graphic proof of the current tectonic shift in what the Chinese usually describe as the “world correlation of forces”. Next month – already confirmed – it will be Putin’s turn to visit Beijing.
It’s never enough to remember that on February 4, 2022, also in Beijing, Putin personally explained to Xi why NATO/Hegemon expansion into Ukraine was totally unacceptable for Russia. Xi, for all practical purposes, understood the stakes and did not subsequently oppose the SMO.
This time, Lavrov could not but refer to the 12-point peace plan on Ukraine proposed by Beijing last year, which addresses the root causes “primarily in the context of ensuring indivisible security, including in Europe and the world over.”
Your “Overcapacity” is Driving Me Nuts
Both Tehran and Moscow face a serious challenge when it comes to the Hegemon’s intentions. It’s impossible to definitely conclude that Washington was not in the loop on Tel Aviv’s attack on Iran in Damascus – even though it’s counter-intuitive to believe that the Democrats in an election year would willingly fuel a nasty hot war in West Asia provoked by Israel.
Yet there’s always the possibility that the White House-endorsed genocide in Gaza is about to extrapolate the framework of a confrontation between Israel and Iran/Axis of Resistance – as the Hegemon is de facto implicated in myriad levels.
To alleviate such tension, let’s introduce what under the circumstances can be understood as comic relief: the “Yellin’ Yellen goes to China” adventure.
US Secretary of Treasury Janet Yellen went to Beijing to essentially deliver two threats (this is the Hegemon, after all).
1.Yellen said that Chinese companies could face “significant consequences” if they provided “material support for Russia’s war on Ukraine.”
2. Yellen accused Chinese companies of “overcapacity” – especially when it comes to the electric-vehicle (EV) industry (incidentally, 18 of the top 20 EV companies around the world are Chinese).
The Chinese, predictably, dismissed the whole show with barely a yawn, pointing out that the Hegemon simply cannot deal with China’s competitive advantage, so they resort to yet another instance of “de-risking” hype.
In sum: it’s all about barely disguised protectionism. Chinese Commerce Minister Wang Wentao went straight to the point: China’s advantage is built on innovation, not subsidies. Others added two extra key factors: the efficiency of supply chains and ultra-dynamic market competition. EVs, in China, along with lithium batteries and solar cells, are known as the new “three major items.”
Yellin’ Yellen’s theatrics in Beijing should be easily identified as yet another desperate gambit by a former hyperpower which no longer enjoys military supremacy; no dominant MICIMATT (the military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex, in the brilliant formulation by Ray McGovern); no fully controlled logistics and sea lanes; no invulnerable petrodollar; no enforced, indiscriminate fear of sanctions; and most of all, not even the fear of fear itself, replaced across the Global South by rage and utter contempt for the imperial support for the genocide in Gaza.
“The official US position recognizes that it can’t be an industrial exporter anymore, though how is it going to balance the international payments to support the dollar’s exchange rate? The solution is rent-seeking. That’s why the United States says, well, what’s the main new rent-seeking opportunity in world trade? Well, it’s information technology and computer technology.
That’s why the United States is fighting China so much, and why President Biden has said again and again that China is the number one enemy. It moved first against Huawei for the 5G communications, and now it’s trying to get Europe and American and Taiwanese exporters not to export a computer chip to China, not for the Dutch to export chip-engraving machinery to China. There’s a belief that somehow the United States, if it can prevent other countries from producing high-technology intellectual property rents, then other countries will be dependent.
Rent-seeking really means dependency of other countries if they don’t have a choice to pay you much more money than the actual cost of production. That’s rent, the price over value. Well, the United States, since it can’t compete on value because of the high cost of living and labor here, it can only monopolize rent.
Well, China has not been deterred. China has leapfrogged over the United States and is producing its own etching machinery, its own computer chips. The question is, what is the rest of the world going to do? Well, the rest of the world means, on the one hand, the global majority, Eurasia, the BRICS+, and on the other hand, Western Europe. Western Europe is right in the middle of all this. Is it really going to forego the much less expensive Chinese exports at cost, including normal profit, or is it going to let itself be locked into American rent-extraction technology, not only for computer chips but for military arms?”
Graphically, this eventful week provided yet another howler: Xi officially received Lavrov when Yellin’ Yellen was still in Beijing. Chinese scholars note how Beijing’s position in a convoluted triad is admirably flexible, compared to the vicious deadlock of US-Russia relations.
No one knows how the deadlock may be broken. What is clear is that the Russia-China leadership, as well as Iran’s, know full well the dangers roaming the chessboard when the usual suspects seem to go all out gambling everything, even knowing that they are outgunned; outproduced; outnumbered; and outwitted.
It’s a tawdry Greek tragedy remix, alright, yet without the pathos and grandeur of Sophocles, featuring just a bunch of nasty, brutish specimens plunging into their unblinking, self-inflicted doom.
As it continues to engage in a “plausibly genocidal” mass murder spree in Gaza, the state of Israel has embraced the most psychotic and psychopathic interpretation of one of the most violent narratives from the Hebrew Bible. This is fueling a narcissism that puts the very existence of Israel at risk.
On October 28, as Israeli ground forces began turning Gaza into a free-fire zone, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed his nation. He vowed to destroy Hamas for “our existence” and also “for the benefit of all of humanity.”
During the speech he said, “You must remember what Amalek has done to you, says our Holy Bible. And we do remember.”
This sparked immediate global controversy and concern. Amalek was the son of Eliphaz and Timna, which are not household names for the adventitious Abrahamic religious adherent. But Eliphaz was the son of Esau, and Esau was the twin brother of Jacob. Esau and Jacob were sons of Isaac. These two have one of the most infamous rivalries in the Western Canon. Jacob’s line leads to the Israelites while Esau’s leads to the Amalekites:
“…descendants of Amalek, were an ancient biblical nation living near the land of Canaan. They were the first nation to attack the Jewish people after the Exodus from Egypt, and they are seen as the archetypal enemy of the Jews.”
According to the Hebrew Bible, the Amalekites went full 1973 on the embryonic state of Israel:
“While the Jews were still at Rephidim, recuperating from their escape from Egypt, the nation of Amalek launched a vicious surprise attack on them—though the Jews had no designs on Amalekite territory and were not even headed in that direction.”
As Libertarian Institute Executive Editor Sheldon Richman mused, “Since Yahweh many times had ‘hardened Pharaoh’s heart,’ causing him to refuse to free the Israelites, perhaps Yahweh put the Amalekites there for some unknown reason.” In any event, the Jews defeated the Amalekites in fierce battle. Almost 400 years later, Samuel advised Saul:
“This is what the Lord Almighty says: ‘I will punish the Amalekites for what they did to Israel when they waylaid them as they came up from Egypt. Now go, attack the Amalekites and totally destroy all that belongs to them. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.’” [emphasis added]
Hence the uproar over Netanyahu’s Amalek comment. However, Netanyahu’s rhetoric got even more spicy, when he said Israeli soldiers were “joining this chain of Jewish heroes. A chain that has started 3,000 years ago from Joshua ben Nun until the heroes of 1948, the Six Day War, the ’73 October War and all other wars in this country.” [emphasis added]
Why Joshua? Netanyahu could have referenced the first man, Adam. Or Noah, who saved humankind. He could have started the chain almost 4,000 years ago with Abraham, considered the first Jew and one of the Three Patriarchs of Judaism by scholars. Or Isaac or Jacob, the other two patriarchs. Jacob in particular was renamed Israel.
Netanyahu could have drawn a line to one of Jacob’s twelve sons, who gave rise to the twelve tribes (and thus the very foundation) of Israel. The obvious choice would be Levi or Judah, but there’s also Joseph, who became the trusted advisor of the Pharaoh. When famine hit the land of the Jews, Jacob and his sons sought immigrant assistance services in Egypt and Joseph was able to provide some much-needed administrative aid. That famine, by the way, was natural, unlike the famine being deliberately inflicted on Gaza by Israel.
Of course, the Jews ended up enslaved by the Egyptians. Moses eventually led the Jews out of Egypt, but it was Joshua who led them in victorious battle against the Amalekites and then onward into the Promised Land. He was a spy, a warrior, and a commander of men; no wonder Netanyahu evoked him.
We should keep in mind that archaeologists and other scholars have found no artifactual or documentary evidence of Israelite enslavement in Egypt or an exodus of two million people through the Sinai over forty years. And the Promised Land, Canaan, was part of the Egyptian Empire at the time.
Joshua fits perfectly as the patron saint of the Israeli Military-Intelligence Establishment. People around the world, and especially in America, should be able to empathize with such hero-worship.
The Joshua narrative portrays the Amalekites as archetypal, malevolent, and predatory evil. Contrast this with the portrayal of the Trojans in the Iliad, a Greek epic created for Greek audiences that actually views the enemy as human:
“Achilles is the hero of The Iliad, but he’s not described as the noble man—that title belongs to Hector the Trojan. The Greeks are just as much interested in the enemy as in their own troops, and they describe them with dignity and compassion and appreciation…There is a sense of respect for the other side: champions are matched as equals, and this is particularly Greek…The Homeric epics date to almost exactly the same period as the Book of Judges. Read the Book of Judges and see the way in which the Semitic Israelites regard their enemy. It’s a very different story.”
The Greeks destroyed Troy and killed and raped everyone they could get their hands on, but they acknowledged the Trojans’ humanity. Israel has stopped viewing its enemies as human. And that has allowed it to plan potentially suicidal military action.
The Palestinians are human beings. The Yemenis are human beings. The Lebanese are human beings. The Syrians are human beings. The Iraqis are human beings. The Iranians are human beings. Israel’s inability to accept this reality is a narcissistic flaw that imperils its existence.
Does anyone in Washington care about Israel’s crimes?
• 2,400 WORDS •
One expects that anyone involved in politics will lie whenever they think they can get away with it to burnish one’s own image and while also distorting reality to promote policies that are being favored. Nevertheless, the record of high crimes committed by a series of presidents and their top aides since the so-called “war on terror” began has established a new low for government veracity. One would have thought that the fake intelligence fabricated by a group of Zionists in the Pentagon and White House to launch the misadventures in Afghanistan and Iraq would be as bad as it could possibly get, but the Joe Biden team has outdone even those unfortunately unindicted criminals by allowing itself to be maneuvered by friends in NATO and by Israel into situations that are one step short of nuclear war.
Listening to John Kirby, Lloyd Austin, and Linda Thomas-Greenfield speak suggests that a course of remedial English might be in order as they cannot articulate a sentence that is coherent, especially as they are frequently lying or being deliberately evasive. And then there is teleprompter Joe himself who can pout over the killing of 13,000 children in Palestine while also secretly sending weapons to the Israelis who are eager to slaughter still more based on the judgement that they will grow up to be “terrorists.” Joe’s idea of a exchange of views with the Israeli government is a threat to maybe do something unspecific followed by a strongly worded message from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling him to “Go to hell!”
Joe’s gang cannot confirm that the Israelis are committing war crimes linked to genocide even though the rest of the world, including a majority of Americans, watch it happening on television and are convinced regarding what is taking place. But hey, Israel is a wonderful little democracy and America’s best friend and ally in the whole wide world. Or at least that is what Congress and the White House as well as the Jewish dominated media want you to believe. In reality, Israel is a racist and sectarian state that has been a US liability since it was founded, something that Secretary of State George Marshall warned about, but Harry Truman wanted Jewish money so he could get reelected. Some things never change as we watch Biden and Trump battle for the shekels by pledging their loyalty to Israel.
The latest wrinkle on the consequences of loving Israel so much comes with what it going on with Iran, which had its Embassy Consulate General building in Damascus Syria attacked by Israeli fighter planes, killing two senior Iranian generals plus a number of other Iranians, Lebanese and Syrians. For what it’s worth, embassies and consulates are generally speaking regarded as untouchable military targets under the terms of the Vienna Convention, which sought to keep enemies talking to each other even under the most adverse circumstances. In fact, Syria last fought Israel in 1973, more than fifty years ago, and has not gone to war with the Israelis since that time while Israel has been bombing Syria regularly as well as killing Iranian officials and scientists for many years. Iran, like Syria of late, has never attacked Israel.
Iran has said it will retaliate and Israel has gone on high alert. So what does Biden do? He warned Iran to back off and ignores the fact that it was Israel that did the unprovoked attacking and started the whole business and pledges “ironclad” support for the Jewish state if Iran dares to do anything serious in response. There are also reports that Israel and the US are planning jointly their possible retaliation if Iran were to strike. General Erik Kurilla, commander of the US Central Command, is now on his way to Israel and is expected to meet Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and senior Israel Defense Forces officials to coordinate possible US responses with those of Israel. Nota bene that President Biden has flipped the right or wrong of the entire affair over to do exactly what Israel wants, i.e. hopefully have the US go to war with the Iranians. This has been Netanyahu’s intention right from the beginning and there is also a bit of blackmail thrown in for good measure with Israel threatening to start using its secret nuclear arsenal if the United States stops supplying the Jewish state with weapons. Israeli Knesset member Nissim Vaturi, a representative in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party, issued the threat in an unsubtle way while discussing the probability that Iran would retaliate against Israel for bombing its embassy. He said “In the event of a conflict with Iran, if we do not receive American ammunition … we will have to use everything we have.” In other words, Israel will have no choice but to start dropping nuclear weapons on its enemies and might also attack its friends who failed to support it, a reference to the Samson Option in which a beleaguered Israel would use its nukes to “take everyone down with them.”
The timing of the embassy attack suggests that Israel is acting as it does, i.e. taking steps to shift the narrative and restore its perpetual “victimhood,” because it definitely needs a public relations boost in a world where only the US and a few other nations aligned with Washington are not yet ready to give up on Bibi and his wild plans for regional domination. The horrific killing of hundreds of Palestinians in the Al-Shifa hospital in Gaza as well as the targeted assassination of seven employees of a charity that was bringing in food to those starving due to Israel’s blocking the entry of relief supplies have been the top stories all over the world, and rightly so. The Israeli disdain for any behavior that might show weakness in the drive to remove the Palestinians from Palestine has resulted in the Jewish state’s being condemned and boycotted by much of the world with more to come.
Nevertheless, even in those countries that have made illegal pro-Palestinian expressions, demonstrations calling for a ceasefire have attracted hundreds of thousands of protesters. The governments confronting elections later this year, including the US and Germany, are under considerable pressure to respond to the popular sentiment. Indeed, it is already being mooted that President Joe Biden might well fail to be re-elected due to his kid gloves handling of Netanyahu who has assessed Biden’s weakness and has heedlessly taken US support as a given while also ignoring the warnings that are now coming out of Washington and elsewhere over the genocide taking place.
Indeed, it would be useful to speculate that the conflict in Gaza is in part being used as a smokescreen for developments with Iran and other Israeli neighbors that may prove more dangerous in the long run. Even the well-informed might be surprised to learn that even though Israel is not actually at war legally with several of its neighbors, it is nevertheless de facto at war with three countries, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. It has been exchanging fire with the Lebanese Hezbollah militias on its northern border on an almost daily basis since fighting with Hamas began in October and has sought and apparently obtained US guarantees of direct support should Hezbollah escalate its activity. In Syria, which has not in any way attacked Israel, the Israeli air and missile forces have staged numerous attacks against targets that it invariably claims to be “Iranian” even though most of the casualties are Syrians. There have been missile and bombing attacks on Syria nearly weekly since 2017, including a number of recent incidents involving both Damascus and Aleppo international airports that endangered civilian passengers and air crews.
As reported above, the most recent and most damaging attack was directed against the Iranian Consulate General, which was attached to the Iranian Embassy located in an upscale neighborhood in Damascus, Syria’s capital. The building was completely destroyed by six missiles fired from F-35 fighter planes that had crossed over the Syrian border from Israel, killing several long-serving diplomats alongside Brigadier General Mohammad Reza Zahedi and Zahedi’s deputy, General Haji Rahimi. It was also reported that Brigadier General Hossein Amirollah, the chief of general staff for the al-Quds force in Syria and Lebanon, was among the victims as was at least one Hezbollah member. Sources in Syria confirmed that a total of 13 people were killed in the attack, including six Syrians. Iran’s foreign minister, Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, said afterwards that “We consider this aggression to have violated all diplomatic norms and international treaties. Benjamin Netanyahu has completely lost his mental balance due to the successive failures in Gaza and his failure to achieve his Zionist goals.” Both Iran and Hezbollah vowed revenge.
And just days before the attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus, the Israeli military had launched massive strikes against a target in Syria’s northern province of Aleppo which killed at least 40 people, most of them soldiers. The air strikes hit a weapons depot, resulting in a series of explosions that also killed six Hezbollah fighters.
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) subsequently revealed that it had strengthened air defenses and called up reservists in expectation of a response either from Lebanon or directly from Iran itself. Zahedi was an important Iranian official, reportedly responsible for the IRGC’s operations in Syria and Lebanon, for Iranian militias there, and for ties with Hezbollah, and was thus the most senior commander of Iranian forces in the two countries. His killing was the most significant death of a senior Iranian official since the murder in Baghdad of General Qassim Soleimani by the Trump Administration in January 2020. As the IRGC is a US-designated terrorist organization, Washington may have in advance approved of the Israeli action, though that was denied by the Pentagon.
Iran’s possible reprisal includes the capability to respond by directly launching missiles from its own territory rather than via any of its proxy groups, which include the militias it supports in Lebanon, Iraq and Yemen. Responding to that possibility, Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz has warned on social media that if Tehran attacked from its territory, Israel would react and “attack in Iran.” Iran may therefore choose to respond indirectly or through a proxy, but any major reprisal would be giving Israel an excuse to elevate the conflict, which just might be the main reason for the attack on the Consulate General in the first place. It is, however, widely believed that the Iranian leadership is eager to avoid any escalation into a major or even a minor exchange that could be referred to as a war. Nevertheless, posters have gone up around Tehran in a sign of public pressure for an Iranian response. “The defeat of the Zionist regime in Gaza will continue and this regime will be close to decline and dissolution,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei said in a speech to the country’s officials in Tehran. “Desperate efforts like the one they committed in Syria will not save them from defeat. Of course, they will also be slapped for that action,” he added.
Israeli Defense Minister Gallant responded to the Ayatollah, saying that Israel is “increasing preparedness” in the face of threats from all across the Middle East. Gallant said that the country’s defense establishment is “expanding our operations against Hezbollah, against other bodies that threaten us,” and reiterated that Israel “strikes our enemies all over the Middle East… We will know how to protect the citizens of Israel and we will know how to attack our enemies.”
Intelligence sources in Washington suggest that Iran will try to respond by possibly blowing up an Israeli Embassy or other building, or even by assassinating an Israeli official, but they will more likely do something indirectly through a proxy like Hezbollah or the Houthis. They could also send a more subtle message by accelerating their nuclear program, though there is a danger that that would definitely bring the US into the game, which is precisely what Israel would like to see. They want to cripple Iran but would much prefer that all the heavy lifting – and the casualties and costs – be endured by Washington. If a US intervention were to occur and there were a misstep, it could easily escalate into a regional war with Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran all lined up against the US and Israel with China and Russia likely to be playing a supporting role aiding the Arabs and Iranians. And don’t forget that Israel is nuclear armed. If it gets in trouble it would see itself as a victim and would be tempted to do something very dangerous.
So it is easy to see that Israel has staged a deliberate provocation to draw Washington into its wars. It is playing with fire in an attempt to once and for all establish its dominance over all of its neighbors. Interestingly, the tone deaf Biden Administration appears to be falling into the trap set by the Israelis. Beyond the “ironclad” pledge, it also voted against a Russian and Chinese drafted UN Security Council resolution to condemn the Israeli attack on the Iranian Consulate General. The vote should have been a no brainer given the clear violation of international law and act of war committed by Israel in doing what it did, but the US was joined by Britain and France in casting the veto vote “no” reportedly after “Diplomats said the US told council colleagues that many of the facts of what happened on Monday in Damascus remained unclear.” It all means that Biden is stepping in it yet again in a situation where Netanyahu is in control and running circles around him.
ZURICH—“Technological change, while it helps humanity meet the challenges nature imposes upon us, leads to a paradigm shift: It leaves us less capable, not more, of using our intellectual capacities. It diminishes our minds in the long run. We strive to improve ourselves while risking a regression to the Stone Age if our ever more complex, ever more fragile technological infrastructure collapses.”
That is Hans Köchler, an eminent Viennese scholar and president of the International Progress Organization, a globally active think tank, addressing an audience here last Thursday evening, April 4. The date is significant: The day before Köchler spoke, +972 Magazine and Local Call, independent publications in Israel–Palestine, reported that as the Israel Defense Forces press their savage invasion of the Gaza Strip, they deploy an artificial intelligence program called Lavender that so far has marked some 37,000 Palestinians as kill targets. In the early weeks of the Israeli siege, according to the Israeli sources +972 cites, “the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based.”
Chilling it was to hear Köchler speak a couple of news cycles after +972 published these revelations, which are based on confidential interviews with six Israeli intelligence officers who have been directly involved in the use of AI to target Palestinians for assassination. “To use technologies to solve all our problems reduces our ability to make decisions,” Köchler asserted. “We’re no longer able to think through problems. They remove us from real life.”
Köchler titled his talk “The Trivialization of Public Space,” and his topic, broadly stated, was the impact of technologies such as digital communications and AI on our brains, our conduct, and altogether our humanity. It was sobering, to put the point mildly, to recognize that Israel’s siege of Gaza, bottomlessly depraved in itself, is an in-our-faces display of the dehumanizing effects these technologies have on all who depend on them.
Let us look on in horror, and let us see our future in it.
We see in the IDF, to make this point another way, a rupture in morality, human intelligence, and responsibility when human oversight is mediated by the algorithms that run AI systems. There is a break between causality and result, action and consequence. And this is exactly what advanced technologies have in store for the rest of humanity. Artificial intelligence, as Köchler put it, is not intelligence: “It is ‘simulated intelligence’ because it has no consciousness of itself.” It isn’t capable, he meant to say, of moral decision-making or ethical accountability.
In the Lavender case, the data it produced were accepted and treated as if they had been generated by a human being without any actual human oversight or independent verification. A second AI system, sadistically named “Where’s Daddy?”—and how sick is this?—was then used to track Hamas suspects to their homes. The IDF intentionally targeted suspected militants while they were with their families, using unguided missiles or “dumb” bombs. This strategy had the advantage of enabling Israel to preserve its more expensive precision-guided weapons, or “smart” bombs.
As one of +972’s sources told the magazine:
We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity… . On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.
Once Lavender identified a potential suspect, IDF operatives had about 20 seconds to verify that the target was a male before making the decision to strike. There was no other human analysis of the “raw intelligence data.” The information generated by Lavender was treated as if it was “an order,” sources told +972—an official order to kill. Given the strategy of targeting suspects in their homes, the IDF assigned acceptable kill ratios for its bombing campaigns: 20 to 30 civilians for each junior-level Hamas operative. For Hamas leaders with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, +972’s sources said, “the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.”
In other words, Israeli policy, guided and assisted by AI technology, made it inevitable that thousands of civilians, many of them women and children, would be killed.
There appears to be no record of any other military deploying AI programs such as Lavender and Where’s Daddy? But it is sheer naïveté to assume this diabolic use of advanced technologies will not spread elsewhere. Israel is already the world’s leading exporter of surveillance and digital forensic tools. Anadolu, Turkey’s state-run news agency, reported as far back as February that Israel is using Gaza as a weapons-testing site so that it can market these tools as battle-tested. Antony Lowenstein, an author Anadolu quotes, calls this the marketing of “automated murder.”
And here we find ourselves: Haaretz, the Israeli daily, reported on April 5 that “intelligent” weapons proven effective in Gaza were major attractions when Israel marketed them last month at the Singapore Airshow, East Asia’s biggest arms bazaar.
Hans Köchler, who has studied the impact of digital technologies for many years, did not seem to have read the +972 Magazine report before he spoke here last week. This made his remarks all the more disturbing. He was not describing—not specifically—the murderers operating Lavender and other such technologies in Gaza. We will all live and die by these Faustian technologies: This, our common fate, was Köchler’s topic. Over the past six months, this is to say, Israel has announced the dehumanization that awaits all of us in that AI systems are technologies against which we have little defense. “Self-determination gives way to digital competence,” Köchler said. “We can’t distinguish between virtual reality and reality.”
Along with the +972 report on the use of AI came others in a week notable for its stomach-churning news of Israeli depravity. In its April 3 editions The Guardian revealed that the IDF intentionally deploys snipers and quadcopters—remotely controlled sniper drones—to target children. The evidence of this comes from U.S. and Canadian doctors who, while serving in Gaza, treat many children with wounds consistent with and easily identified as caused by snipers’ bullets. These are larger than the ammunition generally used in combat because they are intended to kill rather than wound.
The Biden regime never addresses these barbaric developments, and our corporate media, with rare exceptions such as The Guardian piece just cited, tell us almost nothing of them. Official and media accounts of events in Gaza, their “narratives,” are utterly at odds with these realities. How, we are left to ask, do they get away with these day-in, day-out dishonesties? This was the obvious question last week, given the extremes to which the IDF’s criminality now extends.
