Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
The British government’s discredited Home Secretary Priti Patel has once again emerged as Israel’s leading in-house lobbyist.
Though her credibility was severely dented when as UK Aid Minister she had to resign in 2017 following her scandalous unauthorized meetings with senior Israeli officials, Patel has made a comeback to yet again plunge the British establishment into a deeper foreign policy mess.
She has now announced dramatic plans to prescribe Palestinian liberation movement Hamas as a “terrorist entity”.
Previously only the military wing of Hamas, Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, was proscribed under the UK Terrorism Act 2000.
In a statement released by her, Patel sounded no different to right-wing hawks in control of the apartheid regime: “Hamas has significant terrorist capability, including access to extensive and sophisticated weaponry, as well as terrorist training facilities. That is why today I have acted to proscribe Hamas in its entirety.”
Though her proscription order was introduced a few days ago and debating and voting were expected to follow shortly, the process will require approval by Parliament.
If approved, showing support for Hamas – including organizing events in support of them and flying the movement’s flag – could see punishments of up to 14 years in prison.
Not surprisingly, Israel has gleefully welcomed Patel’s announcement. Defense Minister Benny Gantz said it “sends a strong message of zero tolerance toward terrorist activities aimed at harming the State of Israel and Jewish communities.”
Absent from most media reports is the bizarre fact that Patel confirmed her moves in a speech on security and counter-terrorism in Washington.
BBC’S diplomatic correspondent James Landale suggested that the decision should also be seen through a domestic UK prism.
“Israel has been pushing for this for some time and the fact it is now happening reflects the deep contacts that Israel has within the Conservative Party.”
No newcomer to controversy, Patel is described by various British sources including Wikipedia as Eurosceptic. She “was a leading figure in the Vote Leave campaign for Brexit during the 2016 referendum on UK membership of the European Union.”
Reports indicate that following Cameron’s resignation, Patel supported Theresa May’s bid to become Conservative leader; May subsequently appointed Patel Secretary of State for International Development.
However, her breach of the Ministerial Code in 2017 when Patel was involved in a shameful political scandal involving clandestine meetings with Netanyahu and fellow government leaders in Israel, ended her tenure.
Though the unauthorized conduct of holding 12 separate meetings during a family holiday to Israel without notifying the Foreign Office or Downing Street had disgraced her, Boris Johnson ignored Patel’s violations by resuscitating her political career.
That the controversy surrounding her turbulent political career would expectedly have cautioned responsible leaders, Johnson chose to cave into the pro-Israel lobby by deploying her in one of the most powerful cabinet positions.
In making this outlandish move, Patel has selectively chosen to remain silent on the fact that Hamas, having engaged in Palestine’s political process and won the legislative elections in 2006, was rebuffed by the British government. In doing so, the UK defied and denied the political choice made by Palestinians.
As expected, Hamas has expressed its “shock and dismay” at the move.
It called on the government to apologize for the Balfour Declaration, which illegally set the stage for the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine in 1917, during the month of November.
The statement added: “The Palestinian people, backed by the Arab and Muslim nations and the free people of the world, will continue their fight for freedom and return at any cost and will not be discouraged by those who failed to support them.
“We are confident that the Palestinians will fulfill their aspirations for freedom and independence sooner or later.”
Given the fact that Hamas espouses Islamic values and that its defense of Masjid al Aqsa is profoundly admired, it is widely believed that the overwhelming majority of Muslims across the world support it.
Britain’s four million-plus Muslim population would be no exception to this. It goes without saying that solidarity with Palestine’s freedom struggle is intertwined with support for Hamas.
But by Patel’s decree, Muslims and millions of British citizens of various faith groups, found to be pro-Hamas will face criminal charges and the prospect of long-term jail.
– Iqbal Jassat is an Executive Member of the South Africa-based Media Review Network. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle. Visit: www.mediareviewnet.com
To begin, let’s recap what just happened in the Crimean waters. First, the HMS Defender deliberately entered the Russian waters under the pretext that the Brits don’t recognize what they call the “annexation” of Crimea. The Brits deny it, but after seeing 4 bombs explode ahead of the HMS Defender, they altered their course as the Russians demanded.
Next, before looking into this deeper, let’s also keep in mind the following fact: the entire Black Sea is a de facto “Russian lake” meaning that Russia has the full military control of the Black Sea. For those alternatively gifted, let me explain what this means:
The Bal and Bastion coastal defense missiles can sink any ship in the Black Sea in minutes.
