Palestine Open Thread 2025-085

News & views related to the war in Palestine ...

Ukraine Open Thread 2025-084

News & views related to the war in Ukraine ...

The MoA Week In Review - OT 2025-083

Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:

• Apr 14 - Palm Sunday Attacks On Sumy And Al-Ahli
  Related:
  - Zionism, the Human Parasitoid - Scott Ritter
  - After Nonviolence - The end of peaceful resistance in Palestine - Ben Ehrenreich / Harpers
  - “Poisoning ‘the Holy Land.’” - The Zionists’ environmental terrorism. - Floutist

• Apr 15 - Ukraine Confirms Sumy Strike Target - Russian Build Up For Summer Campaign
• Apr 16 - Growth Of Ukraine's Azov Units Follow Path Of Waffen-SS
• Apr 19 - Ukraine - Easter Ceasefire, Trump Bailing Out
  Related:
  - Kraken begins recruitment of foreigners - Military Land
  - As Ukraine-Russia talks founder, Trump’s attention wanders - Washington Post
  - The best thing that Trump can do now is to walk away from the Russia-Ukraine war - Gilbert Doctorow
  - Trump Administration Bolsters Putin With Hint of Abandoning Ukraine Talks (anti-Trump agitprop) - NY Times
  - Diana Panchenko: How Zelensky Dismantled Ukraine's Democracy (video) - Glenn Diesen

• Apr 18 - Survival Or Looting? What Trump's Revolution Is Really About
  Related:
  - Beyond Tariffs: What the U.S. Can Learn from China's Industrial Playbook - RAND
  - Trump Makes Presumed Empty but Loud Threat to Fire Fed Chair Powell - Naked Capitalism
  - A “Trump Deal”? Juggling War, ‘Easy War’ and Negotiation - Alastair Crooke / Conflicts Forum

• Apr 20 - Have A Bright Easter (Walk)

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Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review - OT 2025-083

Have A Bright Easter (Walk)

Easter echoes the eons old human festivity to celebrate the arrival of spring. The dark and cold days of winter are gone. The bright time of fertility has come.

Today's fertility symbols of Easter, the egg and the hare, relate to the old Germanic fertility goddess Eostre (Ostara). Another related goddess is Ishtar, a Mesopotamian representation of love, who stepped down into the underworld of death but was revived. The Christian resurrection of Jesus is probably a transformation of this older tale.

When the Christian message spread from its eastern Mediterranean origin its incorporation of old local gods and fables helped to convert the multi-theistic societies to the new monotheistic believe. The gods of the pre-Christian religions were not completely discarded but their tales were transformed to support the message the Christian preachers were spreading.

It is finally spring, the darkness has vanished and this is my favored holiday.

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Please join me, Johann van Goethe and Dr. Faust on our traditional Easter Walk:

Look from this height whereon we find us
Back to the town we have left behind us,

Where from the dark and narrow door
Forth a motley multitude pour.

They sun themselves gladly and all are gay,
They celebrate Christ's resurrection to-day.

For have not they themselves arisen?
From smoky huts and hovels and stables,
From labor's bonds and traffic's prison,
From the confinement of roofs and gables,
From many a cramping street and alley,
From churches full of the old world's night,
All have come out to the day's broad light.
...
How it hums o'er the fields and clangs from the steeple!
This is the real heaven of the people,
Both great and little are merry and gay,
I am a man, too, I can be, to-day.

Ukraine - Easter Ceasefire, Trump Bailing Out

From the Russian Ministry of Defense (machine translation):

In accordance with the decision of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, the commander of the United Group of Troops (forces), Army General Valery Gerasimov, on the eve of the Orthodox Easter holiday (Bright Resurrection of Christ), gave instructions to all commanders of groups in the special military operation zone to cease fire and [the] conduct [of] combat operations from 18 hours Moscow time on April 19 to zero hours of April 21 of the current year

The cease-fire regime is being introduced for humanitarian purposes and will be observed by the Russian Joint Group of Troops (forces), provided that it is mutually observed by the Kiev regime.

The Easter ceasefire announcement demonstrates that a general ceasefire is possible. The message is that it is not the Russian side that is preventing it.

This comes as Trump and Rubio signal that the U.S. is on the verge of halting Ukraine peace negotiations.