If you Google “Lavender” and “The New York Times,” you get “Lavender Oil Might Help You Sleep” and similarly frivolous headlines. Neither has The Times made any mention of the +972 investigation. If you read detailed accounts of the April 1 air attacks on the World Central Kitchen’s three food-delivery vehicles, which killed seven aid workers, it is inescapable that the Israeli military systematically targeted them, one truck to the next, until all three were destroyed—this after WCK had carefully coordinated its deployment of the vehicles with Israeli authorities. These killings are entirely in line with the directive Yoav Gallant, Israel’s repulsive defense minister, issued Oct. 9: “There will be no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel, everything will be closed.”
And what did we read of this incident in mainstream media?
Per usual, the Israeli military was authorized to investigate the Israeli military—an absurdity no U.S. official and no media account questioned. On April 5 the IDF announced that two officers were dismissed and three other reprimanded for “mishandling critical information.” President Biden declared he was “heartbroken.” The New York Times called the attack “a botched operation,” explaining that the IDF’s top officers “were forced to admit to a string of lethal mistakes and misjudgments.” Over and over we hear the refrain that Israel “is not doing enough to protect civilians.”
So it was a regrettable accident, we are led to conclude. Israel is doing its best. It has all along done its best. Put this against the raw statistic: The IDF has killed more than 220 humanitarian workers since it began its siege last October, to go by the U.N.’s count. How can one possibly believe that these were 220–plus accidents? “Let’s be very clear. This is not an anomaly,” an Oxfam official, Scott Paul, said after the WCK attack. “The killing of aid workers in Gaza has been systemic.”
There is reality and there is meta-reality, a term I have used previously in this space. How do the two stand side-by-side? How does the latter, the conjured “reality,” prove so efficacious? How do so many accept the 220–plus-accidents “narrative?” Why, more broadly, do so many accept propaganda and lies when they know, subliminally, they are constantly fed lies and propagandized?
I go back once again to Hans Köchler. In his speech and in various of his many books, he argues that electronic media—television chief among these—have conditioned people to rely for information on pictures and images instead of reading. “They lose the ability to analyze text, and so the ability to understand problems,” he said here. “People come to live in virtual worlds.”
We cannot think of a better description of the “narratives” advanced by the Biden regime and disseminated in corporate media: They present us with a virtual world—fully aware that, our minds habituated to pictures and images, most of us will mistake this virtual world for reality, just as Köchler warns. As a member of the audience here put it, “How is it possible to watch a genocide in real time and no one says anything? Knowledge no longer has any value. Anything goes, and if anything goes, nothing goes.”
The Biden regime supplies Israel with weaponry to prosecute its criminal siege of Gaza’s 2.3 million Palestinians. It gives the apartheid state diplomatic cover at the United Nations and legal cover at the International Court of Justice. It distorts and obscures the IDF’s “Stone Age” conduct. All of this requires us to speak now not of Israel’s genocide but of the Israeli–U.S. genocide.
But the Biden regime is culpable in inflicting these multiple wounds on humanity in one other dimension we must not miss. With its incessant attempts to suspend us in a virtual reality of its making, distant from what it is doing in our names, it leads us into the dehumanized, grotesquely technologized future Köchler describes just as surely as the Israelis do as they murder human beings wholesale with AI weapons and kill innocent children with remotely controlled sniper drones.
Cornel West tapped university professor and prominent Black Lives Matter activist Melina Abdullah to be his running mate on his long-shot presidential bid.
Abdullah has never run for political office before and is the former chair of the Pan-African Studies Department at California State University, Los Angeles.
Melina Abdullah
“I wanted to run with someone who would put a smile on the face of Fannie Lou Hamer and Martin Luther King Jr. from the grave,” West said.
He announced his pick on Wednesday’s episode of the Tavis Smiley Radio Show on KBLA radio.
West is running as an independent candidate and faces significant challenges in his campaign for the White House. West’s fundraising has lagged behind his opponents, raising less than $1 million since launching his bid last summer.
Since getting in the race, West has switched parties twice, leaving the People’s Party and the Green Party to ultimately run as an independent. The switch mandates an expensive and difficult process to get his name on the ballot in 50 states and Washington, DC. Officially choosing his vice president allows him to start collecting petition signatures to get on the ballot in about 20 states.
“Both of us want to disrupt the narrative that you have only two choices,” Abdullah said of their ticket. “We can be expansive and imaginative … we enter this really as faithful people who are not more pragmatists than we are faithful.”
Through partnerships with existing third parties, West is already on the ballot in three states. But this method was not successful in California, one of the hardest states to gain ballot access, as West lost the Peace and Freedom Party’s primary to the Party for Socialism and Liberation candidate in March.
(Party For Socialism and Liberation candidates for US President and VP)
Abdullah, who is also an organizer of grassroots and local Black Lives Matter chapters, said she “was not expecting the phone call that I got last week at all, like it was the furthest thing from my mind. And then he and his wife Annahita [Mahdavi West] asked and immediately my heart just soared.”
Black Lives Matter doesn’t endorse candidates, she said, but individuals involved with the organization may endorse her separately. Abdullah, who is also a Howard University graduate and member of the AKA sorority, said she would not step away from her work organizing with the grassroots local chapters.
West also said there wouldn’t be any political “burden” being associated Black Lives Matter, which has called for defunding the police and was alleged to be associated with property destruction at civil rights demonstrations in 2020.
As a practicing Muslim, Abdullah also spoke of the auspiciousness of her announcement on Eid, the end of the Islamic holy month of Ramandan. She talked openly about her faith, using a similar approach to West’s on the campaign trail. West is a Christian and the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary.
“I’m running for Jesus. She’s running for Allah. That’s a beautiful thing,” West said.
The announcement was a major milestone for West’s campaign but was not without issue. A technical difficulty affecting West’s audio input cut him out from their joint interview for almost 10 minutes.
Democrats were swift to criticize West’s announcement. “Despite Cornel West announcing a running mate, our view remains the same: only two candidates have a path to 270 electoral votes, President Biden and Donald Trump,” said DNC spokesperson Matt Corridoni. “The stakes are high, and we know this is going to be a close election — that’s why a vote for any third party candidate is a vote for Donald Trump.”
On the morning of West’s announcement, the New York Times reported that Trump allies view third-party candidates as advantageous for Trump’s reelection chances. One ally, Scott Presler, has messaged both West and the Green Party’s Jill Stein about helping them get on the ballot on social media.
West co-campaign manager Ceyanna Dent said, “Scott Presler has not worked with the campaign in any capacity.” Though Dent added that the campaign staff was briefed on his overtures.
West was asked by Smiley about being a possible spoiler in 2024, and said, “No politician owns a vote. We stand for what we stand for. If you go with us, then come with us and change the world.”
The U.S.’ growing urgency in ‘containing’ China’s development was thrown in sharp relief this week as Janet Yellen arrived in Beijing for what turned out to be an execrable beggar’s tour. Just days prior to her arrival, she had buzzed the punditry with her historically memorable exclamation that China was now operating at “overcapacity”(!!).
What is overcapacity, you ask? It’s a new word for me, too—so let’s consult the dictionary together:
overcapacity noun o·ver·ca·pac·i·ty: ō′vər-kə-ˈpa-sə-tē 1: When an insolent upstart nation’s surging economic activity totally humiliates the reigning hegemon’s own faltering economy, causing the many expensive dentures and porcelain veneers of the ruling class gerontocracy to rattle and grate with moral outrage and jealousy.
1b: An undesirable situation causing Janet Yellen and Nancy Pelosi’s stock portfolio to droop like a pair of botox-sapped jowls.
Granted…my dictionary might be slightly different to yours, I have a rare edition. That said, are we on the same page? Good.
The above definition may be missing in the new official regime argot pamphlet, but it’s safe to say the inept leaders of the U.S. are down to making up creative new euphemisms for describing China’s total undressing and upending of the economic order.
But if you were skeptical about the meaning behind Yellen’s risible “overcapacity” solecism, her speech from inside of China confirms precisely what’s on the regime’s mind:
“China is now simply too large for the rest of the world to absorb this enormous capacity. Actions taken by the PRC today can shift world prices….”
And the bombshell:
“When the global market is flooded with cheap Chinese goods, the viability of American firms is put into question.”
Well, I’ll say.
The important distinction to note in the above statement is that for a long time the ‘cheap’ moniker used to describe Chinese goods often underhandedly referred to their quality, in the secondary definitional sense. Here, Yellen is referring to cheap as in price: the distinction is significant because it’s referential to the fact that Chinese manufacturing processes have simply far exceeded the efficiency in the West, as recently highlighted by videos of the Xiaomi e-car factory with its own native Giga Press that’s claimed to be able to pump out a car every 17 seconds.
The fact of the matter is, China is simply leaping ahead of the decrepit, deteriorating U.S. by every measure and the panicked elites have sent Yellen to beg China to “slow down” and not embarrass them on the world stage.
How is China doing this? Let’s run through a few of the most poignant ways:
[1]
First and foremost, it’s become almost a passe bromide to observe: “The U.S. funds wars, while China funds development.” But it really is true. Think about this for a moment:
The above is factual: Esquire reported that a Brown University investigation found the U.S. has spent an ineffable $14T on wars since 9/11:
And yes, the current U.S. debt is a massive $34T. That means quite literally almost half of the entire current U.S. debt was blown on endless, mindless, genocidal wars in the Middle East.
The U.S. has wasted its entire blood and treasure on war. Imagine what the U.S. could have built with $14 trillion dollars? Where the U.S. could have been in relation to China for that amount? As someone else noted, the U.S. could have very well built its own “one belt and road” project for that money, connecting the world and reaping untold benefits.
China hasn’t spent a cent on war, and puts everything right back into economic development and wellbeing for its own people.
China is winning lion’s share of construction projects in Africa
Chinese companies accounted for 31% of African infrastructure contracts valued at US$50 million or more in 2022, compared with 12% for Western firms, according to a new study.
It is worth to be noted that in the 1990s, about eight out of 10 contracts to build infrastructure in Africa were won by Western companies.
The illustrative statistics for this are endless:
What makes this historic malappropriation of American funds most tragic is that none of it came at the benefit of American people. The entire operation was carried out by an ethnic cabal within the U.S. government with loyalties only to Israel, and no one else. I’m speaking of course of the PNAC clan, who masterminded the entire breadth of the 21st century wars which have engulfed America in wretched shame and misery, irreversibly gutting the country and squandering its global standing. These wars had nothing whatsoever to do with America’s national interests or security, and have done naught but make Americans less safe and the entire world more dangerous and unstable.
China doesn’t have this problem: there is no inimical ‘out’ group parasitizing their country’s leadership, literally assassinating (JFK) and blackmailing their presidents (Clinton). China is therefore able to focus on the interests of its own people.
And yes, for those wondering, it’s now fairly proven that Lewinsky was a Mossad honeytrap used to blackmail Clinton in assenting to various Israeli demands vis-a-vis the Oslo Accords, Wye River Memorandum, etc.
The fact is, Israel is a destructive parasite sucking the lifeblood out of America, causing the host to wage unnecessary wars on its behalf which have utterly removed every advantageous and competitive edge the country might have had over its Chinese ‘rival’.
[2]
As a corollary of the above, beyond just the simple kinetic nature of the profligately wasteful wars, America wastes an exorbitant amount of money just on maintenance and upkeep of its global hegemony. The reason is, it costs a lot of ‘enforcement’ money to strongarm vassals who hate you into compliance.
China doesn’t form vassals, it forms partners. That means it spends comparatively far less spreading its influence because that influence has compounding abilities owing to the fair bilateral nature of China’s arrangements. The U.S. has to spend comparatively inordinate amounts of blood and treasure to maintain the same level of ‘influence’ because that ‘influence’ is totally artificial, confected out of a poisonous mixture of fear, strong-arming tactics, economic terrorism that leads to blowback which hurts the U.S. economy, etc. In short, it is mafia tactics versus real business partnerships.
One big difference between China and the U.S. is that China is open to sharing the earth, willing to co-prosper with the U.S. Conversely, the U.S. is unwilling to abdicate its global domination:
The above was highlighted by Graham Allison, coiner of the Thucydides Trap idiom in relation to U.S./China. The Thucydides Trap, as some may know, describes a situation where an emerging power begins to displace the incumbent global power, and how historically this almost always leads to major war. To popularize the theory apropos U.S./China, Graham Allison used the historical example of the Peloponnesian war, where a cagey Sparta was forced to take on the rising power of Athens.
Allison was recently invited by President Xi to a forum for U.S. business leaders where Xi told him directly:
Contrast President Xi’s magnanimous statements with those of the seething, guilt-wracked, bloodthirstily conniving Western ‘executives’. In fact, Xi called for more exchanges between China and the U.S. in order to entwine the two countries in mutual understanding, to avoid the Thucydides Trap:
This is the enduring image of what global leadership truly looks like, and the principles it embodies.
Meanwhile, when one thinks of America’s progressive decline, the one enduring image that comes to mind is of a bitterly frightened but dangerous, beady-eyed cornered rodent, conspiring on how to inflict damage and suffering onto the world in order to mask its own downfall.
[3]
The U.S. government does a grave disservice to its own development by cooking all of its economic books. Every country does it at times to some degree—and going by U.S.’ notoriously frequent accusations of China in this regard, one would think China to be the most flagrant violator—but in fact, no one does this more than the current U.S. regime.
The recent “jobs” report touted as a major victory by the Biden administration was a disgraceful travesty. The admin touted major jobs figures:
But it turned out every job was either part time, a federal job, or went to illegals:
In reality, the U.S. economy is in atrocious shape with sky-high inflation.
“The Fed chair just confessed that #Bidenomics is just a migrant job fair. There is actually a million less American citizens working today than there were in 2020.”
Biden created 5 million migrant jobs! So don’t be fooled by his propaganda that’s spewed by the liberal machine. YOU DONT MATTER!
The data is cooked even more when comparing to China’s economic situation. As the following Tweeter explains:
While Chinese INCOMES are below American INCOMES, Chinese have much higher NET WORTH than Americans. How? They own apartments at a much higher rate and with a lot more equity than Americans. The MEAN and MEDIAN insight is even more beautiful. This graphic here is pretty much the only thing you need to understand about the difference between the economies of China and United States. But you really need to understand it and you need to have a deep understanding of what it means.
The above naturally springs the question of how China is able to do these things while the U.S. cannot. One of the answers comes by way of this fascinating explainer which shows that, contrary to the West’s depiction of China as some kind of rigidly authoritarian system, forward-looking President Xi is actually utilizing very cutting edge economic experimentation models to keep the Chinese economy as innovative, limber, and supple as possible.
In short, a deep study of thousands of official documents shows a huge upswing in language promoting economic experimentation in the directives issued under Xi’s government.
This is further compounded by the most important point of all: that under President Xi, China has embarked on a meticulous plan of curbing financialization and speculation of the ‘Western model’ in its economy. This is where it starts getting important so buckle up.
The article gives a brief history of financialization, from the Genoese bankers to modern times, observing the historical cycles that have precipitated America’s current deterioration:
Observers of the current American hegemony will recognize the transformation of the global system to suit American interests. The maintenance of an ideologically charged ‘rules-based’ order – ostensibly for the benefit of everyone – fits neatly into the category of conflation of national and international interests. Meanwhile, the previous hegemon, the British, had their own version that incorporated both free-trade policies and a matching ideology that emphasized the wealth of nations over national sovereignty.
In describing the cycle of financialization and its connection to the death of empires, the article notes about Britain:
For example, the incumbent hegemon at the time, Great Britain, was the country hardest hit by the so-called Long Depression of 1873-1896, a prolonged period of malaise that saw Britain’s industrial growth decelerate and its economic standing diminished. Arrighi identifies this as the ‘signal crisis’ – the point in the cycle where productive vigor is lost and financialization sets in.
And yet, as Arrighi quotes David Landes’ 1969 book ‘The Unbound Prometheus,’ “as if by magic, the wheel turned.” In the last years of the century, business suddenly improved and profits rose. “Confidence returned—not the spotty, evanescent confidence of the brief booms that had punctuated the gloom of the preceding decades, but a general euphoria such as had not prevailed since…the early 1870s….In all of western Europe, these years live on in memory as the good old days—the Edwardian era, la belle époque.” Everything seemed right again.
However, there is nothing magical about the sudden restoration of profits, Arrighi explains. What happened is that “as its industrial supremacy waned, its finance triumphed and its services as shipper, trader, insurance broker and intermediary in the world’s system of payments became more indispensable than ever.”
In short: as an empire dies, loses its industrial and manufacturing capacity, finance takes over, pumping up huge bubbles of phony speculative money that gives the brief appearance of economic prosperity—for a time. This is what’s currently happening in the U.S., as it drowns in its self-created agony of debt, misery, corruption, and global destabilization.
One thing to note—if you’ll allow me this not-so-brief aside—is that the entire Western system is based on the actual institutionalized economic sabotage and subversion of the developing world. Books like the following go into some of it:
The rise of the underground economy: The book reveals how the United States’ underground economy evolved parallel to its legitimate economy, exploiting loopholes and leveraging secrecy jurisdictions to facilitate illegal activities such as drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and money laundering.
The “dark” side of globalization: Mills challenges the prevailing narrative of globalization as a force for progress, highlighting how it has facilitated the expansion of illicit networks across borders and allowed criminal enterprises to flourish.
The complicity of financial institutions: The author examines the role played by major financial institutions in enabling money laundering and illicit transactions. He underlines the need for stronger regulations and accountability to prevent banks from becoming facilitators of underground activities.
I challenge you to read notes on the National Memorandum 200, if you haven’t heard of it before:
Incidentally, John Michael Greer just penned a new column (thanks to whoever shouted out this blog in the comments!) about the neologism he coined: Lenocracy, which derives from the Latin “leno” for pimp; i.e. a government run by pimps, or pimpocracy.
His definition of pimps in this case is that of middlemen who are the classic rent-seeking leaches—or rentier class—which extract economic rent without adding any value to the economy—all Michael Hudson territory, for those in the know.
Bear with me, I promise this will all tie together into an overall picture of China.
JMG characterizes the ‘pimps’ as basically all the unelected, bureaucratic, red-tape-weaving, blood-sucking monetary vultures killing growth and livelihoods by each taking their nibbles in turn from the carcass of the working class, exacting some small transactional charge at every step of routine business in Western nations, particularly the U.S. This has served to suffocate the average small business or entrepreneurship in general, not counting the big ticket venture capitalists who are mostly offshoots of global financial and investment firms. This is part and parcel to the lethal ‘financialization’ of the country that has spelled doom for its future.
Now, getting back to Thomas Hon Wing Polin’s precis, and how it relates to this. He notes:
It is noteworthy that the CPC leadership recently launched a major drive to build China into a “financial great power,” with a financial system “based on the real economy.” That would be the antithesis to Anglo-American-style economic financialization.
Read that last part: “…set pure profit-making aside.”
Pay attention to this big kicker:
Beijing is powering ahead with the epic project.
“China’s 461-trillion-yuan (US$63.7 trillion) financial industry and its regulatory regime will be heavily prioritised in a broad economic reshuffle engendered by the country’s top leadership, with the sector remoulded to serve national objectives like sustainable growth and advancement in the global tech race.
Are you beginning to get it yet? If not, here’s the crowning finial:
Specifically, it vowed to rein in Wall Street-style practices seen as unsustainable and crisis-prone, and move toward functionality as an overriding value for the financial system rather than profitability.
It also mandated that Chinese financial institutions have “higher efficiency” than their peers in the capitalist world and provide inclusive, accessible services in the pursuit of common prosperity.
“Like it or not, banks and other institutions on the supply side should expect top-down directives and overhauls cued by the CFC,” said Zhu Tian, a professor with the China Europe International Business School (CEIBS).
And there it is. In essence: China is creating a revolution, striking out a new path of finance which steers away from the wild excesses of the West into a bold new direction. Finance to benefit the real economy, the common man, the people. This is what the fig leaf of Rothschild-pushed ‘stakeholder capitalism’ is meant to be, or better yet: pretends to be.
It’s hard not to wax poetic on these developments, because they are truly groundbreaking. China is paving a new path forward for the entire world. The Chinese banking industry is now by far the largest on earth and President Xi has wisely put his foot down with a bold edict: we will not follow the path of destruction chosen by the West, but rather will set our own new path.
This is an iconoclastic, paradigm-breaking revolution which ends six centuries of Old Nobility world finance dominion, traced from the Spanish-Crown-allied Genoese bankers, to the Dutch then English banking system which now continues to enslave the world, and is referred to by a variety of names in the dissident sphere: from Hydra, to Leviathan, to Cthulu, to simply: the Cabal.
All those 600 years are going up in smoke with China’s repudiation of the ‘old standards’, which privilege predatory, deceptive, extractive terms and practices meant to benefit only the Old Nobility elite class. China’s system is true stakeholder finance: the government will forcibly bend the bankers to its will, making sure that finance serves the common good and the people first, rather than speculation, financialization, capitalization, and all the other wicked inventions of the Western Old Nobility class.
It begins like so:
“…bringing greed is good era to an end.”
The big one:
“Government has called for banks to abandon a Western-style ethos and adopt an outlook in line with broader economic priorities.”
It’s a revolution in the making.
But if you’re thinking my dramatic flights above verge a touch on hyperbole or idealism, you could be right. I, of course, still proceed with caution; we can’t be sure that China will succeed in its grand demolishment of the age-old paradigm. But all signals point to early success thus far, and more importantly, it’s clear that China has a leader that fundamentally understands these things at the most rooted level. Western leaders not only are incapable of even grasping the complexities involved of reining in capital, they are unable to do so for the mere fact that they’re totally bought and paid for by the representatives of that very capital class. The cabal of Capital is so deeply and institutionally entrenched in Western governmental systems that it’s simply impossible to imagine them being able to see ‘the forest for the trees’ from within the forest itself.
By the way, in light of the above, here’s the West’s truly desperate, pathetically envious, face-saving attempt to tarnish and mischaracterize China’s new direction:
The above is particularly astounding in its admissions. Read carefully:
Market-based US and European economies are struggling to survive against China’s “very effective” alternative economic model, a top US trade representative has warned, according to Euractiv.
Katherine Tai told a briefing in Brussels on Thursday that Beijing’s “non-market” policies will cause severe economic and political damage, unless they are tackled through appropriate “countermeasures.” Tai’s remarks came as the EU-US Trade and Technology Council (TTC) kicked off in Leuven, Belgium.
“I think what we see in terms of the challenge that we have from China is… the ability for our firms to be able to survive in competition with a very effective economic system,” Tai said in response to a question from Euractiv.
In short: China isn’t playing fair—they’re actually privileging their people and economy over financial speculation, and this is causing their firms to outcompete ours!
But what she’s really talking about gets to the essence of the difference in the two systems:
The trade official described China as a system “that we’ve articulated as being not market-based, as being fundamentally nurtured differently, against which a market-based system like ours is going to have trouble competing against and surviving.”
These are code words: what she means by “market based” is free market capitalism, while China uses more of a centrally-planned directive system, as outlined earlier. Recall just recently I posted complaints from Western officials that their companies are not able to compete with Russian defense manufacturers due to their ‘unfairly’ efficient ‘central planning’ style.
Here too, what they mean is that the Chinese government creates directives that spurn ‘market logics’ and are aimed at direct improvements to the lives of ordinary citizens. In the West there’s no such thing: all market decisions are based merely on the totally detached financial firms’ speculations and are exclusively at the behest of a tiny claque of finance and banking elite at the top of the pyramid.
You see, the U.S. is threatened because it knows it can never compete with China fairly, by squelching or containing its own gluttonous financial elite—so that leaves only one avenue for keeping up: sabotage and war.
This is the real reason the U.S. is desperate to stoke a Chinese invasion of Taiwan by various provocations, including weapons shipments. Just like the U.S. used Ukraine as the battering ram to bleed and weaken Russia economically, disconnecting it from Europe, U.S. hopes to use Taiwan as the Ukraine against China. It would love to foment a bloody war that would leave China battered and economically set back to give the failing and greed-suffocated U.S. economy some breathing room.
But it’s unlikely to work—China is too sagacious to take the bait and fall for the trap. It will patiently wait things out, allowing the U.S. to drown in its own endless poison and treachery.
No, there will be no Thucydides Trap—it’s already too late for that. The Trap worked for Sparta because it was still at its peak and able to thwart Athens. The U.S. is in terminal decline and would lose a war against China, which is why they hope to stage a proxy war instead, cowardly using Taiwan as the battering ram. But China can read these desperate motives with the clarity of finely glazed porcelain.
The isolation of Gaza is almost complete. The laws of war have been torn up and the enclave is now completely at Israel’s mercy
After six months – and many tens of thousands of dead and maimed Palestinian women and children later – western commentators are finally wondering whether something may be amiss with Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Three missiles, fired over several minutes, struck vehicles in a World Central Kitchen (WCK) aid convoy heading up Gaza’s coast on one of the few roads still passable after Israel turned the enclave’s homes and streets into rubble. All the vehicles were clearly marked. All were on an approved, safe passage. And the Israeli military had been given the coordinates to track the convoy’s location.
With precise missile holes through the vehicle roofs making it impossible to blame Hamas for the strike, Israel was forced to admit responsibility. Its spokespeople claimed an armed figure had been seen entering the storage area from which the aid convoy had departed.
