Victoria Nuland

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Gonzalo Lira

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PRECIS
"in 1991...upon the implosion of the Soviet Union...there was a huge power vacuum. The US figured that by encouraging oligarchs, by outsourcing tyranny to oligarchs, they could better control these regions...That's why corruption was institutionalised. Ukraine, in particular, soon became a cesspool of Western corruption. Ukraine never overcame it, but Russia, under Putin, gradually emerged from this nightmare to take her seat again as a great world power."


Streamed live on Mar 27, 2022 KHARKIV
Lira holds forth on the origins of Ukraine's astonishing corruption, and the deep-seated emotional motivations for Nuland's hatred of Russia, which Lira traces back to injuries and persecution inflicted on her great-grandfather during Russian pogroms in Bessarabia almost 150 years ago, forcing his son's emigration to America. This emotional scar, shared by many Jews in the US establishment (Blinken, and the Kagans and the rest of the neoconservatives, for example) may explain, to some extent, their deeply-held Russophobia. Victoria Nuland, says Lira, is not a nice person. She's a suckup to those above her and a mean tyrant to those with less power. Meanwhile, as one of the key people in charge of "the Ukraine project", she oversees the colossal grift taking place in that country by all kinds of US and Western business and political figures, much of it huge money-laundering operations, theft and illegal use of state assets, etc. Hunter Biden was one of such individuals, his "line" was chiefly bribery through influence peddling (his father).  All in all a provocative discussion by an outspoken man whose truths made him persona non gratissima with the US/Western establishment, a fact which explains why the US did not lift a finger to help him when he became a prisoner of the Ukrainian regime's goons. 

Correction: Victoria Nuland does have two children, David and Elena Kagan. So I was wrong about that part, which I take back. But I will add, she must’ve been a nightmare mother. GL


Editor's Note:  Gonzalo Lira's Conundrum

A late-blooming anti-imperialist, to put it that way, since till the end Lira was hard to classify, this was a man who lived his entire life with a huge contradiction. The scion of an aristocratic Chilean family, perhaps by dint of socio-cultural upbringing Lira was a lifelong unrepentant supporter of dictator Augusto Pinochet.  This posture, of course, does not add up when we examine his YouTube persona, which is that of a cogent and unrelenting critic of Kiev's criminal Neonazi regime and the US itself.
We'll never know if, as time went by, and he became older and wiser (he always demonstrated a thirst for knowledge and no fear toward new ideas), Lira might have shed his "momio" persona and finally embraced a genuine leftism.  This would have forced him to discard a multitude of prejudices inherited from his class and ethnicity, allowing him to consider richer explanations of political reality, including, perish the thought, Marxism itself. —PG

dyed-in-the-wool reactionaries seen by the masses as rigidly and haughtily anachronistic. Its derogatory connotation is derived from the term "mummy". After the military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet, it fell into disuse, being replaced by the equivalent "facho”. (Short for “fascist”).  (Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator)

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Scott Ritter: GAME OVER for Victoria Nuland as Russia Destroys Neocon Agenda in Ukraine

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Danny Haiphong • Scott Ritter

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Scott Ritter: GAME OVER for Victoria Nuland as Russia Destroys Neocon Agenda in Ukraine

Danny Haiphong

Former US Marine Corps Officer and UN Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter reacts to Victoria Nuland's retirement and how it represents an admission that US foreign policy toward Russia has been an abject failure. Independent media is under attack. Support this channel by subscribing on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/dannyhaiphong


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Tucker Carlson: Putin, Navalny, Trump, CIA, NSA, War, Politics & Freedom

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Lex Fridman • Tucker Carlson

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Please watch this video and THEN read the critique below, prepared by historian Eric Zuesse. 

Feb 27, 2024 Lex Fridman Podcast
Tucker Carlson is a highly-influential political commentator. You can watch and listen to him on the Tucker Carlson Network and the Tucker Carlson Podcast.

