The sheer inability of the collective West to force Russia into submission in Ukraine plus the fast-changing global opinion about the West in the context of the latter’s support for Israel’s brutal war on the Gazans has put the so-called ‘liberal-democratic’ world into a panic mode. The White House has already said that it will run out of money to fund Ukraine into 2024 unless the US Congress gives approval for more funding. This has led the Western war machine – primarily led by the US – to anticipate a possible defeat. “There is no guarantee of success with us, but they are certain to fail without us”, a senior US military official told CNN recently. Without the military support, US officials now estimate, Ukraine would fall by the summer of 2024. But, in Western calculations, Ukraine’s fall does not just mean Russia’s victory; it also implies a possible collapse of NATO and the eventual downfall of the Western-dominated global political, economic, and security order.
“Even more important, Russia’s success in Ukraine would increase a threat to NATO’s Eastern flank—in particular the Baltic states and Poland. Outside of Europe it would embolden Moscow’s allies Iran and North Korea and provide a template for China for the military solution of the Taiwan dispute. In all those cases, the U.S. and NATO troops could find themselves in the midst of a military conflict of the sort that Ukraine fights today without direct involvement of NATO”.
Such prospects are causing severe problems. Germany, for instance, is considering shelving voluntary force and making a return to conscription. “I believe that a nation that needs to become more resilient in times like these will have a higher level of awareness if it is mixed through with soldiers,” said Jan Christian Kaack, the chief of the German Navy. This is in addition to the fact that the German army is too small to defend itself against any threat; hence, the renewed emphasis on conscription.
But Germany is not an exceptional case. In fact, it mirrors developments in the rest of Europe. The UK, otherwise known to possess one of the best fighting forces in the world, is running into some problems of a fundamental nature. The Sky News reported earlier in the year that, a senior US general “privately told Defence Secretary Ben Wallace the British Army is no longer regarded as a top-level fighting force”. It was further reported that the “The armed forces would run out of ammunition in a few days if called upon to fight” and that “The UK lacks the ability to defend its skies against the level of missile and drone strikes that Ukraine is enduring”.
On top of it is the fact that the Russian military position in Ukraine remains strong, making it a lot harder for the West to provide enough funding. The Biden administration is facing its own challenges vis-à-vis more funding for Ukraine. As far as Europe is concerned, a recent report showed that pledges for funding made in August 2023 fell by almost 90 percent compared to the same period last year.
This is war fatigue that is being compounded by a well-sustained Russian resolve to achieve its objectives. For the West, Vladimir Putin remains “stubborn”. As Putin recently reiterated, “There will be peace when we achieve our goals… Now let’s return to these goals – they have not changed. I would like to remind you how we formulated them: denazification, demilitarisation, and a neutral status for Ukraine.”
Speaking from a position of strength – and keeping in mind the war fatigue in the West – Putin further said that Russian forces are “improving their position almost along the entire line of contact. Almost all of them are engaged in active combat. And the position of our troops is improving along [the entire line of contact.]”. This being the case, Putin conveyed no ideas of making a compromise with the West over Ukraine. Speaking from the Russian perspective, it would make no sense to offer negotiations and, thus, turn Russian tactical victories into unsustainable settlements.
Clearly, Russia has no intention of withdrawing from its victories, which is why there is a panic, especially in Europe. If Russia continues to win and the US funding stalls, Europe will be left to fend for itself. Germany’s defence minister minced no words to express this fear last Saturday when he said that the US “was losing interest in European affairs and that security tensions in the Pacific would likely leave the European Union having to fend for itself”, adding that “One can assume that the USA will be more involved in the Pacific region in the next decade than it is today – regardless of who becomes the next president,” he said. His conclusion is: “This means that we Europeans must increase our commitment to ensure security on our continent.”
In a nutshell, for the US, if the war in Ukraine was to unify the West, it is beginning to have an exactly opposite effect. There lies a very strong reason for the US to reconsider its strategy. This reconsideration can go in two directions. First, the US can withdraw from its obsession with expanding NATO to include Ukraine. Second, the US can make one last push and make Ukraine fight for as long as it can, hoping that this might break Russia. The Biden administration favours the second option, which is why it is pushing for the US$61 billion aid package. But will a Republican victory allow this to happen? A Republican victory could not only end support for Ukraine but also leave Europe in a total lurch. Tough times ahead.
A recent poll in America found that by an overwhelming margin, far more Americans think that Hamas aims to genocide Israelis than think that Israelis aim to genocide Gazans. However, that finding is not surprising when one recognizes that the U.S. Government itself is a 50-50 partner with Israel’s Government in perpetrating this genocide; and, as I reported on December 8th, “Biden backs Israel’s policy to eliminate all Gazans” but that he constantly denies it by alleging that he is pressuring Netanyahu to discontinue doing it — even while it is the case that though Israel is supplying the troops to do it, the U.S. is supplying the weapons and the bombs and the missiles and the satellite intelligence that enables them to do it. This is a genocide that is being done by two means: Israel supplies the troops, and America supplies the intelligence and the weapons, to do it. Both are equally responsible for it.
Israel’s dependence on the United States was stated bluntly by retired IDF Maj. General Yitzhak Brick in an interview earlier this week.
“All of our missiles, the ammunition, the precision-guided bombs, all the airplanes and bombs, it’s all from the U.S. The minute they turn off the tap, you can’t keep fighting. You have no capability. … Everyone understands that we can’t fight this war without the United States. Period.”
Two hundred and forty-four American cargo planes and 20 ships have delivered over 10,000 tons of military equipment to Israel since October 7 to support the massacre in Gaza, Israel’s Channel 12 reported on Monday.
The US support has been crucial in Israel’s ability to keep up its relentless bombardment of Gaza. The Washington Post reported on December 9 that, up to that date, Israel dropped over 22,000 US-provided bombs on the Gaza Strip.
