Endless Ukraine Funding Is Further Proof US Politicians Don’t Care What Voters Think

 The Biden administration ignoring public opposition to more funding for the Ukraine war follows a bipartisan tradition of Washington ignoring the public in favor of special interests

by Jon Reynolds, Antiwar. com, August 14, 2023

Less than a week after a CNN poll found a majority of Americans oppose sending more money to Ukraine, the Biden administration announced that it will be seeking another $24 billion in funding. If approved, the total amount spent by the US since 2022 on its proxy war against Russia will reach about $137 billion.

“We have we have seen throughout this war solid support from the American people, solid support from the Congress in a bipartisan and bicameral way for continuing to support Ukraine and we’re going to stay focused on that,” National Security Council Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby told CNN regarding the poll. “It’s not just important to the people of Ukraine, but it’s important to our European allies and partners, particularly our NATO allies, given that this fighting is on the on the doorstep of many of those NATO allies.”

Kirby’s comments echo those of Bush-era Vice President Dick Cheney, who, in 2008, was confronted with polling data showing a vast majority of Americans opposed the war in Iraq, and infamously responded: “So?”

Cheney continued by adding that we “cannot be blown off course by the fluctuations in the public opinion polls.”

Such blatant disregard by elected officials regarding views of the majority is clearly nothing new, but what makes it particularly dystopian is the recent emphasis by cable news channels about the merits of – and threats to – “our democracy”.

What democracy?

For years now, a majority of Americans have supported legalizing marijuana, and yet the drug war continues to rage on without an end in sight.

Polling data in 2012 – and again in 2018 – showed a majority of Americans supported withdrawing troops from Afghanistan, and yet the US nonetheless remained in the country until 2021.

More recently, a 2023 poll showed a majority of Americans don’t want Trump or Biden to run for office next year, and yet they persist in haunting us with their unwanted presence. It was the same story back in 2016 when the choices were Trump vs Hillary Clinton, who were the “two most unpopular presidential candidates in more than 30 years of ABC News/Washington Post polling.”

Examples like these are truly endless. Time and time again, we see a majority of Americans supporting or opposing a policy and politicians blatantly ignoring them in favor of the monied interests which brought them to power.

The drug war continues – in the face of overwhelming public opposition – because special interests profiting from it spend millions every election year to support their preferred drug warrior.

Unwanted wars such as the one in Afghanistan, the one in Ukraine, or the one in Iraq – where the US still has troops as of 2023 – continue because of what has become known as the “military industrial complex” – a network of defense companies which spend millions every election year to support their hawk of choice.

There’s nothing democratic about any of this, and the talking heads on cable news networks who make repeated comments about our “democracy” are either totally oblivious and out of touch with reality or entirely complicit and invested in propping up illusions of a system that doesn’t actually exist.

In 2014, a Princeton study took data from nearly 2,000 public opinion surveys and compared what the people wanted to what the government actually did. What they found was that the opinions of the bottom 90% had no impact at all.

The study’s authors concluded that “economic elites and organized groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while mass-based interest groups and average citizens have little or no independent influence.”

And while the study may have its limitations, the writing is on the wall and has been for a long time. Special interests donate millions to Biden, Trump, Mickey Mouse, or whoever, because they see it an investment opportunity – because they expect something in return when that politician gets into office.

After every election, both of the major parties repeatedly make it clear that they care more about wealthy donors than the everyday voters coming out to support them on Election Day. Sadly, the Biden administration’s support for sending billions more to Ukraine – despite what appears to be a shift in public opinion – is just more proof.

Jon Reynolds is a freelance journalist covering a wide range of topics with a primary focus on the labor movement and collapsing US empire. He writes at The Screeching Kettle at Substack. Reprinted with permission.

Craig Murray: The Silence on Imran Khan

 Consortum Nes, August 9, 2023

Pakistan has imposed a media blackout over the deposed prime minister and thousands of new political prisoners incarcerated in appalling conditions. Condemnation in the U.K. and U.S. has been non-existent.

Imran Khan in February 2023. (Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)

By Craig Murray
CraigMurray.org.UK

Given the large population in the U.K. of Pakistani origin, the lack of serious media coverage of the overthrow and incarceration of Imran Khan, and the mass imprisonment of his supporters, is truly extraordinary.

Imran Khan was last week sentenced to three years in prison — and a five-year ban from politics — for alleged embezzlement of official gifts. This follows his removal as prime minister in a C.I.A.-engineered coup, and a vicious campaign of violence and imprisonment against Khan and his supporters.

It is currently illegal in Pakistan to publish or broadcast about Khan or the thousands of new political prisoners incarcerated in appalling conditions. There have been no protests from the U.K. or U.S. governments.

