Perhaps he does not know that Arabs, Jews, Assyrians, Druze are also Semites. It is impossible to be anti-Semitic by supporting Arabs and not supporting Jews.
Would be good if you could make a further dissection of "the ‘Kurdish’ PKK - is fiercely pro-Russian and anti-Ukraine." or point towards any other good write-ups? Thanks.
Meh, pulled that out of my small finger, as usually.
....because, it's so endlessly hard to find statements by the leadership of the PKK/PYD/SDF-conglomerate in which they're praising Pudding's invasion against the Imperialist regime in Kyiv:
....so hard, can't say... BTW, the text was toned down at least two times since its publishing: after all, at somet point in time the leadership of the 'Syrian Democratic Forces' (who are representing 'all the Kurds', of course), concluded it's not very opportune to complain about US-support for 'Imperialist gangs' in Kyiv...
Even though autotranslate feature from Turkish to English produces weird sentences, it doesn't look like "they're praising Pudding's invasion". Rather, they say that Ukraine's reliance on NATO and West didn't work out as expected (and I guess we have to agree with Kurds on that, they already had the experience).
For example, that's one of translated sentences I've got:
"Now Russia's attack on Ukraine is undoubtedly unfair, so against it, is it true that the United States, the European Union, the UK, NATO's attitude, is it true?"
You do realize the PKK spent the last decade fighting side by side with Russia against NATO "Islamo-Nazi" (aka Turkey) and continue to do so to this day ?
Kurds fought against Turkey, probably with RF support, but they also fought against ISIS with US support. And at some moment US stopped helping them. That explains why in the article they say that Ukraine's reliance on NATO is not a good thing.
Some branches of the government may well have. That's why there are so many of them that the US can do mutually exclusive and contradictory things at the same time.
All of the Kurdish organizations named by Tom (PKK, PYD, YPG, SDF) are essentially terrorist. They are essentially no different from ISIS, except that the ideology is different and women have more freedom. And their methods are the same as ISIS. Kurds organize terrorist attacks, kidnappings, murders of civilians, and ethnic cleansing and using children to wage war. They do all this to build their own state
If you put aside all the multi-layered propaganda from all sides that from the outside it seems that all Kurds without exception are bad, or that they are all heroes fighting for freedom against ISIS, in reality they are neither. Most Kurds are against what the Kurdish terrorist organizations are doing. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds are fleeing what the PKK and YPG have done to their territories. Second, there is nothing heroic about their resistance, because they are doing the same thing as ISIS. They establish their rules and destroy those who oppose these rules, organizing genocide.
Pretty much 100% agreement from this direction. Pakistan is a bugbear of mine. Our "ally" in the region who were responsible, via the semi-deniable ISI, A.Q. Khan network, of selling nuclear weapons technology to the Norks. - in exchange for improved missile tech. How this (almost unique) example of nuclear weapons proliferation never seems to come up in Western political dialog beats me. Of course our ruling oligarchy doesn't want to wake up our population from their deep sleep and dreams of owning an iPhone16.n. Watching mainstream news in UK is a sickening experience for reasons too numerous to mention - if pretty obvious to anyone half-awake who does.
On my big board of future predictions I have Pakistan's disintegration scheduled for the mid-late 2020s. Won't it be fun when a Taliban offshoot is threatening to get control of Pakistani nukes?
"The mass of Zionist fanatics in Israel is refusing to serve in the Israel Defence Force (IDF)." It's mostly the Haredim who refuse to serve in the Israel Defence Force. They are usually non-Zionist, believing the Jewish state should only be established by god, not by man.
I'm not blaming anyone. I was merely pointing out that the Zionist fanatics and those who refuse to serve in the Israel Defence Force are probably not the same people.
The mass of fanatical settlers refusing to serve in the IDF - while mass-murdering and ethnically cleansing Palestinians in the West Bank - are Haredim?
That would be news.... :rolleyes:
Also, the ten thousands ('or so') of Jews that met in the last congress against Zionism in the USA - are all Haredim, too?
Thanks for the link. Yes, it looks like Haredi attitudes are changing, I still wouldn't call them "Zionist fanatics" though, I would stick that label to the religious West Bank settlers.
Thanks! Mali was probably a first sign of what is coming. Namely a smaller and weaker group of people destroys a more advanced force using modern technology.
This is unintended consequence of prolonging UA war. Now everyone is aware how little resources are required to beat a well defended armoured force.