The Black Sea Fleet has seven advanced diesel-electric attack submarines, arguably the most advanced on the planet.
The HMS Defender was operating without any air cover but detected over 20 Russian military aircraft overflying it.
For a more detailed discussion of this reality, please see these four (here, here, here and here) articles by Andrei Martyanov. For a more detailed discussion of the laws of the sea, please see this discussion by Nat South.
In other words, the HMS Defender was a sitting duck with no chance of survival had the Russians decided to fire in anger. General Konashenkov, who is in charge of contacts with the media, had this to say about the outcome of the British provocation: (emphasis added)
“The epic fiasco of the provocation of the British destroyer Defender in the Black Sea, which abruptly changed course from Russian territorial waters after the warning shots of the patrol ship, will remain a fragrant stain on the reputation of the Royal Navy for a long time”
(-: Thereby suggesting that the Brits soiled their pants and ran for their lives
Speaking of anger: I have been parsing the Russian media over the past couple of days and I will only say that there are A LOT of commentators who are mad at the Kremlin for NOT opening fire in earnest and sinking the Defender.
Furthermore, several Russian officials have now indicated that the next time around, the intruders would be destroyed.
Did I mention that the British Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, George Eustice declared in an interview that the Brits plan to repeat such operations in the future?
This now begs the question: would the Kremlin really risk WWIII by sinking a British Navy Ship trying to, to use a British expression, “poke the Russian bear”?
Interestingly, the Brits deny that the Russians fired any munitions ahead of the Defender. Why would they do that? My personal explanation is that the British government does not want to freak out the British and European public opinion. But if they are hiding the truth, it means that this is a truth which makes them uncomfortable. What do you think they might be hiding?
Still, the two UK reporters who were on the Defender (by total coincidence, I am sure), both reported hearing explosions and seeing Russian combat aircraft. The Russian FSB also released video footage taken from the Russian border patrol ships which were shadowing the HMS Defender. You can clearly see the Russian firing their guns ahead of the HMS Defender:
The Russians also have radar footage from many sources and it has been really easy for them to prove that the Defender changed course and left after four bombs exploded ahead on its course.
The reason for all this? “We don’t recognize the annexation of Crimea”. Which makes no sense because EVEN if the UK does not recognize the Russian “annexation” of Crimea (and, along with that, the democratic will of the people of Crimea), they should still recognize the indisputable fact that Russia is the “occupying power” which, therefore, has the legal right to deny any ship “innocent passage” if it believes that this ship is a threat, collecting intelligence or used for propaganda purposes (again, read Nat South’s superb discussion on the applicability of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to this situation). As usual, the Brits are lying about everything, including what the UNCLOS really says…
Now let’s look at this from the Russian point of view.
First, the Russians remember how the Brits declared a 200 miles zone around the Malvinas Islands (“Falklands” in UK parlance) and immediately sunk the cruiser General Belgrano as soon as it entered this zone. The Russians also remember how the Turks shot down a Russian SU-24 over Syria because it had penetrated in Turkish air space for exactly 6 seconds. The HMS Defender spent about 30 minutes in Russian waters.
Can you really blame them for feeling that “some are more equal than others”?
The Brits, being the superior race which only they think they are, declared that they only changed course because a slower Russian vessel was ahead of them and they decided to pass it from the open waters side. In fact, the Brits are so superior to the mongoloid Russian hordes and their dictator that they refused to even reply to the Russian coast guard vessel when it threatened to open fire if the Brits did not change course.
(I wonder, does anybody still believe this crap? Does anybody still believe that Great Britain is, well, great? In Russia the expression “мелкобритания” is increasingly used. Translated into English this would be something like “Tiny Britain”)
Anyways, all of the above clearly shows one of two things:
The Brits do not believe that Russia could sink a UK warship
The Brits are willing to risk a major military incident possibly leading to war in order to maintain tensions between Russia and the collective West (aka the AngloZionist Empire).
This begs the question: are the Brits correct, or are they delusional?
First, we need to understand the purpose of this provocation: to disrupt the planned summit between the EU and Russia which France and Germany seemed to support, and which the 3B+PU and the Netherlands and the Czech Republic (iirc) categorically opposed (the Ukraine is not member of the EU, but they sure acted as if they had some kind of moral veto power over EU decisions). Sure, the UK has Brexited and should therefore not have any say in EU decisions, but the Anglosphere has enough power over the EU to make this completely irrelevant. We also know that Boris Johnson personally gave the order to the HMS Defender to enter Russian waters. Obviously, that kind of high level decision could not have been taken without Uncle Shmuel’s approval, thus we are dealing with a very deliberately calculated action. If this was the goal, it has been a total success and the Brits just screwed over Macron and Merkel.
