AMERICAN DUPLICITY

VANESSA BEELEY—UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese warned that Resolution 2803 “runs counter to the Palestinian right to self-determination” and risks legitimizing “ongoing mass violence.” She said the Council failed to ground its response in the body of law it is obligated to uphold, noting: “I am deeply perplexed… the Council has chosen not to act in accordance with the Purposes and Principles of the United Nations.”

Albanese said the resolution entrenches “external control over Gaza’s governance, borders, security, and reconstruction,” replacing legal obligations with a “security-first, capital-driven model of foreign control.”

J MATSON HEININGER—The hollow man discovered a dark art: the alchemy of rage. He learned that by pointing his finger at the stranger, the immigrant, the outsider, he could summon legions to his banner. “They are coming for your jobs, your homes, your children!” he thundered, and the fearful believed him.

With threats and promises—none sincere, all expedient—he stormed the gates of power. And lo, the people in their desperation gave him the crown. He sat upon the throne not through wisdom or valor, but through the ancient magic of the demagogue: divide and conquer, threaten and bully, promise everything while delivering naught.

DW—The role of China and Russia emerges as a critical theme. While these countries often present themselves as counterweights to Western dominance, their abstentions and failure to veto the Gaza resolution demonstrate the realpolitik constraints they operate under. Laith ’s warning to Latin America and Africa highlights a sobering reality: without military and political power, marginalized regions cannot rely on these states for liberation. This insight pushes for a reevaluation of global alliances and underscores the importance of autonomous resistance movements.

ED CURTIN—It does not matter which political party is in power in Washington, D.C. Their political platforms are meaningless; they are sops thrown to an electorate desperate for illusions, as anyone with a smidgen of historical knowledge would know. Yet many justify the ruthless war-making of the American empire and how it underlies the entire economy by arguing that the parties differ on domestic policies, which is often true. But the lesser of two evils is still the evil of two lessers and another form of bad faith, for the domestic economy, being dependent on warfare and funded by the politicians of both parties, is an economy of death. Harold Pinter said it truly in his Nobel Award Address:

The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis.

J.MACFARLANE—The Russians do not consider the SVO (the “Special Military Operation”  in Ukraine) as a “war’: it is a tactical conflict, something less than a war. They used Oreshnik just once in the Ukraine – as a test!

Right now, the real game changers are weapons that can be applied in the Ukraine tactically and through their success deter European warmongering.

Only one of these is– how should I put it? –glamorous and moderately expensive with both tactical and strategic uses . That’s the Zircon missile originally developed as a naval weapon.

It costs a little over $5 million . Actually cheap compared to a Patriot battery at $1 billion, especially when you consider that Patriots cannot shoot down Russian hypersonic missiles despite the propaganda.

What I am saying is that Zircon is expensive but not too expensive for use against high value targets in a tactical scenario.