# entry

guid: https://www.unz.com/?post_type=item&amp;p=544465
title: Liberate Germany, by Ron Unz
author: ;Ron Unz
link: https://www.unz.com/article/liberate-germany/
hash: ۲aɬtN�@oi/�y
attributes: {"enclosures":[]}
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<div><img src="https://www.unz.com/wp-content/themes/unzSite/IMAGES/unz_large_logo.png" data-sanitized-class="ff-og-image-inserted"></div><p wcount="16" data-sanitized-id="p_1_1" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">‘Germans are either at your throat or at your feet,’ quipped old war lover Winston Churchill.</span></p>
<p wcount="42" data-sanitized-id="p_1_2" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Today, Germans are at our feet – an astounding 80 years after the end of World War II. Though mostly reunited, Germany remains an occupied nation reduced to second class status and afflicted with war guilt. Japan – also occupied – remains in a similar status,</span></p>
<p wcount="100" data-sanitized-id="p_1_3" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The recent German federal elections brought the moderate, polite Christian Democratic Union to power, ousting the feeble, namby pamby Socialists whose primary goal was not to offend anyone. Many younger Germans, fed up with Germany’s subservient behavior, voted for the new AfD, a moderately conservative party. But AfD was blocked from the coalition leadership after a chorus of howls from the press and rivals that it was a neo-Nazi party. AfD’s leader is a big-boned woman whom German media claims is a lesbian who lives with a south Asian younger lady. Hardly a reincarnation of the Third Reich.</span></p>
<p wcount="83" data-sanitized-id="p_1_4" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The liberal German and US media kept running reports on Auschwitz and other wartime atrocities. No one took time to mention the Soviet concentration camps or the 27 million killed by Stalin in the USSR. No one mentions that ‘Nazi’ stands for ‘National Socialist.’ The feeble US-dominated German press never mentions that World War II was begun by France and Germany, or how many times Chancellor Hitler tried to make peace with London and Paris. Or how much German territory was detached in 1945-1948.</span></p>
<p wcount="81" data-sanitized-id="p_1_5" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The most significant point is that Germany remains under US military occupation. This happened as result of what we believe was the Soviet threat in 1945 and after. General George S. Patton understood this well and said that the US should have attacked the Soviet Union, instead of Germany. He was killed soon after in a mysterious vehicle crash. Pavel Sudoplatov, a former KGB general, claimed in his very interesting book, ‘Special Tasks,’ that the Roosevelt administration had many high-level Soviet agents.</span></p>
<p wcount="41" data-sanitized-id="p_1_6" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Today, of the 84,000 US troops in Europe, 39,000 are permanently based in Germany, 10,000 in Britain, 14,000 in Poland and 13,000 in sunny Italy, more in Turkey and the Baltic states. Many are air force personnel maintaining America’s control of the skies over Europe.</span></p>
<p wcount="65" data-sanitized-id="p_1_7" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Of course, one must ask why 80 years after the end of WWII the US still maintains such large forces in Europe – not to mention Japan. The US says it is defending against a possible Russian invasion. But three years of war have shown that Russia is no longer the military juggernaut it was in the post-war years when its military forces numbered in the millions.</span></p>
<p wcount="63" data-sanitized-id="p_1_8" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Russia’s Vlad Putin is a convenient bogeyman. Claims he intends to invade Western Europe are nonsense. He might try to reclaim the Baltic states. US claim’s that Putin wants to annex parts of the world are pretty rich considering the US invasions of Panama, Grenada, the Dominican Republic, Iraq, Somalia and, most lately, Trump’s territorial claims on Canada and Greenland.</span></p>
<p wcount="50" data-sanitized-id="p_1_9" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The point is – how can a nation that has been occupied by a foreign army since 1945 be truly independent? When it was revealed the US National Security Agency was tapping the cellphone of former German Chancellor Angela Merkel, all the red-faced Germans dared do was huff and puff a little.</span></p>
<p wcount="40" data-sanitized-id="p_1_10" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Germans should resume acting like a strong and proud people instead of beaten dogs. Germany is the locomotive of Europe. For Europe to reassume its key world role, Germany must lead the way instead of awaiting email instructions from Washington.</span></p>
<p wcount="9" data-sanitized-id="p_1_11" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">And it’s high time to forget about WWII.</span></p>


guid: https://www.unz.com/?post_type=item&amp;p=544476
title: You Don’t Have the Cards, by Andrew Anglin
author: ;Andrew Anglin
link: https://www.unz.com/aanglin/you-dont-have-the-cards/
hash: �� ��_Gc̪ O��
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<blockquote data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="5.1923076923077" data-sanitized-class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">WATCH FULL: The RAW HISTORIC back and forth between Trump and Zelensky <a href="https://t.co/5KTW939Z0Y">https://t.co/5KTW939Z0Y</a> <a href="https://t.co/aEtElUyJez">pic.twitter.com/aEtElUyJez</a></p>
<p wcount="5" data-sanitized-id="p_1_1" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">— RT (@RT_com) <a href="https://twitter.com/RT_com/status/1895549946268672426?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2025</a></span></p>
</blockquote>

<p wcount="11" data-sanitized-id="p_1_2" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Well, the best thing ever finally happened. As you probably know.</span></p>
<p wcount="23" data-sanitized-id="p_1_3" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Volonodonomodor Zeeleniniskiyey came to the White House to meet Donald Trump and it turned into the most public diplomatic breakdown in known history.</span></p>
<p wcount="49" data-sanitized-id="p_1_4" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">First, James Bowman, who was at the meeting for some reason, began lecturing Zelensky with all of the talking points that everyone who knows anything is already aware of, talking about how the Ukraine is losing and force conscripting people and they need a deal to end the war.</span></p>
<p wcount="33" data-sanitized-id="p_1_5" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Then, Zelensky began acting like a petulant child, calling Bowman a “fucking bitch” under his breath but loud enough to be picked up by the mic, and then began lashing out at Trump.</span></p>
<p wcount="49" data-sanitized-id="p_1_6" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump would not tolerate this, and started scolding Zelensky in the way that grown-ups scold misbehaving children. As an out of control child will do, Zelensky kept interrupting the adult and Trump went so far as to push him, physically, with his hand, to get him to shut up.</span></p>
<p wcount="44" data-sanitized-id="p_1_7" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">At one point he told Zelensky: “you don’t have the cards” and Zelensky claimed he was no playing cards, to which Trump replied, “you are playing cards and you’re gambling with the lives of millions of people and gambling with nuclear war.”</span></p>
<p wcount="40" data-sanitized-id="p_1_8" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump then explained that there would be no deal, Zelensky is not ready for a deal, and kicked him out of the White House. They skipped lunch and the planned joint press conference, with Zelensky forced to leave in shame.</span></p>
<p wcount="16" data-sanitized-id="p_1_9" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">There are a lot of funny screengrabs from the meeting, but my favorite was my own:</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="i_1" data-sanitized-class="image imagecenter container">
<div data-sanitized-class="image-holder"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><a href="https://dailystormer.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/zelensky-trump.jpg"><img src="https://dailystormer.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/zelensky-trump-618x452.jpg" alt></a></span></div>
</div>
<p wcount="25" data-sanitized-id="p_1_10" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Crossing his arms like that was such a stupid move that anyone should have been able to tell him to never do in a meeting.</span></p>
<p wcount="32" data-sanitized-id="p_1_11" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump has done something hilarious replacing the press corps with bloggers, because while he was getting in his Secret Service truck, someone was yelling “why did you disrespect the president, Mr. Zelensky?”</span></p>
<blockquote data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="4.4166666666667" data-sanitized-class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">Trump kicked Zelensky out 💀<br><a href="https://t.co/aXpJdHdg6X">pic.twitter.com/aXpJdHdg6X</a></p>
<p wcount="4" data-sanitized-id="p_1_12" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">— Gabe (@GabeZZOZZ) <a href="https://twitter.com/GabeZZOZZ/status/1895555487355322835?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2025</a></span></p>
</blockquote>

<p wcount="19" data-sanitized-id="p_1_13" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Also, during the Oval Office meeting, one of the bloggers asked him why he wasn’t wearing a suit.</span></p>
<blockquote data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="12.171717171717" data-sanitized-class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">🚨 Reporter <a href="https://twitter.com/brianglenntv?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@brianglenntv</a> just CALLED OUT Zelensky in the Oval Office</p>
<p wcount="23" data-sanitized-id="p_1_14" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">“Why don’t you wear a suit?! You’re in the HIGHEST OFFICE in our country and you refuse to wear a suit…</span></p>
<p wcount="6" data-sanitized-id="p_1_15" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">“Do you even own a suit?!”</span></p>
<p wcount="4" data-sanitized-id="p_1_16" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">🔥🔥<br><a href="https://t.co/aftKfBQmxM">pic.twitter.com/aftKfBQmxM</a></span></p>
<p wcount="5" data-sanitized-id="p_1_17" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) <a href="https://twitter.com/nicksortor/status/1895539152328020156?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2025</a></span></p>
</blockquote>

<p wcount="9" data-sanitized-id="p_1_18" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump rubbed it in in the funniest way possible.</span></p>
<blockquote data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="9.0344827586207" data-sanitized-class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">“Take the deal or we are out”</p>
<p wcount="5" data-sanitized-id="p_1_19" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">PS: I like your clothes.</span></p>
<p wcount="0" data-sanitized-id="p_1_20" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">😂</span></p>
<p wcount="5" data-sanitized-id="p_1_21" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">This is great reality television.</span></p>
<p wcount="5" data-sanitized-id="p_1_22" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><a href="https://t.co/JlyOtmM7jZ">pic.twitter.com/JlyOtmM7jZ</a></span></p>
<p wcount="5" data-sanitized-id="p_1_23" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) <a href="https://twitter.com/LauraLoomer/status/1895541792000348341?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2025</a></span></p>
</blockquote>

<p wcount="15" data-sanitized-id="p_1_24" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">That came after Trump mocked him when he arrived, saying he was “all dressed up.”</span></p>
<blockquote data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="5.6912751677852" data-sanitized-class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">President Trump greets President Zelenskyy at the White House 🇺🇸 <a href="https://t.co/tkksSdlcjz">pic.twitter.com/tkksSdlcjz</a></p>
<p wcount="5" data-sanitized-id="p_1_25" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">— Margo Martin (@MargoMartin47) <a href="https://twitter.com/MargoMartin47/status/1895511105352663282?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2025</a></span></p>
</blockquote>

<p wcount="14" data-sanitized-id="p_1_26" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Candace Owens is claiming she deserves credit for making fun of his costume first.</span></p>
<blockquote data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="9.7912087912088" data-sanitized-class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">No one will give me credit for calling out his obvious “war attire styling” for a full 3 YEARS now— back when we were called “Putin puppets”<br>I am so glad the world now sees this clown for exactly what he is. He is just not a serious person and deserves to be publicly ridiculed. <a href="https://t.co/rw1QLtZ7N8">https://t.co/rw1QLtZ7N8</a></p>
<p wcount="5" data-sanitized-id="p_1_27" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">— Candace Owens (@RealCandaceO) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1895558513000399200?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2025</a></span></p>
</blockquote>

<p wcount="68" data-sanitized-id="p_1_28" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I hate that tweet. Firstly, I was the first one to make fun of his costume, and everyone knows that, including Candace. Secondly, no one can claim they invented making fun of his costume, because it is very obvious that he is going around in a costume, and it’s obvious that this was focus-group tested with Western white women, who are the prime demographic supporting the war.</span></p>
<p wcount="93" data-sanitized-id="p_1_29" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">He was doomed as soon as he made the decision to wear that stupid army costume to the White House. It demonstrates he looks at the whole thing like a big game and has no desire to pretend he’s serious about anything. He agreed to completely destroy the Ukraine as part of a US plan to weaken Russia in exchange for a lot of money. He already has the money, so you’d think he’d be ready to just wrap it up with some dignity, but apparently he wants more money.</span></p>
<p wcount="57" data-sanitized-id="p_1_30" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">People are saying Zelensky was on drugs and screwed this whole thing up. Although he was probably on drugs, I saw a video of him doing standard “cocaine sniffing” behavior which we’ve all seen many videos of him doing before. But I have a much hotter take than that this was just a drug-fueled emotional meltdown.</span></p>
<p wcount="111" data-sanitized-id="p_1_31" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I think this was pre-planned. He went in there with the plan to do the “resistance” bit, to “stand up against Trump’s fascism,” to make a big show of how outraged he is that Trump will not stand with democracy. At one point, after Zelensky claimed that Ukraine was “all alone,” Trump said that they weren’t alone, they had $350 billion from the US, and if they wouldn’t have had that, they would have lost in two weeks, and Zelensky said “three days, according to Putin.” Trump replied: “maybe less.” This was part of the plan, to compare Trump to Putin, to claim that Trump is working with Putin.</span></p>
<p wcount="104" data-sanitized-id="p_1_32" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">It is obvious that Trump is intent on ending the war, so there was no real purpose in going along with Trump’s plan. Well, the purpose would have been to try to convince Trump that the Ukraine doesn’t need an election, so that Zelensky can leave with some dignity, and that probably would have been the better option for Zelensky personally. But what he did in creating this scene was appeal to the Jewish media and the European establishment to further the narrative of Trump working for Putin, which they are currently stirring up again, because they don’t have other options.</span></p>
<p wcount="128" data-sanitized-id="p_1_33" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Zelensky meant for a breakdown of the discussion in public and he meant for Trump to get angry and scold him. I do think he overestimated his own improv abilities, and had imagined that he would be able to have a “moment of defiance against fascism in the name of democracy.” I don’t think it went how he planned, because he just looks like a whining little bitch, entitled and demanding. This will still result in Europeans and white women saying “oh, look at the poor little child, being so meanly abused by the very bad orange father,” but most people are going to look at this scene and say “how is that brat running a country? why did we give $350 billion to this ungrateful little imp?”</span></p>
<p wcount="52" data-sanitized-id="p_1_34" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">So, it went very badly for Zelensky, but not really in the way most people are saying. He meant to create the scene, but he thought he would be able to stage a “moment of defiance,” and Trump clearly got what he was doing and made a point to completely humiliate him.</span></p>

<div data-sanitized-id="i_2" data-sanitized-class="image imagecenter container">
<div data-sanitized-class="image-holder"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><a href="https://dailystormer.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/vance.jpg"><img src="https://dailystormer.in/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/vance-618x348.jpg" alt></a></span></div>
</div>
<p wcount="36" data-sanitized-id="p_1_35" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The biggest winner here, aside from America and Russia, was James Bowman, who is being celebrated for his performance and scolding of Zelensky. I was not totally impressed with it, personally, especially in contrast to Trump.</span></p>
<p wcount="29" data-sanitized-id="p_1_36" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I don’t like Bowman as the successor to Trump at all, and I’m sure this is going to be the narrative after his performance at this meeting.</span></p>
<p wcount="9" data-sanitized-id="p_1_37" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I would prefer Tucker Carlson, or really anyone who:</span></p>
<ul><li>Doesn’t have an Indian wife, and</li>
<li>Doesn’t say “Israel is our greatest ally”</li>
</ul><p wcount="20" data-sanitized-id="p_1_38" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">But whatever, I don’t really care that much US politics, honestly, I just want to see my enemies punished.</span></p>
<p wcount="4" data-sanitized-id="p_1_39" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>It’s So Over</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="15" data-sanitized-id="p_1_40" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">This was the end of the Ukraine Age. There is no going back from this.</span></p>
<p wcount="133" data-sanitized-id="p_1_41" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Some people were saying that Trump was maybe going to continue the war and just claim that the Ukraine is paying the US for it through mineral rights, but that was never the plan and if it had been the plan, it isn’t after this debacle. Again, if there was any chance of Trump getting on board with the war, Zelensky wouldn’t have done this. He’s not that stupid. He had intelligence people, presumably from the UK, telling him there was no chance Trump was going to support the war so the best thing he could do at this meeting is create the “standing against fascism” inspirational moment in the hopes that it would help convince the Europeans to continue funding him (as if the Europeans even have that ability).</span></p>
<p wcount="51" data-sanitized-id="p_1_42" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">After this, it is going to end quickly. Trump is going to start demanding elections in the Ukraine, he is going to cut all funding completely, he’s going to press home the fact that if Zelensky thinks he has the support of his people, he needs to do an election.</span></p>
<p wcount="104" data-sanitized-id="p_1_43" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Zelensky is of course planning to escape with his billions. It might be too much to hope for, but I do hope that he can be brought up on war crimes charges on the basis that he knew the war was unwinnable and still sent hundreds of thousand or millions to die in vain. His army has also committed a lot of individual war crimes against Ukrainian, many of which are on video, as well as war crimes in purposefully targeting civilians in the Donbass and inside 2022 Russian borders, and it could easily be shown that he was aware of and ordered these actions.</span></p>
<p wcount="36" data-sanitized-id="p_1_44" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I was convinced before the election that Trump was going to end the Ukraine war, but after this seen on Friday, I’m now wondering if I might get more than I’d ever hoped for.</span></p>
<p wcount="95" data-sanitized-id="p_1_45" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">There are a lot of things about the Trump agenda I do not appreciate, particularly with relation to these Jews and their global agenda, but those things are a separate issue and no one should let that impinge on their joyfulness over the fact that the Ukraine mess is finally ending and that all of these people, the media and the government people and all of those women, who were going on and on about the gloriousness of the Ukraine, are facing the greatest of all humiliations as everything the anti-Ukraine people said comes true.</span></p>
<blockquote data-width="500" data-dnt="true" readability="10.594005449591" data-sanitized-class="twitter-tweet">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr" xml:lang="en">“We had a very meaningful meeting in the White House today. Much was learned that could never be understood without conversation under such fire and pressure. It’s amazing what comes out through emotion, and I have determined that President Zelenskyy is not ready for Peace if… <a href="https://t.co/CtnqXBNcW3">pic.twitter.com/CtnqXBNcW3</a></p>
<p wcount="7" data-sanitized-id="p_1_46" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">— President Donald J. Trump (@POTUS) <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1895544632651424102?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 28, 2025</a></span></p>
</blockquote>


guid: https://www.unz.com/?post_type=item&amp;p=544480
title: Jim Kavanagh on Trump’s Gaza Plan, Geopolitical Earthquakes, by Kevin Barrett
author: ;Kevin Barrett
link: https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/jim-kavanagh-on-trumps-gaza-plan-geopolitical-earthquakes/
hash: �H�i��Hd�>� ��V
attributes: {"enclosures":[]}
content:
<div><img src="https://www.unz.com/wp-content/themes/unzSite/IMAGES/unz_large_logo.png" data-sanitized-class="ff-og-image-inserted"></div><p wcount="4" data-sanitized-id="p_1_1" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><a title="https://rumble.com/v6pxz5g-jim-kavanagh-on-trumps-gaza-plan-geopolitical-earthquakes.html" href="https://rumble.com/v6pxz5g-jim-kavanagh-on-trumps-gaza-plan-geopolitical-earthquakes.html" rel>Rumble link</a> <a title="https://old.bitchute.com/video/fpX8GLReWoSB/" href="https://old.bitchute.com/video/fpX8GLReWoSB/" rel>Bitchute link</a></span></p>

<p wcount="27" data-sanitized-id="p_1_3" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Jim Kavanagh of <a title="https://thepolemicist.substack.com/" href="https://thepolemicist.substack.com/" rel>The Polemicist</a> discusses “<a title="https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/11/trumps-exemplary-gaza-plan/" href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2025/02/11/trumps-exemplary-gaza-plan/" rel>Trump’s Exemplary Gaza Plan</a>,” as well as ongoing geopolitical upheavals, led by the Trump-instigated US break with Europe and Ukraine.</span></p>
<p wcount="1" data-sanitized-id="p_1_4" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>Excerpt:</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="95" data-sanitized-id="p_1_5" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>Kevin Barrett: So, hey, I want to run an idea by you here, Jim. I just came up with this. So what if every Ramadan, starting with this Ramadan, all of us Muslims decided, instead of looking to our local national authorities to decide when to start the month of Ramadan—which day is the day you start fasting? This is something we do every year. And then sometimes there’s controversy. In the United States, different groups of Muslims follow different authorities and they don’t always agree which day Ramadan starts and ends.</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="74" data-sanitized-id="p_1_6" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>So how are we going to solve this problem? (How do we get the whole Muslim world to agree, or better yet, to start fasting on the same day?) It’s been suggested do whatever the Saudis do. But those of us who aren’t very impressed by the Saudis don’t like that idea. Another approach is just follow tradition, which is, of course, you go with your local emir or political leader.</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="90" data-sanitized-id="p_1_7" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>But…how could we unite the Muslim world? Here’s how you do it. I say we all go by the Palestine moon sighting. In other words,you always go by whoever has the authority in Islam: whenever they say that somebody has sighted the moon in your jurisdiction, that’s when you start fasting. Well, let’s go by the Palestinians! And specifically, let’s have somebody at the Al-Aqsa Mosque look for the moon. And the whole Muslim world will fast the day that they see the moon.</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="52" data-sanitized-id="p_1_8" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>And if we do that, Palestine and Al-Aqsa Mosque in particular becomes the de facto capital of the Islamic Ummah. And suddenly a lot of things would change. So that’s my idea. I’m throwing it out here. And if it happens, you can say you were there when it started.</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="55" data-sanitized-id="p_1_9" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Jim Kavanagh: OK, I’ll give you credit for it. I’ll write you down as the source of that idea. It’s a good idea. It’s a… kind of metonymy for the idea that if the Arab and the Muslim world would unite around Palestine, the Palestine issue could be solved with justice.</span></p>
<p wcount="132" data-sanitized-id="p_1_10" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>It’s a way to get some grassroots pressure in that direction. I hope the King of Morocco doesn’t get mad at me for saying this, because he’s the one who decides when Ramadan starts here, or his people do. But anyway, moving on from there…not that far, though, over to Gaza. You wrote a piece on Trump’s exemplary Gaza plan, and it’s kind of…painful. Everybody, including me, is saying, this is ridiculous. I mean, this plan is not only evil beyond belief, but it’s also unrealistic beyond belief. What is this guy smoking? Is he on a bad PCP trip? But you pointed out that all the other possibilities are highly unlikely, too. So…that’s kind of a frightening conundrum, isn’t it?</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="70" data-sanitized-id="p_1_11" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">It’s the plan. It is the plan from the beginning. It’s Netanyahu’s plan. It is happening. “We’re going to kill or expel, exterminate or expel most of the Palestinians, if not all of them, just like we did in 1948. We did it before. The world accepted it. We’re going to do it again and the world will accept it and the world is accepting it.”</span></p>
<p wcount="28" data-sanitized-id="p_1_12" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">So they’re going to do it over a year or over six months or over 20 or 48 years, or 70 years. But that’s what they want to do.</span></p>
<p wcount="24" data-sanitized-id="p_1_13" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump’s plan is a kind of gross, grotesque, blatant version of the plan that’s actually in motion. And who has the alternative?</span></p>


guid: https://www.unz.com/?post_type=item&amp;p=544500
title: From Donbass to South Lebanon, and All Across BRICS, It’s All About Resistance, by Pepe Escobar
author: ;Pepe Escobar
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<div data-sanitized-class="image-holder"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><a href="https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/0b/0c/1120863809_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_ca6e59cc494a409c77f8ef5e98c32f38.jpg.webp"><img src="https://cdn1.img.sputnikglobe.com/img/07e8/0b/0c/1120863809_0:160:3072:1888_1920x0_80_0_0_ca6e59cc494a409c77f8ef5e98c32f38.jpg.webp" alt></a></span></div>
</div>
<p wcount="55" data-sanitized-id="p_1_1" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">For those who keep track of the slings and arrows crossing the broader geopolitical chessboard non-stop, it’s an immensely powerful – and humbling – experience to one day be contemplating the devastated Avdeyevka, in the heart of the war in Donbass, and a week later struggling to understand the devastation inflicted on villages in southern Lebanon.</span></p>
<p wcount="26" data-sanitized-id="p_1_2" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">It’s all about the transcending power of Resistance – uniting Orthodox Christianity in the black soil of Novorossiya to political Shi’ism in the Eastern Mediterranean.</span></p>
<p wcount="44" data-sanitized-id="p_1_3" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">It’s this close-up, in microcosm, of the tortuous, bloody, pitiless ways of the Angel of History – to remember Walter Benjamin’s searing metaphor – that really illuminate the always shape-shifting Big Picture, and help us to better frame complex historical processes on the move.</span></p>
<p wcount="40" data-sanitized-id="p_1_4" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">We are now, geopolitically, under the volcano. And one of the key questions ahead that may allow us to better find a way out is how the top BRICS nations will be reacting to the seemingly immovable Forever Wars ethos.</span></p>
<p wcount="52" data-sanitized-id="p_1_5" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">So let’s keep our feet on the ground. <a title="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250226/europes-desire-to-deploy-peacekeepers-in-ukraine-aimed-to-weaponize-it-again---lavrov-1121601586.html" href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250226/europes-desire-to-deploy-peacekeepers-in-ukraine-aimed-to-weaponize-it-again---lavrov-1121601586.html" rel="noopener">Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov</a> has just gone through an intriguing Astana process loop. First he was in Turkiye – the new hegemon in Syria, at least in thesis. He met Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan – the former head of Turkish intel – and President Erdogan.</span></p>
<p wcount="33" data-sanitized-id="p_1_6" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><em>Even though Turkiye will hardly dare to become a BRICS partner – after it was officially invited at the Kazan summit last year – Ankara simply cannot afford to antagonize Russia, mostly for geoeconomic reasons.</em></span></p>
<p wcount="19" data-sanitized-id="p_1_7" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Then Lavrov went to Iran – following up on the Treaty on Comprehensive Strategic Cooperation signed on January 17 in Moscow.</span></p>
<p wcount="60" data-sanitized-id="p_1_8" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Lavrov and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi discussed not only the proverbial mutually beneficial trade and economic cooperation agenda – especially on energy and transportation – but also the wider geopolitical chessboard, including ultra-sensitive nodes such as Syria, Yemen, the Persian Gulf, the Caspian, the South Caucasus and Afghanistan, as well as what could happen next for the <a title="https://sputnikglobe.com/20240117/irans-top-diplomat-reiterates-tehrans-readiness-for-all-parties-to-return-to-jcpoa-1116212566.html" href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20240117/irans-top-diplomat-reiterates-tehrans-readiness-for-all-parties-to-return-to-jcpoa-1116212566.html" rel="noopener">JCPOA</a>, the Iran nuclear deal.</span></p>
<p wcount="26" data-sanitized-id="p_1_9" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Yet the absolutely key imperative remains the Forever Wars chapter in Ukraine – whose resolution (or not) will deeply affect geopolitics for the rest of the century.</span></p>
<p wcount="24" data-sanitized-id="p_1_10" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><em>Three years ago, at the start of the SMO, President Putin qualified a series of objectives. NATO responded by seeking to up the ante.</em></span></p>
<p wcount="50" data-sanitized-id="p_1_11" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Examples. Let’s start with a security treaty imposing a demilitarized space on <a title="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250219/pepe-escobar-in-the-heart-of-donbass-before-us-russia-meet-in-riyadh--1121584757.html" href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250219/pepe-escobar-in-the-heart-of-donbass-before-us-russia-meet-in-riyadh--1121584757.html" rel="noopener">Russia’s western borders</a>, and the return of NATO to its limits circa 1997. NATO responded by expanding in Scandinavia – and now the Baltic chihuahuas, supported by Finland, dream of turning the Baltic Sea into a NATO lake.</span></p>
<p wcount="33" data-sanitized-id="p_1_12" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">While the Lugansk National Republic has been 100% liberated, Donetsk stands at best at 75%. Kherson was 100% liberated in the summer of 2022, but then there was a retreat; it now stands at 75%. Same with Zaporizhia.</span></p>
<p wcount="23" data-sanitized-id="p_1_13" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Ukraine has not been fully demilitarized yet – although the prospects are somewhat encouraging – or denazified (that will be a decade-long process, at least).</span></p>
<p wcount="55" data-sanitized-id="p_1_14" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Ukraine as a non-NATO neutral nation remains a real red line to Moscow ahead of upcoming negotiations with Trump 2.0. Same with the acceptance by Kiev of Crimea and the four regions as Russian and the removal of all sanctions against Russia: Washington may remove quite a few, but the vassal EU will keep them all.</span></p>
<p wcount="61" data-sanitized-id="p_1_15" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Not to mention it’s still a long and winding road – to put it mildly – for Moscow to eventually de-enclave Transnistria, which would require to establish a transport corridor through the Kharkov-Transnistria axis as well as Odessa – a Russian city – and securitizing the whole Black Sea littoral. Control of the Black Sea was the prime NATO obsession since before Maidan in 2014.</span></p>
<p wcount="6" data-sanitized-id="p_1_16" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>Walk on the Wild – Kafkaesque – Side</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="42" data-sanitized-id="p_1_17" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">When we follow the money regarding the upcoming US-Russia negotiations on Ukraine, it’s clear that what matters for <a title="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250128/pepe-escobar-dancing-to-trumps-disco-inferno-1121513139.html" href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250128/pepe-escobar-dancing-to-trumps-disco-inferno-1121513139.html" rel="noopener">Trump 2.0</a> is to reestablish the position of American companies in Russia, all the way to buying Russian commodities – as suggested by Putin himself.</span></p>
<p wcount="20" data-sanitized-id="p_1_18" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">So geoconomics rule – again, bringing us all back to 2013 and the fateful free market agreement between the EU and Kiev.</span></p>
<p wcount="41" data-sanitized-id="p_1_19" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump 2.0 is building the narrative that European troops – not directly NATO-linked – will be deployed in Kiev after the end of the war. That would fit into a soft power operation of convincing public opinion about <a title="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250217/trumps-us-may-exit-nato-if-europe-derails-us-russia-talks--ex-pentagon-officer-1121577021.html" href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250217/trumps-us-may-exit-nato-if-europe-derails-us-russia-talks--ex-pentagon-officer-1121577021.html" rel="noopener">NATO’s annexation</a> of rump Ukraine.</span></p>
<p wcount="40" data-sanitized-id="p_1_20" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump 2.0, meanwhile, is actively transferring to the collapsing EU the role of 100% globalist supporter of Kiev. Follow the money: this means the EU has to pay up. For everything – while the US gleefully exploits what remains of Ukraine’s resources.</span></p>
<p wcount="35" data-sanitized-id="p_1_21" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">In parallel, in this Kafkaesque universe, Brussels keeps piling up sanctions on Russia while removing sanctions on Syria on the energy and transportation fronts because Damascus, after all, is now ruled by jihadists: “our” jihadists.</span></p>
<p wcount="56" data-sanitized-id="p_1_22" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Compounding the circus, clueless EU mutts such as the next BlackRock German chancellor now openly admit, regretfully, that Maidan, from the start, was in fact aimed against Brussels. The American goal – way before the toxic distribution of Nuland’s cookies – was to sever the EU from Russia and destroy it as a technological competitor. Mission accomplished.</span></p>
<p wcount="50" data-sanitized-id="p_1_23" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Of course, in such a Kafkaesque domain, none of the above is enough to change the EU narrative. Brussels wants to allocate yet another 20 to 40 billion euros (which they don’t have) and an “unimaginable” amount of (American) weapons to Kiev, as stated by Hungary’s Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto.</span></p>
<p wcount="7" data-sanitized-id="p_1_24" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><strong>Follow the Money – and the Shadow Play</strong></span></p>
<p wcount="35" data-sanitized-id="p_1_25" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Back on the Ukraine front, Putin has actually suggested that Zaluzhny might replace the current cracked actor in a sweaty sweatshirt. The MI6 is undoubtedly currently preparing Zaluzhny in London exactly for such a role.</span></p>
<p wcount="61" data-sanitized-id="p_1_26" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">As for military budget cuts, Putin also accepts Trump’s idea of dividing them by half (China politely disagrees). Were that to happen, Russia’s budget would roughly be back to what it was before the SMO, while the Americans would have to cut off $400 billion. Elon Musk’s DOGE will be thrilled; the Deep State will fight it to death.</span></p>
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<p wcount="75" data-sanitized-id="p_1_27" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">For all the intertwined shadow play that is taking place on all fronts, invisible to public opinion, there is an undercurrent of skeptical dissent in Moscow according to which after three years of a narrative insisting the Ukraine war was a US war on Russia (certainly by the globalist Democrat axis), plus the Ukrainian biolabs, the tsunami of sanctions, the Nord Stream bombings, Moscow is now willing to re-start economic cooperation with Washington from scratch.</span></p>
<p wcount="29" data-sanitized-id="p_1_28" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Of course it’s not so simple. But there are indeed fears that a possible “peace” deal may turn out to be yet another American “follow the money” win.</span></p>
<p wcount="45" data-sanitized-id="p_1_29" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Whatever happens next – and no one knows what that will be – the fact remains that it’s Putin who’s now in charge of this new chapter of the Art of the Deal, swiftly dodging veiled threats and non-stop bullying and reverting them Sun Tzu-style.</span></p>
<p wcount="17" data-sanitized-id="p_1_30" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Putin cannot possibly accept European “peace keepers” in Ukraine because Russian public opinion will never accept it.</span></p>
<p wcount="35" data-sanitized-id="p_1_31" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><em>Without making a single move, just playing Sun Tzu, Putin has already made Trump humiliate the Kiev actor in front of the whole planet and de facto relegate the EU to the dustbin of History.</em></span></p>
<p wcount="45" data-sanitized-id="p_1_32" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">And yet, once again, this nagging feeling persists across well-informed circles in Moscow that a few Ukraine-related deals on the end of the war have already been clinched in the background. That explains why certain Russian and American outbursts seem to be too well synchronized.</span></p>
<p wcount="33" data-sanitized-id="p_1_33" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Once again, shadow play. And follow the money. When Putin talks about possible joint US-Russian investments on aluminum production in Siberia, he’s thinking about sanctions being erased on Russia’s aluminum industry.</span></p>
<p wcount="42" data-sanitized-id="p_1_34" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Same with American investments in Donbass: that will imply the regions are Russian. From all that, there will be a cascade of suppressed sanctions on the sectors of the Russian banking system involved in foreign trade. That’s hardcore geopolitics in action.</span></p>
<p wcount="47" data-sanitized-id="p_1_35" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The <a title="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250216/how-russia-and-china-dominate-global-quantum-computer-race--1121573293.html" href="https://sputnikglobe.com/20250216/how-russia-and-china-dominate-global-quantum-computer-race--1121573293.html" rel="noopener">China-Russia</a> front – involving a deeply complex comprehensive strategic partnership – is way more complex. Much more than BRICS, Beijing’s priority is BRI, the Belt and Road Initiative, or New Silk Roads, the overarching geoeconomics framework of Chinese foreign policy: opening new markets for Chinese products, globally.</span></p>
<p wcount="23" data-sanitized-id="p_1_36" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The EU was supposed to be the top final destination of the BRI network. So now there is a serious dichotomy in play.</span></p>
<p wcount="32" data-sanitized-id="p_1_37" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Beijing was thrown seriously off balance by the de facto Russian demolition of the EU’s cash flow via the SMO: that reduced the actual value of the EU market for BRI.</span></p>
<p wcount="48" data-sanitized-id="p_1_38" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Yet in parallel, Russia’s fast as lightning resurgence as a great military power, strategically defeating the whole collective West, has unveiled a few new tricks to Beijing ahead of its epic confrontation with Trump 2.0 – which does see China as the eminent threat to the Empire of Chaos.</span></p>
<p wcount="35" data-sanitized-id="p_1_39" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">In the end, it’s all about Resistance. From Donbass to the Eastern Mediterranean, from BRICS Iran to BRICS Russia. China, meanwhile, is watching the – geopolitical – river flow, and learning everything there is to learn.</span></p>

link:
https://www.unz.com/pescobar/from-donbass-to-south-lebanon-and-all-across-brics-its-all-about-resistance/


