Zionism Is In Its Flop Era
The hysterical reaction to the Columbia protests is proof.
JACK MIRKINSON, APR 22, 2024 https://www.discourseblog.com/p/zionism-is-in-its-flop-era?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=38606&post_id=143849689&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=ln98x&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
As a New York City resident, I take an interest in where my tax dollars are spent. Yesterday, at least some of those dollars were being spent to pay NYPD cops to hang around—in riot helmets—outside the locked gates of Columbia University. (Presumably, Columbia paid for the festive balloons on the gates.)
The vibes at Columbia were exactly as strange and slightly ridiculous as that picture when I swung by on Sunday. I’m on record as saying that I don’t think we should spend much time as a society stressing about what happens on fancy college campuses, but the Columbia leadership’s wildly over-the-top reaction to the decision by some students to sit in tents on the quad as part of a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” had turned the school into a national news story, and the students are being very courageous in the face of the full repressive force of both Columbia and New York City. Besides (looks down shamefacedly) I am technically a Columbia alum, so I was intrigued.
Even two blocks away, you wouldn’t have known anything was going on. Morningside Heights was its usual placid self. At 116th and Broadway, a small clutch of protesters was penned in by barricades and chanting, watched over by yet more cops. It’s no slight on the protesters to say that this hardly seemed like a national security crisis.
But I suppose that’s in the eye of the beholder. As I strolled past the protesters, I passed a guy screaming into his phone, “I don’t fucking care! There’s a riot on campus! People are in danger!” Reader, there was no riot on campus. There wasn’t even much noise.
I didn’t stay long; you couldn’t get into the campus without a student ID and there wasn’t actually that much to see. But within hours, both New York Mayor Eric Adams and the White House (lol) had issued statements portraying the protests as dangerous bastions of antisemitic hate. (As far as I can tell, a couple of people who showed up to support the students said some stupid shit. The students themselves, many of whom are Jewish, have pointed out that this has nothing to do with them.)
Why is the president of the United States involving himself in this situation? Why are the cops parked in riot gear in front of a locked gate where basically nothing is happening? Why, for that matter, did Columbia President Minouche Shafik treat a peaceful encampment on the lawn as a declaration of war? Why did Columbia’s own security force try to shut down the student radio station that was reporting on the protests? Why, in other words, are these people freaking out so much?
Obviously, they want to nip all of this protest stuff in the bud. They want to show students, and Columbia’s donors, and the fanatical politicians hounding them, that they will make it dangerous to step out of line. And to do that, they are willing to go way, way overboard.
But there is something else you can sense in all of this—another current running through the crackdown. That current is desperation. This is the kind of wild swing you take when you sense your grip on things slipping away—when you are trying to contain something that is becoming stronger than you ever imagined possible.
We’ve all been there. We all know what it feels like when you’re in your flop era—when you’re throwing everything at the wall and nothing is sticking. And Zionism is going through a flop era in America.
The White House, and Eric Adams, and Columbia University are all looking around and noticing that the old rules about Israel and Palestine are no longer working like they used to. A majority of Americans oppose the genocide in Gaza, and have for months. Young people like the Columbia students strongly oppose it. They are not listening to the likes of Joe Biden anymore about this stuff.
How can I be sure about this? Well, since Columbia moved to shut down the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, similar protests have sprung up at universities across the country. Just this morning, Yale followed Columbia’s lead and forcibly cleared a student encampment. This student movement is growing, not fading. It turns out that a lot of people want to stand against genocide. It turns out that a lot of people think that Israel slaughtering children day after day is a bigger threat to a stable and just world than college students sitting in a tent. And because Columbia, and Eric Adams, and Joe Biden have no real answer to that reality, they are instead choosing to pretend that Kristallnacht II is upon us—to smear the Palestinian flag as the equivalent of a swastika, to turn young people protesting genocide into symbols of evil.
It’s not working.
Polish president: Poland ready to deploy allied nuclear weapons on its territory
by Chris York andThe Kyiv Independent, April 22, 2024
Poland is ready and willing to allow NATO allies to deploy nuclear weapons on its territory, Polish President Andrzej Duda said in an interview published on April 22.
Speaking to Fakt, Duda highlighted how Russia has already taken similar steps with its own allies, having transferred tactical nuclear weapons to Belarus last year.
The president said the topic of placing U.S. nuclear weapons in Poland “has been a topic of Polish-American talks for some time.”
“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing also on our territory to strengthen the security of NATO‘s eastern flank, we are ready for it,” he said.
