Category: War and Peace

The Role of Racism in Western Colonialism: A Historical & Contemporary Analysis

Racism was not a side-effect of empire—it was its operating system. From the 15th-century “Age of Discovery” to 21st-century border regimes, racial hierarchies have justified land theft, slavery, resource extraction and permanent war.

We outline how racism powered colonialism—and why it still shapes our world, as we see in the large recent populist responses in Europe and the US to immigration from non-white countries.

I would argue that we are, as human beings, inherently racist. We cherish the human group we belong to; the way we look, the way our group behaves, the things that are important to us. Those that look, and/or behave differently to us are therefore not ‘one of us”- they are outsiders, a threat to us and our group’s safety and wellbeing. Who we are is ‘normal’ – those ‘others’ are not normal.

That defensiveness against ‘others’, I would argue, is the root of racism. While that fear response may be deeply imbedded in our psyche, it can, and must be rooted out with clear rationality and understanding for those ‘others’. If we are to be truly human, we must treat all other living things with the kindness and compassion we expect for ourselves.

Conquest Begins with Name-Calling: “Savage” as a Licence to Kill

Greek and Roman writers already labelled outsiders “barbarians”, but the Atlantic world turned prejudice into policy. English colonisers depicted the Gaelic Irish as dark-skinned degenerates; Spaniards painted Indigenous Americans as cannibals; Dutch and Portuguese traders recast West Africans as “beasts of burden”. Once economic incentives for plantation slavery exploded, stereotypes hardened: Africans were now naturally servile, sexually voracious, mentally inferior—and therefore made for slavery. The perjorative demeaning language used to describe non-whites by ‘white’ people across the world is no accident. Language defines..

In the 21st Century, non-white immigrants to Western countries are seen as a threat to European ‘values’ culture and economic wellbeing. Current immigrant levels to the US and Europe are a direct result of economic and safety destabilisations caused by earlier extractive colonial policies and the West’s immensely destructive wars in those countries. In addition, Western governments, as opposed to their ‘white’ populations, have welcomed these new cheap labour immigrants to bolster their GDPs.

“Scientific” Racism: Empire in a White Lab-Coat

19-century European universities measured skulls, mapped skin tones and coined terms like “Caucasoid” to give racism the veneer of objectivity. The Dawinian science of evolution was used to delineate some human ‘races’ as less genetically evolved, with of course the white races at the top! This absurd and unscientific use of evolution were used by many in the West and exploited in the eugenics movement, and in its extreme form by the Nazis, and latterly the Zionists.

3. Britain’s ‘Liberal’ Empire

“Violence was not a one-off occurrence… it was systemic and part and parcel of Britain’s liberal imperialism.”– ‘Legacy of Violence-
A History of the British Empire’ Caroline Elkins (2023)

In the 19th century, Medical journals warned that “negro lungs” were unfit for cold climates to help justify keeping indentured labourers on Caribbean sugar plantations. Anthropology museums displayed colonised peoples alongside fauna. These ‘scientific’ findings were incorporated into colonial legal codes: the 1885 Berlin Conference carved up Africa on the assumption that Whites could best steward African land and bodies. Britain’s ‘protectorates’ listed below are a ‘sublime’ example of the racist mentality of the British Foreign Office. Why these populations would need ‘protecting’ from themselves was never adequately explained…

TerritoryProtectorate proclaimedToday part of …
Malta1800Malta
Ionian Islands1815Greece
Mosquito Coast1838Nicaragua / Honduras
Aden (W. & E. Protectorates)1872Yemen
Cyprus1878Cyprus
Sultanate of Zanzibar1890Tanzania
Bechuanaland1885Botswana
British Somaliland1884Somalia
North Borneo1888Malaysia (Sabah)
Brunei1888Brunei
Sarawak1888Malaysia
Maldives1887Maldives
Sikkim1861India
Barotseland1900Zambia
East Africa Protectorate1895Kenya
Uganda Protectorate1894Uganda
Nyasaland1893Malawi
Northern Rhodesia1924Zambia
Swaziland1903Eswatini
Basutoland1868Lesotho
Gambia Protectorate1894The Gambia
Sierra Leone Protectorate1896Sierra Leone
Nigeria (N. & S. protectorates)1900Nigeria
Qatar1916Qatar
Bahrain1861Bahrain
Trucial Oman1887UAE
Cook Islands1888New Zealand (self-governing)
Niue1900New Zealand (self-governing)
Tokelau1889New Zealand
British Solomon Is.1893Solomon Islands
Gilbert & Ellice Is.1892Kiribati & Tuvalu
Tonga1879Tonga
Oman (Muscat & Oman)1800Oman
Bhutan1911Bhutan

From Kenya’s “Pipeline” detention camps to Malaya’s New Villages, London cast mass incarceration, forced labour and sexual violence as “rehabilitation” for racially suspect subjects. Files were then sealed for decades under the Colonial Papers Destruction Policy.

Comparative Brutality: France, Belgium, Germany


  • French Algeria: Settler colonialism embedded in the département system; with 1.5 million Algerians killed during the 1954-62 war of independence (Al-Jazeera retrospective).

  • Belgian Congo: Leopold II’s rubber regime caused an estimated 10 million deaths—A BBC investigation calls it “one of the greatest mass murders in history”.

  • German South-West Africa: 1904-08 extermination order against the Herero and Nama is now officially recognised by Germany as genocide.

British India: current scholarship puts the excess-mortality death toll attributable to British colonial policy in India between 1881-1920 alone at roughly 50–165 million people.

Racism after the Empires Recede

Decolonisation brought new flags, but not justice. The UN confirms that “colonialism lives on” in racial profiling, poverty and unequal trade. Former plantation economies still dominate global commodity chains, even while end-use processing for value addition to those raw commodities continues to happen in the Global North. France’s banlieues, Britain’s Windrush deportations, and the U.S. racial wealth gap all map precisely onto old imperial shipping routes.

Environment Impacts of Racism

The climate crisis is driven by the same extractive logic that cleared forests for sugar and cotton. Former colonies already suffer temperature increases twice the global average—a direct legacy of shipping carbon to Europe while deforesting the colonies’ natural environment- that same natural world many indigenous populations relied upon for their survival.

Towards Reparatory Justice

  • Unveiling the Truth: Ensure that all colonial archives are opened to the public and for research (UK still classifies this information under the “migrated archives” rule).
  • Reparations: From debt cancellation to technology transfers—see UN-DESA Policy Brief #96 along with fair funding reparations from ex colonial powers for their brutality and economic extraction.
  • Education: Develop truthful, accurate and non-ideologically driven curricula for each ex-colonial country and its coloniser which explains the rationales and impacts of racism and consequent colonialism from each side.

Palestine 2023-25: A Live-Streamed Genocide Enabled by Racialised Imperial Logic

The same racial logic that once classified Indigenous peoples as “savages” and Africans as “natural slaves” is now redeployed to portray Palestinians—especially in Gaza—as irredeemable terrorists whose lives are expendable. Western diplomatic, financial and military support for Israel’s 2023-25 assault is therefore not an aberration; it is the continuity of a 500-year-old pattern in which white-majority states licence settler violence against racialised “others” while declaring themselves civilised.

Genocide is apparently what “non-white” actors commit; white or white-allied states are presumed incapable of it. Western media highlights Israeli “security” and terrorists’ ‘hostages’ while Palestinian deaths are counted in opaque “casualty” statistics, stripped of names, faces, context, and their 70 + years living under Israeli colonisation completely ignored. Bizarrely, peaceful protesters against Israeli savagery in Gaza in France, Germany, Britain and the US, among many, have themselves been labelled as terrorists and arrested.


