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The MoA Week In Review – (Not Ukraine) OT 2023-97
Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Sudan:
Nord Stream:
Use as open (not Ukraine related) thread …
I’m quite surprised to see those few voices here talking about Kennedy as if the messenger were important, in contrast to the vastness of the message he carries.
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. speaks in this short clip about the meaning of his father and uncle, and how they both knew that that were in a high-stakes game, and that, as veterans of combat in war, they both believed that there were objectives that were higher than life, that were worth the price of death:
Robert F. Kennedy Jr. Reflects On The Assassination Of JFK & RFK
Kennedy, the younger, looks to these men and knows that he is a Kennedy, and perhaps the greatest honor of this is not in the living as a Kennedy but in the dying as a Kennedy.
And so, compelled by honor and an ethos of fair play for all humanity, Bobby Junior now steps forward, offering his life, if that’s what it takes, to present a message.
They may kill the messenger, but what mattered only, and ever, was his message.
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Of course, they can’t kill him. That would make the message obvious even to the brainwashed. That could be the final straw in many ways. They know this. Kennedy knows this.
They’ll wash him out in the primaries. And the Democratic Party will reveal itself in all its craven ugliness and detestable nature for the can of worms that it is, while the puppet alternative to RFK is ushered in.
And Kennedy knows this. He presents himself as a Democrat because he represents what that party used to stand for, in an earlier day. He reminds the party, and the country and the world, that one person still exists who believes in those earlier principles.
It is the ultimate shaming of the Democratic Party, and they will do it to themselves, over his sacrificial appearance in the fray.
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Kennedy is the sacrifice, and he offers himself as the sacrifice, no matter who takes him down, no matter what stops him, no matter how they manage to shackle him.
He has lived a life of purpose and substance. In just the last 2-3 years he has given us the truth of Fauci and the AIDS epidemic, as the playbook for the Covid episode, and he has given us Turtles All The Way Down, as the definitive reference story of vaccines. And all before this, he fought many a fight and won several – all to the benefit of the otherwise un-championed people of his country, and the world.
Now he does a thing that was called for in the 1960s, by Mario Savio, that there comes a time when you must put your body on the gears of the machine, to stop the machine:
Mario Savio – Rage Against the Machine
And so, Robert Kennedy, man of honor, heeds the call, and answers.
Posted by: Grieved | Apr 25 2023 0:14 utc | 148
Today’s Alastair Crooke is, “Europe Has Lost Its Guiding Myth”, which I thought a curious title since so many myths permeate Europe. Of course, Crooke’s referring to the Greek and Roman myths, the latter being wholly contrived as some of us know. Also as some of us know, myths and religions are formulated to provide answers to humans for unexplainable phenomena. Some, like the Roman myth The Aeneid, however, are manufactured for contemporary political reasons which are then abused in the pursuit of power, like the Outlaw US Empire’s Manifest Destiny, and the current myth of the “rules based world system.” After showing the current NATO outlook to be delusional, Crooke warms to his topic theorug this citation:
Historian Paul Veyne, a towering figure in the history of the ancient Roman world, once posed the question: Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths? All societies, he wrote, contrive to some notional distinction between ‘truth’ and ‘falsity’, but in the end, according to him, this too, is just another ‘fishbowl’, the one we happen to inhabit, and it is in no way superior, as a matter of epistemology, to the fishbowl in which ancient Greeks lived and made sense of their world, in no small part through myths and stories about the gods. [Emphasis Original]
After further deliberation, Crooke is able to make his next two important points:
The implication of Veyne’s analysis is that Rome is false as a comparison to support the ‘myth’ of the inevitability of U.S. primacy: The ‘mythical’ neo-con approach of course is instrumentalised to convince us all that U.S. primacy is ordained (by the gods?), and that Russia is low hanging fruit – a fragile rotten structure that easily can be toppled.
Do then the neo-cons believe their own myths? Well, ‘yes’ and ‘no’. ‘Yes’, in that the neo-cons are a group of people who come to share a common view (i.e. Russia as fragile and fissiparous), often proposed by a few ideologues deemed to be credentiallised. It is a view however, not based in reality. These adherents may be convinced intellectually that their view is right, but their belief cannot be tested in a way which could confirm it beyond doubt. It is simply based on a picture of the world as they imagine it to be, or more to the point, as they would like it to be.