Imran Khan is almost certainly the least corrupt senior politician in Pakistan’s history — I admit that is not a high bar. Pakistan’s politics are — to an extent not sufficiently understood in the West — literally feudal. Two dynasties, the Sharifs and the Bhuttos, have alternated in power, in a sometimes deadly rivalry, punctuated by periods of more open military rule.

There is no genuine ideological or policy gap between the Sharifs and Bhuttos, though the latter have more intellectual pretension. It is purely about control of state resources. The arbiter of power has in reality been the military, not the electorate. They have now put the Sharifs back in power.

Imran Khan’s incredible breakthrough in the 2018 National Assembly elections shattered normal political life in Pakistan. Winning a plurality of the popular vote and the most seats, Khan’s PTI party had risen from under 1 percent of the vote in 2002 to 32 percent in 2018. 

The dates are important. It was not Khan’s cricketing heroics which made him politically popular. In 2002, when his cricket genius was much fresher in the mind than it is now, he was viewed as a joke candidate. 

In fact, it was Khan’s outspoken opposition to the United States using Pakistan as a base, and particularly his demand to stop the hundreds of dreadful U.S. drone strikes within Pakistan, that caused the surge in his support.

The Pakistani military went along with him. The reason is not hard to find. Given the level of hatred the U.S.A. had engendered through its drone killings, the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the hideous torture excesses of the “War on terror,” it was temporarily not in the interests of the Pakistan military to foreground their deep relationship with the C.I.A. and U.S. military.

Safety Valve

Protesting U.S. drone attacks on Pakistan in Hong Kong, July 8, 2012. (Yu Pong, Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0)

The Pakistan security service, ISI, had betrayed Osama Bin Laden to the U.S., which hardly improved the popularity of the military and security services. Imran Khan was seen by them as a useful safety valve. It was believed he could channel the insurgent anti-Americanism and Islamic enthusiasm which was sweeping Pakistan, into a government acceptable to the West.

In power, Khan proved much more radical than the C.I.A., the British Tories and the Pakistani military had hoped. The belief that he was only a playboy dilettante at heart was soon shattered. A stream of Khan’s decisions upset the U.S. and threatened the income streams of the corrupt senior military.

Khan did not only talk about stopping the U.S. drone programme, he actually stopped it. 

Aircrew from the California Air National Guard’s 163rd Attack Wing flies an MQ-9 Reaper remotely piloted aircraft in 2018. (US Air Force/Senior Airman Crystal Housman)

Khan refused offers of large amounts of money, also linked to U.S. support for an IMF loan, for Pakistan to send ground forces to support the Saudi air campaign against Yemen. I was told this by one of Khan’s ministers when I visited in 2019, on condition of a confidentiality which need no longer apply.

Khan openly criticised military corruption and, in the action most guaranteed to precipitate a C.I.A. coup, he supported the developing country movement to move trading away from the petrodollar. He accordingly sought to switch Pakistan’s oil suppliers from the Gulf states to Russia.

Relentless Hit Piece

The Guardian, the chief neo-con mouthpiece in the U.K., on Sunday published an article about Khan so tendentious it took my breath away. How about this for a bit of dishonest reporting:

“… in November a gunman opened fire on his convoy at a rally, injuring his leg in what aides say was an assassination attempt.”

“Aides say”: What is this implying? 

Khan had himself shot in the legs as some kind of stunt? It was all a joke? He wasn’t actually shot but fell over and grazed a knee? It is truly disgraceful journalism.

It is hard to know whether the article’s astonishing assertion that Khan’s tenure as prime minister led to an increase in corruption in Pakistan is a deliberate lie or extraordinary ignorance. 

I am not sure whether Emma Graham-Harrison, the author of the article, has ever been to Pakistan. I suspect the closest she has been to Pakistan is meeting Jemima Goldsmith at a party.

The author, left, during a recent trip to Pakistan, where he went to Karachi, Abbottabad and the Afghan border. (Craig Murray)

“Playboy,” “dilettante,” “misogynist” — The Guardian hit piece is relentless. It is an encapsulation of the “liberal” arguments for military intervention in Muslim states, for overthrowing Islamic governments and conquering Islamic countries, in order to install Western norms, in particular the tenets of Western feminism.

I think we have seen how that playbook has ended in Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan, amongst others. The use of the word “claim” to engender distrust of Khan in The Guardian article is studied. He “claimed” that his years living in the U.K. had inspired him to wish to create a welfare state in Pakistan.

Why is that a dubious comment from a man who spent the majority of his personal fortune on setting up and running a free cancer hospital in Pakistan?