But even that feeble, formulaic response could not explain why the Israeli military hit cars in which it was known there were aid workers. So Israel hurriedly promised to investigate what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu described as a “tragic incident”.
Presumably, it was a “tragic incident” just like the 15,000-plus other “tragic incidents” – the ones we know about – that Israel has committed against Palestinian children day after day for six months.
In those cases, of course, western commentators always managed to produce some rationalisation for the slaughter.
Not this time.
‘This has to stop’
Half a year too late, with Gaza’s entire medical infrastructure wrecked by Israel and a population on the brink of starvation, Britain’s Independent newspaper suddenly found its voice to declare decisively on its front page: “Enough.”
Richard Madeley, host of Good Morning Britain, finally felt compelled to opine that Israel had carried out an “execution” of the foreign aid workers. Presumably, 15,000 Palestinian children were not executed, they simply “died”.
When it came to the killing of WCK staff, popular LBC talk-show host Nick Ferrari concluded that Israel’s actions were “indefensible”. Did he think it defensible for Israel to bomb and starve Gaza’s children month after month?
Like the Independent, he too proclaimed: “This has to stop.”
The attack on the WCK convoy briefly changed the equation for the western media. Seven dead aid workers were a wake-up call when many tens of thousands of dead, maimed and orphaned Palestinian children had not been.
A salutary equation indeed.
British politicians reassured the public that Israel would carry out an “independent investigation” into the killings. That is, the same Israel that never punishes its soldiers even when their atrocities are televised. The same Israel whose military courts find almost every Palestinian guilty of whatever crime Israel chooses to accuse them of, if it allows them a trial.
But at least the foreign aid workers merited an investigation, however much of a foregone conclusion the verdict. That is more than the dead children of Gaza will ever get.
Israel’s playbook
British commentators appeared startled by the thought that Israel had chosen to kill the foreigners working for World Central Kitchen – even if those same journalists still treat tens of thousands of dead Palestinians as unfortunate “collateral damage” in a “war” to “eradicate Hamas”.
But had they been paying closer attention, these pundits would understand that the murder of foreigners is not exceptional. It has been central to Israel’s occupation playbook for decades – and helps explain what Israel hopes to achieve with its current slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza.
Back in the early 2000s, Israel was on another of its rampages, wrecking Gaza and the West Bank supposedly in “retaliation” for Palestinians having had the temerity to rise up against decades of military occupation.
Shocked by the brutality, a group of foreign volunteers, a significant number of them Jewish, ventured into these areas to witness and document the Israeli military’s crimes and act as human shields to protect Palestinians from the violence.
They arrived under the mantle of the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), a Palestinian-led initiative. They were keen to use what were then new technologies such as digital cameras, email and blogs to focus attention on the Israeli military’s atrocities.
Some became a new breed of activist journalist, embedded in Palestinian communities to report the story western establishment journalists, embedded in Israel, never managed to cover.
Israel presented the ISM as a terrorist group and dismissed its filmed documentation as “Pallywood” – a supposedly fiction-producing industry equated to a Palestinian Hollywood.
Gaza isolated
But the ISM’s evidence increasingly exposed the “most moral army in the world” for what it really was: a criminal enterprise there to enforce land thefts and the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
Israel needed to take firmer action.
The evidence suggests soldiers received authorisation to execute foreigners in the occupied territories. That included young activists such as Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall; James Miller, an independent filmmaker who ventured into Gaza; and even a United Nations official, Iain Hook, based in the West Bank.
This rapid spate of killings – and the maiming of many other activists – had the intended effect. The ISM largely withdrew from the occupied territories to protect its volunteers. Meanwhile, Israel formally banned the ISM from accessing the occupied territories.
Meanwhile, Israel denied press credentials to any journalist not sponsored by a state or a billionaire-owned outlet, kicking them out of the region.
Al Jazeera, the one critical Arab channel whose coverage reached western audiences, found its journalists regularly banned or killed, and its offices bombed.
The battle to isolate the Palestinians, freeing Israel to commit atrocities unmonitored, culminated in Israel’s now 17-year blockade of Gaza. It was sealed off.
With the enclave completely besieged by land, human rights activists focused their efforts on breaking the blockade via the high seas. A series of “freedom flotillas” tried to reach Gaza’s coast from 2008 onwards. Israel soon managed to stop most of them.
The largest was led by the Mavi Marmara, a Turkish vessel laden with aid and medicine. Israeli naval commandos stormed the ship illegally in international waters in 2010, killing 10 foreign aid workers and human rights activists on board and injuring another 30.
That is the proper context for understanding the latest attack on the WCK aid convoy.
Israel has always had four prongs to its strategy towards the Palestinians. Taken together, they have allowed Israel to refine its apartheid-style rule, and are now allowing it to implement its genocidal policies undisturbed.
The first is to incrementally isolate the Palestinians from the international community.
The second is to make the Palestinians entirely dependent on the Israeli military’s goodwill, and create conditions that are so precarious and unpredictable that most Palestinians try to vacate their historic homeland, leaving it free to be “Judaised”.
Third, Israel has crushed any attempt by outsiders – especially the media and human rights monitors – to scrutinise its activities in real-time or hold it to account.
And fourth, to achieve all this, Israel has needed to erode piece by piece the humanitarian protections that were enshrined in international law to stop a repeat of the common-place atrocities against civilians during the Second World War.
This process, which had been taking place over years and decades, was rapidly accelerated after Hamas’ attack on 7 October. Israel had the pretext to transform apartheid into genocide.
Unrwa, the main United Nations refugee agency, which is mandated to supply aid to the Palestinians, had long been in Israel’s sights, especially in Gaza. It has allowed the international community to keep its foot in the door of the enclave, maintaining a lifeline to the population there independent of Israel, and creating an authoritative framework for judging Israel’s human rights abuses. Worse, for Israel, Unrwa has kept alive the right of return – enshrined in international law – of Palestinian refugees expelled from their original lands so a self-declared Jewish state could be built in their place.
Israel leapt at the chance to accuse Unrwa of being implicated in the 7 October attack, even though it produced zero evidence for the claim. Almost as enthusiastically, western states turned off the funding tap to the UN agency.
The Biden administration appears keen to end UN oversight of Gaza by hiving off its main aid role to private firms. It has been one of the key sponsors of WCK, led by a celebrity Spanish chef with ties to the US State Department.
WCK, which has also been building a pier off Gaza’s coast, was expected to be an adjunct to Washington’s plan to eventually ship in aid from Cyprus – to help those Palestinians who, over the next few weeks, do not starve to death.
Until, that is, Israel struck the aid convoy, killing its staff. WCK has pulled out of Gaza for the time being, and other private aid contractors are backing off, fearful for their workers’ safety.
Goal one has been achieved. The people of Gaza are on their own. The West, rather than their saviour, is now fully complicit not only in Israel’s blockade of Gaza but in its starvation too.
Life and death lottery
Next, Israel has demonstrated beyond doubt that it regards every Palestinian in Gaza, even its children, as an enemy.
The fact that most of the enclave’s homes are now rubble should serve as proof enough, as should the fact that many tens of thousands there have been violently killed. Only a fraction of the death toll is likely to have been recorded, given Israel’s destruction of the enclave’s health sector.
Israel’s levelling of hospitals, including al-Shifa – as well as the kidnapping and torture of medical staff – has left Palestinians in Gaza completely exposed. The eradication of meaningful healthcare means births, serious injuries and chronic and acute illnesses are quickly becoming a death sentence.
Israel has intentionally been turning life in Gaza into a lottery, with nowhere safe.
According to a new investigation, Israel’s bombing campaign has relied heavily on experimental AI systems that largely automate the killing of Palestinians. That means there is no need for human oversight – and the potential limitations imposed by a human conscience.
Israeli website 972 found that tens of thousands of Palestinians had been put on “kill lists” generated by a program called Lavender, using loose definitions of “terrorist” and with an error rate estimated even by the Israeli military at one in 10.
Another programme called “Where’s Daddy?” tracked many of these “targets” to their family homes, where they – and potentially dozens of other Palestinians unlucky enough to be inside – were killed by air strikes.
An Israeli intelligence official told 972: “The IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
As so many of these targets were considered to be “junior” operatives, of little military value, Israel preferred to use unguided, imprecise munitions – “dumb bombs” – increasing dramatically the likelihood of large numbers of other Palestinians being killed too.
Or, as another Israeli intelligence official observed: “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people – it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of smart bombs].”
That explains how entire extended families, comprising dozens of members, have been so regularly slaughtered.
Separately, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported on 31 March that the Israeli military has been operating unmarked “kill zones” in which anyone moving – man, woman or child – is in danger of being shot dead.
Or, as a reserve officer who has been serving in Gaza told the paper: “In practice, a terrorist is anyone the IDF has killed in the areas in which its forces operate.”
This, Haaretz reports, is the likely reason why soldiers gunned down three escaped Israeli hostages who were trying to surrender to them.
Palestinians, of course, rarely know where these kill zones are as they desperately scour ever larger areas in the hope of finding food.
If they are fortunate enough to avoid death from the skies or expiring from starvation, they risk being seized by Israeli soldiers and taken off to one of Israel’s black sites. There, as a whistleblowing Israeli doctor admitted last week, unspeakable, Abu Ghraib-style horrors are being inflicted on the inmates.
Goal two has been achieved, leaving Palestinians terrified of the Israeli military’s largely random violence and desperate to find an escape from the Russian roulette Israel is playing with their lives.
Reporting stifled
Long ago, Israel barred UN human rights monitors from accessing the occupied territories. That has left scrutiny of its crimes largely in the hands of the media.
Independent foreign reporters have been barred from the region for some 15 years, leaving the field to establishment journalists serving state and corporate media, where there are strong pressures to present Israel’s actions in the best possible light.
That is why the most important stories about 7 October and the Israeli military’s actions in Gaza and treatment of Palestinian prisoners in Israel have been broken by Israeli-based media – as well as small, independent western outlets that have highlighted its coverage.
Since 7 October, Israel has barred all foreign journalists from Gaza, and western reporters have meekly complied. None have been alerting their audience to this major assault on their supposed role as watchdogs.
Israeli spokespeople, well-practised in the dark arts of deception and misdirection, have been allowed to fill the void in London studios.
What on-the-ground information from Gaza has been reaching western publics – when it is not suppressed by media outlets either because it would be too distressing or because its inclusion would enrage Israel – comes via Palestinian journalists. They have been showing the genocide unfolding in real-time.
But for that reason, Israel has been picking them off one by one – just as it did earlier with Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall – as well as murdering their extended families as a warning to others.
The one international channel that has many journalists on the ground in Gaza and is in a position to present its reporting in high-quality English is Al Jazeera.
The list of its journalists killed by Israel has grown steadily longer since 7 October. Gaza bureau chief Wael al-Dahdouh has had most of his family executed, as well as being injured himself.
His counterpart in the West Bank, Shireen Abu Akhleh, was shot dead by an Israeli army sniper two years ago.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Israel rushed a law through its parliament last week to ban Al Jazeera from broadcasting from the region. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called it a “terror channel”, claiming it participated in Hamas’ 7 October attack.
Al Jazeera had just aired a documentary revisiting the events of 7 October. It showed that Hamas did not commit the most barbaric crimes Israel accuses it of, and that, in fact, in some cases Israel was responsible for the most horrifying atrocities against its own citizens that it had attributed to Hamas.
Al Jazeera and human rights groups are understandably worried about what further actions Israel is likely to take against the channel’s journalists to snuff out its reporting.
Palestinians in Gaza, meanwhile, fear that they are about to lose the only channel that connects them to the outside world, both telling their stories and keeping them informed about what the watching world knows of their plight.
Goal three has been achieved. The lights are being turned off. Israel can carry out in the dark the potentially ugliest phase of its genocide, as Palestinian children emaciate and starve to death.
Rulebook torn up
And finally, Israel has torn up the rulebook on international humanitarian law intended to protect civilians from atrocities, as well as the infrastructure they rely on.
Israel has destroyed universities, government buildings, mosques, churches and bakeries, as well as, most critically, medical facilities.
Over the past six months, hospitals, once sacrosanct, have slowly become legitimate targets, as have the patients inside.
Collective punishment, absolutely prohibited as a war crime, has become the norm in Gaza since 2007, when the West stood mutely by as Israel besieged the enclave for 17 years.
Now, as Palestinians are starved to death, as children turn to skin and bones, and as aid convoys are bombed and aid seekers are shot dead, there is still apparently room for debate among the western media-political class about whether this all constitutes a violation of international law.
Even after six months of Israel bombing Gaza, treating its people as “human animals” and denying them food, water and power – the very definition of collective punishment – Britain’s deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, apparently believes Israel is, unfairly, being held to “incredibly high standards”. David Lammy, shadow foreign secretary for the supposedly opposition Labour party, still has no more than “serious concerns” that international law may have been breached.
Neither party yet proposes banning the sale of British arms to Israel, arms that are being used to commit precisely these violations of international law. Neither is referencing the International Court of Justice’s ruling that Israel is “plausibly” committing genocide.
Meanwhile, the main political conversation in the West is still mired in delusional talk about how to revive the fabled “two-state solution”, rather than how to stop an accelerating genocide.
The reality is that Israel has ripped up the most fundamental of the principles in international law: “distinction” – differentiating between combatants and civilians – and “proportionality” – using only the minimum amount of force needed to achieve legitimate military goals.
The rules of war are in tatters. The system of international humanitarian law is not under threat, it has collapsed.
Every Palestinian in Gaza now faces a death sentence. And with good reason, Israel assumes it is untouchable.
Despite the background noise of endlessly expressed “concerns” from the White House, and of rumours of growing “tensions” between allies, the US and Europe have indicated that the genocide can continue – but must be carried out more discreetly, more unobtrusively.
The killing of the World Central Kitchen staff is a setback. But the destruction of Gaza – Israel’s plan of nearly two decades’ duration – is far from over.
Norms, Conventions and Laws of Conduct Are Being Erased
• 1,900 WORDS •
We stand on the cusp of what might be termed Chaotic War. Not the formula used by Israel often in the past to intimidate adversaries; this is different.
Israeli reporter Eddie Cohen said, in the wake of the attack on the Iranian Consulate: “We are very clear that we want to start a war with Iran and Hezbollah. Do you still not understand?”
“Israel wants to drag Iran into a full-scale war in order to be able to strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities”, though these facilities are beyond American and Israeli reach, buried beneath mountains.
Cohen, and of course, Israel’s military leadership, will know that; but Israel nonetheless is locking itself into a logic that can only lead to defeat. Iran’s nuclear facilities are safe from Israeli assault. The destruction of civilian Iranian infrastructure, which is out in the open, may kill many, but will not, per se, collapse the Iranian state.
Trita Parsi places Israel’s objective in attacking the Iranian Consulate in Damascus in a different context:
“An important aspect of Israel’s conduct – and Biden’s acquiescence to it – is that Israel is engaged in a deliberate and systematic effort to destroy existing laws and norms around warfare.
Even during wartime, embassies are off-limits [yet] Israel just bombed an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus.
Bombing hospitals is a war crime, [yet] Israel has bombed EVERY hospital in Gaza. It has even assassinated doctors and patients inside hospitals.
The ICJ obligated Israel to allow the delivery of humanitarian aid to Gaza. Israel actively prevents aid from coming in.
Starvation of civilians as a method of warfare is prohibited under international humanitarian law. Israel has deliberately created a famine in Gaza.
Indiscriminate bombings are illegal under international humanitarian law. Biden himself admits that Israel is bombing Gaza indiscriminately”.
The list goes on and on … However, Israel’s breach of Vienna Convention immunity accorded to diplomatic premises – plus the stature of those killed – is highly significant. It is a major signal: Israel wants war – but with U.S. support, of course.
Israel’s aim, firstly, is to destroy the norms, conventions and laws of warfare; to create geo-political anarchy in which anything goes, and by which, with the White House frustrated, yet acquiescing to each norm of conduct obtrusively trodden underfoot, allows Netanyahu to grip the U.S. bridle and lead the White House horse to water – towards his regional End of Times ‘Great Victory’; a necessarily brutal war – beyond existing red lines anddevoid of limits.
As symbolically significant as the Damascus attack is that the U.S., France and Britain – after a brief ‘hat tip’ to the Vienna Convention – refused to condemn the levelling of the Iranian Consulate, thus placing the shadow of doubt over the Vienna Convention’s immunity for diplomatic premises.
Implicitly, this refusal to condemn will be widely understood as a soft condoning of Israel’s first tentative step towards war with Hizbullah and Iran.
This Israeli chaotic ‘Biblical’ nihilism, however, bears no relationship in purely rational terms to Netanyahu’s aspiration for a ‘Great Victory’. The reality is that Israel has lost its deterrence. It won’t return; the deep anger across the Islamic world generated by Israel through its massacres in Gaza during the last six months precludes it.
Yet, there is a second, adjunct reason why Israel is set on deliberately flouting humanitarian law and norms: Israeli journalist, Yuval Abraham reports in +972 Magazine in great depth how Israel has developed a AI machine (called ‘Lavender’) to generate kill lists in Gaza – with almost no human verification; only a “rubber stamp” check of about “20 seconds” to make sure the AI target is male (as no females are known to belong to the Resistance’s military).
The blatant extra-legality behind the Gaza ‘kill list’ methodology, as reported by Abraham’s various sources, can only be immunised and sheltered through normalising them as but one amongst a general pattern of illegalities – and in effect, claiming sovereign exceptionalism:
“[T]he Israeli army systematically attacks the targeted individual whilst in their homes — usually at night whilst the whole family is present — rather than during the course of military activity … Additional automated systems, including one, [callously] called “Where’s Daddy?” were used – specifically to track targets when they had entered their family’s residences… However, when a home was struck, usually at night, the individual target was sometimes not inside at all”.
“The result is that thousands of Palestinians — most of them women and children or people who were not involved in the fighting — were wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, especially during the first weeks of the war, because of the AI program’s decisions”.
“”We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives when they were in a military building … or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation – as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations”.
“In addition … when it came to targeting alleged junior militants marked by Lavender, the army preferred to only use unguided missiles, commonly known as “dumb” bombs (in contrast to “smart” precision bombs) which can destroy entire buildings on top of their occupants and cause significant casualties. “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people — it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs]”.
“… The army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians … in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander – the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander”.
“Lavender — which was developed to create human targets in the current war — has marked some 37,000 Palestinians as suspected “Hamas militants”, most of them junior, for assassination (the IDF Spokesperson denied the existence of such a kill list in a statement to +972 and Local Call)”.
So, there it is – no wonder Israel might seek to camouflage the details within a normalised general array of transgressions against humanitarian law: “They wanted to allow us to attack [the junior operatives] automatically. That’s the Holy Grail. Once you go automatic, target generation goes crazy”.
It is not difficult to speculate what the ICJ might determine …
Does anyone imagine that this flawed Lavender AI machine would not be asked to churn out its kill lists, were Israel to decide to surge into Lebanon? (Another reason for normalising the procedures first in Gaza).
The key point made in the +972 Magazine report (with multiple sourcing) is that the IDF were not focussed on pin-point elimination of Hamas’ Qassam Brigades (as claimed):
“It was very surprising for me that we were asked to bomb a house to kill a ground soldier, whose importance in the fighting was so low”, said one source about the use of AI to mark alleged low-ranking militants:
“I nicknamed those targets ‘garbage targets.’ Still, I found them more ethical than the targets that we bombed just for ‘deterrence’ — high-rises that are evacuated and toppled just to cause destruction”.
This report makes clear nonsense of Israel’s claims to have dismantled 19 out of 24 Hamas Battalions: One source, critical of Lavender’s inaccuracy, points out the obvious flaw: “It’s a vague boundary”; How to tell a Hamas fighter from any other Gazan civilian male?
“At its peak, the system managed to generate 37,000 people as potential human targets”, said B. “But the numbers changed all the time, because it depends on where you set the bar of what a Hamas operative is. There were times when a Hamas operative was defined more broadly, and then the machine started bringing us all kinds of civil defence personnel, police officers, on whom it would be a shame to waste bombs”.
Just last week, War Cabinet member and Minister Ron Dermer, was delegated to travel to Washington to plead that the IDF success in dismantling 19 Hamas battalions justified an incursion into Rafah to dismantle the 4 to 5 battalions that Israel claims still remain in Rafah.
What is clear is that AI was a key Israeli tool to its Gaza ‘Victory’. Israel was going to sell a ‘smoke and mirrors story’ based on ‘Lavender’.
By contrast, Palestinians, who are aware of their quantitative inferiority, have a very different outlook: they switched to a new way of thinking that gives the simple act of resisting a civilisational meaning – a path to metaphysical victory (and quite possibly a kind of military victory), if not in their lifetimes, then for the Palestinian People, thereafter. This constitutes the asymmetrical nature of the conflict that Israel has never managed to understand.
Israel wants to be feared, believing this will restore its deterrence. Amira Hass writes that regardless of any revulsion for this government and its members: “The vast majority [of Israelis] still believe that war is the solution”. And Mairav Zonszein writing in Foreign Policy, notes that “The Problem Isn’t Just Netanyahu, It’s Israeli Society”:
“The focus on Netanyahu is a convenient distraction from the fact that the war in Gaza is not Netanyahu’s war, it is Israel’s war—and the problem isn’t only Netanyahu; it’s the Israeli electorate … A large majority—88 percent—of Jewish Israelis polled in January believe the astounding number of Palestinian deaths, which had surpassed 25,000 at the time, is justified. A large majority of the Jewish public also thinks that the [IDF] is using adequate or even too little force in Gaza … Putting all the blame on the prime minister misses the point. It disregards the fact that Israelis have long advanced, enabled, or come to terms with their country’s system of military occupation and dehumanization of Palestinians”.
Yet neither Israel, nor the U.S., has a comprehensive strategy for this mooted war. Israel’s approach is all tactical – claiming to have degraded Hamas; turning Gaza into a humanitarian hellscape and setting the scene for the “decisive plan” devised by Bezalel Smotrich for the Palestinians. Amira Hass again:
“Either agree to an inferior status, emigrate and be uprooted ostensibly voluntarily, or face defeat and death in a war. This is the plan now being carried out in Gaza and the West Bank – with most Israelis serving as active and enthusiastic accomplices, or passively acquiescing in its realisation ”.
The U.S. ‘vision’ is also tactical (and far removed from reality) – Imagining the transformation of Gaza into a ‘Vichy collaborator’ statelet; imagining that political pressure by the French in Lebanon will force Hizbullah’s retreat from its ancestral lands in south Lebanon; and imagining that the Biden White House is able to achieve politically through pressure what Israel cannot do militarily.
The paradox is that, with Israel and the U.S. being dependent on an ‘image’ that has been confused with reality, this too works to Iran’s and the Resistance Front’s advantage. (As the old adage goes, ‘do not disturb an adversary who is making mistakes’).
Havana Syndrome, it turns out, is a figment of lots of overheated imaginations. There are no death-ray microwaves aimed at American heads in the U.S. embassies in nations Washington doesn’t like. In March, the National Institutes of Health said so. NIH studies found neither vocational harm, nor brain injury, nor blood biomarkers, pace 60 Minutes. The whole thing was a massive hoax that started eight years ago, after which the ball really got rolling in 2017, as U.S. military and intelligence officers reported symptoms from India and China. According to Wikipedia: “The most recent studies of over 1000 reported cases of Havana Syndrome have ruled out foreign involvement in all but a couple dozen cases.” Now the NIH has presumably dismissed even those. The nefarious furren conspiracy to scramble American brains was just, well, a hallucination, suggesting some of those brains had already been scrambled due to prolonged exposure to the madness called U.S. foreign policy. Still, the hoopla wasn’t as loony as it could have been – no Havana Syndrome sufferers claimed twinges in their teeth due to electromagnetic messages zapping their fillings, though conceivably that could come next. In fact, the NIH study didn’t stop 60 Minutes from airing a story about Havana Syndrome being caused by the Russians. So there may well be more insanity in the pipeline.
It started in Havana in 2016. According to Spyscape, a U.S. embassy staff person “awoke to a loud, piercing sound in one ear, followed by acute nausea and vertigo. Within years, similar symptoms of the mysterious illness had been reported by hundreds – some say as many as 1,000 – U.S. spies, diplomats and defense officials in China, Russia, Austria, Serbia, the White House and beyond.” Sound like a mass paranoid panic attack by those with brains fried by Washington propaganda? If you said yes, you could be onto something.
“Theories range from some weapon attack to nerve agents and microwave death rays.” The CIA “hasn’t ruled out foreign involvement –including in cases that originated in the U.S. Embassy in Havana.” So the CIA basically straight up said the commies could have a death ray and are using it on us. Next those wicked reds will be hypnotizing us through our laptops to steal the formula for Preparation H and send it to Wikileaks.
Official U.S. government theories included pulsed, directed, radio-frequency attacks and microwave beams aimed at the U.S. embassy. One CIA officer who awoke in a Moscow hotel room with vertigo told Spyscape: “Of course I’m concerned about the adversaries behind this, because ultimately I believe it’s an act of war.” One Havana embassy staffer described himself as a “zombie;” all I can say is keep careful track of your body parts when in contact with these cannibals in the foreign service, since who knows what they might decide to chow down on. Nor was the foreign service the only branch of government affected. One National Security council staffer “described collapsing at the White House gates, convinced he was going to die.” My question is, would he then have risen from the dead and tried to eat the president? Clearly, it was not just a mass psychosis, but a highly contagious one, with serious meal-time ramifications that I hope the secret service carefully kept tabs on.