“We are an ally in the North Atlantic Alliance, and we also have obligations in this respect, i.e., we simply implement a common policy.”……………………. https://kyivindependent.com/poland-nuclear-weapons-duda/
Russia-Ukraine war: EU ministers fail to pledge Patriot systems to Ukraine at key meeting – as it happened
Yohannes Lowe and Sammy Gecsoyler, 23 Apr 24 https://www.theguardian.com/world/live/2024/apr/22/russia-ukraine-war-live-zelenskiy-chasiv-yar?filterKeyEvents=false&page=with%3Ablock-66261a918f08839e09ac8c8b
Russia says new US aid to Ukraine will not change situation on battlefield
A new US package of military aid to Ukraine will not change the situation on the frontlines, where Russia has the upper hand, the Kremlin said.
“The Russian armed forces are improving their positions at the front … The money allocated and the weapons that will be supplied will not change this dynamic,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters.
“They will lead to new victims on the Ukrainian side. More Ukrainians will die, Ukraine will suffer greater losses.”
In the Ukraine bill, of the $60.7bn, a total of about $23bn would be used by the US to replenish its military stockpiles, opening the door to future US military transfers to Ukraine.
Another $14bn would go to the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, in which the Pentagon buys advanced new weapon systems for the Ukrainian military directly from US defence contractors.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday urged Washington to quickly turn the bill into law and proceed with the actual transfer of weapons, saying long-range arms and air defence systems were top priorities.
“I think this support will really strengthen the armed forces of Ukraine and we will have a chance for victory,” Zelenskiy said.
Russia said the American defence industry will be the real beneficiary of the package.
“We also recognise that most of this money will remain in the United States. The United States will become richer and will receive additional dividends by providing assistance to Ukraine. For (President Vladimir) Putin, this was expected,” Peskov said.
Heatwave in India: TV host faints during live broadcast as swaths of country reel from sweltering temperatures
India’s federal weather agency
has issued “severe heatwave” alerts for parts of India with
temperatures soaring to 42-44C. India witnessed the early onset of an
intense heatwave in March and April, leading to a huge impact on
agriculture production. A heatwave alert has been issued for Odisha and
West Bengal till 22 April with temperature peaking above 40C.
Independent 22nd April 2024
Poland: We’re ready to host nuclear weapons, (and work with Trump )
Polish President Andrzej Duda said atomic sharing has been a topic of Warsaw-Washington talks.
Politico, APRIL 22, 2024 , BY CLAUDIA CHIAPPA
Polish President Andrzej Duda said Poland is “ready” to host nuclear weapons on its territory if NATO decides to reinforce its eastern flank.
“Russia is increasingly militarizing the Königsberg oblast (Kaliningrad). Recently, it has been relocating its nuclear weapons to Belarus,” Duda said in an interview published Monday by Polish outlet Fakt.
“If our allies decide to deploy nuclear weapons as part of nuclear sharing on our territory as well, in order to strengthen the security of NATO’s eastern flank, we are ready for it,” he added.
………………………………………………………….. Duda, who recently traveled to New York and met Republican 2024 candidate Donald Trump, spoke fondly of the former president, saying that the two have “a lot of common topics.”
“He is a politician with whom I directly cooperated with the United States for four years when he was the president of the United States,” Duda said. “I want to emphasize very strongly that we have been friends since then. I really like talking to him, because he is an extremely interesting personality and has a lot of experience, both political and business.” https://www.politico.eu/article/poland-ready-host-nuclear-weapons-andrzej-duda-nato/
North Korea’s Kim Jong Un Oversees Simulated ‘Nuclear Counterattack’
The drill took place on Monday, according to the report. Seoul’s military had earlier announced that the North had fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Monday, with Tokyo confirming the launch.
World NewsAgence France-Presse April 23, 2024 https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/north-koreas-kim-jong-un-oversees-simulated-nuclear-counterattack-5501429
According to report, Kim Jong Un “appreciated the high hit and accuracy” of the rockets.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has overseen a drill simulating a “nuclear counterattack,” state-run KCNA news agency said Tuesday, the latest in a volley of tests by Pyongyang this year.
The drill took place on Monday, according to the report. Seoul’s military had earlier announced that the North had fired several short-range ballistic missiles on Monday, with Tokyo confirming the launch.
The drill involved “super-large multiple rocket units” which “hit their island target” some 352 kilometres (219 miles) away, the report said.
It added that Kim “appreciated the high hit and accuracy” of the rockets.
South Korea’s military said Monday that the missiles flew from the Pyongyang area for about 300 kilometres before splashing down in the waters east of the Korean peninsula.
The launch is the second in less than a week by Pyongyang, which on Friday tested a “super-large warhead” designed for a strategic cruise missile, state media said. Seoul’s military confirmed it had detected cruise missile launches at the time.
