#so those states will have some security against russia

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

Where exactly do you stand on the Ukraine issue because I keep getting mixed messages from your blog.

no, i've been consistent on this from the beginning.

i don't care.

i see both sides and i sympathize with both sides. however, i don't think america should be involved. let them fight it out or negotiate or whatever. unless the world wants to formally recognize america's hegemony, and they offer us tribute or something, i really don't feel an obligation to protect any country that we don't have a treaty with or any interest in.

[qqueenofhades]

I really really REALLY need to see more people makimg the connection between trump and his russian handlers tbh.......like i know we've somehow gone through the looking glass of putin apologia but that piece abt the NYT you just posted, the bots, the interference: in the bag for trump? Yes. But i dont believe its due to his or even republican power or popularity or forcefulness.......this is a man with so much debt and kompromat thats only getting worse!! Not to sound kwazy BUT WE ARE BEING FULLY INFLITRATED and at the risk of conspiracizing i think the russians are ALSO behind the Times's demise along with so many other information centers etc. Like i KNOW these leftists love him but like. Wouldnt they care a LITTLE abt being manipulated like this???

Trump is 100% an active, willing, and eager Russian agent. That's not even paranoid conspiracy theory, that's just the only reasonable interpretation of the facts:

NOT TO MENTION that in the next two years after the Helsinki conference where Trump kowtowed to Putin in every way, the CIA admitted to losing huge and unusually high numbers of classified informants around the world (not CIA agents, but people secretly working for the American government in often-hostile countries):

Once again, this all happened when Trump was in office, when he was actively handing over CIA intel to the Kremlin against the wishes of the entire national security establishment, and which other experts have suggested was directly as a result of Trump handing over the identities of American informants to Russia, including those stationed in Russia itself:

Now, I could go on, but you get the point. Not to mention that Trump just lost a major UK-based lawsuit against Christopher Steele, the former MI6 agent who was the first to provide documents linking Trump to Russia in the controversial "Steele dossier":

And now: Trump is deeply in hock for hundreds of millions in legal fees and punitive judgments that are only increasing by the day, he somehow just came up with $90 million to appeal the judgment against E. Jean Carroll (nobody knows where he got this money either), and Russian state TV spends all their time openly salivating for Trump's return to the presidency (so he can hand over Ukraine and the rest of NATO and, as he literally said, "let Russia do whatever the hell they want.") I know we're largely numb to all the awful treasonous shit that Trump does, but like. This isn't a conspiracy theory, this is just what's going on in plain sight, and while the Online Leftists have recently become so stupid that I honestly can't tell if it's just terminal brainworms or active Russian psyops, it's strongly indicated that it is in fact a mix of both:

So, like. Just some food for thought.

[zvaigzdelasas]

[NewYorkTimes is Private US Media]

Over the past month, we’ve watched an astonishing, high-stakes global drama play out in The Hague. A group of countries from the poorer, less powerful bloc some call the global south, led by South Africa, dragged the government of Israel and, by extension, its rich, powerful allies into the top court of the Western rules-based order and accused Israel of prosecuting a brutal war in Gaza that is “genocidal in character.”

The responses to this presentation from the leading nations of that order were quick and blunt.

“Completely unjustified and wrong,” said a statement from Rishi Sunak, Britain’s prime minister.

“Meritless, counterproductive and completely without any basis in fact whatsoever,” said John Kirby, a spokesman for the United States National Security Council.

“The accusation has no basis in fact,” a German government spokesman said, adding that Germany opposed the “political instrumentalization” of the genocide statute.

But on Friday, that court had its say, issuing a sober and careful provisional ruling that doubled as a rebuke to those dismissals. In granting provisional measures, the court affirmed that some of South Africa’s allegations were plausible and called on Israel to take immediate steps to protect civilians, increase the amount of humanitarian aid and punish officials who engaged in violent and incendiary speech. The court stopped short of calling for a cease-fire, but it granted South Africa’s request for provisional measures to prevent further civilian death. For the most part, the court ruled in favor of the global south.[...]

The court was not asked to rule on whether Israel had in fact committed genocide, a matter that is likely to take years to adjudicate. Whatever the eventual outcome of the case, it sets up an epic battle over the meaning and values of the so-called rules-based order. If these rules don’t apply when powerful countries don’t want them to, are they rules at all?

“As long as those who make rules enforce them against others while believing that they and their allies are above those rules, the international governance system is in trouble,” Thuli Madonsela, one of South Africa’s leading legal minds and an architect of its post-apartheid Constitution, told me. “We say these rules are the rules when Russia invades Ukraine or when the Rohingya are being massacred by Myanmar, but if it’s now Israel butchering Palestinians, depriving them of food, displacing them en masse, then the rules don’t apply and whoever tries to apply the rules is antisemitic? It is really putting those rules in jeopardy.”[...]

The military campaign has “wreaked more destruction than the razing of Syria’s Aleppo between 2012 and 2016, Ukraine’s Mariupol or, proportionally, the Allied bombing of Germany in World War II,” the report quoted researchers as saying. The researchers, hardly some raving left-wing activists, are experts cited in one of the most respected news organizations in the world, The Associated Press.[...]

The International Court of Justice issued a nonbinding opinion in 2004 that the security barriers Israel was erecting in the West Bank violated international law, but that ruling has had no effect. The walls still stand.[...]

Indeed, what is a rules-based system if the rules apply only selectively and if seeking to apply them to certain countries is viewed as self-evidently prejudiced? To put it more simply, is there no venue in the international system to which the stateless people of Palestine and their allies and friends can go to seek redress amid the slaughter in Gaza? And if not, what are they to do?

For the cause of Palestinian statehood, every alternative to violence has been virtually snuffed out, in part because Israel’s allies have helped to discredit them. The most recent example is the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement that has, in many places, been successfully tarred as antisemitic or even banned altogether. Efforts to use the United Nations Security Council have drawn U.S. vetoes for decades. Is seeking redress at the appropriate venue for alleged violations of international law also antisemitic, as Israel’s defense minister said on Friday? Does no law apply to Israel? Are there no limits to what it may do to defend itself?[...]

The Biden administration has made the shoring up of the international rules-based order a centerpiece of its foreign policy but, unsurprisingly, has struggled to live up to that aspiration.[...]

Occasionally straying from your principles because circumstances require it is very different from being seen to have no principles at all, and that is precisely how much of the global south has come to regard the United States.

It seems especially shortsighted in these times that the Biden administration elected to wave away the carefully documented case prepared by South Africa. One of the biggest threats to the rules-based international order is the growing consensus in the poor world that the rich world will apply those rules selectively, at its discretion, when it suits the powerful nations that make up the global north, such as when Russia invaded Ukraine.[...]

As far as the rules-based order is concerned, when it comes to crimes like genocide and ethnic cleansing, it simply does not matter who started it. [...] The best way to shore up the rules-based order is to be seen, in word and deed, as committing to the institutions and moral commitments of that order.

28 Jan 24

[mariacallous]

BERLIN — For the first time since the Nazi era, a far-right party in Germany has won the largest piece of the electoral pie in a state election.

Mainstream politicians and Jewish leaders are expressing alarm following Sunday’s elections, in which the anti-immigrant, Eurosceptic and pro-Russia Alternative for Germany party came out on top in the state of Thuringia, with 32.8% of the vote.

The 11-year-old party also earned second place to the traditional conservative Christian Democratic Union party in the neighboring state of Saxony. Both states are in the former East Germany.

“No one can brush this off as a ‘protest’ vote anymore,” Charlotte Knobloch, head of the Jewish community of Munich and Upper Bavaria, said in a statement late Sunday.

“Exactly 85 years after the start of World War II, Germany is in danger of becoming a different country again: more unstable, colder and poorer, less secure, less worth living in,” said Knobloch, a former head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany who herself survived the Holocaust in hiding.

The election came just over a week since a Syrian refugee was arrested after a deadly stabbing spree at a festival in the city of Solingen, and only days after Germany resumed its program of deporting refugees convicted of crimes. The knife attack, in which three people were killed, reignited popular anxiety about social unrest connected with the more than 1 million refugees admitted to Germany since 2015.

AfD stresses isolationism, takes an anti-EU and pro-Russian stance, and is accused of fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment. Some of its most extreme representatives have also belittled the Holocaust, saying that Germany has paid enough penance for the sins of an older generation.

Mass protests against the party took place earlier this year following revelations that the party had held a secret meeting at a lakeside villa to discuss plans to deport foreigners, including those who had become German citizens. Prominent neo-Nazis attended the meeting, according to the news organization that broke the story, inducing painful echoes of the gathering of Nazi leaders at nearby Wannsee in 1942 to devise a plan to deport and then murder Jews.

But while support for the AfD dipped in polls at the time, it soon rebounded and then accelerated. Now, it has achieved breakthrough results in state elections and raised concerns for next year’s national elections.

The party — whose Thuringen leader, Bjoern Hoecke, has been convicted twice of using a Nazi slogan to boost his party — is unlikely to form a ruling coalition in either state, since it is shunned by other parties. Still, it will have additional seats in the state legislatures and will have the numbers, particularly in Thuringia, to interfere with some governing decisions.

A far-left party, Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance or BSW, also produced notable results, coming in third in Thuringia with 15.8% of the vote. Last month, the current head of the Central Council of Jews in Germany, Josef Schuster, warned that the party, which has accused Israel of genocide in its war in Gaza, was “fueling hatred of Israel in Germany.”

The new election results bode ill for Germany’s future, Schuster said on Sunday.

“Can we recover from this hit?” Schuster wrote in a column in the Bild newspaper. “Our free society must not fall, especially in the face of Islamist terror. Unvarnished truths — honesty and sincerity — are needed, not populist pseudo-answers from radical parties.”