So next time it could happen to foreign force of US for example. Or some rebel group against unaware government force. And so on.
So all choices are now bad and worse. Allow UA to lose? Would lead to only strengthening ru immensely.
Helping UA to win with all out effort? That may brake ru into civil war, which with current tech would not be fun.
Prolonging it more? Well it would come to semi-autonomous swarms, costing a full swarm as one javelin. No long training of pilots needed. If that technology spreads and be tested battle wise, would be a disaster.
So war is lost for West, already. Or rather peace is lost.
Hey, what's wrong with "brake ru into civil war" option? It happened in 1917 already, and the outcome was pretty good for Finland, Poland, Lithuania etc. (Could be better for Ukraine as well, if we had more international support and less internal disagreement at the moment.)
I don't mind seeing a number of new independent states on the map, like Ichkeria, Dagestan, Buryatia...
I'd put money on most big countries breaking up by 2050. US, India, russia - even China, if Beijing isn't careful.
The world of today is proving to be a nice acid bath for bad ideas, like empire. It'll just take about a billion casualties to ensure people in the future understand just how tragic they are.
I agree. The US is probably the most divided it jas been since 1860s. There's two new cultures being born - the old America of the areas between the coasts and the the two more globalised cultures on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards
Well, it may become a very different war. Just because of access to war technology, small, nasty groups, can have much more power, much faster. Fights for arsenals, including nukes, fights for mining, resources, assets. Like many clans, fighting many. 90-ies of past USSR, would be pleasant memories of peaceful times. 15-20 mln. refugees. High civil casualties. Maybe local nukes. It could well become a madmax embodiment. I do not think anyone would be happy.
Excuse me but Sahelians rebels did not wait the white men saviors from the Ukrainian HUR to ambush government forces.
They regularly slaughtered government forces this way while the French were busy keeping their support for themselves to bomb civilians fleeing from French convoys or bomb weddings in the typical War on Terror style. In fact this is literally what motivated the Sahelians officers to stage another one of their coups, expel the Westerners and invite the Russians instead with the hope the latter would prove more useful allies.
And as Tom rightly pointed out, theses insurgents everyone suddenly praise are the same people the West spent a decade killing in their country to prop up the states junta, with unanimous support from our public because "Jihadist islamists brown skin people bad bad". And now, suddenly, the same military officers the West trained, equipped and fight with to prop them up are suddenly the bad guys ? Give me a break.
As for the rumours in Syria, anybody with the sightless familiarity with the countries knows that if the HUR truly targeted Kweires, it would only succeed in getting Syrians in Idlib killed during Assadists retaliatory shellings.
I am not saying that HUR or anyone has to do with this. In today's world it is enough to know what is possible and how it is possible. In terms of reconnaissance, strike drones and heavy bombers. Those all were used in this. Just investigating publicly available texts and videos is enough to reproduce the technology and tactical approach. Nothing is secret anymore. It is not a rocket science these days. When you know what is effective you can replicate it being willing. And a war like this is a huge testing ground where natural law of survival makes effective things stand out.
Civil war in russia may be a good (and the only realistic) chance to take the nukes from them (or at least reduce the arsenal). For example in exchange for economic or military support. It happened before (USSR). Every is risk is a also an opportunity.
They both do spec ops over the border. Much as GRGSh and SVR are supposed to have a monopoly on foreign ops, but in reality FSB does a whole lot of foreign ops.
We tried to get the post-USSR ststes to adopt the "Chinese wall" between internal and external security agencies, but in reality, it just bred more security agencies that do internal and external.
Unfortunately, we went the same route at home since 2001. FBI works abroad while fusion centers allow CIA and NSA to work with local police departments. Shit, even NYPD is now a foreign intelligence agency with dudes in something like 30 countries.
"Because the Touareg were clever enough to put up a flag of Ukraine in one of their social-media appearances"
-> A photo published by the Kyiv Post on Monday claimed to show Malian rebels holding a Ukrainian flag after the battle. BBC Verify has established this image dates back to a video posted on X in June, in which no Ukrainian flag can be seen, only the Azawad flag.
Just keep watching the USA with the popcorn (or intoxicating substance of your choice) out. There aren't a lot of scenarios now that end well in a country filled with old lunatics who desperately want to make young people fight a partisan civil war.