Europe baked in ‘extreme heat stress’ pushing temperatures to record highs
Scorching weather has baked Europe in more days of “extreme heat
stress” than its scientists have ever seen. Heat-trapping pollutants that
clog the atmosphere helped push temperatures in Europe last year to the
highest or second-highest levels ever recorded, according to the EU’s
Earth-watching service Copernicus and the World Meteorological Organization
(WMO).
Europeans are suffering with unprecedented heat during the day and
are stressed by uncomfortable warmth at night. The death rate from hot
weather has risen 30% in Europe in two decades, the joint State of the
Climate report from the two organisations found. “The cost of climate
action may seem high,” said WMO secretary-general Celeste Saulo, “but
the cost of inaction is much higher”.
The report found that temperatures
across Europe were above average for 11 months of 2023, including the
warmest September since records began. The hot and dry weather fuelled
large fires that ravaged villages and spewed smoke that choked far-off
cities. The blazes that firefighters battled were particularly fierce in
drought-stricken southern countries such as Portugal, Spain and Italy.
Guardian 22nd April 2024
Paul Dorfman: “In Ukraine or the Middle East, the risk of a nuclear accident is real”
Nuclear safety . For nuclear safety expert Paul Dorfman, a military attack on a nuclear power plant would be disastrous, both humanly and environmentally.
Comments collected by Baptiste Gauthey, 04/21/2024
Two conflicts, and the same fear. On April 15, the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Rafael Grossi, sounded the alarm about threats posed to infrastructure by the war in Ukraine and tensions in the Middle East nuclear power plants in these regions. “We are getting dangerously close to a nuclear accident [in Zaporizhia, a Ukrainian power plant ],” he even declared on the sidelines of the UN Security Council.
Paul Dorfman, chairman of the Nuclear Consulting Group and a member of the Irish government’s Environmental Protection Agency’s radiation protection advisory committee, says these concerns are entirely justified. According to him, a military attack on a nuclear power plant would lead to catastrophic consequences. To the point, even, of calling into question the development of civil nuclear power in the world? Interview.
In your opinion, is there a risk that the conflict in Ukraine could trigger a nuclear accident?
Paul Dorfman Of course, no nuclear power plant in the world is safe from military attack. These attacks could target either the reactor or the storage basins for highly radioactive spent fuel, which are significantly less protected.
There is no doubt that a military attack on the Ukrainian Zaporizhia power plant would trigger a catastrophe, with radioactive releases that would have a serious impact on the surrounding environment and human health. Additionally, if weather conditions are unfavorable, such as a wind blowing towards Central Europe or Russia, the consequences could extend well beyond Ukraine.
According to an article published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists by Jungmin Kang and Eva Lisowski, the effects of such an attack could be comparable, if not greater, to those of Chernobyl ?
L’Express 21st April 2024
04/21/2024
Nuclear test campaigner demands access to medical files
By Andrea Ormsby, BBC News, 23 Apr 24
A campaigner from Devon is suing the government over missing medical records belonging to veterans exposed to radiation more than 70 years ago.
Susan Musselwhite’s father, Derek, was one of 22,000 servicemen who took part in nuclear tests in the 1950 and 1960s.
Ms Musselwhite said access to missing medical files would help veterans and descendants who said their health had suffered as a result of the trials.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) said no information was withheld from veterans.
Ms Musselwhite, 44, from Paignton, is part of a group of former military personnel and their families who have sent a letter before action on the MoD, formally warning of a potential court claim, and handed a petition into Downing Street in March 2024.
Ms Musselwhite said: “What these men witnessed you only see in movies. But they witnessed it, they lived it; they know the deadliest weapon ever created.”
The group is calling for the government to create a special tribunal to oversee compensation.
Personnel from all three armed forces took part in Cold War nuclear weapons trials between 1952 and 1967 in Australia and the South Pacific.
Susan Musselwhite said the government “sent their men as cannon fodder and those men deserve to be recognised for what they did”, including her Royal Navy diver father.
Like many of the veterans’ children and grandchildren, Ms Musselwhite said she was struggling with serious health issues.
Campaigners say they are currently unable to access their records or parts are missing or incomplete because the samples have been reclassified as “scientific data” and placed at the MoD’s Atomic Weapons Establishment research facility.
MoD sources previously told the BBC that archives at the facility have been searched and do not contain the medical records in question.
Ms Musselwhite said missing medical records of blood and urine tests taken by the military during the trials could provide vital information…………………………….. more https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-devon-68883809
TODAY. The failed social species – Homo-not-sapiens-at-all
‘We’re supposed to be “social animals”, but I wonder about that.
