NO PICKNIC AT GAZA

Six months after Israel's fierce incursion into the Gaza Strip, everyone agrees that Tel Aviv cannot claim any kind of victory. How much time does the Jewish supremacists have left in power?

 

By Sidney Hey

I could not find a better title for this article than to allude to British Royal Marines veteran Julian Thompson's account of his experiences in the Falklands War in 1982 as a way of explaining how the Foreign Office and especially he and his comrades came face to face with a reality they did not expect.

Something very similar but magnified to the nth degree is happening in Israel with what has been going on in the 162 days of intermittent battles between the IDF and the unpredictable actions of a Palestinian resistance on the ground in Gaza that has left “Bibi” Netanyahu and his Israeli generals with a severe headache.

According to the logic of Israeli commanders, fuelled by military intelligence, Shin Bet and Mossad reports, in two weeks they would crush "Hamas" and take full control of the Gaza Strip. Nothing of the sort has happened. These failed speculations did not arise from the IDF's vaunted (and false) professionalism or the vaunted effectiveness of its intelligence, they simply came from being able to count on the continuous and almost inexhaustible supply of arms, bombs and financial resources provided from Washington. Despite this fabulous aid they have failed and that is where the migraines originate from the commander of the General Staff Herzi Halevi on down.

It is precisely this headache of impotence and the setbacks that their units are suffering on the ground that the Israelis are taking out on the Arab civilian population in the Gaza Strip, Jerusalem and the West Bank, committing all kinds of outrages, violations and crimes that have been recorded for possible criminal investigations.

Likewise, all these massacres and human rights violations that the IDF is committing in the strip have an impact on the psyche of the Israeli soldiers who, in addition to the physical wounds they may suffer, are already experiencing serious psychological and even psychiatric problems, causing suicides and a growing rejection of conscription among the population. These reactions are very understandable since, murdering women and children who only have canvas tents as their only shelter against their automatic rifles, shells and the bombardment of their F-16 planes, it must not be a pleasant thing to see the pieces of these innocents scattered around, let alone to live with it in your conscience for the rest of your days.

Obviously, Tel Aviv is hiding this from the world, and understandably so, as it is part of the lies it has been running on throughout its existence. Today, global public opinion is certain that Israel is not a victim.

Little by little the whole Tel Aviv victimhood narrative accusing Hamas of having carried out beheadings and rapes against women from the Kibbutz captured on 7 October is collapsing under the weight of the lies that make it up. So blatant has this been that many of the survivors of that day not only denied this, but accused the IDF of opening fire indiscriminately, killing both Hamas fighters and the hostages accompanying them.

Unsurprisingly, US media such as The New York Times (renowned for its neocon and pro-Israeli editorials) even published a story endorsing these alleged violations that had occurred at Kibbutz “Be' eri”. But this story was promptly denied by the same people who were the victims of these sexual abuses and with that, the doubts and discredit to the version Tel Aviv has been using to justify the massacres against the Palestinians increased.

In turn, these crimes are feeding back into the actions of the Arab-Islamic resistance on the eastern and northern fronts, which have so far led to a paralysis of the Israeli economy, especially in the port area of Eilat, and the flight of thousands of its settlers from the settlements bordering southern Lebanon.

With each passing day and each massacre committed by the IDF against the Gazans, the forces of “Hezbollah”, “Ansar Allah” and the Islamic resistance of “Kataib Hezbollah of Iraq” show greater determination and adjust with greater precision and power their attacks against Israeli targets and those of their Anglo-American allies, making it clear to them that they are not picknicking in occupied Palestine.

In northern occupied Palestine, “Hezbollah” attacks have intensified in number and firepower, destroying several Israeli military and intelligence posts, which in addition to casualties have caused great cost in terms of equipment destroyed or damaged. One of these targets has been the electronic intelligence facility on Mount Meron which has been bombed on several occasions with various weapons systems causing losses that Tel Aviv does not disclose. At the same time, the settlers in all the settlements near the border and especially “Kiryat Shemona” who boasted of being protected by the “Iron Dome” systems and even mocking the Lebanese with laughter and mockingly shouting “Allah Hu Akbar” (God is Great), are now the same ones fleeing, whimpering at the side of the roads forced to get out of their cars for fear of being hit by some “Hezbollah” projectile.

