Antropologiske betraktninger om pelshvaldrift

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Zionism

On August 5, Glenn Greenwald asked: “Who is governing this country” (“this country” being, of course, the one that rules us all in the so-called West)? Obviously, it isn’t Biden or for that matter Harris. Has it ever been Biden? Or Obama, come to think of it? Or Clinton? Not to mention “nukiller” Bush junior?

Not that I really care, being spared the pain of having to live in a country where I would never be able to afford decent health care, or education for my kids, etc., etc. etc. But the question certainly merits some attention since … well, obviously, when your kids are in a carriage pulled by a runaway horse, you want to know whom to shoot when the equipage hurtles off the cliff.

US presidents – it has long been obvious – are not free agents. Not that I propose to defend their actions: They should have known better than to stand for such an ignominious office. They were possibly ignorant or even stupid , when they did so – though I doubt that Clinton and Obama were stupid or even ignorant – or they may have been psychopaths. (Psychopaths have enough lust for personal power over someone or something to be willing to break all rules, or even to kill.) Kill they certainly did, if not with their own hands – God forbid. They had menials to do the dirty work.

But I am not really interested in dissecting the moral decrepitude of dangerous men and women. I would, however, honestly like to know who, in the end, governs the USA and its host of servile little fiefdoms in Europe. I can think of a few candidates, mainly the trillionaires who finance the unconscionably expensive presidential campaigns. They will want their money’s worth, I expect, when the race is won. I suspect they place their bets in both camps, by the way, so as to have leverage on the winner, whoever he or she might be.

So who are they? Obviously the military-industrial complex is a front runner. The Christian fundamentalists are also a passionate and frequently well-heeled lot, and they often coincide with the Zionists.

Oops! There I dropped the dirty word. “Zionists”. At the moment, yes, it would appear that Zionists are running the circus, the race to the cliff. I have been given to understand that Christian Zionists actually welcome a final solution for mankind. Then they will all go to heaven, I am told. Good luck with that.

I doubt that Israelis share their pious end-of-world wishes. Most Israelis are probably as brainwashed and deluded as most US Americans and US Europeans, including US Norwegians. Yet, I suspect we – most Europeans and Israelis – don’t want a world war, don’t want war, period. But we don’t count. We were not asked.

Yesterday, a Russian woman living in Norway told me angrily: “You all speak so warmly of Democracy – and I agree, Democracy is beautiful – but what you have here, now, is not Democracy! It’s all based on lies.”

Indoctrination is a fascinating field of study! How was Israel able to indoctrinate healthy boys and girls into treating Palestinian boys and girls as vermin to be exterminated? Did they learn from Nazi Germany?

Alas, I fear they learnt not from Germany but from the USA: How was the entire population of that great country bamboozled into supporting the killing and torturing of millions and millions – in Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Central America, South America, Indonesia, Haiti, even Africa…. ?

By indoctrination!

The USA has committed its crimes with impunity since the initial genocide of the Indians,

By indoctrination!

And the USA is letting this happen in Gaza as we speak, is letting Israel assassinate people here, there and everywhere. The USA knows full well that its support to Israel now is suicidal. BRICS is growing stronger by the day, and US hegemony is waning because it has not been wisely administered. (“Pax Americana” has not been pax.).

Zionists, then, in the USA and in Israel – are driving our children, here and there, at breakneck speed towards the precipice. A murder victim, Ismail Haniyeh, was one of many who tried to stop them. He paid for his efforts with his life.

Zionism is a very ugly disease. It is, when all is said and done, abject racism!

I recently stumbled across a few quotes from one of the fathers of Israel, a passionate Zionist, Ben Gurion. Ben Gurion was probably a nasty piece of work, but at least he, unlike US presidents, seems to have understood, what a nasty piece of work he was. I have copied the following quotes from this site.

“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
David Ben-Gurion (the first Israeli Prime Minister): Quoted by Nahum Goldmann in Le Paraddoxe Juif (The Jewish Paradox), pp121.

“Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves … politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves… The country is theirs, because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country. … Behind the terrorism [by the Arabs] is a movement, which though primitive is not devoid of idealism and self sacrifice.”
— David Ben Gurion. Quoted on pp 91-2 of Chomsky’s Fateful Triangle, which appears in Simha Flapan’s “Zionism and the Palestinians pp 141-2 citing a 1938 speech.

“We should prepare to go over to the offensive. Our aim is to smash Lebanon, Trans-Jordan, and Syria. The weak point is Lebanon, for the Moslem regime is artificial and easy for us to undermine. We shall establish a Christian state there, and then we will smash the Arab Legion, eliminate Trans-Jordan; Syria will fall to us. We then bomb and move on and take Port Said, Alexandria and Sinai.”

David Ben-Gurion May 1948, to the General Staff. From Ben-Gurion, a Biography, by Michael Ben-Zohar, Delacorte, New York 1978.