Yes, the neo-cons believe their myths because they seem to work. Just look around. As the means of communication have become decentralized, digitized and algorithmic, contemporary culture has forced individuals into herds. There is no standing apart from this discourse; there is no thinking outside of the Tik-Toc feed; it gives rise to the formation of a pseudo-reality, severed from the World, and generated for wider ideological ends [The Narrative]. [Emphasis Original]
And finally we get to the grand Rovian fallacy of being capable of making your own reality against the actual reality:
The neo-con myth of Russia on the cusp of implosion makes no sense. But it is a picture of the world as the neo-cons imagine it to be, or more to the point, would like it to be. The shortcomings of the Ukrainian forces as detailed in (their own American) Intel leaks: They pretend not to notice – convinced, as Foreign Policy explains, that once the expected Ukrainian offensive launches, if “the Russian soldiers panic, causing paralysis among the Russian leadership … then the counter-offensive will be successful”. [Emphasis Original]
The more such delusional analysis is pursued, the more functional psychopathy will be exhibited, and the less normal it becomes. In short, it descends into collective delusion – if it hasn’t already. [My Emphasis]
Crooke then asks if an already divided Europe that’s cracking even further will attack China and why–has it become as delusional as the Neocons? Well, clearly there are some who are, but many more aren’t–those political/industrial players from Germany and France who want their nations to survive the EU’s Eurofascism and that of the Four Fanatics: Poland, and the three Baltics.
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 25 2023 1:10 utc | 150
Lavrov isn’t allowing his time at the UN to be unproductive. He was on a roll again today on the issue of Occupied Palestine, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s remarks at an open meeting of the UN Security Council on the situation in the Middle East, including the Palestinian question, New York, April 25, 2023:
Dear colleagues,
Ladies and gentlemen,
The Middle East today is undergoing a profound transformation, which is unfolding in a very contradictory way. More than ever, it is necessary to improve relations between the states of the region, stabilize conflict zones and step up efforts to resolve them politically and diplomatically based on the principles of the UN Charter.
Our position is set out in the new Concept of Russia’s Foreign Policy. We proceed from the priority of forming a stable and comprehensive architecture of stability and cooperation in the Middle East, as well as promoting interreligious and intercultural dialogue. We intend to develop active cooperation with all countries of the region both bilaterally and through our contacts with the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation, the League of Arab States and the Cooperation Council for the Arab States of the Persian Gulf. We see a growing interest in Russia’s initiative to ensure collective security with the participation of all the coastal Gulf countries, both the Arabs and Iran, with the involvement of the “outer circle” of influential states.
We welcome the positive changes that until recently seemed difficult to achieve. I am referring, first of all, to the restoration of relations between Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Republic of Iran through the mediation of the People’s Republic of China, practical plans for Syria’s return to the “Arab family” (for which we have been working for a long time), and the normalization between Damascus and Ankara that began with Russian assistance using the advantages of the Astana format. Largely thanks to the proactive actions of Riyadh, steps have been outlined to accelerate the settlement of the bloody conflict in Yemen.
At the same time, we note with deep regret and concern that the Palestinian problem remains behind the positive changes. In initiating today’s meeting, we set ourselves the task of increasing attention to the unprecedented increase in tension and violence in the Arab-Israeli conflict zone. We believe that it is more important than ever to reaffirm the “common denominators” of the Middle East settlement, enshrined in the decisions of the Security Council and the General Assembly, to stop the threat of another armed confrontation and to clear the political horizon for the resumption of the peace process.
Events in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, East Jerusalem and the line of separation between Israel, Lebanon and Syria have raised tensions to extremely dangerous levels. Since the beginning of the year, more than 100 Palestinians have died as a result of military raids in Jenin, Jericho, Nablus, Huwar, clashes in connection with the violation of the status of the Holy Places, and thousands of wounded. The number of casualties among Israelis is also growing. What the representative of that country has just said.
The situation is exacerbated by Israeli strikes on Syria (at least 10 attacks in 2023), including the shelling of Aleppo airport, through which humanitarian aid is delivered to victims of the devastating earthquake on February 6 this year.
The main reason for the regular outbreaks of violence between Palestinians and Israel remains unilateral steps to create irreversible facts “on the ground” and the choice in favor of forceful methods of “protecting” these “facts”. It is impossible to ignore the record pace of construction of settlements with the legalization of outposts retroactively, the expropriation of land, the demolition of houses, arbitrary arrests. Equally, it is unacceptable to turn a blind eye to the growing radicalization of the “Palestinian street” and the deepening of the split between the main Palestinian parties, fraught with violent confrontation.
In such conditions, we consider it important to remove and prevent the symptoms of a worsening situation. We see it as an absolute imperative that all the leading players confirm that there is no alternative to a two-state solution that meets the right of the Palestinians to their own independent state with East Jerusalem as its capital and the right of the Israelis to peaceful and secure coexistence with their neighbours and in the region as a whole. Only a return to direct negotiations on all final status issues will be able to break the vicious circle of violence and radicalization and restore mutual trust.