There is so much brilliance here and none of it more so than Frank Drebbin reminding us to please disperse as there is nothing to see here! Thank you so much for your work and analysis
I spent a lot of years in academia developing theory to describe what's happening and why. There I learned that pretty much any "soft" field in the English-speaking world - anything that doesn't rely on math, like history and journalism - is tainted by a very real need to serve State interests.
Not because of any conspiracy - people are too inept. Simple herd behavior.
That's why the USA is a grand casino where the only rule is to say whatever leading members of your tribe do. Those who are cast out are vulnerable to everybody. And the machine needs victims to ensure that the House always wins.
Except once people's expectations about the future start to shift - watch out. A global unraveling is now well advanced. It's not getting better before it gets a whole lot worse.
There's opportunity in very crisis, though. And one of these days someone will figure out that it's basically impossible to protect world leaders against drones.
The west has adopted the policy of inviolable borders for a reason. It's absolutely true that it's selectively applied and therefore hypocritical, it's also true that many of these borders are plain bad, perpetuating ethnic strife, oppression and separatism.
However, the policy was applied in response to the events of the first half of the 20th century, when some states managed to get away with changing borders violently, and the whole scene quickly degenerated into an all-out, free-for-everyone land-grabbing slugfest with tens of millions of dead. So we can make the point (I know, I know, the eternal excuse of despots and the clinically incompetent) that the current setup is awful, but the alternative would be infinitely worse still.
You might have a point but note the western policy of inviolable borders has condemned Africa and Middle East to over half a century of instability, warfare and genocide.
It has also often promoted western commercial and political interests.
And the west violates it so frequently that it makes a total mockery and undermines it completely.
Literally both the west and Russia promote forever war and instability as a means of power and control.
Also forgot to mention,the very fact that there is a complete unwillingness by major powers (west but also China and Russia) to reform global institutions such as UN and especially UN Securoty Council is evidence that the concern is not global peace or averting/stipping war, the issue is maintaining power and control
>> when some states managed to get away with changing borders violently, and the whole scene quickly degenerated into an all-out, free-for-everyone land-grabbing slugfest with tens of millions of dead
What else is Israel doing since 1947-1948....?
And then we all wonder how comes 'UN is not working'...
As said, it's enforced selectively. And the UN certainly didn't work much after WWII, because how could it have?
Still, Israel didn't kill tens of millions, and they were also wise enough not to annex anything officially (de jure not even the Golan), so they didn't actually move borders.
Israel knows how to play its cards with ruthlessly cynical efficiency. And now it seems the reaction is still coming back to bite them, and hard.
Israel needs not 'knowing' - i.e. being sophisticated - at all, because it's always covered by the USA. No matter what it does. Nor how (severely) damaging for US (and European) interests Israeli actions are.
And, Israel (officially) annexed both Jerusalem (already back in 1967 or 1968), and the Golan Heights (in 1981).
....and how many people have been killed in all the Israeli aggressive wars since 1947 - nobody really knows. Sure, there are few documentaries about Israeli-instigated massacres of Palestinians in 1947-1948, but that's also where it usually ends. Nobody cares about the Israelis did with thousands of Palestinian POWs in 1956-1957, nor what the Israelis did with thousands of Egyptian POWs in 1967, or with dozens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of 1967-1970, or Lebanon since 1968 etc. , etc., etc.
There are never any official investigations and nobody was ever prosecuted for related crimes - because 'Israel can't do any wrong', and anybody stating it can is 'anti-Semite'.
Let's agree to disagree a bit on this. If Israel were into brute diplomatic force, they could just officially annex every occupied territory and officially deport their native populations. This would gain them the official title of an imperialistic aggressor state, and they apparently believe this would finally end US support.
Declaring unified Jerusalem to be the capital without declaring its annexation, also declaring the Golan Heights to be under Israeli jurisdiction without declaring its annexation is not annexation. It's a dirty and preposterous trick, undeniably, similar to "our settlers are just taking a trip in the West Bank since a few decades, but we have received no complaint about their behavior and have no idea who's beating up Palestinians and fencing them away from their water", but not annexation like the Nazis used to do.
And the US will support them, sure, just like it has supported murderous regimes like those of Mobutu, and the Somozas, and the Argentine junta, and Suharto, and Pinochet, and Obiang, very few of whose thugs were ever prosecuted for their crimes. And still, if the war helps Netanyahu grab ever more power until the country becomes either a totalitarian Kahanist dictatorship or goes down in a civil war, US support will not help them. They will be screwed either way.