Especially the “advanced” world, the predominantly white people, and particularly the anglophone world are directing their attention, their energy, and above all their MONEY. into ways to kill each other. More importantly perhaps, to kill “less white” people – Arabs and Chinese.
In Pakistan, melting of glaciers and extreme rain is causing heavy loss of life.
Today I read that millions of people in China are threatened by record-breaking floods – tens of thousands evacuated.
European villages are suffering unprecedented extreme heat stress, with rising numbers of heat deaths, as well as having experiencing months of drought and wildfires
One might think that the most important task for a social species would be to help these victims of global heating, and indeed to put a stop to, or at least slow down global heating.
But perhaps, the not-very-bright leaders of the advanced countries do not understand that we are all in fact one species, that for example, Palestinians are not a separate species of untermenschen. That even Russians and Chinese are people, too.
And that we’re all in the same perilous boat -and the job is to deal with climate change – not to enrich weapons manufacturers.
Bankers upgrade Lockheed stock after Iran strikes at Israel
defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics.
The American company has played an outsized role in Tel Aviv’s bombing and invasion of Gaza since Oct. 7
NICK CLEVELAND-STOUT, APR 17, 2024 https://responsiblestatecraft.org/lockheed-martin-israel-war/
Over the weekend, Iran launched over 300 missiles at Nevatim Air Base, a base in southern Israel that houses U.S.-made F-35 fighter jets. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who oversaw a strike on an Iranian consulate in Syria just a few weeks ago, has already promised to retaliate. Observers viewed these brewing tensions with concern, ringing the alarm bells of the breakout of a wider war.
Not JP Morgan analyst Seth Seifman. On Monday morning, Seifman upgraded JPMorgan’s outlook from “hold” to “buy” for Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of Israel’s F-35s, and set a higher price target for the stock.
Seifman says the change was pre-planned, but noted that these developments could be good for business. “What we can say is that it’s a dangerous world and while that is not a sufficient condition for defense stocks to outperform,” he said, “it is a potential source of support, especially when they are under-owned.” JP Morgan owns $355 million worth of Lockheed Martin stock, about a third of which was bought in the last quarter of 2023.
UK investment bank Liberum Capital was similarly bullish on defense stocks, so long as a wider war does not break out. “In our base case scenario of Israel retaliating but in a limited way that keeps the conflict from escalating further, this could lead to a 5-10% correction in the stock market together with further strength in the U.S. dollar,” Liberium told investors. “The obvious short-term winners will be oil & gas stocks as well as defense contractors.”
As finance journalist Jacob Wolisnky put it in a recent preview of defense stock picks, “Where there’s war, there’s money to be made.” At least one member of Congress agrees. Yesterday, Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) disclosed that he bought Lockheed Martin stock on March 29.
Lockheed Martin has played a large role in Israel’s bombing and invasion of Gaza, manufacturing Hellfire missiles, providing transport planes, and supplying F-16 and F-35 fighter jets. A missile that hit journalists on November 9 of last year in Gaza City was reportedly manufactured by Lockheed Martin. “Their core business model has no respect for human rights,” said Jilianne Lyon, who leads shareholder advocacy campaigns at Investor Advocates for Social Justice.
While privately acknowledging conflict is good for business, the defense industry and its financiers publicly claim they are simply doing America’s bidding. As Lockheed Martin CEO James Taiclet once said, “It’s only up to us to step to what we’ve been asked to do and we’re just trying to do that in a more effective way, and that’s our role.” After all, it was the U.S. government — not Lockheed Martin — that came to Israel’s defense and intercepted the majority of Iran’s missiles.
But this “we just do what we’re told” defense doesn’t quite work given that defense contractors are actively shaping U.S. foreign policy through lobbying and campaign contributions, among other tactics. Aaron Acosta, program director at Investor Advocates for Social Justice, told Responsible Statecraft that defense contractors “are often the ones creating demand by lobbying the U.S. government and pushing for sales of these weapons.”
In 2023, Lockheed Martin spent over $14 million lobbying Congress. The three companies that lobbied the House’s version of the annual defense policy bill the most were RTX (formerly known as Raytheon), Lockheed Martin, and General Dynamics. During the 2022 election cycle, Lockheed Martin contributed nearly $4 million to political candidates. So far, 2024 promises similar results. In its 2023 annual report, Lockheed Martin wrote that, “Changes in the U.S. Government’s priorities, or delays or reductions in spending could have a material adverse effect on our business.”
Sure, 84% of voters might be concerned about the U.S. being drawn into conflict in the Middle East. But as far as defense companies and their shareholders are concerned, business is booming.