Trump has not been able to neutralize the neoconservatives in his surroundings. He has allowed General Kellogg, who is on the side if Ukrainians, to arrange for NATO, the Europeans and Ukraine's government to oppose the ceasefire Trump has tried to mediate. They are not ready to concede that the war is lost. Some still think there is a chance to win it.

Their aim is to keep the U.S. "in". For it to continue to provide intelligence, i.e. targeting data, to the Ukrainians. To entice Trump to deliver more money, more weapons and, if need be, more soldiers.

But Trump won't have that. He will rather walk away. Or that is at least what he is threatening to do here. It would be wise step. Otherwise it will be his war to lose.

In a year from now, during which the Europeans will waste more tens of billions, the Russian army will have crossed the Dnieper and may threaten to (again) march on Kiev.

That would probably be enough for them to finally accept reality.

Survival Or Looting? What Trump's Revolution Is Really About

Many people, including me, are still not sure what Trump's revolution - in trade, international relations and in his fight against the U.S government at large - is all about.

Trump, it seems, sees that the current path the U.S. is on, with ever increasing deficits and debt, is unsustainable. He and his people argue that the dollar as a reserve currency is doing more harm than good for the country. They point to the decrease in manufacturing as the main symptom of a larger disease.

They believe it is necessary to destroy the old system before a new, more glorious one, can arrive. They know that the process will be painful for many but hope for a better outcome on a new trajectory. (There is also a motive of personal profit.)

Alastair Crooke is alluding to all that when he writes (also here):

The Trump ‘shock’ – his ‘de-centring’ of America from serving as pivot to the post-war ‘order’ via the dollar – has triggered a deep cleavage between those who gained huge benefit from the status quo, on the one hand; and on the other, the MAGA faction who have come to regard the status quo as inimical – even an existential threat – to U.S. interests.
...
Vice-President Vance now likens the Reserve Currency to a “parasite” that has eaten away the substance of its ‘host’ – the U.S. economy – by forcing an overvalued dollar.

Just to be clear, President Trump believed there was no choice: Either he could upend the existing paradigm, at the cost of considerable pain for many of those dependent on the financialised system, or he could allow events to wend their way towards an inevitable U.S. economic collapse. Even those who understood the dilemma the U.S. faces, nonetheless have been somewhat shocked by the self-serving brazenness of him simply ‘tariffing the world’.

Trump’s actions, (as many claim), were neither ‘spur of the moment’, nor whimsical. The ‘tariff solution’ had been pre-prepared by his team over recent years, and formed an integral part to a more complex framework – one that complemented the debt-reduction and revenue effects of tariffs, by a programme to coerce the repatriation of vanished manufacturing industry back to America.

Trump’s is a gamble that may, or may not, succeed: ...

A similar argument can be found here:

Even though Trump explained the logic of the tariffs as an attempt to correct the trade imbalance between the US and the rest of the world, White House officials [(archived)] outlined the expected goals behind the tariffs in more detail. They described these goals as concentrating economic forces nationally to “push for structural changes to the global economy to rectify challenges that are difficult to overcome, including high tariffs globally, currency and tax policies, intellectual property theft, and even health and labour standards”. Ultimately, Trump aims to reshape the global economic order by prioritising America’s national interest through this wide range of tariffs.
...
Trump fully understands the consequences of his policies. America’s “aggressive unilateralism”, which started in the 1980s with Ronald Reagan, has now peaked. Trump isn’t an outlier; he embodies the genuine interests of a waning superpower, whose policies mirror the conflicting and shifting global reality he navigates. Trump’s 2nd administration is poised to instigate a major crisis and widespread devastation worldwide to prevent its inevitable downfall. Their rise to power and the ensuing actions merely reflect the profound structural and historical changes occurring in the international political economy and the global power architecture.

There are also such headlines

Trump’s in-the-know plan to demolish the US economy - Asia Times
Trump insider claims demolition plan will necessarily ‘decimate millions of investors’ while reset will bring ‘greatest wealth creation’ ever seen

I do not know if those are Trump's real intentions or if all such talk is just obfuscation to hide the immense insider dealing and looting that is coming along with it. The later might very well be its sole purpose.

