Aug. 2, 2024 (EIRNS)—While it is shocking that Israel would have assassinated the key figure within Hamas with whom they were supposedly negotiating for a peace, it should not be a surprise. Nine days ago, the U.S. Congress stood and cheered, over and over again, for Bibi Netanyahu’s messianic call for a full-scale war against Iran—beyond any “limited” measures in Gaza, Lebanon, Yemen etc. Whatever very limited restrictions Netanyahu may have calculated that he had to steer around in the past were now blown to smithereens. |
July 28, 2024 (EIRNS)—The opening ceremony of the Paris Olympics may scar the memory of anyone who witnessed it, but perhaps it will go down in history as a turning point. There, floating down the Seine, was the vulgar, naked attack on Christianity—but, more specifically, on the beautiful, engaging and poignant moment captured by Leonardo da Vinci, his “Last Supper.” Beyond punk rock, beyond “Pussy Riot,” the intentional shock of a drag queen in the position of Christ, with a scattering of drag queens around the table as various apostles. But, of course, why stop there, when a naked fellow portraying Dionysios can sing to the assembled, and the former French Queen Marie Antoinette can appear after her visit to the guillotine, carrying her head in her arm. |
July 25, 2024 (EIRNS)—There’s the anecdote of the rabbi who would advise, whenever faced with two bad choices, to always pick the third. |
July 16, 2024 (EIRNS)—It has been two weeks since Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán caught the Atlanticists off guard, by landing in Kyiv on July 2, on what would be the first of five trips on his “peace mission.” It was followed by meetings in Moscow, Beijing, Washington and Mar-a-Lago. Apparently unfazed by the screams and howls of Brussels bureaucrats, yesterday he submitted his summary to Charles Michel, the president of the European Council. The message was clear. After warning that, left alone, “the intensity of the military conflict will radically intensify in the near future,” he proposed the EU get together with China about a peace conference. |
July 12, 2024 (EIRNS)—The just-concluded NATO summit in Washington, D.C., was just the proverbial “nail in the coffin” on the ideological commitment of the “permanent warfare” gang to go down with the ship. As President Biden put it yesterday, in announcing the new “Ukraine Compact”: “Russia will not prevail in this war. Ukraine will prevail in this war. And we will stand with them every single step of the way. That’s what the compact says loudly and clearly.” Absent is the previous language of militarily defeating and breaking up Russia. Rather, the industrially-challenged West is to hang on by their fingertips, converting whatever capacity is left to years and years of warfare, selling their populations on their grand mission, while the future of their families and children disappear. Hitler in his bunker, praying for the salvation of Wunderwaffen, had better odds. |
July 9, 2024 (EIRNS)—How can you tell if the leader of your country is suffering from a cognitive impairment, senility or dementia? |
July 6, 2024 (EIRNS)—The “Orbán Effect” hit the world this week. The actions of the head of a nation, Hungary’s Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in flying to Kyiv to discuss peace with Ukraine’s President Zelenskyy and then to Moscow to do the same with Russia’s President Putin, put into stark relief that there has been no diplomacy in the West for years. Put aside what was and was not immediately accomplished, as Orbán put it: “Very many steps are needed to be done to become closer to the end of the war. However, we have made the most important step—we have established contact…. I have concluded my talks in Moscow with President Putin. My goal was to open the channels of direct communication and start a dialogue on the shortest road to peace. Mission accomplished! To be continued on Monday…” |
July 2, 2024 (EIRNS)—As the United States approaches its Fourth of July celebration, on the occasion of its Declaration of Independence from the British Empire, a few thoughts are in order. |
June 30, 2024 (EIRNS)—Today France’s President Emmanuel Macron was handed a crushing defeat in the first round of the French parliamentary elections. His centrist coalition finished a distant third to Marine Le Pen’s National Rally party, ahead in at least 297 of the 577 districts, and the leftist New Popular Front, leading in at least 153 districts. Macron’s “Ensemble” grouping leads in 65 of the districts. By the time the second round on July 7 determines the seats in the Assemblée Nationale, the Tories in Great Britain are expected to get a similar kick in the side of the head, from the July 4 polls. Both results should echo the across-the-board rejection of the Atlanticist candidates that occurred in the June 9 EU elections. |
June 18, 2024 (EIRNS)—One can only wonder if the principals at the U.S.’s Newsweek magazine, after today’s performance, will shortly find themselves on one of Kiev’s target lists, guilty of spreading Russian propaganda. Even though they provided more than a few qualifications and U.S. State Departments rebuttals, their sin was that they actually presented in the direct words of Anatoly Antonov, Russia’s ambassador to the U.S., the peace proposal put forward by Russian President Vladimir Putin. They also covered Antonov’s central point, the need to build “a truly equal and indivisible security in Eurasia, based on mutual respect for one and all” and “a new architecture reflecting transition to multipolarity,” without the “aggressive political and economic dominance of individual nations, as well as fragmentation into separate blocs. This is the only way to prevent the outbreak of major international conflicts.” |
June 6, 2024 (EIRNS)—Israel Defense Forces (IDF) fighter jets hit a UNRWA school in central Gaza yesterday, killing at least three dozen people, including children. Neither the IDF nor the Gaza officials dispute that an airstrike hit a school and dozens died. The IDF stated that “many steps were taken before the strike to minimize the risk of harm to uninvolved people,” including “analyzing aerial photos” and using “precise intelligence.” However, terrorists had used the school for protection and the IDF was able to eliminate “several … terrorists who had planned to carry out terror attacks and advance imminent terror schemes against our forces.” It makes little difference whether the “several” targets were three or five or eight, or whether the word “terror” appears several times in the IDF statement. The point is, it has been heard over and over again, and the horror marches on. |