Missile Defenseless
https://indi.ca/missile-defenseless/ 21 Apr 24
Missile defense is a fascinating idea — that you can shoot down arrows with other arrows — and it sorta works. Until it doesn’t, and until you get the bill. Missile defense is not some magic shield that allows you to be a total asshole and avoid all consequences. You literally pay for it. Just look at ‘Israel’, blowing nearly 10% of its yearly IDF budget in one night of ignominy.
After ‘Israel’ bombed their consulate, Iran threw maybe $100 million in the air and ‘Israel’ threw $1.3 billion after it. It was literally good money after bad. It’s like if someone threw a brick at your house, and you threw your TV at the brick. It’s like smashing a roach with a Rolex. It’s like preventing broken windows by throwing your own glassware out the window. ‘Israeli’ missile defense is the definition of Pyrrhic victory. They’re lighting their own money on fire and crowing about how bright it is.
A big part of attritional war is depleting the enemy’s ammo, and this ammo depletes itself. If any enemy throws enough cheap munitions in the air, the ammunition will come out and destroy itself. You don’t need to even target the enemy’s ammo dumps, they’ll target your missiles and run into them! Depleting the enemy’s munitions at a 1:12 (cost) ratio is in itself is a tactical victory. If your enemy runs out of munitions in two weeks, that’s strategic defeat. And if 16% of missiles breach the defenses on day one, that’s just embarrassing.
This all happened to ‘Israel’ under the best possible conditions, with weeks of warning and all the imperial bitches (Jordan, France, UK) barking. All the kings horses and all the kings men, can’t put ‘Israeli’ deterrence back together again. They can propagandize their own people, but the military people know what’s happened on April 14th. As does anyone with a calculator and a bit of common sense. Like October 7th, it was a tactical, strategic defeat. They got hit at high cost and can’t sustain this model without blowing through their entire budget in a matter of weeks.
This model of air defence is literally throwing gold at tin. The payload of a Patriot missile is worth more than its weight in gold (a 90 kg payload on a $6-10m missile), and they fling them at cheap ballistics or even drones. This obviously can’t go on forever, as you could see with the IOF’s air defenses buckling in one night, letting multiple hits in. Imagine how much worse it could be if these weren’t just warning shots, and if the hits kept coming. Missile defense against the consequences of your own actions is a very expensive proposition, while simply not being an asshole is free. But this is of course incomprehensible to capitalists.
This is the same fate US warships faced in the Red Sea. They were shooting million dollar missiles at thousand dollar drones from Yemen and crowing about it, but now they’ve had to retreat and beg for peace. Their fancy missile defenses (mostly) worked at protecting their own warships, but they couldn’t secure imperial shipping at all. And it’s not that the Yemen couldn’t damage American warships, they have superior weaponry (hypersonics) in reserve and at any point they could just swarm the Carbon Crusaders. It’s just that, as Napoleon said, when your enemy is defeating themselves, why interrupt? If they want to literally explode their money, let them. The US can’t reload its missile batteries at sea, so after a little battering, they have to just leave. Thus one of the poorest countries in the world has defeated the world’s richest navy, by exploiting its profligacy.
This is the fate of American Empire in general. They pulled out of the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty in 2002 and thought they could hide behind anti-ballistic missile defenses, bombing whoever they pleased, selling expensive ‘defense’ systems to the vassals they put in the firing line in the first place. But now Russia, Iran, and even Yemen have hypersonic missiles that can take fast, unpredictable paths, effectively under most missile defenses. Everybody has drones that can overwhelm defenses with sheer quantity. America has developed defenses against the ballistic missiles of last century, but anything not taking a basic parabolic arc is a diabolical problem to them.
Missile defense will undoubtably evolve in response to these new threats, but when Russia can turn old, ‘dumb’ bombs into glide missiles with cheap attachments, they can simply overwhelm them with quantity. When wedding drones can be weaponized (in revenge for all the weddings Empire bombed), expensive air defenses actually become a liability. The best missile defense is actually diplomacy, which is incomprehensible to Empire these days. They still believe in a technological solution to their own illogical terrorism. It’s like someone who builds more and more elaborate bear-protection suits, and never once considers not poking bears in the first place.
This is the state of modern missile defense, which is really nothing new. As my historical thesis goes, same shit, different day. Offense and defense have always co-evolved in competition; a stronger sword begets a stronger shield, a longer bow begets a higher wall, missiles beget missile defence in general. Offensive weapons evolve with defensive weapons in a constant mating dance of death. The long history of humans fucking themselves is fertile ground for the reproduction of weapons. But it is all ultimately folly.
The best defense is not being offensive in the first place. This is something the White Empire simply cannot understand, having gotten away with it for so long. But now the natives have rockets and rocket launchers, and all the missile defenses in the world can’t protect their hegemony. All that’s left is hubris, which is not at all the same thing. They’re throwing gold after tin, while slaughtering defenseless children. This is simply the pride before the fall, as the worst missile offenders become missile defenseless.
