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Finding The Right Words On Gaza
Wang Yi, the foreign minister of China, has found the right words to describe the ongoing genocide in Gaza:
Chinese foreign minister calls war in Gaza a 'disgrace for civilisation' – AFP / Le Monde, Mar 3 2023
China's Foreign Minister Wang Yi on Thursday, March 7, called Israel's war in Gaza a "disgrace for civilization" and reiterated Beijing's calls for an "immediate ceasefire."
"It is a tragedy for humankind and a disgrace for civilization that today, in the 21st century, this humanitarian disaster cannot be stopped," Wang told journalists at a press conference.
A disgrace for civilization is also anyone, starting with Joe Biden, who supports the slaughter of the people of Gaza.
Why are ISIS like fanatics like this guy allowed to have any public function or say?
Head of Yeshiva Seder in Jaffa: According to the Halakhic Principle-Kill everyone in Gaza, even babies – ynet.co.il, Mar 8 2024 (machine translation)
The head of the Seder yeshiva in Jaffa, whose students serve in the IDF after their studies there, said at a conference of Seder yeshiva held yesterday (Thursday) that according to the halakhic principle, all residents of Gaza should be killed. When asked specifically about the elderly and babies, he replied: "Same thing."
…
"It's either you – or them," Rabbi Maley added. "No soul shall live on the basis of 'Bring to kill you – bring to kill you'. Not just the 14-year-old, 16–year-old, 20-year-old, 30-year-old man holding up arms – but the future generation as well. And also for those who produce the future generation. Because there really is no difference.
A disgrace for civilization. Indeed.
Palestine Open Thread 2024-072
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The current open thread for other issues is here.
Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.
Ukraine Open Thread 2024-071
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The current open thread for other issues is here.
Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2024-070
News & views (not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine) …
Ukraine SitRep: The Slow Grind – New Bombs – Calling For Talks
Stephen Bryan continues with his valuable summaries of the situation in Ukraine:
A number of counterattacks by the Ukrainians, in some cases using reserve forces, have taken place along the line of contact. While reports are not yet complete, it appears that all the Ukrainian attempts to roll back Russian gains have failed, with the possible exception of Robotyne.
Meanwhile the Russians have either taken or will soon take a number of villages including Ivaniska, Bilohorivka, Berdichev, Pobjeda and Novomikhailovka.
Since February 28, the Russians have destroyed three Abrams tanks. The most recent was knocked out on March 4 by an anti-tank missile, probably a Russian Kornet. The first two Abramses were hit by low-cost Russian drones carrying RPG-7 warheads.
The Russian forces continue with their slow grind all over the front. Ukrainian losses have been increasing. Over the last two weeks the reported daily number of killed and wounded more often exceeded 1,000 than not.
The slow grind, and no big arrow movements, is a carefully calculated way of operation. As one observer remarked:
The longer this [slow grind] goes on the greater the chances of the Euros doing something stupid. Or your neocons. We’re already directly responsible for the shelling of a nuclear power station and it was only Shoigu phoning around the Foreign Ministers that put paid to the Ukrainians fooling around with dirty bombs.
So it’s a balance. The Russians move too fast and there’s a danger they’ll set the psychos in Washington and Berlin/Brussels/Westminster off. Too slow and it gives the psychos more scope for such tricks. All one can do is hope the Russians get the balance right.
Today's report by the Russian Ministry of Defense mentioned an unusual aerial target:
Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep: The Slow Grind – New Bombs – Calling For Talks
Palestine Open Thread 2024-069
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The current open thread for other issues is here.
Please stick to the topic. Contribute facts. Do not attack other commentators.
Ukraine – Cookie Monster Retires
A big fat rat is leaving the ship.
One might interpret this as the State Department's admittance of defeat in the U.S. war against Russia in Ukraine:
On the Retirement of Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland – Anthony Blinken / State Department, Mar 5 2024
Victoria Nuland has let me know that she intends to step down in the coming weeks as Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs – a role in which she has personified President Biden’s commitment to put diplomacy back at the center of our foreign policy and revitalize America’s global leadership at a crucial time for our nation and the world.
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[I]t’s Toria’s leadership on Ukraine that diplomats and students of foreign policy will study for years to come. Her efforts have been indispensable to confronting Putin’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, marshaling a global coalition to ensure his strategic failure, and helping Ukraine work toward the day when it will be able to stand strongly on its own feet – democratically, economically, and militarily.
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President Biden and I have asked our Under Secretary for Management John Bass to serve as Acting Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs until Toria’s replacement is confirmed.
Victoria Nuland, a member of the neo-conservative Kagan clan, is only 62 years old – too young to retire regularly.
She will be remembered for handing out cookies to anti-government demonstrators in Ukraine and for installing the 2014 coup regime.
That has been her main project in the State Department. But the 2014 Maidan putsch that turn the Ukraine into a battering ram against Russia, has ended in a complete failure.
bigger
Neither was Russia 'weakened' by the war nor has Ukraine any perspective to survive but as some Russian controlled land-locked backwater country in Europe's east.