guid: https://www.unz.com/?post_type=item&amp;p=544485
title: The Shaman of the Radical Right: Jonathan Bowden, by Edward Dutton
author: ;Edward Dutton
link: https://www.unz.com/article/the-shaman-of-the-radical-right-jonathan-bowden/
hash: (w#r���(�n���k
attributes: {"enclosures":[]}
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<div><img src="https://www.unz.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/pic1-667x1030Bowden.jpg" data-sanitized-class="ff-og-image-inserted"></div><p wcount="115" data-sanitized-id="p_1_1" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">In 2009, at a secret and un-filmed <em>Occidental Quarterly</em> meeting in Atlanta, a portly, middle-aged Englishman with a slightly whining rural accent delivered what, according to multiple witnesses, was the best speech ever made. Certainly, they all agreed, it was the best <em>nationalist</em> speech ever made. It was all the more impressive if you consider that when this man ascended the stage he apparently had no idea what he was going to say. A so-called mediumistic speaker, he told friends that, prior to an oration, he would effectively enter a trance in which he would dissociate — almost split in two — and then hear the words from the ether before saying them. This man was Jonathan Bowden.</span></p>
<p wcount="173" data-sanitized-id="p_1_2" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Since his untimely death in March 2012 aged just 49, a process which had already commenced towards the end of his life has accelerated and continues to accelerate. Bowden has become a cult figure on the internet, especially among the increasingly rebellious and anti-Woke zoomers who have known nothing other than Clown World throughout their young lives. Bowden, despite or possibly because of his multiple flaws as well as obvious talents, is a nationalist folk hero; a kind of “based shaman” who inspires young people, and increasingly (though they won’t mention it in public) some rather prominent and influential older people, to at worst “Ride the Tiger” of <em>Kali Yuga</em> and to, at best, find the courage to fight against it, personal consequences be damned. Such is the clamour to understand more about this incredible man that I have just published his official biography: <a title="https://www.amazon.com/Shaman-Radical-Right-Jonathan-Bowden/dp/1923104667/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XPlcST8q46plWt6daVFbBQ.EbhO_UmoFEQXEJfRbA7V6mNpBGSs34t7wBcYdHzkLI8&amp;qid=1740568889&amp;sr=8-1" href="https://www.amazon.com/Shaman-Radical-Right-Jonathan-Bowden/dp/1923104667/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.XPlcST8q46plWt6daVFbBQ.EbhO_UmoFEQXEJfRbA7V6mNpBGSs34t7wBcYdHzkLI8&amp;qid=1740568889&amp;sr=8-1"><em>Shaman of the Radical Right: The Life and Mind of Jonathan Bowden.</em></a> I have been flabbergasted, to be frank, by the level of interest in it, especially among Generation Z.</span></p>
<p wcount="181" data-sanitized-id="p_1_3" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">It was a book that almost never got written. Various people asked me to write it in 2019 but it turned out that a friend of Bowden’s had been doing-so since 2012. In 2021, he was still blocking others from writing it, clearly unable to produce it but also unable to admit that he couldn’t do so. In September 2024, I was a meeting of what I would call a “purple-pilled” magazine in London; one of those magazines that is slightly too frightened to fully go where the empirical evidence leads. I got chatting to a female philosopher who suddenly produced a book of Bowden’s speeches from her handbag (purse in American) and gleamed at me with undisguised pride. If I had been a cartoon, a light bulb would’ve appeared above my head: “Bowden is a lot more popular and influential than I thought,” I said to myself. Bowden’s heir (to whom he bequeathed all his property) and I gave his “official biographer” a week to write back, he didn’t, so off I went; determined to do Bowden justice.</span></p>
<p wcount="44" data-sanitized-id="p_1_4" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">A key question remained, though: Why has Bowden become such a phenomenon? What was it about him? Can we pick apart the assorted intertwined factors that led to my semi-respectable philosopher carrying around a book of speeches by this open “Fascist” in her handbag?</span></p>
<p wcount="189" data-sanitized-id="p_1_5" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">There was something inherently fascinating about Bowden’s breadth of knowledge, delivered without notes; the way in which he could reveal unusual connections or elucidate the previously obscure; from Julius Evola to Judge Dredd. Bowden was, to some extent, the Weberian charismatic; the man gifted with certain skills that, for a people feeling a sense of crisis or meaninglessness, is able to make a cold world seem warm again. When there is no crisis, such a person is perceived as a crank, or is a charismatic only for a small group of troubled followers (as he was in his lifetime), but as a sense of crisis spreads so does his role as the charismatic. As German sociologist Max Weber (1864–1920) put it, “The term ‘charisma’ will be applied to a certain quality of an individual personality by virtue of which he is considered extraordinary and treated as endowed with supernatural, superhuman, or at least specifically exceptional powers or qualities. These are such as are not accessible to the ordinary person, but are regarded as of divine origin or as exemplary . . .” The Charismatic comes to lead, inspire and embody the community.</span></p>
<p wcount="80" data-sanitized-id="p_1_6" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Bowden’s extraordinarily engaging talks were, in some ways, a kind of performance art. His lectures are not meant simply to be read, and the internet has allowed them to be preserved and widely disseminated in a way that could not have been true of people like Bowden from an earlier generation. Recorded, often in an amateur way, in rooms above pubs, an aura of the genuine, of the English struggle against tyranny, of the mysterious is added to them.</span></p>
<p wcount="80" data-sanitized-id="p_1_7" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Bowden used his real name despite the obvious financial and social dangers of being a dissident against the Woke regime. This indicated bravery and self-sacrifice. Bowden espoused a kind of Nietzsche-inspired philosophy: We must reject weakness, resentment and being part of the grievance hierarchy. We are in an evolutionary and spiritual battle in which, ultimately, the powerful will triumph. We must embrace power openly and fight, eternally, against weakness, such that we can bring about the triumph of our people.</span></p>
<p wcount="122" data-sanitized-id="p_1_8" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Another attractive dimension to Bowden is that he took chances, particularly in terms of his nightmarish faux-Kandinsky abstract art; his unreadable and opaque stream-of-consciousness novels, but also in his unscripted speeches. One of Bowden’s friends referred to his prose thus: “His novellas and short stories are almost unreadable, but all the same the prose is incredible, uniquely pyrotechnic . . . in its use of metaphor, vocabulary, and striking juxtapositions.” This risk-taking in pursuit of what he feels and believes has the potential not to pay off, but he was fervent enough to take the risk and it paid off not in terms of his novellas but in terms of his speeches. This risk-taking can be inspiring and certainly signals a kind of genuineness.</span></p>
<p wcount="79" data-sanitized-id="p_1_9" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Bowden was an artist as well as a thinker, so he understood, explicitly from his reading, how to successfully transmit his ideas; the brilliant teacher, he could make the world make sense for his audience. Bowden had a way with words; he would leave other speakers thinking, “I wish I’d said that!” He was acerbically witty. Some of the radical right’s favourite phrases—such as “Clear them out!” (with reference to the Labour Party) —originate from him.</span></p>
<p wcount="79" data-sanitized-id="p_1_10" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Most importantly, Bowden, in a sense made the ultimate sacrifice by dying and dying prematurely. This would have imbued him with a prophet-like status; an aura of the other-worldly. In this regard, studies have found that when a charismatic leader dies, and especially if he dies suddenly, then he is suffused with greater charisma. He is perceived as being “one with the group” and representing the group to a greater extent. Death renders him, somehow, fused with the collective.</span></p>
<p wcount="119" data-sanitized-id="p_1_11" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">In addition, there is an extent to which Bowden seemed, in some respects, slightly childlike and helpless. Studies have found that people who sometimes make mistakes are regarded as more relatable, that childlike traits, including slight helplessness, make people more engaging, and that charismatic leaders often have a childlike enthusiasm and naivety. In comparing her husband, the leader of the British Union of Fascists Sir Oswald Mosley (1896–1980), to Hitler, Diana, Lady Mosley (1910–2003) observed that Hitler possessed this attractive quality of slight helplessness: “When people met Hitler they thought: here is this wonderful but unfortunate man who seems to have all of the cares of the world on this shoulders, so we must do all we can to help him.”</span></p>
<p wcount="99" data-sanitized-id="p_1_12" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Bowden also had an “identifiable flaw:” He was short and overweight. It has been argued that, counter-intuitively, this is an aspect of charisma; of gaining a following. It allows ordinary people to identify better with you and so bond more strongly with you. Bowden also suffered from serious mental health problems and was, essentially, penniless. A childless bachelor, Bowden lived alone in a decrepit caravan in a caravan park in Reading, never really worked, had an old mobile phone and didn’t have the internet where he lived, so he used to research his essays at the local library.</span></p>
<p wcount="149" data-sanitized-id="p_1_13" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">For some this might add to his charisma: he sacrificed the worldly so that he could dedicate himself to his research, his art and to promulgating his ideas. Diogenes the Cynic (412–323 BC) lived in a barrel in Sinope in what is now northern Turkey; Bowden lived in a mobile home in dreary Reading. As Bowden put it in his 2009 interview “Why I Am Not a Liberal,” “I’m probably a Bohemian. There’s an artistic element in me. I don’t care for bourgeois respectability. It doesn’t bother me. That’s where the leaders of the extreme right often come from. They actually come from the arts as much as from the academy or from the intelligentsia, and the arts are a psychologically very radical part of the society, and therefore you don’t care as much for, you know, being regarded as a bit of a demon.”</span></p>
<p wcount="89" data-sanitized-id="p_1_14" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">But, certainly, these are identifiable flaws. They all contribute to his charisma. Posthumously, though the process had already commenced during his lifetime, Bowden has become an “influencer,” with YouTube channels and Twitter accounts dedicated to him. He has become a meme, with inspiring videos of his speeches produced all the time. Were he alive today, I imagine he’d have a huge channel, but he is a dead, and, naturally, this has made him even more influential; for so many younger people he is a kind of based prophet.</span></p>


guid: https://www.unz.com/?post_type=item&amp;p=544493
title: Speak, Claudia!, by Patrick Lawrence
author: ;Patrick Lawrence
link: https://www.unz.com/plawrence/speak-claudia/
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<p wcount="69" data-sanitized-id="p_1_1" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">LAGO de CHAPALA, Mexico—Watching that procession of hapless European supplicants passing through the Oval Office this week, my mind wandered briefly and came back with an imaginary scene I found pleasurable and instructive all at once: What if Claudia Sheinbaum went to see President Trump right after Andrzej Duda, the ineffectual Polish president, Emmanuel Macron, the ineffectual French president, and Keir Starmer, the hopelessly ineffectual British prime minister?</span></p>
<p wcount="63" data-sanitized-id="p_1_2" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">What a kick. The spirited, self-possessed Mexican president, who took office but five months ago, would have put on full display—I am sure of this—the dynamism of an emergent generation of non–Western leaders right next to three exemplars of:the wilting, wandering West. The effect would have been high relief of the kind the Greeks and Romans invented and perfected.</span></p>
<p wcount="46" data-sanitized-id="p_1_3" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Sheinbaum, a 62–year-old intellectual with a doctorate in environmental sciences, proved her mettle as mayor of Mexico City before she won the presidency in last year’s elections. And she has proved it all over again by way of her first encounters with the just-elected Trump.</span></p>
<p wcount="56" data-sanitized-id="p_1_4" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">You had to love her riposte when Trump, in that first spurt of assertions just after his inauguration, proposed renaming the Gulf of Mexico the “Gulf of America.” Remember? Sheinbaum stood before a map older than the U.S. and said with evident amusement, “Why don’t we call it America Mexicana. It sounds pretty, no?”</span></p>
<p wcount="72" data-sanitized-id="p_1_5" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">O.K., fun with nomenclature. More substantive matters soon arose between Mexico City and Washington. Within days of resuming residence in the White House, Trump threatened Mexico and Canada with a tariff regime of 25% on most U.S. imports from both. Then came Trump’s new plan—a revived plan, actually—to repatriate Mexican, Central American, and other Latin American immigrants, dispensing, even, with many standing distinctions between legal and undocumented migrants.</span></p>
<p wcount="72" data-sanitized-id="p_1_6" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">To complete the list of Trumpian offensives — for now, at least — Trump signed an executive order on Jan. 20, among his first, declaring Mexico’s criminal cartels a national security threat. The State Department subsequently designated two of the most violent cartels FTOs, Foreign Terrorist Organizations. By affixing this label, the U.S. gives itself the right — as it so often awards itself legal rights — to attack the Sinaloa and New Generation cartels.</span></p>
<p wcount="69" data-sanitized-id="p_1_7" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">How will this happen was instantly the question among Mexicans. Elon Musk made it clear on “X” that the FTO designation “means they [the cartels] are eligible for drone strikes.” The concern among Mexican officials now is there is another shoe yet to drop, and when it does, Trump and his defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, will plan on-the-ground military operations that will amount to something close to an invasion.</span></p>
<p wcount="85" data-sanitized-id="p_1_8" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Heavy going for Claudia, as Mexicans commonly refer to their president. But I have detected no hint of a flinch as Sheinbaum fields these unilateral, borderline-abusive initiatives. Trump suspended his threatened tariff regime two days after announcing it — this in response to Sheinbaum’s promise, along with the Canadians, of retaliation. There are more talks and probably more threats to come, but for the moment the Mexican leader, having made common cause with Ottawa, has forced Washington to back down — or at least back off.</span></p>
<p wcount="77" data-sanitized-id="p_1_9" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Sheinbaum managed something of the same on the immigrants question. She committed to stationing 10,000 Mexican troops at the Mexican–U.S. border, but as various commentators have noted, Mexico already has roughly that number along the Rio Grande. It looks to me like a concession that isn’t much of one in practice, but Sheinbaum appears to have parried Trump once again — for now, that qualifier one must always add when considering America’s erratic new president.</span></p>
<p wcount="99" data-sanitized-id="p_1_10" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Interim solutions to the tariffs and immigrant problems: This looks like good statecraft to me. It is in the cartels-as-terrorists matter that Sheinbaum came on strong. “Both countries want to combat organized crime,” she said after State declared the two cartels terrorists, “but we must ensure that it is done through collaboration and coordination.” On Thursday Mexico offered a dramatic demonstration of what Sheinbaum means: It turned over to the U.S. 29 ranking cartel members already in Mexican prisons, including a cofounder of the Sinaloa cartel U.S. authorities have sought for four decades. Collaboration and coordination at work.</span></p>
<p wcount="63" data-sanitized-id="p_1_11" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">But note what else Sheinbaum had to say about the FTO designation: “This cannot be used as an opportunity for the United States to invade our sovereignty.” Read that carefully. “Cannot” is a strong word in the parlance of statecraft as it has no suggestion of flexibility in it, and casting the question as one of sovereignty is unmistakably a kind of escalation.</span></p>
<p wcount="66" data-sanitized-id="p_1_12" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The Guadalajara Reporter, the English-language weekly in Mexico’s second-largest city, called Sheinbaum’s remarks “a red line.” With her other displays of determination in view, that seems to me exactly how the Mexican leader meant it. To be noted: Sheinbaum simultaneously announced that her Foreign Ministry would fortify its pending lawsuit against north-of-the-border weapons makers, accusing them now of knowingly selling arms to Mexican cartels.</span></p>
<p wcount="3" data-sanitized-id="p_1_13" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Take that, <em>gringos</em>.</span></p>
<p wcount="110" data-sanitized-id="p_1_14" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Mexico landed another big one this past Tuesday, when the lower house of the federal legislature, wherein Sheinbaum enjoys a comfortable proportion of support, voted to ban the use of genetically modified corn. The Mexicans and Americans have been arguing about GM corn imports for years, and in December a dispute panel ruled that such a ban was illegal under the U.S.–Mexico–Canada Agreement, which replaced the Clinton-era NAFTA during Trump’s first term. The vote Tuesday reversed that judgment in full-frontal fashion. I count it one of the Sheinbaum government’s loudest “No’s” to date and a big blow to Big Ag north of the border.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-class="book-unit alignright premblock book-author"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/1949762785/"><img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/71xGRE8EThL.jpg"></a>
<p>ORDER IT NOW</p>
</div>
<p wcount="76" data-sanitized-id="p_1_15" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Big Ag deserves it. I grow heartily sick of corporate America’s neoliberal insensitivities and coercions on these kinds of questions. Trying to force Mexico to accept GM corn from the U.S. is akin to Washington’s disgraceful efforts to make the Japanese accept imports of California rice back in the 1990s—tactlessly dismissive of who knows how many centuries of farming culture, rural culture, village culture, however it is best to think of it.</span></p>
<p wcount="83" data-sanitized-id="p_1_16" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Sheinbaum is active on many fronts as she faces northward, then, and it is impossible to say at this early moment how these sorts of questions will shape up during her six–year term. But she brings a consciousness of larger matters to her presidency, as she makes repeatedly plain. Her fundamental cause is Mexican sovereignty, Mexican equality among nations, and the dignity of the Mexican people. Whatever red lines she may draw, one way or another, they will mark out these priorities.</span></p>
<p wcount="127" data-sanitized-id="p_1_17" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Sheinbaum’s economic and social policies read straight out of her predecessor’s. Andrés Manuel López Obrador was noted for his commitments to poverty eradication, rural development and other such programs. They made AMLO hugely popular here: Mexico’s business class and The New York Times were among his only detractors. And so it already is for Sheinbaum. Mexico for Mexicans was the anthem AMLO may as well have sung—audible in everything he did on the ground. It is Sheinbaum’s, too. There are verses in it all about prosperity and economic development, but the refrain is all about identity and self-respect. Development, as I discovered after many years abroad, is a psychological project as much as it is a matter of material advance.</span></p>
<p wcount="107" data-sanitized-id="p_1_18" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I greatly appreciated, in this connection, how the Sheinbaum government managed the first wave of immigrants to the north as they returned south on airplanes. Mexico City reported that, as of Feb. 20, there were roughly 13,000 returning migrants, including 3,000 Venezuelans and Cubans that Mexico has agreed to accept. And how is it as they arrive? No shackles, no zip-ties, no armed soldiers with black automatic rifles. They receive an official greeting from the Mexican government and then are given whatever help they need to resettle. As many as possible are returned to the towns and villages from whence they set out for the north however many years ago.</span></p>
<p wcount="72" data-sanitized-id="p_1_19" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Read the Sheinbaum government’s message with me. Isn’t it, “Come home. You are Mexicans and you are welcome and you are respected. Be Mexican. This is your country as much as ours”? Isn’t she showing Mexicans by example that it is time to recenter the national consciousness — that the nation and its people are no longer to act as the appendage of anyone else but simply to be themselves?</span></p>
<p wcount="110" data-sanitized-id="p_1_20" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I dwell briefly on this because of things one comes upon frequently in the Global South. During my years as a correspondent in Asia, among the saddest of sites I recall now was in Hong Kong’s Central District on Sunday mornings. There, one saw thousands of Filipinos gathered for their half-day off a week. And when you got to know them, you found they were trained as nurses, doctors, professors, accountants, engineers, pharmacists, what have you, and they were in Hong Kong working as <em>amahs</em> (housekeepers), waiters, cleaners and barbacks because their own country, an hour and some away by air, was too underdeveloped to give them dignified work.</span></p>
<p wcount="79" data-sanitized-id="p_1_21" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">In my read, Sheinbaum’s aspiration, stated most broadly, is finally to break Mexico out of the cycle of underdevelopment identified back in the 1960s and 1970s by Andre Gunder Frank and other such adherents to dependency theory. Dependency theorists held that developing nations were forever to be “developing” — a permanent periphery whose place in the global order was to provide cheap labor and resources to the wealthy of the world — the metropoles, in the language of the time.</span></p>
<p wcount="72" data-sanitized-id="p_1_22" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I doubt — could be wrong — Sheinbaum’s intellectual references include Gunder Frank and his kind: Dependency theory fell out of fashion long ago. (And I have always wondered why, now I mention it.) But her project seems to me to derive across the years from it. And could such an undertaking be any more dramatic than in Mexico’s case, given the long, unequal history of its ties to its northern neighbor?</span></p>
<p wcount="112" data-sanitized-id="p_1_23" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Mexico for Mexicans: Stay with this thought and pose a question along with me. Does this not suggest the commander-in-chief of the MAGA movement ought to be in full, exuberant sympathy with Claudia Sheinbaum and the Mexico she proposes to work toward? It is fair to ask this, but the thought seems ridiculous given the tenor of U.S.–Mexican relations so far in Trump’s second term. We will see over time whether Trump’s grand project means in practice that Mexico and the rest of the world must dedicate to making only America great. One can always count on hypocrisy to explain the doings of any American president, after all.</span></p>
<p wcount="69" data-sanitized-id="p_1_24" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Dignity, equality, sovereignty, identity — the drawing of red lines Trump will not be permitted to cross but at cost. Think of these words and think of Claudia Sheinbaum. Then think of these words again and think of Keir Starmer, or Emmanuel Macron, or Andrzej Duda, or for that matter Friedrich Merz, the German chancellor-to-be. And then think about where lies humanity’s dynamism, its promise, in the 21<sup>st</sup> century.</span></p>


guid: https://www.unz.com/?post_type=item&amp;p=544481
title: Trump Is SO Full of Sh*t, by Kevin Barrett
author: ;Kevin Barrett
link: https://www.unz.com/kbarrett/trump-is-so-full-of-sht/
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<div><img src="https://www.unz.com/wp-content/themes/unzSite/IMAGES/unz_large_logo.png" data-sanitized-class="ff-og-image-inserted"></div><p wcount="19" data-sanitized-id="p_1_1" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents"><em>Ramadan karim! Cat McGuire and I will discuss Trump-Zelensky and more on <a title="https://kevinbarrett.heresycentral.is/2025/02/ffwn-maga-morphs-into-bearded-belly-dancers-for-genocide/" href="https://kevinbarrett.heresycentral.is/2025/02/ffwn-maga-morphs-into-bearded-belly-dancers-for-genocide/" rel>False Flag Weekly News</a> later today. -KB</em></span></p>
<p wcount="31" data-sanitized-id="p_1_2" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The good news is that an American president finally stood up to a Jew who came to pick America’s pockets. The bad news is that it wasn’t Bibi Netanyahu.</span></p>
<p wcount="68" data-sanitized-id="p_1_3" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump fawns all over Netanyahu, whose genocidal “Jewish state,” the whole raison d’etre of which is to murder millions of non-Jews and expel the survivors, <a title="https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html" href="https://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html" rel>had already pilfered $1.6 trillion by 2002</a>. That was a year after Israel murdered almost 3,000 Americans in New York, attacked the Pentagon, blamed it on Arabs with boxcutters, and pushed clueless Uncle Sam down the road toward spending <a title="https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/costs-war/#:~:text=Including%20estimated%20future%20costs%20for,%248%20trillion%20in%20current%20dollars.&amp;text=To%20learn%20more%2C%20read%20the,published%20on%20September%201%2C%202021.&amp;text=Concept%20by%20Kenneth%20Benson%20and%20Daniel%20Um." href="https://www.carnegie.org/our-work/article/costs-war/#:~:text=Including%20estimated%20future%20costs%20for,%248%20trillion%20in%20current%20dollars.&amp;text=To%20learn%20more%2C%20read%20the,published%20on%20September%201%2C%202021.&amp;text=Concept%20by%20Kenneth%20Benson%20and%20Daniel%20Um." rel>another $8 trillion on wars for Israel</a>.</span></p>
<p wcount="63" data-sanitized-id="p_1_4" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Compared to the innumerable pounds of flesh that Israel gouges out of the American body politic, Zelensky’s depredations are chump change. But Trump and Vance, like almost all US politicians except Thomas Massie, are pussies owned by rich, treasonous, genocidal Jewish billionaires. So they’ll pick on a pathetic cokehead penile-piano-playing midget like Zelensky, while kissing the nether regions of ghoulish Netanyahu.</span></p>
<p wcount="84" data-sanitized-id="p_1_5" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Worse, Trump’s charges that the Ukraine war is Zelensky’s fault, and America has been generously doling out money to Ukraine (so Zelensky should show some gratitude) are rank, nauseating bullshit. The US took over Ukraine in a coup in 2014 and remote-controlled it into a war designed to bleed Russia to the last Ukrainian. It isn’t Ukraine that owes the US money. It’s the US that owes Ukraine (and Russia and much of the Middle East) double-digit trillions in war reparations.</span></p>
<p wcount="113" data-sanitized-id="p_1_6" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The US war on Russia through Ukraine was primarily aimed at looting and subjugating Europe. By cutting off Germany and the rest of Europe from cheap Russian gas, the US delivered a terrible wound to its second-biggest competitor. The EU has a much better educated population than the US—450 million of them compared to 340 million fatAmericans. It should have double the GDP of the US. But the US conquered Europe in World War II and has been squeezing them dry ever since. The US-instigated war on Europe and Russia through Ukraine was just the latest highway robbery by Uncle Scam. Today Europe is a pallid mess, because the US is sucking European blood.</span></p>
<p wcount="108" data-sanitized-id="p_1_7" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump’s putrid claims that the US has been generously throwing its money around, and needs to stop being taken for a ride, are beyond delusional. The Jew-run US empire is running the biggest larceny op in history. It prints toilet paper dollars and exchanges them for real goods and services—at gunpoint. “Globalist” institutions like NATO, IMF, World Bank, ICC, ICJ, the WHO, and various free trade treaties are and have always been barely-disguised instruments of US global domination. Likewise for the soft power propaganda industry tasked with putting a smiley face on the American serial killer. Alhamdullilah, drooling idiot Trump is blowing all of that up!</span></p>
<p wcount="101" data-sanitized-id="p_1_8" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Trump is right about one thing: The EU needs to terminate NATO and build a military to defend itself. But it needn’t worry about Russia. With a small and shrinking population and gargantuan territory, why would Russia want to expand? Europe needs to deter the US, the world’s leading warmonger, which has all but declared war on Canada and Greenland. Quickly building a few hundred suitcase nukes and smuggling them into US cities would probably be the cheapest deterrent. (And don’t forget to donate a couple of suitcases to each of the leading anti-genocide Resistance nations and groups.)</span></p>
<p wcount="68" data-sanitized-id="p_1_9" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The somnolent Europeans, minus a handful of die-hard Gaullists, have been too stupid to realize that the Zionist-occupied US is not only the primary threat today under Trump, but has been their worst enemy since World War II, when America conquered and subjugated Europe (and <a title="https://kevinbarrett.substack.com/p/hellstorm-thomas-goodrich-on-wwii" href="https://kevinbarrett.substack.com/p/hellstorm-thomas-goodrich-on-wwii" rel>genocided parts of Central Europe and Germany</a>) leaving the continent under humiliating US occupation. But now Trump is giving them a rude awakening.</span></p>
<p wcount="24" data-sanitized-id="p_1_10" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">The Ugly American has always been a paragon of <a title="https://linhdinh.substack.com/p/shameless-crassness-now-kosher" href="https://linhdinh.substack.com/p/shameless-crassness-now-kosher" rel>shameless kosher crassness</a>. Trump has ripped off the mask for all the world to see.</span></p>


guid: https://www.unz.com/?post_type=item&amp;p=544497
title: The Chance for a New World, by Paul Craig Roberts
author: ;Paul Craig Roberts
link: https://www.unz.com/proberts/the-chance-for-a-new-world/
hash: �����.q(ۤ�М4��
attributes: {"enclosures":[]}
content:
<p wcount="80" data-sanitized-id="p_1_1" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">For the first time in many years there is hope. The DEI/Woke/Democrat assault on white Americans has been stopped at least for four years. For awhile I won’t have to worry that the FBI will break down my door because some creep doesn’t like what I wrote or said in an interview. As my assumption is that the War on Free Speech has been called off, I can relax a bit. And I would like to.</span></p>
<p wcount="60" data-sanitized-id="p_1_2" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Also, the war on Russia has been stopped and hopefully Trump won’t start one with China and Iran. The main worry is the extent to which Israel will determine Trump’s Middle East policy. Netanyahu is determined to set America at war with Iran for Israel. An America that serves as Israel’s puppet is certainly not great again.</span></p>
<p wcount="33" data-sanitized-id="p_1_3" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">I could have retired 20 years ago. I tried to retire 15 years ago, but readers complained. We made an agreement that I would continue as long as readers supported the website, and readers have.</span></p>
<p wcount="31" data-sanitized-id="p_1_4" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">March has arrived, bringing with it my quarterly request for readers’ support. Monthly donors carry the website, but they need some quarterly support to keep the site’s public foundation status.</span></p>
<p wcount="81" data-sanitized-id="p_1_5" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Opposing 12 years of the Obama/Biden Democrat assault on white Americans, on American citizenship with open borders, on Russia and the Middle East, on sexual normality, on children with drag queens and early sexualization “education,” with the advancement of evil in every possible direction, with the 8-year assault on Donald Trump, has left me ready for some time of my own. Fighting for truth has been an every day affair, and it has left me no time for my own life.</span></p>
<p wcount="23" data-sanitized-id="p_1_6" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">With Trump, Bondi, Tulsi, Elon, Kash, and RFK, Jr, in place, I am considering posting three times a week, perhaps M-W-F or T-Th-Sunday.</span></p>
<p wcount="120" data-sanitized-id="p_1_7" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">There remains much about which to be concerned. The replacement of cash and cheques with digital currency would deliver us into tyranny. AI is another act of suicide in which humans make themselves irrelevant and unemployable. AI diminishes humanity, so why is it being developed and employed? What good does it do to produce goods and services by machines which deprives people of incomes with which to purchase the goods and services? As Elon Musk has admitted, AI means communism, a uniform income, the end to merit-based rewards. Why the decades of resisting communism only to submit to it in the end in the form of AI? What will people do? Live a meaningless life on drugs and hologram entertainment?</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-class="book-unit alignright premblock book-author"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/0986076996/"><img src="https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51TyPsr3%2ByL.jpg"></a>
<p>ORDER IT NOW</p>
</div>
<p wcount="83" data-sanitized-id="p_1_8" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">Assuming the replacement of people by AI can be halted, can manufacturing jobs be brought back to the US from Asia and Mexico? Can the US return to self-sufficiency in food? Can tariffs replace the income tax which has established a form of slavery in which the government owns a substantial percentage of your labor just as a slave owner owned the slave’s labor? Can Good repress the Evil that has been released? Can the character of the American people be rebuilt?</span></p>
<p wcount="38" data-sanitized-id="p_1_9" data-sanitized-class="container"><span data-sanitized-class="contents">And, of course, Trump and his team will have to be held accountable and kept on task, so there will be much to write about. I will continue, although perhaps with fewer postings, if support and readership continue.</span></p>


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124591
title: Max Blumenthal: Why Did the Feds Question Me?
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/26/max-blumenthal-why-did-the-feds-question-me/
hash: Ը��i,��<��
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content:
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<p><span><strong>A federal agent was waiting for the author soon after he got off an international flight. He was then treated to a brief but disturbing question-and-answer session.</strong></span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124591"></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124596" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124596" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/30519289304_2a22db5496_k.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1365" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124596"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124596" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.S. Customs and Border Protection officers screen international passengers arriving at the Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., 2016. <span>(U.S. Customs and Border Protection/Flickr/Glenn Fawcett/U.S. government)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span><strong>By</strong> <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/27/the-other-side-of-john-mccain/"><strong><span>Max Blumenthal</span></strong></a></span><br><span><a href="https://substack.com/@thegrayzone"><em>The Grayzone</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Screen-Shot-2019-11-18-at-6.57.04-PM-e1575580108841-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-41629">A</strong></span>s I approached the customs line at Dulles </span> <span>International Airport early on the morning of Feb. 24, a man called out to me, “Mr. Blumenthal?” He identified himself as an officer with Customs and Border Protection, and led me into a cavernous secondary screening room, where he treated me to a strange and disconcerting questioning session.</span></p>
<p><span>I had just returned from a leisurely trip to Nicaragua with my family during which I participated in no political activities. But the agent’s line of questioning suggested federal authorities had little interest in my visit to Nicaragua, a country that happens to be controlled by a socialist-oriented government on Washington’s hit list.</span></p>
<p><span>As my family and I followed the agent down a long hallway, he turned to me and said, “I caught your latest appearance on Judge Napolito [sic].” He was referring to Andrew Napolitano, a former Fox News host and federal judge who hosts a daily livestream featuring former military and intelligence officials as well as journalists like me who dissent from official national security narratives. Nearly all of my appearances on Napolitano’s program, “<a href="https://substack.com/redirect/f1b0d776-ec46-4373-9959-6c7cd9567c13?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/f1b0d776-ec46-4373-9959-6c7cd9567c13?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145466000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2wZYJdB9amekgdH5Xq11Jf">Judging Freedom,</a>” have focused on Israel’s blood-soaked wars in Gaza, Lebanon and beyond throughout the past 16 months.</span></p>
<p><span>When I asked the agent how he liked my interview with the judge, he shrugged and declined to volunteer an opinion. Was he simply trying to warm me up for our own question-and-answer session, or darkly signaling to me that Big Brother was watching? “This is just a friendly exchange,” he insisted as we entered the cavernous secondary screening room. “You’re not a target or anything.”</span></p>
<p><span>Standing across from me at a metal desk, the agent asked me to fill out a questionnaire with my personal info and details of my trip. As soon as I completed the form, he flipped it over and displayed a hand-written list of a handful of names. “Do you know any of these people?” he asked.</span></p>
<p><span>Two of those listed were Anglo names: Nicole Smith and Susan Benjamin. The other three were extremely common Muslims names. Because the agent would not allow me to photograph the list, I was only able to commit one to memory: Muhammad Khan. I could not recall any people I knew with those names. And the only Nicole Smith I could think of was the late model who <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/87c591d1-c4a6-4719-baec-f342f66d6c5b?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/87c591d1-c4a6-4719-baec-f342f66d6c5b?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0j1_VOVv4swHU0tp6iSY4t">died under strange circumstances</a> at age 39. I therefore told the agent the names were unfamiliar to me.</span></p>
<p><span>To be sure, I would not have assisted the officer even if I had a personal connection with one of the names on the list. I’ve learned from activists and journalists who’ve experienced similar probing that federal agents often deploy inane or disingenuous questions to get their subject talking, then attempt to manipulate or entrap them so they can implicate them in a crime.</span></p>
<p><span>[Related: <em><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2020/08/28/john-kiriakou-know-your-rights-dont-talk-to-cops-at-the-airport/">JOHN KIRIAKOU: Know Your Rights. Don’t Talk to Cops at the Airport</a></em>]</span></p>
<p><span>In fact, the <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/fa194394-a0e4-400b-b350-cd80853160b3?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/fa194394-a0e4-400b-b350-cd80853160b3?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2hiwvx3VuhDB4006b_EUjO">U.S. Supreme Court has ruled</a> that police are allowed to lie to elicit confessions from suspects. If government agents want to subject American citizens like me to extended questioning, they must follow constitutional procedures and allow us to have a lawyer present.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Free to Go</strong></span></p>
<p><span>After spending several minutes inside a small office, the agent returned to inform us we were free to go. As we exited the screening room and headed toward the baggage claim area, an airport worker from West Africa pulled up to me on a ride-on floor scrubber, shook my hand and asked for a selfie. Like the federal agent, he was apparently aware of my journalistic output, but viewed it in a much more favorable light.</span></p>
<p><span>While waiting for our luggage, my wife, Anya Parampil, had a disturbing realization. She had been googling the names on the list the officer presented to me and discovered that Susan Benjamin was the birth name of our friend, Medea Benjamin, cofounder of Code Pink and one of the most widely recognized antiwar activists on the planet.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124598" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124598" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Medea_Benjamin_3-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1920" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124598"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124598" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Benjamin in November 2007. <span>(Medea Benjamin/Wikimedia Commons/ <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0)</a></span><span><br></span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>The following day, I informed Medea about my encounter at Dulles and asked if she had experienced anything similar. She told me there was a period when she was harassed by federal authorities each time she traveled out of the country. The F.B.I. once dispatched an officer to meet her at an airport upon her return from a foreign trip, and called her on several occasions in an unsuccessful attempt to solicit a “meeting.” She said the harassment stopped after she filed a series of complaints, but my experience has led her to believe it will begin again.</span></p>
<p><span>While I was allowed to return to my country after a fairly brief question-and-answer session with a polite federal officer, the interaction felt like an act of political harassment, and seemed to signal an escalation against journalists and activists who’ve expressed antiwar, anti-Zionist views.</span></p>
<p><span>I can only speculate on what the Feds’ ultimate objective was, however, I know of several antiwar activists who have had F.B.I. agents <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/776dd09f-dd09-45ac-b79d-208781d3b4be?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/776dd09f-dd09-45ac-b79d-208781d3b4be?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3m8YCPAaHrKtjLr5sanldc">appear at their doors</a> over the past several months asking questions about Iran and individuals with Muslim or Arab names. Just down the road from Dulles, the <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/cd40eb2b-118d-414e-974d-be5fca2d529a?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/cd40eb2b-118d-414e-974d-be5fca2d529a?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3u7Yw9AR5jR-NV-mvTBMgb">F.B.I. raided the home</a> of a Palestinian American family whose daughter is a Palestine solidarity activist at George Mason University.</span></p>
<p><span>Within the broader realm of Five Eyes, in European vassal states without the same free speech protections Americans enjoy, journalists like <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/69fb5afd-833d-4d7f-b03e-b812103d4192?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/69fb5afd-833d-4d7f-b03e-b812103d4192?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3kxS7MiL3JZhS9n6hQwjXH">Ali Abunimah</a>, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/83b92dd3-9a26-473f-b512-9fdd425c937e?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/83b92dd3-9a26-473f-b512-9fdd425c937e?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3c5bS4msOxA_vfGMirk34d">Asa Winstanley</a> and <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/4719c235-2183-4992-98ab-b6576536f28e?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/4719c235-2183-4992-98ab-b6576536f28e?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw0YKg9Ifz8PCjFhHTIBNXKq">Richard Medhurst</a> have been subjected to police raids, imprisonment and even criminal prosecution for the opinions they’ve expressed on Israel-Palestine.</span></p>
<p><span>My colleague at <em>The Grayzone</em>, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/43f3f668-abdc-418d-87a6-e2d4e8286eb1?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/43f3f668-abdc-418d-87a6-e2d4e8286eb1?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw3LxYxdZkUbXJC9ajFaumy6">Kit Klarenberg</a>, was detained by British counter-terror cops and grilled for hours about his journalism on London’s machinations in Ukraine and beyond.</span></p>
<p><span>Another one of our contributors, <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/23798ef7-dad9-4206-a0d9-70470cb4964b?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/23798ef7-dad9-4206-a0d9-70470cb4964b?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2xhnFFAowaoRmG2oJyjxiy">Jeremy Loffredo</a>, spent several days in an Israeli prison and was ordered to self-deport after authorities falsely accused him of “assisting an enemy during wartime” for his journalism inside the country’s occupied frontiers.</span></p>
<p><span>In Canada, activist Yves Engler was just released from <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/e52ef37b-bde7-4bc6-9633-25df57ab3023?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/e52ef37b-bde7-4bc6-9633-25df57ab3023?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw2nANv6Rs8P8jXLrkeRUh5-">five days in jail</a> after a fanatical Zionist activist, Dahlia Kurtz, accused him of “hate speech” for branding her a “fascist.” Meanwhile, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu travels freely from <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/6586f738-ae07-434a-a50c-5182987215fd?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/6586f738-ae07-434a-a50c-5182987215fd?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw05vqGGw064vD2-gfUafYXv">Berlin</a> to <a href="https://substack.com/redirect/6af58b66-1cc2-4c61-b25b-4c5daf8a6742?j=eyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-saferedirecturl="https://www.google.com/url?q=https://substack.com/redirect/6af58b66-1cc2-4c61-b25b-4c5daf8a6742?j%3DeyJ1IjoiMzU3Y3IifQ.Toa4LeZuu_cxzWaQRSsuTRXF8Vme1861Xc0C42X6eCg&amp;source=gmail&amp;ust=1740666145467000&amp;usg=AOvVaw33GZ8P8gpbamwRtzGcin7J">Washington, D.C.,</a> despite an International Criminal Court (ICC) warrant for his arrest for authorizing ghastly war crimes in the besieged Gaza Strip.</span></p>
<p><span>My experience at Dulles International Airport paled in comparison to what a growing number of journalists and activists have endured in NATO states under Zionist management. Nonetheless, it is important to document encounters like these, and to prepare for future interactions that might not be as “friendly.”</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The editor-in-chief of <em>The Grayzone</em>, Max Blumenthal is an award-winning journalist and the author of several books, including best-selling <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Republican-Gomorrah-Inside-Movement-Shattered/dp/1568584172"><em>Republican Gomorrah</em></a>, <em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Goliath-Life-Loathing-Greater-Israel/dp/1568586345">Goliath</a></em>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/51-Day-War-Ruin-Resistance/dp/156858511X"><em>The Fifty One Day War</em></a> and <em><a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/2868-the-management-of-savagery">The Management of Savagery</a></em>. He has produced print articles for an array of publications, many video reports, and several documentaries, including <a href="https://killinggaza.com/"><em>Killing Gaza</em></a>. Blumenthal founded <em>The Grayzone</em> in 2015 to shine a journalistic light on America’s state of perpetual war and its dangerous domestic repercussions.</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em>This article is from <a href="https://substack.com/@thegrayzone"><em>The Grayzone</em></a></em></span></p>
<p><span><em>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of </em><strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Civil Rights #Commentary #Free Speech #Nicaragua #Press Freedom #Surveillance #Trump Administration #U.S. #U.S. Supreme Courrt #Ali Abunimah #Anya Parampil #Asa Winstanley #Code Pink #Dahlia Kurtz #F.B.I. #Five Eyes #Jeremy Loffredo #Judge Andrew Napolitano #Kit Klarenberg #Max Blumenthal #Medea Benjamin #Richard Medhurst #U.S. Customs and Border Protection #U.S. Department of Homeland Security #Yves Engler