What of what I've listed is wrong or is there to disagree with - especially considering even you're confirming everything?
And mind: calling multiple ethnic cleansings, mass murder, imposition of an Apartheid system, state-sponsored terror, multiple aggressive wars, military occupation, hijackings and detention of dozens of thousands, and a genocide (and that 'live on TV') by different other names and explaining them away is no disagreement. Only another confirmation.
....and all of this is supported by the USA. And if not supported, at least protected. Of course, you're free to use different other names and descriptions for that too.
Actually, you only can't avoid naming the spade a spade in one case. That's when it comes to the result: thanks to US support, Israel is on the best way of becoming a fascistoid theocracy directly comparable to the IRGC-regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
This is actually a complex question, requiring a definition.
For example: what do you mean with a 'coup d'etat'?
After all, there was already one coup in Israel: back in late May/early June 1967, Israeli generals staged a de-facto coup (or 'coup, Israeli style' as they call it), to force the PM Eshkol to 'order' them into an aggressive war on Egypt, Jordan, and Syria ('or', they've told him, 'they're going to remove him and take over'). That's what resulted in the affair grotesquely mis-named 'Six Days War' of June 1967... (And no, this is not something I've fabricated, but the way Israeli historians are describing what the generals in question did.)
So, when you ask me if a coup is possible: yes.
However, nope, this is not going to look 'typically'. See 'troops on the street, arresting and disappearing political opponents'. At least not right from the start.
People following the situation much closer than I do, say: 'yes, a civil war is possible', though.
Me thinks: is not going to be necessary. Decades of indoctrination with own superiority (as 'God's hand-picked') and blanc hatred for everybody else, combined with gradual political take-over by extremists are having their effects. Unsurprisingly, right-wing extremist Zionists already have most of the IDF and security agencies in their grip. The issue is just to complete doing the same with civilian authorities. That's what Netanyahu is doing very well, already.
So, I would say (and yes, I know; this is 'massively compressed'): whatever was there of an 'Israeli democracy' (which was always relative, because an Apartheid system is no democracy), is going to fall quite silently.
Yes, there are going to be protests, like there are already protests. But, eventually, the extremists are far more dominant and violent than the 'civililsed' portion of the population and that's it. The outcome is pre-programmed.
Should there be any doubts about this being 'possible': well, see Hungary or Austria. After years of 're-modelling' of civilian authorities by right-wing populists, both are meanwhile in a condition where they would be completely unacceptable as candidates for the EU.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we (i.e. Earth, Terra, Gaea, 3rd Rock from the Sun, etc et al) were to be hit by a GAMMA RAY BURSTER or maybe by something innocuous as a rogue brown dwarf sun....or even better....a QUANTUM SINGULARITY.
Ahhhhhhh.....that would be soooooooo wonderful and solve OH-so many problems here.
BTW: "Nothing to see here, really." My wife and I watched the NAKED GUN trilogy recently (her for the first time) and she laughed so hard it hurt.
....indeed: as funny as how often I've been called 'anti-Semite'. 'Marxist', and/or 'Jihadist-supporter'.
BTW, your ban from this blog is a result of doing one of that - i.e. calling me an 'anti-Semite'.
Perhaps he does not know that Arabs, Jews, Assyrians, Druze are also Semites. It is impossible to be anti-Semitic by supporting Arabs and not supporting Jews.
....that's one of funny things about all those accusing anybody about 'Anti-Semitism'...
Would be good if you could make a further dissection of "the ‘Kurdish’ PKK - is fiercely pro-Russian and anti-Ukraine." or point towards any other good write-ups? Thanks.
Meh, pulled that out of my small finger, as usually.
....because, it's so endlessly hard to find statements by the leadership of the PKK/PYD/SDF-conglomerate in which they're praising Pudding's invasion against the Imperialist regime in Kyiv:
https://www.rudaw.net/turkish/kurdistan/010320223
....so hard, can't say... BTW, the text was toned down at least two times since its publishing: after all, at somet point in time the leadership of the 'Syrian Democratic Forces' (who are representing 'all the Kurds', of course), concluded it's not very opportune to complain about US-support for 'Imperialist gangs' in Kyiv...
Even though autotranslate feature from Turkish to English produces weird sentences, it doesn't look like "they're praising Pudding's invasion". Rather, they say that Ukraine's reliance on NATO and West didn't work out as expected (and I guess we have to agree with Kurds on that, they already had the experience).