Second, this is really largely irrelevant for Russia. If the EU cannot muster enough political courage to talk to Russia, then Russia will directly talk with those countries which want to talk to Russia. To put it bluntly, Russia does not give a damn about the 3B+PU. As for the Netherlands, they are a big investor in the Russian economy and Russians don’t care about what the Dutch might or might not say, as long as they keep investing (in Euros, by the way!), which, so far, they still are. Besides, considering the economic size of Holland, even if they stopped investing this would only be a minor nuisance for Russia. In fact, Merkel has even declared that if the EU cannot agree to have a dialog with Russia, Germany would seek other venues for this purpose.
Third, what just happened is yet another clear sign that the EU is profoundly dysfunctional. After the end of the USSR in 1991, russophobic Neocons in the West decided to make the Russians “pay” by incorporating ex WTO and ex Soviet Republics into NATO. At first, it looked great, but now it has become clear that the blowback from this truly idiotic policy has many unexpected benefits for Russia and major problems for the Empire. They include:
Russia got rid of all the Soviet periphery which was bleeding the Soviet Union dry.
None of the newly created states has become a viable, successful state.
The Empire spent many billions trying to prop up these newly independent states (ex USSR and eastern Europe) and tried to turn them into some anti-Russia showcase. They totally and comprehensively failed.
Now the UK and, even more so, the 3B+PU have taken the EU hostage and are preventing the countries which matter from, well, mattering anymore.
Countries bordering Russia are now all demanding NATO troops, which puts the latter in the worst possible position, right across the Russian border and, therefore, within range of too many Russian weapons to list here.
Last, but not least, the stupid and, frankly, totally irresponsible actions of countries like the UK and the Ukraine risk involving all of Europe in a most dangerous and devastating war.
Bottom line is this: the leaders of the AngloZionist thought they had scored big with the expansion of the EU and NATO. Now they are screwed in a major way and with no solution in sight.
This all is hardly big news, but yet another confirmation of the advanced state of collapse of both NATO and the EU. Conversely, the more EU countries decide to hold bilateral talks with Russia, the better for the future of the European continent.
As for the Brits, they are clearly suffering from phantom pains for their lost empire. Think of it, in less than one century the British Empire went from being the empire upon which the sun never sets, (Britannia rules the waves, etc.) to being the USA’s poodle which nobody respects or takes seriously. Bojo is desperate to prove that he is a “new Churchill” which will teach the damn Russians (and Chinese!) to kowtow to the UK or, failing that, at least kowtow to the Anglosphere. And, as a typical western politician, Bojo is both too ignorant and too narcissistic to understand the risks he is taking.
The Brits seemed to be combining imperialist arrogance (and delusion!) with a truly shocking lack of PR skills. Not only did they deny that the Russians opened warning fire ahead of them, only to have the FSB prove this denial false by publishing the video of the Russian coast guard vessel firing ahead of the Defender, but now they came up with a truly clumsy piece of nonsense about how a “super dooper secret” dossier on the British plans was somehow apparently found by a passer-by in a heap of trash behind a bus stop in Kent (you think I am joking, then see here). Needless to say, the Russians openly made fun of the Brits saying that “007 agents agents aren’t what they used to be”. Furthermore, it now appears that some top UK officials were very much opposed to this move which was demanded by Johnson personally (see here and here).
What about the British military?
We know that their actual capabilities are laughable. But what about their understanding of the situation?