 

ANALYSIS AND ANNOTATION OF THE ABOVE VIDEO BY ERIC ZUESSE



Lex Fridman, 27 February 2024, 3 hours long
1:29:13
[FRIDMAN] What do you think of Putin saying that [a] justification
1:29:18
for continuing the war [in Ukraine] is denazification [of Ukraine’s government]? - [CARLSON] I thought it was one of the dumbest things I'd ever heard. I didn't understand what it meant, denazification.
1:29:26
- [FRIDMAN] It literally means what it sounds like. - [CARLSON] Yeah, I mean I have a lot of thoughts on this.
1:29:32
I hate that whole conversation because it's not real, it's just ad hominem. It's a way of associating someone with an evil regime
1:29:39
that doesn't exist anymore. But in point of fact, Nazism, whatever it was,
1:29:45
is inseparable from the German nation. It was a nationalist movement in Germany. There were no other Nazis, right?
1:29:52
There's no book of Nazism. I'm like, I wanna be a Nazi. What does it mean to be a Nazi? There's no idea, there's no...
1:29:57
I mean there's no, "Mein Kampf," is not, "Das Kapital," right? "Mein Kampf," is like, to the extent I understand it,
1:30:03
it's like he's about the Treaty of Versailles. Whatever, I'm very anti-Nazi. I'm merely saying there isn't a Nazi movement in 2024.
1:30:12
It's a way of calling people evil. Okay, Putin doesn't like nationalist Ukrainians.
1:30:18
Putin hates nationalism in general, which is interesting. And of course he does. He's got 80 whatever republics
1:30:25
and he's afraid of nationalist movements. He fought a war in Chechnya over this. So I understand it, but I have a different,
1:30:31
I'm for national, I'm for American nationalism, so like I disagree with Putin on that, but calling them Nazis, it's like,
1:30:36
I thought it was childish. - [FRIDMAN] Well, I do believe that he believes it. - [CARLSON] I agree with that.
1:30:42
'Cause I was listening to this because in the United States everyone's always calling everyone else a Nazi. You're a Nazi.
1:30:48
Okay. But I was listening to this and I was like, "This is the dumbest sort of not convincing line
1:30:56
you could take." And I sat there and listened to him talk about Nazis for like eight minutes. And I'm like, "I think he believes this."
1:31:02
- [FRIDMAN] Yeah, and I actually have had a bunch of conversations with people who are living in Russia, they also believe it.
1:31:09
Now there's technicalities here, which the word Nazi, the World War II is deeply in the blood
1:31:16
of a lot of Russians and Ukrainians. - [Tucker] I get it, I get it. - So you're using it as almost a political term, the way it's used in the United States also,
1:31:22
like racism and all this kind of stuff. So, you can really touch people if you use the Nazi.
1:31:29
- [Tucker] I think that's totally right. - But it's also to me a really like disgusting thing to do.
1:31:35
- [Tucker] I agree. - [FRIDMAN] Because, and also to clarify, there is neo-Nazi movements in Ukraine,
1:31:41
which is, they're very small. You're saying that there's this distinction between Nazi and neo-Nazi, sure.
1:31:47
But it's a small percentage of the population, a tiny percentage that have no power in government
1:31:53
as far I have seen no data to show they have any influence on Zelensky
1:31:58
and Zelensky government at all. So really, when Putin says denazification,
1:32:05
I think he means nationalist movements. - [CARLSON] I think you're right. And I agree with everything you said,
1:32:11
and I do think that the war, the Second World War occupies a place in Slavic society,
1:32:18
Polish society, central Eastern Europe that it does not occupy in the United States. And you can just look at the death totals.
1:32:26
Tens of millions versus less than half a million. So it's like this eliminated a lot of the male population of these countries,
1:32:32
so of course it's still resonant in those countries. I get it.
1:32:38
I just, I think I've watched, I don't think I know I've watched the misuse of words,
1:32:46
weaponization of words for political reasons for so long that I just don't like, and though I do engage in it sometime, I'm sorry,
1:32:53
I don't like just dismissing people in a word. Oh, he's a Nazi, he's a liberal or whatever. It's like, tell me what you mean,
1:33:00
what don't you like about what they're doing or saying? And a Nazi especially, it's like,
1:33:06
I don't even know what the hell you're talking about. - [FRIDMAN] What troubled me about that is because he said that that's the primary objective currently for the war.
1:33:13
And that because it's not grounded in reality,
1:33:18
it makes it difficult to then negotiate peace because like what, what does it mean to get rid
1:33:24
of the Nazis in Ukraine? So like he'll come to the table and say, "Well, okay, I will agree to do ceasefire
1:33:31
once the Nazis are gone." Okay, so can you list the Nazis? - [CARLSON] I totally agree. Plus can you negotiate with a Nazi?
1:33:36
- [Lex] Right, exactly, exactly. - [CARLSON] No, I totally agree with you. - [FRIDMAN] It was very strange. But maybe it was perhaps had to do
1:33:42
with speaking to his own population and also probably trying to avoid the use of the word NATO
1:33:50
as the justification for the war. - [CARLSON] Yeah, yes, that's all... Of course, I don't know, but I suspect you're right on both counts.
1:33:57
But I would say it points to something that I've thought more and more since I did that interview,
1:34:02
which was like two weeks ago, I guess. I didn't think he was like,
1:34:07
as a PR guy, not very good. Like he's not good at telling his own story. The story of the current war in Ukraine
1:34:15
is the eastward expansion of NATO and scaring the shit outta the Russians with NATO expansion,
1:34:20
which is totally necessary. Doesn't help the United States. NATO itself doesn't help the United States. And so I'm not pro-Russian for saying
1:34:26
that I'm pro-American for saying that. And I think that's a really compelling story, 'cause it's true. He did not tell that story.
1:34:32
He told some other story that I didn't fully understand. Again, I'm not Russian. He's speaking to multiple audiences around the world.
1:34:38
I'm not sure what he hoped to achieve by that interview. I will never know. But I did think that like this guy
1:34:45
is not good at telling his story.
——