For example, that's one of translated sentences I've got:
"Now Russia's attack on Ukraine is undoubtedly unfair, so against it, is it true that the United States, the European Union, the UK, NATO's attitude, is it true?"
You do realize the PKK spent the last decade fighting side by side with Russia against NATO "Islamo-Nazi" (aka Turkey) and continue to do so to this day ?
Kurds fought against Turkey, probably with RF support, but they also fought against ISIS with US support. And at some moment US stopped helping them. That explains why in the article they say that Ukraine's reliance on NATO is not a good thing.
'US stopped helping them'....?
Good you're that well-informed...
Some branches of the government may well have. That's why there are so many of them that the US can do mutually exclusive and contradictory things at the same time.
All of the Kurdish organizations named by Tom (PKK, PYD, YPG, SDF) are essentially terrorist. They are essentially no different from ISIS, except that the ideology is different and women have more freedom. And their methods are the same as ISIS. Kurds organize terrorist attacks, kidnappings, murders of civilians, and ethnic cleansing and using children to wage war. They do all this to build their own state
If you put aside all the multi-layered propaganda from all sides that from the outside it seems that all Kurds without exception are bad, or that they are all heroes fighting for freedom against ISIS, in reality they are neither. Most Kurds are against what the Kurdish terrorist organizations are doing. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds are fleeing what the PKK and YPG have done to their territories. Second, there is nothing heroic about their resistance, because they are doing the same thing as ISIS. They establish their rules and destroy those who oppose these rules, organizing genocide.
Pretty much 100% agreement from this direction. Pakistan is a bugbear of mine. Our "ally" in the region who were responsible, via the semi-deniable ISI, A.Q. Khan network, of selling nuclear weapons technology to the Norks. - in exchange for improved missile tech. How this (almost unique) example of nuclear weapons proliferation never seems to come up in Western political dialog beats me. Of course our ruling oligarchy doesn't want to wake up our population from their deep sleep and dreams of owning an iPhone16.n. Watching mainstream news in UK is a sickening experience for reasons too numerous to mention - if pretty obvious to anyone half-awake who does.
On my big board of future predictions I have Pakistan's disintegration scheduled for the mid-late 2020s. Won't it be fun when a Taliban offshoot is threatening to get control of Pakistani nukes?
What a world we live in... <sigh>
Thanks for the excellent summary, Tom!
"The mass of Zionist fanatics in Israel is refusing to serve in the Israel Defence Force (IDF)." It's mostly the Haredim who refuse to serve in the Israel Defence Force. They are usually non-Zionist, believing the Jewish state should only be established by god, not by man.
Shhhh. Don't interrupt the narrative
Yeah. Blame it all on Haredim. And on me.
That's going to make things so much better, can't say....
I'm not blaming anyone. I was merely pointing out that the Zionist fanatics and those who refuse to serve in the Israel Defence Force are probably not the same people.
The mass of fanatical settlers refusing to serve in the IDF - while mass-murdering and ethnically cleansing Palestinians in the West Bank - are Haredim?
That would be news.... :rolleyes:
Also, the ten thousands ('or so') of Jews that met in the last congress against Zionism in the USA - are all Haredim, too?
"Usually non-Zionist"
Wrong https://www.jpost.com/israel-news/article-778340
Thanks for the link. Yes, it looks like Haredi attitudes are changing, I still wouldn't call them "Zionist fanatics" though, I would stick that label to the religious West Bank settlers.
Thanks! Mali was probably a first sign of what is coming. Namely a smaller and weaker group of people destroys a more advanced force using modern technology.
This is unintended consequence of prolonging UA war. Now everyone is aware how little resources are required to beat a well defended armoured force.
So next time it could happen to foreign force of US for example. Or some rebel group against unaware government force. And so on.
So all choices are now bad and worse. Allow UA to lose? Would lead to only strengthening ru immensely.
Helping UA to win with all out effort? That may brake ru into civil war, which with current tech would not be fun.
Prolonging it more? Well it would come to semi-autonomous swarms, costing a full swarm as one javelin. No long training of pilots needed. If that technology spreads and be tested battle wise, would be a disaster.
So war is lost for West, already. Or rather peace is lost.
Peace can be regained if China starts mass-producing autonomous pacifier drones.
