I could not tell the easy, comforting lie.
“No”, I told the woman, her traumatised children clinging to her legs, “I can’t say you are safe here; not one of us is safe. The Israelis are genocidal. But in Lebanon so far, I don’t think they have bombed a school”.
I was with one of 67 families, with 215 children, living as refugees in a small school at Ain Rumaila in Southern Beirut. The area borders the evacuated suburb of Dahiya which the Israelis are systematically demolishing, and bombings rattle the windows of the school every day.
This woman is a school teacher when at home in Southern Lebanon, and her husband a retired soldier. They had to leave their small town with no notice, through an intense air raid, as Israeli bombs destroyed buildings and killed and maimed people all round them.
They got out only with what they could carry. Their home was destroyed behind them.
Israel has targeted refugees all over Lebanon. Just the day before, we had been at the site of a refugee aid centre in central Beirut, which had been targeted for missile attack. The death toll on that attack has now risen to five, with seventeen seriously injured.
I reached that site before I could establish exactly what the target was:
My aim in visiting the school was to let a few refugees tell to camera their own stories about their daily pre-war lives and their communities, so that people might see them as individuals, and not just a huddled mass of misery.
I think that worked. Within 48 hours the resulting video will be available. But what this woman urgently wanted me to tell her was that now they are safe.
And I couldn’t. If the children understood English, then I might perhaps have lied for their sake and replied that everything is OK. But the situation is too serious for self-serving false cheer.
Before I left, one of the families we met who have lost everything and are struggling with basic provision, absolutely insisted we sat and shared their meal of salad and lentils, cooked on a single burner ring directly on top of a gas bottle.
It was a deeply humbling experience to experience their graciousness and warmth to strangers.
Yesterday Amos Hochstein, the US Middle Eastern Envoy, flew in to Beirut to “negotiate” a peace deal between Lebanon and Israel.
Over 3,500 Lebanese have been killed, the majority of them women and children. The bombs that killed them were not only made in the USA, they were supplied by the USA for the purpose. As were the aircraft that dropped them.
The Americans are arrogant enough to send Amos Hochstein, born in the terrorist state to Israeli parents and himself a former member of the IDF, as their “peace envoy”.
And it says everything about America’s real interest in the region that Hochstein’s official position in the Biden Administration is actually Energy Security Adviser.
As I explained in my last article, Israel’s intensified bombing campaign is designed to terrify Lebanon into signing a peace deal that is actually a surrender. It guarantees Israeli armed forces access at will into Southern Lebanon, and military overflight of the entire country.
The access to Southern Lebanon in the latest draft has been supposedly toned down and phrased as “in pursuit of Israel’s right of self-defence”.
As the entire world has seen this last year and more that “Israel’s right to self-defence” is interpreted by both Israel and the United States as the right to commit genocide, Lebanon would be utterly mad to sign this document.
Similarly Lebanon is supposed to be reassured by insertion of the USA as the “guarantor” of the agreement.
You read that right; the county which is currently funding and supplying the genocidal bombing of Lebanon is going to be the guarantor of its safety.
As always in such negotiations, neither side wishes to be seen to be standing in the way of a deal, so the Lebanese were polite to Hochstein and he is now shuttling off to Tel Aviv to seek Israeli agreement to little linguistic tweaks that make it all sound better.
I worry for Lebanon. In another post I will try to outline the myriad ways in which the USA and Israel are attempting to re-open the old divisions of the civil war to undermine the resistance.
One of those ways is of course to convince factions that Israel really wants peace and Hezbollah is blocking a reasonable deal. It is plainly not a reasonable deal, but people made desperate by Israel’s state terror inflicted on their country, may see what they wish to believe.
Should Lebanon accept the deal in the interest of preserving unity, as the US connive, then I have no doubt whatsoever that this deal will shortly be understood to have been a key step on the path to Israeli annexation of Southern Lebanon.
Because it is essential to understand that Greater Israel has been the goal all along of both Israel and the United States.
If you have not by now seen through the Biden administration’s pretence of “trying to restrain” Israel, whilst providing ever greater funding and weapons for the genocide, then you are such a fool that I cannot help you.
Reporting from Lebanon
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UN special rapporteur and SOAS graduate Francesca Albanese:
“there is no doubt that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza”
[the camp breakout of 7 Oct 2022] “in no way justifies the genocide committed by Israel.”
Elsewhere in her remarks, Albanese said continuing to trade arms with a state or entity that is committing genocide is a violation of the UN Charter.
She called for the next step to be “severing all military, academic and diplomatic relations with Israel.”
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2024/11/19/737542/albanese-gaza-israel-genocide
You can’t get much clearer than that. Let’s run through it again. The UN special rapporteur (with page here) has said:
1) Israel is committing genocide
2) its enemies’ actions don’t justify genocide
3) trading arms with such criminals is against the UN Charter
4) countries should break off diplomatic, military, and academic relations with Israel.
Just to be clear: 4) means (inter alia) shutting down Israeli embassies and consulates everywhere.
Clearly words are cheap in the aforementioned organisation headquartered in New York. Every decent person agrees with Albanese. But what she is saying appears to be having no effect whatsoever. The terrorists called Israel are continuing the genocide they are committing.
Craig is one of the few people worth listening to on this outrageous, barbaric and genocidal Israeli war of “self-defence”.
Soas graduate doesn’t really help … soas has been used as the soft recruiter and cover for imperial nastiness. I witnessed the Uyghur ‘narrative’ being cooked up there about had a dozen years ago, with cultural appropriation and cover of the Barbican Festival, another dodgy institute in the City.
In previous years it was an easily accessible university for many who couldn’t qualify through the traditional ones. With a bunch of drug sellers and consumers. Though it does have decent language courses. It is really a place where foreign students can be identified and used as cover for the Great Gamers.
“a key step on the path to Israeli annexation of Southern Lebanon.”
But, we all know that annexation of the south is just the beginning, because then you’ll have Israeli ‘settlers’ setting up in the south and for their safety they’ll require annexation of the north.
This started out as providing security for Israeli settlers in Northern Israel, it will, unless stopped, lead to the complete take over of Lebanon. One step on the way to greater Israel. Whose next ? Syria or Jordan. Trump will allow the take over of the West bank (for $100Mn reasons), so my money is on Jordan.
Yes. The big picture is that the Zionist mentality needs a Base, a Prison, and an Edge.
The Prison is where they keep their servants.
The Edge is where they are fighting, murdering, and thieving – and where they train the younger generation to keep on murdering, just like their parents and grandparents before them.
These aren’t exactly defined because, hey, it’s practice that counts, not words.
At the moment the West Bank is a Prison, while Gaza and part of Lebanon are in the Edge.
Planned for the near future is an advance of the front lines. This could involve turning the largest of the 1967 occupied territories, i.e. the West Bank, into something similar to the 1948 occupied territories – or, in short, mass expulsions and formal annexation, bringing the West Bank into the Base. The only place in practice to expel the surviving population to is Jordan.
Then turn southern Lebanon into part of the new Prison, cf. the old West Bank.
And situate the new Edge possibly in Syria, Jordan, and northern Lebanon…
…with details to depend on the response by Iran and the response (or non-response) by Saudi, Turkey, and even possibly Egypt when the Zionists “cleanse” Jerusalem, smash up the Al-Aqsa mosque, and de-Islamicise the Dome of the Rock.
I say “non-response”, but the term “Arab street” is not entirely orientalist, so doing absolutely eff-all may not be an option in Riyadh and Cairo.
Which leaves Gaza. The plan for Gaza is probably to murder much of the population, let the rest flee on ships to Cyprus, and resettle as part of the Base.
One question is whether an influx of ubermenschen will be needed from outside the region. I suspect yes, and that France, and perhaps also some other European countries with smaller Jewish populations, may be the source. Possibly Britain too.
“If you have not by now seen through the Biden administration’s pretence of “trying to restrain” Israel, whilst providing ever greater funding and weapons for the genocide, then you are such a fool that I cannot help you.”
Obviously, there aren’t many fools reading you. Why would they? Now, another question is, isn’t it a little bit too late to put the blame on the easy target, the Biden/Kamala duet? Do you have any reason to believe the Trump/Musk administration can be any more favorable to the Palestinian people? It actually doesn’t seem very likely. Almost the opposite…
I am commenting on what has been done by Biden/Harris. I will comment on Trump’s doings when he does them.
He already has. It’s clearly upon his personal permission that Hochstein went to the Middle East with a so-called ‘peace plan’. But we shall certainly read with great interest your comments in later episodes.
Nobody gets to be presidential candidate for either of the major US parties without being confirmed as Zionist property. This has been true since Kennedy and the arrangement by which Zionist agencies wouldn’t really be treated as foreign agents under FARA.
(Nixon in his very very last days in the White House did say privately he was going to reverse policy on Israel but look what happened to him next. Carter meanwhile has tried his best since he left the presidency, but to little effect given that he holds no public office. These are just footnotes.)
US politics within the confines in which it operates isn’t anywhere near as globally significant as the NYT and most of the media in the global US-bumsniffer region – media which follows in the footsteps of the NYT, including the BBC – seeks to portray it. Whoever is US president does what the Israelis want. For evidence, see the last 60 years and more. Pretty much everyone in the Middle East knows this.
Nixon was ousted in a CIA-Pentagon coup.
I am not aware of any Israeli involvement.
@Tony –
Kissinger described how about 1-2 days before he resigned, Nixon told him he had wheeled US policy on Israel around through 180 degrees and had it made it irreversible that the US would from now on support Palestine against Israel. This was obviously a case of a man who’d had his chips thrashing about, saying “You bastards, I’m going to get you” to those who had actually given him his chips and who had their jackboots on his throat.
“This has been true since Kennedy” is not accurate. “Since the first Bush”, Clinton and onward, yes. Carter did have the guts to genuinely restrain Israel – during the forgotten 1978 invasion of Lebanon. (That’s why it’s forgotten.) Menachem Begin later wrote of his fear of Carter back then. So he was careful to get a go-ahead in the later 1982 invasion. The first Bush refused to give Israel loan guarantees for its illegal settlement building to force it to go to the Madrid Conference. Which caused him and the Republicans to lose most of their Jewish votes and support – and helped him lose the election to Clinton.
No it isn’t. Hochstein has been a Clinton/Biden tool for decades. Stop talking rubbish.
Craig,
” If you have not by now seen through the Biden administration’s pretence of “trying to restrain” Israel, whilst providing ever greater funding and weapons for the genocide, then you are such a fool that I cannot help you.”
This goes well beyond Biden. For Trump via the Abrahams Accord has already erased East Jerusalem as the capital for a future Palestinian state – so one can only surmise with him as President again, there is only worse to come.
Not sure if ´rubbish’ is referring to my comment. If so, please use some eraser and forgive me.
Meanwhile, I take it for granted that you realize that CLINTON, if you mean Bill, has been retired for more than 20 years.
It is.
I suspect Trump and his administration will do what AIPAC tell them to do. The tail wags the dog, when it comes to US foreign policy.
‘If you have not by now seen through the Biden administration’s pretence of “trying to restrain” Israel, whilst providing ever greater funding and weapons for the genocide, then you are such a fool that I cannot help you’.
The claim that Biden, Blinken, Harris and co are trying to restrain Israel has been an exercise in gaslighting from the start, its zenith reached at this summer’s DNC when AOC shamelessly claimed that Biden and Harris were “working around the clock” to secure a ceasefire.
LIberals know the entire reputation of western liberalism depends on sustaining this lie, in a desperate effort to valorize the west’s current liberal governments and distance them from their ongoing depravity.
That’s why a concerted effort is already well underway to frame the past year of liberal genocide as some kind of lost nirvana of empathy and hope for the Palestinians and Lebanese, even as the horrors continue to reach fresh heights with every new week under Biden-Harris (and Starmer-Lammy, Scholz, Trudeau, Macron, Von der Leyen etc.)
It is not only the craven, genocidal politicians and journalists but millions of their acolytes who have everything invested in resuscitating and perpetuating the myth of western moral superiority. As you can see even from your own readers’ comments, they are willing to say anything to get the liberal establishment – the beloved grown-ups/ sensibles – off the hook and pin this genocide on forces anomalous to the good, liberal West: Trumpism/ Adelsonism, populism, fascism ….. even as the liberals themselves continue and escalate the genocide!
Liberal responsibility must – and will – be memory holed.
@Joel – This term “liberal” seems to play an enormous role in your outlook, far greater than it plays for editorialists writing, for example, for the Economist or the Financial Times.
Just stating observable reality, forgive me.
Re your bewildering statement about editorialists, I strongly recommend you add this to your voluminous library..
Liberalism at large: the world according to the Economist,
by Alexander Zevin.
“Path-breaking history of modern liberalism told through the pages of one of its most zealous supporters.”
https://www.versobooks.com/en-gb/products/28-liberalism-at-large
I don’t
Have I got this right, Boss? Lebanon would be ‘utterly mad’ to sign a peace deal that guarantees the IDF right of access to southern Lebanon and of military overflight over the whole country (which it can do anyway as the Lebanese have no real air defence) – but Ukraine needs to negotiate with Russia, then hand over around a fifth of its internationally recognised territory for the sake of peace*?
* or at least a temporary one.
Lapsed Agnostic
Exactly so.
Most posters here rightly condemn Israel’s genocidal, racist and expansionist behaviour but are indifferent to Russia’s equally genocidal, racist and expansionist behaviour.
Thanks for your reply JK. Good point well made about Ireland in your comment below, by the way. I’d add that, had the Yes vote won in 2014, I doubt whether the Scottish government would have been particularly keen on people who still considered themselves to be primarily British expressing their identity by setting up their own residual UK-funded enclaves in which the rule of Scots law didn’t apply.
Russia sparing the civilians of most of the Ukraine, and noteably Kiev, is genocidal? Meanwhile the Israelis bomb civilians in Beirut, like the British bombed Dresden, yet you equate Israel and Russia. So what is non-genocidal war or is all war genocidal in your opinion?
JK Redux stated openly on here that notwithstanding the genocide Joe Biden is a decent guy. only a distinct type of person would entertain being morally scolded by this individual.
Even funnier, the Ukrainians are the ones who engage in explicitly genocidal speech & polices.
Which have in fact destroyed their own “independent” country and they can only ever blame Russia for this misfortune.