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124502
title: Patrick Lawrence: Trump Takes on the Deep State?
author: ;Elizabeth Vos
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/26/patrick-lawrence-trump-takes-on-the-deep-state/
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<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>The U.S. president’s unfolding offensive against the institutions and agencies comprising the Deep State — the permanent state or the invisible government, as it is also commonly known — continues.</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124558" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption alignnone"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124558" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/President_Trump_at_the_G20_48144047611.jpeg" alt width="1200" height="800" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124558 size-full"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124558" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Russian President Vladimir Putin and U.S. President Donald Trump during the G20 Summit in June 2019. <span>(Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p dir="ltr"><span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124502"></span></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>By <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/patrick-lawrence/">Patrick Lawrence</a> </span></strong></span><br><span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/23/patrick-lawrence-what-odds-as-trump-takes-on-the-deep-state/"><em>ScheerPost</em></a></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Screen-Shot-2022-06-13-at-2.23.01-PM-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-80450"></strong><span><span><strong>P</strong></span>resident Donald T</span></span>rump’s telephone conversation with the Russian president, which he disclosed at noon Wednesday, Feb. 12, lasted 90 minutes. Trump was quick to note that the exchange marked the start of negotiations to bring the Biden regime’s proxy war in Ukraine, three years running as of Feb. 24, to an end. But there was much more to the conversation, as Trump and the Kremlin described it. Here is how Trump cast the call on his Truth Social platform:</span></span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“I just had a lengthy and highly productive phone call with President Vladimir Putin of Russia. We discussed Ukraine, the Middle East, Energy, Artificial Intelligence, the power of the Dollar, and various other subjects. We both reflected on the Great History of our Nations, and the fact that we fought so successfully together in World War II, remembering that Russia lost tens of millions of people, and we, likewise, lost so many! We each talked about the strengths of our respective Nations, and the great benefit that we will someday have in working together. But first, as we both agreed, we want to stop the millions of deaths taking place in the War with Russia/Ukraine. President Putin even used my very strong Campaign motto of, ‘COMMON SENSE….’ “</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Since the telephone call, of course, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and other Trump officials have met in Riyadh with Russian counterparts, effectively serving as sherpas in advance of a Trump–Putin summit at some point this spring, if all goes to plan.</span></p>
<p><span>I read this as a preliminary but important consolidation of Trump’s demarche: The more progress, the better the president is protected from Deep State subversions.     </span></p>
<p><span><span>Trump’s swiftly advancing demarche in relations with Russia, we ought to note, requires that we cast his campaign against the Deep State in a broader context. Sunday’s elections in Germany are the most immediate case in point.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>As long and widely expected, <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-results-and-voter-demographics-explained-in-charts/a-71724186">the Christian Democratic Union</a> under the leadership of Friedrich Merz, a committed Europeanist, will form the next government. </span></span></p>
<p><span>But Merz will not form it alone. The CDU and the Christian Social Union, its conservative cousin with its strongest base in Bavaria, commanded <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-results-and-voter-demographics-explained-in-charts/a-71724186">a combined 29 percent</a> of the vote. To understand this result, we have to put it against the <a href="https://www.dw.com/en/german-election-results-and-voter-demographics-explained-in-charts/a-71724186">21 percent  for Alternative für Deutschland</a>, the party of conservative populists that stands against precisely the neoliberal ideology Trump and his people are attacking at home. </span></p>
<p><span>The CDU, like the Social Democrats (who lost big Sunday) and other mainstream parties, has vowed never to invite AfD — now Germany’s No. 2 party — into a coalition government. This means the CDU will either have to relent on this commitment — unlikely at the moment — or German politics are about to drift, messily enough, further in the post-democratic direction.</span></p>
<p><span>Either way, the political representatives of Germany’s version of the Deep State will remain under siege. “We have won it,” Merz declared in Berlin Sunday evening. Not quite, I would say. Not really. Not at all, actually. </span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124573" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124573" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/EPP_Congress_Bucharest_-_Day_1_53580910504-scaled.jpg" alt width="2416" height="2560" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124573"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124573" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Merz, center, with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, left, and Manfred Weber, president of the European People’s Party, at the party’s Congress in Bucharest in 2024. <span>(European People’s Party, Wikimedia Commons, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY 2.0)</a></span></span></p>
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<p><span>We have to consider Trump’s war on the Deep State, I mean to say, as something of a global phenomenon, or at least a phenomenon evident throughout the Western post-democracies. Among AfD’s core positions, those that win the party votes, are its opposition to excessive immigration and to the wasteful war in Ukraine, and the need to repair ties with the Russian Federation.</span></p>
<p><span>In these aspects, AfD’s political combat bears a close resemblance to Trump’s.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Restoring ties with Russia and negotiating a settlement of the Ukraine war would be big-enough blows to the Deep State’s interests. Russophobia is a Deep State perennial, and Ukraine has been the centerpiece these past years of the</span> <a href="https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/MICIMATT"><span>MICIMATT</span></a><span>’s unceasing campaign to subvert the Russian Federation. But the other items on Trump’s list of topics discussed with Putin are not to be dismissed as knick-knacks. </span></span></p>
<p><span>Taken together, they indicate Trump’s intention to end the Biden regime’s project to reduce Russia to pariah status by way of total isolation in the community of nations. “The great history of our nations,” “the great benefit that we will someday have in working together:”</span></p>
<p><span>This is a comprehensive restoration project, the neo-détente Trump favored during his first term with a lot of additional bulk to it. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Implicit in Trump’s rhetoric is an assumption of equality Deep Staters such as Hillary Clinton have purposely dismissed. (Remember Barack Obama’s condescending description of Russia as a minor</span> <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/25/barack-obama-russia-regional-power-ukraine-weakness"><span>regional power</span></a><span>?)</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In the bargain — I especially appreciate this — Trump acknowledged Russia’s role in the Allies’ 1945 victory over the Reich, which U.S. propagandists have disgracefully sought to erase from history at least since John Kerry’s years as Obama’s secretary of state. </span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Europanic  </strong></span></p>
<p><span>The implications here are huge. The Europeans are in a state of shock — Europanic, we may as well start calling it — having sold their souls, their economies, and the well-being of their citizens to the Biden regime’s sanctions program and its cynical use of Ukraine as a battering ram at Russia’s borders. What now for them? Volodymyr Zelensky is more or less out of the conversation now — and at last. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Trump, indeed, just dismissed</span> <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/20/trump-calls-zelensky-a-dictator-who-has-done-a-terrible-job/"><span>the autocrat of Kiev as “a dictator</span></a><span>.” He, Zelensky, appeared at the Munich Security Conference earlier this month as the helpless, hapless taker-of-orders he has always been but pretended not to be. There is much talk now of Trump’s new, improved plans for Russia decisively altering the post–1945 “order,” and I insist on the quotation marks in this reference. </span></span></p>
<p><span>Trump’s proposal for a new détente with Russia was childishly belittled in mainstream media during his first term, this on both sides of the Atlantic — kissed off as a matter of his affection for a dictator and nothing more.</span></p>
<p><span>There were no significant policy concerns to be considered, no view of a world beyond the binaries the Deep State has cultivated since the 1945 victories. We see the same this time. </span></p>
<p><span><em>The New York Times</em> coverage, typical of the rest, has been led by Maggie Haberman and Anton Troianovski, the former covering the White House and the latter the Kremlin, and there is no getting a sound report out of either of them.</span></p>
<p><span>Read the stuff. It is all about Trump playing to his ego and Putin playing Trump with great dollops of flattery. No mention of the new security structure between Russia and the West, which is at bottom the very large and essential question.</span></p>
<p><span><em><span>Plus ça change</span></em><span>, it seems to me so far. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>It is far too early to draw conclusions, but I simply do not see the Deep State taking this supinely. I have, indeed, been suspicious of Keith Kellogg, the retired general serving as Trump’s special envoy for Ukraine and Russia, ever since he began, immediately after he was appointed, to bark threats of more sanctions and military action against Russia if Moscow did not accept a settlement favorable to Kiev and its sponsors.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In this Kellogg strikes me as just the kind of figure the Deep State imposed on Trump last time around — John Bolton, H.R. McMaster,</span> <em><span>et al</span></em> <span>—  who were in place to subvert every good idea Trump had.  </span></span></p>
<p><span>I wonder if Kellogg is not a sign of the subterfuge to come. He was not, I note with approval, on the list of officials Trump dispatched to Riyadh this past week. </span></p>
<p><span>And so to more of the watching and waiting.</span></p>
<p><strong><span>Gabbard’s Surprises  </span></strong></p>
<p><span>Tulsi Gabbard said some surprisingly gutsy things during her hotly contentious confirmation hearings before the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this month.</span></p>
<p><span>And in view of those surprising things, it was a surprise again to read that she has won approval of her appointment as Trump’s director of national intelligence. Hmmm. What further surprises are in store as she takes up her post?</span></p>
<p><span>In mid–January, when Gabbard abruptly announced that she would support the continuation of Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, I was among many who were stunned — full of surprises, Ms. Gabbard — by her capitulation on this important question.</span></p>
<p><span>Section 702, added to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act in 2008, authorizes the National Security Agency to surveille Americans without first obtaining court-issued warrants.</span></p>
<p><span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2025/01/15/patrick-lawrence-the-predictable-capitulation-of-tulsi-gabbard/"><span>I described Gabbard at the time</span></a> <span>as “a figure who has done some good things but who, as is now evident, has no sound political principles, no intellectual discipline, anything that is not negotiable.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I am short of retreating from this judgment. But as I watched segments of</span> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NuF96Cr-1c"><span>her hearings on C–SPAN</span></a><span>, it occurred to me that this conclusion may prove premature, too harsh, or both.  </span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124546" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124546" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Attorney_General_Pam_Bondi_swears_in_Tulsi_Gabbard_as_Director_of_National_Intelligence_2025-1000x667.jpg" alt width="860" height="574" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124546 size-large"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124546" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Attorney General Pam Bondi swearing in Gabbard as director of national intelligence on  Feb. 12. <span>(Office of the Director of National Intelligence, Public domain)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>Gabbard gave as good as she got — or better, indeed — as her interlocutors drilled in with the righteous pomposity common when a candidate not in perfect conformity with Washington’s orthodoxies sits opposite them. </span></p>
<p><span>Michael Bennet, a Democrat from Colorado, fairly obsessed on whether Gabbard condemned Edward Snowden as a traitor. The exchange turned into one of those infra-dig “Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no?” scenes until Gabbard, who as a congresswoman sponsored a House resolution calling for all charges against Snowden to be dropped, at last responded handily, “The fact is, he also — even as he broke the law — released information that exposed egregious, illegal and unconstitutional programs.” </span></p>
<p><span>That seems to have finished off the ultra-clean cut senator from the Rockies. </span></p>
<p><span><span>It was that way on several occasions during Gabbard’s grilling. Here she is on her controversial talks with Bashar al–Assad while serving in Congress at the height of the C.I.A.’s covert op against the Assad regime in Damascus. The transgression in this case was — oh, my goodness — talking to an adversary.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>I urge readers to consider Gabbard’s riposte thoughtfully. It goes to that 21st century imperative I note from time to time: To see from the perspectives of others is a</span> <em><span>sine qua non</span></em> <span>in international relations now.</span></span></p>
<p><span>Gabbard on this theme:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“I asked him tough questions about his own regime’s actions, the use of chemical weapons, and the brutal tactics that were being used against his own people…. I believe that leaders — whether you be in Congress or the president of the United States — can benefit greatly by going and engaging boots on the ground, learning and listening and meeting directly with people, whether they be adversaries or friends.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>The exchange that truly captivated me, though, concerned Gabbard’s previous statements that the United States in the course of the covert operation to depose Assad, had supported Al–Qaeda, the Islamic State, al–Nusra and other savage jihadists of their kind.</span></p>
<p><span>“What was your motive,” Senator Mark Kelly, the Arizona Democrat, wanted to know, especially since Gabbard’s assertions matched — Gasp! — what the Russians and Iranians were also saying at the U.N. and elsewhere. (Curious, or maybe not at all, that it was the Democrats who wielded the sharpest hatchets here.) </span></p>
<p><span>Gabbard in reply: </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Senator, as someone who enlisted in the military, specifically because of Al–Qaeda’s terrorist attack on 9–11, and committing myself and my life to doing what I could do to defeat these terrorists, it was shocking and a betrayal to me and every person who was killed on 9–11, their families and my brothers and sisters in uniform.</span></p>
<p><span>When, as a member of Congress, I learned about President Obama’s dual programs that he had begun, really, to overthrow the regime of Syria and being willing to, through the C.I.A.’s Timber Sycamore program, that now has been made public, of working with and arming and equipping al–Qaeda in an effort to overthrow that regime, starting yet another regime-change war in the Middle East.</span></p>
<p><span>DoD train-and-equip program, again, begun under President Obama, is widely known, looked at and studied, that ultimately resulted in over half a billion dollars being used to train who they called ‘moderate rebels’ but were actually fighters working with and aligned with Al–Qaeda’s affiliate on the ground in Syria, all to move forward with their regime change and not acknowledging what was obvious at the time and what has unfortunately borne true, which was that a regime-change war in Syria, much like the regime-change wars in Iraq, the toppling of Gaddafi [in Libya, 2011] and [Hosni] Mubarak [in Egypt, 2011], while these were all dictators, would likely result in the rise of Islamist extremists like Al–Qaeda taking power.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><span>Immanent critique, masterfully practiced. It was something not much short of brilliant to shove this much truth back down the throats of senators who presumed all the Deep State’s lies could be deployed to discredit the candidate.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>There is more to Gabbard’s exchange with Kelly, and it is so exceptional I link that segment of the hearings</span> <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AIoxClwbms"><span>here</span></a><span>. </span></span></p>
<p><strong><span>Bureaucratic Commotion</span></strong></p>
<p><span>There seems no arguing at this point that Trump decided, during his time in the wilderness of Mar-a–Lago, that, on his return to office, he would pursue a well-aimed, carefully calculated course of action against the Deep State in as many of its manifestations as he could take on.</span></p>
<p><span>Kash Patel, a former federal prosecutor, was confirmed this week as director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and so is the latest of Trump’s nominees preparing to open another line of attack. </span></p>
<p><span>Patel’s appointment has two things in common with Gabbard’s. The F.B.I., like the  intelligence apparatus, was at the very center of the Deep State plots that more or less neutered Trump’s first term by way of extravagant disinformation campaigns, breaches of law and various other forms of corruption.</span></p>
<p><span>And as Patel made generously plain in the weeks before his Senate confirmation hearings, he, like Gabbard, intends to break with his agency’s entrenched norms. Patel, indeed, has just begun a purge that, if it proceeds as he intends, is certain to go well beyond anything Gabbard may manage. </span></p>
<p><span><span>There is the</span> <em><span>volte-face</span></em> <span>in relations with Russia, which Trump and his national security people appear to be consolidating at a remarkable pace since the Feb. 12 telephone call with Putin.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>And there is Trump’s proposal to convene a summit with Putin and Xi Jinping, a sort of 21st century Yalta, at which he would negotiate with the Russian and Chinese presidents to cut their military budgets by 50 percent.</span></span></p>
<p><span>Trump’s first mention of this latter idea was a passing reference, a couple of sentences, during a press conference that covered sundry other matters.</span></p>
<p><span>I took this to be another of his many improvisations — impromptu proposals that seem to come spontaneously into his head in the course of one or another kind of public exchange. I assumed it would go about as far as asserting sovereignty over Greenland. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Then came</span> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2025/02/19/trump-pentagon-budget-cuts/"><span><em>The Washington Post</em> report</span></a> <span>that Pete Hegseth has ordered the Pentagon to find budget reductions of 8 percent per year for the next five years. Since then</span> <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2025/02/19/trump-pentagon-cuts-8-troops-budget/36544e60-ef27-11ef-bd80-8f2ac5c75a8a_story.html"><span>The Associated Press has reported</span></a> <span>that Trump’s defense secretary wants to see $50 billion in cuts — not quite 6 percent of the Pentagon’s declared budget — during the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>[Hegseth’s cuts are <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/21/pentagon-says-hegseths-order-will-redirect-spending-not-make-actual-cuts/">expected to be redirected</a> to what Trump considers other priorities.]</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124577" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124577" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/HegsethFeb20.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1365" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124577"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124577" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Hegseth in his office at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 20. <span>(DoD, Alexander Kubitza, Public Domain)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>Taking all this bureaucratic commotion at face value, only Deep State denizens could possibly object as a new defense secretary takes a run at the military-industrial monster, or as a new D.N.I. commits to giving the White House “clean” intelligence — clean as in accurate daily briefs untainted as they pass through the soiled mitts of Deep State ideologues.</span></p>
<p><span>And if there is one agency that befouled itself more than any other during the Russiagate years, and again during the operations to keep Trump out of politics and protect Joe Biden from impeachment for his everywhere-you-look corruptions, it is the F.B.I., from Christopher Wray, its disgraced-in-public director, on down to a lot of special agents. </span></p>
<p><span>O.K., three cheers, a lot of people are saying. I would say two, and leave this number open to reduction.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Consider carefully the Hegseth memorandum that went out to top generals and civilian Pentagon officials. There are many categories of expenditure exempted from budget reductions, including but by no means limited to the nuclear modernization project, attack drones, submarines, and — will these Strangeloves never stop? — an “Iron Dome for America.” Hegseth’s</span> <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/21/pentagon-says-hegseths-order-will-redirect-spending-not-make-actual-cuts/"><span>declared intent</span></a> <span>is merely a “realignment” such as we have seen numerous times before.  </span></span></p>
<p><span>Two points. One, there are those commentators who now cast Trump as some kind of “revolutionary.” These people should take a long walk and reconsider their thoughts: Pete Hegseth and his boss are not in the business of dismantling the imperium — that last, best hope of which the late Chalmers Johnson wrote. Two, the military-industrial complex has more arms than one of those exotic Buddhist bronzes you see in museums. </span></p>
<p><span>All 435 congressional districts, every legislator on Capitol Hill, the spooks, the Pentagon itself, the weapons contractors, who knows how many lobbyists: They all have an interest in keeping the MIC ticking over just as it is.</span></p>
<p><span>Is Hegseth powerful enough to overcome the vigorous resistance that will come from these powerful quarters? What — our question right now — is his bureaucratic constituency such that he will get this done?  </span></p>
<p><span>It was interesting, as that Colorado senator was heckling Tulsi Gabbard about her view of Edward Snowden, to see the social media posts Snowden sent from Russia. Just say it, he said (I paraphrase) in addressing Gabbard. Just tell them yes, I’m a traitor. It will get you confirmed. </span></p>
<p><span>This makes perfect sense if you review the confirmation hearings of, say Antony Blinken, as he stood as Biden’s nominee to serve as secretary of state. These hearings are somewhere between rituals and political showmanship.</span></p>
<p><span>I watched the Blinken proceedings back then on C–SPAN. Such a load of horse droppings I have rarely heard: None of the commitments he made to the assembled senators — diplomacy first, military action last; constant consultation with Congress, etc. — was ever fulfilled and never was he called on any of it.</span></p>
<p><span>Gabbard, as earlier recounted, stood her ground and protected her integrity on the Snowden question. But — a big “but” here — her capitulation on Section 702, which she had previously sought to repeal during her years in Congress, remains a critical betrayal of principle, vastly more serious than the Snowden business for the D.N.I.</span></p>
<p><span>As to Patel, he presents a determined figure as he speaks publicly about the need to shovel a lot of manure out of the horse barn Wray and others have made of the F.B.I. Prior to his nomination, Patel declared rather flatly his intention to shut down the F.B.I.’s building in Washington and turn it into “a museum of the deep state.”</span></p>
<p><span>It does not get much more pointed. And last week he announced plans to disperse a thousand special agents from the D.C. headquarters to field offices across the country. </span></p>
<p><span>Patel is a lawyer: He is sure to remain within the bounds of the law as he goes at this. But it is an open question altogether whether he will clean out the agency or the agency will, so to say, clean him out.</span></p>
<p><span>In my read, the deeper Patel goes into the F.B.I.’s dark corners, the more likely he is to encounter resistance comparably fierce to what Hegseth is surely going to find the deeper he drills into the Pentagon budget.  </span></p>
<p><span>The Trump-as-revolutionary routine is, as we used to say, very high school. Way too overblown. In the matter of the deep state, we have to take the president and his people one question at a time for now.</span></p>
<p><span>My cheers go to Russia, and an end to the war in Ukraine. These advances are the most consequential to date and, it seems to me, have the best chance of withstanding the counterattacks we are simply wise to expect.</span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>Patrick Lawrence, a correspondent abroad for many years, chiefly for the <em>International Herald Tribune</em>, is a columnist, essayist, lecturer and author, most recently of <em><a href="https://www.claritypress.com/product/journalists-and-their-shadows/">Journalists and Their Shadows</a></em>, available <a href="https://www.claritypress.com/product/journalists-and-their-shadows/">from Clarity Press</a> or <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Journalists-Their-Shadows-Patrick-Lawrence/dp/1949762785/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3T1QBTXKY71OW&amp;keywords=journalists+and+their+shadows&amp;qid=1699895151&amp;s=books&amp;sprefix=journalists+and+thier+shadows%2Cstripbooks%2C79&amp;sr=1-1">via Amazon</a>.  Other books include <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Time-No-Longer-Americans-American/dp/0300176562"><em>Time No Longer: Americans After the American Century</em></a>. His Twitter account, @thefloutist, has been permanently censored. </strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><em>TO MY READERS. Independent publications and those who write for them reach a moment that is difficult and full of promise all at once. On one hand, we assume ever greater responsibilities in the face of mainstream media’s mounting derelictions. On the other, we have found no sustaining revenue model and so must turn directly to our readers for support. I am committed to independent journalism for the duration: I see no other future for American media. But the path grows steeper, and as it does I need your help. This grows urgent now. In  recognition of the commitment to independent journalism, please subscribe to The Floutist, or via my <a href="http://www.patreon.com/thefloutist">Patreon account</a>.</em></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><em>This article is from <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/23/patrick-lawrence-what-odds-as-trump-takes-on-the-deep-state/">ScheerPost.</a> </em></span></p>
<p><span><em>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of </em><strong>Consortium News</strong><em>.</em></span></p>

tags:
#Commentary #Germany #Pentagon #Russia #Russiagate #Trump Administration #U.S. #U.S. Justice Dept. #U.S. State Department #Ukraine #Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) #Bashar al-Assad #Christian Democratic Union (CDU) #Christian Social Union #Deep State #Donald Trump #Edward Snowden #Friedrich Merz #General Keith Kellogg #Kash Patel #Patrick Lawrence #President Volodymyr Zelensky #Tulsi Gabbard #Vladimir Putin