It will... sigh... 😑
Hey, what's wrong with "brake ru into civil war" option? It happened in 1917 already, and the outcome was pretty good for Finland, Poland, Lithuania etc. (Could be better for Ukraine as well, if we had more international support and less internal disagreement at the moment.)
I don't mind seeing a number of new independent states on the map, like Ichkeria, Dagestan, Buryatia...
I'd put money on most big countries breaking up by 2050. US, India, russia - even China, if Beijing isn't careful.
The world of today is proving to be a nice acid bath for bad ideas, like empire. It'll just take about a billion casualties to ensure people in the future understand just how tragic they are.
I agree. The US is probably the most divided it jas been since 1860s. There's two new cultures being born - the old America of the areas between the coasts and the the two more globalised cultures on the Atlantic and Pacific seaboards
Well, it may become a very different war. Just because of access to war technology, small, nasty groups, can have much more power, much faster. Fights for arsenals, including nukes, fights for mining, resources, assets. Like many clans, fighting many. 90-ies of past USSR, would be pleasant memories of peaceful times. 15-20 mln. refugees. High civil casualties. Maybe local nukes. It could well become a madmax embodiment. I do not think anyone would be happy.
I'm pretty sure that at least 30+ millions of Ukrainians would be happy to see that.
Russians killing Russians are way better than Russians killing Ukrainians, or Georgians, or Syrians - you name it.
The Russian Empire had a few thousand nukes less
Excuse me but Sahelians rebels did not wait the white men saviors from the Ukrainian HUR to ambush government forces.
They regularly slaughtered government forces this way while the French were busy keeping their support for themselves to bomb civilians fleeing from French convoys or bomb weddings in the typical War on Terror style. In fact this is literally what motivated the Sahelians officers to stage another one of their coups, expel the Westerners and invite the Russians instead with the hope the latter would prove more useful allies.
And as Tom rightly pointed out, theses insurgents everyone suddenly praise are the same people the West spent a decade killing in their country to prop up the states junta, with unanimous support from our public because "Jihadist islamists brown skin people bad bad". And now, suddenly, the same military officers the West trained, equipped and fight with to prop them up are suddenly the bad guys ? Give me a break.
As for the rumours in Syria, anybody with the sightless familiarity with the countries knows that if the HUR truly targeted Kweires, it would only succeed in getting Syrians in Idlib killed during Assadists retaliatory shellings.
I am not saying that HUR or anyone has to do with this. In today's world it is enough to know what is possible and how it is possible. In terms of reconnaissance, strike drones and heavy bombers. Those all were used in this. Just investigating publicly available texts and videos is enough to reproduce the technology and tactical approach. Nothing is secret anymore. It is not a rocket science these days. When you know what is effective you can replicate it being willing. And a war like this is a huge testing ground where natural law of survival makes effective things stand out.
Civil war in russia may be a good (and the only realistic) chance to take the nukes from them (or at least reduce the arsenal). For example in exchange for economic or military support. It happened before (USSR). Every is risk is a also an opportunity.
HUR is intelligence/spies, SBU is national security.
They both do spec ops over the border. Much as GRGSh and SVR are supposed to have a monopoly on foreign ops, but in reality FSB does a whole lot of foreign ops.
We tried to get the post-USSR ststes to adopt the "Chinese wall" between internal and external security agencies, but in reality, it just bred more security agencies that do internal and external.
Unfortunately, we went the same route at home since 2001. FBI works abroad while fusion centers allow CIA and NSA to work with local police departments. Shit, even NYPD is now a foreign intelligence agency with dudes in something like 30 countries.
"Because the Touareg were clever enough to put up a flag of Ukraine in one of their social-media appearances"
-> A photo published by the Kyiv Post on Monday claimed to show Malian rebels holding a Ukrainian flag after the battle. BBC Verify has established this image dates back to a video posted on X in June, in which no Ukrainian flag can be seen, only the Azawad flag.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cq5xvl1111yo.amp
Correct. That photo was debunked a few days ago
"….provided we _all_ ever decide to start reforming our electoral behaviour and thus our governance…"
HAHAHAHAHAH. Sure we will right?
Can we get any worse?
Just keep watching the USA with the popcorn (or intoxicating substance of your choice) out. There aren't a lot of scenarios now that end well in a country filled with old lunatics who desperately want to make young people fight a partisan civil war.
In France we went from "OMG Macron is doing a coup d'etat" to "Look at the great Olympics games ! And the drag queens from the opening ceremony* !"