Whilst screeching about the sanctity of whimsical borders, drawn up by dead Bolsheviks. Whom they otherwise despise.
Well nobody is forcing Ukraine to negotiate. They can all die to maintain the supremacy of the dollar for a couple more months if they wish to.
But seriously, that is a childish false equivalence. There is a genuine percentage of the population of Ukraine that wishes actually to be Russian – I suspect rather a similar percentage to the 15% of Ukrainian territory Russia is occupying. (A further larger percentage wishes to be free to express their Russian identity within Ukraine, currently outlawed).
There is no discernible percentage of the population of Lebanon that wishes to be Israeli.
thank you very much, Mr Murray, for saying this. Have I mentioned yet that you are my hero and that I deeply respect you for your clarity of thought and ability to see the essence of things?
Thanks for the reply Craig.
But we disagree.
The pressure on Ukraine to negotiate is bloody war, just as the pressure on Lebanon is. Though Lebanon is not subject to the same level of military assault. Yet.
The equivalence is not false in my opinion and to refer to it as childish is just insulting.
The business about the % of Ukrainians who wish to be Russian is at best speculation.
Some people in Ireland (even in the Republic) wish to be British. Tough tits to them. If they want to be British there are regular flights to Britain.
JK redux
Do you happen to write texts for Ms. Podolyak?
I remember Elon Musk had the imprudence to publicly suggest that people in Crimea have the right to self-determination. To this he received a rude response from Ms. Podolyak, formulated in the best traditions of obscene language, that his role is to be a Starlink provider, and that he should, ahem.. give his head a certain position so that the hole in his face could be used for its true purpose.
You are openly lying when you say “speculation at best”.
Because this is the cause of the armed conflict that they have been trying to resolve for about 8 years through the Minsk agreements. The conflict is well documented, so I can’t call your comment anything other than a lie.
JK Redux
Have you ever heard of a Non Bloody War?
There are ‘rules’ of course but no countries abide by them because they will say – they didn’t, so we don’t have to.
There are temporary victories (like the end of WW1) and because they are temporary then that means unresolved and prone to explode again in the future. In actuality nothing is fixed or permanent – for ever.
In the real world away from the ‘rules’ and so-called ‘sovereignty’ the people of the world have always had to make a choice as to who’s side to take.
There is no Supra National or International Body that represents them or individuals so in the era of voting for or ‘choosing’ the least worst outcome that has been a constant for all of humanity.
The Liberals pretend there is an individual choice – there isn’t and never has been.
Let’s see what Trump does – not says between now and January.
And Israel is attempting to re-set its fear factor.
That seems to be a busted flush at the moment, as Iran and even Hezbollah will be no pushover and Hochstein can have his administrative Lebanese Government and Hezbollah will have the means that count, in the non rules-based system. Namely a lot of weaponry, as has Iran.
Only time will tell as to what happens – so no predictions from me here.
“Former German Chancellor Merkel admits the Minsk agreement was merely to buy time for Ukraine’s arms build-up”
Will this do….?
JD redux, you said ” Some people in Ireland (even in the Republic) wish to be British” .
What absolute nonsense. People of Republic of Ireland nationality do not want to be British; for you to say they do is just plain stupidity – if not, courting trouble. Perhaps you are referring to English people in the Republic of Ireland or Northern Irish people in the Republic of Ireland wanting to be British. I suspect that is exactly what you mean, and if you are that makes you an even bigger fool. Get a life , get a grip of yourself, and talk sense rather than trying to goad people with your stupid comments.
Most Ukrainians wanted to be Soviet in 1991, the U.S.S.R was ripped apart illegally (to the point of treason) over their heads.
Then the place got infested by illegitimate compradors, gangsters and fascists.
So in actuality, the present government of the Russian Federation is/can be considered legally (even morally) speaking the only sole & legitimate government of the entire former Soviet Union.
Also, the percentage of Ukrainians who want to be Russian were made into an to be existential issue. When Kiev decided to made Bandera the father of their aspiring, fake & cargo-cultist ethno-state.
They wanted a race war, well they got it and now they’re losing. In this context that means Ukraine = Russia.
Tough tits eh?
Can you just reduce your sad assumption jkredux, what do you know of those Ukrainians living in the Donetzk and Luchansk areas, not to speak of Crimea
It looks like you are trying to browbeat your petty thoughts on us by using your false term
‘But we disagree.’
Well, moishe jkredux you are not speaking for me and I have yet to see a poll that supports your weird assumptions.
And you know nothing about equivalences, nor can you see the similarities of the zionist assault on Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon. Its not childish, because a child will probably understand it, its a low level amateurs argument barking some MSM propaganda points.
Thanks for your reply, Boss. As far as I know, Hochstein is not forcing Lebanon to negotiate – he just wants them to. Should Ukraine’s resistance collapse, I doubt very much will happen to the value the US dollar on international markets. What I wrote is not a false equivalence (childish or otherwise): you may not have met very many of them and they may not wish to be Israeli, but there is a large section of the Lebanese population that doesn’t particularly like Hezbollah, and some of it would very much like Israel to destroy them. However, in my book, that doesn’t give Israel the right to invade and kill & maim thousands of civilians. Same rules apply for Russia.
It does seem that Israel targets civilians with a lot more gusto than Russia does. Russia appears to target infrastructure, at least via the MSM reports I have read.
Lebanon is not one bit Israeli land, nor has it Lebanese who want to be part of Israel, while in Ukraine there are many who identify as Russians and who want to be part of Russia.
Never in my life have I ever heard of an Irish person wanting to be British.
Geldof?
Take a visit to NI (they are Irish) and you’ll meet the rabid Brits (with Scottish links).
Also, if Kinsella was your neighbour it would be an understandable reaction.
BTW, there is no such thing as ‘Israeli land’, there is only stolen Palestine. Israel, like Ukraine, is a made up political construct.
Peerage. Does it count? He has a partial genealogy at Wiki.
Stevie boy, I was talking about Irish people not Northern Irish people, nor people who have assimilated over the years to living in Britain.
When I was younger, the Kinsellas lived on the same estate, in Wales. Do you know them?
Thanks for your reply Ewan2.
Re: ‘It does seem that Israel targets civilians with a lot more gusto than Russia does.’
Have you seen what it did to Mariupol (and elsewhere)? The main reason it hasn’t killed far more Ukrainian civilians is because millions of them fled to Western & Central Europe and, to a lesser extent to Russia, as well as internally in Ukraine.
Re: ‘Never in my life have I ever heard of an Irish person wanting to be British.’
Have you been to Northern Ireland?
I’d imagine that Ukraine is one of the few issues that JK and most rabid NI loyalists broadly agree on, Stevie. Also, all countries are made-up political constructs.
Lapsed:
3 years from 1967 – 70, we moved there from Wales.
Have you been there?
Thanks for your reply Ewan. I’ve been there once on the ferry, shortly after the St Andrews agreement. Can’t say I’m in any rush to return. You must have lived in a fairly Nationalist area then. Anyway, you probably chose the right time to leave.
I wonder what england would do if belgium signed a trade agreement with China and then allowed China to site nuclear missiles on the Belgian coast facing London.
I also wonder what USA would do if Canada signed a similar deal allowing Russia to site nuclear missiles on its border with USA facing New York.
Would england do what russia have done.
Would usa do what russia have done.
I think we all know the true answer is YES
I don’t know what England would do if China sited nuclear missiles on the Belgian coast, Terence, but it might as well do nothing, because should China ever decide to nuke us, it can easily do so by launching its ICBMs from sites in China, which will get here in about 15 minutes. And, no, we very probably won’t be able to nuke them back because our Trident missiles are highly likely to deposit their re-entry vehicles somewhere in the South Atlantic, because the US strategists responsible for their programming very likely a) understand game theory; & b) aren’t mad.
For everyone who believes that Ukraine is a “recently” “invented construct” (as is the case for any country, though not necessarily recently), I suggest you have a look at some maps drawn up by 16th and 17th Century French royal cartographers…
Question is. How do we know the truth. And how do we act accordingly…
Mr Murray, you are absolutely right.
Whatever happens in Ukraine in the near future doesn’t depend on citizens on either side of the borders. It mostly depends on the political stands of Trump and/or Putin, And the winner is….
To be announced later in January
It depends on whether or not USA withdraw their plans to site their nuclear missiles in ukraine on the border with russia just 400 miles from Moscow
Doubtful they would do that because of the real risk of losing them to Russia. They’re stupid but not that stupid.
” I suspect rather a similar percentage to the 15% of Ukrainian territory Russia is occupying. ”
Well that would be convenient but it’s just a guess and don’t confuse Russian speaking with pro-Russia. The two are not the same anymore than every Jew is a Zionist. Separatists in Crimea and Donetsk wanted independence. What they got is direct rule from Moscow. Time alone will tell if that works out for them.
So, you think that since about 2014 Kiev has been bombing not regions disloyal to the government, but its own peaceful citizens who want to speak their native language? Kramatorsk and Ilovaisk – battles over pronunciation and spelling?
Do you also know the reason why so many people there speak Russian?
HJ Tatyana.
My understanding is that the languages are very similar. My two Ukrainian friends (from Kharkiv) in the US both move freely across the linguistic boundaries, as does a Russian friend who can deal effortlessly with Ukrainians, though the two Ukrainians were graduates of foremost Language teaching centre in Moscow.
I am guessing that Russian evolved from some proto-language that existed in the area (or part of the area) that we now know as Ukraine. Lapsed Aggie is correct as usual that all countries are political constructs shaped by numerous factors that contribute to identity.
My own special theory about the existence of Israel is that it owes a great deal to the Christian-guided individuals who had some crazed idea about the second coming and the restoration of the Land of the Jews. An odd messianic urge of the British colonial era to tidy the world up and put those confounded wandering Jews back into their rightful place in the Middle east. The myths of the old testament were/are powerful guides to the thinking of many God-fearing Americans that lean towards religious fundamentalism, and find common cause with fundamentalist Jews, and many British high official and amateur religious philosophers of the time around the first few decades of the 20th century.
It seems very obvious that this mental aberration persists in the ideology of Zionism, and there isn’t any doubt that the Israelis intend to eliminate the Palestinians (with the assistance of these deranged Americans and British) as any kind of political entity and force the broken residue to vacate Gaza, the West Bank and some portion of Lebanon. You don’t have to be a judicial maestro to see what is happening. The problem is more to do with the inability of the United Nations to apply any kind of judicial process to hold the Israelis and their sponsors in check.
DGP
Frankly speaking, I have a professionally acquired deformation as a linguist.
When people say that Ukrainian and Russian are different languages, I first have to suppress a long internal protesting dialogue. After all, even English and Russian don’t seem too alien to me as linguistic manifestations.
My history of humanity and our methods of communication begins approximately 10,000 years before Christ.
I once gave an example that the word “cat” here in Russia we pronounce as “kot”, in Ukraine it is “kit”, in Britain it is “kat” and I honestly do not see why we should fight over a more or less open path for exhaled air during the formation of a vowel sound in the middle of this word!
If someone were to call for the mass murder of people who pronounce communicative sounds differently, then I would call an ambulance for an acute psychiatric disorder that poses a danger to others.
Pears Morgaine
Well said.
Very roughly 15% of voters in the 2019 Ukrainian parliamentary election and the first round of that year’s presidential election voted for pro-Russian parties and candidates*, Pears. However, with everything that’s happened since, a good deal of them may be considerably less pro-Russia. A good example is Oleksandr Vilkul, who was Opposition Bloc’s candidate for president in 2019, having previously served in Yanukovych’s government, but is now head of the military administration in Kryvyi Rih (Zelensky’s home town).
* Note that there were no polls in Crimea or the separatist areas of Donetsk & Luhansk.
Donetsk did not want independence. Donetsk wanted autonomy within Ukraine.
Crimea was a republic before the collapse of the USSR, apparently people there got used to independence. I guess they didn’t like Kiev’s discriminatory policies, so decided that they already had enough independence to legally decide to go back to Russia again.
So your words “Donetsk and Crimea wanted independence” are not true.
And I’m not surprised that JK praises you, because he himself told a lie just a couple of comments above.
Are you a duet or is there a full orchestra?
Tatanya
What lie did I utter?
From April 2014 until September 2022, the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) claimed to be independent states. Their sovereignty was recognised by South Ossetian authorities in 2014, Russia and Abkhazian authorities in February 2022, Syria in June 2022 and North Korea in July 2022.
In September 2022 both areas were annexed by Russia.
Similar story in Crimea which declared independence in March 2014.
So let us all get this straight. Those regions can have the right of autonomy and independence to “choose” to be under Putin’s jackboot, rather than under America’s proxy-jackboot? (Those two distinctions are valid, given how long Putin has dictated over Russia), yet other already “independent” sovereign nations don’t have the right of autonomy and independence to choose to join NATO? And a sovereign nation that gave up its right to develop its own nuclear weapons in exchange for a guarantee of peace from Russia and protection by America, doesn’t have the right to position its protectors’ weapons on its own land?
And Russia definitely isn’t an expansionist colonialist like the West? Oh no, definitely hasn’t invaded Afghanistan, Chechnya, Crimea, Syria, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan (those two by thinly-veiled proxy)…? No, Sir! Of course not!
Not a tory fan boy;
Cabbage patch explains things for you below…..
“The US and Germany explicitly and repeatedly promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not enlarge “one inch eastward” after Gorbachev disbanded the Soviet military alliance known as the Warsaw Pact. The entire premise of NATO enlargement was a violation of agreements reached with the Soviet Union, and therefore with the continuation state of Russia.”
I wonder. Most people on this blog speak English, or at least try to.
Does it mean that they are pro-England ? Possibly, but they’re not ready to fight for it.
And in Lebanon, sister, would you advocate for separating communities according to their native language ? Such disputes are nothing but smokescreens.
Let’s not confuse England and the English speaking people’s with the bunch of corrupt, incompetent traitors that inhabit Westminster. Who, in their right mind, would sacrifice themselves for that bunch of c*nts?
Nonsense pears morgaine read your history books before you blabber such nonsense
The independence and joining Russia referendums have all been fair – or at least sufficiently fair not to problematise the results.
The large majority of people in the Crimea, the Donbas, etc., are Russians FFS.
Those who talk about “Russian speakers” aren’t getting it. Those who would like to check how well they know Ukraine should try to answer the following question: what language was “Servant of the People” first made in?