In Thuringia, the mainstream Social Democratic Party barely squeaked in, with 6.1%. Several parties, including the Greens and Free Democratic Party, received so few votes that they will not have any seats at all.

BSW also came in third in Saxony, with 11.8% of the vote, following the AfD with 30.6% and the CDU with a narrow win at 31.9%.

Younger voters overwhelmingly favored the AfD in this week’s elections, according to an NTV-Infratest exit poll.

“The survivors are asking themselves: ‘Didn’t we do enough to teach, to tell, to show?” Christoph Heubner of the International Auschwitz Committee, told the Guardian.

Some Jewish leaders say German politicians would do well to address the concerns apparently expressed by voters this weekend.

“The election results in the German federal states of Thuringia and Saxony are a clear wake-up call to the centrist parties in Germany to listen to the real concerns and fears of the people,” Rabbi Pinchas Goldschmidt, president of the Conference of European Rabbis, said in a statement. “When half the population votes for parties on the extreme fringes, their problems must be addressed openly and honestly.”

Sunday was an “insanely sad” election day, German Jewish journalist Samira Lazarovic wrote on Facebook. She said her 96-year-old father compared the outcome to the opening salvo of World War II, exactly 85 years ago.

Lazarovic said it was is urgent to reach out to younger voters. “It’s not that we know better than they; but we should shape the future together.”

Obviously, it wasn’t enough to take to the streets and protest against the far right, she added: “Populists all over the world have one thing in common. They mean exactly what they say and do everything they can to turn their words to deeds.”

[matan4il]

Daily update post:

A 70 years old Israeli farmer has been killed by Hezbollah rockets fired from Lebaon at Israel. May his memory be a blessing.

The death toll of the IDF ground operation in Gaza is now at 87.

Following the US congress discussion on antisemitism, where the presidents of prestigious universities couldn't clearly define calls to genocide the Jews as bullying and harassment, an Israeli professor at Standford, Jonathan Levav, who has lived there for years, and who said he's raising his two kids as typical American teenagers, was interviewed by his journalist friend in Israel. He talked about the fact that since Oct 7, he has felt antisemitism in the US and on his college campus in a way he never has before. "I would rather be in Israel right now," said the professor. "Really!?" asked his journalist friend, his voice making it clear that he's completely astonished. After all, our lives are currently under threat from several fronts. The professor reaffirmed the sentiment. "It's better to be hit by rockets in the face, than by knives in the back."

Here's another reminder that "Free Gaza from Hamas" isn't just a slogan, we're actually listening to people in Gaza who are pleading for a better life, and to even have a future:

And while some Gazans suffer immeasurably under Hamas, this terrorist organization's leaders and those affiliated with them live like kings. Better than most Israelis, in fact. The IDF revealed receipts for purchases made by Hamas people of luxury items, including jewelry. A single receipt was sometimes for a sum of money equivalent to two years worth of work on Gaza's average salary. Among the receipts found, were ones for purchases made by the son of Hamas's leader, Ismail Hanyieh. While Gazans suffer the consequences of Hamas' massacre of innocent civilians in Israel, Hanyieh is living in a luxury hotel in Qatar. Hanyieh's personal wealth is estimated to be 4 billion dollars, roughly 4 times greater than Taylor Swift's (Google says she has a net worth of 1.1 billion dollars).

Dozens of men in Gaza turned themselves over to the IDF today, they were arrested, not killed, a reminder that all Hamas needs to do for everyone to live is surrender.

The following infographic is a bit outdated (from roughly 3 weeks ago, I think), but it shows how much more attention the dead in Gaza get, than the dead anywhere else in the world, in conflicts far bloodier. Even more than in the conflict between Russia and Ukraine. So what stands out about this, what makes everyone pay more attention to dead Gazan civilians than to dead Ukrainian civilians? My personal guess is that it's not the Gazans themselves. When Palestinians are killed by other Arabs in Lebanon, Syria or Jordan, no one pays attention to them. When Palestinians are killed by their own leadership, whether Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, no one talks about it. What changes suddenly, when Israel is a part of the picture? My guess is that it's the fact that then, it can be used to attack the Jewish state, excuse the massacre of Jews, and inspire attacks against Jewish people all over the world. Even on the campuses of the most prestigious US universities.

Why do I bring this up now?

The UN secretary general had been silent on the rape of Israeli women for almost two months following the Hamas massacre, had barely talked about Hamas' war crimes, had failed to talk about Hamas' use of Palestinians as human shields, and his workers had collaborated with Hamas for years, in turning a blind eye to Hamas' use of UN schools and hospitals to attack Israelis from, as well as since the Oct 7 massacre, in holding an Israeli kid hostage without providing him with enough food.

This man is now invoking article 99 of the UN charter.

This article allows him to call a special session of the UN security council, based on his concern for world peace.

He did not use this article during any other conflict, no matter how bloody. Not during his years in office while the civil war in Syria continues to rage for over a decade, with hundreds of thousands killed, and millions displaced. He did not invoke it during the war between Russia and Ukraine, which has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people on both sides in less than two years.

Or let's put aside at the number of victims, and look at the possible risk to world peace.

The global power that is Russia is in the middle of a war, with all the allies it has, and the places where it exerts its influence, such as Syria, and all the countries that are looking at Russia, waiting to see what they can learn from the war's results, and that doesn't make the UN secretary general concerned enough for world peace to call a special session! I'm not even going to talk about the geopolitical results of the war in Syria, which was a training ground for Islamists from other countries as well (for example, we know Hezbollah's terrorists returned from the war in Syria with more military experience than anything they got before). But that wasn't concerning enough!

There's so much that was said over the years about the UN's anti-Israel bias, but it feels like this one really takes the cake.

Once again, the only conflict involving the one Jewish state is also the only one getting disproportionate attention, which essentially (please excuse my language, but I am angry) fucks over every other victim of every other conflict. Never forget that antisemitism doesn't just hurt Jews, there are non-Jews who pay the price for it as well.

On the first night of Hanukkah, there will be 138 hanukkiot (Hanukkah menorahs) lit at the Western Wall, the same number of the hostages who are still being held in Gaza. (this is a small reminder that Hanukkah is a Zionist holiday)

This is 25 years old Gal Meir Eizenkott.

It was published just minutes ago that he was killed in the fighting in Gaza. Gal is the son of Gadi Eizenkott, who is currently an Israeli minister, and the former IDF Chief of Staff. NOBODY in Israel is sending the soldiers off to fight without a care in the world. Pictured below is Gal with his dad. May his memory be a blessing.

These are 3 years old Emma and Yuli Kunyo, twins.

They were held hostage by Hamas. We know now that at a certain point, Yuli was separated from the rest of her captured family, and kept alone. The two girls were released in the hostage deal, together with their 34 years old mom. Today, these girls were discharged from the hospital. They still don't have a home to return to.

(for all of my updates and ask replies regarding Israel, click here)

[tomorrowusa]

There are a number of threats to the LGBTQ+ community around the world. And with Pride Month on the horizon, federal law enforcement in the US is urging people to be more alert.

Authorities warned US citizens abroad to "exercise increased caution". "Stay alert in locations frequented by tourists, including Pride celebrations," a warning issued by the state department said. The advisory came on Friday, a week after a similar alert issued by US law enforcement agencies. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said: "Foreign terrorist organizations or supporters may seek to exploit increased gatherings associated with the upcoming June 2024 Pride Month." Although no specific gatherings or locations were mentioned in the warnings, the law enforcement agencies noted that messages from the Islamic State (IS) group distributed in English in February 2023 included rhetoric against LGBTQI+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, questioning, and intersex) events and venues.

Being concerned about anti-LGBTQ+ violence is not paranoid even during "normal" times. Remember the Pulse massacre in 2016?

During Pride Month in June 2016, a man inspired by IS ideology shot dead 49 people and wounded 53 more at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida. The FBI and DHS warning also noted that three IS sympathisers had been arrested for attempting to attack a Pride parade in Vienna, Austria in 2023. The Counter Extremism Project, a New York-based non-profit group, noted that anti-LGBTQ ideas had been taken up by both Islamist and far-right extremists. "It is no surprise that neo-Nazis and jihadis often express mutual admiration for their shared anti-gay visions," Mark D Wallace, the project's chief executive, said in a statement.

The narrowly averted attack on a Pride march in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho in 2022 was a close call. A heads up by a concerned citizen prevented violence.

The 31 people arrested in Idaho have ties to a White nationalist group and planned to riot at a Pride event, police say. Here’s what we know

After an alarmed 911 caller reported a group dressed like a “little army” getting into a moving truck, police in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, arrested 31 men believed to be linked to a White nationalist group, who had plans to riot at a weekend Pride event, authorities said. The large group – which police believe was affiliated with Patriot Front – was seen at a hotel piling into a U-Haul with riot gear, the caller told a 911 dispatcher. They were later pulled over and arrested, Coeur d’Alene Police Chief Lee White said.

When becoming aware of an immediate threat inside the United States, call 911. If you discover credible evidence of anti-LGBTQ+ violence being planned for some future time, call the FBI at 1-800-CALL-FBI (1-800-225-5324). Hate crimes are against the law. All threats of violence should be taken seriously.

If you're abroad, remain alert and pay attention to local advisories and those from embassies.

There's an axis of homophobia which includes Russia, Iran, Uganda, and the far right in the West. Islamic State and (so called) Patriot Front are essentially on the same side. It's sad, but such threats, regardless of source, cannot be ignored.

[canichangemyblogname]

People need to realize the label "terrorist" is, more often than not, a political label. When you point this out, people often accuse you of terrorism apologia, but it's actually quite the opposite.