Regarding Carlson’s “There were no other Nazis, right?” it was wrong, because the ideology exists in every country, sometimes without being directly associated with Germany’s Nazi (capital “N”) Party (not merely with its (lower-case “i”) ideology; but in other instances — such as very much in Ukraine — The West is strongly supportive of, and largely even copying and employing insignia of, Germany’s Nazi Party itself (such as, for example, Ukraine’s Azov Battalion is, and Ukraine’s Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine — renamed the “Freedom” or “Svoboda” Party, by the CIA, as a condition for America’s supporting it) is. The founder and leader of the Azov Battalion Andrei Biletsky even modelled his battalion’s “Ukrainian Social Nationalism” on Hitler’s National Socialism — i.e., on Germany’s Nazi Party. And Ukraine’s Right Sector Party is headed by Dmitriy Yarosh, who was the COO of the coup and the head of its paramilitaries who carried it out for the U.S. Government; its CEO was Andrei Parubiy, a co-founder of the Social Nationalist Party of Ukraine, and he visited in DC with Congressional leaders on 25 February 2015 to lobby for more weapons.

Here is a video from the BBC interviewing some of the “far-right” fighters who had been organized (by the United States Government and its billionaires) behind the scenes of Obama’s coup which overthrew in February 2014 the neutralist Ukrainian democratically elected Government and replaced it with rabidly anti-Russian leaders who had been selected by Obama’s organizer for the coup, Victoria Nuland (shown here on 27 January 2014 instructing the U.S. Ambassador in Kiev whom to get placed in charge as soon as the coup will be completed). The Nuland-selected new leader of Ukraine did get that appointment, and then quickly replaced the top generals with ones who immediately started to plan to ethnically cleanse pro-Russians and Russian-speakers to be eliminated from Ukraine’s population so that in any subsequent ‘democratic’ election ONLY Ukrainians who supported or at least accepted this ethnic cleansing against pro-Russians would be still around to be electing future political leaders of Ukraine, so that the U.S. Government would be using Ukraine as its nearest colony to The Kremlin only 317 miles or a five-minute U.S.-missile-strike away from decapitating Russia’s central command in Moscow.

The CIA had carefully selected each one of the “far-right” (actually nazi, or racist-fascist haters of primarily Russians — even more than, as Hitler’s did, against Jews) Ukrainians, who actually carried out the U.S. take-over of Ukraine so as to use it as the springboard for a planned U.S. version of what had previously been Hitler’s “Operation Barbarossa” to conquer and absorb Russia — to do, for America, what Hitler had tried but failed to do for Germany.