The Pentagon has refused to disclose what types of weapons it’s been sending to Israel, but media reports have revealed some details. The Wall Street Journal reported on December 1 that the US had shipped 15,000 bombs and 57,000 155mm artillery shells to Israel since October 7. …
US officials claim they are “concerned” about the massive civilian casualty rate in Gaza, but the Biden administration continues to provide unconditional military aid for the slaughter. A report from +972 Magazine revealed that Israel is intentionally targeting civilian areas as part of its war strategy.
Biden’s protestations of innocence in this genocide are just more lies from him. He is equally to blame for it along with Netanyahu.
“One era is ending, a new one is beginning, and the decisions that we make now will shape the future for decades to come.”
With these words, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken defined the “turning point” of the American era, the transition from one world order to another.
“In this pivotal time, America’s global leadership is not a burden. It’s a necessity to safeguard our freedom, our democracy, and our security,” Blinken said in his address to the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in September.
Official US documents, including last year’s National Security Strategy, underscore Washington’s conviction that waiting is a luxury it cannot afford; that it “will act decisively” to maintain its global leadership. As such, the US involvement in conflicts in Ukraine and Gaza, as well as the militarization in Southeast Asia, must be seen through this lens of international dynamics.
Broadly, tensions in Africa and Asia are interconnected with the west’s frenzied initiatives to maintain a dominant position and decisive role in the new multipolar order.
From Eastern Europe to West Asia
Since the outbreak of war in Ukraine, the US has strategically tied its support for Kyiv to the defense of the “rules-based order.”
With clichéd sound bites, President Joe Biden characterized the conflict as “a battle between democracy and autocracy, between liberty and repression, between a rules-based order and one governed by brute force.”
Many Atlanticist leaders echo the sentiment that unwavering support for Ukraine aims to deter Russia from challenging a world order where the west holds sway.
Most prominently, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz articulated this perspective in his Foreign Affairs article published in early 2023 titled The Global Zeitenwende, (“an epochal tectonic shift”) in which he posits that Russian President Vladimir Putin is challenging a world order where Washington is a decisive power.
Scholz emphasizes the need for collective action by those who believe in a rules-based world order, even cooperating with countries that do not embrace democratic institutions but endorse the US-led principles for global governance. That western rules-based paradigm, it should be noted, is one in which international law and the UN Charter have long been discarded in favor of power and advantage.
Today, those dueling visions are playing out in the Ukraine war: a confrontation between the west seeking to maintain its global superiority and Russia striving to disrupt this dominance. Moscow’s rationale for the war is to prevent NATO from expanding to Russia’s borders, as confirmed by the western military alliance’s Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg.
Similarly, the war in Gaza must be seen through this international lens, with Israel representing western interests in West Asia and any harm to the occupation state viewed inherently as a blow to US influence in the region.
As Washington stands at this crucial turning point, according to Blinken, the cost of a blow to Israel is deemed too high, underscoring the resolute US defense of its global influence in the devastated towns and cities of Gaza.
Neo-colonial maneuvers
There are important nuances between these two US-backed wars, however: Ukraine is seen as a tool used by Washington to achieve its interests, while Israel is considered an American interest in itself. That Biden once famously asserted that the US would need to create an Israel if it did not exist illustrates its status as a neo-colonial outpost, protecting western interests in the region.
This also explains the noticeable shift in US interest away from Eastern Europe to West Asia after the Palestinian resistance breached the occupied territories on 7 October to target military personnel and take prisoners. The deliberate shift of American attention from one war zone to the other was neatly exemplified by the Washington Post’s swift removal of the ‘War in Ukraine’ tab from its homepage.
As previously mentioned by The Cradle, “Israel’s ongoing war on the Gaza Strip is best understood to be a US-backed one,” one that is being fought to safeguard US influence and interests in West Asia. However, the maneuvering room for Washington’s allies is shrinking dramatically. Unlike the diverse strategic options West Asian countries explored during the Ukraine war, Gaza offers no such latitude. It is fundamentally Washington’s war, demanding collective mobilization to defend the US position.
It is also telling that the US-led multination task force, Operation Guardian of Prosperity in the Red Sea, is already facing major set-backs since its recent inception, with some members pulling out and others choosing to remain unnamed.
White House National Security Council Strategic Communications Coordinator John Kirby had to awkwardly caveat the secrecy like this: “There are some countries that have agreed to participate and be part of the operation in the Red Sea, but they have to decide how much they want that to be public. And I’m going to leave it to them so that they can describe it somehow, because not everyone wants to be public.”
For example, the role of NATO member Turkiye has transformed into that of an energy transmission station for Israel, while the UAE, Saudi Arabia and Jordan serve as a transit bridge for goods bound for the occupation state that Yemen prevents from passing through the Red Sea.
Notably, shipments from Turkiye to Israel surged to 355 after 7 October, with many linked to the Justice and Development Party (AKP) and individuals close to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, including his son Buraq. Even Egypt, restricted to allowing aid trucks through the Rafah crossing, could not facilitate aid to Palestinians without US approval.
How conflict spreads
In international relations, there are two main theories that address the relationship between power and the spread of peace. The first is the hegemonic stability theory which posits that the international order is likely to remain stable when one country is the dominant global power. The proponents of this theory believe that the existence of a single hegemon deters all powers in the world and prevents them from spreading tension.
However, given the reality that the United States has dominated a conflict-ridden global order for four decades, it can be argued that the presence of the hegemon did not lead to global stability. Rather, the dominant was the major source and catalyst for spreading tension around the world. It is sufficient to look at the distribution of US bases in the world and the proliferation of military agreements signed by Washington to understand how the US consistently provokes rivals and challengers, and creates strife.
The second is the balance of power theory, in which states seek to protect themselves by preventing any country from acquiring enough military power to control all other nations. If one power dominates – such as the United States – the theory predicts that weaker countries will unite in a defense alliance.
According to this theory, a balance of power between competing states or alliances raises the cost of tension for everyone and ensures stability in the world. Thus, achieving peace today requires a rise in the level of power among Washington’s rivals, power which will provide the deterrence required to limit the spread of tensions around the world. Increasing the capabilities of Washington’s rivals is now a key requirement for all peaceful peoples and nations. And according to the balance of power theory, uniting against Israel is the most successful way to stabilize West Asia and its environs today.
