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Vietnam – 50 Years Since The End Of The War
The liberation/fall of Saigon on April 30 1975 marked the end of the Vietnam War. I was in my teens in those days and had followed the war by reading, in German, various weekly magazines. It found it fascinating and abhorrent. The reporting was not pro-American. But neither was it pro-Vietnam. It in fact often failed to depict the Vietnamese side of the war.
Today Vietnam marked the 50th anniversary of the 'Day of the Liberation of the South and National Reunification' with a parade (vid).
The Trump administration, in a very childish gesture, has ordered U.S. diplomats in Vietnam not to attend the ceremonies.
The iconic picture of the emergency evacuation of the last U.S. personnel from Saigon was shot on April 29 1975.
The war in Ukraine is the first drone war – the war in Vietnam was the first helicopter war. The U.S. deployed nearly 12,000 choppers. Some 5,000 were shot down. I remember that nearly every magazine story I had read was accompanied by a picture of helicopters – flying or crashed on the ground. The late Colonel Pat Lang had a remarkable story to tell about a failed operation in Vietnam. Helicopter played a large role in it.
An early frequent commenter at Moon of Alabama, anna missed – also known as Jack Chevalier, had been a U.S. soldier in Vietnam. When we were discussing the war in Iraq he often mentioned the reality on the ground, as he had experienced it. Jack was an artist. He has died four years ago.
Years before he had sent me one of his pictures. It is an oil painting on a thick piece of raw wood with small glass pellets sprinkled into it.
notebook #1
2008
9"x 16"x 1"
oil paint and glass pellets on wood
by anna missed
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The slab with the chopper is now hanging in my living room. It is a daily reminder of the horrors of war. I myself, luckily, never had to experience them. Looking at the picture I would neither want to be (in) the helicopter nor the person on ground holding the hand up against(?) it.
War is always abhorrent. But for the Vietnamese it was necessary to wage it for the independence and unity of their country.
They paid a very high price but did win and for that I congratulate them.
The Cult That Murders Gaza
I have not written much about the war on Gaza. It is so brutal and and the Zionist behavior is so alien to me that I lack words to describe it.
I have difficulties to understand how anyone, any group of people, could set themselves so far outside of the common human realm, as I perceive it, and commit itself to starve and genocide millions of people.
Yasha Levine helped me to get a grip on it:
.. I came across this…a brief statement by a celebrity Chabad rabbi about his thoughts on the proper way to wage a war in the Jewish style. I wanted to share it with you.
I don’t believe in western morality, i.e. don’t kill civilians or children, don’t destroy holy sites, don’t fight during holiday seasons, don’t bomb cemeteries, don’t shoot until they shoot first because it is immoral.
The only way to fight a moral war is the Jewish way: Destroy their holy sites. Kill men, women and children (and cattle).
The first Israeli prime minister who declares that he will follow the Old Testament will finally bring peace to the Middle East.
…
Rabbi Manis Friedman
Bais Chana Institute of Jewish Studies
St. Paul, MN
It is a cult.
As Levine explains:
Rabbi Manis Friedman is well known in the Jewish world. ..
…
[H]is views on the right way to wage a war on Palestinians were published in 2009 in Moment, a mainstream Jewish magazine that was cofounded by Elie Wiesel.
…
Now fifteen years later Friedman’s views are basically mainstream in Israel and in Jewish communities around the world. What he described as the only proper, godly way to wage war against the enemies of Israel is in fact what Israel is currently doing in Gaza and beyond…with total support from the United States and the Europeans.
What can one say?
Chabad is a religious sect with 18th century roots in some Belorussian village. Levine has written a number of pieces about it.
This bears the question: How can one 'deprogram' a large people who have fallen for a cult like this?
Russia Rejects Trump’s Freeze Of The War In Ukraine
The details of the ceasefire negotiations between the U.S., Europe and Ukraine continue to make headlines despite being largely irrelevant for an end of the conflict in Ukraine.
In an interview with Brazilian paper O Globo (in Portuguese) Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov again repeated the Russian demands for peace in Ukraine.