You’d think the belief that an illness is in reality an act of war perpetrated by a hostile foreign government would, prima facie, disqualify whoever made the charge from being taken seriously. You’d also think such a fantasy would be easy to refute, but apparently not. It took the American health bureaucracy eight years to rule out enemy death rays, and I’m sure many Havana syndrome sufferers still consider themselves targets of a deadly foreign conspiracy. Such convictions require a hefty dose of megalomania, but believing that your headache is a foreign enemy attack indicates that megalomania is not in short supply.
Nor is hysteria about contamination by foreigners, bringing to mind General Jack D. Ripper in Dr. Strangelove and his obsession with the purity of his bodily fluids. Indeed, the 60 Minutes opus revealed that an FBI agent who interviewed a Russian for 80 hours experienced disorientation, among other Havana Syndrome symptoms, leading one to wonder why nobody asked about the possible health implications of 80 hours of interrogation. Disorientation, crippling or otherwise, would seem to be a logical result of such a marathon. Clearly contact with foreigners, life abroad, or a stint out of the country, has stimulated some rather bizarre ideation in our diplomats, spies and military men, ideation that lay not too far below the surface and just needed the slightest nudge to come roaring wildly into view.
Meanwhile, a Northeastern professor hypothesized a different cause: he blamed crickets, specifically the Indies short-tailed cricket. This bug, “has a chirp that’s extremely annoying to the point where it can harm you,” according to professor Kevin Fu. An advisory group working with the state department agreed. “The group performed a pulse repetition analysis,” according to Northeastern Global News June 13, 2023, “of audio captured in Cuba and audio of the crickets and found they were remarkably similar.” Reassuring to hypochondriacs everywhere, the CIA asserted in 2022 that “the mysterious illness was not caused by a ‘sustained global campaign by a hostile power.’” The CIA did not reveal if arthropods were to blame.
The 1980s were particularly rife with mass hysterical illnesses. There was the West Bank fainting epidemic of 1983, the Hollinwell fainting and nausea attacks of 1980, the U.S. navy breathing difficulty attack in San Diego in 1988, which led to evacuating 600 men from barracks. Other instances of mass hypochondriacal lunacy include the supposed poisoning of thousands of Kosovans by toxic gases in 1990, Pokemon shock, wherein thousands of Japanese children allegedly had seizures while watching Pokemon in 1997 and fever, nausea and walking difficulty for over 500 female adolescents in Mexico City in 2006. And one of the most unforgettable – an outbreak of twitching, headaches and dizziness at a Virginia high school in 2007. Twitching was a new and rather disturbing addition to the collection of odd psychologically-induced symptoms. The thought of a large group of high-schoolers, twitching uncontrollably, is not one you want to contemplate for long.
So Havana Syndrome has a long and illustrious pedigree in the annals of hypochondriacal phantasmagoria. As such, I predict we’re not done with it yet. CIA agents who believe the heirs to Fidel Castro focused death rays at their skulls and believe it with such conviction that they suffered vertigo, nausea and felt they were going to die and then rise from the dead to eat other government officials, will not willingly let go of their peculiar and addled pensees. To the extent that Havana Syndrome is projection, one has to wonder what our spooks have been up to – have THEY been testing sonic beams or microwaves that induce nausea in the floridly paranoid? We’ll never know. But given the outlandish CIA experiments on the human body and psyche down the years, it’s a good bet they have.
And of course, some experts say never say die. “Dr. David Relman, a professor of microbiology and immunology at Stanford…argued in an editorial…” CNN reported March 18, that while brain scans “appear to show that ‘nothing or nothing serious’ happened with these cases, coming to this conclusion ‘would be ill-advised.’ Earlier work found evidence of abnormalities, he said, and the same is true for the study that did a wider variety of tests.” Relman argues we need better medical tests that can detect “more specific blood markers of different forms of cellular injury.” And tests, I would like to add, to screen potential zombies out of the foreign service.
CNN rather unhelpfully adds that we still lack a clear definition of this syndrome (thus throwing fuel on the lunatic fire) – “or what the government terms ‘anomalous health incidents.’” It even cites an intelligence panel saying in 2022 that in some instances, the symptoms could “plausibly” have come from external “pulsed electromagnetic energy.” That nitwit conclusion’s not conspiratorial, is it? But hey, if you were in the intelligence community, you’d likely figure, well what would you do if you could, if the shoe was on the other foot? You’d aim a death-ray at the heads of diplomats from countries you didn’t like and then skedaddle before they dined on you, that’s what you’d do.
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Eve Ottenberg is a novelist and journalist. Her latest book is Lizard People. She can be reached at her website.
“Submission to the pressure of bourgeois society has repeatedly thrust nominally Marxist currents towards revisionism, the process of ruling out Marxism’s essential conclusions.” —“Declaration of Principles of the Spartacist League,” adopted by the founding conference of the Spartacist League, September 1966
The latest issue of Spartacist marks a watershed moment in the sad history of the International Communist League (ICL). Formally junking the core of its program and political heritage going back to its founding—a tradition it denounces as “centrist” at best—the ICL now frames its raison d’être as the fight against “liberalism.”
An IBT comrade intervened at a public forum of the Trotskyist League, Canadian section of the ICL, held in Toronto on 30 September to introduce the new approach. He pointed out that this orientation is precisely towards a kind of liberalism: bourgeois nationalism. The ICL claims that it previously opposed “bourgeois nationalism in oppressed nations based on sectarian class purity” (“The ICL’s Post-Soviet Revisionism,” Spartacist No.68).
What is the “sectarian class purity” that supposedly undermined the ICL’s fight for revolution? While the recent issue of Spartacist leaves many questions unanswered, it provides a good sense of where the ICL is heading. Rejecting as “social-democratic” their founder James Robertson’s orthodox Trotskyist defense of permanent revolution, the ICL now projects “national liberation as the fundamental lever for proletarian revolution” (“In Defense of the Second and Fourth Comintern Congresses,” Spartacist No.68). Instead of viewing class struggle as the “fundamental lever for proletarian revolution” in the neocolonial world—the central idea of Trotsky’s permanent revolution—the ICL resurrects the concept of the “anti-imperialist united front” with the national bourgeoisie of oppressed countries. It goes so far as to suggest that rejecting the “democratic dictatorship of the proletariat and the peasantry,” which Lenin himself abandoned as outdated over a century ago, means renouncing “the alliance between workers and peasants” and even the early Soviet government (Ibid.).
To be sure, the ICL still pays lip service to proletarian independence and the struggle against the influence of nationalist ideology—revisionists have always been careful to have “orthodox”-sounding formulations to confuse people. But in promoting the fight against national oppression as the “fundamental” mechanism for revolution; advocating “anti-imperialist” alliances with the national bourgeoisie; and drawing an equals sign between the struggle for a two-class “democratic dictatorship” and permanent revolution, the ICL has finally embraced the Pabloite revisionism that the founders of the Spartacist League fought against. Indeed, according to the ICL, only “sectarians” (or is it “social democrats”?) “denounce bourgeois nationalism in oppressed countries as simply reactionary” (Ibid.). Ernest Mandel would be pleased.
“What was the point of your group for the past half century?” our comrade asked the Trotskyist League. “Was it all a waste of time? Did it ever mean anything?”
The painful truth is that it once meant everything. The Spartacist League was founded to restore the revolutionary Marxist program, to ensure continuity with Trotsky’s Fourth International, destroyed by a Pabloite revisionism that sought other “fundamental levers” for socialist transformation, whether in Stalinist, social-democratic or bourgeois-nationalist parties. From its founding until its political degeneration in the late 1970s/early 1980s, the international Spartacist tendency embodied the Trotskyist program. Even after its degeneration, it was able to hold onto its core programmatic ideas at least in a formal sense, despite notable deviations in practice. The SL was distinguished from the Pabloites on a range of important political questions, from Northern Ireland to Israel/Palestine, from the Iranian Revolution to the Malvinas/Falklands War, from Mexico to Quebec and beyond. All of that has now been erased.
The chair clearly did not much like this critique and cut our representative off before the allotted time was up. But ICL comrades who are not exhausted, not demoralized, not resigned, not cynical, who are committed to advancing Trotskyism instead of neo-Pabloism must stop and ask themselves: “How did we get here?” Answering that question means taking seriously the IBT’s critique of a process of degeneration over the last four decades.
Je suis allé chercher du café et des beignets et j’ai échangé quelques comptines avec l’homme qui signait des livres de poésie. Je ne savais pas qui il était. Il était irlandais, je savais qu’il avait des poèmes sur les problèmes que l’Irlande a rencontrés au fil des ans. J’avais du temps libre et j’ai entendu parler de la réception littéraire ; Je suis alphabétisé, alors j’y suis allé.
J’avais une assiette avec un bagel à l’oignon alors que je me dirigeais vers le poète et lui disais : « Il était une fois un garçon de Dundalk qui ne savait pas trop marcher… ».
“C’est la faute des Britanniques, réfléchissez-y”, a-t-il répondu avec un doigt en l’air pour souligner tout en me regardant directement. Il souriait. J’aime jouer avec les mots, et lui aussi.
Je pensais qu’il appréciait un petit jeu de mots sans fard parmi tous les fans complaisants qui lui demandaient son gribouillage au début d’un livre. J’ai recommencé : « Il était une fois un garçon du Pérou qui ne savait pas trop quoi faire, il est allé voir sa maman, qui lui a montré un lama… et le reste de la comptine dépend de vous.
Il rit. Je ne me souviens pas de sa réponse à cela. C’était une journée ensoleillée d’avril alors que nous discutions dans la bibliothèque de l’école avec quelques dizaines d’autres personnes autour de nous, nous étions contre une bibliothèque.
Nous avons parlé de Lord Montbatten tué par un commando de l’IRA lors d’un assassinat ciblé en 1979. Il a parlé de Mountbatten comme d’un maître colonial en Inde appliquant la domination anglaise, et du fait qu’il n’était pas seulement un pêcheur aléatoire avec un titre. Heaney a parlé de Montbatten comme étant le dernier vice-roi britannique de l’Inde, un dictateur non élu d’un pays étranger. J’ai mentionné que Lord Montbatten avait été le responsable britannique en charge de l’occupation alliée du Vietnam à la fin de la Seconde Guerre mondiale, et Montbatten a réarmé l’Empire japonais. Des troupes militaires pour réprimer un soulèvement de la classe ouvrière trotskyste vietnamienne en 1945 à Saigon.
“Je ne le savais pas”, m’a-t-il dit comme si une petite pièce d’un puzzle important avait été ajoutée.
Il m’a dit qu’il dirigeait une école d’écriture de poésie pendant l’été dans l’ouest de l’Irlande et que j’apprécierais peut-être de venir à cette réunion. J’espérais dans ma tête avoir assez d’argent pour acheter de l’essence pour rentrer chez moi dans ma voiture ce soir-là, pas pour payer une retraite d’écrivains de l’autre côté de l’océan.
Un membre du corps professoral m’a plaisanté quelques jours plus tard : « tu as parlé plus que lui ». Je ne savais toujours pas qui était cet homme. Je savais qu’il était irlandais, je savais qu’il avait écrit des poèmes sur la malheureuse histoire de l’Irlande. J’avais sa traduction de Beowulf sur mon étagère à la maison. Quelle histoire.
Plus tard, j’ai découvert que cet homme plein d’esprit avait reçu le prix Nobel de littérature. Honnêtement, je ne suis pas impressionné par cela. Le président Obama a un prix Nobel de la paix. Les personnes qui votent pour les gagnants sont l’élite norvégienne et les politiciens du gouvernement ; ils choisissent tout ce qui est à la mode avec cette clique. Pourtant, les bonnes personnes gagnent grâce à des efforts qui en valent la peine. Henry Kissinger a reçu le prix Nobel de la paix. Imagine ça.
Dès le lendemain, j’ai reçu un avis officiel de mon chef de service m’informant qu’on ne me proposerait pas d’emploi l’année suivante et qu’il devait me prévenir à cette date. Mes folles journées de discussions littéraires gratuites devraient passer à autre chose. J’ai toujours su que je finirais par transmettre de la poésie en tant que professeur dans une « école de haie ».
Mais au fil des années, j’ai vraiment réfléchi à sa réponse à mes paroles : « Il était une fois un homme de Dundalk qui ne savait pas vraiment marcher… » La réponse de Heaney : « C’est la faute des Britanniques, réfléchissez-y » m’a vraiment fait réfléchir à cette réponse. Voulait-il dire que l’homme ne pouvait pas marcher parce qu’il avait été blessé par les soldats britanniques ? Voulait-il dire que l’exploitation britannique à long terme de l’Irlande a conduit la population irlandaise à devenir en grande partie pauvre et incapable de se permettre des soins de santé adéquats ?
Voulait-il dire que les Irlandais imputaient tout aux Britanniques plutôt que d’assumer eux-mêmes leurs responsabilités ? J’y ai pensé de temps en temps au cours des douze années qui se sont écoulées depuis que Heaney les a prononcées.
Je n’ai toujours pas de réponse à Seamus Heaney. Mais il est sur mon étagère, dans la bibliothèque et vivant dans ma mémoire.
“All my life I’ve questioned why I should do something. I had contempt for authority. I would resist it, I would trick it, I would outmaneuver it, I would do anything rather than be treated like a cipher.”
“I am really moved and motivated by things that occur that are unjust. I’ve always hated people trampling on other people.”
—Marlon Brando
April 3 marked 100 years since the birth of actor Marlon Brando in Omaha, Nebraska. He died in July 2004.
Brando was a film and stage actor who enjoyed at certain points immense popular and financial success, but, above all, he was someone who strove for artistic and social truth in everything he did. The conditions, in the postwar American film world in particular, were not often favorable to the level of commitment he demanded of himself and of others. This brought down upon his head much abuse and slander and also—along with a series of personal tragedies—disappointed and wore him down in the end. He truly fell “upon the thorns of life” and bled.
On one of the audiotapes Brando left behind at the time of his death, he explained, “I wanted very much to be involved in motion pictures, so I could change it into something nearer the truth. And I was convinced that I could do that.” (Excerpts from the tapes are presented in Stevan Riley’s remarkable 2015 documentary, Listen To Me Marlon.)
Brando in A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
If Brando did not succeed as he would have liked, if he even took on occasion serious missteps, it was not for a lack of will. No one in postwar American cultural life was more determined to change the prevailing conditions or exhausted him or herself more in that effort. His life and struggle verify once again Marx’s well-known observation that human beings “make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances.”
It is a paradox that Brando was perhaps the finest screen actor of his time, or any time, yet never appeared in a genuine artistic masterpiece. The films he is perhaps best known for, directed by Elia Kazan, A Streetcar Named Desire (1951) and On the Waterfront (1954), are intensely problematic works, artistically and, in the second case, also morally and politically.
Kazan infamously ratted in April 1952 to the House Un-American Activities Committee about his former Communist Party comrades. He directed On the Waterfront to elevate the informer to the status of a social hero. The film concerns a longshoreman who eventually agrees to testify before a crime commission against a local union leadership. In his autobiography, Brando makes the remarkable but no doubt sincere claim that “I did not realize then … that On the Waterfront was really a metaphorical argument” by Kazan and screenwriter Budd Schulberg [also an informer] “to justify finking on their friends.”
Brando also explained in his memoirs that when shown the completed version of On the Waterfront, “I was so depressed by my performance I got up and left the screen room. I thought I was a huge failure.” On another occasion, he explained, “I was so embarrassed, so disappointed in my performance.” In fact, despite its immense notoriety, Brando’s performance is overwrought and, at times, almost a caricature of “Method” acting. Unhappily, Kazan succeeded in communicating something of his own lack of principle, self-pity and intense bad faith through Brando and other performers.
Last Tango in Paris (1972) has interesting moments of Brando revealing something about his own life, but it is a pretentious, dubious work overall. He appeared in two films directed by Francis Ford Coppola, The Godfather (1972) and Apocalypse Now (1979). The former has intriguing and forthright elements, depicting organized crime as a division of American big business. Brando saw the story as being “about the corporate mind, because the Mafia is the best example of capitalists we have” (cited in Stefan Kanfer’s biography, Somebody). However, the film glamorizes and romanticizes the Mafia thugs, also one of Brando’s concerns prior to filming. His portion of Apocalypse Now, a film that includes striking imagery of American military violence and madness during the Vietnam War, sadly, is the work’s weakest and murkiest.
On another of the tapes, the actor later commented bitterly,
I didn’t make any great movies. There’s no such thing as a great movie. In the kingdom of the blind, the man with one eye is the king. There are no artists. We are businessmen, we’re merchants. And there is no art. Agents, lawyers, publicity people. … It’s all bullshit. Money, money, money. If you think it’s about something else, you’re going to be bruised.
Marlon Brando and Christian Brando in Listen to Me Marlon (2015)
Brando involved himself to the best of his power and ability in the civil rights movement, opposition to nuclear arms and the death penalty, the cause of Native Americans. Author James Baldwin recalled that Brando was “totally unconventional and independent, a beautiful cat. Race truly meant nothing to him—he was contemptuous of anyone who discriminated in any way.” The actor himself said, “I’m standing up, not for the black race, I’m standing up for the human race. All men are created equal.”
Notably, when Brando won an Academy Award for The Godfather in March 1973, he sent Native activist Sacheen Littlefeather to take his place and reject the award because of “the treatment of American Indians today by the film industry.” At the time, some 200 Oglala Lakota and followers of the American Indian Movement (AIM) were occupying Wounded Knee, South Dakota, on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. In fact, Brando emerged in the late 1960s in particular as a severe critic of American capitalist society. The FBI had kept him under surveillance since the 1940s.
Two letters to the Los Angeles Times in July 2004, at the time of his death, express something about Brando as a human being and social personality. The late professor Susanne Jonas, a scholar in Latin American studies, explained that in response to an op-ed piece she had written criticizing US actions in Guatemala, Brando “contacted me and initiated an hourlong discussion about the history of U.S. operations there. Outraged at U.S. military training and CIA manuals on killing in Central America, he wanted to understand how it was possible to turn normal American boys into killers and torturers abroad.”
The second Times letter came from one Jon Dosa, who had been the producer of a television talk show in the Bay Area in 1968. Two Black Panther leaders, Bobby Seale and Eldridge Cleaver, had been booked to appear. Brando was accompanying them. “Although his reclusive nature and disdain for public attention was well established by then,” Dosa wrote, “I approached him with the request that he join the two dissidents on the show. He declined the invitation. I said, ‘Of course, you must realize that if you appear, everybody will watch.’ Without any further hesitation, he agreed. … The show got the press’ attention and, of course, everybody watched it.”
Brando grew up in an unhappy family. His father, a salesman, who had his own history of family neglect, “was tough,” according to his son. “He was a bar fighter. He was a man with not much love in him. Staying away from home, drinking and whoring all around the Midwest. He used to slap me around, and for no good reason.”
The actor described his mother, who was an aspiring actress, as “the town drunk. She began to dissolve and fray at the ends. When my mother was missing. Gone off someplace, we didn’t know where she was. I used to have to go and get her out of jail. Memories even now that fill me with shame and anger.”
On one occasion, Brando recalled, “my old man was punching my mother and I went up the stairs and I went in the room. And I had so much adrenaline, and I looked at him and I fucking put my eyes right through him and I said, ‘If you hit her again, I am going to kill you.’”
Brando and sister Jocelyn in The Chase (1966)
Brando was sent to military school, to make “a man of him.” He despised it. “It was a cruel and unusual punishment. The mind of the military has one aim: to be as mechanical as possible. To function like a human machine. Individuality simply did not exist. I had a lot of loneliness.”
At 19, he headed to New York City, eventually coming under the wing of famed acting teacher Stella Adler, whom Brando credited with transforming his life. “I arrived in New York,” he explains on one of his audiotapes, “with holes in my socks and holes in my mind. I remember getting drunk, lying down on the sidewalk and going to sleep. Nobody bothered me. I was always somebody who had an unquenchable curiosity about people. I liked to walk down the street and look at faces.”
Brando brought this “unquenchable curiosity” into his acting. He electrified audiences from his first performances on stage with his naturalness and honesty.
His performances in The Men (1950), A Streetcar Named Desire, Viva Zapata! (1952), Julius Caesar (1953), The Wild One (1953) and On the Waterfront turned him into a film star, an international celebrity, something he was extremely uncomfortable with. He refused to discuss his stardom or his acting with anyone. His children would later learn that questions about his performances only angered him.
Brando represented something meaningful and inspiring for a generation searching for an alternative to deadening Cold War, Eisenhower America. “It was pre-sixties,” he said. “People were looking for rebellion, and I happened to be at the right place at the right time with the right state of mind. In a sense, it was my own story.”
However, Brando quickly encountered the reality of 1950s Hollywood. In the wake of the anticommunist blacklist (which devoured the careers of his mentor Stella Adler’s brother, Luther, and Brando’s own sister, Jocelyn, an actress and a supporter of various left-wing causes), the intense realism of the 1940s had become something dangerous and forbidden. He found himself performing in the mid- and late-1950s in a series of bloated, generally mediocre films (Desirée, Guys and Dolls, The Teahouse of the August Moon, The Young Lions). Brando had become sufficiently discontented by the end of the decade to form his own production company and produced, directed and starred in One-Eyed Jacks (1961), a revenge Western, which has compelling moments.
As we noted in an obituary in 2004, Brando’s “radical social views no doubt influenced his unhappiness with the increasingly conformist character of the film roles he was offered. After sharp disagreements with director Lewis Milestone on Mutiny on the Bounty (1962), during which Milestone claimed Brando used to stuff cotton in his ears so as to block out the director’s instructions, the actor became known as ‘difficult.’”
Burn! (1969)
Brando asserted on one his tapes that Mutiny on the Bounty “was perhaps my very worst experience in making a motion picture. I never want to do that kind of picture again as long as I live.” Certain directors, he argued, “don’t know what the process is. How delicate it is to create an emotional impression. They cover up their sense of inadequacy by being very authoritative, commanding things.” On Mutiny, “There was a great deal of friction, confusion and desperation, disappointment and disgust, there were fist fights.”
Brando hoped for better things with Charlie Chaplin on A Countess From Hong Kong (1967), but that also proved an unsatisfying experience. Released the same year, Reflections in a Golden Eye, based on Carson McCullers, about a repressed homosexual military officer, is another muddy “psychological study,” a Southern Gothic, but at least Brando and director John Huston saw eye to eye.
Huston later told French filmmaker Bertrand Tavernier that it was
a pleasure working with Brando. I was told he was very difficult. On the contrary, he was great. He spent his time trying to deepen his character, trying to find little touches that reinforce the meaning of the film. It would take me hours to say all the good things I think of him. I think he’s the best actor I’ve ever worked with.
And Huston had worked with Humphrey Bogart, Walter Huston, Edward G. Robinson, Sterling Hayden, Jose Ferrer, John Garfield, Gregory Peck, Clark Gable, Montgomery Clift, Kirk Douglas and numerous others.
“Brando has an exceptional power,” he added. “He can take a small detail and make it his own, integrating it as if it were a part of himself.”
In 1969, he featured in Burn! (Queimada), directed by Gillo Pontecorvo (The Battle of Algiers), as a British agent provocateur sent to encourage a slave revolt on a Caribbean island against Portuguese rule. A puppet regime emerges dependent on a British powerful sugar company, and later Brando’s character returns to brutally suppress a second revolt. The Chase (1966), directed by Arthur Penn, is another one of Brando’s more promising film ventures.
The Godfather (1972)
The last decades of Brando’s life, by which time he had grown obese, part of his revolt against his own glamorous image, were not happy ones. But then neither were they for the American cinema—or the American population. Family disaster added to his artistic woes. In 1990, his son shot and killed the boyfriend of his daughter, after she falsely asserted that the latter had abused her. “Misery has come to my house,” he painfully told the media. Brando’s daughter killed herself some years later.
To the end, he remained an enemy of official American society. He could only say about the powers that be: “They lie. Congressmen, presidents, all of them. They lie when they’re alone, they lie when they’re asleep.” We never “see faces without lies anymore, except the dead ones. They’re the true assassins, the true murderers.”
Speaking of the responsibilities of artists, Brando argued that everything “that we do should reflect the atmosphere of our lives. We’re living now in this mad, crazy, murderous world.”
He referred on one of his tapes to
Shakespeare addressing all artists [in Hamlet’s speech to the actors]: Suit the action to the word, the word to the action. … To hold the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time its form and pressure.
There are tragic elements to Brando’s life and career, but he set an example and a high standard of artistic and moral principle. Even many of his mistakes are fascinating and illuminating.
Given Brando’s level of artistic and social steadfastness, it doesn’t seem inappropriate to conclude with the language Mary Shelley used in regard to her husband, the poet Shelley. After his death, she referred to “the eagerness and ardour with which he was attached to the cause of human happiness and improvement.” To purify “life of its misery and its evil was the ruling passion of his soul; he dedicated to it every power of his mind.” Whatever faults he had, she continued, “ought to find extenuation among his fellows, since they prove him to be human.”