Post-unipolar realities
As the war in Gaza is unequivocally an American war, a vertical division emerges in West Asia, dividing those siding with Palestine and the Resistance Axis from those aligning with Israel and the Zionist project. Washington’s allies cannot stay neutral as the US leads the battle directly.
This clarifies the positions of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, the UAE, Egypt, Turkiye, and other West Asian countries choosing to align with the US at the expense of Palestinian interests.
Observing Washington’s policies reveals global tensions spurred on by the pursuit of US influence. From Eastern Europe to West Asia and Southeast Asia, the US works to counter Eurasian powers Russia and China, and other influential countries, such as Iran and North Korea.
Since the end of the Cold War, Washington’s unipolar moment has resulted in more wars and destruction imaginable in decades often characterized as ones marked by peace. A more stable world order necessitates the achievement of a global balance of power by weakening the US and empowering new rising powers. Thus, peace and stability in West Asia hinges on the weakening of Israel, a colonial project so intricately tied to Washington’s hegemonic agenda.
“I speak of peace, therefore, as the necessary rational end of rational men. I realize that the pursuit of peace is not as dramatic as the pursuit of war–and frequently the words of the pursuer fall on deaf ears. But we have no more urgent task.” – John F. Kennedy
For most people, it’s difficult to imagine much of what’s happening today. And this is why so many seem in the dark about what we should do to alleviate our problems. Looking at the situation in which a proxy is being waged on Russia from Ukraine, nothing seems to add up. The same is true for the genocide now going on in Gaza. And when we superimpose problems like curing cancer and other diseases, environmental problems, and failing economies, the only thing we can see is that our leaders have failed miserably at prioritising. It’s also obvious that we, the people, are the farthest thing from their minds.
Regarding visualisation, there’s no bigger confusion than grasping just how much money the Western powers are shovelling into the war against Russia. So far, something like $233 billion has been donated to Ukraine. The top donors are the EU($90B) and the United States ($73B). Interestingly, most of the EU funding has been aimed at financial aid, while the US donates are mostly military aid. Neither the EU nor the US spent much on humanitarian aid, at least not by comparison. But then, humanitarian money does not go into the pockets of the elites, now does it? The arms companies and financial institutions seem to be leveraging this Ukraine mess for a return on assets. But that’s another story. Now, I’d like to compare spending on Ukrainian and Israeli wars against efforts that do help human beings.
Let’s look at one of humanity’s most dreaded killers: cancer. In total, global oncology spending in 2022 was $193 billion. The numbers are far more telling in key research, where funding often comes from philanthropy. The Lancet reported recently that some 66,388 awards with a total investment of about $24.5 funded research for 2016–20. And now these figures have nosedived. In 2020, there were 19.3 million cases and 10 million deaths from the dreaded disease.
If we look at how many people are starving on our planet, it’s appalling to think of billions thrown away on unwinnable wars for the sake of selling weapons. In 2021, U.N. World Food Programme Executive Director David Beasley said it would take an estimated $40 billion annually to end world hunger by 2030. Let’s think about that for a moment. Each day, 25,000 people, including more than 10,000 children, die from hunger and related causes. Envision the lost potential of all those children perishing, if you can. Beasley went on to etch the situation in stone with this statement:
“There is 400 trillion dollars’ worth of wealth on the earth today, and the fact that 9 million people die from hunger every year… Shame on us. In the height of COVID, billionaires’ net worth increase was $5.2 billion per day. At the same time, 24,000 people die per day from hunger. Shame on us. Every hour, the net worth of billionaires during the height of COVID was a substantial $216 million per hour. Yet 1000 people per hour were dying from hunger… Shame on us.”
Two-hundred-sixteen million dollars per hour! I’ll wager the vast majority of that wealth had nothing whatsoever to do with helping human beings, curing disease, or stopping the endless wars. Moving on, let’s look at the homeless/poverty situation worldwide. In 2021, there were 150 million homeless people worldwide. While so many people here in Greece and other countries in Europe strive to go live in the United States, few realise that over 18% of the people living in my country live below the poverty line. And no one wanting to become American realises that the overwhelming solution to poverty in my country is to punish and imprison the poor (Homelessness World Cup). Using only what’s been spent on Ukraine so far, the U.S. Government could have issued a check for $1,825 to each of the 40 million homeless people in the country. That’s two or even three months’ rent for all homeless people in the USA.
Even in highly developed countries like Germany, more than 14.8% of the people are living beneath the national poverty line. Interestingly, some Latin American countries equal or better poverty rate than North American or some European countries. Take Argentina as an example. The situation there is no worse than it is in the United States. In Chile, only 9% of the population lives in dire circumstances. Unbelievably, there are countries like Bangladesh, traditionally thought of as the world’s poorest countries, where less than 13% of the population lives below the poverty line. In Romania, 26% of the people live in extreme poverty, and in neighbouring Bulgaria, the rate is almost 24%.
Turning to more practical matters that bear on quality of life and efficiency, we find the United States of America ranks 13th out of 141 countries in overall infrastructure. What a stunning achievement for the richest (supposedly) country in the world! After all, how do we balance what a country’s wealth is? What is the negative value of a dangerous, rusty bridge or a pothole in a road so deep you can hear Chinese being spoken from its depths? How bad is 13th place? Well, the American Society of Civil Engineers estimated that it would take 50 years to complete only the necessary repairs on more than 46,000 deteriorated bridges in the country. Both the Trump and Biden administrations promised to pour more money into the problem, but so far the US of A is still crumbling. So that you understand, Spain, Singapore, South Korea, Japan, and eight other countries have better quality infrastructures than the US. Remember I mentioned at the beginning, prioritisation? Is it possible that the Spaniards are doing more to care for their own people than America? Does Spain start proxy wars on Russia’s borders? I do not see Spanish ships in the South China Sea provoking war.