I am not a mind reader and I don’t know what the British sailors (and their bosses) were thinking, but there is one thing which I am sure of: the next time around (and, there will be a next time according to UK ministers), the Russians will use force. If possible, they will try to ram the intruding vessel; if not, they might strike at the intruding vessel’s engines/props to disable it and, possibly, tow it. Should the intruding vessel try to fire back, the Russians would probably fire a torpedo and disable it. That is my best guess. I also decided to ask Andrei Martyanov (a former Soviet Navy officer) what he thinks will happen the next time around. Here is his reply:
“Most likely, they will open fire, but first only with small-caliber naval artillery (30-mm from the Russian border patrol ship or even 76-mm), and that fire will be aimed at the propeller-steering group (i.e. at the stern) to begin with. At the same time, the coastal defense batteries will actively track the intruder with their targeting radar, plus the Russian will “hang” 15-20 Su-24 and SU-30SM in immediate readiness to use more serious means – for example, the supersonic (M = 3.5) anti-radiation X-31 and take out the mast with its radar. That is just for starters. Next, the Russians will gage the reaction of the intruder: if they try to shoot at any Russian target, they will be sunk. But this would only happen inside Russian territorial waters. Outside Russian waters the Russians will only monitor their moves. Lastly, do not forget – there are anywhere between 4 and 7 Project 636 submarines at any one time patrolling the Black Sea, each capable of firing 6 3M54 anti-ship missiles in one salvo.”
Here is a short video of the Russian MoD Zvezda channel to give you an idea of how this all looks (in Russian, but no translation needed) and which quite openly shows whom the Russians consider their likely target.
Does anybody still remember what happened when the “invincible” British Navy tried to participate in Trump’s (totally failed) cruise missile attack on Syria? The British subs in the Mediterranean were shadowed by not one, but apparently two Russian submarines. That convinced the British sub commander that firing its missiles would be suicidal. The Brits gave up and left the area.
There is a pattern here: western politicians make a lot of very loud statements; the Russians simply take whatever actions they deem necessary, which frees them from the need to make threats of roaring statements in the first place.
This approach has a problem: only highly specialized people in the West are fully aware of what the Russians are doing and even less people fully understand the implications of the Russian actions. Add to this a western media which lies for a living, and this results in a population in Europe which is almost totally unaware of the very real risks the reckless actions of their (supposed) representative governments engage in. How many Brits will realize that a grinning and apparently happy Boris Johnson has almost stumbled into a war with Russia? Very few I bet. If anything, the common folk in the West are told that (a) their military is the best and (b) that the Russian military is much weaker and the Russians understand that. Ergo: there is no risk.
Then there is the fact that while the general population is kept in total ignorance, western political elites are mostly composed of folks with very strong narcissistic tendencies combined with a total inability to learn from mistakes (both theirs and those of others). Needless to say, history does not inform these people either. Finally, since these folks can never admit a mistake, however minor or serious, they cannot change course; doubling down over and over is pretty much all they are capable of.
Conclusion:
There is no doubt that the Biden Administration has taken a very different course towards Russia (and Iran, by the way!) than the one favored by the Trump administration. I attribute this change of policy to the likely realization by top Pentagon officials that the US desperately needs to “catch its breath” and that the US military is in no condition to take on any other halfway competent military. Even if this is a ploy to win time for reorganizing, I welcome this as, by definition, anything is preferable to war, especially a full-scale war. However, there are clearly interests in both the US and Europe which are desperately opposed to any form of detente with Russia and who want to maintain an atmosphere of crisis and tensions just short of war. Of course, I don’t believe in any meaningful differences between the various factions competing for power on a strategic level: they all want to destroy, submit, break up and otherwise devastate Russia. This 1000 year old dream of the western ruling elites (pretty much all of them) still remains the strategic target of the West. But on a tactical level there appear to be two factions, one which understands that the Empire desperately needs a break to regroup and refine its strategy and another one which still seems to believe that the Empire is invincible and appears to be hell-bent on triggering as many conflicts/wars as it deems necessary to restore Uncle Shmuel’s worldwide hegemony.
That second group, clearly strong, has ties with the UK and the 3B+PU gang who are desperate to remain relevant and who understands that should there ever be any type detente (or even a tense modus vivendi) agreed upon between Russia and the West, that group would become comprehensively irrelevant to the future of our planet. While we can disagree with this logic, we have to remain aware that for countries like the UK or the 3B+PU this is truly an existential issue and that they see a continuation of tensions as the only path to political survival. On this specific point, I happen to agree with them.
I mentioned that ever since Dubya, all the US Presidents who came to the White House were extremely weak, which resulted in the breakup of any single US foreign policy into many different, and often contradictory, “mini foreign policies” by various branches of the government (Congress vs White House, plus a Pentagon foreign policy, a CIA foreign policy, a Foggy Bottom policy, a DoE policy, etc. etc. etc.). Hence, for example, the recent seizure by Uncle Shmuel of the PressTV domain name. (BTW – the domain name https://www.presstv.ir/ still works!).