France banned pro-Palestine demonstrations within days; police invoked emergency powers against students wearing the keffiyeh. The UK Home Secretary equated Palestinian flags with “support for terrorism”. Germany’s Berlin Senate excluded Palestinian speakers under the IHRA definition. These measures show how racialised imperial violence abroad is coupled with shrinking anti-racist space at home.

Trump’s ‘War’ on Immigration

The role of racism in Donald Trump’s immigration agenda is not incidental—it is the engine. From his 2015 campaign launch to the executive orders signed on Day 1 of his second term, Trump has consistently racialised immigrants, fused white-nationalist grievance with policy, and leveraged state power to punish Black, Brown and Muslim communities. Bizarrely the United States economic growth has historically largely been fuelled by immigration- but only immigration from the ‘right’ places; from Western Europe.

Trump’s language about immigrants betrays the racist underpinnings of his anti-immigration policies -‘“These aren’t people. These are animals” (referring to Central-American migrants), “Shithole countries” (Jan 2018): Trump asked why the US admits people from Haiti, El Salvador or Africa instead of Norway..

Such statements activate what scholars call “demographobia”: the fear among whites that they are being “replaced” by higher-fertility non-white minorities.

The Great Replacement theory—the belief that elites are deliberately replacing whites with non-white immigrants—moved from far-right chatrooms to Trump’s 2025 National Emergency declaration, which frames migration as an “invasion” threatening “national character”.

Further Reading & Tools

All links open in a new tab. Bookmark this list for classroom or activist use.

Feel free to republish under Creative Commons CC-BY-SA 4.0 with attribution to the author and a live link to this post.

Demonic Israel and the Savage West

Israel has only 3 months till September to launch a new aerial attack on Iran.In September Iraqi airspace will be closed to the US and its allies, as US troops are required to leave Iraq by then. Given that Israel and the US clearly did not achieve it s objectives in this most recent attack on Iran, we can expect further surprise attacks on Iran in the near future.

Will Iran finally go nuclear? will they have learnt their lesson and build a full military alliance with Russia China and North Korea? – we shall have to wait and see…

There is clear evidence of the UK, Germany and France providing the air-refuelling tankers for Israeli F35s to reach the Iranian border, fire their missiles, and return to base. Undoubtedly Five Eyes (Australia, New Zealand, Canada, UK and US) have also provided the intelligence targeting data for the Israelis both for the Iran war and for the Gaza genocide.

Germany France and UK have thus been intimately involved in supporting this unprovoked war while they and the EU have continued to pretend such an attack is legal in international law.

International law is very clear-Israel had absolutely no legal grounds to attack . Its excuse was that Iran was about to possess nuclear weapons- a claim Netanyahu has been making for 40 years. Alistair Crooke (below) however claims that Palantir’s AI predictive software created a false impression of a sudden surge in Iranian enrichment, which contributed to the urgency to attack by the Americans and Israel.

80% of Israelis support Palestinian genocide- its Jewish citizens have been indoctrinated into a bizarre ideology that says they are the chosen ones and therefore they have the right to act with total impunity- sadistic brutal murder torture and starvation- any thing goes- and the US and the rest of the West have fostered and enabled that savagery to blossom and erupt into its demonic current state. Over $150 billion in mostly military aid from the US alone since 1948, has enabled Israel to continuously expand its territories.

Israel has violated at least 30 UN Security Council resolutions and over 100 resolutions from other UN bodies, totalling more than 130 violations of international consensus.

Nevertheless it is very clear- despite an Israeli security blackout, that Israel’s economy, already fragile, has been significantly impacted by Iranian missile strikes. Bloomberg estimates the economic costs alone to Israel caused by Iran’s missile strikes at $3.5 billion. Although Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich told a press conference the total cost of war could be as high as $12 billion. The Israeli Haifa oil refinery will take at least a month to repair and its major shipping port, Haifa, significantly damaged and a number of military facilities either destroyed or damaged.

Unlike Israel with its drone terror attacks in Iran, its assassinations of Iranian civilians and terror bombings in Iranian cities, Iran has displayed remarkable circumspection in its attacks-minimal civilian Israeli deaths (despite the repeated images from Israeli propaganda of little Israeli children unscathed and perfectly clean, being held by Israeli soldiers after being ‘rescued” from the rubble) have been very small- indicating Iranian precise targeting of military targets.

Clearly this was a regime change operation. The West expected the Islamic regime in Tehran to fold quickly and rapturous joy would break out in the streets at Iran’s ‘liberation”. In fact, most (but not all) Iranians rallied round the flag and its likely that -despite 40 years of Western sanctions , Iranian infrastructure will be quickly rebuilt -especially with Chinese assistance (Iran is a vital node in China’s Belt and Road transport network to and from the West to China with a major rail network recently completed from China).

Iranian International, with enormous funding from the US and Israel (and likely other funding sources in European governments) had been poised to insert the Shah of Iran’s son Reza Pahlavi as the new “king” of Iran once the regime capitulated. The fact that Reza Pahlavi was heir to his father’s bizarre and corrupt reign (with his brutal SAVAK secret police trained by Mossad, Mi6 and CIA in torture techniques), and is entirely in the pocket of the genocidal Israelis and corrupt Americans and British who would then steal Iranian oil, wasn’t deemed to be a problem somehow. Israel’s title for their war with Iran , ‘Rising Lion’ is both a reference to Talmud texts, but also to the flag of the late Shah.

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Atlas_of_Israel

Like everything associated with the state of Palestine and the history of Israel since the Nakba , Zionists have attempted to revise history and pretend that Palestinians never occupied or owned the land that was stolen from them by the Zionists, starting with the Nakba of 1948 and progressing to the present day. aijac.org.au

Thankfully, Trump’s bombasity, lies and stupidity have fed into the perception of many in the South of a steady decline in American power and influence. The recent bizarre events at the NATO Summit in the Netherlands of Trump being called ‘Daddy ‘and all the NATO states kowtowing to Trump in pledging 5% military spending by 2035, a pledge which would undoubtedly bankrupt many of the EU states.

America and Israel and NATO/Five Eyes had expected an easy victory over Iran- decapitate the military leaders through assassinations, disable the Iranian neural networks for their missile defence systems and radars , blitz Tehran and then demand capitulation. The assassinations were largely successful, the hacking of the networks worked- but only for 8 hours-( the West had not anticipated how fast Iranian engineers could get the system back up and running)- and then the Iranian missile response began..

Indisputably Iran has suffered major but not irreparable losses in this war; the assassinations of some key military leadership and nuclear scientists, military facilities and missile systems destroyed.

However the genocide in Gaza by the Israeli “Defence” Forces (IDF) continues at the same brutal pace- with continued support form the US and the West. Every day Palestinians are being shot and killed by snipers , tanks and artillery as they try and negotiate the gate-pens to get some food ‘ provided’ through Israeli and US agencies for their starving families . While condemned by the UN and many in the South, Western nations are silent and complicit in this total inhumanity: a massive indictment of all that the West has pretended to stand for in the last 70 years- freedom, safety, democracy and the rule of law.

And for those who would like to believe this total absence of humanity and human rights for Palestinians is a recent phenomenon, please look at the following data below of the deaths and displacements by Israel since the Nakba of 1948. The state of Israel is an abomination, a pariah state fully supported by the West.