“There is no discernible percentage of the population of Lebanon that wishes to be Israeli.”
Hmmm, I think that you put that rather well. The weather here is as shite as last time and colder so old folk will be dying of cold; so much more civilised than bombing.
Zionist State Terrorist group are unable to keep the thieves in their stolen land, as Northern Occupied Palestine has been liberated by the Lebanese, who are munching the terrorists at a rate of knots, having left them unable to hold even five kilometres of Lebanon. Daily that line is creeping forward and the central belt will be emptied of the infestation.
That’s not going to change, and the Zionist State Terror group are unable to force that equation.
Nazi Ukraine has run out of time, and will no longer be able to perpetrate a genocide against the Russian population of the Donbass, the actual territory in dispute. The death of more poor Ukrainians unable to escape the conscription of the Nazi Kiev regime headed up by the cowardly cokehead, will not change matters.
The Russian people will not be subject to rule by the Nazi regime, they are part of the Russian Federation, now and forever.
That’s Crimea, the “New Russia” which is the LPR and DPR – they stopped being Ukraine in 2014 with confirming referendums held to be fairly run, even if you want to make arguments about voter suppression.
The idea that the situations are remotely analogous is laughable and shows how rudimentary the analysis of the underlying situation and social-cultural-historical roots has been in the sources you are reliant on to form this misapprehension.
Thanks for your reply CP. I hope I live long enough to see how many of your predictions come true. Anyway, on the subject of rudimentary analysis (laughable or not), as well as the Donbas(s), Russia also claims all of Kherson & Zaporizhzhia oblasts.
Re: ‘they are part of the Russian Federation, now and forever’
Nothing in this universe lasts forever – not even the humble proton.
I hope you are well LA.
The six Russian majority oblasts are Russian not autonomous entirely through the actions of the Kiev regime. In Ukraine, Russian Language, Hungarian Language was banned, see how this was covered in 2018 https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/10/5/high-treason-hungary-ukraine-in-dispute-over-language-laws
Russian people simply will not see their kith and kin slaughtered, and do nothing. At every stage, they’ve offered an off-ramp – even now – neutrality, denazification and disarmament. They thankfully are simply in possession of their humanity.
Nothing lasts forever given a long enough scale. Russia wants a peaceful solution, but make no mistake Russia has won and would prefer to not kill Ukrainian conscripts to feed western delusions. Again the humanity.
How does Russia therefore justify a full-on invasion to take all of Ukraine, including its capital?
Well that’s not what happened.
Jeffery Sach’s take is here.
https://www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-articles/yjae8gc8hp2p293tmt4dlr4z2dpe2s
“We are not at the 1-year anniversary of the war, as the Western governments and media claim. This is the 9-year anniversary of the war. And that makes a big difference.
The war began with the violent overthrow of Ukraine President Viktor Yanukovych in February 2014, a coup that was overtly and covertly backed by the United States government (see also here). From 2008 onward, the United States pushed NATO enlargement to Ukraine and Georgia. The 2014 coup of Yanukovych was in the service of NATO expansion.
We must keep this relentless drive towards NATO expansion in context. The US and Germany explicitly and repeatedly promised Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev that NATO would not enlarge “one inch eastward” after Gorbachev disbanded the Soviet military alliance known as the Warsaw Pact. The entire premise of NATO enlargement was a violation of agreements reached with Soviet Union, and therefore with the continuation state of Russia.
The neocons have pushed NATO enlargement because they seek to surround Russia in the Black Sea region, akin to the aims of Britain and France in the Crimean War (1853-56). US strategist Zbigniew Brzezinski described Ukraine as the “geographical pivot” of Eurasia. If the US could surround Russia in the Black Sea region, and incorporate Ukraine into the US military alliance, Russia’s ability to project power in the Eastern Mediterranean, the Middle East, and globally would disappear, or so goes the theory.
Of course, Russia saw this not only as a general threat, but as a specific threat of putting advanced armaments right up to Russia’s border. This was especially ominous after the US unilaterally abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002, which, according to Russia, posed a direct threat to Russian national security.
During his presidency (2010-2014), Yanukovych sought military neutrality, precisely to avoid a civil war or proxy war in Ukraine. This was a very wise and prudent choice for Ukraine, but it stood in the way of the U.S. neoconservative obsession with NATO enlargement. When protests broke out against Yanukovych at the end of 2013 upon the delay of the signing of an accession roadmap with the EU, the United States took the opportunity to escalate the protests into a coup, which culminated in Yanukovych’s overthrow in February 2014.
The US meddled relentlessly and covertly in the protests, urging them onward even as right-wing Ukrainian nationalist paramilitaries entered the scene. US NGOs spent vast sums to finance the protests and the eventual overthrow. This NGO financing has never come to light. “
Thanks for your reply CP. I’m reasonably well, and more prepared for WWIII should it occur (first use of an ICBM in battle this morning, apparently) than most, I reckon. However, I can’t accurately predict the future.
The UK also also bans language: for example, technically merely saying the words “I support the civilian wing of Hamas because they were doing a great job picking up litter in Gaza City before October 2023”, even in the privacy of your *own home*, is punishable by a prison sentence of up to 14 [FOURTEEN] years. Does that fact give the Palestinians, the Russians, or anyone else, the moral right to launch a full-scale amphibious invasion of Britain? In my book, no.
If Russia didn’t want to see ethnic Russians slaughtered – or even mildly oppressed – in Ukraine, it could have have saved a lot of blood and treasure simply by inviting them to come and live in Russia.
Thanks for this comment, Lapsed Agnostic, I must admit I was looking your way to see which camp you belong to, but now it’s clear.
On the essence of your comment – perhaps you will be interested to know the opinion of people living on that land, to whom you so easily suggest to leave it.
Well, they have an opinion and it sounds something like this:
“Someone in Kiev said that if we don’t want to accept the new identity, then we should go to Russia. And that’s exactly what we did. We left for Russia, only we left Ukraine for Russia taking with us our houses, our streets, our cities, our land.”
—
Can I do a Mr. Question impression?
You mentioned in this thread that you have a book. Did you release it under the name “independent researcher”?
Thanks for your reply Tatyana. I’m in no one’s camp, apart from the camp that’s against killing or maiming civilians if at all possible – Ukraine has done a bit of that, but Russia has done far more. The reality is that the (fairly poor) ethnic Russians who lived in the areas of Ukraine currently controlled by Russia didn’t take their houses with them when they fled to Russia at the start of the war/SMO. In many cases, those houses have been destroyed and, if they are to resume living where they lived before, will have to be rebuilt.
If you didn’t know, ‘in my book’ is an English idiom meaning ‘in my opinion’. As it happens, I have written a book (or rather half of one) as an independent researcher, a weighty tome that sells for 3000 euros a copy. Unfortunately, I don’t get any royalties – just a flat fee of around 700 euros that I had to pay German withholding tax on. Welcome to the world of Western academic publishing – it’s basically what Soviet teachers used to tell their students about capitalism.
LA – I don’t understand – you seem to suggest that if the slaughter of human beings was unsatisfactory to Ethnic Russians in Ukraine, they should simply allow themselves to be slaughtered rather than what they did, which was defend themselves for eight years, while pleading for help from Russia and the World.
The fact is that slaughter of Russians is wrong, Slaughter of Palestinians is wrong.
That such atrocities are acceptable to the morally bankrupt and ideologically brainwashed, doesn’t render them tolerable.
Russia breathtaking restraint is admirable.
do I understand correctly that in the end you are still the author of a book declared to be written by an independent researcher?
And, if we put aside thoughts about the profitability of selling books in the capitalist and socialist world, then do you find yourself doing good work where you are?
Thanks for your reply CP. In the five years leading up to the Russian invasion, few ethnic Russians were being slaughtered in Ukraine, and even fewer of those were unarmed civilians. Far more Russians were being killed on the roads in Russia each year. In any event, Russia could have prevented most of the deaths in Ukraine by enforcing a 50km demilitarized zone around the separatist areas (with a little cut-out for Mariupol), which would have stopped the Ukrainian shelling, limited though it was. Since the war/SMO began, at least 100,000 Russians have been killed in Ukraine – maybe over 150,000 – and far more have been seriously injured.
Thanks for your reply Tatyana. Yes, I am the author of (half) a book declared to be written by an independent researcher, in that I wasn’t an employee when I wrote it. I’m not sure whether writing up scientific papers based on lab-work that was done years ago counts as good work, bad work or indifferent.
LA
“In the five years leading up to the Russian invasion, few ethnic Russians were being slaughtered in Ukraine, and even fewer of those were unarmed civilians.”
No Russian invasion has taken place, the Independent LPR and DPR entered into a mutual defence treaty as is their right as sovereign countries recognised by other member states of the UN. The opinion of the US empire and its vassals notwithstanding – which you can read here:
https://lieber.westpoint.edu/russia-special-military-operation-claimed-right-self-defense/
You will note the basic acceptance of the facts even as they pretend International law has a special no Russians clause.
“Far more Russians were being killed on the roads in Russia each year.” This is a despicable racist sentiment, that Russian children murdered by Ukrainian fascist nationalists, in a is somehow only an offence against common humanity if the numeric incidence should exceed the road deaths in the worlds largest Country with a population some fifteen times larger some approx. 150 Million Russia vs 3 Million or so in the LPR/DPR.
Russia doesn’t want this war, would happily stop tomorrow but the facts are plain – the west doesn’t honour its agreements, e.g. Minsk 2.
It’s confusing you expect the Russians to allow themselves to be murdered by the US empire and acquiesce?
How can anyone have such a misapprehension of basic human behaviour, let alone the reality that Russia really doesn’t have to accept anything. They liberated themselves from the Tzar, from the Nazis, from the US empire.
Look at the UK since Putin took office, look at Russia over the same period. Compare the record of US violation of international law to the Russian, and I mean the Russian not the USSR over the same period.
Thanks for your reply CP.
Re: ‘No Russian invasion has taken place’
Were you watching the news in 2022? We can argue about whether the invasion was legally or morally justified, but I’m not going to bother arguing about whether it actually occurred. At the end of 2021, the DPR & LPR weren’t officially recognised as sovereign states by any UN member state *including Russia*.
Re: ‘This is a despicable racist sentiment’
It is a simple fact – and if Russia wanted to significantly reduce the number of Russians (including children) killed each year on its roads, it could reduce the speed limit in built-up areas from 60km/h to 45km/h, similar to that in most Western countries.
Minsk 2 placed no obligations on any Western government. It was arguably dead in the water after both sides reneged on the ceasefire by continuing their shelling in certain areas after midnight EET on 15th February 2015. Russia has never been a part of the US empire, and it was only with massive assistance from the US that the Soviet Union was able to free itself from the Nazis – read Zhukov’s memoirs if you don’t believe me.
I have been virtually alone on this blog’s comments sections in condemning the US (and the UK) for engaging in wholesale slaughter of civilians in Iraq & Syria from 2014-19. The best that others could manage was to have a go at them for supposedly stealing Syrian oil (doubtless because that’s what Vanessa Beeley told them).
Oh dear back to un-evidenced assertions with your anti-russian racist slip showing again.
Interestingly you can’t dispute that dead bodies, bloat, then explode post-mortem. So you are suggesting the author’s conviction for “masturbation on a web cam at home, whilst talking to an adult FBI agent” makes his contention about the post-mortem decomposition timeline inaccurate. You’ve also decide to go right past the evidence as your bigotry blinds you to the fact that you are cheering on the Ukrainian Nazis.
Bucha – had civilians rounded up and executed by the Ukrainian Nazis. – The exact same set of people telling you otherwise are telling you the Genocide in Gaza is a highly professional targeted hunt to get hostages with civilian life safeguarded zealously.
“Accepting the fake claims of a massacre is as bad as or even worse than denying a real one. Besides the immediate damage caused by the deception, it undermines trust and empathy when a real massacre happens.
The allegations of the Bucha massacre are false.
The Russian military left Bucha, Ukraine on March 30, 2022. On March 31, Bucha mayor Anatoly Fedoruk triumphantly declared Bucha liberated. On April 1, a video shot from a moving car appeared on Twitter, showing 7 (maybe 8) dead bodies on the Yablonska Street in Bucha. By April 3, the number of bodies found on the streets of Bucha had grown to 20, and mass graves were shown. Kyiv claimed that the Russian military had executed between 280 and 410 civilians in Bucha. Russia denied these accusations (RIA FAN in Russian, April 7) and demanded a special session by the U.N. Security Council to refute them. This request was blocked by Britain.”
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/was_there_really_a_massacre_at_bucha.html
Useful links to primary sources there – evidence – try some
There is footage of the murderers about to enter.
Ritter / Bucha
https://scottritter.substack.com/p/bucha-revisited?utm_source=publication-search
“In the aftermath of the “Bucha massacre” narrative manufactured by Ukraine and disseminated by their compliant co-conspirators in the mainstream western media, Denisova sought to sustain the moral outrage the original stories generated by releasing even more tales from the dark side. Typical of her modus operendi was the story she told to BBC, and which was picked up, unquestioningly, by other western news outlets, including Newsweek and the Washington Post, about alleged sexual violent crimes committed by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.
“About 25 girls and women aged 14-24 were systematically raped during the occupation in the basement of one house in Bucha,” Denisova told the BBC. “Nine of them are pregnant. Russian soldiers told them they would rape them to the point where they wouldn’t want sexual contact with any man, to prevent them from having Ukrainian children.”
None of this was true, and the problem with telling a lie of such magnitude is eventually someone—even a thoroughly compromised western “journalist”—is going to want to speak directly with the victims.
There were none.
Denisova afterwards explained the reason behind her lies. “I talked about terrible things,” she told a Ukrainian newspaper, “in order to somehow push them [the west] to make the decisions that Ukraine and the Ukrainian people need.” In one particular case, Denisova noted that the Italians were “against the provision of weapons to us,” but after hearing her speak, decided “they will support Ukraine, including by the provision of weapons.”
In the aftermath of the Ukrainian reconquest of Kharkov, the Ukrainian authorities tried to create a “new Bucha” narrative, this time around the existence of mass graves in the vicinity of Izium. But this storyline soon fell apart amid growing direct evidence of Ukrainian atrocities against anyone deemed to be a “collaborator.”