This all makes for a very dangerous brew. Especially since the Russians clearly and sincerely believe that they cannot back down any further.
I therefore conclude that a future military incident, with the use of fire in anger, and possibly resulting in a real war, remains not only possible, but even likely, unless the factions in the West which want a time-out to regroup manage to get the russophobic nutcases under control.
Will that happen? I doubt it very much. Biden is not only weak and senile, his Administration has been organized with wokeness and (pseudo) “diversity” as opposed to competence or expertise. Thus, the collective Biden (which I designate as “Biden” as opposed to the real Biden) is probably too weak to get the crazies under control, even for a short time.
And here is the really scary thing: from the Russian point of view (and Russians all understand all of the above), sinking a British ship might well be the best solution. Why? Because once this happens, it will be impossible to conceal from the western public opinion that its so-called “leaders” are reckless, incompetant, delusional and simply dangerous narcissists who are now willing to risk a continental war (possibly nuclear!) just in order to keep denying the reality of their irrelevance. If Russia wanted to invade the UK, I believe that most Brits would be willing to risk it all to defend their motherland. But I very much doubt that a majority/plurality of Brits would support the notion of dying for Crimea even if they believe that Russia “annexed” the peninsula and is now “oppressing the Ukrainian people of Crimea”. Nor would they want to die over MH17, Skripal, Syria, Navalnyi or the oppressed homos in Chechnia.
There is one more thing I think Putin could do: make a solemn speech and directly address the people of the West telling them the truth about what the western political leaders are doing. He could honestly tell the people in the West that Russia has retreated as far as she could. He can tell the people of the West that Russia did what she so often did in history, she traded space for time and that the four years break of the Trump Administration has allowed Russia to fully rearm, retrain and reorganize her armed forces which are now quite capable of taking on both the US and NATO and prevail.
Yes, I know, Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi tried to appeal to the people of the West and, in both cases, the democratic and free western media completely obfuscated these admittedly naive and clumsy attempts. But if Putin speaks directly to the people of the West, and explains to them what a war (even a conventional one) would mean for Europe, they would have to listen. Putin could clearly indicate to the people of the West which actions of the Empire Russia could never and would never tolerate. Finally, he could clearly spell out why the Russian people would prefer war to any surrender to the Empire. And, just to make sure that the message gets through, the Russian Navy might want to have one of its Yasen-M class SSGN surface somewhere in the Channel or the Tu-160 practice a cruise missile release on London (only electronically, of course). Hussein and Gaddafi did not have such capabilities. Russia does, and she should make use of them.
Fear, especially existential fear, might well be the only thing which could break through the wall of silence and disinformation which the western media has been feeding the people for decades.
How much hope do I place in the Biden Administration taking control of the nutcases or for Putin to directly address the people of the West? Not much at all. And the next best outcome is for Russia to sink a US/UK warship (or shoot down an aircraft) without triggering a continental war. Is that even possible? Yes, I think so. Very dangerous, but possible.
Does Russia have any other choice? If so, I don’t see it. Do you?
Post scriptum: this just in – the USS Ross (DDG-71), an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer in the United States Navy, has just entered to Black Sea on her way to Odessa where the Ukies are preparing monoevers if their “mosquito fleet” in the latest “Sea Breeze” NATO maneuvers (the biggest ones to date – 30 countries participate!). The Ukies have also declared that the Ross plans to follow the exact same course as the Defender did. The Russians? They announced that the USS Ross is now a “fat target” on their coastal defense missiles Bal and Bastion. As for Foreign Minister Lavrov, he just authored a seminal article entitled “The Law, the Rights and the Rules” which, still using diplomatic language, shows the utter disgust even Russian diplomats feel for the incompetence and hypocrisy of the West.
“More of the same” seems to be the trend of the day…
was a member of the British Parliament for nearly 30 years. He presents TV and radio shows (including on RT). He is a film-maker, writer and a renowned orator. Follow him on Twitter @georgegallowayRumours are gathering momentum of a planned register for those in Britain considered to be ‘agents of foreign governments’ – including me. But I have nothing to hide, unlike the Tory cronies raking it in thanks to the pandemic.
The way things are going, one could understand if a register of British government agents was drawn up. After all, we have a media seeded with covert partners of state-funded ‘initiatives’, full of ‘integrity’ every one of them, not at all compromised by the secret sources of their lifestyles.