Khan’s efforts to remove or sideline the most corrupt generals, and those most openly in the pay of the C.I.A., are described by The Guardian as “he tried to take control of senior military appointments and began railing against the armed forces’ influence in politics.” How entirely unreasonable of him! 

Literally thousands of members of Khan’s political party are currently in jail for the crime of having joined a new political party. The condemnation by the Western establishment has been non-existent.

It is difficult to think of a country, besides Pakistan, where thousands of largely middle-class people could suddenly become political prisoners, while drawing almost no condemnation. It is of course because the U.K. supports the coup against Khan. 

But I feel confident it also reflects in part the racism and contempt shown by the British political class towards the Pakistani immigrant community, which contrasts starkly with British ministerial enthusiasm for Modi’s India.

We should not forget New Labour have also never been a friend to democracy in Pakistan, and the Blair government was extremely comfortable with Pakistan’s last open military dictatorship under General Pervez Musharraf. 

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. His coverage is entirely dependent on reader support. Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

How to sell a war: Peace means war

 Chris Nineham, Counterfire, 

9 August 2023

Analysis

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Tank in Eastern Ukraine. Photo: Ukraine Ministry of Defence on Flickr.

Chris Nineham completes his series on Ukraine by analysing the cliché motif of ‘War is peace’

Peace and security are central stated aims of the West’s operation in Ukraine. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has, supporters of the war argue, disrupted the ‘security architecture’ and raised tensions in the region. The result is somewhat paradoxical. For in the minds of the war’s supporters, all actual calls for peace must be opposed and all peace initiatives ignored. All in the interests of…peace.

‘Peace is something more than “not war”. We should not confuse the terms.’ So said Josep Borrell, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy in June referring to the war. ‘Of course we want peace’ he went on to say, ‘but unhappily, we have to face a situation where the war will continue.’

The deployment of the idea of peace to justify war is not new. It’s use reflects the fact that war is generally unpopular and that most people think that peace in general is preferable.

The knack here is twofold. First, ensure that the opponent is regarded as the aggressor. Second, create the idea that however belligerent your own side is, in a general sense, peace is one of your core values.

This explains why in war after war, the Western powers have been so desperate to portray the enemy as the fire starter. The Afghan Taliban were held to be responsible for the 9/11 attacks. We were told in 2003, with zero evidence, that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was 45 minutes away from attacking the west. It was claimed Libyan leader, Muamar Ghaddafi, was about to unleash military terror on the rebel city of Benghazi when the British and French started their devastating 2011 aerial bombardment that ended with his killing. ‘We came, we saw, he died’ crowed US Secretary of State, Hilary Clinton, at the time.

In the case of Ukraine, Russia invaded in February 2022 and the anti-war movement rightly condemned that invasion and called for Russian troops to withdraw. The movement has consistently protested at continuing Russian aggression and done everything possible to support the Russian anti-war movement.

Two things however are absolutely crucial here. First, as argued in a previous instalment of this series, that invasion, while utterly wrong, was far from unprovoked. A long list of senior Western military experts and political commentators have repeatedly made clear that the eastern expansion of NATO, and particularly talk of incorporating Ukraine, was likely to lead to war.

To give just one example from 1995, Russian scholar and Moscow correspondent for The Times, Anatol Lieven, surveyed elite and popular opinion in Russia on just this question. After conducting interviews with senior political, military, and diplomatic figures from across the political spectrum, he concluded that “moves toward NATO membership for Ukraine would trigger a really ferocious Russian response,” and that “NATO membership for Ukraine would be regarded by Russians as a catastrophe of epochal proportions.” He quoted a Russian naval officer, who made it clear that preventing NATO’s expansion into Ukraine and its consequent control of Crimea was “something for which Russians will fight.”

There is no question that the Western leaders knew that plans to bring Ukraine into NATO, first publicly discussed in 2008, would be seen by Russia as an act of aggression.

A thought experiment helps reinforce the point. How would US elites react if Mexico were to invite Russia or China to station warships in its ports and bombers in its airfields?

As it happens, Benjamin Schwarz and Christopher Layne writing for Harper’s magazine explain that a civilian military analyst who has worked at the Pentagon has put just this question to rising leaders in the U.S. military and intelligence services. Their reactions, unsurprisingly, ranged from cutting economic ties and exerting “maximal foreign policy pressure on Mexico to get them to change course” to “we need to start there, and then use military force if necessary,”

Secondly, does anyone really believe that the pursuit of peace has been at the heart of Western foreign policy over the last few decades? The fact is, the west’s recent wars fought across the Middle East and beyond in the name of confronting terror have, in the process of inflicting terrible suffering on the lives of millions, made the world a much more dangerous place. As well as creating a series of failed states, they have helped spread civil wars and proliferate terror groups around the Middle East, central Asia, and swathes of the African continent.