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124607
title: Starmer’s Plan for UK Growth Is the Ukraine War
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/starmers-plan-for-uk-growth-is-the-ukraine-war/
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<p><span><strong>Mark Curtis on the Labour government’s increase in military spending and its extraordinary new agreement with Ukraine.</strong> <span data-sanitized-id="more-124607"></span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124629" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124629" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/54183794997_d9af508e74_b.jpg" alt width="1077" height="720" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124629"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124629" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer giving his Plan for Change Speech in May 2024. <span>(Kirsty O’Connor / No 10 Downing Street / Flickr, <span><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>)</span></span></span></p>
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<p><span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/mark-curtis/"><span><strong>Mark Curtis</strong></span><span><br></span></a><a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/keir-starmers-plan-for-uk-growth-the-ukraine-war/"><span><em>Declassified UK</em></span></a></span></p>
<ul><li aria-level="1"><strong><span>U.K. military spending and aid to Ukraine are effectively providing a public subsidy to British arms firms.</span></strong></li>
</ul><ul><li aria-level="1"><strong><span>One major Defence Ministry contractor is currently being investigated by the Serious Fraud Office for suspected bribery and corruption. </span></strong></li>
</ul><p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/mark-200x200-1-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-71852">W</strong></span>ars can be useful to governments, and the horrendous conflict in Ukraine is so proving. </span></p>
<p><span><span>In his</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-sets-out-biggest-sustained-increase-in-defence-spending-since-the-cold-war-protecting-british-people-in-new-era-for-national-security"><span>announcement</span></a> <span>of increases in U.K. military spending, Prime Minister Keir Starmer strongly referenced Ukraine and the threat from Russia and said the new “investment” will “create a secure and stable environment in which businesses can thrive, supporting the Government’s number one mission to deliver economic growth.”</span></span></p>
<p><span>He added: “The increased spending will sustain our globally competitive industry, supporting highly skilled jobs and apprenticeships across the whole of the U.K.”</span></p>
<p><span>Starmer sees the increase in funds to the military as part of Labour’s Plan for Change, its overarching economic growth strategy for Britain.</span></p>
<p><span><span>A few weeks ago, Foreign Secretary David Lammy echoed his prime minister in</span> <a href="https://www.adsgroup.org.uk/knowledge/ads-commemorates-100-year-ukraine-uk-partnership/"><span>comments</span></a> <span>to an audience of arms firms about the extraordinary 100-year partnership between the U.K. and Ukraine. He said the new accord, which was signed in January, is “a platform for the U.K. defence industry” to extend military equipment to Ukraine.</span></span></p>
<p><span>Lammy added: “The U.K.’s defence industry is key to our growth and security by creating jobs, driving forward innovation and collaborating internationally.”</span></p>
<p><span>Britain’s supply of billions worth of military equipment to Ukraine is openly seen by the government as both boosting the fortunes of U.K. arms firms and promoting Labour’s whole economic growth strategy.</span></p>
<p><span>Giant U.K. arms firms like BAE Systems, Babcock and Thales U.K. will all likely benefit from increased military spending. They are already benefiting from new procurement contracts from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) as the U.K. gifts its current stocks of military equipment to Ukraine. </span></p>
<p><span>Much of U.K. military aid to Ukraine — which amounts to £4.5 billion this year — is really a subsidy to these arms firms.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Militarisation</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124634" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124634" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/54309162278_a873b5894e_k.jpg" alt width="2047" height="1365" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124634"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124634" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span> Lammy viewing an air defence truck and kit used by mobile support teams on Feb. 5, 2025, during his trip to Kiev. <span>(Ben Dance / Flickr/ FCDO/</span></span><span><a href="http://cc%20by%202.0/">CC BY 2.0)</a></span></p>
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<p><span><span>The government has made no secret of the fact that it</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/national-security-is-the-foundation-for-growth-defence-secretary-launches-new-strategy-to-boost-uk-jobs-and-growth"><span>wants</span></a> <span>to “make the defence sector an engine for U.K. growth.” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Defence Minister Luke Pollard</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/international-trade-mission-to-ukraine-deepens-industry-ties-and-boosts-growth"><span>says</span></a> <span>that supplying Ukraine with weapons helps with “bolstering our own defence industrial base — creating jobs and driving investment.” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>“By deepening our ties with Ukraine’s defence industry, we are expanding [our] own industrial capacity,”</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/uk-trade-mission-visits-kyiv-to-deepen-industry-ties/"><span>observes</span></a> <span>Major General Anna-Lee Reilly, who coordinates the MoD’s military support to Ukraine. She adds that U.K.-Ukraine military collaboration is about “opening up opportunities for the U.K. defence industry.”</span></span></p>
<p><span>The government can be given full marks for transparency. Its new Defence Industrial Strategy, announced last December, openly seeks to increase U.K. arms exports and arms industry jobs “in every nation and region of the U.K.” whilst prioritising British arms firms for government investment. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Ukraine is central to this thinking. The government’s policy paper on the new strategy</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/defence-industrial-strategy-statement-of-intent/defence-industrial-strategy-statement-of-intent"><span>states</span></a><span>:</span></span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span><span>“Ukraine remains front of mind as this Government develops our new approach to its Defence Industrial Strategy: at this critical moment in the war, we must step up our efforts to supply military support and stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.”</span></span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><span>Ukraine already uses 17 different</span> <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/uk-ukraine-defense-industry/"><span>types</span></a> <span>of weapons and equipment made by BAE Systems, the U.K.’s largest arms company, such as Challenger tanks, armoured vehicles and ammunition. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Not only the war but the peace, when it eventually comes, will also be profitable. This year, Ukraine</span> <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/uk-to-finance-production-of-air-defense-long-range-weapons-in-ukraine-umerov-says/"><span>plans</span></a> <span>to spend a record $35 billion on arms production, with the U.K. financing the production of equipment such as air defence systems and long-range weapons in Ukraine.</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Military Aid</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124616" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124616" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Challenger_2_main_battle_tank-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1559" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124616"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124616" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Muzzle-view of the Challenger 2 main battle tank. (<span>Ross Fernie /Defence Imagery, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">OGL v1.0)</a></p>
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<p><span><span>The U.K. has already provided nearly £8 billion in military support to Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in 2022, with around</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-support-to-ukraine-factsheet/uk-support-to-ukraine-factsheet"><span>400</span></a> <span>different capabilities sent to the country. This</span> <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/investigation-into-military-support-for-ukraine/"><span>includes</span></a> <span>thousands of missiles and drones, over 10m rounds of ammunition, 14 tanks, as well as artillery guns, combat vehicles and naval vessels.  </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The £3 billion a year the government has pledged in military aid to Ukraine is</span> <a href="https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9914/"><span>additional</span></a> <span>to the MoD’s main budget and comes from the Treasury Reserve. </span></span></p>
<p><span>Equipment from the U.K. is either donated from existing U.K. defence stocks, purchased from British arms firms or else purchased from the surplus stocks of foreign governments. </span></p>
<p><span>This acquisition is either funded directly or coordinated through mechanisms such as the International Fund for Ukraine, of which the U.K. is also the administrator.</span></p>
<p><span><span>In addition, the U.K. is providing a £2.26 billion</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/45-billion-military-boost-to-ukraine-front-line-to-support-uk-growth-and-jobs"><span>loan</span></a> <span>to Ukraine to enable it to “invest in key equipment, including British equipment,” the government says.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>It’s no surprise that Ukraine has become a new, major</span> <a href="https://caat.org.uk/data/exports-uk/overview?region=Ukraine&amp;date_from=2010"><span>market</span></a> <span>for British arms exports. In the 10 years up to Russia’s invasion in 2022, U.K. firms sold only around £35 million of military equipment. In the three years since the invasion, 2022-24, exports skyrocketed to £1.1 billion. </span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Replenishing Stocks</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124619" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124619" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/53866832076_d55757b85c_b.jpg" alt width="1024" height="683" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124619"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124619" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Zelensky, left, and Starmer, right, watching Ukraine Defence Minister Rustem Umerov and U.K. Defence Secretary John Healey sign the Defence Export Support Treaty in London in July 2024  </span><span>(10 Downing Street/Flickr/ Lauren Hurley/<a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/">CC BY-NC-ND 2.0</a>)</span></p>
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<p><span>One way the procurement system for Ukraine benefits arms companies is when the MoD replenishes British military stocks after gifting the same equipment to Ukraine. </span></p>
<p><span><span>In fact, the National Audit Office (NAO)</span> <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/reports/investigation-into-military-support-for-ukraine/"><span>estimates</span></a> <span>that the MoD will spend £2.7 billion on replacing equipment donated to Ukraine from U.K. stockpiles in the first two years of the war alone. The NAO further says that the MoD spent £2.4 billion on procuring equipment for Ukraine in 715 contracts, over the same period.</span></span></p>
<p><span>So desperate has the MoD been to get equipment to Ukraine rapidly that it has often given awards to arms firms through “non-competitive procurements with reduced oversight requirements,” the NAO says. </span></p>
<p><span>The U.K. has gifted hundreds of “lightweight multirole missiles” (LMMs) to Ukraine, which can be used against drones, helicopters or naval vessels. To replenish the U.K.’s own stocks, various contracts have been awarded to arms firm, Thales UK, which assembles the missiles at its factory in Belfast. </span></p>
<p><span><span>In July 2024, when the MoD</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/lmm-thales-british-army-royal-navy/"><span>announced</span></a> <span>an order for LMMs worth £176 million, Defence Procurement Minister Maria Eagle said “this contract is … a great example of how defence investment can support economic growth and sustain jobs in the U.K. for years to come.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Last September Defence Secretary John Healey announced a further award benefitting Thales — a contract worth £162 million to supply Ukraine with 650 LMMs. The MoD</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-provide-162-million-package-of-air-defence-missiles-for-ukraine-as-defence-secretary-meets-international-partners"><span>said</span></a> <span>categorically: “This contract with Thales in the U.K. will further prime the world leading British defence industry to increase production rates, enabling future production to be ramped up.”  </span></span></p>
<p><span>Thales has also received new orders from the MoD to supply Starstreak high velocity missiles and anti-tank weapons after that equipment has been gifted to Ukraine.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124621" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124621" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Royal_Marines_Starstreak_LRG_South_2021-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1707" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124621"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124621" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>A Royal Marine, on right, carrying the Starstreak MANPAD Anti Air Missile during training at the U.S. Marine training center in Twentynine Palms, California, 2021. <span>(Ministry of Defence/Flickr/Wikimedia Commons/</span></span><a href="http://nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/1/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">OGL v1.0)</a></p>
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<p><span><span><span>These contracts are especially noteworthy in that Thales is currentl</span>y being</span> <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62l19ez56lo"><span>investigated</span></a> <span>by the Serious Fraud Office for suspected bribery and corruption. The probe is reportedly over suspicions of corruption linked to arms sales abroad. Thales</span> <a href="https://www.thalesgroup.com/en/group/investors/press_release/press-release"><span>denies</span></a> <span>the allegations.</span></span></p>
<p><span>After the MoD gifts military equipment to Ukraine, it often awards repair and maintenance contracts to U.K. firms for the same weapons. </span></p>
<p><span><span>Earlier this month arms firm Babcock — another prominent MoD contractor —was</span> <a href="https://www.morningstar.com/news/dow-jones/202502128778/bae-systems-babcock-international-win-contracts-under-latest-ukraine-aid-package"><span>awarded</span></a> <span>a multi-million pound contract to train Ukrainian personnel to maintain and repair military equipment including Challenger 2 tanks donated by Britain.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The supply of drones is another benefit to U.K. industry, highlighted by Britain being the largest provider of military drones to Ukraine. </span></p>
<p><span><span>When Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government announced a £200 million package of military support to Ukraine in February 2024 it</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/des-key-player-in-delivery-of-new-4-5-billion-uk-strategy-to-accelerate-uncrewed-systems/"><span>stated</span></a> <span>that “the majority of this £200 million will be spent on U.K. domestic drone and component manufacturing and software development. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>When Labour took office, the U.K. committed to supplying over</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-to-stand-with-ukraine-for-as-long-as-it-takes-pm-to-tell-nato"><span>£300 million</span></a> <span>of advanced drones to Ukraine. In July 2024 the MoD</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-defence-secretary-pledges-to-step-up-support-for-ukraine-on-visit-to-odesa"><span>said</span></a> <span>that the international drone coalition — which is co-led by the U.K. and Latvia — “has rapidly deployed thousands of drones to support Ukraine whilst also boosting the U.K. defence industry.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>New Offices in Ukraine</strong></span></p>
<p><span>The generous funding of arms corporations by the government, and ultimately the British public, is enabling them to set up new offices and ventures in Ukraine to deepen military collaboration in the future. </span></p>
<p><span><span>“It was British defence companies that were the first to open their offices here after the start of the great war,” Alexander Kamyshin, Ukraine’s minister of strategic industries, has</span> <a href="https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/04/11/britain-cements-foothold-in-ukraine-for-weapons-upkeep-production/"><span>said</span></a><span>. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>BAE opened a site in Ukraine in August 2023 to produce L119 field guns, and to build “a strong and sustainable technological defense-industrial complex,” the corporation’s chief, Charles Woodburn,</span> <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/bae-systems-to-produce-l119-howitzers-in-ukraine/"><span>announced</span></a> <span>while meeting President Volodymyr Zelensky. </span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124623" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124623" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-26-at-6.11.22-PM.png" alt width="1980" height="1304" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124623"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124623" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Zelensky meeting with BAE Systems CEO Charles Woodburn in 2023 in Kiev after the U.K. company decided to open an office in Ukraine. <span>(The Presidential Office of Ukraine, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en">CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)</a></span></span></p>
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<p><span><span>A few months later, the U.K.’s MoD</span> <a href="https://www.baesystems.com/en/article/bae-systems-awarded-contract-to-maintain-and-repair-light-guns-in-ukraine"><span>announced</span></a> <span>a contract for BAE to maintain and repair the L119 guns the U.K. military had gifted to Ukraine.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>BAE is also</span> <a href="https://english.nv.ua/nation/bae-systems-to-open-new-artillery-factory-in-the-uk-to-boost-support-for-ukraine-50467034.html"><span>opening</span></a> <span>a new artillery factory in the U.K. to produce howitzers for Ukraine, with production expected to begin this year. This effectively reverses the company’s earlier decision to scale down artillery production in the U.K. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>In addition, BAE was given a £190 million</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/des-places-new-order-to-increase-155mm-shells-stockpile-for-british-army/"><span>contract</span></a> <span>in 2023 to produce 155mm artillery shells for the British army after the U.K. had gifted millions of rounds of ammunition to Ukraine. </span></span></p>
<p><span>This “will significantly increase BAE Systems’ production capacity, delivering an eight-fold increase and secure increased sovereign capacity for ammunition for years to come,” an MoD official said.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Similarly, Babcock</span> <a href="https://www.babcockinternational.com/news/babcock-in-ukraine/"><span>established</span></a> <span>an office in Ukraine in October 2023 and announced in May 2024 it was</span> <a href="https://www.babcockinternational.com/news/babcock-bolsters-support-to-ukraine/"><span>setting up</span></a> <span>an in-country engineering facility to repair and overhaul Ukraine’s military vehicles. The company is also training Ukraine’s air force pilots.</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>100 Years of Arms Exports</strong></span></p>
<p><span><span>The 100-year partnership agreement between London and Kyiv has in its Article 1 a</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-hundred-year-partnership-agreement-between-the-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-and-ukraine"><span>focus</span></a> <span>on strengthening “military and defence industrial capabilities, including force development and collaboration between their defence industrial bases.” </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Its declaration</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/uk-ukraine-100-year-partnership-declaration/uk-ukraine-100-year-partnership-declaration"><span>calls for</span></a> <span>“developing advanced weapons and ammunition manufacturing capabilities,” deepening “cooperation on long-range strike capabilities, integrated air and missile defence and complex weapons stockpiles.” There is also mention of “joint arms exports to foreign markets.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Zelensky personally met senior U.K. military figures and representatives of BAE, Thales U.K., Babcock and other British arms firms on a visit to London in July 2024. The U.K. has conducted no less than</span> <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/international-trade-mission-to-ukraine-deepens-industry-ties-and-boosts-growth"><span>five</span></a> <span>military trade missions to Kyiv since 2023.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The</span> <a href="https://des.mod.uk/first-uk-trade-mission-to-kyiv-boosts-defence-cooperation/"><span>first</span></a> <span>of those missions, in December 2023, resulted in new agreements with Babcock, BAE and Thales. Mark Goldsack, the U.K.’s director of defence and security exports said: “With agreements already signed with our defence industry, the work will help boost resilience for both our industrial bases for years to come.”</span></span></p>
<p><span>Goldsack is not joking. The U.K. has created a new market for its military industry and is apparently seeking to exploit it for the next hundred years. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>Mark Curtis is the director of <em>Declassified UK</em>, and the author of five books and many articles on U.K. foreign policy.</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em>This article is from</em> <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/">Declassified UK</a>.</span></p>
<p><span><em>Views expressed in this article and may or may not reflect those of </em><strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Militarism #Military Industry #Ukraine #United Kingdon #Babcock #BAE Systems #Foreign Secretary David Lammy #Mark Curtis #Thales UK #U.K. Labour Party #U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124636
title: UK Media Beating War Drums
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/uk-media-beating-war-drums/
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<p><span><strong>Des Freedman asks: “When did you last see someone interviewed on the BBC who opposed spending more money on the military?”</strong></span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124636"></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124637" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124637" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/New_Broadcasting_House_14561681425-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1707" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124637"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124637" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>New Broadcasting House in London, 2021. <span>(Alexander Svensson, Wikimedia Commons, <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY 2.0)</a></span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/mark-curtis/">By</a> <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/des-freedman/">Des Freedman</a></span><br></strong><a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-mainstream-media-are-beating-the-drums-of-war/"><em>Declassified UK</em></a></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-class="et_pb_module et_pb_post_content et_pb_post_content_0_tb_body">
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/AUTHORS-9-146x146.png-copy-100x100.jpg" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-106218">T</strong></span>he airwaves are currently dominated by gung-ho politicians, military “specialists” and defence correspondents talking up the need to increase U.K. weapons spending. This is necessary, they <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c04nw1pg3k2o">argue</a>, to meet the “threat” to NATO countries of a newly emboldened Russian President Vladimir Putin.</span></p>
<p><span>This must be a different Vladimir Putin to the one emboldened by former Prime Minister Tony Blair who, in 2000, sought desperately to bring the newly elected Russian leader into the fold. This involved a series of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/oct/04/september11.usa8">meetings</a> and an <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/when-tony-blair-backed-putins-brutal-war/">agreement</a> to sell equipment with potential military use at a time when Putin was engaged in a brutal war in Chechnya.</span></p>
<p><span>Now, however, Prime Minister Keir Starmer is <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gxgxl3grgo">offering</a> to put British troops “on the ground” in Ukraine as part of what he calls a peacekeeping force after fighting has stopped and is under pressure to speed up his promise to increase defence spending from 2.3 percent to 2.5 percent of GDP. </span></p>
<p><span>This comes after U.S. President <a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14392913/Defence-Secretary-John-Healey-UK-military-spending-rise-2-5-GDP-Trump-abandon-European-allies.html">Donald Trump’s attack</a> on European states for not paying their way in defending the West even though European defence spending increased by 11.7 percent in 2024, the 10th consecutive year of real-terms growth <a href="https://www.iiss.org/online-analysis/military-balance/2025/02/global-defence-spending-soars-to-new-high/">according</a> to the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Trump has further <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy0pz3er37jo">demanded</a> that countries should spend not 2.5 percent, but 5. percent of GDP on defence.</span></p>
<p><span>News stories are <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/sir-keir-starmer-must-quickly-raise-defence-spending-or-face-swingeing-military-cuts-this-year-13311210">littered</a> with references to the “hollowed-out state of the U.K. armed forces” and the fact that the U.K. military is too “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czep44jn9jyo">run down</a>” to commit any troops to Ukraine. Concerns about the “peacekeeping” plan in Ukraine are focused not on the likely cost in terms of money, risk to life and further geopolitical instability but simply that it is not possible given the “<a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/defence-army-raf-john-healey-b2635098.html">depleted</a>” state of the army.</span></p>
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<p data-sanitized-class="related-post-body"><span><strong>Opportunity Cost</strong></span></p>
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<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124622" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124622" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/54170484275_53942ba4a5_k.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1366" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124622"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124622" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy meeting in Budapest, November 2024. <span>(President of Ukraine, Flickr, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Increasing defence spending to 2.5 percent of GDP would <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/feb/16/trumps-return-means-uk-must-swiftly-find-a-way-to-increase-defence-spending">cost</a> approximately £7 billion a year — money that the British government has insisted it does not have and which would, therefore, be taken out of other budgets including education and welfare. Or the government would have to increase tax to inflate the defence budget.</span></p>
<p><span>Not surprisingly, a recent <a href="https://www.politicshome.com/news/article/british-public-oppose-tax-hikes-increase-defence-spending-poll-shows">opinion poll</a> made it clear that the U.K. public does not support such a move. According to YouGov, more than 55 percent would oppose tax hikes to pay for defence with only 30 percent backing the idea. </span></p>
<p><span>So who exactly is Sky News referring to when it <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/increasing-defence-spending-will-mean-government-breaking-promises-elsewhere-13311445">reports</a> that “even 2.5% [of GDP] won’t silence the critics” and that “it might not even be enough”? The arms industry clamouring for increased investment or ordinary people continuing to face cuts in public services?</span></p>
<p><span>In fact, according to research carried out by <em>Declassified UK</em>, opposition to or concerns about increases in military spending rarely feature in defence-related stories.</span></p>
<p><span>In the 11 news stories located in BBC News’ “<a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/topics/c5r3262qm56t">U.K. defence spending</a>” category since July 2024 when the Labour government was elected, not a single voice opposed to increased defence spending has featured in its coverage.</span></p>
<p><span>Instead, stories have been dominated by a combination of government and opposition voices, military figures, think tanks and defence industry interests.</span></p>
<ul data-sanitized-class="wp-block-list"><li><span>Government ministers and spokespeople: 13</span></li>
<li><span>Military figures: 7</span></li>
<li><span>Conservative Party: 5</span></li>
<li><span>Military specialists in think tanks: 4</span></li>
<li><span>Defence industries: 3</span></li>
<li><span>Reform: 1</span></li>
<li><span>Green Party: 1 [note: co-leader Adrian Ramsay’s quote was in relation to supporting Ukraine and not in relation to defence spending itself]</span></li>
<li><span>MoD source: 1</span></li>
<li><span>Serious Fraud Office: 1</span></li>
</ul><p><span>Former Prime Minister John Major — quoted once — features more than any current elected MP, trade unionist, academic or NGO source who might be allowed to represent the substantial body of opinion opposed to a hike in military spending. </span></p>
<p data-sanitized-id="h-fixing-the-narrative" data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><span><strong>Fixing the Narrative</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124650" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ministry_of_Defence_MoD_Main_Building_London_MOD_45152986-scaled-1.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124650" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ministry_of_Defence_MoD_Main_Building_London_MOD_45152986-scaled-1-1000x640.jpg" alt width="860" height="550" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124650 size-large"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124650" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Ministry of Defence main building in Whitehall, London. <span>(Harland Quarrington/MOD, OGL v1.0, Wikimedia Commons)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>This removal of critical voices from mainstream journalism on defence issues is linked to the astronomical rise in stories on the topic in the last five years. </span></p>
<p><span>Using the Nexis database to search for coverage of increased defence spending (interestingly, there are significantly more stories on “defence spending” than on “military spending”), we found a 2700 percent rise in stories across the U.K. media from Feb. 17, 2020, to Feb. 17, 2025:</span></p>
<ul data-sanitized-class="wp-block-list"><li><span>2020-2021: 110</span></li>
<li><span>2021-2022: 97</span></li>
<li><span>2022-2023: 1435</span></li>
<li><span>2023-2024: 529</span></li>
<li><span>2024-2025: 3122</span></li>
</ul><p><span>Clearly, there was a spike in related stories after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine but the largest absolute increase in stories has been in the last 12 months when the media have stepped up their drumbeat. </span></p>
<p><span>There has been a similar jump in stories across the British media focusing on the call to devote 3 percent of GDP to defence. While there were only 24 stories in 2020-2021, this increased to 908 in the last 12 months: a massive 3700 percent hike.</span></p>
<p><span>Intriguingly, stories devoted to “defence stocks” have soared as well. Just 17 stories focused on this topic in 2020-2021 while there were 466 stories in 2024-2025, a 2640 percent increase (including a doubling in the last year alone). </span></p>
<p><span>This reflects a turnaround in fortunes for the arms trade. A <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/live/2025/feb/17/uk-business-confidence-tumbles-china-xi-meeting-company-leaders-stock-markets-trade-business-live-news">story</a> in <em>The</em> <em>Guardian</em> — headlined “European defence stock values surge” – reported that BAE Systems’ share price was up by 7.7 percent following the <a href="https://apnews.com/article/eu-europe-ukraine-nato-security-summit-trump-060c8661c59f8f75b96711d3889ce559">crisis meeting</a> of European leaders on Feb. 17 to discuss Ukraine in reaction to the planned negotiations between Putin and Trump. As usual, no critical voices were featured in the article.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124638" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124638" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/54333981911_365c3d099a_b.jpg" alt width="1024" height="683" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124638"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124638" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer, third from right, during Feb. 17 talks among European leaders on Ukraine at a meeting hosted by French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris. <span>(Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street)</span></span></p>
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<p data-sanitized-class="related-post"> <span><strong>Stoking War</strong></span></p>
<p><span>The British media’s amplification of government and military voices is <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/ten-journalists-in-a-wine-cellar-with-the-defence-secretary/">hardly new</a> but their uncritical support for more spending on defence at a time of such global insecurity is symptomatic of a more general acquiescence to power when it comes to military matters.</span></p>
<p><span>When <em>The</em> <em>Sun</em> <a href="https://x.com/TheSun/status/1758126515030479092">tweeted</a> a story in February 2024 with the caption “British troops train in Norwegian snow – as they prepare for war in the Arctic,” the Ministry of Defence responded not by lowering the temperature and pointing out that Britain was not formally preparing to engage in military conflict with a nuclear power in its continent but by retweeting the story. </span></p>
<p><span>Now, when British troops are engaged in several military exercises including NATO’s <a href="https://www.army.mod.uk/news-and-events/immersive-stories/exercise-steadfast-dart-2025/">Exercise Steadfast Dart 25</a> in Romania and Bulgaria and <a href="https://www.europeafrica.army.mil/ArticleViewPressRelease/Article/4060837/press-release-justified-accord-2025-enhances-multinational-crisis-response-read/">Justified Accord</a> in Kenya, Djibouti and Tanzania — let alone the <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/the-uk-militarys-secret-visits-to-israel/">visits to Israel</a> of senior British army officers or the multiple RAF <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/is-the-uk-spying-on-hamas-for-israel/">surveillance flights</a> from its base in Cyprus to Gaza, as revealed by <em>Declassified UK</em> — the British media are reluctant to say a word, perhaps in case it jeopardises their preferred narrative that the army is “depleted,” starved of funds and barely able to function.</span></p>
<p><span>Mainstream media are far more comfortable in reproducing Ministry of Defence press releases and the calls by military figures for more funding than to feature even a semblance of balanced debate on such crucial issues. Instead, as we have previously <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/defence-correspondents-the-journalistic-wing-of-the-military/">argued</a>, most mainstream reporting “is virtually 100 percent in line with the government’s own priorities.”</span></p>
<p><span>Now, in an even more volatile atmosphere, with Trump making <a href="https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/trumps-mission-recolonise-palestine-revives-failed-19th-century-american-efforts">inflammatory calls</a> to occupy territory from Greenland to Gaza and with European leaders determined to re-arm even at the expense of further undermining public services, the media’s stoking of war is all the more dangerous.</span></p>
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<div data-sanitized-class="entry-content">
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>Des Freedman is a professor of media and communications at Goldsmiths, University of London and a founding member of the Media Reform Coalition.</strong></span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><em>This article is from <a href="https://www.declassifieduk.org/">Declassified UK.</a></em></span></p>
<p><span><em>Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of</em> <strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>
</div>

tags:
#Commentary #Media #Militarism #Russia #Ukraine #United Kingdon #BBC #Des Freedman #President Donald Trump #President Vladimir Putin #Prime Minister Tony Blair #Sky News #The Sun


