Dégringolade

 

  Media stakeout by Vassily Nebenzia, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations, on the situation in Gaza and Israel.

 Source:  Antiwar.com b y Alexander Cockburn CounterPunch , April 3, 2000 I  got an invitation to speak a couple of months ago from an outfit called antiwar.com, which is run by a young fellow called Justin Raimondo. "Antiwar.com is having its second annual national conference March 24 & 25, and we'd like you to be the luncheon speaker," Raimondo wrote. "The conference will be held at the Villa Hotel, in San Mateo (near the airport). The theme of the conference is 'Beyond Left & Right: The New Face of the Antiwar Movement.' We have invited a number of speakers spanning the political spectrum. Confirmed so far: Patrick J. Buchanan, Tom Fleming (of  Chronicles  magazine), Justin Raimondo (Antiwar.com), Kathy Kelly (Iraq Aid), Alan Bock ( Orange County Register ), Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas), representatives of the Serbian Unity Congress, and a host of others." Raimondo seasoned his invite with a burnt offering, in the form of flattery, always pleasing

 

 

Source:   Sheerpost Defeat September 21, 2023 The United States is being defeated in Ukraine. One could say that it is  facing  defeat – or, more starkly, that it is  staring defeat in the face .  Neither formulation is appropriate, though. The U.S. doesn’t look reality squarely in the eye. We prefer to look at the world through the distorted lenses of our fantasies. We plunge forward on whatever path we’ve chosen while averting our eyes from the topography that we are trying to traverse.  Our sole guiding light is the glow of a distant mirage .  That is our lodestone. It is not that America is a stranger to defeat. We are very well acquainted with it: Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria – in strategic terms if not always military terms. To this broad category, we might add Venezuela, Cuba, and Niger. That rich experience in frustrated ambition has failed to liberate us from the deeply rooted habit of eliding defeat. Indeed, we have acquired a large inventory of methods for doing so. DEF

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Oct 9, 2023 Mustafa Barghouti, general secretary of the Palestinian National Initiative, raises critical questions about US foreign policy. He juxtaposes the US support for Ukraine against what they term "occupation" with their backing of Israel in the Palestinian conflict.

Source:   Haaretz Gideon Levy, Oct 9, 2023 Behind all this lies Israeli arrogance; the idea that we can do whatever we like, that we’ll never pay the price and be punished for it. We’ll carry on undisturbed. We’ll arrest, kill, harass, dispossess and protect the settlers busy with their pogroms. We'll visit Joseph’s Tomb, Othniel’s Tomb and Joshua’s Altar in the Palestinian territories, and of course the Temple Mount – over 5,000 Jews on Sukkot alone. 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. We’ll build a terrifying obstacle around Gaza – the underground wall alone cost 3 billion shekels ($765 million) – and we’ll be safe. We’ll rely on the geniuses of the army's 8200 cyber-intelligence unit and on the Shin Bet security service agents who know everything. They’l

 Source:   The Cradle The geopolitics of Al-Aqsa Flood Global focus just shifted from Ukraine to Palestine. This new arena of confrontation will ignite further competition between the Atlanticist and Eurasian blocs. These fights are increasingly zero-sum ones; as in Ukraine, only one pole can emerge strengthened and victorious. Pepe Escobar OCT 12, 2023 Photo Credit: The Cradle Hamas’ Operation Al-Aqsa Flood was meticulously planned. The launch date was conditioned by two triggering factors.  First was Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flaunting his 'New Middle East' map at the UN General Assembly in September, in which he completely erased Palestine and made a mockery of every single UN resolution on the subject.  Second are the serial provocations at the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, including the straw that broke the camel’s back:  two days before Al-Aqsa Flood , on 5 October, at least 800 Israeli settlers launched an assault around the mosque,  beating pilgrims,