Here is the reality of nazism in Ukraine and its carrying-out the U.S. agenda there:


Note: This video packs many "inconvenient" truths about the origins of the current war in Ukraine so the underhanded scum that runs the Anglo disinformation machine (in this case their Google/YouTube component) have decided to put obstacles, or outright shadowban such material. The pretext here is they worry (!) about hurting our sensibilities, so the video presentation is age-restricted and ONLY available on YouTube, where they can show it or delete it any time they wish. Sometimes, when you see this notice, the video is simply not there. As a result we had to nvest plenty of time searchng for it on an independent channel, and THEN work its code to present it through Rumble, which still does not follow the Deep State guidelines to kill the First Amendment. You'llsee it below this ugly and intrusive black box. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-NzhHv6AAo&list=UUtvrV_ifhx0EDhmPPRl7adQ

!function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src="https://rumble.com/embedJS/uukz21"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+"/?url="+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+"&args="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, "script", "Rumble");

 

Rumble("play", {"video":"v4eah53","div":"rumble_v4eah53"});


Here is yet more of that: Censorship, that is. (The author of this critique, Eric Zuesse, seems unaware that these videos are being sabotaged by YouTube.) The video account that uploaded this invaluable video has gotten all of 76 subscribers, and the mind-boggling quantity of 112 views in 9 years! Yea,censorship, especially underhanded censorship as YouTube practices, works. The Deep State can rest easy. 

!function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src="https://rumble.com/embedJS/uukz21"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+"/?url="+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+"&args="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, "script", "Rumble");

 

Rumble("play", {"video":"v4easpc","div":"rumble_v4easpc"});

 

Here is a news-report about one of the U.S.-backed-and-funded ‘Neo-Nazi’ (i.e.: racist-fascist) organizations’ training-camp for Ukrainian children. (Where it says “A young boy holds a mock weapon and creeps behind a wooden fence as he takes part in drills at the summer camp” this “wooden fence” is shown festooned with German Nazi Party insignia but the right-wing newspaper makes no note of, nor comment about, that incredibly significant fact.) This is a multi-generational operation by the CIA going all the way back to its founding in 1947, by Harry Truman, warping FDR’s ww2-only OSS against the German nazis — against the Nazi Party, the original nazis — to become instead the newly-created U.S. regime’s coup-and-subversion machine, to grab control ultimately over the Soviet Union and now Russia, so as to achieve the world’s first all-encompassing empire. Carlson and Fridman appear to be ignorant of all of that history. Not only is Putin rational to be determined to denazify Ukraine but he’d be derelict in his duties to the Russian nation if he weren’t.


Back in the WW2 years, western Ukraine sympathized with Hitler against Stalin, but eastern Ukraine sympathized with Stalin Against Hitler; and, then, after the war, the CIA (Truman) organized the former allies of (agents for) Hitler to become funded and built as the CIA’s “Operation Gladio” (a “stay-behind army” of local nazis in Europe to assist the U.S. regime’s efforts to turn their local nation’s population against Russians and for the U.S. regime’s goal of ultimately becoming the entire world’s government — the all-encompassing U.S. empire). Promptly, the OSS agent Hugh Angleton retired and transferred to his son the CIA’s James Jesus Angleton (and his boss Alan Dulles) Hugh’s list of 3,000 ‘former’ Nazi secret agents, to become recruited and working now for ‘America’, to finish successfully what had been Hitler’s failed Operation Barbarossa campaign to conquer Russia. The cover-story for it was “anti-communism,” but the reality was imperialistic racist-fascism: though no longer in service to Germany’s Gpvernment but to America’s, and still aiming for an all-encompassing global empire — now America’s, no longer Germany’s. And now focused as obsessively against Russians as the Nazi Party of Germany was obsessively focused against Jews.