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124653
title: Jeffrey Sachs: The Geopolitics of Peace
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/jeffrey-sachs-the-geopolitics-of-peace/
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<p><span><strong>The author explains manipulative U.S. post-war foreign policy to European MPs, explodes myths about Ukraine and urges an independent European foreign policy.</strong><span data-sanitized-id="more-124653"></span></span></p>
<p><iframe title="The Geopolitics of Peace - Jeffrey Sachs in the European Parliament" width="860" height="484" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VjcMoDFU1xg?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></p>
<p><span><em>This is an edited transcript of Professor Jeffrey Sachs’ speech in the European Parliament at an event titled “The Geopolitics of Peace,” hosted by former U.N. Assistant Secretary General and current BSW MEP Michael von der Schulenburg, on Feb. 19, 2025. The transcript has been edited for clarity and annotated. </em></span></p>
<p><span><strong>By</strong> <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/jeffrey-sachs/"><strong>Jeffrey D. Sachs</strong></a></span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Introduction</strong></span></p>
<p><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/screen_shot_2016-10-31_at_5.04.53_pm-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-81208"><span>T</span></strong>hanks to all of you for the chance to be together and to think together. This is indeed a complicated and fast-changing time and a very dangerous one. So, we really need clarity of thought. I’m especially interested in our conversation, so I’ll try to be as succinct and clear as I can be.</span></p>
<p><span>I’ve watched the events very close-up in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine, very closely for the last 36 years. I was an adviser to the Polish government in 1989, to President Gorbachev’s economic team in 1990 and 1991, to President Yeltsin’s economic team in 1991 to 1993 and to President Kuchma’s economic team in Ukraine in 1993 to 1994.</span></p>
<p><span>I helped introduce the Estonian currency. I helped several countries in former Yugoslavia, especially Slovenia. After the Maidan, I was asked by the new government [in Ukraine] to come to Kyiv, and I was taken around the Maidan, and I learned a lot of things firsthand.</span></p>
<p><span>I’ve been in touch with Russian leaders for more than 30 years. I also know the American political leadership close-up. Our previous secretary of treasury, Janet Yellen, was my wonderful macroeconomics teacher 52 years ago. We have been friends for a half century.</span></p>
<p><span>I know these people. I say this because what I want to explain in my point of view is not second-hand. It’s not ideology. It’s what I’ve seen with my own eyes and experienced during this period. I want to share with you my understanding of the events that have befallen Europe in many contexts and I’ll include not only the Ukraine crisis, but also Serbia 1999, the wars in the Middle East, including Iraq, Syria, the wars in Africa, including Sudan, Somalia, Libya. These are to a very significant extent the result of deeply misguided U.S. policies. What I will say may well surprise you, but I speak from experience and knowledge of these events.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>U.S. Foreign Policy</strong></span></p>
<p><span>These are wars that the United States has led and caused. And this has been true for more than 30 years now. The United States came to the view, especially during 1990-91, and then with the end of the Soviet Union, that the U.S. now runs the world, and that the U.S. does not have to heed anybody’s views, red-lines, concerns, security viewpoints, international obligations, or any U.N. framework. I’m sorry to put it so plainly, but I do want you to understand.</span></p>
<p><span>I tried very hard in 1991 to get *financial help for Gorbachev</span> <span>who I think was the greatest statesman of our modern time. (*This became part of a project led by Professor Graham Allison at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government with Gorbachev economic advisor Grigory Yavlinsky and published in the book <em>Window of Opportunity: The Grand Bargain for Democracy in the Soviet Union,</em> Pantheon Books, 1991.)</span></p>
<p><span>I recently read the archived memo of the National Security Council discussion of my proposal on June 3, 1991, reading for the first time how the White House completely dismissed it, and essentially laughed off the table my plea for the U.S. to help the Soviet Union with financial stabilization and with financial aid to make its reforms. The memo documents* that the U.S. government decided to do the very minimum to prevent disaster, but just the minimum.</span></p>
<p><span>(*Richard Darman, at the OMB, put it this way.</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“In defining the U.S. interest, we need to be somewhat Machiavellian. What is the minimum amount necessary to mollify a regime with which we wish to work on other ma]ers? In other words, what is the bare minimum to keep things moving? I don’t believe we need to worry about the U.S.S.R.’s decomposition. If this is our internal understanding, then we can go ahead publicly.” Later, Darman adds, “I want to <em><strong>seem</strong></em> serious while not fooling ourselves. We have enough ingredients already for a good PR package.” Emphasis in original.)</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span><span>They decided that it’s not the U.S. job to help. Quite the contrary.</span></span> <span><span>(See my paper “<a href="http://h%5Dps//www.jeffsachs.org/newspaper-ar%5Ecles/bfsmbpe4plx7cc6lgxhf37lx249r22?rq=how%20the%20neocons">How the Neocons Chose Hegemony Over Peace in the Early 1990s.</a>”)</span></span></p>
<p><span>When the Soviet Union ended in 1991, the view became even more exaggerated. And I can name chapter and verse, but the view was we [the U.S.] run the show. [Dick] Cheney, [Paul] Wolfowitz, and many other names that you will have come to know literally believed this is now a U.S. world, and we will do as we want. We will clean up from the former Soviet Union. We will take out any remaining Soviet-era allies. Countries like Iraq, Syria, and so forth will go.</span></p>
<p><span>And we’ve been experiencing this foreign policy for now essentially 33 years. Europe has paid a heavy price for this because Europe has not had any foreign policy during this period that I can figure out. No voice, no unity, no clarity, no European interests, only American loyalty.</span></p>
<p><span>There were moments where there were disagreements and, I think, very wonderful disagreements. The last time of significance was 2003 in the lead-up to the Iraq war when France and Germany said we don’t support the United States going around the U.N. Security Council for this war. That war was directly concocted by Netanyahu and his colleagues in the U.S. Pentagon. (See Dennis Fritz’s book, <em><a href="http://h%5Dps//orbooks.com/catalog/deadly-betrayal/">Deadly Betrayal: The Truth about why the United States Invaded Iraq</a></em>, OR Books, 2024.) </span></p>
<p><span>I’m not saying that it was a link or mutuality. I’m saying it was a war carried out for Israel. It was a war that Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith coordinated with [Israeli leader] Benjamin Netanyahu.</span></p>
<p><span>And that was the last time that Europe had a voice. I spoke with European leaders then, and they were very clear, and it was quite wonderful to hear their opposition an unacceptable war. Europe lost its voice entirely after that, but especially in 2008. What happened after 1991, and to bring us to 2008, is that the United States decided that unipolarity meant that NATO would enlarge somewhere from Brussels to Vladivostok, step by step.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>NATO Expansion</strong></span></p>
<p><span>There would be no end to eastward enlargement of NATO. This would be the U.S. unipolar world. If you play the game of Risk as a child like I did, this is the U.S. idea: to have the piece on every part of the board. Any place without a U.S. military base is an enemy, basically. Neutrality is a dirty word in the U.S. political lexicon.</span></p>
<p><span>Neutrality is perhaps the dirtiest word according to the U.S. mindset. If you’re an enemy, we know you’re an enemy. If you are neutral, you are a subversive, because you’re really against us, but just not telling us. You’re only pretending to be neutral. So, this was indeed the mindset, and the decision was taken formally in 1994 when President Clinton signed off on NATO enlargement to the east.</span></p>
<p><span>You will recall that on Feb. 7, 1990, Hans-Dietrich Genscher and James Baker III spoke with Gorbachev. Genscher gave a <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ogM0EjYbPRk">press conference afterwards</a> where he explained that NATO will not move eastward.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124658" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124658" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-11.59.58-AM.png" alt width="1550" height="1074" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124658"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124658" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span> Genscher in the German Democratic Republic, GDR, in 1990. <span>(Bundesarchiv, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0 de)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Germany and the U.S. would not take advantage of the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact. Understand, please, that this commitment was made in a juridical and diplomatic context, not a casual context. These commitments were core to the negotiations to end World War II that made way for German reunification.</span></p>
<p><span>An understanding was reached that NATO will not move one inch eastward. (This was an agreement, albeit verbal, as Gorbachev emphasized to the U.S. and Germany the importance of the U.S.-German pledge not to expand NATO eastward.) And it was explicit, and it is in countless documents. And just look up National Security Archive of George Washington University, and you can get dozens of documents.</span> <span>It’s a website called “What Gorbachev Heard About NATO.” Take a look, please, because everything you’re told by the U.S. about this promise is a lie, but the archives are perfectly clear. (Many of the key documents are <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2017-12-12/nato-expansion-what-gorbachev-heard-western-leaders-early">here</a>  <wbr>and <a href="https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/russia-programs/2018-03-16/nato-expansion-what-yeltsin-heard">here.)</a></wbr></span></p>
<p><span>So, the decision was taken by Clinton in 1994 to expand NATO all the way to Ukraine. This is a long-term U.S. project. This is not due to one administration or another. This is a U.S. government project that started more than 30 years ago. In 1997, Zbigniew Brzezinski wrote <em>The Grand Chessboard</em>, describing the NATO enlargement eastward.</span></p>
<p><span>That book is not just the musings of Mr. Brzezinski. That is his presentation to the public of decisions <em>already made </em>by the United States government, which is how a book like this works. The book describes the eastward enlargement of Europe and of NATO as simultaneous and conjoined events. And there’s a good chapter in that book that asks, what will Russia do as Europe and NATO expand eastward?</span></p>
<p><span>I knew Zbig Brzezinski personally. He was very nice to me. I was advising Poland, and he was a big help. He was also a smart man, and yet he got everything wrong in 1997.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124662" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124662" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Obama_with_former_National_Security_Advisers_2010-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1707" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124662"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124662" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.S. President Barack Obama meeting with former national security advisers, including Brzezinski, to his right, at. the White House on March 24, 2010. <span>(White House / Pete Souza, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>In 1997, he wrote in detail why Russia could do nothing but accede to the eastward expansion of NATO and Europe.</span></p>
<p><span>(Here is Brzezinski on page 118 of <em>Grand Chessboard</em>:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Russia’s only real geo-strategic option — the option that could give Russia a realistic international role and also maximize the opportunity of transforming and socially modernizing itself — is Europe. And not just any Europe, but the transatlantic Europe of the enlarging EU and NATO. Such a Europe is taking shape, as we have seen in chapter 3, and it is also likely to remain linked closely to America. That is the Europe to which Russia will have to relate, if it is to avoid dangerous geopolitical isolation.”)</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>In fact, he says the eastward expansion of Europe and not just Europe, but NATO. This was a U.S. plan, a project. And Brzezinski explains how Russia will never align with China. Unthinkable. Russia will never align with Iran.</span></p>
<p><span>According to Brzezinski, Russia has no vocation other than the European vocation. So, as Europe moves east, there’s nothing Russia can do about it. So, says yet another American strategist. Is it any question why we’re in war all the time? Because one thing about America is we always “know” what our counterparts are going to do, and we always get it wrong! And one reason we always get it wrong is that in the non-cooperative game theory that the American strategists play, you don’t actually talk to the other side. You just know what the other side’s strategy is. That’s wonderful. It saves so much time. You simply don’t need any diplomacy.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The Black Sea Strategy</strong></span></p>
<p><span>So, this project began in earnest in 1994, and we have had a continuity of government policy for 30 years until maybe yesterday, perhaps. (I am referring to the Trump-Putin phone call of Feb. 12, 2025 and the statements that followed in quick succession.)</span></p>
<p><span>A 30-year project. Ukraine and Georgia were the keys to the project. Why? Because America learned everything it knows from the British.</span></p>
<p><span>We are the wannabe British Empire. And what the British Empire understood in 1853, with Mr. Palmerston, excuse me, Lord Palmerston [together with Napoleon III], is that you surround Russia in the Black Sea, and you deny Russia access to the Eastern Mediterranean.</span></p>
<p><span>What you’re watching is an American project to do the same in the 21st century. The U.S, idea was that there would be Ukraine, Romania, Bulgaria, Turkey and Georgia all in NATO, that would deprive Russia of any international status by blocking the Black Sea and essentially by neutralizing Russia as little more than a local power. Brzezinski is clear about this geography.</span></p>
<p><span>After Palmerston and before Brzezinski, there was of course Halford Mackinder in 1904: “Who rules East Europe commands the Heartland; Who rules the Heartland commands the World- Island; Who rules the World-Island commands the world.” (In 1919, Mackinder wrote  the book <em>Democratic Ideals and Reality</em>, building upon his earlier work <em>The Geographical Pivot of History</em> from 1904.)</span></p>
<p><span>I’ve known the presidents and/or their teams. Nothing changed much from Clinton to Bush Jr. to Obama to Trump to Biden. Maybe they got worse step by step.</span></p>
<p><span>Biden was the worst in my view. Maybe this is also because he was not <em>compos mentis </em>for the last couple of years. I say that seriously, not as a snarky remark. The American political system is a system of image. It’s a system of media manipulation every day. It is a PR system.</span></p>
<p><span>You could have a president that basically doesn’t function and have that person in power for two years and run for reelection. The one thing is he had to stand on a stage for 90 minutes by himself, and that was the end of it. Had it not been that glitch, he would have gone on to have his candidacy, whether he was sleeping after 4 PM in the afternoon or not. So, this is the reality. Everybody goes along with it. It’s impolite to say what I’m saying because we don’t speak the truth about almost anything in this world right now.</span></p>
<p><span>So, this project went on since the 1990s. Bombing Belgrade 78 straight days in 1999 was part of this project. Splitting apart that country when borders are “sacrosanct,” aren’t they? Except for Kosovo, that is. Borders are sacrosanct except when America changes them. Breaking apart Sudan was another related U.S. project. Consider the South Sudan rebellion. Did that just happen because South Sudanese rebelled? Or shall I give you the C.I.A. playbook?</span></p>
<p><span>Let us please understand as grown-ups what this is about. Military campaigns are costly. They require equipment, training, base camps, intelligence, finance. That support comes from big powers. It doesn’t come from local insurrections. South Sudan did not defeat Sudan in a tribal battle. Breaking Sudan was a U.S. project. I would go often to Nairobi and come across U.S. military or Senators or others with a “deep interest” in Sudan’s internal politics. That war was part of the game of U.S. unipolarity.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>U.S. Foreign Policy &amp; NATO Expansion</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124665" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124665" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-11.17.49-AM.png" alt width="2102" height="1544" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124665"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124665" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Sachs addressing the European Parliament on Feb. 19. <span>(YouTube video, Michael von der Schulenburg)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>And so, NATO enlargement, as you know, started in 1999 with Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic. Russia was extremely unhappy about it, but these were countries still far from Russia’s border. Russia protested, but, of course, to no avail. Then George Bush Jr. came into office. When 9/11 occurred, President Putin pledged all support to the U.S. And then the U.S. decided around September 20, 2001, that it would launch seven wars in five years!</span></p>
<p><span>You can listen to General Wesley Clark on video speak about that. (See Clark, in 2011, on <em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAnNJW9_KYA">Democracy Now</a>!</em>, where he was told by Pentagon official “we’re going to attack and destroy the governments in seven countries in five years — we’re going to start with Iraq, and then we’re going to move to Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.”</span></p>
<p><span>Clark was NATO’s supreme commander in 1999. He went to the Pentagon around September 20, 2001. He was handed a piece of paper explaining the prospect of seven U.S. wars of choice. These were, in fact, Netanyahu’s wars.</span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. government’s plan was partly to clean up [remove] old Soviet allies and partly to take out supporters of Hamas and Hezbollah. Netanyahu’s idea was and is that there will be one state, thank you, in all pre-1948 Palestine. Yes, only one state. It will be Israel. Israel will control all the territory from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.</span></p>
<p><span>And if anyone objects, we will overthrow them. Well, not Israel, exactly, but more specifically our friend, the United States. That’s been U.S. policy until this morning. We don’t know whether it will change. Now the only wrinkle is that maybe the U.S. will “own Gaza” [according to President Trump] instead of Israel owning Gaza.</span></p>
<p><span>Netanyahu’s idea has been around at least for 25 years. It goes back to a document called “Clean Break” that Netanyahu and his American political team put together in 1996 to end the idea of the two-state solution. You can also find that document online.</span></p>
<p><span><span>(In 1996, Netanyahu and his American advisors issued the document “Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm” with the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies. This new <a href="https://www.dougfeith.com/docs/Clean_Break.pdf">“clean break” strategy</a> called upon Israel to reject the framework of “land for peace.” This effectively advocated that Israel would not withdraw from the Palestinian occupied lands of 1967 in exchange for regional peace. Instead, Israel would continue with its policy of occupation until securing “peace for peace,” by reshaping the Middle East to its liking. Redrawing the map of the region consisted of toppling governments that were opposed to Israel’s dominance.)</span></span><span> </span></p>
<p><span>So, these are long-term U.S. projects. It’s wrong to ask, “Is it Clinton? Is it Bush? Is it Obama?” That’s the boring way to look at American politics, as a day-to-day or year-to-year game. Yet that’s not what American politics is.</span></p>
<p><span>After 1999, the next round of NATO enlargement came in 2004 with seven more countries: the three Baltic states, Romania, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Slovakia. At this point, Russia was pretty upset. This second-wave of NATO enlargement was a complete violation of the post-war order agreed at the time of German reunification. Essentially, it was a fundamental trick, or defection, of the U.S. from a cooperative arrangement with Russia.</span></p>
<p><span>As everybody recalls, because we just had the Munich Security Conference last week, <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/events/president/transcripts/24034">President Putin went to the MSC</a> in 2007 to say, “Stop, enough is enough.” Of course, the U.S. did not listen.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_113763" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-113763" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/Putin_in_Munchen.jpg" alt width="1920" height="1080" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-113763"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-113763" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>addressing the Munich Security Conference in 2007. <span>(Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>In 2008, the United States jammed down Europe’s throat it’s long-standing project to enlarge NATO to Ukraine and to Georgia. This is a long-term project. I listened to Mr. Saakashvili in New York City in the Spring of 2008, when he spoke at the Council on Foreign Relations.</span></p>
<p><span>He told us that Georgia is in the heart of Europe and as such would join NATO. I walked out and called my wife, and said, “This man’s crazy; he’s going to blow up his country.”</span></p>
<p><span>A month later, a war broke out between Russia and Georgia, in which Georgia was defeated. The most recent events in Tbilisi are again not helpful for Georgia, with your MEPs going there to prod protests. That doesn’t save Georgia; that gets Georgia destroyed, completely destroyed.</span></p>
<p><span>In 2008, as everybody knows, our former C.I.A. Director William Burns, who at the time was the U.S. ambassador to Russia, sent a long <a href="https://wikileaks.org/plusd/cables/08MOSCOW265_a.html">diplomatic cable</a> back to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, which was famously entitled “Nyet means Nyet.”</span> <span><span>Burns’ message was that NATO enlargement was opposed by the entire Russian political class, not just President Putin.</span></span></p>
<p><span>We know about the cable only from Julian Assange. Believe me, not one word is told to the American people about anything of this by our government or our leading newspapers these days. So, we have Julian Assange to thank for the memo, which we can read in detail.</span></p>
<p><span>As you know, Viktor Yanukovych was elected as president of Ukraine in 2010 on the platform of Ukraine’s neutrality. Russia had no territorial interests or designs in Ukraine at all. I know. I was there off-and-on during these years. What Russia was negotiating during 2010 was a 25-year lease to 2042 for Sevastopol naval base. That’s it. There were no Russian demands for Crimea, or for the Donbas. Nothing like that at all. The idea that Putin is reconstructing the Russian empire is childish propaganda. Excuse me.</span></p>
<p><span>If anyone knows the day-to-day and year-to-year history, this is childish stuff. Yet childish stuff seems to work better than adult stuff. So, there were no territorial demands at all before the 2014 coup [in Ukraine]. Yet the United States decided that Yanukovych must be overthrown because he favored neutrality and opposed NATO enlargement. It’s called a regime change operation.</span></p>
<p><span>There have been around one hundred regime-change operations by the U.S. since 1947, many in your countries [speaking to the MEPs] and many all over the world.  </span></p>
<p><span>(Political scientist Lindsey O’Rourke documented 64 U.S. covert regime-change operations between 1947 and 1989, and concluded that “Regime change operations, especially those conducted covertly, have oft en led to prolonged instability, civil wars, and humanitarian crises in the affected regions.” See O’Rourke’s 2018 book, Covert Regime Change: America’s Secret Cold War. After 1989, there is ample evidence of the C.I.A. involved in Syria, Libya, Ukraine, Venezuela, and many other countries.)</span></p>
<p><span>That’s what the C.I.A. does for a living. Please know it. It’s a very unusual kind of foreign policy. In the American government, if you don’t like the other side, you don’t negotiate with them, you try to overthrow them, preferably, covertly. If it doesn’t work covertly, you do it overtly. You always say it’s not our fault. They’re the aggressor. They’re the other side.</span></p>
<p><span>They’re “Hitler.” That comes up every two or three years. Whether it’s Saddam Hussein, whether it’s [deposed Syrian President Bashar] al-Assad, whether it’s Putin, that’s very convenient. That’s the only foreign policy explanation the American people are ever given. Well, we’re facing Munich 1938. We can’t talk to the other side. They’re evil and implacable foes. That’s the only model of foreign policy we ever hear from our government and mass media. The mass media repeats it entirely because it’s completely suborned by the U.S. government.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The Maidan Revolution &amp; Aftermath</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_74590" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-74590" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/15291903858_5fc3557526_k.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1399" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-74590"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-74590" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Oct. 8, 2014:  U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt and U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland at a Ukrainian State Border Guard Service Base in Kiev. <span>(U.S. Embassy Kyiv, Flickr)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>Now in 2014, the U.S. worked actively to overthrow Yanukovych. Everybody knows the <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957">phone call intercepted</a> by my Columbia University colleague, Victoria Nuland, and the U.S. ambassador, Geoffrey Pyatt. You don’t get better evidence. The Russians intercepted her call, and they put it on the Internet. </span></p>
<p><span>It’s fascinating. By doing that, they all got promoted in the Biden administration. That’s the job. When the Maidan occurred, I was called soon after. “Professor Sachs, the new Ukrainian prime minister would like to see you to talk about the economic crisis.” So, I flew to Kyiv, and I was walked around the Maidan. And I was told how the U.S. paid the money for all the people around the Maidan, the “spontaneous” Revolution of Dignity.</span></p>
<p><span>Ladies and gentlemen, please, how did all those Ukrainian media outlets suddenly appear at the time of the Maidan? Where did all this organization come from? Where did all these buses come from? Where did all those people come from? Are you kidding? This is an organized effort. And it’s not a secret, except perhaps to citizens of Europe and the United States. Everyone else understands it quite clearly.</span></p>
<p><span>Then after the coup came the Minsk agreements, especially Minsk II, which, incidentally, was modeled on South Tyrolean autonomy for the ethnic Germans in Italy. The Belgians too can relate to Minsk II very well, as it called for autonomy and language rights of the Russian speakers of Eastern Ukraine. Minsk II was supported unanimously by the U.N. Security Council. (The Minsk II agreement <a href="https://press.un.org/en/2015/sc11785.doc.htm">was endorsed</a> by the United Nations Security Council through Resolution 2202, which was adopted unanimously on Feb. 17, 2015.) </span></p>
<p><span>Yet the United States and Ukraine decided it would not be enforced. Germany and France, the guarantors of the Normandy process, also let it be ignored. This dismissal of Minsk II was another direct American unipolar action with Europe as usual playing a completely useless subsidiary role though it was guarantor of the agreement.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_75628" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-75628" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Normandy_format_2019-10-09_03.jpg" alt width="1880" height="1160" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-75628"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-75628" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Negotiating the Minsk agreement in the Normandy Format in Paris on Dec. 9, 2019, <span>(Kremlin.ru, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 4.0)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Trump won the 2016 election and then expanded arms shipments to Ukraine. There were many thousands of deaths in the shelling by Ukraine in the Donbas. There was no implementation of the Minsk II agreement.</span></p>
<p><span>Then Biden came into office in 2021. I hoped for better but was profoundly disappointed once again. I used to be a member of the Democratic Party. I now am a member of no party because both are the same anyway. The Democrats became complete warmongers over time, and there was not one voice in the party calling for peace. Just as with most of your parliamentarians, the same way.</span></p>
<p><span>At the end of 2021, Putin put on the table a last effort to reach a modus operandi with the U.S., in two security agreement drafts, one with Europe and one with the United States. He put the Russia-U.S. draft agreement on the table on Dec. 15, 2021.</span></p>
<p><span>Following that, I had an hour-long call with [National Security Advisor] Jake Sullivan in the White House, begging, “Jake, avoid the war. You can avoid the war. All the U.S. has to do is say, ‘NATO will not enlarge to Ukraine.’” And he said to me, “Oh, NATO’s not going to enlarge to Ukraine. Don’t worry about it.”</span></p>
<p><span>I said, “Jake, say it publicly.”</span></p>
<p><span>“No. No. No. We can’t say it publicly.”</span></p>
<p><span>I said, “Jake, you’re going to have a war over something that isn’t even going to happen?”</span></p>
<p><span>He said, “Don’t worry, Jeff. There will be no war.”</span></p>
<p><span>These are not very bright people. I’m telling you, if I can give you my honest view, they’re not very bright people. They talk to themselves. They don’t talk to anybody else. They play game theory. In noncooperative game theory, you don’t talk to the other side. You just make your strategy. This is the essence of non-cooperative game theory. It’s not negotiation theory. It’s not peacemaking theory. It is unilateral, noncooperative theory, if you know formal game theory.</span></p>
<p><span>That’s what they play. That kind of game theory started [in application] at the RAND Corporation. That’s what they still play. In 2019, there’s <a href="https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_reports/RR3063.html">a paper</a> by RAND, “Extending Russia: Competing from Advantageous Ground.”</span></p>
<p><span>Incredibly, the paper, in the public domain, asks how the U.S. should annoy, antagonize, and weaken Russia. That’s literally the strategy. We’re trying to provoke Russia, trying to make Russia break apart, perhaps have regime change, maybe unrest, maybe an economic crisis.</span></p>
<p><span>That’s what you in Europe call your ally. So, there I was with my frustrating phone call with Sullivan, standing out in the freezing cold. I happened to be trying to have a ski day.</span></p>
<p><span>“Oh, there’ll be no war, Jeff.”</span></p>
<p><span>We know what happened next: the Biden administration refused to negotiate over NATO enlargement. The stupidest idea of NATO is the so-called open-door policy, based on Article 10 of the NATO Treaty (1949). NATO reserves the right to go where it wants, as long as the host government agrees, without any neighbor – such as Russia — having any say whatsoever.</span></p>
<p><span>Well, I tell the Mexicans and the Canadians, “Don’t try it.” You know, Trump may want to take over Canada. So, the Canadian government could say to China, “Why don’t you build a military base in Ontario?” I wouldn’t advise it. The U.S. would not say, “Well, it’s an open door. That’s Canada’s and China’s business, not ours.” The U.S. would invade Canada.</span></p>
<p><span>Yet grownups, including in Europe, in this Parliament, in NATO, in the European Commission, repeat the absurd mantra that Russia has no say in NATO enlargement. This is nonsense stuff. This is not even baby geopolitics. This is just not thinking at all. So, the Ukraine War escalated in February 2022 when the Biden Administration refused any serious negotiations.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The Ukraine War &amp; Nuclear Arms Control</strong></span></p>
<p><span>What was Putin’s intention in the war? I can tell you what his intention was. It was to force Zelensky to negotiate neutrality. This happened within days of the start of the invasion. You should understand this basic point, not the propaganda that’s written about the invasion claiming that Russia’s aim was to conquer Ukraine with a few tens of thousands of troops.</span></p>
<p><span>Come on, ladies and gentlemen. Please understand something basic. The idea of Russia’s invasion was to keep NATO out of Ukraine. And what is NATO, really? It is the U.S. military, with its missiles, its C.I.A. deployments, and all the rest. Russia’s goal was to keep the U.S. away from its border.</span></p>
<p><span>Why is Russia so interested in this? Consider if China or Russia decided to have a military base on the Rio Grande or in the Canadian border, not only would the United States freak out; we’d have war within about ten minutes. When the Soviet Union tried this in Cuba in 1962, the world nearly ended in nuclear Armageddon.</span></p>
<p><span>All of this is gravely amplified because the United States unilaterally abandoned the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty in 2002 and ended the relative stability nuclear arms control framework by doing so.</span></p>
<p><span>This is extremely important to understand. The nuclear arms control framework is based, in large part, on trying to deter a first [decapitation] strike. The ABM Treaty was a critical component of that stability.</span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. unilaterally walked out of the ABM Treaty in 2002. This blew a Russian gasket. So, everything I’ve been describing about NATO enlargement has occurred in the context of the U.S. destruction of the nuclear framework. Starting in 2010, the U.S. began to put in Aegis anti-ballistic missile systems in Poland and then later in Romania. Russia doesn’t like that.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_89615" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-89615" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/190809-N-AW818-122C-scaled.jpg" alt width="1097" height="732" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-89615"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-89615" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Sept. 1, 2019: U.S. Navy base in Deveselu, Romania, home to NATO’s Aegis Ashore Ballistic Missile Defense System site. <span>(U.S. Navy, Amy Forsythe, Public domain)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>One of the issues on the table in December and January, December 2021, January 2022, was whether the United States claimed the right to put missile systems in Ukraine. According to former C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern, Blinken told Lavrov in January 2022 that the United States reserves the right to put missile systems in Ukraine.</span></p>
<p><span>That, my dear friends, is your putative ally. And now the U.S. wants to put intermediate missile systems in Germany. Remember that the United States walked out of the INF treaty in 2019. There is no nuclear arms framework right now. Essentially, none. (The United States formally withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty on Aug. 2, 2019, following a six-month suspension period that began on Feb. 2, 2019.)</span></p>
<p><span>When Zelensky said a few days after Russia’s invasion that Ukraine was ready for neutrality, a peace agreement was in reach. I know the details of this because I talked to key negotiators and mediators in detail and have learned much from public pronouncements of others. Shortly after the start of negotiations in March 2022, a document was exchanged between the parties that President Putin had approved, and that Lavrov had presented. This was being managed by the Turkish mediators. I flew to Ankara in the spring of 2022 to hear first-hand and in detail what happened in the mediation. The bottom-line is this: Ukraine walked away, unilaterally, from a near agreement.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>End of the Ukraine War</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_81724" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-81724" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/51995088156_18a4e646c6_k.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1365" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-81724"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-81724" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky walking around the center of Kiev on April 9, 2022. <span>(President of Ukraine, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Why did Ukraine walk away from the negotiations? Because the United States told them to and because the U.K. added icing to the cake by having BoJo [Boris Johnson, the former U.K. prime minister] go to Kyiv in early April to Ukraine to make the same point.</span></p>
<p><span>[U.K Prime Minister] Keir Starmer turns out to be even worse, even more of a warmonger. It’s unimaginable, but it is true. Boris Johnson explained, and you can find it on the web, that what’s at stake here is nothing less than Western hegemony! Not Ukraine but Western hegemony.</span></p>
<p><span>Michael von der Schulenberg and I met at the Vatican with a group of experts in Spring 2022, and we wrote a document explaining that nothing good can come out of continued war.  (The meeting at the Vatican was the <a href="https://www.pass.va/content/dam/casinapioiv/pass/pdf-booklet/2024_booklet_fraternal_economy.pdf">Fraternal Economy Session</a> on Jubilee 2025: “Hope in the Signs of the Times.”) </span></p>
<p><span>Our group argued strenuously, but to no avail, that Ukraine should negotiate immediately, because delays will mean massive deaths, risk of nuclear escalation, and possibly an outright loss of the war.</span></p>
<p><span>I wouldn’t want to change one word from what we wrote then. Nothing was wrong in that document. Since the U.S. talked Ukraine out of the negotiations, perhaps one million Ukrainians have died or been severely wounded.</span></p>
<p><span>And American senators who are as nasty and cynical as imaginable say this is a wonderful expenditure of U.S. money because no Americans are dying. It’s the pure proxy war. One of our senators nearby New York State, Connecticut’s Richard Blumenthal, said this out loud. Mitt Romney said this out loud. It’s the best money America can spend. No Americans are dying. It’s unreal.</span></p>
<p><span>Now, just to bring us up to yesterday, the U.S. Ukraine Project has failed. The core idea of the project all along was that Russia would fold its hand. The core idea all along was Russia can’t resist, just as Zbigniew Brzezinski argued in 1997. The Americans thought the U.S. surely has the upper hand.</span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. will win because we’re going to bluff them. The Russians are not really going to fight. The Russians are really going to mobilize. We’ll deploy the economic “nuclear option” of cutting Russia out of SWIFT. That will destroy the economy. Our sanctions will bring Russia to their knees. The HIMARS will do them in. The ATACMS, the F-16s, will do them in. Honestly, I’ve listened to this kind of talk for more than 50 years. Our national security leaders have spoken nonsense for decades.</span></p>
<p><span>I begged the Ukrainians: stay neutral. Don’t listen to the Americans. I repeated to them the famous adage of Henry Kissinger, that to be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal. Let me repeat that for Europe: To be an enemy of the United States is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>The Trump Administration</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_123300" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-123300" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Trump_Day_1_Executive_Order_Signing.jpg" alt width="1066" height="713" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-123300"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-123300" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Trump signing executive orders at Capital One Arena on Jan. 20. <span>(@VP, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Let me end with a few words about President Donald Trump. Trump does not want Biden’s losing hand. This is why Trump and President Putin are likely to agree to end the war. Even if Europe continues with its warmongering, it won’t matter. The war is ending. So, please, get it out of your system. Please tell your colleagues. “It’s over.” It’s over because Trump doesn’t want to hold on to a loser. The one that will be saved by the negotiations taking place right now is Ukraine. The second is Europe.</span></p>
<p><span>Your stock market is rising in recent days because of the “horrible news” of negotiations and potential peace. I know this prospect of a negotiated peace has been met with sheer horror in these chambers, but this is the best news that you could get. I’ve tried to reach out to some of the European leaders. I’ve said, don’t go to Kyiv, go to Moscow. Negotiate with your counterparts. You’re the European Union. You’re 450 million people and a $20 trillion economy. Act like it.</span></p>
<p><span>The European Union should be the main trading partner of Russia. Europe and Russia have complementary economies. The fit for mutually beneficial trade is very strong. By the way, if anyone would like to discuss how the U.S. blew up Nord Stream, I’d be happy to talk about that too.</span></p>
<p><span>The Trump administration is imperialist at heart. Trump obviously believes that the great powers dominate the world. The U.S. will be ruthless and cynical, and yes, also vis-à-vis Europe. Don’t go begging to Washington. That won’t help. It would probably spur the ruthlessness. Instead, have a true European foreign policy.</span></p>
<p><span>So, I’m not saying that we’re at the new age of peace, but we are in a very different kind of politics right now, a return to great power politics. Europe needs its own foreign policy, and not just a foreign policy of Russophobia. Europe needs a foreign policy that is realistic, understands Russia’s situation, understands Europe’s situation, understands what America is and what it stands for, and that tries to avoid Europe being invaded by the United States. It’s certainly not impossible that Trump’s America will land troops in Greenland. I’m not joking, and I don’t think Trump is joking. Europe needs a foreign policy, a real one. Europe needs something different from, “Yes, we’ll bargain with Mr. Trump and meet him halfway.” Do you know what that will be like? Give me a call afterwards.</span></p>
<p><span>Please have a European foreign policy. You’re going to be living with Russia for a long time, so please negotiate with Russia. There are real security issues on the table both for Europe and Russia, but the bombast and the Russophobia is not serving your security at all. It’s not serving Ukraine’s security at all. This American adventure that you signed on to and for which you are now the lead cheerleader has contributed to around 1 million Ukrainian casualties.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>On the Middle East &amp; China</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_102711" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/25892433001_8095dc5b1e_k.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-102711" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/25892433001_8095dc5b1e_k-1000x667.jpg" alt width="860" height="574" data-sanitized-class="size-large wp-image-102711"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-102711" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Donald Trump speaking at AIPAC, Washington, D.C., March 21, 2015. <span>(Lorie Shaull, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>On the Middle East, incidentally, the U.S. completely handed over foreign policy to Netanyahu 30 years ago. The Israel lobby dominates American politics. Please, have no doubt about it. I could explain for hours how it works. It’s very dangerous. I’m hoping that Trump will not destroy his administration, and far worse, the Palestinian people, because of Netanyahu, whom I regard as a war criminal who has been properly <a href="https://www.icc-cpi.int/news/statement-icc-prosecutor-karim-aa-khan-kc-applications-arrest-warrants-situation-state">indicted by the ICC.</a></span></p>
<p><span>The only way for Europe to have peace on your borders with the Middle East is the two-state solution. There is only one obstacle to it, and that is the veto of the United States in the U.N. Security Council, at the behest of the Israel Lobby. So, if you want the EU to have some influence, tell the United States to drop the veto. In this the European Union would be together with around 160 other countries in the world. The only ones that oppose a Palestinian state are basically the United States, Israel, Micronesia, Nauru, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Argentina, and Paraguay. (The United Nations can end the Middle East conflict by welcoming Palestine as a member, see my article on that <a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/1/10/the-un-can-end-the-middle-east-conflict-by-welcoming-palestine-as-a-member">here. )</a></span></p>
<p><span>The Middle East is a place where the European Union could have a big geopolitical influence. Yet, Europe has gone silent about the JCPOA and Iran and around half of Europe has gone silent over Israel’s war crimes and blockage of the two-state solution.</span></p>
<p><span>Netanyahu’s greatest dream in life is the war between the United States and Iran. And he’s not given up. It’s not impossible that a U.S.-Iran War will also come. Yet Europe could stop it — if Europe has its own foreign policy. I’m hoping that Trump will end Netanyahu’s grip on American politics. Even if not, the EU can work with the rest of the world to bring peace to the Middle East.</span></p>
<p><span>Finally, let me just say with respect to China, China is not an enemy. China is merely a great success story. That’s why it is viewed by the United States as an enemy, because China has a bigger economy than the United States (measured in international prices). The U.S. resists reality. Europe should not do so. Let me repeat, China is no enemy and no threat. It is a natural partner with Europe in trade and in saving the global environment.</span></p>
<p><span>That’s all. Many thanks.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124715" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screen-Shot-2025-02-28-at-12.32.19.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124715" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screen-Shot-2025-02-28-at-12.32.19-1000x625.png" alt width="860" height="538" data-sanitized-class="size-large wp-image-124715"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124715" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>European MPs at Jeffery Sach’s presentation. <span>(Screenshot/</span></span><br><span>Michael von der Schulenburg YouTube page.)</span></p>
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<p><em><span><strong>Question and Answer Section</strong></span></em></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> Should Europe increase its military spending?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>I would not be against an approach of Europe spending 2 to 3 percent of GDP for a unified European security structure and invested in Europe and in European technology, and not having the United States dictate the use of European technology.</span></p>
<p><span>The Netherlands produces the only machines of advanced semiconductors using extreme ultraviolet lithography. That company, of course, is ASML. Yet America determines every policy of ASML. If I were you, I wouldn’t hand over all security and technology to the United States.</span></p>
<p><span>I would suggest having your own security framework so you can have your own foreign policy framework as well. Europe stands for lots of things that the United States does not stand for.</span></p>
<p><span>Europe stands for climate action. Our president is completely bonkers on this. And Europe stands for decency, for social democracy, as an ethos.</span></p>
<p><span>Europe stands for multilateralism. Europe stands for the U.N. Charter. The U.S. stands for none of those things. Our Secretary of State Marco Rubio recently canceled his trip to South Africa because equality and sustainability were on the agenda. That is a vivid, if grim, reflection of Anglo-Saxon libertarianism. Egalitarianism is not a word of the American lexicon. Nor is Sustainability.</span></p>
<p><span>You may know that of the 193 U.N. member states, 191 have presented SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) plans to the U.N. in the High-Level Political Forum (HLPF). Just three countries have not done so: Haiti, Myanmar and the United States of America. Biden’s Treasury was not even permitted to use the phrase Sustainable Development Goals. I mention all of this because you need your own foreign policy.</span></p>
<p><span>I issue two reports each year. One is the <em>World Happiness Report</em>. In the 2024 report, eight of the top 10 countries are European. Europe has the highest quality of life in the whole world.</span> <span>The U.S. ranked 23rd.</span></p>
<p><span>The other annual report is the <em>Sustainable Development Report</em>. In the 2024 report, 19 of the top 20 countries in sustainable development are in Europe. The U.S. ranked 46th. You need your own foreign policy to protect that quality of life! I was and remain a great fan of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and continue to believe that OSCE is the proper framework for European security. It could really work.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> How should Europe engage diplomatically with Russia?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>I think that there are tremendously important issues for Europe to negotiate directly with Russia. And so, I would urge, President Costa and the leadership of Europe to open direct discussions with President Putin because European security is on the table.</span></p>
<p><span>I know the Russian leaders, many of them, quite well. They are good negotiators, and you should negotiate with them, and you should negotiate well with them.</span></p>
<p><span>I would ask the Russian counterparts some questions. I would ask them, what are the security guarantees that can work so that this war ends permanently? What are the security guarantees for the Baltic states? Part of the process of negotiation is to ask the other side about your concerns.</span></p>
<p><span>I know Foreign Minister Lavrov for 30 years. I regard him as a brilliant foreign minister. Talk with him. Negotiate with him. Get his ideas. Put your ideas on the table.</span></p>
<p><span>The most important thing is to stop the yelling, stop the warmongering, and discuss with the Russian counterparts. And don’t beg to be at the table with the United States. You don’t need to be in the room with the United States. You’re Europe. You should be in the room with Europe and Russia. Don’t hand over your foreign policy to anybody, not to the United States, not to Ukraine, not to Israel. Keep a European foreign policy. This is the basic idea.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> Countries including Poland, Hungary, and Czech Republic wanted to join NATO. So does Ukraine. Why shouldn’t they be allowed to do so?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>NATO is not a choice of Hungary, Poland, Czech Republic, or Ukraine. NATO is a U.S.-led military alliance. The question facing Europe back in 1991 and today is how to ensure peace. If I were making decisions back in 1991, I would have ended NATO altogether when the Warsaw Pact was dissolved, and certainly when the Soviet Union itself ended. When countries requested NATO membership, I would have explained to them what our defense secretary William Perry, leading statesman George Kennan, last U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock, all said in the 1990s. They all said, in effect, “We understand your feelings, but enlarging NATO is not a good idea because it could easily provoke a new Cold War with Russia.” There’s a very good new book by Jonathan Haslam, published by Harvard University Press, called <em>Hubris</em>. It offers a detailed historical documentation of NATO enlargement. It explains how the U.S. was too arrogant to discuss, negotiate, and honor the redlines of Russia, even after promising that NATO would not enlarge.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> What are the long-term consequences of this lost war?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>We’re in the biggest technological advance in human history. It’s truly amazing what can be done right now. You know, I marvel at the fact that somebody who knows little chemistry won the Nobel Peace Prize for chemistry because he’s superb at AI and deep neural networks, indeed a genius, Demis Hassabis. He and his team at DeepMind figured out how to use AI to crack the problem of protein folding, a problem that had occupied generations of biochemists.</span></p>
<p><span>So, if we put our minds, our resources and our energies towards it, we can transform the world energy system for climate safety. We can protect biodiversity. We can ensure every child gets a quality education. We can do so many wonderful things right now. What do we need for success? In my view, most importantly, we need peace.</span></p>
<p><span>And my basic point is there are no deep reasons for conflict anywhere because every conflict I study is just a mistake. We are not struggling for Lebensraum. That idea, which essentially came from Malthus and later became a Nazi idea, was always wrong, a fundamental intellectual mistake. We have had race wars, national wars of survival, out of the fear that we don’t have enough for everybody on this planet, so that we are in a struggle for survival.</span></p>
<p><span>As an economist, I can tell you, we have plenty on the planet for everybody’s sustainable development. Plenty. We’re not in a conflict with China. We’re not in a conflict with Russia. If we calm down, if we ask about the long term, the long term is very good, that is, if we don’t blow ourselves up beforehand. So, this is my point. The prospects are very positive if we construct the peace.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Audience Member:</strong> Do you think the way out of this conflict is a Finlandization of Ukraine?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Jeffrey Sachs:</strong></span> <span>Excellent question. Let me just report one aspect about Finlandization. Finlandization landed Finland No. 1 in the World Happiness Report year after year. Finland is rich, successful, happy, and secure. That’s pre-NATO Finland I’m discussing.</span></p>
<p><span>So “Finlandization” was a wonderful thing for Finland. When Sweden and Finland and Austria were neutral, bravo. Smart. When Ukraine was neutral, smart. If you have two superpowers, keep them apart a little bit. If the United States had any sense at all, it would have left these countries as the neutral space in between the U.S. military and Russia, but the U.S. has far too little sense. </span></p>
<p dir="ltr"><span><strong>Jeffrey D. Sachs is a university professor and director of the Center for Sustainable Development at Columbia University, where he directed The Earth Institute from 2002 until 2016. He is also president of the U.N. Sustainable Development Solutions Network and a commissioner of the U.N. Broadband Commission for Development.</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em>Views expressed in this speech may or may not reflect those of</em> <strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Africa #Analysis #Biden Administration #China #Commentary #Czech Republic #Europe #Germany #Hungary #Iran #Iraq #NATO #Poland #Romania #Russia #Slovenia #Sudan #Bulgaria #Dennis Fritz #Douglas Feith #Grigory Yavlinsky #Hans-Dietrich Genscher #Harvard Kennedy School of Government #Jeffrey Sachs #Julian Assange #NATO's Open Door Policy #neoconservatives #Paul Wolfowitz #President Viktor Yanukovych #Serbia #Slovakia #South Sudan #unipolarity #Zbigniew Brzezinski


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124671
title: Caitlin Johnstone: An Empire Being Honest
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/27/caitlin-johnstone-an-empire-being-honest/
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<p><span><strong>Trump has shared a shockingly awful AI-generated music video envisioning Gaza as an ostentatious resort town where everyone parties as Trump and Netanyahu sip drinks by the pool.</strong></span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124671"></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124679" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124679" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Gaza_war_2023_-_2025_IMG_8182.png" alt width="1141" height="643" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124679"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124679" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Gaza in ruins after the Israeli airstrikes campaign, Feb. 10. <span>(Jaber Jehad Badwan, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY-SA 4.0)</a></p>
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<p dir="ltr"><span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/caitlin-johnstone/"><strong>By <span>Caitlin Johnstone</span></strong><br></a><em><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/02/27/the-empire-at-its-most-honest/">CaitlinJohnstone.com.au</a></em></span></p>
<p><span><em><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrQfNB7g-cc">Listen to Tim Foley reading this article</a></em><a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/2025/02/05/trump-goes-all-in-on-stealing-gaza-for-his-zionist-owners/"><em>.</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/1UDnSUoroqCxShe6CBUDKiw-100x100.jpg" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-48865">P</strong></span>resident Donald Trump has <a href="https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/114068387897265338">shared</a> a shockingly awful <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e_uTs0ukLik">AI-generated music video</a> envisioning a future Gaza that has been turned into an ostentatious resort town where everyone parties amid showers of cash while Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sip drinks by the pool.</span></p>
<p><span>The video is intended to reflect <a href="https://news.antiwar.com/2025/02/10/trump-says-no-right-of-return-for-palestinians-in-gaza-under-his-plan/">Trump’s plans</a> for a Gaza Strip that has been permanently ethnically cleansed of Palestinians.</span></p>
<p><span>If you haven’t watched it yet you definitely should, because words can’t do justice to just how terrible it is.</span></p>
<p><iframe title="Trump shares AI video of vision for Gaza, featuring giant gold statue and him lounging w/ Netanyahu" width="860" height="484" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/e_uTs0ukLik?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></p>
<p><span>This video is simultaneously the most American thing that has ever happened and the most Israeli thing that has ever happened. Fake. Gaudy. Sociopathic. Genocidal. Emblematic of all the ugliest values that both dystopian civilizations have come to embody.</span></p>
<p><span>They used the most artless art medium in existence to digitally dance on the graves of mountains of dead civilians.</span></p>
<p><span>The most powerful government on earth celebrated the idea of Trump and Netanyahu presiding over orgiastic parties for the obscenely wealthy on a land that has been purged of its indigenous inhabitants following a year and a half of brutal slaughter. </span></p>
<p><span>Twerking to shitty AI-generated techno music surrounded by golden Trump statues and hundred dollar bills, because you are so happy that you finally found a Final Solution to the Palestinian Problem.</span></p>
<p><span>It doesn’t get any more American than this, and it doesn’t get any more Israeli. This soulless, artless, conscienceless expression of egotistic masturbation lubricated with the blood of dead children is the empire at its most honest.</span></p>
<p><span>This is the very best this globe-dominating power structure has to offer our world.</span></p>
<p><span>This entire civilization is diseased. Not just the United States and Israel but every nation on earth that is subject to the metastases of their cancerous influence.</span></p>
<p><span>They’re making us all dumber, sicker, nastier, crueler. Less creative. Less artful. Less caring. Less insightful. They are poisoning our minds and turning our hearts into shit.</span></p>
<p><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/screenshot-2025-02-27-at-12.35.37.png" alt width="986" height="1596" data-sanitized-class="aligncenter wp-image-124674"></p>
<p><span>I’ve always said that the only thing I like about Trump is that he <a href="https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/donald-trump-is-the-empire-unmasked">puts an honest face on the empire</a>. In terms of actual policy and actions he’s not much different from any other Republican president, but he has this compulsive inclination to constantly yank off the plastic smiley face mask of the empire and reveal the snarling blood-spattered face beneath.</span></p>
<p><span>This is a perfect example of what I’m talking about.</span></p>
<p><span>That one video, all by itself, tells you more about what the U.S. empire really is than every movie its PR agents in Hollywood have ever produced. This is the real America. This is the real Israel. This is the real empire.</span></p>
<p><strong><span>Caitlin Johnstone’s work is <a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/05/24/my-experiments-with-hacking-capitalism/">entirely reader-supported</a>, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following her on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CaitlinAJohnstone/">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://twitter.com/caitoz">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://soundcloud.com/going_rogue">Soundcloud</a>, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/c/CaitlinJohnstone/videos">YouTube</a>, or throwing some money into her tip jar on <a href="https://ko-fi.com/caitlinjohnstone">Ko-fi</a>, <a href="https://www.patreon.com/user?u=4445783">Patreon</a> or <a href="https://paypal.me/caitlinjohnstone">Paypal</a>. If you want to read more you can <a href="https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/books-by-caitlin-johnstone-a5a5e6f71772">buy her books</a>. The best way to make sure you see the stuff she publishes is to subscribe to the mailing list at <a href="http://caitlinjohnstone.com/">her website</a> or <a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/">on Substack</a>, which will get you an email notification for everything she publishes.  For more info on who she is, where she stands and what she’s trying to do with her platform, <a href="https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/11-things-you-should-know-about-me-and-where-im-coming-from-a6b9ddf9806e">click here</a>. All works are co-authored with her American husband Tim Foley.</span></strong></p>
<p><em><span>This article is from <a href="https://caitlinjohnstone.com.au/">CaitlinJohnstone.com.au</a> and re-published with permission.</span></em></p>
<p><em><span>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of</span></em> <strong><span>Consortium News.</span></strong></p>

tags:
#American Empire #Civil Rights #Commentary #Gaza #Human Rights #Israel #Palestine #Social Media #Trump Administration #U.S. #Caitlin Johnstone #President Donald Trump #Trump Gaza