If we were to- say- define a "terrorist group" as "a non-governmental organization that violently targets civilian populations as a tactic to score political points, often relying on 'propaganda by deed,'" many more people and groups would be included under this definition. It would rightfully exclude the Ukrainian military as it engages directly with the Russian military, in direct contrast to Russia's rhetoric, while it would rightfully include groups like the KKK, which has been excluded from official terrorist organization lists.

It is not a perfect definition, but it is one of many working definitions proposed to counteract current political labeling. Current political definitions and usage often result in organizations like the PLO being included on the list for a year before the US government waived it or non-violent protesters in Georgia, USA, being hit with the label. It also leaves out several groups of violent extremists, providing them with more of an air of legitimacy and more discretion in their operations than those groups with the label.

Labeling a group as a "terrorist" group often legally allows a government, like the US government, to heavily surveil the group's members, freeze group and member assets, imprison group members, and engage with the group militarily. The label also often serves to justify any treatment of group members under a government's authority, like denying them due process. Some will argue it is a necessary evil. Others will point out how many men have been released from places like Guantanamo without charge. Or how the US "No-Fly" list appears to racially profile people and primarily target Muslims.

As long as labeling a group "terrorist" allows a government to legally circumvent certain rights, like that of a free and speedy trial, it will be used politically and ideologically, often against civilian separatists and opposition to the state, as we see in Georgia's Stop Cop City protests. But the US is not the only country that does this. Nor is it the only country primarily focusing on Islamic Extremism to the detriment of National security and democracy.

"Terrorism" is the pretext, but involvement in "terror"-related occupation has objectives other than stamping out terrorism. Just as there are socio-political gains in labeling common Georgian protesters as "terrorists," there are geo-political gains in the primary focus on Islamic fundamentalism and violence, like an unwavering international gaze on the Islamic world and multiple different military occupations in the Islamic world. If people's gut assumption is that Muslim = terrorist, they won't think twice about something like US military strategies in the Islamic world. It has led to 30% of Republicans and 19% of Democrats supporting things like the bombing of the fictional nation of Agrabah in polls. It has also led to US militarized counterterrorism in 85 countries worldwide with limited Congressional oversight and next to no public knowledge.

When I point this out, most people like to straw-man my argument to assume my goal is to let listed terrorist organizations prance around and kill people indiscriminately. The goal is not the absence of justice, but strengthening protections for the accused so a label is not an automatic guilty sentence. No government or military should simply be able to invade another to play judge, jury, and executioner on the people of that country. Morally. They also shouldn't be able to justify suspending due process for anyone. It sets a precedent.

Additionally, the goal is not to let a terrorist organization operate without impunity, but to admit that the "War on Terror" was a failure, in large part due to its violent and indiscriminate strategies. That is the second thing people need to realize.

This theoretical war against this nebulous force has been nasty, brutish, and long. It has also been ineffective. The "War on Terror" has only contributed to more violence and extremism worldwide. In fact, terror-related incidents have increased fivefold worldwide since 2001. The number of existing terror groups is at the highest level since 1980, and they've seen their numbers swell. And they have become increasingly transnational.

We've learned that it is impossible to win any terror-related "conflict" without destabilizing a nation or region. It is impossible to win any terror-related "conflict" without inflicting a tremendous number of civilian casualties, especially due to modern governments' aggressive military strategies. It is also impossible to win. Period. You cannot defeat terrorism. An organization, sure (although only about 7% of terror organizations have been quelled by military action). Terrorism itself? No. Mostly due to the diversity, scope, and decentralization of the threat. It is simply not possible to eliminate armed terror groups through the use of force and armies. It's quite literally counterintuitive.

The Hot War on Terror replaced the Cold War on Communism. And leading powers in the Global North are repeating the same failed tactics they used between 1950-1990. An overemphasis on military force to achieve state goals (most terror planning *does not* take place in a dedicated physical location, which military force primarily addresses). Neglecting non-military instruments of statecraft (terrorism is a tactic, not an ideology, so you can't "war" against a tactic). Focusing so narrowly on military action, you practically ignore other foreign-policy goals (like economic and political stability, anti-corruption, and nation-building because terrorist groups thrive in instability and disaffection). Creating the state's enemies of the future (see: arming Afghan rebels to fight the Soviets). And disowning and contradicting their country's own stated moral values to achieve its goals abroad.

Declaring war on terror is nothing short of a forever war. It ends only when counterterrorism measures stretch governments so thin they collapse.

[centrally-unplanned]

Gonna talk more about the cluster munitions thing, because I think its interesting:

Weapons are not 'special'; they do not fall into dangerous vs safe categories, no weapon is more or less morally pure than the other. Every weapon of war can be used to indiscriminately kill civilians. From this, the "level 1" reasoning would state that the use of any weapon is therefore equally contextual; you just odds-estimate the "median civilian risk" like any other weapon for its use. From this logic using say tactical nuclear weapons is fine, as it is in fact trivial and common in war to arrive at scenarios where the civilian risk of such weapons is more-or-less as low as conventional weapons.

However, humans are not civilian-risk utility maximizers, and the international order is not composed of dispassionate super-rational agents. We govern things through norms & expectations, and constantly run the risk of sunk costs and moral decay. If we allowed tactical nuclear weapons to be used in Ukraine, first off they would not stay in that "low civilian risk" category; once used the pressure to keep using them increases and the ability for them to slip into far more dangerous territory is quite high compared to conventional bombs. Secondly, it would break the norm for other countries - in Ukraine, Russia could be using tactical nuclear weapons, but are not because they know the US & EU would respond extremely harshly, maybe arming Ukraine with the same. No side wants to open those floodgates.

All of this is to say that norms in war do matter, and you don't want to break them lightly, even if there is a solid use case on the micro-level for the weapon. Building these norms takes time and we are better off for them.

Cluster munitions do not, at all, have this norm. People want it to have this norm; that is admirable, and I think there is merit to it. But those people have failed - the military applications for the munitions are too large, and 'risk profile' however you wish to define it too low, for any major military power to actually limit its use. The fact that the EU & Japan have done so is very telling, as they are the countries that virtually always conduct their military operations as part of joint operations for non-critical security concerns, and with US assistance. Actual militaries who consider themselves to face critical security threats, from China to South Korea to Iran to India, have not done this. No 'norm of war' has emerged against their use. (Some norms around minimum detonation thresholds have emerged, maybe, loosely, and ofc there are norms about how to use them, though they aren't cluster-munitions specific in the main).

So certainly shipping cluster munitions to Ukraine is a setback to those hoping to form that norm, its a real cost. But that cost is much less than violating an existing norm, Russia did not hesitate to use cluster munitions and always has in its other military operations like Chechnya. There is no risk of 'escalation', no new major military power is going to go "its time!" - they all already did that decades ago - its not going to change the status quo. Which means you can get back to the granular questions - does the Ukraine war have applications within the acceptable risk range?

Which I don't know the answer to! My instinct is yes, this war has lots of 'remote' combat sites and Ukraine has no interest in killing its own people, but I am not in the field, I do not know. But the Ukrainian Army is in the field, and my default is that they should be listened to - I would need a compelling case as to why this is a large risk escalation and I haven't seen it yet.

[vintageseawitch]

to those leftists who are "uncommitted" or will vote third party: what exactly is your alternative? you know goddamn well your "protest" vote isn't gonna change shit & may help trump win. you scoff & claim that "OBVIOUSLY i don't want trump to win 🙄" but you're working harder to make sure Harris loses than he does.

i can't get over how y'all know "so much" about far left theory... but you know jack shit about how the American government works. you already act like the president is a monarch. i NEVER hear y'all talk about how important local & state voting is because most of you spew the bullshit that is "my vote doesn't matter."

the extremist Republicans have been playing a long fucking game. a few genocides will happen on our own soil if they gain all the power they want - that of immigrants, specifically brown people, & LGBTQIA. they will destroy them & anyone who wants to help them. this has been a long game because they can count on their voters actually participating in every election & mostly old people are the ones doing the voting.

we all complain about old people being selfish, how "they had theirs & will work to make sure younger generations don't." young people however are NOTORIOUS for not showing up at the polls. where the fuck are you leftists complaining about all the horrible bad things? y'all almost act like shocked Pikachu faces when piece of shit politicians get power then do horrible things. WHY AREN'T YOU ADVOCATING FOR LOCAL POLITICIANS.

if anything, Republicans live more in the real world than leftists who want their precious, magical, instantly-fix-everything revolution. Republicans have been patiently playing a long game & it's been WORKING. leftists get mad that changes they want don't happen instantly so they just give up on the system altogether. y'all want politicians to check ALL of your goddamn boxes or they get no help from you.

your protest vote in this election is selfish. you're not being smart about this. for fuck's sake, you're not marrying Harris, you're thinking of the long game. we need to work hard to make sure trump loses. the likes of jill stein, who is also a traitor, will not save us. she will hand us over to Russia on a platter. you want the US to collapse? you are so fucking foolish that you not only remain ignorant of how our government works but also geopolitics & all the delicate nuance. YES, the United States is fucked up, but world leaders are more nervous about a trump second term than not. HE FREED THE FUCKING TALIBAN.

you think things will be the same as ever? you're as bad as MAGA. you want us all to fail & all it will cost is LGBTQIA folks, immigrants (including those who have been here for decades), any woman who needs some kind of abortion care to save her life, children as more get gunned down, the elderly & disabled & anyone else who qualifies for social security & Medicare, veterans, indigenous folks, the environment since they don't believe in climate change WHICH AFFECTS THE ENTIRE DAMN PLANET, etc. but at least you're conscience will be clear.

please be smarter than Republicans & think this through. in another election in 1995 in Isreal a protest vote occurred & as a result netanyahu won by LESS THAN A WHOLE PERCENT. they were protesting AGAINST him. your "principles" could aid in harming us all. "they should have chosen a better candidate" our system led us to either choosing Harris or trump. for now it sucks but one of them will govern us. if you're so unsure then you might as well look forward to trump winning. he's not long for this world so jd fucking vance will be president instead. he's much younger & more evil, horrible, & psychotic. THINK ABOUT THE LONG GAME. vote locally & at state level, not just during thr general election. y'all don't sound smart to me; you sound prideful & short-sighted.

