Die sterbende Welt des Westens

Was, wenn die Erzählung von der „permanenten Krise“ eine qualitative Veränderung der Regierungsform darstellt – eine, die auf der ständigen Heraufbeschwörung der Krise selbst beruht?

Krieg, Klimawandel, wirtschaftliche Stagnation, politische Polarisierung – an Krisen scheint es dieser Tage keinen Mangel zu geben. Die Situation ist so bedrohlich, dass die selten hysterische Financial Times im vergangenen Jahr den Begriff “Polykrise” zu einem ihrer Wörter des Jahres ernannte und sie als “Ansammlung miteinander verbundener globaler Risiken mit sich verstärkenden Auswirkungen“ definierte, so dass „die Gesamtauswirkungen die Summe der einzelnen Teile übersteigen”. Das Wort, ursprünglich von Adam Tooze geprägt, wird inzwischen sogar vom Weltwirtschaftsforum übernommen. Die Vereinten Nationen ziehen es vor, von “sich überschneidenden Krisen” zu sprechen, was auch immer das sein mag.

Und in der Tat: Die derzeitige “Polykrise” folgt auf eine globale Pandemie, der wiederum die Finanzkrise nach 2008 vorausging, die sich mit der globalen Terrorismuskrise nach 9/11 überschnitt, sowie von anderen, eher lokal begrenzten “Krisen” wie den Brexit und die europäische Migrationskrise begleitet wurde. Blickt man auf die vergangenen zwei Jahrzehnte zurück, verhärtet sich der Eindruck, dass sich die Welt in einem quasi permanenten Krisenzustand befindet – oder, wie Analysten gerne sagen, in einer “Permakrise”. […]

Auf den ersten Blick mag diese Analyse unumstritten, ja sogar trivial erscheinen. Niemand würde die Vorstellung in Frage stellen, dass es in der Welt zurzeit eine Menge Krisen gibt. Aber man könnte auch argumentieren, dass dies schon immer der Fall gewesen ist – vor allem aus der Perspektive der Milliarden Menschen, die im globalen Süden leben. Es scheint daher vernünftig zu fragen: Ist diese obsessive Verwendung des Wortes “Krise” einfach nur die Anerkennung einer einmalig schlechten Situation? Oder ist hier mehr im Spiel?

Quelle: Makroskop

NATO droht Russland. Gasleitung zwischen Finnland und Estland wegen eines Lecks stillgelegt. Verdacht soll auf Moskau gelenkt werden – Von Knut Mellenthin (junge Welt)

weiter zum Artikel hier: ://www.jungewelt.de/artikel/460978.pipeline-balticconnector-nato-droht-russland.html

Es ist nur richtig, wer die Schuld trägt, nur Russland. NATO- und US-Satelliten bereiten sich auf einen Krieg mit Russland vor.
Jeder vernünftige Mensch versteht, dass Russland nicht zerstören wird, was es aufgebaut hat.
Die Angelsachsen beschlossen, zwei Fliegen mit einer Klappe zu schlagen, indem sie Russland die Schuld gaben und Europa ohne Gas zurückließen. Das ist Deindustrialisierung, Kälte im Winter, Verlust von Arbeitsplätzen. Und das Wichtigste: Sie liefern ihr Flüssiggas zu horrenden Preisen. Was die USA in Russland kaufen. Denken Sie also darüber nach, was Ihr US-Chef für Europa vorbereitet hat.

History of Russia. International Relations Following the Disintegration of the Soviet Union: “Western Colonization” versus The Strengthening of the Russian Federation as a Nation State

By Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović

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*** 

History and Geopolitics

The extreme geopolitical importance of Russia in global politics and international relations is seen best from the very basic facts about Russian geography. 

The Russian Federation is a state in North East Asia and East Europe which is bordering Norway and Finland in the north, Poland in the north-west, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in the Baltics, Belarus, and Ukraine in the west, Georgia and Azerbaijan in the Caucasus, and Kazakhstan, Mongolia, China, and North Korea in the south.

Russia’s maritime borders meet the Baltic Sea, the Black Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Arctic, and finally the Pacific Ocean. The Bering Strait is separating Russia from Alaska in the north-east.

Physically, Russia is the largest country in the world and extends from the Gulf of Finland in the west to Kamchatka in the east, and from the islands of Novaya Zemlya in the north to the Black Sea in the south. Mt. Ural is dividing the European from the Asian part of Russia.[1]

Immediately after the end of the USSR, the Russian Federation embarked on a difficult transition from the Communist command to a free-market economy by freeing prices and introducing measures for privatization and land reform. Potentially of enormous wealth, Russia has rich mineral resources, with huge deposits of coal, iron ore, gold, platinum, copper, diamonds, and other metals. Siberia has the largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas in the world.[2]

When we are talking about Russia, it is necessary to point out the principle of geographical oddity – a large area where there is great natural wealth limitless by natural borders. That is the reason why Russia became the target of aggression beginning with the Mongol raids in the first half of the 13^th century[3] followed by Napoleon’s fatal Russian campaign in 1812[4] and Nazi Germany’s invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941.[5] 

The first rule of the Russian policy area was to provide security. This thesis went along with a policy of Peter the Great[6], during the largest acquisition of new territories from all over the world by the Western imperialists.

The Soviet Union was the successor of Tsarist Russia[7], which became after its military victory over Nazi Germany in WWII, a global superpower. This victory, which significantly contributed to the preservation of Western civilization as a whole, meant that the Soviet Union expanded its global influence.