The briefest scan of US security documents over the last two decades make it crystal clear that behind the fine phrases about anti-terrorism, peace and prosperity lie the drive to defend US interests against economic competitors. As a key document of the neoconservative hawks argued in 2000, the priority was to use military power to defend the US’s position as the world’s unchallenged superpower after the collapse of the Soviet Union

“Preserving the desirable strategic situation in which the United Sates now finds itself requires a globally preeminent military capability both today and in the future”.

After 9/11, this position indeed became official US policy. The national security strategy document for 2002 is explicit about the aim to stop emerging economic challengers becoming great powers:

“As we defend the peace, we will also take advantage of an historic opportunity to preserve the peace… We will strongly resist aggression from other great powers—even as we welcome their peaceful pursuit of prosperity, trade, and cultural advancement…We are attentive to the possible renewal of old patterns of great power competition. Several potential great powers are now in the midst of internal transition—most importantly Russia, India, and China.”

What then has the West’s response to the invasion of Ukraine done for peace? It has totally failed to bring the war in Ukraine to an end, but it has involved the biggest accumulation of weapons and troops in eastern Europe since the end of the Cold War. It has led to a situation in which great powers have publicly threatened to use nuclear weapons for the first time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

It has accelerated the expansion of NATO with Finland, which shares a border with Russia, joining and Sweden set to join. Both have abandoned long-term commitments to neutrality. Under pressure, German Chancellor, Olaf Scholz, has declared a historic sea change in Germany’s attitude to military spending and set aside €100 billion to modernise its armed forces.

Overall, it has led to the steepest rise in military spending in Europe for thirty years. For the first time, arms spending has surpassed that at the end of the Cold War in 1989. Some of the increases for countries not involved in the war are eye watering. Finland has boosted arms spending by 36 per cent, Lithuania by 27 per cent, Sweden 12 per cent and Poland 11 per cent.

As a result, the whole region is on high alert, the slaughter in Ukraine continues with no end in sight, borders have been progressively militarised, drones attacks on Moscow and Kiev are a regular occurrence, missiles, tanks, cluster bombs and other munitions continue to pour into the region, anti-war protestors on both sides are being arrested. No neutral observer could possibly claim that the militarised Western response has brought peace closer. Peace it turns out, does not equal war.

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Chris Nineham

Chris Nineham is a founder member of Stop the War and Counterfire, speaking regularly around the country on behalf of both. He is author of The People Versus Tony Blair and Capitalism and Class Consciousness: the ideas of Georg Lukacs.

The new ‘tanker war’ and US military escalation in the Persian Gulf

The last time Washington put armed personnel on private vessels was during World War II. Does Biden know what he’s getting into?

August 7, 2023

 Paul R. Pillar, Responsible Statecraft, 7 August 2023

The last time the United States placed armament and military personnel, ready to fight, on ocean-going commercial vessels was during the world wars of the 20th Century.

In World War II, the U.S. Navy organized an Armed Guard that served on merchant ships — an unpopular duty, given how the freighters to which the sailors were assigned represented targets for the enemy at least as much as any offensive capability to inflict significant damage in return. Hundreds of these merchant ships were sunk despite their Navy contingent aboard, and some 2,000 members of the Armed Guard died.

The closest the United States has come to any similar arrangement since then was in escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers during the “tanker war” phase of the Iran-Iraq War in the 1980s. This time the United States did not go so far as to place its own military personnel on the commercial vessels, although the tankers were reflagged as a legal nicety to go with the escorting by U.S. Navy warships.

The operation was only a partial success. Although it may have deterred some attacks by surface vessels, Iran still managed to inflict damage through the use of mines. In a humiliating revamping of the convoys, U.S. warships were not out in front providing protection. Instead, they meekly followed the tankers because they were more vulnerable than the much bigger oil carrier to being sunk by mines.

These previous instances occurred in wartime, within much larger conflicts in which combat was already raging. But now, according to U.S. officials speaking anonymously, the Biden administration is considering the placement of armed U.S. military personnel aboard commercial vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz, which links the Persian Gulf with the Arabian Sea and open ocean. Such an arrangement would go even beyond what the United States did in the 1980s.

The placing of troops on commercial ships is reportedly still only a proposal, but it comes amid actual escalation of the U.S. military presence in an around the Persian Gulf. Recent deployments increasing that presence have included Navy ships, Marines, and fighter aircraft.