However, instead of helping to restore the political horizon, the United States and the European Union continue their destructive attempts to replace the real world with some kind of economic half-measures and promote Arab-Israeli normalization, bypassing a just solution to the Palestinian problem and bypassing the Arab Peace Initiative. The Middle East Quartet of international mediators fell victim to such actions.
Now Washington claims to be the sole sponsor of the Middle East peace process, not embarrassed by the fact that it has long lost the neutrality and impartiality inherent in an honest broker, especially after the well-known decisions of the Trump administration, which directly contradict UN Security Council resolutions and which the Biden administration has not canceled.
The fact of non-compliance with Security Council resolutions – and not only on the Middle East settlement – deserves special mention, and in this connection. Not so long ago, the United States and its allies threw all their efforts to bring this issue to the debate in the UN General Assembly every time a veto was used on any issue in the Security Council. We did not object, although the idea was openly aimed at Russia. We have nothing to hide: when we use the veto, we clearly explain the reasons. We do not hesitate to repeat our arguments in the General Assembly.
But here’s the thing: the veto is an inalienable right, a full-fledged part of the mechanisms enshrined in the UN Charter. The use of the veto does not contain any violations.
Failure to comply with Security Council resolutions is a violation of the Charter. Namely, Article 25 of the Charter, which requires everyone to comply with the decisions of the Security Council. Maybe it’s time for those who openly bury the adopted resolutions to report to the General Assembly? Among the resolutions sabotaged by the West are the decisions on Palestine, the Golan Heights, Western Sahara, the Kosovo settlement, the Iranian nuclear programme and, of course, the Minsk agreements on Ukraine, which we discussed in detail yesterday.
Americans and Europeans are rudely speculating on the Ukrainian issue, trying to blackmail and threaten to pull developing countries to their side and thereby divert their attention from the problems of the Middle East and other regions of the Global South. Say, now we will defeat Russia, and everything will work out by itself. Thus, the crises in which developing countries have long been interested in resolving fall victim to the double standards and colonial instincts of the West, which is obsessed with selfish interests to dictate its demands to the whole world, ignoring the culture and traditions of other peoples, and mocking international law.
Let me quote an excerpt from US Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s interview with Walter Blitzer on February 8, 2021. Answering a question about the Golan Heights, the Secretary of State said that leaving aside the legal aspects of this issue, from a practical point of view, the Golan is very important for Israel’s security. As long as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is in power in Syria, as long as Iran is present in Syria, and there are militia groups supported by Iran, the Bashar al-Assad regime itself – all this poses a serious threat to Israel’s security, and from a practical point of view, I think that control over the Golan in this situation is still of great importance for Israel’s security. Legal issues are something else.
I quoted the statement of Antony Blinken, who twice said: “leave aside the legal aspects of this issue” and “legal issues are something else.” Here is an example of how resolutions are implemented and how the United States positions itself in our Organization in general.
In such circumstances, the role of the UN as a coordinator of multilateral diplomacy is especially in demand. We call on the leadership of the Secretariat and the Secretary-General personally to pay increased attention to compliance with the decisions of the Security Council, especially those related to the Middle East settlement. We would also like to see the Secretary-General more actively discharge his duties as moderator of the Quartet without waiting for “permission”.
Recently, the Secretary General proactively announced the convening of a meeting in early May of a meeting on Afghanistan. We support this. But why not just as proactively announce the convening of a meeting of the Quartet? This is in his prerogatives.
At the same time, we call on Israelis and Palestinians to cease all unilateral actions that jeopardize the possibility of implementing the two-state formula, including terrorist and other armed attacks, incitement to aggression, disproportionate use of force by anyone, illegal actions in connection with the settlement issue, attempts to change the status quo of Jerusalem.
We wish the Palestinian movements to rise above party ambitions and unite on the political platform of the Palestine Liberation Organization. That will make it possible to improve the socio-economic situation, strengthen administrative institutions and be ready to engage in dialogue with Israel on behalf of the entire Palestinian people. We know that our friends from Egypt, Jordan, Algeria and other colleagues are also working towards restoring Palestinian unity. We are also making efforts in this direction. We will continue them.
I would like to note the special role of Saudi Arabia as the author of the Arab Peace Initiative, the role of Jordan in the custody of the holy sites of Jerusalem, the role of the League of Arab States and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation. We attach absolute importance to the need to do everything possible to continue the effective work of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.
Russia will continue to do everything possible to contribute to the stabilization of the Middle East and North Africa, to advance the Middle East settlement process together with the countries of the region and in coordination with other conscientious mediators. As always, we are open to discussing relevant initiatives as part of collective work at the UN.
Posted by: karlof1 | Apr 25 2023 18:58 utc | 184
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