Under UN Charter, Iran’s Attack Was a Legal Response to Israel’s Illegal Attack
Iran’s attack on Israel was lawful self-defense carried out in compliance with international humanitarian law.
On April 13, Iran’s aircraft struck two air bases in the Negev desert, where the April 1 attack on Iran’s consulate had been launched. “Iran retaliated against those targets in Israel directly related to the Israeli attack on Iran,”
By Marjorie Cohn , TRUTHOUT, April 18, 2024
On April 1, Israel mounted an unprovoked military attack on a building that was part of the Iranian Embassy complex in Damascus, Syria, killing seven of Iran’s senior military advisers and five additional people. The victims included Gen. Mohamad Reza Zahedi, head of Iran’s covert military operations in Lebanon and Syria, and two other senior generals.
Although Israel’s attack violated the United Nations Charter, the UN Security Council refused to condemn it because the United States, the U.K. and France exercised their vetoes on April 4.
Iran considered this attack on its consulate “an act of war,” Trita Parsi wrote at Foreign Policy.
On April 11, the Permanent Mission of the Islamic Republic of Iran to the United Nations stated: “Had the UN Security Council condemned the Zionist regime’s reprehensible act of aggression on our diplomatic premises in Damascus and subsequently brought to justice its perpetrators, the imperative for Iran to punish this rogue regime might have been obviated.”
Then, on April 13, in response to Israel’s attack, Iran fired more than 300 drones and missiles at the Israeli air base from which the April 1 attacks had emanated. Only two of them landed inside Israel and no one was killed; a Bedouin girl was injured. The U.S., U.K., France, Jordan and Israel intercepted the remaining Iranian missiles and drones. A senior U.S. military official said “there’s no significant damage within Israel itself.”
The Iranian mission to the UN wrote in an April 13 letter to the UN secretary-general that Iran’s action was conducted “in the exercise of Iran’s inherent right to self-defense” under Article 51 of the UN Charter “and in response to the Israeli recurring military aggressions, particularly its armed attack” on April 1 “against Iranian diplomatic premises, in the defiance of Article 2(4) of the Charter of the United Nations.”
The April 1 attack was not the first time Israel had attacked key Iranian personnel………………………………………………………………………….
Iran made clear that it seeks to avoid further escalation that could spark a widespread regional war. An April 13 social media post from Iran’s permanent mission to the UN stated, “The matter can be deemed concluded. However, should the Israeli regime make another mistake, Iran’s response will be considerably more severe. It is a conflict between Iran and the rogue Israeli regime, from which the U.S. MUST STAY AWAY!”
At a Security Council meeting on April 14, Iran’s UN Ambassador Saeid Iravani defended the lawfulness of the missile and drone attack on Israel. He noted the hypocrisy of the U.S. and its allies that claim Israel is acting in self-defense as it conducts its genocide of the Palestinian people:………………………………………..
Israel’s Attack on Iranian Consulate Violated the UN Charter and Vienna Conventions
Iran’s April 13 attack on Israel was a lawful exercise of self-defense in response to Israel’s unlawful April 1 attack on the Iranian consulate. The Israeli attack was an illegal act of aggression.
Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter states, “All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.”
An act of aggression is inconsistent with the purposes of the UN. Article 39 of the Charter says, “The Security Council shall determine the existence of any threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression.”
An “‘act of aggression’ means the use of armed force by a State against the sovereignty, territorial integrity or political independence of another State, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Charter of the United Nations,” under the Rome Statute for the International Criminal Court. Aggression includes “the invasion or attack by the armed forces of a State of the territory of another State.”
Moreover, “Consular premises shall be inviolable,” according to Article 31 of the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. Article 1 defines consular premises as “the buildings or parts of buildings and the land ancillary thereto, irrespective of ownership, used exclusively for the purposes of the consular post.”
The 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations likewise provides in Article 22.1 that, “The premises of the mission shall be inviolable. The agents of the receiving State may not enter them, except with the consent of the head of the mission.”
During Israel’s bombing of Iran’s consulate in Syria, it targeted and killed very senior Iranian officials. The attack constituted an act of aggression, which triggered Iran’s right to self-defense.
Iran’s April 13 Attack on Israel Constituted Lawful Self-Defense
Article 51 states, “Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations, until the Security Council has taken the measures necessary to maintain international peace and security.”
An armed attack includes not just an attack against the territory of a state, including its airspace and territorial sea, but also attacks directed against its armed forces or embassies abroad.