Flushed with victory, the Ukrainian supporters of Stepan Bandera openly bragged about their crimes. One Ukrainian volunteer detachment commander, a member of the “Right Sector” political party, admitted his crimes to a Ukrainian journalist, who expressed no emotion upon learning about the deaths of so many of her fellow citizens. “We haven’t got time to put them in jail,” the Right Sector thug said, noting that those accused of collaborating with the Russians “just disappear…Ukraine will have to conduct a census,” he bragged, “because so many people have disappeared.”
Videos of freshly dug graves filled with the bodies of freshly executed men and women, all in civilian clothing, their hands bound behind their backs, backed up the commander’s words.
Unable to craft a narrative capable of overcoming this brutish reality, the mainstream media resorted to the age-old trick of breathing fresh life into an old story—they repackaged the lie of the original Russian sin—the alleged “massacre” of Bucha.”
Russia Recognised the LPR and the DPR
That’s all that is needed – I refer you to the Zionist Entity who was recognised by the US despite being a Polish Terrorist group.
Russia are entitled to recognise LPR/DPR and assist them and it’s too bad if the US empire and its vassals, disagree.
The Duma voted on the matter. http://duma.gov.ru/en/news/53431/
So no invasion of Ukraine took place. The Russian Federation was invited onto the territory of the LPR and the DPR to assist in defending their citizens from the US Backed Nazi Kiev Regime.
The longer range of the weapons provided by the US to the Nazi Regime in Kiev, have resulted in establishing a buffer between Russia and Ukrainian territory. As the US has escalated that buffer has grown from the original LPR/DPR to the other four oblasts taking all the way to Romania’s border. That wasn’t baked in, in 2022, but it’s been again forced on Russia.
Russia is not the US, they are not using maximum force because they have to live next to these people. That doesn’t mean they will tolerate endless provocative actions.
Thanks for your reply CP. Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 – including areas outside what it considers to be Novorossiya. This is beyond any reasonable dispute. It only recognised the DPR & LPR as sovereign states between February and October 2022; after the referendums, it now considers them to be part of Russia. You’re right that Russia is not using maximum force in Ukraine because, like the US, it hasn’t used strategic thermo-nukes – although it has just used an ICBM in combat, which the US never has.
The linked article disproves your contention that the recognition didn’t proceed the mutual defence treaty and article 51 deployment of Russian forces on the Russian recognised LPR/DPR. Russia is a very legalistic society, despite what you might believe, they are very particular about dotting the I and crossing the T.
“On 21 February 2022, following a televised address, President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin signed the decrees recognising the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) and Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR) – two Ukrainian breakaway territories, which have been outside of Kyiv’s effective control since 2014. The decrees on recognition stipulate that in connection with the separatist leaders’ appeals, the Russian Armed Forces perform ‘peacekeeping functions’ in these regions. On 24 February 2022, President Putin again appeared on State television. This time to announce the start of a military operation against Ukraine.”
https://voelkerrechtsblog.org/russias-recognition-of-the-dpr-and-lpr-as-illegal-acts-under-international-law/
Thanks for your reply CP. I have made no such contention. In spite of your denials, the fact remains that Russian forces invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Enjoy the weekend.
Again we find you presented with evidence, logic and facts with citations.
You instead brazenly assert without evidence, again despite you having no standing, no credibility – you attempted to suggest that the recognition of the independent LPR and DPR by the Russian Federation didn’t precede the Article 51 collective self-defence invocation to the UN – here https://digitallisuitbrary.un.org/record/3959647?ln=en&v=pdf
LPR and DPR exist since 2014 – Russia recognised them in Feb 2022. Try to read books which are “not waterproof and chewable” 😉 The full drama is here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_the_Donetsk_People%27s_Republic_and_the_Luhansk_People%27s_Republic
Palestine is occupied by the Zionist State Terrorist group – it’s a fact of international law that the entity has some international recognition, likewise Russian Federation now has four new states which correspond to the previous oblasts. The difference being simply in one case the actual inhabitants got to keep their land and lives, where as you seem rather invested in letting the US back a Ukrainian fascist nationalist terrorist movement to murder an defenceless population – the common thread.
Rather like our previous discussion, you are low on facts, citations, links, evidence.
Quite keen to throw in disgusting racist remarks about road deaths in Russia.
Quite keen to assert that international law doesn’t apply to Russia, how dare they recognise a neighbour and thwart a planned genocide.
The US is backing a Nazi Regime, – a theme https://asawinstanley.substack.com/p/natos-secret-nazi-armies
The US is backing a Genocide in occupied Palestine. You seem to be okay with that and complaining that the US empire doesn’t approve of the behaviour of the free world, well fuck them. Morally Russia is quite correct, Kiev is under occupation by the Nazi Regime, and the Ukrainians should depose the coke addled cowardly nazi dwarf and sue for peace immediately.
Thanks for your reply CP. Here’s some evidence that Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine
Up until three days before this invasion, the DPR & LPR weren’t recognised by any UN member state – which at that time was literally 99.9% of their existence. By your logic, the Iraq War would have been legal if Iraqi Kurdistan had declared itself to be a sovereign state a week before the invasion of Iraq, provided the US had immediately recognised that sovereignty. Applied generally, this would be a recipe for geopolitical chaos.
I would rather UK taxpayers’ money have been spent on reducing the incidence of road accidents, instead of fighting Islamic terrorism – mainly because it would have saved far more lives. Does that make me racist towards British people? Of course it doesn’t. I am not ‘okay’ with the US backing genocide in Gaza and, were we commenting under our real names, assuming you’re based in the UK, insinuating such would very likely be judged libellous – people have lost their houses for writing a lot less on the internet. Rather than being low on facts, most of what I write are facts – just ones that you don’t like. I see you’re still using the same (unoriginal) insults. Whatever – enjoy what little’s left of weekend.
LA
>> “Up until three days before this invasion, the DPR & LPR weren’t recognised by any UN member state – which at that time was literally 99.9% of their existence.”
(1) That’s factually inaccurate, or as the kids say [South Ossetia has entered the chat https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia ]; (2) Well so what? – There was an ongoing conflict there, the population asked for help and Russia tried to stay out of it as long as possible. Eventually that position became untenable and Russia was forced either to recognise them, or bear witness to Genocide by US backed Nazi Regime in Kiev.
>> By your logic, the Iraq War would have been legal if Iraqi Kurdistan had declared itself to be a sovereign state a week before the invasion of Iraq, provided the US had immediately recognised that sovereignty. Applied generally, this would be a recipe for geopolitical chaos.
It might well be a recipe for chaos, Freedom is often messy. However the central claim that national groups have the inalienable right of self-determination flows from the founding principles of the UN charter “Article 1 (2) establishes that one of the main purposes of the United Nations, and thus the Security Council, is to develop friendly international relations based on respect for the “principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples”.”
https://main.un.org/securitycouncil/en/content/purposes-and-principles-un-chapter-i-un-charter
The people of the Donbass, the Palestinians, the Irish, the Algerians, all are examples of National groups who possess a right of self-determination, and are or were unlawfully prevented from exercising their inherent rights of self-determination. That this reality of International Law doesn’t accord with the wishes of the Colonial powers or the US empire is moot.
>> I would rather UK taxpayers’ money have been spent on reducing the incidence of road accidents, instead of fighting Islamic terrorism – mainly because it would have saved far more lives.
That you choose to relativise the deaths of Russian children with some handwavy BS about road safety which you doubtlessly meant in a light-hearted fashion is indeed strong indication of how you’ve allowed your perception of Russians to be framed with racist overtones.
>> Does that make me racist towards British people? Of course it doesn’t.
I find it beyond the bounds of credulity that you’d choose to introduce into a discussion of the murder of British children by a Bomber in a Concert in Manchester, the sentiment that it’s not the leading cause of preventable deaths of young people. That’s simply because, you’re unable to see all human life as equal. That’s the textbook definition of racism; perhaps you should pay a visit to the indispensable resource that is dictionary.com
>> I am not ‘okay’ with the US backing genocide in Gaza and, were we commenting under our real names, assuming you’re based in the UK, insinuating such would very likely be judged libellous – people have lost their houses for writing a lot less on the internet.
And if your grandmother had balls, she’d have been your grandfather. I do thank you for the hollow chuckle at the idea I’ve a house for you to take. Does this mean you get my Landlord’s (rather cramped) flat, and I’m now liable to you for my rent? Honestly if that’s the case, we should encourage the underclass to libel on mass; you’ve nothing to lose but your property portfolio?
I fully support the position that your views as expressed are despicable and show a level of Racist bile toward Russians which is unbecoming. If you feel that LapsedAgnostic reputation has been damaged by this assertion, feel free to estimate an amount by which your value has been damaged by the opinions of “CabbagePatch”. Please describe using diagrams where appropriate how your reputational damage has caused you to no longer be able to make friends and influence people. I encourage the repetition of this exercise, as often as it takes until you feel, you’ve been adequately compensated for your loss.
>>> Rather than being low on facts, most of what I write are facts – just ones that you don’t like.
You’re a bit short on “facts” as defined as things which are true. You’re long on “unsubstantiated opinion” presented with an attitude that belies just how often you’ve been shown to be incorrect with Evidence. Almost every post has a demonstrable error of fact, because you don’t check your own argument. You’re regurgitating half-understood talking points from the US.
>> I see you’re still using the same (unoriginal) insults. Whatever – enjoy what little’s left of weekend.
“Insult”? I dealt with the reference previously. I meant to inject a little levity into the discussion by referring back to it, with the smiley as an hint. I think you could put a bit more effort into constructing a supportable argument, with a central evidenced claim backing a defensible position. That is what is meant by “waterproof and chewable” – it refers to some dialogue between Rimmer and Lister of Red Dwarf. It’s hard to take it in bad part if you get the reference, but I fully forgive your lack of knowledge of Grant Naylor’s cannon; we all have our crosses to bear.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2023/02/the-buildup-to-war-in-ukraine-february-13-2022.html
“The Buildup To War In Ukraine – Sunday, February 13, 2022
In early 2022 Ukraine had finished the preparations for an overwhelming attack on the renegade People Republics of Donetsk and Luhansk (DPR and LNR).
Half of the Ukrainian army, some 120,000 men recruited and trained during the last 7 years, were stationed near the ceasefire line and ready to go. On the opposing side only some 40,000 men were under arms. They would have little chance to withstand an onslaught.
Russia could not let a Ukrainian attack happen. If Ukraine could regain the renegade provinces it would have been able to join NATO. Russian public opinion was decisively on the side of the Russian speaking DNR and LPR. It would surely demand an intervention. Since the 2014 coup in Kiev some four million Ukrainians had already moved to Russia. There are lots of family ties between the two countries. In sight of this Russia had put some of its own forces on alert and had moved weapons and munition to assembling points near the Ukrainian border.”
Thanks for your reply CP. You don’t give up, do you. South Ossetia is not, and never has been, a UN member state. As I mentioned before, if it had wanted to prevent deaths of ethnic Russian civilians, Russian forces could have created a 50km or so demilitarised zone between Ukraine and the separatist republics, which would have been fairly rural, therefore resulted in few civilian casualties, unlike in places like Bucha.
True freedom is very messy, which is why most people don’t like it and don’t vote for it. Effective anarchy where it exists (mostly online) usually takes the form of anarcho-capitalism, rather than libertarian socialism. Under such a system, might makes right – so what Israel is doing with US support in Gaza must be right.
I was making a serious point, not being light-hearted, with my reference to road traffic accidents. Hundreds of children die on the roads every year in Britain (more in Russia), whereas ten people under 20 died in the Manchester Arena bombing – which rather than preventing, well-paid UK authority figures actually assisted in, if probably unwittingly.
Don’t worry, I wouldn’t sue you, even if I knew who you were. I was trying to make the point that accusing someone of supporting genocide without evidence can be a serious matter. Someone who successfully sues you for libel could not take the flat you live in because it is owned by your landlord – I would have thought that was fairly obvious – but you may end up losing most of your possessions.
Can you point out any demonstrable errors of fact in any of my comments in this exchange? I suspect not. I’ve seen several episodes of Red Dwarf on TV when I was a kid, but was never really a big fan – still think the resemblance between Kryten and our current glorious leader is uncanny though.
Well for easy errors of fact –
Kryten had far more emotional intelligence than our leader; indeed he credibly played a human.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ofl_UP3apM
The leader of English Zionism has never been confused for a Human.
Might makes right –
The Palestinian Holocaust is taken place under our eyes and it’s never going to be right, even under a realist theory Genocide is never right. The Palestinian people are in the right, and the US Backed Zionist State Terrorist group are in the wrong. It’s not in the long term interest of the victims or even the victimisers to engage in conduct like this.
The Zionist State Terrorist group is fundamentally parasitical it relies on indoctrinating children into their terrorist ideology – like Child soldiers all around the world, they are to some extent victims. They are starting to commit suicide in large numbers as the reality of what they have done and has been done to them sinks in. https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/6-israeli-soldiers-commit-suicide–thousands-seek-mental-hea
The US empire is evil, its racism seeks the domination and destruction of the subjugated people. If you care about preventable deaths then start with the people trying to bring about a nuclear exchange. Otherwise it’s received as asinine at best, as clearly one could deal with the topic at hand, which rarely precludes the multitudinous options for tweaking road safety.
South Ossetia is partially recognised state –
“Abkhazia and South Ossetia are separatist regions of Georgia in the Caucasus. Most countries recognise them as part of Georgia, while Russia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Nauru, and Syria regard them as independent.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_recognition_of_Abkhazia_and_South_Ossetia
Apart from that, looks good 😉
Bucha –
“All I could do is stare at the satellite image and the bodies and wonder if the esteemed journalists of The New York Times expected their audience to suspend belief for a moment and accept that the laws of biology that govern the decomposition of human remains were suspended in Bucha.
The available evidence that could be extracted from the images from Bucha showed bodies that by appearance appeared to have been killed within 24-36 hours of their discovery—meaning that they were killed after the Russians withdrew from Bucha. The exact time of death, however, could only be determined after a thorough forensic medical examination.
Many of the bodies had white cloth strips tied to their upper arm, a visual designation which indicated either loyalty to Russia or that the persons did not pose a threat to Russians. The bodies that lacked this white cloth often had their hands tied behind their backs with white cloth that appeared similar to that which marked the arms of the other bodies.
Near to many of the bodies were the green cardboard box adorned with a white star which contained Russian military dry rations that had been distributed to the civilian population of Bucha by Russian troops as part of their humanitarian operations.