1. Displacement and Refugees

  • 1948 Arab-Israeli War (Nakba) :
    • Approximately 700,000 Palestinians were displaced or became refugees, including many women and children.
    • The UN estimates that 75% of Palestinian refugees today are women and children.
  • 1967 Six-Day War :
    • Another 300,000+ Palestinians fled or were expelled from the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.
    • Women and children made up a significant portion of these refugees.
  • Total Palestinian Refugees Today :
    • Over 7 million Palestinians are registered as refugees or displaced persons globally (UNRWA and UNHCR data).
    • The majority are women and children due to generational displacement and high birth rates.

2. Casualties in Conflicts

  • Major Conflicts Since 1948 :
    • 1948–1956 : Exact numbers for women and children are unclear but likely high due to mass displacement.
    • 1967 & 1973 Wars : Limited data exists, but civilian casualties included many women and children.
    • First Intifada (1987–1993) : ~1,000 Palestinian children killed; women’s deaths unrecorded.
    • Second Intifada (2000–2005) : Over 3,000 Palestinian children killed; women also died in airstrikes and shootings.
    • Gaza Wars (2008–2009, 2012, 2014, 2021, 2023–2024) :
      • 2023–2024 Gaza War : As of April 2024, over 10,000 women and 18,000 children reported killed (Palestinian Health Ministry). Independent experts warn underreporting due to chaos and blocked aid.
      • 2014 Gaza War : ~2,200 Palestinians killed, half of them children (UN OCHA).

3. Incarceration and Detention

  • Since 1967 , Israel has detained thousands of Palestinians, including:
    • Women and Children :
      • Over 10,000 Palestinian women have been imprisoned since 1967 (Addameer, a Palestinian rights group).
      • Children : Thousands detained annually for alleged “security offenses.” In 2023 alone, over 8,000 children were arrested (UNICEF and DCIP reports).

4. Demographic Impact

  • Population Growth : Despite displacement and casualties, Palestinian populations in the West Bank, Gaza, and refugee camps have grown due to high birth rates.
  • Vulnerability : Women and children face disproportionate risks in poverty, restricted movement, and limited access to healthcare/education.

CategoryApproximate Numbers (since 1948)
Refugees/displacedMillions (majority women/children)
Casualties (conflicts)Hundreds of thousands (exact numbers disputed)
IncarceratedTens of thousands of women/children

Resources

  • United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)
  • Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)
  • Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics
  • Israeli human rights groups (e.g., B’Tselem)
  • Reports from Al Jazeera, BBC, and Reuters

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2025/06/mark-sleboda-what-the-hell-just-happened-in-the-middle-east-you-may-ask.html#more

The Yemen Tragedy

Now that Trump ( as of May 2025) has made the decision not to continue U.S. air attacks on targets in Yemen (for now), the following semi-legal analysis of the strikes below is perhaps somewhat moot. However it does provide a glimpse into the legalities of the multiple aggressions by Western countries in the past 75 years since World War 2.

After an almost shootdown of an ‘invisible’ US F35 aircraft, and the loss of 2 (possibly 3) F18s (valued at $70 million each) that had ‘fallen off’ US aircraft carriers in the Gulf, along with about 10, 30 million dollar MQ9 drones shot down by Ansar-allah (what the West MSM as one voice like to call “Iran backed rebel Houthis”-all in one breath), it must have been clearly apparent, even to Trump, that the billion dollar US bombing campaign against Yemen was going nowhere.

Additionally, because the US had (and has) very little accurate information on where Ansarallah weapons and military was on the ground they were in fact predominantly (and accidentally?) hitting civilians. In addition the long-standing U.K air support for the Americans on the Arabian peninsula was entirely without targeting or strategy, but largely an attempt to try and demonstrate that Britain was still a force to be reckoned with in the Gulf.

One cannot however be so charitable about Israeli bombings of civilian Yemen targets-(civilian ports and airports), who used their traditional methods of terror and brutality to try and intimidate Ansarallah.

What follows is an analysis of the legalities of this bombing campaign, supposedly initiated by first Biden and then Trump, to stop Ansarallah closing the Gulf of Aden and Red Sea to shipping bound for the Israeli Red Sea port of Eilat (top right hand section of map)

Legal Analysis of US/UK Strikes in Yemen and Potential Violations of International Humanitarian Law (IHL)

The US and UK military interventions in Yemen, particularly against Houthi targets, raise significant legal questions under international humanitarian law (IHL)—also known as the laws of war. Below is a deeper examination of their compliance with key legal principles.

Analysis of the Legal Framework Governing US Strikes against Yemen

A. Applicable Law

  • Geneva Conventions (1949) & Additional Protocol I (1977): Govern the conduct of hostilities, including distinction, proportionality, and precautions in attack.
  • UN Charter (Article 2(4) & Article 51): Prohibits the use of force except in self-defense or with UN Security Council authorization.
  • Customary IHL: Binding on all parties, including non-state actors like the Houthis.

B. Justifications for US/UK Strikes

  • Self-Defense Argument (Article 51, UN Charter): The US and UK argue strikes are necessary to protect maritime security (Houthi attacks on Red Sea shipping).
  • Legal Debate: Some scholars argue this stretches self-defense doctrine, as Houthi attacks may not constitute an “armed attack” justifying unilateral force.
  • Collective Self-Defense (Supporting Saudi Arabia & UAE): Previously invoked, but less relevant post-2022 since the Saudi-Houthi truce.

2. Key IHL Principles & Potential Violations

A. Principle of Distinction (Civilian vs. Military Targets)

  • Rule: Attacks must only target military objectives, not civilians or civilian infrastructure.
  • Concerns in Yemen:
  • Urban Warfare: Houthis embed military assets in densely populated areas, increasing civilian risk.
  • Reports of Civilian Harm: NGOs (e.g., Mwatana, Amnesty) allege US/UK strikes hit homes, farms, and markets, suggesting possible indiscriminate targeting.

B. Principle of Proportionality

  • Rule: Civilian harm must not be excessive relative to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.
  • Challenges:
  • “Double-Tap” Strikes: Some reports suggest follow-up strikes hit first responders, which could be a war crime if deliberate.
  • High Civilian Toll in Past Strikes: Even if targets are legitimate, large-scale civilian casualties (e.g., 2022 Saada prison strike by Saudi coalition) raise proportionality concerns.

C. Precautions in Attack

  • Rule: Parties must take all feasible measures to verify targets and minimize civilian harm.
  • US/UK Practices:
  • Use of precision-guided munitions (reduces but does not eliminate risk).
  • Lack of Transparency: Few public investigations into alleged civilian harm, unlike in Iraq/Syria.

3. Accountability & Legal Consequences

A. Mechanisms for Accountability

  1. Domestic Investigations (US/UK):
  • The US has a Civilian Harm Mitigation and Response Action Plan (CHMR-AP) but rarely discloses Yemen investigations.
  • The UK has no independent Yemen strike review body, unlike its Iraq/Syria oversight.
  1. International Criminal Court (ICC):
  • Yemen is not an ICC member, but if nationals of member states commit crimes on Yemeni soil, the ICC could theoretically investigate.
  1. Universal Jurisdiction:
  • Third countries could prosecute war crimes under universal jurisdiction (e.g., Germany’s case against Syrian officials).

B. State Responsibility & Reparations

  • Under IHL, states must provide reparations for unlawful strikes, but neither the US nor UK has a compensation program for Yemeni victims.
  • Contrast with US payments for civilian harm in Afghanistan/Iraq.

4. Broader Implications & Legal Precedents

  • Escalation Risks: If strikes are seen as disproportionate, they could fuel further Houthi attacks, creating a cycle of violence.
  • Erosion of IHL Norms: Repeated civilian harm without accountability weakens global adherence to laws of war.
  • Potential for Future Cases: If evidence of systematic violations emerges, legal challenges could arise in international courts or via sanctions.

