The OVER-ALL situation, suckers--WHO IS BENEFITTING ("CUI BONO") fm all the latest and recent warfare, morons?

Apollonian

Guest Columnist
The Palestinian Tragedy: Cui bono?

Pepe Escobar
October 23, 2023

As it stands we have 3 wins for the Hegemon and 1 win for its aircraft carrier nation in West Asia.

Link: https://strategic-culture.su/news/2023/10/23/the-palestinian-tragedy-cui-bono/

By now it’s fully established who is profiting from the ghastly Palestine tragedy.
As it stands we have 3 wins for the Hegemon and 1 win for its aircraft carrier nation in West Asia.
First winner is the War Party Inc., a massive bilateral scam. The White House’s $106 billion supplemental request to Congress for “assistance” especially to Ukraine and Israel is manna from Heaven to the weaponizing tentacles of the MICIMATT (military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex, in the legendary definition by Ray McGovern).
The laundromat will be on a roll, including $61.4 billion for Ukraine (more weapons and replenishing of U.S. stocks) and $14.3 for Israel (mostly air and missile defense “support”).
Second winner is The Democratic Party engineering the unavoidable change of narrative from the spectacularly failing Project Ukraine; yet that will only postpone the upcoming humiliation of NATO in 2024, which will reduce the Afghan humiliation to the status of sandbox child playing.
Third winner is setting West Asia on fire: the Straussian neocon psycho “strategy” conceived as a response to the upcoming BRICS 11, and everything in terms of Eurasia integration that was advanced at the Belt and Road Forum in Beijing last week (including nearly $100 billion in new infrastructure/development projects).
Then there’s the vertiginous acceleration of the project sponsored by genocidal Zionist maniacs: a Final Solution to the Palestinian question, mixing razing Gaza to the ground; forcing an exodus to Egypt; the West Bank turned into a cage; and, at the most extreme, a “Judaification of Al-Aqsa” , complete with an eschatological destruction of the third holiest place in Islam, to be replaced by rebuilding the Third Jewish Temple.

The “aristocratic bromance” enters the fray
Everything is of course interlinked. Vast swathes of the U.S. Deep State in tandem with the neocon-run “Biden” combo can ride the new bonanza side by side with the Israeli Deep State – their bubble protected by a massive propaganda barrage demonizing all forms of support for the Palestinian plight.
Yet there’s a problem. This “alliance” has just lost – perhaps irretrievably – the overwhelming majority of the Global South/Global Majority, which is viscerally Palestinian. Very well-educated Palestinians living in Gaza and suffering throughout the Unspeakable, fiercely denounce the ambiguous roles of Egypt, Jordan and the UAE while praising Russia, Iran and among Arab nations, Qatar, Algeria and Yemen.
All of the above spells out a stark continuity since the end of the USSR. Washington refused to dissolve NATO in 1990 to protect the immense profits of the weaponized tentacles of the MICIMATT. The logical consequence has been the Hegemon and NATO as a Global Robocop, in tandem, killing at least 4.5 million people in West Asia while displacing over 40 million, then killing, by proxy, at least half a million in Ukraine and displacing over 10 million. And counting.
In sharp contrast to the Empire of Chaos, Lies and Plunder, the Global South/Global Majority see the emergence of what a sophisticated Chinese scholar delightfully described as an “aristocratic bromance” at the center of the “present nexus of Universal History”.
Exhibit A is provided by Vladimir Putin commenting, “I cannot praise Xi Jinping because it would be as if I’m praising myself & that would be an embarrassing thing to do.”
Yes: Putin and Xi – those “evil autocrats” for Atlanticist totalitarian liberals – are bosom buddies and in fact soul mates. That leads our Chinese scholar to get deeper not only into their mutual understanding but also the increasingly complex links between arguably the last three Sovereign Civilization-States: China, Russia and Iran.
Our Chinese scholar shows that Putin and Xi “have practically the same reading of the geopolitical reality” apart from being the leaders of two out of three real Sovereigns”, and are “willing and capable to act rightly” in order to stop the Hegemon matrix:
“They have the understanding, the vision, the tools of power, the will and right now the favorable circumstances allowing them to put definite and definitive limits to the pretensions coming from the Anglo-Zio-American establishment.”
So it’s no wonder they are feared, despised and depicted as “existential threats” to “Western civilization”.
Dmitry Medvedev, deputy chairman of Russia’s Security Council, with his eyes on realpolitik, allows himself a way more blunt assessment: “Led by the U.S., the world is steadily rolling into a deep abyss. The decisions made clearly point not only to irreversible mental deterioration, but also to loss of the remaining shreds of conscience. These decisions, both significant and minor, are glaring symptoms of the epidemic social disease.”
Israel’s serial binge to elevate the concept of “crimes against humanity” to a whole new level does fit the definition of an “epidemic social disease” – and worse. Tel Aviv has embarked on a path to erase any cultural, religious, civic footprint in northern Gaza; raze it to the ground; expel its residents; and annex it. All that fully legitimized by the “rules-based international order” and its lowly vassals.