In short, the evidence suggested that the bodies were of civilians friendly to, or sympathetic with, Russia. It would take a leap of faith to conclude that Russian troops gunned these unfortunate souls down in cold blood, as alleged by the Ukrainian government”
https://consortiumnews.com/2022/04/13/scott-ritter-twitter-wars-my-personal-experience-in-twitters-ongoing-assault-on-free-speech/
Thanks for your reply CP. Re: Errors of fact. 1) My claim that the PM has a strong physical resemblance to Kryten was a reasonable opinion, not an erroneous fact. 2) Putting aside the moral implications, under a system of anarchy, might makes right because there are no proscriptions against the use of violence to achieve your objectives. 3) I stated that no UN member state apart from Russia had ever recognised DPR & LPR. You said: what about South Ossetia? I responded that South Ossetia had never been a UN member state. It doesn’t matter that a few states allied to Russia have recognised it.
How does convicted child sex offender Scott Ritter explain away the satellite images from Maxar showing several dead bodies lying in Bucha’s streets in the positions where they were later discovered taken two to three weeks before it was liberated by the Ukrainians?
Those members of the Lebanese Phalangist (Kaeteb) Party— that propagandize on behalf of Israel— always claim that Hezbollah is the problem. They claim that Israel will leave Lebanon alone if Hezbollah disband. Yet, this does not accord with history. Israel was already attacking Lebanon at the start of the 1960s, well before Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was created and two decades before Hezbollah appeared on the scene. I agree with Craig that the so-called “peace document”– probably authored by Amos Hochstein himself– will open the way for Israel to attempt to annex South Lebanon.
Chima, the Phalangists represent about 2% of the Lebanese. They articulate two primary concerns, first being Hezbollah, second being Israels displacement plans for the Palestinians (they don’t want them in Lebanon). They have been happy in the past to weld these concerns together by massacring Palestinians, with substantial US and Israeli support. Other than as Israeli Quislings, they happily have nearly no role in modern Lebanon.
“…everything will be all right.”
Mr Murray… the USA and Israel are attempting to re-open the old divisions of the civil war to undermine the resistance.
Here’s a good place to start the tale…
As early as 1919 Chaim Weizman had demanded Balfour allocate to the colony “calling for the boundaries of the new Jewish national home to extend 25 miles north of the Litani river, inside Lebanon.”
“The only thing that’s necessary is to find an [Lebanese] officer, even just a Major. We should either win his heart or buy him with money, to make him agree to declare himself the saviour of the [Christian] Maronite population. Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory, and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel and everything will be all right.” from the private diary of Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett, attributed to Moshe Dayan ca.1955.
Demilitarisation is the first step in a process of annexation. The American problem is that most Lebanese know Israel’s war game only too well.
>If you have not by now seen through the Biden administration’s pretence of “trying to restrain” Israel, whilst providing ever greater funding and weapons for the genocide, then you are such a fool that I cannot help you.<
BREAKING (12:00 EST, Nov 12): Biden administration vetoes UN Security Council resolution calling for an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire in Gaza, with 14 votes in favor and only the U.S. voting against.
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/us-will-veto-un-security-council-resolution-gaza-war-its-current-form-says-2024-11-20/
Another setback.
Hopefully, this will never happen under the Trump administration. Only 2 months to wait.
Wilshire, you can hope – but last time Mr Trump was president the world rapidly became a more dangerous warmongering place. To Mr Trump’s credit he didn’t start any new wars, so your hope might be rewarded in that way – but I doubt if he will stop what is going on in Palestine and Lebanon
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_vetoed_United_Nations_Security_Council_resolutions
These are all the US uses of the UNSC veto since Jan 2017:
Jan 2017 to Jan 2021 – period of the first Trump presidency:
18 Dec 2017 – pro-Israel
1 Jun 2018 – pro-Israel
31 Aug 2020 – possibly not – someone should check it out
Jan 2021 to now – Biden presidency:
18 Oct 2023 – pro-Israel
8 Dec 2023 – pro-Israel
20 Feb 2024 – pro-Israel
18 Apr 2024 – pro-Israel
20 Nov 2024 – pro-Israel
When a veto is required by Israel, the USA has always provided it.
I agree.
Bomber Barry and Killary Klinton used to love a good war, as long as they or their relatives didn’t have to be in them.
Trump may be, shall we say, eccentric – but he has surrounded himself with quite a few dangerous people.
The only normal politician seems to be Tulsi Gabbard and the anti-Dems (not necessarily pro-Republicans) hold great faith in the idea that she can prevent Trump from doing anything too reckless in Foreign Policy. Very uncertain about that, but miracles can happen I suppose.
If you listened to Trump the other day he sounded like The Dove of Peace initially, before confusing the so-called Deep State and the Dems with Communism – so he has plans. Biden has put him on the spot re: current weapons to Ukraine and I suspect his hatred towards Sleepy Joe and his ever loving Son – Hunter will be even further up the Trump Smiting List than even the two conflicts.
As all historians would say before writing their books – we’ll have to wait and see what happens.
It’s going to be interesting watching the EU and The British run round like headless chickens if Trump pulls out of the Ukraine/Russia conflict and worse if he pulls the US out of NATO (even worse). His new advisers probably won’t allow the latter but go with the former.
Not much change vis: Israel in my opinion.
May even be worse than now.
Trump is what is known as a “peace duke”.
Or in Russian a “пиздюк”.
That’s why he’s into golden showers
Really brave on your part to put yourself in harm’s way.
You should ask NUJ to provide you with details of complaints against you. I would have thought that they would have to provide you with specifics. Who, when, what, etc.! It is self-evident that you are a journalist.
Craig Murray always goes beyond the Call of Duty, and in his case it’s not a video game…
I agree with Craig..NOT to Advertize being the Press ..But take care ..Now that the Uk has entered the war with Russia.
Brianfujisan
The UK has not entered the war with Russia. (I’m not English.)
Supplying arms to a combatant is not the same as entering the conflict on that combatant’s side.
Or do you believe that Iran and the DPRK have entered the ‘Special Military Operation’ on Russia’s side?
Think what you like, heres the reality:
“An aggression against the Russian Federation and/or its allies of any non-nuclear state with the participation or support of a nuclear state will be regarded as their joint attack.”
https://www.rt.com/russia/607871-russia-new-nuclear-doctrine/
StevieBoy
Russia, like any nuclear armed State, can launch its missiles whenever and wherever its political elite decide.
And take the consequences.
Even Israel, Pakistan or France could lay waste to large numbers of the world’s cities if their elites so choose.
What makes Russia unique is that, alone of the nuclear armed States, they have invaded their neighbour and demanded that third parties refrain from helping that neighbour. That demand reinforced by threats of nuclear armed retaliation.
You know what? Fuck Putin and the horse he rode in on.
Russia had a ‘no first use’ policy on nuclear weapons until 1993 since when the threshold for an initial strike has been repeatedly reduced. Whether that madman would actually push the button is of course a moot point, Russian response to ATACMS and Storm Shadow so far has been a redoubling of threats against Ukraine’s civilian population.
Whilst expressing righteous outrage at the 11,000 children killed in Gaza (Oxfam) and the 200 killed in Lebanon maybe spare a thought for the 659 Ukrainian children killed since 2022.
the sincerity of your concern for Ukrainian children needs to be viewed in the context of never having once expressed outrage about the West’s genocide in Gaza, in over a year. likewise your opinion of who is a madman.
If you are using UN data (and most likely you do), you failed to clarify that UN counts children killed by BOTH sides in the Ukrainian conflict.
Maybe you could also spare a though for the 152 children killed in 2014-2021 (UN data; 228 children were killed in Donbass by VSU shelling and mines in 2014-2023, according to Dennis Pushilin).
@JK – If it’s true that the DPRK has sent thousands of soldiers to the Kursk region, then that would certainly mean the DPRK has entered the war on Russia’s side. AFAIAA there have been no official statements to this effect from either Russia or the DPRK.
As regards Britain, there have similarly been no official statements yet by either Britain or Russia that Ukraine has used Franco-British Storm Shadow missiles to attack Russian forces in pre-2022 Russia, namely the Kursk region.
Al Jazeera are citing “British media outlets” : https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/20/ukraine-fires-uk-made-storm-shadow-missiles-into-russia
British government media, namely the BBC, are simply saying “the BBC understands”: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g704g051go
“BBC Verify”, a structure which is very “helpful” to Israel, has apparently cited “images on Telegram”.
There’s nothing at TASS, the Russian government’s news agency.
Meanwhile an “IT glitch” has been blamed for keeping British Airways planes grounded at Heathrow.
What we can say is that the British regime may well be preparing its population for war with Russia, and most of the political gobbers, including well-connected ones, appear to be well into the Kenny Everettist idea. Mostly they don’t have a clue what it would actually mean. But graduates from Sandhurst do know what it would mean, and they’re Kenny fans right now too.
Brian Red
While the DPRK may have supplied troops to the Russian regime, it is not in contention that they, along with the equally democratic Islamic Republic of Iran, have supplied weapons and munitions to Russia.
Just as the evil Zapad (USA, France, Germany, Britain, Poland, Sweden, Finland, the Baltic states and many more) have supplied weapons and munitions to Ukraine.
Why is the former a Good Thing and the latter a Bad Thing?
@JK – Why is the Kiev government fighting this war at all? Pushing Russian forces out of all six disputed territories is a fanciful objective in the extreme, but even if it could be realised it would be impossible to pacify the entire reconquered region without expelling the very large majority of the surviving inhabitants not already displaced – not so easy in such a large area. Would they settle it with veterans they gave plots of land to, or what? There is another objective than the stated one. Nor would Russia be a threat to Ukraine if the Ukrainian government stopped trying to retake the six territories, because in that situation you could ask WTF would the Russian objective be in a new war? If there could be a Russo-Finnish style border, many in Russia would say let Kiev join NATO, f*ck them, and yes that will mean more military expenditure because the US airforce will now be close to another stretch of our border, and a long stretch too, but FFS we’ve still got nukes and this is better than continuing the slaughter – territories retained, job done at a cost of many lives lost, now bring the boys home.
“If there could be a Russo-Finnish style border, many in Russia would say let Kiev join NATO, f*ck them, and yes that will mean more military expenditure because the US airforce will now be close to another stretch of our border, and a long stretch too, but FFS we’ve still got nukes“…
Well…no sooner did I write that, than the Russian foreign ministry issued a briefing regarding the NATO missile base in Redzikow in Poland, which became operational in December 2023 and which NATO said was fully operational after the July 2024 summit.
https://tass.com/politics/1875589
“Zakharova described the establishment of such a base as yet another blatantly provocative move, calling it part of ‘a series of deeply destabilizing actions by the Americans and their North Atlantic allies in the strategic sphere.’
‘This move aligns with the longstanding and destructive practice of advancing NATO’s military infrastructure closer to Russia’s borders,’ the spokeswoman stated. ‘Such actions undermine strategic stability. Coupled with other harmful military-political and military-technical measures aimed at projecting US power thousands of kilometers from its own territory to exert pressure on Russia and other nuclear powers, this inevitably heightens strategic risks and, consequently, raises the overall level of nuclear danger,” Zakharova added.”
And the TASS report opens like this:
“MOSCOW, November 21. /TASS/. The US missile defense base in Poland has long been considered a priority target for potential neutralization by the Russian Armed Forces, Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated during a briefing.”
Note that this is not some sh*t in the Daily Express, or on the BBC about how “the BBC understands” that tens of thousands of North Koreans are planning to sail up the Thames, doubtless assisted by black people moving in next door to Express and Telegraph readers so that the only things you can buy in your village shop will be yams and watermelons because all the usual food is being given away free to chavs from council estates in their prison cells, handed to them by butlers paid for by raising inheritance tax.
This is, on the contrary, grownup stuff.
It isn’t Laura Kuenssberg or Robert Peston. It’s a statement by the spokesperson for the Russian foreign ministry, reported in the Russian government news agency.
Clearly what you want isn’t necessarily what you try to encourage your adversary to assess as being highly probable that you want.
I am not sure that “stability” is a big issue strategically. There are those who are deliberately seeking instability, and not only that, but who are seeking to start the nuking.
I don’t think their aim is anything to do with the six territories that are disputed by Ukraine and Russia.
On the bright side, at least we may have left the period where the US government and the bumsniffer regimes claims lots of missiles need to be stationed in Poland to deter Iran.
Show Us Jk What source. ??
a few Hundred Specialists might be there 12,000 ..No Lies To act as Cannon foder for russian troops..Your Joking Right..
Russia has refused to confirm or deny the presence of North Korean troops in Russia or occupied Ukraine. A bit like Israel and its nuclear weapons.
When TASS and RT deny the stories we’ll know it’s true…
It’s no secret that the treaty requires mutual military assistance in the case of invasion.
Out of interest, if the story about the presence of such large numbers of DPRK soldiers in the Kursk region or anywhere else in the warzone was false, how would you know? Would only a statement in TASS saying it was true convince you?
Why not stay ahead of the Tory house-price ubers and argue that some of the “Koreans” aren’t in fact Korean at all – they’re Chinese – and the Union Jack should never have come down in Hong Kong, any more than it should have been lowered in Rhodesia…
I mean look at it in an unprejudiced way. Has Russia Today denied the Chinese role?
Where’s Proof JK ..OH US Said so ..Aye Ok. 12 thousands eh.. ..Show us crap South Korean evidence US Propannda
To replace cannon folder Russians…What ???
JK redux
Of course west are waging a war against Russia.
What if Russia gave (long-distance) missiles to Saddam during Iraq-war and directly participated in deadly attacks against brittish soldiers? Would you support Russia in that case? Of course not. So stop being an dishonest hypocrite about this issue.
Jack
No I wouldn’t have opposed supply of long range missiles to Iraq to deter the illegal invasion.
Of course SH might have used them to menace his neighbours so some nuance needed.
He was a brutal dictator after all…
Was a UN arms embargo in place against Iraq?
@Jack – British soldiers are volunteers. They’re not like angels who have a God-given right to have their lives considered sacrosanct even when they’re obeying orders to invade and smash up a foreign country causing hundreds of thousands of innocent deaths. Doesn’t matter whether they’re doing it for Wall Street and the Pentagon or for Zionism or even, if one could imagine it, for privately-schooled poshos acting wholly on their own account.