We have a veritable sea of troubles seeping into view over public procurement. Health Secretary Matt Hancock’s local publican received a multi-million pound order for things he’d never bought or sold before. Just another day at the goldface of the pandemic.
The health secretary himself was ‘gifted’ one sixth of the total shares of a company NHS Wales handed £150,000 of taxpayers’ money to. And now it’s been revealed a prominent donor and former Tory candidate brokered a £100 million PPE contract. Samir Jassal, pictured with Boris Johnson himself, is no doubt worth every rupee.
So, in the face of mounting public disapproval (although they ain’t seen nothing yet), you could understand if donors and cronies of the Conservatives were to be forced to reveal themselves somehow when pitching for business. Maybe wear a blue star, or at least comply with a register? No?
Currently there are no plans for such a thing. But according to the Times (which knows, you know) Boris Johnson is about to launch another kind of register, another set of identifiers of closeness to government. We might call it McCarthy’s law.
Yes, that’s right. The British government, for the first time in our long island story, is about to make employees of foreign companies register as agents of those companies’ home governments. But there won’t be, I’ll hazard a wild guess, a requirement for assembly-line workers at Ford to wear a stars and stripes identifier and register themselves as agents of Uncle Sam. Nor – another wild guess – will presenters on CNN or the French state-broadcaster, or the German one be obliged to do so.
My wild guess is that it is the likes of me who will have to register as an agent of a foreign power because I appear on screen on RT, and in plain sight, on this page. Maybe I will get another chance to wear a red star on my coat.
Now it is possibly the worst kept secret in the country that I work for RT. Literally hundreds of thousands of people see me do so every week.
When in public office I was rightly forced to declare so. The same is true of my colleagues – our office is quite handily and literally right next door to MI5.
We have nothing to hide, unlike the secret servants of the British government.
The worry is what next? When in the swirl of the fake-news Russiagate hysteria in the United States a similar register was used to exclude journalists and broadcasters from US state facilities for media conferences for example. All in the name of freedom of the press, you understand.
Will that too be copied by Boris Johnson? Will the multiple Conservative politicians and grandees who have appeared on my RT shows then be precluded from speaking to me as an “agent of a foreign power”?
They can’t be when I’m in elected office of course. But wait…
Will that be the next move? Will elected officials be forbidden to speak to RT? Will RT contributors be forbidden to seek public office? Surely not?
Well nothing can be ruled in, or out, yet. According to the Times, we will know everything right after polling day in May.
Meanwhile, the secret servants of the Cold War will continue to proselytise for just such McCarthyite paraphenalia without you having the slightest idea that your own taxes are paying them to do so. “It’s all for freedom guv, move along, nothing to see here… (if we can help it).”
Open and wide-scale hostilities appear unavoidable in Eastern Ukraine.
Kiev is on the war path, with the “unwavering” support of the US and NATO.
Over April 5th, and going into April 6th, the Ukrainian Armed Forces (UAF) continued their usual activities of deploying more troops to the demarcation line.
Russia is also transferring forces to the border with Ukraine and in the Crimea.
In total, over the last 24 hours 7 separate ceasefire violations were recorded, each including a high number of shots and shells.
Two UAF soldiers were killed.
Near the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR), the UAF has several armored personnel carriers deployed at the village of Schstastye.
Still, the LPR said its militia was fully prepared to deal with any Ukrainian provocation, as according to them 60% of Kiev’s military hardware was entirely non-operational.
The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) reported that its militia had thwarted an attempt by a Ukrainian sabotage group to conduct reconnaissance near the borders of the Republic in the area of the village of Shumy near Horlivka.
Incidents of Ukrainian servicemen being blown up by their own mines continue.
Russia, for its part, is making further deployments, as footage showed that Nona-S self-propelled howitzers were being delivered towards the potential frontline.
It is also deploying the units of the 76th Guards Air Assault Division, commonly known as the Pskov paratroopers.
Ukraine is continually blaming Russia for the concentration of forces, while it keeps shelling both the DPR and LPR.
It is negotiating with its allies, speaking with British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and others.
NATO’s military attaché and its advisers are expected to arrive on the front line in Ukraine and provide their military expertise in the potential upcoming hostilities.
The active movement of military transport aircraft between NATO countries and the Ukraine continues.
The United States and its allies continue to saturate the Ukrainian army with military equipment, including UAVs, electronic warfare systems, anti-tank systems, MANPADS and other modern high-precision systems.
Meanwhile, the US carried out a typical diplomatic maneuver when a war may break out.