These deployments run contrary to a stated intention of multiple U.S. administrations, of both parties, which is to reduce, not increase, U.S. military involvement in the Middle East and to pivot attention and resources elsewhere, especially to the East Asia and Pacific region. The continued — and now, increased — military involvement in the Middle East, notwithstanding that intention, perpetuates U.S. vulnerabilities. The newly deployed personnel may become, like the U.S. troops that are still in Iraq and Syria, targets of hostile fire. Their presence carries the added risk of drawing the United States into even bigger armed conflicts.

The deployments involve stepping into a zone of regional rivalries and is not a simple matter of protecting good guys against bad guys. Despite the perennial fixation on Iran, Tehran’s regional rivals — including ones that are the origin or destination of much of that commercial shipping that the administration wants to protect — are just as distant from American values and interests. Saudi Arabia, traditionally the principal rival, is at least as much of an authoritarian state as Iran and an oppressive violator of human rights whose actions and ideology have had lethal consequences for Americans both individually and on a larger scale.

The stated reason for considering the placement of U.S. troops on commercial ships, and part of the background to the other U.S. military deployments to the region, involves Iran’s interception, seizure, or other harassment of some oil tankers transiting the Strait of Hormuz. With different U.S. policies, this situation could have been avoided. Iran has not intercepted shipping because Iranians have some genetic malice that compels them to do such things. As with many other Iranian policies and actions, this practice is reactive.

It was the United States, not Iran, that began the latest round of going after another nation’s tankers and seizing its oil. The U.S. actions reflect a unilateral U.S. policy of trying to prevent Iranian oil exports. This policy is not grounded in international law, and Iran unsurprisingly has labeled the U.S. seizure and selling of Iranian oil as “piracy.” The U.S. government has not found a buyer for a tanker full of Iranian oil that it seized at sea in April and brought to Houston, because shippers and potential buyers fear repercussions.

This dynamic partly echoes the tanker war of the 1980s. It was the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein — who started the overall Iran-Iraq War, and toward whom U.S. policy was then tilting — who initiated attacks against tankers and other commercial oil facilities. Iran responded to those attacks on its own ships and infrastructure by targeting tankers of Iraq’s ally Kuwait.

The timing of some of the recent Iranian intercepts of shipping make the tit-for-tat nature of the Iranian actions obvious. In response to the U.S. seizure of the Iranian tanker in April, Iran just a few days later took control in the Gulf of Oman of a tanker carrying oil from Kuwait and chartered by Chevron.

Other Iranian interception of shipping has not had this immediate tit-for-tat nature but is a more general response to the U.S. economic warfare against Iran, which in effect continues the Trump administration’s “maximum pressure” policy. Iran is sending a message that it cannot be ignored, that if it is not allowed to export its oil, then other oil producers will have difficulty exporting theirs, and that it needs the concentrated attention of the U.S. government in finding a replacement for the agreement that had restricted Iran’s nuclear activities in return for partial sanctions relief and that Trump junked in 2018.

Any consideration of the deployment of U.S. troops on commercial ships needs to address several important questions and risks. Foremost among these is the substantial danger of incidents at sea leading to wider warfare between the United States and Iran. This risk would ensue from any action in which American personnel were involved in exchanges of fire but would be especially high in the event of American casualties. In response to such an incident, strong domestic political pressure would push the administration toward even greater military escalation.

Further questions arise from the fact that the vessels to be protected are commercial operations associated with mostly non-U.S. crews, ship owners, and commodity traders. If the protection is to be afforded only to selected vessels, this would be a kind of industrial policy on steroids that would entail the usual questions surrounding any industrial policy about picking winners and losers.

If the protection is more comprehensive, then American personnel would be literally taken for a ride on many vessels whose mission is defined in terms of the interests of foreign companies and foreign states, which often will differ from the interests of the United States.

When one of these vessels gets into a dicey situation at sea, who exactly is in charge? Americans may be manning the guns, but a commercial captain is presumably still at the helm and still the master of the ship. Such questions matter because the occurrence or avoidance of a violent incident at sea may depend on immediate navigational decisions that would affect whether, say, a potentially hostile craft gets too close for comfort.

With commercial operations that have security risks, such as exporting oil through the Persian Gulf and Strait of Hormuz, the scope of operations usually is defined by insurance rates and the decisions of operators in response to those rates—decisions that take into account wider considerations such as global demand for oil. U.S. intercession in this business would involve partly taking over functions that may be better left to the market and Lloyds of London.