There’s no “It’s wicked to defend yourself against British angels who are trying to kill you” rule. Or to get weapons from wherever you want to help you to do so.
You seem to think the British army is some kind of force for niceness and decency against wickedness and dictatorship.
All British state servants are volunteers, know the risks and take the money. The state’s military forces haven’t sided with the goodies since Japan surrendered. QED
It matters not what Brianfujisan or you or your grandma or Boris Johnson etc believes; it only matters what Russia decides about UK entering or not entering the war with her.
I just turned on my laptop about ten minutes ago, and it just happened to open in a tab with an article on the Times of Israel website from a week or so ago (which I hadn’t closed yet, obviously), and so I thought I’d just have a quick look through the articles that have been recently posted (there’s a column on the left-hand side that shows them) and, as such, came across the following article just posted about 30/35 minutes ago now:
Report: Netanyahu looking to ban establishment of state committee of inquiry into Oct. 7
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is attempting to promote legislation that will ban the establishment of a state commission of inquiry into the October 7 Hamas terror onslaught, Channel 13 reports.
According to the report, the legislation will instead allow for the establishment of a political commission of inquiry, which would be chaired by one coalition lawmaker and one opposition lawmaker. Senior security officials would also serve on the panel, the report states.
Netanyahu has repeatedly put off the establishment of a state commission of inquiry, which is the body that enjoys the broadest powers until Israeli law, to investigate the government’s failures that enabled the deadly Hamas attacks, claiming that all investigations must wait until the fighting in Gaza ends.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/report-netanyahu-looking-to-ban-establishment-of-state-committee-of-inquiry-into-oct-7/
Just came across the following on Common Dreams which I’ve not heard about before – ie the Bill, that is:
After Previously Voting With GOP, 52 House Dems Targeted to Oppose ‘Nonprofit Killer’ Bill
“Every nonprofit across the spectrum of human rights and progressive values is up in arms, begging Democrats to overcome their greed and their spite, and not to hand President-elect Trump the ability to destroy any nonprofit he dislikes with the flick of a pen,” wrote one campaigner.
There is fear that the bill would, in particular, have a chilling impact on Palestinian rights organizations and pro-Palestine speech.
“This bill was designed to criminalize organizations and activists who oppose the U.S.’s unconditional support of Israel’s genocide of Palestinians and the slaughter of Lebanese civilians. Such legislation threatened the constitutional rights of American nonprofits, houses of worship, and advocacy organizations—regardless of political orientation. Lawmakers must understand the serious, long-term dangers of advancing bills or investigations that seek to suppress lawful activism and silence dissent,” according to a joint statement issued by Arab and Muslim American groups last week.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/nonprofit-killer-bill-vote
Yep, the fascist elite letting us (on the Left) know – or reminding us – that they are in total control and pull all the strings.
I just did a search to see if there’s any other news media reporting the Netanyahu story I posted a link to earlier (there doesn’t appear to be so far, but I’m sure there will be, albeit not in the MSM in the UK and US etc) and, as such, came across this from a couple of months ago:
AG tells Netanyahu she won’t represent him in efforts to block Oct. 7 state commission of inquiry
«Attorney General Gali Baharav-Miara tells Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that she opposes his position not to establish a state commission of inquiry into the failings leading up to Hamas’s devastating October 7 invasion and atrocities until after the current war ends.
Baharav-Miara says that the events of October 7 were unprecedented in Israel’s history from the perspective of the severe consequences of Hamas’s attack, and its far-reaching impact on the country and the general public, as well as its strategic repercussions.
“My professional opinion… is that because of the extreme circumstances it is critically important that the investigation of the events of the war and learning its lessons should be carried out with total professional independence, through the best and only mechanism available under the law, and totally disconnected from any external influence on the manner in which the investigation is conducted, and it’s results,” the attorney general tells Netanyahu.
She insists that a state commission of inquiry is the only appropriate framework for such an investigation.»
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/ag-tells-netanyahu-she-won-t-represent-him-in-efforts-to-block-oct-7-state-commission-of-inquiry/ar-AA1qQWYD
Article on “american” broker Amos Hochstein from 2020, this is certainly on point regarding his bias
“America’s Dishonest Brokers”
I’m wondering if an American broker who had been born in Beirut and served in Hezbollah would have been received with the same comfort and ease, or been given such a light-hearted headline for his amazing story about the Hezbollah rocket launcher who migrated to the United States and became the American broker.
https://archive.is/UTBwE#selection-1101.0-1101.312
Back then Hochstein brokered another pro-israel deal, this time a gas agreement between Israel/Lebanon, AIPAC glorified the deal, which in part stipulated that Israel were to get some revenues from gas sold by Lebanon!
A Historic Agreement Between Israel and Lebanon
“Israel will recognize Lebanon’s sole right to drill in the previously contested Qana gas field but will receive a share of the profits derived from gas taken there.”
https://www.aipac.org/resources/a-historic-agreement-between-israel-and-lebanon
Off topic but tellingly Hochstein were also involved in Naftogaz, the ukrainian gas/oil company:
Amos Hochstein leaves Naftogaz supervisory board
https://www.naftogaz.com/en/news/amos-hohshtayn-zalyshae-naglyadovu-radu-nak-naftogaz-ukrainy
To summarise the British regime’s media effort towards its home market: they are really giving it some, right now, printing all sorts of stories to support the narrative of escalation:
* tens of thousands of North Korean troops in the warzone
* British-supplied [*] Storm Shadow missiles launched into pre-2022 Russia
* and now Russian use of ICBMs against Dnipro in Ukraine which have a 6000km range and are “able to reach any European capital”.
https://www.ft.com/content/34ac518b-e696-4a19-b91a-d9f273083f3d
They were actually talking about an imminent Russian assault on Kiev, not Dnipro, but 1. consumers of this stuff have short memories, and 2. the night is young.
*France rarely getting a mention.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Russian_invasion_of_Ukraine#Request_for_comment,_can_we_add_North_Korea_as_a_belligerent?
The usual pro-imperial bias on show here.
“Blimey, they’ve only gone and dunnit.”
Apologies for the frivolity but some good news at last:
ICC issues arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant:
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/nov/21/icc-issues-arrest-warrant-for-benjamin-netanyahu-israel
Unfortunately not long before the ICC action, the US vetoed a UNSC resolution for a ceasefire in Gaza for the fourth time, this time in the face of 14 votes, i.e. everyone else, in favour.
The International Criminal Court has issued arrest warrants against Benjamin Netanyahu and Yoav Gallant, for crimes against humanity
…and for war crimes.
You can read the ICC’s press release, issued today, here:
https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/situation-state-palestine-icc-pre-trial-chamber-i-rejects-state-israels-challenges
“The Chamber also found that the alleged crimes against humanity were part of a widespread and systematic attack against the civilian population of Gaza.
The Chamber considered that there are reasonable grounds to believe that both individuals intentionally and knowingly deprived the civilian population in Gaza of objects indispensable to their survival, including food, water, and medicine and medical supplies, as well as fuel and electricity, from at least 8 October 2023 to 20 May 2024 (…)
The Chamber therefore found reasonable grounds to believe that Mr Netanyahu and Mr Gallant bear criminal responsibility for the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare.
The Chamber found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the lack of food, water, electricity and fuel, and specific medical supplies, created conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of part of the civilian population in Gaza, which resulted in the death of civilians, including children due to malnutrition and dehydration(…) (T)he Chamber did find that there are reasonable grounds to believe that the crime against humanity of murder was committed in relation to these victims.”
Finally.
Just so everyone is clear:
The United Kingdom is a signatory to the Rome Statute.
https://asp.icc-cpi.int/states-parties/western-european-and-other-states/united-kingdom#:~:text=United%20Kingdom%20deposited%20its%20instrument,Statute%20on%204%20October%202001.
Article 86 – General OBLIGATION to cooperate (my emphasis).
States Parties SHALL, in accordance with the provisions of this Statute, cooperate fully with the Court in its investigation and prosecution of crimes within the jurisdiction of the Court.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/icc-statute-1998/article-86?activeTab=
« Article 89 – Surrender of persons to the Court (my emphasis).
1. The Court may transmit a request for the arrest and surrender of a person, together with the material supporting the request outlined in article 91 , to any State on the territory of which that person may be found and shall request the cooperation of that State in the arrest and surrender of such a person. States Parties SHALL, in accordance with the provisions of this Part and the procedure under their national law, COMPLY WITH REQUESTS FOR ARREST AND SURRENDER.
2. Where the person sought for surrender brings a challenge before a national court on the basis of the principle of ne bis in idem as provided in article 20, the requested State shall immediately consult with the Court to determine if there has been a relevant ruling on admissibility. If the case is admissible, the requested State shall proceed with the execution of the request. If an admissibility ruling is pending, the requested State may postpone the execution of the request for surrender of the person until the Court makes a determination on admissibility.
3. (a) A State Party shall authorize, in accordance with its national procedural law, transportation through its territory of a person being surrendered to the Court by another State, except where transit through that State would impede or delay the surrender.
(b) A request by the Court for transit shall be transmitted in accordance with article 87 . The request for transit shall contain:
(i) A description of the person being transported;
(ii) A brief statement of the facts of the case and their legal characterization; and
(iii) The warrant for arrest and surrender;
(c) A person being transported shall be detained in custody during the period of transit;
(d) No authorization is required if the person is transported by air and no landing is scheduled on the territory of the transit State;
(e) If an unscheduled landing occurs on the territory of the transit State, that State may require a request for transit from the Court as provided for in subparagraph (b). The transit State shall detain the person being transported until the request for transit is received and the transit is effected, provided that detention for purposes of this subparagraph may not be extended beyond 96 hours from the unscheduled landing unless the request is received within that time.
4. If the person sought is being proceeded against or is serving a sentence in the requested State for a crime different from that for which surrender to the Court is sought, the requested State, after making its decision to grant the request, shall consult with the Court. »
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/ihl-treaties/icc-statute-1998/article-89?activeTab=
Get yourself out of that, Starmer.
The terrorist state has also tried to intimidate staff at the ICC:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/3/icc-calls-for-an-end-to-threats-against-the-court-as-war-in-gaza-rages-on
…which is against Article 70(1) of the Rome Statute.
(May 2024): “The Hague-based office of ICC Prosecutor Karim Khan said in a statement on Friday that all attempts to impede, intimidate or improperly influence its officials must cease immediately (…)”
“While the prosecutor’s statement did not mention Israel, it was issued after Israeli and US officials have warned of consequences against the ICC if it issues arrest warrants over Israel’s war on Gaza.”
I won’t be surprised if these evil supremacists play a new card soon in the Russo-Ukrainian war – in Dnipro, for example, claimed by the Ukrainian government today to have been hit by a Russian ICBM. Dnipro also has the Menorah centre, which has been described as the largest Jewish community centre in the world:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah_center,_Dnipro
I’m imagining BBC fingers poised to publish whatever they receive from the Israeli embassy. The response to the arrest warrants is unlikely to be doing nothing.
Do you know what we need? We need a Night of the Long Knives against all mafia bosses (“oligarchs”) in Russia, or with assets in Russia, who have been playing some of the time for Israel. Because I really don’t think that set is empty. C’mon Putin, get your a*se into gear.
What is Dnipro? Is it Dnepropetrovsk, former Novorossyisk, former Ekaterinaslav named so in honor of Russian Empress Catherine II who sanctioned and financed the construction of this city on Russian lands for Russian people?
Deeneepeeloooh, ugh.
What is Dnipro? A sort of glue, a washing detergent or an AI invention, well it was none of those. It was first noticed in 2022 by Wikipedia which confirms that it used to be New Kodak (1645-1784), Yekaterinoslav or Ekaterinoslav (1784–1796, Novorossiysk (1796–1802) Yekaterinoslav (1802–1918), or Sicheslav, (1918–1921), or Yekaterinoslav / Katerynoslav 1918–1926) or possibly, Dnipropetrovsk (1926–2016) – but whatever it was, it got its new name Dnipro in 2016.
A cursory glance at historic maps shows that for some time before the Russian/Soviet empire expanded to consume it, it was part of the Polish empire – but the territory has been in dispute for most of Europe’s modern history (the last thousand years). So the present conflict is not out of character.
Tatyana, for the sake of sanity, can you please use any influence that you may have to persuade whoever gains control of the area to stick to one name in future? Thanking you in advance.
I believe the UK already has ‘legal’ get out clauses set-up to specifically allow war criminals to visit without risk of arrest. I also believe these ‘fixes’ would not apply to Hamas, for example.
Thanks for this report, Craig, but you gave IDF a hint what to bomb next, so I’ll be worried about you and those refugee kids in the school you’ve described.
I’ve said this before and I say again: there is no such crime that Israel won’t commit, the collective Joe Biden won’t turn their blind eye on, and the collective Pears Morgaine won’t justify.
I hope Craig and Niels do not become complacent because everything you say is true.
Thank you Craig for your courage and integrity, in bringing truth to the debate on the horrors of this unimaginable genocide.
Apologies if I am repeating myself but the two ‘conflicts’ in Palestine/Lebanon, and in Ukraine are linked in having been long planned, and playing out as intended.
A few facts:
AIPAC recently claimed to have control of 98% of Congress and the Senate.
All the British leadership in Parliament is fully under the management of Friends of Israel. Starmer’s father in law insists he be present at 6pm every Friday for prayers.
Ukraine was planned in Congress in 2013. Bernie kindly shared the debate.
Victoria Nuland outlined how the Russia leaning democratically elected president of Ukraine would be ousted in a carefully managed revolution in Kiev. The Azov Brigade would be funded to shell the Russian speaking regions which were forbidden to use the Russian language. This would ensure that Putin would send in troops and armaments, depleting Russia’s defences and keeping it busy.
Victoria Nuland stated “We regret the sacrifice of the Ukrainian people” and when asked about the risk of the war expanding into Europe, stated succinctly: “Fuck Europe”.
The goal was declared to be obtaining control of Russia’s oil and gas, and regime change in Russia.
Russia has kept the peace between Israel and Iran since Kissinger made the first agreement. It says that neither is allowed to attack the sovereign territory of the other without Russia being on the side of the one which is attacked by the other. This agreement has made Biden very angry because America wants control of Iran’s oil and gas and so taking out Russia is his primary aim.