Conclusion: Are US/UK Strikes Lawful?

  • Legally Defensible? The US/UK can argue self-defense and military necessity, but civilian harm incidents raise serious IHL concerns.
  • Accountability Gap: Lack of transparent investigations and reparations undermines claims of compliance.
  • Future Risks: If civilian casualties continue unchecked, legal challenges (e.g., ICC petitions, universal jurisdiction cases) could follow.

Sinophobia and Hysteria in the Pacific

The Pacific has long been the playground of European powers. France even now has what the French call patronisingly ‘protectorates’) in the Pacific including French Polynesia ( including Tahiti), New Caledonia, and Wallis. The independence movement in New Caledonia is particularly strong and has resulted in a number of clashes recently with the French occupying force there.

The United States has bases and territories in the Pacific, including Guam, American Samoa, Wake Island and Kwajalein Atoll  and also of course Hawaii which has become a US state. The US also has several naval bases in the Pacific, including Pearl Harbour, Guam, Majuro Atoll San Diego and in American Samoa.

Australia’s primary Pacific territories include, Norfolk Island, the Coral Sea Islands (Including Willis Island) Lord Howe Island and the Torres Strait Islands; with the most notable base and populated territory being Norfolk Island, located roughly 1600km northeast of Sydney. 

New Zealand’s Pacific territories include the semi-independent Cook Islands (whose citizens have dual citizenship with New Zealand), Niue and the Tokelau Islands . The Cook Islands government has recently caused a furore in New Zealand by negotiating a trade agreement with China without first discussing it with New Zealand.

Both New Zealand and Australia are members of Five Eyes the notorious US,UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand intelligence network , which has for 75 years supported Israel’s genocide in Palestine through information provision and has been directly involved in providing vital intelligence for many of the brutal offensive wars conducted by the US and NATO-including the genocide in Korea , Vietnam, Iraq, Syria, Libya, the current war in Ukraine, and many more..

So perhaps it is perfectly understandable that New Zealand and Australia as part of the U.S. ‘international rule based order’ see their capacity to play their part in maiming and murdering millions for power and profit being threatened by the new kid on the block: China!

New Zealand has also relied on cheap (often illegally so) migrant Pasifika labour for its economy to expand over the past 50 years. Keeping Pacific Island countries therefore in a state of poverty has therefore been a desired outcome for NZ economists, to ensure a good flow of migrants. China’s resurgence is therefore a major threat to this strategy, bringing significant economic benefits via trade to Island nations and the likelihood that their populations will be more inclined to stay put. Having said that, China/Pasifika business ventures like deep sea mining are also a major threat to the environmental sustainability of the Pacific.

Despite the extensive hype from Australian and New Zealand journalists politicians and ‘experts’ , there is no evidence as yet of China establishing naval or air bases in those Pacific countries-unlike Australia and the US. What is curious is the almost total gung-ho support and consistent messaging from New Zealand journalists and ‘experts’ for more China bashing and more pointless New Zealand resources going into New Zealand’s military – on the somewhat ridiculous assumption that New Zealand’s tiny military footprint would have any impact on anything at all in a global conflict between superpowers.

China is now after all, a global super-power; it would indeed be strange if it did not have a presence this far south . China has steadily increased its naval presence in the Indo-Pacific region, including the Tasman Sea over the past few years. This is part of a broader strategy to expand its influence and protect its trading interests from a very belligerent United States and its co-opted allies-particularly Australia who has recently the AUKUS boondoggle deal to have the US build nuclear submarines Australia wont need, at staggering cost. New Zealand ‘experts’ are now saying New Zealand should also be part of this scam, to defend New Zealand from China!.

Rather than Australia and New Zealand acknowledging the new realities of China’s burgeoning global military and economic strength, and working with that (China after all clearly has absolutely no interest in invading Australia or New Zealand), Australia and New Zealand’s ‘experts’ and politicians instead want to hype up their populations for a futile and disastrous conflict with China. Bizarrely China is also Australia and New Zealand’s major trading partner.

It should also be remembered that United States naval forces and their NATO allies have traversed the South China Sea- very close to China’s borders, hundreds of times a year over the past 5 years. Ostensibly the US says that this is to ensure safe maritime passage in the area- but of course the vast majority of trade through the South China Sea is in fact Chinese.

The Chinese are under no allusions that the US is facilitating freedom of transit of this major trade route but are in fact threatening to blockade their vital maritime trade routes to the world..With its 904 military bases around the world, the US and its ‘Allies” are not a force for good in the world!

While New Zealand and Australia should logically be monitoring and preparing for any real military threats that might arise in the future, they also need to be adapting to a new multipolar world order, where the might-is-right rules of the U.S. ‘Rule Based International Order’ will thankfully no longer apply.

The development of open and honest communication channels with the Chinese Government instead of the current belligerency and media confrontation, would also be a helpful start, along with the development of long forgotten diplomacy skills.

——————————————————-

Links

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/542679/china-begins-second-military-exercise-in-tasman-sea

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/542714/expert-says-china-s-military-exercise-in-tasman-sea-serves-as-serious-threat

https://www.1news.co.nz/2025/02/08/analysis-anger-in-cook-islands-at-recent-moves/

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/542733/cook-islands-deal-opens-up-pacific-to-china-expert

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/political/542760/chinese-ships-in-the-tasman-a-gift-from-beijing-for-defence-spending-expert

World BEYOND War
Global Day of Action to #CloseBases

https://www.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=1010252037592085&id=100058218933804&_rdr

The demise of the U.S. ‘rule based order’?

The following is an AI Qwen based analysis of the impact of the U.S. ‘rule based international order’ and the reality of the chaos, wars and destruction its supposed ‘rules’ exert on the world.

The development of this post was promoted by the overwhelming number of New Zealand international political ‘analysts’ who quote the ‘U.S. rule based order’, (not the U.N. set of obligations) as some kind of golden age of civilisation , peace and freedom. -the reality could not be more stark. They fear that the new Trump administration-cum-oligarchy will no longer adhere to that ‘rule based order’ .

So why are these ‘analysts’ referring so enthusiastically to these great ‘rules’ that have caused so much suffering in the world?

It has recently been revealed (Feb.2025) via Wikileaks that the US government’s USAID ‘programme’ has been funding a US ‘non-government’ agency Internews Network, with millions upon millions of dollars to ensure Western media around the world regurgitate media messages ‘consistent’ (tell-tale identical phrasing in news items on issues from Covid responses to the Ukraine war and Russia), with US foreign policy objectives. Could it be that Western university international affairs ‘analysts’ (and politicians) have been similarly compromised over a long period of time?

I leave it to you to judge where their ‘influences’ come from.

AI analysis follows:

The concept of a “rules-based international order” is often invoked by the United States and its allies to describe a system of global governance that emphasizes adherence to international laws, norms, and institutions such as the United Nations, international treaties, and trade agreements. Proponents argue that this order promotes peace, stability, and cooperation among nations by providing a framework for resolving disputes and fostering mutual interests.

However, critics argue that the U.S.-led “rules-based order” has been selectively applied, often serving as a justification for military interventions, economic sanctions, and other forms of coercion that have led to significant human suffering, including mass murder, wars, and violence.