Since we landed in Spain, let’s take a look at some interesting facts about their quality of life. For instance, the Spanish Constitution includes a right to housing. The reality of homelessness there is that less than 8.5% of the population is homeless, and most of those live in shelters. Spain ranked 27th out of OF 189 countries in the Human Development Index Rankings. Romania was 49th, the USA was 17th, Chile 43rd, and South Korea was 23rd. For me at least, what is significant in these numbers is the wide disparity in position in a world that was supposed to be some globalisation miracle a couple of decades ago. Despite all the PR and belly-rubbing the people of Earth have received, things in most countries are just not getting better. And trillions are being spent on wars and corporate machinations that steal from our prosperity.
Returning to my thesis, we must add the humongous waste of money that has gone to the state of Israel, Saudi deals, and the new monies soon to flow in that direction simply to eradicate or force migrate the Palestinians. Before the current crisis, the Biden administration had pledged $14.3 billion in aid to Israel since the October 7th Hamas campaign against the Israelis began. But this figure is a bit misleading if we want to see just how massive the American sacrifice for Israel has been. Since World War II, the United States has given Israel more aid than any other nation, currently more than $260 billion. To wrap things up for this report, the U.N. says the conflict in Yemen is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. Saudi Arabia does not receive American aid through loans, grants, or gifts pegged for killing Yemenis. However, the US Accounting Office reported that between 2015 and 2021, the US Department of Defense supplied more than $54.6 billion in military support for the Saudis and the United Arab Emirates. Now, imagine what human strife could be alleviated with these hundreds of billions combined with the trillions spent on failed US wars across the globe.
For those who enjoy simple examples of what could be. There are over 33,000 homeless veterans who fought these wars for the United States. The billions in military support only for Saudi Arabia would be enough to gift each one of those vets $1.7 million. You do the math. What is being spent to kill millions of us, could save the millions being killed PLUS millions of others starving, wasting away, or swept away by disasters. Now you tell me when the time will be right to get out the torches and pitchforks.
Of course, all of the evidence that there was a U.S. coup in February 2014 in Ukraine, and that Ukraine has been controlled by the U.S. regime ever since, is likewise hidden from the public.
For example, there is no mention of this fact in an 18 December 2023 Washington Post ‘news’-report that headlined “Listening devices found in office of Ukraine’s top general, Valery Zaluzhny”, though the fact that a power-struggle is now taking place within that U.S. colony (‘ally’) is crucially important to understanding what’s happening there; and, so, that WP ‘news’-story blocks truthful understanding of what is going on. (That ‘news’-story even fails to mention, or even hint, that what is going on is a power-struggle within Ukraine’s government; and, then, it is even so bold as to speculate that this spying upon Ukraine’s General Zaluzhny was done “possibly by Russian special services,” and the WP provided zero evidence for that extremely unlikely alternative explanation.)
Here is a 26-minute-long video discussion of these events which comes from a non-regime news-source and provides the necessary context in order to understand what’s actually happening to Ukraine’s government now — and it makes clear that a ferocious power-struggle is now going on within the government of Ukraine. Here is a different presentation — an article instead of a video — that likewise is from a non-Establishment news-site that’s not censored. Both the video and the article offer facts that the billionaires want the public not to know: that Ukraine’s government is now falling apart.
Similarly, the fact that (as I documented on 17 December 2023) “Polls Show Americans Wildly Deceived About Gaza War” is blocked from the public, by the U.S. regime (which censorship actually explains WHY “Polls Show Americans Wildly Deceived About Gaza War”).
What happens when a public are so extremely deceived, as this? How is it even POSSIBLE for such a nation to BE a democracy? IS it possible?
Americans were blatantly lied-to by our Government and by its ‘news’-media (both Republican and Democratic) in the lead-up to our invasion and destruction of Iraq in 2003, which ‘news’ not only failed to expose and contradict the regime’s lies about “Saddam’s WMD” which were provably lies even at the time they were being reported; and, yet, despite the Government’s and media’s having lied in order to produce popular support to perpetrate that atrocity, Americans continue, even to this day, to subscribe to these same lying ‘news’-media, a full twenty years after the fact. First, the lies were reported as-if they were instead truths; then when the falsehoods could no longer be denied to have been falsehoods, ‘intelligence errors’ were said to have caused the falsehoods; but never was the truth published: that both the Government and its ‘news’-media had intentionally deceived their public in order to carry-out the U.S. empire’s program as being the result of a ‘democracy’ — not as it actually was: the result of a dictatorship. It is a dictatorship by and for an ‘elite’ who consist of the richest 1% (and mainly by the richest 0.1%) of the richest 1% of the American public, an aristocracy of extreme wealth.
America’s aristocrats do not themselves and directly do the censoring-out of the key facts, but, instead, their corporations carefully hire (and, when dissatisfied, demote or fire) the employees and agents who do this dirty-work of deceiving the public, on their behalf. This is the way that the empire — and ANY empire — functions.
It has become not merely the norm but the rule within the U.S. empire, and it is yet another historical example of the solidly established fact that censorship is essential to any dictatorship and toxic to any democracy.
Seeing the naked truth is usually the first step before we can go on to realize the truth of beauty and decency. We might hope that the world is taking that first step.
American President Joe Biden likes to talk about “inflexion points” when he is lecturing about world affairs and the supposed superiority of the United States. This year is indeed an inflexion point.
It was the year that the entire world saw the truly hideous and criminal nature of U.S. power.
Washington’s fuelling of the futile conflict in Ukraine and the despicable slaughter in Gaza is a wake-up call for the entire world. The United States stands barefaced and grotesque as the primary purveyor of war. There can be no doubt about that. For many it is shocking, scandalous and frightening.
Tragically, it seems, for the world, every year’s end is an occasion to witness and lament conflicts, wars and suffering over the preceding 12 months. Often the causes of wars and suffering are seemingly unfathomable.
However, this year seems to be unique. The year ends with a horrendous massacre in Gaza that is unprecedented and perpetrated by Israel with the full support of the United States. The scale of deliberate mass killing in Gaza makes it a genocide. The fact that this abomination is occurring at Christmas time when the world is supposed to celebrate the divine birth of Jesus Christ – the Prince of Peace – in the very place where he was born some 2,000 years ago makes the abomination all the more profane and damning.