The Europeans will never be able to replicate the time-tested Hegemon money laundering machine
The awful shadow of some unseen Power Floats tho’ unseen amongst us, -visiting This various world with as inconstant wing As summer winds that creep from flower to flower.- Like moonbeams that behind some piny mountain shower, It visits with inconstant glance Each human heart and countenance; Like hues and harmonies of evening,- Like clouds in starlight widely spread,- Like memory of music fled,- Like aught that for its grace may be Dear, and yet dearer for its mystery. Shelley, Hymn to Intellectual Beauty
As the de facto North Atlantic Terror Organization celebrates its 75th birthday, taking Lord Ismay’s motto to ever soaring heights (“keep the Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down”), that thick slab of Norwegian wood posing as Secretary-General came up with a merry “initiative” to create a 100 billion euro fund to weaponize Ukraine for the next five years.
Translation, regarding the crucial money front in the NATO-Russia clash: partial exit of the Hegemon – already obsessing with The Next Forever War, against China; enter the motley crew of ragged, de-industrialized European chihuahuas, all in deep debt and most mired in recession.
A few IQs over average room temperature at NATO’s HQ in Haren, in Brussels, had the temerity to wonder how to come up with such a fortune, as NATO has zero leverage to raise money among member states.
After all, the Europeans will never be able to replicate the time-tested Hegemon money laundering machine. For instance, assuming the White House-proposed $60 billion package to Ukraine would be approved by the U.S. Congress – and it won’t – no less than 64% of the total will never reach Kiev: it will be laundered within the industrial-military complex.
Yet it gets even more dystopic: Norwegian Wood, robotic stare, arms flailing, actually believes his proposed move will not imply a direct NATO military presence in Ukraine – or country 404; something that is already a fact on the ground for quite a while, irrespective of the warmongering hissy fits by Le Petit Roi in Paris (Peskov: “Russia-NATO relations have descended into direct confrontation”).
Now couple the Lethal Looney Tunes spectacle along the NATOstan front with the Hegemon’s aircraft carrier performance in West Asia, consistently taking its industrial-scale slaughter/starvation Genocide Project in Gaza to indescribable heights – the meticulously documented holocaust watched in contorted silence by the “leaders” of the Global North.
UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese correctly summed it all up: the biblical psychopathology entity “intentionally killed the WCK workers so that donors would pull out and civilians in Gaza could continue to be starved quietly. Israel knows Western countries and most Arab countries won’t move a finger for the Palestinians.”
The “logic” behind the deliberate three tap strike on the clearly signed humanitarian convoy of famine-alleviating workers in Gaza was to eviscerate from the news an even more horrendous episode: the genocide-within-a-genocide of al-Shifa hospital, responsible for at least 30% of all health services in Gaza. Al-Shifa was bombed, incinerated and had over 400 civilians killed in cold blood, in several cases literally smashed by bulldozers, including medical doctors, patients and dozens of children.
Nearly simultaneously, the biblical psychopathology gang completely eviscerated the Vienna convention – something that even the historical Nazis never did – striking Iran’s consular mission/ambassador’s residence in Damascus.
This was a missile attack on a diplomatic mission, enjoying immunity, on the territory of a third country, against which the gang is not at war. And on top of it, killing General Mohammad Reza Zahedi, commander of the IRGC’s Quds Force in Syria and Lebanon, his deputy Mohammad Hadi Hajizadeh, another five officers, and a total of 10 people.
Translation: an act of terror, against two sovereign states, Syria and Iran. Equivalent to the recent terror attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow.
The inevitable question rings around all corners of the lands of the Global Majority: how can these de facto terrorists possibly get away with all this, over and over again?
The sinews of Liberal Totalitarianism
Four years ago, at the start of what I later qualified as the Raging Twenties, we were beginning to watch the consolidation of an intertwined series of concepts defining a new paradigm. We were becoming familiar with notions such as circuit breaker; negative feedback loop; state of exception; necropolitics; and hybrid neofascism.
As the decade marches on, our plight may at least have been alleviated by a twin glimmer of hope: the drive towards multipolarity, led by the Russia-China strategic partnership, with Iran playing a key part, and all that coupled with the total breakdown, live, of the “rules-based international order”.
Yet to affirm there will be a long and winding road ahead is the Mother of All Euphemisms.
So, to quote Bowie, the ultimate late, great aesthete: Where Are We Now? Let’s take this very sharp analysis by the always engaging Fabio Vighi at Cardiff University and tweak it a little further.
Anyone applying critical thinking to the world around us can feel the collapse of the system. It’s a closed system alright, easily definable as Liberal Totalitarianism. Cui bono? The 0.0001%.
Nothing ideological about that. Follow the money. The defining negative feedback loop is actually the debt loop. A criminally anti-social mechanism kept in place by – what else – a psychopathology, as acute as the one exhibited by the biblical genocidals in West Asia.
The Mechanism is enforced by a triad.
The transnational financial elite, the superstars of the 0.0001%.
Right beneath it, the politico-institutional layer, from the U.S. Congress to the European Commission (EC) in Brussels, as well as comprador elite “leaders” across the Global North and South.
The former “intelligentsia”, now essentially hacks for hire from media to academia.
This institutionalized hyper-mediatization of reality is (italics mine), in fact, The Mechanism.
It’s this mechanism that controlled the merging of the pre-fabricated “pandemic” – complete with hardcore social engineering sold as “humanitarian lockdowns” – into, once again, Forever Wars, from Project Genocide in Gaza to the Russophobia/cancel culture obsession inbuilt in Project Proxy War in Ukraine.
That’s the essence of Totalitarian Normality: the Project for Humanity by the appallingly mediocre, self-appointed Great Reset “elites” of the collective West.
Killing them softly with AI
A key vector of the whole mechanism is the direct, vicious interconnection between a tecno-military euphoria and the hyper-inflationary financial sector, now in thrall with AI.
Enter, for instance, AI models such as ‘Lavender’, tested on the ground in the Gaza killing field lab. Literally: artificial intelligence programming the extermination of humans. And it’s happening, in real time. Call it Project AI Genocide.
Another vector, already experimented, is inbuilt in the indirect assertion by toxic EC Medusa Ursula von der Lugen: essentially, the need to produce weapons as Covid vaccines.
That’s at the core of a plan to use funding of the EU by European taxpayers to “increase financing” of “joint contracts for weapons”. That’s an offspring of von der Lugen’s push to roll out Covid vaccines – a gigantic Pfizer-linked scam for which she is about to be investigated and arguably exposed by the EU’s Public Prosecutor Office. In her own words, addressing the proposed weapons scam: “We did this for vaccines and gas.”
Call it Weaponization of Social Engineering 2.0.
Amidst all the action in this vast corruption swamp, the Hegemon agenda remains quite blatant: to keep its – dwindling – predominantly thalassocratic, military hegemony, no matter what, as the basis for its financial hegemony; protect the U.S. dollar; and protect those unmeasurable, unpayable debts in U.S. dollars.
And that brings us to the tawdry economic model of turbo-capitalism, as sold by collective West media hacks: the debt loop, virtual money, borrowed non-stop to deal with “autocrat” Putin and “Russian aggression”. That’s a key by-product of Michael Hudson’s searing analysis of the FIRE (Finance-Insurance-Real Estate) syndrome.
Ouroboros intervenes: the serpent bites its own tail. Now the inherent folly of The Mechanism is inevitably leading casino capitalism to resort to barbarism. Undiluted savagery – of the Crocus City Hall kind and of the Project Gaza Genocide kind.
And that’s how The Mechanism engenders institutions – from Washington to Brussels to hubs across the Global North to genocidal Tel Aviv – stripped down to the status of psychotic killers, at the mercy of Big Finance/FIRE (oh, such fabulous seafront real estate opportunities available in “vacant” Gaza.)
How can we possibly escape such folly? Will we have the will and the discipline to follow Shelley’s vision and, in “this dim vast vale of tears”, summon the transcending Spirit of Beauty – and harmony, equanimity and justice?
Over 13,000 children have been killed in Gaza. Amr Abdallah was one of them.
• 1,500 WORDS •
Amr Abdallah
On the morning Amr Abdallah was killed, he woke before dawn to say his Ramadan prayers with his father, mother, two younger brothers and aunt, in an open field in southern Gaza.
“It is You we worship and You we ask for help,” they prayed. “Guide us to the straight path — the path of those upon whom You have bestowed favor, not of those who have evoked Your anger or of those who are astray.”
It was dark. They made their way back to their tents. Their old life was gone — their village, Al-Qarara, their house — built with the money Amr’s father saved during the 30 years he worked in the Persian Gulf — their orchards, their school, the local mosque and the town’s cultural museum with artifacts dating from 4,000 B.C.
Amr, who was 17, would have graduated from high school this year. The schools were closed in November. He would have gone to college, perhaps to be an engineer like his father, who was a prominent community leader. Amr was a gifted student. Now he lived in a tent in a designated “safe area” that, as he and his family already knew, was not safe. It was shelled sporadically by the Israelis.
It was cold and rainy. The family huddled together to keep warm. Hunger wrapped itself around them like a coil.
“When you say ‘Amr’ it’s like you’re talking about the moon,” his uncle, Abdulbaset Abdallah, who lives in New Jersey, tells me. “He was the special one, handsome, brilliant, and kind.”
Amr in Gaza
The Israeli attacks began in northern Gaza. Then they spread south. On the morning of Friday, Dec. 1, Israeli drones dropped leaflets over Amr’s village.
“To the inhabitants of al-Qarara, Khirbet al-Khuza’a, Absan and Bani Soheila,” the leaflets read. “You must evacuate immediately and go to shelters in the Rafah area. The city of Khan Yunis is a dangerous combat zone. You have been warned. Signed by the Israeli Defense Army.”
One of the leaflets dropped over Amr’s village
Families in Gaza live together. Whole generations. This is why dozens of family members are killed in a single air strike. Amr grew up surrounded by uncles, aunts and cousins.
The villagers panicked. Some began to pack. Some refused to leave.
One of Amr’s uncles was adamant. He would stay behind while the family would go to the “safe area.” His son was a physician at Nasser Hospital. Amr’s cousin left the hospital to plead with his father to leave. Moments after he and his father fled, their street was bombed.
Amr and his family moved in with relatives in Khan Yunis. A few days later more leaflets were dropped. Everyone was told to go to Rafah.
Amr’s family, now joined by relatives from Khan Yunis, fled to Rafah.
Rafah was a nightmare. Desperate Palestinians were living in the open air and on streets. There was little food or water. The family slept in their car. It was cold and rainy. They did not have blankets. They looked desperately for a tent. There were no tents. They found an old sheet of plastic, which they attached to the back of the car to make a protected area. There were no bathrooms. People relieved themselves on the side of the road. The stench was overpowering.
They had been displaced twice in the span of a week.
Amr’s father, who has diabetes and high blood pressure, fell sick. The family took him to the European Hospital near Khan Yunis. The doctor told him he was ill because he was not eating enough.
“We can’t handle your case,” the doctor told him. “There are more critical cases.”
“He had a beautiful house,” Abdallah says of his older brother. “Now he is homeless. He knew everyone in his hometown. Now he lives on the street with crowds of strangers. No one has enough to eat. There is no clean water. There are no proper facilities or bathrooms.”
The family decided to move again to al-Mawasi, designated a “humanitarian area” by Israel. They would at least be in open land, some of which belonged to their family. The coastal area, filled with dunes, now holds some 380,000 displaced Palestinians. The Israelis promised the delivery of international humanitarian aid to al-Mawasi, little of which arrived. Water has to be trucked in. There is no electricity.
Israeli warplanes hit a residential compound in al-Mawasi in January where medical teams and their families from the International Rescue Committee and Medical Aid for Palestinians were housed. Several were injured. An Israeli tank fired on a house in al-Mawasi where staff from Médecins Sans Frontières and their families were sheltering in February, killing two and injuring six.
Amr’s family set up two makeshift tents with palm tree leaves and sheets of plastic. Israeli drones circled overhead night and day.
On the day before he was killed, Amr managed to get a phone connection — telecommunications are often cut — to speak to his sister in Canada.
“Please get us out of here,” he pleaded.
The Egyptian firm Hala, which means “Welcome” in Arabic, provided travel permits for Gazans to enter Egypt for $350, before the Israeli assault. Since the genocide began, the firm has raised the price to $5,000 for an adult and $2,500 for a child. It has sometimes charged as much as $10,000 for a travel permit.
Hala has offices in Cairo and Rafah. Once the money is paid — Hala only accepts U.S. dollars — the name of the applicant is submitted to Egyptian authorities. It can take weeks to get a permit. It would cost around $25,000 to get Amr’s family out of Gaza, double that if they included his widowed aunt and three cousins. This was not a sum Amr’s relatives abroad could raise quickly. They set up a GoFundMe page here. They are still trying to collect enough money.
Once Palestinians get to Egypt, the permits expire within a month. Most of the Palestinian refugees in Egypt survive on money sent to them from abroad.
Amr awoke in the dark. It was the first Friday of Ramadan. He joined his family in the morning prayer. The Fajr. It was 5 a.m.
Muslims fast in the day during the month of Ramadan. They eat and drink once the sun goes down and shortly before dawn. But food was now in very short supply. A little olive oil. The spice za’atar. It was not much.
They went back to their tents after prayers. Amr was in the tent with his aunt and three cousins. A shell exploded near the tent. Shrapnel tore apart his aunt’s leg and critically injured his cousins. Amr frantically tried to help them. A second shell exploded. Shrapnel ripped through Amr’s stomach and exited from his back.
Amr stood up. He walked out of the tent. He collapsed. Older cousins ran towards him. They had enough gas in their car — fuel is in very short supply — to drive Amr to Nasser Hospital, three miles away.
“Amr, are you okay?” his cousins asked.
“Yes,” he moaned.
“Amr, are you awake?” they asked after a few minutes
“Yes,” he whispered.
They lifted him from the car. They carried him into the overcrowded corridors of the hospital. They set him down.
He was dead.
Amr in death
They carried Amr’s body back to the car. They drove to the family’s encampment.
Amr’s uncle shows me a video of Amr’s mother keening over his corpse.
“My son, my son, my beloved son,” she laments in the video, her left hand tenderly stroking his face. “I don’t know what I will do without you.”
They buried Amr in a makeshift grave.
Amr’s Burial
Later that night the Israelis shelled again. Several Palestinians were wounded and killed.
The empty tent, occupied the day before by Amr’s family, was obliterated.
#News#RFKjr Wins Radical Liberal Support – Prominent independent pundit stuns co-host by saying he’s considering RFK Jr. for president – by Gabriel Hays (Fox) During a recent episode of political web show “The Young Turks,” co-host Cenk Uygur admitted that he is considering voting for independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., slamming President Biden and the Democratic Party for being anti-democracy.
Prior to his announcement, Uygur discussed why he agreed with the candidate’s recent headline-grabbing claims insisting that it could be argued that Biden is a “much worse” threat to democracy than former President Trump.
Kennedy claimed that the Biden administration is “worse” than Trump because it has pushed social media companies to censor certain opinions, especially during the pandemic, among other reasons.
Uygur supported this notion, though he claimed Biden and the DNC were anti-Democratic for reasons different than Kennedy gave, saying that Biden and his party members “love to rig” elections.
“He’s right to be concerned about Biden being a threat to democracy himself, maybe not for the reasons that he’s stating, but Biden did, you know, support anti-Democratic movements within the primary,” Uygur said.
He continued, “The Democratic Party canceled the election in Florida. They tried to keep out every candidate in North Carolina, Tennessee, et cetera. So, they love to rig elections.”
Slamming the media, he added, “Yes, I used the word rigged, OK? So, you can go cry about it if you’re mainstream media. How about you do your job and talk about how they canceled an election in Florida in the primary and just declared Biden the winner.”
Uygur also claimed that the “establishment in a of lot ways has killed democracy long before Donald Trump tried to,” explaining that this has happened through wealthy donors influencing most of the policy in America.” He also slammed both major parties for using “fear” to get votes.
He was critical of Kennedy, too, accusing him of trying to pander to both Republicans and Democrats in his campaign, but went on to say he’s currently considering voting for the independent.
Uygur declared, “The most surprising thing is, for the first time today, I’m now considering RFK, Jr.”
Co-host Ana Kasparian appeared stunned by the announcement, exclaiming, “What?!” on air.
Uygur attempted to explain it to her, granting that the candidate is “cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs on vaccines. And on several other things where he believes in conspiratorial theories that I don’t believe in at all.”
“So why on God’s green Earth would I consider RFK, Jr.?” he asked, and then said, “But I thought about it, Ana, and Trump I would never support in a million years, Biden is now funding a genocide and is an awful choice, has been corrupt his whole life. A totally — you’re never going to get anything but corruption from Joe Biden.”
His main rationale was that he doesn’t believe Kennedy would be worse than Biden on major issues.
“So am I positive RFK Jr. would be worse?” Uygur asked, adding, “He would probably — on health and science, definitely he would be worse… But on everything else, like anti-establishment, money out of politics… I’m not positive RFK Jr. would be worse than Biden.”
Американская левая организация «Социалистическая альтернатива», которая в прошлом поддерживала «независимого» сенатора США-социалиста Берни Сандерса как «левое крыло возможного» в 2016 и 2020 годах, теперь переходит к поддержке президентской кампании левого овода академика Корнела Уэста в Выборы 2024 года.
Социалистическая альтернатива
Совсем недавно в статье, опубликованной в прошлом месяце на его веб-сайте под заголовком «Двухпартийная система убивает нас — можем ли мы построить альтернативу?» «Социалистическая альтернатива» указывает на недавно сформированную партию Уэста «Справедливость для всех» как на потенциальную «массовую левую партию рабочего класса». На самом деле партия «Справедливость для всех» лишена какой-либо четкой политической программы и была создана в первую очередь как средство, позволяющее Западу получить статус избирательного бюллетеня.
Корнел Уэст
«Социалистическая альтернатива» впервые заявила о своей поддержке Запада в прошлом году, когда бывший демократ и бывший член Демократических социалистов Америки добивался выдвижения на пост президента от Партии зеленых — после первоначального объявления, что он будет добиваться выдвижения от Народной партии, что было политической операцией. созданный бывшими сторонниками Сандерса. Позже Уэст отказался от участия в выборах Партии зеленых и заявил, что баллотируется как независимый кандидат. Ни одно из этих политических колебаний не остановило «Социалистическую Альтернативу».
16 июня 2023 года Исполнительный комитет «Социалистической альтернативы» приветствовал кампанию Уэста, заявив, что его «кандидатура потенциально может предложить крайне необходимую левую альтернативу для трудящихся и угнетённых». В этом заявлении было не менее 15 отдельных упоминаний Берни Сандерса. Исполнительный комитет посетовал:
Лояльность Сандерса и «Отряда» к Демократической партии использовалась для жестоких нападок на рабочих, включая блокирование забастовки железнодорожников, и это глубоко подорвало способность организовывать движения трудящихся, растрачивая импульс Берни совершил «политическую революцию» своей кампании против класса миллиардеров.
В августе «Социалистическая альтернатива» объявила о кампании «Студенты за Корнел Уэст», написав: «Нам нужны системные изменения, и кампания Корнела Уэста дает нам возможность дать отпор. … Чтобы быть эффективной, нам нужно, чтобы кампания Корнела Уэста носила массовый характер. Молодые люди призваны сыграть центральную роль в создании первоначального импульса на низовом уровне, который может привлечь все больше и больше людей, жаждущих перемен». С тех пор «Социалистическая альтернатива» проводила кампанию за Уэста во всех кампусах, где она действовала. Некоторые рассматривают эту деятельность как способ связаться с общественностью через имя, которое они могут узнать, а затем склонить ее на свою точку зрения, просто используя кампанию Корнела Уэста в своих целях.
В ноябрьской статье «Социалистическая альтернатива» выразила обеспокоенность по поводу «левых и прогрессивных избирателей, которые устали от ложных обещаний демократов» и призвала Запад «шагнуть в пустоту», вызванную вероятными предстоящими выборами между двумя широко презираемыми кандидатами. , Трамп и «геноцид Джо».
Поддержка организацией кампании Запада как «левой, прорабочей» оппозиции демократам и республиканцам является своего рода принятием желаемого за действительное. Уэст – исполнитель левого толка.
Политический послужной список Корнела Уэста
Демократическая партия в настоящее время ведет «тотальную войну» с третьими партиями и независимыми кандидатами, в том числе с предвыборной кампанией Запада, стремясь помешать им получить статус избирательного бюллетеня. Однако это не означает, что Запад представляет собой настоящий вызов двухпартийной системе.
Любой серьезный пересмотр послужного списка Уэста одновременно подорвет способность его кампании удерживать этот огромный гнев привязанным к тупику капиталистической политики и покажет «Социалистическую Альтернативу» как пустую политическую организацию, которая просто цепляется за левое крыло левого крыла демократов.
Уэст потратил десятилетия на продвижение и поддержку политиков-демократов. Он присоединился к радикальной либеральной партии Демократических социалистов Америки (DSA) в 1980-х годах и был ее почетным председателем. Он проводил кампанию за Джесси Джексона в 1980-х годах и поддержал кампанию Барака Обамы в 2008 году, прежде чем подверг критике после выборов.
Демократические социалисты Америки
Уэст выступил с ограниченной критикой Демократической партии, назвав Обаму «черным талисманом олигархов Уолл-стрит». Уэст, как и «Социалистическая альтернатива», участвовал в политическом цирке, известном как Народная партия, сформированном в 2017 году на основе давления на Сандерса с целью создания новой партии. И «Запад», и «Социалистическая альтернатива» также поддержали президентские кампании Сандерса.
Джилл Стейн
В 2016 году «Запад» и «Социалистическая альтернатива» перешли на поддержку кандидата от Партии зеленых Джилл Стайн после того, как Сандерс поддержал Клинтон. В 2020 году их пути разошлись: Уэст призвал проголосовать за Байдена на всеобщих выборах. Социалистическая альтернатива поддержала соучредителя Партии зеленых и кандидата в президенты 2020 года Хоуи Хокинса.
Хауи Хокинс
Партия зеленых действует как группа давления, ориентированная на последние причуды части политического и академического класса и предлагающая причудливые антинаучные решения многих проблем. Зеленые также демонстрируют эмоциональный триггер, который толкает их к жестокому разжиганию войны.
Если и есть какая-то последовательная нить в переходе Уэста от одного политического альянса к другому, то это его расплывчатый реформизм, разрушающий дом. В своей книге «Американское уклонение от философии: генеалогия прагматизма» Уэст подробно излагает обыденный список мелких изменений, направленных на создание «лучшего мира». Рорти, у которого Уэст учился в Принстоне в начале 1970-х годов. Прагматизм имеет различные разновидности, все они вращаются вокруг отрицания возможности объективной истины и связанного с этим неприятия истории как закономерного процесса, в котором закономерности можно наблюдать и изменять. В своих современных формах и особенно в трудах Рорти прагматизм направлен явно против вмешательства в социальную жизнь с целью изменения хода событий к лучшему для большинства людей.
Прагматический подход Корнела Уэста к политике и теории влечет за собой эклектическую смесь чернокожих националистов, расовой политики и политики идентичности, которую он сочетает с открыто религиозными и иррационалистическими концепциями.
L’organisation de gauche américaine Socialist Alternative, qui dans le passé a soutenu le sénateur socialiste américain « indépendant » Bernie Sanders en tant qu’« aile gauche du possible » en 2016 et 2020, s’apprête désormais à soutenir la campagne présidentielle de l’universitaire de gauche Cornel West aux élections présidentielles. Élections de 2024.
Alternative socialiste
Plus récemment, dans un article publié le mois dernier sur son site Internet intitulé « Le système bipartite nous tue : pouvons-nous construire une alternative ? Socialist Alternative désigne le parti « Justice pour tous » récemment formé par West comme un potentiel « parti de masse de la gauche de la classe ouvrière ». En réalité, le parti Justice pour tous est dépourvu de tout programme politique clair et a été créé principalement pour permettre à l’Occident d’obtenir le statut de électeur.
Cornel West Socialist Alternative a déclaré pour la première fois son soutien à West l’année dernière, lorsque l’ancien démocrate et ancien membre des Socialistes démocrates d’Amérique briguait l’investiture présidentielle du Parti vert – après avoir initialement annoncé qu’il solliciterait l’investiture du Parti populaire, une opération politique mis en place par d’anciens partisans de Sanders. West s’est ensuite retiré de la course du Parti Vert et a déclaré qu’il se présentait comme indépendant. Aucune de ces girations politiques n’a fait réfléchir l’Alternative Socialiste.
Le 16 juin 2023, le Comité exécutif de Socialist Alternative a salué la campagne de West, déclarant que sa « candidature a le potentiel d’offrir une alternative de gauche cruellement nécessaire aux travailleurs et aux opprimés ». Dans cette déclaration, il n’y avait pas moins de 15 références distinctes à Bernie Sanders. Le Comité Exécutif a déploré :
La loyauté de Sanders et de la « Squad » envers le Parti démocrate a été utilisée au service d’attaques brutales contre les travailleurs, y compris le blocage de la grève des cheminots, et elle a profondément sapé la capacité d’organiser les mouvements des travailleurs, dilapidant l’élan. Bernie a généré avec sa campagne une « révolution politique » contre la classe milliardaire.