It said it would hold discussions with Moscow, as that is the precise form of support Kiev is likely to receive in the case that open hostilities take place.
The toolkit includes a willingness to partake in the discussion, and sending Washington’s hopes and prayers.
War between Russia and Ukraine seems to be highly likely.
Many military-political experts claim that the current situation can only be resolved by a military conflict.
Some of them declare a war now is preferable to a war later for Russia.
All Global Research articles can be read in 27 languages by activating the “Translate Website” drop down menu on the top banner of our home page (Desktop version).
***
Well, I’ve had personally the privilege of witnessing the poverty, the trauma, the displacement due to suffered by local communities in Damascus, Sydnaya, Latakia, Homs and at last of Aleppo, visited several times. And I continue to seek to raise the suffering of the people in parliament. Just as a reminder, over nine million Syrians are food insecure at the moment, and an estimated nine out of 10 live below the poverty line and million Syrians in parliament and the suffering of the people.
And in January this year, I sent a letter to the British prime minister, Boris Johnson, to urge the lifting of economic sanctions against Syria. The letter was signed by 80 other people, including many colleagues in the House of Lords, two former British ambassador to Syria, one of them, my friend Peter Ford, and other people from different arenas, George Tenet, the former chief of general staff of the British Army, north west of spitted former first sea lord and chief of naval staff.
And someone you heard earlier, of course, the right Reverend Dr Ted Williams, the former archbishop of Canterbury and many other people. It was also signed by international diplomats, human rights experts and some of the most senior church leaders in the Middle East. They briefly on this is the prime minister for the call to the United Nations, special rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures. And they don’t do it. Who appealed at the end of December, the United States, to lift its complex web of economic sanctions that severely harm the people of Syria.
Sanctions that have not been approved by the UN Security Council. The special rapporteur stated that US sanctions, I quote, violate the human rights of Syrian people and also could exacerbate the already humanitarian situation in Syria, especially in the case of Covid-19 pandemic, end of quote. They suffer what they call suffering by blocking the aid, trade and investment necessary, the serious health system and economy to function. The special rapporteurs findings reflect a growing consensus within humanitarian aid and human rights communities that the sanctions are driving Syria into an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe. I could give a lot more details. You’ve had enough already, and I know speaking out of turn because of our network connections. But I would just highlight the sanctions cure just as surely as bombs dropped.
Bombs can be aimed at military targets and sometimes, unfortunately, civilian targets and the sanction regimes nearly everyone suffers from in Syria. Effects have been devastating. Millions of people out of work, skyrocketing prices and poverty, a crippled health care system and hunger and death for many of the most vulnerable. It is high time the undeclared economic war being waged against the Syrian people by the United States, United Kingdom, European Union and their allies to come to an end.
And I hope very much that the important conference will help to bring that around.
So moving from there tonight, from there, sorry, I move to what I should do, which is to have the great privilege of giving what I just like to offer a very profound vision thanks to all the distinguished people, because this is very, very important conflict.
We’ve been so fortunate to work with speakers from Syria, from the front line of faith and freedom and other experts from around the world, and most importantly, to hear voices in country who don’t hear enough of in Britain and to hear the heartbreaking realities that exist in Syria today and to hear the truths that are so often hidden in mainstream narratives.
And you have to just the BBC like I do, I’ve complained again and increased the coverage of Syria related to areas in the region.
So a huge many of those who face the pressure, so many people have a lot of pressure not to take part in such a conference.
They’ve had the courage to speak out and they will pay a high price. But we’re here because we believe we believe in the truth. We believe in the need because of the suffering. The people of the Syrian crisis began 10 years ago today. The suffering of the Syrian people has gone on, as we all know, to be here for far too long. And the current policies of the international community are only prolonging violence and instability in the country and compounding the profound suffering of millions of people, innocent people.
So I passionately hope that the voices today will promote. A path to stability and peace. And finally, of course, thank you so much, Dr. Makram and the European Center for the Study of Extreme Extremism. And disorganized, because I’ve been running around trying to get my network and organize this very important event, but seriously, I’m sure we all hope and pray that what we have heard today echoes in the corridors of power. And challenges the people to reflect on the too often unreported realities in this context.