On April 13, Iran’s aircraft struck two air bases in the Negev desert, where the April 1 attack on Iran’s consulate had been launched. “Iran retaliated against those targets in Israel directly related to the Israeli attack on Iran,” former U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter wrote.
Nevertheless, the Security Council has failed to adopt a resolution condemning Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate, as Iran pointed out in its April 13 letter to the UN secretary-general.
At an April 14 meeting of the Security Council, the Israeli representative declared that Iran is the number one global sponsor of terrorism and the world’s worst human rights violator. It is Israel, however, that has killed nearly 34,000 Palestinians — two-thirds of them women and children — during its campaign of genocide in Gaza that has now entered its seventh month.
Iran’s self-defense action was the natural outcome of Israel’s violations of international law — both on Syrian territory and elsewhere — the representative from the Syrian Arab Republic said at the April 14 council meeting. Israel is trying to cover up its genocide and military failures in Gaza, the Syrian representative added.
Iran’s Attack Satisfied the Principles of Proportionality, Distinction and Precautions……………………………………………………………….
Netanyahu Is Gunning for War With Iran
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would like nothing better than to start a war with Iran. Netanyahu considers Iran an “existential threat” to Israel. He persuaded former President Donald Trump to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, which was working to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
As the world waits for Israel’s response to the Iranian attack, President Joe Biden said the U.S. would not assist Israel in an offensive military action against Iran but it would give Israel defensive support if Iran attacks Israel. “But the distinction between offensive or defensive support becomes meaningless the second a war breaks out,” wrote Trita Parsi.
Today, the U.S. and U.K. imposed additional punishing sanctions on Iran. Unilateral coercive measures, levied without the imprimatur of the Security Council, are illegal and generally harm only the general population…………………………………………………………………………………………… more https://truthout.org/articles/under-un-charter-irans-attack-was-a-legal-response-to-israels-illegal-attack/
5 Reasons Why What Congress Just Did Does Not Help Ukraine
Crimea was Russian or Soviet from 1783 to 1991. No election should ever be held with armed troops anywhere within sight. And it’s no simple matter to say that Crimea should hold a new referendum, since people have left and entered. But nobody seriously doubts that any fair election in 2014 or at any time since would have resulted in a majority choosing Russia. The Donbas needed some degree of independence before Minsk II and still does.
It needs it free of militarized borders and chest-thumping empires. Some consideration should be given to whether the people who live there “win” or “lose” — that is, how their lives look going forward. For them and for the world, peace is preferable to war, and peace is prevented by endless weapons and endless opposition to negotiations.
By David Swanson, World BEYOND War, April 21, 2024, https://worldbeyondwar.org/5-reasons-why-what-congress-just-did-does-not-help-ukraine/
You may have heard that the U.S. Congress is finally doing the decent, moral, liberal, democratic, Democratic thing and aiding Ukraine.
You may believe, as pretty much everyone I ask tells me, that there was only one other choice available, namely “letting Putin win.”
You may agree with me that the Russian government and its leader — like every government I’ve ever heard of — have done horrendous things, that invading a country militarily is one of the worst things that can ever be done (with the possible exceptions of invading Libya or Yemen or Syria or Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere in Latin America, but still), and that rewarding a military invasion is a terrible precedent that could encourage more military invasions (with the possible exception of keeping those bases in Iraq or Syria, or selling more weapons to Saudi Arabia, or marketing that empty beachfront property in Gaza — and who the heck is Niger to tell U.S. troops to leave Niger? I mean come ON! — but still). I’m with you. Between (A) send more unimaginably huge piles of money that materializes out of nowhere and (B) allow a military invasion to succeed, I’m for A.
But please consider five slight complications to this simple tale.
- What the U.S. Congress just did is send huge piles of money that comes out of urgent non-optional crises like climate, eco-collapse, disease, poverty, and homelessness, mostly to U.S. weapons dealers, damaging — yes damaging — the U.S. economy, in order to send mountains of weapons to the war in Ukraine, the war in Gaza, and a yet-to-be-ginned-up war in Asia. No matter how much you support the war in Ukraine, unless you also support providing enough weapons to murder every last person in Gaza and the West Bank, and in addition support building up toward a catastrophic war with China, you ought to at least have mixed emotions here.
2. Countless experts around the globe believe that the war in Ukraine has placed the world closer than ever before to nuclear apocalypse. I picture two cockroaches endowed with the power of speech meeting each other as they crawl over the ruins of the de-personed Earth. One says “Well, at least they stood up to Putin,” and the other simultaneously, “Well, at least they stood up to NATO.” Upon which the war that eliminates all cockroaches is begun. But where, while we still breathe, are our priorities? Is smashing every aspiration of the criminal Russian government (which I’m all in favor of) in order to uphold a rules-based order in which you can freely fuel a sadistic genocide in Palestine (which I’m not so much in favor of) a higher priority than preserving life? And if so, why are you not over there killing Russians yourself, instead of over here cheering for Congress buying more weapons?