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124686
title: Vijay Prashad: China’s Advanced Technics &amp; the West
author: ;Elizabeth Vos
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/28/vijay-prashad-chinas-advanced-technics-the-west/
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<p><span><strong>Will the U.S.’s geopolitical chess moves from Greenland to Ukraine to Russia  be enough to eclipse China’s rapid advancement in critical technologies?</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124722" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124722" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Cao-Fei-China-My-future-is-not-a-dream-05-2006_2.jpeg" alt width="891" height="711" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124722 size-full"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124722" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Cao Fei, China, <em>My Future Is Not a Dream 05</em>, 2006. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>By<span> <a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/vijay-prashad/">Vijay Prashad</a></span><br></strong><a href="https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/china-us-technology/"><em>Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/Screen-Shot-2021-04-01-at-11.44.54-AM-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-61280">I</strong></span>n his first month back in the White House, U.S. President Donald Trump indicated his interest in annexing Greenland and brokering a peace deal for Ukraine that would include access to Ukrainian minerals and metals.</span></p>
<p><span>It is important to note that Greenland has already been a point of contention around its vast holdings of rare earth minerals with such remarkable names as dysprosium, neodymium, scandium, and yttrium (there are seventeen rare earth minerals that are central to any advanced technology). </span></p>
<p><span><span>Given that Greenland is part of Denmark, it is therefore beholden to European Union rules. In 2011, the EU</span> <a href="https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials_en"><span>published</span></a> <span>a list of critical raw materials, which included these rare earth minerals. Then, in 2023, the EU</span> <a href="https://single-market-economy.ec.europa.eu/sectors/raw-materials/areas-specific-interest/critical-raw-materials/critical-raw-materials-act_en"><span>passed</span></a> <span>the Critical Raw Materials Act, which urged domestic production of these critical minerals and metals and their import into the continent. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Ukraine, meanwhile, has an enormous trove of rare earth metals (from apatite to zirconium) as well as reserves of lithium and titanium. Trump</span> <a href="https://kyivindependent.com/trump-seeking-ukrainian-rare-earths-in-exchange-for-aid/"><span>demanded</span></a> <span>at least $500 billion of these reserves from Ukraine as payment for the U.S.’s support in the war. “I want to have security of rare earth,” Trump</span> <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-ukraine-europe-rare-earth-russia-war-9af06a9f17dbaa49a05dcba3a3363977"><span>told</span></a> <span>reporters in early February, sounding like a character from</span> <em><span>The</span></em> <em><span>Lord of the Rings</span></em><span>.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Currently, both the United States and Europe import almost all of these crucial rare earth metals from China. In late December 2024, in retaliation for the U.S. tightening sanctions and tariffs on China’s technology sector, the Chinese government</span> <a href="https://www.chinadaily.com.cn/a/202412/03/WS674ecf12a310f1265a1d0d6a.html"><span>banned</span></a> <span>the export of antimony, gallium, and germanium as well as superhard materials (matter with a hardness greater than 40 gigapascals or GPa) to the United States. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Under former President Joe Biden, the U.S. had tried to derail China’s developments in artificial intelligence and chip-making equipment by</span> <a href="https://www.bis.gov/press-release/commerce-strengthens-export-controls-restrict-chinas-capability-produce-advanced"><span>restricting</span></a> <span>the export of high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips to China. China’s ability to squeeze the supply chain has created a crisis in the West, which is precisely why Trump made his remarks about Greenland and Ukraine’s rare earth cache.</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124723" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124723" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Liu-Xiaodong-China-Diary-of-an-Empty-City-no.-2-2015_2-1000x836.jpeg" alt width="860" height="719" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124723 size-large"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124723" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Liu Xiaodong, China, Diary of an Empty City No. 2, 2015. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>It makes total sense from the U.S. national security position to seek a ceasefire in Ukraine. The U.S. gains nothing from this war, which has become a matter of prestige for Europe’s elites. If Trump can restart relations with Russia, he could use that to leverage rights over minerals and metals in Ukraine as well as to demand control over Greenland’s resources (rather than outright annexation).</span></p>
<p><span>But more than anything, if the United States is able to revive relations with Russia, it will seek to weaken the country’s alliance with China. </span></p>
<p><span><span>This is the “</span><a href="https://nocoldwar.org/news/donald-trumps-reverse-kissinger-strategy"><span>Reverse Kissinger” strategy</span></a><span>: under U.S. President Richard Nixon, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger pursued an approach in the late 1960s to befriend China in order to isolate the Soviet Union, while Trump’s Reverse Kissinger approach seeks to isolate China by rupturing its links to Russia. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>On Feb. 4, 2022, China and Russia</span> <a href="http://en.kremlin.ru/supplement/5770"><span>signed</span></a> <span>a “no limits” friendship agreement; twenty days later, Russian troops invaded Ukraine, and despite</span> <a href="https://www.mfa.gov.cn/mfa_eng/wjbzhd/202202/t20220226_10645855.html"><span>misgivings</span></a> <span>about this development, China supported the Russians throughout the war. It is, therefore, unlikely that Russia will accede to a Reverse Kissinger strategy, although there are sections of the Russian elite that are eager for a rapprochement with the West.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The United States loses nothing if it enforces a ceasefire in Ukraine. Russia is not a major threat to U.S. control over the world economy. It is merely a commodity exporter, namely of oil, natural gas, and other minerals and metals. The U.S. knows that Russia will not attack it with its nuclear arsenal because that would be suicidal, and the U.S. knows that Russia merely would like a security guarantee that its cities not be threatened by intermediate nuclear weapons held in neighbouring states.</span></p>
<p><span><span>China, however, is seen by the United States as a serious existential threat. In the weeks since Trump began to announce his tariffs and potential annexations, a small Chinese company unveiled an open-source machine learning platform called</span> <a href="https://www.deepseek.com/"><span>DeepSeek</span></a> <span>that significantly outperforms U.S.-based ChatGPT in a number of respects, including technical and mathematical tasks. [<a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/01/what-deepseek-says-about-nulands-role-in-ukraine-war/"><em>What DeepSeek Says About Nuland’s Role in Ukraine War</em></a>]</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Concurrently, during the impending ban of the social media platform TikTok, U.S. users</span> <a href="https://www.voguebusiness.com/story/technology/what-to-know-about-red-the-chinese-app-rising-as-a-tiktok-alternative"><span>abandoned</span></a> <span>it not for a Western replacement but for China’s</span> <a href="https://www.xiaohongshu.com/explore"><span>Xiaohongshu</span></a> <span>(or Red Note).</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Finally, China’s nuclear fusion device Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST),</span> <em><span>Physics World</span></em> <a href="https://physicsworld.com/a/chinas-experimental-advanced-superconducting-tokamak-smashes-fusion-confinement-record/"><span>wrote</span></a><span>, “produced a steady-state high-confinement plasma for 1,066 seconds, breaking EAST’s previous 2023 record of 403 seconds.”</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>This last development is an advance for the potential of a fusion power plant, a promise of almost limitless clean energy without significant radioactive waste.</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124717" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124717" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Yu-Hong-China-A-Man-Playing-the-Hula-Hoop-1992_2-756x1000.jpeg" alt width="981" height="1298" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124717"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124717" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Yu Hong, China, A Man Playing the Hula Hoop, 1992. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>These advances are not accidental but a consequence of long-term planning by the Chinese government, led by the Communist Party. Since the 1978 reform era, China has been cautious about allowing foreign capital and industry into the country without benefit for the Chinese economy.</span></p>
<p><span>That benefit came in the way of technology and science transfer in exchange for market access, a deal that the companies of the Global North — eager for a high-quality workforce and low wages — accepted. </span></p>
<p><span>The Chinese government funded its higher education systems, provided incentives to private innovation, and used the surplus from exports to build infrastructure. The planned advances enabled China’s industrial sector to improve its productive forces and not rely merely on labour-intensive production or production using old technologies.</span></p>
<p><span><span>By the time President Xi Jinping</span> <a href="http://www.news.cn/politics/leaders/2023-09/08/c_1129853312.htm"><span>used</span></a> <span>the term “new quality productive forces” during a visit to Heilongjiang Province in September 2023, this idea had manifested itself in the new factories across China (namely “dark,” or fully automated, factories).</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The following March 2024, at the Two Sessions meeting, the phrase “new quality productive forces” entered the</span> <a href="https://www.gov.cn/yaowen/liebiao/202403/content_6936260.htm"><span>government work report</span></a><span>. The Third Plenum in July 2024</span> <a href="https://www.gov.cn/zhengce/202407/content_6963770.htm"><span>deepened</span></a> <span>the concept by focusing on the promotion of “revolutionary technological breakthroughs, innovative allocation of productive forces, and in-depth industrial transformation and upgrading of industries.”</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124718" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124718" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Fang-Lijun-China-Series-2-No.10-1992-1993-1000x602.jpeg" alt width="860" height="518" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124718 size-large"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124718" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Fang Lijun, China, Series 2 No. 10, 1992–1993. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><span>The</span> <a href="https://aspi.org.au/"><span>Australian Strategic Policy Institute</span></a><span>, established by the Australian government in 2001 and partly funded by the Australian military, has developed a Critical Technology Tracker that keeps close records of sixty-four critical technologies. Their latest</span> <a href="https://www.aspi.org.au/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-technology-tracker"><span>report</span></a> <span>in August 2024 provides a twenty-one-year assessment of which countries lead in the development of critical technologies.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Between 2003 and 2007, the United States led in sixty of sixty-four technologies, while China led in only three of them. Between 2019 and 2023, however, the U.S. led in only seven of the sixty-four technologies, whereas China led in fifty-seven of the sixty-four. </span></span></p>
<p><span>China leads in such diverse areas as advanced integrated circuit design and fabrication (semiconductor chipmaking), gravitational sensors, high-performance computing, quantum sensors, and space launch technology.</span></p>
<p><span>The United States leads in atomic clocks, genetic engineering, nuclear medicine and radiotherapy, quantum computing, small satellites, and vaccines and medical countermeasures. The report notes that “China’s enormous investments and decades of strategic planning are now paying off.” </span></p>
<p><span><span>The commitment to innovation has spread across Chinese society. In the Lingang New Area in Shanghai, the local government has</span> <a href="https://www.lingang.gov.cn/html/website/lg/index/government/file/1793707220537470978.html"><span>articulated</span></a> <span>policies for an industrial area with high-level computing power to accelerate industrial innovation through the new quality productive forces that have been established.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>Meanwhile, the Trump administration has</span> <a href="https://www.npr.org/2025/02/10/nx-s1-5292161/trump-administration-makes-deep-cuts-to-science-funding"><span>announced</span></a> <span>deep cuts to science funding in the United States. A Chatham House</span> <a href="https://www.chathamhouse.org/2025/01/world-should-take-prospect-chinese-tech-dominance-seriously-and-start-preparing-now"><span>essay</span></a> <span>appeared at the end of January with the urgent title “The World Should Take the Prospect of Chinese Tech Dominance Seriously, and Start Preparing Now.” Interesting that the headline did not directly focus on the United States but on “the world” because the writer worried that “in the most extreme scenario, China could eclipse the U.S. rapidly.”</span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124720" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124720" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Liu-Wei-China-Revolutionary-Family-1992.jpeg" alt width="962" height="960" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124720 size-full"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124720" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Liu Wei, China, Revolutionary Family, 1992. <span>(Via Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>In 1891, the late Qing poet and diplomat Huang Zunxian (1848–1905) took the elevator to the viewing gallery of the Eiffel Tower (opened only two years earlier). Huang wrote a poem, <em>On Climbing the Eiffel Tower</em>, about the extraordinary views he enjoyed from there, looking down at the “million acres of the world’s most fertile lands.”</span></p>
<p><span>Though the technology that enabled him to enjoy this view impressed him, he was less captivated by what was on the ground:</span></p>
<p><span><em><span>“All of Europe is an ancient battlefield;</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>Its people love war and don’t compromise lightly.</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>Today six great emperors divide the continent,</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>Each boasting that he’s the strongest leader of the world.</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>These fellows resemble the proverbial kings in a snail shell.</span></em><em><span><br></span></em><em><span>Who wasted their time chalking up victories and defeats.”</span></em></span></p>
<p><span>Today, not much has changed but the vocabulary of the battlefield: tariffs, unilateral coercive measures, intermediate nuclear missiles, and the iron dome.</span></p>
<p><span>During the pandemic, the watchword in U.S. allies like India was “collaboration, not confrontation.” It would be so much better if the United States decided to collaborate with China for the well-being of the planet rather than trying to force the country to reverse its development.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Vijay Prashad is an Indian historian, editor and journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an editor of</strong><a href="https://mayday.leftword.com/"><strong> LeftWord Books</strong></a><strong> and the director of</strong> <a href="https://thetricontinental.org/"><strong>Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</strong></a><strong>. He is a senior non-resident fellow at</strong> <a href="https://tinyurl.com/y2hdjcpo"><strong>Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies</strong></a><strong>, Renmin University of China. He has written more than 20 books, including </strong><em><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Darker-Nations-Peoples-History-Third/dp/1595583424/?tag=alternorg08-20"><strong>The Darker Nations</strong></a><strong> and</strong><a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Poorer-Nations-Possible-History-Global/dp/1781681589/?tag=alternorg08-20"><strong> The Poorer Nations</strong></a></em><strong>.  His latest books are </strong><em><a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/1869-struggle-makes-us-human"><strong>Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism</strong></a></em><strong> and, with Noam Chomsky, </strong><em><a href="https://thenewpress.com/books/withdrawal"><strong>The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan and the Fragility of U.S. Power</strong></a></em><strong>.</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em>This article is from </em><em><a href="https://thetricontinental.org/newsletterissue/china-us-technology/">Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</a>.</em></span></p>
<p><span><em>Views expressed in this article may or may not reflect those of </em><strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Advanced Technologies #American Empire #China #Europe #Science #Uncategorized #Minerals #rare earth minerals #Technology #Vijay Prashad


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124683
title: The Chris Hedges Report: The World After Gaza
author: ;corinna barnard
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/02/28/the-chris-hedges-report-the-world-after-gaza/
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<p title="Permalink to: The World After Gaza (w/ Pankaj Mishra) | The Chris Hedges Report" data-sanitized-class="title"><strong><span>Essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra discusses <span>the lesser-known genocidal escapades of Western governments and</span> his latest book,</span> <em>The World After Gaza.</em></strong><span data-sanitized-id="more-124683"></span></p>
<p><iframe title="The World After Gaza (w/ Pankaj Mishra) | The Chris Hedges Report" width="860" height="484" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4ITuiVEH62A?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></p>
<p><span><strong>By <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/chris-hedges/">Chris Hedges</a></span></strong></span><br><span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2025/02/26/the-world-after-gaza-w-pankaj-mishra-the-chris-hedges-report/"><em>ScheerPost</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><em>This interview is also available on <a href="https://chrishedges.podbean.com/">podcast platforms</a> and <a href="https://rumble.com/v6pp3bo-the-world-after-gaza-w-pankaj-mishra-the-chris-hedges-report.html">Rumble</a>.</em></span></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="has-drop-cap"><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/Screen-Shot-2021-12-13-at-4.37.48-PM-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-72365"></strong><strong>T</strong></span>he Holocaust is the quintessential example of human evil for people in the West. In the rest of the world, especially in the Global South, the atrocity of the Holocaust — genocide — has had a closer proximity both in time and place. Colonialism in Africa, destructive wars in Asia and most recently, genocide in the Middle East, have shaped the lives of billions of people.</span></p>
<p><span>On this episode of The Chris Hedges Report, essayist and novelist Pankaj Mishra joins host Chris Hedges to discuss his latest book,</span> <em><span>The World After Gaza</span><span>.</span></em></p>
<p><span>Mishra argues that the shifting power dynamics in the world means the Global South’s narrative on atrocity can no longer be ignored and the genocide in Gaza is the current crux of the issue.</span></p>
<p><span>“Large parts of the world have a cultural memory, historical memory of the atrocities that were inflicted on those parts of the world by Western powers. And that has actually gone to the making of their collective identity. And that is how they see themselves in the world,” Mishra tells Hedges.</span></p>
<p><span>Mishra explains that in the case of Israel, Zionist leaders weaponize this narrative by tying the safety and existence of the state of Israel to the defense against the evils of the Holocaust. In other words, the Zionist state exploits the suffering of millions for the benefit of the powerful.</span></p>
<p><span>“The words of politicians like Netanyahu, the rhetoric of people like Joe Biden insisting that no Jewish person in the world is safe if Israel is not safe, consistently connecting the fate of millions of Jews living outside of Israel to the fate of the state of Israel, I cannot think of anything more antisemitic. And yet these people keep doing it, endangering Jewish populations elsewhere,” Mishra says.</span></p>
<p><strong><em><span>Host:</span></em> <span>Chris Hedges</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><strong><em><span>Producer:</span></em> <span>Max Jones</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><strong><em><span>Intro:</span></em> <span>Diego Ramos</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><em><span><strong>Crew:</strong></span></em> <strong><span>Diego Ramos, Sofia Menemenlis and Thomas Hedges</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><strong><em><span>Transcript:</span></em> <span>Diego Ramos</span></strong></p>
<p data-sanitized-class="wp-block-heading"><span><strong><span>Transcript</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges</strong></span> <span>Pankaj Mishra in his latest book, <em>The World After Gaza</em>, argues that the postwar global order was shaped in response to the Nazi Holocaust. In the West the Shoah was the benchmark for atrocity, the paradigmatic genocide. Its memory serves to justify Israel’s settler colonial, apartheid state, as well as sanctify Jewish victimhood. But there were, he notes, other Holocausts, the German slaughter of the Herero and Namaqua, the Armenian genocide, the Bengal famine of 1943 — then British Prime Minister Winston Churchill airily dismissed the deaths of three million Hindus in the famine by calling them “a beastly people with a beastly religion” — along with the dropping of nuclear bombs on the civilian targets of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_123547" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-123547" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Dead_or_dying_children_on_a_Calcutta_street_the_Statesman_22_August_1943-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1567" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-123547"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-123547" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Dead and dying children on a Calcutta street in August 1943. <span>(Published in</span> <em>The Statesman</em>, Calcutta, India, on Aug. 22, 1943, <span>W.R. Aykroyd, London: Chatto &amp; Windus, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>Genocide and mass extermination are not the exclusive domain of fascist Germany. The millions of victims of racist imperial projects in countries such as Mexico, China, India, the Congo, Kenya and Vietnam are deaf to the fatuous claims by Jews that their victimhood is unique. So are Black, Brown and Native Americans.</span></p>
<p><span>They also suffered holocausts, but these holocausts remain minimized or unacknowledged by their western perpetrators. Adolf Hitler, as Aimé Césaire writes in <em>Discourse on Colonialism</em>, appeared exceptionally cruel only because he presided over “the humiliation of the white man.” But the Nazis, he writes, had simply applied “colonialist procedures which until then had been reserved exclusively for the Arabs of Algeria, the coolies of India, and the blacks of Africa.”</span></p>
<p><span>Outside of the West, Mishra argues, there is a very different paradigm. The dominant story for much of the globe is that of decolonization and the crimes of the colonizers. This divergence of experience and viewpoint explain, Mishra writes, why there has been such disparate reactions to the genocide in Gaza, why to those in the Global South there was an instant understanding of the plight of the Palestinians, why they see the clear color lines between the Israeli occupiers and the Palestinians, why they grasp how, in the West, the world is starkly divided into worthy and unworthy victims.</span></p>
<p><span>Joining me to discuss <em>The World After Gaza</em> is Pankaj Mishra, author of <em>Age of Anger: A History of the Present</em> and other works of fiction and nonfiction. He writes regularly for <em>The New Yorker, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian and the London Review of Books</em>, among other publications.</span></p>
<p><span>You open the book by talking very early on about what watching this live-streamed genocide has done. You call it a psychic ordeal, which it is, of course, especially for those of us such as myself who worked in Gaza, an involuntary witness to an act of political evil. But it sends as you write a message, a clear unequivocal message, to the rest of the world. What is it?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra:</strong></span> <span>I think it’s a message that we are perhaps moving into an era where international law, basic morality, ordinary decency are not going to be found much, especially not in the conduct of our politicians and journalists. And that is, I think, you know, something much, much more disturbing than what many people knew back in the 1930s, because back then there were a lot of countries actively pushing back, resisting the onslaught of fascism. And precisely those very same countries today are, you could say, at the forefront of authoritarianism. Something worse than authoritarianism, actually.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges:</strong></span> <span>Why is it worse?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra:</strong></span> <span>Well, I think, you know, this is in the past we’ve had authoritarianism such as that we’ve seen in China and elsewhere that has not made claims on other people’s territory, especially territories thousands of miles away. Yes, in the last couple of weeks, we have seen some extraordinary series of statements and claims by the new U.S. president, which can only portend an era of more bloodshed, more chaos. I mean there’s no getting around this fact that is staring us in the face right now.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>I want to talk about the way in particularly the Western world has responded. Not just the leadership, which of course has made any kind of descent to the genocide on college campuses and other places a criminal act and hounded professors and students who have stood up, but also the press.</span></p>
<p><span>You note about <em>The New York Times</em> editors instructing their staff in an internal memo to avoid the terms refugee camps, occupied territory, and ethnic cleansing. How much does this portend the kind of moral bankruptcy within Western culture?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra:</strong></span> <span>I would say, look, I don’t know about Western culture. I can speak very specifically about certain very prestigious, at least formally prestigious, legacy periodicals who have manifested a degree of not only moral but a sort of intellectual bankruptcy in confronting Israel’s actions in Gaza and elsewhere, of course, in Syria and Lebanon.</span></p>
<p><span>The omissions, the suppressions, the evasions, the sheer accumulation of mendacity, of falsehoods — I just can’t think of a more terrible indictment of the mainstream press, such as we have seen over the last few months. And I really sort of fear that these periodicals are not going to be able to recover from this. This is a lasting damage to their credibility, to their legitimacy.</span> <span>And I say this as a concerned writer, as a contributor to some of these periodicals. How do you recover from something like this?</span></p>
<p><span>There is no easy way back to some kind of intellectual and moral integrity. They also seem completely helpless at this point. Clueless, I think is the word. Before Trump, before this onslaught of the far right, they actually had really no responses to this. Every time Trump says something, he says, let’s ethnically cleanse Gaza, they come up with an article saying, but there is a problem in this plan that is the presence of Hamas in Gaza. So I think we are looking at a steady normalization of the most violent and extreme kind of rhetoric. This is what the mainstream press has to offer at this moment.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124699" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124699" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-4.54.27-PM.png" alt width="1116" height="805" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124699"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124699" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Pankaj Mishra. <span>(The Chris Hedges Report/YouTube)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>You spend a lot of time in your book talking about the Holocaust and quote a lot of great writers about the Holocaust like Primo Levi. You write that remembering past atrocities is no guarantee against repeating them in the present, which of course raises the whole issue of the plethora of Holocaust studies which exist on every university in this country, well funded. Germany itself of course holds up the Holocaust as a kind of penance within German society and yet we watch it once again. What’s failed? What didn’t work?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, I think if you’re going to teach the Holocaust as a very specific lesson, whose main message is the protection of the state of Israel, no matter what the state of Israel does, then of course you’ll end up in this situation where Germany, which actually makes the strongest claim as a regular commemorator of Nazi crimes against Jews and combined with very solid support for the state of Israel. But of course, it’s completely unthinking, completely uncritical.</span></p>
<p><span>So we’ve reached a point where the German arms have fueled Israel’s attack on Gaza, Israel’s destruction of Gaza. And yet there is no recognition that you’ve got to stop at some point. You do owe, you do of course owe a great, you do have a great responsibility to the state of Israel, but that does not mean giving them a license to commit endless massacres. And you know, I think you could say the same about Holocaust education in many other places, that it’s very particular lesson seems to be do whatever you can to protect the state of Israel, no matter how wildly and violently the state of Israel behaves.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, there was a quid pro quo at the end of World War II. Germany immediately sent it, almost immediately after the founding of the state of Israel in 1948, began to supply it with weapons and of course, billions of dollars in reparations. And the quid pro quo was that they turned the other way and didn’t look at the dispossession of Palestinians of their land and Israel gave Germany a kind of legitimacy, I think you argue.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>I do argue that and I think the evidence now is clear. People have started to look into this more closely. A couple of books out that I refer to. And I think the cynical, the utterly cynical nature of these transactions is now much, much plainer than it was.</span></p>
<p><span>I think we realize that large numbers of people have been deceived into thinking that this was some kind of a moral debt that the Germans owed and that’s what they were discharging all this time. It’s now clear that actually there were some really insidious elements to this relationship and especially I think the exchange of heavy weaponry, exchange of arms and often sort of naked bribery and sort of blackmail. It’s quite really shocking some of the details of this relationship.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, even during the [SS officer Adolf] Eichmann trial, they go so far as to protect a major Nazi figure within the hierarchy of the German government, not to name him.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely. I mean there are many many such sordid sort of details locked away actually you know in archives which are still inaccessible to researchers and to writers. I’m sure more of this stuff is going to come out at some point.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Let’s talk about the Holocaust that beset the Global South. I mentioned the famine, Kenya, because I think that is one of the crucial points of your book, that those historical experiences and that lasting trauma, which is minimized, whitewashed.</span></p>
<p><span>I just read <em>Imperial Reckoning</em>, the book on the British crushing of the Mau Mau [decolonial rebellion in Kenya]. And what was, it’s a great book, but what was so disturbing about it was the silence that not just the Moi, the Kenyans, the West, the Brits, managed to envelop the wholesale slaughter of Kikuyu and others within Kenya. But that’s just typical of what we have done to erase the experience of many, many peoples. Can you talk about that, all those late Victorian Holocausts that we’ve kind of written out of history?</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_106896" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-106896" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/Lieutenant_General_Sir_George_Erskine_Commander-in-Chief_East_Africa_centre_observing_operations_against_the_Mau_Mau.jpg" alt width="800" height="786" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-106896"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-106896" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Lieutenant General Sir George Erskine, commander-in-chief, East Africa Command, in Kenya observing operations against the Mau Mau, May 1953. <span>(MOD, Imperial War Museums, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, you know, Chris, I think there is an accusation which is often grounded, leveled against many people in Asian countries and African countries that they are indulging in Holocaust denial.</span></p>
<p><span>And often there are people in Asia and Africa who are either really ignorant about this monstrous act of violence, which is the Holocaust, and often there are people who are very, you know, extremely under informed if they do know something about it. And I think what is much less remarked upon is the extraordinary level of a version of Holocaust denial in Western countries. You know, the fact that this long past of imperialism, of slavery, of enormous violence inflicted on many different parts of the world, many different populations across the world.</span></p>
<p><span>If you today try to bring this up or try to talk about it, you’d be denounced as a member of some woke conspiracy and dismissed or stigmatized or denounced. But this is something that’s been going on for an extremely long time.</span></p>
<p><span>And I think among the other consequences, this has had an effect of seriously crippling any attempt at understanding the world as it exists today. You know, the fact that large parts of the world have a cultural memory, historical memory of the atrocities that were inflicted on those parts of the world by Western powers. And that has actually gone to the making of their collective identity. And that is how they see themselves in the world. That’s how they position themselves in the world.</span></p>
<p><span>And of course, that narrative that they believe in is now much more antagonistic, much more in a way assertive especially when it comes into contact with these Western self-flattering narratives about how the West beat down two major totalitarian regimes, how it liberated the Jews of Auschwitz just very recently.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges:</strong></span> <span>Which I just want to interrupt, as you point out in the book isn’t true historically. The Soviets liberated almost all the death camps.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Of course, you know, there are ways in which you can, you know, spin all this, spin D-Day as far more important than all the contributions of the of the Red Army, the way in which history is taught in large parts of Western Europe and the United States, you know, the fact that you still had as late as the early 2000s, the BBC broadcasting a documentary about the British Empire that made British seem like a globally benevolent force.</span></p>
<p><span>It’s not at all surprising that there would be today amplifying propaganda about what is happening in Gaza today. You know, these have been propagandist outfits for some time, sort of indoctrinating, brainwashing large populations. And so I think this is a really serious problem that has to be addressed. Some of these narratives, some of these antagonistic narratives have to be reconciled.</span></p>
<p><span>It’s really leading to just more conflict and more animosity because a lot of this long history of violence is simply not acknowledged. Nobody is really seriously asking for reparations. I mean, there are a very small number of people who are doing that. But a simple acknowledgement that there is this very long history of suffering that we’ve all participated in, both as victims and perpetrators.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>I want to talk about Jewish identity. You quote [Israeli journalist] Boaz Evron, that Israel, for many Jews in the West, had become necessary because the loss of any other focal point to their Jewish identity, indeed so great was their, this is you writing, was their existential lack that they did not wish Israel to become free of its mounting dependence on Jewish American support. I thought that was a really important point. Can you explain?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>You know, Chris, I think this is something that could be applied to a lot of diasporic populations, especially in the United States. People who moved there from elsewhere with sort of ancestral memories, some idea of their ancestral heritage.</span></p>
<p><span>And I think at some point, while living in the United States, living in what is essentially a materialistic society with not much of a tradition, with not much of a heritage, unlike most of the parts of the world, and they seek to capture some kind of meaning, some kind of identity for themselves by affiliating themselves to the sort of ancestral heritage that they have. And I think in many cases, most famously, I can see this in case of Hindu nationalism, for instance.</span></p>
<p><span>There are any number of people, secular, highly educated, people with no faith in God, no sort of religious faith whatsoever. And yet, can become extremely vulnerable to the idea of Hindu nationalism. So likewise, I think there has been a large population of Jewish Americans who, despite their secular education, have felt almost a kind of existential imperative to attach themselves to the state of Israel.</span></p>
<p><span>These are people who are not necessarily descendants of the survivors of the Holocaust, but yet there is a very strong connection and I think it has to do with the peculiar situation of a society that doesn’t really offer you too many ways in which to define yourself meaningfully as a member of a larger spiritual and emotional community.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, you cite that rootlessness in your book <em>Age of Anger</em> as being a kind of key factor in the political distortions, whether it’s in India or here or anywhere else.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>I think that’s right, Chris. I mean, I think it’s really important to stress that the Israeli case is not an exception. It’s actually an amplification in a very distorted form of a lot of pathologies that we also see in the case of other populations, whether it’s the Sikh secessionists or the sympathy for Sikh nationalism. It’s just that the Israeli case is far more politically consequential and it distorts, I think, the foreign policy of the United States distorts domestic policy of the United States to a much greater extent than say the Irish support for Irish nationalism or the Hindu support for Hindu nationalism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>It’s a small point in the book, but I think an important one. But you write about the endemic racism within the philosophical traditions of the West. [Georg Wilhelm Friedrich] Hegel had sneered at Jews as much as he did at Asians and Africans while elaborating his philosophy of universal development. But this was common. [John] Locke, everyone, was really grounded in a kind of white supremacy. And we kind of wash that stuff out when we read them in university. But I think it’s an important point.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>It’s an important point. I mean, I think the fact that there is this construction, which is the sort of Western tradition that has come in hugely useful for ideological projects of the kind we saw during the Cold War, you know, representing, creating the unity of the so-called free world in which these disparate philosophical figures can be enlisted and sort of seen as speaking of a certain kind of freedom.</span></p>
<p><span>Of course, we know that freedom was really only available to a tiny minority back in the 19th century or back in the 18th century. And yet, these philosophers, whether it’s Locke or even John Stuart Mill, they’re all sort of enlisted into this grand parade of Western civilization. And these are all constructions. These are all ways of inventing tradition. And that’s something we should be more aware of rather than taking all this at face value. Just as the Indians have their own kind of invented traditions, just as the Russians have their own, and the Chinese have their own, the West has its own invented traditions, where, you know, a lot of aspects, especially the ones you describe, have been actively suppressed.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>It’s a footnote, but a fascinating one. And it gets into your discussion of the Holocaust itself. I think it’s Primo Levi you quote about how the real tragedy of the Holocaust, aside from the loss of life, was that it unleashed evil.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_104753" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption alignright"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-104753" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Primo_Levi-e1704224417888.jpg" alt width="400" height="611" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-104753"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-104753" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Primo Levi in the 1950s. <span>(Mondadori Publishers, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>But at one point, this is, you’re quoting [writer and journalist] Gitta Sereny’s book about one of the survivors that when the transports came in, “As of tomorrow, the transports will be rolling again. And do you know what we felt? We said to ourselves, hurrah, at last we can fill our bellies again.”</span></p>
<p><span>I have a friend who was in Auschwitz at the age of 14, and I asked her that question, how she felt when she saw the transports come in, and she said we were happy because we knew we could eat.</span></p>
<p><span>I want to talk, Primo Levi, I mean, many of the writers on the Holocaust are several that you quote, committed suicide, Levi among them. But I think they grappled with the fundamental truths of the Holocaust about the human condition, which you write about in your book. Can you kind of explain what their position was and what those truths were?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Thanks Chris. I think Primo Levi was one of those people who was not content with a straightforward tale or narrative of victimhood. He could have easily laid claim to that particular narrative. He was in Auschwitz. He was there for several months. He managed to survive it, just barely. Made his escape, went back to Italy and he could have spend the rest of his life just in the way someone like Elie Wiesel did.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>What do you call him, the Jesus of the Holocaust or something was that?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>That’s actually Alfred Kazin calling him that. He could have also become the Italian Jesus of the Holocaust and just kept talking endlessly about that experience and how that experience commits him to the defense, eternal defense of the state of Israel. He did not do that and it’s interesting to ask why. Because as he grew older, and I think it’s interesting towards the end of his life, the books he’s writing, the essays he’s writing, are concerned with the question of complicity. They’re concerned with the question of collaboration. They’re concerned with asking broader questions about our own complicity in systems of violence and dispossession.</span></p>
<p><span>And really also questioning in many ways the whole sort of narrative that has become popular in the West of survivors. He realizes, especially in his encounters with Elie Wiesel, that this narrative has become incredibly influential and it’s leading to bad political outcomes. And we think we need much more complex thinking on this, much more complex reflection on this. And that’s where he talks in his last published book, <em>The Drowned and the Saved</em>, about, I think there’s a chapter in there called “the gray zone.” And he talks about the figure of the collaborator and how in many ways, and this is a very surprising conclusion…</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>He’s talking about the head of the Lódz Ghetto in particular, [Chaim] Rumkowski.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>That’s right. Yeah, exactly. And he concludes that that collaborator actually exists in all of us. And that we are also too concerned with, really, with our survival, too concerned to protect ourselves, and in many cases, too concerned with social advancement, some kind of social status. So we don’t actually take the risks that we are supposed to take. We become fearful. We sort of retreat into a kind of herd morality. We go along with what other people are doing and this is not just Primo Levi.</span></p>
<p><span>This is also the conclusions reached by other people who have examined in some detail the behavior of Nazis or German soldiers during the Second World War. How much they were motivated, not so much by ideology, not so much by anti-Semitism, but by very simple things like career advancement by the possibility of material improvements in their lives. And I think it’s really, I feel like it’s really important to keep that in focus when we talk about these things. If you look at this new documentary, <em>The Bibi Files</em>, I’m sure you’ve seen it.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>I haven’t yet.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>It becomes very clear, I strongly recommend it, it becomes very clear that Netanyahu is only sort of secondarily motivated by his ideological commitments, I think what has taken precedence in this case is the accumulation of personal power and personal wealth. And that is what has been driving him all this time. That is what has basically shaped many of his policies, whether his decision to declare unlimited war on his neighbours. Whether it’s his policy of criminal indifference to the fate of the hostages in Gaza. All he wants, really, to hold on to his power and to stay out of prison, most importantly.</span> <span>And he also wants that supply, that flow of expensive pink champagne and cigars coming in from his rich friends in America.</span></p>
<p><span>So he’s a really sort of interesting case, not so much of ideological fanaticism. I mean he and Trump are more alike in many ways than we realize. And they’re not bound together by any shared belief in Zionism. They’re bound together purely by self-interest.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges:</strong></span> <span>There’s a wonderful book, I don’t know if you know it, <em>Prisoners of Fear,</em> by Ella Lingens-Reiner. I had to photocopy mine because it’s long out of print. Victor Gollancz published it in 1948.</span></p>
<p><span>She was an Austrian doctor. She helped Jews flee Austria and she was sent to Auschwitz and she worked with [SS officer and physician Josef] Mengele. Raul Hilberg calls it one of the four best books on the Holocaust.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124693" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124693" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Richard_Baer_Josef_Mengele_Rudolf_Hoess_Auschwitz._Album_Hocker-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1739" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124693"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124693" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Nazi officials, from left, in Auschwitz in 1944: Richard Baer, Josef Mengele and Rudolf Höss. <span>(Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>But what she does, unlike a lot of memoirs of the Holocaust, is she writes about Mengele and the Nazis she works with. And she says precisely what you just said, that people like Mengele have no ideology at all. It was all about careerism and personal advancement and climbing within the system. Have you read the novel <em>The Kindly Ones?</em> What did you think of it? I thought that it was flawed in some ways, but that certainly was the main theme of that book, was careerism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely, I mean I think that’s one reason you’ll remember why people like Hannah Arendt and you know after her, Zygmunt Bauman were very concerned to not present the Holocaust as evidence of, purely evidence of, you know murderous anti-Semitism. Of course it was there but it couldn’t be reduced to something like you know murderous prejudice. There was a lot more things happening there. And that is what they were interested in finding out. Like, how do we become collaborators in systems of violence? Which is a question we should also be asking ourselves at this point, after just having witnessed a live-streamed genocide.</span></p>
<p><span>The varying degrees to which we’re also complicit in it. And that’s something, you know, it’s too easy to blame Trump or to blame Biden. Of course they are to be held guilty, or Netanyahu for that matter, but I think there are many other things at play here. And again, it’s not just racism, it’s not just anti-Arab racism or contempt for Palestinian lives. There are many other things going on here.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>One of the most important, which Hannah Arendt cites, is the modern bureaucratic state. [Israeli-American historian] Omer Bartov has written two books on this. And you also talk about that in your book, that none of this would have been possible without the creation of the modern bureaucratic state that essentially fragments roles in acts of radical evil to absolve you of any kind of real complicity because your part is just — I think the film Shoah kind of captured that by [Claude] Lanzmann.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124706" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124706" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Hannah_Arendt_1933.jpg" alt width="1246" height="1541" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124706"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124706" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Arendt in 1933. <span>(Elisabeth Young-Bruehl, Yale University Press, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>That’s very true. That’s very true. I mean, the other thing, going back to your earlier point, Hannah Arendt is also someone who traces the construction of that kind of modern bureaucracy for mass killing back to the 19th century, back to imperialist practices. And so this is one way of kind of linking what I see as increasingly antagonistic narratives that this violence suffered by the Jewish population of Europe is something that was in a way prefigured in acts of monstrous violence committed against Asians and Africans in the 19th century.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, she calls it the innate genocidal potential of the modern bureaucratic state, which makes [Franz] Kafka one of our prophets, of course. So you write and we just mentioned Bauman. Bauman warned repeatedly after the 1980s that such tactics by unscrupulous politicians like [Menachem] Begin and Netanyahu were securing I’m quoting quote “A post-mortem triumph for Hitler who dreamed of creating conflict between Jews and the whole world and preventing Jews from ever having peaceful coexistence with others.” And then you also go on to quote Jean Améry but talk about that, which is what Netanyahu fosters what Netanyahu wants.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_42731" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-42731" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/01/768px-Kafka.jpg" alt width="1100" height="1467" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-42731"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-42731" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span> Kafka, circa 1923. <span>(Wikipedia Common, Public domain)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra:</strong></span> <span>And that’s why I think we really can’t see him as a representative of Zionism, or even actually existing Zionism, because I think in every sense he is working against the interests of not only the Israeli population, but the sort of larger Jewish population in the world by insisting that they’re also part of this, that they are also people who he is protecting by his actions. So sort of implicating them all when there are people living in different parts of the world in perfect amity, who have very little connection with Israel, sometimes no feeling whatsoever for the state of Israel.</span></p>
<p><span>And yet, the words of politicians like Netanyahu, the rhetoric of people like Joe Biden insisting that no Jewish person in the world is safe if Israel is not safe, consistently connecting the fate of millions of Jews living outside of Israel to the fate of the state of Israel, I cannot think of anything more antisemitic.</span></p>
<p><span>And yet these people keep doing it, endangering Jewish populations elsewhere. And how very little protest there is against this kind of thing among Jewish organizations. You see this in Britain, you see this in America. There is the other impulse, which is to stand in solidarity with the state of Israel, no matter what the state of Israel does. And I think in that sense, people like Netanyahu and before him [Menachem] Begin, they really are just incredibly bad, incredibly bad for not just the Jewish population around the world, also just the state of, just for sort of social harmony and social solidarity everywhere else.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, they come, they’re heirs of [Ze’ev] Jabotinsky who you write about. I think [David] Ben-Gurion called Jabotinsky the Jewish Hitler. I think Mussolini praised Jabotinsky. This was a kind of basically and then Meir Kahane, who I covered, in Kach Party, updated it, but it was training militias and you know was really a fascistic model and you quote in the book the letter that was signed by Hannah Arendt and Albert Einstein and others denouncing the Herut Party, was the party that Netanyahu’s father came out of. I mean, there is a fascistic tradition within Zionism, which seems to be ascendant.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely. I think again, I have to draw a parallel here and say that these fascistic traditions were present in almost all nationalistic movements that emerged in the late 19th century…</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, including Modi. I mean, Modi’s roots come directly out of fascism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely, absolutely out of fascism. And there was a sort of, you know, a companion figure for Jabotinsky, which was the Hindu nationalist ideologue [Vinayak Damodar] Savarkar. And they had roughly similar, you know, strikingly similar trajectories. It’s a question very much worth pondering. At what stage do they start becoming dominant within these nationalist traditions or whether there was something within these nationalist traditions that was always hospitable, too hospitable to this kind of fascism?</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124700" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124700" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Screenshot-2025-02-27-at-5.04.16-PM.png" alt width="1131" height="698" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124700"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124700" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Pankaj Mishra and Chris Hedges. <span>(The Chris Hedges Report/YouTube)</span></span></p>
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<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, liberal Zionism, you know, the hypocrisy of liberal Zionism has just got — I mean people forget that the massacres and population transfers, ‘67 and ‘48, were done under the directives of quote unquote liberal Zionists.</span></p>
<p><span>So the rhetoric was different. I knew many of these people, [former mayor of Jerusalem] Teddy Kollek, [Former Deputy Prime Minister of Israel] Abba Eban and others, [inaudible], Abba Eban spoke English better than we do, Oxford grad and all. But what it was was a kind of veneer, was a kind of salesmanship, but I think the point that you just made is very important, that this was always inherent within the Zionist project at its core, and which Ben-Gurion and others privately in their diaries were quite public about, or quite, not public, I mean, quite open about.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Absolutely, you could argue Chris, I mean I think there is something about the formation of the nation state which requires a degree of violence that can really not be accommodated by a liberal worldview. So there always has to be surreptitiously, at least, a fascistic element at work there. And that might come out in actions, in specific actions and in private diaries, in private accounts, but it’s always covered up by the rhetoric of liberal Zionism. And in the case of India, the rhetoric of secular nationalism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Or in Western democracy liberalism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Or liberalism, indeed.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>You have a chapter “Germany: From Antisemitism to Philosemitism,” and I want you to talk about those differences. At the beginning of the chapter you quote Saul Friedländer in his book, <em>The Years of Extermination</em>: “Not one social group, not one religious community, not one scholarly institution or professional association in Germany and throughout Europe declared its solidarity for the Jews.” It reminds me of the theologian James Cone writing about lynching and he says the same thing about all the white institutions including the white church. But talk about that difference between antisemitism and philosemitism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, I mean, I think if you look at it closely, you realize that all the stereotypes that are present in an antisemitic posture are also present in a philosemitic posture.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Define philosemitism for people who may not know the term. How would you describe it?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, I think it’s as its critics would describe it, and I quote some many of them, [German-American historian] Peter Gay, [inaudible], the German writer, it’s an ostentatious form of adoration of Jewish people for no other reason than that they are Jewish.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>I just want to interrupt you. You know who does this is Proust, Marcel Proust. And Hannah Arendt said if you want to understand antisemitism in pre-war France, read Proust. It’s the exoticism. It’s all of that. Anyway, just as an aside.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Yeah, I think the German case is different. I think there are no particular characteristics to this. I think what they’re doing is kind of projecting and often they end up projecting as I describe in my book a certain kind of taboo German nationalism onto the state of Israel. There are quotations which I found really shocking when I came across them, people saying after ‘67 in the German press, we thought the Jews were essentially extremely unmanly, sort of unmilitant people. It turns out they are a great heroic people and the way they’re describing the campaigns and victories of the 1967 war invoking Nazi German generals, [Erwin] Rommel, or using German, sort of notorious German expressions from that period.</span></p>
<p><span>It’s very clear there is sort of a kind of identification with this newly emergent militant state in the Middle East. Philosemitism is taking all kinds of different forms. At the same time, the German chancellor is saying we need to have proper relations with Israel. We need to get Israel on its side because the power of the Jews in the United States, especially, should not be underestimated. So you see all the antisemitic stereotypes are present in these versions of German philosemitism.</span></p>
<p><span>So it’s a sort of fascinating phenomenon. Of course, now it’s taken to an absurd extreme whereby the Germans, or non-Jewish Germans, now claim the right to describe events in Israel and to depict and to denounce people who criticize Israel as antisemites, no matter if those critics are Jewish. In fact, if they are Jewish, they’ll be denounced even more vehemently by Germans whose ancestors, by the way, often happen to be well-placed Nazis or turn out to be. So, I mean, really, the world has been turned upside down. The people with prominent Nazis in their families are accusing Jewish critics of the state of Israel of being anti-Semitic, arresting them. The police, there’s so many videos out there of police sort of manhandling elderly survivors of the Holocaust. It’s just truly, truly extraordinary.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>What you call philosemitism, you say it’s parasitic on old antisemitic stereotypes. And you quote figures like Thomas Friedman and that kind of excitement at the military prowess of Jews and how it is replacing one stereotype with another, which I think is what you’re getting at with this philosemitism.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, you know, I think this is an interesting thing. I wish there was more time to explore this in the book. But I think for a lot of colonized peoples too, not just the Jewish population of Europe, people who are exposed to relentless prejudice, like you’re weak, you’re unmanly, you’re cowardly.</span></p>
<p><span>I think for many of these sort of, you know, victims of prejudice, what actually happened was they ended up internalizing many of these ideas. And in their later conduct as, you know, nationalists, they were very concerned to be seen as essentially incredibly hyper-masculine, strong, unfeeling, uncaring. So precisely the sort of, you know, stereotypes that were the cliches and the prejudices that were leveled at them sort of internalized in. And I think this explains a lot of pathological elements. It, again, not just Israeli nationalism, but also, I would say, in Indian nationalism, this idea that we are now going to show you that we actually don’t, we are not embodiments of those old ideas, while at the same time being completely imprisoned within those stereotypes and prejudices.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>And to what extent does that philosemitism and you write about the endless commemoration of the Shoah, claiming undying support of Israel, does it allow them to escape responsibility for the atrocities that Western powers and Germans inflicted on Asians and Africans, whether under German colonialism, British colonialism, or American colonialism in the Philippines or anywhere else?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, that’s what gives the game away; the indifference, the relative indifference for the suffering of Asians and Africans during campaigns, during military campaigns, or during just straightforward sort of campaigns of colonialism in Asia and Africa, that if you were really sort of making claim to a moral stance on these issues, you’d be far more accommodating of this other narrative, which is like Germans also committed incredible atrocities on peoples in Asia and Africa.</span></p>
<p><span>And that should also be part of the German national narrative, which is based on the idea of repentance. But no, all those other narratives are sidelined. It’s the sort of German treatment of European Jews that remains dominant in the German national narrative. And again, with all that we know about the cynical relationship between the state of Germany and the state of Israel, that leads you to really question whether there was ever a genuine attempt at reckoning with German crimes, whether against Jews or Asians and Africans.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Well, I think it’s in your book. Most of the people who collaborated or ran the machinery that made the genocide or the Holocaust possible were never prosecuted.</span></p>
<p><span>It was 6,000 people that ran Auschwitz and that weren’t even … administered Auschwitz. I think that was kind of about the total number of all people. And we’re talking about the people who ran the trains and made the cyclone, the gas and everything else. They all got off. And of course, then the CIA recruited Nazi intelligence officials as fast as they could into Western intelligence services.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>And German scientists.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>And German scientists. We’re running out of time, but I just want to ask, you make this point, which is a good one, about the United States into the main center of production for the Shoah’s history. Why? What’s that about? I mean, you’re talking about the Holocaust Museum in Washington but what is that? And the ties between that and the efforts to limit government intervention. I mean that was a really interesting point.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>I think it’s part of a larger sort of consolidation on the right, I think, starting in the 1980s. Those dates are not sort of insignificant. The construction of the memory of the Holocaust, greater support for the state of Israel, the surge, the upsurge of right-wing ideas in American society.</span></p>
<p><span>And then, of course, we know that AIPAC is not an organization purely simply devoted to the protection of Israel, a lot of corporate power, a lot of corporate interests that are completely indifferent to the state of Israel, completely indifferent to Zionism, are also deeply invested in AIPAC because that is one guarantee against working class consolidation. Or at least they see it as a guarantee against that. They see it as a bulwark against any kind of organized left in the United States.</span></p>
<p><span>So I think there are many things going into the very deliberate construction of Holocaust memory and the institutionalization of the Holocaust in American memory. And this is, you know, I could only explore a little bit of this subject in the chapters that I have in this book, but there’s a lot more to be said about this.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Let’s close by talking about where we’re headed. You talk in the book about how we’re creating divisions that are so extreme, largely between the Global North and the Global South that we can no longer communicate. I know from your book, <em>Age of Anger</em>, you talked about the political ramifications, which of course we are now seeing both in the United States and have seen for some time in countries like India, Hungary and others, France, Germany, the rise of the far right. What does this all portend?</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Pankaj Mishra: </strong></span><span>Well, I think, you know, it’s hard to predict and one shouldn’t really say much about the future. But certainly, you know, to put it mildly, the current signs are not encouraging. I mean, I would say to just confine ourselves to the subject of Gaza. I think Donald Trump in just the last two or three days, what he’s done is clarified, helpfully, I think, the situation in Gaza. He is being attacked, of course, by the sort of legacy periodicals and by mainstream politicians in Europe and elsewhere for offering fantastical ideas.</span></p>
<p><span>But I think what he’s also done, while posing fantastical ideas, he’s also alerted us to the reality of Gaza, which is, it is actually a demolition site. There’s hardly any scope there for people to return and to rebuild their homes. So he is pointing to a genuine problem and he’s being extremely realistic about it. It’s people who say, like the U.K. prime minister saying, Palestinians should be allowed to go back to their home.</span></p>
<p><span>These are people indulging in fantasy because we know there are no homes for most of these people. Trump at least is acknowledging that Israel has leveled most of Gaza, destroyed, really, the infrastructure that you need there of every kind, and that something needs to happen. And just talking in the vaguest of terms about Palestinians going back to their homes, reawakening the two-state solution is not going to do it.</span></p>
<p><span>I think in retrospect, a little bit of reality here might seem almost like a breakthrough. I’m certainly not investing any faith whatsoever. I think he’s a very cynical man and all he wants to do is pursue his interest there. But for those of us who’ve been fighting for just a tiny little bit of illumination, who were denied even the acknowledgement that what Israel has done in Gaza is an abomination, that they’ve made it impossible for people to live there. At least we can now see that this is now a widely shared fact and that we don’t actually have to argue for it. So I don’t know what happens next, but I think that is something at least we can now work with, no matter what madness the future brings.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges: </strong></span><span>Great, thank you, Pankaj. I want to thank Diego [Ramos], Sofia [Menemenlis], Thomas [Hedges] and Max [Jones], who produced the show. You can find me on ChrisHedges.Substack.com.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist who was a foreign correspondent for 15 years for <em>The New York Times,</em> where he served as the Middle East bureau chief and Balkan bureau chief for the paper. He previously worked overseas for <em>The Dallas Morning News, The Christian Science Monitor</em> and NPR.  He is the host of show “The Chris Hedges Report.”</strong></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>This article is from</span> <a href="https://scheerpost.com/2024/10/25/chris-hedges-israels-war-on-journalism/"><span>Scheerpost</span></a><span>. </span></em></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>NOTE TO READERS: There is now no way left for me to continue to write a weekly column for ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show without your help. </span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/2022/03/17/the-chris-hedges-report/"><span>The walls are closing in, with startling rapidity, on independent journalism</span></a><span>, with the elites, including the Democratic Party elites, clamoring for more and more censorship. Please, if you can, sign up at </span><a href="http://chrishedges.substack.com/"><span>chrishedges.substack.com</span></a><span> so I can continue to post my Monday column on ScheerPost and produce my weekly television show, “The Chris Hedges Report.”</span></em></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>This interview is from</span> <a href="https://scheerpost.com/"><span>Scheerpost,</span></a> <span>for which Chris Hedges writes </span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/category/chris-hedges/"><span>a regular column</span></a><span>. </span><a href="https://scheerpost.com/support-subscribe-contact/"><span>Click here to sign up</span></a><span> for email alerts.</span></em></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>Views expressed in this interview may or may not reflect those of </span></em><strong>Consortium News.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Books #Commentary #Gaza #Germany #Israel #Kenya #Palestine #Propaganda #Right Wing #Auschwitz #BBC #Chris Hedges Report #Claude Lanzmann #David Ben-Gurion #Ella Lingens-Reiner #Franz Kafka #global South #Hannah Arendt #Holocaust #Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu #Josef Mengele #Liberalism #Lodz Ghetto #Omer Bartov #Pankaj Mishra #philosemitism #Primo Levi #Saul Friedländer #The Shoah #Vinayak Damodar Savarkar #Ze’ev Jabotinsky #Zionism