1. Selective Enforcement of Rules

  • Double Standards: Critics argue that the U.S. and its allies have frequently violated the very principles they claim to uphold. For example, the U.S. has engaged in military interventions without UN Security Council approval (e.g., the 2003 invasion of Iraq), while condemning other countries for similar actions. This selective enforcement undermines the legitimacy of the “rules-based order” and can lead to conflicts where weaker states feel justified in acting outside the system.
  • Regime Change and Destabilization: The U.S. has supported or directly engaged in regime change operations in countries like Iraq, Libya, and Syria, often under the guise of promoting democracy or protecting human rights. These interventions have frequently resulted in prolonged civil wars, state collapse, and mass civilian casualties. In Iraq, for instance, the 2003 invasion led to hundreds of thousands of deaths, widespread displacement, and the rise of extremist groups like ISIS.

2. Economic Warfare and Sanctions

  • Sanctions as a Tool of Coercion: The U.S. has frequently used economic sanctions as a tool to punish or pressure countries that defy its interests. While sanctions are often framed as a “non-violent” alternative to war, they can have devastating humanitarian consequences. For example, U.S. sanctions on Iraq in the 1990s contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians due to lack of access to food, medicine, and clean water. Similarly, sanctions on countries like Venezuela and Iran have exacerbated economic crises, leading to widespread poverty and suffering.
  • Weaponizing Global Institutions: The U.S. has also been accused of weaponizing international financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank to impose structural adjustment programs on developing countries, which often result in austerity measures, increased inequality, and social unrest. This economic violence can indirectly fuel conflict and instability.

3. Proxy Wars and Arms Sales

  • Arming Conflicts: The U.S. is the world’s largest arms exporter, supplying weapons to both state and non-state actors around the globe. These arms sales often fuel conflicts in regions like the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. For example, U.S. arms supplied to Saudi Arabia have been used in the Yemeni Civil War, resulting in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with tens of thousands of civilians killed and millions facing famine.
  • Proxy Wars: During the Cold War, the U.S. engaged in numerous proxy wars, supporting anti-communist forces in places like Vietnam, Afghanistan, and Central America. These conflicts often involved backing authoritarian regimes or insurgent groups that committed atrocities against civilian populations. In Afghanistan, for example, U.S. support for the mujahideen during the Soviet-Afghan War helped create conditions that eventually led to the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

4. Militarization and the “War on Terror”

  • Global War on Terror: Following the September 11, 2001 attacks, the U.S. launched the “Global War on Terror,” which has been used to justify military interventions, drone strikes, and indefinite detentions in countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and Yemen. These operations have often been conducted with little regard for international law or civilian casualties. Drone strikes, in particular, have been criticized for causing significant collateral damage, killing thousands of civilians, and radicalizing local populations.
  • Normalization of Violence: The rhetoric of the “rules-based order” often masks the normalization of violence as a means of achieving foreign policy objectives. The U.S. military-industrial complex benefits from perpetual warfare, and the language of “humanitarian intervention” or “counterterrorism” is sometimes used to legitimize aggressive military actions that result in mass death and destruction.

5. Undermining Sovereignty and Self-Determination

  • Imperialism and Neocolonialism: Critics argue that the U.S.-led “rules-based order” often serves as a cover for imperialist policies that undermine the sovereignty of weaker states. By imposing economic and political conditions on countries through institutions like the IMF, World Bank, and World Trade Organization (WTO), the U.S. and its allies have been accused of perpetuating a form of neocolonialism that stifles self-determination and exacerbates inequality.
  • Resistance and Blowback: When countries resist U.S. hegemony or attempt to assert their independence, they are often subjected to punitive measures, including coups, invasions, or covert operations. This resistance can lead to cycles of violence, as seen in cases like Iran (1953 coup), Chile (1973 coup), and more recently, Venezuela and Syria. The blowback from these interventions can manifest in the form of terrorism, insurgency, and regional instability.

Conclusion

While the U.S. and its allies present the “rules-based international order” as a framework for peace and stability, critics argue that it has often been used to justify interventions, sanctions, and other forms of coercion that result in mass violence and human suffering. The selective application of rules, the militarization of foreign policy, and the prioritization of U.S. strategic interests over international law have contributed to a legacy of wars, destabilization, and humanitarian crises. In many cases, the very principles of sovereignty, self-determination, and human rights that the “rules-based order” claims to uphold are undermined by the actions of those who enforce it.

‘Cant Find My Way Home’

The heading for this post comes from one of the great compositions by Stevie Winwood and the UK band ‘Blind Faith’ in 1969.

It perhaps symbolises in 2024, the journey this human world is travelling and its likely future…

A world where pointless and savage wars in West Asia, Ukraine and Africa are spurred on by the quest for power and profit and where infantile ideologies predominate.

And a world where climate change continues its seemingly inexorable march towards a planet destroyed through the pure blind stupidity and ignorance of our ‘world leaders’.

Never before have we all been able to witness the savage brutality of a war of genocide in technicolour- never before have we seen Western media and politicians proselytising so blatantly for that inhumanity. An oh so stark reminder of the difference between Western weasel words about ‘freedom and democracy’ and their support of mass-murder when it profits them.

A reminder too that this has been the Western theme for 500 years of colonial exploitation of more vulnerable populations- that these centuries of exploitation are, in the immortal words in 2022 of EU’s blatantly racist and furiously stupid foreign policy chief Josep Borrell,  the reason why Europe and the West is a garden and the rest of the world (in his view), a jungle.

To support this meme, our Western mainstream media continues to idolise the fiction of Western supremacy in all things. As the evidence that this is no longer the case continues to pile up, Western media have resorted to ever greater contortions and lies to support that meme. The recent violence in Amsterdam between Israeli and Dutch football fans – characterised as ‘antisemitism’ is just one of many examples.

Time and time again we have seen European (and U.S. ) political leaders make decisions based on an outdated and irrelevant ideology which ignores all rationality and the reality of the situation.

The most telling, and likely deadly, example of this, is their farcical contortions to prove to their electorates that they doing something about climate change when they are in fact doing worse than nothing. There are no reductions in CO2 emissions, and the hype about the electrification of energy and transport is just that- electrification is not substituting for coal or oil, it comes as an addition to the continuing use of high rates of coal and oil burning.

Our ‘civilisation;’ is locked into endless ‘growth’ (an awful word given that economic ‘growth’ is the total opposite of true organic living growth) – a paradigm that is destroying the planet, but from which we apparently have no wish to escape from.

While climate and environmental scientists have long been steadily ratcheting up their estimations of the devastating impacts of global warming and biodiversity to the living fabric of our world, it is only now that economists from the ‘Network for Greening the Financial System’ are beginning to estimate the true fiscal costs to climate warming- something that could and should have been done 50 years ago, as it would have provided some leverage for real change in this money obsessed world. In the latest estimates economists estimate that global GDP will contract by 33% by 2100 from a 3C rise in global average surface temperatures. That 33% reduction in global GDP is almost certainly a huge underestimation of the real fiscal costs of global warming.

That ‘canary in the coalmine’ early warning system for economies, the cost of insurance, is already rising rapidly as a result of the rapidly increasing unpredictability of our climate systems.

We still do not know for certain what is going to happen to global sea currents and sea level rise as a result of ice melt , but early indications are that there will be a complete collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) within a few decades. When that collapse occurs, not only will much of the Northern Hemisphere become much colder, but the Southern Hemisphere will warm much much faster.

If that’s not enough, the 1972 bestseller Limits to Growth (LtG) authors (70 years ago) concluded that, if global society kept pursuing economic growth, it would experience a decline in food production, industrial output, and ultimately population, within this century. Recent remodelling of that study indicate ‘a halt in welfare, food, and industrial production over the next decade or so, which puts into question the suitability of continuous economic growth as humanity’s goal in the twenty-first century.’