(*either to insult them or praise their participation.
In others words, yes : we are getting worse
Of course, we can get worse.
Witness Greece in 2015, after the default of 2009.
And we could gone into a really bad state, if the government followed on Grexit after the 2015 referendum. It was really scary.
There is so much brilliance here and none of it more so than Frank Drebbin reminding us to please disperse as there is nothing to see here! Thank you so much for your work and analysis
Excellent summary.
I spent a lot of years in academia developing theory to describe what's happening and why. There I learned that pretty much any "soft" field in the English-speaking world - anything that doesn't rely on math, like history and journalism - is tainted by a very real need to serve State interests.
Not because of any conspiracy - people are too inept. Simple herd behavior.
That's why the USA is a grand casino where the only rule is to say whatever leading members of your tribe do. Those who are cast out are vulnerable to everybody. And the machine needs victims to ensure that the House always wins.
Except once people's expectations about the future start to shift - watch out. A global unraveling is now well advanced. It's not getting better before it gets a whole lot worse.
There's opportunity in very crisis, though. And one of these days someone will figure out that it's basically impossible to protect world leaders against drones.
"can continue mass-murdering Palestinians in the Gaza Strip: has killed only some 200 or so the last three days" - will author provide any proofs?
Pure fantasy. Nothing to see here. Just pass by. Thanks.
The major issue that Tom hints at is that the west is unwilling to change borders they randomly drafted in 19th and 20th centuroes
Give Tuaregs a country - problem in Mali but also elsewhere somewhat resolved.
Give Kurds a country - solves a big chunk of middle east problems.
Allow Serbia and Kosovo to swap territories (opposed by EU) and a big chunk of that problem is solved
Give Palestinians their own country and the problem is mainly resolved etc etc.
Stop pretending Libya,Iraq,Afghanistan etc are countries and let them dissolve into smaller more ethnically/religiously/etc homogeneous nations
The west is not pro-peace, it is pro-status quo even if it means war going on for forever.
The west has adopted the policy of inviolable borders for a reason. It's absolutely true that it's selectively applied and therefore hypocritical, it's also true that many of these borders are plain bad, perpetuating ethnic strife, oppression and separatism.
However, the policy was applied in response to the events of the first half of the 20th century, when some states managed to get away with changing borders violently, and the whole scene quickly degenerated into an all-out, free-for-everyone land-grabbing slugfest with tens of millions of dead. So we can make the point (I know, I know, the eternal excuse of despots and the clinically incompetent) that the current setup is awful, but the alternative would be infinitely worse still.
You might have a point but note the western policy of inviolable borders has condemned Africa and Middle East to over half a century of instability, warfare and genocide.
It has also often promoted western commercial and political interests.
And the west violates it so frequently that it makes a total mockery and undermines it completely.
Literally both the west and Russia promote forever war and instability as a means of power and control.
Also forgot to mention,the very fact that there is a complete unwillingness by major powers (west but also China and Russia) to reform global institutions such as UN and especially UN Securoty Council is evidence that the concern is not global peace or averting/stipping war, the issue is maintaining power and control
>> when some states managed to get away with changing borders violently, and the whole scene quickly degenerated into an all-out, free-for-everyone land-grabbing slugfest with tens of millions of dead
What else is Israel doing since 1947-1948....?
And then we all wonder how comes 'UN is not working'...
As said, it's enforced selectively. And the UN certainly didn't work much after WWII, because how could it have?
Still, Israel didn't kill tens of millions, and they were also wise enough not to annex anything officially (de jure not even the Golan), so they didn't actually move borders.
Israel knows how to play its cards with ruthlessly cynical efficiency. And now it seems the reaction is still coming back to bite them, and hard.
Israel needs not 'knowing' - i.e. being sophisticated - at all, because it's always covered by the USA. No matter what it does. Nor how (severely) damaging for US (and European) interests Israeli actions are.
And, Israel (officially) annexed both Jerusalem (already back in 1967 or 1968), and the Golan Heights (in 1981).
....and how many people have been killed in all the Israeli aggressive wars since 1947 - nobody really knows. Sure, there are few documentaries about Israeli-instigated massacres of Palestinians in 1947-1948, but that's also where it usually ends. Nobody cares about the Israelis did with thousands of Palestinian POWs in 1956-1957, nor what the Israelis did with thousands of Egyptian POWs in 1967, or with dozens of thousands of Palestinian civilians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip of 1967-1970, or Lebanon since 1968 etc. , etc., etc.