Europe is putting itself on the line by getting involved as Putin has been careful to respond proportionally to every incursion by Ukraine into Russia. Direct involvement by other countries will, he has warned, see direct response to source. Why would the UK or Europe want to be attacked by Russia? Zionist leadership? Our democracy would seem to have been usurped by Zionist Jews or their spouses.
Zionism has been a genocidal project from its outset. Ilan Pappé provides the the full timeline in his 2006 book about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine.
There are vast acquirers of gas under Israel which are only accessible from Gaza where the deposits are shallower. The pipelines are in place to Cyprus and from there to Europe and Turkey. There is enough gas to supply all points west and east. Britain initially has agreement with the Palestinian Authority to deliver the gas. Israel said No. Then a Dutch company set up more of the infrastructure. Israel said only if the agreement was with Israel and not the PA.
Nordstream was blown up, forcing Europe to get dirty US fracking gas delivered by tanker. The promise of clean gas from Gaza is still valid once Gaza is cleared of all of life.
The euro is competition for the dollar.
If the US or Europe was to attack Iran the question is whether Russia would still support Iran to retaliate. Netanyahu is very careful to get Putin’s agreement to any measured show of force towards Iran. Proxy wars are okay. Putin agreed to the annexation of the Golan Heights from Syria, and the assassination of top Iranian leadership invited to negotiations outside Iran, in Iraq.
So do not be complacent. “Fuck Europe” is still on Biden’s long term radar. All of Europe was defeated by the Nazis and so gave up its Jews to the holocaust. There is no forgiveness.
Trump did not start any wars during his last tenure. He ended the war in Afghanistan.
When Ukraine cut off all funding to its Russian speaking regions Putin quietly sent in small groups to local government centres and arranged to fund pensions, teachers, etc. after Trump cancelled the funding for the Azov Brigades in 2018 after 4 years of relentless shelling.
Kolnoyski is key to Ukraine. He is a dual national Ukrainian Israeli billionaire. He produced a popular television series about a fictional president played by Zelensky. He also funds the 26 bio weapons labs in Ukraine which Unter Biden’s uploaded hard drive detailed Biden’s salaried involvement with.
This is the long back story.
Links were posted on previous threads but you should be able to find sources for all of this if you look.
Alyson.
Do you have geolocations (lat/long) for those biolabs?
And (sorry) if you expect your long list of claims to be accepted, you’ll need to provide evidence.
After all,
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extraordinary_claims_require_extraordinary_evidence
I suggest if you are really interested you will do your own checking up. Hunter Biden, bio weapons labs, hard drive etc. gas reserves under Gaza etc, Kissinger and Netanyahu agreement with Putin etc. Kolnoyski on Wikipedia, most info sourced from Reuters and Times of Israel. Bernie is an honourable man and his Facebook tells the truth as he understands the facts at his disposal. All of this information was freely available over the last few years.
If we invite Iran to attack Europe then I suspect that Saudi will be happy to join in on Iran’s side, but this is just my speculation. My previous comment has been evidenced gradually over time and is just the summation of the slowly coalesced collection of facts. Stay in your own comfort zone if you prefer not to find the evidence for yourself.
This is not anti Jew. It is anti war crimes, anti genocide, and a hope that those who might be able to guide our leaders to sanity may feel inclined to do so. Meanwhile in Lebanon hospital and healthcare workers are the Hezbollah being targeted in their apartment block homes. Bad people do bad things. The arrest warrant recognises this.
Alyson
Many here will be sceptical but I hope that you will accept without evidence that
Trump is a shape changing Lizard Lord from the Planet Urkh.
Biden (his supposed enemy) is in fact a pizza chef whose pizza restaurant was the centre of a world spanning child abuse network (and of very decent pepperoni pizzas).
Elon Musk is the almost trillionare businessman who is actually Trump’s secret lover.
I’ll try to dig out sources but the Lizard Lords are ruthless in the protection of their secrets.
Ribbip ribbip.
Don’t get too involved, Alyson. There are several commenters on this site – and you’re talking to one of them – who, you can be sure, don’t miss a single comment that mentions Russia or Ukraine.
They just change their names sometimes, which supposedly gives them the right to ask for proof again and again, as if they haven’t seen it a thousand times before.
And they really like asking questions 🙂 Seriously, every comment ends with a question mark! (which is actually a good thing for a non-native English speaker, because it gives a chance to see practical applications of all the types of questions from an English grammar book).
Mr. Question has a question for everyone 🙂
They may be joined by Mr. Slogan of Young Ukrainian Fascists and Mr. Fruit Margarine 🙂
Tatyana
Alyson was I think talking to me as you say.
You say that “several commentators here” (I assume that you intend to include me in this group) “don’t miss a single comment that mentions Russia or Ukraine”.
I do indeed focus primarily on Russia’s murderous war on Ukraine, others know more than I do about Israel’s equally murderous war on Gaza, the Palestinian territories in general and now on Lebanon.
I make no apologies for this.
I expect that you also believe that no apologies are due for your contributions here, intelligent and well written but consistently uncritical of your country’s miserable, barbarous Government.
Oh, you are able to sometimes not end your posts with interrogative sentences? Bravo!
Honestly, JK, your writing style evokes such mixed feelings in me, probably because I am a woman, it seems to me that you are very emotionally excited and the first reaction is to act like a nurse “Hush, hush, now we’ll take our pills and lie down in our warm cozy bed. Scary Putin is not under the bed, I’ve checked.” 🙂
Please forgive me, I’m just showing you – like a mirror – what your agitation looks like from the outside 🙂
So, you’re an adult and healthy individual with whom I can have a dialogue without fear of stepping on eggshells? Once again, I apologize, but if you belong to some protected social groups, it would be fair to warn me in advance. Before you complain to the moderators about inappropriate treatment. Because I’m Russian and the things are different here.
Tatyana
I respect that you are a woman.
But my sex and yours are not relevant to this discussion I think.
You didn’t respond to my comment “I expect that you also believe that no apologies are due for your contributions here, intelligent and well written but consistently uncritical of your country’s miserable, barbarous Government.”
I could have better said “your country’s miserable, brutal Government.”
(For the avoidance of doubt, I have several Russian friends and I greatly admire Russia’s contribution to world culture. But the Russkiy Mir is quite big enough for a country of 100-120 million people.)
And I, in my turn, respect you whatever you are, a man or a woman, whatever 🙂 I believe anyone may have an opinion. Why not?
Is that enough pleasantries, JK? Or, do I need to add some social grooming, too?
Tatyana
Yes I am a man. Married to a woman, two adult children.
A man who prefers to be polite, especially to women.
Can you please reply to my comments?
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for the head of the evil occupying regime in the Levant that’s committing jenno-side.
Unfortunately, the ICC is corrupt as f*ck – and many countries do not recognise its jurisdiction. The USA has stated that it will invade the ICC, if it arrest any US personnel, of any of its allies.
Shameful that it’s taken six months for the ICC prosecutor’s request to be granted, but now let’s see if liberals who claim to care about the ‘rule of law’ will support Netanyahu’s arrest and delivery to The Hague. (All eyes on Biden-Harris, Starmer-Lammy, Scholz-Baerbock, Trudeau, Macron and co).
Terrific news, I did not expect that ICC would have the integrity of carrying out this order. Although ICC seems almost solely focused on Israel using aid/food as a weapon while some focus is also put on Israel attacking hospitals no focus is put on the even bigger issue of that of relentless targeting and killing of civilians + the wholesome physical destruction of Gaza itself.
Did ICC act now before a Trump presidency?
Remember the complicit actor in the UK:
12 october 2023: Keir Starmer supports Israel’s ‘right’ to cut Gaza’s water and power
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-keir-starmer-criticised-right-cut-gaza-water-power
And this was said by an alleged HUMAN RIGHTS LAWYER?! He should be forced to resign!
The ICC issued arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant, who was replaced as defence minister earlier this month, the chamber “found reasonable grounds to believe” that they “each bear criminal responsibility for the following crimes as co-perpetrators for committing the acts jointly with others: the war crime of starvation as a method of warfare; and the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution, and other inhumane acts”.
It also found reasonable grounds to believe that “each bear criminal responsibility as civilian superiors for the war crime of intentionally directing an attack against the civilian population”. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly2exvx944o
This must surely mean a stop to any UK arms sales including F35 spare parts.
On the 9th October 2023, Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant, said on behalf of the Israeli government:
“I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel. Everything is closed.”
Starmer later said in an interview with Nick Ferarri
Mr Ferarri asked Mr Starmer “A siege is appropriate. Cutting off power, cutting off water?” To which Mr Starmer replied “I think that Israel must have, does have, that right. It is an ongoing situation.” There is video evidence of this.
Because his words condoned and encouraged the Israeli government’s illegal war crimes and in effect gave the Israeli government the green light to deprive the population of Gaza food, water and energy, in effect condemning them to death, Mr Starmer’s comments were directed against all the Palestinian inhabitants of the Gaza Strip. Should not Starmer be in the frame also for encouraging the crime?
One difficulty for any ICC member who arrests Netanyahu and his Defence Minister is this…..
U.S. President George Bush today signed into law the American Servicemembers Protection Act of 2002, which is intended to intimidate countries that ratify the treaty for the International Criminal Court (ICC). The new law authorizes the use of military force to liberate any American or citizen of a U.S.-allied country being held by the court, which is located in The Hague. This provision, dubbed the “Hague invasion clause,” has caused a strong reaction from U.S. allies around the world, particularly in the Netherlands.
Could the US use military force against the UK in order to free Netanyahu?
US law doesn’t apply at the ICC building. It’s extraterritorial. To any extent to which it’s not extraterritorial, it comes under Dutch law. Burger-muncher law doesn’t get a look-in.
Netanyahu is known to have engaged in “overseas investment”. Freeze the c***’s assets.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-made-hundreds-of-thousands-of-shekels-from-overseas-account-report/
Gotta wonder whether the Amsterdam football event, with the Dutch government getting on its knees and saying the poor innocent fascist thugs were victims of a “pogrom”, has some connection with this decision by the ICC. I.e. the Dutch authorities conveying the message “Oh lords and masters, this terrible wicked decision by international judges has nothing to do with us.”
PS Someone should tell editors at Al Jazeera the difference between crimes against humanity and war crimes:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/11/21/icc-issues-arrest-warrant-for-israeli-pm-netanyahu-for-war-crimes-in-gaza
BREAKING: Netherlands will arrest Netanyahu if he comes to the Netherlands!
Foreign Minister Veldkamp: “We are obliged to cooperate with the ICC and we will also do that. We abide 100% by the Rome Statute.”
Well that is easy to say considering Netanyahu will have no reason to visit the Netherlands to begin with, instead of coming with these useless statements west should actually start imposing sanctions and/or taking real measures against Israel, if they were serious that is, but they are not.
ICC should have added the israeli president that is still free to travel around the world, after all it was Herzog that early on claimed that there was no innocents in Gaza:
Israeli President Says No One in the Gaza Strip, Including Civilians, is Innocent
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTustagNH0Y
I think one today should be happy with the fact that the ICC went through with the order, that Netanyahu is actually going to be arrested is close to zero.
@Jack – Why do you say the west? Surely all countries should impose sanctions on Israel.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/States_parties_to_the_Rome_Statute
In any case, the statement by the Dutch foreign minister should be welcomed. Let’s hope it is followed by foreign ministers and heads of government of other countries.
The Dutch government should check carefully for whether Netanyahu or Gallant have any assets in the Netherlands – and freeze them if they do.
I guess Netanyahu will not be accompanying the next lot of Maccabi Tel Aviv football hooligans to Amsterdam, since he might be arrested with them. 🙂
The Russian government has confirmed that Ukrainian forces have launched western-supplied long-range missiles at the Kursk and Bryansk regions:
https://tass.ru/politika/22466809 (Russian)
https://tass.com/politics/1875903 (English)
I haven’t watched the video or read a transcript, but the references on the above pages are to the USA and the west and not specifically to Britain.
re. ICBM aka Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.
I post it because it’s half past 9 in the evening here, and I frankly don’t know if I wake up to see the answers to my post tomorriow.
https://ria.ru/20241121/raketa-1985083943.html
“In response to the use of American and British weapons on November 21 of this year, the Russian armed forces launched a combined attack on one of the facilities of the Ukrainian defense industry. In combat conditions, one of the newest Russian medium-range missile systems was tested. In this case, with a ballistic missile in non-nuclear hypersonic equipment, our missilemen called it “Oreshnik” (*Hazel. **Why Hazel of all the things?**)
https://ria.ru/20241121/raketa-1985083943.html
“The strike on Yuzhmash was carried out by a ballistic missile with a non-nuclear hypersonic warhead”
https://ria.ru/20241121/putin-1985083998.html
“The targets to be hit during further tests of our latest missile systems will be determined by us based on the threats to the security of the Russian Federation.”
—
I wish I could say Good Night. Anyway, it’s fun and pleasure to be here with you. If we won’t wake up alive tomorrow, please Mods, I’m counting on a nice obituary and reminding you that I don’t like black and prefer blue instead. Pale blue suits my winter-type appearance better than anything else. If some bitch in your company says that pale blue does not suit the sadness of the moment, please ignore and refer to my direct posthumous order. Thank you.
https://t.me/russkayaZapravka/15096
Russkaya Zapravka? Russian gas filling station? Really?
Yuzhmash, I guess.
@Tatyana –
See also Sosna, Buk, and Topol – pine, beech, poplar.
Not that this answers the question.
Seems as though Russian counter-intelligence may have been successful in causing USA and Ukrainian intelligence to expect an attack on Kiev not Dnipro, but of course the night is young. I wonder whether the Menorah Centre in Dnipro was evacuated.
SISThe Economist writes as if Kiev and Dnipro are the same place. (Hasn’t the author of this article heard of the infamous “Dniepropetrovsk maniacs”, or of Helena Blavatsky?)https://archive.is/roIyf#selection-1097.405-1097.503
The Oreshnik may be an IRBM rather than an ICBM, and while capable of carrying multiple warheads (as has been demonstrated) it’s not clear whether they are capable of being independently targeted. Seems like a pretty damned effective demonstration, eithe way.
Are people stocking up on food in Russia??
A friend was in St Petersburg, or Leningrad as it then was, in 1964, when there was a war scare, and she says suddenly *bang* there was nothing – absolutely no food whatsoever – in the shops. But then that was only 20 years after the siege in which ~1 million people starved to death.