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title: Craig Murray: Islamist Resistance &amp; Israel
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<p><strong><span>Hezbollah’s ability to resist an expansionist, apartheid, Israeli, colonial project has worsened considerably in recent months.  But in Beirut,</span> <span>Nasrallah’s funeral enjoyed a show of mass popular support. </span></strong><br><span><span data-sanitized-id="more-124735"></span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124740" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124740" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Funeral_of_Hassan_Nasrallah_23_Feb_2025_78.jpg" alt width="1920" height="1280" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124740"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124740" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s funeral in Beirut on Feb. 23. <span>(Khamenei.ir, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY 4.0)</a></p>
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<p><span><strong>By</strong> <span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/craig-murray/"><strong>Craig Murray</strong></a><br><a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2025/02/islamic-resistance-movements-and-israel/"><em>CraigMurray.org.uk</em></a><br></span></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Screenshot-2024-12-24-at-1.11.05-PM-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-121689">W</strong></span>e were searching for a site in the northern Bekaa Valley recently bombed by Israel. Hadi knew near which village it was located but, as we drove between large expanses of fertile, well-cultivated fields, it was plain his information was vague.</span></p>
<p><span>We pulled up at a garage to ask the way. Lebanon has not gone the way of Western economies in making consumers perform the very service for which they are paying, and in Lebanese service stations they still have attendants. A scruffily dressed old man sat on the front step of a dilapidated and very basic kiosk constructed of concrete blocks. He came over to the driver’s window.</span></p>
<p><span>First Hadi ordered fuel, and the old man filled the car, washed the windscreen and took payment. His hair was white and his beard short, but not from the obsessively neat trimming that is universal in Beirut. When he returned with change, Hadi asked him if he knew where to find the bomb site.</span></p>
<p><span>The old man replied with questions. I did not understand the Arabic, but from the body language there was a marked shift in the interaction between the two, from the man serving Hadi to the man interrogating Hadi. He lost his shuffle, notably straightened his back and stood taller.</span></p>
<p><span>They were talking through the driver’s window, and with a very definite movement the man moved forward and rested his forearm on the sill, intruding his head into the vehicle assertively. He looked at me with searching eyes, and looked at Niels sitting in the back seat with his camera equipment. His questioning of Hadi became terse.</span></p>
<p><span>I looked into his eyes. He had the distinct, piercing gaze that I used to note in the special forces officers I occasionally came across in my Foreign Office career. He then walked away from the car, took out his phone and made a call.</span></p>
<p><span>After a while he handed the phone to Hadi, who looked both serious and worried. Hadi listened, handed the phone back to the attendant, said goodbye and thank you, and reversed out of the garage. Hadi told us we were not permitted to go to the bomb site.</span></p>
<p><span>We had just encountered Hezbollah. The important thing to understand in this encounter is that it is not that the man was an undercover Hezbollah operative posing as a garage attendant. He was a garage attendant who was a Hezbollah operative.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah is not an organisation comparable to the I.R.A., in which a relatively small number of members operated within the context of a community in which they enjoyed very large sympathy. Hezbollah operates in a community in which almost everybody is an activist and pretty well every adult is prepared to pick up a gun or an RPG and knows how to use it.</span></p>
<p><span>This is a key to understanding how Hezbollah became the only military force that has ever been able to defeat the IDF in pitched ground warfare.</span></p>
<p><span>In this respect, Hezbollah’s crucial advantage compared to Hamas is that it has had practical access to weapons deliveries to build its arsenal, whereas Hamas has been greatly constricted by Israel’s control of goods entering Gaza.</span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>“Hezbollah operates in a community in which almost everybody is an activist. Pretty well every adult is prepared to pick up a gun or an RPG and knows how to use it.”</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span>Ending the weapons supply to Hezbollah has been a key U.S./Israeli strategic objective this last year, and they have in large part achieved it. I shall return to that.</span></p>
<p><span><span>On a personal level, this encounter with the garage attendant was fairly typical of my interactions with Hezbollah in my four months in Lebanon. They had detained me in a</span> <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/11/two-weeks-in-beirut/"><span>rather frightening</span></a> <span>manner on first encounter, and in general treated me with understandable suspicion, given my British diplomatic background.</span></span></p>
<p><span>I saw literally thousands of buildings in Lebanon that Israel had destroyed. The most haunting part of the entire experience was the frequent event of finding the clothing and toys of small children among the rubble: I still have bad dreams about it.</span></p>
<p><span>However this was the second of the two occasions when we were able to identify that Israel had struck an actual Hezbollah military installation, rather than a civilian building. Both times Hezbollah prevented me from going to see. In terms of maintaining the security of the military site, this strikes me as shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.</span></p>
<p><span>Having been denied access to that particular bomb site, we drove on into the village and met with some locals Hadi knew. In this small village there had been over 70 Israeli bombings, eight of them since the ceasefire.</span></p>
<p><span>They took me to one large house which had been completely destroyed, a pile of rubble spread over a large area. Twelve members of the same family had been killed in this house, seven of them children. The head of the family had left in late afternoon to go to the butcher’s to buy dinner, when his home and family was destroyed behind him.</span></p>
<p><span>The explosion was so enormous that the body of one of the children was found in the neighbouring orchard of olive trees, clean across the road, about 70 yards away. Many of the olive trees had been shredded and debris from the house was strewn across the field and beyond.</span></p>
<p><span>The next house was not greatly damaged, but there a father and his two daughters were killed by the shock wave as they sat on their terrace drinking coffee. </span></p>
<p><span><strong>About Hezbollah</strong><span> </span></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124760" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/nasrallah-craig.jpg"><img decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124760" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/nasrallah-craig-1000x714.jpg" alt width="860" height="614" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124760 size-large"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124760" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Posters of Nasrallah in Baalbek, Lebanon, 2009. <span>(Will De Freitas, Flickr,CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)</span></span></p>
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<p><span>There are so many important points to make about Hezbollah, but let me start with these three.</span></p>
<p><span>The first is that support for Hezbollah among their own Shia communities in Lebanon is extremely strong. They are far more than a military organisation. They are Lebanon’s largest legitimate political party.</span></p>
<p><span>In 2022, Hezbollah received 19.9 percent of the vote, and their close ally the Amal Movement received another 10.5 percent. </span></p>
<p><span>The party with the second-highest vote behind Hezbollah, the neo-fascist Lebanese Forces, received 11.6 percent of the vote. </span></p>
<p><span>(The Lebanese Forces Party should not be confused with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF), with which it has no connection. The Lebanese Armed Forces remain under effective U.S. control and fired not a shot against the Israeli invasion and occupation.</span></p>
<p><span>But like so much in Lebanon, the situation should not be simplified and the majority of the rank and file of the LAF are Shia Muslims sympathetic to Hezbollah, and a large majority of the rank and file of any denomination would be happy to fight the Israelis were they ever allowed to do so.) </span></p>
<p><span>Under Lebanon’s extraordinary constitution, Lebanese Forces with 11.6 percent received 19 seats in Parliament while Hezbollah with 19.9 percent received 15 seats. Of which again more later.</span></p>
<p><span>But when it comes to political legitimacy, it is worth noting that the combined Hezbollah/Amal vote percentage is equal to the Labour Party percentage at the last general election in the U.K. There is no argument that Hezbollah is not a legitimate democratic political force.</span></p>
<p><span>The second point is that it is absolutely wrong to see Lebanon in purely sectarian terms. Hezbollah has supporters and allies across all religions in Lebanon. In a country where politics is officially and constitutionally organised on religious lines —  by a “confessional” constitution — minor parties of all religions are aligned with Hezbollah, of which several had ministers until appointment of the new Cabinet last month (of which again, more later).</span></p>
<p><span>Perhaps a quarter of those at the funeral for Hezbollah’s slain leader, Hassan Nasrallah, were not Shia Muslims.</span></p>
<p><span>The third point is that Hezbollah is much more than a political party with a military wing. In a country in which central government has all but collapsed (Lebanon has no income tax), Hezbollah provides hospitals, schools, banking, pensions and welfare benefits.</span></p>
<p><span>When Niels and I witnessed refugee returns to evacuated areas following the “ceasefire,” a very substantial percentage of the population were waving Hezbollah flags or Lebanese flags, with some waving both. Hezbollah is an integral part of Lebanese society, entirely born within the country out of the resistance to Israel’s 1982 occupation, and is in no sense alien or anti-Lebanese.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124738" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124738" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/IsraelForcesLebanon2982.jpg" alt width="1200" height="800" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124738"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124738" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Israeli troops in Lebanon in 1982. <span>(Michael Zarfati / IDF Spokesperson’s Unit / Wikimedia Commons / </span></span><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/deed.en">CC BY-SA 3.0)</a></p>
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<p><span>The elephant in the room is that in the U.K. and other Western states, this highly complex social and political movement is designated as a terrorist organisation in its entirety.</span></p>
<p><span>Ironically, the justification for this given in Westminster in 2019 was that Hezbollah was destabilising the Middle East and prolonging the conflict in Syria — where the very Western powers that proscribed Hezbollah have just assisted another proscribed terrorist group [HTS] into power.</span></p>
<p><span>[Western governments and their Gulf Arab allies also funded jihadist groups in Syria for a decade trying to overthrow the secular government.]</span></p>
<p><span>The truth is that terrorist proscription by the NATO powers of organisations in the Middle East is simply a tool for taking whatever decisions are expedient at that moment to promote the interests of apartheid Israel.</span></p>
<p><span>The “terrorist acts” of Hezbollah that led to proscription of the entire organisation in 2019 consisted of fighting ISIS, Al Qaeda and Al Nusra in Syria.</span></p>
<p><span>We all suffer from the temptation of assuming that others share our prejudices. I assume that like me, many in the West find it difficult to empathise with Hezbollah because of its Islamist philosophy and — I know this is petty — appearance.</span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>“In the U.K. and other Western states, this highly complex social and political movement is designated as a terrorist organisation in its entirety.”</span></strong></span></p>

<p><span>Hassan Nasrallah was the most important and steadfast leader of resistance to the mass murderous Zionist project of the last 40 years. He was also, by all accounts, a hugely charismatic figure to Arabic speakers.</span></p>
<p><span>But his very appearance made it easy for him to be represented to Western audiences as an alienating, even evil, character, due to the state-promoted Islamophobia in the Western world which has been universally projected in the media this last quarter century.</span></p>
<p><span>But here honesty is required. I myself do not like to see political leaders with a religious function and am simply against theocratic rule. I am entirely in favour of freedom of religion, but utterly opposed to religion ruling any state.</span></p>
<p><span>There is an element of smoke and mirrors here. In the glorious mosaic of Lebanon, Hezbollah exists jumbled with those of other sects and religions, and in practice rub along very well.</span></p>
<p><span>Nasrallah spoke like all committed Islamists of his desire to see a united Muslim rule over Muslim lands, with the state under firmly religious leadership and Sharia [religious] law. But in practice Hezbollah are highly tolerant. </span></p>
<p><span>In those large areas of Lebanon where they both have physical military control and dominate the elected local authority, Hezbollah does not ban the sale of alcohol by the Christian minority or enforce hair covering, even on Muslims.</span></p>
<p><span>This is an area where my prejudices were disabused. I did not expect to find this.</span></p>
<p><span>All this caused me some difficulty in Lebanon. I was frequently asked whether I supported Hezbollah. As I was spending much of my time in those areas attacked by Israel — which largely are the Hezbollah areas — in general the question came from Hezbollah supporters.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Culture Gaps</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_119339" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-119339" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/354127727_b81ba2910d_k-2.jpg" alt width="2048" height="1371" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-119339"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-119339" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Shell hole in the portrait of a dead Hezbollah fighter painted on a signboard along the road from Tyre to Bint Jbeil in southern Lebanon, 2007. <span>(Paul Keller, Flickr,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en">CC BY-NC 2.0)</a></p>
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<p><span>I would always reply that I supported absolutely the right of occupied people to conduct armed resistance, and the duty to do everything possible to prevent genocide. Both are established principles of international law.</span></p>
<p><span>But I did not support Hezbollah per se, and would not vote for it were I Lebanese, because it is an openly Islamist organisation and I am opposed to theocratic rule and religious legal codes.</span></p>
<p><span>Being in Lebanon did however allow me to overcome some of the gulf of my cultural understanding. The practice of calling those killed by Israel “martyrs” and frequently referring to them as such in conversation, is alien to a Western ear where the word has largely outdated religious connotations.</span></p>
<p><span>When you live amongst a community where everybody has friends or relatives who have been killed in the decades-long aggression of Israel, the revering of the fallen as martyrs, and their omnipresence in everyday thought, starts to make much more sense.</span></p>
<p><span>Similarly to Western eyes the widespread display of large images of the “martyrs” is peculiar. These are along every roadside and atop every ruin. There are always posters at the site where the person was killed, and frequently dozens of other posters of that individual at sites of importance to them.</span></p>
<p><span>I overcame my incomprehension of this practice by thinking of it in reference to my own culture, that these were posters of people put up to mark where they fought and died to defend their wee bit hill and glen. In those terms it made sense to me.</span></p>
<p><span>I am extremely conscious that religious faith has played a very positive role in both Palestine and South Lebanon in enabling people to endure the unendurable and to maintain resistance against impossible odds. But it is not possible to ignore the fact that there remain substantial differences between my world view and an Islamist world view.</span></p>
<p><span>This has been brought into urgent focus by the attitude of many Sunni Muslims to the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. In my world view, this has been a disaster for the Palestinians. It has seriously and perhaps permanently damaged the flow of arms and other resources to Hezbollah, the Palestinians’ most important ally. And it has enabled the Greater Israel project to expand substantially into Syria.</span></p>
<p><span>Try now to imagine that you are a Sunni Muslim scholar who believes that only by becoming Sunni Muslim can people obey God. You believe that the benefit to mankind of bringing Sunni Muslim rule to most of Syria outweighs the loss of part of Syria to Israel. You believe that Palestinian martyrs killed by Israel are going immediately to Heaven anyway, so in spiritual terms there is no real loss to the “martyrs.”</span></p>
<p><span>That really is the position of many of the leaders of the Saudi- and Gulf-sponsored Muslim religious community. Just like there are a great many shades of Christianity, there are a great many shades of Islam and there are many Muslims, including Sunni Muslims, who would not share that viewpoint. But to a religious Islamist it makes perfect sense. </span></p>
<p><span><span>I cannot find it again because it was deep in replies on a thread, but I had a very interesting exchange with a Muslim intellectual on Twitter on precisely this topic. He accused me of “Orientalism” for denigrating an Eastern spiritual viewpoint in favour of a Western secularist narrative, in seeing the installation of</span> <span>Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (</span><span>HTS) as a reverse for Palestine. He pointed out that Hamas, a fellow Sunni Islamist movement, had welcomed the triumph of HTS. </span></span></p>
<p><span><span>The exchange was welcome for its honesty and intellectual acuity. I said I did not believe Edward Said [author of the seminal book</span> <em><span>Orientalism</span></em><span>] would have welcomed the accompanying expansion of Israel into Syria or the cutting of supplies to Hezbollah. He called in a nephew of Said to bolster his view that my viewpoint is Orientalist.</span></span></p>
<p><span>I have thought about this deeply; I do not think my viewpoint can fairly be described as Orientalist. The truth is that all mainstream Western thought would have entirely concurred with the view that the expansion of rule by a particular religious sect was more important than associated temporal reverses that did not affect the faith of the people: but Western thought was exactly that 500 years ago. </span></p>
<p><span>I do not see my view as Orientalist. I see it as anti-medievalist.</span></p>
<p><span><span>The fall of the Assad regime was deeply desired by Western neoliberals and Zionists in order to replace it with a Western democratic model, and they are desperately pretending that is what they have got in</span> Abu Mohammad <span>al-Jolani, [the current president of Syria, also known as</span> Ahmed al-Sharaa]<span>. </span></span></p>
<p><span>As atrocities against Shia, Alawites and Christians in Syria mount, the one thing that cannot be disputed is that al-Jolani is steadfastly Zionist, as he allows Israel daily to occupy more of Syria and destroy more of its infrastructure, without a single shot fired in response.</span></p>
<p><span>There is no doubt that the position of the Resistance to an expansionist, apartheid, Israeli, colonial project worsened considerably since my arrival in Lebanon in October. While Israel could not progress a ground offensive, the almost total absence of any air defences for Lebanon meant it could murder and destroy with impunity from the air.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Israel embarked on a</span> <a href="https://youtu.be/uG_k_IIFR8o"><span>campaign of devastation</span></a> <span>of purely civilian areas by aerial bombardment. Of that I am an eye witness. I can say from personal inspection that the claims that the tens of thousands of homes destroyed had any military use are a massive lie.</span></span></p>
<p><span><span>With no defence against a relentless bombing campaign, and with most of their leadership eliminated, Hezbollah were obliged to accede to a</span> <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/?s=ceasefire"><span>suicidally unbalanced</span></a> <span>“ceasefire agreement.” It is plain on the actual face of the agreement that only one side will cease fire.</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>“There is no doubt that the position of the Resistance to an expansionist apartheid Israeli colonial project worsened considerably since my arrival in Lebanon in October.”</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span>All Lebanese groups are to cease fire without qualification whereas Israel is only to cease “offensive” operations. Israel of course claims all its attacks as defensive. This is absolute nonsense, but despite over 500 violations of the ceasefire agreement, killing hundreds of people, Israel has not been held accountable because Hezbollah acceded to a ceasefire guaranteed by a “Mechanism” which is chaired by a United States general.</span></p>
<p><span><span>I think my discussion on this point with the U.N. spokesman in Lebanon was extremely important, especially where he explicitly states that the ceasefire agreement was drafted by the U.S.</span> <a href="https://youtu.be/tV9WeicKjeU?t=1367"><span>This link</span></a> <span>takes you to the key point in the interview.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The members of the “Mechanism” overseeing the ceasefire are the United States, France, Israel and the Lebanese government of General Joseph Aoun, a total U.S. puppet.</span></p>
<p><span>Furthermore while the ceasefire agreement provides for a zone south of the Litani River from which Hezbollah must remove its weapons, it also calls for Hezbollah disarmament throughout the whole of Lebanon, which the Israelis and Americans have used to justify numerous continuing Israeli strikes in the Bekaa Valley, the Syrian border and even Beirut.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah are not a formal party to the agreement but it was sanctioned by them before signature. Personally I find it difficult to imagine that Nasrallah would ever have accepted such a position.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124751" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124751" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Nikos_Christodoulides_meets_with_Joseph_Aoun.jpg" alt width="1920" height="1440" data-sanitized-class="wp-image-124751 size-full"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124751" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span> Aoun, on right, in January, with Cyprus’ President Nikos Christodoulides. <span>(Stavros Ioannides, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY-SA 4.0</a></p>
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<p><span>At the same time, Hezbollah’s domestic political position has been also greatly weakened. They were obliged to accept effectively the U.S. imposition of General Aoun as president, which they had been resisting for over two years. They also then found themselves accepting his nomination of the openly anti-Hezbollah Nawaf Salam as prime minister.</span></p>
<p><span>I referred earlier to Lebanon’s “confessional” constitutional arrangements, and said I would give more detail. The president must be a Christian, the prime minister a Sunni and the speaker of Parliament a Shiite.</span></p>
<p><span>But it does not stop there. The governing agreement specifies the division of ministerial positions too. Not only among Sunni, Shia and Christian, but to include several other groupings, of which the best known is Druze. There are others, particularly various specific sects of Christianity.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah has operated through the Amal Movement in providing the Shiite ministers, but it is a key fact that it has always had important allies among Christian, anti-Israeli occupation factions who have filled important ministerial posts.</span></p>
<p><span><span>The loss of Hezbollah power within Lebanon is to be found within the detail of all these ministries. In claiming to appoint a “technocratic,” apolitical administration, Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam have</span> <a href="https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1447823/salam-government-a-reflection-of-transformation-in-lebanons-political-landscape.html"><span>in fact excluded</span></a> <span>most of Hezbollah’s support. </span></span></p>
<p><span>It is in practice almost impossible to find a Shiite in Lebanon who is not pro-Hezbollah, but Aoun and Salam have certainly done their best. More pertinently, they have almost totally excluded Hezbollah and anti-Zionist sympathisers from the ministerial representation of Sunni and the assorted minority and smaller Christian groups, while simultaneously boosting the de facto influence of the fascist Lebanese Forces sympathisers.</span></p>
<p><span>Hezbollah has not been this politically weak in the Lebanese institutions for 20 years, which is why the show of mass popular support at Nasrallah’s funeral was so important to them. </span></p>
<p><span>However, given Lebanon’s electoral system with its deliberate Christian bias, piling up popular support is of little use to Hezbollah electorally. There are Christian MPs in Parliament elected with under 500 votes, while Hezbollah could put on another 100,000 votes without significantly increasing their representation.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Crucially the “ministerial statement” of the aims of the new government</span> <a href="https://today.lorientlejour.com/article/1448323/resistance-excluded-from-the-ministerial-statement-of-salams-cabinet.html"><span>excluded resistance</span></a> <span>to Israel as an objective — a key change — and specified the state’s monopoly on carrying arms, a reference to the full disarmament of Hezbollah.</span></span></p>
<p><span><strong>‘Greater Israel’ </strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124741" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124741" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/02/Ahmad_al-Shara_greets_Hadja_Lahbib_in_Syria-scaled.jpg" alt width="2560" height="1706" data-sanitized-class="size-full wp-image-124741"><p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124741" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Syria’s President Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known by his fighting name al-Jolani, greeting European Commissioner Hadja Lahbib in Syria on Jan. 17. <span>(European Union, Wikimedia Commons,</span></span> <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-sanitized-class="mw-mmv-license">CC BY 4.0)</a></p>
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<p><span>Finally, of course, Hezbollah’s archenemies, HTS, are now in power in Damascus. Hezbollah fought off repeated Al Qaeda/Al Nusra/ISIS attempts to invade Lebanon and also intervened against these forces within Syria [at the invitation of the Assad government.] Al-Jolani [a.k.a. al-Sharaa] coming to power represents a major disruption to Hezbollah’s supply lines from Iran.</span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. and Israel are attempting to turn up this pressure by frequent aerial attacks on border crossings from Syria and on Hezbollah individuals within Lebanon. Recently they took the additional measure of banning pilgrimage flights to and from Iran, which greatly angered the Shia community and was aimed at cutting off a route for physical supplies of cash.</span></p>
<p><span>What is uncertain is what secret accommodations General Aoun may have reached with Hezbollah, over whether their physical disarmament throughout Lebanon under U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701 and the Ceasefire Agreement is a genuine process or a show. Politically, Aoun and Salam have strongly planted their banner for real disarmament of Hezbollah.</span></p>
<p><span>What appears beyond dispute is that the Israelis receive a continued flow of intelligence from Lebanese sources on Hezbollah personnel movements and sites, and the U.S.-sanctioned, intense, Israeli bombing campaign shows no sign of abating.</span></p>
<p><span>We can add to this sad fact that Israel was able to use the Ceasefire Agreement to occupy parts of Southern Lebanon which Hezbollah had successfully defended during the war, and that Israel has destroyed by demolition thousands of homes and other civilian buildings under cover of the ceasefire to add to those destroyed during the war.</span></p>
<p><span><span>Indeed Israel demolishes more buildings in Southern Lebanon every day still, and has now destroyed over 90,000 buildings in Lebanon in total.</span> <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/12/lebanon-and-syria-my-interview-for-lindipendente/"><span>As I predicted</span></a><span>, Israel is building five permanent military outposts in Southern Lebanon and has made plain it has no intention of leaving.</span></span></p>
<p><span>The U.S. puppet government in Beirut, like the U.S. puppet government in Damascus, plainly has no intention of any realistic action against de facto Israeli annexation of its land. While Hezbollah has signalled a reversion to past tactics of guerilla warfare, I have serious doubts about both its current capacity, both political and military.</span></p>
<p><span>Of the enduring heroism of the people of South Lebanon I have no doubt, and I also have no doubt that as Israel is maintaining an illegal occupation, their legal right of armed resistance is unimpeachable.</span></p>
<p><span>It is however foolish not to acknowledge that with Israel expanding into Lebanon and Syria, with U.S. puppet regimes in Beirut and Damascus, with genocide about to restart in Gaza and spreading into the West Bank, and with an apparently crazed level of open Zionist support from U.S. President Donald Trump that is in fact only more honest than the pro-genocide positions of the large majority of Western governments, the current position looks bleak indeed.</span></p>
<p><span><strong><span>“Of the enduring heroism of the people of South Lebanon I have no doubt, and I also have no doubt that as Israel is maintaining an illegal occupation, their legal right of armed resistance is unimpeachable.”</span></strong></span></p>
<p><span>The only grounds for hope is that I cannot imagine that the people of the region are going to tolerate Israeli collaborationist regimes in Damascus, Beirut and Ramallah much longer. Indeed with slight variations you might say the same of the entire Arab worlds.</span></p>
<p><span>I hope you will forgive this being a very personal post as I try to make sense of my experiences and assimilate much new knowledge into my view of the worlds.</span></p>
<p><span>I went to Lebanon knowing literally nobody in the country, and with an introduction to just one person who helped us through immigration, but whose assistance thereafter did not work out. I did so accompanied by Niels as cinematographer, despite my never really having worked in video before, and my not being very accomplished at it. On top of which we had no financial resources except for our crowdfunding, which was not going well.</span></p>
<p><span>I now realise just how deeply ignorant I was about Lebanon before arriving. </span></p>
<p><span><span>The truth is, I wanted to go to Gaza but could find no way to get in. I had applied to Israel for the required permission from the</span> <span>Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (</span><span>COGAT) to enter the West Bank, but had been refused. So Lebanon was the one place under Israeli aggression where I could actually hope to get in to document and report on Israeli atrocities.</span></span></p>
<p><span>This venture was also born out of a rather desperate feeling that I must try to do something. I had been involved in the genesis of the ICJ case against Israel for committing genocide and in international campaigning for Palestine, but felt so helpless watching murdered children in Gaza every day on social media, that I felt compelled to do more.</span></p>
<p><span>With war against the Israeli invaders raging in Lebanon, I admit I also had a compulsion to share at least some of the danger of those putting their lives at stake. In truth, I felt like something of a fraud to be writing about it from home if I was not prepared to experience it.</span></p>
<p><span>Well, at times Lebanon really was dangerous for us, but I am extremely proud of what Niels and I achieved. The six mini-documentaries reached millions of people and I think genuinely informed the Western public. </span></p>
<p><span>I think the interview with the U.N. was extremely revealing and important and wish I had been able to get a rather wider audience for it. On top of which we produced numerous shorter video pieces, written articles and interviews with alternative media outlets across the globe, as well as doing a lot of Arab mainstream media.</span></p>
<p><span>In the end we had to leave because it proved simply not possible to meet the substantial costs of the venture by individual subscriptions and donations, and I ran out of money. It was a bold experiment in being able to do the kind of real, on-the-ground journalism that legacy media has abandoned, but to continue would require more fundraising ability or organisational ability than I possess.</span></p>
<p><span>There is no doubt that we suffered — and still suffer — massive social media suppression, and this limitation of reach is what crippled fundraising efforts. Essentially we were asking the same people for donations again and again, which is both impractical and, I admit, I found personally difficult and undignified.</span></p>
<p><span>So I shall continue reporting from my base in Scotland, travelling the world as occasion demands. My knowledge has been hugely expanded by my time in Beirut. I will now largely revert to written rather than video format. The struggle for justice goes on, and my commitment to it remains.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Craig Murray is an author, broadcaster and human rights activist. He was British ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004 and rector of the University of Dundee from 2007 to 2010. </strong></span></p>
<p><span><em><span>The author’s coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/support-this-website/">gratefully received</a>. Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, he has set up new methods of payment including a <a href="https://www.gofundme.com/f/independent-and-true-reporting-of-israels-attack-on-lebanon">GoFundMe appeal</a> and a <a href="http://patreon.com/CraigMurray">Patreon account</a>.</span> He has also started a <a href="https://craigmurrayorg.substack.com/">Substack account</a> <span>if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you directly every time he posts. You can, if you wish, subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. <span>The</span> author is determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.</span></em></span></p>
<p><span><em>This article is from</em> <a href="https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2024/11/lebanons-unbalanced-ceasefire-teeters-on-the-brink/"><em>CraigMurray.org.uk</em></a></span></p>
<p><span><em>The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of</em> <strong>Consortium News</strong><strong><em>.</em></strong></span></p>