It requires:
- an end of Ukraine's ban on negotiations with Russia,
- for Ukraine to go back to the status of a neutral and non-aligned country in accordance with the Declaration of State Sovereignty of Ukraine in the 1990's,
- an end of the policies of legally and physically destroy everything Russian: the language, media, culture, traditions, and Russian orthodoxy
- the international recognition of Russia's ownership of Crimea, the DPR, LPR and the Kherson and Zaporizhia regions.
There must also be measures to legal fix those positions, to make them permanent and to have enforcement mechanisms.
Also required is, says Lavrov, (edited machine translation):
.. a schedule for the task of de-and desnazifiction in Ukraine, and the lifting of the sanctions, actions, lawsuits and arrest warrants, and the transfer of assets to Russia which are 'frozen' in the West. Also, we will look for reliable warranties for the security of the Russian Federation, and against the threats created by the hostile activity of Nato, the European Union and its individual member states on the country's borders in the west.
There is then no change in the Russian position since its President Vladimir Putin explained it at length on June 14 2024.
Meanwhile the U.S. is very publicly negotiating with Ukraine and Europe about some ceasefire conditions along the lines the pro-Ukrainian (and neo-conservative?) General Kellogg has long promoted (also here):
Cont. reading: Russia Rejects Trump’s Freeze Of The War In Ukraine
Palestine Open Thread 2025-091
News & views related to the war in Palestine …
Ukraine Open Thread 2025-090
News & views related to the war in Ukraine …
The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-089
Last week's posts on Moon of Alabama:
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Other issues:
Cont. reading: The MoA Week In Review – OT 2025-089
Virginia Giuffre ‘Quiteted’
Jeffrey Epstein was an Israeli agent tasked with blackmailing U.S. politicians and business people by providing them with under-age girls. Virginia Giuffre, then 17, was on of those victims.
Epstein was jailed and, on August 10 2019, found dead in his cell. I headlined:
Epstein Suicided
Unsurprisingly Jeffrey Epstein was found dead, presumably by suicide, as that is what 'officials' claim:
Jailed multimillionaire financier and accused sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein has died by suicide, according to two law enforcement sources. …
Just yesterday a court released the first 2,000 pages of a civil case against Epstein's madame, Ghislaine Maxwell:
[Epstein victim Virginia Roberts Giuffre], who turned 36 on Friday, names a number of other men in politics, academia and business that she says she was directed to have sex with. In a 2017 interview with the Miami Herald, Giuffre said that Epstein wanted her to please various influential people then so that he could learn about their sexual peccadilloes and use them as leverage if he needed to.
While there’s no direct evidence contained in the court record substantiating her accounts with prominent men, Giuffre did provide testimony and evidence to corroborate her claims of exploitation at the hands of Epstein and Maxwell through photographs, plane logs and even a medical record from Presbyterian Hospital in New York where Giuffre was taken by Epstein after a particularly abusive sex episode.
I concluded the post with this:
Some of those influential people who Epstein, or the organization behind him, blackmailed, will be quite happy that he is gone. They will now try to bury the rest of the case. Giuffre and other witnesses better watch their backs.
Today we learn that Virginia Giuffre is dead (archived):
Cont. reading: Virginia Giuffre ‘Quiteted’
Poisonous Tariff Uncertainty
Uncertainty (or volatility) is the live-blood of financial markets. If financial actors were certain about the development and strength of the underlying factors the markets would be predictable. There would be no need to hedge risks and no profits were to be made through speculation. Uncertainty is what keeps financial markets alive.
For those dealing with real products in the real economy uncertainty is a poison. When the prices of products become too volatile the risk of dealing with them and of investing in their production becomes too high. When volatility prevails real markets will falter.
This is where Trump’s tariff mania hits.
As a recent NY Times piece highlights (archived):
Businesses are rushing to cancel factory orders or halt shipping containers before they leave China, unable to afford the tariff when the ships arrive in America. They are pausing capital investments and new hiring, and scaling back spending to only the bare necessities. Future products are being scrapped, because they are no longer financially viable.