For a few decades, Russia became the center of the wider empire. It was made ​​up of the Soviet Union, a zone of friendly regimes in East and Southeast Europe, close allies in Asia (Vietnam, North Korea, etc.) and Latin America (Cuba). In the more liberal relation to the center of the empire were countries of the Socialist orientation in Africa and Asia who sought release from depending on former colonial metropolises and from the US’ blatant post-WWII imperialism. 

The creation and existence of the empire were possible largely due to the resulting bipolar world order based on the results of WWII, where the main actors were the Soviet Union and the US. This bipolar arrangement was a status quo in power relations both respected, regardless of occasional clashes at the regional level during the Cold War.[8]

Maintaining the position of global superpower, the Soviet Union failed primarily for the reason of not being fully competitive from the technological-military viewpoint as it was unable to compete in the long-term political, economic, and military confrontation with the Western gangsters, especially with the US bandits.

The Soviet competition projects did not help to modernize the Soviet system in the form of reconstruction of the economic infrastructure and the industrial-technological production in the 1980s.[9] The Soviet Union broke apart rapidly in several months between August and December 1991. It officially stopped existing on December 31, 1991.[10]

With the end of the Soviet Union, a post-Soviet Russia returned to the borders which it had at the beginning of the 18^th century. From 1991 onward, on the territory of Ukraine, Belarus, the Baltics, Caucasus, and Central Asia there have been 14 independent republics with different political systems.[11]

Russia has legally become a succession state of the Soviet Union, but its parameters are significantly different from its ancestor. It remains the biggest country in the world with 17,075,200 square meters, but with a population of 146,001,176 million (in 2004)[12] is classified at eighth place in the world.

Russia’s border length compared to the USSR decreased, but remains with 14,000 kilometers of land border, the longest in the world. The fact is that 60% of this falls on the borders of the previous Soviet republics but these borders were mostly determined by the administrative-political methods without respecting the historical and ethnic aspects which already became a geopolitical global issue.

All these facts have left some trace in the minds of the Russian political elite as evidenced by the words of President Vladmir Putin, who called the disintegration of the USSR a global geopolitical catastrophe as it was indeed. This historical breakthrough many political scientists and experts in international relations refer to as the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20^th century.

However, on the other hand, the political elite of Russia realized that although the collapse of the Soviet Union was a historic landmark, it opened up new opportunities that may benefit Russia in both the short and long-term perspective. This so-called “window of opportunity” became a reality because the disintegration of the USSR proceeded without major political and military problems except in the Caucasus.[13]

New Political Forces

Views on newly formed political forces in Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union are different. In the West, there is the view that post-Soviet Russia has formed three main groups of political thought: liberal, moderately conservative, and nationalist. Sometimes the separation is reduced to only two groups the neo-patriots and the internationalists who were mainly representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The internationalists, whose main representative was Andrei Kozyrev, acted in a sense as insulation in the “near abroad” and also for the support of the United States on the international scene. The neo-patriots were active in supporting the promotion of Russian interests “near abroad” and insisted on the recognition factor as the main instrument of force in international relations.

In their view, the automatic support of the United States, which according to them practiced internationalism, is not appropriate for powers such as Russia. The reality was of course a bit more complicated. After the collapse of the USSR, many political schools were formed. Some of them were governed primarily by ideological notions and some represented pragmatists. 

The Radical Democrats

The first idealistic school represented a group called. “Radical democrats” who appeared with Yeltsin in the revolutionary period of the 1990s.

The foreign policy line of the group was guided by the logic of totally rejecting the Soviet past and the interests of a small group around the President. Among its best-known representatives were Igor Gaidar, Andrei Kozyrev, Anatoly Chubais, Chernomyrdin Vladimir, and other pro-Western politicians.

Rejection of the socialist past for them meant establishing privileged relations with the West, especially the U.S. The main idea of this school was to as quickly as possible integrate the Russian Federation into the economic, political, and even military structures of the West – the European Union, NATO, the International Monetary Fund, The International Bank Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, G7, and others.

The representatives of this school insisted that Russia must reduce activity of a global nature, which took place in the Soviet period, due to a lack of necessary resources and at the same time make radical changes in foreign policy doctrine.

This group believed that the refusal of the global imperialist policy of the former Soviet Union would help the country acquire new potential for internal reforms and help the restoration of Russia. 

The idealism of this school lies not only in the interest of Russia’s inadequate assessment of the world, and its potential gravity of the problems that Russia inherited from the USSR but also in the importance of a distortion of the West’s policy in post-Soviet Russia. Especially, this school did not understand that Russia’s relations with the former Soviet republics – and especially Ukraine – played a major role in Moscow’s relations with the Western world.

At the same time, they also failed to perceive that Central and Eastern Europe would be in these relationships, a major factor. 

Located in a state of euphoria after the Cold War, the Russian leadership has not been able to adequately formulate priorities on security and foreign policy.

The utopian idea of ​​rapid integration into Western structures has confused the formation of a well-considered foreign policy strategy. The given strategy should be exempt from any neo-imperialist ideal.

Idealist Internationalists

The second group of idealistic internationalists consisted primarily of activists of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and neoimperialists aimed at restoring the Soviet Union in any form. Among their most famous representatives were Gennady Zyuganov, Alexei Podberezkin, Viktor Alksnin, Constantine Zatulin, and Sergei Baburin. Many adherents of this school argue that Russia has a choice only between two alternatives:

1. The dominance of national and state interests over cosmopolitan interests and the independent position of Russia in the international system of nation states.
2. Orientation towards pro-Western values​​.