In the face of this, defence minister Yoav Galant and his generals are reportedly planning an invasion of Lebanon that could not only further intensify the predicted (by Henry Kissinger) non-viability of the state, but even its disintegration.

Meanwhile on the Red Sea waterfront and throughout the Arabian Peninsula, Yemeni operations by “Ansar Allah” and Yemeni Arab forces in their steadfast support for the Palestinians have given no respite to Israeli and their Western partners' commercial vessels attempting to pass through these waters with impunity. Despite the presence of the Anglo-American naval force trying to open the way, resistance operations against them continue. Even to the surprise of the Anglo-American naval forces, the Yemeni resistance using ballistic missiles and drones managed to strike hard blows in the Indian Ocean, backing up the words of their leader Sayyed Abdel-Malik al-Huzi who vowed to make it difficult for these ships to pass even as far as the Cape of Good Hope.

Against this, the Israeli government continues to accumulate more protests and disrepute both abroad and from its own population, not because of the indiscriminate massacres of Palestinians but because it is suffering heavy losses in the IDF and the economic cost to the entity.

GEOPOLITICA E IMPUNIDAD

¿Ha comenzado el principio del fin de la impunidad de los gobiernos anglosajones?

 

Por Charles H. Slim

¿Cuántos serán los crímenes cometidos por el autoproclamado “mundo libre”, que se hallan enterrados en los archivos de los oscuros sótanos de sus agencias de inteligencia? Hace poco leí un interesante artículo en el sitio Vtforeingpolicy.com[1] que precisamente me llevó a formular esa simple pregunta.

Tanto EEUU como su gran colega y mentor Gran Bretaña tienen un extensísimo prontuario en crímenes de guerra y lesa humanidad que no hace falta que se vayan a escudriñar en los recovecos de la burocracia gubernamental de la cual se valen para tapar sus responsabilidades. La historia contemporánea nos da ejemplos claros y descarnados de eso en Iraq, Afganistán, Libia, Siria, Yemen y por supuesto en los cometidos por extensión desde hace 75 años hasta el presente por su protegido el estado de Israel.

Pero estos señeros exponentes de la farsa democrática, también eliminan personas de manera oculta y bien disimulada usando entre otras tácticas el terrorismo. Solo cuando ya no pueden ocultarlo, sus medios matizaran el relato de los hechos tratando de aislar a sus responsables. El caso de Dag Hammarskjöld es uno de ellos y que por décadas quedó sepultado bajo el olvido de un supuesto accidente aéreo en septiembre de 1961.

En su cargo de Secretario general de la Organización de las Naciones Unidas, Hammarskjöld estaba abocado a mediar en el conflicto que se había desatado en la provincia de Katanga en el Zaire o Congo Belga. Al parecer, por su particular carácter y compromiso en el cargo que revestía, Hammarskjöld no solo se limitaría a tareas de mediación sino a profundizar en las causas reales que habían desatado el conflicto. Ello le conduciría a investigar varias irregularidades y negociados en la África post colonial en especial en aquellos países donde se explotan minerales preciosos y la provincia de Katanga estaba en ese cuadro en especial por sus diamantes.

Pero como es muy fácil de advertir, que quienes se enfrentaban a muerte eran africanos, pero quienes estaban detrás de esa guerra vendiendo armas, instigando (con la intromisión de agencias de inteligencia y/o mercenarios) y haciendo negocios indiscriminadamente con rebeldes y gobiernos, eran europeos. En esa trama se movían muchos negocios e intereses que podrían verse en riesgo si aquel alto funcionario de Naciones Unidas metía las narices.  

Su trabajo se vería convenientemente truncado por la caída del avión DC-6 en el que viajaba muriendo en el acto junto con las catorce personas que lo acompañaban. Las causas acusadas fueron un supuesto “error del piloto” dado que -supuestamente- no se hallaron evidencias de fallas mecánicas, eléctricas o de la estructura visibles al momento de hallar los restos del aparato. Pero ya en ese entonces hubo muchas sospechas de la veracidad de este “accidente” y fue por eso que las dudas dejaron pendiente muchas preguntas.