What is particularly wretched is that the heinous destruction of children is happening in full view of the world. There is no remorse or pretence. It is full-blown premeditated murder done with cruelty and sickening impunity.
Virtually the whole world is horrified by the devastating, relentless violence and absolute violation of international law. The butchery by the Israeli regime cannot in any way be rationalized by the previous attack on Israel by Palestinian militants on October 7. Those killings by Hamas have been cynically used as a pretext for the subsequent and ongoing annihilation of Palestinian civilians.
This genocide could not happen without the crucial support of the United States for the Israeli regime. Financially, militarily and diplomatically, Washington is sponsoring the horror in Gaza as well as the Occupied West Bank.
This week saw the U.S. once again obstructing calls at the United Nations for a ceasefire and the urgent supply of humanitarian aid to more than two million people. The World Food Program has declared a catastrophic famine in the coastal enclave after more than 70 days of bombing and blockade by the Israeli regime. More than 20,000 people – mainly women and children – have been slaughtered with up to 7,000 more missing, presumably dead. Israeli troops are carrying out mass executions of terrified and traumatized human beings, according to UN rights monitors.
The United States is arming Israel to the hilt and enabling it. U.S. President Joe Biden has pointedly refused to join international demands for a ceasefire. The United Nations has voted by an overwhelming majority for a cessation of the violence. Washington has repeatedly rejected the world’s pleas because the Biden administration is obscenely amplifying Israeli lies and distortions. “Unwavering, unshakable support” is how the White House arrogantly boasts about it without a hint of shame that it is self-indicting.
Tens of thousands of tonnes of munitions have been flown to Israel to carry out “indiscriminate bombing” (Biden’s own admission). One-tonne bunker-buster bombs have been dropped deliberately on refugee camps and hospitals. And still, the Pentagon shamelessly refuses to impose any red lines on the use of its munitions.
This genocide has Israeli fingers on the triggers but it is ultimately an American-sponsored genocide. Based on Nuremberg principles, Joe Biden and Benjamin Netanyahu would be both in the dock, accompanied by Antony Blinken, Jake Sullivan, Lloyd Austin and their counterparts in Tel Aviv.
If there were previous international doubts about Washington’s systematic criminality, the whole world knows for certain now.
Significantly, too, American citizens are also repulsed by the barbarity and the fact that their government is an accomplice in a historic crime against humanity. Polls show that Biden is one of the most unpopular presidents ever, and his culpability for the genocide in Gaza is a primary reason for the widespread disgust, especially among younger Americans.
As things stand, there is a fair chance that 81-year-old incumbent Democrat will lose the presidential election in 2024 – less than 11 months away. Not that any of the Republican contenders are qualitatively better. American politics are in a crisis of chaos.
But this is not just about Biden or other individual U.S. politicians. The United States government and much of the corporate-controlled media stand full square behind Israel’s crimes. That has always been the case since the Israeli state was formed in 1948 through Washington’s skulduggery at the newly established United Nations, together with the old colonial power, Britain – the author of the infamous and treacherous Balfour Declaration that instigated Zionist dispossession of the indigenous people in the Holy Land, or what London called its Palestinian Mandate.
Decades of duplicity and dissembling as a peace broker in the Middle East have been blown away by the horrendous massacre that has culminated at the end of 2023. Israel is carrying out a Final Solution that is comparable to the atrocities of Nazi Germany. The Zionist regime has cynically used the Holocaust against Jews as a cover for its genocide against Palestinians. And many decent Jews around the world, including Holocaust survivors, are rightly mortified by the depraved association exploited by the Zionist regime.
What is happening in Gaza may be seen as a shocking revelation for the world of historic proportions. It is an eye-opener of the violence and lawlessness that the U.S. emperor has been systematically engaged in since it became the dominant world power almost a century ago. Following the Second World War and the defeat of European fascism – largely by the Soviet Union – the United States has taken up the fascist mantle, albeit unspoken and disguised with pretensions claims of democratic virtue. No other nation has waged as many wars and conflicts over the past eight decades as the U.S. The death toll from American imperialism runs to tens of millions of people with victims on every continent.
The conflict that erupted in Ukraine in February 2022 is another manifestation of Washington’s imperialist machinations. That war is approaching its third year and shows no sign of ending because the U.S. continues to weaponize the Neo-Nazi regime in Kiev, a regime that Washington and its European NATO allies installed in 2014 through a coup d’état. The hostilities in Ukraine – the biggest in Europe since the Second World War – were fomented by the United States as a proxy war to defeat Russia. The war could have been avoided if the U.S. and its European vassals had negotiated a diplomatic solution to NATO’s expansionist threat to Russia.
Russian President Vladimir Putin did not want a war in Ukraine. Respected American commentators like John Mearsheimer, Jeffrey Sachs and Scott Ritter have all confirmed with extensive analysis that Washington and its European allies are primarily responsible for creating the conflict – one that has cost the lives of as many as 400,000 Ukrainian soldiers and the displacement of 10 million civilians across Europe. Nearly $200 billion in Western public money has been wasted so far. Biden and the European Union want to donate another $100 billion to prolong this futile war.
America’s wars were always officially rationalized with some seeming plausible cause or mission. In the early decades of the Cold War, Washington claimed to be defending the “Free World” against Communist aggression in Korea, Vietnam, Africa and Latin America. When the Cold War supposedly ended in 1990-91 after the collapse of the Soviet Union due to its internal political problems, we then saw a spate of U.S. wars around the world against drugs, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and – most absurdly – defense of human rights.
The latest war in Ukraine is purportedly to defend democracy and sovereignty (of a Nazi Waffen SS-adulating regime in Kiev installed by the CIA!).
Nonetheless, the genocide in Gaza is the culmination, the final act. This is where all the history of U.S. crimes and fraudulence as a “noble exceptional democratic leader” finally comes unstuck.
It is an infernal climax for a global power, arguably the world’s first and last imperialist global hegemon. The whole of humanity can now see that all the American rhetoric and vanity is nothing but an ugly lie. The emperor is naked in all his crimes. The blood of children on his hands, his mouth drooling with lies. It was always so, but now universally evident.
