There’s so much going on these days that it’s hard to keep up with everything! We know that a lot of being left out here, so let us know if there’s something you think we should highlight next time.
JULIAN ASSANGE
Today and tomorrow in England, extradition hearings are being held for Julian Assange, the founder of Wikileaks. Two judges will decide whether he has the right to a further appeal, or whether he will be sent to the US, where he is facing charges that may send him to prison for 175 years, after already having been persecuted for 15 years.
The first is from Chris Hedges, an internationally known and respected journalist, and Pulitzer Prize winner: https://chrishedges.substack.com/p/assanges-final-appeal?r=1256it
In the second, a former UN Human Rights official appeals to his former superior to intervene on behalf of Assange. https://consortiumnews.com/2024/02/09/dear-mr-high-commissioner-help-free-assange/
GAZA
Coverage of this is limited in the US, but hopefully everyone has heard that the International Court of Justice has ruled that there is sufficient evidence to conclude that there may be a genocide going on in Gaza. This is being perpetrated by the government of Israel, with the full backing of the US. This may make the US an accomplice in genocide.
Israel has killed thousands of unarmed civilians, bombing homes, hospitals, and schools in an effort to drive all Palestinians out of Gaza. In the West Bank as well, Palestinians are being attacked, arrested, and even killed by both Israeli settlers and military. The conflict is escalating into what many fear may become a regional war, with unforeseeable consequences. US forces in the region are being attacked, and the US has struck back at sites in Yemen, Syria, and Iraq. Border conflicts are ongoing between Israel and Lebanon as well.
Despite the horrors of the moment, some see a ray of light at the end of the tunnel. One of the is Ilian Pape, a respected Jewish scholar. Here is a link to a recent paper he published:
https://www.ihrc.org.uk/it-is-dark-before-the-dawn-but-israeli-settler-colonialism-is-at-an-end/ Much more information is available on the internet, as opposed to US media sources.
UKRAINE
The war in Ukraine, being describe these days in US media as a “stalemate” or draw, is actually nearing an end, which will ultimately be a defeat for Ukraine. This will also mean a defeat for the US and its NATO partners, who incited this conflict and have been funding it for years, in an effort to “weaken Russia.” It’s a proxy war, with the Ukrainians being suckered in as puppets to suffering devastating losses and material damage for US/NATO ambitions. The economic sanctions that were supposed to help defeat Russia, that was belittled as “a gas station with nuclear arms,” have backfired on Europe. Much of the EU is falling into recession due to cutting off all commerce with Russia, their main supplier of energy and many other products.
Here’s a link to a video from earlier today, on the latest major defeat of Ukrainian forces. It speaks of the Russian capture of one of the major Ukrainian fortified strongholds built up with NATO support years before the Russian intervention in 2022. Since the beginning of the Ukrainian persecution of Russian-speaking citizens, this city has been the source of artillery bombardments of Donetsk city, causing thousands of civilian casualties. Contrary to US propaganda claiming that Russia wants to conquer all of Ukraine, the Russians intervened to protect the Russian-majority of the population in eastern Ukraine, who rebelled after the Maidan Coup, and were being attacked by their own government. The general estimate given of the number of Russian-speakers killed by Ukrainian forces before the Russian intervention is 14,000. Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zu1ZaE8cCLo
CHINA
Despite the military and economic resources being sacrificed in Gaza and Ukraine, US “leaders” have been beating the drum for a war against China as well. Why? Has China been threatening the US in any way? Other than surpassing the US economically in the global economy, a feat aided heavily by the investment of US businesses in China to take advantage cheap labor, there is no other “threat.” Of course, nation states have gone to war over such things in the past. One of the causes of WW I was that Germany had begun to surpass Britain as the major European exporter to the world. Is the US, child of Britain that it is, behaving like its parent country in the case of China? It has already begun a trade war; will the military aspect follow?
On that note, the other issue being raised here is that the US is coming to the defense of Taiwan. Only a dozen countries, including the US, recognize Taiwan as an independent nation, not part of China. Yet the US is claiming that China is planning to invade Taiwan, which if it were actually to happen, would be a civil war, between two parts of the same country. Turning history back a page, the US has already intervened in China.
In fact, Taiwan, which actually calls itself “The Republic of China,” is relic of the civil war in China between Communist and Nationalist armies, which began in 1927. When the Nationalist armies, which were armed and financed by the US, were defeated in 1949, the retreated to Taiwan, no doubt with the help of the US. There, the conquered the native population and set up a government-in-exile as it were, that planned to one day invade the mainland and reconquer all of China. With the help of the US, of course.
A historical analogy of that, for Americans, would be if the British had been supporting the Confederacy in the US Civil War. As the Confederacy was facing defeat, the British navy would help the “retreat” by helping the Confederate to invade Cuba, conquering the locals, and setting up their own government-in-exile, which would be recognized immediately by Britain. Luckily for US, Britain, though it supported the South in other ways, did not intervene directly in the war.
As is the case with Ukraine, Gaza, and all of the other US interventions overseas, the US government masks all of their aggressions and violations of international law as “defending freedom and democracy.” Even before military actions begin, the propaganda war begins “selling the war” to the American people. The “innocent victims” we’re supposed to be defending overseas are often CIA agents, or local malcontents led on and funded by the US NGO’s such as the National Endowment for Democracy.
Let me add a personal anecdote here: Years ago, when I first began to volunteer in the Peace Action office in Sacramento, I met an elderly gentleman who had retired from the US Department of State. He told me one day that (I paraphrase) “There are people in the US government who are planning 20 years ahead for where the next war will be.” It seems that the same thing is still going on today.
In closing here, let me share another link to a “non-US propaganda source. It’s a report back by peace activists who visited to China recently. The hostess, Radhika Desai, is a noted economist whom I have been following online, and respect highly. She opens the program saying, “Peace has never been more urgent,” and that what’s really needed is “…regime change in the US.”
Here’s the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3lxMHs-3BCg