En août, Socialist Alternative a annoncé une campagne « Les étudiants pour Cornel West », écrivant : « Nous avons besoin d’un changement systémique, et la campagne de Cornel West nous offre l’opportunité de riposter. … Pour être efficace, nous avons besoin que la campagne de Cornel West ait un caractère populaire et de masse. Les jeunes ont un rôle central à jouer dans la création de l’élan initial de la base qui peut attirer des couches de plus en plus nombreuses de personnes avides de changement. Depuis lors, Socialist Alternative a fait campagne pour l’Ouest sur tous les campus où elle est active. Certains voient cette activité comme un moyen de se connecter avec le public à travers un nom qu’ils peuvent reconnaître, puis de l’amener à adopter leur propre point de vue en utilisant simplement la campagne de Cornel West à leurs propres fins.
Dans un article de novembre, Socialist Alternative a fait part de ses inquiétudes concernant « les électeurs de gauche et progressistes qui en ont assez des fausses promesses des démocrates » et a appelé l’Ouest à « entrer dans le vide » causé par les probables élections à venir entre deux candidats largement méprisés. , Trump et « le génocide Joe ».
Le soutien de l’organisation à la campagne occidentale en tant qu’opposition « de gauche et pro-travailleurs » aux démocrates et aux républicains est une sorte de vœu pieux. West est un artiste à saveur de gauche.
Le bilan politique de Cornel West
Le Parti démocrate mène actuellement une « guerre totale » contre les partis tiers et les candidats indépendants, y compris ceux de campagne de l’Ouest, dans le but de les empêcher d’obtenir le droit de vote. Cela ne signifie cependant pas que l’Ouest représente un véritable défi pour le système bipartite.
Tout examen sérieux du bilan de West réduirait à la fois la capacité de sa campagne à maintenir cette immense colère liée à l’impasse de la politique capitaliste et présenterait l’Alternative socialiste comme une organisation politique vide qui s’accroche simplement à l’aile gauche des démocrates.
West a passé des décennies à promouvoir et à soutenir les politiciens démocrates. Il a rejoint le parti radical libéral Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) dans les années 1980 et en a été le président honoraire. Il a fait campagne pour Jesse Jackson dans les années 1980 et a soutenu la campagne de Barack Obama en 2008 avant de susciter des critiques après les élections.
Socialistes démocrates d’Amérique
West a émis des critiques limitées à l’égard du Parti démocrate, qualifiant Obama de « mascotte noire des oligarques de Wall Street ». West, ainsi que Socialist Alternative, ont participé au cirque politique connu sous le nom de Parti populaire, formé en 2017 sur la base de pressions exercées sur Sanders pour qu’il lance un nouveau parti. West et Socialist Alternative ont également soutenu les campagnes présidentielles de Sanders.
Jill Stein
En 2016, West et Socialist Alternative ont décidé de soutenir la candidate du Parti vert, Jill Stein, après que Sanders ait soutenu Clinton. En 2020, ils se sont séparés, West appelant à voter pour Biden aux élections générales. Howie Hawkins, co-fondateur du Parti vert et candidat à la présidentielle de 2020, soutenu par Socialist Alternative.
Howie Hawkins
Le Parti Vert fonctionne comme un groupe de pression orienté vers les dernières modes d’un segment de la classe politique et universitaire avec des solutions anti-scientifiques bizarres à de nombreux problèmes. Les Verts font également preuve d’un déclencheur émotionnel qui les pousse à un bellicisme vicieux.
S’il y a un fil conducteur dans la transition de West d’une alliance politique à une autre, c’est bien son vague réformisme brisé. Dans son livre The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism, West dresse explicitement une longue liste de changements mineurs visant à instaurer un « monde meilleur ». La philosophie de West appartient à l’école du pragmatisme américain telle qu’elle a été développée notamment par Richard. Rorty, avec qui West a étudié à Princeton au début des années 1970. Le pragmatisme a différentes variétés, toutes tournant autour d’un déni de la possibilité d’une vérité objective et, lié à cela, d’un rejet de l’histoire en tant que processus régi par des lois dans lequel des modèles peuvent être observés et modifiés. Dans ses formes modernes et en particulier dans les écrits de Rorty, le pragmatisme s’oppose explicitement à toute intervention dans la vie sociale visant à changer le cours des événements pour le mieux pour la plupart des gens.
L’approche pragmatique de Cornel West en matière de politique et de théorie implique un mélange éclectique de politiques nationalistes noires, raciales et identitaires, qu’il combine avec des conceptions ouvertement religieuses et irrationalistes.
The American left organization Socialist Alternative, which in the past supported “independent” socialist US Senator Bernie Sanders as the ”left wing of the possible” in 2016 and 2020, is now moving to back the presidential campaign of leftist gadfly academic Cornel West in the 2024 elections.
Socialist Alternative
Most recently, in an article published last month on its website headlined, “The Two-Party System Is Killing Us—Can We Build An Alternative?” Socialist Alternative points to West’s recently formed “Justice for All” party as a potential “mass working-class left party.” In reality, the Justice for All party is devoid of any clear political program and was established primarily as a vehicle for West to obtain ballot status.
Cornel West
Socialist Alternative first declared its support for West last year, when the former Democrat and former member of the Democratic Socialists of America was seeking the presidential nomination of the Green Party—after initially announcing he would seek the nomination of the Peoples Party, a political operation set up by former Sanders supporters. West later bowed out of the Green Party contest and said he was running as an independent. None of these political gyrations have given pause to Socialist Alternative.
On June 16, 2023, the Socialist Alternative Executive Committee hailed West’s campaign, declaring that his “candidacy has the potential to offer a sorely needed left alternative for working people and the oppressed.” In that statement, there were no less than 15 separate references to Bernie Sanders. The Executive Committee lamented:
The loyalty of Sanders and the “Squad” to the Democratic Party has been used in service of vicious attacks on workers, including the blocking of the railroad workers strike, and it has profoundly undercut the ability to organize movements of working people, squandering the momentum Bernie generated with his campaign’s “political revolution” against the billionaire class.
In August, Socialist Alternative announced a “Students for Cornel West” campaign, writing, “We need systemic change, and Cornel West’s campaign offers us an opportunity to fight back. … To be effective, we need Cornel West’s campaign to have a mass grassroots character. Young people have a central role to play in building the initial grassroots momentum that can draw in larger and larger layers of people hungry for change.” Socialist Alternative has since campaigned for West on every campus where it has been active. Some see the activity as a way to connect with the public through a name they may recognize and then sway them over to their own point of view simply using Cornel West’s campaign for their own ends.
In an article from November, Socialist Alternative raised concerns about “left and progressive voters who are sick and tired of the Democrats’ false promises” and called for West to “step into the void” caused by the likely upcoming election between two widely despised candidates, Trump and “genocide Joe.”
The organization’s support of the West campaign as a “left-wing, pro-worker” opposition to the Democrats and Republicans is a kind of wishful thinking. West is a left flavored performer.
The political record of Cornel West
The Democratic Party is currently waging an “all-out war” on third parties and independent candidates, including the West campaign, in an effort to keep them from getting ballot status. This does not, however, mean that West represents a genuine challenge to the two-party system.
Any serious review of West’s record would both undercut the ability of his campaign to keep this immense anger tied to the dead-end of capitalist politics and show Socialist Alternative as an empty political organization that simply latches onto the leftwing of the leftwing of the Democrats.
West has spent decades promoting and endorsing Democratic politicians. He joined the radical liberal Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in the 1980s and served as its honorary chair. He campaigned for Jesse Jackson in the 1980s, and endorsed Barack Obama’s 2008 campaign before raising criticisms following the election.
Democratic Socialists of America
West has made limited criticism of the Democratic Party, calling Obama “a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs.” West, as well as Socialist Alternative, participated in the political circus known as the People’s Party, formed in 2017 on the basis of pressuring Sanders to launch a new party. Both West and Socialist Alternative also backed Sanders’ presidential campaigns.
Jill Stein
In 2016 West and Socialist Alternative switched to supporting Green Party candidate Jill Stein after Sanders endorsed Clinton. In 2020, they went separate ways, with West calling for a vote for Biden in the general election. Socialist Alternative backed Green Party co-founder and 2020 presidential candidate Howie Hawkins.
Howie Hawkins
The Green Party operates as a pressure group oriented toward the latest fads of a segment of the political and academic class with bizarre anti-science solutions to many problems. Greens also exhibit an emotional trigger that propels them to vicious warmongering.
If there is any consistent thread in West’s transition from one political alliance to another, it is his vague house broken reformism. In his book The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism, West explicitly outlines a pedestrian laundry list of minor changes to bring about a ‘better world.’ West’s philosophy belongs to the school of American pragmatism as it was developed in particular by Richard Rorty, with whom West studied while at Princeton in the early 1970s. Pragmatism has different varieties, all revolving around a denial of the possibility of objective truth, and, bound up with this, a rejection of history as a law-governed process where patterns can be observed and changed. In its modern forms and especially in the writings of Rorty, pragmatism is directed explicitly against intervention into social life to change the course of events for the better for most people.
Cornel West’s pragmatic approach to politics and theory entails an eclectic mixture of Black nationalist, racial and identity politics, which he combines with openly religious and irrationalist conceptions.
Last week, a United Nations Security Council resolution to extend the mandate for the UN Panel of Experts on DPRK sanctions was vetoed by the Russian Federation, effectively disbanding the primary enforcement mechanism for the nine rounds of sanctions that have been imposed on the DPRK since 2006, in response to their repeated nuclear and ICBM tests.
On October 9th, 2006, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) conducted their first successful test of a nuclear weapon. In response to this, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed resolution 1718, condemning the DPRK for the test, and imposing a harsh regime of sanctions on the regime. Subsequent to a second test on May 25, 2009, they unanimously passed resolution 1874, which tightened the sanctions regime significantly and established a “Panel of Experts” to “gather, examine and analyze information…regarding the implementation of the measures imposed”, for an initial period of one year. As more and more sanctions resolutions were passed in response to further nuclear and ICBM tests, the mandate for this Panel of Experts was unanimously extended each year until last week.
Leading up to the vote, China and Russia had proposed a compromise to extend the mandate of the Panel of Experts for one year, conditional on adding a sunset clause to the sanctions regime, as the Chinese delegate said “Sanctions should not be set in stone or be indefinite”. The Russian delegate argued that the situation in Korea had changed enormously since 2006, and that continuing the sanctions in the name of preventing the DPRK from becoming a nuclear power was “losing its relevance” and was “detached from reality”.
It is rather ironic that the United States and its allies have been criticizing the Russia veto of an otherwise unanimous Security Council resolution as destabilizing, given that the US routinely uses its own veto power, as most followers of this site are well aware. This Russian application of its veto power has been described as a crisis for the “broader functioning of the UN Security Council and the post World War II international order”, even though it is completely obvious that we would have used our veto against any Russian or Chinese resolution to relax or discontinue the sanctions regime.
Given that the United States government has never been subtle about its desire for regime change in North Korea, and has refused to take first use of nuclear weapons by the United States off the table in the event of war with the DPRK, Kim Jong Un’s rationale is quite compelling. I certainly had no counterargument.
One must remember that the number one goal for the North Korean regime is their own survival, and Kim Jong Un’s strategic decisions (like those of any other political leader) should be evaluated in that context – obviously his priority is to stay alive and keep his job! With that in mind, the continued pursuit of a nuclear deterrent seems like the most rational option. Of course he wants a better life for his people, and relief from economic sanctions, but not at the cost of risking the regime’s collapse.
This was not an isolated incident either, as the US has a long history of breaking negotiated deals with rival nations. In 1994, Bill Clinton negotiated the “Agreed Framework” in which the DPRK would shut down their graphite-moderated nuclear reactors, to be replaced with light water reactors (LWRs) to be provided by the US, with supplies of heavy oil being provided to them to provide energy in the interim. George W. Bush then slow-walked providing the LWRs and stopped the shipments of fuel oil, leading the DPRK to restart the reactors to supply energy to their people.
No wonder they feel the need for a nuclear deterrent when our policy changes so dramatically every four years, making any negotiations effectively pointless. As Kim Jong Un told us, the DPRK policy is always consistent, but the US changes all the time, adding that if they don’t like what is happening, they just wait four years. After we brought a team of NBA players to Pyongyang in 2014, he further remarked that in doing so, we were the first Americans who ever kept their word. No wonder they don’t trust any security guarantees the US has offered them.
Sanctions have been referred to as war by other means (with apologies to Clausewitz), and the US now has sanctions in place against more than 20 countries across Europe, Asia, Africa and Latin America. The most comprehensive sanctions are currently imposed against Russia, Iran, North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela, with sanctions against China growing at an alarming rate. At the same time, the Chinese Yuan is being used increasingly for international trade instead of the US dollar as a result of sanctions prohibiting many countries from using the US financial system.
Is it perhaps more rational to imagine that our overuse of economic sanctions will inevitably create trading blocs and alliances among the countries subjected to them? Iran, Russia, China, and the DPRK have plenty of reasons to dislike one another. China and Russia have had a complex hostile relationship for centuries, with Chairman Mao seeking a better relationship with the US partially because he feared a Soviet invasion. Both China and Russia repeatedly voted in favor of all the sanctions imposed on the DPRK since 2006, because they did not want a nuclear North Korea in their backyard. Iran and Russia have a long history of tensions, as do Iran and China. And Iran and DPRK have only worked together in a partnership of convenience for the last 35 years because of their shared status as pariahs in the eyes of the USA.
Despite the historical tensions between Iran, Russia, China, and DPRK, the sanctions regime has forced these countries into an alliance and trading bloc of convenience, and the US has nobody to blame but themselves. It should surprise nobody that China and Russia want to get the UN out of the DPRK sanctions business. That Russia finally vetoed the continuing mandate for the Panel of Experts should come as no surprise – the only surprise is that it took them 18 years to get there.
The Israeli army has marked tens of thousands of Gazans as suspects for assassination, using an AI targeting system with little human oversight and a permissive policy for casualties, +972 and Local Call reveal.
In 2021, a book titled “The Human-Machine Team: How to Create Synergy Between Human and Artificial Intelligence That Will Revolutionize Our World” was released in English under the pen name “Brigadier General Y.S.” In it, the author — a man who we confirmed to be the current commander of the elite Israeli intelligence unit 8200 — makes the case for designing a special machine that could rapidly process massive amounts of data to generate thousands of potential “targets” for military strikes in the heat of a war. Such technology, he writes, would resolve what he described as a “human bottleneck for both locating the new targets and decision-making to approve the targets.”
Such a machine, it turns out, actually exists. A new investigation by +972 Magazine and Local Call reveals that the Israeli army has developed an artificial intelligence-based program known as “Lavender,” unveiled here for the first time. According to six Israeli intelligence officers, who have all served in the army during the current war on the Gaza Strip and had first-hand involvement with the use of AI to generate targets for assassination, Lavender has played a central role in the unprecedented bombing of Palestinians, especially during the early stages of the war. In fact, according to the sources, its influence on the military’s operations was such that they essentially treated the outputs of the AI machine “as if it were a human decision.”
Formally, the Lavender system is designed to mark all suspected operatives in the military wings of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), including low-ranking ones, as potential bombing targets. The sources told +972 and Local Call that, during the first weeks of the war, the army almost completely relied on Lavender, which clocked as many as 37,000 Palestinians as suspected militants — and their homes — for possible air strikes.
During the early stages of the war, the army gave sweeping approval for officers to adopt Lavender’s kill lists, with no requirement to thoroughly check why the machine made those choices or to examine the raw intelligence data on which they were based. One source stated that human personnel often served only as a “rubber stamp” for the machine’s decisions, adding that, normally, they would personally devote only about “20 seconds” to each target before authorizing a bombing — just to make sure the Lavender-marked target is male. This was despite knowing that the system makes what are regarded as “errors” in approximately 10 percent of cases, and is known to occasionally mark individuals who have merely a loose connection to militant groups, or no connection at all.
Moreover, the Israeli army systematically attacked the targeted individuals while they were in their homes — usually at night while their whole families were present — rather than during the course of military activity. According to the sources, this was because, from what they regarded as an intelligence standpoint, it was easier to locate the individuals in their private houses. Additional automated systems, including one called “Where’s Daddy?” also revealed here for the first time, were used specifically to track the targeted individuals and carry out bombings when they had entered their family’s residences.
The result, as the sources testified, is that thousands of Palestinians — most of them women and children or people who were not involved in the fighting — were wiped out by Israeli airstrikes, especially during the first weeks of the war, because of the AI program’s decisions.
“We were not interested in killing [Hamas] operatives only when they were in a military building or engaged in a military activity,” A., an intelligence officer, told +972 and Local Call. “On the contrary, the IDF bombed them in homes without hesitation, as a first option. It’s much easier to bomb a family’s home. The system is built to look for them in these situations.”
The Lavender machine joins another AI system, “The Gospel,” about which information was revealed in a previous investigation by +972 and Local Call in November 2023, as well as in the Israeli military’s own publications. A fundamental difference between the two systems is in the definition of the target: whereas The Gospel marks buildings and structures that the army claims militants operate from, Lavender marks people — and puts them on a kill list.
In addition, according to the sources, when it came to targeting alleged junior militants marked by Lavender, the army preferred to only use unguided missiles, commonly known as “dumb” bombs (in contrast to “smart” precision bombs), which can destroy entire buildings on top of their occupants and cause significant casualties. “You don’t want to waste expensive bombs on unimportant people — it’s very expensive for the country and there’s a shortage [of those bombs],” said C., one of the intelligence officers. Another source said that they had personally authorized the bombing of “hundreds” of private homes of alleged junior operatives marked by Lavender, with many of these attacks killing civilians and entire families as “collateral damage.”
In an unprecedented move, according to two of the sources, the army also decided during the first weeks of the war that, for every junior Hamas operative that Lavender marked, it was permissible to kill up to 15 or 20 civilians; in the past, the military did not authorize any “collateral damage” during assassinations of low-ranking militants. The sources added that, in the event that the target was a senior Hamas official with the rank of battalion or brigade commander, the army on several occasions authorized the killing of more than 100 civilians in the assassination of a single commander.
The following investigation is organized according to the six chronological stages of the Israeli army’s highly automated target production in the early weeks of the Gaza war. First, we explain the Lavender machine itself, which marked tens of thousands of Palestinians using AI. Second, we reveal the “Where’s Daddy?” system, which tracked these targets and signaled to the army when they entered their family homes. Third, we describe how “dumb” bombs were chosen to strike these homes.
Fourth, we explain how the army loosened the permitted number of civilians who could be killed during the bombing of a target. Fifth, we note how automated software inaccurately calculated the amount of non-combatants in each household. And sixth, we show how on several occasions, when a home was struck, usually at night, the individual target was sometimes not inside at all, because military officers did not verify the information in real time.
STEP 1: GENERATING TARGETS
‘Once you go automatic, target generation goes crazy’
In the Israeli army, the term “human target” referred in the past to a senior military operative who, according to the rules of the military’s International Law Department, can be killed in their private home even if there are civilians around. Intelligence sources told +972 and Local Call that during Israel’s previous wars, since this was an “especially brutal” way to kill someone — often by killing an entire family alongside the target — such human targets were marked very carefully and only senior military commanders were bombed in their homes, to maintain the principle of proportionality under international law.
But after October 7 — when Hamas-led militants launched a deadly assault on southern Israeli communities, killing around 1,200 people and abducting 240 — the army, the sources said, took a dramatically different approach. Under “Operation Iron Swords,” the army decided to designate all operatives of Hamas’ military wing as human targets, regardless of their rank or military importance. And that changed everything.
The new policy also posed a technical problem for Israeli intelligence. In previous wars, in order to authorize the assassination of a single human target, an officer had to go through a complex and lengthy “incrimination” process: cross-check evidence that the person was indeed a senior member of Hamas’ military wing, find out where he lived, his contact information, and finally know when he was home in real time. When the list of targets numbered only a few dozen senior operatives, intelligence personnel could individually handle the work involved in incriminating and locating them.
However, once the list was expanded to include tens of thousands of lower-ranking operatives, the Israeli army figured it had to rely on automated software and artificial intelligence. The result, the sources testify, was that the role of human personnel in incriminating Palestinians as military operatives was pushed aside, and AI did most of the work instead. According to four of the sources who spoke to +972 and Local Call, Lavender — which was developed to create human targets in the current war — has marked some 37,000 Palestinians as suspected “Hamas militants,” most of them junior, for assassination (the IDF Spokesperson denied the existence of such a kill list in a statement to +972 and Local Call).
“We didn’t know who the junior operatives were, because Israel didn’t track them routinely [before the war],” explained senior officer B. to +972 and Local Call, illuminating the reason behind the development of this particular target machine for the current war. “They wanted to allow us to attack [the junior operatives] automatically. That’s the Holy Grail. Once you go automatic, target generation goes crazy.”
The sources said that the approval to automatically adopt Lavender’s kill lists, which had previously been used only as an auxiliary tool, was granted about two weeks into the war, after intelligence personnel “manually” checked the accuracy of a random sample of several hundred targets selected by the AI system. When that sample found that Lavender’s results had reached 90 percent accuracy in identifying an individual’s affiliation with Hamas, the army authorized the sweeping use of the system. From that moment, sources said that if Lavender decided an individual was a militant in Hamas, they were essentially asked to treat that as an order, with no requirement to independently check why the machine made that choice or to examine the raw intelligence data on which it is based.
“At 5 a.m., [the air force] would come and bomb all the houses that we had marked,” B. said. “We took out thousands of people. We didn’t go through them one by one — we put everything into automated systems, and as soon as one of [the marked individuals] was at home, he immediately became a target. We bombed him and his house.”
“It was very surprising for me that we were asked to bomb a house to kill a ground soldier, whose importance in the fighting was so low,” said one source about the use of AI to mark alleged low-ranking militants. “I nicknamed those targets ‘garbage targets.’ Still, I found them more ethical than the targets that we bombed just for ‘deterrence’ — highrises that are evacuated and toppled just to cause destruction.”
The deadly results of this loosening of restrictions in the early stage of the war were staggering. According to data from the Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza, on which the Israeli army has relied almost exclusively since the beginning of the war, Israel killed some 15,000 Palestinians — almost half of the death toll so far — in the first six weeks of the war, up until a week-long ceasefire was agreed on Nov. 24.
‘The more information and variety, the better’
The Lavender software analyzes information collected on most of the 2.3 million residents of the Gaza Strip through a system of mass surveillance, then assesses and ranks the likelihood that each particular person is active in the military wing of Hamas or PIJ. According to sources, the machine gives almost every single person in Gaza a rating from 1 to 100, expressing how likely it is that they are a militant.
Lavender learns to identify characteristics of known Hamas and PIJ operatives, whose information was fed to the machine as training data, and then to locate these same characteristics — also called “features” — among the general population, the sources explained. An individual found to have several different incriminating features will reach a high rating, and thus automatically becomes a potential target for assassination.
In “The Human-Machine Team,” the book referenced at the beginning of this article, the current commander of Unit 8200 advocates for such a system without referencing Lavender by name. (The commander himself also isn’t named, but five sources in 8200 confirmed that the commander is the author, as reported also by Haaretz.) Describing human personnel as a “bottleneck” that limits the army’s capacity during a military operation, the commander laments: “We [humans] cannot process so much information. It doesn’t matter how many people you have tasked to produce targets during the war — you still cannot produce enough targets per day.”
The solution to this problem, he says, is artificial intelligence. The book offers a short guide to building a “target machine,” similar in description to Lavender, based on AI and machine-learning algorithms. Included in this guide are several examples of the “hundreds and thousands” of features that can increase an individual’s rating, such as being in a Whatsapp group with a known militant, changing cell phone every few months, and changing addresses frequently.
“The more information, and the more variety, the better,” the commander writes. “Visual information, cellular information, social media connections, battlefield information, phone contacts, photos.” While humans select these features at first, the commander continues, over time the machine will come to identify features on its own. This, he says, can enable militaries to create “tens of thousands of targets,” while the actual decision as to whether or not to attack them will remain a human one.
The book isn’t the only time a senior Israeli commander hinted at the existence of human target machines like Lavender. +972 and Local Call have obtained footage of a private lecture given by the commander of Unit 8200’s secretive Data Science and AI center, “Col. Yoav,” at Tel Aviv University’s AI week in 2023, which was reported on at the time in the Israeli media.
In the lecture, the commander speaks about a new, sophisticated target machine used by the Israeli army that detects “dangerous people” based on their likeness to existing lists of known militants on which it was trained. “Using the system, we managed to identify Hamas missile squad commanders,” “Col. Yoav” said in the lecture, referring to Israel’s May 2021 military operation in Gaza, when the machine was used for the first time.
“We rank the results and determine the threshold [at which to attack a target],” “Col. Yoav” said in the lecture, emphasizing that “eventually, people of flesh and blood take the decisions. In the defense realm, ethically speaking, we put a lot of emphasis on this. These tools are meant to help [intelligence officers] break their barriers.”
In practice, however, sources who have used Lavender in recent months say human agency and precision were substituted for mass target creation and lethality.
‘There was no “zero-error” policy’
B., a senior officer who used Lavender, echoed to +972 and Local Call that in the current war, officers were not required to independently review the AI system’s assessments, in order to save time and enable the mass production of human targets without hindrances.