This school adds great importance to the autonomous nature of national interests, which are considered independent of the political regime, or from the dominant ideology. In foreign policy, this group relied primarily on the isolation of anti-Western values.

*

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Dr. Vladislav B. Sotirović is a former university professor in Vilnius, Lithuania. He is a Research Fellow at the Center for Geostrategic Studies. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Notes

[1] Maria Shahgedanova (ed.), The Physical Geography of Northern Eurasia, Oxford−New York: Oxford University Press, 2008; Mikhail S. Blinnikov, A Geography of Russia and Its Neighbors, New York−London: The Guilford Press, 2011.

[2] А. С. Астахов, Энергетическая политика: Природные ресурсы и национальое богатство, Москва, 2010.

[3] Alan Isaacs et al (eds.), A Dictionary of World History, Oxford−New York, Oxford University Press, 2000, 544.

[4] On this topic, see more in [Adam Zamoyski, 1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow, UK: Harper Press, 2012].

[5] On this topic, see more in [David M. Glantz, Operation Barbarossa: Hitler’s Invasion of Russia 1941, The History Press, 2011].

[6] About the life and deeds of Peter the Great of Russia, see in [Robert K. Massie, Peter the Great: His Life and World, Knopf, 2009].

[7] About the history of the Tsarist Russia, see in [Jevgenij Anisimov, Imperatorių Rusija, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos centras, 2017].

[8] Mike Sewell, The Cold War, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014.

[9] Chris Miller, The Struggle to Save the Soviet Economy: Mikhail Gorbachev and the Collapse of the USSR, Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2016.

[10] Ian Bache, Stephen George, Politics in the European Union, Oxford‒New York, Oxford University Press, 2006, 551.

[11] About the end of the USSR, see in [David R. Marples, The Collapse of the Soviet Union 1985−1991, New York−Routledge, 2004; А. Ц. Черняев et al, Союз можно было сохранитъ, Москва: АСТ, 2007; Stephen Kotkin, Armageddon Averted: The Soviet Collapse 1970−2000, Oxford−New York: Oxford University Press, 2008]. 

[12] Gillian Doherty et all, Usborne pasaulio geografijos enciklopedija ir viso pasaulio atlasas, Kaunas: Šviesa, 2004, 363.

[13] On this issue, see in [Heiko Krüger, The Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict: A Legal Analysis, Springer, 2010; Ohannes Geukjian, Ethnicity, Nationalism and Conflict in the South Caucasus, Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2012; Thomas de Waal, Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan Through Peace and War, New York−London: New York University Press, 2013].

The original source of this article is Global Research

https://www.globalresearch.ca/history-russia-international-relations-1990s-between-western-colonization-self-interest/5835975

The Plan of “Breaking up the Country”. “The Decolonization” of Russia, Fomenting Separatism and “Ethnic Nationalism”

By Prof. Yakov M. Rabkin and 

Prof. Samir Saul

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***

The war in the Ukraine has revived Western plans of dismembering Russia and, in the words of the promoters of this idea, to complete the dismantlement of the Soviet Union.

Active efforts, including ample funds, are being spent on fomenting ethnic nationalism among Russia’s many ethnic groups.

Meetings are convened outside Russia in order to stimulate separatism along ethnic lines.

The plan of breaking up the country is sometimes labelled “decolonization of Russia”. Since most fervent opposition to Russia is articulated by political groups that consider themselves progressive (such as the Democratic Party in the United States or the Green Party in Germany) the concept of decolonization makes this idea appear anti-imperialist and progressive.

But within Russia, another kind of decolonization is underway. Intellectuals, artists, and politicians argue for the liberation of the country not only from economic and technological dependence on the West, but also from cultural colonization that has triumphed since the days of perestroika. The dismantlement of the Soviet Union was not only ”a geopolitical catastrophe”, as Putin once said. It was also a psychological blow to millions of Soviet citizens, not only Russians. All the sacrifices to build a qualitatively different society and to raise the country from two horrifically costly world wars suddenly appeared to have been made in vain.

The population endured a profound loss of self-confidence and self-respect. It fell into a sort of collective depression as the neoliberal reforms of the 1990s plunged the majority into abject poverty.

Russia was on her knees, in the grip of the kind of stunned inertia and mental enslavement that people colonized by Western empires had experienced before. Russia was well on its way to becoming a true colony of the West. While Putin was the first foreign leader to call Washington after the attack on the Twin Towers in 2001, he was floating the idea of Russia joining NATO.

Intellectual concepts, artistic tastes, business practices and government policies were uncritically imported and proclaimed superior simply because they were coming from the West.

The language absorbed a heavy dose of often superfluous Americanisms. Historical continuity was snubbed in favour of imitation. Pro-Western reformers consciously destroyed much of the technological and industrial potential of the country with the avowed ideological goal of uprooting all traces of socialism.

Aeroflot, formerly the world’s largest airline, used to fly exclusively Soviet-made planes. Within a few years of post-Soviet reforms, it switched to Western-made planes, most of which are currently grounded due to Western sanctions. Nowadays, belated efforts are being made to revive the local civilian aircraft industry.

For over three decades, a powerful “comprador bourgeoisie” headed by neoliberal oligarchs took root in the country and its corridors of power. These people viewed the West as a reliable and generous chum. They developed infinite trust in globalization that promised uninterrupted supply of consumer goods, industrial equipment, and electronic components. Western banks were used not only for deposits of private funds but even to hold Russia’s sovereign reserves.