The lower-case “nazism” is the ideology; the upper-case “Nazism” is only the German variety of that: Hitler’s political Party. (Similarly, the lower-case “fascism” is the ideology whereas the Italian variety of that is is only the Italian variety of that: Mussolini’s Fascist Party.) But the IDEOLOGY can be, and IS, active in every country, and is ultimately being funded now by U.S.-and-allied billionaires throughout the world. Although the U.S.-and-allied version of nazism is focused mainly against Russians, and the German version (its Nazi Party) was focused mainly against Jews, both are examples of imperialistic racist-fascism. This, for example, is the reason why America’s version can and does have a Jewish nazi, Volodmyr Zelensky, as the U.S.-controlled Ukrainian government’s head-of-state. And perhaps one of the reasons why Carlson and Fridman have been fooled to think that “there isn't a Nazi movement in 2024” is that today the main targets of nazis aren’t Jews — in fact, Ukraine’s nazis are primarily against Russians, and Israel’s nazis (which are almost all Israelis now) are now clearly genocidal against Gazans, if not ultimately so against all Palestinians — even in the West Bank.

Carlson’s “And I think that's a really compelling story, 'cause it's true. He did not tell that story. [1:34:32] He told some other story that I didn't fully understand.” was an important and entirely correct point: At PR, Putin is a failure. (As I had headlined on February 10th, “Putin’s PR Incompetency — the Tucker Carlson Interview as one Example”.) However, as a geo-strategist, Putin has certainly out-witted his enemies, so that — despite America’s being the masters at PR — Russia is thus far winning against the U.S. empire. (That fact makes America’s controlling aristocracy even angrier against Russia.)

The nazi ideology thrives in The West, but even many intelligent commentators in The West are unaware that it does. They focus on the nationality or religion of the imperialistic racist-fascists, or else on its primary victim-targets, instead of on the ideology itself, which is what nazism is.

To assert that the nazi ideology thrives in The West is certainly not to say that most people in Western countries are nazis. Perhaps the only country where most of the population are nazis is today’s Israel; but, for example, the voting-percentages show clearly that nazis are only between 2 to 5% of Ukraine’s population. However, since the U.S. installed that 2 to 5% into the top levels of Ukraine’s government, nazism is clearly flourishing there.


 

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Genocide in Gaza: John Mearsheimer Comes In From the Cold

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John Mearsheimer
Annotated by Patrice Greanville

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Mearsheimer


Has Mearsheimer joined the anti-imperialist camp?
Given the terrible circumstances afflicting Palestinians, it might seem bad form to doubt Mearsheimer's credentials as a legitimate friend, but we need to remember that in Mearsheimer's mind "realism"—another word for pragmatism—comes way ahead of moral considerations. Policymakers engaged in "realpolitik", the only ones allowed to shape policy in countries ruled by steep class pyramids like the US, are required to have no cozy feelings towards ethics, only "reality", that is, only naked power counts, and the calculus of the worst in human instincts. Seen through that utilitarian prism, Mearsheimer's career, with all its idiosyncratic variations, makes sense. Mearsheimer emerges as a nationalist, first and foremost, which in the present national incarnation means unswerving loyalty to the existing global hegemon.  The telltale signs are easy to find. Mearsheimer is obviously a brilliant and complex scholar, but he is also one who writes "in professional code", and by this I mean the lingo of Orwellian definitions and assumptions —almost all scandalously false and intentionally misleading—used by all members of the US national security club. Due to this, many of his statements and positions are also often contradictory or self-canceling. For example, Mearsheimer argued at one point that the lack of an effective and fair institutional order, "international anarchy", obligated states into a national security competition. He later argued that the US, by virtue of its unsurpassed global power, could keep the peace among states acting as a "night watchman". This was in effect a sort of circular reasoning, since, besides providing a sleek justification for US imperialism, it forgets that it is US imperialism itself that not only has created constant chaos in the world through constant wars, regime change and outright invasions, not to mention phony democracy, but that it has also hollowed out the United Nations and other institutions expressly founded to foster equitable peace in the international arena.