[soon-palestine]

THREAD: The International Court of Justice (ICJ) has issued a press release stating that it will this Friday “deliver its Order” in response to South Africa’s “Request for the indication of provisional measures”

in the case concerning “Application of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide in the Gaza Strip (South Africa v. Israel)”.

Many people, rightly horrified by Israel’s genocidal campaign against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, expect the ICJ to order a comprehensive ceasefire.

n their view this is the least the ICJ can and should do. They will consider anything less a failure by South Africa, a betrayal of the Palestinian people, and an indictment of the ICJ and indeed of international law itself.

My own view is that this matter should be looked at very differently and judged by different criteria.

The ICJ can respond in several ways to South Africa’s application. It can determine that South Africa has not presented a plausible case that Israel needs to answer, decline to order any provisional measures, and effectively consider the case closed

The Court could also determine that South Africa has failed to demonstrate that there is a dispute between South Africa and Israel as defined by the Genocide Convention, and dismiss the case on technical grounds.

Either scenario would be a clear defeat for South Africa and the Palestinians, and for that matter the concept of international justice. Most specialists consider either of these scenarios to be the least likely outcome,

largely because the South African legal team presented such a meticulously detailed and cogently argued legal and factual case, while Israel’s rebuttal was comparatively weak.

If the Court does indeed order provisional measures, it is not bound by those requested by South Africa. It can adopt all of them, some of them, or entirely different ones than those proposed by South Africa.

In the relevant precedents, Bosnia and thereafter Myanmar, the ICJ sufficed with general injunctions ordering the accused state to “take all measures within its power” to prevent acts that amount to or contribute to the crime of genocide.

In doing so it may even prohibit specific acts identified in the Convention, such as deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the physical destruction of the threatened group.

The ICJ did indeed order a ceasefire in the case of Ukraine, but as was pointed out to me in response to a previous thread, this was an entirely different case. Ukraine did not claim that it was the victim of genocide,

but rather that unsubstantiated Russian accusations of genocide against Ukraine were being used by Russia to justify military operations on Ukrainian territory. It was on this basis that Ukraine requested, and the ICJ ordered, Russia to halt those operations.

Although South Africa has in the present case asked the Court to order an “immediate” suspension of Israeli military operations in the Gaza Strip in order to prevent further Israeli violations of the Genocide Convention,

it has not asked the Court to specifically rule on the legality of Israel’s military operations against the Gaza Strip.

The ICJ is therefore highly unlikely to offer its view on the matter by, for example, declaring Israel’s Operation Iron Sword illegal or intrinsically genocidal and on this basis ordering it to a halt.

On the basis of the above I do not expect the ICJ – which does not operate in a vacuum – to voluntarily wade into a political hornet’s nest and order a ceasefire. Even if it did, such a ruling would be dead on arrival because Israel has already stated it would ignore it.

The Court does not have the power to enforce its rulings. That role is performed by the United Nations Security Council. And so long as the United States remains a veto-wielding permanent member of the Council,

it will block any attempt by the ICJ to prevent Israel from committing genocide. I have it on good authority the US constitution will soon include a 28th amendment codifying Israeli impunity.

It would in my view therefore be a mistake to judge the Friday ICJ Order by whether or not it calls for a ceasefire. It won’t, for reasons largely unrelated to the substance of this case, and even if it did this would have only symbolic value and have zero impact on the ground.

Much more important, in my view, is whether the Court issues any provisional measures at all. If it does anything other than dismiss South Africa’s application this would be hugely significant,

because it means the world’s highest court has judged that South Africa has made a plausible case that Israel is in violation of the Genocide Convention and that its allegations deserve a full hearing

Think of it as a formal accusation requiring a proper and full trial. And any provisional measures mean there will be that full trial.

As has been noted elsewhere, the Court is at this stage not determining whether or not Israel is guilty of the crime of genocide. Rather, it is only examining whether South Africa has plausibly accused Israel of genocide,

and if so what “provisional measures” are required to prevent irreparable harm pending the conclusion of the hearings. If it indeed proceeds to that stage, these hearings can be expected to last several years.

(The Bosnia case was initiated in 1993 and concluded in 2007, the Myanmar case was launched in 2019 and remains ongoing.)

While anything is possible Friday, including an ICJ ruling that either dismisses the case or orders a ceasefire, many specialists expect neither. Rather, they seem to believe that the Court will agree to proceed with the case and adopt more generic provisional measures.

This would, as noted, be hugely significant. It means that Israel stands legitimately accused of genocide, widely considered the most serious crime on the books, “the crime of crimes”.

The state that claims to be a “Light unto the nations”, that claims to have “the most moral army in the world” because it fights according to the code of “purity of arms”, and that claims to exist so that “Never Again”,

will stand accused of intentionally seeking to destroy a group of people on the basis of their identity, and be forced to defend itself. A searchlight unto the nations, determined to do it yet again.

It is also worth reflecting on how far South Africa has come since its white minority regime was one of Israel’s closest allies.

Given Israel’s long and sordid record of alliances with anti-Semites, it should come as no surprise that many of the South African apartheid regime’s ruling National Party leaders, such as D.F Malan, H.F. Verwoerd, John Vorster, and P.W. Botha,

actively supported the Nazis during WWII or otherwise openly espoused anti-Semitic policies. During the 1970s and 1980s both Israel and South Africa were international pariahs, bringing these institutionally racist, supremacist states even closer together.

US intelligence strongly suspected that they jointly conducted a nuclear test in the Indian Ocean in 1979. Birds of a feather…

Today of course South Africa is a if not the leader of the free world, while the US and EU merely posture, preaching slogans – as we see in Gaza today – primarily honoured in the breach.4

And speaking of nuclear weapons and sanctimonious posturing, Israeli cabinet minister Amichai Eliyahu today once again advocated dropping a nuclear bomb on the Gaza Strip. “Even in The Hague they know my position”, he noted.

Why does he speak so brazenly? Because when he previously advocated nuclear war in late 2023, each and every Western capital ignored his genocidal advocacy and looked the other way.

Because their official position is that Israel does not possess the nuclear weapons it has, and only Iran is a proliferation risk. That’s how their disintegrating rules-based international order operates. END

[feministdragon]

“The Kremlin’s principal effort is to force the United States to accept and reason from Russian premises to decisions that advance Russia’s interests, not ours. The Kremlin is not arguing with us. It is trying to enforce assertions about Russia’s manufactured portrayal of reality as the basis for our own discussions, and then allow us to reason to conclusions pre-determined by the Kremlin. Accepting Russia’s premises and reasoning from them may proceed in a formally logical way but is certainly not rational, since it is divorced from actual reality and from our interests. Soviet mathematician Vladimir Lefebvre defined this process as “reflexive control”– a way of transmitting bases for decision making to an opponent so that they freely come to a pre-determined decision.[9] A key example: Putin takes the false assertion that discussions of Ukraine’s NATO accession posed a clear and imminent danger to Russia along with the false assertion that Ukraine is not a real country and builds them into a false conclusion that he was justified in launching a war of conquest.[10] Another assertion: Russia has the right to a self-defined sphere of influence, and, therefore, a right to do whatever it wants to those within this sphere – including invading, killing, raping, and ethnic cleansing – with no repercussions.[11] The degree to which Western discourse includes serious consideration of these falsehoods marks the success of long-running Russian information operations.

Some sincerely accept the Kremlin’s false predicates and resulting conclusions. Others may accept the predicates but stop short of leaping to conclusions that any of these arguments justify the Kremlin’s invasion and atrocities. Many can see past the Kremlin’s manipulations and recognize that Russia’s war is an unprovoked war of conquest, however.

The Kremlin then targets this last category on a different level of reasoning – the predicates that inform our will to do something about Russia’s war and the lengths to which we are willing to go. The Kremlin targets our perceptions of costs, priorities, risks, upsides, alignment with our values, and effects of our own actions. Two main categories of false assertions that the Kremlin is trying to enforce in this respect are that: a) Ukraine cannot win this war; supporting Ukraine is a distraction from ‘real’ US problems; Ukraine will be forced to settle; the United States is at risk of being stuck in another “forever” war; and b) the risks in helping Ukraine defend itself, let alone win, are higher than the risks of failure in Ukraine for the United States - it is too costly, too risky, and that Ukraine is not worth it. ISW and many others have thoroughly debunked these assertions, yet they remain pervasive in US discussions about opposing Russia.[12] The Russian goal is to have us freely reason to a conclusion that Russia’s prevailing in Ukraine is inevitable and that we must stay on the sidelines — and Moscow is succeeding far too well in this effort.

It is important to emphasize that by no means all who oppose continuing or expanding support for Ukraine are doing so as the result of Russian reflexive control measures. The point, however, is that Americans must recognize the enormous effort the Kremlin is putting into these and other assertions in order to create a picture of reality that, taken in its totality, is false — Russia had no right to invade Ukraine, has no rights to control Ukraine, was not provoked into such an invasion, will not inevitably win, will not inevitably escalate to fighting a full-scale war against NATO, and helping Ukraine liberate its strategic territories as the only viable path to a durable peace remains the most prudent course of action to secure US interests.”