June 3, 2024 (EIRNS)—At what point is one comforted by the argument, “Oh, they would never launch nuclear missiles at us”? Perhaps one should ask, “What is on the mind of those who make such assurances?” |
May 28, 2024 (EIRNS)—The NATO Parliamentary Assembly concluded a three-day session yesterday with a declaration ratifying the drive of NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg for a nuclear showdown with Russia. Aside from the call for NATO members “to clearly affirm that their strategic goal is Ukraine’s victory” and the urgent calls for more and more weapons, sooner and sooner, the central point was for the members to lift restrictions on use of weaponry so that they can be used to hit deeper inside Russia. |
May 23—Yesterday’s attacks upon the ongoing investigation by Slovakian officials into the May 15 attempted assassination of Prime Minister Robert Fico were supposed to accomplish what the assassination failed to do—freeze any sane, national impulses in Europe standing in opposition to a future of permanent geopolitical wars against Russia and China. It’s not that Slovakia and Hungary are that powerful, but the EU has not crushed them—and the longer they stand, the greater the danger of a long overdue “slave revolt” by Europe’s larger countries. In Slovakia’s case, last year’s election of Fico and the April 6 presidential election of his colleague Peter Pellegrini indicate that populations can choose a more independent path. |
May 14—Russian President Vladimir Putin will be spending May 16-17 strategizing in Beijing with China’s President Xi Jinping. The Kremlin announced today that the two “will have an extensive discussion of the entire scope of issues pertaining to the Russia-China overarching partnership and strategic cooperation.” |
May 9—Yesterday, CIA Director William Burns went to Israel for meetings with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and some of his administration. Burns had spent several days in Cairo trying his darndest to fashion between Hamas and Israel a deal to release hostages and provide a truce. |
May 7—In the negotiations with Hamas over a deal involving the freeing of the hostages and securing a peace, one major sticking point has been Hamas’ insistence that the war be brought to an end. Major elements of that package include Hamas dissolving its military wing and Gaza having a 3-5 year period of reconstruction. Yet, the trick has been whether, during the three 42-day phases of the freeing of hostages, the dealing with starvation and disease, and the withdrawal of Israeli forces, Washington is capable of using the facts on the ground to actually end Netanyahu’s militarism. |
May 2—As today comes to a close, U.S. President Joe Biden and the House Republicans, led by House Speaker Mike Johnson, are locked in an ugly embrace, offering nothing of substance to the American electorate but the sick joke of crushing democracy in the name of stopping allegedly violent, anti-Semitic protesters. Yet that is what accompanies last week’s decision, with a $34 trillion national debt heading for trouble rapidly, with a militarization of the economy and of political discourse, of throwing another $95 billion installment of military hardware into the pot. |
April 25—The U.S. Congress voted up an orgy of money that they don’t have, to push military weapons into the most unstable parts of the globe. In defense of “democracy,” Democratic and Republican legislators talk tough about crushing peaceful demonstrators opposed to the genocide in Gaza. |
April 16—The West is filled with politicians, strategists et al., who are the definition of “too clever by half.” |
April 9—There’s an old Gary Larson cartoon of three fish on a table, looking back at their fishbowl that they just escaped, as somehow the water is on fire. One tells the other two: “Well, thank God we all made it out in time…. ’Course, now we’re equally screwed.” |
April 4—The White House claimed today that President Biden had made clear to Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu that Israel had to: stop harming so many civilians, provide humanitarian aid, and agree to a ceasefire-for-hostage deal; otherwise, the U.S. would alter its policy towards Israel. Netanyahu’s office announced hours later that they would: allow more aid from Jordan through the Kerem Shalom crossing into southern Gaza, temporarily open up the Ashdod Port for aid, and at some point, open up the Erez Crossing in northern Gaza. Biden also underlined strong support for Israel against Iranian threats. |
March 28—The International Court of Justice ordered Israel today to take “all necessary and effective measures to ensure, without delay, in full cooperation with the United Nations, the unhindered provision at scale by all concerned of urgently needed basic services and humanitarian assistance, including food, water, electricity, fuel, shelter, clothing, hygiene and sanitation requirements, as well as medical supplies and medical care to Palestinians throughout Gaza, including by increasing the capacity and number of land crossing points and maintaining them open for as long as necessary….” |
March 21—On January 26, the International Court of Justice found that there was solid ground for the charge of genocide by Israel against Palestinians in Gaza. That same day, Israel alleged that UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), the key aid agency holding back the pace of the genocide, had 12 of its 30,000 employees with some connection to Hamas’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel. UNRWA summarily dismissed all the 12 employees, without contesting the sketchy allegations of the accounts of Israel’s evidence, apparently in the hope that the Western powers would be content with the sacrifice. |
March 19—To stay alive, the world may have to deal with a vicious strain of cynicism. |