Mearsheimer also stands out these days for his relatively conciliatory and understanding posture toward Russia's invasion of Ukraine, regarding Moscow's actions as fully provoked by NATO, and particularly the US. In the 1990s, however, Mearsheimer, appeared far more schizoid in his view of Russia, at once a potentially rogue power, inimical to the supposedly benign values of the West, and also a nation acting according to sane and logical principles. Regarding Ukraine:

After the end of the Soviet Union, the newly independent Ukraine had a large arsenal of nuclear weapons on its territory. However, in 1994, Ukraine agreed to give up nuclear arms and become a member of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty; within two years, it had removed all atomic weapons. Almost alone among observers, Mearsheimer was opposed to that decision because he saw that Ukraine without a nuclear deterrent would likely be subjected to aggression (sic) by Russia.[73]As early as 1993, he suggested that Ukraine should retain its nuclear weapons as a deterrent. (John Mearsheimer, Wikipedia)

 A couple of decades later, Mearsheimer had another change of heart, this one visionary, as was his posture toward the Palestine/Israeli conflict:

In 2014, he retrospectively criticized the geopolitical reorientation of the United States under Bill Clinton since 1995 due to its monopolistic and hegemonic orientation. With the intention of weakening the government of Russia, he said, NATO was planned to be extended to Russia's borders. Accordingly, in an article in Foreign Affairs in August 2014, he assigned the main blame for the outbreak of the conflict to the United States and its Western allies.[75]

Since the mid-1990s, Russian leaders have adamantly opposed NATO enlargement, and in recent years, they have made it clear that they would not stand by while their strategically important neighbor turned into a Western bastion. For Putin, the illegal overthrow of Ukraine’s democratically elected and pro-Russian president—which he rightly labeled a "coup"—was the final straw. He responded by taking Crimea, a peninsula he feared would host a NATO naval base, and working to destabilize Ukraine until it abandoned its efforts to join the West.

John Mearsheimer, Wikipedia).  But whatever his gyrations, or ostensible belief in America's "democratizing mission," an absurd meme widely shared in the US imperialist establishment, Mearsheimer is never afraid of controversy. His position on the Middle East is particularly reckless for any public intellectual wishing to avoid "cancellation":

In April 2010, Mearsheimer delivered the Hisham B. Sharabi Memorial Lecture at the Palestine Center in Washington, D.C., which he titled "The Future of Palestine: Righteous Jews vs. the New Afrikaners." He argued that "the two-state solution is now a fantasy" because Israel will incorporate the Gaza Strip and the West Bank into a "Greater Israel", which would become an apartheid state. According to Mearsheimer, such a state would not be politically viable, most American Jews would not support it, and it would eventually become a democratic binational state politically dominated by its Palestinian majority. He suggested that "American Jews who care deeply about Israel" could be divided into three categories: the "new Afrikaners", who will support Israel even if it is an apartheid state; "righteous Jews", who believe that individual rights are universal and apply equally to Jews and Palestinians; and the largest group, which he called the "great ambivalent middle". He concluded that most of the "great ambivalent middle" would not defend an apartheid Israel because "American Jews are among the staunchest defenders of traditional liberal values." Accordingly, the "new Afrikaners" would become increasingly marginalized over time. Mearsheimer stated that he "would classify most of the individuals who head the Israel lobby's major organizations as "'new Afrikaners'" and specifically listed a number of prominent Jews and Jewish organizations, including Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress, Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, as well as businessmen such as Sheldon Adelson, Lester Crown, and Mortimer Zuckerman and "media personalities" like Fred Hiatt, Charles Krauthammer, Bret Stephens, and Martin Peretz.[47]
(See, John Mearsheimer, Wikipedia)

In sum, Mearsheimer straddles both worlds. One leg remains firmly planted in the national security establishment (he can still speak of the US being a "liberal democracy" without choking), the other, however gingerly, as a rational patriot, in the anti-imperialist camp, minus the usual rhetoric. As things stand, there's little doubt that the Zionist lobby will work double time to "cancel" Mearsheimer. Not an easy job considering Mearsheimer's stature as a public intellectual, and his growing popularity on social media. Maybe there are some people who can't be easily demolished by the cynical bludgeon of antisemitism.
—PG


Genocide in Gaza

I am writing to flag a truly important document that should be widely circulated and read carefully by anyone interested in the ongoing Gaza War.