Dragging West Asia into war
It’s always instructive to compare the Israeli dream of a Final Solution with facts on the ground. So let’s call Lt Gen Andrey Gurulev, a member of the State Duma Commission for reviewing federal budget expenditures on national defense, national security and law enforcement, and a member of the Duma Committee on Defense.
Here are Gurulev’s key points:
“Israeli bombings have no effect militarily.”
“Armed people in Palestine are in shelters, civilians are dying in residential buildings. We went through this in Syria, when in Damascus, for example, they sit in underground tunnels and come out only when necessary. Hamas prepared 100%, it was not without reason that they did this, they have reserves of weapons and food. (…) The Israelis are shown in columns on tanks, on infantry fighting vehicles, what are they waiting for? Waiting for drones to fly over them? We went through this during the special military operation. Tanks in urban areas are practically ineffective.”
“The Americans are trying to drag the Middle East into war; apparently, they decided not to stand ceremoniously with Israel; in this case, the damage to Israel would be unacceptable.”
“On the two aircraft carrier groups in the Mediterranean. On board these ships, according to my calculations, there are approximately 750-800 Tomahawk missiles, which cover a decent amount of the territory of the Russian Federation (…) Our President immediately decided to put Mig-31s with Kinzhal missiles on combat duty. For some reason, everyone imagines that one plane with one Kinzhal will fly somewhere, will fly along the Black Sea, but everything is much more global. Firstly, this is the use of all reconnaissance systems linked into a single information system with the issuance of specific target instructions to control points. If an aircraft enters the airspace of the Black Sea, then it must have a support echelon protecting it from enemy air attacks, air defense systems, and everything else. This is a global set of measures to deter the American aggressor from thinking of attacking the territory of the Russian Federation. In front of us are two aircraft carrier groups, equipped to the teeth, capable of hitting targets on the territory of our country, should we just stand there and pick our noses? We must react normally.”
“If the entire Middle East is drawn into the war, aircraft carrier groups try to strike the territory of Iran, then Iran will not remain silent, they have targets ready, all critical objects, they will attack them in different ways, despite the Iron Dome and everything else.”
Pentagon analysts will certainly understand what Gurulev is saying. Not Straussian neocon psychos though.
As the “long black cloud is coming down”, to reference Bob Dylan, it’s enlightening to pay very close attention to sterling voices of experience.
So let’s turn to Dr Mahathir Mohamad: 98 years old (no, not Kissinger); spent his entire adult life in politics, most of it as the Prime Minister of a very important nation (Malaysia); knows every world leader very well, including the current ones in U.S. and Israel; and at this late stage in life, fears nothing and has nothing to lose.

Dr Mahathir does cut to the chase:
” …The crux of the matter is that all these atrocities committed by Israel on the Palestinians stems from the American support for Tel Aviv. If the American Government withdraws its support for Israel and stop all military aid to the regime, Israel would not have carried out the genocide and mass murders of Palestinians with impunity. The United States Government needs to come clean and tell the truth. Israel and its IDF are the terrorists. The United States is blatantly supporting terrorists. So what is the United States?”
No point asking those currently driving U.S. foreign policy. They would barely be able to contain the foaming in their mouths.
 
Last edited:

HERE ARE SOME OF THE WAR CRIMES COMMITTED BY ISRAEL SO FAR IN GAZA

FOLLOW US​

Link: https://www.mintpressnews.com/war-crimes-committed-by-israel-in-gaza-so-far/286121/

[see vid at site link, above]

Editor’s Note: Dear Readers, MintPress News’ YouTube channel was recently demonetized, and many of our videos made age-restricted. We would greatly appreciate your support by becoming a member of our Patreon page so that we can continue to bring you important stories like this one. Much of the work that we do is supported by viewers like you.

