Ukraine Open Thread 2023-288

Only for news & views directly related to the war in Ukraine.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

On Gaza Biden Has To Climb Down More Than He Already Has

Shortly after Hamas attacked Israel on October 7 the Biden administration argued for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza:

US 'actively working' to establish safe corridor for Gaza civilians: White House - Yeni Safak - Oct 12, 2023

The US is in active talks with Israel and Egypt to establish "safe passage" corridors for civilians in Gaza to flee ongoing Israeli airstrikes, the White House said Wednesday amid an expected ground offensive in the besieged enclave.

"We're actively discussing this with our Israeli and our Egyptian counterparts, we support safe passions for civilians. Civilians are not to blame for what Hamas has done. They didn't do anything wrong," National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby told reporters at the White House.

"We are actively working on this with Egyptian and our Israeli counterparts. Civilians are protected under the laws of armed conflict, and they should be given every opportunity to avoid the fighting," he added.

By October 29 Biden was forced to call off those plans.

President Biden @POTUS - 21:23 UTC · Oct 29, 2023

I also spoke with President Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi to share my appreciation for Egypt facilitating the delivery of humanitarian assistance to Gaza.

We reaffirmed our commitment to work together and discussed the importance of protecting civilian lives, respect for international humanitarian law, and ensuring that Palestinians in Gaza are not displaced to Egypt or any other nation.

The U.S. president then started to call for a 'pause' in the fighting. This was seen a rejection of a longer term ceasefire as was demanded by other authorities.

There are now signs that he had to give in to pressure to dump that line too:

Joe Biden @JoeBiden - 22:00 UTC · Nov 28, 2023

Hamas unleashed a terrorist attack because they fear nothing more than Israelis and Palestinians living side by side in peace.

To continue down the path of terror, violence, killing, and war is to give Hamas what they seek.

We can’t do that.

There are two reasons for this retreat. The first is that Hamas has, arguably, won the war:

Elijah J. Magnier 🇪🇺 @ejmalrai - 5:45 UTC · Nov 29, 2023

This is how I read it: @Netanyahu is in trouble and can't achieve his objectives. The army is incapable of controlling Gaza without thousands of body bags on both sides.

Biden is bringing the ladder. End of Gaza MILITARY war. Reconstruction war starts.

It is time for Netanyahoo to climb down just as Biden himself has already done.

The second reason for Biden's turn around is the outrage within the Democratic party about his one sided take on the issue:

Cont. reading: On Gaza Biden Has To Climb Down More Than He Already Has

Palestine Open Thread 2023-287

Only for news & views directly related to the war in Palestine.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

Ukraine SitRep: High Losses, Political Infighting, Blocked Borders

How many losses did the Ukrainian army have in its war against Russia.

We, so far, did not have any answer to that. The Ukrainian military has given no realistic account of its own losses while its claims of Russian losses are obviously exaggerated.

The Russia military is likewise giving no numbers for its own losses. But its daily reports give estimates of Ukrainian ones. These are currently around 650 per day plus/minus 200 depending on the intensity of the fighting.

Some western observers, foremost retired Colonel Macgregor, say that Ukraine's unrecoverable losses have exceeded 400,000 men. But he does not name his sources.

Now a new chapter in the war between the Ukrainian president Zelenski and the Commander in Chief of the Ukrainian army, General Zaluzny, may have given us an answer. Yesterday this news item found its way to the Strana news site (machine translation):

Zaluzhny didn't provide the plan of war-2024 and has to leave-the people's Deputy from "Servants of the people"

The commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valery Zaluzhny, does not have a war plan for 2024, and therefore must resign.

This was stated by Deputy head of the Verkhovna Rada Committee on National Security and Defense, MP from Servant of the People Mariana Bezuglaya on her Facebook page, referring to a "non-public discussion" with the military.

"Yes, the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine could not provide a plan for 2024. Neither big nor small, neither asymmetrical nor symmetrical. The military simply said that they need to take at least 20 thousand citizens a month, " she writes.

Zaluzny has no plans for 2024 because there is nothing he can do about the upcoming defeat of the Ukrainian army.

Every time he urges to stop defending positions that can not be held, like Bakhmut and Avdeevka, the political leadership tells him use all reserves and to keep holding. Every time he urges to build strong defense lines and to retreat to them he gets overruled. There is thereby nothing, except one number, that he can plan for.

That number is the one of the irretrievable losses of the Ukrainian army is experiencing. Zaluzny needs 20,000 new men per month to replace the losses and to keep his army going.

Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep: High Losses, Political Infighting, Blocked Borders

Palestine Open Thread 2023-286

Only for news & views directly related to the war in Palestine.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

Ukraine Open Thread 2023-285

Only for news & views directly related to the war in Ukraine.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

The MoA Week In Review - OT 2023-284

Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:

Ukraine:

• November 20 - A Look At Others' Notes On Ukraine
• November 25 - Its Official - U.S. & UK Pressed Ukraine To Reject Peace Deal With Russia
  Related:
  - Arkhamia interview (video) - 1+1 Ukraine
  - Head of Ukraine's leading party claims Russia proposed "peace" in exchange for neutrality - Pravda.ua
  - NATO General Harald Kujat‘s interview and ‘Bild’ exposé on suing for peace - Gilbert Doctorow
  - Media Holocaust Revisionism After Canada’s Standing Ovation for an SS Vet - FAIR
  - Coup Poker: Ukraine’s Deteriorating Civil-Military Relations - Gordon Hahn
  - Major Avdeevka Breakthroughs as NATO Plans Forever War - Simplicius
  - Polish truckers blocking Ukraine military cargos – media - RT

Palestine:

• November 21 - There Are Certain Things I Can Not Write About
• November 22 - U.S. Is Helping Israel To Commit And Hide War Crimes
  Related:
  - Was October 7th a Hamas or Israeli massacre? - The Cradle
  - Israeli October 7 posterchild was killed by Israeli tank, eyewitnesses reveal - Grayzone
  - 1977 U.S. Dept of Justice report titled: Jewish-Zionist Terrorism & the Establishment of Israel - U.S. Dep. of Justice
  - Israel Doesn't Even Try To Hide Its Genocide On The Palestinians | Ambassador Chas Freeman (video) - Neutrality Studies
  
  - 57 and counting - Journalist casualties in the Israel-Gaza war - CPJ
  - Biden endorses Israel’s war to eliminate Gaza - Aaron Maté
  - CNN anchor claims Gaza is in Israel - Electronic Intifada
  - Hamas has won the war! - Gilbert Doctorow

Empire:

• November 24 - On 'Sub-Imperial Power' (by Arnaud Bertrand)
  Related:
  - Who are the Five Eyes loyal to? - Pearls and Irritation
  - The Architects of the Iraq War: Where Are They Now? - Intercept
  - The Harvard Law Review Refused to Run This Piece About Genocide in Gaza - The Nation
  - The Neocon's Biggest Defeat Since Vietnam | Ambassador Chas Freeman (video) - Neutrality Studies

---
Other issues:

Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review - OT 2023-284

Palestine Open Thread 2023-283

Only for news & views directly related to the war in Palestine.

The current open thread for other issues is here.

Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.

Its Official - U.S. & UK Pressed Ukraine To Reject Peace Deal With Russia

We already know that Ukraine, in early April 2022, rejected to make peace with Russia. We know this from talks by the former prime minister of Israel Naftali Bennet, from the former Turkish foreign minister, from former chancellor of Germany Gerhard Schroeder as well as from reporting from Ukraine.

But only now do we hear the same story from a Ukrainian official:

Lord Bebo @MyLordBebo - 21:45 UTC · Nov 24, 2023

🇺🇦🇷🇺🚨‼️ BOMBSHELL: Ukraine admits that Russia only wanted neutrality from them!

Russia wanted Ukraine to be neutral like Finnland was! But Ukraine was not sure if they can trust it and then Boris Johnson came and said:
-> “We will not sign anything, let’s do war!”

I knew it!
video

The video in the tweet above has English subtitles. It is part of a Ukrainian TV interview with the the leader of the Servant of the People parliament faction David Arakhamia by the journalist Natalia Moseychuk. In March and April 2022 Arkhamia had led the Ukrainian delegation at peace talks with the Russians in Belarus and Turkey.

There is video on Youtube with an announcement of the interview, but not of the interview itself.

Arnault Bertrand relays here what was said:

- He confirms that Russia’s principal goal for the war wasn’t to invade the whole of Ukraine but to force Ukraine to become a neutral country that would not be part of NATO: “[Russia] really hoped almost to the last moment that they would force us to sign such an agreement so that we would take neutrality. It was the most important thing for them. They were prepared to end the war if we agreed to, – as Finland once did, – neutrality, and committed that we would not join NATO. In fact, this was the key point. Everything else was simply rhetoric and political ‘seasoning’ about denazification, the Russian-speaking population and blah-blah-blah."

- When asked why Ukraine did not agree to this, here’s what he says: “First, in order to agree to this point, it is necessary to change the Constitution. Our path to NATO is written in the Constitution. Secondly, there was no confidence in the Russians that they would do it. This could only be done if there were security guarantees. We could not sign something, step away, everyone would relax there, and then they would [invade] even more prepared – because they had, in fact, gone in unprepared for such a resistance. Therefore, we could only explore this route when there is absolute certainty that this will not happen again. There is no such certainty. Moreover, when we returned from Istanbul, Boris Johnson came to Kyiv and said that we would not sign anything with them at all, and let's just fight.”

Strana also reports, in Russian, of the interview and comments (machine translation):

Cont. reading: Its Official - U.S. & UK Pressed Ukraine To Reject Peace Deal With Russia

On 'Sub-Imperial Power' (by Arnaud Bertrand)

by Arnaud Bertrand
(reproduced with the author's permission)

I just finished reading “Sub-Imperial Power” by Clinton Fernandes, a former Australian intelligence officer and now professor of international and political studies at the University of New South Wales.

Full disclosure, Clinton sent me the book and wrote a nice dedication on it, calling me a “public educator”, which is a nice way of saying I tweet too much 😄

But I wouldn’t write this if I didn’t really like the book, which I actually believe is essential reading if you want to understand Australian geopolitics, or are interested in geopolitics generally.

The book makes one of the best descriptions of the “rules-based international order” that I’ve read, describing in details how Australia isn’t a vassal or a client state of the U.S., like many believe, but rather a “sub-imperial power”. What this means is that Australia, as well as other “sub-imperial powers” like Israel or the UK, are essentially the henchmen of the US’s current “imperial” rule, tasked with preserving it in their respective regions. Which means that as henchmen they aren’t so much victims of an hegemonic US rule but instead feel that they derive such disproportionate benefits from it that they’re willing to go to great length to help the US preserve this rule against the actual victims, those who disproportionately lose out from the order.

One of the most interesting aspects of the book is how it departs from the theories of realism, championed by the likes of John Mearsheimer or Stephen Walt, who assert that all states - regardless of culture, religion, social hierarchy or political system - will act in the same way because they all prioritize survival and security above all else. They assert that given that maximizing power is the best way to survive in the international system, if they had the opportunity all states would seek to become hegemons like the US is today, or imperial Britain was yesterday.

Cont. reading: On 'Sub-Imperial Power' (by Arnaud Bertrand)