Specifically, I am referring to the 84-page “application” that South Africa filed with the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on 29 December 2023, accusing Israel of committing genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.1 It maintains that Israel’s actions since the war began on 7 October 2023 “are intended to bring about the destruction of a substantial part of the Palestinian national, racial and ethnic … group in the Gaza Strip.” (1) That charge fits clearly under the definition of genocide in the Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a signatory.2

The application is a superb description of what Israel is doing in Gaza. It is comprehensive, well-written, well-argued, and thoroughly documented. The application has three main components.

First, it describes in detail the horrors that the IDF has inflicted on the Palestinians since 7 October 2023 and explains why much more death and destruction is in store for them.

Second, the application provides a substantial body of evidence showing that Israeli leaders have genocidal intent toward the Palestinians. (59-69) Indeed, the comments of Israeli leaders – all scrupulously documented – are shocking. One is reminded of how the Nazis talked about dealing with Jews when reading how Israelis in “positions of the highest responsibility” talk about dealing with the Palestinians. (59) In essence, the document argues that Israel’s actions in Gaza, combined with its leaders’ statements of intent, make it clear that Israeli policy is “calculated to bring about the physical destruction of Palestinians in Gaza.” (39)

Third, the document goes to considerable lengths to put the Gaza war in a broader historical context, making it clear that Israel has treated the Palestinians in Gaza like caged animals for many years. It quotes from numerous UN reports detailing Israel’s cruel treatment of the Palestinians. In short, the application makes clear that what the Israelis have done in Gaza since 7 October is a more extreme version of what they were doing well before 7 October.

There is no question that many of the facts described in the South African document have previously been reported in the media. What makes the application so important, however, is that it brings all those facts together in one place and provides an overarching and thoroughly supported description of the Israeli genocide. In other words, it provides the big picture while not neglecting the details.

Unsurprisingly, the Israeli government has labelled the charges a “blood libel” that “has no factual and judicial basis.” Moreover, Israel claims that “South Africa is collaborating with a terror group that calls for the destruction of the state of Israel.”3 A close reading of the document, however, makes it clear that there is no basis for these assertions. In fact, it is hard to see how Israel will be able to defend itself in a rational-legal way when the proceedings begin. After all, brute facts are hard to dispute.

Let me offer a few additional observations regarding the South African charges.

First, the document emphasizes that genocide Is distinct from other war crimes and crimes against humanity, although “there is often a close connection between all such acts.” (1) For example, targeting a civilian population to help win a war – as occurred when Britain and the United States bombed German and Japanese cities in World War II – is a war crime, but not genocide. Britain and the United States were not trying to destroy “a substantial part” of, or all the people in those targeted states. Ethnic cleansing underpinned by selective violence is also a war crime, although it is also not genocide, an action that Omer Bartov, the Israeli-born Holocaust expert, calls “the crime of all crimes.”4

For the record, I believed Israel was guilty of serious war crimes--but not genocide—during the first two months of the war, even though there was growing evidence of what Bartov has called “genocidal intent” on the part of Israeli leaders.5 But it became clear to me after the 24-30 November 2023 truce ended and Israel went back on the offensive, that Israeli leaders were in fact seeking to physically destroy a substantial portion of Gaza’s Palestinian population.

Second, even though the South African application focuses on Israel, it has huge implications for the United States, especially President Biden and his principal lieutenants. Why? Because there is little doubt that the Biden administration is complicitous in Israel’s genocide, which is also a punishable act according to the Genocide Convention. Despite his admission that Israel is engaged in “indiscriminate bombing,” President Biden has also stated that “we’re not going to do a damn thing other than protect Israel. Not a single thing.”6 He has been true to his word, going so far as to bypass Congress twice to quickly get additional armaments to Israel. Leaving aside the legal implications of his behavior, Biden’s name – and America’s name – will be forever associated with what is likely to become one of the textbook cases of attempted genocide.