Given that billions were spent on Ukraine with little controls and nothing to show for Nuland, and her family, have certainly made a bit on the side. One wonders if any of the ongoing and coming investigations into the black hole Ukraine will leave them unscarred.
As even Guardian commentators are now waking up to the mess they helped create it is high time for European politicians to also finally accept this reality:
Western Europe has no conceivable interest in escalating the Ukraine war through a long-range missile exchange. While it should sustain its logistical support for Ukrainian forces, it has no strategic interest in Kyiv’s desire to drive Russia out of the majority Russian-speaking areas of Crimea or Donbas. It has every interest in assiduously seeking an early settlement and starting the rebuilding of Ukraine.
As for the west’s “soft power” sanctions on Russia, they have failed miserably, disrupting the global trading economy in the process. Sanctions may be beloved of western diplomats and thinktanks. They may even hurt someone – not least Britain’s energy users – but they have not devastated the Russian economy or changed Putin’s mind. This year Russia’s growth rate is expected to exceed Britain’s.
The crass ineptitude of a quarter of a century of western military interventions should have taught us some lessons. Apparently not.
Supreme Court Puts States Into Their Place
This is a good decision:
States can’t remove Trump from ballot, Supreme Court says – Politico, Mar 4 2024
States have no authority to remove Donald Trump from the 2024 presidential ballot, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously Monday, short-circuiting efforts by his detractors to declare him disqualified over his role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.
The justices did not weigh in on the fraught question of whether Trump engaged in an insurrection by attempting to subvert the 2020 election results or stoking the violence on Jan. 6. But the high court ruled in an unsigned opinion that only Congress, not the states, can disqualify a presidential candidate under the Constitution’s “insurrection clause.”
Having the states judge over the legitimacy of a candidate would create a chaos in which federal elections would become a states against states court race, not a way to find some common representative.
It is good to see that librul and conservative judges agreed on that.
The judgment will hopefully help to tone down the shrill voices of the democratic commentators about Donald Trump.
One may not like him, ore even despise him, but he is a legitimate choice on the ballot.
Palestine Open Thread 2024-068
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 2024-067
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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 2024-066
Last week's post on Moon of Alabama:
Palestine:
- February 26 – Aaron Burned Himself To Make Us Look At Gaza
- February 29 – Zionists Use Food-Baits To Attract And Kill Starving Civilians
- March 2 – Prediction: Israel Will Bomb Gazans At Drop Sites For U.S. Aid
Related:
– Burnt Offerings – Aaron Bushnell and the age of immolation – N+1, Feb 29 2024
– Aaron Bushnell’s Death Can’t Rightly Be Called An Act Of Suicide – Caitlin Johnstone, Mar 3 2024
– The Shoah after Gaza – Pankaj Mishra / LRB, Mar 7 2024
– Redemption through genocide – Barnett Rubin / Mondoweiss, Mar 2 2024
– Season 6, Episode 15: Devastation in Gaza with Craig Murray & Roger Waters (Audio) – Assange Count Down Of Freedom
– How Israel defied ICJ provisional measures, one month on – MEE, Mar 2 2024
– ‘Israeli violence is legitimized and Palestinian counter-violence is delegitimized’ – FAIR, Mar 1 2024
– First it was Corbyn. Now the whole British public is being smeared over Gaza – Jonathan Cook / MEE, Mar 1 2024
– Dropping aid from planes is expensive and inefficient. Why do it? – Washington Post, Mar 2 2024
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Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis – 2:42 UTC · Mar 3, 2024
So, the US has airdropped 0.02 meals per Gazan. Better than nothing? Maybe, if they were airdropped by an aid agency. But, a GROSS DISGRACE when airdropped by the same military that gives Israel the gigantic bombs that killed 30k of them.
Even Obama's butcher of Syria is miffed:
Robert Ford @fordrs58 – 19:36 UTC · Mar 1, 2024
i've seen Israel humiliate previous US administrations, but aside from murderous 1967 Israeli airstrike against US navy ship Liberty, now forcing USA to do airdrops of aid to Gaza as if USA is no better than Egypt & Jordan is Israel's worst humiliation of USA i've ever seen.
i should add that USA will do humanitarian aid airdrops to Gazans if the Israeli Air Force graciously agrees not to shoot down the American planes over Gaza.
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Ukraine:
Russia:
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2024-066
Ukraine SitRep: Retreat Continues For Lack Of Defense Lines
On February 17, after Ukrainian units in Avdeevka had started to leave their position, the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian army, General Syrski, announced a retreat to new defense lines:
"Based on the operational situation around Avdiivka, in order to avoid encirclement and preserve the lives and health of the military, I decided to withdraw our units from the city and move to defense on more favorable lines," Syrskyi said.
He emphasized that Ukrainian soldiers had fulfilled their duty with dignity, did their best to destroy the best Russian military units and inflicted significant losses in manpower and equipment on the enemy.
"The lives of servicemen are the highest value. We will take back Avdiivka anyway," the Chief added.
As some had already predicted it turned out that the "more favorable lines" Syrski promoted did not exist.