In the unfolding tragedy in the Middle East, it is imperative to discern the truth behind the narratives. What Israel presents as a conflict with Hamas is, in the eyes of most, an ongoing genocide against the Palestinian people, transpiring in real time.
Amidst extensive media coverage of the atrocities in Gaza, an unsettling pattern emerges. Media reports often document Israel’s airstrikes on civilian areas, hospitals, schools, and UN shelters. Yet, they consistently accompany these accounts with a disclaimer, attributing these actions to a response to the Hamas attacks of October 7. This narrative not only justifies Israel’s collective punishment of Gaza but also depicts Palestinians as mere collateral damage, implying their lives hold little worth.
This soft propaganda, being pushed upon billions of people by the media, effectively whitewashed Israel’s crimes instead of holding it accountable for its wanton breaches of international law. While the details of October 7 are still shrouded in mystery, Israel’s appalling violations of international law have been on display to the entire world. Since you likely won’t hear about many of them on mainstream news networks, here are some of the worst war crimes carried out by Israel since October 7, 2023.
Let’s not mince words: Israel is committing Genocide, and that’s according to Article 6 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Article 6 defines genocide as “causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of a group” or “deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about [a group’s] physical destruction in whole or in part.” And Israeli leaders have not been shy about expressing their intent to destroy the people of Gaza.
Calling them “human animals,” Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced his government would be cutting off food, water, electricity and fuel to the 2.3 million civilian population in Gaza. This nationwide denial of the most basic needs for human survival clearly fits within the Rome Statue’s parameters of genocide.
Israel also demanded that the more than one million residents of Northern Gaza evacuate south, giving them a window of only three hours to complete the journey. If they did not do so, they were told, they would face the consequences. Israel then bombed the convoy of fleeing refugees. It also carried out two airstrikes on the Rafah Crossing – Gaza’s international border with Egypt – to ensure humanitarian supplies would not enter Gaza. The “deportation or forcible transfer of a population… is an internationally recognized form of genocide.
“Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects” is also considered a war crime under international law. And in Gaza, hospitals, ambulances, medical workers, journalists – none have been spared in relentless Israeli airstrikes. Multiple hospitals, including the al-Ahli Baptist Hospital, were bombed, and dozens of schools were destroyed and, in many cases, were targeted with civilians seeking shelter inside. In fact, more than 20 journalists have been killed during the onslaught.
Under Article 8 of the Charter of the United Nations, “intentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping missions” are considered war crimes and explicitly banned.
Yet, the United Nations reports that Israeli airstrikes have killed 29 of its staff. 21 of the 22 UN health facilities in Gaza have been damaged, while an Israeli attack leveled a UN food and supply depot in central Gaza. As a result of the bombing, 14 UN food distribution centers have been forced to close, leaving hundreds of thousands to starve.
“Intentionally directing attacks against buildings dedicated to religion, education, art, science or charitable purposes” is also banned under international law. Yet Israeli assaults have left 206 schools damaged, 26 mosques and several churches destroyed. The Saint Porphyrus church, damaged in an Israeli attack, is around 1,000 years old, the third oldest church in the world.
As part of its ongoing onslaught on Gaza, Israel has been caught using white phosphorous on civilian areas. The deadly chemical burns skin to the bone and causes extraordinary suffering and a painful death. Its use is highly regulated and banned for use in heavily populated areas or as a weapon of war. International law forbids the use of weapons of a “nature to cause superfluous injury or unnecessary suffering or which are inherently indiscriminate in violation of the international law of armed conflict, provided that such weapons, projectiles and material and methods of warfare are the subject of a comprehensive prohibition.”
“Willful killing” is considered a war crime by the International Criminal Court. Yet, Israeli airstrikes have constantly and willfully targeted civilian areas in Gaza, wiping out entire residential neighborhoods. The Palestinian health ministry reported that entire families have been removed from the Gaza Civil Registry. Israel has killed over 5,000 Gazans, 62% of whom were women and children, a clear case of the ICC war crime of “willful killing.”
Article 8 of the ICC’s Rome Statute also considers the “extensive destruction of property” a war crime. Yet Israeli bombs have left more than one million Gazans homeless or displaced, with little prospect of their situation getting better.
Probably the most enduring and widely accepted of Israel’s crimes against humanity is one meted out to Palestinians on a daily basis. The crime of apartheid. The entire crisis in Gaza is rooted in Israel’s military occupation of Palestinian land, where it has enforced a two-tiered system where non-Jews are treated as second-class citizens, at best.
The United Nations, along with multiple human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and BTSelem, have all released reports detailing how Israel fits the definition of an apartheid state.
Israel is carrying out war crimes every day against the civilian population of Gaza. And while the world looks on in horror, our leaders in Washington, London and Brussels watch on approvingly and supply Israel with the weapons needed to commit their slaughter. And our media? They continue to whitewash Israel’s violation of international law with soft propaganda, biased framing and disclaimers that ensure the genocide of unworthy victims continues because, well, it’s just too complicated.
 