And then we can go to the annual farce of the COP global conferences: the pretence that global leaders are in fact doing something about climate change, when in fact they are doing less than nothing- actively promoting more oil and gas exploration and consumption because endless ‘growth’ on a finite planet is a logical and sensible thing to do -isn’t it?

To hold everything together, so that we don’t lose our trajectory and deviate from accelerating over the climate change cliff, our mainstream and social media incessantly promotes consumption and the vital importance of the constant expansion of each country’s mythical GDP.

Have we completely forgotten our way home?

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References

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2024/nov/08/climate-breakdown-will-hit-global-growth-by-a-third-say-central-banks

Click to access climate-emergency-final-report.pdf

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-39810-w

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/jiec.13084

https://www.independent.ie/opinion/editorial/editorial-cop29-climate-summit-is-indeed-like-a-dark-joke-given-the-lack-of-buy-in-from-world-leaders/a131893267.html

The Ongoing Tragedy for Venezuela

The Venezuelan presidential elections of July 2024 have, not unexpectedly, created more controversy, violence, recriminations and threats.

The US attempt to destablise the Venezulan government through undermining the economy have persisted and intensifed progressively since 2014 . As noted by Alex in the youtube video below- sanctions almost completely destroyed the oil industry that Venezuela relied on for over 80% of its income. The pretence that ‘socialism’ and President Chavez and then President Maduro’s corruption destroyed Venezula rather than the sanctions is a constant repeated trope in Western mainstream media . As noted below Venezuela prior to Chavez was already a failed violent state.

The current constantly repeated trope in mainstream media is that a US funded election surveyer, Edison Research with strong links to the US government and intelligence services, had constructed an exit poll which showed the opposition presidential hopeful Gonzalez, winning by 65%. This sole exit poll has been repeated over and over in ALL Western media in the last few days as proof that the election was fixed by Maduro.

While it is possible that the Maduro government did fix the election, we need more information before we can make that accusation.

The West well knows that extreme external pressure on a nation-such as the Western sanctions and multiple US supported attempted coups that Venezuelans have endured for the past 10 years, can provoke a country to respond with ever tighter internal repression and brutality to control externally controlled dissident forces, and Venezula appears to be no exception to that rule; although the extent of that repression in Venezuela is of course amplified and exagerated by Western media. Current Western media reports of huge demonstrations against Madura in Vernezual’s capital Caracas and beyond appear to be vastly exaggerated.

The US, its Western allies, and those South American states in the Organisation of American States (OAS), despite their chorus of accusations, obviously have no way to know what really happened in the polls, without that information. As Mexico President AMLO states: “Before any results were known, the Organization of American States director had already recognized one of the candidates, with no evidence of ANYTHING… ENOUGH interventionism… they keep meddling from abroad!”

And given Western mainstream media’s historic and ongoing complicity in supporting US sponsored coups in Venezuela, one should take their accusations with a large grain of salt.

Perhaps the most ridiculous of those attempted coups and Western media support for it, was the attempt by an almost completely unknown Venezuelan member of Congress Juan Guido, with US backing, to pretend that he was in fact the rightful President of Venezuela. The fact that Western governments enthusiastically supported Guido’s outrageous claims despite any evidence, is proof positive of the anti-democratic attempts to once again control Venezuelan’s oil resources at any cost.

That the UK was prepared to compromise what remained of the Bank of England and the City of London’s integrity as a global financial centre by appropriating Venezuala’s gold on the excuse that the gold belonged to Guido’s pretend regime, indicates the extent to which every Western nation is prepared to do whatever the US requires them to.

Postscript

The announcement on 2nd August by the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken that there is ‘overwhelming evidence’ González beat Nicolás Maduro in the presidential election, without there actually being any ‘overwhelming evidence’ one way or the other at all at that stage, once again demonstrates how the US will go to any lengths to get ‘their’ person ‘elected’. (which obviously tells you a lot about the US’s own electoral process)

A great article by Counterpunch validating many of the arguments above

and

Systemic Disorder’s in depth assessment of the Venezuelan elections

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Links

https://www.thecanary.co/global/world-analysis/2024/07/30/venezuela-elections-propaganda

https://geopoliticaleconomy.com/2024/07/29/us-government-edison-poll-venezuela-election/

https://hannity.com/media-room/poll-firm-that-provides-election-data-to-cnn-claims-error-yet-again/

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/29/world/venezuelan-leader-juan-guaido-sovereign-gold-dispute-intl-scli/index.html

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/25/venezuelan-opposition-leader-guaido-expelled-from-colombia–

The Making of Juan Guaidó: How the US regime change laboratory created Venezuela’s coup leader
Announcing ‘Corporate Coup: Venezuela and the End of US Empire’ by Anya Parampil

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/07/29/world/venezuelan-leader-juan-guaido-sovereign-gold-dispute-intl-scli/index.html

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/4/25/venezuelan-opposition-leader-guaido-expelled-from-colombia–

https://www.vox.com/2020/5/11/21249203/venezuela-coup-jordan-goudreau-maduro-guaido-explain

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202407/1316986.shtml

https://www.reuters.com/world/china-venezuela-sign-agreements-economy-trade-tourism-2023-09-13/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/7/29/stark-split-in-world-reactions-to-disputed-venezuela-election

https://edition.cnn.com/2021/02/12/world/us-venezuela-sanctions-alina-douhan-intl/index.html

https://www.ohchr.org/en/documents/country-reports/ahrc4859add2-visit-bolivarian-republic-venezuela-report-special

https://news.antiwar.com/2024/07/29/us-accuses-venezuela-of-election-manipulation-after-maduro-victory-threatens-sanctions/

https://www.telesurenglish.net/president-nicolas-maduro-denounces-violent-acts-perpetrated-by-the-far-right-in-venezuela/

https://daniellarison.substack.com/p/abandon-the-failed-venezuela-policy

A Timeline of US Sanctions on the Venezuelan Regime
Venezuela: As US Leaders Call Fraud, US Observers Endorse Results
https://cepr.net/press-release/report-finds-us-sanctions-on-venezuela-are-responsible-for-tens-of-thousands-of-deaths/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/aug/02/venezuela-election-us-edmundo-gonzalez-maduro-results-disputed

https://www.counterpunch.org/2024/08/12/media-coverage-of-venezuelas-presidential-election-normalizes-us-interference

U.S., opposition claims on Venezuela election fall apart under scrutiny

The Beginning of a Journey into the Unknown

The famous Chinese ‘Book of Changes’, the I Ching; which provides guidance on becoming a wise person, notes in Hexagram 56 “The Wanderer” that “We are all wanderers in the Unknown. Those who travel beside the Sage are unharmed’.

Increasingly for people in the West particularly, there is a strong sense of the uncertainties that lie ahead of us. What was solid before: our economies, our climate, our status in the world, our future in general -are no longer certainties. And increasingly it is made apparent that we are being led by the blind- our ‘leaders’ who choose not to see, to look beyond their own immediate needs and greed and who ignore all the impending warning signs of a very different world ahead, and who choose not to implement plans for that new world ahead.

Israel’s genocidal attack on the people of Gaza has been enthusiastically supported by parties on the ‘left’ and right in the Western world, and Western mainstream media has carefully followed that line while pretending to be impartial.

We now have the spectre of elections in both the U.K and US where the choices in each case are between political leaders who demonstrate no morality and even less intelligence and who display minimal differences in their unconditional support of the already rich and powerful and mesmerisingly stupid foreign policy decisions. And with the further spectre of the Ukraine war being inexorably won by Russia with the soft backing of China and the global south, these Western ‘leaders’ see their power and illgotten wealth slipping away: there is panic.