Motivos para sospechar de esto no solo provinieron de las incumbencias y el compromiso que Hammarskjöld mostraba sobre el tema, sino también por las características topográficas de la región donde cayó el avión, muy cerca de la frontera sur del Congo (cerca de Dnola, hoy Zambia). La desolación de la zona donde cayó el avión y la espesa vegetación pudo haber ocultado a los perpetradores o una parte de ellos que pudieron haber llegado antes que el equipo de rescate para levantar cualquier rastro que incriminara un atentado.

Precisamente la investigación independiente de Susan Williams que arrojo su libro “¿Quién mató a Hammarskjöld?” publicado en 2011 fue el puntapie junto a otros elementos que más tarde se han ido sumando como el arrimado por el periodista francés Maurin Picard en su libro “Ils ont tué Monsieur” publicado en 2019 (en el cual implica a la organización terrorista OAS) llevaron a que se reabran las investigaciones sobre la muerte del entonces Secretario General y de los otros catorce pasajeros que iban en el avión.

El compromiso por determinar la verdad de lo que paso el 18 de septiembre de 1961 ha llevado a que se comenzara a pedir formalmente información a los gobiernos de EEUU y Gran Bretaña para que por su conducto, instruyan a sus agencias de inteligencia a que abran sus archivos a los fines de indagar en busca de elementos tendientes a dilucidar la verdad material de aquel hecho ¿Por qué son conducentes estos pedidos?

Tanto las agencias de inteligencia de EEUU como Gran Bretaña operaban en la región y no hay que olvidar que en ese entonces tenían pleno conocimiento de todas las actividades (tanto gubernamentales como de insurgentes) bajo las circunstancias del enfrentamiento existente denominado Guerra fría. Especial atención tenía (y sigue teniendo) la operatividad de la NSA (National Security Agency) que llevaba adelante actividades de inteligencia electrónica con la cual podía interceptar y recabar toda clase de comunicaciones radiales (públicas y privadas) incluidas, las de los aviones en las rutas aéreas del día del hecho.

Igualmente y a pesar de los formales pedidos los anglosajones han sido renuentes en proporcionar la información solicitada arrojando fuertes sospechas de un encubrimiento.

Según algunos elementos que surgen de la información reunida por el juez tanzano Mohamed Chande Othman, el avión donde viajaba  Hammarskjöld podría haber sido abatido por un jet “Fouga” que tenían los rebeldes de Katanga y cuyo origen de fábrica es rastreable en Francia. Si vemos un mapa de la zona donde cayo el avión, advertimos que bien pudo haber sido interceptado en el aire por un jet y tras ser ametrallado en los cielos del sur Congo Belga termino cayendo del otro lado de la frontera en la por entonces Rhodesia hoy Zambia. Informes solicitados a los gobiernos de Rusia y Francia y que fueron entregados para su investigación, arrojaron algunos elementos que dan lugar a sospechar que existió una operación tramada para asesinarlo.

Si bien han pasado varias décadas desde este hecho, la continuidad en las investigaciones y la determinación por arribar a la verdad son una esperanza de que aún es posible construir poco a poco, una justicia internacional que por estos días se haya rodeada de sospechas de parcialidad y complicidad política.

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[1] https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/03/hammarskjold-case-intel-ongoing-occulting-on-international-massacre/ 

 

NULAND NULLITY

What were the real reasons for Victoria Nuland's departure as Under Secretary of State and what does it mean for US geopolitics?

 

By Sir Charlattam

It is a well-known saying among sailors that when a ship is about to sink, the rats are the first to abandon it. Much the same has been seen in recent weeks in the troubled corridors of the State Department and other Biden administration agencies. Everything seems to have conspired to undermine what little credibility the West has in what has been going on in Ukraine. The leaks from the German Luftwaffe military about their involvement in the terrorist actions being carried out and planned soon against government targets in Moscow, and the covert involvement of USAF F-35s in SEAD missions against Russian missile sites, have caused all sorts of consequences, many of which we will never know about.