More fundamentally, escalation of the U.S. military presence and military operations in the Persian Gulf region runs directly against a welcome recent trend toward de-escalation of tensions in that region. This trend has included the Chinese-mediated restoration of diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia and a warming of relations between Iran and the United Arab Emirates. The smaller Gulf Arab states of Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman have been even more forward than the Saudis and Emiratis in expanding peaceful relations with Iran. 

U.S. policymakers need to think carefully about what mark the United States will leave on this region as an outside intervenor. It could be a positive mark, similar to what the Chinese have done, of greater peace and stability—which is in the interests of regional states, global energy supplies, and the United States. It would be unfortunate if the mark instead were one of increased tension and instability, by reversing the “pivot” and putting added military resources, with associated commitments, back into the region.

Written by
Paul R. Pillar

𝐌𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐁𝐢𝐠𝐠𝐞𝐫 𝐖𝐚𝐫 i𝐧 𝐔𝐤𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐧𝐞 𝐨𝐫 𝐏𝐞𝐚𝐜𝐞?

 --- Nasir Khan

As a peace activist, Rob Crighton’s views on the Ukraine war that is resulting in so much loss of life and suffering of Ukrainians and Russians, causing economic upheavals globally and increasing the dangers of turning the ongoing war into a nuclear inferno are relevant to understanding one of the major danger-spots. He asked David Grove, a political analyst, for his scholarly opinion on these matters.

Grove’s analysis offers some much-needed insights into this war that does not follow the official versions backed by the mainstream media. He quite rightly says that after the end of World War II, there has been no world war, but there have been many wars since then, mainly instigated by American imperialism. The Ukraine war is no exception, but an extension of the same hegemonic power that American imperialism embodies.

Putin is generally portrayed in the West as solely responsible for starting this war in 2022, but what is often ignored or not told openly is the fact that a limited war was going on in eastern Ukraine, in which many thousand Russian-speaking inhabitants were killed. Russia wanted this to stop, but the warnings were unheeded. Not unexpectedly, Russia intervened and the war expanded. Was this intervention only a madman’s adventure or was there something more sinister involved? In Grove’s view, American rulers wanted this war, a view with which this writer fully agrees.

The war led to the extension of American imperial power further. It consolidated its relationship in military spheres with Britain. Because of the war, NATO membership was extended to Finland and Sweden. Ukraine is on the waiting list; after the war, it will formally join NATO. The US has benefited enormously from this war, both economically and militarily. After cutting off supplies of cheap Russian gas, America is selling gas at high prices to Europe and other regions of the world. The supply and sale of weapons to Ukraine have reached unprecedented levels since 1922.

Can this war be stopped? The answer is that without the mass mobilization and involvement of the peace movement, US imperialists who lead the West and control NATO would have free hands to continue the war and continue to reap rich dividends by selling more and more destructive weapons in this proxy war where the main target is Russia.

Those who want to see the war end by diplomatic means hope that peace activists will see the video and also spread David Grove's clear-sighted views for peace and avoid further escalation of this war into a nuclear war.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoIkmsOyzU8

PA President Mahmoud Abbas: A Puppet in the Hands of Israel and the US?

  SCHEERPOST, July 22, 2023

Despite its near complete failure, the Oslo Accords succeeded in one thing: it provided Israel with a Palestinian force whose main mission is to assist the Israeli occupation in its quest to maintain total control over the West Bank.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, West Bank. Photo from Wikimedia Commons from the US Department of State on July 23, 2014.

By Ramzy Baroud / MintPress News

This is the perfect opportunity for Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to exit the stage. But he will not.  Abbas’ brief visit to the devastated Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank on July 12 demonstrated the absurdity and danger of the PA and its 87-year-old leader.  As he walked, Abbas struggled to keep his balance in what was promoted as a ‘solidarity’ visit to the camp.

Thousands of frustrated Jenin residents took to the streets, hardly chanting Abbas’ name. Some looked on with disappointment; others asked where the President’s forces were when Israel invaded the camp, killing 12, wounding and arresting hundreds more.

The BBC reported on a “huge armed deployment” to secure Abbas’ visit, where “PA security forces joined a thousand-strong unit of Mr. Abbas’ elite presidential guard.” Their only job was to “clear a path” for Abbas into the camp.

On the initial and most deadly first day of the Israeli invasion of Jenin, Israeli media, citing military sources, said that 1,000 Israeli soldiers were taking part in the military operation.

Yet, it took more Palestinian soldiers to secure Abbas’ brief visit to Jenin.

Indeed, where were those well-dressed and equipped PA soldiers when Jenin was fighting and dying alone?  And why does Abbas need to be protected from his own people?

To address these questions, it is important to examine recent contexts, three significant dates in particular:

On July 5, Israel ended its military operation in Jenin.