tags:
#Commentary #Iran #Israel #Lebanon #Middle East #Palestine #Syria #Trump Administration #U.S. #United Nations #Abu Mohammed al-Jolani #Ahmad al-Sharaa #armed resistance #Craig Murray #Hay’at Tahrir Sham (HTS) #Hezbollah #Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah #Zionism


guid: https://consortiumnews.com/?p=124764
title: Trump, Vance School Zelensky on Reality of His War
author: ;Consortiumnews.com
link: https://consortiumnews.com/2025/03/01/trump-vance-school-zelensky-on-reality-of-his-war/
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<p><span><strong>The embattled Ukraine president, believing his own propaganda, was dressed down before the cameras in the Oval Office Friday by a fed-up president and vice president of the United States, reports Joe Lauria.</strong><span data-sanitized-id="more-124764"></span></span></p>
<p><iframe title="Full Meeting between President Trump, VP Vance and Ukrainian President Zelenskyy in Oval Office" width="860" height="484" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/7pxbGjvcdyY?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen" sandbox="allow-scripts allow-same-origin">[embedded content]</iframe></p>
<p><span><span><strong>By</strong> <strong><span><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/tag/joe-lauria/">Joe Lauria</a></span><br></strong></span><span><em>Special to Consortium News</em></span></span></p>
<p><span><strong><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1New-Joe-Hed.png" data-sanitized-class="image-anchor"><img decoding="async" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/1New-Joe-Hed-100x100.png" alt width="100" height="100" data-sanitized-class="alignleft size-thumbnail wp-image-88773"></a></strong></span></p>
<p><span><span><strong>V</strong></span>olodymyr Zelensky has become accustomed to being feted in Western cities as the second-coming of Churchill, appearing before awards ceremonies, film festivals, the New York Stock Exchange and various national parliaments, (though the Academy Awards twice turned him down.)</span></p>
<p><span>All that came crashing down on him Friday in the 102-foot circumference, 816 sq. foot office at the epicenter of still the most powerful nation on earth, He was met by a buzzsaw of resistance from the president and vice president of the United States. Zelensky was dressed down, even about his dress, being told he was ungrateful, disrespectful, had lost to Russia and was risking “World War III.”</span></p>
<p><span>It’s still hard to register that a factual alternative to the West’s propaganda story on Ukraine has largely been accepted by President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance in a dramatic reversal from the office’s last occupant.</span></p>
<p><span>While there are members of Trump’s national security team, such as Secretary of State Marco Rubio and National Security Advisor Michael Waltz, who previously swallowed whole the fantasy of Russia’s “unprovoked” invasion of an “innocent” Ukraine, there were two officials who during Trump’s campaign likely filled him in on the facts. </span></p>
<p><span>One was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who in numerous speeches when he ran his own campaign for president, displayed an intimate knowledge of the causes of the Ukraine war — NATO expansion, the 2014 U.S. backed coup in Kiev, the beginning of the war by Ukraine against coup resistors in Eastern Ukraine and the U.S. rejection of Russian diplomacy to avoid war.</span></p>
<p><span>The other was Tulsi Gabbard, who likewise made clear her profound understanding of the realities of the war. Kennedy is out of the sphere of foreign policy as health and human resources secretary, but Gabbard gives the presidential brief to Trump everyday at 11:15 am.</span></p>
<p><span>No doubt she prepped him for Zelensky’s now infamous Oval Office encounter on Friday. </span></p>
<p><span><strong>Zelenksy’s Humiliation</strong></span></p>
<p><span>Trump humiliated Zelensky from the moment he greeted him on arrival at the front door of the White House. Trump sarcastically remarked, “Oh, you’re all dressed up,” referring to Zelenksy, who wore a black T-shirt with Ukraine’s trident symbol in the guise of a military uniform.</span></p>
<p><span>The blogger known as Simplicius the Thinker weighed in on the significance of Zelensky’s humiliation over his attire after a reporter later asked him if he even owns a suit.</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“This exchange highlights precisely the main takeaway—which is that the artificially constructed <em>image</em> of Zelensky is no longer useful, and has been tossed away like a used rag. All the false bravado and olive drab khakis—it all served a purpose for the past three years, with Zelensky built up like some kind of John Rambo-Churchill; the ‘sacred’ attire would have never been questioned before, because it represented the <em>theater</em> of it all, the carefully stage-managed production. Now that the play has run its course, failing to turn a profit, the ‘act’ has grown old and we’re immediately allowed a view under the costume.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>The meeting began calmly enough with Trump praising Ukraine’s “very brave fighters.” Trump said:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“So I give tremendous credit to your generals and your soldiers and yourself in the sense that, it’s been very hard fighting, very tough fighting, great fighters. And, you have to be very proud of them. That’s terrible. But now we want to get it over with. It’s enough.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Trump said he had spoken to Russian President Vladimir Putin “and we’re going to try to bring this to a close. It’s something that you want and that he wants. We have to negotiate a deal.” Zelensky widened his eyes at “something that you want.”  </span></p>
<p><span>“We’ve started the confines of a deal and I think something can happen,” Trump said. “I will say, until we came along, the Biden administration didn’t speak to Russia whatsoever. They didn’t speak to anybody. They just allowed this to continue.”</span></p>
<p><span>Trump said: “It’s a somewhat of an exciting moment, but the really exciting moment is when … they stop the shooting or we end up with the deal, and I think we’re fairly close to getting that.” </span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky said he counted on Trump “to stop Putin.” He said “enough with the war” should have been said at the beginning because “he [Putin] is a killer and a terrorist.” Zelenksy, acting as if he was unaware of the radical change in U.S. policy under Trump, said, “I hope together we can stop him of course with no compromises of our territory with a killer.”</span></p>
<p><span>Zelenksy then made a plea for U.S. air defense systems, “the best in the world,” at which Trump scrunched his face. Zelensky made a pitch for U.S. participation with Britain and France on a peacekeeping force after a ceasefire, which Russia has rejected and which Trump said the U.S. would not take part in. </span></p>
<p><span>“Everyone is talking about security, but we have to make a deal first,” Trump said, adding that too many soldiers on both sides were still dying.</span></p>
<p><span>When Trump decried both sides’ deaths, Zelensky interjected, “They came to our territory.”</span></p>
<p><span>Asked before the Oval Office fireworks erupted whether he would continue sending military aid to Ukraine, Trump said, “We are going to send arms, sure. Hopefully I won’t have to send very much because hopefully we will have it finished quickly. We are not looking forward to sending a lot of arms.”</span></p>
<p><span>A reporter asked Zelensky whether he considers the U.S. to be on his side. “I think that the United States is on our side from the very beginning of the occupation and I think President Trump is on our side and I’m sure the United States will not stop support.” </span></p>
<p><span>By the end of the hour-long meeting, that certainty changed.  Zelensky said the important question was whether the U.S. and its allies can get Russia to withdraw from Ukraine.</span></p>
<p><span>Trump said no deal was possible without compromises. “He’s going to have to make compromises but hopefully not as big as some people think he will have to make. That’s all we can do. I’m here as a mediator between two parties that have been very hostile, to put it mildly. This has been a vicious war.”</span></p>
<p><span>“This could lead to a third world war,” Trump went on. “This was headed in the wrong direction. If we didn’t win this election … this could have very well ended up in a third world war.” [See:</span> <span><span><span><em><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/2024/11/17/on-way-out-reckless-biden-allows-deep-russia-strikes/">On Way Out, Reckless Biden Allows Deep Russia Strikes</a>]</em></span></span></span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky claimed Putin broke ceasefires 25 times since 2014, during the period of the Minsk accords designed to end the Ukrainian civil war. “He broke his signature,” Zelensky said.</span></p>
<p><span>“But he never broke to me,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>Zelenksy contradicted Trump. “Since 2016 you’ve been the president.”</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124771" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2-TRUMP-AND-Z.png"><img fetchpriority="high" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124771" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/2-TRUMP-AND-Z-1000x526.png" alt width="1117" height="587" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124771"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124771" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Zelensky and Trump square off in Oval Office. <span>(C-Span screenshot)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>What Zelensky failed to mention is that Angela Merkel, former French President Francois Hollande and Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko all admitted they never took the Minsk accords seriously and strung Russia along to buy time for NATO to arm and train Ukraine.</span></p>
<p><span>Trump said more than once that he didn’t want to talk about security guarantees until there was a peace settlement. “That’s two percent of the problem,” Trump said. The tension between the two men starting building as Zelensky again contradicted him saying there could be no ceasefire without a security guarantee.</span></p>
<p><span>“Putin’s soldiers are afraid of our soldiers when we are strong enough,” Zelensky said. “We will never accept just a ceasefire.” He then said the Europeans would need a U.S. backstop when they deploy to Ukraine to secure a ceasefire.</span></p>
<p><span>“Putin will never stop,” Zelensky went on. “He hates Ukrainians. He thinks we are not a nation. He wants to destroy us. Putin began this war. He has to pay.” Ukraine can use $300 billion in frozen Russia assets in Europe, he said.</span></p>
<p><span>“It’s wonderful to talk badly about someone else,” Trump said in relation to what Zelensky said about Putin. “But I’m in the middle. I’m on both sides. I want to see this end. If we can’t solve it, they are going to have to fight it out and who knows what’s going to happen.”</span></p>
<p><strong><span>A ‘Threat’ to Europe</span></strong></p>
<p><span>Zelensky then began pushing the patently bogus and dangerous idea that Ukraine is the line of defense for Europe and even the United States from Russian aggression.</span></p>
<p><span>The overarching U.S.-led aggression against Russia, which led to this conflict, is wiped away with this fairytale, leaving the insidious and ridiculous projection that Russia wants to conquer the world. Western leaders ridicule Russia for taking three years to seize only Donbass and yet say Russia will be at the gates of Paris by summer.</span></p>
<p><span>“Like the president said, you have big, nice ocean between us, but if we will not stay, Russia will go further to Baltics and to Poland,” Zelensky said. “It’s understandable to them because they have been the U.S.S.R. … and Putin wants to bring them back to his empire.” </span></p>
<p><span>“It’s a fact,” Zelensky lied, “and when he will go there, if we will not stay, you will fight. American soldiers. It doesn’t matter you have ocean or not, your soldiers will fight.”</span></p>
<p><span>It’s impossible to know whether Zelensky is stupid enough to believe such rubbish, or smart and cynical enough to utter what he knows are baseless falsehoods to dupe Western publics into continuing to support military aid to his country to keep fighting a lost cause.</span></p>
<p><span>Even if this were Putin’s grand design, and there is zero indication it is, he does not have the military capability to carry it out. He has sought to avoid the prospect of attacking a NATO nation — which the Baltics and Poland are — triggering an Article 5 response and possible world and nuclear war.   </span></p>
<p><span>Though Zelensky began this desperate, scaremongering lecture of the U.S. president in the Oval Office, Trump already <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3mv9-hBH8tQ">made clear</a> a couple of weeks ago that he does not buy the B.S. story of Putin threatening the entire Western world. </span></p>
<p><span>What people like Zelenksy who push this nonsense fail to mention is that there’s been no coup in the Baltics with the government then attacking Russian speaking enclaves in their countries, giving no reason for Russia to intervene. Zelensky and his backers completely remove the history preceding Russia’s intervention into Ukraine, portraying Putin simply as a bloodthirsty madman bent on world conquest — a veritable villain out of a James Bond movie.</span></p>
<p><span>Ignoring this, Trump then pressed on with the need for a peace deal. He spoke of many destroyed Ukrainian cities. Zelensky, rose the temperature between them by interrupting him.</span></p>
<p><span>“No, no, no Mr. President you have to come and to look. We have very good cities. Yes a lot of things have been destroyed but mostly cities alive. And people work. And children go to school. .. Ukrainian is fighting and it lives.”</span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky then indirectly accused Trump of being duped by Russian disinformation. “Maybe it is Putin who is sharing that he has destroyed us,” he said.</span></p>
<p><span>“He has lost 700,000 soldiers,” Zelensky lied.</span></p>
<p><span>The fiercely anti-Putin Pussy Riot, in partnership with the fiercely anti-Putin BBC Russia service, runs a <a href="https://200.zona.media/">project</a> to keep track of Russian war casualties and their <a href="https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20250225-kremlin-no-comment-on-report-95-000-russian-troops-killed-in-ukraine">figure</a> of Russia’s war dead stands at 95,000.</span></p>
<p><span>If Russia had lost 750,000 men as Zelensky claims, how has it conquered and held so much territory?</span></p>
<p><span>It is Zelensky who is running out of men, being forced by the Biden administration to lower the recruiting age to 18 to send even younger men to the front to die. </span></p>
<p><span>Asked about Putin, Trump said he’d known him a long time. “He had to suffer through the Russia hoax, you know, Russia, Russia, Russia. It was all Biden. It was nothing to do with him,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>Later he added: “Putin respects me. Let me tell you, Putin went through a hell of a lot with me. He went through a phony witch hunt where they used him and Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia. He had to go through that. And we didn’t end up in a war. He was accused of all that stuff and he had nothing to do with it.”</span></p>
<p><span>Democrats have themselves to blame, in other words, for making them both the targets of their operation and perhaps driving them closer together.  That of course is not a bad thing if it leads to a resolution of the war and cooperation between the two largest nuclear weapons powers.</span></p>
<p><span>“All I’ve done my whole life is make deals and I’m in the middle of a real mess,” Trump said. “And it’s a dangerous one.”</span></p>
<p><span>Asked about being too aligned with Putin, Trump said, “I’m not aligned with Putin. I’m not aligned with anybody. I’m aligned with the United States of America and for the good of the world. I’m aligned with the world. And I want to get this thing over with.” </span></p>
<p><span>Pointing to Zelensky, he said: “Look at the hatred he’s got for Putin. It’s very tough for me to make a deal with that kind of hate. The other side isn’t exactly in love with him either.” </span></p>
<p><span><strong>Enter Vance</strong></span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124772" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/JD-ALONE.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124772" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/JD-ALONE-1000x565.png" alt width="1003" height="567" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124772"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124772" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Vance in the Oval Office with Zelensky. <span>(C-Span screenshot)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>The vice president then entered the fray. Like Trump, Vance  failed to give historical context to the conflict. It would be easy for them politically, because they could blame a Democrat, Barack Obama, for letting this “mess” happen.</span></p>
<p><span>The Obama administration was in power when the U.S. backed the 2014 coup that toppled the democratically elected Ukrainian president. It was the Obama administration that greenlighted the coup government starting the war that still rages today by attacking the Russian-speaking Donbass region, which defended its democratic rights by rejecting the coup. </span></p>
<p><span>It was the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations, as well as Germany and France, that did not press Ukraine to abide by the Minsk accords.  Kennedy and Gabbard know this history in great detail and no doubt have shared it with Trump and Vance. </span></p>
<p><span>For example, Gabbard said this on the day before Russia’s intervention into the war, <a href="https://x.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1496695830715142148?lang=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-testid="standard-link">Feb. 23, 2022</a>:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“This war and suffering could have easily been avoided if Biden Admin/NATO had simply acknowledged Russia’s legitimate security concerns regarding Ukraine’s becoming a member of NATO, which would mean US/NATO forces right on Russia’s border.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Gabbard showed that she knows about the U.S.-backed coup in Ukraine, saying on <a href="https://www.tulsigabbard.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener" data-testid="standard-link">her podcast, Oct. 18, 2022</a>:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“This regime-change war that the United States and NATO are waging via their proxy in Ukraine didn’t begin when Putin invaded Ukraine. They had their eyes set on this objective long before that.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>But Vance started the history with blaming Joe Biden, saying he was all talk and no action and had let Russia invade.  Trump on the other hand was “engaging in diplomacy. That’s what President Trump is doing.”</span></p>
<p><span>By not knowing the history Trump and Vance left the</span> <span>door open for Zelensky to peddle his fake version of the history’s conflict in fractured English:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Big parts of Ukraine, parts of East and Crimea. So he occupied it in 2014. So during a lot of years, I’m not speaking about just Biden, but …  President Obama, then President Trump, then President Biden, and now President Trump, and God bless, now President Trump will stop him. But during 2014, nobody stopped him. He just occupied and took, he killed people, you know on the contact line —“</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Here Trump interrupted, “2015.” </span></p>
<p><span>“2014,” said Zelensky.</span></p>
<p><span>“Oh, 2014,” said a befuddled Trump, as if this was the first time he was hearing about any of this. “I was not here.” he said.</span></p>
<p><span>“During 2014 to 2022 the situation was the same,” Zelensky continued. “People are been dying on the contact line [separating the breakaway Donbass regions with the rest of Ukraine.]</span></p>
<p><span>“Nobody stopped him,” he said, completely omitting that Ukraine had begun the war with military attacks against the breakaway regions in April 2014 in an attempt not “to stop him,” but to stop the ethnic Russians from seceding from Ukraine. Here Zelensky engages in the mythmaking of reducing a complex military conflict by two sides to the behavior of just one man. </span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky said he signed “the deal” in 2019 with Putin, Merkel and Macron, “ceasefire, ceasefire” and “all of them told me that he would never go … and after that he broken the ceasefire. He killed our people. We signed exchange of prisoners, but he didn’t do it.”</span></p>
<p><span>(But according to Zelensky’s former chief of staff, Andriy Bohdan, Zelensky is lying because Ukraine “screwed” Putin by <a href="https://gordonua.com/publications/uvolnjaja-menja-zelenskij-skazal-ty-kak-neljubimaja-zhenshchina-polnyj-tekst-intervju-bogdana-gordonu-1517453.html">not keeping its end</a> of the 2019 deal with Russia.)</span></p>
<p><span>“What kind of diplomacy, J.D. are you speaking about?” Zelensky asked. </span></p>
<p><span>“I’m talking about the kind of diplomacy that is going to end the destruction of your country,” Vance replied.</span></p>
<p><span>Vance then snapped, cutting off Zelensky:</span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“Mr. President, Mr. president, with respect, I think it’s disrespectful for you to come to the Oval Office to try to litigate this in front of the American media. Right now, you guys are going around and forcing conscripts to the front lines because you have manpower problems. You should be thanking the president for trying to bring an end to this conflict.”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>“Have you ever been to Ukraine that you say, what problems we have?” Zelensky responded as if a vice president with access to classified U.S. information cannot learn about the military and political situation of a country without having visited it.</span></p>
<p><span>“Come once,” Zelensky said,</span></p>
<p><span>His voice rising, Vance said: </span></p>
<blockquote>
<p><span>“I know that what happens is you bring people, you bring them on a propaganda tour. Mr. President. Do you disagree that you’ve had problems like bringing people into your military? And do you think that it’s respectful to come to the Oval Office of the United States of America and attack the administration that is trying to prevent the destruction of your country?”</span></p>
</blockquote>
<p><span>Here the meeting starts going off the rails.</span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky: “During the war, everybody has problems, even you. But you have nice ocean and don’t feel now, but you will feel it in the future. God bless you.”</span></p>
<p><span>“You don’t know that,” Trump interjected. “You don’t know that. Don’t tell us what we’re going to feel. We are trying to solve a problem.”</span></p>
<p><span>“I’m not trying –” Zelensky began.</span></p>
<p><span>“You are in no position to dictate what we are going to feel,” snapped Trump. “We’re going to feel very good, very strong. You’re right now not in a very good position. You’ve allowed yourselves to be in a very bad position.”</span></p>
<p><span>Here Trump is rejecting Zelensky’s fear mongering and attempted blackmail that if the U.S. doesn’t accede to his demands Russia will attack the U.S. </span></p>
<p><span>This is the same kind of insanity we heard from the likes of Congressman Adam Schiff during Trump’s 2019 impeachment (for a phone call with Zelensky), when he said, “We have to fight the Russians over there [in Ukraine] so we don’t have to fight them over here [in America].” </span></p>
<p><span>Trump told Zelensky that “you don’t have the cards right now. With us you start having cards.”</span></p>
<p><span>“I’m not playing cards, I’m very serious Mr, President,” Zelensky said, not understanding the metaphor.</span></p>
<p><span>“You’re playing cards,” Trump insisted. “You’re gambling with the lives of millions of people. You’re gambling with World War Three.”</span></p>
<p><span>And of course Zelensky has been, acting, with the Biden administration, as if saving his country was worth risking a nuclear holocaust. </span></p>
<p><span>“What you are doing is disrespectful to the country, this country that backed you far more than a lot of people said they should have,” said Trump.</span></p>
<p><span>After Vance angrily said Zelensky had been ungrateful for the help the U.S. has given him, Zelensky said, “Please if you think that by speaking loudly you can…” </span></p>
<p><span>“He’s not speaking loudly,” Trump said, “Your country is in big trouble. No, no, no, you’ve done a lot of talking.”</span></p>
<p><span>“Your country is in big trouble,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>“I know,”  Zelensky replied.</span></p>
<p><span>“You’re not winning this,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky’s mouth started opening to say, “I know,” but he stopped.</span></p>
<p><span>“You have a damned good chance of coming out okay because of us,” Trump said.</span></p>
<div data-sanitized-id="attachment_124773" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption aligncenter"><a href="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/JD-Z.png"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-124773" src="https://consortiumnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/JD-Z-1000x490.png" alt width="1099" height="538" data-sanitized-class=" wp-image-124773"></a>
<p data-sanitized-id="caption-attachment-124773" data-sanitized-class="wp-caption-text"><span>Zelensky, Trump and Vance. <span>(C-Span screenshot)</span></span></p>
</div>
<p><span>When Zelensky tried to say Ukraine has been alone from the start of the war, Trump cut him off: “You haven’t been alone because this stupid president gave you $350 billion. We gave you military equipment. You and you men are brave, but they have to use our military money. If you didn’t have our military equipment this war would have been over in two weeks.”</span></p>
<p><span>“It’s gonna be very hard to do business like this,” Trump said.</span></p>
<p><span>After Vance said the argument that broke out should not have happened in front of the American media, Trump said: “I think it’s good for the American people to see what’s going on. I think it’s very important. That’s why I kept this going so long.”</span></p>
<p><span>He told Zelensky: “If you can get a ceasefire now I’d take it because then the bullets stop flying and your men stop getting killed.”</span></p>
<p><span>The public row ended with Trump saying it was “great television.” A lunch, signing ceremony on a minerals deal and a press conference was cancelled and Zelensky left the White House.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Horrified Reactions</strong></span></p>
<p><span>The reactions of mainstream politicians and media was predictable.</span></p>
<p><span>Bernie Sanders. wrote on X: “Trump criticizes Zelenskyy, the leader of a democratic country who is courageously fighting Russian imperialism, while he aligns himself with Putin, the dictator who started the bloodiest European war in 80 years. Sorry, President Trump. We believe in democracy, not authoritarianism.”</span></p>
<p><span>Schiff wrote: “There was only one person acting presidential in the Oval Office today: Volodymyr Zelenskyy. He stood up to bullies in a Kremlin-style shakedown. What will it take to awaken the conscience of the country after such a shameful display?”</span></p>
<p><span>Former EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Josep Borrell wrote on X:  “Trump and Vance put on a shameful show. I am ashamed of this behavior. The United States deserves something better. The free world must support Ukraine. I was and remain with Zelensky.”</span></p>
<p><span>Johann David Wadepool, deputy leader of the newly elected CDU party in Germany, wrote: “How can you stab the president of an occupied country in the back like that? Free Europe will not betray Ukraine.”</span></p>
<p><span>A good deal of work by the media is trying to find out what is said in frank, closed door conversations between leaders.  Here it was all out in the open, incredible transparency that most journalists would die for, but instead we hear petty criticisms of Trump in the media for his frank behavior in front of the cameras.   </span></p>
<p><span><strong>What Will it Mean</strong></span></p>
<p><span>One can assume that the U.S. will cut Zelensky loose if he does not agree to America’s terms to end the war. It might just be a matter of time before arms shipments will end and Zelensky will be solely dependent on Europe. </span></p>
<p><span>That Zelensky and the Europeans do not yet accept that the war is lost and they should cut the best deal possible is something to behold.</span></p>
<p><span>It can only get worse for Ukraine from here going forward. Russia may aim to take even more territory, including Odessa, about which Trump said he did not want to talk.</span></p>
<p><span>Zelensky will look back on this Oval Office meeting as yet another blown opportunity, like walking away from the March 2022 Istanbul deal, to end the suffering of his people.</span></p>
<p><span>It is suffering brought about by the 2014 coup and Kiev’s launching of a war, which it called an “ant-terror” operation against Ukrainian citizens who simply wanted their vote to count, that has now lead to this.</span></p>
<p><span><strong>Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of</strong> <em><strong>Consortium News</strong></em> <strong>and a former U.N. correspondent for</strong> <em><strong>T</strong></em><em><strong>he Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe</strong></em><strong>, and other newspapers, including <em>The Montreal Gazette,</em> the London <em>Daily Mail</em> and <em>The Star</em> of Johannesburg. He was an investigative reporter for the</strong> <em><strong>Sunday Times</strong></em> <strong>of London, a financial reporter for <em>Bloomberg News</em> and began his professional work as a 19-year old stringer for</strong> <em><strong>The New York Times.</strong></em> <strong>He is the author of two books, <em>A Political Odyssey</em>, with Sen. Mike Gravel, foreword by Daniel Ellsberg; and <em>How I Lost By Hillary Clinton</em>, foreword by Julian Assange.</strong></span></p>

tags:
#Analysis #Commentary #Russia #Ukraine #Adam Schiff #Bernie Sanders #Donald Trump #J.D. Vance #Joe Biden #Joe Lauria #Robert F. Kennedy Jr. #Tulsi Gabbard #Volodmyr Zelensky


title: One Voice Children&amp;#039;s Choir sends love vibes across China
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<div data-width="1920" data-height="1080" data-video="https://video.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-29/One-Voice-Children-s-Choir-sends-love-vibes-across-China-1AxvuXvFPlm/video/wu_1iim94vbi1v001q0rtpsqsirfp470u/wu_1iim94vbi1v001q0rtpsqsirfp470u.m3u8" data-is360="false" data-newsid="478164" data-poster="https://video.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-29/One-Voice-Children-s-Choir-sends-love-vibes-across-China-1AxvuXvFPlm/video/wu_1iim94vbi1v001q0rtpsqsirfp470u/wu_1iim94vbi1v001q0rtpsqsirfp470u.jpg" data-is4k="false" data-sanitized-id="c_videoGENERAL_NEWS_A_checkvideo0Play-myOverlay" data-sanitized-class="click-to-play-overlay J_player_container_main">


<p>14:50</p>
<img src="https://video.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-29/One-Voice-Children-s-Choir-sends-love-vibes-across-China-1AxvuXvFPlm/video/wu_1iim94vbi1v001q0rtpsqsirfp470u/wu_1iim94vbi1v001q0rtpsqsirfp470u.jpg" alt></div>
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<p><em><strong>Editor's Note:</strong></em> On the eve of the Chinese New Year, soul-stirring songs and heartfelt melodies have captivated Chinese audiences as U.S.-based One Voice Children's Choir toured China's major cities for the second time from Dec 27 to Jan 13 and interacted with local young people. In this edition of The Hub, Wang Guan talks to Masa Fukuda, Tanner DeWaal, and Michelle Boothe, the artistic and managerial brains behind the choir, to discuss how this unique connection has left a lasting impression on them. The choir's performance of a Chinese song at Beijing's Temple of Heaven was a highlight that took China's social media by storm. It was intended as a gesture of respect and appreciation for the country's culture and history. "There's so many amazing things happening in China," notes Tanner, as he deplores that too often U.S. media make negative reports and "sensationalize" news about China.</p>
</div>

link:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-29/One-Voice-Children-s-Choir-sends-love-vibes-across-China-1AxvuXvFPlm/p.html?UTM_Source=cgtn&amp;UTM_Medium=rss&amp;UTM_Campaign=Opinion

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title: TikTok refugees are head over heels about Chinese culture
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<div data-width="1920" data-height="1080" data-video="https://video.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-29/TikTok-refugees-are-head-over-heels-about-Chinese-culture-1AxvGDQ1ody/video/wu_1iim905i81muchjb1rtdqeo1g8d43r5/wu_1iim905i81muchjb1rtdqeo1g8d43r5.m3u8" data-is360="false" data-newsid="478165" data-poster="https://video.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-29/TikTok-refugees-are-head-over-heels-about-Chinese-culture-1AxvGDQ1ody/video/wu_1iim905i81muchjb1rtdqeo1g8d43r5/wu_1iim905i81muchjb1rtdqeo1g8d43r5.jpg" data-is4k="false" data-sanitized-id="c_videoGENERAL_NEWS_A_checkvideo0Play-myOverlay" data-sanitized-class="click-to-play-overlay J_player_container_main">


<p>14:46</p>
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<p><em><strong>Editor's Note:</strong></em> The Chinese Spring Festival is the perfect time for cultural discovery and making new connections, and "TikTok refugees" who have moved to social media platform RedNote after the U.S. threatened to ban TikTok can get enough of it. In this edition of The Hub, Wang Guan talks to Travis Phifer, Jeremy Barker, and Jaybill McCarthy, American content creators and users, who have been exploring Chinese culture and sharing their journeys online. "It doesn't feel like the Internet," says Jaybill, describing thekindness and friendliness he finds on RedNote. Barker reckons that he has learned "way more" about China on RedNote: "Everything bad we have been told about China over the years is a projection of the U.S. itself," he remarks. Travis recounts his "amazing experience" on RedNote, "without the hate, the trolling and the constant advertising" he saw on other platforms.</p>
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link:
https://news.cgtn.com/news/2025-01-29/TikTok-refugees-are-head-over-heels-about-Chinese-culture-1AxvGDQ1ody/p.html?UTM_Source=cgtn&amp;UTM_Medium=rss&amp;UTM_Campaign=Opinion

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