The Federal Reserve Bank St. Louis produces hundreds of economic statistics. It includes several which are measuring uncertainty:
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Cont. reading: Poisonous Tariff Uncertainty
Palestine Open Thread 2025-088
News & views related to the war in Palestine …
Ukraine Open Thread 2025-087
News & views related to the war in Ukraine …
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2025-086
News & views not related to the wars in Ukraine and Palestine …
Setback For U.S. ‘Ceasefire’ Deal In Ukraine
Secretary of State Marko Rubio, presidential envoy Steve Witkoff, several foreign ministers from Europe and the Ukrainian President Zelenski were supposed to meet in London today.
The Trump administration had planned this to be a final meeting over a ceasefire in Ukraine. A U.S. proposal for the ceasefire were to be discussed and accepted.
But Zelenski bailed out and the proposed meeting fell apart. According to the Independent Zelenski had feared to be "ambushed":
Actor turned statesman Volodymyr Zelensky may have only ever played a soldier, but as a war time leader he knows an ambush when he sees one.
Having been trapped in the Oval Office and eviscerated by Donald Trump and JD Vance, he has avoided an enfilade from a crack team of American diplomats in the London kill zone by not turning up at all.
Tipped off that his intended target was not going to wander into his sights, the US team leader, secretary of state Marco Rubio, called off the operation altogether and stayed in Washington along with Steve Witkoff, Trump’s envoy to Vladimir Putin.
Keith Kellog, Trump’s envoy to Ukraine, who was already in London, has been left to observe peering through the privet while foreign secretary David Lammy squires the Ukrainian foreign minister for much downgraded “talks”.
At least the British hosts were not saddled with what could have been an historic mess in which Zelensky was presented with a US-Russian ultimatum and then painted as a rejectionist war monger when he said “nemaye” (no).
Other media are vague about the reasons to downgrade the talks. There is generally no common line in the media reporting of the issue. Axios claims that Ukraine rejected to negotiate a longer term ceasefire and instead only offered a shorter term:
A U.S. official involved in the discussions said Rubio and Witkoff worked together "to develop a framework to get us closer to reaching an end to the war."
- However, the official said that over the last 24 hours there had been indications from the Ukrainians that they wanted to discuss a 30-day ceasefire during Wednesday's meetings in London rather than Trump's peace plan framework.
- "The decision was made for the secretary to not travel to London. Instead, the U.S. delegation will continue to engage in conversations with U.K. and Ukrainian counterparts," the official said.
The U.S. ceasefire plan includes several points which either the Ukrainians, the Europeans or the Russians were certain to reject.
The Telegraph seems to have the most complete list of its points:
Cont. reading: Setback For U.S. ‘Ceasefire’ Deal In Ukraine
Phase 1: Impose Tariffs – Phase 2: ? – Phase 3: Profit
The underpants gnomes (vid) had a great plan:
1. Steal underpants, 2. …, 3. Profit
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The Trump administration seems to think likewise:
1. Impose tariffs, 2. …, 3. Profit
There was already some struggle while implementing phase 1.
Phase 2 seems to create even more serious problems:
Cont. reading: Phase 1: Impose Tariffs – Phase 2: ? – Phase 3: Profit
RIP Pope Francis
He was a remarkable man:
The Popes Easter message yesterday:
"I think of the people of Gaza and its Christian community in particular, where the terrible conflict continues to cause death and destruction and create a dramatic and deplorable humanitarian situation"
BREAKING: Pope Francis has passed away at the age of 88.
Just one day before his death, he called for an immediate ceasefire in #Gaza, describing the situation as “dramatic & deplorable,” & urged the world to deliver aid & peace to the Palestinian people.
Pope Francis has just passed away.
He was the only global leader to condemn both NATO’s proxy war in Ukraine as well as the genocide in Gaza carried out by Israel with Western backing. (Pope Francis Says NATO Started War in Ukraine by ‘Barking at Putin’s Door’)
May he rest in peace.
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:
—
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.
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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.
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