On July 9, despite protests by some of his security cabinet members, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would do its utmost to prevent the collapse of the PA. He stated outright that the PA “works for us.”

And finally, on July 12, Abbas visited Jenin with a stern message to Palestinian Resistance groups.

These three dates are directly related: Israel’s failed raid on Jenin has heightened the significance of the PA in Israel’s eyes. Abbas visited Jenin to reassure Israel that his Authority is up for the task.

To live up to Israel’s expectations and to ensure its survival, the PA is willing to clash directly with Palestinians who refuse to toe the line.

“There will be one Authority and one security force,” Abbas declared angrily, only days following the burial of Jenin’s victims. “Anyone who seeks to undermine its unity and security will face the consequences,” he added, further promising that “Any hand that reaches out to harm the people and their stability shall be cut off.”

The hand in reference is not that of Israel but any Palestinian who resists Israel.

Abbas knows that Palestinians outright despise him and his Authority. Just days earlier, Fatah party deputy Chairman, Mahmoud Aloul, was removed from Jenin by angry crowds.

The crowds chanted in unison, “Get out,” to Aloul and two other PA officials.

They did, but Abbas returned to the same scene. He was flown in a Jordanian military helicopter. Waiting for him below was a small PA army that had taken over the streets and the high buildings – or whatever remained of them – in the destroyed camp.

All of this happened through logistical arrangements with the Israeli military.

But why is Netanyahu keen on the PA’s survival?

Netanyahu wants the PA to survive simply because he does not want the Israeli occupation administration and military to be fully responsible for the welfare of Palestinians in the West Bank and the security of the illegal settlers.

Despite its near complete failure, the Oslo Accords succeeded in one thing: it provided Israel with a Palestinian force whose main mission is to assist the Israeli occupation in its quest to maintain total control over the West Bank.

Abbas’ trip to Jenin was intended to reassure Tel Aviv that the PA is still committed to its obligations to Israel.

Another message was sent to US President Joe Biden, who has, in a recent interview, cast doubts on the PA’s ‘credibility’.  “The PA is losing its credibility,” Biden told CNN, and that has “created a vacuum for extremism.”

The message to Washington was that the hands of the so-called ‘extremists’ will be “cut off” and that there will be “consequences” for those who defy the PA’s will.

Abbas seemed to speak not only on behalf of his Authority but that of Tel Aviv and Washington as well.

Even ordinary Palestinians understand this to be the case; in fact, they always have. The only difference now is that they feel strong and emboldened by a new generation of Resistance that has succeeded in reclaiming a degree of Palestinian unity amid factional politics and PA corruption.

The PA is now seen by most Palestinians as the obstacle in the face of full unity. That position is fully fathomable. While Israel was ramping up its deadly operations in Jenin and Nablus, the PA police were arresting Palestinian activists, angering Resistance groups in the West Bank and Gaza.

If this continues, a civil war in the West Bank is a real possibility, especially as Abbas’ potential successors are equally distrusted, even by Fatah’s own rank and file. These men were also in Jenin, standing shoulder to shoulder behind Abbas as he was frantically trying to lay out the new rules.

This time around, Palestinians are unlikely to listen. For the Resistance, the stakes are too high to back down now. For the PA, losing the West Bank means losing billions of dollars of Western financial handouts.

A clash between the Resistance and their popular support, on the one hand, and the West-Israel-backed PA forces, on the other, will prove very costly for Palestinians.

Yet, for Tel Aviv, it is a win-win. This is why Netanyahu is anxious to help Abbas keep his job, at least long enough to ensure that the post-Abbas transition goes through efficiently.

Palestinians must find a way to block such designs, preserve Palestinian blood, and restructure their leadership so that it represents them, not the interests of the Israeli occupation.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas: A Puppet in the Hands of Israel and the US?

 SCEERPOST, July 22, 2023

Despite its near complete failure, the Oslo Accords succeeded in one thing: it provided Israel with a Palestinian force whose main mission is to assist the Israeli occupation in its quest to maintain total control over the West Bank.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry shakes hands with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, West Bank. Photo from Wikimedia Commons from the US Department of State on July 23, 2014.

By Ramzy Baroud / MintPress News

This is the perfect opportunity for Palestinian Authority President, Mahmoud Abbas, to exit the stage. But he will not.  Abbas’ brief visit to the devastated Jenin refugee camp in the northern occupied West Bank on July 12 demonstrated the absurdity and danger of the PA and its 87-year-old leader.  As he walked, Abbas struggled to keep his balance in what was promoted as a ‘solidarity’ visit to the camp.