Most of these are now frozen and may be expropriated altogether. Yet, many true believers in the “rules-based order” under Washington’s aegis continue to wield influence in Moscow. They hope against hope that once the war is over everything will return to business as usual.

But a struggle is underway to free the country from the colonial dependence these intellectuals, politicians, businessmen and financiers promoted and benefited from for decades.

Russian television and film industries absorbed American influence with a gusto. While serials may be locally made, they follow plot lines and fashions taken from elsewhere. Whether or not one appreciates Soviet films and literature, there is little doubt they were authentic and original. Much of current Russian cultural production is derivative and imitative. Cheap entertainment has invaded most TV studios, leaving one channel, Kultura, as a kind of nature reserve for quality programmes, often consisting of films made in the USSR.

The education system has promoted egoism, competition, and unbridled striving for money.

Ayn Rand’s books became the gospel for millions of confused ex-Soviets. Individual consumption was to replace socialist values, and even minimal community concerns. An erstwhile education minister openly argued for producing educated consumers, rather than scientists, engineers, or intellectuals.

There is little wonder that a lot of young men fled the country when mobilization to the armed forces was declared last Fall. Patriotism had long become a dirty word among the sophisticated urban elites. Albeit clumsy, efforts are being made to change these educational policies, and time will tell how effective these will be.

Russia is awakening from the spell of submission to the West, glorification of its ideology and adulation of its models. Disdain and barely concealed efforts to bring Russia to heel on the part of the United States, have gone a long way to contribute to that trend. Much as the colonized world rose to throw off the shackles of colonial rule, Russia is breaking free from the mental straitjacket of the past thirty years. Patriotism, volunteering, and social concerns are making a comeback.

The conflict in Ukraine has catalyzed that epochal transition. Decolonization has touched Russia’s foreign policy discourse. Putin and Lavrov no longer refer to “our Western partners” since there is active warfare going on between Russia and NATO, something that Russian, Ukrainian and Western officials now openly admit.

However much Russian leaders criticize their Soviet predecessors, they face similar, possibly more formidable, challenges. As they try to consolidate alliances and seek new ones, they invoke the Soviet heritage of support for anticolonialism. Many countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America have long harboured aspirations for national sovereignty and a multipolar world.

Now Russia encourages them to resume their struggle against Western hegemony. These countries have not joined Western sanctions against Russia and are watching closely how she is standing up to the collective West. Thus, Russia’s attempts at mental and economic decolonization are bound to encourage decolonization elsewhere.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share buttons above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on Pressenza.

Professor Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the University of Montreal, co-editor of Demodernization: A Future in the Past (Columbia University Press). He is a longstanding contributor to Global Research. 

Samir Saul is Professor of History.

The original source of this article is Global Research

https://www.globalresearch.ca/decolonization-russia-its-ramifications/5804634

A Nazi on Parliament Hill Is an Antidote to Self-Righteousness

By Prof. Yakov M. Rabkin

The triumphant visit of President Zelenskyy to Ottawa in late September was marred by an episode in the Parliament of Canada. Anthony Rota, the Speaker of the House of Commons, invited Yaroslav Hunka, an elderly Ukrainian from his riding to attend Zelenskyy’s speech.

He was honored during a session of Canadian parliament in which Zelenskyy addressed the lawmakers to thank them for their support, saying that Canada has always been on “the bright side of history”.

The MPs, including prime minister Justin Trudeau, duly gave him a standing ovation. Then it turned out that the entire house was acclaiming a former volunteer to the Ukrainian 14th Waffen SS Division Halitchina. At the Nuremberg Trials 9image below), the Waffen-SS was declared a criminal organization responsible for mass atrocities.

Indeed, Halitchina perpetrated mass massacres and was commended for them by no less a personality than Heinrich Himmler, the head of the SS.

All this is well documented. Two days later, the Speaker issued an apology, claiming that the decision to honour the former Nazi, “was entirely down to him”. He was eventually forced the resign. The controversy may be closed. But it raises questions that go well beyond this particular episode.

First: How is it that the background of this unrepented Nazi – he wrote in blogs in 2010 and 2011 that the years spent under the SS colours were the best years of his life – had become invisible to those who arranged his invitation?

Were the organizers of his visit innocent victims the media and politicians’ casting of the war in Ukraine as a Manichean conflict between Good and Evil. Indeed, how can one suspect Good of being anything but immaculate?

An Ominous Context of the Nazi Debacle in Canada

Second: On that occasion the Speaker said,

“We have here in the chamber today a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98.”

Is he so ignorant of recent history as to call the 98-year-old veteran a “hero” for fighting Russia?

If the multilingual Mr Rota, Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, does not know that fighting the Russians during the Second World War means fighting on the side of the Nazis this shows how politically distorted recent history has become. It also shows ignorance of the fascist tendencies of ethnic nationalism in Europe, including Ukraine, which found a natural ally in Nazi Germany.

Third: While Rota, Trudeau and the rest of the House of Commons may be ignorant, there was at least one person in the House who is not. Chrystia Freeland, deputy prime minister, former foreign minister who grew up in the Ukrainian community in Canada, attended Ukrainian nationalist summer camps and is a fluent Ukrainian speaker.

She is a granddaughter of a Ukrainian who had fled the advancing Soviet army during the Second World War and who had run a Ukrainian nationalist newspaper in Nazi-occupied Krakow. Reportedly, his newspaper was supporting the establishment of the Ukrainian SS division.