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Nick Anderson

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 15, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

Today House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) canceled tomorrow’s votes and sent the House of Representatives into recess until February 28.

Before recessing, Johnson refused to take up the national security supplemental bill the Senate passed early Tuesday morning, providing aid for Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan and humanitarian aid for Gaza. Johnson said the House must “work its own will” rather than vote on the bill at hand because the measure did not include border security measures.

Yesterday, Johnson told House Republicans that the House will not be “rushed” into passing foreign aid, despite the fact that Ukraine’s desperate need for ammunition is enabling Russia to regain some of the territory Ukraine’s troops reclaimed over the past year. 

But is it a rush? President Biden asked for additional national security funding in October 2023. A majority of lawmakers in the Senate and the House support such a measure, but Johnson bowed to the demands of MAGA Republicans and said he would not bring such a bill up for a vote unless it contained border security measures to address what they insisted was a crisis at the southern border of the U.S., apparently banking on the idea that such a compromise was impossible.

But Democrats were so desperate to pass the Ukraine funding they see as crucial to our national security that they agreed to give up their demand for a path to citizenship for the so-called Dreamers, those brought to the United States as children and reared here but now stuck in citizenship limbo. So, after four months of work, Senate negotiators produced a bill that offered much of what Republicans demanded. 

Once it was clear a deal was going to materialize, Trump demanded it be shut down, likely because he has promised his base that on his first day back in office, he will “begin the largest domestic deportation operation in American history,” and a new border measure would both undermine his campaign message and stymie his plans. Although the border patrol officers union endorsed the Senate national security measure that included border security provisions, Republicans killed it. 

Senators immediately went to work on a national security supplemental without the border measure, passing it with 70 votes on Tuesday morning. Johnson indicated he would not take it up, right about the same time that Trump renewed his attack on the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that underpins U.S. and global security. 

“House Republicans are…siding with Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Tehran against our defense industrial base, against NATO, against Ukraine, against our interests in the Indo-Pacific,” the White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said yesterday, and President Joe Biden has repeatedly warned that “[f]ailure to support Ukraine at this critical moment will never be forgotten.” But Republicans, too—including Trump’s vice president Mike Pence—are begging House Republicans to pass a version of the measure.  

Perhaps to pressure Johnson, House Intelligence Committee chair Mike Turner (R-OH), who is a strong supporter of aiding Ukraine in its fight against Russia, yesterday released information about “a serious national security threat,” urged all members of Congress to view the intelligence, and called on Biden to declassify all information relating to it. That threat appears to be antisatellite weapons Russia is developing, but they are not yet operational. Senators Mark Warner (D-VA) and Marco Rubio (R-FL) of the Senate Intelligence Committee expressed concern that the disclosure might have revealed intelligence sources and methods.

And now, rather than taking up the national security measure, the House has recessed.

National security and border measures are not the only things the House is ignoring. Since this is a leap year, putting February 29 on the calendar, the recess will give the House just three working days to pass appropriations measures for the 2024 budget before the stopgap continuing resolution to fund the government expires on March 1.

The appropriations process is so far overdue that it threatens to become tangled in that for 2025, which is set to begin March 11, when the White House is expected to release its budget proposal for the year. 

While they have been unable to make headway on these measures, on Tuesday night, Republicans in the House of Representatives voted to impeach Homeland Security secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, blaming him for an increase in migrants at the border. Johnson has named as impeachment managers a number of Republican extremists, including Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Andy Biggs (R-AZ), Clay Higgins (R-LA), and Harriet Hageman (R-WY). 

As Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan of Punchbowl News reported: “This is the most chaotic, inefficient and ineffective majority we’ve seen in decades covering Congress. It started this way under former Speaker Kevin McCarthy and has gotten worse under Johnson.”

Trump and his MAGA supporters are demonstrating their power over the Republican Party. Trump is trying to install hand-picked loyalists, including his daughter-in-law, at the head of the Republican National Committee, where she vows that “[e]very single penny will go to the No. 1 and the only job of the RNC—that is electing Donald J. Trump as President of the United States.” 

When Trump was in office, his team installed loyalists at the head of state parties, where they have worked to purge all but Trump loyalists. MAGA Republicans are continuing that process. After Senator James Lankford (R-OK), a reliable conservative tapped by Senate minority leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to negotiate a border measure, produced one that favored Republican positions, right-wing provocateur Benny Johnson called those like Lankford “traitors…spineless scum” who must “be criminally prosecuted.” 

That demand for purity appears to be radicalizing the House as Republicans inclined to get things done, including five committee chairs, have announced they will not run for reelection. Meanwhile, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene yesterday said that British foreign secretary David Cameron, who is urging Congress to pass Ukraine aid, “can kiss my ass.” 

But the MAGA agenda is falling apart in the courts. True the Vote, the right-wing organization that insisted it had evidence of voter fraud in the 2020 presidential election, has told a Georgia judge that, in fact, it has no such evidence. Their claims provided the basis for the arguments about voter fraud highlighted in right-wing pundit Dinesh D’Souza’s film 2000 Mules. 

Today a grand jury convened by Special Counsel David Weiss, whom Trump appointed to investigate Hunter Biden, indicted former FBI informant Alexander Smirnov for making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record about Hunter Biden. Smirnov has been a key witness for Republican allegations about Biden’s “corruption” since Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) released Smirnov’s unverified claims about a year ago and other MAGA figures spread them. Matthew Gertz of Media Matters noted that Fox News Channel personality Sean Hannity’s show highlighted these allegations in at least 85 separate segments last year, including 28 monologues. Now a grand jury has grounds to think Smirnov lied. 

Trump’s personal problems also continue to mount. 

Today Judge Juan Merchan confirmed that Trump is going to trial on his criminal election interference case, with jury selection beginning on March 25. Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg has charged Trump with 34 felonies for falsifying business records in order to hide critical information from voters before the 2016 election. Prosecutors say that Trump defrauded voters by illegally hiding payments he made to adult film actress Stormy Daniels to keep her quiet about their affair before the election. As Andrew Warren put it in The Daily Beast, the case “is about a plot to deprive voters of information about a candidate for president—information that Trump and his allies believed to be damaging enough to hide.”

And yet Trump’s MAGA Republicans are calling the shots in the House, and their refusal to support Ukraine threatens to empower Russian president Vladimir Putin and thus to lay waste to the rules-based international order that has helped to prevent world war since 1945. Conservative pundit Bill Kristol noted earlier this month that “politics is often a stage on which people act in bad faith. Still, the demagogic opposition of House Republicans to the border/Ukraine bill, when they've all said the border is an emergency and that Putin should be stopped, is just about the baddest bad faith ever.” 

The implications of that bad faith for the country—and the world—are huge.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[spiderlegsmusic]

The Benefit of Compromise for the Sake of Argument

For the sake of argument, let’s say both candidates for US president are monsters. One monster still is clearly much worse and poses more of a permanent threat than the other monster. The monster who stacked the court and took away a woman’s right to determine her own healthcare needs and who continues to try to remove access to birth control, and are going to operate in a state of retribution, and who worships Hitler and plans to destroy democracy in favor of a christofascist authoritarian autocracy is a worse monster than the monster complicit in Israel’s genocidal war on the Palestinians.

The US has treaties with Israel with which we must comply, and it’s unfortunate they didn’t include a “genocidal” clause when we signed it. I’m opposed to what Israel’s govt is doing. I’m opposed to funding them. If by some miracle a 3rd party candidate became president, nothing would change. And that unlikely president would be called a monster too. Because they would have to comply with those existing treaties.

Treaties with Israel

https://www.state.govt/u-s-security-cooperation-with-israel/

https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/PLAW-110publ429

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/07/14/the-jerusalem-u-s-israel-strategic-partnership-joint-declaration/

The “we’re already a Nazi regime” fallacy

There are those of you who think we are already an authoritarian dictatorship and that’s because you use extreme terminology to make your points and never bothered to look up the terms you misuse. 🤷‍♀️

But for the sake of argument, I once again point to the fact that of the two monsters, one is insidiously worse than the other one. And that it is so obviously worse, your inability to recognize that, preferring to generalize with “Biden is just as bad”, is mind numbingly baffling. It is blindness curable by merely opening your eyes

Here’s the disconnect I’m having with you both sides are the same kids (besides misusing terms and not being familiar with signed treaties): why do you think you can fight both monsters at the same time?

A War on Two Fronts

What about that says “winning path?” Ask Germany how successful they were fighting a war on two fronts (since history is not something you guys put much stock in, I’ll cut to the chase): they weren’t. Russia on one side and the European allies on the other side completely destroyed Germany.

Why don’t you ask the US govt during WWII? After all, we fought in two theaters of war too, right? Well, until 1944, one could argue we were losing ground in both campaigns. Japan kept us at bay for 3 years and Germany kicked us out of France. When Germany finally surrendered, that’s when we could aim the full might of the US military at Japan and the war ended soon after in 1945. Because it is much more effective to fight one monster at a time. There are countless examples throughout history to support this fact.

In the Revolutionary War (which lasted 10 miserable years), it wasn’t just the heroic fighting of the US forces that won. We had France as an ally and England couldn’t effectively fight us and France at the same time.

How about recently— the US fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan at the same time. Ask the 5+ veteran suicides every day how effective that war was.

One more example just for fun: in Westeros the allied army fought the worse monster first—the army of the dead—before fighting against Circe. It was the wiser move. If you lose to the dead, game over, you’re fucked no matter what. And Circe’s forces were no match for the heavily depleted allied army (it’s a fictional account based upon actual medieval strategy, minus the dragons)

We have to fight that worse monster first and then fight the other much less threatening monster once the more horrible monster is defeated. I don’t know why it’s not obvious or why it’s so difficult to understand. It’s the whole enemy of my enemy concept. Russia helped us defeat Hitler then became our Cold War enemy.