Palestine

Quoting Aljazeera 19 June: “Israel is ready for an “all-out war” in Lebanon and has plans approved for an offensive targeting Hezbollah, officials have said.”

How about “talking” to Hezbolla? How about “talking” to Hamas? How about actually listening? While Israel and the USA kill and maim and starve people right, left and centre in the name of “Democracy”, more and more people are getting very, very angry,

Some people are even saying “if this is Democracy, stuff Democracy.”

Sanctions

I definitely don’t like the way women are treated in Iran, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. And I most emphatically do not approve of putting dissidents in prison, either. And as for torture… no! no! no! (If you tortured me to force me to endorse torture, I would probably give in, but those who love me, and their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren – and there may be many of them – would make sure that you and your lot (and offspring) never sleep easy.)

Nevertheless, the idea that a pompous king or emperor and his court should stride through the corridors of the world, passing judgements and rigorous sentences on “misbehaving” members of the global community is repugnant. All the more so, if said king or emperor is himself decadent and given to all sorts of vices (including torture!)

Vice President Harris is reputed to have been “tough on crime” in her past. (I gather she is not popular in her current position either.) Anybody who has had anything to do with miscreants will know that harsh punishments stimulate, rather than diminish, destructive urges. Yes, there are exceptions, but they are not the rule. Rather than tell you what you know – about US criminal justice, that is – I shall simply refer you to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report:

In the United Kingdom, reoffending rates also topped 70 per cent in some prisons, according to statistics from the Ministry of Justice. Many offenders, even after severe sentences of imprisonment, repeatedly fail to desist from crime and reintegrate into the community as law-abiding citizens. Imprisonment, in itself, is incapable of addressing the offenders’ social integration issues. [highlighted by me]

… In addition to the costs of law enforcement and investigating and prosecuting crimes, there are the costs of imprisonment, as well as the costs to the victims and the community.

Consider also the effects of prison overcrowding and smouldering community anger. Look at Haiti now!

So it is, not only with individual delinquents, but also with nations.

The US should know that patriotic sentiment – nationalism, if you will – is something to be reckoned with. In spite of the near civil-war-situation in the USA, US Americans love their country passionately. Iranians do too. Iran was, after all, practically the cradle of civilisation. Iranians have a history and cultural heritage compared to which US history and cultural heritage is still in kindergarten. The same applies to China and even to Russia, where historical awareness and pride is a force that ignorant US politicians have disregarded. (That the US establishment is so unbelievably ignorant should terrify US voters.)

As for Cuba and Venezuela, relatively new countries, they have been heroic in the extreme: Like the USA they stood up to the colonial power, but they have since also stood up to the North American bully! And they are proud of their heroism. (Note, by the way, how many US Americans and Europeans have loved Cuba.)

By the time it was Venezuela’s turn to suffer the tightening of the sanction screws, the Western press was better prepared than they had been after the Cuban revolution to unleash defamation campaigns against Hugo Chavez. Even John Pilger could not save Chavez’ reputation in the West. But Venezuelans, and a very large (probably growing) proportion of Latin Americans warmly revere the late Hugo Chavez, which is one reason why Maduro is still comfortably seated.

Unfortunately, the USA has no respect for Democracy in Venezuela, or for that matter in any other country that resists US political and economic control, which is why they have applied sanctions that more or less kill off Venezuelans.

Quoting a CEPR (Center for Economic and Policy Research) report:

According to the National Survey on Living Conditions (ENCOVI by its acronym in Spanish), an annual survey of living conditions administered by three Venezuelan universities, there was a 31 percent increase in general mortality from 2017 to 2018. This would imply an increase of more than 40,000 deaths. This would be a large loss of civilian life even in an armed conflict, and it is virtually certain that the US economic sanctions made a substantial contribution to these deaths. … As noted above, the impact of the August 2017 sanctions on the collapse of oil production and therefore access to imports was quite immediate…[highlighted by me]

The United States first imposed sanctions targeting the Venezuelan government in 2015.

Since then, sanctions have multiplied to the point that millions of ragged Venezuelans have turned into unwelcome itinerant paupers roaming the rest of the South American continent where they constitute as seriously a destabilising demographic force as the Central American immigrants to the USA. Decades of US regime change operations and support for vicious dictatorships in all of Latin America are the root cause of all of this displacement.

Sanctions particularly affect health care (medicines and gear), cf. The Lancet

Soon after imposing economic sanctions on a country, many essential life-saving drugs become unavailable. Even production of some drugs being manufactured in a country is decreased, or even stopped, because of a shortage in basic ingredients or spare machine parts that are necessary for drug production. The price of drugs increases to a level that people with low income can barely afford. …Lack of spare parts affects not only medical devices but also other necessary infrastructures such as electric generators; frequent power cuts cause serious problems (loss of vaccines, drugs, ventilators, monitors, etc). Hundreds of thousands of people die in silence from diseases.