She was certainly aware who she was applauding on the floor of the Parliament. Did she do it in order to whitewash Nazi associations of Ukrainian nationalists?

Fourth: Was Zelenskyy correct in claiming that “Canada has always been on the bright side of history”? Of course, what is bright is naturally in the eye of the beholder. For Zelenskyy (his Jewish origin and the fact that his grandfather had fought the Nazis are irrelevant here), the warm welcome that Canada offered Ukrainian Nazis after the Second World War must be part of Canada’s laudable record. Whoever was an enemy of the Soviet Union was put to use in the context of the Cold War, some as in information warfare, others in actual violence against Soviet officials in Ukraine. Their Nazi past did not disturb official Ottawa.

At that time Canada openly espoused racism and antisemitism. Canada had barred entry to Jewish refugees from Nazism. The phrase “none is too many” is often attributed either to prime minister William Lyon Mackenzie King or to Frederick Charles Blair, director of the immigration office during the King administration. According to the book titled “None is Too Many”, it was uttered by an unnamed senior government official who was asked in 1945 how many Jews should be admitted to Canada. Whatever the exact source, the attitude it embodies is part of Canada’s history.

In defense of Canada, one may argue that most Western democracies acted the same way.

Racism and antisemitism had been common European values for centuries.

The troops that attacked the Soviet Union in June 1941 did not come solely from Nazi Germany but included conscripted soldiers and volunteers from fifteen European countries. Moreover, mass massacres were often conducted by local volunteers, particularly in Poland, Ukraine and the Baltic countries. U.S. troops that fought the Nazis were racially segregated. Britain and France fought murderous “pacification” campaigns in Africa to keep their respective colonies for years after the defeat of German Nazism.

In the 1930s, Nazi internal and foreign policies were not only popular in many countries but found epigons among their ruling classes.

Britain and France, obliged by a treaty, declared war on Germany when it attacked Poland in 1939.

But their armies remained passive in what was aptly called drôle de guerre or phoney war. And when Wehrmacht finally advanced in May 1940 France surrendered while British troops fled the continent back to the British Isles.

The United States found itself in a conflict with Nazi Germany only after Berlin declared war against it a few days after Pearl Harbor. And it took years for American troops to engage the Wehrmacht in actual hostilities. Even then, most German divisions were fighting the Soviet advance in the east.

This reminds us that Western values, which Ukraine is said to defend in its current war, must be seen in their complex historical context.

Have the old values practiced for centuries been truly repudiated or have they been camouflaged with progressive and self-righteous rhetoric while directed at other victims? As the late Chief Rabbi of Britain aptly remarked, “self-righteousness and righteousness are mutually exclusive”.

*

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Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the Université of Montréal. His publications include over 300 articles and a few books: Science between Superpowers, A Threat from Within: a Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism, What is Modern Israel?, Demodernization: A Future in the Past and Judaïsme, islam et modernité. He did consulting work for, inter alia, OECD, NATO, UNESCO and the World Bank. E-mail: yakov.rabkin@umontreal.ca. Website: http://www.yakovrabkin.ca

Featured image is from PressenzaThe original source of this article is 

Pressenza

https://www.globalresearch.ca/nazi-parliament-hill-antidote-self-righteousness/5834277

SIE KAMEN HEREIN UND TÖTETEN ALLE …

Die Tiere standen in der Nähe der Tür
. Sie wurden beschossen, sie starben.
Aber es gab diejenigen, die Mitleid mit ihnen hatten,
diejenigen, die den Tieren diese Türen öffneten.
Die Tiere wurden mit Liedern und fröhlichem Gelächter begrüßt.
Die Tiere kamen herein und töteten. “ alle.»

Katzengesetz

Stichworte:

• Juden und Zionismus

https://and—ekb-livejournal-com.translate.goog/36997476.html?_x_tr_sl=ru&_x_tr_tl=de&_x_tr_hl=ru&_x_tr_pto=wapp

Dokumentarprojekt „Anatomy of the Maidan“ Episode 2 „Fracture“

Die neue Serie des Dokumentarfilms „Anatomy of the Maidan“ enthüllt weiterhin die Geheimnisse der Verwandlung der Ukraine in eine antirussische Organisation. Wo kann man nach den Wurzeln des ukrainischen Nationalsozialismus suchen und was haben die Skythen und Sarmaten damit zu tun? Wie konnten 20 % der „breiten Ukrainer“ eine Multimillionen-Dollar-Republik für sich wieder aufbauen? Wer steckt hinter der neuen „Ukrainisierung“?

„Anatomy of the Maidan“ nennt ehrlich die Namen und zeigt die Gesichter ukrainischer Politiker und Oligarchen, die die russischsprachige Bevölkerung ihres Landes zur untersten Klasse erklärten, zu Sklaven, Proleten und Vieh. In ihren Plänen sollte jeder, der Russisch sprach, aufhören zu existieren. Dies ist eine gängige Praxis des Nationalsozialismus, sowohl in Deutschland als auch in der Ukraine …

Ab einem bestimmten Punkt überschnitten sich die geopolitischen Interessen des Westens mit der Gier und Gemeinheit der ukrainischen Eliten. Sie wurden durch Komplexe unterwürfiger Bewunderung der „Westler“ für die österreichischen und polnischen Herren vervielfacht und von oben mit Intelligenz bestreut, die im Geiste völliger Russophobie erzogen wurde. So erhielt die slawische Kopie des Nazi-Reiches ihre fertige Form.