One might ask, where do we go from here? Despite the abominable cruelty, suffering and misery, one can still hope that humanity will eventually find a way to live in peaceful coexistence. By respecting all those who abide by international law and basic moral precepts. Arguably, most of humanity is willing and capable of living in peace.
But to achieve that peace there must be no illusions and lies. There must be accountability and genuine atonement.
U.S. imperial power is damned. There’s no going back or reform. The capitalist economic system – evolved as oligarchic fascism and its two-party puppet show – driving imperialist barbarism must be called out and overturned. Biden is doomed, and Trump and so on are just more false prophets.
Seeing the naked truth is usually the first step before we can go on to realize the truth of beauty and decency. We might hope – for the sake of peace and ending much of the suffering – that the world is taking that first step.
In 2023, the West was unable to contain the advance of multipolarity. Despite continuing to finance aggression against Russia and fomenting chaos in several regions to avoid the geopolitical transition process, the US and its allies are weakened in the current world scenario and have not been able to make their projects successful.
On the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield, Kiev was unable to achieve any significant victory throughout the entire year. Since late 2022, the neo-Nazi regime has been betting on the possibility of launching a major “counteroffensive” in the spring-summer season of 2023. According to Western media, this counterattack would be strong enough to retake all the territories claimed by Kiev, including Crimea.
However, the Ukrainian measures have absolutely failed. Neo-Nazi forces were unable to inflict damage on the strong Russian defense lines and thus failed to achieve territorial gains. The Ukrainians’ focus then shifted from the battlefield to the media, with the launch of a series of terrorist attacks on demilitarized Russian territory with the aim of showing Western public opinion that at least some harm was being inflicted on the Russians – thus justifying continued military support.
Russian strong defense capabilities and high-precision strikes, however, disrupted Ukrainian plans once again and neutralized all terrorist incursions. In the end, the Ukrainians had no more arguments to disguise their failures and publicly admitted that the counteroffensive was not successful. As a result, the situation on the front lines became even more disadvantageous for NATO’s proxy forces. With more than half a million Ukrainians dead – tens of thousands of them in the failed “counteroffensive” alone – and with increasingly greater territorial losses, Ukraine already appears to be a “lost battle” in the West, having a growing critical opinion regarding the support for the regime.
Some other relevant military events also took place in 2023, such as a new war in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. In September, Azerbaijani forces launched a series of attacks against the Armenian resistance in the former separatist republic and achieved a quick military victory, gaining complete territorial control over the region. Without support from Armenia or sufficient military force to resist Azerbaijani aggression, the separatist government declared the extinction of the Republic of Artsakh, formally handing over the territory to Baku.
Since 2018, Armenia has been governed by a pro-Western regime that has moved it away from Russia and closer to the US and EU. Local politicians were led to believe that with such an approach it would be possible to contain the Azerbaijani advance, but indeed they got precisely the contrary. NATO is interested in generating as much instability as possible in the Russian [and Iranian] strategic environment and therefore encourages the worsening of crises in the Caucasus.
The scenario in the region now is one in which on one side there are Azerbaijani forces supported by the Turks and on the other Americans and Europeans backing Armenia. Both sides share common anti-Russian interests and want to make the region a NATO occupation zone. In this scenario, Moscow only tries to avoid new conflicts and works diplomatically so that peace between the parties is achieved as quickly as possible.
However, it was in the Middle East that the biggest “geopolitical news” of the year emerged. In October, Hamas-led Palestinian Resistance’s forces launched a military incursion into areas illegally occupied by Israel. Called “Al Aqsa Flood Operation“, the action was successful in causing real damage to the Israeli armed forces and settlers, but it prompted a brutal response from Tel Aviv, with Netanyahu declaring war on the Palestinians and launching a series of bombings that already killed thousands of innocent civilians.
Israeli brutality, however, was not enough to give Israel victory. On the contrary, on the battlefield there is a complicated scenario in which Zionist troops are suffering to obtain gains. There are many difficulties on the ground, mainly due to the fact that Hamas maintains a complex network of underground tunnels and knows the local terrain much better than the Israelis. Furthermore, Israel’s tanks are not able to circulate easily due to the amount of debris from bombed buildings, making frictions more favorable to Palestinian guerrillas.
Suffering heavy military losses and simultaneously killing thousands of civilians, the Zionist government is in a situation of serious crisis, both domestically and diplomatically. Globally, Israel is isolated, gaining support from only a few Western countries. Internally, the pressure for his impeachment is great, with part of his armed forces and the intelligence sector joining the opposition.
In this regional context, the Yemeni Houthi government showed solidarity with the Palestinians through a declaration of war on Israel. The Houthis have been conducting operations in the Red Sea, hindering naval flow and severely damaging the Israeli economy. The US tried to neutralize Yemen by launching a multinational naval operation, but the coalition collapsed before it even started fighting, with European countries refusing to participate.
It is also important to note how Iran has acted in this crisis scenario in the Middle East. Tehran’s proxies in the so-called “Axis of Resistance” are acting in deep support of Palestine, as can be seen, for example, in the role of Hezbollah. The Lebanese militia has launched multiple attacks against Israeli positions, severely damaging the Zionist intelligence system.
In practice, it is possible to say that the crisis in the Middle East harmed American war plans. Until recently, the US had a clear strategy to avoid the multipolarization of the world order. The plan consisted of waging a proxy war against Russia and a direct conflict with China. It was expected to defeat China and wear down Russia, but none of that happened.
Ukraine proved inefficient in causing damage to Moscow, and the West was unable to generate more conflicts in the region. Attempts at regime change to radicalize anti-Russian positions have failed – as in Georgia -, preventing the emergence of new flanks. The US has also tried to provoke a proxy war against the Russians in Africa, financing terrorist groups against the revolutionary governments of the former “Françafrique”. But this is also failing because, in partnership with the Russian PMC Wagner Group, local governments have achieved several victories against Western-backed gangs.