“Everything was statistical, everything was neat — it was very dry,” B. said. He noted that this lack of supervision was permitted despite internal checks showing that Lavender’s calculations were considered accurate only 90 percent of the time; in other words, it was known in advance that 10 percent of the human targets slated for assassination were not members of the Hamas military wing at all.
For example, sources explained that the Lavender machine sometimes mistakenly flagged individuals who had communication patterns similar to known Hamas or PIJ operatives — including police and civil defense workers, militants’ relatives, residents who happened to have a name and nickname identical to that of an operative, and Gazans who used a device that once belonged to a Hamas operative.
“How close does a person have to be to Hamas to be [considered by an AI machine to be] affiliated with the organization?” said one source critical of Lavender’s inaccuracy. “It’s a vague boundary. Is a person who doesn’t receive a salary from Hamas, but helps them with all sorts of things, a Hamas operative? Is someone who was in Hamas in the past, but is no longer there today, a Hamas operative? Each of these features — characteristics that a machine would flag as suspicious — is inaccurate.”
Similar problems exist with the ability of target machines to assess the phone used by an individual marked for assassination. “In war, Palestinians change phones all the time,” said the source. “People lose contact with their families, give their phone to a friend or a wife, maybe lose it. There is no way to rely 100 percent on the automatic mechanism that determines which [phone] number belongs to whom.”
According to the sources, the army knew that the minimal human supervision in place would not discover these faults. “There was no ‘zero-error’ policy. Mistakes were treated statistically,” said a source who used Lavender. “Because of the scope and magnitude, the protocol was that even if you don’t know for sure that the machine is right, you know that statistically it’s fine. So you go for it.”
“It has proven itself,” said B., the senior source. “There’s something about the statistical approach that sets you to a certain norm and standard. There has been an illogical amount of [bombings] in this operation. This is unparalleled, in my memory. And I have much more trust in a statistical mechanism than a soldier who lost a friend two days ago. Everyone there, including me, lost people on October 7. The machine did it coldly. And that made it easier.”
Another intelligence source, who defended the reliance on the Lavender-generated kill lists of Palestinian suspects, argued that it was worth investing an intelligence officer’s time only to verify the information if the target was a senior commander in Hamas. “But when it comes to a junior militant, you don’t want to invest manpower and time in it,” he said. “In war, there is no time to incriminate every target. So you’re willing to take the margin of error of using artificial intelligence, risking collateral damage and civilians dying, and risking attacking by mistake, and to live with it.”
B. said that the reason for this automation was a constant push to generate more targets for assassination. “In a day without targets [whose feature rating was sufficient to authorize a strike], we attacked at a lower threshold. We were constantly being pressured: ‘Bring us more targets.’ They really shouted at us. We finished [killing] our targets very quickly.”
He explained that when lowering the rating threshold of Lavender, it would mark more people as targets for strikes. “At its peak, the system managed to generate 37,000 people as potential human targets,” said B. “But the numbers changed all the time, because it depends on where you set the bar of what a Hamas operative is. There were times when a Hamas operative was defined more broadly, and then the machine started bringing us all kinds of civil defense personnel, police officers, on whom it would be a shame to waste bombs. They help the Hamas government, but they don’t really endanger soldiers.”
One source who worked with the military data science team that trained Lavender said that data collected from employees of the Hamas-run Internal Security Ministry, whom he does not consider to be militants, was also fed into the machine. “I was bothered by the fact that when Lavender was trained, they used the term ‘Hamas operative’ loosely, and included people who were civil defense workers in the training dataset,” he said.
The source added that even if one believes these people deserve to be killed, training the system based on their communication profiles made Lavender more likely to select civilians by mistake when its algorithms were applied to the general population. “Since it’s an automatic system that isn’t operated manually by humans, the meaning of this decision is dramatic: it means you’re including many people with a civilian communication profile as potential targets.”
‘We only checked that the target was a man’
The Israeli military flatly rejects these claims. In a statement to +972 and Local Call, the IDF Spokesperson denied using artificial intelligence to incriminate targets, saying these are merely “auxiliary tools that assist officers in the process of incrimination.” The statement went on: “In any case, an independent examination by an [intelligence] analyst is required, which verifies that the identified targets are legitimate targets for attack, in accordance with the conditions set forth in IDF directives and international law.”
However, sources said that the only human supervision protocol in place before bombing the houses of suspected “junior” militants marked by Lavender was to conduct a single check: ensuring that the AI-selected target is male rather than female. The assumption in the army was that if the target was a woman, the machine had likely made a mistake, because there are no women among the ranks of the military wings of Hamas and PIJ.
“A human being had to [verify the target] for just a few seconds,” B. said, explaining that this became the protocol after realizing the Lavender system was “getting it right” most of the time. “At first, we did checks to ensure that the machine didn’t get confused. But at some point we relied on the automatic system, and we only checked that [the target] was a man — that was enough. It doesn’t take a long time to tell if someone has a male or a female voice.”
To conduct the male/female check, B. claimed that in the current war, “I would invest 20 seconds for each target at this stage, and do dozens of them every day. I had zero added value as a human, apart from being a stamp of approval. It saved a lot of time. If [the operative] came up in the automated mechanism, and I checked that he was a man, there would be permission to bomb him, subject to an examination of collateral damage.”
In practice, sources said this meant that for civilian men marked in error by Lavender, there was no supervising mechanism in place to detect the mistake. According to B., a common error occurred “if the [Hamas] target gave [his phone] to his son, his older brother, or just a random man. That person will be bombed in his house with his family. This happened often. These were most of the mistakes caused by Lavender,” B. said.
STEP 2: LINKING TARGETS TO FAMILY HOMES
‘Most of the people you killed were women and children’
The next stage in the Israeli army’s assassination procedure is identifying where to attack the targets that Lavender generates.
In a statement to +972 and Local Call, the IDF Spokesperson claimed in response to this article that “Hamas places its operatives and military assets in the heart of the civilian population, systematically uses the civilian population as human shields, and conducts fighting from within civilian structures, including sensitive sites such as hospitals, mosques, schools and UN facilities. The IDF is bound by and acts according to international law, directing its attacks only at military targets and military operatives.”
The six sources we spoke to echoed this to some degree, saying that Hamas’ extensive tunnel system deliberately passes under hospitals and schools; that Hamas militants use ambulances to get around; and that countless military assets have been situated near civilian buildings. The sources argued that many Israeli strikes kill civilians as a result of these tactics by Hamas — a characterization that human rights groups warn evades Israel’s onus for inflicting the casualties.
However, in contrast to the Israeli army’s official statements, the sources explained that a major reason for the unprecedented death toll from Israel’s current bombardment is the fact that the army has systematically attacked targets in their private homes, alongside their families — in part because it was easier from an intelligence standpoint to mark family houses using automated systems.
Indeed, several sources emphasized that, as opposed to numerous cases of Hamas operatives engaging in military activity from civilian areas, in the case of systematic assassination strikes, the army routinely made the active choice to bomb suspected militants when inside civilian households from which no military activity took place. This choice, they said, was a reflection of the way Israel’s system of mass surveillance in Gaza is designed.
The sources told +972 and Local Call that since everyone in Gaza had a private house with which they could be associated, the army’s surveillance systems could easily and automatically “link” individuals to family houses. In order to identify the moment operatives enter their houses in real time, various additional automatic softwares have been developed. These programs track thousands of individuals simultaneously, identify when they are at home, and send an automatic alert to the targeting officer, who then marks the house for bombing. One of several of these tracking softwares, revealed here for the first time, is called “Where’s Daddy?”
“You put hundreds [of targets] into the system and wait to see who you can kill,” said one source with knowledge of the system. “It’s called broad hunting: you copy-paste from the lists that the target system produces.”
Evidence of this policy is also clear from the data: during the first month of the war, more than half of the fatalities — 6,120 people — belonged to 1,340 families, many of which were completely wiped out while inside their homes, according to UN figures. The proportion of entire families bombed in their houses in the current war is much higher than in the 2014 Israeli operation in Gaza (which was previously Israel’s deadliest war on the Strip), further suggesting the prominence of this policy.
Another source said that each time the pace of assassinations waned, more targets were added to systems like Where’s Daddy? to locate individuals that entered their homes and could therefore be bombed. He said that the decision of who to put into the tracking systems could be made by relatively low-ranking officers in the military hierarchy.
“One day, totally of my own accord, I added something like 1,200 new targets to the [tracking] system, because the number of attacks [we were conducting] decreased,” the source said. “That made sense to me. In retrospect, it seems like a serious decision I made. And such decisions were not made at high levels.”
The sources said that in the first two weeks of the war, “several thousand” targets were initially inputted into locating programs like Where’s Daddy?. These included all the members of Hamas’ elite special forces unit the Nukhba, all of Hamas’ anti-tank operatives, and anyone who entered Israel on October 7. But before long, the kill list was drastically expanded.
“In the end it was everyone [marked by Lavender],” one source explained. “Tens of thousands. This happened a few weeks later, when the [Israeli] brigades entered Gaza, and there were already fewer uninvolved people [i.e. civilians] in the northern areas.” According to this source, even some minors were marked by Lavender as targets for bombing. “Normally, operatives are over the age of 17, but that was not a condition.”
Lavender and systems like Where’s Daddy? were thus combined with deadly effect, killing entire families, sources said. By adding a name from the Lavender-generated lists to the Where’s Daddy? home tracking system, A. explained, the marked person would be placed under ongoing surveillance, and could be attacked as soon as they set foot in their home, collapsing the house on everyone inside.
“Let’s say you calculate [that there is one] Hamas [operative] plus 10 [civilians in the house],” A. said. “Usually, these 10 will be women and children. So absurdly, it turns out that most of the people you killed were women and children.”
STEP 3: CHOOSING A WEAPON
‘We usually carried out the attacks with “dumb bombs”’
Once Lavender has marked a target for assassination, army personnel have verified that they are male, and tracking software has located the target in their home, the next stage is picking the munition with which to bomb them.
In December 2023, CNN reported that according to U.S. intelligence estimates, about 45 percent of the munitions used by the Israeli air force in Gaza were “dumb” bombs, which are known to cause more collateral damage than guided bombs. In response to the CNN report, an army spokesperson quoted in the article said: “As a military committed to international law and a moral code of conduct, we are devoting vast resources to minimizing harm to the civilians that Hamas has forced into the role of human shields. Our war is against Hamas, not against the people of Gaza.”
Three intelligence sources, however, told +972 and Local Call that junior operatives marked by Lavender were assassinated only with dumb bombs, in the interest of saving more expensive armaments. The implication, one source explained, was that the army would not strike a junior target if they lived in a high-rise building, because the army did not want to spend a more precise and expensive “floor bomb” (with more limited collateral effect) to kill him. But if a junior target lived in a building with only a few floors, the army was authorized to kill him and everyone in the building with a dumb bomb.
“It was like that with all the junior targets,” testified C., who used various automated programs in the current war. “The only question was, is it possible to attack the building in terms of collateral damage? Because we usually carried out the attacks with dumb bombs, and that meant literally destroying the whole house on top of its occupants. But even if an attack is averted, you don’t care — you immediately move on to the next target. Because of the system, the targets never end. You have another 36,000 waiting.”
STEP 4: AUTHORIZING CIVILIAN CASUALTIES
‘We attacked almost without considering collateral damage’
One source said that when attacking junior operatives, including those marked by AI systems like Lavender, the number of civilians they were allowed to kill alongside each target was fixed during the initial weeks of the war at up to 20. Another source claimed the fixed number was up to 15. These “collateral damage degrees,” as the military calls them, were applied broadly to all suspected junior militants, the sources said, regardless of their rank, military importance, and age, and with no specific case-by-case examination to weigh the military advantage of assassinating them against the expected harm to civilians.
According to A., who was an officer in a target operation room in the current war, the army’s international law department has never before given such “sweeping approval” for such a high collateral damage degree. “It’s not just that you can kill any person who is a Hamas soldier, which is clearly permitted and legitimate in terms of international law,” A. said. “But they directly tell you: ‘You are allowed to kill them along with many civilians.’
“Every person who wore a Hamas uniform in the past year or two could be bombed with 20 [civilians killed as] collateral damage, even without special permission,” A. continued. “In practice, the principle of proportionality did not exist.”
According to A., this was the policy for most of the time that he served. Only later did the military lower the collateral damage degree. “In this calculation, it could also be 20 children for a junior operative … It really wasn’t like that in the past,” A. explained. Asked about the security rationale behind this policy, A. replied: “Lethality.”
The predetermined and fixed collateral damage degree helped accelerate the mass creation of targets using the Lavender machine, sources said, because it saved time. B. claimed that the number of civilians they were permitted to kill in the first week of the war per suspected junior militant marked by AI was fifteen, but that this number “went up and down” over time.
“At first we attacked almost without considering collateral damage,” B. said of the first week after October 7. “In practice, you didn’t really count people [in each house that is bombed], because you couldn’t really tell if they’re at home or not. After a week, restrictions on collateral damage began. The number dropped [from 15] to five, which made it really difficult for us to attack, because if the whole family was home, we couldn’t bomb it. Then they raised the number again.”
‘We knew we would kill over 100 civilians’
Sources told +972 and Local Call that now, partly due to American pressure, the Israeli army is no longer mass-generating junior human targets for bombing in civilian homes. The fact that most homes in the Gaza Strip were already destroyed or damaged, and almost the entire population has been displaced, also impaired the army’s ability to rely on intelligence databases and automated house-locating programs.
E. claimed that the massive bombardment of junior militants took place only in the first week or two of the war, and then was stopped mainly so as not to waste bombs. “There is a munitions economy,” E. said. “They were always afraid that there would be [a war] in the northern arena [with Hezbollah in Lebanon]. They don’t attack these kinds of [junior] people at all anymore.”
However, airstrikes against senior ranking Hamas commanders are still ongoing, and sources said that for these attacks, the military is authorizing the killing of “hundreds” of civilians per target — an official policy for which there is no historical precedent in Israel, or even in recent U.S. military operations.
“In the bombing of the commander of the Shuja’iya Battalion, we knew that we would kill over 100 civilians,” B. recalled of a Dec. 2 bombing that the IDF Spokesperson said was aimed at assassinating Wisam Farhat. “For me, psychologically, it was unusual. Over 100 civilians — it crosses some red line.”
Amjad Al-Sheikh, a young Palestinian from Gaza, said many of his family members were killed in that bombing. A resident of Shuja’iya, east of Gaza City, he was at a local supermarket that day when he heard five blasts that shattered the glass windows.
“I ran to my family’s house, but there were no buildings there anymore,” Al-Sheikh told +972 and Local Call. “The street was filled with screams and smoke. Entire residential blocks turned to mountains of rubble and deep pits. People began to search in the cement, using their hands, and so did I, looking for signs of my family’s house.”
Al-Sheikh’s wife and baby daughter survived — protected from the rubble by a closet that fell on top of them — but he found 11 other members of his family, among them his sisters, brothers, and their young children, dead under the rubble. According to the human rights group B’Tselem, the bombing that day destroyed dozens of buildings, killed dozens of people, and buried hundreds under the ruins of their homes.
‘Entire families were killed’
Intelligence sources told +972 and Local Call they took part in even deadlier strikes. In order to assassinate Ayman Nofal, the commander of Hamas’ Central Gaza Brigade, a source said the army authorized the killing of approximately 300 civilians, destroying several buildings in airstrikes on Al-Bureij refugee camp on Oct. 17, based on an imprecise pinpointing of Nofal. Satellite footage and videos from the scene show the destruction of several large multi-storey apartment buildings.
“Between 16 to 18 houses were wiped out in the attack,” Amro Al-Khatib, a resident of the camp, told +972 and Local Call. “We couldn’t tell one apartment from the other — they all got mixed up in the rubble, and we found human body parts everywhere.”
In the aftermath, Al-Khatib recalled around 50 dead bodies being pulled out of the rubble, and around 200 people wounded, many of them gravely. But that was just the first day. The camp’s residents spent five days pulling the dead and injured out, he said.
Nael Al-Bahisi, a paramedic, was one of the first on the scene. He counted between 50-70 casualties on that first day. “At a certain moment, we understood the target of the strike was Hamas commander Ayman Nofal,” he told +972 and Local Call. “They killed him, and also many people who didn’t know he was there. Entire families with children were killed.”
Another intelligence source told +972 and Local Call that the army destroyed a high-rise building in Rafah in mid-December, killing “dozens of civilians,” in order to try to kill Mohammed Shabaneh, the commander of Hamas’ Rafah Brigade (it is not clear whether or not he was killed in the attack). Often, the source said, the senior commanders hide in tunnels that pass under civilian buildings, and therefore the choice to assassinate them with an airstrike necessarily kills civilians.
“Most of those injured were children,” said Wael Al-Sir, 55, who witnessed the large-scale strike believed by some Gazans to have been the assassination attempt. He told +972 and Local Call that the bombing on Dec. 20 destroyed an “entire residential block” and killed at least 10 children.
“There was a completely permissive policy regarding the casualties of [bombing] operations — so permissive that in my opinion it had an element of revenge,” D., an intelligence source, claimed. “The core of this was the assassinations of senior [Hamas and PIJ commanders] for whom they were willing to kill hundreds of civilians. We had a calculation: how many for a brigade commander, how many for a battalion commander, and so on.”
“There were regulations, but they were just very lenient,” said E., another intelligence source. “We’ve killed people with collateral damage in the high double-digits, if not low triple-digits. These are things that haven’t happened before.”
Such a high rate of “collateral damage” is exceptional not only compared to what the Israeli army previously deemed acceptable, but also compared to the wars waged by the United States in Iraq, Syria, and Afghanistan.
General Peter Gersten, Deputy Commander for Operations and Intelligence in the operation to fight ISIS in Iraq and Syria, told a U.S. defense magazine in 2021 that an attack with collateral damage of 15 civilians deviated from procedure; to carry it out, he had to obtain special permission from the head of the U.S. Central Command, General Lloyd Austin, who is now Secretary of Defense.
“With Osama Bin Laden, you’d have an NCV [Non-combatant Casualty Value] of 30, but if you had a low-level commander, his NCV was typically zero,” Gersten said. “We ran zero for the longest time.”
‘We were told: “Whatever you can, bomb”’
All the sources interviewed for this investigation said that Hamas’ massacres on October 7 and kidnapping of hostages greatly influenced the army’s fire policy and collateral damage degrees. “At first, the atmosphere was painful and vindictive,” said B., who was drafted into the army immediately after October 7, and served in a target operation room. “The rules were very lenient. They took down four buildings when they knew the target was in one of them. It was crazy.
“There was a dissonance: on the one hand, people here were frustrated that we were not attacking enough,” B. continued. “On the other hand, you see at the end of the day that another thousand Gazans have died, most of them civilians.”
“There was hysteria in the professional ranks,” said D., who was also drafted immediately after October 7. “They had no idea how to react at all. The only thing they knew to do was to just start bombing like madmen to try to dismantle Hamas’ capabilities.”
D. stressed that they were not explicitly told that the army’s goal was “revenge,” but expressed that “as soon as every target connected to Hamas becomes legitimate, and with almost any collateral damage being approved, it is clear to you that thousands of people are going to be killed. Even if officially every target is connected to Hamas, when the policy is so permissive, it loses all meaning.”
A. also used the word “revenge” to describe the atmosphere inside the army after October 7. “No one thought about what to do afterward, when the war is over, or how it will be possible to live in Gaza and what they will do with it,” A. said. “We were told: now we have to fuck up Hamas, no matter what the cost. Whatever you can, you bomb.”
B., the senior intelligence source, said that in retrospect, he believes this “disproportionate” policy of killing Palestinians in Gaza also endangers Israelis, and that this was one of the reasons he decided to be interviewed.
“In the short term, we are safer, because we hurt Hamas. But I think we’re less secure in the long run. I see how all the bereaved families in Gaza — which is nearly everyone — will raise the motivation for [people to join] Hamas 10 years down the line. And it will be much easier for [Hamas] to recruit them.”
In a statement to +972 and Local Call, the Israeli army denied much of what the sources told us, claiming that “each target is examined individually, while an individual assessment is made of the military advantage and collateral damage expected from the attack … The IDF does not carry out attacks when the collateral damage expected from the attack is excessive in relation to the military advantage.”
STEP 5: CALCULATING COLLATERAL DAMAGE
‘The model was not connected to reality’
According to the intelligence sources, the Israeli army’s calculation of the number of civilians expected to be killed in each house alongside a target — a procedure examined in a previous investigation by +972 and Local Call — was conducted with the help of automatic and inaccurate tools. In previous wars, intelligence personnel would spend a lot of time verifying how many people were in a house that was set to be bombed, with the number of civilians liable to be killed listed as part of a “target file.” After October 7, however, this thorough verification was largely abandoned in favor of automation.
In October, The New York Times reported on a system operated from a special base in southern Israel, which collects information from mobile phones in the Gaza Strip and provided the military with a live estimate of the number of Palestinians who fled the northern Gaza Strip southward. Brig. General Udi Ben Muha told the Times that “It’s not a 100 percent perfect system — but it gives you the information you need to make a decision.” The system operates according to colors: red marks areas where there are many people, and green and yellow mark areas that have been relatively cleared of residents.
The sources who spoke to +972 and Local Call described a similar system for calculating collateral damage, which was used to decide whether to bomb a building in Gaza. They said that the software calculated the number of civilians residing in each home before the war — by assessing the size of the building and reviewing its list of residents — and then reduced those numbers by the proportion of residents who supposedly evacuated the neighborhood.
To illustrate, if the army estimated that half of a neighborhood’s residents had left, the program would count a house that usually had 10 residents as a house containing five people. To save time, the sources said, the army did not surveil the homes to check how many people were actually living there, as it did in previous operations, to find out if the program’s estimate was indeed accurate.
“This model was not connected to reality,” claimed one source. “There was no connection between those who were in the home now, during the war, and those who were listed as living there prior to the war. [On one occasion] we bombed a house without knowing that there were several families inside, hiding together.”
The source said that although the army knew that such errors could occur, this imprecise model was adopted nonetheless, because it was faster. As such, the source said, “the collateral damage calculation was completely automatic and statistical” — even producing figures that were not whole numbers.
STEP 6: BOMBING A FAMILY HOME
‘You killed a family for no reason’
The sources who spoke to +972 and Local Call explained that there was sometimes a substantial gap between the moment that tracking systems like Where’s Daddy? alerted an officer that a target had entered their house, and the bombing itself — leading to the killing of whole families even without hitting the army’s target. “It happened to me many times that we attacked a house, but the person wasn’t even home,” one source said. “The result is that you killed a family for no reason.”
Three intelligence sources told +972 and Local Call that they had witnessed an incident in which the Israeli army bombed a family’s private home, and it later turned out that the intended target of the assassination was not even inside the house, since no further verification was conducted in real time.
“Sometimes [the target] was at home earlier, and then at night he went to sleep somewhere else, say underground, and you didn’t know about it,” one of the sources said. “There are times when you double-check the location, and there are times when you just say, ‘Okay, he was in the house in the last few hours, so you can just bomb.’”
Another source described a similar incident that affected him and made him want to be interviewed for this investigation. “We understood that the target was home at 8 p.m. In the end, the air force bombed the house at 3 a.m. Then we found out [in that span of time] he had managed to move himself to another house with his family. There were two other families with children in the building we bombed.”
In previous wars in Gaza, after the assassination of human targets, Israeli intelligence would carry out bomb damage assessment (BDA) procedures — a routine post-strike check to see if the senior commander was killed and how many civilians were killed along with him. As revealed in a previous +972 and Local Call investigation, this involved listening in to phone calls of relatives who lost their loved ones. In the current war, however, at least in relation to junior militants marked using AI, sources say this procedure was abolished in order to save time. The sources said they did not know how many civilians were actually killed in each strike, and for the low-ranking suspected Hamas and PIJ operatives marked by AI, they did not even know whether the target himself was killed.
As the US Anglo-Zionist empire ramps up its war against China, an ancient archetype makes its cyclical appearance to offer guidance through “interesting times.” As per a brief Google search, the “Year of the Dragon” represents power, nobility, luck, and success. Up until now, China has demonstrated incredible humility and restraint in response to the outrageous insults and provocations of the US neocon government. Goodbye “Year of the Rabbit,” time for China to “show its pimp hand.”* (*Am. slang- display one’s power.)
First, warmest Year of the Dragon wishes to Emperor President Xi- Earthly Representative of the Tao, Monarch Butterfly Princess Meng Wanzhou, and the people of China.
Second, some readers might accuse me of betraying my “country” by siding with China. Nonsense. The US republic and its Constitution no longer exist. Both were subsumed by the US Anglo-Zionist Empire, a confederation of financial cartels, multinational corporations, oligarchs, the Military Industrial Complex, the Deep State, and the Zionist Lobby. Like all end-stage pathologically corrupt empires, reform is a lunatic’s dream. The best hope for its subjects is to avoid drowning in the sinking behemoth’s vortex. Perhaps the weary survivors who find space on lifeboats or cling to floating wreckage can regroup to form a beautiful ideological-ethno state republic that embraces win-win cooperation as primary global influencer China torchlights humanity’s path to Star Trek Kardashev Level II Civilization.