Help us defeat Trump and many of us will join in your effort to fight the littler monster, Biden. I know I will. I was a Bernie guy and hated how the democrats chose Biden in spite of the amount of delegates Bernie was amassing. I’m a goddamn leftist for fucks sakes. I have voted for 3rd party candidates in the past. I don’t just want a 3rd party, I want a fourth and fifth party. I want a coalition govt that has to compromise and accept concessions to govern. I’m never going to get what I want and I’m old. I see the futility of fighting the power since they have all the money and weapons of war. But I’m down with your your war if you’ll come over and help us fight the worse monster first.

All Who Would Rule Are Corrupt

Here’s something else I want to address to you idealists. To want political power, to desire rule at the top level as a king or president or chairman or prime minister—these are not noble desires. In other words, let’s say we manage to defeat both monsters…what then? Whoever you choose to rule is going to be the same kind of person Biden is, Trump is. Every candidate who has run for president has been. You don’t get a wide eyed pure hearted idealist at that level. Maybe in a very small country you could. But the days of Mandela are long gone thanks to the increasing number of billionaires.

There are no more idealists, everyone who would rule a country—our country—is corrupt to some degree. And it becomes a matter of the devil you know vs the devil you don’t know. Anarchy is only acceptable as a transitional phase between regimes change. It should be as short as possible. I have subscribed to and still favor some views of anarchosyndicalism. But overthrowing a govt with nothing to replace it with is maga stupid, and I have heard you guys waffle at which 3rd party to vote for—throw your vote away for. Wanting a change but having no plan for change is worse than voting for Biden and just as stupid as voting for Trump.

Don’t throw your vote away. Help us defeat the worse monster once and for all, and we will help you defeat the lesser monster. It’s the only logical action to take. But you better have a plan in place to replace that lesser monster before we fight it or the deal is off. No Jill Stein, either.

This is compromise. This is how you govern. Passion is fine if you want to die for your cause. But mindfulness is imperative if you want to live for your cause and see it succeed.

If you read this whole thing, cheers!

[mariacallous]

Even as a growing number of foreign governments commit to protecting the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and intersex (LGBTQI+) people, others are actively marshaling their resources against them. From the Hungarian government’s legal and political attacks on LGBTQI+ people to Iraqi legislation that punishes those who “promote homosexuality” and increases criminal penalties and fines for same-sex relations, the negative trends are significant and concerning.

In many places, politicians blame LGBTQI+ people for a wide array of societal ills to boost their popularity at home and their geopolitical interests abroad, distracting from the real economic, social, and political challenges their countries face. In Georgia, for example, the ruling party may have used anti-LGBTQI+ rhetoric to manipulate the political landscape ahead of elections. Meanwhile, in Lebanon, a country long considered relatively welcoming for LGBTQI+ people in the Middle East, one activist described a political leader’s rhetoric as “the manufacturing of a moral panic in order to justify a crackdown, and to deviate public attention away from their unpopular policies.”

Although human rights are seen by some as a lower-priority foreign-policy issue for the United States than so-called hard security threats, the failure to protect them abroad can have significant negative consequences for U.S. interests. Now more than ever, the United States needs to push back against foreign-government repression of LGBTQI+ rights while also doing this work at home. As U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken put it recently, this matters “not just because we have a moral imperative to do so,” but because doing so “helps strengthen democracy, bolster national security, and promote global health and economic development.”

Across a range of issues, it’s clear that anti-LGBTQI+ policies and rhetoric can cause significant damage to many of the United States’ top foreign-policy priorities.

To start, efforts to repress LGBTQI+ rights are often a canary in the coal mine for more severe persecution to come. A 2022 report found, for example: “From Nazi Germany to genocide in Darfur to the breakup of former Yugoslavia, the imposition of ‘moral’ codes that directly assault sexual and gender identities and freedoms came before widespread state-led physical violence and atrocity crimes.”

The targeting of LGBTQI+ people can also be a precursor to, or occur alongside, abuses against other vulnerable populations. The Taliban-promoted sexual assault of and life-threatening attacks on LGBTQI+ people, for example, have occurred concurrently with brutal restrictions on women’s and girls’ participation in education, work, and other aspects of public life. Likewise, vicious torture of gay men in the Russian Republic of Chechnya has taken place against a wider backdrop of long-term human rights abuses by Chechen authorities.

Erosion of LGBTQI+ human rights can also signal and exacerbate the breakdown of democratic norms and institutions, including restrictions on independent media and judicial review, serving as a bellwether for the state of civil society more generally. Russia’s recent detention and prosecution of LGBTQI+ people have paralleled its crackdown on independent journalists, human rights defenders, and civil society.

Countries in which the human rights of LGBTQI+ people are less respected also frequently have greater levels of corruption, partly because discriminatory legal regimes create barriers to reporting wrongdoing by corrupt officials, making LGBTQI+ people an easy target for extortion. Corruption, in turn, compounds other pressing problems: It degrades the business environment, drives migration, and impedes responses to public health crises and climate change. States with endemic corruption are also more vulnerable to terrorist networks, transnational organized crime, gang-related criminal actors, and human traffickers. This is, in part, because threats to transparent and accountable governance are among the root causes of radicalization, and restrictions on LGBTQI+ and other civil society organizations reduce the capacity of those groups to mitigate the conditions conducive to violent extremism, terrorism and other criminal activity.

Not only are anti-LGBTQI+ policies a drag on economic growth, but they are also detrimental to public health. Punitive laws fan the flames of stigma and discrimination, in turn making vulnerable communities reluctant to seek life-saving and public health-protecting services. Across 10 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa, for example, HIV prevalence in countries that criminalize homosexuality is five times higher among men who have sex with men than in countries without those laws.

Taken together, the failure to protect LGBTQI+ people’s human rights can create disastrous effects for U.S. interests. State-sponsored discrimination and violence undercut the United States’ tremendous investments in international anti-corruption efforts, counter-terrorism programs, economic development, and public health. And, as the COVID-19 pandemic made clear, a disease threat anywhere can quickly become a disease threat everywhere. The same can be said for terrorism, corruption, and economic instability. When governments target LGBTQI+ people, they also increase the chances that the symptoms and consequences of this repression will spread in their communities and across borders.

Given the stakes, it is crucial that the United States uses the tools and powers it has to promote accountability for human rights abuses and mitigate their harms to U.S. citizens and businesses.

In this respect, the recent heightened repression by the Ugandan government is illustrative. In May 2023, Uganda signed into law the Anti-Homosexuality Act (AHA), which mandated the death penalty for certain “serial” offenses and a 20-year prison sentence for the mere “promotion” of homosexuality. Although the legislation was decried by human rights advocates, it was lauded by some of Uganda’s geopolitical partners as evidence of shared interests. Shortly after the legislation was passed, the late Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi visited Uganda and made the unfortunately common—and demonstrably inaccurate—claim that homosexuality is a Western import. He also identified opposition to Western support for LGBTQI+ people as “another area of cooperation for Iran and Uganda.” In similar fashion, an editorial on the pro-Kremlin Tsargrad website summarized the law as “a geopolitical victory [for Russia], which they see as the direct result of years of their hard, methodical work [on a] global anti-LGBTQ hate campaign.”

The AHA was the final, egregious straw amid an ongoing decline in respect for human rights, including of LGBTQI+ people, and democratic backsliding in Uganda, and the United States’ response was swift and comprehensive. Underscoring the link between the violation of the human rights of LGBTQI+ people and broader harms to American interests, U.S. President Joe Biden described the law as part of an “alarming trend of human rights abuses and corruption.” The United States issued a business advisory; updated the U.S. Travel Advisory and Country Information Page for Uganda; expanded existing visa restrictions to include those repressing vulnerable populations, such as human rights advocates, LGBTQI+ people, and environmental defenders; supported the World Bank’s decision to pause Uganda’s access to new funds; and imposed sanctions on the Commissioner General of the Uganda Prisons Service for widespread violations of human rights, including credible reports of physical abuse of political opposition and LGBTQI+ people. President Biden also determined that Uganda did not meet the eligibility requirements of the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA), “on the basis of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.”

Although the law remains in place, these actions and international attention have had effect: Uganda’s government has not conducted widespread roundups of or ordered death sentences against LGBTQI+ people. But violence, abuse, and evictions have increased in the country, and arrests of LGBTQI+ people have persisted and likely risen under an earlier, colonial-era law that criminalizes same-sex conduct.

As the situation in Uganda demonstrates, the United States has options to respond to foreign governments that fail to uphold their human rights obligations. These measures can be unilateral, as is the case for issuing travel advisories or removing trade preferences, or multilateral, which could involve working with the United Nations, the World Bank, or other multilateral institutions. They can also be affirmative, as opposed to punitive—for instance, expanding humanitarian and development assistance for human rights defenders and mobilizing private sector capital to support businesses that operate consistent with international non-discrimination standards.

As with all diplomatic efforts to address wrongdoing, the choice among these options will vary depending on circumstances, such as whether a government is launching a new campaign against LGBTQI+ people or has an older but little-enforced criminal law on its books. Inevitably, the importance of raising human rights concerns will be weighed against other U.S. priorities, and human rights will not always prevail. However, increasingly, LGBTQI+ issues are being integrated into bilateral relationships, even when doing so is not easy and when quiet diplomacy is the only option. In all circumstances, consultation with LGBTQI+ civil society must be prioritized in weighing the benefits and risks of action to ensure that efforts do not contribute to backlash or negative repercussions for LGBTQI+ people on the frontlines of global human rights movements.