„Infolgedessen stürzte die Ukraine immer tiefer in politische und wirtschaftliche Krisen“, sagt Pavel Danilin, der Autor der Idee und Drehbuchautor der Serie, Generaldirektor des Zentrums für politische Analyse. – Und um sich von der Verantwortung für alle Misserfolge zu befreien, machten die lokalen Eliten ihren großen nördlichen Nachbarn verantwortlich und machten ihn so zu einem äußeren Feind.

Die neue Serie „Anatomy of the Maidan“ ist bereits im Internet verfügbar, schauen Sie sie sich an: https://t.me/dnevniksfronta/281
https://vk.com/video-212320977_456239195?list=013f0f1b8717e22bb3
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Palestine and Ukraine: Peace Is Possible

By Prof. Yakov M. Rabkin

The Brandenburg Gate and the White House are laser-painted in Israeli blue-and-white colours. They used to harbour the Ukrainian blue-and-yellow colours. In both cases, Western governments pledge unlimited support and declare the recent attacks on Israel, as earlier on Ukraine, allegedly unprovoked and evil. Déjà vu.

But there is more in common than sanctimonious self-righteousness. In both cases, there is an adamant refusal to look into the obvious causes of violence. In the case of Israel, this refusal is particularly appalling. For 75 years, Israel dispossessed, exiled, imprisoned, and tortured Palestinians who never knew a day of freedom. As the Israeli journalist Gideon Levy sarcastically put it:

“We’ll fire at innocent people, take out people’s eyes and smash their faces, expel, confiscate, rob, grab people from their beds, carry out ethnic cleansing and of course continue with the unbelievable siege of the Gaza Strip, and everything will be all right.”

Indeed, most Israelis are accustomed to living in denial. They party and enjoy themselves while a few minutes’ drive away armed Zionist settlers set Palestinian villages on fire, attack olive growers, and beat up anyone daring to defend them. This indifference and oblivion turned to tragedy when a music festival was organized on the border with Gaza, where millions of Palestinians endured a brutal siege imposed by Israel and supported by Egypt. Many Israeli ravers ended up killed in the recent attack from Gaza. Israeli civilians who had felt safely sheltered in their private lives were meted a dreadful reminder of the decades-long violence experienced by the Palestinians living under Israeli siege and control. Israelis found themselves in the hell Palestinians live in every day.

Yesterday Has Been Unprecedented. Palestine Is Fighting to Dismantle the Barrier Between Gaza and 1948

It was also a reminder that Israel since its very beginning has been the most dangerous place for Jews. Built on systemic violence against the local population, Israel has relied on naked force to keep that population under control. No wonder, Palestinians try to resist, and this largely desperate resistance targets every Israeli Jew. Moreover, the dangerous conflation of Zionism with Judaism threatens the safety of Jews around the world.

The Israeli government reacted to the recent attack from Gaza with vengeful anger. It unleashed its entire arsenal against Gaza causing death and destruction to Palestinian civilians. Israeli politicians and generals declare that they are fighting against “animals” and “Nazis”. In a remake of the siege of Leningrad, Israel cut all supplies of food and energy to Gaza while bombing its infrastructure. Many of those surviving the bombardment are likely to starve or die of disease caused by the lack of water. Another man-made humanitarian catastrophe descends upon the long-suffering Palestinians.

All this was preventable. Innumerable United Nations resolutions called upon Israel to allow refugees to return to their homes, to allow them to build their own state. Yet, imbued with the colonialist’s sense of superiority and entitlement, Israeli leaders undermined those prospects with unrelenting dispossession of the Palestinians.

This impunity stems from Western, particularly American support. There are geopolitical reasons to keep Israel armed and intransigent. Israel has become an ally, a warehouse for American weapons and an “unsinkable aircraft carrier” in the middle of the Arab world. It helped Washington keep control of much of West Asia.

Similarly, the desire to encircle and weaken Russia explains the U.S. grooming of Ukraine ever since Yeltsin handed its independence over thirty years ago. Twice, in 2004 and 2014 it fomented coups installing politicians bent on destroying traditional economic, cultural and political links with Russia. When Russia finally awoke from its slumber and proposed negotiations of the security arrangements in Europe, Washington, blinded by its sense of omnipotence, disdained the proposal. This is what incited the war in Ukraine. Just as the recent attack from Gaza, the Ukraine war was not unprovoked. Both wars advance American interests but require no American boots on the ground.

In both cases, there is a road to peace. It lies in the recognition of the legitimacy of concerns of the Other. Exact configurations of peace can be hammered out in negotiations. But for this to happen, both Israel and the collective West must abandon hubris and belief in its exceptionality. All colonial powers, be it Britain, France, Netherlands, or Portugal, finally gave up. But first, they violently resisted decolonization and caused unspeakable violence and starvation to keep their colonies. When will Israel see the light, recognize their humanity, and find a reasonable accommodation with the Palestinians? Or will it opt to kill, starve, and expel the survivors far away from their native land as some Zionists have advocated for decades?