Once again (for the hundredth time over the past two centuries) the ridiculous argument that “The Russians are coming!” is being promoted in MSM media to scare the bejeesus out of naive Western populations. Not only do the politicians agree on their brain-dead racist assumptions about Russia and China and the Global South, but their advisors are also in lock-step! The quality of decision-making in the West has (hopefully) reached rock-bottom!

Much of Africa has taken the opportunity of the West’s dissaray to rid themselves of the incredible exploitation by the last of the African colonisers- the French. Now, once again the indigenous Kanaks of New Caledonia are rising up against their colonialist French masters- but President Macron is holding firm- there is too much money to be gained from the nickel mine in New Caledonia.

A recent Canadian piece of analysis characterised one of the major risks to its population is ‘disinformation’ (otherwise known as perspectives on the world that are not aligned to the official perspective). It had previously been accepted in the West that expressing alternative views on the world was a key element of democracy (provided that it didnt actually change the power structure!)-but no longer…Diversity of opinion and knowledge is one the key factors that can help ensure humans’ evolution does not come to a sticky and dead end sooner rather than later.

Now, young people who express their opposition to Israel’s appalling genocide can be arrested as agitators and ‘antisemites’ and those who oppose the West’s involvement in the Ukraine war are ‘Putin’s puppets’. Rational analytical thinking is not permitted.

That Canadian analysis also points to climate change as a major threat to Canada’s (and the world’s ) wellbeing , but nowhere in any state’s manifesto across the globe are we informed that one of the key rational ways to address climate change and loss of biodiversity is de-growth. Economic “Growth” (an oxymoron if ever there was one) is our true God. Everything is measured against the ‘God of Growth’ who knows nothing and cares for nobody.

The only little problem with the fiscal measurement process called GDP is that it cannot measure the health and living viability of the planet nor the wellbeing of the multitude of species who inhabit it, and on whom human beings are totally reliant upon for our survival.

In my own little part of the world, our new New Zealand coalition of right wing zealots have in a remarkably short time, slashed 5000 government jobs, (or ‘red tape’ as they prefer to call it!), made access to government welfare that much harder, attacked the core premises of Te Tiriti o Waitangi (our founding document), enhanced payments to rich landlords and promised tax breaks which will inevitably only benefit the wealthy. To add to the flavour they are currently working on a “Fast Track Act’ with their big business ‘colleagues’, to ensure that ‘development’ is not stifled or delayed by foolish issues such as environmental protection. Short term greed must always out-weigh long term human wellbeing and environmental protection.

Sadly New Zealand’s politicians , like so many Western politicians, seem to be progressively dumbing down to the point of becoming brain-dead zombies mesmerised by dollar signs, and where honesty, compassion and an understanding of the complexity and fragility of the living world and our total dependancy upon it, are things of the past..

And all the while, climate change pushes all living things on the planet ever more rapidly into a totally unrecognissable and unpredictable new world..

____________________________

Links

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/article/2024/may/17/economic-damage-climate-change-report

Climate ‘poses systemic financial risks’ (theecologist.org)

https://www.aljazeera.com/features/longform/2024/5/18/refuge-of-the-last-dreamers-luang-prabang-a-city-suspended-in-time

https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/last-dance-at-the-vampire-ball-west

SOME THOUGHTS ON  FISCAL  IMPLICATIONS OF CLIMATE CHANGE AND BIODIVERSITY LOSS FOR NEW ZEALAND (and others)

The Striking Stupidity of Western Leaders

15/4/24

I am writing this blog post the day after Iran’s retaliatory attack on Israel after Israel’s missile attack on the Iranian legation in Damascus which killed several high-ranking IRGC officers. It is worth noting that one of rationales given by Iran for its subsequent attack on Israel was the fact that-despite the UK, France and the US knowing full well that Israel’s Damascus missile attack was a blatant and unique (at that point) breach of both the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations and the 1963 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, they refused to endorse a UN Security Council resolution condemning the attacks. By doing so, the US, UK and France have acknowledged that they and their Israeli proxy do not choose to abide by the international rule of law or human decency.

While Israel and the West claims that most Iranian drones and missiles were shot down and that there was minimal damage; there are other reports from Iran, Hezbollah and military analysts that there was significant damage to two Israeli airforce bases and a command post in the Golan Heights– all of those Israeli military sites had been used in the Israeli Damascus attack.

Given that there appear to be no casualties from the Iranian attack, it would seem that Iran has taken some care to avoid deaths-in contrast to current and historical Israeli genocidal actions in Palestine and, to a lesser degree, Lebanon.

There are also unverified reports that Iran notified the US of its intentions before the attacks, which then allowed the US , the UK and the Jordanian Army to shoot down many of the Iranian drones before they reached Israel. However there are strong indications that Iranian high velocity/hypersonic missiles did get through and hit the 3 Israeli bases.

Washington reports that President Biden persuaded the Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu not to launch a further reprisal attack on Iran despite Netanyahu’s earleir threats to do so. That’s a possible reason for the current uncharacteristic restraint from Israel, but in my view the more likely reason is that Israel’s military advised Netanyahu that a further attack on Iran would be suicidal, given Iran’s capacity to break through Israel’s much vaunted ‘Iron Dome” anti missile shield.

In addition,Washington on both the Republican and Democrat wings, have been itching to attack Iran ever since the Iranian revolution in 1979 which threw out the US and UK intelligence agencies supporting the brutal Shah’s Savak secret police, invaded the US embassy in Iran and nationalised the Iranian oil industry. This most recent Iranian attack comes after Iran’s previous attack on America’s illegal military bases in Iraq in response to President Trump’s decision to murder General Solomeini, Iran’s chief commander coordinating the destruction of ISIS in Iraq and Syria. That previous precisely targetted Iranian attack- despite again giving the US fore-warning, resulted in some considerable destruction and injuries at several American air force bases in Iraq.

Washington is thus now well aware that Iran can and will respond to further aggression from the US or Israel. The US’s multiple military bases in the Middle East are highly vulnerable to Iranian missile attacks, as are its navy and its commercial shipping in the Gulf of Iran. Sky-rocketing oil prices caused by blazing oil tankers in the Gulf would not improve Joe Biden’s chances of re-election for one thing!

So, predictably the West will further sanction Iran for responding to Israel’s major breach of international conventions when it bombed Iran’s Damascus embassy.

All of this action comes on the back of 6 months of the most depraved genocidal attacks on the Palestinian population in Gaza by the Israeli ‘Defence’ Force. The accuracy of that genocidal description has been confirmed by both the International Court of Justice and the UN, despite the denials from Israel’s Western allies, who continue to pretend that Israel’s genocide is a war against terrorism- there is however too much money at stake for the West to back down from their collusion in genocide now. President Biden alone gets enormous ($5.2 million over 34 years) money personally from the Jewish American agency AIPAC, and most of Congress is likewise in the pocket of AIPAC.

And the EU will of course not sanction or condemn Israel for its ongoing murderous savagery in Gaza.

Western media (and particularly my own New Zealand media) works hand in glove to desperately support the illusion of rectitude by America and its allies and reject their complicity in Israel’s genocide . We cannot be informed about the Nakba of 1948 for instance, the international implications of destroying another country’s Embassy, and we are never admitted into the mystery as to how Gazans are somehow dying of starvation- (what could be causing that we wonder?), or why there are many thousands of Palestinian brutalised hostages in Israeli ‘jails’ who might be exchanged for Israeli hostages?

We are not to learn how really depraved and corrupt our Western politicians are..