In a recent State Department convening on LGBTQI+ rights in U.S. foreign policy, Secretary Blinken made our commitment clear, telling civil society leaders: “Our promise is this: We will be with you every step of the way. We’ll persevere with you. We’ll listen to you. We’ll learn from you. We’ll help resource and support your fight. And we’ll bring our strength together with yours so that finally together we can build a world where all people are genuinely free—free to be who they are, free to love who they love.”

Although this work may have been in the spotlight during Pride month, it requires our focus year-round. Indeed, our national security depends on it.

[moragarsia]

Russia manipulates the concept of genocide to justify its aggression

The International Court of Justice in The Haguehas resumed hearings on the lawsuit of Ukraine against the Russian Federation. Ukraine accuses Russia of deliberately destroying representatives of Ukrainian nationality and speculating on the topic of genocide. The lawsuit was filed by Kyiv with the International Court of Justice on February 27, 2022, three days after the start of the full-scale invasion of Russian troops.

Russia manipulates the concept of genocide to justify its aggression, it deliberately spread false allegations of alleged acts of genocide against the Russian-speaking population in the Donbas. The Russian Federation used this as a basis for the introduction of troops and a full-scale invasion on February 24, 2022.

Ukraine points out that the 1948 UN Convention on Genocide does not allow invasion in order to prevent it. Russia, in turn, argues that this case is beyond the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice, since the Genocide Convention does not regulate the use of force between states.

The block of sessions of the International Court of Justice is devoted to preliminary objections raised by the Russian Federation. The hearings will be held in two rounds: on September 18 and 25, the floor will be given to the Russian side, and Ukraine will speak on September 19 and 27. The dispute concerns the interpretation, application and implementation of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.

Russia's argumentation of the reasons for the aggression is completely false. AndPutin's empire, in front of the whole planet, has been waging a genocidal war on the territory of Ukraine for almost two years.Shotsof Bucha, Irpin, Izyum and other Ukrainian cities and villages made the world shudder. Russia is trying to destroy not only the civilian population of Ukraine, but also the Ukrainian language, culture and history of Ukraine. The Russian dictator is simply obsessed with a maniacal hatred of everything Ukrainian. The evil that Russia is doing in Ukraine is aimed at exterminating the nation of Ukrainians. Putin no longer even tries to hide the true goals of his war of aggression - the genocide of the Ukrainian people. The occupation of foreign territories, the extermination of hundreds of thousands of people, the abduction of children, millions of refugees, is this not genocide? The Russian state, openly rejoicing in the troubles and grief that it was able to inflict on Ukrainians, hiding behind false slogans about the "protection" of the Russian-speaking population, broadcasts the rhetoric of hatred to the whole world.

The war of aggression unleashed by the Russian regime against Ukraine has undermined international peace and security, respect for human rights and international law. Hearings on Ukraine's lawsuit against Russia under the genocide convention will be of great international importance. The International Court of Justice announced an unprecedented decision in the history of the court to allow 32 states as third parties in the proceedings on the claim of Ukraine against Russia. These countries are parties to the Convention and are interested in its provisions being interpreted and applied correctly from the point of view of international law.

It is necessary that the entire civilized world choose a commitment to universal values and international law, resolutely opposing the criminal war that the Kremlin continues to wage. Not so long ago, some politicians called for "saving Putin's face", butthe limit of patience seems to have been exhausted. Russia will have to answer for aggression, this is obvious. Those involved in crimes against humanity must be brought to justice through appropriate international mechanisms.

The International Court of Justice is the main judicial body of the United Nations, its decisions are final and binding.

This is necessary to protect not only Ukraine, but also other countries that Russia may suddenly consider part of its empire, hiding behind an ephemeral threat to the "Russian-speaking population". For the sake of common security, it is very important that the world reacts to Russian aggression. Genocide can only be stopped by the joint efforts of all progressive humanity.

[theculturedmarxist]

Posted onNovember 6, 2023 by Yves Smith

Although some analysts have given reasons why negotiated solutions to the wars in the Gaza and Ukraine are not in the cards, for the most part, they have also been hesitant to say that in a simple noun-verb sentence. Perhaps they hope against hope that a frame-breaking event will radically shift the current boundary conditions for the various parties. Or they hew to the “messaging can create realities” school of thought, and don’t want to legitimate very bad outcomes, no matter how likely they seem. Or it may be that as a matter of personal style, they are averse to being declarative.

So let’s look at why, despite the new round of Western officials (and in the case of Gaza, what is coming to be called the Global Majority) and the press making noises about talks the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine, there are yawing chasms between what the two sides are willing to do, and no prospect of meaningful movement in their positions even if the key players change. If you parse down the problem to key considerations, it’s not hard to find the underlying rigidities.

With Israel and Palestine, there is a widespread consensus, which includes many non-Zionist Jews, that the only route to a durable peace is the two state solution. But the current hard right government and an ever-more-powerful settler cohort are committed to a policy of securing Israel for Jews only, and on top of that, a “historical” Israel which means more territory. Existing conditions, such as the degree of balkanization of Palestinian living space, also render a two state solution untenable. And the Hamas October 7 attacks have radicalized some of the moderate Jews in Israel. A Palestinian state would have a military. Not hard in the current climate to scaremonger around that prospect.

It is true that Prime Minister Netanyahu has powerful personal incentives to keep the crisis going as long as possible. The prospect of imprisonment wonderfully focuses the mind. Therefore US punditocracy too often depicts Netanyahu were the problem. The implication is f he could be removed, the situation would become more tractable. That’s false.

While Netanyahu has been the lead architect of the anti-Palestinian policies and is an extremely cunning politician, those positions and practices are now very well embedded. As former British ambassador Alastair Crooke explained:

“Israel” has shattered into two equally weighted factions holding to two irreconcilable visions of “Israel’s” future; two mutually opposing readings of history and of what it means to be Jewish. The fissure could not be more complete. Except it is. One faction, which holds a majority in parliament, is broadly Mizrahi — a former underclass in Israeli society; and the other, largely well-to-do liberal Ashkenazi. So, what has this to do with Al-Aqsa Flood? Well, the Right in Netanyahu’s government has two long-standing commitments. One is to rebuild the (Jewish) Temple on ‘Temple Mount’ (Haram al-Shariff). Just to be clear, that would entail demolishing Al-Aqsa [one of the holiest sites for Muslims]. The second overriding commitment is to the founding of “Israel”, on the “Land of Israel”. And again, to be clear, this (in their view) would entail clearing Palestinians from the West Bank. Indeed, the settlers have been cleansing Palestinians from swaths of the West Bank over the past year (notably between Ramallah and Jehrico). On Thursday morning (two days preceding Al-Aqsa Flood), more than 800 settlers stormed the Mosque Compound, under the full protection of Israeli forces. The drumbeat of such provocations is rising. This is nothing new. The First Intifada was triggered by (then) PM Sharon making a provocative visit into the mosque. I was a part of Senator George Mitchell’s Presidential Committee investigating that incident. Even then, it was clear that Sharon intended the visit to fuel the fire of Religious nationalism. At that time, the Temple Mount Movement was a minnow; today it has ministers in Cabinet and in key security positions — and has promised its followers to build the ‘Third Temple’.

The second problem is that the economic marginalization and cordoning of the Palestine population has become so advanced that it looks impossible to unwind it….tacitly, without costs to Israelis that they would not accept. Key sections from an article in Vox from February 2023 by Jonathan Guyer. Note his prescient call of the risk of a third Initifada:

The US policy does not take into account how entrenched the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and East Jerusalem has become. Israeli settlement growth in the West Bank has made a viable Palestinian state all but impossible. The US-led talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization have been on hiatus since President Barack Obama’s second term, and even at the time, there was little hope that they would amount to much. And Arab states like Morocco, UAE, and Bahrain have abandoned Palestinians, as they normalize relations with the State of Israel and eliminate any incentives for negotiations toward a Palestinian state… But the actions that have foreclosed the possibility of a two-state solution are decades in the making….Israeli actions, like construction of a hulking, concrete separation barrier between Israel and the occupied West Bank, have rendered the proposed borders of the future Palestinian state moot. Further cut off by Israeli settlements, Palestinian land in the occupied West Bank has been reduced to unconnected cantons, with a network of settler-only roads sometimes being the only connection between them. This brutal new geography puts into question a Palestinian state’s economic viability… Meanwhile, the Palestinian government run by 87-year-old Mahmoud Abbas is fractured, dysfunctional, and increasingly authoritarian. It also essentially is the subcontractor of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.

The third issue is despite the US in theory having leverage over Israel, in practice we don’t due to the power of the Israel lobby in the Beltway. Guyer’s article pointed out that when the Biden State Department top human rights appointee Sarah Margon had her confirmation held up for two years over a tweet that approved of AirBnB removing listings in settlements in the West Bank. Ranking member and gentile James Risch depicted Jewish Margon as an anti-Semitic. She eventually withdrew her candidacy.

As Professor John Mearsheimer put it in his interview last Friday with Judge Napolitano (starting at 1:34):

The fact is the United States and Israel are joined at the hip. There are no two countries in recorded history that have a closer history that have a closer relationship than the United States and Israel. And when this crisis broke out on October 7, President Biden made it very clear we would give Israel whatever aid it needed, and that meant both weapons and money, that we would support Israel to the hilt. And we have done that. Once you take into account that tight relationship, how committed we already are to this war, it’s very difficult for us to back off and to begin to put pressure on Israel to do X or Y or Z. There is no question that Blinken can try to go to the Middle East and pressure Israel, but the Israelis can tell him “No” and then what is he going to do? And if he decides he’s going to then get tough, which he isn’t going to do, American domestic, the power of the Israel lobby, would kick in and make it very difficult for the Biden Administration to put pressure on Israel.