It was to be expected that the ripple effects of this scandal would reverberate in Washington. The Foreign Secretary is even quoted as saying that David Cameron tipped his teacup over his desk as soon as he was informed of the news.

The surprise resignation of Deputy Secretary of State Victoria Nuland appears to be part of the fallout. While the news is presented in the US as an unexpected decision by the third most influential diplomatic figure in US foreign policy, it does not surprise those who know what is really going on in Ukraine and the functional implications of her position. Apparently, the failures of the anti-Russian stratagems mobilised his replacement by the veteran Kurt Campbell who specialises in Asia-Pacific unveiling where Washington's and, of course, London's foreign policy will be focused.

This comes at a sensitive time for Biden, who is seeking re-election amidst a degraded domestic public image that barely exceeds 50 percent approval ratings.

Nuland's involvement in Ukraine goes back a long way. In the early 1990s he had the opportunity to take up a post at the US embassy in Moscow and was undoubtedly instrumental in the Democratic Bill Clinton administration's decision to begin concentrating efforts on NATO's eastward advance.

During the Democratic Obama administration he managed all kinds of activities invasive of Ukraine's political sovereignty, even promoting (with the knowledge of Secretary of State John Kerry) the dismissal of judicial officials for investigating the dealings of Hunter Biden and Co. in “Burisma”.

All the plans that Nuland and her coterie of neocon conspirators had conceived have collapsed, especially those woven for Ukraine. The situation on the ground is impossible to conceal and although some reliable sources speak of titanic efforts by the CIA and MI6 to create a counter-offensive in the media, the same Ukrainian commanders who are not part of the ultra-nationalist commissariat in Kiev know that this is no longer the case.

This has led to disagreements within the White House itself, where some sources claim that Biden no longer coordinates even to pick up the phone.  In addition to this, Nuland in recent interviews has not been able to hide her annoyance with the president, something that has not gone down well with those close to Biden.

Victoria Nuland is not the only one responsible for this whole mess, although she has been one of the most industrious pillars of the so-called “war party” made up of neo-conservatives and Zionist groups that lobby within Congress. The latter have had a great welcome in the Biden administration to fund the billionaire's support for the state of Israel even at the expense of the growing needs of the American people.

In that role she was a constant and very active instigator of the anti-Russian policy by making Ukraine a strategic target to realise plans to consolidate US hegemony through NATO. It should not be overlooked that millions of people have been killed, millions more injured and millions more displaced by the wars that she and the war party have instigated since the early 1990s.

There is no doubt that Nuland's departure (or flight) marks a turning point in Washington's foreign policy and the resounding failure of the Russophobic policy. Perhaps if you don't remember her, she is the lady who, with her guards, walked through the centre of Kiev handing out biscuits and bread to Ukrainian passers-by and who back in February 2014 was the protagonist in that hilarious phone scandal with the US ambassador in Kiev Geoffrey Pyatt where it became very clear that Washington was behind the turmoil that led to the bloody coup d'état of February 2014.

But the current situation in Ukraine is part and parcel of the overweening ambitions of “Vicky” Nuland and her people to try to destroy the Russian Federation. Today, in view of the imminent disbanding of the war front, the unpredictable fate of the puppet Volodymyr Zelensky (whom some in London are seeking to rescue) and the very costly financial-military assistance provided to ultimately flush the plans down the toilet, she was forced to make a hasty exit from a very complicated scene.

“Vicky” is certainly no fool and this exit is obviously not to her liking, but she is aware that the Biden administration's foreign policy has imploded and it is time for her to go into winter quarters. But what will the Foreign Secretary do?

 

 

 

 

 

WAR IS NOT A GAME

The clamour among the neo-conservatives and their fellow Atlanticists for a conflagration with Russia is growing like never before. Do they not realise the consequences of such stupidity?

 

By Sidney Hey

Although war is embedded in human civilisation, for many centuries it remained a matter of conflicts between great lords, kingdoms and later nation states. But after the turbulent twentieth century and the current millennium of global paradigm shifts, war has ceased to be an exclusively state activity and has been capitalised by political groups linked to private business and corporate interests.