3. ’ll leave the option of Russia “winning” to point #4 below. But what is the other option exactly, the one that has been so correctly and nobly chosen? It’s clearly not Russia losing. Nobody even pretends it is. It’s clearly just continuing the endless slaughter with no desirable outcome for either side anywhere on the horizon. Yet more Ukrainians can go on dying, and Russians can go on dying in larger numbers, but that can’t continue until everyone’s dead, not without nuclear escalation — possibly following a French escalation that U.S. media outlets might begin by opposing. So what is it that you think you’ve chosen? Choosing “Not Putin Winning” is great, like choosing “The Candidate Who Isn’t Trump.” Who could disagree? But what if there were an option superior to “Putin winning” and also superior to endless war that risks apocalypse?
4. It helps to face for a moment the complex story of Ukraine, to come to grips with some facts that are as well established as is the illegal, immoral, murderous Russian invasion of 2022, such as that U.S. and foreign officials (including the current CIA director) warned for decades that NATO expansion would create this war — and some (such as the authors of a RAND Corporation report) advocated for just the provocative steps that were taken in order to create this war, that the U.S. supported a coup in Ukraine in 2014 that overthrew a government pursuing neutrality, that the coup government threated the rights of Russian speakers, that the people of Crimea heavily favored returning to Russia, that Ukraine waged a war on its eastern provinces for 8 years, that Ukraine and its Western partners never intended to and never did honor the Minsk II agreements which could have meant lasting peace, that Russia and Ukraine were ready to agree to peace 1 month into the Russian invasion at talks in Turkey where they agreed on Russian withdrawal and a Ukrainian commitment not to join NATO or allow NATO bases in Ukraine — until the U.S. and UK said No, as they have continued to say in the face of horrific suffering, not to mention in the face of nearly identical peace proposals from African leaders, Latin American presidents, the Pope, the Chinese government, and scholars and activists across the globe. This history does not erase, but does complicate, the tale of angelic Ukrainian innocence against evil Russian outlaws.
Crimea was Russian or Soviet from 1783 to 1991. No election should ever be held with armed troops anywhere within sight. And it’s no simple matter to say that Crimea should hold a new referendum, since people have left and entered. But nobody seriously doubts that any fair election in 2014 or at any time since would have resulted in a majority choosing Russia. The Donbas needed some degree of independence before Minsk II and still does. It needs it free of militarized borders and chest-thumping empires. Some consideration should be given to whether the people who live there “win” or “lose” — that is, how their lives look going forward. For them and for the world, peace is preferable to war, and peace is prevented by endless weapons and endless opposition to negotiations.
5. Prior to this recent “aid” package, 62% of U.S. federal discretionary spending was going into militarism. Now it’s more. The other 38% and shrinking has to cover environment, education, health, housing, transportation, agriculture, and everything else. Normalizing endless massive warmaking, just because it’s non-U.S. troops dying, is a path to disaster. To begin considering a different course, here are a few eye-opening reads:
Primer on Foreign PolicyAction for Ukraine and the WorldThe
EU Can Only Survive as a Peace Project and Not as a NATO SubsidiaryWBW Advisory Board Member
Matt Hoh Addresses United NationsAre We Stumbling Into World War III in Ukraine?
Attacking Pope, Militarists Target Ukrainian
Peace Formula of President ZelenskyyPutin’s Draft Treaty Between Russia and Ukraine Did Exist
Letter on Ukraine from Latin America to the World
Message from Ukraine to Europe After Two Years of War in Ukraine, It’s Time for PeaceA World BEYOND War
Tens of thousands evacuated from massive China floods
Authorities have evacuated nearly 60,000 people from their homes in
Guangdong, as days of heavy rain caused massive flooding in China’s most
populous province. Eleven people have gone missing, while no casualties
have been reported so far.
Footage on state media and online show large
swathes of land inundated by the floods and rescuers ferrying people on
lifeboats in waist-deep water. Several major rivers have burst their banks,
and authorities are closely monitoring “dangerously high” water levels.
They had warned that the level of a river in northern Guangdong could hit a
“once in 100 years” peak on Monday morning, though this had yet to
materialise by noon.
BBC 22nd April 2024
1 This Month
23-25 October – on Zoom – World BEYOND War’s annual global conferenc
Shut down the radiation-damaged Heysham nuclear reactors now
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity – go to https://nuclearinformation.wordpress.com
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
Say No to NASA’s Reckless Nuclear Reactor on the Moon
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