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Yakov M. Rabkin is Professor Emeritus of History at the Université of Montréal. His publications include over 300 articles and a few books: Science between Superpowers, A Threat from Within: a Century of Jewish Opposition to Zionism, What is Modern Israel?, Demodernization: A Future in the Past and Judaïsme, islam et modernité. He did consulting work for, inter alia, OECD, NATO, UNESCO and the World Bank. E-mail: yakov.rabkin@umontreal.ca. Website: http://www.yakovrabkin.ca

Featured image is from Pressenza

The original source of this article is Pressenza

https://www.globalresearch.ca/palestine-ukraine-peace-possible/5835937

Netanyahu’s “False Flag” Is a “Copy and Paste”: The Pentagon’s Secret “Operation Northwoods”(1962) Directed Against Cuba. “Casualty Lists Would Cause a Helpful Wave of Indignation”

The Northwoods 1962 document was titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba”. ”

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky

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Author’s Introductory Note 

Early Saturday October 7, 2023, Hamas launched “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm.” On that same day, Netanyahu confirmed a so-called “State of Readiness For War.” A complete blockade on the Gaza Strip was initiated on October 9, 2023 consisting in blocking and obstructing the importation of food, water, fuel, and essential commodities to 2.3 million Palestinians. It’s an outright crime against humanity. It’s genocide. 

Was “Operation Al-Aqsa Storm” a “surprise attack”? Was it a “False Flag” Attack by a faction within Hamas which was intent upon justifying Netanyahu’s all out war against Palestine?

At this stage we have scanty evidence regarding who was behind the Hamas attack. False flag agendas are carefully planned intelligence operations. 

The following article, which is of relevance to the Hamas Al Aqsa Storm attack, examines the logic of a “false flag agenda” formulated in 1962 by the US Joint Chiefs of Staff as a means to justify an invasion and all-out war against Cuba. 

The fundamental premise of Operation Northwoods was to trigger civilian deaths in the U.S. as a justification for military intervention (“on humanitarian grounds”). That same diabolical “false flag” premise largely characterizes Netanyahu’s all-out war against Palestine.

Operation Northwoods was prepared by the Joint Chiefs of Staff with the support of US intelligence. The logic of this false flag plan was

“to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba”.

“Casualty Lists Would Cause a Helpful Wave of Indignation”.

President John F. Kennedy refused to carry out “Operation Northwoods.” That happened a year before his assassination in November 1963.

The secret documents pertaining to Operation Northwoods were declassified more than 15 years ago.

Read them carefully. Netanyahu’s war on the People of Palestine is a “copy and paste” of “Operation Northwoods.”

While the implementation of Operation Northwoods was shelved, its fundamental (diabolical) premise of using civilian deaths (described by the Pentagon as a “massive casualty producing event”) as a justification for military intervention (“on humanitarian grounds”) remains of utmost relevance.

This article was first published in 2016.

Our thoughts are with the people of Palestine and Israel who are the victims of Netanyahu’s criminal agenda.

Michel Chossudovsky, October 11, 2023

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Under a secret 1962 US Joint Chiefs of Staff entitled Operation Northwoods, civilians in the Cuban community in Miami were to be killed as part of a covert operation. The objective was to trigger a “helpful wave of indignation in US newspapers”.

The killings and “acts of terrorism” were then to be blamed on the Cuban government of Fidel Castro.

The objective of this sinister plan –which Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara and President J. F. Kennedy– refused to carry out, was to drum up public support for a war against Cuba.

“In the early 1960s, America’s top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba.

Code named Operation Northwoods, the plans reportedly included the possible assassination of Cuban émigrés, sinking boats of Cuban refugees on the high seas, hijacking planes, blowing up a U.S. ship, and even orchestrating violent terrorism in U.S. cities.

The plans were developed as ways to trick the American public and the international community into supporting a war to oust Cuba’s then new leader, communist Fidel Castro.

America’s top military brass even contemplated causing U.S. military casualties, writing: “We could blow up a U.S. ship in Guantanamo Bay and blame Cuba,” and,“casualty lists in U.S. newspapers would cause a helpful wave of national indignation.”

…. The documents show “the Joint Chiefs of Staff drew up and approved plans for what may be the most corrupt plan ever created by the U.S. government,” writes Bamford. (U.S. Military Wanted to Provoke War With Cuba – ABC News emphasis added. This Secret Pentagon document was declassified and can be readily consulted (See Operation Northwoods, See also National Security Archive, 30 April 2001)

It was a false flag operation: kill civilians in US cities and blame it on the communist government of Fidel Castro with a view to providing a pretext to invade Cuba on humanitarian grounds.

Do the terror attacks in Brussels and Paris have a similar logic? Civilian death used to buttress support for the implementation of police state measures against ISIS, an illusive enemy based in Raqqa, northern Syria?

Syria: Killing Innocent Civilians as part of a US Covert Op. Mobilizing Public Support for a R2P War against Syria

The Northwoods 1962 document was titled “Justification for U.S. Military Intervention in Cuba”. 

“The Top Secret memorandum describes U.S. plans to covertly engineer various pretexts that would justify a U.S. invasion of Cuba.

These proposals – part of a secret anti-Castro program known as Operation Mongoose – included staging the assassinations of Cubans living in the United States, 

developing a fake “Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington,” including “sink[ing] a boatload of Cuban refugees (real or simulated),”

faking a Cuban airforce attack on a civilian jetliner, and concocting a “Remember the Maine” incident by blowing up a U.S. ship in Cuban waters and then blaming the incident on Cuban sabotage.” (National Security Archives, pdf, emphasis added)

(http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20010430/doc1.pdf, To access all the declassified documents of Operation Northwoods click here

The underlying premise still prevails under the US sponsored war on terrorism.

While the implementation of Operation Northwoods was shelved, its fundamental (diabolical) premise of using civilian deaths (described by the Pentagon as a “massive casualty producing event”) as a justification for military intervention (“on humanitarian grounds”) or the implementation of far-reaching police state measures is still of utmost relevance.