New day and I’m alive! Happy to live 🙂
Brian, I found one good explanation of the name:
– why are american missiles called something like Storm Shadow, and russian, fucking hell, Hazelnut!
– in names like storm shadow there’s an element of cringe, like a schoolboy calling himself KillerVampire666 in an online game. But if you were killed by a hazelnut, then there’s a certain element of irony in this.
I’ll leave it here. Another possible explanation of the name
https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/forums/topic/ukraine-date-nov-2023/page/35/#post-101906
I’ve discovered that in our army a grenade for an underbarrel grenade launcher is called Podkidysh (a foundling, with the meaning of an infant abandoned by his parent and found and adopted by others).
There’s also an intercontinental ballistic missile with a nuclear charge, called the Courier.
And another intercontinental ballistic missile with 10 nuclear warheads, is called Molodets (Ataboy / Well done / Way to go).
I must admit I like it more than KillerVampire666 🙂
and, on top of that – remote mining system Agriculture
ICC warrant binding the court expects members to act on it – the Dutch and Irish have said if Netanyahu steps onto their soil he will be arrested – human rights groups have welcomed the issue of the warrants.
Here’s hoping both men are arrested – the first of many complicit in the genocide.
“Long-serving Republican US Senator Lindsey Graham said that it was time for the US government to penalize the ICC for its warrants against Netanyahu and Gallant.”
“Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute outlines clear criminal liability for aiding and abetting war crimes, which applies to individuals in non-member states like the US when their actions enable violations under ICC jurisdiction.”
“The ICC said that there are reasonable grounds to believe that Netanyahu and Gallant were involved in actions constituting crimes against humanity and war crimes under its jurisdiction.
The ICC prosecutor said the crimes include starvation of civilians as a method of warfare and intentionally directing attacks against a civilian population.
Now the 124 ICC member states are technically obliged to arrest Netanyahu and his former war minister if they travel there.”
Remember how clear-cut Starmer was on the arrest order on Putin:
Keir Starmer
“I welcome the International Criminal Court’s decision to open war crime cases against Vladimir Putin and other senior Russian figures for their barbaric actions in Ukraine.
“Today’s announcement sends an important message: there will no hiding place for Putin and his cronies and the world is determined to make them pay for what they have done.
“I have seen first-hand the destruction and devastation waged on the brave people of Ukraine. These cases are just the tip of the iceberg. One day Putin will face justice: until then, the focus of all who believe in Ukraine’s liberty and freedom must continue to be on ensuring her victory.”
https://policymogul.com/key-updates/27659/keir-starmer-responds-to-the-international-criminal-court-issuing-an-arrest-warrant-for-vladimir-putin
But when he commented the arrest order against Netanyahu the dofus began to ramble along the line that ‘Israel have the right to defend itself but sure he support the ICC’
What a pathetic man and what a pathetic collective west, the same institutions they built up are apparently not to be used against themselves.
Non-western world need to step up now and expose the true heinous hypocritical face of the inhumane western world that obviously could not care less for human rights and not even their own, top judicial institution ICC! Call these f*ckers out.
Because this is different!
Netanyahu is only known to have travelled abroad on one occasion since the start of the ongoing round of slaughter, when he went to the USA in July 2024.
He won’t be going anywhere in a hurry other than possibly to the USA now.
If he does go to the USA, even though the ICC is not a UN institution I doubt he’ll be going to the UN HQ in New York and waving one of his cartoons about again.
I just quickly whizzed through the latest comments, and I don’t think anyone has posted about it, but I just came across the following that someone posted on skwawkbox earlier today:
“Sweden and Finland have issued updated guidance to prepare their citizens for potential crises, including war, extreme weather, and power outages. Both nations, recent NATO members, are prioritizing public readiness as part of a broader effort to bolster regional security.
Sweden Distributes Crisis Booklet to Millions
The Swedish Civil Contingencies Agency (MSB) has begun distributing the latest edition of its crisis preparedness booklet, “If Crisis or War Comes,” to over five million households. The 32-page booklet, first introduced during World War II, has been updated to address contemporary threats such as cyberattacks, terrorism, and extreme weather events.”
A number of Countries have also closed their embassies in Kiev.
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/global-trends/if-war-comes-are-you-ready-how-sweden-is-preparing-its-people-for-the-threat-of-war/articleshow/115442599.cms?from=mdr
I just checked out Jonathan Cook’s website (which I haven’t done for several days), and he posted two articles a couple of days ago (in his blog):
Starmer lied in saying Israel isn’t carrying out genocide in Gaza. Here’s the proof
19 November 2024
We may be exhausted by 13 months of lies, disinformation and smears. But we’re not voiceless, or powerless. Our leaders seek to bully us into silence because they fear what we have to say
Below is the text of a speech I delivered in Bath on Saturday 17 November 2024, organised by the Bath Campaigns Network….
For 13 months, western governments and the establishment media have shown us who they are.
They are indifferent to the mass murder of children in Gaza. In fact, the West supplies the weapons and intelligence to help Israel slaughter more Palestinian children.
Western leaders seem fine too with an aid blockade denying water, food and power to more than 2 million people – starving them. Our politicians and media call it “self-defence”.
Similarly, the West has quietly consented to Israel’s war on the United Nations and its banning of UNRWA, the only refugee agency able to feed and care for Gaza’s families.
Western leaders have gradually resigned themselves to Israel’s systematic destruction of Gaza’s hospitals and medical centres, as well as the documented killing, kidnapping and torture of medical workers.
Western politicians and media have shrugged their shoulders as Israel has picked off more than 150 journalists in Gaza – the largest massacre of media workers in history. Israel prefers to carry out its crimes unobserved.
Israel has carved up tiny Gaza into a northern and a southern zone, and is terrorising 400,000 Palestinians out of the ruins of north Gaza into the ruins of south Gaza.
They are being herded into a south Gaza of so-called “safe zones” bombarded and starved nearly as intensely as north Gaza.
The West has watched mutely as Israeli leaders declare the Palestinians of north Gaza will never be allowed back – that is, that they are being ethnically cleansed, as they were earlier by Israel, in 1948, during the Nakba….
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-11-19/starmer-israel-genocide-gaza/
And this one, which is particularly interesting:
The Guardian’s antisemitism is clearly on show. So why is everyone fine with it?
19 November 2024
The media constantly deploy an antisemitic trope: that on Gaza, it is Israel pulling the strings in Washington. They get away with it because this trope is crucially useful to the western power elite
https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2024-11-19/guardian-antisemitism-gaza-show/
Apologies if anyone posted a link to one or the other of them, or both of them.
And I happened to come across this opinion piece in Haaretz yesterday from May 8th, albeit most of it behind a paywall:
Netanyahu and His Gang Prefer Dead Hostages to Happy Leftists
Seven months into the war, the only glue holding the members of this Israeli cult together remains a fathomless hatred for anything they see as ‘leftist’
Why should we keep pretending? The gang from Channel 14 TV and die-hard fans of Benjamin Netanyahu would be very happy for the hostages to die in captivity.
That’s all that’s visible, but here’s a link to it anyway:
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/2024-05-08/ty-article-opinion/.premium/netanyahu-and-his-gang-prefer-dead-hostages-to-happy-leftists/0000018f-539f-d662-a7af-7bbf95030000
Just about all the people living in the kibbutzim etc close to the Gaza border which were attacked on October 7th are on the left, as with just about everyone at the Nova Music Festival and, as such, despise the likes of Netanyahu, and HE/THEY know it.
Between them, Netanyahu’s “office” and Gallant have said
* the ICC’s decision was “antisemitic”
* it amounts to “a modern Dreyfus trial”
* the court has legitimised baby-killing and rape
https://www.timesofisrael.com/a-modern-dreyfus-trial-israel-assails-icc-arrest-warrants-for-netanyahu-gallant/
Netanyahu’s “office” has also said that it will end the same way as the Dreyfus trial.
This shows once again the absolute cynicism of Zionists who refer to crimes committed against Jews before their dirty little terrorist state existed, as some kind of “justification” for their own crimes. Does Netanyahu even have a f***ing clue what happened with Dreyfus?
Because Dreyfus didn’t run away from his trials. He didn’t hide in safe haven.
If Netanyahu wants to be as honourable as Dreyfus, he should hand himself over to the ICC for trial.
Yup about Dreyfus and honor. And the unspeakable N. Dreyfus at first refused and had to be persuaded by his supporters to leave Devil’s Island and be freed before he was entirely exonerated! I’ve heard that a modern supporter of a latter day Dreyfus runs a blog somewhere. 🙂
“Kibbutzim” is just an alternative spelling of “terrorist supremacist colonial settlements run by land thieves”. I don’t care whether some of the blokes have long hair, some of the women wear short skirts, some of them smoke dope, and they get moronic young foreigners who aren’t Arabs to work for them for free. The only people I feel sorry for are the children who were not there of their own accord.
Got any info on where the staff at the various embassies in Kiev have gone? I don’t think they have flown out. No embassies appear to have been “shut for the foreseeable future”, in the sense of burn documents in the embassy garden, ride in a convoy to the airport, and “Byeeee”.
Yet.
In Dnipro, it’s the Menorah Centre that is probably the most important foreign building complex.
The closures were only temporary, the American re-opened yesterday and the British never closed after all.
One of the accused is said to have been ‘eliminated ‘ by Israeli forces.
A posthumous trial?
Dealing with real here:
Netanyahu and Gallant will never appear at the ICC ( surprise – surprise? ) because the main culprit for all the violence is the US. And neither will Biden.
But – a marker has been put down and like the Hollywood Walk of Fame various names will be etched forever in the minds of Liberal – freedom loving people into black stars on a pavement. Just for the (true?) lovers of Liberal Democracy, so will Putin’s.
To the victors the spoils and Netanyahu and his mates may not win whilst the word on the media street is that Putin will. That’s Life – or death and the difference between winning and losing. No matter what The ‘Rules-Based International Order’ thinks.
War is a filthy/devious business, and it’s a reason why nobody should ever cheer it on.
you are absolutely correct Mark.
I’m in a debate with Atomic Scientists to correct their 90 second Lie
Brianfujisan
No expert at all but the idea of NATO appears to have been (and is in Ukraine) to get as close to Moscow as possible so as that your first nuke strike will be quicker and faster than theirs.
As usual the West thinks that Russia would not have an automatic response to a First Strike from NATO. As the first Western one was coming in, then theirs will be coming out – automatically.
The West including Israel are under the fond notion that they can strike any country with impunity. They can’t and if they do then they are bigger fools than I think they are.
Not a pleasant thought, but I suspect that is how it would work.
I do agree with Chomsky that many accidents over the years have been avoided. We can only get away with that for a while. One ‘accident’ and it’s goodbye humanity.
Where the Warring Waves
Lost Seas Swelling and Surging
Tempermental Times
I have just watched a live interview with Craig Murray from Beirut, the first segment of the Grayzone featured Max Blumenthal and Aaron Maté .
After 2 attempts to contact Craig he eventually gave a wide ranging tour de force of the present political scene, this drew in excess of 400,000 viewers a must watch interview.
https://x.com/MaxBlumenthal/status/1859647009298448765
Oh Thanks Harry will check that
True of fake?
https://skwawkbox.org/2024/11/19/idf-forces-patients-out-of-beds-at-gunpoint-bound-and-stripped-at-n-gazas-last-functional-hospital/
Looks like a report of a raid carried out by the IDF last month.
https://www.aljazeera.com/program/newsfeed/2024/10/27/israeli-raid-leaves-north-gazas-kamal-adwan-hospital-in-ruins
Not the sure the hospital ever got operational afterwards.
Could be. Thanks!
Were any more confirmation needed that there is no Israeli barbarity that warrants being headlined or condemned in the West, there is this (highlighted by Francesca Albanese of the UN):
“Professor Adnan Al Bursh. Likely raped to death.
A doctor. A stellar surgeon. The embodiment of Palestinian ethics. Likely raped to death.
The racism of Western media who are not covering this, and Western politicians who are not denouncing this, together with the thousand other testimonies and allegations of rape and other forms of mistreatment and torture that Palestinians have suffered in Israeli jails, is absolutely sickening.”
https://x.com/FranceskAlbs/status/1858304872963010840
Speaking on the western callousness, just last month the German FM claimed unequivocally that Israel have the right to target civilians:
Video https://www.instagram.com/middleeastmonitor/reel/DBJS_bSJCzg/
That is the same crime that ICC now base their arrest warrant on.
How could people become so corrupt? How could one black-out the colossal reports, videos, testimonies regarding the atrocities from Gaza? How could one become so blind? It is like western politicians of today are straight up stupid, no one of these “leaders” have any diplomatic trait whatsoever. Full of emotions, full of ignorance. No morals, no principles, no basic knowledge of international law, history.
What if someone said, Russia have the right to level whole neighborhoods because there are Ukrainian generals living, or better yet “hiding”, in those buildings? Would the German FM support that too? Of course not!
I did see that from Baerbock, a new depraved depth entirely suppressed by media here in the UK. Had her Russian counterpart (Lavrov?) expressed such a belief it would be cited from here to eternity: Item A in evidence of Asiatic barbarity. No person aged above 4 in Europe and North America would be unaware of it.
“The enemy at last was plain in view, huge and hateful, all disguise cast off. It was the Modern Age in arms. Whatever the outcome there was a place for him in that battle.” Evelyn Waugh, The Sword of Honour.
For all the high hopes of the opening, Waugh’s trilogy about WW2 ends in confusion, compromise and betrayal. Britain’s soldiers today don’t even have the initial luxury of a hateful enemy and a just cause. Our leaders on both sides of the aisle are denying and suppressing justice, and the hateful enemy is the ally we are bending over backwards to support.
Gaza has stripped Western elites nude before the world.
‘Whataboutery’ drawing attention to Gaza is not only correct but the morally and intellectually serious response to Western criticism of all other states.
‘Putin did X’ – what about Gaza?
‘China did Y’ – what about Gaza?
‘Iran, North Korea, the Taliban’ – what about Gaza?
And this rule runs for all time. Bellicose liberals and war hawks should be asked, 15, 20, 30 years from now – what about Gaza?
What about the time you mortgaged your entire worldview on the depraved slaughter in Gaza? Don’t you think that invalidates everything you say?