At the beginning of this century we witnessed how the private sector and the US federal government joined forces to realise an extensive and ambitious geopolitical-economic project outlined by neo-conservatives and Zionists a decade earlier in the so-called Project for the New American Century (PNAC), culminating in the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, which, beyond the humanitarian calamity they both represented, were fabulous business deals for the Western arms industry.

Today war is big business. In fact, it always has been, and the era that provides us with the most references to this is undoubtedly the last century. Unlike then, today the variety of sources and the speed of communications have made it impossible to hide it from the public eye and make them aware of how their property, security and lives are being gambled with.

The main parties involved in creating the conditions for these businesses to flourish have undoubtedly been the US and its allies.

Once again, the Anglo-Saxon West is at the forefront of promoting international insecurity. Interventions and invasions under demonstrably false pretexts have resulted in millions of lives ruined and, worst of all, minimised in their human value because they are not Western. The democracy, freedoms and values with which all the White House administrations have continually shielded themselves are not at all consistent with aggression, the fomenting of subversion against the authorities of other nations and much less with war

If history could be erased with a magic eraser, no doubt US politicians and in particular the neo-conservatives would do it, but that is not possible. Iraq is just one of the most infamous chapters in the contemporary history of what amounted to the bloody violation of all international laws in order (among other things) to make fabulous arms deals. In spite of this, the media (big political supports) continue to elaborate narratives with decontextualised facts that have been adapted to fit in with Washington's already twisted foreign policy.

But the past is unforgiving. The big deals that the Cold War with the USSR represented for the military arms industry and political sectors of the system revealed the great corruption of the supposedly “great democracy” and leader of the “free world”, which we see again today with obscene hypocrisy in both Ukraine and Palestine.

Death is a business and Anglo-American politicians have made it the norm of this. It does not take the declassification of secret documents or the testimony of former officials to back this up. If everything we saw in the massacres in Baghdad, the systematic torture in “Abu-Graib”, “Camp Bucca” and many others during the occupation, the intervention in Libya (with Al Qaeda jihadists and the incipient ISIS) and the brutalities in Guantánamo, what do you think can be hidden in those kilometres of digitised US government archives?

The citizen has ceased to be passive and is no longer fooled by these “analysts” or the “analyses” of the publishing houses in the service of the Think Tanks. Much less do they swallow the information of media that are subordinated to large conglomerates such as VIACOM or Disney. Today, their critical and acute sense is the protagonist and is in turn the decisive factor in stopping the warmongering madness that has driven Washington from 2001 to the present.

With the fall of the USSR in 1991, its military apparatus known as the "Warsaw Pact" was dismantled and NATO should have followed suit, but what happened?  It was simply a matter of maintaining the business that this organisation represented for the geopolitical interests of Washington, its most obsequious European allies and, of course, for the millions of government budgets earmarked not only for arms contracts, but also for maintaining thousands of administrative jobs that were not needed at the time.

Just look at what is brewing in the Asia-Pacific. Even if Brussels denies that NATO has strategic interests in the region, we all know that there are actors (such as Singapore and Australia) that are to some extent the gateway in the wet dreams of neo-conservative psychopaths to face a longed-for conflagration against China and North Korea. The Australian government, or rather politicians subservient to US ideology, are part of this game, which is why Canberra has committed several budgets over the next decade to fund arms contracts for the navy. And who do they think the contractors are?

It is clear that every step our governments take is backwards and for the worse, and will end up leading us into an abyss.

Why do you think NATO continues to exist? It is clearly not for global security as Brussels and Washington have been trying to argue. It is the tool with which politicians with the fervent support of the military in the Pentagon can continue to create the conditions for them to be indispensable. Do you have problems of insecurity, terrorism or insurgency? That's where we are! But what if there are no such problems? If Washington sees an interest in the existence of such conditions in a given country, don't worry, they will soon appear.

The war in Ukraine grew out of this sinister logic, but these same interests -accustomed to getting their own way- have stumbled over an impossible stone and that stone is Russia and a growing awareness in public opinion, especially in Europeans who are informed and aware of what the war has brought to their own lives and what it will bring to their existence if the US continues to insist on provoking a nuclear holocaust.