Thousands of frustrated Jenin residents took to the streets, hardly chanting Abbas’ name. Some looked on with disappointment; others asked where the President’s forces were when Israel invaded the camp, killing 12, wounding and arresting hundreds more.

The BBC reported on a “huge armed deployment” to secure Abbas’ visit, where “PA security forces joined a thousand-strong unit of Mr. Abbas’ elite presidential guard.” Their only job was to “clear a path” for Abbas into the camp.

On the initial and most deadly first day of the Israeli invasion of Jenin, Israeli media, citing military sources, said that 1,000 Israeli soldiers were taking part in the military operation.

Yet, it took more Palestinian soldiers to secure Abbas’ brief visit to Jenin.

Indeed, where were those well-dressed and equipped PA soldiers when Jenin was fighting and dying alone?  And why does Abbas need to be protected from his own people?

To address these questions, it is important to examine recent contexts, three significant dates in particular:

On July 5, Israel ended its military operation in Jenin.

On July 9, despite protests by some of his security cabinet members, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Israel would do its utmost to prevent the collapse of the PA. He stated outright that the PA “works for us.”

And finally, on July 12, Abbas visited Jenin with a stern message to Palestinian Resistance groups.

These three dates are directly related: Israel’s failed raid on Jenin has heightened the significance of the PA in Israel’s eyes. Abbas visited Jenin to reassure Israel that his Authority is up for the task.

To live up to Israel’s expectations and to ensure its survival, the PA is willing to clash directly with Palestinians who refuse to toe the line.

“There will be one Authority and one security force,” Abbas declared angrily, only days following the burial of Jenin’s victims. “Anyone who seeks to undermine its unity and security will face the consequences,” he added, further promising that “Any hand that reaches out to harm the people and their stability shall be cut off.”

The hand in reference is not that of Israel but any Palestinian who resists Israel.

Abbas knows that Palestinians outright despise him and his Authority. Just days earlier, Fatah party deputy Chairman, Mahmoud Aloul, was removed from Jenin by angry crowds.

The crowds chanted in unison, “Get out,” to Aloul and two other PA officials.

They did, but Abbas returned to the same scene. He was flown in a Jordanian military helicopter. Waiting for him below was a small PA army that had taken over the streets and the high buildings – or whatever remained of them – in the destroyed camp.

All of this happened through logistical arrangements with the Israeli military.

But why is Netanyahu keen on the PA’s survival?

Netanyahu wants the PA to survive simply because he does not want the Israeli occupation administration and military to be fully responsible for the welfare of Palestinians in the West Bank and the security of the illegal settlers.

Despite its near complete failure, the Oslo Accords succeeded in one thing: it provided Israel with a Palestinian force whose main mission is to assist the Israeli occupation in its quest to maintain total control over the West Bank.

Abbas’ trip to Jenin was intended to reassure Tel Aviv that the PA is still committed to its obligations to Israel.

Another message was sent to US President Joe Biden, who has, in a recent interview, cast doubts on the PA’s ‘credibility’.  “The PA is losing its credibility,” Biden told CNN, and that has “created a vacuum for extremism.”

The message to Washington was that the hands of the so-called ‘extremists’ will be “cut off” and that there will be “consequences” for those who defy the PA’s will.

Abbas seemed to speak not only on behalf of his Authority but that of Tel Aviv and Washington as well.

Even ordinary Palestinians understand this to be the case; in fact, they always have. The only difference now is that they feel strong and emboldened by a new generation of Resistance that has succeeded in reclaiming a degree of Palestinian unity amid factional politics and PA corruption.

The PA is now seen by most Palestinians as the obstacle in the face of full unity. That position is fully fathomable. While Israel was ramping up its deadly operations in Jenin and Nablus, the PA police were arresting Palestinian activists, angering Resistance groups in the West Bank and Gaza.

If this continues, a civil war in the West Bank is a real possibility, especially as Abbas’ potential successors are equally distrusted, even by Fatah’s own rank and file. These men were also in Jenin, standing shoulder to shoulder behind Abbas as he was frantically trying to lay out the new rules.

This time around, Palestinians are unlikely to listen. For the Resistance, the stakes are too high to back down now. For the PA, losing the West Bank means losing billions of dollars of Western financial handouts.

A clash between the Resistance and their popular support, on the one hand, and the West-Israel-backed PA forces, on the other, will prove very costly for Palestinians.

Yet, for Tel Aviv, it is a win-win. This is why Netanyahu is anxious to help Abbas keep his job, at least long enough to ensure that the post-Abbas transition goes through efficiently.

Palestinians must find a way to block such designs, preserve Palestinian blood, and restructure their leadership so that it represents them, not the interests of the Israeli occupation.