On February 17, the same day Syrski announced the retreat, Strana already reported on the lack of new defense lines (machine translation):
Ukrainian photographers Konstantin and Vlada Liberov, who document the war, wonder around which Ukrainian city, next after Avdiivka, the Russians will try to push through the defense of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
They report this in their Instagram.
"So what is the next "fortetsia" – Pokrovsk? Or just Konstantinovka?", – write Liberov, criticizing the command of the Armed Forces of Ukraine because of the lack of a second line of defense in Avdiivka.
"Where is the second line of defense? If you use the Deepstate map, "claws" around the city began to form almost a year ago. It certainly wasn't a surprise. So where's the second line of defense?" The Liberovs ask themselves.
"While the military was waiting for weapons for the Zaporozhye counteroffensive, the enemy passed through the fields, concreted trenches, built entire underground cities… Why didn't we do the same in Avdiivka? Moreover, a blind defense, the purpose of which is to deplete the enemy's forces, is like our official strategy.
Others confirmed the observation (machine translation):
Cont. reading: Ukraine SitRep: Retreat Continues For Lack Of Defense Lines
Prediction: Israel Will Bomb Gazans At Drop Sites For U.S. Aid
Is anyone in the White House understanding how destructive its position towards Israel is for the global reputation and standing of the United States?
The mighty U.S. is demonstrating that it is a hapless and helpless giant unable to control its west-Asian client state.
Biden authorizes aid drops into Gaza, as hostage deal remains in limbo – Washington Post, Mar 1 2024
President Biden on Friday authorized U.S. military airdrops of humanitarian aid to Gaza, reflecting his growing frustration with Israel’s military operations, the dire situation of more than 2 million Palestinians under siege inside the enclave and the failure of the United States and its negotiating partners to forge a deal between Israel and Hamas to stop the fighting.
In addition to the airdrops, which officials said would begin within days, “we’re going to insist that Israel facilitate more trucks and more routes to get more and more people the help they need,” Biden told reporters gathered in the White House for his meeting with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.
“No excuses, because the truth is aid flowing to Gaza is nowhere nearly enough,” he said. “Innocent lives are on the line and children’s’ lives are on the line. … I won’t stand by, we won’t let up and we’re trying to pull out every stop we can to get more assistance in.”
How about finally stopping all aid – weapons, munitions, money, diplomatic cover – for Israel? The White House is not even considering that.
What will Israel do if and when the U.S. is dropping aid over Gaza?
It is obvious. Israel will bomb the drop sites as soon as starving Palestinians in Gaza come near to them.
As I have asserted before:
The Zionist occupation forces send food into the northern Gaza strip to then kill starving Palestinians who try to collect it.
Some readers might have thought that this was a claim too strong to make. It was not and is not as it is exactly what has been and is happening day after day:
Muhammad Shehada @muhammadshehad2 – 19:43 UTC · Mar 1, 2024
Before yesterday's "Flour Massacre", the IDF has been shooting indiscriminately for WEEKS at starved Gazans awaiting aid trucks at the exact same spot, virtually every single day!
A 🧵of some of these incidents:
Feb 28: IDF soldiers take potshots at famished desperate Gazans
Cont. reading: Prediction: Israel Will Bomb Gazans At Drop Sites For U.S. Aid
Lloyd Austin Doubts Protective Value Of NATO
Newsweek is lying with this headline:
NATO Will Be Drawn Into War With Russia if Ukraine Loses: Lloyd Austin
It wording leaves out the (faulty) reasoning Austin attempts to apply:
Speaking at a Republican-led House Armed Services Committee hearing to discuss his recent absence while hospitalized for complications from prostate cancer surgery, Austin predicted that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not "stop" if Moscow wins the war in Ukraine.
…
"We know that if Putin is successful here, he will not stop," Austin said. "He will continue to take more aggressive action in the region. And other leaders around the world, other autocrats, will look at this and they'll be encouraged by the fact that this happened and we failed to support a democracy."
There is however no evidence, as in zero, that Russia is interested in taking even the whole of Ukraine or, moreover, anything beyond that.
Austin's logic is also faulty with regards to a different aspect.
The original claim was and is that Ukraine should enter NATO because that would protect it from being attacked by Russia.
But if Russia would, as Austin claims, attack the Baltics, i.e.beyond Ukraine, it would attack NATO member states. That claim thus puts the whole theory of a protective value of a NATO membership into question.
Meanwhile the Wall Street Journal has published parts of the draft peace deal that had been negotiated in spring 2022 between Ukraine and Russia:
Document From 2022 Reveals Putin’s Punishing Terms for Peace (also here)
Draft peace deal drawn up shortly after Russia’s invasion shows Ukraine was confronted with becoming a neutered state
The agreement was not punishing, but according to Ukrainian sources, very much in favor of Ukraine. It would have been kept as a wholesome sovereign state and could even become a member of the EU. The only restriction being to not join NATO and to have some limits on the size of its armed forces. Those conditions were much better than anything Ukraine will be able to achieve in any future negotiations.
The results of those will look much different:
Cont. reading: Lloyd Austin Doubts Protective Value Of NATO
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