China’s position has always been- “don’t start none, won’t be none.”* (*A self-defense postulate that advocates conflict avoidance yet acknowledges the right to hit back when attacked). Based on the actions of the US and its vassals, China needs to prepare for continued escalations of aggression. To take creative license with a Socrates attributed saying- “Know thy enemy.”
The Anglo-Zionist war trident contains three sharp points- “extreme war,” “conventional war,” and “economic war.” Sometimes the trident’s prong applications overlap and merge. An example of an overlap-merge application is cyberwarfare.
“Extreme war” primarily entails nuclear and biological warfare. It is extreme because its applications hold the potential to spread beyond the battlefield to take down human civilization.
America uses nuclear weapons as a threat deterrent. In this case, “threat” is a relative term. The US dollar should not say, “In God We Trust,” but rather “In Nukes We Trust,” because its nuclear and military arsenal keep the dollar afloat via dollar hegemony enforcement. As the insanity and idiocy associated with dying empire intensifies and the dollar slips, expect dangerous acts of desperation, e.g. use of tactical battlefield mini-nukes, biological weapon attacks.
As to the US nuclear threat, from my viewpoint, the correct deterrent for China is what I call the “skin in the game”* approach.” (*when the policies or actions of an individual or entity expose them to the same risk or loss as everyone else). The West’s 1% and rootless .01% ruling classes are parasitic leeches and more importantly, cowards. While they may condemn millions or billions to death with little regard, they will do anything to cling to their wretched earthly existences. Chinese intelligence must locate all their bunkers and underground cities and make it known that in the event of nuclear war, China will relentlessly and repeatedly strike their high strata-class rat holes with the strongest bunker-busting nukes available.
With biological war, while an appropriate response is warranted, unless it comes down to a case of revenge killing your enemy before dying, I advise against biological tit-for-tat. Biological weapons can mutate and go global. Barring accidental or insane rogue scientist release, the US is limited in the lethality of its bio-attacks, as super-powerful pathogens could easily turn on their creators. If Chinese intelligence confirms that COVID-19 was a bio-attack, which I suspect it has, then China should publically announce its findings. It’s the “Year of the Dragon.” Expose the motherfuckers.* (*Someone who copulates with their mother or a generic term for a person(s). In this case, both meanings could apply.)
I won’t dwell on “conventional war” strategy because China wins.
Regarding “economic war.” Wall Street outsourced US manufacturing to China to turn America into a usury-based F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, real estate) economy that sells debt, with the expectation that China would buy that debt and let Wall Street insiders manage China’s economy. This economic model was known as “Chimerica.” While China initially benefited from the arrangement, it rejected the part where a rootless Wall Street class takes over China’s 5000-year-old civilization after they suck the US drier than a mummy’s 陰戶.
US economic numbers are built on fraud. The wildly inflated $65,000 hospital emergency room bill counts toward American GDP. The US stock market stays afloat through Federal Reserve intravenous feeding, stock buybacks, and other forms of corporate welfare and chicanery. Military Industrial Complex profits rely on the captive printing press treasuries of the US and its vassals. It’s a giant scam bubble waiting for the inevitable pin. BRICS is a good start to withstanding the “pop” and also offers an alternative to US economic bullying, debt slavery, and asset seizure. Although, from my viewpoint, China’s best defense is autarky that coexists with global trade.
China’s BRI is a mind-blowing accomplishment. However, as any sandcastle can attest, it’s easier to destroy than create. America’s pretty good at kicking down sandcastles.
The CIA stymied Germany’s energy flow with the destruction of the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. If the homemade missiles of Houthi freedom fighters can disrupt a major shipping route, imagine what the subs and destroyers of the US or its vassals can achieve. Global infrastructure projects are susceptible to sabotage or attack from CIA-funded terrorist groups. In the event of a major trade shutdown, China must be able to provide all life requirements to its population. I believe it can do that. The weak link is energy. China’s Artificial Sun cold fusion reactor offers a possible solution. I recommend China invest the same ratio of manpower, money, and brain-battery into cold fusion reactors as the US put into its WW2 Manhattan Project. Post-US Empire collapse, Chinese space tankers can fill their hulls from the liquid methane sea of Titan, Saturn’s moon. The current Petroleum Civilization model is unsustainable and is destroying the ecosystems that sustain life on Earth.
Just like China transformed Marxist economics into “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” when the right time comes, I recommend the same evolutionary approach toward globalization. From an energy conservation standpoint, it is illogical for a nation to grow a bunch of carrots for a cost of one dollar and then ship them around the world to buy back the same carrots for three dollars. Or export the carrots only to buy another country’s carrots. While globalization has profited China, at some point it will create negative blowback if the system’s internal defects are not addressed and corrected. Nigeria can produce its own food and textiles. What it cannot do, at least at this juncture, is build a high-speed rail system. Neither can the US.
For decades Hollywood (US cinema/music) conquered the world’s hearts and minds. To quote George Orwell- “All art is propaganda.” One reason the American Empire is dying is because Hollywood can no longer make good movies. They can’t sell the dream. China needs to fill that entertainment void. The shortcut path is simple replication of the movies/music currently mass-produced by Western entertainment corporations using AI/machine learning programs. The longer, but from my viewpoint, more fruitful path, is for China to set up an institute to study American (and Western) cultural entertainment (cinema, music, novels) from the years 1945-1999. While the institute’s technicians will wade through much detritus, they’ll also discover gems that can birth beautiful children.
Outside of religious conflict, spirituality is seldom discussed in the geopolitical arena. Mistake. During the Cold War, the Rothschild-Rockefeller bank cartel set up a system whereby a nationalist revolutionary leader had to choose either colonialist resource-theft capitalism or atheistic materialistic* Marxism. (*materialism not as in capitalist hyper-consumerism, but rather the Marxist belief that humans are biological machines devoid of divine spark, and can be programmed and managed in a purely mechanical capacity). The opposing capitalist and Marxist programs worked as balancing forces within the context of international finance’s world domination program, maintaining the status quo of banker rule. Chairman Mao chose Marxism, which history shows was the correct choice. If he had chosen colonialist resource theft capitalism, an independent Chinese nation-state would not exist today.
Once China broke the chains of Western imperialism it was free to chart its own course, and subsequently transformed Marxism into “socialism with Chinese characteristics” by filtering out the negative elements of Marxism while incorporating pragmatic aspects of capitalism. The atheistic component of Marxism put it at odds with China’s ancient spiritual technologies- Taoism, Buddhism, luck attraction, Chi theory, etc. STEM disciplines answer many things, but can’t sufficiently respond to: “What is this?” and “What is beyond this?” During the CPC’s atheist phase, some spiritual seekers became estranged from the government and that dissatisfaction was capitalized on by the CIA who partnered with disenfranchised religious groups for nefarious purposes. I believe the rift between China and most of these religious groups is repairable. Rapprochement would deal a painful blow to Western intelligence agencies. Better to convert an enemy than fight him.
Just like China transmogrified economic theory, I believe it can do the same thing with spiritual theory. Working in win-win cooperation with spiritual organizations from around the world, I envision China spearheading the development of spiritual technology compatible with Kardashev Level II Civilization. In the yin-yang circle, the science and spirituality compartments coexist in harmonious balance. May the Tao be with you.
In keeping with the Year of the Dragon, I need to address the unbearable arrest and detention of Monarch Butterfly Princess and Huawei CFO Meng Wanzhou. So what if Huawei did business with Iran? Why does the US get to dictate who a sovereign Chinese company transacts with? This US-Canadian false-arrest action insulted not just Meng Wanzhou, but the entire Chinese nation. Either the perpetrators issue a full apology or when the light turns green, don’t stop until it’s red.
Do you think the sociopathic and blackmailed Western CEO actors propped up by international bankers and managed by Deep State technocrats will ever speak on behalf of the frog, dolphin, and owl? Huawei with Meng Wanzhou’s influence holds the potential to build the blueprint for the technological-ecological harmonization advocated by scientist Buckminster Fuller in his book, “Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth.”
Wait a minute. Are you in love with her? Do you plan on showing up at Princess Wanzhou’s door with a bouquet of pretty flowers? Ha ha ha. Pathetic clown. She doesn’t know you exist. I’m actually embarrassed for you.
Hold on. Confession time friend. I’m a pathetic clown too. Is it so terrible to close one’s eyes for a moment to imagine what can never be?
As seen with the Moscow concert hall attack and CIA disruption operations in Maidan-Ukraine, Hong Kong, and Xinjiang- Western intelligence agencies love terrorism and color revolution. While China avoids terror-targeting civilians (a wise policy) and interfering in the domestic affairs of other nations (perhaps some revision), each provocation must receive the appropriate response. No more humiliation.
It stands to reason that CIA-Mossad will repeat a 9/11-style false flag to push the US public into anti-China war mode. China’s public relations and media teams must be ready to offer swift denial. On a global level, this will prove effective. However, due to hyper-capitalist irrational racism components in America’s founding and the universal mob-think outlined in Gustave Le Bon’s “Psychology of Crowds,” in a post-false flag environment, US Chinese ethnics (and mistaken identity Asians) would be at risk. During WW2 the US government threw US Japanese ethnics into concentration camps while the greedy mob grabbed their assets for pennies on the dollar. To address this possibility, I recommend China build an underground railroad* (US antebellum secret networks that helped Black slaves escape North) or assist in the creation of a warrior-monk based “Monarch Butterfly Princess Holy Order of the Tao.”
What of Taiwan? It’s the “Year of the Dragon.” Go as far as you can go China. Perhaps all the way.
And now a word for Dragon-skeptics.
Some claim that China is already under the control of the Rothschild-Rockefeller bank cartel (or planet owners) and East vs West is WEF kabuki theater. I disagree for the following reasons:
1- Techno-feudalism requires not only the cultural destruction of its subjects, but also their genetic alteration/destruction. All human DNA is considered the property of the owners and can therefore be used as a resource commodity and control mechanism. Under WEF protocol, China’s leaders would have to be willing to destroy their people’s 5000-year-old culture and DNA. I don’t see that happening. While some of China’s technological innovations play into state security (legit action, given CIA history), the tech is primarily used to improve the lives of China’s citizens- the exact opposite of US policy.
2- In its 5000-year history, China never pursued a policy of military invasion or conquest outside of its security/territorial sphere. China built a wall to keep the barbarians out.
3- China’s engagement with foreign nations is of a transactional nature. Unlike the West, they’ve never displayed a proclivity for stealing the DNA, culture, politics, assets, bodies, or souls of the people they do business with.
4- During the COVID-19 pandemic, China offered its citizens traditional vaccines. Although certain CPC officials (they always reveal themselves) pushed for Pfizer mRNA shipments and domestic mRNA vax production, the CPC as a whole rejected the mRNA pressure tactics of the US political class. While you may feel the CPC overreacted with the lockdowns, keep in mind that they faced an unprecedented bio-attack. For future occurrences, I recommend zinc, vitamin C & D, and the 5000-year-old Traditional Chinese Medicine cabinet.
5- For those who believe this is all a perfectly choreographed show, what harm is there in supporting China? NWO is already a fait accompli. If that’s the case, kick back with a bottle of Patrón and Mossberg 12 gauge, and wait for the AI killer drones to arrive.
From my viewpoint, China remains the primary bulwark against the US Anglo-Zionist Empire aggressors and their global financial mafia handlers. Given the terrible power of the international bankers, Emperor President Xi must juggle a complex mishmash of neutrals, allies, and adversaries to navigate China to victory, which by extension means human species survival. Based on my observation, he has upheld the basic tenets of Tao. Until I see evidence to the contrary, like Petula Clark sang in her version- “I will follow him.”
I look forward to watching China’s evolutionary path to national-actualization. As per Oswald Spengler, the “West” is done. Western genius took the world from horse and wagon to modern industrial society. While many amazing creations came from that, so did much suffering and death. If Western philosophy incorporates the principles of karmic law to form yin-yang balance and Europe joins China and Russia in a true Eurasian bloc, I believe Western rejuvenation and positive reintegration into the global family remain possible.
Prepare for takeoff China. Like Far East Movement said, “Now I’m feeling so fly. Like a G6.”
The collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore has sent shock waves throughout the United States. The bridge was not built to withstand a direct hit from a container ship as large as the Dali, which brought down the structure within minutes after its engine failed and it became an uncontrollable force drifting toward the bridge.
The incident is a symbol of how unfettered capitalism has resulted in safety concerns becoming secondary to profits.
The Dali, operated by shipping giant Maersk, was carrying more than 800 tons of corrosive and flammable materials. Transportation secretary Pete Buttigieg likened the 95,000-ton ship to an aircraft carrier and the New York Times explained that “When the bridge was built, cargo ships were not the size they are today.” In fact, such ships have grown steadily in size over the past few decades. One economist told the Times that shipping companies “did what they thought was most efficient for themselves—make the ships big—and they didn’t pay much attention at all to the rest of the world.” This in turn has forced nations to expand waterways to accommodate the behemoths, often at the expense of the public.
Some 90 percent of all traded goods that are shipped from one part of the world to the other are transported by water. As corporate appetites for profits have increased, so has globalized trade. And, safety concerns have taken a back seat, as per an investigation published by Jacobin.
In 2023, the U.S. Department of Labor investigated a complaint against Maersk and concluded that the company had violated the Seaman’s Protection Act by retaliating against a whistleblower employee. At stake was the fact that, as per the Labor Department, “Reporting Policy requires seamen to report safety concerns to the company and allow it time to abate the conditions before reporting to the [U.S. Coast Guard] or other regulatory agencies.” In other words, Maersk, which is one of the world’s top shipping companies, tried to protect itself from government regulators.
A similar scenario of compromising safety in service of profits has unfolded at Boeing, one of the world’s top airplane manufacturers. After an Alaska Airlines flight in January 2024 was forced to make an emergency landing when the Boeing 737 Max plane lost a panel mid-flight, the New York Times published a bizarrely headlined story: “Boeing Faces Tricky Balance Between Safety and Financial Performance.” The story points out a conundrum for Boeing’s executives: “Should they emphasize safety or financial performance?”
The Times explained that, for years the company “put too much emphasis on increasing profits and enriching shareholders with dividends and share buybacks, and not enough on investing in engineering and safety.”
It’s worth stating the obvious: An unsafe aircraft is not an aircraft, it’s a death trap. And yet, within a capitalist framework, everything boils down to a cost-benefit analysis. If the cost of safety for companies like Boeing or Maersk outweighs the financial benefits, it’s simply not worth it for executives and shareholders. While the Alaska Airlines flight thankfully did not result in any deaths this time, hundreds of people on board 737s in 2018 and 2019were not so lucky. Workers at Boeing factories in Washington and South Carolina where aircraft are assembled are required to work at breakneck speed and compromise on safety in the interest of churning out planes as fast as possible.
Who pays the price for such corporate hubris? Vulnerable workers and the public. In the case of the Baltimore bridge accident, all 22 workers on board the Dali were of Indian origin and their quick thinking in notifying authorities that the ship lost power helped ensure that casualties were minimized. As of this writing, they remain trapped on board the ship with one worker having been treated at a hospital for minor injuries. [Ship’s Master appears to be from Ukraine.]
Meanwhile, the six people who are presumed dead and two who were rescued from the frigid waters were all immigrant workers from Mexico and Central America, working on the bridge as part of a construction crew.
These are the same sort of people who suffer racist attacks and ridicule from white supremacist forces in the U.S. A right-wing outlet posted a virulently racist cartoon of the Dali’s crew on social media. And only weeks earlier, Georgia’s unhinged ultraconservative Congressional representative Marjorie Taylor Greene heckled President Joe Biden during his State of the Union address about a white woman who “was killed by an illegal,” in an attempt to whip up anti-immigrant frenzy. [Nursing student kidnapped, beaten, raped, stabbed to death by repeat criminal released by authorities and able to gleefully terrorize US women. ]
Greene appeared utterly unconcerned about the fact that construction workers in the U.S. hail disproportionately from Latin American immigrant communities and many die from work-related injuries. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2022, “Foreign-born Hispanic or Latino workers accounted for 63.5 percent (792) of total Hispanic or Latino worker fatalities (1,248).”
Taxpayers also pay the price for corporate profiteering at the expense of safety. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is apparently footing the bill for the massive cleanup operation from the Baltimore bridge accident. And, President Biden announced that the federal government would “pay the entire cost of reconstructing that bridge.” Meanwhile, Grace Ocean Private, the Singapore-based company that owns the Dali, is expected to invoke a centuries-old maritime law to limit its liability—the same law that the owners of the RMS Titanic used to limit theirs.
In the case of Boeing, the state of Washington in 2013 gave the company the largest ever tax break in the state’s history in exchange for housing its factory and spurring the creation of jobs. The cost to taxpayers was nearly $9 billion. And, because Washington’s governor failed to make job retention a condition for the massive tax break, Boeing then had it both ways when it cut its labor costs by slashing about 15 percent of its workforce in the state a few years later. Washington eventually eliminated the tax break but Boeing still reaps tens of millions of dollars in other state-level incentives tied to aerospace manufacturing.
It’s critically important to contextualize accidents that are the result of corporations putting profits over safety and people. These incidents are not isolated or unpredictable. They are the cost of doing business—a cost that the rest of us pay for in money and lives.
The genocide in Gaza is the final stage of a process begun by Israel decades ago. Anyone who did not see this coming blinded themselves to the character and ultimate goals of the apartheid state.
There are no surprises in Gaza. Every horrifying act of Israel’s genocide has been telegraphed in advance. It has been for decades. The dispossession of Palestinians of their land is the beating heart of Israel’s settler colonial project. This dispossession has had dramatic historical moments — 1948 and 1967 — when huge parts of historic Palestine were seized and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed. Dispossession has also occurred in increments — the slow-motion theft of land and steady ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
The incursion on Oct. 7 into Israel by Hamas and other resistance groups, which left 1,154 Israelis, tourists and migrant workers dead and saw about 240 people taken hostage, gave Israel the pretext for what it has long craved — the total erasure of Palestinians.
Israel has razed 77 percent of healthcare facilities in Gaza, 68 percent of telecommunication infrastructure, nearly all municipal and governmental buildings, commercial, industrial and agricultural centers, almost half of all roads, over 60 percent of Gaza’s 439,000 homes, 68 percent of residential buildings — the bombing of the Al-Taj tower in Gaza City on Oct. 25, killed 101 people, including 44 children and 37 women, and injured hundreds — and obliterated refugee camps. The attack on the Jabalia refugee camp on Oct. 25 killed at least 126 civilians, including 69 children, and injured 280. Israel has damaged or destroyed Gaza’s universities, all of which are now closed, and 60 percent of other educational facilities, including 13 libraries. It has also destroyed at least 195 heritage sites, including 208 mosques, churches, and Gaza’s Central Archives that held 150 years of historical records and documents.
Israel’s warplanes, missiles, drones, tanks, artillery shells and naval guns daily pulverize Gaza — which is only 20 miles long and five miles wide — in a scorched earth campaign unlike anything seen since the war in Vietnam. It has dropped 25,000 tons of explosives — equivalent to two nuclear bombs — on Gaza, many targets selected by Artificial Intelligence. It drops unguided munitions (“dumb bombs”) and 2000-pound “bunker buster” bombs on refugee camps and densely packed urban centers as well as the so-called “safe zones” — 42 percent of Palestinians killed have been in these “safe zones” where they were instructed by Israel to flee. Over 1.7 million Palestinians have been displaced from their homes, forced to find refuge in overcrowded UNRWA shelters, hospital corridors and courtyards, schools, tents or the open air in south Gaza, often living next to fetid pools of raw sewage.
Israel has killed at least 32,705 Palestinians in Gaza, including 13,000 children and 9,000 women. This means Israel is slaughtering as many as 187 people a day including 75 children. It has killed 136 journalists, many, if not most of them deliberately targeted. It has killed 340 doctors, nurses and other health workers — four percent of Gaza’s healthcare personnel. These numbers do not begin to reflect the actual death toll since only those dead registered in morgues and hospitals, most of which no longer function, are counted. The death toll, when those who are missing are counted, is well over 40,000.
Doctors are forced to amputate limbs without anesthetic. Those with severe medical conditions — cancer, diabetes, heart disease, kidney disease — have died from lack of treatment or will die soon. Over a hundred women give birth every day, with little to no medical care. Miscarriages are up by 300 percent. Over 90 percent of the Palestinians in Gaza suffer from severe food insecurity with people eating animal feed and grass. Children are dying of starvation. Palestinian writers, academics, scientists and their family members have been tracked and assassinated. Over 75,000 Palestinians have been wounded, many of whom will be crippled for life.
“Seventy percent of recorded deaths have consistently been women and children,” writes Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, in her report issued on March 25. “Israel failed to prove that the remaining 30 percent, i.e. adult males, were active Hamas combatants — a necessary condition for them to be lawfully targeted. By early-December, Israel’s security advisors claimed the killing of ‘7,000 terrorists’ in a stage of the campaign when less than 5,000 adult males in total had been identified among the casualties, thus implying that all adult males killed were ‘terrorists.’”
Israel plays linguistic tricks to deny anyone in Gaza the status of civilians and any building – including mosques, hospitals and schools – protected status. Palestinians are all branded as responsible for the attack on Oct. 7 or written off as human shields for Hamas. All structures are considered legitimate targets by Israel because they are allegedly Hamas command centers or said to harbor Hamas fighters.
These accusations, Albanese writes, are a “pretext” used to justify “the killing of civilians under a cloak of purported legality, whose all-enveloping pervasiveness admits only of genocidal intent.”
In scale we have not seen an assault on the Palestinians of this magnitude, but all these measures – the killing of civlians, dispossession of land, arbitrary detention, torture, disappearances, closures imposed on Palestinians towns and villages, house demolitions, revoking residence permits, deportation, destruction of the infrastructure that maintains civil society, military occupation, dehumanizing language, theft of natural resources, especially aquifers — have long defined Israel’s campaign to eradicate Palestinians.
The occupation and genocide would not be possible without the U.S. which gives Israel $3.8 billion in annual military assistance and is now sending another $2.5 billion in bombs, including 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs, 500 MK82 500-pound bombs and fighter jets to Israel. This, too, is our genocide.
The genocide in Gaza is the culmination of a process. It is not an act. The genocide is the predictable denouement of Israel’s settler colonial project. It is coded within the DNA of the Israeli apartheid state. It is where Israel had to end up.
Zionist leaders are open about their goals.
Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, after Oct. 7, announced that Gaza would receive “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel.” Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz said: “Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened.” Avi Dichter, the Minister of Agriculture, referred to Israel’s military assault as “the Gaza Nakba,” referencing the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, which between 1947 and 1949, drove 750,000 Palestinians from their land and saw thousands massacred by Zionist militias. Likud member of the Israeli Knesset Revital Gottlieb posted on her social media account: “Bring down buildings!! Bomb without distinction!!…Flatten Gaza. Without mercy! This time, there is no room for mercy!” Not to be outdone, Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu supported using nuclear weapons on Gaza as “one of the possibilities.”
The message from the Israeli leadership is unequivocal. Annihilate the Palestinians the same way we annihilated Native Americans, the Australians annihilated the First Nations peoples, the Germans annihilated the Herero in Namibia, the Turks annihilated Armenians and the Nazis annihilated the Jews.
The specifics are different. The process is the same.
We cannot plead ignorance. We know what happened to the Palestinians. We know what is happening to the Palestinians. We know what will happen to the Palestinians.
But it is easier to pretend. Pretend Israel will allow in humanitarian aid. Pretend there will be a ceasefire. Pretend Palestinians will return to their destroyed homes in Gaza. Pretend Gaza will be rebuilt. Pretend the Palestinian Authority will administer Gaza. Pretend there will be a two-state solution. Pretend there is no genocide.
The genocide, which the U.S. is funding and sustaining with weapons shipments, says something not only about Israel, but about us, about Western civilization, about who we are as a people, where we came from and what defines us. It says that all our vaunted morality and respect for human rights is a lie. It says that people of color, especially when they are poor and vulnerable, do not count. It says their hopes, dreams, dignity and aspirations for freedom are worthless. It says we will ensure global domination through racialized violence.
This lie — that Western civilization is predicated on “values” such as respect for human rights and the rule of law — is one the Palestinians, and all those in the Global South, as well as Native Americans and Black and Brown Americans have known for centuries. But, with the Gaza genocide live streamed, this lie is impossible to sustain.
We do not halt Israel’s genocide because we are Israel, infected with white supremacy and intoxicated by our domination of the globe’s wealth and the power to obliterate others with our industrial weapons. Remember The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman telling Charlie Rose on the eve of the war in Iraq that American soldiers should go house to house from Basra to Baghdad and say to Iraqis “suck on this?” That is the real credo of the U.S. empire.
The world outside of the industrialized fortresses in the Global North is acutely aware that the fate of the Palestinians is their fate. As climate change imperils survival, as resources become scarce, as migration becomes an imperative for millions, as agricultural yields decline, as costal areas are flooded, as droughts and wild fires proliferate, as states fail, as armed resistance movements rise to battle their oppressors along with their proxies, genocide will not be an anomaly. It will be the norm. The earth’s vulnerable and poor, those Frantz Fanon called “the wretched of the earth,” will be the next Palestinians.
xenagoguevicene 