In the same sense, China did not “take the bait” and continued to act only diplomatically and economically, without engaging in any conflict. And, in the meantime, the Palestinians – with Iranian support – launched a military operation that forced Washington to ignore its previous plans and focus on supporting Israel. With a strong Zionist lobby in the US, there is pressure for total support for Israel, even if it means an end of the aid to Ukraine or anti-China plans.
Until October, the US was preparing to fight on the two fronts. Now, with the emergence of a third flank, the situation has become much more complicated. Washington does not seem to have enough strength to fight being involved in the three conflicts at the same time. Faced with this situation, it remains to be seen whether there will be diplomatic willingness or whether the US will irrationally opt for total war. But, in any case, what is clear is that in 2023 the West proved to be weaker than ever.
The BBC and others keep revisiting Hamas crimes that day, but fail to report on growing evidence that Israel killed its own citizens, often in grotesque fashion
Barely a day has passed since the 7 October attack by Hamas when the western media has not revisited those events, often to reveal what it claims are new details of astonishing atrocities carried out by the Palestinian group.
These disclosures have served to sustain public indignation in the West, and kept Palestinian solidarity activists on the back foot.
In turn, the outrage has smoothed Israel’s path as it has levelled vast swaths of Gaza; killed more than 18,700 Palestinians, most of them women and children; and denied the enclave’s population of 2.3 million access to food, water and fuel.
Critically, it has also made it far easier for western governments to throw their weight behind Israel – and arm it – even as Israeli leaders have repeatedly engaged in genocidal talk and carried out ethnic cleansing operations.
Israel’s intense bombing campaigns have herded nearly two million Palestinians into a small section of Gaza, pressed up against its short border with Egypt, while starvation and fatal disease start to take their toll.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken even described in graphic detail – and wholly falsely – a Hamas attack on an Israeli family: “The father’s eye gouged out in front of his kids. The mother’s breast cut off, the girl’s foot amputated, the boy’s fingers cut off before they were executed.”
Little evidence
Atrocities were undoubtedly committed that day by Hamas and other gunmen in Israel, as groups like Human Rights Watch have been documenting.
They have continued to occur in Gaza every day since, not least through Israel’s continuing and relentless bombing of civilians, and through Hamas’ refusal to free the remaining Israeli hostages without an exchange of Palestinians held in Israeli prisons.
But in respect of the more shocking allegations against Hamas promoted by the western media – which have bolstered the case for Israel’s two-month rampage in Gaza – often little or no evidence has been forthcoming beyond claims made by Israeli officials and highly partisan and unreliable first responders.
Nonetheless, once more, coverage of the growing devastation in Gaza was sidelined.
Media readiness to re-examine 7 October long after those events took place has operated within strict limits, however. Only claims that support Israel’s narrative about what happened that day are being aired.
A growing body of evidence suggesting a far more complex reality, one that paints Israel’s own actions in a far more troubling light, is being ignored or suppressed.
This deeply dishonest approach from the western media indicates that they are not, as they declare, fearlessly pursuing the truth. Rather, they are regurgitating talking points being fed to them by Israel.
That is not only unconscionable – particularly given Israel’s long track recordof promoting lies, both small and large – but it violates all basic journalistic codes.
What did Hamas have to gain from expending so much energy and ammunition on horror-show theatrics rather than its plan to seize hostages?
For many western leaders and journalists, it appears no rational answer is needed. Hamas – and possibly all Palestinians – are simply barbarians for whom murdering Israelis, Jews or maybe all non-Muslims comes as second nature.
But for those whose minds are less bent by racist assumptions, an alternative picture of events has been steadily cohering, prompted by the testimonies of Israeli survivors and officials, as well as reporting from the Israeli media. Much of the evidence has been collected by the independent journalist Max Blumenthal and the Electronic Intifada website.
Because they contradict Israel’s official story, these testimonies have been studiously ignored by the western media.
Burned alive
Surprisingly, the person whose statements have most confounded the official narrative is Mark Regev, the spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
In an interview on MSNBC on 16 November, Regev noted that Israel had reduced the official death toll by 200 after its investigations had shown that the charred remains it had counted included not just Israelis but Hamas fighters too. The fighters, burned alive, had been too disfigured to easily identify.
Regev told MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan: “There were actually bodies that were so badly burned we thought they were ours. In the end, apparently, they were Hamas terrorists.”
There was an obvious problem with Regev’s disclosure that went unchallenged by the MSNBC interviewer, and has been ignored by the media since. How did so many Hamas fighters end up burned – and in exactly the same locations as Israelis, meaning their remains could not be identified separately for many weeks?
Did Hamas fighters carry out some strange ritual, self-immolating in cars and homes alongside their hostages? And if so, why?
There is a likely explanation, confirmed by an Israeli survivor of the 7 October events, as well as by a security guard, and a variety of military personnel. But these accounts starkly undermine the official narrative.
Shelled by Israel
Yasmin Porat, who fled the Nova festival and ended up hiding in Be’eri, was one of the few to survive that day. Her partner, Tal Katz, was killed.
She has repeatedly explained to the Israeli media what happened.
According to Porat’s account to Kan radio on 15 November, the Hamas fighters in Be’eri barricaded themselves into a house with a group of a dozen or so Israeli hostages – either planning to use them as human shields or as bargaining chips for an exit.
The Israeli military, however, was in no mood for bargaining. Porat escaped only because one of the Hamas fighters vacated the house early on, using her as a human shield, before giving himself up.
Porat describes Israeli soldiers engaging in a four-hour firefight with the Hamas gunmen, despite the presence of Israeli civilians. But not all of the hostages were killed in the crossfire. Israel ended the clash with an Israeli tank firing two shells into the house.
In Porat’s account, when she asked why this had been done, “they explained to me that it was to break the walls, in order to help purify the house”.
The only other survivor, Hadas Dagan, who was lying face down on the lawn in front of the house during the firefight, reported to Porat what happened after the two shells hit the house. Dagan saw both of their partners lying near her, killed by shrapnel from the explosions.