And as I say, very, very biased reporting. I’m sure we’re all aware and to support Syria to decide its own future and to rebuild your magnificent country, its wonderful history in a way that is the wishes of the Syrian people and to bring hope, peace and freedom for your people. You’ve suffered for far too long without it. You’ve deserved it for a long time. And I’m sure everyone has taken part in this very, very important conference, which we do thank you very much for arranging, will agree that it is long overdue that the people of Syria are respected for wonderful history, respected for your civilization, and respected for the contribution you can make the world when countries such as the United States in my own country stop penalizing you and allow you to develop your own justice, peace, freedom and democracy.
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(John Wight is an author and political commentator, based in Scotland.)
If history really is, as the 18th-century statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke declared, ‘a pact between the dead, the living, and the yet unborn,’ we the living in this accursed state known as the United Kingdom are — on the anniversary of Britain going into lockdown on March 23, 2020 — obligated to rage at a Tory machine responsible for one of the highest COVID death tolls in Europe and one of the highest per population globally.
To date, 126,000 people across the UK have died due to COVID-19. Just think about that for a moment! A hundred twenty six thousand and this government expects us to believe that it did everything possible to fight the virus. Its action and inaction at critical moments prove otherwise.
Whether the mad dalliance with herd immunity at the outset in March last year, conjured up in the diseased mind of Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s then-chief adviser, the likewise mad Dominic Cummings; whether the failure to lock down until almost two weeks after the WHO declared COVID a global pandemic, allowing the annual Cheltenham Festival horse racing event to proceed as normal, along with the Champions League football match between Liverpool and Athletico Madrid at Anfield, thus proving the best friend COVID could have; whether the griveous lack of ventilators and sufficient PPE for the NHS at the start of the first wave; and finally, whether the huge government COVID contracts handed out to friends of government ministers in the private sector with no procurement or transparency involved, what we have is criminal negligence, corruption, and nepotism on a scale never before seen in a supposed democracy underpinned by the rule of law and accountability.
“A nation of sheep begets a government of wolves,” legendary US journalist Edward R Murrow reminds us, and in our time, it must be said that England, as opposed to Scotland, is today a nation of sheep, having elected this current government of wolves back in 2019 on the basis of nothing more substantive than retrograde ethno-nationalism and the misplaced sense of exceptionalism enshrined in Brexit.
You can only dine out on the myths surrounding the Second World War for so long, and while British obscurantism has no place at anytime, in the midst of a pandemic, it is death itself.
And yet, despite his grievous and negligent leadership vis-à-vis COVID, Boris Johnson is still polling ahead of Labor’s Sir Keir Starmer. This, to my mind, tells us two things. The first is that, per Francisco Goya, the sleep of reason produces monsters. The second is that Keir Starmer’s Labor Party is part of the problem, not the solution.
The UK is a sinking ship of fools, of this there is now no doubt. Never has it been more divided across its regions and constituent nations. Never has its political class been more compromised by its lack of ability, probity, and integrity. And never has the UK’s mainstream media been more supine in its abject failure to hold the aforementioned to account.
A one-percent pay rise for NHS nurses, despite the literal carnage they’ve experienced over COVID this past year, despite hundreds of them perishing due to insufficient PPE, and despite the warm words of tribute to them that have been issued from the well-fed mouths of government ministers throughout, is rendered even more unjust by the pledge to increase the UK’s nuclear arsenal. If this does not constitute a provocation and insult to the intelligence of every right thinking person in Britain, nothing can or ever will.
Simon Bolivar was never more right than when he averred that, “An ignorant people is the blind instrument of its own destruction.” The extent to which they — meaning this Tory political machine and establishment — are able to beguile so many in the UK into loving the whip-lashing of their backs instead of ripping it out of their hands is a metric, surely, of the British public’s infantilization.
Boris Johnson and his Brexit gang have indeed, since coming to office, gone out of their way to peddle emotive paens to patriotism and British nationalist tropes. They’ve been successful in doing so on the back of a rising tide of nativism and xenophobia across large swathes of England. Such a rebartative dynamic becomes all the more grotesque when you factor in the indispensable role that ethnic minorities and migrants have and continue to occupy in the country’s National Health Service.
It is, with all the aforementioned in mind, long past time that this prolonged experiment in semi-feudalism at home and colonialism abroad was brought to an end. Thus, the knowledge that the train of Scottish independence has left the station and is hurtling down the track as these words are being written is the one ray of hope amid the grim reality of the UK after a year of COVID mayhem.
A hundred twenty six thousand dead people are 126,000 reasons to rage in Britain, not reason on this first anniversary of the UK going into lockdown.
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