There are never any official investigations and nobody was ever prosecuted for related crimes - because 'Israel can't do any wrong', and anybody stating it can is 'anti-Semite'.
Let's agree to disagree a bit on this. If Israel were into brute diplomatic force, they could just officially annex every occupied territory and officially deport their native populations. This would gain them the official title of an imperialistic aggressor state, and they apparently believe this would finally end US support.
Declaring unified Jerusalem to be the capital without declaring its annexation, also declaring the Golan Heights to be under Israeli jurisdiction without declaring its annexation is not annexation. It's a dirty and preposterous trick, undeniably, similar to "our settlers are just taking a trip in the West Bank since a few decades, but we have received no complaint about their behavior and have no idea who's beating up Palestinians and fencing them away from their water", but not annexation like the Nazis used to do.
And the US will support them, sure, just like it has supported murderous regimes like those of Mobutu, and the Somozas, and the Argentine junta, and Suharto, and Pinochet, and Obiang, very few of whose thugs were ever prosecuted for their crimes. And still, if the war helps Netanyahu grab ever more power until the country becomes either a totalitarian Kahanist dictatorship or goes down in a civil war, US support will not help them. They will be screwed either way.
What of what I've listed is wrong or is there to disagree with - especially considering even you're confirming everything?
And mind: calling multiple ethnic cleansings, mass murder, imposition of an Apartheid system, state-sponsored terror, multiple aggressive wars, military occupation, hijackings and detention of dozens of thousands, and a genocide (and that 'live on TV') by different other names and explaining them away is no disagreement. Only another confirmation.
....and all of this is supported by the USA. And if not supported, at least protected. Of course, you're free to use different other names and descriptions for that too.
Actually, you only can't avoid naming the spade a spade in one case. That's when it comes to the result: thanks to US support, Israel is on the best way of becoming a fascistoid theocracy directly comparable to the IRGC-regime in the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Ich habe eine frage. Denkst du in Israel einen coup de ta möglich?
This is actually a complex question, requiring a definition.
For example: what do you mean with a 'coup d'etat'?
After all, there was already one coup in Israel: back in late May/early June 1967, Israeli generals staged a de-facto coup (or 'coup, Israeli style' as they call it), to force the PM Eshkol to 'order' them into an aggressive war on Egypt, Jordan, and Syria ('or', they've told him, 'they're going to remove him and take over'). That's what resulted in the affair grotesquely mis-named 'Six Days War' of June 1967... (And no, this is not something I've fabricated, but the way Israeli historians are describing what the generals in question did.)
So, when you ask me if a coup is possible: yes.
However, nope, this is not going to look 'typically'. See 'troops on the street, arresting and disappearing political opponents'. At least not right from the start.
People following the situation much closer than I do, say: 'yes, a civil war is possible', though.
Me thinks: is not going to be necessary. Decades of indoctrination with own superiority (as 'God's hand-picked') and blanc hatred for everybody else, combined with gradual political take-over by extremists are having their effects. Unsurprisingly, right-wing extremist Zionists already have most of the IDF and security agencies in their grip. The issue is just to complete doing the same with civilian authorities. That's what Netanyahu is doing very well, already.
So, I would say (and yes, I know; this is 'massively compressed'): whatever was there of an 'Israeli democracy' (which was always relative, because an Apartheid system is no democracy), is going to fall quite silently.
Yes, there are going to be protests, like there are already protests. But, eventually, the extremists are far more dominant and violent than the 'civililsed' portion of the population and that's it. The outcome is pre-programmed.
Should there be any doubts about this being 'possible': well, see Hungary or Austria. After years of 're-modelling' of civilian authorities by right-wing populists, both are meanwhile in a condition where they would be completely unacceptable as candidates for the EU.
Thanks Tom
Wouldn't it be wonderful if we (i.e. Earth, Terra, Gaea, 3rd Rock from the Sun, etc et al) were to be hit by a GAMMA RAY BURSTER or maybe by something innocuous as a rogue brown dwarf sun....or even better....a QUANTUM SINGULARITY.
Ahhhhhhh.....that would be soooooooo wonderful and solve OH-so many problems here.
BTW: "Nothing to see here, really." My wife and I watched the NAKED GUN trilogy recently (her for the first time) and she laughed so hard it hurt.