Third, I never imagined I would see the day when Israel, a country filled with Holocaust survivors and their descendants, would face a serious charge of genocide. Regardless of how this case plays out in the ICJ – and here I am fully aware of the maneuvers that the United States and Israel will employ to avoid a fair trial – in the future Israel will be widely regarded as principally responsible for one of the canonical cases of genocide.

Fourth, the South African document emphasizes that there is no reason to think this genocide is going to end soon, unless the ICJ successfully intervenes. It twice quotes the words of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on 25 December 2023 to drive that point home: “We are not stopping, we are continuing to fight, and we are deepening the fighting in the coming days, and this will be a long battle and it is not close to being over.” (8, 82) Let us hope South Africa and the IJC bring a halt to the fighting, but in the final analysis the power of international courts to coerce countries like Israel and the United States is extremely limited.

Finally, the United States is a liberal democracy that is filled with intellectuals, newspaper editors, policymakers, pundits, and scholars who routinely proclaim their deep commitment to protecting human rights around the world. They tend to be highly vocal when countries commit war crimes, especially if the United States or any of its allies are involved. In the case of Israel’s genocide, however, most of the human rights mavens in the liberal mainstream have said little about Israel’s savage actions in Gaza or the genocidal rhetoric of its leaders. Hopefully, they will explain their disturbing silence at some point. Regardless, history will not be kind to them, as they said hardly a word while their country was complicit in a horrible crime, perpetrated right out in the open for all to see.

Notes

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
John Joseph Mearsheimer (/ˈmɪərʃmər/; born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientistand international relations scholar who belongs to the realist school of thought.[3] He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the University of Chicago. He has been described as the most influential realist of his generation.


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Israel’s Incursion into Gaza Continues as US Seeks Wider War with Iran

Please make sure these dispatches reach as many readers as possible. Share with kin, friends and workmates and ask them to do likewise.


Brian Berletic
THE NEW ATLAS

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US think tanks like Brookings or Rand are agglomerations of experts paid to plot international crimes.
Jan 3, 2024

The New Atlas

Update on Israeli military operations in Gaza and growing regional conflict...
• Israeli military operations have exceeded in duration, scale, scope, death, and destruction, previous incursions into Gaza in 2008-2009 and 2014
• Israel is pacing its military operations, making this longer-term campaign possible in terms of arms and ammunition
• Israeli losses continue to mount, however the true nature of the fighting is difficult to discern
• Militants in Gaza have published inconclusive footage of attacks on Israeli armored vehicles failing to show the full aftermath and whether or not the vehicles were even hit at all, damaged, or destroyed
• Without more information about the nature of the fighting, it is difficult to draw conclusions about how sustainable Israeli military operations are and thus what outcome may emerge
• Israeli leadership indicates that following the operation there will be some sort of open-ended “security presence” in Gaza (de facto occupation)
• The conflict continues undermining stability in the region, threatening trade through the Red Sea, with Israeli strikes continuing to target Hezbollah in southern Lebanon and Syria, thus creating potential pretexts for a wider conflict against either or even against Iran
• Just like the US proxy war in Ukraine, despite ambitions toward triggering a wider conflict in the Middle East or creating a pretext for war with Iran, the US may fail there as well
• Ultimately, Israel’s current actions may only accelerate rather than prevent the collapse of the US-led “order” in the region and precipitate the emergence of an Israel led by interests committed to a two-state solution and co-existence with its neighbors.
FEATURE IMAGE: Iran naval group with several destroyers.


WHICH PATH TO PERSIA?
Options for a New American Strategy toward Iran
Download here this morally repugnant plan prepared by Brookings on how to attack Iran. Everyone involved in this project should be hauled before a new Nuremberg tribunal. But this is par for the course in our foreign policy establishment.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR / SOURCE
Brian Berletic is a leading geopolitical analyst and anti-imperialist vlogger.


Print this article

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

Since the overpaid corporate media stenographers will never risk their careers to report the truth, the world must rely on citizen journalists to provide the facts that explain reality. Put this effort to use by becoming an influence multiplier. Repost this material everywhere you can. Send it to your friends and kin. Discuss it with your workmates. Liberation from this infernal and mendacious system is in your hands. We can win this. But you must act.
—The Editor
—The Editor


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ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS NOT THE AUTHORS