Have those who approve of sanctioning a country considered the surviving victims’ hatred, accumulated incrementally year by year? Have those who design US foreign policy any idea of the growing global contempt for the US “rules-based order”?

  • What rules?
  • Who made the rules?
  • And why do the so-called “rules” – whatever they are – not apply to the USA?
  • Why do NO rules apply to the USA?

Listen to this angry but extraordinarily knowledgeable young man, Ben Norton, explain Latin American anger.

Remarkably, the Maduro government has survived. According to MintPress as at March 2022:

The government in Caracas, however, somehow survived for reasons that differ, depending on the political position of the analysts. In Venezuela, much credence is being given to the country’s socialist values, the resilience of the people and to the Bolivarian movement. The anti-Maduro forces in the US, centred mostly in Florida, blame Maduro’s survival on Washington’s lack of resolve. A third factor, which is often overlooked, is Russia.

I would like to add, though, a detail that does not seem to interest the mainstream media or even Mintpress: The Venezuelan authorities prioritised food imports and food subsidies according to another CEPR report.

Food imports in 2020 are similar to those in 2017 ($2.0 billion in 2017, $1.8 billion in 2020) despite total imports and GDP falling by around 50 percent during that period. The decline in import capacity that occurred after 2016 did not lead to lower food import levels because the government found a way to prioritize food imports. An overhaul of public sector food assistance policies, and in particular the launch of a system of nationwide distribution of food packages (known by the acronym CLAP, for Local Committees of Supply and Production) to families in need in 2016, appears to have played an important role in addressing food insecurity. In 2020, the subsidy received by families through the CLAP system was $855 million, or almost 50 percent of the country’s total food imports. [highlighted by me]

Venezuela is not the only country whose population is being castigated by the USA. The above CEPR report which examines the effect of “sanctions”, includes three detailed “case studies”: Iran, Afghanistan and Venezuela.

The so-called “Democratic” USA arrogantly disregards the global majority of countries that condemn the imposition of sanctions all over the place.

Yes, the Russian invasion of Ukraine was in contravention of International Law. Yes, yes and yes.

But US unilateral sanctions are also in contravention of International Law!

Articles 39 and 41 of the United Nations Charter empower the UN Security Council to adopt “measures not involving the use of armed force” in response to the existence of “any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”:

Article 39: The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression and shall make recommendations, or decide what measures shall be taken in accordance with Articles 41 and 42, to maintain or restore international peace and security.

Venezuela represented no “threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression”. Ever. The USA just didn’t like the Venezuelan administration.

Complicity

I have fantasies of Netanyahu and his co-thugs finding themselves in a modern version of Dante’s purgatory – Gaza, to be precise – alive, it is true, but injured: broken bones, burns, cuts and bruises, but no doctors, no pain killers, no food, no water, no clean clothes, no toilets, …

Netanyahu and his cut-throats have just bamboozled 11 nations into discontinuing support to UNRWA. There can be absolutely no earthly reason for doing so, other than to make an even more concerted effort to prevent Gazans from surviving the hell they are in. There are tens of thousands of people working for UNRWA. Using the crimes that may possibly have been committed by a few individuals as a pretext to hasten the demise of the Gazans seems sleazy, to say the least.

According to Al Jazeera:

The UN agency has long been under attack from Israel. …

Gunness, the former UNRWA spokesman, said there is a “coordinated political attack” on the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees. “The Israelis have said they cannot win the war on Gaza unless UNRWA is disbanded. So what clearer signal do you want?” he told Al Jazeera on Sunday.

The countries who have availed themselves of the sleazy pretext are: Canada, Australia, Britain, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Finland, as well as, of course, the USA

Responsible Statecraft the outlet of the Quincy institute writes about the ICJ ruling:

This ruling may also boost those arguing that all states that are party to the Genocide Convention have a positive obligation to prevent genocide. The Houthis, for instance, have justified their attacks against ships heading to Israeli ports in the Red Sea, citing this positive obligation. What legal implications will the court’s ruling have as a result on the U.S. and UK’s military action against the Houthis?

The implications for Europe will also be considerable. The U.S. is rather accustomed to and comfortable with setting aside international law and ignoring international institutions. Europe is not.

International law and institutions play a much more central role in European security thinking. The decision will continue to split Europe. But the fact that some key EU states will reject the ICJ’s ruling will profoundly contradict and undermine Europe’s broader security paradigm.

Meanwhile back in the mainstream media today:

Reuters:
Nothing about Gaza. But “Three US service members killed, 34 wounded in Jordan drone attack linked to Iran”.

AFP:
“Israeli protesters blocked humanitarian aid trucks from entering the war-torn Gaza Strip on Sunday, forcing the lorries to turn around at a crossing with the Palestinian territory.”