There's Only So Much Propaganda Spin You Can Put On The Murder Of Thousands Of Children​


CAITLIN JOHNSTONE
OCT 29, 2023

Link: https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/theres-only-so-much-propaganda-spin?utm_source=post-email-title/

[vid at site link, above]



Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

The thing is there’s only so much propaganda spin you can put on the murder of thousands of children.
With other imperial military actions the propagandists had an easier time spinning things. Oh no those evil communists are taking over South Vietnam, we need to stop them! Oh no Saddam’s got WMDs, we need to get him! Oh no Gaddafi’s gonna rape and kill all those Libyans, we have a responsibility to protect them!
In Gaza, Israel and its western backers are massacring children by the thousands with a shockingly vicious bombing campaign that is turning entire neighborhoods into gravel. They’re raining down military explosives on a giant concentration camp that is densely populated by children.
There’s only so much a propagandist can do with that.


They can talk about the killings on October 7 til they’re blue in the face, but people are going to object that nothing Hamas did makes it moral or acceptable to murder children by the thousands.
They can say “Israel has a right to defend itself” as much as they want, but people are going to object that murdering children by the thousands is not actually defending anything from anyone.
They can bleat the phrase “human shields” over and over again, but eventually people are going to start saying “Okay but even if they are human shields, could we please stop murdering children by the thousands? I know I wouldn’t want my children to be murdered just because they were being used as human shields.”
They can say every death is the fault of Hamas, but more and more people are going to start saying “Okay blame whoever you want, but can we please stop murdering children by the thousands right this very instant?”
They can say “Well what do you expect Israel to do?”, and people will respond “Stop murdering children by the thousands for starters, please and thank you.”


Imagine you’re a mass media propagandist trying to frame all this in a positive light. How would you do it? Would you be able to make it believable?
Propagandists are used to having a lot more wiggle room to work with than this. They’re used to interfacing with a complex matrix of narrative and manipulating it to distort the public’s understanding of what’s going on. But raw video footage of a mother clutching the tattered remains of a child is not narrative. Satellite images of powdered city blocks are not narrative. It’s just reality. Right there in your face.
Western civilization is dominated by propaganda. The “freedom” and “democracy” we think we have is an illusion that has been carefully cultivated by those who manipulate the way we think, speak, act and vote by mass-scale psychological manipulation — as Chomsky says, propaganda is to a democracy what the bludgeon is to a totalitarian state. A mind-controlled dystopia is not some dark future that awaits humanity if things go terribly wrong for us; it is already presently the case.
Propagandists are able to control civilization so effectively because they understand that humans are storytelling creatures whose lives are dominated by mental narrative, so if you can control the narratives the humans are telling each other, you can control the humans. A globe-spanning empire centralized around the United States depends heavily on its ability to indoctrinate us with subtle mass media messaging from a very early age.

The Gaza massacre throws a big fat monkey wrench in all that, because the raw data coming out of it is so transparently horrifying that no amount of narrative spin can make it look acceptable. The fact that the US and its allies are helping Israel murder children by the thousands is a giant glitch in the narrative matrix.
The longer this continues, the more people are going to wake up out of the propaganda-induced coma the empire has had them in all their lives. The more people are going to realize that their government is not what it has been pretending to be and the media have not been telling them the truth about the world. As the western empire backs the slaughter of thousands of children, the discrepancies between what the propaganda tells us about our society and what our society actually is are being brightly illuminated.
By murdering thousands of children in Gaza, the empire has exposed its true face in front of everyone. And the people aren’t liking what they see.



Eyes are opening everywhere. People are being radicalized in record numbers. The streets are being flooded with protesters. Very inconvenient questions are being asked. Rigorous scrutiny is being applied in places it was seldom applied before. Light is shining in through cracks that weren’t there before.
This is all so, so horrible and so, so painful to watch day in and day out. But something is moving underneath it all. Something big. The empire has done irreparable harm to its ability to keep everyone sleeping and complacent going forward. A healthy world may be in our future yet.
 
Back
Top