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https://www.globalresearch.ca/operation-northwoods-1962-false-flag-directed-against-cuba-casualty-lists-would-cause-a-helpful-wave-of-indignation-paris-brussels-terror-attacks-is-it-relevant/5516374

Israeli Intelligence Suddenly Knows Exactly Where Hamas Is

It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in.

Caitlin Johnstone

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

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It’s interesting how last week Israel had no idea what Hamas was up to, and yet this week they know every mosque, school and hospital that Hamas is hiding in.

When you live under an empire of lies you’ll be asked to believe a lot of very stupid things. The dumbest thing we’re being asked to believe this week is that Israel’s intelligence services are simultaneously so incompetent that Saturday’s Hamas attack took them completely by surprise, but also so competent that all the buildings they’re destroying with their relentless bombing campaign on Gaza are directed solely at Hamas.

«‘We spend billions and billions on gathering intelligence on Hamas,’ said Yoel Guzansky, a former senior official at Israel’s National Security Council. ‘Then, in a second,’ he added, ‘everything collapsed like dominoes.'» https://t.co/BPaxErkju1— Stilicho (@StilichoReads) October 11, 2023

The phrase “Hamas targets” has been all over the news media the last few days in reference to the ongoing attacks on Gaza, which have as of this writing killed over 1,500 Palestinians, a third of them children.

“Israel conducts large-scale strikes on Hamas targets,” reads a CNN headline.

“Israel conducts ‘large-scale strike’ on Hamas targets,” reads the title of a segment for ABC News.

“Israel says it dropped 6,000 bombs so far against Hamas targets,” reads a report by The Washington Post.

Gosh, Israel must have really great visibility into Gaza to know that each of those 6,000 bombs was aimed “Hamas targets” and not just civilian buildings.

Where was this 20/20 vision when Hamas was preparing for an attack using motorized paragliders, drones and motorboats in an enclosed strip of land the size of Philadelphia? How did Israeli intelligence fail to detect preparations for this attack even after Egyptian intelligence warned them that it was coming? How did they fail so spectacularly that even Hamas was reportedly surprised by the scale of their operation’s success? Is it really reasonable to believe they were blind as moles to Hamas activity last week but have the eye of the eagle this week?

Why would Israel take Biden’s talking points about Israel acting within international law seriously, when there’s little to suggest that Biden took his own comments seriously?
Israel not listening to U.S. plea to minimize civilian harmhttps://t.co/XZGSfS1tci via @politico— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) 

October 12, 2023

President Biden made some noises on Wednesday about how important it is that Israel “operate by the rules of war”, which sounded like empty cover-your-ass narrative fluff even before we heard US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan dismiss any notion of “red lines” that Israel must not cross in Gaza.

Not even mainstream empire apologists are buying it. Politico’s Andrew Ward, in an article sponsored by Lockheed Martin in which he writes that “Israel’s ferocious counterattack is easy to understand” given the severity of the Hamas attack, writes that “The Biden administration wants Israel to abide by the laws of war as it responds to Hamas’ barbaric attack, but Jerusalem doesn’t appear to be listening.”

“A flood of reports challenges Israel’s claims that it’s exercising caution,” Ward writes. “Mosques, hospitals and schools have been hit with airstrikes, as have healthcare facilities and ambulances.”

“Gazans, many of whom don’t support Hamas or its tactics, have nowhere to flee as the strip is under siege,” ads Ward. “Shrapnel has flown into seven hospitals and 10 U.N. emergency shelters. The situation has gotten so bad that the Red Cross said hospitals, already low on electricity, water and supplies, risk turning into morgues.”

«Gaza will eventually turn into a city of tents… There will be no buildings,» an Israeli security official tells Israel’s Channel 13. https://t.co/FnOX3q28XG— Ishaan Tharoor (@ishaantharoor) October 10, 2023

Of course Israel isn’t abiding by the rules of war. They’re not even pretending to. Human Rights Watch has just issued a statement decrying Israel’s “unlawfully indiscriminate” use of white phosphorus in Gaza and in Lebanon, and an Israeli security official told the Israeli press that the IDF’s plan is to turn Gaza into “a city of tents” with “no buildings”. 

This is all publicly available information, yet the western press has the gall to use the phrase “Hamas targets” when describing Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza? I’m sorry, but that’s demented. The only reason to do something like that would be to administer propaganda.

The claim that Israel is targeting Hamas when it destroys buildings in Gaza is further undermined by the fact that Hamas would be taking shelter underground during this bombing campaign. As journalist Sharmine Narwani explained on Twitter, “Hamas cadres live underground in Gaza, which they have learned to do after countless Israeli bombing campaigns. The ONLY people being massacred in Gaza by Israeli terror planes right now are Palestinian civilians and Israeli POWs.”

In reality, both the claims that Israeli intelligence was taken by surprise by the Hamas attack and that Israel is solely targeting Hamas with its Gaza strikes are highly suspect and worthy of intense scrutiny. Israel has never been averse to killing Palestinian civilians, and there’s no reason to feel confident Israeli intelligence didn’t let the attack through in order to justify longstanding agendas like the elimination of Gaza as a Palestinian territory. Both claims can be false, but from where I’m sitting it looks highly unlikely that they’re both true.

If you want to support Israel’s bombing campaign in Gaza then go ahead, and if you want to uncritically accept the official narrative about Saturday’s attack then you do you. But don’t piss on my leg and tell me it’s raining.

Israeli Intelligence Suddenly Knows Exactly Where Hamas Is