UPI:
“Crews safe, fire extinguished on British oil tanker after Houthi rebel attack”
“Thousands mark Holocaust Remembrance Day amid marches in Germany, Italy”
Israelis lay siege to Khan Younis

That last one looks promising. But no, not a word about civilians.

AP, however, is picking up now. They are highlighting the importance of UNRWA’s humanitarian work. However AP still has a long way to go as it despairs over disruption to trade due to the Houthi attacks. They just don’t get the picture, do they.

However, one group shines a small but very bright light, from the USA, no less:

Jewish Voice for Peace – Rabbinical Council

The letter from American rabbis to President Biden, which urgently demands “a ceasefire now”, starts with the following words:
“Dear President Biden,
As American rabbis, we write to you with deep sorrow and fury.” [my highlight]

It’s an important letter, and a brave one. I take the liberty of quoting parts of it:

We support and uplift South Africa’s recent application to the International Court of Justice claiming Israel is in breach of the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. And now, Palestinian human rights organizations, together with Palestinians in the US and Gaza, are bringing a case against your administration for failure to prevent, and complicity in, the Israeli government’s unfolding genocide against them, their families, and the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza. We stand in support of their action as well.

On this day of remembrance in 2021, you noted that, “The Holocaust was no accident of history.” As you stated, “It occurred because too many governments cold-bloodedly adopted and implemented hate-fueled laws, policies, and practices to vilify and dehumanize entire groups of people, and too many individuals stood by silently. Silence is complicity.”

President Biden, what is happening right now in Gaza is no accident of history — and your complicity has been anything but silent. We call upon you to be true to your word and end U.S. complicity in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people.

The News

As usual, every morning, I check Reuters, UPI, AP. What are they saying? What are they telling the US population and the press in the USA’s satellite states in Europe?

Every morning I hope “this day will be different”. Every morning I muse: “Surely, somebody will say, ‘This is it! I can’t take anymore!'”, and I will see, in Reuters, the UPI or the AP, a great big headline: THIS IS GENOCIDE. STOP IT!

But this morning was just as every other morning:

  • Cat flees from owner at truck stop, turns up 670 miles away (UPI)
    This was not, I admit, the top headline, nor even one of them. But I assure you that GAZA was not mentioned in any of the headlines.
  • Israeli strike kills an elite Hezbollah commander in the latest escalation linked to the war in Gaza (AP)
    Yes, this was the top headline. It was meant to bring joy to those worried that Israel’s war against the terrorists was not going well. It was meant as joyful tidings.

  • US secretary of state rallies Mideast leaders to prepare for Gaza’s post-war future (AP)
    Note the word “post-war”. As though the ongoing war is just any old war, not an extermination campaign. Later today, several US outlets proudly declare that the “Mideast leaders” have committed to some post-war efforts, as though Blinken had achieved something, anything at all. Of course the “Mideast leaders” will help Gaza, as they always do! Nothing to do with Blinken.

  • US top diplomat urges Israel to avoid harming civilians in Gaza. (Reuters)
    Isn’t that just sweet: Do please be careful, when you bomb hospitals, ambulances and aid convoys. And do please avoid hurting children when you raise apartment buildings to the ground.

Ugh.

John Mearsheimer

John Mearsheimer is a prominent political scientist and scholar within the so-called realist school of thought. For years he warned USA not to even think about inviting Ukraine into NATO. His prophesies were fulfilled, as we have seen, and for that he has been “punished”, as it were, banished from mainstream media. Like so many other critics of US foreign policy, he has become a Substack fugitive.

Interestingly, he was the author of a rather curious book published in 2011: Why Leaders Lie. According to Wikipedia, the book maintains:

….that leaders do not lie much to other countries, and that democratic leaders are actually more likely to lie to their own people than autocrats…. Mearsheimer argues that leaders are most likely to lie to their own people in democracies that fight wars of choice in distant places. The author says that it is difficult for leaders to lie to other countries because there is not much trust among them, especially when security issues are at stake, and you need trust for lying to be effective. He concludes that it is easier for leaders to lie to their own people because there is usually a good deal of trust between them.

Mearsheimer suggests that most political lies fall into one of five categories: inter-state lies, fear-mongering, strategic cover-ups, nationalist myths, and liberal lies.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_Leaders_Lie, as on 5 July 2023

In his article in Substack of 23 June this year (Substack invites you to subscribe, but allows you to “continue reading” if you don’t want to), Mearsheimer paints a very gloomy picture of the outcome of the Ukraine war. Unlike Jeffrey Sacks, another prominent statesman now banned from mainstream media, he more or less discounts the possibility of a peace accord. Ever. I must say I deeply hope he is wrong, but his arguments are compelling, and he certainly was right about his pre-war warnings.

The article is interesting also due to the very numerous references he cites.

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