In Britain there are clear indications that the Jewish lobby funnels huge amounts of money into both the Tory and Labour parties (as Craig Murray notes 40% of Labour’s shadow cabinet, at least, are financed by the zionist lobby)as well as what they bizarrely call the ‘House of Lords’ to ensure both parties unanimously support Israeli mass murder in Palestine, despite their government lawyers acknowledgment of that genocide. Ironically Keir Starmer, the current Labour leader who is likely to sweep to power in the next UK general election, despite his incompetence and corruption, was once a human rights lawyer, so is knowingly complicit in this murder. And let’s not forget their dear ex prime minister Boris Bojo Johnson, whose sabotage of a Ukraine/Russia peace deal in 2022 has now resulted in his having the blood of over 400,000 Ukrainian men on his hands and his non- existent conscience.

I am ever hopeful as the world moves away from this brutal Western ‘rule based order’ to a multipolar world, that these corrupt stooges in the West will be committed to the International Court of Justice and spend the rest of their lives behind bars. It remains a mystery to me how these Western ‘leaders’ can face the world (and the mirror), knowing they have no integrity, no honesty and no compassion. If it were not for their savagery, I would pity them.

And corruption further drives our environmental destruction- government subsidies for oil companies to produce more oil to produce more global heating from CO2 now total more 7 trillion dollars in 2023. Why would politicans do that, knowing full well that global CO2 levels have already passed the 1.5C degree maximum the world agreed on only a few years ago? Follow the money…’There are no pockets in a shroud’ as my grandma used to say…

Critical thinking is clearly not a strong point for a Western ( or any other)politician . The amazing level of simple blind prejudice of Russia for instance allowed the analysts and leaders of the West to assume (contrary to the actual pre-existing evidence) that Russia would collapse under the West’s sanctions , that the ‘brutal dictator Putin’ would fall and be replaced by someone eager to please the West, while Russia would be defeated in Ukraine because NATO’s Western weapons were so much better than Russian ones and their Western military geniuses so much smarter than Russians!

So it was quite ok to fund train and support neonazis and other nationalist crazies in Kiev who believed they were descended from the Nordic master race, whilst the inferior ‘asiatic’ Russian hordes only had outside toilets and stole washing machine chips for their weapons!

Even now the West simply can’t seem to get it into their heads that they are on the wrong side of history and the wrong side of humanity. The Global South wants no more of the West’s brutal exploitation and colonialism and flat-out lies. And for some strange reason the Global South wants a liveable world!

The evidence is unequivocal, our so-called civilisational ‘progress’ has been made on the backs of environmental destruction and ecocide. Politicians across the globe have consistently refused to acknowledge the real costs of energy consumption and human ‘development’ on our planet and ourselves. The charade of the COP meetings fools no-one

Those devastating costs are only now being made manifest and will continue to do so at an accelerating rate for the next 1000 years or more.

But hey!- whose counting?

Postscript

Israel supposedly DID send a few Sparrow small air to ground missiles into Iran in response, and their terrorist proxies in Iran, the MEK, supposedly also sent a few toy quadrocopter drones of Isfahan– so I kind of got my analysis wrong- but not really!

As a sidenote: ‘In 2017, the year before John Bolton became President Trump’s National Security Adviser, Bolton addressed members of the MEK and said that they would celebrate in Tehran before 2019.’-wikipedia

New Zealand Supports Gazans to Die Faster

The New Zealand government , unsurprisingly, has, along with 11 other Western countries, decided to withhold funding to UNRWA because of allegations by the Israeli apartheid regime in Tel Aviv that 12 of its thousands of staff in Gaza and the West Bank had been involved in the October 7th attack by Hamas on Israelis.

As Amnesty International makes exceptionally clear-‘At a time when Israel, the occupying power, continues to flagrantly violate its obligations vis-à-vis Palestinian refugees in Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, UNRWA has long served as a sole lifeline, offering indispensable humanitarian aid, education and shelter. The agency also provides desperately needed aid for millions of other Palestinian refugees living in neighbouring Arab countries.”

As is made clear in the video below of an Israeli Knesset representative calling for the destruction of UNRWA several months ago-the elimination of aid to Gazans has long been a strategic goal of Israel as it continues to demolish and kill everything in its path in Gaza.

Please note that Noga Orbel’s statements are not the ravings of a lone psychopath, they are what passes for normal and acceptable in Israel’s parliament.

The United States, United Kingdom , Germany, France, Japan, Switzerland, Canada, Netherlands, Italy, Australia and Finland –and now New Zealand have all agreed that, despite the fact that they know Israel has been consistently lying for its 75 years of existence, to justify its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, that they should ‘suspend’ funding to the UNRWA which has been the literally sole lifeline of food and water to Gazans trapped in Gazan while Israel bombards them into oblivion and blockades and destroys all essential services to Gazans.

What additionally needs to be said about the pyschopaths coordinating this genocide?

What these 12 ‘white’ countries (Japan is an honorary obedient white country in their eyes) are doing is directly aiding and abetting the psychopaths in Tel Aviv, in the mass murder of Palestinians. Without UNRWA aid to Gazans, many many more Palestinians will die.

The Zionist’s bizarre ideology insists that only Jewish people can live in the land of Palestine, and anyone else who has lived there who is not Jewish must be removed one way or another- through murder, imprisonment in Israeli jails or the open air concetration camps of the West Bank and Gaza , or expelled to refugee camps in another country.

This 75 years old strategy, begun in 1948 by Israel’s military with the Nakba (the Palestinian ‘Catastrophe’), is apparently all kosher and ok with those 12 white countries.

That 2 million Gazans will now either starve to death, die by disease from polluted water, freeze to death from lack of shelter or lack of health services destroyed by Israel, is of course of no concern to these ‘civilised’ countries.

Purely coincidentally of course, the Israeli allegations and the very prompt response from Western nations to halt aid, comes just days after the interim ruling by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which (despite the subsequent denials of Israel, its Zionist supporters and many of these same white nations) established a prima facie case of genocide by Israel against Gazans.

The so fondly quoted US “rule based international order”(which Scott Burchell  has aptly described as ” Washington’s confected alternative to international law, the so-called “rules-based international order”, is now exposed as nothing more than a hypocritical protection racket in free fall’.) and the western governments and their politicians and bureaucrats who so slavishly support it, has now been brutally exposed for what it is – the ghoulish face of racist psychopaths perfectly content to let millions die, in that so honorable cause of propping up their careers and profits.

Postscript

https://www.1news.co.nz/2024/02/02/nz-eyes-aukus-pillar-two-what-is-it-and-how-could-it-impact-us/

One might have thought that NZ politicians were not quite so stupid as their Aussie colleagues in signing up to the U.S. inspired AUKUS protection racket-confronting non-existent threats from Russia & China & wasting millions in taxpayers money.

Perhaps they might have been better to consult with the new Argentinian president’s dead dog?

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Links

Parliament debates NZDF Red Sea deployment | RNZ News

https://www.indcatholicnews.com/news/49030

Has International Law Survived, or Has the Western Political Class Killed It?

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israels-allies-accelerate-genocide-freezing-unrwa-funds

The Western club- with its own morals, rules and rewards

https://amnesty.org.nz/reverse-cruel-decision-to-withdraw-unrwa-funding

Gaza 2023 -Wikimedia
Gaza 2023 -Wikimedia
Gaza 2023 -Wikimedia
Gaza 2023 -Wikimedia
Gaza 2023 -Wikimedia
Gaza 2023 -Wikimedia
Gaza 2023 -Wikimedia

Fmr. UNRWA Spox Refutes Israeli Smears (usefulidiotspodcast.com)