A 12-year-old girl, Liel Hatsroni, who had been screaming inside the house throughout the firefight, also fell silent.
Hatsroni and her aunt, Ayalan, were both incinerated. It took weeks to identify their bodies.
Notably, Liel Hatsroni’s charred remains have been one of the emotive pieces of evidence cited by Israel for accusing Hamas of killing and burning Israelis.
This little girl’s body was burned so badly that it look forensic archeologists more than six weeks to identify her.
All that remains of 12 year old Liel Hetzroni is ash and bone fragments.
In reporting the deaths of Liel, her aunt, her twin brother and her grandfather, the Israeli news website Ynet stated that Hamas fighters “murdered them all. Afterwards, they set the house alight”.
Confused pilots
Porat’s testimony is far from the only source showing that Israel is likely to have been responsible for a significant proportion of the civilian deaths that day – and for the burned bodies.
The security coordinator at Be’eri, Tuval Escapa, effectively confirmed Porat’s account to the Haaretz newspaper. He said: “Commanders in the field made difficult decisions – including shelling houses on their occupants in order to eliminate the terrorists along with the hostages.”
The burnt-out cars at the Nova festival and their occupants appear to have suffered a similar fate. Worried that Hamas gunmen were fleeing the area with hostages in cars, it seems, helicopter pilots were told to open fire, incinerating the cars and all the occupants.
There is a likely explanation for this. The Israeli army has long had a secret protocol – known as the Hannibal directive – in which soldiers are instructed to kill any captured comrades to avoid their being taken hostage. It is less clear how this directive applies to Israeli civilians, though it appears to have been used in the past.
The goal is to prevent Israel from facing demands to release prisoners.
In at least one case, an Israeli military official, Col Nof Erez, has stated that “the Hannibal directive was apparently applied”. He called the Israeli air strikes on 7 October “a mass Hannibal”.
Haaretz has reported that police investigators concluded that “an IDF combat helicopter that arrived at the scene and fired at terrorists there apparently also hit some festival participants”.
In a video released by the Israeli military, Apache helicopters are shown randomly firing missiles at cars leaving the area, presumably on the assumption that they contained Hamas fighters trying to smuggle hostages back into Gaza.
The Ynet news website cited an Israeli air force assessment of its two dozen attack helicopters in the skies above the Nova festival: “It was very difficult to distinguish between terrorists and [Israeli] soldiers or civilians.” Nonetheless, pilots were instructed “to shoot at everything they see in the area of the fence” with Gaza.
“Only at a certain point did the pilots begin to slow their attacks and carefully choose the targets,” the outlet reported.
Another Israeli publication, Mako, noted that “there was almost no intelligence to assist in making fateful decisions”, adding that the pilots “emptied the ‘belly of the helicopter’ in minutes, flew to re-arm and returned to the air, again and again”.
In another Mako report, the commander of an Apache unit is quoted stating: “Shooting at people in our territory – this is something I never thought I would do.” Another pilot recalled of the attack: “I find myself in a dilemma as to what to shoot at.”
Secrets to the grave
Quite extraordinarily, in reporting the devastation of ravaged houses and burnt and crumpled cars, reporters have completely ignored the visual evidence staring them in the face, and simply amplified the official Israeli narrative.
There are plenty of more-than-obvious questions no one is asking – and for which no answers are ever likely to be forthcoming.
How did Hamas wreak such widescale and intense devastation when its fighters’ own videos show them mostly bearing light arms?
Were those carrying basic RPGs capable of accurately tracking and hitting hundreds of fast-moving vehicles fleeing the festival – and doing so from ground level?
Video footage from Hamas body-cams shows cars leaving the Nova festival with both gunmen and hostages inside. Why would Hamas risk incinerating its own people?
Given Hamas’ keenness to film its triumphs, why is there no footage of such actions? And why would Hamas waste its most prized ammunition on random attacks on cars rather than save it for the far more difficult task of attacking Israeli military bases?
Israel appears not to be interested in investigating the burnt-out cars and wrecked homes, possibly because it already knows the answers and fears that others may one day find out the truth too.
With religious organisations demanding that the cars be hurriedly buried to preserve the sanctity of the dead, the metal skeletons will take their secrets to the grave.
Grotesque fables
What seems certain from this growing body of evidence – and from the trail of visual clues – is that on 7 October many Israeli civilians were killed either in the crossfire of gun battles between Israel and Hamas or by Israeli military directives to stop Hamas fighters returning to Gaza and taking hostages with them.
This week, an Israeli commentator in the Haaretz newspaper called the testimonies “earth-shattering”, and added: “Was the Hannibal directive applied to civilians? An investigation and public debate need to happen now, no matter how difficult they are.”
But as the army has made clear, it has no intention to investigate when its whole genocidal campaign against Gaza is premised on lurid claims that appear to bear a limited relationship to reality.
None of that justifies Hamas’ atrocities, especially the killing and taking hostage of civilians. But it does paint a very different picture of that day’s events.
Remember, Israel and its supporters have sought to compare the Hamas attack on 7 October with the Nazi Holocaust. They have concocted grotesque fables to present Palestinians as bloodthirsty savages deserving of any fate that befalls them.
And those fables have served as the basis for western indulgence and sympathy for Israel as it has carried out ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza.
The truth is it would have been much harder for western governments to sell Israel’s rampage in Gaza to their publics had Hamas’ crimes been seen, sadly, as all too typical of modern militarised confrontations in which civilians become collateral damage.
What western governments and institutions should have done is demand an independent investigation to clarify the extent of Hamas atrocities that day rather than echo Israeli officials who wanted an excuse to trash Gaza and drive its inhabitants into neighbouring Sinai.
The western media’s performance has been even more dismal – and dangerous. It professes to be a watchdog on power. But it has repeatedly amplified the Israeli occupier’s evidence-free claims, peddled libels against Palestinians with little or no scrutiny, and actively suppressed evidence challenging Israel’s official narrative.
For that reason alone, western journalists are entirely complicit in the crimes against humanity currently being perpetrated in Gaza – crimes being committed right now, not two months ago.
After the Crash 