As Yves Smith at Naked Capitalism sees it:

[W]e are in the midst of a revolution, one run by reactionaries trying to cement the advantaged position of the rich and further immiserate the rest of the population. I warned from the outset that the only way to make sense of the Trump policy blitz was that he and his allies intended to created a Russia-in-the-1990s level crisis so as to facilitate elite asset grabs.

She is on board with Michael Hudson in this. Hudson ...

.. explains why the seemingly novel part, the heavy use of tariffs, represents continuity of neoliberal and libertarian policies, of reducing the role of government in commercial and private life. He contends they therefor have perilous little to do with “rebuilding” America and are intended to allow the super-rich to extract even more from ordinary citizens.

Trump is not alone in doing this. There is a swarm of multi-billionaires around him who are pushing for it:

A sector of the U.S. capitalist class is now openly in control of the ideological-state apparatus in a neofascist administration in which the former neoliberal establishment is a junior partner. The object of this shift is a regressive restructuring of the United States in a permanent war posture, resulting from the decline of U.S. hegemony and the instability of U.S. capitalism, plus the need of a more concentrated capitalist class to secure more centralized control of the state.

Trump is slashing the budgets of many vital institutions and, via Elon Musk's DOGE, eliminating their means to function and to measure outcome. He is enriching himself by building a cryptocurrency empire while destroying its regulators.

While this is mostly a fight at home there is an strong international component to it. As Brian Berletic provides:

The US is preparing to subject its own population as well as those of its supposed “allies” to immense long-term economic, social, and political pain. The cost-of-living crisis in the US will only grow worse. The US hopes that it can endure economic pain and disruption at home and abroad better than the emerging multipolar world can. Multipolarism’s survival will depend on proving otherwise.

And therein lies the trouble for Trump. The looney tunes trade policy will be felt in China and elsewhere. But the pain level in the U.S. will be much higher. Other government will provide for their populations while the Trump administration has no intent do similar at home.

His tariffs against China will have similar consequences as the European sanctions on Russia. The targeted country will have no problem to handle the onslaught while the initiators will deeply hurt their own polities.

Palestine Open Thread 2025-082

News & views related to the war in Palestine ...

Ukraine Open Thread 2025-081

News & views related to the war in Ukraine ...

Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2025-080

News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine ...

Growth Of Ukraine's Azov Units Follow Path Of Waffen-SS

The rise of Nazism in Germany was accompanied by the rise of its armed militants. These were used to fight opposing political parties and militia formations. They were ruthless.

The units were later known as the Waffen-SS:

After release from prison Hitler decided that he needed a paramilitary group to protect him personally. That group should be steadfastly faithful and loyal to him alone; not least to protect him from possible SA intrigues. Therefore Hitler established a personal bodyguard in his hometown München (Munich). Initially this group numbered only ten men with one officer. It was first called "Stoßtruppe Hitler" (Shock Troops Hitler). Again the title derived from divisional assaults groups from World War I. Later it was renamed "Schutz Staffel" (SS or Protection Squad).
...
By 1932 the SS had some 30,000 men, ...
...
In March 1935 Hitler renounced the Treaty of Versailles and announced the expansion of the German Army and the formation of the SS Verfügungstruppen (SS VT or SS special purpose troops) as the core of a full military division. This unit was financed by the police budget to counter any Army fears.

After the start of the war the 'armed evil' grew further:

By 1939, four regiments (Standarten) had been organized.
...
During the following winter and spring, regiments that had fought in Poland were expanded into brigades and later divisions. ... These three divisions were to be the nucleus of the Waffen-SS in its subsequent rapid expansion.
...
At the end of 1940, the Waffen-SS numbered slightly more than 150,000 men. By June 1944, it had grown to 594,000. Intended as an elite force, the Waffen-SS evolved due to the exigencies of war from the original SS concept of a military organization imbued with Nazi ideology and loyalty to Hitler into a polyglot force of decreasing combat effectiveness.

The Waffen-SS was not part of the regular army. It had its own financial resources. It recruited and trained its own officers through Nazi youth organizations. These were 'true believers' .

There are a lot of parallels between the rise of the Waffen SS and the Ukrainian Nazi formation known as Azov.

Cont. reading: Growth Of Ukraine's Azov Units Follow Path Of Waffen-SS