Mearsheimer charitably depicts Biden and Blinken as interested in curbing Israel, if nothing else for the benefit of Israel. But that’s hard to see. Alastair Crooke pointed out in (also in a Judge Napolitano interview) that Biden had done less than any recent president to advance the two state solution (I infer that means even Trump gave it more lip service).

Biden also has the established habit of saying things that are expedient at the time that have no relationship to his policy aims, like telling China’s President Xi that the US supports the China one-state policy, then turning around and continuing to escalate in Taiwan. So he and Blinken are mouthing the two state remedy because even though it is no answer, it at least makes them appear responsible and fair-minded when they are anything but.

So one has to wonder what the latest Blinken round of visits to the Middle East was supposed to accomplish, since all it did was expose our impotence. Even the Financial Times could not hide that the meetings with Netanyahu and then Arab leaders were a train wreck. Netanyahu rejected even any itty bitty ceasefire, branded a humanitarian pause, to get relief in, demanding that Hamas release all hostages first.1 The fact that Israel has welched or underperformed on its past begrudging promises to let trucks from Egypt in, would make that a non-starter even before getting to Hamas being sure to stick to its position of wanting to trade hostages for Palestinian prisoners. And of course the Arab states are not about to budge. Blinken got a more pointed version of what he was told before. From the pink paper:

Antony Blinken faced intense pressure from regional allies to facilitate an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, laying bare the stark gap between US support for Israel and the outrage in Arab capitals over the siege and bombardment of the strip…. Sameh Shoukry, the Egyptian foreign minister, demanded an unconditional ceasefire, a commitment that Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu bluntly rejected after meeting Blinken on Friday.

This section reveals Blinken as a rank amateur:

Blinken had been expected to “brainstorm” with Arab diplomats the future of Gaza, home to 2.3mn Palestinians, after the war ends. Safadi bluntly rejected those talks as premature. “How can we even entertain what will happen in Gaza when we do not know how Gaza will be left?” he asked Blinken. “Are we going to be talking about a wasteland? Are we talking about a whole population reduced to refugees?”

This comes off as the sort of thing someone who had just read classic texts on negotiating trying to put in practice: “Gee, let’s get a dialogue going! Let’s get to ‘Yes’ on some less fraught issues to pave the way for further agreement!”

In addition, “brainstorming” is cringemakingly American. You don’t do that with people who are mad at you. You don’t do that in a crisis. Between independent entities, you do not do that at the top level. You have low level people or emissaries float ideas.

So why this exercise? The worst is that Biden and Blinken come off as so disconnected from reality that they though they might get someone to accommodate US needs.

But some more generous possibilities: To try to get in front of a mob and pretend we the indispensable power, are leading a parade? To try to reverse some of the damage to our reputation as more of the world recoils from our not stopping or even criticizing the genocide in Gaza? To try to placate American Muslims who are moving away from Team Dem to the degree that the party might lose Michigan? Perhaps insiders comfort themselves with the thought that American supporters of Palestine have nowhere to go; Donald Trump is a rabid supporter. But they forget that these voters can just stay home. If there was a PR angle, that turned out to be a bust too.

The information on the IDF progress against Hamas fighters is thin and not likely to be reliable. But even though it seems likely that Israel will be able to declare a victory even though that will amount clearing Gaza of civilians more than destroying Hamas, Israel is likely to suffer real damage in the process.

As to the inevitable failure of the kinda-sorta revival of the idea of having Ukraine negotiate with Russia, that’s an even more obvious non-starter, despite Putin making polite noises that he’s willing to talk. The excitement about a new NBC article stating that the US is pressing Ukraine to negotiate is just another example of the Ukraine coalition side talking to itself without considering seriously what it might take to get the other side to agree.

However, on a practical level, this does start to let the air our of the Ukraine hype balloon.

As with Israel, we have the apparent obstacle of a non-negotiable leader obscuring other fundamental problems. We can go through the usual litany. The West has repeatedly been a bad faith actor, with its welching on its “not one inch further east” promise, its gleeful admission of duplicity in the Minsk Accords, it not delivering on its part of the grain deal bargain, and getting Ukraine to renege on its preliminary deal in March 2022. The West keeps talking about having Ukraine negotiate with Russia when Russia knows and the West has admitted that Ukraine is a proxy. You don’t talk to the money, you talk to the organ grinder.

The West also continues to be well behind the state of play for what its side would need to concede even to get Russia’s attention. Merely allowing Russia to keep the territory it presently occupies won’t do when the Ukraine army is now increasingly admitted in the Anglosphere press to be low on arms and men with no prospect of getting to adequate levels. That translates into collapse being in the foreseeable future. As many observers, including yours truly, have pointed out, Russian officials have increasingly signaled that they intend to return formerly Russian land to Russia. That has been taken to mean areas with significant ethnic Russian populations, meaning the territory east of the Dnieper and the Black Sea coast.2

But we described the showstopper in our September post, Original Sin: How the Weak Legal Foundations of NATO Make Negotiations With Russia Virtually Impossible. One of Russia’s fundamental demands is that Ukraine never enter NATO. NATO so far has rejected that idea with hostility. But even if NATO were to have a Damascene conversion, “NATO” cannot commit as a body. Each member state has to agree individually. As we wrote then, expanding on an important post by Aurelien:

So this goes a long way towards explaining why the so-called Collective West gets so wrapped around the axle of having to negotiate with itself. If “NATO” has to act in some manner to settle the conflict in Ukraine, every member of NATO (an as Aurelien argues, potentially even interested parties like Switzerland) would have to come to an agreed position, since each country would have to sign off individually on any pact for it to amount to a NATO-equivalent treaty.

Aside from the procedural mess, do you think the Baltic states would ever agree?

So again, we need to remind readers that despite the US floating yet more negotiation trial balloon, nothing had changed. And tragically, it’s pretty certain nothing will change.

____

1 Seymour Hersh’s new article, How the Hostage Crisis Could End, based on accounts from “an American official” on the claim that ngotiations with the Hamas political leadership are underway. Hersh also cites a supposed Middle East expert, but this expert was spitballing on how Hamas political leader Yayha Sinwar might respond (I really do not like Hersh’s slippery formulation with respect to this guy: “…who knows of the seriousness of current hostage talks.” If he really had inside knowledge, he would not need to speculate.) His other sources, which include an Israel general, are not corroborating the fact of these supposed negotiations.

The claim here is that the Hamas political leadership was in the dark as to what the military wing was going to execute on October 7, the military force is collapsing, about to suffocate in the tunnels, and the political leadership is willing to sell the armed forces out to save their hides. Specifically, we are told Israel is negotiating for the men in the tunnels to be released if Hamas also frees all hostages and will subject everyone who participated in the October 7 attack to war crimes trials, including “combat leaders” who are accused of witnessing the purported crimes and not attempting to stop them. This account also presupposes that most of the hostages still alive after all the shelling and the political wing of Hamas can get whoever is left standing in the military wing to release them. Pray tell, why should they cooperate? Even Hersh has to concede this scheme comes off as something “out of a bad novel.” One has to think the Hersh account is nothing more than yet another idea cooked up by the US that is going nowhere.

Perhaps Hersh will be proven correct, but I have trouble buying this as anything more than the US and Israel depicting Hamas as a spent fighting force in Gaza and to get the meme that Hamas committed war crimes back in circulation as Israel is being correctly accused of mass scale war crimes in Gaza, and increasingly, genocide. Scott Ritter can be melodramatic, but as an ex-Marine, he often talks about soldiers putting their lives on the line, as in that’s understood to be fundamental to the role. Hamas fighters had to expect that they could die in this operation. Not that anyone welcomes that outcome, but one has to think that the rank and file, and even more the leadership, were prepared. Why should they let Israel attempt to reclaim the moral high ground, particularly since Israel is also demanding death for any Hamas member who is successfully prosecuted? Dead is dead. Better to die with some dignity, fighting.

2 Putin has started to argue that Kiev might be subject to incorporation as “historical Russia.” However, Putin has also made a point to hold elections to validate territorial acquisition and it’s doubtful there would be a credible win in Western Ukraine ex its South. And holding hostile territory is corrupting. So this section of his speech may be a warning that Russia sees it as legitimate to march to Lviv if it has to….but then what happens? Alexander Mercouris also called attention to his remarks at Meeting with members of the Civic Chamber. Key section:

First of all, we all know very well – these are the facts of history – that all, as you said, the South Russian lands were given to the Soviet Ukraine during the formation of the Soviet Union. There was no Ukraine as part of the empire, there were regions, and it came in the 16th century, Ukraine, consisted of three regions: Kiev and the Kiev region, Zhitomir, Chernigov – that’s all. It came from the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, from Poland voluntarily. We have a letter in our archives – I have already mentioned it – we, the Russian Orthodox people, appeal to Moscow, to the Tsar, and so on. In an attempt to defend our rights, we addressed the same letter to Warsaw: we, the Russian Orthodox people, ask to preserve this and that, demand, and so on. Then what happened happened. They started to form the Soviet Union and created a huge Ukraine, and primarily and to a large extent at the expense of the South Russian lands – all the Black Sea region and so on, although all these cities, as we know, were founded by Catherine the Great after a series of wars with the Ottoman Empire. Ok, so it happened, modern Russia came to terms with it after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But when they started to exterminate everything Russian there – that is, of course, extreme. And in the end they declared that Russians are not an indigenous nation in these lands – it is a complete outrage, you know? And at the same time, they also started exterminating Russians in Donbas to the applause of the West.

So if you read this carefully (and what follows), Putin is still concerned with the treatment of ethnic Russians, but warns this issue could be considered expansively.